coconut rice, spicy mushrooms and greens

Mumbai’s buzzing with auspiciousness this month. Dussera (the celebration of the slaying of Ravana) was last Monday, Diwali is in a couple weeks, our calendar is full of Diwali dinner invitations, and our counters are piled with treats- both savory and sweet- sent by well-meaning relatives. We also have a bunch of coconuts lying around. During Navratri last week, H. and I went to the Mahalaxmi temple. My mom-in-law bought me a coconut to offer Laxmi, which I handed to the priest; in exchange (I think) I got a blessed one back. On Dussera day, which we spent in Mahabaleshwar, we  split upon a coconut and sprinkled its water on our car’s wheels (we were doing the Dussera puja) and so we had that coconut, too. My mom-in-law had some coconuts at home for the same reasons and a couple nights ago she suggested we make something with coconut milk.

silky, spicy, sweet

Of course we knew immediately what we were going to cook. With coconut rice on our minds ever since August, last night we set about trying to make our own. We used the recipe for Celebration Yellow Rice from James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor, and while it was nothing like Buddakan’s overtly rich dish, iit was bright and aromatic, each strand of rice plumped with sweet coconut milk and the sprightly fragrance of kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass.

Despite Hrishikesh’s fearful look when I proudly pulled out my curvaceous, leafy bok choy from the grocery bag (“What is that?” he said as if it were an alien baby,) we quickly stir fried it and some broccoli for a silky side dish and then I found some of the Chinese wood ear mushrooms I had brought back with me from America. I love the thin rubbery skin of the flower shaped mushrooms and how easily they soak up flavor. I made them Sichuan-Gourmet style, in vinegar and chiles, for a pickled and spicy cold salad.

Celebration Yellow Coconut Rice
adapted from Cradle of Flavor

2 cups white rice
1 1/2 cup water
1 1/2 ground turmeric
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp. salt
2 thick stalks fresh lemongrass, each tied in a knot
3 whole fresh or thawed frozen kaffir lime leaves, crumpled with your hands to release their essence
2 leaves basil leaves, torn

Clean the rice thoroughly, three or four times, until the water is clear and no longer cloudy.

In a bow, combine the cooking water and turmeric and stir well to combine.

Add the turmeric-water, coconut milk, salt, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and basil to rinsed rice. Stir well to combine, making sure the lemongrass stalks and leaves are as fully submerged in the rice as possible.

Place the pot over high heat and bring the liquid to a boil, stirring with a spoon to prevent the rice at the bottom of the pot from scorching or burning. Don’t worry if the liquid thickens considerably as it comes to a boil. Allow the rice to boil for 15 seconds, continuing to stir to prevent the rice from scorching or burning. Immediately reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and cover to pot tightly with the lid. Continue cooking for 15 minutes. Don’t be tempted to lift or remove the lid during this time; you’ll lose essential cooking steam if you do.

Remove the pot from the heat and allow the rice to continue to steam, covered, away from the heat for 10 minutes.

Open the pot and discard the lemon grass, basil, and lime leaves. Gently fold the rice over with a spoon to evenly distribute the flavors. Serve with greens.

Spicy Wood Ear Mushrooms

1 cup dried Chinese woodear mushrooms
1 handful cleaned, chopped cilantro, stems and all
2 small red Thai chiles or Holland chiles
1/2 cup rice vinegar
juice from 2 limes
sugar and chili flakes to taste

Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water for 5-10 minutes until silky but not too soft; they should still retain a rubbery bounce when bitten.

Drain the mushrooms and mix them with rice vinegar, sliced red chiles, chopped cilantro, lime juice, red chili flakes and sugar to taste.

Stir-fried Asian greens with garlic and green chiles
adapted from Cradle of Flavor

These silky greens are just glistening with peanut oil, which adds a nutty sweetness to the dish.

