Round-up for POTATO : Part 2

Breakfast / Brunch


She made these at home for the first time. All worth the effort, I am sure. :-)







It is less of a dish and more of an achievement.


Curries


Apparently, a regular feature at her mother's home in the hot summer months.




Now, what do you like more? The preparation or the pan or the photograph? :-)




Visit her post not just for the recipe but also for a few quotes and anecdotes.





You have seen recipes by mothers and mothers-in-law, but how many have you seen by fathers-in-law? Not many? Well, here's one.





For those who thought that potatoes are more for celebrations: Think again! Potatoes also belong to the plate when you are recuperating. Especially when the taste-buds need to be brought back to life...



This one will be great if paired with Jowar Rotis, I feel. A humble, healthy yet hearty meal that'd be.




Main Dishes




That's curry and rice in one!



Salads / Side dishes


Did you know of a variey called Nicola Potatoes? And that they are waxy? Well, now you do! :-)





Potato Salad with Red Bell Peppers...hmmmm....Interesting!







The stuffing is potato!





The recipe is explained only in three steps. Too easy to be true? :-)




Soups


A combination of diverse ingredients.




Snacks / Starters


A traditional Maharashtrian fasting-snack. Of course, you don't necessarily have to be fasting to enjoy this one!




Deliciously pretty!







Apparently, potatoes have never been a favourite in her home. There are exceptions to every rule!




Mmmm....aromatic....mmmm.....




Desserts !


How do we decide who is versatile? The dish or its creator?





A good-looking dessert. And rather guilt-free too!

Round-up for POTATO : Part 1

My Hotmail inbox has never ever seen so many new mails coming in within such a short span of time. Nearly 20 new mails every day?! Hosting JFI does make you feel important, Beybeh! :-)

And it also makes you get tense! How am I gonna visit so many blogs? And how am I gonna read through so many posts? What happens to all those fancy ideas that I had for the round-up? Too many questions, and nearly no answers. What do I do then? Well, I do what I do best in such situations. Cannot decide on something? Procrastinate! I know, it's a lousy idea, but I often tend to do that, when I can't handle something. Which should explain the 10-day-long wait till the round-up, I guess.

Anyway, let me just stop this blabber and open up the gallery of Potato dishes. And hey, do not forget to bookmark this page coz when you run out of all veggies, you always still have potatoes...and whenever you run out of potato recipes, this is where you'll find something. :-)

By the way, I am publishing the round-up in parts because handling a post three times this big is not really easy. So, here's the first part.

* Please move the cursor over the picture to see the name of the dish and its creator. Click on it to get to the post.

Breakfast / Brunch



This new blogger on the block gives us two fantastic recipes which can be made with leftover Potato Bhaji. Scroll down for the other one...





A great looking breakfast dish. And guess what, the post gives you Nutrition Info too!

Aren't they pretty? And hey, these two-in-one Idlis are very practical too.






Hope the house did not get as messy after cooking these as it used to become when she was small. ;-)

Tasty. Can-be-made-healthy. Exotic. What more do we want?





Curries



You can try this once you are tired of making of Dum Aloo the Kashmiri and the Benarasi and the Hyderabadi and the Chettinad way. Don't believe me? Check out the post!



She calls it just one of the many versions possible. I think it is more than just that...

A classic!

Just one of the hundred superb things that she manages to cook every day...

Yet another classic! This time around it's from a Bengali kitchen.

One look at the photograph and you know that this curry is rich...and spicy. And what's the surprise? Mustard seeds in the paste!






Be ready to be pulled aside for the recipe of this one, if you are making it for a big crowd!

If this is not different, what is?

Kanchana says that this is the yummiest potato curry ever. And that you can make Potato Curry Sandwiches with it. You can make what? Yeah, exactly.




You too don't mind gobbling it up with hot 'Puris' without counting them, do you?






Apparently, you could serve it with Coconut Pulav. Oooooh, sinful!

Main dishes


And who said making Gnocchi at home was tedious?






Interesting combination, eh?





Salads / Side dishes

A cool recipe that is definitely a keeper for hot summers.

A recipe passed down by a grandmother has different charm, right?

Easy to put together. Yet great to taste, I am sure. (Btw, that rhymes!)





Check out the post in case you want to know more about the Hakka Chinese cuisine in India!





I am sure they are a crowd-pleaser at any party. Baby potatoes always are, aren't they?

Snacks



Perfect for my carry-to-work lunch, I feel.





Another classic!






Potatoes need not always be fattening, right?








Dumela brings these Cutlets to us despite an emergency surgery. That's the spirit!

Yummmmy!!!!

Don't you wish somebody offered you Patties with a steming cup of tea after a hard day's work? :-)

This entry is one of her very first posts. Actually, she started her blog because she wanted to participate in this event. Sweet, isn't it?

Still working...

Hi Guys!

I know I wanted to do the roundup for JFI Potato around the 8th of this month, but actually the entries were still coming in on the 8th. Ok, that really is no excuse for the delay.

Well, the thing is that it has been pretty mad at home as well as at work. To add to the misery, my domestic help has gone on holiday for ten days. :-( Yeah, yeah, I know that some of you will envy me for having domestic help in the first place.

