tilapia with vegetables

(this was really written on January 27th but I never got around to publishing it)

Ta-da! Look who's back.
Sorry for being MIA. I just can't seem to stay committed to anything, I'm so all over the place.
Quick update: We've moved to a new apartment and it's exciting because I'm sort of trying to do up the place but it's going slow, what with Newbah and college etc.

I cooked something today while the baby was sleeping and actually managed to take pictures! Wasn't sure how it would turn out but I just served me some lunch and, Yum.

Here's how it goes, before I forget:

Oil, I used Olive.
Tilapia, 2 fillets, quartered
1 small onion, chopped
Ginger/garlic paste - 1 to 2 teaspoons, depending on how much you like. I think I put a little more than one.
Red chili powder to taste. I didn't want to make it too spicy in case I wanted Newbah to have a taste (that didn't happen), so I put a little less than a teaspoon.
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander powder
Salt to taste - I still can't figure it out with this sea salt business. I need to go buy some regular salt.
Half a tomato, because that's all I had, but I would definitely put more next time. Diced.
Two really skinny carrots, sliced into little rounds. I feel like the carrots shrank since I bought them. Shrank is a word?
3 mini sweet peppers, sliced. You must use only three, one of each color; no more and no less, else everything will be ruined.
About half a cup of french cut green beans, I used the frozen kind.
Black pepper and dried basil, just for sprinkling
Cilantro; obviously, the more the better.

(Scramble with Friends is distracting me right now but I will ignore it and keep writing about fish)

And so, I chopped up my little onion and threw it into this wok-like-but-not pan that I found in the cabinet, with what I felt was an appropriate amount of olive oil. Probably like, 1/4 cup, maybe a little more/less. I'm still getting used to the stove here so for a while I was just doing stuff like slicing carrots and I realized nothing was happening to the poor onion at medium heat. I then raised the heat till the onions were soft and slightly cooked but not brown. Transparent is what you call it, I believe. I added the ginger/garlic paste, cumin seeds, chili and coriander powders, and the diced tomato. I let everything cook and simmer for a bit (we're probably back down to medium heat now) and added the carrots. The reason I added the carrots so early on is so they could get cooked through better before I put in anything else, because everything else I was using cooks up faster than carrots. I am rambling.

Once the carrots seemed like they were softening up a little bit, I threw in the sweet peppers and green beans. While I waited for the beans to thaw in the pan, since I had taken them straight out of the freezer, I quartered my fish fillets, cilantro, took lots of pictures and what not. I really wanted to put the pictures in here but I found it was easier to just put them on my tumblr like so. Check it out!

And so upon the bed of vegetables and such, I carefully placed the pieces of tilapia, turned them over after a couple of minutes, and then covered the pan with the heat on low.

Then I realized nothing was happening so I turned it back up to medium.

I, in the meantime, super-human that I am, cleaned/washed/wiped/threw away/put away everything that I had used in the kitchen so far, started the rice in the rice cooker, drank a glass of milk and did other such extraordinary things. Somewhere along the way I turned the fish and everything else with it over a few more times, carefully so as not to break it, and sprinkled it with black pepper and basil. And closer to when the fish was done, I added some chopped cilantro.

I don't know how you tell when fish is done cooking but when it looked to me like it was done, I turned the stove off.

And then Newbah woke up from her nap and I fed her zucchini puree. And I fed myself this:

Don't forget to check out the rest of the pictures at guftugoo!

fried onions = luv

I was hungry today (as normal people are around their mealtimes) and I wanted to have something with rice and fried onions in it. Also, yogurt, but we were all out.

Here's what I came up with:

Sliced sweet peppers, mushrooms and peas sauteed and seasoned with salt, red chili powder and garlic/ginger paste over white rice, topped with crispy fried onions. And a twirly of organic ketchup.
Hey, I like ketchup with my rice, okay? Judge me, NOW!

In other news, I got me a Bobble bottle, the one that filters the water as it's on the way out of the bottle and into your mouth. It's cool, but it's slow, so I'm not a huge fan. It will take some getting used to.

In more news, I was introduced to this awesome blog by the lovely Afia Aslam, who's been nominated for Best Diarist for the Pakistan Blog Awards. Do visit her blog and vote for her here!

Eid Mubarak!

Yah, I know. So much more NaBloPoMo. Meh.

Anyway, it was Eid yesterday. Missed everything about Eid in Pakistan, from chaand raat mehndi parties to my dad's famous kaleji-cooking. I did quite a bit of cooking myself - I cooked a whole lot of goat meat - made tala huwa gosht, and about 10 lbs of tomatoes got turned into tamatar ki chutney. Also made some dum ka kheema. There was some other good stuff on the menu too, some shrimp my mother-in-law made, and mirchon ka saalan, that her mother made.

Little baby wore a pretty shalwar-kameez that my sister sent from Pakistan, too cute. I'm so glad they make clothes that little. It even has a dupatta!

