Arisi Upma (Rice Upma) with Kathirika Gotsu (Eggplant curry)

Upma is a staple south Indian food. It seves as breakfast, lunch or dinner, even a snack. Upma can be prepared form different grains like wheat, rice or semolina.

I must say, I am not a big fan of upma in general but love Arisi upma. It is so tasty! No matter how many times I try, my Arisi upma will simply not taste like my mother’s!

My mother used to make this upma in a ccopper alloy/bronze pot (vengala paanai). I bet it adds to the flavor of this dish. This upma is a very filling dish.

I become nostalgic with this upma, it was my family’s staple-once a week dinner menu!
I reminisce all the good times we had. I yearn for my mother’s south Indian food almost always.

Upma Ingredients

1 cup Raw rice or sona masoori
3 tbsp Toor dal (split pigeon peas)
4 tbsp Coconut (fresh is preferable, but dry coconut flakes work well too)
Tempering Ingredients: ½ tsp Mustard seeds, 1 tsp Urad dal (black gram), 1 tsp Chana dal (split chickpea), ½ tsp whole pepper (coarsely ground), 1 tsp cumin seeds, 4 to 6 red chillies
4-6 curry leaves
Salt
1 tbsp oil
3 cups water

1. Wash the rice and toor dal in water, drain completely and soak for about 30min. This softens the rice and makes grinding easier.
2. Now coarsely grind this rice-dal mixture, to the consistency of semolina (sooji in hindi) or sugar grains. (You may grind the whole pepper with the rice here or add the the ground pepper with the tempering ingredients.)
3. Heat oil in a skillet, add the tempering ingredients. Once the mustard splutters, add the curry leaves and coconut. Let the coconut brown for about 45 sec.
4. Now add 3 cups of water, salt it and let it boil. Now add the rice-dal mix to the boiling water, stirring often. Let the rice cook might take about 20min. Keep stirring to prevent the bottom from burning. Taste the upma for done-ness (yes, it’s a word!).
5. You can also cook this upma in a rice cooker or in a pressure cooker.

This is typically serves with sambar (a spicy lentil soup) or coconut chutney or kathirika gotsu /eggplant curry (a tangy eggplant dish)




Kathirika Gotsu (Tangy Eggplant curry)

This is a popular side with upma or dosa. Growing up, I used to hate eggplant. But now I have come to realize how amazingly versatile and tasty eggplant can be! This dish combines eggplant with tamarind for the tanginess and it is a perfect combo, I must say.

Ingredients

1 Eggplant (medium sized Italian variety), diced into 1cm cubes (soak in salted water to prevent discoloration)
1 onion, diced
2 large tomatoes or 3 medium sized tomatoes, diced
2 green chilies- cut into small pieces
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste (or 1 tsp each grated ginger root and minced garlic)
Tamarind ,lemon sized ball, about 1” diameter soaked in 1 cup hot water
Tempering Ingredients- 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp Chana dal (split chickpea), 4-6 curry leaves, 1 tsp cumin seeds.
1 tbsp oil
Salt

1. Heat oil in a saucepan. Once hot, green chilies and the tempering ingredients. When the mustard splutters, add the onion, salt and fry for 3-5min.
2. Add tomato and eggplant along with ½ cup of water. Let it cook for about 3 min
3. Soak the tamarind in hot water. Extract the juice from the tamarind by rubbing in between your fingers. Add the tamarind juice (not the tamarind itself) to the saucepan. Let the eggplant cook in this tamarind juice. The leftover tamarind can be used to extract more juice, add it to the pan and let it cook for about 15min over medium heat.
4. Do a taste test and adjust accordingly.

Serve with upma!

Dosa with Tomato Chutney

Dosa is a south Indian delicacy and simplicity in itself; a crepe made primarily by soaking rice and whole urad dal (=white lentils or Bengal gram)and grinding them and letting the batter ferment.

Almost every household in southern India would have a batch of this batter. It serves as a quick meal, anytime of the day. For the longest time, growing up, I used to think making the dosa batter was the most complicated thing ever, requiring a degree in food sciences! But no! I have come to find out it is very easy and not one bit cumbersome. The same batter doubles up as Idli, but that is another post!

I alternate between using English and Tamil (a language spoken in the southern state of Tamilnadu, India). I have provided English equivalents to my best knowledge.