Anyway, I just wanted to keep you posted that I am still working on the entries, and that hopefully the round-up will be done before it's time for the next one. :-)

In the meanwhile, you may want to decide on what you want to make for JFI Tomato hosted by the lovely RP of My Workshop. I know what I am gonna make. ;-)

Indian Winter # 3 : Tender Toor Sukke with Baby Potatoes

The Sukke was fresh and fragrant, when I clicked this snap.
The snap is not exactly fresh, though. :-(

I have not been blogging, I know. And no, it's not the New Boss. Actually, it's the old husband, who was so busy at the beginning of this month that he had no time for the house or the dauthter or the me. Since the me had to look after the earlier two, there was no time left for anything else. Including the blog.

So, what did I do? I just packed off the old husband to a faraway country, to the land of 'Sahib'. I wouldn't let anything or ANYBODY come between my blog and me, you see. (For fellow Hindi film buffs: Duniya ki koi taaqat mere blog ko mere se judaa nahin kar saktee...nahin...)

My agony was not to end here, though. The next hurdle showed up when I actually managed to switch on my PC at home. Although all else was fine, I could not log in to Blogger. I could see all blogs, including mine, but logging on to Blogger? Nah...that wasn't happening.

So, what did I do? Well, I fooled Blogger. I as in Vaishali, the Smarty Pie (oooh, I like that) somehow managed to log in through my old Blogger account. When I tried to go to my posts, it reminded me that I had switched to the 'new' Blogger, (it was YOU who was suffering of amnesia, Blogger, not me!) and asked to to log in to my new account. And it worked. Yipee!

Now, there I am. With my recipe and my pictures. It's not really winter here in Pune any longer. (Although you Guys out there reach out for that extra sheet early in the morning!) But hey, the winter veggies are still available. Also, there's gonna be a winter next year too. So, why not stock up on recipes before the next winter hits us? There...I got you convinced...I can see that. :-)

Anti-clockwise from top: whole Toor beans, shelled green/tender Toor, the 'everyday' Toor dal

Before I move on to the recipe, a little about 'tender Toor'. These are fresh pigeon peas. Once dried and split, they become 'Toor dal' or 'split pigeon peas'. As you can see in the picture above.

And now the

Recipe for Tender Toor Sukke with Baby Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 heaped cup shelled tender Toor ( ½ kg. of the beans should yield that much)
12 Baby potatoes
¼ cup chopped onion
salt to taste

For the paste:
3 dried red chillis
1 tsp Urad dal
a lime-sized ball of tamarind, soaked in water
1 cup grated fresh coconut

1 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 sprig of curry leaves

Shelled tender Toor (left behind) and boiled & skinned Baby Potatoes (front)

Method:

1. Rinse the shelled tender Toor once and put them into a wide vessel that fits into your pressure cooker. Pour water over the Toor until just covered.
2. You could add washed Baby potatoes to the same vessel or you could arrange them on the lid that covers the vessel in the pressure cooker.
Any which way, please make sure that the Toor as well as the potatoes are cooked thoroughly. :-)
3. Roast the dried red chillis in a couple of drops of oil until they turn two shades darker. Then take them out.
4. Roast the Urad dal in the same vessel without adding any oil till it turns golden and aromatic.
5. Sqeeze all the water out of the soaked tamarind, and discard the residue. In case you do not want to have any impurities, pass the tamarind water through a strainer once.
6. Grind the roasted red chillis, roasted Urad dal and grated coconut with the tamarind water until you get a smooth paste.
7. Take the ground paste as well as the cooked Toor and boiled potatoes into a heavy-bottomed vessel. Add the chopped onion and salt to it.
8. Cook this mixture on high heat. Add more water, if necessary. However, please keep in mind that this is a rather dry dish; it's not expected to have a lot of gravy.
9. Once the dish appears to have come together, turn the heat off.
10. Heat the oil in a Tadka ladle. Add mustard seeds, and let them splutter. Then add the curry leaves, and take the ladle off heat.
11. Add this Tadka to the Toor+potatoes mixture. Cover it immediately with a lid so that all flavours blend well.

Serve warm with Rotis / Phulkas or with rice & dal.
By the way, this Konkani dish can be prepared using any pulse instead of the tender Toor. You could use fresh green peas too. I assure you that it will taste equally stunning. :-)

Jihva for POTATO

Call it ‘Kartoffel’. Or ‘pomme de terre’. Or ‘batata’. Or even ‘Aaloo’. Call it just anything. What you get at the end of the day is ‘POTATO’, the chubby tuber that almost all of us love…and probably hate too. :)

We love it, because it is so very adaptable. Add it to anything, and it takes on the flavour of that dish. No interference, only dedication. :)

But then, why do we hate it? Well, because it is infamous since preparations with this vegetable are usually fat-laden. Be it potato chips…be it crisps/wafers…be it Batata Wada. But hey, that’s not potato’s fault! It is always upto us as to how healthy or unhealthy we want to make a vegetable, right?

