Corn-Tato Croquettes

Necessity IS the mother of invention.

Here I was trying to come up with a vegetarian appetizer that would be easy and quick, and that would obviously taste fantastic. I didn't have time to go to the store, so I had just a couple things on hand, and out of that desperate scenario, I came up with putting together potatoes and frozen corn into little popper bites that were delicious!

What you need:

8-10 potatoes (fresh or canned - believe it or not, canned potatoes work well, and you really cannot tell the difference, and they make the process even easier. I normally detest canned vegetables, but this works out fantastic)
1/2 bag of frozen corn
1 onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 cup regular/herb breadcrumbs
1 cup panko breadcrumbs (Japanese bread crumbs, for extra crunch!)
2 teaspoons Tomato Ketchup
Salt to taste
Vegetable/Canola Oil (enough to deep fry)

Spices
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

What to do:

First, prepare the base of the croquettes/fritters. You'll need to basically make mashed potatoes (but without any additional water/cream added to the potato paste). Boil potatoes until really soft and tender. You can peel and boil or boil and then peel (the peels comes right off). If you are using canned potatoes, this process will be much shorter, because the canning process means that the potatoes are already cooked most of the way, and just need to be softened up. Mash up the soft, peeled potatoes after draining out all the extra water. Add salt and pepper to flavor the potato paste.

 In a pan with hot oil, saute finely chopped onion. When golden brown, throw in the garlic, ketchup and the spice powders.  Saute for a minute. Add the corn and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the potato paste, and let any remaining water evaporate from the mixture. Basically, when you form little balls with the mixture, and fry them, you don't want them to fall apart, and the moisture will do that!

Let the mixture cool, then mix it with 1/2 cup of the regular/herb breadcrumbs - again, this sucks up the remaining water content, and makes the mixture tighter.

Mix the remaining breadcrumbs (panko and regular) together, with a little additional salt. Make little truffle sized balls with the potato/corn mixture, and roll them around in the breadcrumbs.

Deep fry the little croquettes in hot oil (around 375 degrees) for a couple minutes until golden brown, then serve hot with any dip of your choice.

If you like super spicy food, feel free to add chopped green chillies to the potato/corn mixture - these can be a different version of jalapeno poppers.

Go ahead, I dare you to make these. You cannot stop eating them!

Baingan Bharta (Eggplant Mash)

There are times, when it pays to stay close to the original. I usually mix things up in my recipes with the east-west thing, but not with this one. Baingan Bharta (Eggplant Mash) is a traditional Punjabi favorite. It is easy to make, but can seem intimidating. The bulk of the work is roasting the eggplant.

Here's what you need:

2 large eggplants, or preferably 6-8 Chinese Eggplant (the big ones work just fine, but the Chinese Eggplant tend to have fewer seeds, and I think taste better)
1 large onion
1 large tomato
2 cloves of garlic
A handful of cilantro
1/2 cup mustard oil

Spices:

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
Salt to taste

What to do:

Roast the eggplants first. You have several options. If you are lucky enough to have a FIRE stove, you can roast the eggplants by holding them between your tongs and twisting the eggplant around until it is blackened on all sides. You can also throw them on your grill, whole and keep turning them till blackened. But, by far my favorite method (and easiest) is to broil them in the oven.

So, pour a little mustard oil and a couple teaspoons salt and rub them onto the eggplants. Keep the stalks on, it's good for leverage later. Turn the oven on broil, and throw in the eggplants, in a metal baking dish. You'll hear the crackling pretty soon. Give them about 10-15 minutes in there. When you pull them out, the skin should be brown or black. Don't overdo it though, the insides will dry up on you. Cover the dish with foil, and leave it alone for about 15 minutes.

Now, you want to remove the peel. It should pull right off, but be gentle...you don't want to waste any of the eggplant. If there are some pieces of skin that stay on there, that's cool, it adds a nice smoky flavor that tells you these are roasted eggplant. Once the skins are off, mash up the eggplant. You can do it with a potato masher, but honestly, the best way with eggplant, is using your hands, and really getting in there.

Sautee onions in hot mustard oil till golden brown, then add the tomatoes. Cook for a couple minutes, and add the spices (all the spices except for the garam masala powder). Fry the spices for a good minute or so, then mix in the eggplant. When it's all mixed up well, add another teaspoon of mustard oil, the garam masala and fresh chopped cilantro, and take the pan off the heat.

This dish goes well with rice or roti, but usually roti is perfect for it.

I promise you, roasted red peppers have NOTHIN on roasted eggplant!

Easy Peasy Paneer

This is one of my FAVORITE ways to make (and clearly, eat!) paneer.

For those who have never been exposed to paneer, it is a form of cottage cheese. If ricotta and mozzarella had a baby, it would look pretty close to paneer (known as chhana in Bengali).

