Soya Sooji Dosa

Soya Sooji Dosa

A jar of soya flour is lying in my counter as I have been forgetting to add it to the chapatti dough I normally prepare. I thought I should make an effort to use them and wondered if they will be a good ingredient in a rava dosa like dish. That is how, this recipe was put together. This can make a quick breakfast or a light and quick dinner. I chose to add methi because I like its flavours. You will see I rant less and less these days before getting into the recipe purely because of lack of time and sometimes energy but I will hopefully keep the recipes coming. Here is the recipe...

¼ cup soya flour

½ cup sooji

¼ cup rice flour

Handful of methi leaves/coriander or any other greens

Salt to taste

2 green chillies, finely chopped

Asafoetida

Bring all ingredients together and add water to make a runny batter

Pour a ladleful on hot tava and add some oil

Once the lower side turns golden, flip side and briefly cook second side

Serve with spicy and tangy chutney

Baked Tofu Manchurian

Low Fat Tofu Manchurian


It came as a surprise to me when my husband said he does not like Manchurians. I did not know until my mom made it one night for me when I was pregnant and I noticed he was not having any. The last time I made soya Manchurians, I did take a chance because if he did not like it I might have had to bin some of it. Luckily he liked it and I decided to take a chance again this time with tofu though. I must admit that I was really sceptical about tofu. I had bought a pack of it when I was in the exploratory mood and until its best before date I was not quite sure what to do with it. I know it is called ‘tofu paneer’ but I always thought it was unfair to call it so as it was nowhere as nice as paneer. This pack of tofu made me change my mind. Unfortunately the pack did not say whether it was silken or firm but I can say that it was divine. It is called Cauldron Foods Tofu. When I was in the States on my own I used to make tofu dishes but they would be quite dry and I would finish them just for the sake of eating. Anyway, this dish was very good and best part of it is it is a low fat dish. A must try!

2 teaspoons corn flour
2 teaspoons flour (maida)
¼ teaspoon chilly powder
Salt to taste
1 cup tofu, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
½ pepper (green, red or yellow)
2 green chillies, slit
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 tablespoon soya sauce
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 inch ginger piece, cut to thin strips
Cooking oil

Combine the corn flour, flour, chilly powder and required salt and add water to make a ‘not so thick’ batter

Put some tofu cubes in the batter and gently mix them so that all sides get coated with the batter and place the cubes in a greased oven proof dish and repeat until you coat all the tofu cubes. I did not want a thick covering on my tofu so I made a rather thin batter. This helped me get a crisp outer and real soft texture inside the tofu.

Bake this in a preheated oven at 190degC for 30 minutes and just move the tofu cubes once or twice while it is baking. They will just start to brown and that should be adequate

In a wok, heat little oil and add onion, pepper, chillies, garlic and ginger. Cook until onions seem done and peppers become slightly soft but still have a bite

Add the ketchup and soya sauce and baked tofu cubes. You need not necessarily keep the flame on at this stage

Check for salt and add more if need be. Remember that soya sauce may have some salt so always check before adding.

Serve!

It is a great starter and also a great side dish for rotis or chapattis. If you do not have an oven, you can shallow fry in a tava on a slow flame.

Brown Rice & Soyabean Dosa

Brown Rice & Soyabean Dosa


The success of soyabean kofta recipe gave me hopes of making nice dishes using this healthy ingredient. In my culinary adventure I have had a lot of success and a few failures. Like law of nature, I have seen how few things like ratios and proportions almost always work. So I do try to follow some thumb rules so I keep my failure rate low. I know failure helps me learn but I hate to waste food and from that standpoint, I desperately want success. Dosa is one of my all time favourite dish. I was drooling seeing a program by Gordon Ramsay in which they showed an Indian vegetarian restaurant in England making awesome dosas. The food was supposedly so good that even hard core meat eaters relished it. Anyway, there is no way I can get a hotel dosa in the place I am so got to take role of the chef and whip up something myself. The speciality of this recipe is that it uses one more great ingredient – brown rice. It is far more nutritious and also has more fibre than the polished rice. I hope you get to try it, so here is how I made it...

¼ cup urd dal
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
¼ cup brown rice
¼ cup soyabean
Salt to taste
Cooking oil

Rinse the soyabean a few times and soak. Rinse urd dal and fenugreek seeds together and soak. Also rinse and soak the rice. Allow all ingredients to soak overnight.

Grind the urd dal to fine paste and then add soyabean. Grind to fine paste and then add rice. Grind further to smooth paste. Do not add too much water.
Add salt and ferment the batter for 12 hours or overnight.

Heat a tava/pan and pour a ladle full of batter (add just enough water to have a free falling batter) and spread to make dosa of desired thickness. Add little oil around and turn once lower side begins to brown. Allow second side to cook. Dosa ready!

Some like dosa browned some like it a bit lighter in colour. Adjust cooking time according to your taste. For more tips on fermenting, see post on barley idli.