1 bunch cleaned bok choy, chopped into 2 inch pieces
1 head broccoli, sliced thin
3 Tbsp. peanut oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled, bruised until juicy with the flat side of a knife and coarsely chopped into 3 or 4 chunks
1/4 tsp. salt

Heat the oil until shimmering in a wok or large skillet. Add the garlic, salt and chiles and stir fry for 1 minute, just until the garlic loses its rawness, about 1 minute. Don’t let the garlic turn brown.

Add the greens, raise the heat slightly and stir fry them vigorously. Oseland says to cook them until they just turn limp so parts are still crunchy (about 2 minutes), but H. likes his greens a little softer so I cooked them for about 5 minutes.

Transfer to a platter- in a bowl they’ll continue to cook with the heat, and eat with the rice and mushrooms.

buddakan nyc restaurant review

Back in August, when H. and I were in New York, my dad’s friend from college, Narayan Uncle, and his wife, Indu Auntie, took us out to dinner at Buddakan. I probably wouldn’t have gone there on my own; Buddakan is a trendy, two-level restaurant with a cocktail bar, a room wallpapered with electronic, back-lit books, and another room where the higher wall is paneled with Buddha portraits. (I think there are two more rooms, too). But I’m so glad we tried it because we had a delicious meal filled with food that was a lot of fun to eat. We started with  sublime edamame dumplings that just melted in my mouth, and the pea green colored puree inside each small pouch tasted as though it had  been mixed with truffle oil, though the menu just says they are in a “shallot-sauternes broth.” Clever, and proves that anything with truffle tastes good, but it  sure did work; we ordered two plates and polished them off. Next, we tried the thick cylinders of udon noodles, slicked in peanut sauce and topped with tangy lime sorbet. Maybe the sorbet was gimmicky and the combination of noodles, peanuts and lime is an old standard, but texture was the real pleasure here. Our order of charred asparagus with black bean foam tasted more buttery than I would have expected from a Asian restaurant and our spiced tofu and cashew stir fry with oven dried pineapple was an inventive dish that Hrishikesh (of course) loved. But the standout dish of the evening was the afterthought, the one that sounded most mundane: vegetable rice with coconut curry foam. It came steaming, its fragrance wafting around the table, a soft mound of vegetable-speckled rice alongside a thick and creamy curried coconut sauce. We lapped it up. Desserts were chocolately affairs that didn’t disappoint: the Crying Chocolate and the Chocolate Peanut-Butter Bombe. Oh, and throughout the meal, I sipped on a chipotle-strawberry cocktail that was smoky, spicy and just sweet enough.

Buddakan is Not that Expensive, despite its trend appeal. I would recommend going there when you’ve got a friend to impress.

Buddakan
75 9th Avenue, NY, NY
(Between 15th and 16th)
212.989.6699

chocolate prune macarons

Over the weekend, Hrishikesh and I made salted caramel butter ice cream. Well- we almost made it- we made the caramel, and added the salted butter, and the cream and milk and egg yolks, thickened the mixture to a custard, strained it into another batch of ice milk, chilled everything overnight and the next morning put it in my brand new ice cream machine, which I brought back from America- only to have it stop running after five minutes. We were using a converter, because American electronics run on 110 v and Indian run on 220 v- but it didn’t help. After letting the machine cool down, we gave it another go and again, after five minutes, it stopped churning. I didn’t want to break my ice cream maker, which Hrishikesh says we can get rewired to the correct voltage (?) so I put the custard back into the fridge and tonight I’m going to churn it in my grandmother’s old machine.

i'm delicious

Anyway, I had five egg whites leftover from the ice cream so today, feeling particularly ambitious, I attempted to make macarons. Before I met Hrishikesh’s family, I had a hazy concept of macarons- all I knew is that they were an eggy cookie. But Hrishikesh’s family is obsessed with them. Whenever his parents go abroad, they bring back a box of beautiful Sprungli macarons, little almond cookies filled with rich ganache, and the lazy time after dinner suddenly becomes an anticipated event of passing the pastel cookies from person to person and relishing the flowery almond bites.

