Every now and then I would come across recipes for dishes with Zucchini, and I’m embarrassed to admit, I’d never had the vegetable before. I’d looked it up of course, seen what they look like, knew they were also called Courgettes, looked up the Hindi name which incidentally, is Tori or Torai. That’s generally the first stumbling block; if you want something out of the ordinary, you must know the local word for it.

Then last weekend, I saw them just sitting in a huge pile in the market, all dark green, streaked and gleaming, with their strange ‘head’, and I asked the guy what it was. This turbaned, dhoti clad guy moves his betel leaf from his left jaw to his right and says ‘Zucchini’, in a tone obviously meant to be insulting. I mean, didn’t you know that? And then also points to parsley, asparagus, leeks, bok choy and avocados, all of which I know till very recently wasn’t possible to get easily except at a few specialty stores or markets.

Well to cut things short, I bought a just 350 grams to try out.
I then spent the next day scouring the internet for nice simple recipes. At the last minute though I chickened out a bit, and went with what I could at least guess the final taste of. Here’s a recipe with a lot of my own inputs.
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ZUCCHINI FRITTERS Serves 4
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Ingredients
3 medium sized Zucchini peeled and grated
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 cup chickpea flour (besan)
2 green chillies
3-4 mint leaves
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
salt to taste
oil to shallow fry
Water as necessary (more…)

As I’ve mentioned before before, feeding a 4 year old child is a real challenge, and expanding her tiny list for favourites is near impossible. But last week I had a eureka! moment. Brought on by a story I was telling her, and some old childhood memories of my own.

One of my mom’s favorites for her party menus used to be what she’d named Rainbow Rice. I remember her with a assortment of mixing bowls, food colors and ingredients. Mixing, stressing, molding… it was a long involved process, and its success or otherwise could only be judged just before dinner, when shooing other ‘helpful’ guests out of the kitchen, she held her breath and slowly un-molded the casserole onto the serving dish.

My dish was a shameless short-cut. For one I will never be a gourmet chef who enjoys slaving, playing, concocting in the kitchen. For another, this was totally impromptu, I really had very few ingredients to play around with. And thirdly, with my daughter, there’s no guarantee that anything’s going to work, so I refused to build myself up for disappointment. Especially since, her favorite food is PLAIN white rice; no gravy, no curries, NO mixing! I was on dangerous ground with the experiment already!

As it happened, my shortcut rainbow rice was a success, in terms of how it looked and thanks to the build-up I gave it, the enthusiasm with with it was consumed. The flavors this time were simple, minimum spice, but I’m going to dig out mom’s old recipe sometime soon, but for now, here goes…

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RAINBOW RICE Serves 4
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INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups rice cooked about 5 minutes short of perfect
I’ve found a pretty foolproof way to measure out rice to be used. I just use my open hand-full, one per person and then 1 extra. No, I don’t have a very big hand, and its always worked perfectly for me. If you use Basmati which doesn’t fluff too much, you can probably get a little safer by adding 2 hand-fulls over the head count.
2 tablespoons boiled beetroot, grated
10 stalks spinach
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 chicken stock cube (but you can do without this entirely)
1/2 lime squeezed
salt to taste
1 teaspoon butter
(more…)

I don’t think there’s any doubt about how much I love crepes and pancakes. But I usually eat them sweet and on their own.
Last Saturday, I looked into the fridge and didn’t see any very interesting stuff, I decided to jazz up our lunch. The lucky vegetable of the day turned out to be the lone cauliflower. Here how it went. For a change I thought to take step by step photographs. Enjoy!
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Savoury Cauliflower Crepes Serves 4
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For the crepes this recipes is perfect but leave out the sugar.

For the mixture
1 Caulifower – broken into small florets to fill 2 cups.
1 small onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic
1 small tomato, chopped small
1/2 tsp chilli powder

For the sauce
1 cup milk
1 tsp butter
2 table spoons all purpose flour (maida)
1 cup grated cheese
1/2 tsp pepper
salt to taste

Also mix together in a cup
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon soya sauce
1 teaspoon chilli sauce if you want to add some bite!

PREPARATION
Set the cauliflower to boil in adequate water and a teaspoon of salt.

In 2 teaspoons of oil start sauteing the chopped onions. As they brown, add the garlic after crushing.
Now add the tomato, salt and chilli power and half a cup of water. Let it cook well on low heat.

Meanwhile start making the crepes. Don’t forget to leave out the sugar. Keep them thin, no bigger than about 6 inches in diameter. Set them aside on paper the drain the grease. (more…)

When everyone’s talking Christmas goodies, it’s a little weird I guess to have a Tofu Sandwich right on the top of my favorite things list. Well, for one, I’m not a huge sweet-tooth, for another, everyone is giving you those recipes anyway, aren’t they? For a third, I just got my camera working again, have Tofu in the house and managed to have time around breakfast rush-hour, all on the same day!

This is a little embarrassing to admit, but till about 6 months ago, though I’d had Tofu in various forms at restaurants, I’d never thought to buy it myself. I used paneer instead. As everyone knows, that’s a favorite on any vegetarian Indian menu especially across northern India. Paneer Tikka, palak paneer, kadai paneer, paneer paratha, you name it! The thing is I don’t really like cooked paneer; I avoid it on the buffet every time. I love it raw. And I often started the day with a Paneer Sandwich, until I read that it was really huge on fat – I get the store bought kind. It put me off for a few months till I suddenly thought of trying Tofu. And that, contrary to what many think, turned out to be the perfect substitute, and had a fraction of the fat.

Coming back to my Tofu Sandwiches… At their most basic, they have thick slices of Tofu / Paneer between sliced brown bread, a small, stingy scrapping of mayo, salt to taste and black pepper. And then a pinch of sugar because I like the touch of sweetness. Today’s sandwich was a season special; slices of a sweet fig, topped off with the last of my black olives. (more…)

I’m not a great fan of Eggplant, so there are very few ways I actually chose to have this vegetable. One is a Brinjal Soya Casserole, another is Moussaka, the Greek favourite. But this is my favourite because its so easy.

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FRIED EGGPLANT Serves 4
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INGREDIENTS
1 large long Eggplant (about 6 inches long )
2 teaspoons red chilli powder or as much as you can stand
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon garlic paste
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

PREPARATION
Wash the eggplant and slice into thin rounds.

Add tablespoon of water to the spices and salt and using your hands rub it gently into each slice. (the eggplant will give out some liquid too) Leave to marinate as long as you can. 20 minutes is the minimum, but you can pop it into the refrigerator and leave for even 5-6 hours.

Just before eating shallow fry them carefully.
Eat them with something bland like Rice & Yogurt. A perfect combination, as I discovered.

I’ve even eaten them in a sandwich with tomato slices!