Pomegranate chutney

When I decided to make a dipping sauce out of pomegranate for my POM dinner party that would be versatile enough for dipping and using in Bhel puri, this is what I came up with. I drew my inspiration from tomato ketchup and Indian Tamarind-Date sweet sauce. Since pomegranate has a wonderful sweet tart flavor, it can elegantly replace tomato or tamarind in a sauce. I served it as a condiment with the veggie masala cutlet and in Bhel puri instead of sweet sauce.

Ingredients:
Juice from 4 large POM Wonderful pomegranates (about 500 ml)
Dates - 8 to 10 pitted and soaked in just enough hot water for 4 hours
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Chili powder - 1/4 tsp (or to taste)
Garlic - 3 large cloves, peeled
Ginger - 1 inch piece
salt to taste.


Method:
Juice arils from 4 large pomegranates. I used my blender to blend the arils and then filtered through a sieve. You can use a citrus juicer or simply use POM wonderful 100% Pomegranate juice.
Grind the soaked dates into a smooth paste.
Heat the juice over medium heat. Drop whole garlic cloves and the peeled ginger piece into the juice. When it comes to a rolling boil, add cumin powder, coriander powder, chili powder and salt to taste and simmer until it reduces into a saucy consistency and coats the spoon. Remove the garlic cloves and ginger piece from the sauce using a slotted spoon.
Now, add dates paste, simmer for 2-3 more minutes and remove from heat. The chutney thickens more while cooling.

My guests loved this sauce and were asking me for recipe. Read the POM dinner party recap here.

Couscous - Pomegranate and much more salad

I prepare couscous salad pretty often, with small variations every time. Now, it is time to incorporate the wonderful fall fruit, pomegranate.

Couscous is quite a newcomer to my kitchen. About a year ago, I saw Sandra Lee from the Food Network, using it.  I searched online and found that couscous is a type of Middle Eastern pasta made from semolina flour. Traditionally, it is cooked by steaming for a long time. Today, the varieties sold in the grocery stores are pre-steamed for convenience and are ready in 10 minutes. Even though, it is a pasta, it neither looks nor tastes like one, but more like cracked wheat. It is very versatile and is an interesting alternative to regular pasta. I have always been using Trader Joe's whole wheat couscous in my preparations.

This is an adaptation from couscous salad recipe posted in about.com

Ingredients:
Dry Couscous - 1 cup
Black beans - 1 16 oz can, drained
Pomegranate - 1 cup
Red bell pepper - 1 medium, diced
Lemon -1 zested and juiced
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Chopped flat leaf parsley - 1/4 cup
Chopped mint - 1/4 cup
chilly flakes to taste (optional) 
Salt and pepper to taste
Water - 3/4 cup

Method:
Prepare couscous as per directions in the box. Combine water, lemon zest, 1 tbsp olive oil (I sometimes use chili oil) and chili flakes (yes!!! we love the heat) and bring to a boil. Simmer, pour over couscous, season with salt and pepper to taste, mix well, cover with a plastic wrap and set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine black beans, pomegranates, red bell pepper, lemon juice, remaining olive oil, parsley and mint. Season with salt and pepper to taste and let it stand for 30 minutes. Combine with couscous preparation and cool in the refrigerator before serving.

This was our salad during the POM dinner party I recently hosted. Check out the recap here.

Bhel puri with pomegranates

Bhel puri may be called the king of all chaats. Chaat is small plate of savory snack, usually associated with street-side vendors. But these days they are served even in five star restaurants. Bhel puri and Pani puri are the two most popular chaats and they are soooo yummy!!

The first time I ever tried bhel puri (any chaat, for that matter) was when I was in my first year of college (yes!! you read it right). My friend Tasneem took me to 'Gangotri', the chaat and sweet shop in Chennai. I enjoyed it a lot and started trying different varieties of chaat at every opportunity I got and loved every one of them, especially the ones with yogurt.

Bhel puri is a mixture of puffed rice (bhel), cooked potato cubes, sev (fried and crumbled besan noodles), papdi (fried flat savory snack made from all purpose flour) and an assortment of vegetables. Adding pomegranates was my idea and is not part of a typical bhel puri. I also replaced the sweet chutney (Tamarind-Date chutney) with my own pomegranate chutney.

Lets gather the ingredients.