Then, on our way back from America, we stopped in Paris and visited Laduree, which, I learned, is the macaron shop, the first to popularize sandwiching the cookies with a layer of cream or ganache, making what we recognize today as the macaron. Hrishikesh and I walked to the left bank shop from our apartment and spent a handful of minutes once we arrived admiring the sage green and violet window display outside the store before ducking inside and drooling over the gorgeous pastries and assortment of macarons. We got a box of six – orange blossom, lemon, lime-basil, chocolate, raspberry and salted caramel, the last one my favorite- and Laduree’s macarons are exquisite, the flavors developed to a delicate perfection.

so are we!

Now that I’ve tried to make my own, I am in awe of Laduree’s and Sprungli’s macaron makers. These are tough to make, both in terms of technique and flavor. All of mine cracked in the oven, none of them have the glossy top and line of  knubbly crust, and about half of them burned. It’s of course difficult to achieve the delicate intensity of flavor of Laduree’s macarons. And handling a pastry bag? Well, it was my first time, and I definitely am not a natural. After both my (plastic, disposable) pastry bags tore, I ended up scooping spoonfuls of batter onto my baking sheet to make some large chocolate chip cookie size circles (most of which ended up burning). But a few- maybe 15 or so- turned out just fine. I made the prune-Armangnac filling, substituting bittersweet chocolate for the milk chocolate, spread it on the cooled cookies, and put them in the refrigerator for a bit (it’s too humid here to leave them out). The result: fragile but chewy cocoa almond cookies, sandwiching a vibrant layer of chocolate.

Arugula, Avocado and Shaved Beets Summer Salad

I’m at home in beautiful Massachusetts. I’ve been back in America for a little over a week now and I have to keep reminding myself that this is not permanent, so I should make it a point to enjoy every moment of watching the quiet sun brighten our lawn and hearing the birds chirp in the morning. I eat handfuls of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries for breakfast every day and each time, the berries strike me as so American, the red and blue sitting pretty in our white bowls.

I have a million favorite things about being back and one of them is lettuce, specifically arugula. I love the sharp peppery bite of this green that I eat way too infrequently in Bombay. A few days ago we drove to Verril Farms in Concord and bought some of their produce: arugula, beets, parsley, and peaches. We had some ripe avocados languishing in the fridge so last night we made a salad of sharp arugula, creamy avocado and these sweet beets that look as though they’ve been tie-dyed. We dressed it with lemon olive oil and few shakes of salt and pepper. It was a quick salad that spoke sweetly of a summer at home.

blueberry (cranberry) scones

A week ago, a dear friend from my study abroad semester emailed me asking if I could post the recipe for these blueberry scones I had made and gifted her last summer in New York. So I set out the ingredients this morning, substituting dried cranberries for the blueberries because (correct me if I’m wrong?) I don’t think you get blueberries in Bombay and strawberry season is over.

Uday, our live-in domestic help (he’s 26) peered over my shoulder. He’s a really bright kid and always curious about what I’m making and he likes to stand behind me as I take pictures so he can observe how I handle the camera. Despite my aversion to the cook (who was at my mom-in-law’s this morning) and the idea having staff members at all, I really don’t mind Uday. He laughs at my Hindi (for a while he spoke to me in Gujarati, thinking I would understand it better, which I did but I then I got confused because I didn’t know he knew Gujarati…) and is not terribly annoying, like the cook.

Anyway, today, as I was starting, Uday asked, in Hindi, “What are you making?”
I said, “Scones!” and pointed to the picture in my cookbook.
“Ah, biscuit,” he nodded.
“Ha, biscuit,” I replied. These scones, which are especially lovely when eaten warm, do, in fact taste like biscuits. I think it’s because they barely have any sugar- just two tbsp. I can’t remember what I did last summer, but today I followed the recipe and found that I could barely taste the sugar; the sweetest pieces were those with the crunchy top crumb, on which I sprinkled brown sugar. If you like your scones almost biscuit-like, then follow the recipe exactly. But if you wouldn’t mind them sweeter, then double the sugar to 4 Tbsp. Otherwise, this recipe is absolutely perfect. My dough was neither too sticky nor too dry, and the ready scones were fragrantly soft. -Another thing, though: I would use fresh berries, preferably blueberries. My cranberries taste just fine but fresh berries are juicy and dried berries are, well, shriveled.

