Roasted Pepper Pasta

Roasted Pepper Pasta

I love making homemade sauce especially for the pasta. The readymade ones from the jar are so loaded with oil they trigger acidic reflux which is quite annoying. Also, I think pasta sauces are a great way of adding vegetables to our diet. I did use some Chinese ingredients like soya sauce and have even added toasted sesame seeds sometimes and have enjoyed the result. Oh well, it is a bit late in the evening and I had a long day so not more stories, here you go with the recipe.

1 large red pepper, cut into chunks

1 large yellow pepper, cut into chunks

1 large green pepper

5-6 babycorn

1 large tomato, cut into chunks

1 large onion, cut into chunks

Salt to taste

Dried organo and basil

Mozzarella cheese, grated to cover the pasta

Olive oil

1 teaspoon soya sauce

Penne pasta for 3 servings

Put the yellow pepper, red pepper, onion and tomato in an oven proof dish and drizzle some oil. I used garlic infused olive oil. Roast at 200degC for about 20 minutes. By now the veggies will be soft

 Cool and grind this to a paste

Heat some oil in a sauce pan and add the green pepper and baby corn and sauté until they look cooked but still crunchy

Add the ground sauce and bring to boil and add required oregano, basil, salt and soy sauce and simmer for couple of minutes. Add some water if needed

Add cooked pasta and simmer for couple of minutes. Pour into an oven proof dish and sprinkle cheese on top

Bake at 180degc for 10-15 minutes, until cheese melts and browns

Serve hot

Vegetable Noodles

Vegetable Noodles

If you know a child that does not like noodles, I would love to hear from them. Well, they certainly popular in my family, both the big boy and the small boy love it. To me, I think the best noodles are the ones we can get in road side shops in Chennai. I remember once I went to a sports meet while in college (oh, don’t get me wrong, I am not atheletic at all but I had good fun) and they had roadside shops sort of arrangement. It was quite inexpensive but very tasty. I am guessing it is the ajinomoto (mono sodium glutamate) that gives it so much flavour. However, I do not use it in my kitchen so I had to resort to other ingredients to bring flavour. Anyway, as I said earlier there will be fewer and fewer time left for me to write stories and will dive straight into the recipe. Where appropriate, I will however try to give information on nutrition and health benefits of key ingredients.

1 pack noodles of your choice, cooked as per instructions on package

2-3 cups of finely chopped vegetables (I added green beans, green pepper, red pepper and carrots)

1 onion, sliced thinly

1 generous teaspoon ginger garlic paste

3 tablespoon tomato ketchup or sauce (I used Maggi hot and sweet sauce)

1-2 tablespoon soya sauce

½ teaspoon vinegar

Salt to taste

Oil, preferably toasted sesame seed oil or stir fry oil

Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan. I used a mixture of sunflower oil and toasted sesame oil as the latter smokes very quickly. Add the onions and sauté for a minute

Add the rest of the vegetables and ginger garlic paste

Saute until they are just about cooked but still have a bite. Now, this may depend on your taste. Typically, Chinese cooking is done at high flame for a short time and this leaves the veggies crunchy. If you like them softer, then cook longer

Add all the sauce and vinegar and sauté for a couple of minutes

Add the cooked noodles; I added a few drops of water just so that it does not dry out quickly. Mix well and serve

Persian Dill Rice/Shivid Polow

Shivid Polow (Persian Dill Rice)

I have searched over and over to check if I had posted this recipe earlier and concluded that I hadn’t. Quite surprising because I have made it so many times since I first tried it as it is very easy to make and goes very well with most gravies with legumes/beans in them. Dill is not one of the herbs that I had tried earlier and remember buying it once and deferring my attempt to use it. Eventually it ended up in the bin. The next time around, my husband was trying some dish and happened to use a small bunch and I quite liked it. The trouble with him though, is that he will not remember how he made the dish. So I looked for some rice dishes using dill and found a Persian recipe for it. It is an incredibly simple recipe and I tend to make it in parallel with some other gravy.

Dill, like most herbs have great benefits to us. It is suppose to be an appetiser. It supposedly activates secretion of bile and digestive juices. Dill also has calming properties and helps promote sleep. This herb has anti microbial properties as well as anti fungal properties, providing help with digestive problems. It has anti oxidants that can help protect against cancer. It is a galactogogue i.e. promotes breast milk production in lactating mothers. It also has calcium, making it good for bones and teeth.

Usually, I cook my rice in the pressure cooker. This recipe, though, is an exception and I used a heavy bottomed pressure pan to cook the rice, without the pressure. I just let the rice boil in required amount of water. When you do so, make sure you do not stir often as the starch in the rice will make it stick together. 

