Month: January 2015

My comfort food – Cauliflower and White Peas Veggies

As much as I love non-veg, I love my Maharashtrian veg food. My mumma makes these two awesome simple delicacies which take minimal effort and time. These are cooked without onion and garlic and serve as excellent veggies to make on days you fast and need to break the fast with foods without onions and garlic.

Cauliflower Veggie

Ingredients
500 gms of cauliflower chopped into small buds
Turmeric – 1 tsp
Kala masala – 2/3 tbsp depending on how spicy you want. If you don’t have this famous Maharashtrian spice powder substitute it with a mix of red chilly powder and Garam masala in 2:1 proportion.
Salt to taste
Sugar – 1/2 tsp
Coriander and fresh grated coconut to garnish
Oil – 1-2 tbsp

Method
Marinate the chopped cauliflower with salt, sugar, turmeric and kala masala.
Set it aside for 15-20 minutes.
Heat oil in a wok/kadai and add the cauliflower once oil has heated well. This dish tastes better with a little bit extra oil.
Set the gas on medium flame and place a lid (preferably a big steel plate) with water on the lid.
Keep checking after 5-7 minutes, stir to avoid it from sticking to the pot and reduce the flame.
The vegetable should be well cooked in about 20-25 minutes.
Garnish with fine chopped coriander and a dash of freshly grated coconut .

Best had with varan-bhaat (traditional marathi daal and rice).

White Peas in Green Masala

Ingredients

White peas – 1 cup soaked overnight or minimum 8 hours
Green paste – 14-15 coriander sticks with 2-3 green chillies ground to a fine paste in the mixer.
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Asafoetida – 1/2tsp
Turmeric – 1tsp
Freshly grated coconut – 1 cup
Oil – 1-2 tbsp
Curry leaves – 6-8 pieces
Tamarind and Jaggery pulp: 1tbsp tamarind & equal quantity of jaggery, mix and soak it in water in a small cup.

Method
Ideally cook this dish directly in pressure pan or cooker (small size of 1.5-2 ltr). Heat oil in the pressure pan. For seasoning add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafoetida, turmeric , green chilly paste and curry leaves. Add salt and sauté the mixture, add the White peas , add warm water and bring it to boil in the cooker. If you have a normal gas 2-3 whistles suffice but if you are stuck with hot plate like I’m currently with, try atleast 5-6 whistles. Taking too many whistles may result in melting the peas completely ruining the taste entirely.
Let the mixture simmer down and once the vapours have died down, open the pressure cooker.
Now add the tamarind and jaggery pulp and then the freshly grated coconut . Bring to boil to your desired thickness for the next 4-5 minutes.

Serve with hot chapattis ( wheat bread )

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Lemon and Butter Garlic Prawns

Mahesh Lunch Home is the super famous seafood restaurant from Mumbai based in Fort Area and last year opened a branch in Dubai. We moved from Dubai but managed to visit it a couple of times. MDH loves their speciality Crab in Lemon & Butter Garlic sauce while I crave the Prawns with the same mix.

I have been craving this dish for long now and decided to go ahead and use my decent cooking knowledge and try this dish out at home. It wasn’t as picture perfect as the one served in the restaurant but I kid you not it was quite close in taste 🙂

Ingredients
Mid-sized Prawns : 15-20
Garlic cloves medium-sized: 10-12
Crushed Black Pepper : 1 tsp
Lemon : 1 tablespoons
Butter : 2-3 tablespoons
Green Chillies : 3-4 fine chopped
Olive Oil: 1tsp
Salt to taste,
Spring Onion Greens to garnish

Method
Fine chop half the garlic cloves and crush the remaining with a garlic crusher. Heat the butter in a pan, as it starts frothing add olive oil and then add the garlic. Sauté it till they turn slightly light brown, add the fine chopped green chillies , and salt and continue to sauté. After 5 minutes, add the prawns and mix well. Then add crushed pepper, at this point if you feel the butter is drying up you can add some more. Then add lemon juice and stir the mixture till you get your desired thickness. Sprinkle the spring onion greens on top and serve.

The taste is amazing , try it and let me know how it turns out. The dish takes only 15-20 minutes of your time.

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What a year 2014 has been!