After Uday and I peeled the scones from the pan, I told him to put the plate of them on the dining room table. We both stood admiring  them for a few minutes. Then he asked, “You’re not going to take a picture?” “Ha, ha” (yes, yes) I replied, and went to get my camera.

Blueberry (Cranberry) Scones
adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea

Makes 12-15 scones

3 1/3 cup all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 handful wholewheat flour or corn flour (optional, I used wholewheat)
2 verp heaped Tbsp. baking powder
2 (or 4 if you want your scones to be somewhat sweet) heaped Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
grated zest of 1 lemon or 1 orange
110 g (or scant 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus extra for greasing
2 handful blueberries (or dried cranberries but I recommend fresh berries)
2 eggs
about 1 1/4 cup whole, 2% or soy milk
1 Tbsp. light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C or 400 degrees F and grease baking tray with butter.

Sift the plain flour into a bowl and add the whole wheat/corn meal if using.

Mix in the baking powder, sugar and salt and then add the butter and rub in with your fingers until the mixture resembles fresh breadcrumbs.

Mix in lemon/orange zest and then add tue blueberries and mix well.

Beat one of the eggs in a measuring cup and then add enough milk till you have 1 1/4 cups.

Make a well in the middle of the flour (still in the bowl) and pour the liquid inside. Using a fork, work the dry ingredients into the wet; then finish mixing by hand but be careful not to overwork the dough- just lightly bring everything together. The dough should be firm but softish and not at all sticky. If it is too dry, add a little more milk and if it is too wet, add some flour.

On a lightly floured surface, pat (I patted) or roll the dough into a solid shape, about 1 1/2 inches thick. Using a 2 inch cutter (I used my 1/2 cup for the cookie cutter, just turning it upside down and pressing it into the dough), cut the dough into rounds and place them on the greased baking tray so they almost tough.

Beat the remaining egg and use to glaze the tops of the scones.

Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.

The scones might stick together so take them gently apart when they have cooled a little.

Serve warm with cream (I ate mine plain).

hi, from here

Hello, it’s been a while. What’s been happening here? The rains started and my mood has improved considerably. I know everyone in Massachusetts and New York is sick of their “monsoon.” I guess I would be too if I still lived there; I remember how I hated going down to the subway in the rain (or snow), where all that wetness would quickly steam into humidity. My mom told me none of the flowers she planted are growing because at the most they’ve received a few hours of sunlight. But after ten months of facing Bombay’s obnoxiously enthusiastic sun, the recent spurt of washed gray skies and steady showers have made me so happy. I feel calmer now when I look outside, and contrary to my feelings of being trapped indoors that came when it rained in America, here I feel like it’s finally temperate enough to step out. Hrishikesh and I have been walking when it’s not raining and though it usually starts midway through our walk, after the first five minutes,  we forget about our clammy clothes and instead enjoy the cold water as we climb up a hill. (Climbing down is another matter; I’m terrified of slipping and take baby steps while imprinting H.’s arm with my fingers.)

We’ve been traveling a bit: last weekend we were in Pune, where I spent two hours at the Landmark Bookstore stocking up on all the titles I can never find at Crossword in Bombay. We ate at a mediocre restaurant, Sen5es (Senses?), that’s supposed to be one of the nicest places in Pune. We skipped our usual Pizzeria meal since we had made both pizza and pasta from scratch the week before. The weekend before that we were in Alibaug, where for once, it was cooler than Bombay. We read and watched episodes of 30 Rock and Arrested Development on my laptop. One of the caretakers makes excellent food and one night we had his egg curry, which was a few boiled eggs partially cut and cooked in a red coconut soup. I think we went to Mahabaleshwar the weekend before that.