1 ½ cups rice

1 cup dill, chopped

2 tablespoons oil

1 garlic clove (optional)

Pinch of saffron, crushed and added to ¼ cup water and rested for 10 minutes

Salt to taste

Rinse and soak the rice in 2 cups water for about 30 minutes. Cook the rise in an open pot/dish until all water has evaporate and rice looks nearly done. Note that quantity of water may vary based on rice quality so adjust water in such a way you get rice fluffy. If using garlic, add it with the dill. 

Add the chopped dill, salt and mix

Pour in the saffron water all over. Cover with lid and cook on low flame for about 30 minutes

Serve hot with spicy side dish

Tomato Pulav

Tomato Pulav


Tomato is an indispensible ingredient in my kitchen. There may be a few days when I do not use it in some dishes but usually it is included everyday. It is also one of those ingredients when available in low quantity makes me nervous and restless. I do have a tin of chopped tomatoes in my cupboard, just incase. Now that cost of vegetables has increased so much I am trying my best to see if I can churn out delicious dishes with lesser quantity of such ingredients. This needs to be done without compromising on the minimum quantity of fruit and vegetables one needs to eat to maintain a balanced diet. You may have found other tomato rice recipes on my blog and may wonder why I have posted another. It certainly is not to increase the recipe count without bothering about the content. After making and eating this tomato pulav, I was able to appreciate even more how different cooking methods/techniques can give different results. For instance, usually I would not cook the tomatoes along with the rice but in this dish, I did it. I realised that it induces subtly different flavours so this recipe is certainly a keeper. Also, the other advantage is that as I make it in my pressure pan, this is pretty much a one pot dish and I have less dishes left to wash. I also adopted a tip that I picked up from a television program although it was not really meant for the purpose I used it for. People who use pressure pan or even electric rice cooker may have noticed that the bottom most layer of rice sticks to the vessel and gets quite mushy. This time and couple of other times subsequently, I managed to avoid that by allowing the rice and water mixture to start boiling, gently stir it and then put the lid on to pressure cook. Another lesson I learned after a few mistakes is to open the pressure cooker/pan as soon as the pressure releases. Allowing the rice to sit in the residual heat makes the rice a big starchy mass. Open the pan and fluff up with a fork. These tips are quite handy when you make even plain rice for other dishes.

1 cup rice, rinsed and soaked for 10 minutes
3-4 tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon chilly powder
Turmeric powder
¼ teaspoon garam masala
1 onion, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Cooking oil

Heat some oil and add the onions and fry until soft

Grind the tomatoes with garlic without adding any water and add this to the onions and cook until it all comes together and also raw smell goes off (about 5-8 minutes)

Add the turmeric powder, chilly powder and garam masala

Drain the rice and add to the tomato mixture and sauté. Add required salt and water, be careful not to add too much water because there is still some moisture in the tomatoes. My usual rice to water ratio is 1:2 but for this I added 1.25 cups water. Allow this to boil once, stir gently then pressure cook for three whistles.

Fluff up the rice with a fork and garnish with chopped coriander leaves

Masala Capsicum Rice

Masala Capsicum Rice


It was one of those days when I had to make some lunch for myself and my husband had something else arranged. I was lying in my bed wondering what to do and mentally taking an inventory of what was in the fridge. My son loves eggplant so I have been making it quite frequently and now I would rather have something else for a change. A nice big green pepper came to mind and I recalled that the last time I tried to make masala capsicum rice, I did not quite like the results. So this time, I wanted to change the spices I was using and I must say the results were great. If you do not like hot food then you may want to reduce the chillies a wee bit but if served with raita, it should be alright. Normally they say that the correct portion size of rice for adult is ¼ cup (uncooked) and it is amazing how such rice where you mix them with vegetables, you can stick to this portion size. I have specified half cup uncooked rice so you can serve two with the mentioned quantity. You may want to make a bit more if you are very hungry though! The ingredients list looks long but trust me, it is very simple. You could make the same dish with eggplants too but I make eggplant rice differently and will post that soon. Here is the green pepper/capsicum rice…

1 tablespoon peanuts/groundnuts
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 dry red chillies
1 teaspoon white sesame seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Turmeric powder
2 green chillies, slit
½ cup rice, rinsed and soaked for 15 minutes
1 large green pepper, chopped (you could use any other color pepper too)
1 small red onion, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Curry leaves
Cooking oil
1 piece cinnamon
1 star anise
1 bay leaf
2 cloves

Roast peanuts, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, dry red chillies, sesame seeds separately, cool and grind along with some turmeric powder

Heat some oil and add the whole spices – cinnamon, bay leaf, cloves and star anise. Once they crackle, add the mustard seeds and wait for it to splutter

Add onions and fry until soft and also add the green chillies

Add the green pepper and curry leaves, required salt and cook until capsicum is done. I like them tender and not crunchy, so cooked wee bit longer

In the mean time cook the rice the way you normally would but ensure grains are separate and rice is fluffy

Once the pepper is cooked, add the ground spice powder, mix and cook for couple of minutes

Add the rice and mix well and serve!

