Quick Gobi (Cauliflower) Manchurian

Of the many cuisines I have tried so far, the one cuisine that has a special place in my heart is Indian Chinese a.k.a. Chindian. The food that for many years passed off as Chinese food in India. The chowmein from the roadside seller to the exotic(!) veg Munchurian with gravy, we have all had it at some point or another and we have liked it too. The Chinese may not recognise it but us desis do and sometimes that is all that matters.

So when I picked up a cauliflower in an attempt to include more vegetables in my daily diet, the only thing that popped in my head was to make some really quick Gobi (Cauliflower) manchurian, which teamed perfectly with the winter chill. And all it took was 20 mins. Here's how it goes, lazy cooks:  

For Florets
1 medium size cauliflower, broken into medium sized florets
1/2 cup corn flour
5 tablespoons all purpose flour (maida)
1/2 teaspoon garlic paste
1/2 teaspoon ginger paste
Oil, for deep frying
Salt to taste
Approximately 1/2 cup water

For the Sauce
1½ teaspoons garlic paste
2 teaspoons ginger paste
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 small green capsicum, finely chopped
1½ tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon chilli sauce
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup or tomato sauce
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons spring onion, finely chopped (for garnishing, optional)
Salt as per taste

Method
For the florets
1. Boil the florets in salted water for 4 mins, drain water and set aside
2. In a bowl, mix all purpose flour, corn flour, ginger paste, garlic paste and salt. Add water little by little and stir to make a batter. the thickness of the batter should be similar to thickness of dosa batter. Add all florets in batter and mix well. Ensure that the batter coats the florets evenly.
3. Heat oil in pan over medium flame and deep fry the florets in small batches of 6 to 8 till they turn golden brown. Drain and transfer the deep fried florets to plate with paper napkin on it to soak excess oil.

For the sauce
1. Heat 2-tablespoons of oil in a wide, thin-bottomed pan or wok on medium flame. Add ginger paste, garlic paste, chopped green chillies, chopped capsicum and chopped onion.
2. Sauté them on high flame for 3-4 minutes to eliminate the raw flavour of ginger and garlic.
3. Add soy sauce, tomato ketchup, chilli sauce and salt. Stir continuous and cook for a minute
4. Toss in the deep fried florets and mix all ingredients (florets and the sauce) on high flame for a minute.

Voila! it's ready to be plated and served hot with a generous sprinkling of finely chopped spring onions. 

5 Easy and Yummy Mocktails for Winter

I am back from my brief hiatus from my blog and I am hoping my absence will be excused if I share 5 really special easy winter mocktail recipes to be shared with friends and family---you know, the non-drinkers who inevitably end up with regular softdrinks for the evening.    

As always the case with Lazy Girl recipes, I had some criteria for sharing these with you guys:
1. Recipes had to be super-duper crazy simple
2. No fancy ingredients
3. They have to be quick to make
4. They have to be YUMMY. :)


Read on for recipes for:
1. Hot Apple Cider
2. Virgin Sangria
3. Mulled Apple Juice
4.Cranberry-Orange Cider
5. Orange-Cranberry Spritzer
        plus
One hot BONUS RECIPE for the romantics among you :)

1. Hot Apple Cider

Ingredients

2 Lts apple juice

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon cloves

½ teaspoon allspice powder

1 lemon thinly sliced

1 orange thinly sliced

  

Method

1. combine apple juice and spices in a large pan

2. bring to boil and simmer for 10 mins

3. strain the cloves and cinnamon sticks

4. add lemon and orange

5. cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes

6. serve warm

2. Virgin Sangria

Fresh produce

1 Apples chopped fine

1 Lemons cut in slim wedges

1 Limes cut in slim wedges

1 Oranges cut in slim wedges

Ingredients

2 Liters Ginger ale

300 mL Grape juice

Method

Throw all ingredients together in a serving bowl and keep for 30 mins before serving.

3. Mulled Apple Juice 

Ingredients

1 Liter apple juice

strips of 1-2 orange peel

1 cinnamon stick (plus extra to garnish, optional)

3 cloves 

Sugar or honey as per taste

Method

1.Simmer the apple juice with the strips of orange peel, cinnamon stick and cloves for 5 mins or until all the flavours have infused. Sweeten to taste.

2.Serve each drink with a little orange peel and a piece of cinnamon stick, if you like.

4. Cranberry-Orange Cider 

Ingredients

2 cups cranberry-apple juice

1 cup orange juice

1 cinnamon stick

2 orange slices

1 Tablespoon honey

Method

1. Add the cranberry-apple juice, orange juice, cinnamon stick, and orange slices to a medium saucepan over medium high heat.

