Red rice trials!

I've been a hoarder. Always. And that's what happened with food as well, I've been getting fun stuff from various markets to try out at home, but as is evident from the activity (or the lack of it) on this blog, I've hardly done any justice to the lovely ingredients I have been stocking up on.
Today's meal had to be a quick one, and had to be dished out with whatever was available at home. Of course, with a fully stocked Gujarati (or even Indian) kitchen, there would hardly be any problems, yet I wanted something that we do not eat every day. 
A packet of red rice peeped through from underneath the many other packets trying to hide it. I could have made do with a simple dal chawal, but as I mentioned before, nope! So I dug in the fridge - mushrooms and sprouts. The deal was sealed. Mushroom rice with sprouts. Simple. In the end, I thought Chinese flavours would work better, so I threw in a couple of onions as well! Simple and delicious.

Schezuan mushroom red rice with sprouts

Ingredients

Red rice, washed - 1 cup
Spring onions, washed and chopped roughly lengthwise - 1/4 cup
Mushrooms, washed and sliced - 1/2 cup
Bean sprouts - 1/4 cup
Coriander (cilantro), washed, chopped roughtly - 2 tablespoons
Garlic, peeled and sliced - 1or 2 cloves
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Schezuan sauce - 2 table spoons
Soy sauce - 1 teaspoon
Oil to cook (or Pam cooking spray) - 1 teaspoon

Method

Cooked red rice ready to go in the pan

1. Soak the rice for at least half an hour (or more) and cook till grains are soft. Drain the excess water and allow it to cool and dry. You can wash and chop all the veggies until then.
2. When step 1. is done, heat the oil in a nonstick pan. If using Pam, work accordingly. Saute the garlic and onions for 30 seconds and add the coriander. We are using it as a herb, not a garnish. After a few seconds, add the mushrooms and the beans. Cook only for about a minute till they are lightly done. You do not want to leave it longer, as they will wilt and ooze out liquids. 
3. Add the schezuan sauce. I had bottled some from a recipe (see link above) but you could also use a store bought version.
4. Add the rice and salt and mix well. You do not have to cook any more, you just have to mix well.
5. Add the soy sauce and taste it. Adjust salt if you want.
6. Wait no more, devour it, and wash it down with a cold drink!

Waiting to be attacked

Notes

• You could use any kind of rice instead of red. But the crunchier version tastes better than white rice.
• To increase spice levels, you could add a couple of green or red chillies.
• No measurements are set in stone, you could alter them to your taste!
• I used only the while of spring onions, since I had no greens. You can use both, and substitute with a regular onion if you do not have spring onions at home. 

Stir fry, with a little bit of zing

Don't wait to dig in!

No guys, the zing is not coming from garam masala. Just kidding. This was not meant to be a blog post, it was just supposed to be dinner. But when I saw how delicious it looked, I couldn't resist clicking a picture and putting it up here. Stir fry is one of my all time favourites, little surprise, since I am such a big fan of vegetables. I was, however, tired of the limp and dull stir fries that I have been served, some with just a runny soy sauce thrown into the veggies and some just too dry to get me through my portion of rice. 

I like my stir fry to be hearty with taste, and like a little bit of extra sauce. Both Swati and I know it is due to a hangover of our good old dal-chawal, we just cannot do with just dry veggies over our rice. In addition, I am a fan of the sweet sour Asian sauces, so when I found a simple recipe needing a few ingredients that were readily available in my fridge, I was sold. Doesn't matter that the sauce was part of a recipe for meat or sea food mains. I know how to adapt my food :) And then I decided to end the dish with a corn starch mixture to thicken the sauce and add a glossy sheen to the whole dish. Well, I figure since I was eating so many veggies (which is quite healthy) a spoon of corn starch would not do that much harm! The recipe of the sauce mentioned chilli flakes as an ingredient, but it did not sound interesting enough. Being Indian (all Indians will understand this comment), I decided to add a tablespoon of the schezuan sauce that I had left over from the Chinese vada pav. That's what added the zing and just lifted the taste of the boring stir fry!