Puffed rice - 4 cups
Thin sev - 1 cup (to mix in and garnish)
Potato - 1 large, steamed and cubed
Pomegranate arils - 1 cup (to mix in and garnish)
Papdi - about 10 - 12 pieces
Tomato - 1 medium, finely chopped
Red onion - 1, finely chopped
Carrot - 1, grated
Cilantro - 1/4 cup, finely chopped
Green chillies - 3 finely chopped (or to taste)
Freshly squeezed lime juice - few drops
Cumin powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/4 tsp
Chili powder - 1/4 tsp

Chat masala - 1/2 tsp (optional)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Green chutney - 2 tbsp (ground cilantro, mint, ginger, green chillies and lemon juice)
Pomegranate chutney - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

All the above ingredients are available in Indian stores (of course, except the pomegranate chutney)

Method:
Mix puffed rice and thin sev in a large bowl and set aside (dry). Add rest of the ingredients into another bowl and toss thoroughly (wet). When it is time to serve, add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix well. Garnish with more sev and pomegranate arils. Serve immediately, or it will get soggy.

This was our starter /snack during the POM dinner party I recently hosted. Check out the recap here.

Pomegranate Juice-Shake

This drink is kind of in between juice and shake and so, I called it a 'Juice-Shake'. It is actually milk shake, with lot less milk than you would normally use. It is very light and tasty and is a great drink for any occasion.

Just thinking about it takes me to those road-side juice shops of Chennai (in India). Chennai is hot and humid almost through out the year. Even during the winter months (do we even have winter??), the temperature is around 80F with at least 70% humidity. So, these juice shops are a boon for the folks spending their day outdoors. For about Rs. 40, ( less then $1), one can drink a tall glass full of pomegranate juice. The 'juice guy' would score the fruit into half, hold it in his palm skin-side up over a blender, tap it with a laddle to loosen up the arils, add milk, sugar and ice, blend, filter and serve. They are so quick, that they can handle 5-10 guests at a time!!

In this recipe, I have followed the same method as that of the 'juice guy'. I used about 2 cups of milk, 6 tea spoons of sugar and arils from 3 large POM Wonderful pomegranates. You can of course, substitute with 100% POM Wonderful  Pomegranate Juice. Blend them all together, filter and cool in the refrigerator before serving. You can garnish with few arils and a spring of mint.

This was our welcome drink during the POM dinner party I recently hosted. I wanted to make it kid-friendly, still worked out to be a hit with everyone :-). Check out the recap here.

Thanksgiving potluck at school

Thanksgiving is a big holiday here in the US. It falls on the last Thursday of November. It is celebrated as a harvest festival and giving thanks to all those who helped with it. It is also the 'turkey day'. Most people roast a whole turkey with stuffing and carve the bird at table side. It is an occasion when the whole family comes together enjoying fun, football and food.

Yesterday, we had a thanksgiving potluck lunch at Srihari's school and parents were welcome to have lunch with their kids.. There was lots of food and so many varieties (including idly, lemon rice, 5 varieties of pasta, pies and fresh fruit) which made the kids want everything... I had a lot of fun with my son. I was cooking the whole morning (thanks to my sis who dropped in early to help) and then was rushing to the school, that I did not have time to click pictures. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera to school... So no pictures... except for those I clicked the previous day!!!

I prepared two varieties of wrap.
1. Creme cheese wrap with sun-dried tomatoes
2. Green chutney and potato filling wrap
Check out the details (from my older post) here.

I prepared the green chutney on Thursday, to save some time on Friday morning.

Ingredients:
Mint leaves - 1/2 a bunch
Cilantro - 1 bunch, roughly chopped
Onion - 1 small piece, diced
Ginger - 1 inch piece chopped
Green Chillies - 3 slit at the middle (this batch was very mild - and they did not make the chutney spicy at all)
Urad dal - 2 tbsp (optional)
Channa dal - 2 tbsp (optional)
Juice of 1 lime
salt to taste

Method:
The usage of dals or peanuts in the chutney is optional. It gives it some thickness and texture.  Some kids at school are allergic to nuts, so, I resorted to dals instead of peanuts.
Heat little oil in a skillet, add green chillies, ginger and onion and fry them until onions turn transparent. Add channa and urad dal and fry until golden brown.  Now add mint and cilantro, mix well and remove from heat. The leaves will wilt in the remaining heat and this keeps them green. Let it cool and grind with salt, lemon juice and little water to a thick consistancy.

To assemble the wrap, I spread this chutney on lavash bread (from Trader Joe's), sprinkled pieces of sauteed mashed potato, onion and peas mixture and rolled it and cut into 3 pieces.

I also prepared baked sweet potato wedges... What's thanksgiving without sweet potatoes???

Overall it was a meal thoroughly enjoyed meal with kids and parents at school.

Soy, Soy, Soy and cumin

Dinner tonight was a quick and easy soy and cumin feast!! I prepared broccoli-edamame-corn subzi and wheat-soy roti.