Ingredients for Dosa

- 3 cups Rice (raw rice/paccha arisi or sona masoori)

- 1 cup Whole Urad dal (white lentils or Bengal gram)

- 2 tsp Vendhayam (fenugreek seeds in English, methi in hindi)

- Salt for the batter

- About 6-9 cups water for soaking

1. Soak the rice and vendhayam in about 6 cups water and soak the urad dal in about 3 cups water separately for about 8-12 hours or overnight.
2. Now grind the rice and urad dal separately and combine them in a large bowl. The consistency of the batter should be thick, not soupy. You can always dilute it as needed later on. Add some water to facilitate grinding.
3. Now this batter needs to ferment for about 5-8 hrs when the batter doubles in volume.
4. The urad dal and fenugreek seeds help fix or introduce the yeast from the air into the batter. The chlorine in the tap water kills the yeast. Try soaking in bottled water. Also do not salt the batter until after the fermentation process as iodine in salt might kill the yeast. The ideal fermenting temperature is 86F-90F.During summer, perfect fermentation is achieved. However, during winter months, preheat your oven o 375F for about 5 min, switch it off and place the batter in the oven overnight. Make sure to leave the oven light ON. This heat facilitates fermentation.Once fermented, you can see bubbles (carbon dioxide) rise in your batter. Now salt the batter.
5. Now, heat a non-stick flat pan or a cast iron pan to medium-high. Oil the surface of the pan (dip a paper towel in oil, squeeze out the excess and rub the oil on the surface of the pan). Ladle the batter onto the pan making crepes. Le tit cook for about a minute or 2 until it browns, flip and let the other side cook. Voils, dosa!

Tomato Chutney

This is one of the most common accompaniments to Dosa. My mom used to make this almost every day of the week. This goes well with dosa, idli or even rotis.

Ingredients

- 4 plump tomatoes- diced

- 1 onion- diced

- 1 tsp Ginger garlic paste (or a tsp each of grated finger and minced garlic)

- 2 Green chilies, sliced into small pieces

- 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp urad dal- for tempering

- 1 tbsp oil

- Salt to taste, about 1-2 tsp

- 1 bunch cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

1. Heat oil in a saucepan. Once hot, add the lentils for tempering ingredients. When the mustard start to splutter, add the ginger-garlic paste, green chili and onion. Fry for about 3 min, stirring constantly.
2. Add salt now. Add the tomatoes and let it cook for about 5-8 min in medium heat. Add a tbsp of water if the chutney gets dry.
3. Serve with dosa, as shown in the picture.

Veggie Calzone

This is my all time favorite Italian food. It has bread, veggies, cheese-all in one neat package! What more could you ask for I say? It is like pocket pizza. And I L.O.V.E pizza and I am NOT ashamed to say, I will eat pizza from under the couch!
Here, I did not use store bought pizza dough but made it at home. It is really easy, trust me.

Pizza Dough recipe

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water- microwave a cup of water for a minute or so.
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, and 1 tbsp or more for dusting
• 
  

In a big bowl (plastic or glass), combine water, sugar and yeast. Stir gently and let it sit for about 5min, until foamy. DO NOT USE METAL objects like a stainless steel spoon or a bowl. Metal inhibits enzyme production. Yeast produces the enzyme Amylase, helping it rise.

Now add salt, olive oil, and about half of the flour and knead well. Now add the rest of the flour slowly and knead well into a ball. This dough should be elastic. Add some more olive oil if the dough is too dry or alternatively, add some flour if too wet. Knead for about 5 more minutes.

Lightly oil the same bowl and place the dough in it. Turn the dough to coat it with oil. Slightly cover it with a damp (NOT wet) kitchen towel and let it sit for an hour, until it doubles in size. This is a basic pizza dough recipe.

Notice the size of the dough now.

Cover loosely with a damp paper towel/kitchen towel.

Notice the size of the risen dough, after 1 hour.

Calzone – Roasted red pepper- -mushroom- feta cheese stuffing


Ingredients

• 2 roasted red peppers home made (recipe below) or store bought in a jar, diced
• 2 cups mushroom, chopped
• 1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• Salt and pepper as needed
• Basil leaves, 4-5 chopped roughly
• 3-5 tbsp marinara/pasta sauce
  

1. Now, preheat the oven to 400F.
2. Divide the pizza dough into 4 portions and form a ball. Let them sit while you make the calzone filling..
3. Combine the roasted red peppers, mushroom, salt, pepper basil leaves, sauce and the cheese. Taste and adjust accordingly. The purpose of the sauce is to keep the filling moist nd not dry. So use accordingly.
4. Now roll it out into 6”-8” diameter circle, about ¼” thick. Do not roll it out too thin, the stuffing will leak out while baking.
5. Spoon in the stuffing, about 3 tsp or more. Do not over stuff. Fold the circle and crimp the edges shut with a fork.
6. Slit the top of the calzone with a knife to facilitate the steam to escape.
7. Bake for about 10-15min until well browned.
8. Serve with marinara sauce.