I draw satisfaction from the fact that I have not used any oil at all in my stir fry, I just used a dash of Pam Cooking Spray to start frying the garlic. After that, most veggies lost water and so no other medium was required. Using a teflon-coated pan helped. You could easily use one teaspoon of oil (whichever you prefer, I am not picky about this, since I tend to use what I have at home at the time). Want to get started?

Veg stir fry with a sweet sour sauce

Ingredients - for two

Mushrooms, sliced - 3-4 medium

Capsicums (bell peppers) - all colours, diced - 1/2 cup

Baby bokchoy, roughly torn - 1 head

Water chestnuts, peeled and sliced - 7-8

Baby corn, sliced - 5-6

Garlic, peeled and sliced - 2-3 cloves

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

Oil - 1 teaspoon

For the sauce

Soy sauce - 1/4 cup

Vinegar - 3 tablespoons

Brown sugar - 2-3 tablespoons

Schezuan sauce - 1 tablespoon (You can replace it with 1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes)

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

For the corn starch mixture

Corn starch - 1 tablespoon

Soy sauce - 1 tablespoon

Water - 1 tablespoon

Brown or white rice to serve

Method

1. Before you start chopping the vegetables, make sure you have washed them well, especially the mushrooms. The ones available in Indian markets are full of dirt. With the bokchoy make sure you have separated each leaf/ stem and cleaned it  through.

2. Heat the oil in a pan, and add the garlic when it sizzles. Alternatively, you can heat the pan and then spray Pam. 

3. When the garlic slices start turning brown in a couple of minutes, add the baby corn and let it fry for 2-3 minutes. Give it a good stir in between. The heat should be on medium or low. Add in the capsicums, and continue stirring. After another two minutes, add the mushrooms, and let it cook another 2 minutes. Finally add the water chestnuts and bokchoy, and let it cook on low heat. Add the salt.

4. In the meanwhile, assemble all the ingredients of the sauce in a bowl. Once the bokchoy starts going limp, add the sauce mixture to the pan and let it cook.

5. Immediately make the corn starch mixture by dissolving the corn starch in the soy sauce and water so that there are no lumps. Add it to the pan when the sauce in the pan starts to bubble. Let the corn starch cook for 2 minutes and turn off the heat.

6. Let the veg stir fry rest in the pan for 7-10 minutes before serving.

8. Serve with white or brown rice. 

Notes:

• You could add or subtract any vegetables of your choice. Additional vegetables that can be used are spring onions, cabbage, squash and egg plant.
•  Tofu can be added too, but you will need to shallow/ deep fry it. Add it to the dish at the end, after the sauce is cooked.
• It can be served with plain cooked noodles as well. 
• Sorry I do not have pictures of the process, as I said, I had not intended it as a blog post!

Hindi-Chini vada bhai

This post has been in my mind for a long time - over a year and a half! Well, finally got around to doing it :)

On his trip back home after a long time in New York, Aditya wanted to dig into a vada pav, but that opportunity had somehow eluded him until the day we were walking down Tardeo Road from Haji Ali. Nestled on a corner near the signal in the AC market area in Mumbai, there is a snack place that has a number of vadas ready and stacked for passers-by to pick up quickly. Not wanting to miss that opportunity, we quickly ordered two. My first clue should have been the spicy Chinese sauce (albeit, an Indian concoction!) that was served as a condiment. Well, the bulb didn't click then. One bite and we were hit by some snazzy schezuan taste. The sauce on the side added oodles of flavour to the whole gastronomic ensemble. All this for a mere seven bucks. We had just sampled the ultimate fusion food - the Chinese vada pav! The two countries may have had innumerable influences on each other, but this definitely must be the most interesting :) It is as good as fusion gets on the streets of Mumbai.

