My beloved kettle gave up its ghost. I am in mourning.

This one's for you Shiny.

To make sambar powder, all you need are the following ingredients.

Chana Dal: 2tbs
Urad Dal: 1 tbs
Coriander seeds: 2 tbs
Dried red chillies: five or six
cloves: a couple
Cinnamon: an inch long piece should be fine
Dried coconut (Copra)

Dry roast all the ingredients till the dals are a nice golden brown and you can smell the aroma. Turn of heat and if you have it add a tsp or two of popy seeds (khus khus). They will cook in the residual heat. Cool and grind.

The thing is you can make this powder everytime you want to make sambar in which case you can substitute dry coconut with fresh coconut; or, if you are anything like me and hate scrapping coconut in any form, leave it out altogether. Still tastes good and is healthier to boot. In anycase if you want to make it and store it for a while, then I suggest you omit th coconut.

Procedure for sambar: Boil toover/arhar dal with vegetables of your choice with a pinch of turmeric and salt. Once it has boiled add some tamarind/jaggery solution to it, add the sambar powder, more salt if you wish and let it come to a slow boil. Once done, you can temper it with mustard, curry leaves, hing and if you want peanuts.

The sambar powder is great to spice up your regular subzis too. Just cook your vegetables the way you like (veggies like capsicum, brinjal or a combination of those with potatoes work excellently). Once the vegies are done, add the sambar powder to them and cook for a few minutes. And, voila you have a great meal.

I also use this powder for the bisi bele huli anna which is nothing but sambar rice. In this case you can cook the rice and dal and vegetables together in the cooker and then follow the same procedure.

Enjoy. And I promise you the sambar powder and a personal demo on how to make it when I am in Delhi.

Had a big bowl of raw tomatoes for breakfast. Yeah, feeling quite noble and martyred about that. But, it was surprisingly satisfying. Chopped up three tomatoes, sprinkled this great dried mint powder and salad dressing powder on the tomatoes and ate it. I have a hunch that had I added some olive oil and crushed garlic, it would have tasted even better. Apropost tomatoes - here is a great salad recipe given to me by my friend Kausy. She grows basil in her garden and hence I liberally borrow fresh basil from her. Truly delicious salad.

Chop tomatoes. Add fresh basil, crushed garlic and salt. Toss.

That is it. Never tasted anything so simple and flavourful.

Margaret Atwood and Nigella Lawson

It was a combination of Margaret Atwood and Nigella Lawson yesterday. Great story teller Atwood, and Nigella had some delicious breakfast ideas. Yoghurt and fruit was my favourite. And, the muffins, but that has butter, and egg and so on and so forth, so I let that go.
Blitz some fruit in the blender, scoop it out into some pretty glass, put a dollop of yoghurt (it has to be thick. She used Greek Yoghurt, but we Indians make great dahi too so we shall use that. She made alternate layers of yoghurt and fruit and finally topped it with some crumbled biscuits.
I would add some raisins and almonds too.
Enjoy!!

Here's my rasam recipe. You have to make the rasam powder first. It is wonderful, it is simple. and the powder can be kept for months.

Ingredients:
One measure each of Dhania (coriander) and dried red chillies
Half measure each of jeera (cumin) and mustard
Quarter measure each of methi (fenugreek seeds) and peppercorns

Procedure:
Roast everything together in a kadai. You will know when to stop because it all starts smelling wonderful. Just before you turn off the heat, add curry leaves and some hing (asafoetida). Cool completely and give the mixture a few turns in the mixie/grinder. Store in an airtight container.
By the way, in case you are planning to make a gift of the rasam powder to someone make sure you put a piece of gurh (jaggery) in it. Absolute must, says amma. It is a sweet gesture when you are gifrting someone something so spicy.

Okay. The recipe for rasam.

Boil toovar dal/ arhar dal (say about a cupful). Separately, soak a lime-sized ball of imli (tamarind) and a dash of jaggery. Mash the cooked dal (if my mom is not around, I often add a couple of cloves of garlic while cooking the dal). Add the tamaind and jaggery solution, salt. Add about two and a half to three tsps of the rasam powder and put it all to boil. If you want, you could also add tomato puree to it (purists may not like that verymuch) . Boil on low heat . Temper in ghee with mustard and hing and curry leaves. Garnish with fresh green coriander.

You can serve ti as a soup on cold rainy days. Or, you could dunk vadaas into it and make it into a main course dish - rasa vadaa. Grilled tomatoes also taste wonderful with some of the rasam powder sprinkled on it, before you put it on buttered toast.

Let me know what you think. If at all there is someone reading this.

In amma's words

With five nieces, Aravinda athai knew she had got lucky. While the first niece would light the fire, the second one would be directed to clean the rava, the third chop the green chillies, the fourth would gather together the ingred ients, while the fifth and the youngest would stir and mix for all she was worth. “Inexplicably it came out being called Aravinda athai’s upma, even in my recipe book,” recalls an indignant niece.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2007/06/28/stories/2007062850700100.htm

There's love on the menu

If I should meet Bhicoo Manekshaw, I shall give her a big hug. One, because she has written a cook book called Feast of Love that makes me want to sing out loud; two, because she has something to do with a wonderfully named restaur ant called Basil and Thyme in Delhi that serves memorable fare, and three because we have something in common. Bhicoo is an Air Force wife too. And, she became the first Indian woman to complete the Advance Certificate Course of the Cordon Bleu School of Cookery, London in 1963. I on the other hand joined the ranks of the ‘also cooked’ after wedding the air force.