So, let’s get together and give POTATO, the world's most widely grown tuber crop the credit that it deserves. Use any type, size or form of potato. Use it fresh, tinned, uncooked, boiled, diced, mashed or even dried and powdered. Use it in an Italian dish or in a spicy Indian curry. Use it in a snack or in a breakfast dish. Use it as a surprise addition to a homely dish or in a gourmet preparation.

Flip through those recipe books. Sift through those newspaper cuttings. Use your imagination. You have unlimited choices with the POTATO.

What you need to keep in mind is

- Cook anything with Potato(es), and publish your post preferably on the 1st of March as your entry for Jihva for Ingredients.
(But folks, let’s not use ‘sweet potatoes’. They are a versatile ingredient, and they deserve to be a theme on their own.)

- Send me an email at vaishalikamath@hotmail.com with the permalink to your post and a photo of the dish in 75×75 pixel size.

- Include the name of your dish as well as of your blog in the mail.

- Come around to my blog around the 8th of March to check out the round-up.

! Non-bloggers: Please send me the photo of your dish along with the write-up . I’ll publish it here, and also include it in the round-up.

So, come on, Guys. Put on that apron, set the camera ready, and open the bag of POTATOES…

Tags: JFI; Jihva for Ingredients

Indian Winter # 2 : Ladoos with Green Peas and fresh Green Chick Peas

Vegetarian Ladoos with a 'non-veg' garnishing?

Before I start, let me make a special mention of HareKrishnaji, because
a) he is the only one who guessed 'Green chick peas' (Harbhare in Marathi) as one of the ingredients in these Ladoos right
b) he is a loyal reader of this blog (by 'loyal', I mean somebody who praises you)
c) he blogs from Pune too (the other place being Mumbai).
Thanks, HKji, for being there, and for leaving your comments regularly. I appreciate it.

A special note to the other loyal readers (the number was 5 at the last count, wasn't it?): I appreciate you Guys too. ;-)

Since I am in the mood to appreciate, let me also mention Vidya, who brought it to my notice, that silver leaf, the stuff that I have used to garnish these Ladoos is made in such a way that it is not suitable for vegetarians. Vidya was kind enough to also provide a link which leads to several other ones that prove this fact. What makes me sad, though, is that the Mithai vendors in India, who are well aware of its production process, continue selling sweets covered with silver leaf, inspite of knowing that a large portion of their clientele consists of vegetarians. Whatever happened to social resposiblity?

Anyway, let me just move on with today's recipe now; the post has had to wait pretty long. Ah, that reminds me: Guys, I have a new job now. So, if my posts become erratic and/or infrequent, blame it on my new Boss! :)

Left to right: Green peas, Khoya/Mawa, fresh Green chick peas

Recipe for Ladoos with Green Peas and Green Chick Peas
(adapted from a recipe shown on E-TV Marathi)

Makes 12-15 small Ladoos.

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh green peas
1 cup fresh green chick peas (Hara Chana in Hindi)
200 g. Khoya/Mawa
½ cup sugar (The quantity depends also upon the sweetness of both kinds of peas.)
3 tbsp Ghee
powder from 5 cardamoms

For garnishing: 12-15 cashewnut halves (I have used silver leaf, but I don't advocate its use any longer.)

Method:

1. Mix both peas in a blender and make fine, smooth paste without adding water.
2. Heat the Ghee in a heavy-bottomed or non-stick pan, and fry the paste in it for about 10 minutes.
3. Add the Khoya and sugar and cook again for a while. Do not cover the pan at any point.

Two-peas paste and Khoya being cooked

4. The mixture is done when it starts moving as one mass when you stir it. Take it off the heat, add the cardamom powder, stir once and let cool.
5. Once the mixture is cool, make pingpong sized Ladoos out of it. If using cashewnuts for garnishing, press one half on every Ladoo.

Serve these Ladoos, and ask your guests/family members to guess the ingredients. And please don't think that they can guess it more easily because they can taste the Ladoos. Nope. None of my family members could guess the ingredients right...not even after consuming two Ladoos.
HEY...hang on a second...did they really need two of them to guess or was that a pretext? Hmmm... that's got me thinking, Guys.

Anyway, enjoy these green beauties, and make sure you finish them soon. They don't really taste great after 3 days. Also, please don't forget to store them in the refrigerator, if you are in a warm place.

In the meanwhile, I hope you had a happy Makarsakranti/ Lohri/ Pongal. I did. :)

Guessing games might be 'out', but...

So...it's time to give out the answers. And they are (tadaa!)

Green peas (Matar in Hindi / Marathi)
Green chick peas (Hara Chana in Hindi / Harbhare in Marathi)
Khoya / Mawa (both words Hindi)
Sugar
Cardamom powder

I'll try to put up the recipe this weekend. As for now, it's a little past midnight and I am yawning more than I am breathing. Good night, Fellas...

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Outdated...passé...obsolete...yeah, guessing games might be all of that...but a unique preparation like this one calls for a guessing game. It deserves one, actually. You'll agree when I give out the answers. Until then...keep guessing! :)

The colour of the Ladoos comes from the ingredients. No added colour here.