Tuesday 30 April 2013

Tomato Basil Soup in a jiffy



The tomato is a highly nutritious food that contains large amounts of vitamins, minerals and antioxidant phytochemicals.  Eating tomato soup can be beneficial for several health conditions. Tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene.  Lycopene can lower the risk of certain cancers, especially prostate, stomach and lung.
If you want to take care of your bones, tomato soup can help. Tomatoes have vitamin K and calcium and if you make your soup with milk, you add even more calcium to your diet. Calcium and vitamin K help strengthen your bones and teeth. Tomatoes also contain vitamin A, which is important in maintaining healthy vision and skin.  Tomato soup is rich in potassium and vitamin B. These two nutrients help lower blood pressure.  

One of those evenings when you come home tired from work and do not have enough energy to cook something elaborate, this tomato basil soup is your answer.  This can be prepared in a jiffy.  I prepared this during a commercial break in my favorite serial on the television.




Ingredients:
4 medium tomatoes, 1/8 tsp baking soda, 2 cups water, ½ cup milk, ½ cup tomato sauce, 6 basil leaves, salt and black pepper to taste

Method:
Puree tomatoes with water and 4 basil leaves in a food processor. Cook them on a medium flame..  Discard the foam with a tablespoon which sets on the top.
Add tomato sauce or ketchup and cook on slow fire for a couple of minutes.
Add baking soda .Baking soda prevents curdling.
Add milk but do not boil it. Just make it only warm.
Season it with salt and pepper.                         
Serve hot.  Garnish with basil leaf in each cup.
This makes two cups of soup.
Enjoy with your favorite crackers or toasted bread.

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Vegetarian Lasagna with Indian tarka



Lasagna is a complete meal with all the food groups covered in one dish. There are a variety of ways to cook lasagna. It can be vegetarian with all vegetables and cheese.  Then, any type of meat such as beef, turkey, or chicken can be used in the dish. Lasagna can be made with Italian spices like basil, oregano etc to make the dish taste Italian.  No matter what type of lasagna you enjoy, you can always make your own variation in the sauce which is an important ingredient in the making of lasagna.
Originally, in Italy, the word "lasagna" did not refer to a food (in fact, today, the food is still spelled "lasagne" as the plural form). The word "lasagna" referred to the pot in which the food was cooked. It is thought that the word "lasagna" for the pot is derived from the Greek word for "chamber pot.
The earliest lasagna recipes known are dated from the thirteenth century. At that time, tomatoes were not known to Europeans.  Tomatoes did not arrive in Europe until after Columbus reached America in 1492.  This means that they couldn't have used them in the recipes.
 However, depending on the recipe, different cheeses like ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan are used today.
Boiling noodles used to be a requirement for making lasagna. No-boil noodles now exist. These are great as they soften in the oven, but it is absolutely necessary to make sure that there is a great quantity of sauce so the noodles get wet and cook while they are in the oven.  If any part of the noodle is not covered with the sauce, that part will turn hard. 
I had my niece over so we prepared the vegetable lasagna from the scratch.   We tried to give this famous Italian dish an Indian tarka by adding some Indian spices.  Of course homemade paneer(farmer’s cheese) or chena used in this lasagna is very Indian touch or tarka.   Everyone liked and had second helpings.  The easy part is one can prepare the paneer stuffing and marinara sauce a day in advance so that on the day of the lunch or dinner you have to just put things together and bake the lasagna.

Ingredients for making paneer:
Whole milk 2 liters, lemon juice ¼ cup, cheese cloth

Method:
Boil milk in a heavy bottom pan over medium flame.  As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice gradually and stir.  The milk will curdle.  Turn off the flame and let it cool off a little.  Take a cheese cloth or any muslin cloth.  Place it on a strainer and strain the curdled milk. Now collect the opposite links of the cheese cloth, tie them and hang on the water tap in the kitchen sink.  Before hanging them let this bundle run under fresh water for a few seconds so that lemon flavor does not stay in the cheese.  Let all the water drain.  It will take about two hours or so for all the water to drain and even then squeeze the cheeses cloth between your two palms so that all the excess water drains out.  Take out of the cheese cloth in a plate and mash it with your fingers.

Ingredients for making cheese stuffing:
Onions 1 large and one medium, green chilly(or green pepper) 1 or 2, cooking oil 1 tbsp, cumin seeds ½ tsp,  coriander powder 1 tsp, salt to taste,  mashed paneer(cheese)

Method:
Peel and chop onions and green chilly (green pepper) in small pieces.
Heat oil in a pan; add cumin seeds, chopped onions and green chilly or pepper. Saute it for a couple of minutes or till onion turn light pink.  Add salt and coriander powder to it and mix well.  Now add mashed paneer, stir it and turn off the flame.
 
Ingredients for tomato sauce:
Most people use spaghetti sauce for the lasagna but I use marinara sauce. 
Olive oil 1 ½ tbsp,  big onion 1 chopped,  garlic cloves 2 chopped,  dry basil leaves ½ tsp, oregano ¼ tsp, sugar 1 tsp, salt to taste, fresh tomatoes 6 medium size chopped, tomato ketchup ¼ cup, ¼ tsp cumin seeds, ¼ tsp coriander powder

Method:
In pan heat oil, add cumin seeds.  When they stop spluttering, add oregano, chopped garlic and onion and sauté it for 4 minutes on medium flame.  When onion turn light brown, turn off the flame.  Let it cool off.
Put this mixture in the food processor along with chopped tomatoes and puree it.
Put this mix in the same pan and cook till a boil.  Add salt, sugar, ketchup, coriander powder and basil leaves.  Let the sauce simmer for 10 -12 minutes.  You may add more sugar depending on your taste.  Turn off the heat.