It is used in savory and sweet applications, all over India, but mostly in the Northwestern and Northeastern parts.

Some key features of the cheese:

1. It has no true flavor of it's own, similar to ricotta/mozzarella
2. It does NOT melt - so it works really well cooked stove top, grilled or fried
3. It works well with most flavor profiles

Where is Paneer available you ask? Any Indian store will carry blocks of paneer that you can cut up into cubes. But - I will also give you my recipe for making paneer at home (not a requirement, and it's easy, but a little labor intensive, and you have to make it the day before, so your choice!)

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to business!

How to make paneer:

Ingredients
1 gallon of whole FULL FAT milk (it's the fat that makes the cheese, so feel free to use skim milk, but you won't even get 5 ounces of cheese from a whole gallon!!)
1 cup of vinegar/lemon juice/lime juice

Bring the milk to a boil in a pot, stirring continuously (or the paneer will get a burnt flavor from sticking to the bottom of the pot). When the milk is lightly boiling, pour in the vinegar, and keep stirring, but gently. Do not stir too vigorously at this point! The milk solids (cheese bits) will separate from the liquids, and the remaining liquid will lose its opaque white color and start turning a clearer, greenish/grayish color. This is NORMAL, don't freak!

Turn off the heat. In a colander or any kind of draining device, spread out a double layered piece of cheese cloth, and pour in the liquid mixed with cheese bits to drain. Tie the edges of the cheese cloth together and hang it somewhere. I tend to hang it on the kitchen sink faucet. Let it drain that way for about 2-3 hours, then with your hands, form it in kind of a disc shape, put it on a plate, cover it with a flat plate and put something heavy on it. It can be a few cans of food, or a container with other food in it. Anything heavy is fine. Put this in your fridge overnight. This process drains off the remaining bit of liquid in the cheese, and turns it into a compressed solid. This solid can then be cut up into cubes.

There are two ways to use the cheese cubes when you're going to cook it in a sauce - plain or fried. I tend to prefer the fried kind, tastes so much better, and actually absorbs the flavor of the sauce much better too. If you choose plain, go to "How to make Easy Peasy Paneer". If you want to fry them, shallow or deep fry them a handful at a time, and soak the fried cheese cubes in a bowl with warm water (please trust me on this - the cheese gets really melt-in-your-mouth soft!)

How to make Easy Peasy Paneer:

What you need:

Ingredients
1 large onion
1 medium tomato
Piece of ginger the size of your thumb
5-7 cloves of garlic
About 20 cashews
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup of milk
1 cup of frozen peas (fresh are fine too, you just have to cook them longer)
2 tablespoons Oil
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon Sugar

Spices
Whole garam masala (2 cloves, 2 cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick)
1 Bay Leaf (dried OK)
2 teaspoons coriander powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder

What to do:

Make a paste with the onion, tomato, ginger and garlic. In a hot pan with a bit of oil with high heat, fry the whole garam masala and bay leaf for a minute, and add the paste. Fry till the paste is dry and browned.
Lower the heat to medium. Add the tomato paste and the spice powders, salt and sugar, and saute for a minute.

Blend the milk and cashews together. Add more milk if the paste is thick. Add the mixture to the pan. Stir continuously. Add water, so that the thickness resembles a smoothie.

Strain the paneer (if you fried them), and throw in the cubes, as well as the peas. Cover and simmer until the peas are cooked (about 5-7 minutes for frozen peas).

Top with a tiny bit of chopped cilantro, or serve as is.

This dish works well with rice, or any kind of flatbreads like naan, paratha or roti. I know you're gonna love it!

Gobi Manchurian

This dish should come with a warning "Do not eat, or you will not be able to STOP"!! Seriously...do yourself a favor, and make this TONIGHT!!!

Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables, and for good reason. It requires very little effort to make it taste good.

This recipe does require more than a little effort, but the results are MORE than worth it.

You'll need the following ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower (cut into florets)
1/2 large onion
1 tomato
5 cloves garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sambal red chilli paste (don't be afraid. It's not the kind that will demolish your taste buds with a single bite!)
1/2 cup ketchup (that's right, I said it)
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt to taste
2/3 cup of corn starch
Oil

What to do:

You'll first need to fry the cauliflower. Make a slurry of water, corn starch a little salt and a little pepper. The consistency should be like pancake batter but a little runnier. Dip the florets in the slurry and deep fry them till brown (in a wok with oil, or a deep fryer if you have one). Drain them onto paper towels to soak up the extra oil.

In a little oil, on high heat, saute onion (half slices) till browned, then add the tomato, a little salt and sugar. Saute for 2-3 minutes till the tomato disintegrates. Then add the grated garlic, ginger, soy sauce, ketchup, sambal paste and saute for a few minutes more. Add a cup of water to loosen up the mixture, and add salt to taste. If you like things extra spicy, add some chopped green chillies at this point.