2. Bring to a boil then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Remove the cinnamon stick and orange slices and stir in the honey. 

4. Serve warm and garnish with more orange slices & cinnamon sticks if you want.

5. Cranberry-Orange Spritzer

Fresh Produce

Cranberries, Fresh (optional)

Ingredients

2 cups Cranberry juice

2 cups Orange juice

2 cups Sparkling water or ginger ale

Ice (optional)

Method

Bring all ingredients together in the serving bowl and you are done!

Here's a bonus recipe for 2 for those of you who prefer to time away from the crowd and noise and spend a romantic winter evening together. Enjoy!

BONUS RECIPE: Caramelized White Chocolate "Hot Chocolate"

Ingredients (makes approximately two 150 mL servings)

120 gms white chocolate

200 mL milk

50 mL cream

Vanilla bean, optional

Cinnamon stick, optional

Salt, to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C and put the white chocolate in a glass or ceramic baking dish. No need to chop. Toss it in the oven and roast, stirring every 10 minutes or so. The white chocolate will be lumpy and crumbly, but that’s okay. Keep going until it takes on a peanut butter-like color in approximately 30 minutes total.

2. Meanwhile, bring the milk and cream to a simmer in a small pot. If you like, toss in a vanilla bean or cinnamon stick to add another layer of flavor.

3. When the white chocolate comes out of the oven, scrape it into the hot milk-mixture and whisk until smooth. 

3. Season with a pinch of salt.

4. Pour into mugs and enjoy.

Happy winter!

Spicy Andhra Mutton Curry

Some months ago, when I made Mangalorean chicken curry for a charity event at work, I received many requests for repeats. One colleague, however, dropped a special request for spicy mutton curry. I promised her that I'd definitely make some for her one day.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and before I knew it, I was already in my final week at my current job. Now that the promise I made the other day was haunting me, I got down to making a simple but yummy Spicy Andhra Mutton Curry. 

Here's how the recipe goes:

• Mutton 500 grams

• Salt to taste 

• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp 

• Poppy seeds - 1 tsp

• Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp 

• Black peppercorns - 8

• Cumin seeds - 1 tsp 

• Cinnamon - 1 inch stick 

• Cloves - 4

• Green cardamoms - 2 

• Oil - 4 tbsp

• Curry leaves 10 

• Onions chopped - 3 medium 

• Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp 

• Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp 

• Black pepper powder - 2 tsp 

• Tomato chopped - 1 large 

• Fresh coriander leaves chopped (optional) - 2 tbsp

Method

Step 1

Pressure cook mutton pieces with two cups of water, salt and turmeric powder for six whistles. Open the lid when the pressure reduces, drain and reserve the cooking liquor. Dry roast poppy seeds, fennel seeds, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon, cloves and green cardamoms. Cool and grind to a fine powder. Heat oil in kadai (wok). Add curry leaves and onions. Sauté till the onions are brown. Add ginger-garlic paste, red chilli powder and half the black pepper powder and sauté for a minute.

Step 2

Add tomato and mutton pieces, cook on high heat till the tomato is soft. Add salt and the spice powder and simmer for five minutes. Add the reserved cooking liquor and one cup of water and bring to a boil. Simmer till all the mutton pieces get well coated with thick gravy.

Step 3

Add the remaining black pepper powder and stir well. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Paniyarama with Spicy Tomato-Onion Chutney

I may have found a good way to cook good food, watch my calories and earn good karma (and make friends) in the process. Cook and feed others.

With this recently found wisdom, I decided to share my very first set of paniyaram and super-quick tomato-onion chutney that I learnt from my mom.

The chutney is spicy and goes well with Idlis, Dosas, utthappams and, of course, paniyarams. Lets start with the recipe for chutney first, shall we?

Tomato - onion Chutney

Ingredients
   1. Tomatoes -3
   2. Onions -2
   3. Red chilli Powder - 0.5 tablespoon (I used Tikhalal; adjust spice as per taste and variety of chilli powder used. It is recommended that you keep spicy level up since tomato and lemon will balance the heat well at the end.)
   Optional: Mint or Coriander leaves - few or 1 tbsp finely chopped (I didn't use either this time)
   4. Oil - 2 tsp + 1 tbsp
   5. salt - 1/4 tsp or as per taste

   For the seasoning
   1. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
   2. Optional:  Urad dal - 1/2 tsp (I didn't use it this time since I wasn't looking for the crunch)
   3. Curry leaves - few tender ones
   4. Lemon - Juice of half lemon

Method

  1. Slice onions and tomatoes and keep aside

  2 . Heat 2 tsp of oil in a pan,add onions and saute until onions turn transparent.
  3. Add chilli powder and mix well with onions till it is well-coated with chilli powder. This should   take about 30 seconds. 

