Panzanella

A very light Italian salad. Okay, okay. I admit this is not the actual original recipe. I have played around with it in terms of dressing. I personally like crispy ingredients staying crispy, and I have substituted the original light, lemony dressing with a heavier but smoother mixed oil dressing.

It makes for a great summer salad, light on the stomach, and fun on the tastebuds.

Ingredients:
1) 1 cup bread slices (cut into small pieces and dried till crisp in a microwave, or in the sun - NO toast, PLEASE!!!)
2) 1/4 of a cucumber, diced into small cubes
3) One large tomato, diced
4) 1/4 green bell pepper (optional yellow, but avoid red, it could get too "sweet" for the salad)
5)a bit of Iceberg lettuce or salad greens
6) 2 teaspoons chopped parsley
7) 1/2 a cored green apple (optional)
8) 1/2 cup fresh pineapple - diced (optional)
9) 1/4 cup walnuts - optional

Dressing Ingredients:
1)1 tablespoon Olive Oil
2) 1 tablespoon sesame oil
3) 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
4) 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger (I prefer Thai ginger here)
5) 1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic
6) sea salt
7) A pinch white pepper (optional)
8) 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (optional) (But I personally LOVE this option... especially if you are using herbed bread, balsamic gives a very nice edge)

Method:
1)In a large bowl, combine all the salad ingredients (or whatever you are using)
2) In a separate bowl, mix up all the dressing ingredients
3) Pour over salad and toss.

Footnote:
1) The original recipe calls for only olive oil, lemon juice, and eliminates the ginger. The authentic Italian recipe uses stale foccacia, and the sour-ish taste of the foccacia clashes with the ginger. I personally prefer to get my zest with the lemon rind, so that the lemon juice does not soak into the bread and make the pieces soggy.
2) An all-fruit panzanalla tastes divine. Watch the space. :)

Bread Upma

This is not south Indian. It's a convoluted home-concocted stuff which is great as a brunch item, evening snack or for school lunches!

Ingredients:
1) 2 slices of (brown, or whole wheat) bread, broken into small bits
2) 1 medium red onion chopped (I personally like chives here, they taste great)
3) 1 very small carrot, grated
4) 1/4 green bell pepper, cut into small strips
5) 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
6) half a lemon
7) one green chilli, cut into small pieces
8) a pinch of turmeric
9) 1 1/2 tablespoons oil
10) cumin seeds
11) salt.

Method:
1) Heat 1 tablespoon oil. Add cumin. Add onions and fry till pink. Add chopped green peppers and fry till tender. Add carrots. Add the green chillies.
2) Chop the bread slices into tiny tiny pieces and add these pieces.
3) Add the salt, turmeric and cilantro and stir.
4) Finish off with the squeezed lemon.

Note:
You may add other vegetables of your choice, like chopped botatoes, boiled beans, green peas, zuccini, etc.

Green Coconut chutney

This has many many many variants, which I will be putting as a footnote. Here's the basic recipe.

Ingredients
1) 1/2 cup chopped fresh coconut
2) 1/4 cup chana dal (green gram - dried, roasted, and split)
3) 2 big green chillies
4) 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, washed
5) a very very small piece of ginger (optional)
6) 3 leaves of mint (optional)
7) 2 teaspoons plain unsweetened unflavored yogurt (optional)
8) salt
9) half a teaspoon oil
10) a pinch of mustard seeds
11) a pinch of cumin seeds
12) a pinch black gram (split)
13) one stick curry leaves.

Method:
1) Combine ingredients 1-8 (whatever you are using) and grind. Add water as required. You should get a smooth paste.
2) Heat oil. Add the black gram lentil. Let it change shade. Add mustard and cumin seeds. Add curry leaves and fry till curry leaves are crispy.
3) Pour this into the chutney (and NOT the other way around)
4) Serve with whatever you want to eat it with.

Onion Chutney

Just made a nice fresh bowl of this stuff for dinner. Its a very typical Andhra dish, but goes with almost everything you can imagine. When I was a kid, I'd butter up some brown bread and spread a bit of dried onion chutney, throw in come carrots and radishes to make one pungent sandwich.

It goes well with idly's and paranthas alike (my personal favourite accompaniement to this is dosas). It make s great dip as well. A version with chopped tomatoes added (mentioned after the recipe) can also be tried out.

Onion Chutney

You will need
1) 2 large red onions, chopped
2) 6-7 dried red chillies
3) salt
4)1 teaspoon oil
5) 1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds

Method:
1) Heat 1/2 a teaspoon of oil and add the chillies.
2) When the chillies are crunchy, take them out and grind (for a food processor, make sure you use the dry-grinding/spice grinding option)
3) toss the onions in the pan (dont add more oil), till they are pink
4) Add the onions and salt to the food processor and grind till you get a paste.
5) Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat. Add the mustard seeds. Add the onion paste and toss for exactly 30 seconds (we do NOT want to drain out the moisture from the onions)
6) Serve it at room temperature with absolutely anything!

Variation.
To step 3, add one tomato chopped, with the seeds removed.

Kashmiri Pilaf

This is NOT the weird stuff you get at the pseudo-northie restaurants in Bangalore.