Add the crispy florets and gently toss in the sauce. Serve with some sprinkled green onions on top.

You want to try and make this fresh. But what you can do, is make the sauce in advance, and fry the cauliflowers the day of, and put them together! Hope you love this as much as I do.

Coco Jumbo Shrimp

This recipe was born out of need....to use up a pound of shrimp and some cilantro that I didn't have any other use for. It worked out PERFECTLY. I think I've outdone myself :P

Juicy large shrimp cooked in a blend of creamy cilantro pesto and coconut.

So here's what you need:

1 lb shrimp (you can use most meats and fishes too, but I think this recipe is way better wish seafood, particularly shellfish)

1 large onion

1/2 cup of grated coconut

3/4 bunch of cilantro

2 cloves of garlic

2-5 green chillies (depending on how hot you like it)

Spices:

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

Whole garam masala (1 stick cinnamon, 2 cloves, 2 cardamom pods)

What to do:

Blend the cilantro, chillies and coconut together with some oil and a couple teaspoons of water, just enough to get the blender to whiz it up. Throw in some salt with the mixture, and when blended to a fine pesto sauce, marinate the shrimp in the sauce for at least half an hour. In a pan with hot oil, add in the whole garam masala, and 30 seconds later, sliced onion and garlic. Saute until golden brown, then add the spices and fry for another minute and half.

Turn up the heat to high, and throw in the shrimp, stirring constantly. Shrimp doesn't take long to cook, so don't cover and cook the heck out of the little guys. Keep stirring and it should be cooked in about 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat then, and remove the pan from the heat.

This entree went really well with brown rice. Something about the nuttiness of the rice and coco-nuttiness of the shrimp...pair made in heaven.

Give it a try!

Oh, Shiitake!

Cooking mushrooms is annoying. A huge bag of them cooks down to nothing. But I love, love, luuuuhhhooove this recipe! I was craving some familiar South Indian tastes, but wasn't in the mood for the same old stuff. I had some Shiitake mushrooms on hand, and some tiny, cute little new potatoes. Necessity is the mother of invention, especially when it comes to food! Let's get right to it.

What you'll need:

1/2 lb of mushrooms (any kind will do, but the Shiitake ones are my personal favorite)
1 lb potatoes (you can use the big ones and cut them down to cubes, or just peel and use the small new potatoes/red potatoes)
1 large onion
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon garlic/ginger paste
8 curry leaves

Spices:
2 teaspoons black pepper powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 teaspoons whole black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt to taste

What to do:

Get your oil super super hot in a pan, and throw in the black mustard seeds and curry leaves. There's gonna be some MAJOR spluttering, so be careful! Throw in your chopped onions, and fry till golden brown, then add your tomato paste, and garlic and ginger paste. Cook for a minute, then add all your spices. Cook the mixture for another minute or two, and add the potatoes. Add some water (about 1 cup), cover and simmer till your potatoes are cooked. Uncover, and ideally, your water should have almost evaporated. Throw in the mushrooms and stir gently. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, add chopped cilantro and you're done!

This is really fast, but super tasty!

Chiquita Chicken

I'm a huge fan of salsa verde. I like salsa in general (the dance and the condiment), but the green salsa is my favorite. It's tangier, and the flavors are really well balanced. So this weekend I thought, why not turn it into curry? (Work with me here, everything takes on an Indian hue in my hands!). It turned out fantastic!

So here's what I did.

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken (preferably dark meat, bone in or boneless)

6 Tomatillos

1 large onion, sliced thinly

3 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly

A handful of cilantro

1 tablespoon cream cheese or yogurt

Spices:

2 teaspoons coriander

1 teaspoon cumin

Salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon pepper

We start off the same way most Indian food starts off. Saute the onions in a hot pan with a small bit of oil, couple tablespoons. When the onions are golden, throw in the garlic slices as well. In the meantime, blend the tomatilloes together with the cilantro into a smooth sauce. Add the spices to the onion garlic mixture and roast for another minute, then add the sauce and the chicken in at the same time. Turn down to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes or so, depending on the size of the chicken pieces. The sauce will become a darker green, and the chicken becomes super tender. Finish off with the cream cheese or yogurt to give it just a little bit of a creamy texture/flavor. I happened to have some onion/chive cream cheese and it was perfect.

If you just want the salsa, follow the recipe except leave off the chicken and the cream cheese. It definitely cooks up faster, and goes very well with chips, tacos, etc. It refrigerates well, and you can keep it in a jar for about a month in the fridge.

Give it a try, best of both worlds, Mexican and Indian! Good stuff.

(The picture doesn't do it justice, but I caught it cooking mid-boil, and my Iphone camera got steamy and blurry :P)