Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Recipes

  • Spinach Pappu Recipe — An Indian Spinach and Dal Dish

    Last week, I went home to my parents house in Michigan and learned three new Indian recipes.  The first that I learned — which takes the longest to prepare — is a very tasty and very healthy spinach and dal dish.   It is an excellent accompaniment to rice, any Indian breads or yogurt.  And although it takes about 40 minutes to prepare, most of that time it is just cooking in a pot so it's fairly hands-off. 

    Spinach_pappu

    Ingredients:

    • 10 oz. of frozen chopped spinach
    • 1/2 cup of mung dal/pappu (available at Indian grocery stores — it is yellow)
    • 2 cups chopped onions
    • 3 thai green chilis (or other spicy fresh chilis), sliced lengthwise or chopped
    • 1/8 tsp. turmeric
    • 1 1/4 – 2 cups coarsely chopped tomatoes (2 or 3 tomatoes)
    • 3 tsps. homemade tamarind paste (if you use store-bought tamarind paste, its usually more concentrated so probably use 2 tsps)
    • 2 dried red chilis, broken in half
    • 8-10 dried curry leaves
    • 1 clove garlic, sliced
    • 3/4 tsp. mustard seeds
    • 1/2 tsp. cumin
    • 2 – 3 fenugreek seeds
    • pinch of asafoetida
    • vegetable oil
    • salt to taste

    Directions:

    • In a medium pot, put in the mung dal and put in water to both fully cover the mung dal and have an additional 1/4 inch of water above the mung dal.  Increase heat so to bring the water to a boil.
    • After 5 minutes or so (as the water heats, but before it boils), add the frozen spinach and the chopped onions.  As you put in those items, do not fully stir them in — you want the pappu to remain at the bottom of the pot for most of the cooking so it can get fully cooked. 
    • Add in the turmeric and cover the pot.
    • As the mixture starts to boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
    • Then add in the tomato, tamarind paste and approx. 2 tsp. salt
    • Add water as appropriate — it should be a soupy consistency because it will continue to lose water as it cooks.
    • Cover and cook the mixture an additional 7 minutes or so.
    • In a seperate small pot, heat a small amount of vegetable oil on medium heat and add in the mustard seeds and cumin.
    • When the mustard seeds start to pop, add in the fenugreek, garlic, dried red chilis and the curry leaves.  Saute the mixture together for a few minutes.
    • When the flavors start to come out/blend together, add in a pinch of the asafoetida and saute.
    • Pour the contents of the small pot into the simmering medium pot, remove from heat and stir the entire mixture (including the dahl at the bottom).  Add salt to taste (or lemon if you prefer) — it's better to overflavor a bit because the flavors will become muted as the mixture settles.
    • Serve and enjoy!

  • Cottage Cheese Pakoras — My Favorite Snack (and Sometimes an Entire Meal)

    My absolute favorite snack are cottage cheese pakoras.  Whenever I go home, I always ask my mom to make them for me (and they are often ready when I come in the door!).  My mom recently emailed me the recipe she uses, which is from Saranya Auntie's (Saranya Mandava) Indian cookbook.   

    I recently "became an adult" in the sense that I am now finally able to start making pakoras at home (I received a small professional deep-fryer for my birthday which is really helpful to making these delicious fried snacks).  And yes, I have that I have been going a little overboard and have started to make them ALL THE TIME. 

    The recipe, which I recommend EVERYONE try, follows the picture:

    Cottage_cheese_pakoras

    I usually double the recipe (and have tripled it once) and it works out just fine.  Doubling the recipe maybe creates enough for 8 people for a snack portion, and 3 people eating them for a heavy snack/full meal.

    Ingredients:

    • 8 oz lowfat cottage cheese (I prefer smaller curd)
    • 1 cup all purpose flour
    • 3/4 cup chopped onion
    • 2-3 green chillies, chopped (I use serranos or jalapenos)
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (or more — to taste)
    • 3/4 to 1 tsp cornstarch
    • 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
    • A healthy pinch or two of baking soda
    • Oil for deep frying

    Directions:

    • Preheat oil to approx 355 degrees Fahrenheit (I use a professional mini-deep fryer, and I found this temperature to be the best)
    • Mix salt, cumin, flour, cornstarch, and baking soda.
    • Add cottage cheese to the dry mixture and mix well
    • Add chopped ingredients and mix well.
    • Loosely take walnut-size portions of the dough and place in deep fryer for approx 6-7 minutes.  The pakoras should be a light to medium golden brown color on the outside and cooked through.
    • Lay cooked pakoras on paper napkins to drain the excess oil.
    • You can serve within a few minutes or frying, or keep out for a day or two (they best served while hot out of the fryer).

    Typing the recipe has made me hungry for them.  I think I will make them right now.  I wish I was kidding — they are really addictive!

  • Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

    I’ve been looking for a recipe for cream cheese brownies for some time, but never have really invested my time to really find a good one.  Thankfully, my colleague Ian told me recently that his mom has a fantastic recipe for cream cheese brownies, so I just made my first batch for Christmas Eve at the office (yes, unfortunately the office was open on Christmas Eve).   Cheryl’s (Ian’s mom) recipe is below the picture of Ian with the brownies.