This is the simplest possible recipe, and something very close to authentic, with ONE variation (which is also mentioned after the recipe). The rice can be cooked either in a rice cooker, or microwave, a pressure cooker, or just steamed in a wok/vessel. For convenience sake I'm putting down the last version.

Ingredients:

1) 2 cups Basmati Rice (Long grained and fragrant) (approx 200 grams rice)
2) 1/2 cup mixed dried fruit (raisins, roasted almonds, pistachio and walnuts - these make the recipe authentic. Only variation allowed is dried pine nuts. No cashews, please)
3) 2 pinches saffron in 2 teaspoons of warm milk
4) 2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
5) One bay leaf
6) Salt

Method:
1) Wash the rice. Drain the water. For 2 cups of rice, add 3.5 cups water (350 - 375 ml) in a deep, vessel (a deep wok works best). Add half one teaspoon of the ghee, 1/3 teaspoon salt and the bay leaf.
2) Cook the rice. Keep the pan closed. The flame should be high till the water boils. One the water boils and you can smell the starch, reduce the flame to medium.
3) The rice is done when the water is soaked up by the grains. Open the wok and stir the rice with a fork. Cooking this quantity of Basmati rice should take about 20 minutes or so.
4) heat a pan, and fry the dried fruit in the ghee. When the nuts turn broen, take off the flame and add to the rice. Now add in the saffron and stir.

Its done!!!

Variation:
Ingredients:
6 peppercorns, 4 cloves, 1 inch cinnammon, 2 cloves or cardamom, 1 star anise, all tied in a small piece of cotton cloth.
1 large chopped onion.

In Step one, add the spice cloth packet while cooking rice.
In step 4, fry onion till golden brown, add dried fruit, and mix with the rice. (Do remember to discard the clothe packet :-p)

(This one's for Nirmal :-) )

Crostinis!

Ingredients:

Common Ingredients (other than topping):

1) A baguette (prefrably the ones without cheese cprinked on top, and whole wheat), diagonally cut
2) Parmesan or cheddar cheese, grated
3) Mozarella cheese, grated (totally optional)
4) 2 teaspoons fresh cream
5) Oregano, white pepper powder and salt
6) totato puree/ (I prefer fresh tomatoes blanched and pureed)
7) 2 teaspoons olive oil

Toppings:

A) Peppers

one red and one yelow pepper (this makes about 10-12 pieces). Roast or bake both n peel off the skin. Take off seeds and chop into small pieces.
Heat olive oil, lightly fry the peppers, and one tablespoon cooking vinegar. Let the vinegar evaporate. Then add one teaspoon cream (this acts as a binder and preverts toppings from falling all over the place.), and one large spoon grated cheese.
Add oregano, salt, pepper, heat some more.

Take the baguette pieces, roast with oilve oil in a pan for 1 min on both sides, coat lightly with puree and add the topping. Garnish with parsley.

B) Zuccini
One small green and one small yellow zuccini. (This makes around 12)
Chop both into small pieces.
Heat olive oil, lightly fry the zuccini, let them vrey slightly brown. add one teaspoon cream (this acts as a binder and preverts toppings from falling all over the place.), and one large spoon grated cheese.
Add oregano, salt, pepper, heat some more.

Take the baguette pieces, roast with oilve oil in a pan for 1 min on both sides, coat lightly with puree, add topping and garnish with fresh tomato.

C) Mushroom:
Chop both into small pieces.
Heat olive oil, lightly fry the mushrooms, let them vrey slightly brown. Add one large spoon grated cheese and let it melt (no cream here! GAG!)
Add oregano, salt, pepper, heat some more.

take the baguette pieces, coat with puree, add mushroom mixture, sprinkle more grated cheese.
Microwave on high for 1 min or bake for 6-7 mins in convection, 360/180 (top/base)

D) Tomato -FRESH
Take 3 large fresh ripe tomatoes, chop into very tiny pices, but do remove seeds. Mix with olive oil, a little fresh cruched garlic, white pepper, 4 drops of lemon juice and oregano and salt.

Lightly roast the baguette pieces in olive oil and add the mixture. Garnish with parsley (ESPECIALLY when yu kmake dieshes with fresh garlic, and not cook it, DO use parsley as a garnish)

Raw Mango Chutney

Ingredients:

1) A small-medium fresh, raw mango (one the size of your fist makes a medium cupful)
2) fenugreek seeds (methi)
3) mustard seeds
4) dried red chilli pepper
5) one teaspoon oil

Procedure:
1) Heat the oil and add both seeds till they pop.
2) add the chillies, fry till they become brittle (dont let them go brown)
3) grind above mixture, but not smooth
4) Add mango and grind again (not to a smooth paste, its nice when slighlty rough n yu hav to bite the mango-yum!!)
5)Add salt AFTER its done, else raw mango tends to ooze water.

Goes with anything, especially curd rice n dosas, ( I even like it with bread n cheese :))

Note: 1) This stays for a max os 2-3 days and is best when fresh.
Other variations:
Tomato (Braise the tomatoes on high flame with just 2 drops of oil and continue the procedure)
Green apple (raw apple - this tastes fantastic! Same procedure as the mango chutney)
Roasted brinjal (Roast brinjal on glame, or grill it(or make 3-4 slits in the vegetable, coat with oil, wrap in foil and bake at 360 degrees in convection oven for 15 mins), peel of the skin when cold, and repeat procedure)