I struggle to describe how this year has been – completely mixed bag of feelings; but change was never going to be easy and we both knew it when we took the plunge. Loads of great memories made – amazing time spent with cousins, old friends and made new friends on the way! Still getting adjusted to the work culture , different ways of working and getting to know the colleagues! Changes, changes, too many of them, especially at work! But hanging in there, sometimes loving it and sometimes hating it 🙂

Realised that the same place to a tourist and to a resident is probably equivalent to Dr.Jekyl & Hyde.

Loved and hated my train travels – read more books this year during my daily commute than I did during any year in Dubai – this place makes you fall in love with reading! Learnt the art of balancing the book or the kindle in one hand and embracing the eerie silence in a crowded tube. Also developed a new found respect and love for my Mumbai’s local trains. My wish list for 2015 is to have one day of tube travel sans the signal failures, trespassers on tracks and fire alerts!

Experienced 4 distinct seasons for the first time in my life – I would not trade anything in this world for London’s beautiful summer and spring! Did our best we could to travel around whilst we were settling into a new place – Manchester, Nottingham, Cardiff, Cotswold ,Burton on Water and Southampton! How much we had missed the clear blue skies and greenery during our time in Dubai – it is so soothing to drive on these roads and travel by train; I cannot even describe the blissful feeling.

4 stadiums visited – few local grounds and parks visited! What a place to watch cricket – all the stadiums need is my loud, non-stop , enthusiastic , exuberant Mumbai crowd to liven up the atmosphere. Tickets cost a bomb but the cricket viewing experience is just surreal – I wanted to chronicle it but I really struggled to blog and put up my thoughts owing to busy days at work & DIY household tasks!

Our neighbours here! Oh we are so blessed on that aspect – our first neighbours in Dubai are now more dearer than our family and here we have pseudo parents! Our downstairs neighbours are the most adorable British couple I have met and they pamper us with love and food and thanks to my lovely 90year old neighbour I got to attend her lovely fun-filled English tea party on her 90th birthday we celebrated on our community lawns!

Missed Dubai loads – my friends and the food! I’m still not sold on the fact that London has great food – Dubai is still miles ahead in terms of quality, variety and value for money! London is also too huge and most eating spots are concentrated in central London ; missed our Dubai weekend routine of hopping into our car and getting away for a nice brunch, breakfast or exploring new eating places from your local cafeteria to 5stars! We hope to change that this year 🙂

Urrggghhh I hate how this place is expensive for nothing – movies and eating out – 2 things we absolutely love and were our weekly to-dos for last 5 years in Dubai. Here we watched 3 movies at a theatre last year – one is lack of time and two paying double the price we paid in Dubai! Yes, yes I will stop cribbing now !

Never thought I would hate the rains – London ensured I did! Does not even pour – just keeps drizzling and irritates the hell out of you! Wanted to whack the rain gods and tell them just pour your hearts out for once and leave!

My lovely 4 year old niece kept us occupied throughout this year – she makes me laugh, her vocabulary at this age amazes me, I love her Brit accent and clear diction , we love to fight and we love to make up and the best part is she tries out all my dresses & shoes because wants to dress up just like her Mavshi! She is the apple of our eyes and she knows it! Her best friend is her uncle and when he is not with me she gets upset, because no one plays with her as well as her uncle does and the rest of us are of no use to keep her entertained! I love the drama queen she is – but she is growing up too fast and I’m beginning to miss my little munchkin!

Managed a long visit to Mumbai and quick trip to Dubai – realised now I have two ‘maykas’ (mom’s house)! My Dubai friends and colleagues pampered me crazy when I was there and realised how much I missed not having them with me here, but I also felt nice that they missed me equally! I did miss not being able to visit Mumbai thrice a year – hope to make it atleast twice a year!

As a general observation of London – I love the fact that strangers smile at you randomly, don’t hesitate to start a small talk , come out to help you when you need it and are mostly polite! Finally getting a hang of the British humour and sarcasm – easier blending in if you are sarcastic 😉

I’m more busy at work and home and get very little time to be online or blog but like every year I will make the promise to do the best I can here on this space!

So 2015 is here and hoping it is a great one for everyone – London though has the tough task on hand of getting me to love her 😉 Staying here is not easy, I keep cribbing but you already knew that is what she says to me!

P.S: Got Sachin’s autobiography signed from the man himself – how could I not mention this!

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