  4. Add tomatoes, mint/coriander leaves (if using), add salt and cook until tomatoes become slightly mushy.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool. Once it cools, grind to smooth paste
  6. Heat 1 tbsp of oil, add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add urad dal (if using) and curry leaves.
  7. add to the ground paste, add lemon juice and mix

Note -  The chutney can be refrigerated and used for up to 2 days.

Paniyaram

Ingredients

   1. Idli batter - 2 cups

   For the seasoning
   1. Oil -3 tsp
   2. Mustard seeds -1 tsp
   3. Urad dal -1/2 tsp
   4. Onion - 1
   5. Green chilli -1 finely chopped
   6. Ginger -1 inch piece - finely chopped
   7. Curry leaves - few tender ones
   8. Coriander leaves - few finely chopped
   9. Salt to taste

 
Method 

1. Heat 2 tsp of oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add urad dal. When dal turns golden brown, add finely chopped onions, ginger, green chilli and curry leaves.

2. Saute till onions turn pink, add needed salt and coriander leaves. Let it cool a little.

3. Now mix the above with the idly batter. Our paniyaram batter is ready!

4. Heat a paniyaram pan, add 2-3 drops of oil in each hole and pour a tbsp of batter in each hole.

5. Keep the heat on medium low and close the pan. Once the edges turn golden brown, flip over the paniyaram to the other side using a stainless steel rod or spoon.

6. Cook the other side also until golden brown. Remove from pan using a rod or spoon and serve hot with the tomato-onion chutney (or any spicy chutney and/or sambhar).

Burma Burma @ Cyberhub, Gurgaon

The day started with beautiful light drizzle in the morning and a downpour that looked lovely from the windows of my air conditioned office. It seemed like a nice day to step out for lunch and that gave me the perfect opportunity to check out the new restaurant in Cyberhub, Gurgaon, Burma Burma.

A quick research prior to my colleague and me embarking on our food quest brought a surprise...Burma Burma serves only vegetarian food. To hardcore non-vegetarians like my colleague and myself, ordering vegetarian-only meal outside is a deal-breaker...usually.

This time, however, our curiosity got the better of us and we decided that we would go with an open mind and no high expectations.

This is what we walked up to:

I had always been curious about the ambiance and I must say that I loved what they have done with the space.

Here's another view of the interiors.

It certainly made us strangely happy to see our table graced by the clear teapot.

Coming to the food, we ordered the Raw Mango Salad, which was amazing in the way the sweet and sour and tangy hit our senses. The closest thing I could relate it to was our good ol' bhelpuri but so much better! 

We also got brave and ordered the tamarind-coconut mocktail, which took a few precarious minutes to settle on our palates. However, perhaps paired with the raw mango salad, the overall tanginess was a bit much.

The next to follow was the soft steamed buns with brown onion and chilli paste, which was slightly sweet rather than hot or spicy. Nonetheless, we loved it!

The third dish we ordered was coconut rice with spicy peanut sauce. This dish, sadly, disappointed us for 2 reasons. One, the flavors were strangely bland and, second, I chomped on a tiny piece of stone. Yes, stone. I brought it to the attention of our server who promptly took away the "sample" and came back back with,"the chef says it's a piece of raw rice." I'm not sure if they thought it was a better response but I was not taking it. They offered to replace the dish but we politely declined and they didn't charge us for the barely eaten food.

PS: on our way out we noticed that nearly every table had raw mango salad. It clearly is their best seller and worth trying in the first visit for sure.

Overall, the experience was good though I might need a bit convincing to go anytime soon.

Ratings:

Ambiance: 4/5

Food: 3.5/5

Price for two: INR 1500

Galawati kebabs---Lucknow's famous kebabs in your kitchen

A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune of tasting Galawati/galouti kebabs in its city of origin, The land of the nawabs, Lucknow.

True to its reputation of being the softest kebabs imaginable, these flavorful kebabs are hard to forget once you have had them.

Every trip to Lucknow meant more Galawati kebab but then the trips were not happening frequently enough. Then I learnt how easy it was to make them and my life changed! 

