Veggie Dogs

I have always been fascinated by the hot dog. It looks so inviting when I pass by the street cart. Also, the use of minimal condiments (ketchup and mustard) has always made me think that the sausage must be really delicious on its own. So, when I spotted hot dog buns during my grocery run,I thought why not make a vegetarian version of the same. And I must say I am extremely thrilled with the version. Also,the best part of this recipe is that it has plenty of protien too. So, if your dinner just consists of a couple of these veggie dogs, it will still be a complete meal. Read on to discover how I incorporate protein into the veggie dog.

Ingredients
For the veggie dog patties
1 cup soy chunks/granules - soaked in water
2 medium potatoes - boiled and mashed
1 tsp garlic and ginger paste
salt to taste
red chilli powder to taste (you can also use finely minced green chillies)
corn meal to roll the patty 
1 tbsp oil to cook the patty
1-2 tsp cornflour if needed

To serve
4-6 hot dog buns
mustard
ketchup
chopped onions.

Method
Mix together the ingredients for the patties and knead it all together into a dough. You may need to add the cornflour if the dough doesn't come together. Then take enough of this mixture and roll it out into a long patty. Roll it in the corn meal and set aside. Make all the patties. Add oil to the pan and then cook these patties on all sides till well browned.

To serve

Cut or open up the hot dog bun so that its still connected along one of its lengths. Add the patty. Top with mustard, ketchup and onions. Enjoy!

Tips
Pour water on the soy chunks/granules to cover them. Leave it aside for 10 mins till the soy is completely  soaked and becomes spongy in texture. Squeeze out the water out of the chunks before mixing with the potatoes. If you do not like the taste of soy chunks, use the granules or shred the chunks into smaller pieces and then you will not notice them when you eat the patty.

Pizza at Home - No more takeout

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a mood for some good gourmet pizza. Most delivery places only offer ones with a tomato sauce base and it was a weekday so we didn't want to go out for dinner. So, I finally decided to make it at home. And I did!! The best part of it was that the pizza base was homemade, and it took only a total of 1.5 hours to make it including the time needed for the dough to rise and bake. I am so glad that I made it, because now I know that its easy to make and I can control the amount of oil in the dough and the amount of cheese on my pizza and customize it to include unlimited toppings.

Ingredients
2.5 cups of bread flour or unbleached all purpose flour
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 tsp white sugar
3/4 cup luke warm water
2 tbsp +1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp italian spices (optional)
1 tsp garlic powder (optional)

Method
Mix together the water, yeast, sugar. Set aside for 10 mins till it turns frothy. Mix the dry ingredients in another vessel, add 2 tbsp of  oil to it and the water mixture. Knead the dough till its reall smooth. If you do this by hand, it will take about 10-15 mins of kneading.

Turn the dough in a little olive oil and keep aside in a vessel. Cover the vessel with a cling wrap or a damp towel and keep aside to rise for an hour till its double in size. 

Preheat the oven to 450F. Roll out the pizza dough into a pizza base about 1/2 inch thick. The diameter is about 12 inches. The dough will tend to shrink back, so you need to roll it out a little extra. Prick the base so that the pizza doesn't puff up.

Just bake the pizza base without sauce or topping for 10 mins. The dough should be semi cooked by then. This pre-baking will prevent the base from getting soggy when you add the sauce and cheese to it.

Then use your favorite sauce as the first layer. I used pesto and then added some sundried tomatoes, broccoli, artichoke hearts, red bell pepper slices and onion.  Then I baked it further for about 20 more mins.
I will post the recipes for different base sauces soon. So keep watching this space.

Tips
The test I use to determine the correct water temperature for kneading the dough is, to dip my finger in the water and if it feels warm, thats when I add the yeast. Warmer temperature will help the yeast develop faster. It is very important that the water be luke warm and not hot, else it will kill the yeast. If you are not sure, then use room temperature water. It will take a bit longer for the dough to rise, but it will not kill the yeast. You can use a food processer to knead a dough, which will reduce the kneading time to about 2-3 minutes. If you have a pizza stone, you can use it to bake the dough. This will help create a kiln kind of an environment for the base to cook well.

Modak - Baked or Steamed- What do you like?

This is my second modak related post and it made me realise that its been a year since I started blogging! Time truly does fly. I had made steamed modaks last year for Ganesh Chaturthi and my family had absolutely loved it. I on the other hand am not very fond of the steamed ones and prefer the fried ones. So, this year, I decided to make both kinds. For those following the blog, you know that I prefer to find alternate cooking methods to frying. So, inspired by my baked samosa recipe, I decided to try baking the modaks instead of frying them.

