Layered Mexican Dip

I had prepared this dip for a Super Bowl Party. Imagine how long its been! My blogger self made sure someone takes pictures of this dip that was most certainly blog-worthy (its a different thing that these hurried pics at the party didn't come out that great!) When I read about A.W.E.D Mexico hosted at DK's Culinary Bazaar I figured this would be a good time to brush the dust off these pics! A.W.E.D is a celebration of World Cuisines and I feel it is a great way for us to try a variety of food and get to know kitchens throughout the world better! :)

I got the idea from Nupur's 3 layered Nacho dip. I made some changes here and there, added some layers and here it is. The problem is that it's been so long since I made this that I am totally lost on the measurements, thankfully this dip is pretty forgiving, measurements don't matter all that much and you can add/remove ingredients as it works for you :)

I made mine for about 12-15 people (there were other appetizers too) and everyone did enjoy it. I will list the ingredients and method layer by layer or the list will look way longer than it should :)

Layer 1 - Handful of chopped onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic, 2 Tbsp tomato ketchup, 1 tsp butter, 1 tsp cumin powder, salt to taste and 2 cups of cooked red kidney beans. Heat butter, saute onions and garlic, add salt and cumin powder. Saute for a minute, add ketchup and beans (I used canned - removed the liquid and washed the beans)and mix well. Cook till the beans are slightly mushy. I just used my pressure cooker and cooked to 1 whistle. Make sure most of the liquid is dried out. If in a time crunch, you can skip the cooking with onion garlic part. Simply mixing up beans, salt, cumin, red chile powder and ketchup works very well too.

Layer 2 - Mix very finely chopped bell-peppers (all the colors work out well, a mix looks really pretty), onions, tomatoes, cilantro and jalapenos. Add a dash of lemon juice and salt to taste and set aside.

Layer 3 - Heat 1 tsp butter in a non-stick pan, add chopped jalapenos and a cup of frozen corn (washed - its ok if it is not thawed), toss till the corn begins to turn golden. Add a dash of salt.

Layer 4 - Here is the most fun layer. Grind a handful of cilantro and jalapeno with a little salt, cumin powder and a dash of lemon juice to a paste. Fold this in sour creme (light sour creme works just fine) and mix well. Add a tsp or two of milk if the sour creme mix doesn't feel very 'spreadable'.

Layer 5 - Shredded Mexican cheese mix (or any cheese of your choice - cheddar and jack work well), chopped spring onions.

Assembling-
1. Make sure the beans mix is dry and cool, spread it in a glass bowl. Lightly sprinkle some shredded cheese.
2. Remove the juices released from the veggie mix and spread on top of the beans mix. I didn't have the heart to do that, but if you let the juices remain, the dip tends to get very watery.
3. Spread the corn-jalapeno mix. Add a few dashes of Tabasco/Chalula or any Mexican hot sauce all over the layer. It seeps into the bottom layers too.
4. Spread the flavored sour creme.
5. Finally, sprinkle shredded cheese and spring onions.
6. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours for the flavors to blend.



Serve with Tortilla chips! You can add more layers - this dip leaves a lot up to your imagination. A layer of guacamole should be great! Thanks Nupur for the lovely idea! :)



So this Mexican dip is off to Culinary Bazaar for DK's "A Worldly Epicurean’s Delight – In short A.W.E.D." event! Thank you for hosting DK, this is a great concept!

Some other Mexican recipes on my blog - Veggie Quesedillas with guacamole and fresh salsa and Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

Parsi Dhansaak

JFI which stands for Jihva For Ingredients celebrates an ingredient every month, it is the brainchild of very talented and thoughtful Indira of Mahanandi. This time around it is being hosted by sweet and generous Linda of Out of The Garden. Every time I look at her passionately cooked Indian food I have to remind myself that this energetic lady is not an Indian! Linda chose Toor daal as the theme for JFI - December.