Low Fat Soya Bean Kofta Curry

Low Fat Soya Bean Kofta Curry


As always I have been trying to include lots of healthy ingredients to our meal. Recently I have been trying some experiments with soya bean. There is always minced soya or chunks but nothing can replace unprocessed bean itself. Well, atleast that was my logic. Few of the experiments suggested it was easier to turn the soya chunks to delicious recipes but that was until I made this kofta. There are so many recipes waiting to be written up but I decided to post this one today itself after enjoying the fruits, actually koftas, of my successful experiment. Low fat kofta was one of the dishes I made and posted a photograph of on my fb page. I got lots of encouragement from then and now I have a blog to ramble about my experiments. This is the first time I tried soya bean kofta though. As you may know, soya is suppose to be a great source of protein and like most vegetable protein, it has little to no fat. Please note that I made only about 8 koftas as I was only experimenting. The measurements specified will yield the same. Here is how I made it...

For the kofta

¼ cup soyabean, soaked for 8-10hours or overnight
1 green chilly
1 small red pepper finely chopped
1 small onion chopped
1 boiled potato
1 teaspoon each - cumin powder, coriander powder
½ teaspoon chilly powder
Handful of coriander leaves
1 tablespoon Breadcrumbs or besan or soya flour
Salt to taste

For the sauce (gravy)
1 big onion, chopped
3-4 tomatoes, pureed
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon each – cumin powder, coriander powder
1 teaspoon chilly powder
2 green chillies
A pinch of kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves) or any other herb of your choice
Salt to taste
Cooking oil
For the Kofta:
Cook the beans, preferably pressure cook else as per pack instructions.

In a saucepan/skillet, heat little oil and sauté onions and red pepper.

In the food processor, combine cooked beans, potato, coriander leaves, chilly, chilly powder, cumin and coriander powders and salt. Make a coarse paste without too much water. You should be able to make balls of this mixture in your hand. Add breadcrumbs or besan or soya flour to achieve this consistency.

Make balls of the mixture and roll them over the breadcrumbs/besan/soya flour. Fry them with less than a teaspoon oil in the ‘kuzhipaniyaram’ dish. Turn the balls so they get evenly cooked to until brown. Keep aside once done.

For the sauce/gravy:

Fry the onions and chilly and once cooled down, grind to a paste. Bring it back to the saucepan and add little water and allow to boil.

Now add the tomato puree.

Add the spice powders, salt and dried fenugreek leaves.

Before serving, put the koftas in the sauce and for garnish, add some yogurt or just coriander leaves.

Great with rice or any bread.

I am sure you could bake the koftas for about 10-15 minutes at 200degC. Have not tried it myself yet but will give it a shot sometime. As all kofta ingredients are pre-cooked, it shouldn’t be long in the oven.

Soya Chunks and Rajma curry

Rajma and Soya chunks curry

I have this urge that has now become a habit which I am not sure is good or bad. Am talking about this urge to buy stuff that is suppose to be healthy. I must say that it is easier and quicker to empty unhealthy food like a bag of fried chips but the dry fruits are still just lying on the counter! I cannot help but wonder why some ingredients are so packed with vitamins and minerals and proteins but are just so tasteless or unpalatable (ofcourse that is an exaggeration). One such goody sitting in my shelf is rajma or kidney beans. Apart from using it for dal makhani, I have not used it much. Without checking the interior of the shelf I thought I was running out of this bean and bought another packet to make some dal makhani. So I am now left to find innovative ways to cook this. But all said and done, rajma will always have a place in my kitchen and diet for all the goodness it has. This is not the only goody I have in my shelf struggling to consume, the other one is soya chunks and for some reason, many call it meal maker in India, is also lying in my shelf. I thought the fibre and folates from the rajma and the protein in the soya chunks would be a very healthy combination. It is a very simple recipe which requires some preparation like soaking the beans and the soya chunks. You could use tinned beans but the picky person that I am, just prefer to use home soaked and cooked beans.

1 cup kidney beans

1 cup soya chunks

1 big onion chopped

3 medium size tomatoes finely chopped

2 green chillies chopped

A piece of ginger finely chopped

Garlic 3-4 cloves if desired

Jeera powder (cumin seed powder)

Dhania powder (dry coriander seed powder)

Chilli powder

A Bay leaf and a cinnamon stick

Cooking oil

Turmeric powder

In a heavy bottomed vessel, pour about one tablespoon oil and fry the bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Add the turmeric powder, chillies, ginger, garlic and onion and fry until onion turns transparent. Add the tomatoes and about 3 pinches of salt. The salt will help the tomatoes give up the juices and get well cooked. Once done, try to mash the mixture just by pressing with the ladle. Add about 1 teaspoon jeera powder, 1 teaspoon chilli powder and another teaspoon dhania powder. In the meantime, pressure cook the soaked rajma/kidney beans, I would usually allow even upto 10 whistles so the rajma is very well cooked. The soya chunks I use also need to be soaked and boiled to cook (please follow package instruction). Add the beans to the tomato onion base that should now be boiling and mash some portion of the kidney beans to get a buttery consistency (I do not like this curry being runny). Add the soya chunks and salt and simmer for about 30 minutes to allow the soya chunks and rajma to absorb the flavours.

This dish can be eaten with chapatti, Nan bread or rice. I quite like the soft texture of the kidney beans along with the chewier soya chunk.

If you do not like the masala items like cinnamon and bay leaf, you can skip them. As I always say, rinse any lentil you need to soak atleast 4 times to get rid of toxins and do not cook in the same water used for soaking.