Ingredients
For the stuffing
See the modak recipe for stuffing ingredients. I also added
1/8 tsp of cardamom powder
1/8 tsp of nutmeg powder
2 tbsp of golden raisins

For the cover
For the steamed method, see the modak recipe for ingredients. This year I skipped the saffron and hence they turned out bright and white.

For the baked method, see the samosa recipe for cover ingredients.

Method
For the stuffing
See the modak recipe for the method. Add the nutmeg, cardamom powders and raisins towards the end of the cooking process.

For the cover
For the steamed method, see the modak recipe.

For the baked method, roll out the dough into a small round roti, about 3 inches in diameter. Pinch the sides of the rolled roti and create a bowl. Add a spoonfull of stuffing in the center. Bring all the sides together to form a modak. While you are moulding the modaks, preheat your oven to 375F. Grease a baking dish with some oil and then place all the modaks in the baking dish and bake for about 20-30 mins till the cover is well browned.

Tips
Keep the modaks and the dough under a damp cloth to prevent it from drying out. Make your entire batch and bake it at once. You can substitute jaggery with sugar if you do not have this ingredient handy to make the stuffing. Brown sugar is a better alternate if using sugar, as it has molasses and the taste is very close to that of jaggery.

Katachi (Cutachi) Aamti - Split Yellow Lentil Sweet and Sour Daal

This dish is mainly eaten with Puran Poli and this recipe is the third installment in my "chana daal trilogy". Now one of the reasons its made with puran poli is that the daal is made from the water drained from the cooked chana/yellow lentil daal used to cook the puran. Also, as the flavor is sweet, sour and spicy, it is used to dunk the sweet puran poli to alternate between the sweet and savory tastes, which I think enhances the puran poli experience. Of course it goes really well with rice too. My mom never made this dish and I just ate it a couple of times while growing up. The one time I do remember eating it, it was cold and not a good experience. So, when I made puran poli, I thought why not try to make this daal. I referred to the "Ruchira" book, which is a book with Maharashtrian recipes and modified the recipe slightly to my taste. It was surprisingly tasty and has almost erased my memory of my previous experiendce. It was sweet and spicy from the cloves and cinnamon, a perfect accompaniment to the puran poli.

Ingredients
4 cups water drained from the cooked chana daal (split yellow lentil). See the puran recipe on how to cook the chana daal. This water is called "kat/cut", hence the name katachi/cutachi aamti.
1/2 cup jaggery, powdered
salt to taste
chilli powder to taste
1/4 cup dessicated coconut, roasted
1 tsp jeera/cumin roasted
4 pieces of 1 inch cinnamon (thin strips, about 1/2 cm wide or less)
4-5 cloves
2-3 bay leaves
1/8tsp mustard seeds
1/8sp jeera/cumin seeds
1/4 cup jaggery
2 tsbp sugar
1/2 tsp tamarind concentrate (or use 1 tsp of tamarind soaked and mashed in warm water)
4-5 curry leaves
1 tsp goda/kala masala (this is a special Maharashtrian masala, - see tips below for substitute)
1 tbsp ghee or oil
a pinch of hing/asafoetida.

Method

Heat the chana daal water which is called "cut/kat", with the tamarind water. To this add the jaggery, chilli powder and salt. Grind the roasted coconut and roasted jeera and add this to the chana daal mixture. In a small pan, take the ghee or oil. Once it heats, add the mustard and cumin seeds. As the seeds start crackling add a pinch of hing/asafoetida, the curry leaves, bay leaved, cinnamon and cloves. Pour this seasoning mixture into the chana daal mixture. Boil it for a few mins. Serve hot with puran poli or plain rice.

Tips
Roast the jeera and coconut separately without using oil. You can even toast the coconut in the microwave, one minute at a time till its light brown. In case you do not have kala/goda masala, substitute with "dhana jeera" powder. The taste will differ slightly, but it will come close to the original recipe. Using ghee for the seasoning will enhance the taste

Puran Poli Recipe

This is one dish that is loved by most people that I have met. It will always feature on a traditional  Maharashtrian wedding menu. It is best described as a paratha/chapati stuffed with puran. But, the best puran polis must have a thin covering, should be filled with puran and roasted just enough to provide the perfect texture to the poli. I have had too many ill-formed polis (made by well intentioned ladies) that had scanty stuffing or a very thick cover, which left me guessing if I was actually eating puran poli. So, when I set out to make the polis, I took the task quite seriously and did the right thing, i.e. called Mom. She explained the technique, the proportions for the dough and I must say the end result came close to the perfect puran polis that I had in India years ago.