 Ingredients for Lasagna:
 No boil Lasagna noodles 6 pieces, white cheddar cheese grated 1 cup, 9”X 5” loaf pan











 

Method for putting Lasagna together:
In the baking dish spread some sauce and arrange one lasagna noodle on it. Spread more sauce on the noodle, then a layer of cooked paneer (cheese) on it and sprinkle some cheddar cheese.  Now take another lasagna noodle and repeat the same process of sauce, paneer (cheese) and cheddar cheese in that order.  Keep repeating till you reach the top of the baking pan.  Pour some more sauce on the top layer and sprinkle cheddar cheese generously.
Pre heat oven to 375 degree F (210 degree C).  Bake for 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Some people prefer mozzarella and Parmesan cheese in lasagna but I prefer cheddar.  So it is purely your choice.  There is nothing wrong or right about it.  You may garnish it with black olives before serving.




Tuesday 16 April 2013

Jaggery Sandesh



The moment one thinks about Bengal, the first thought goes towards the heavenly tasting Mishti or sweets, like Rasgulla or Sandesh and many more such delicacies prepared with chena or paneer.  Today, we are going to talk about Sandesh which is prepared with jaggery or gur especially made with date palm.  The date palm jaggery has a very distinct flavor which is available in West Bengal only in winters.
The jaggery collectors put hollow pipes on the trunk of the date palm trees and they hang earthen pots connected with these pipes.   Overnight the sap gets collected in earthen pots.  Next day this sap is boiled to turn into a caramel colored jaggery.
I did not have date palm jaggery at home but had normal sugarcane jaggery so I decided to experiment with that to prepare the sandesh.  Whether it is date palm jaggery or sugarcane jaggery, one thing is for sure that jaggery sandesh need minimum cooking and that is one of the reasons they turn out to be very soft melt in mouth kind of sweet.
 
  
Ingredients:
Full cream or whole milk 2 liter, lemon juice 4 tsp, grated jaggery 5 tbsp, cherries 5 cut into small pieces

Method:
Boil milk in a heavy pan over medium flame.  As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice gradually and stir.  The milk will curdle.  Turn off the flame and let it cool off a little.  Take cheesecloth or any muslin cloth.  Place it on a strainer and strain the curdled milk. Now collect the opposite links of the cheese cloth, tie them and hang on the water tap in the kitchen sink.  Before hanging them let this bundle run under fresh water for a few seconds so that lemon flavor does not stay in the cheese.
Let all the water drain from the cheese cloth.  It takes almost an hour.  After that you may squeeze the bundle between your hands so that excess water drains out.
Take the chena out of the cloth and knead it for good 15 to 20 minutes so that there are no lumps in the chena.
Take a heavy duty non stick pan.  Put 1 ½ tbsp of water and grated jaggery in it on slow flame. Stir it well so that jaggery is evenly melted.  Now reduce the flame to the lowest and add the kneaded chena to the jaggery and mix very well.  Turn off the flame but keep stirring the chena and jaggery mix for another 5 minutes or so.  Taste the sweetness of the mix.  Jaggery sandesh is little less sweet but if you have a very sweet tooth, you may add a tsp of powdered sugar to the mix.
Transfer the mix to a plate. Take a bowl of water, wet you palms a little and take a tsp of cooked chena and jaggery mix on your palm and form a round shape of it.  Repeat the same process with the rest of the chena mix and keep placing these balls on a different plate.
Put this plate in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.  Take the plate out.  On each ball make a gentle dent with your thumb and garnish it with a piece of cherry.


Monday 8 April 2013

Carrot Salad



Carrots are loaded with fiber and a number of beneficial nutrients but some cooking methods, like boiling, frying or cooking for a long period lead to nutrient loss.  This salad needs the steaming of grated carrots for one minute; hence it prevents the nutrient loss and it makes the texture of the carrots more chewable.
One of the benefits of eating steamed carrots is the Vitamin A content.  Carrots contain beta carotene which turns into Vitamin A in our body. Vitamin A maintains the health of our immune system, skin, hair and eyes.  Steamed carrots contain potassium, the essential mineral which helps in the healthy functioning of our muscles.  Steamed carrots also help in your intake of Vitamin K.  The deficiency of Vitamin K prevents proper blood clotting thus increasing your risk of blood loss after an injury.

This is a very easy salad to make.  .It makes a good appetizer or even between the meal snacks.  Adding peanuts gives it a crunchier taste as well as nutrition.  But if you are allergic to peanuts, you may use cashews or almonds instead.

I had this salad first time at my childhood friend’s home.  She had put just lemon juice and salt.  I made a little innovation and added olive oil to give it a smooth texture and taste enhancer.


 Ingredients:

Carrots 6, roasted peanuts 1 cup, juice of ½ lemon, olive oil 1 tbsp, salt and black pepper to taste 

Method:  
Peel off and grate carrots.  Steam these grated carrots for one minute or so.
Take these out in a bowl and leave them uncovered for five minutes so that all the steam evaporates.
In the meanwhile pound the peanuts so they turn into smaller bits.
Sprinkle these on the steamed carrots and mix them well.
Put lemon juice and olive oil and mix them again.
Add salt and black pepper and toss the salad.
Enjoy this healthy salad as an appetizer or even as an evening snack.