Bhindi in Mustard Sauce

Bhindi in Mustard Sauce


I have just had a set-back on something important I was trying so am utterly disappointed and gutted. No one but me is to be blamed though. Of the very few things that can make me feel better, writing about a small success I had in kitchen is I am hoping will lift me up. I watched this dish on a television program and honestly, I did not think of trying it because I thought it would be too bland. However I realised this will put some of the broken mustard seeds I had bought to good use. So gave it a shot but spiced it up a bit. This is suppose to be a Bengali dish called ‘jali’. I have not been able to find much information about it, not even the common spelling so decided to name it the way I have done it. If any reader knows more about it, please let me know and I could rename it. Anyway, this comes under one of the quick side dishes category and gets cooked while we are making the rotis. The quantity I have mentioned serves one.

8-10 okra, ends trimmed, slit and cut into long pieces
2 teaspoons mustard paste
½ teaspoon chilly powder
¼ teaspoon coriander powder
Turmeric powder
Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Mustard oil (you can use any other cooking oil too)

Heat some oil and sauté the okra for couple of minutes

Add turmeric powder, asafoetida, stir and cook for couple of minutes.

Add mustard paste and about quarter cup water, salt and cook covered until okra is done and all water evaporates

Serve!

I had this with rotis and it tasted quite good. To make the mustard paste I soaked some broken mustard seeds in water for 30 minutes and ground to paste. You could also use store bought mustard paste if you like. One interesting point about mustard oil was that I noticed the lable said for external use only. I contacted the company to find if I could cook with it and heard back saying that the erucic acid content in this oil is much higher than what EU regulations allow so they are labelled that way. So I will not use it on a regular basis but may be just when preparing Bengali dishes.

Onion Garlic Rice

Onion Garlic Rice


There have been a good few occasions when I have spent a lot of time just making a variety of side dish and run out of time and energy to make a nice rice dish. Although a simple pulav may not take much time I somehow don’t feel very enthusiastic about putting the same vegetables I put in the side dish. I wanted a fool proof rice recipe that is quick and awesome and bingo, this is the one. It can be made in minutes and can be enjoyed with a variety of side dishes loaded with vegetables. My husband absolutely loved this rice and it made me feel great as it is such an effortless recipe. This one I am sure will appear on our table very often. Reading the recipe, you may think it is way too simple for it to taste good but you got to trust me on this one. Here is my way of making this…

1 cup rice, cooked and fluffed
1 bunch salad/spring onions, chopped (both green and white part)
6-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Cooking oil
Salt to taste

Heat about a tablespoon oil in a wok and add the minced garlic and allow it to brown slightly and add the spring onions and cook until all raw smell goes off and the onion looks wilted and soft

Add the rice and required salt, mix and serve

I tried this recipe with Jumbo spring onion as well but it was not as good as normal ones. You could also cook the rice, refrigerate it for a while and then add to the garlic and onions as this was the grains remain separate.

Chettinad Coriander Rice

Chettinad Coriander Rice


After a long time we managed to drop all our routine chores and make use of a sunny day while the forecast said there could be snow soon. I was not keen on spending money for food and decided to have a heavy breakfast and skip lunch if possible. Indeed the plan worked and it was time to start making dinner when we came back home. I had watched this recipe on the tele recently and thought it was quite easy, quick and sounds tasty (that is a weird description!). I did not taste it until I set the table as I usually like the surprise element in how the dish has turned out. This one was very nice and most importantly my husband liked it. I tend to use both the stem and leaves of coriander as the stem has a great aroma and also goodness. Here is how I made it...

1 onion, chopped
Handful of curry leaves
Handful of coriander leaves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon channa dal
1 dry red chilly
1 cup rice cooked so grains are separate and fluffy
Salt to taste
Asafoetida
Turmeric powder

To roast and powder:
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon channa dal
4-5 dry red chillies
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Roast all the ingredients mentioned above for the powder, cool and grind to a fine powder

Heat some oil in a kadai/skillet and add mustard seeds, channa dal, cumin seeds, dry red chilly.

Once the mustard seeds splutter, add the onions and cook until soft

Add curry leaves and chopped coriander leaves and cook until the coriander wilts

Add the powder and cook for couple of minutes more

Add rice, required salt and mix together

Serve!

You may find that you have a bit more powder than you need if you are serving two. Just store it in an airtight container and refrigerate and use later. I did not reduce the quantity of ingredients to adjust for just two people because the mixie/food processor may struggle to do a good job with too little in it.