I had bought a packet of frozen 'soycutash' from Trader Joes, which is a mixture of sweet corn, edamame and red bell peppers.

 I sauteed onions, broccoli, carrots, thawed soycutash and prepared soy granules with cumin seeds. Then, I added chilly powder, cumin powder, little water and cooked with the lid on.
I prepared roti with 3 cups of wheat flour and 1 cup of soy flour and 2 tea spoons of cumin powder. I served roti and subzi with yogurt on the side... We just finished our simple, yet yummy yummy dinner!!!

Rasmalai - A Indian classic

Rasmalai is my favourite sweet among the whole line up of Bengali / Odiyan sweets. Bengal and Orissa are eastern states of India along the Bay of Bengal. Rasmalai is sweetened (and generally flattened) paneer balls soaked in sweetened and reduced milk flavoured with saffron and cardamom.

Recently, I heard some interesting history about these paneer sweets from Murali's manager, Sarkar. He said, rasgulla (rasmalai's cousin soaked in sugar syrup instead of milk) was invented by Nobin Das, who was a confectioner in Kolkata when a ball of paneer accidentally fell into boiling sugar syrup. I was doing some research and found that there is no agreement whether the sweet originated in Bengal or Orissa. Read more about it here. Whoever invented it, they did a great job having brought to the world such an amazing sweet.

My first experience (that I remember) of rasmalai is in Chennai, when my maternal uncle would bring the sweet home from the famous sweet shop 'Shree Mithai'. Ever since, their rasmalai has become my favourite. Once, when I was in school, my mom and I tried to make rasgulla and did not turn out good. After that, I never tried to make this sweet at home until I found an easy recipe online in Priya's kitchen to make them from ricotta cheese. There were so many reviews from people who followed the recipe and it turned out great. I tried it last Diwali and somehow managed to goof it up... I decided to try the original long version recipe next time, which I did this Diwali.

I followed the recipe from showmethecurry.com. I replaced lemon with yogurt to curdle the milk while making paneer. Also, I did not thicken the ras (milk) as much as they did. I am repeating the same recipe from 'Show me the Curry', modifying the steps that I did differently, adding my tips if I have any, and adding step by step pictures where ever I can.

Ingredients: 

For paneer balls:

Whole Milk – 5 cups
Yogurt - 1 cup
Water – 5 cups (in a pressure cooker)
Sugar – 1 cup


For ras (milk):
Whole Milk – 3 cups
Saffron – pinch
Cardamom Powder – 1/4 tsp
Pistachios & Almonds – 2 Tbsp, roughly chopped
Sugar for the Ras – to taste
 
Method:

Boil 5 cups of milk.

Set up a cheese cloth over a colander in the kitchen sink.

When the milk comes to a rolling boil, add the yogurt. 

The milk should start to curdle. If you do not see enough curdling after about 10-15 seconds, add a drop or 2 of lemon juice.

Remove from heat and pour the contents over the cheese cloth. Be careful, the contents are very hot.

Gather the cheese cloth into a ball and hang it from the kitchen sink tap to drain all whey water. Leave it up to 30 minutes to 1 hour.

 
Meanwhile, heat 3 cups of  milk (for ras) in a non-stick vessel. When milk starts to foam up, add saffron and sugar to taste. Mix well and let the milk simmer until it reaches required consistency. I let it reduce to 3/4ths of its original volume. Add cardamom and the nuts and keep aside. I could not find raw pistachios in any store - looks like some quality control issues and no store carries it currently in US. I used only almond pieces.

When the hanging paneer has cooled enough to touch, squeeze out as much whey water as possible and remove from cheese cloth.

Break paneer and knead until it becomes smooth and fluffy.  Using a food processor makes the process easy and quick. I do not own a food processor, hence used my blender. Make sure the container and the blades are completely dry - else, paneer would get sticky.

Roll the kneaded paneer into small balls and flatten them. These balls would become 2-3 times their original size, so keep them small.

In a pressure cooker with water, add the sugar and the paneer balls. Cook the paneer balls in the pressure cooker with weight until one whistle sounds. Remove from heat and set the timer for 5 minutes. After exactly 5 minutes, release the pressure by placing the pressure cooker under running water in the kitchen sink.

Open the pressure cooker. Remove the paneer balls onto a plate using a slotted spoon and let it cool. When they have cooled enough to touch, squeeze the water out of each one and drop them gently one by one in the prepared milk to make super duper rasmalai. (If dropped into sugar syrup, it becomes rasgulla!!! - two recipes in one post!!)

Cool in the refrigerator and let it soak the sweet flavoured milk. To serve, transfer couple of malai balls to a serving plate, add some ras (milk), garnish with saffron and almonds and enjoy every bite.