Dahi Vada

The fist time I made dahi vada, was a tragedy, the vadas were so hard that it could have done some serious injury. Over the years I have perfected this snack and has become a much requested item.

Ingredients

For the Vada:

1 cupe white urad dal

2 green chilies

1 inch piece of ginger

Oil for frying

A pot of water

For the Dahi (yogurt):

4 cups of yogurt plain

1/4 cups of sugar

For the Ganishing:

1/4 cups tamarind soaked in water

10 Jaggery crushed

chili powder

pepper powder

salt

Method:

1. Soak Urad dal for 6 – 8 hours.
2. Remove excess water and grind to smooth paste. Add ginger and chili while grinding.
3. Add salt to taste.
4. It should be of dropping consistency.
5. add the soak tamarind, it’s juice and jaggery to pan and gently heat till all is well mixed. You will need a thick liquid so add water if needed. the mixture will be sweet and sour.
6. Heat oil to a medium and drop the vadas in. I can do 4 at a time in my pot.
7. Remove from the oil once golden brown and soak in water.
8. The vadas will float in water and as water seeps in these will becomes heavy and drown to the bottom.
9. Whip sugar and yogurt to a smooth texture.
10. Squeeze excess water from the soaked vadas and add it to the bowl.
11. Pour the yogurt mixture.
12. Add the tamarind juice, salt, pepper powder and chilli powder to taste.
13. Serve and let your guests enjoy.

My color is Green

My favorite all time vegetable, is Spinach. I just love its color, texture and taste. The following recipe is one of the easiest to make, extremely tasty and very healthy. You could have it with a roti or some rice.

You will need:

spinach

yogurt

gram flour/cornflour

olive oil

cumin seeds

garlic

water salt.

As with most Indian Spinach recipes you will be required to blanch the spinach, of course in hot water and then cut it.

On the other side, mix 1/4cup of yogurt with 1 1/2 cup of water and 2 tbsp of gram flour and mix well. Make sure no lumps are formed not for any culinary expertise but because they taste awful. Seriously gram flour lumps while eating this amazing dish. Not such a great idea.

Now mix this with the cooked spinach.

In a pan take 1 tsp of olive oil and add some cumin seeds and garlic. Once the garlic starts to brown add the spinach and salt to your taste. Let it cook for about 1-2 minutes and its ready. Now was that fast or was that fast.

Enjoy it without the feeling of guilt.

Kebabs all the way

I was using the weight watchers approach for quite sometime and it brought me success. The problem with that is, you have to use portion control. If I had that kind of control on my food habits I would not be at weight watchers. If I am allowed to eat everything that is tasty, chances are I am going to slip. And if you are wondering I did slip. I went right up to 70 kg and then I got onto the ‘excuse’ bandwagon and climbed back up to 78 kg. So now I am planning to go with the same approach but make a few changes. Nobody eats carbs at night. So if I haven’t cooked em I wont eat em.

This brings me to the dish of the day ‘Chicken kebab’. You could most easily substitute the chicken and use prawns, salmon or cottage cheese. You could also use all of these and present it as a Kebab platter for one of your parties.

What you will need:

Chicken pieces fat removed. I prefer the boneless kind

Low fat yogurt

Lemon juice

olive oil

The spices:

dry mango powder

garam masala

turmeric

chilli powder

coriander powder

ginger-garlic paste

salt

coriander leaves for garnishing

Once you have washed the chicken pieces add the lemon juice and leave the chicken in it for 15 minutes. Wash the chicken and add all the other ingredients to the chicken and let it marinate for at least 20 min but a couple of hours or overnight would do no harm either.Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Sprinkle some oil on the chicken, remember not generously, we are trying to lose weight here and put them on the skewers and set it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Turn them once after 10 minutes and your dinner is ready.

I am going to have this with a salad tossed in lemon juice and salt. If you still feel hungry there is always the clear vegetable soup to go with it. If you don’t have the recipe you just have to wait for it.

Tip for the kitchen idiots: if you are using wooden skewers please soak them in water for 10 minutes.