Now Ino longer need to be in Lucknow to enjoy this delicacy. Here's how I made them:

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 kg minced meat  
  
  
  Grind together:
  
  100 gm grated raw papaya 
  
  Salt to taste 
  
  1 Tbsp chopped ginger 
  
  1 Tbsp chopped garlic 
  
  8 cloves 
  
  Seeds of 2 black cardamoms 
  
  2 tsp poppy seeds-roasted and dry ground 
  
  4 peppercorns 
  
  1/2 tsp pieces of cinnamon 
  
  2 Tbsp dessicated coconut-lightly roasted 
  
  2 blades of mace 
  
  5 green cardamoms 
  
  1 tsp chilli powder 
  
  1/4 tsp grated nutmeg 
  
  
  For the Kebabs:
  
  1 cup sliced onions-fried brown and crisp in 1/2 cup ghee
  
  1/4 cup finely chopped coriander leaves 
  
  1 Tbsp finely chopped green chillies 
  
  3 Tbsp roasted gram flour 
  
  1 egg 
  
  Ghee to pan fry the kebabs
  
  Lemon juice to sprinkle over the kebabs

METHOD

• Marinate the minced meat in the ground ingredients for 4-5 hours.

  
  

  
  
  
  Mix together the coriander leaves, green chillies, fried onions, gram flour and egg. 
  
  Add to the meat and work at it for some time, almost kneading it like a dough. 
• Shape mixture into round patties of desired size, and refrigerate for half an hour or so. 
• 
  
  
  
  
  Heat the ghee in a heavy-based frying pan or griddle. 
  
  Fry the kebabs, browning first one side and then the other, over medium heat.
•  
  
  
  
  Arrange them on a serving dish, sprinkle lemon juice and serve.
  
  

Yum Yum Cha @ Cyberhub, Gurgaon

I have the good fortune of working in a location where there are some top-notch restaurants just few feet away. It is but natural that a lot of the official lunches, dinners and dates happen in this amazing hub of eateries. and after having tried and tested almost all of them in my last 2 years in my current location, I was waiting for a long time for a new restaurant (worth my time and interest) to open up...and my prayers were answered recently.

A couple of months ago, I saw a banner announcing that Yum Yum Cha was opening up at that location soon. I was super excited, to say the least. I had been waiting FOREVER to try their much publicized dumplings and sushi.

Once the restaurant opened, so did the stories about the loooong wait to get a table. I was able to beat the lunch crowd by reaching at Yum Yum Cha for lunch at 12:30 pm. Perfect timing.

The restaurant is clearly a small but the decor and good lighting (natural and artificial) makes the place bright and spacious. Not to mention their bright origami (metal) decorative items that I absolutely adored.

And the Menu has good range of items and nice pretty pictures of what we could expect and their description. For a visual person like me, and those who were not very familiar with more authentic Japanese and Chinese flavors, this is a very safe place to start. 

My friends and I immediately got down to business. We ordered their Crystal Duck dumpling (Peking duck, hoisin, cherries), Rainbow Vegetable sushi (I know. I cringed too at the thought of vegetarian Sushi but it was for the vegetarian friend who had never tried sushi) and Red Thai curry and rice.


I had some concerns about the dumpling, I mean cherries and duck as a combination didn't exact conjure the best images but once I look a bite of it, I was stunned by how much I loved it! The balance between the salty pieces of duck and the sweet ripe cherries merged beautifully. Each bite was flavorful and the sweet-salty juices burst through the thin dumpling skin. Look at those beautiful dumplings below:

Moving on to the vegetarian sushi, quite frankly, I have had better and I have had it at Yum Yum Tree. I think  the joy for me was a little less since it was vegetarian sushi and there is limited magic that wasabi can do here. Nonetheless,  the sushi novice was thrilled by how wonderful it was. I will be going back for more sushi (non-veg, this time) to make up my mind about it.

The Red Thai curry was one of the best I have had in India. The spices were balanced just right with the coconut milk such that the spices didn't overpower the dish and neither did the coconut milk hijack the same.

One thing we did not anticipate was the good helpings. the 3 of us found ourselves feeling full but we just HAD to have something sweet at the end of a very satisfying meal and hence we ignored our newly acquired muffin tops and daringly ordered a New York Cheesecake.

I think I fell in love when I saw the Cheesecake accompanied by some sweet mango pulp. Once I had a bite of it, I was ready to write an Ode. No kidding! The smooth slightly sweet cheesecake and the rich mango pulp had me dreaming about it for days afterwards.

What tried the entire experience together was the very friendly bill that we received for a very filling and satisfying meal.

My ratings:
Price for 2 : INR 1500
Ambiance: 4.5/5
Food: 4.5/5