Roasted red peppers

Preheat the oven to 400F. Oil the outer surface of the red pepper well. Now place it in the middle rack of the oven and roast for about 30-35min, until the skin is black. Remove from oven, let it cool completely and peel the skin. You may cut the pepper in half, de seed it and use it right away or you may store it in a glass jar and refrigerate it

Variation:
For the stuffing, try the rocotta cheese-spinach filling that I have used for my manicotti recipe.

Manicotti stuffed with Ricotta-Spinach-Mushroom

Manicotti is tubular pasta, about 3” long and an inch in diameter. The manicotti shells are stuffed and baked in a tomato/marinara sauce with cheese.

You can get very creative with this as you can stuff just about anything that suits your taste buds!

The stuffing part is a little bit labor-intensive, but totally worth the effort.

Ingredients

• Manicotti shells- 1 box, 12oz (about 14 shells)
• Ricotta cheese- 15oz container
• Spinach- 10oz frozen chopped…thawed and completely drained
• Mushroom- 6oz pack, diced
• Olive oil- 1 tbsp
• Garlic- 2 cloves, minced
• Dried Italian seasoning- 1tbsp (or whatever you have in the pantry- dried basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, etc)
• Parmigiano Reggiano cheese- ½ cup grated (or use any slightly salty cheese like feta, or Mexican cheeses like cotija, queso fresco)
• Salt and pepper- as needed
• Basil- 5-6 medium leaves, roughly chopped
• Tomato sauce- home made or store bought, 1 bottle

1. Turn on the oven at 350F.
2. Cook the manicotti shells according to the package directions, usually about 9 min. But kill the heat a minute or two before it finishes cooking, at 7min or so. Remember we are going to bake the shells.
3. Drain the pasta water and separate the shells. This is important because the shells will stick onto each other. Handle them carefully as they may tear apart. Line them up on a greased baking sheet (or 2 sheets if cooking all 14 shells).
4. Heat a sauce pan with 1 tbsp oil. Add the garlic cloves and immediately add the mushroom (you don’t want the garlic to burn). In about 3 min, add the thawed and completely drained spinach. Add salt and pepper as needed and let it wilt away for 5min. Add the roughly chopped basil leaves and kill the heat. Cool completely.
5. In a separate bowl, add the spinach-mushroom mixture to the ricotta cheese. Mix well. Taste the filling and adjust accordingly.
6. Now fill the shells with the stuffing very carefully. In fact, use your hands to fill them instead of a spoon! Place the filled shells onto the greased baking sheet.
7. Top with generous amounts of tomato sauce.

Variation:
Use lasagna sheets instead of a manicotti shell. Cook the lasagna, spread the studding evenly on it and roll it up-pinwheels!

Cous Cous Salad

Cous Cous Salad

Cous Cous is a Mediterranean/North African dish made of semolina. It has a coarse, granular texture, the size of sugar grains. (although Israeli cous cous is much bigger).
It is usually with meat or vegetables, serving as a bed. I fell in love with cous cous few years ago when I boldly ventured into cooking mediterranean dishes at home! I also had this dish, veggies served over cous cocus at a Moroccan Restaurant ‘Casablanca’ in Sacramento.

I have served cous cous just by itself as a salad, or have paired it with Indian curries (with gravy). Being versatile, it soaks up the food it is paired up with wonderfully.

Cous cous is readily available at most grocery stores these days. Once you get familiar with the basics of cooking with cous cous, use your imagination and pair it up with just about anything!





Ingredients:


-1 cup cous cous
-1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
- ¼ cup onions, finely diced or use a bunch of spring onions
- Olive oil, 2-3 tbs
- Lemon juice, 1 tbs
- Basil, 3-5 leaves roughly chopped
- 1 Garlic clove, finely minced
- Water, 1 cup
- Salt, as needed

1. Boil 1 cup of water. Turn the stove off, add the cous cous and cover. Let it stand for 5-8min. Cous cous must have soaked up all the water now. Fluff with a fork.
2. In a bowl, mix the tomato, onion, garlic and basil. Add the olive oil and lemon juice. Mix well. Mix in the cous cous and salt it as needed.
3. Let this salad rest in the refrigerator for atleast 30min for the flavors to infuse. I like this salad cold, tastes better.


Variation:

Try adding ½ cup of black beans to increase the nutritional value.
Try cilantro instead of basil leaves.