On the whole, Eid was a pretty tiring affair. I'm not going to go into details because it'll just get boring, but we had a lot of people come over, all day long, and besides the exhaustion, I think everybody had a good time Alhamdulillah.

Here's the tala huwa gosht I made, with rice and tamatar ki chutney too:

yomm.

potayto, potahto.

I made Aloo ki Bhujia today and it's been polished off while I was out buying groceries. I don't think I've ever seen it last, when made using this recipe, for more than half a day.

The recipe is from my sister Khadija's cookbook, which is basically a compilation of all the recipes my mother concocted and collected over the years. My sister tried and tested each recipe, made the required adjustments, and typed everything up. That's a lot of hard work, if you think about it. It's an informal, within-the-family cookbook, but we all hope to see it published one day, Insha Allah.

Here goes the recipe:

2 big or 4 small potatoes, peeled, washed, cut up
¼ cup oil
¼ tsp rai/mustard seed
¼ tsp kalonji/blackseed
¼ tsp methi dana/fenugreek
1 tsp zeera/cumin seeds
6 whole dried red peppers
4 kari patta stalks/curry leaves on the stem
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp red chili powder
2 tsp salt
½ cup water
cilantro
1-2 green chilies

I used red potatoes for the bhujia. If you're preparing things beforehand, a good way to keep the potatoes from turning black once they've been cut is to keep them in a bowl of water till it's time to cook.

When you're ready to cook, heat the oil in a pan. Add the rai, kalonji, methi dana, cumin seeds, red peppers and 2 kari patta stalks. When the spices begin to turn reddish, add the potatoes and fry them for a few minutes.

Add the red chili powder and salt, along with chopped tomatoes and the remaining stalks of kari patta. Also add ½ cup water, for the potatoes to soften easily.

Once the water starts to boil, turn the heat down to medium-low and cover. Check the potatoes regularly, making sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. You may turn the heat to low if the water starts to evaporate too soon, and the potatoes are still hard. Add more water if needed. When the potatoes are tender, let them cook uncovered till the water is dry. Garnish with finely chopped cilantro and green chilies.

I like to pour in a teaspoon or so of lemon juice near the end, and I may have added the green chilies part to the recipe :) Other than that, I followed it accurately and am proud of myself for doing so. It's a fail-proof recipe, unless if you're bad at knowing when to stop softening the potatoes. I had that problem when I was younger. 

Like, a year ago. 

Don't laugh.

Anyway, try it out and let me know how it turns out! 

I had mine for lunch, with a really yummy whole wheat paratha:

Alhamdulillah.

not-so-khatti-daal

Alright, let's just hope the Hyderabadi aunties don't come chasing after me with a beylan, because I made some sort of daal today and am insisting on calling it Khatti* Daal (Hyderabadi style lentils).

Reasons why it may not be considered authentic:
I used mixed daal.
I didn't think about making it khatti daal until it was halfway done. That's when I added the tomato :)
I didn't put sliced garlic in the bhagaar**
I made up my own recipe.

Reasons why I call it Khatti Daal:
I put imli/tamarind in it.
I put lemon juice in it.
It's khatti.

I admit it, I've never made Khatti Daal and have never been taught how to make it. I just always thought it was a tedious job. It really isn't. All you do is cook the daal with salt to taste, a bunch of masaley/spices (red chili powder, coriander powder, garlic and ginger paste), chopped green chilies and diced tomato, until it's nice and mushy and smooth (I used a whisk to get it all blended), then you add the tamarind juice (soak a few imli pods in a cup of hot water, and squeeze everything out of it, strain water it into the daal), lemon juice and then bhagaar with zeera/cumin, whole dried red chilies and supposedly sliced garlic. Gah. Oh oh also curry leaves!

I believe the most common daal used for Khatti Daal is Masoor (red lentils), but I may be wrong. I used this mixed daal I bought from the Indian store, which is a combination of masoor, mung, chana (split chickpeas), toor (yellow pigeon peas) and mash/urud (black gram). It turned out good, and was great over white rice.

I just love me some fresh cooked daal-chaawal (lentils with rice):

Make some Daal, boys; even if you don't wanna call it Khatti, it's still going to taste yummey.
Don't forget the cilantro!

*khatti : sour, tart
**bhagaar : frying spices in a few tablespoons of oil till reddish, then pouring the oil and spices over the cooked dish, in this case, daal. Cover for a few minutes, and serve hot.

shaljam - turnip

I decided to be nice and try to really document this recipe for the shaljam/turnips I cooked a few days ago. Except I'm kind of late in writing this post so I may miss out a couple of minor details. Going to try my best not to.