I have been talking about it so much, that everyone at my former office wanted to be treated with the Chinese vada pav. I also wrote a tiny piece for the magazine, Youth Incorporated. Alas, when I went to get some for all of us one monsoon evening, the stall owner told me he had discontinued the item.

Ever since I ate it with Aditya, I wanted to try it out at home. Finally, today was the day! For the recipe of the accompanying schezuan sauce, I turned to India's very own Tarla aunty. I made one batch as per her proportions. Saved the rest for later. I must say, the result was pretty amazing. It was easy to tell, since my brother Mihir came to the kitchen and asked "What's cooking?"

"Chinese vada pav."

"The schezuan smells niiiice..."

Schezuan in the making

Well, that set my mood. Also, I did the non-fried version not only for health purposes, but also because I did not want to heat so much oil and then re-use it later. My appakara vessel to the rescue. It is easily available in any stainless steel vessel store in India, or at Indian stores abroad.

Well, I will not be between you and the wonderful taste of this snack any more. Be happy, the recipe uses minimal oil! Here goes: 

Chinese vada pav

Ingredients (makes about 6-7 vadas)

For the filling

Boiled potatoes - 3-4 medium

Beetroots - 2 tablespoons (grated with a fine cheese grater)

Carrots - 2 tablespoons (grated with a fine cheese grater)

Cabbage - 1 tablespoon (grated with a fine cheese grater)

Spring onions - 1 tablespoon (chopped extremely fine, a bit of green, a bit of white)

Soaking the chillies for the schezuan

Ginger - 1/2 teaspoon (grated with a fine cheese grater)

Salt - 1 teaspoon, then adjust to your taste

Ground pepper powder - 1 teaspoon

Soy sauce - 1 teaspoon

White vinegar - 1 teaspoon

Schezuan sauce - 1 tablespoon (Refer to Tarla Dalal's recipe)

Oil - 1 teaspoon

For the coating

Chickpea flour - 2 tablespoons

Asafoetida (hing) - a tiny pinch

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon, then adjust

Water - 3 tablespoons, to get a batter consistency

Oil to shallow fry - 2-3 tablespoons

To serve

Schezuan sauce

Ketchup (since Indian's eat it with almost anything, but optional)

Pav - 6

Piece of newspaper or cheap paper plate to serve on - A must!

Method

1. Lets tackle the filling first. In a small pan, heat the oil and add the ginger when its hot. Once the ginger sizzles, add the veggies - carrots, beetroots, spring onions and cabbage. Saute for about two minutes and add the schezuan sauce salt, and pepper. Turn off the heat. Allow it to cool for 5-7 minutes.

2. In a mixing bowl, mash the potatoes and add the above mixture and mix well. Make sure that the beetroot red colour spreads across the potatoes and the colour is even.

3. Add the soy sauce and vinegar, and mix well. Be sure to taste, and adjust any flavours to your choice.

4. Once the filling is ready, divide it evenly into 6-7 medium size balls.

Ready to go into the fryer

5. In another small mixing bowl, mix the batter for coating. Take the chikpea flour, add the salt and asafoetida. Then add the water spoon by spoon and mix the batter so that there are no lumps. Make sure you have a smooth batter of a consistency thicker than pancakes or dosa.

6. Heat the appakara vessel, and when hot, put a drop of oil in each of the seven sections. Alternatively, you could deep fry the vadas in hot oil over a medium flame.

7. Dip each ball of the filling in the batter, coat it evenly and then fry (shallow or deep).

Done done done!

8. Be sure to turn your vadas over, and fry until golden brown on each side.

9. Cut the pav from the centre, place the vada in it, and serve it with schezuan sauce on the side.

Dig dig dig in!

10. Wait no more, just devour! Slurrp.

Truly international ;-)

11. Wash it down with a glass of delicious and cold aam panna (raw mango coulis).