Toor daal is the backbone of Indian food. It is an omnipresent feature of Indian main course. This is how toor daal is normally made in Indian homes:
1. The basic cooking of this lentil requires cooking it with water and salt (and turmeric many times) till 'done'. The definition of 'done' varies. Some people like their daal to be so mushy that you can't distinguish the grain where as some people prefer it to be firmer. For the large part I think the former is more common.
2. The consistency of the daal varies again! Some people cook it to be very thick whereas in some homes its more diluted and thin.
3. The seasoning - I think daal in every home tastes different thanks to the variation in texture, consistency and mostly the tempering. Tempering/tadka/vaghar is normally prepared with hot ghee/oil, mustard/cumin seeds and asafoetida (basic ingredients), then there is no end to what you can do - use fenugreek (methi seeds), cloves, cinnamon, dry red chillies. Different combinations of fresh ingredients like - tomatoes, tamarind, lemon, green chillies, cilantro, curry leaves, ginger, garlic are quite common. Many versions of toor daal have a hint of sweetness by means of sugar or jaggery. Gujarati daal also contains cooked peanuts, which adds a wonderful flavor and fullness to the normally thin daal.

Toor daal is cooked in combination with a variety of vegetables which adds up to some great nutritive properties and makes some fantastic dishes!
1. Sambhar (that Linda *loves*) is Southern India's delightful gift to the rest of the country! It is made with a special spice mix made with common Indian spices like cumin, coriander, fenugreek etc, fresh vegetables and coconut (sometimes).
2. Daal-palak (Spinach and toor daal) is another lovely combination cooked in a thousand different ways. Silken toor daal works very well with all green leafy vegetables like fenugreek, amaranth to name a couple.
3. Dhansaak (Dhan = Daal + Saak = Vegetables)is a Parsi delicacy made with a variety of daals, vegetables and meat. It can easily be adapted into a vegetarian version. Read more about Parsi cuisine here.

I make toor daal in various ways and just love Sambhar. But I wanted to cook something different for this event and Parsi dhansaak seemed like a good choice!

I used a recipe our sweet friend N sent me and tweaked it to suit our taste and the ingredients I had on hand. If I still remember correctly her recipe was inspired by Tarla Dalal's.

Serves 4 easily
Ingredients
1/2 cup toor (arhar) dal (split pigeon peas)
1 tbsp yellow moong dal (split yellow gram)
1 tbsp masoor dal (split red lentils)
1 tbsp urad dal (split black lentils)
1-2 cups butternut squash chopped
1 tbsp fenugreek (methi) leaves, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp tamarind paste (mine is quite concentrated, if making your own increase quantity to 2 tsp)
2 tsp oil
salt to taste

To be ground into a paste
1 green chilli
3 whole red chillies
2 large cloves garlic
1 stick cinnamon
4 cloves
A small piece of ginger
1 green cardamom
1 tsp coriander seeds
4 peppercorns
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
Handful of chopped coriander

Method
1. Clean and wash the dals.
2. Combine the dals and butternut squash with 3 cups of water and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. Keep aside.
3. Heat the oil in a pan, add chopped onions and sauté till translucent. Add chopped methi and tomatoes and sauté for 2 mins.
4. Add the prepared paste and sauté for 2 minutes.
5. Add the dal and vegetables, tamarind paste and salt and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
6. Sprinkle a pinch of cardamom powder (the original recipe called for cinnamon, clove and cardamom powder).
7. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with hot rice.

Dhansaak is traditionally served with brown rice. I did not have time to make it but I can imagine the combination would be wonderful. A delightful kachumbar (salad) made with finely chopped onions, tomatoes, carrots, coriander and seasoned with lime juice, red chilli powder, salt and roasted cumin powder is served as an accompaniment to dhansaak and brown rice.



I think dhansaak is supposed to be made with more vegetables - the original recipe called for potatoes, eggplants, pumpkin and bottle gourd. I just increased the amount of butternut squash. Zucchini, carrots would work well too. Spinach should be a great addition!

Also, according to the recipe - the cooked daal + vegetables were supposed to be pureed, I just couldn't get myself to do that! I'd rather overcook my daal and veggies to a mush :D

Dhansaak was bursting with flavors. Tasted better the next day! I loved it with roti too. We found the taste of garlic a little overbearing, but that is just because we don't like it much. All in all a very healthy, balanced dish with some amazing combination of flavors!