So I actually bought fresh vegetables the other day. It takes more time to prepare the food, but tastes good! Anyway, let's get to it.

oil - olive, vegetable
1 small onion, chopped
1 tomato, diced
about 2 - 2 1/2 cups chopped turnips
garlic + ginger paste, 1 tsp
1 tsp zeera/cumin seed
1/2 tsp flax seed
1/2 tsp sesame seed
1/2 tsp rai/brown mustard seed
1/4 tsp methi daana/fenugreek seed
1/4 tsp kalonji/blackseed
1/4 tsp haldi/turmeric
salt, red chilli powder to taste
1 - 2 green chillies, chopped
cilantro, finely chopped

I like to get all my ingredients ready before I start cooking, but sometimes I just do stuff as I cook. Actually, I usually chop up my onion and get it frying before I do anything else because it takes long, but in this case those turnips will take long to prepare so it's up to you if you want to start your onion first or just wait. I would just first wash and peel the turnips. At this point, a good potato peeler will be your best friend. Next, chop up the turnips. Don't leave the pieces too big because it'll just take longer to cook and it's more flavorful when the pieces are smaller.

Fry the onion on medium-high till it's soft and transparent, but not brown. Add the ginger+garlic paste and the first 6 spices on the list - all the whole seeds:

Once the seeds start to get reddish-brown, throw in the tomato and lower the heat to medium and stir.

When the tomato is a little soft, add the turnips and stir to coat them well. Once everything is nicely mixed, cover the pan and let it sit for about half an hour or until tender. Check and stir occasionally so as not to let anything stick to the bottom of the pan.

When the turnips are nice and tender (and look much more appetizing than the picture above), turn the heat down to low and sprinkle those yummy green chillies and cilantro over them and cover for a few more minutes before serving.

I think I got everything down. Hope you try the recipe and enjoy it! The boy loved it, took some to work the next day for lunch, with a couple of naans :)

bhindies

Possibly the easiest, quickest vegetable to cook - Okra.
We had daal and rice today, and chicken but the boy isn't having meat. So I figured I'd pull out the bag of cut okra from the freezer and quickly cook it up before he got home.

So easy:

oil
half an onion, chopped
1 teaspoon zeera/cumin seed
1/2 teaspoon methi dana/fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon rai/black mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon kalonji/black seed
3 whole dried red chillies
1 tomato, diced
2 cups of okra, cut (I used frozen, easier, but fresh always tastes bettah)
salt and red chilli powder to taste
cilantro

Saute the onion in a pan, preferably a wok, and add all the seeds and whole red chillies. Let the spices turn reddish brown, and add the okra. Season with chilli powder and salt, and stir in the tomatoes. Let everything cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the okra is cooked through and the tomatoes are tender. Throw in a bunch of chopped cilantro and cover for a bit so as to infuse the okra with the scent of the cilantro...yum.

I know some people like their okra nice and dark and crispy, while others like it just cooked, bright green. I like mine somewhere in the middle. Like so:

the bean scene

Last week, I came across a Babble post about the Top 50 Food Apps for Moms. And while I haven't had the time to try out all fifty (no, I don't intend on doing so either), I did download the highest ranking one on there: How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

It's a pretty cool application, what with timers built into the recipes and such. While browsing through the recipes I came across one called The Simplest Bean Burgers, which I just searched and found online for y'all here. I have to say, I was pretty excited about the recipe. What an exciting concept! So the next morning we went to Publix and bought some oats. Everything else on the list we had at home. (I'd boiled some red beans the day before for something else)

Very very easy recipe. You just dump a bunch of things into the food processor and pulse till it's the right consistency. I forgot to add the egg at first and ended up putting too much liquid, and so when I added the egg later on it got too wet and sticky. But I managed. Instead of shaping the patties by hand I just dropped globs of the mixture onto the pan and sort of shaped them into patties with my spatula. It worked out fine. I think I may have been a little stingy with the salt at first, but I added some more later and made yum little bean kababs the next day with the leftover mix.

We got some kaiser rolls while we were at Publix, and used those for the burgers. Put in some sliced (and slightly grilled) mini bell peppers and lettuce, and voila!

And now that I know how to make these, I can start experimenting and adding cool stuff into the mix. Definitely some cilantro next time. I love cilantro. Have I said that before?

the dal and i

So. I never really consciously wondered how people make the dry kind of dal, but when I did think about it, I was like, how do they get it just right? As in, how do you not get the dal too soft or pasty, how do you know how much water to boil it in? And then my mom told me, genius that she is, all you really do is you boil it till its right and then you just throw the rest of the water out. Whaaatt.

I felt sort of dumb after that.

But I'm over it now. And I made some dal the other day and it turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself.

Also, nobody ever told me Maash and Urad are the same dal? (dumb moment #2)

So. Here's what you do. You get yourself a cup or two of dal - maash, chana, whatever. You boil it in a lot of water, and wait till it's soft but not pasty and throw the water out. In a separate pan/wok you fry up some zeera/cumin seeds, kari patta/curry leaves, ginger, garlic, an onion and such, you season it with salt, haldi/turmeric and red chili powder and just add your little boiled dal to it and let everything get nice and spicy. Oh and you can add a chopped tomato too, I didn't have any. And a dash of lemon juice. And cilantro.

I love cilantro.

So the dal was a hit. Look forward to making more of it for the boy when he's off his juice fast! Insha Allah.

I'll try to write more structured and accurate recipes in the future. Promise.