    Chocolate_cheese_cake_brownies_with

    The only recommendation I have is to NOT use fat-free cream cheese (that’s all I had in my fridge, so that’s what I used — but I think it can be much better with low-fat or original cream cheese).  I would also recommend you use electric mixers with the cream cheese blend so you get rid of all of the chunks.  You may also want to refridgerate the brownies after making them to make them more fudgy.

    Ingredients:

    One 8-oz. package of cream cheese, room temperature

    1 and 1/3 cup sugar (keep the 1 cup and 1/3 cup seperate)

    3 eggs

    2 1-oz. squares of unsweetened chocolate

    1/2 cup butter

    3/4 cup flour

    1/2 teaspoon baking powder

    1/2 teaspoon salt

    Directions:

    1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees

    2.  Blend cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and 1 egg until well mixed, and then set aside.

    3.  Melt chocolate and butter together.

    4.  Beat 2 remaining eggs until fluffy, then pour chocolate mixture and add 1 cup sugar to the mixture and mix well.

    5.  Combine dry ingredients and stir them in to chocolate mixture.

    6.  Pour 1/2 chocolate mixture into a greased 8 x 8 inch pan.

    7.  Add cream cheese mixture.

    8.  Add remaining chocolate mixture in scoops, and then pull a knife or spatula through it to create marbled look (I did not create the marbled look with my brownies, but learned this technique from other recipes online).

    9.  Bake 45 – 50 minutes.

    Thanks Cheryl and Ian!

  • Phenomenal Chilled Artichoke Dip (and it’s low fat!)

    I first had this wonderful artichoke dip at Becky and Rob's home — Becky is Andy's boss.   It's a chilled dip that has a lot of different flavors working together to make it completely irrestible.  Becky serves the dip in a bread bowl, and I did the same when I made it twice in one weekend — using a fresh-baked french bread bowl from the local Dominicks.  I didn't cut into the bread too deep to make the bowl though because there is only about 1.5 cups of dip that this recipe makes.  The only modification to this recipe that I made is to add many more chopped green onions and use canned artichokies instead of frozen artichokes (couldn't find frozen artichokes at the store).  I highly recommend you try this dip — it's fantastic!  And you won't feel guilty making it twice in one weekend before it's not bad for you at all.

    The recipe was from the New American Heart Association Cookbook, and can be found online here.

    Low_fat_artichoke_dip

  • Soft Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

    The office birthday baking continues!   This week, I made soft oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Mark. 

    Oatmeal_chocolate_chip_cookies

    I used this great recipe from AllRecipes.com, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Oatmeal-Cookies/Detail.aspx, and added in about 3/4 cup of regular semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips (as you can tell if you’ve seen the past few posts, mixing different types of chocolate chips have been popular in my kitchen the past few weeks).   I also increased the baking time to about 12-14 minutes because the cookies seem to only be fully baked when they are browned throughout (not just the edges).   

  • A pizza I didn’t mess up!

    A few years back, when I was living in D.C., I bought a $9 pizza stone at Target thinking it would change my life.  Since then, I have never made a good pizza.  I usually use the Trader Joe’s refrigerated pizza dough, which you can find in a variety of delicious flavors at any Trader Joe’s for under a $1.   You can make an entire pizza for less than $7 that is much, much better than any other place (unless you live in New York or New Haven).

    At first, I didn’t realize you need to pre-heat the pizza stone which of course meant I was cooking the pizza for an hour and inevitably burning the cheese, while waiting for the dough to cook. 

    And then I found on the internet that you should not only pre-heat the pizza stone, but also pre-heat the crust to avoid the burning of the cheese problem. 

    So finally, I put all of these pieces of advice (which I now feel may actually be common sense) to make a great pizza.  Recipe is below the picture.

    Trader_joes_pizza

    For this awesome pizza, I used:

    1 bag of Trader Joe’s refrigerated whole wheat pizza dough

    Pizza sauce — very easy to make and the recipe makes 2 servings of sauce.  Another recipe from AllRecipes.com:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Pizza-Sauce-I/Detail.aspx

    • This recipe uses tomato paste, garlic, dried basil and oregano, salt and pepper, water and olive oil.
    • I highly recommend that you make the sauce a day ahead to let the flavors blend.
    • I also highly recommend that you reduce the water needed for the recipe to no more than 1 cup of water and if you want a thicker sauce, you should also reduce the amount of olive oil you use.

    1 – 1.5 cups of part-skim, low moisture shredded mozzarella

    Any and all toppings that you want — I usually just mince 3-4 cloves of garlic as well as maybe 1/2 of a large fresh jalepeno for my pizzas.