In the past few weeks, we’ve made: spinach with sesame sauce, mango sushi, roasted marinated eggplant sushi, amazing Tandoori cauliflower, mango salsa, Mexican beans, cold Chinese noodles, pumpkin ravioli, oven-dried tomato ravioli, mushroom ragout, lasagna with fresh spinach pasta, yellow daal, a tofu dressing (you can do amazing things with a mixer), homemade peanut butter (the ones in Rajat had hydrogenated oil and we had three pounds of roasted peanuts sitting in our cupboard), lemon, vanilla and cocoa cupcakes and paninis. Obviously, I’ve been lazy about blogging.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about the scones.

lentil salad with beets in a minty cumin lime vinaigrette

During these hot days, I just want to eat salad (and ice cream, always). While one can usually find wilted iceberg lettuce from the convenient street bhaji-sellers, obtaining leaves that taste like something, such as rocket (arugula), involves planning a trip to Crawford Market, a giant food warehouse of sorts, or going to one of the new grocery stores like Reliance Fresh or Nature’s Basket. However, in Bombay, I usually only go to grocery stores for specialty items like mustard or dried mushrooms because produce is much fresher from the street stalls and Crawford market. Anyway, with the impending monsoon, eating uncooked greens is not so advisable, so to assuage my appetite I turned to…lentils.

I love the lentil salads my parents used to make, with the olive-colored puy lentils that look like little gemstones, but I have no idea where to find them here. So I turned to something we always have in our Mumbai home- Massoor Dal, or red dal, which, by the way, turns yellow after it cooks. Instead of boiling the dal into a hot soup, I cooked the lentils in the pressure cooker until they were just done. While they cooled, I prepared the minty cumin and lime dressing. I added the cubed beets I had boiled earlier to bulk up the lentils, coated them both in the dressing and there I had it- my lively Bombay version of lentil salad, refreshing, red and earthy.

Lentil Salad with Beets and Minty Lime-Cumin Vinaigrette
adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

1 cup red lentils, boiled/pressure-cooked until just done
2 beets, boiled, chopped

for the dressing:
1 garlic clove, smashed
zest of 2 lemons
2-3 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. chopped scallion
1 Tbsp. mint
1 green chile, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander seeds
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt

Put the cooked lentils and boiled, chopped beets in a medium bowl. Combine all the ingredients for the vinaigrette and let stand for 15 minutes. Pour it on top of the lentils and beets and mix well. Enjoy!

dillightfully creamy yogurt with roasted eggplant (eggplant tzatziki)

At my cooking class yesterday, I learned to make another version of tzatziki, the Greek yogurt salad. I decided to make it for dinner last night because it is easy and now, halfway through June with no sign of rain, I start sweating everytime I step into my kitchen. This salad is almost the same as that beet tzatziki I posted about a while back, but unlike beet, whose flavor tends to overwhelm, roasted eggplant is subtle and buttery. The eggplant is cubed, tossed in olive oil, and broiled for 7-10 minutes, until it’s soft and brown. Mix the yogurt with smashed garlic, lemon, dill, and the tiniest bit of olive oil; then add the eggplant and some salt. The thick white yogurt with bits of black eggplant looks classically pretty and the lemon and dill lend freshness to the lavish spoonfuls. It’s a quick and cooling antidote to these muggy evenings.

Dillightfully Creamy Yogurt with Roasted Eggplant, or, Eggplant Tzatziki
adapted from Asha Khatau

1 eggplant, cubed
2 cups strained yogurt (hang yogurt in a cheesecloth an hour or two before you plan on making this. Don’t throw out the water- it’s full of protein. Drink it or add it into a soup.)
2 cloves crushed garlic
1-1.5 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. chopped dill
1/2 teaspoon olive oil, plus more for coating the eggplant
salt

1. Coat the cubed eggplant in olive oil and broil in your oven for 7-10 minutes, until soft and brown
2. Add the garlic, lemon juice, dill and olive oil to the strained yogurt and mix
3. Add eggplant to yogurt mixture and sprinkle salt to taste. Chill until you’re ready to eat!