Saturday, March 28, 2009

A one-pot rice dish

Rice is a staple food for us. I usually cook basmati rice at home, at times I use the short grained Calrose (Australian) rice to make dishes like risotto and mixed rice. This recipe is another of my 'improvised' quick meals that actually works quite well as a complete one-pot dish.

The Recipe

Soak half a cup of black eyed beans overnight. The next morning pressure cook the beans with some cloves of garlic.

Other Ingredients

one tomato
vegetable or chicken stock (2-3 cups)
1 cup basmati rice
half cup chopped greens like kale, baby spinach, green spring onion bottoms
salt to taste
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese


Put the rice, tomato and pressure cooked beans in a thick bottomed pan. Add the stock and bring to a boil and then simmer for about 25 minutes or till rice is done (add more stock as needed). Add the greens and cook another 6 minutes or so; add the cheese and salt as needed. Serve hot.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Favorite rice noodles

Rice noodles are delicious and can be prepared very quickly with any number of variations. I buy the house brand rice noodles from the local supermarket though the recipe that follows will adapt easily to any kind of rice noodles.


The Recipe

rice noodles
thinly sliced snow peas/ oyster mushrooms/ green cabbage/ spring onion bottoms/ carrots (all the vegetables together should be about a cup for 3 squares of noodles
1 egg beaten
2 cloves of garlic
oil for frying
salt to taste
soy chilli sauce (or any good soy sauce)


Cook noodles according to instructions, drain and keep aside

Heat the oil, saute garlic, then add egg and stir around quickly; add vegetables and stir-fry briskly for a few minutes. Finally add the noodles and seasoning and toss well. Serve hot.

Add and subtract vegetables according to taste; add shredded cooked chicken or pork if you want a non-vegetarian version; add tofu or shrimp if you prefer. Like I said the variations are endless.

Friday, March 20, 2009

A nice dhal

Cooking elaborate Indian meals with a toddler and no help can be very challenging. But because I enjoy the taste of traditional Bangla ranna and my husband enjoys his traditional Tamilian food, I often end up making meals I like to describe as 'adapated Indian'.

An example of one such dish was the black eyed peas (barbati beans) dhal I made the other day. The final dish tasted delicious and my daughter loved it though it isn't proper Indian it has all the elements of basic traditional cooking. And the best thing about the dish is that it took just a couple of minutes of actual preparation.

The Recipe:

soak a cup of black eyed peas dhal overnight
pressure cook this with a couple cloves of garlic and a small red onion the next morning

other ingredients:
paneer cubes
haldi powder
dhania-jeera powder
tomatoes (1 big or 2 medium)
salt to taste
curry leaves

Add salt, the masala powders, tomatoes to the pressure cooked dhal. Let it boil, then simmer for a while (till tomatoes are cooked through); finally add the paneer and curry leaves and cook for about 10-12 minutes more.

serve with hot steamed white rice

variations: you can vary this recipe in a number of ways: add potatoes during the pressure cooking stage; add spinach with the paneer or omit the paneer and add only the spinach; add a fresh green chilli while simmering the dhal; add a jeera/ kashmiri chilli tarka at the end