Eggless Date and Nut Cake

I always thought of dates as those yucky, sticky things young children were forced to eat in winter. I loved their dried version (known as chuara in Hindi) and my mom had to warn me against eating too many! I must've been weird! Somehow, packaged dates available in the US don't have that stickyness and I have learnt to love them :)

I would have loved to make a date relish I used to love. Its pretty simple - slice dates, add lime juice, rock salt and black pepper, shake shake, put the container out in the sun for a day. This relish is so yummy my mouth is watering as I write about it! I did not have rock salt on hand or this was definitely going to go to AFAM- Dates!

I am no baker - cook I can, bake I can't! Still I decided to make a date cake for AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates from very talented Shilpa's Aayi's Recipes. Her recipe looked easy and quite doable. I had tried an eggless moist chocolate cake using her recipe, the cake had come out very good but I could smell baking soda in it, which kind of messed up the taste totally. This time instead of using the same baking soda I used 'khane ka soda/saajji na phool' that my mom-in-law brought me from India. I think they are one and the same but somehow the one I had used before was just not right!

You can check out the recipe here. I also added a handful of raisins and lots of chopped walnuts to the batter. I reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup and still the cake was a tad sweeter than I would have liked. The dates I used were too sweet.

I am very impatient when it comes to cooking, when it comes to baking add anxiety to my impatience! I am almost in a 'praying' state as long as there is stuff inside the oven! More so when that 'stuff' is supposed to rise up to perfection and taste light, fluffy and moist!

I am glad to say in spite of my 'suck' level at baking the cake came out very good! It tasted great warm as well as cold. Next time I might add some cocoa powder to make a chocolate-date cake. Its a great tea-time cake and could work as a lovely dessert with ice-cream. Vanilla should be great with it (we had coconut-pineapple on hand :) ).



This Eggless Date and Nut cake is my entry to AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates hosted by Chandrika of Akshayapatra.

Okra Gojju with Curd rice

I was blessed with two kannadiga room-mates for a while, thats when I understood the subtleties of varieties of rasam and those flavor-explosions called gojjus. So when I read about RCI karnataka, the first thing that came to my mind was gojju!

As students in Texas, we did not get a chance to visit Indian grocery stores very often and thus typical Indian vegetables did not make it to the table much. This one time when we brought some fresh okra, my sweet room-mate Roopa decided to make some bendekay gojju out of it. I loved it! It was a totally new flavor for me and a taste that I would remember forever :) So, when I decided to make okra gojju for Asha's RCI karnataka, I turned to Roopa once again. And she did send me a detailed recipe. Roopa asked me to use the measurements as a guideline and not to follow strictly. I pretty much stuck to the measurements she had given me :) I will copy-paste the recipe here as is-

"Bhindi/pumpkin gojju :
bhindi cut like that for sabji and pumpkin, cut small and long. approx 1lb.
heat up few spoons of oil (more for bhindi), splutter some mustard, add a tablespoon of urad dal and chana dal. fry till golden.
split a couple of green chillies and add (you will add more red chilli kind of spice later, this is mostly for flavor).
add the cut and washed veggie and cook till almost done or till the sticky stuff is gone.
while this is cooking roast 1 table spoon of white sesame seeds in a hot dry pan till they start to splutter. make a dry powder of it afterwards.
now to the cooked veggies add some :
water - lets say half a cup,
sambar/rasam powder -about 1 tablespoon (or gojju powder, but I use this now till my mom gets me more !),
turmeric - a pinch,
salt to taste,
and jaggery - a 1" cube kinda piece (it has to be sweet)
tamarind paste- about one teaspoon (and sour :) )
and add the sesame powder.
and now boil it till it completely cooks ! goes great with rice or chapathis ...best with curd rice ;)"

I closed my eyes and followed her recipe :) I did not have fresh okra so I used the frozen version. I had to add a good amount of oil to make sure the okra didn't turn out sticky. I heated some oil, added mustard and the lentils and added the okra straight out of the freezer without thawing. Thawing makes it real sticky! Rest of the steps were exactly the same. I did not have any home-made rasam/sambar powder, so I used store-bought 'Badshah' sambar masala.