Ingredients

For the stuffing and the method see the Puran recipe

For the dough
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached wheat flour (maida)
1/4 cup oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2-1 cup water (enough to knead a soft dough)
rice flour to roll out the poli
oil to use while cooking
ghee to serve
milk to serve

Method
Combine the dry ingredients together and add water little at a time to knead the dough. The dough consistency is the most important base to creating the perfect poli. The dough need to be soft enough and have enough elasticity to stretch over the puran stuffing to form a thin cover. The maida is the ingredient which will provide the elasticity to the dough. The dough should be soft and very pliable. Keep this aside for about 30 minutes and then knead it for 5 minutes. The more you knead it the more elasticity it will develop.  You can add more water to the dough if needed at at this stage to soften/loosen it.

To make the puran stuffing see the Puran recipe.

To roll out the puran poli
 Take a small portion of the puran stuffing and roll it into a ball. I generally take a fistfull which will create a ball about 3/4th-1 inch in diameter. Take dough which is a little more than half the proportion of the puran ball. Roll the dough into a ball and then using your thumbs, make a disc of this puran till its about 1-1.5 inches in diameter. Wrap this disc around the puran ball and using your fingers gather up the ends of the dough disc till it completely covers the puran ball. This is where the dough's elasticity will help in covering the puran even though the dough is in a smaller quantity than the puran, resulting in a thin covering. Once you have created this stuffed ball, roll it gently with a rolling pin. Dust your rolling surface with rice flour to prevent the dough from sticking on to the surface. The resulting poli should be about 3-4 mm in thickness. Try to roll it out as thin as you can. With the fist full of puran proportion that I used, my poli was about 6-7 inches in diameter.

Roast this on a flat tava/pan. Cook it on one side till it is partially cooked, then flip it over. Add some oil around the poli and cook this side till its completely cooked. It will get some brown spots as it cooks indicating that its cooked. Then flip it over  and completely cook the partially cooked side.

Serve the puran poli with a generous amount of ghee. It is also served with a cup of warm milk. The poli is then dunked into this warm milk and then eaten. Another method is to serve it with the "Cutachi aamti', which is a savory dish and prevents the meal from becoming too sweet.

Tips
To guarantee elasticity, if you want you can substiture the whole wheat flour with maida. Use oil to keep the dough from sticking to the surface while kneading it. Use ghee to coat your hands when rolling the puran into a ball.

Puran/ Sweet Yellow Lentils Recipe

"Puran" is a sweet puree made from yellow lentils/chana daal. This is generally made as an offering to God for a lot of traditional ceremonies. It falls  into the delicacy category for sure and is not a frequently made dish. The puran is used as the stuffing for "puran poli".  My mom made it on festival days and it was served in small quantities with the main course and always left us wanting more. Sometimes she used to make puran polis. I had never made it earlier always opting for something simpler to cook instead. Puran and well as puran poli are always talked about as being difficult recipes to execute, requiring precision and cooking expertise. I finally decided to take the plunge and try my hand at the recipes last week and I was so happy with the end result. In conclusion, after my puran and puran poli making experience, I must say that if you take precise ratios and follow the directions, the process is not so difficult and the result absolutely delicious.

Ingredients
1 cup chana daal (yellow lentils)
2 cups water
1/2 cup minus 1 tbsp white sugar
1/2 cup +1 tbsp jaggery (crushed or powdered)
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1/8 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated)

Method
Cook the chana daal with the water till the daal is cooked completely. The daal should be soft enough so that its easily crushed between your fingers. I generally pressure cook daals since the cooking time is significantly reduced in a pressure cooker. Drain all the water from the daal. Reserve this water to make the "Katachi aamti". It is very important that water is not left behind in the daal,and it should be dried as much as possible. While still hot, process the daal so that its completely mashed. You can use a food mill (also called "puran yantra") or your blender. To this add the sugar, jaggery, cardamom and nutmeg and cook the mixture on low heat. It is necessary to keep the heat low, so that the mixture cooks through together and one area doesn't get dried out. The sugar and jaggery will melt and the mixture will turn slightly liquidy. Cook it till the mixture thickens. See the tips below for how long to cook this mixture depending on its use. Serve it with ghee.

Tips
If you do not have a food mill or a blender, you can strain the daal through a sieve. Its of course easier if its a bigger sized sieve, but this will guarentee that there aren't any pieces of whole daal in the puran. The daal should be completely mashed if you want to use it to make the "puran poli'. If you just wish you eat it as a sweet dish, you can leave some daal semi-mashed, providing some texture to the puran. If you want to make puran poli, you do not want to cook the puran to an extent that its absolutely dry and will not come together, you want to cook it just enough, so that you can use it as a stuffing and the puran comes together in a ball and is soft enough to be rolled out. A trick to determine this consistency is to stand your spoon in the puran while cooking, and if it doesn't fall over, its ready to be taken off the heat. The mixture will thicken as it cools down. If you wish to cook the puran just as a sweet dish, then you need to cook the mixture at least till the jaggery and sugar melt completely and it all comes together. The texture can be as dry or wet as you want.