    To make the pizza:

    • Preheat your pizza stone at least 30-40 minutes at the full temperature recommended for your dough.
    • Follow the Trader Joe’s directions to roll the pizza dough (and depending on the dough you use, you might want to hand stretch it to prepare it as some of the flavors do not take well to a rolling pin!)
    • Throw the dough onto the hot stone, and preheat the dough for 5-7 minutes.
    • Take the preheated dough out of the oven, sprinkle mozzarella and toppings.
    • Bake another ten minutes, or until the cheese is completely melted AND the center of the pizza dough is fully cooked through (poke in a knife or fork in the center of the pie to make sure it is no longer doughy)

    Enjoy!

  • HUGE Chocolate Chip Cookies

    The birthday baking for co-workers continues to get more and more delicious.  This time around I made some gigantic cookies for Carlos.  I found the recipe at AllRecipes.com at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Big-Fat-Chewy-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie/Detail.aspx.  The recipe is really easy and quick.  However, you only get about 12 cookies or so in a batch because you drop the cookies onto the baking sheet at a quarter of a cup of dough for each cookie.   I would recommend making a few batches at a time because these soft and chewy cookies go quick!

    Instead of using just regular semi-sweet chocolate chips,  I also used white chocolate chips as well.  I put in about a cup of regular chocolate chips and about 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips.  The result was fantastic.

    Giant_cookies_for_carlos

  • Gourmet Tiny Chocolate Chip Cookies

    I finally started using the Gourmet Cookbook that I bought last year by using my last egg in a soon-to-expire carton to make the Tiny Chocolate Chip Cookies on page 662 of the 2004 version of the cookbook.  The recipe is also available free online at epicurious.com at:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/106172

    Tiny_chocolate_chip_cookies

    I made two modifications to the recipe: 

    • I substituted mini chocolate chips for regular size semi-sweet chips
    • I reduced the baking temperature by about 25 degrees and shortened the baking time to about 4-5 minutes because the first batch got a little too burnt at the bottom even though the baking sheet was placed on the farthest rack from the heat source.

    These are a really great snack — no one can say no to them given how small they are.   They also melt in your mouth given how buttery and small they are.

  • White Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies

    There have been a number of summer birthdays in my current workplace, and I have promised all of the members of my department that I will bake them something delicious for their birthday.  For Danielle, who I sit next to, I recently made her (and of course for the rest of the staff!) some white chocolate dipped chocolate chip cookies.

    White_chocolate_dipped_cookies_2

    To make these cookies, I followed the same Allrecipes.com recipe I used here:  http://madhuknitsandcooks.typepad.com/madhu_knits_and_cooks/2006/10/simple_chocolat.html

    After baking the cookies and letting them cool, I then slowly melted about 1/2 – 2/3 cup of white chocolate chips in the microwave.  You should be really careful with melting chocolate in a microwave by using a reduced power and only microwaving in 30 second or less increments until just melted.  I then dipped the cookies in the melted white chocolate and used a butter knive to evenly spread the chocolate over a sizeable part of the cookie. 

    I would then place the dipped cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet, where they would then be placed in the fridge for about 45 minutes for the chocolate to harden (until the cookies can be lifted off of the parchment paper without leaving any chocolate behind).   

  • Don’t like Okra? You will after trying this dish: Bendakaya (Indian Style Okra)

    This is one of my favorite Indian dishes — and I have to admit, the person who makes it the best is my mother.  I haven't tried the recipe yet (can't find Okra yet) but I can't wait.   The recipe follows the picture:

    Bendakaya

    Ingredients:

    • 3 cups fresh Okra
    • 3 tbps. vegetable oil
    • 2 dried red chili peppers (can be found in any Indian grocery store)
    • 3/4 tsp. whole mustard seeds
    • 1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds
    • 1/2 tsp. uridahl/white dahl (can be found in any Indian grocery store)
    • 1/2 tsp. channa dahl/yellow dahl (can be found in any Indian grocery store)
    • 2 cloves garlic, sliced
    • Salt
    • 1/2 tsp. chili powder (optional)
    • Cilantro to garnish (optional)

    1.  Wash the okra, either towel dry or leave out to air dry for a few hours before cooking.  It is important that the okra is drier when you start, so it gets crisp and not mushy when you cook it.

    2.  Cut the okra into 1/3 inch segments, discard the ends.

    3.  Heat vegetable oil in a large saucepan

    4.  When vegetable oil becomes hot, break the two red chili peppers and throw them into the pan.  Also add the mustard seeds.

    5.  When the mustard seeds start popping, add the cumin, uridahl and channa dahl.  Let it simmer  for a minute or two.

    6.  Add garlic, and saute for two minutes — make sure the garlic doesn't brown.

    7.  Add okra, and stir while raising heat to a higher medium level.  Cook the okra uncovered, and stir every two minutes. 

    8.  After ten minutes or when the okra starts to get cooked enough that the okra pieces are not sticking to each other, add salt to taste (perhaps 3/4 of a tsp. to start).   Note:  Make sure you do not add the salt too early in the cooking process, it will make the okra gummy.

    9.  Saute another 5 minutes or so until the okra is a bit crisp.  Add chili powder if desired and more salt to taste.

    10.  Serve with rice or any Indian breads.