The gojju turned out real tasty. I still think the one that Roopa had made was better! :) Using frozen okra and store -bought sambhar masala could not match the 'real' thing. But nevertheless it was quite close and very very satisfying.



I made simple curd rice to go with it. Cannot vouch for the authenticity :)
1. Cook rice and let it cool. Mix some curd, chopped cilantro and salt with the rice. Curd should be enough to make the rice thoroughly wet.
2. Heat a little oil, add mustard seeds, chopped green chillies, heeng and a dry red chilli. Add this to the curd rice and mix well.



Okra gojju with curd rice is my entry for RCI Karnataka, hosted by Asha of Foodie's Hope.

Idli Sambhar and Uttapams

I LOVE South Indian food. Only rajma-chawal (kidney beans and rice) come close to my love for masala dosa. I love sambhar, fluffy idlis, crispy vadas, slurpy rasams, the wide variety of rice preparations - lime rice, curd rice, tamarind rice, bisi-bele bhaat, that great variety of chutneys and pickles - just love it all!!

We normally eat south Indian food every two weeks at least. I soak a big batch (too big for the two of us anyways) of rice and daal, make two batches of idlis right away and refrigerate the rest of the batter. Some idlis go in the freezer while some make for lunches. And we have dosas and uttapams for dinner.

Ingredients for basic batter - I realize there are various rice-lentil proportions used to make idlis and dosas. The following makes good idlis and pretty good dosas too, so I just stick to it.
1. 2 Cups rice (parboiled works the best, I mistakenly bought it one time - it made the best idlis ever). But considering that parboiled rice is not available in small packs, I make do with basmati.
2. 1 Cup dhuli urad daal (split black gram).
3. 1 tsp methi (fenugreek) seeds.

Wash and soak the daal and rice (with fenugreek seeds) separately for at least 6 hrs.
Drain water and grind separately. Daal is easier to grind, rice is more of a challenge. Mix well (I mix the batter by hand), cover and let ferment for 10-12 hrs. Fermentation depends on the temperature. This time when I made the batter, it was a towering 102 degrees outside. After letting the batter sit overnight, I kept it in the patio for 2 hrs. When I checked it, the batter had risen all the way to the top! My heart danced, we were going to get fluffy idlis!!

My mom-in-law got me this set of moulds and a stand with a steamer which is one of my favorite things in my kitchen :) . I use non-stick spray to grease the idli moulds. Works very well.

So here's what I do from here - I like to make idlis right away without putting the batter in the fridge. Add a little salt to taste and very gently mix the batter (you don't want to lose all that trapped air). The idli batter should not be thin, a watered down batter will yield flat idlis. While you fill the moulds with idli batter, fill a little water in a steamer/large stock pot and let it come to a boil. You need to make sure that the water will not touch the last idli plate (I just realized I need to take some pics of the moulds and the idli stand to make more sense!)Once water comes to a boil, place the stand in the steamer/stock pot and cover. Keep the flame medium-high. Idlis are normally done in 10-12 minutes. Insert a fork and check if they are done, if it comes out clean you are good to go! Let the idlis cool down for a few minutes before removing them from the moulds.

I let the idlis cool and store one batch in the fridge and one in the freezer. They reheat very well if you sprinkle a few drops of water and partially cover them while microwaving. 30 secs works for me.



To make dosas/uttapams from the remaining batter - I remove the batter from the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature.

For uttapams (Parthiv is my dosa/uttapam expert btw :)) - Add chopped onions, tomatoes, green chillies, cilantro and salt to the batter(you can also add chopped cabbage and grated carrots). If it's too thick, add water to bring it to a pourable consistency. Heat a non-stick pan, spread a few drops of oil on it. Spread uttapam batter just like you would do for a pancake/cheela/pooda/pudla. Cover with a lid and let it cook for a minute or two. Add a few more drops of oil on the side up and then flip. Let cook without covering. Keep flipping and roasting till the uttapams are golden and crisp.

Serve with hot sambhar, coconut and tomato chutneys! :) I will post sambhar and chutney (recipe here) recipes soon... do check back! :)



Thanks to sweet Asha's suggestion, I am also submitting this recipe for RCI Karnataka (hosted by Asha of Foodie's Hope).