Indian Cooking Challenge

ICC: Suruttai Poli

Nibbles

Another month, another installment of the Indian Cooking Challenge when I gamely attempt a cuisine quite different from my own, usually blunder somewhere along the way but still manage to come up with something tasty. This month’s suggestion came from Nithya and we made Suruttai Poli–a rolled dough with a sweet nut center.

Suruttai Poli

Suruttai Poli

As usual, I had to adjust some of the measurements but this time absolutely no ingredient substitutions were needed. Technically, at least.

Suruttai Poli

For Dough
1.25 c All-Purpose Flour
a pinch Salt
Water
Frying Oil		 For Filling
1.25 c Roasted chickpeas
1.25 c Sugar
1.5 tsp Ghee
20 Cashews, chopped
1.5 Tbsp shredded Coconut
1.5 tsp ground Cardamom

Please don’t turn away at the thought of sweet chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans). I was a bit skeptical, myself, but it makes an amazing base for the filling. Trust me and try it for yourself. This is also where the not-technically-a-substitution occurs and where my results end up vastly different from the original. More will be revealed.

Making the Dough

Suruttai Poli Dough Combine the flour and salt in a medium-sized bowl and mix together. Add water, about a teaspoon or two at a time, and stir until a shaggy dough starts to form. I found the best way to do this was just to stand at the sink with a little trickle of water running and pass the bowl under it periodically as my hand tossed the ingredients together. It prevents over mixing and over-watering. 

Knead it a little bit until it holds together fairly well, form into a ball and let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. I realized I was almost out of frying oil so had to run to the grocery store so mine sat for closer to an hour. Made no difference than I could tell. If it’s going to be quite some time, though, you may want to cover it just so it doesn’t start to air-dry on you.
Making the Filling
Roasting chickpeas for the filling And here’s where I unintentionally detoured. The original recipe called for Roasted Gram, which is chick peas, but I didn’t want to start with dry so I opted for canned. I drained and rinsed the beans, spread them out on a foil-lined cookie sheet and roasted them in the oven for 20 minutes or so. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The chickpeas and sugar Then the instructions said to powder together the roasted gram and the sugar. Hmm. Canned chick peas, although roasted, do not powder. They mush. This was fine by me, though, as I’d burnt out the motor on my food processor with the last ICC recipe and had yet to replace it. Mushable gram meant I could go low-tech and bash them around with a rolling pin before adding the sugar. It worked.
Toasting the cashews and coconut Heat the ghee in a small frying pan and add in the cashews and coconut, stirring over medium heat until both are lightly toasted.
The filling ingredients combined Combine the chickpea/sugar mixture with the contents of the frying pan and the cardamom and mix together well. The first thing I thought when it was all put together was Apple Jacks. Todd thought Fruit Loops. Now, I’m betting Big Cereal isn’t using an expensive spice like cardamom in their breakfast formulas, but it made me wonder what chemical combination produced that same aroma.

The filling is done, you can set it aside until needed. Realizing, around this time, that the filling is probably supposed to be more of a dry powder than the paste I ended up with, I put my filling into an pastry bag to make the filling step, ahead, easier to accomplish.

Making the Poli

Rolling out the dough Divide the well-rested dough into 24 equal portions and roll each out to about 4 inches on a floured board, the rounder the better. They will be thin but that’s what you want. Too thick and they will puff like poori and make it tough to finish the dessert. 

Let the rolled dough rest for another 10 minutes while you get everything ready for the final steps. I laid mine on sheets of wax paper (counter space is at a premium) and stacked them 4 to a layer. This worked out okay, though some wanted to stick. It’d probably be best to give them a bit of airing time before covering them up, just to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

Frying, Filling and Rolling the Poli

Heat a small amount of oil–maybe an inch, if that–in a small frying pan. Slide a round of dough into the hot oil, give it a second or two to cook then flip and remove. You don’t want them to get crispy or to brown as then you’ll never be able to roll them.

Immediately top the fried dough with “3 spoons” of filling. The 3 spoons makes more sense if your filling is powdered though I really loved my paste filling–I could squeeze it out along one side and go on to the next step without worrying about spilling anything.

Starting from the filling end, roll the dough into a tube, enclosing the filling, and place them seam-side down. You’ve got to work fast or the dough will firm up on you and you’ll end up with shards instead of a cigar-shape. As they cool, the poli will firm up.

Tower of Suruttai Poli

Now, I would never be so bold as to call my accident with the filling an improvement on a traditional recipe that I know nothing else about. However, the filling step was much expedited by the use of the pastry bag (only possible since the filling was a paste) and I’m a bit puzzled how you eat one filled with powder without it becoming like a pixie stick and spewing sugar everywhere.

Because of the speed of finishing them, I think it would be best to have 3 people at that step: one to fry, one to fill, one to roll. That way you can just bang out enough for a party in no time flat.

To see how other ladies (who, ahem, actually know what their doing when it comes to Indian food) made Suruttai Poli, check out the linky over on Spice Your Life.

ICC: Gujarati Dal

Nibbles

It’s that time again: time for another installment of the Indian Cooking Challenge hosted by Srivali of Spice Your Life. I had to take a couple months off to deal with the move and so forth, but I’m glad to be participating once again. This month’s recipe is Gujarati Dal (a lentil stew of the Gujarat-region of India) studded with vegetables and miles of flavor and was graciously offered by the authors of Sukham Ayu, an Ayurvedic Cookbook.

Gujarati Dal with rice, garlic naan and samosas

Gujarati Dal with Rice, Garlic Naan and Samosas

First skim of the ingredient list had me excited–I had almost all of the ingredients already, it was a more meal-oriented and not a snack (known as chaats, which are nice, but hard to make a meal out of sometimes) and I thought for one hot second that I was actually going to be able to use meat in this one! The tricky word drumstick had me looking forward to a lentil and chicken stew when I realized that the description of “4-5 pieces, 2 inches length” either meant really small birds or, most likely, that I had no idea what this ingredient was. Of course it was the latter. Drumstick is a common name for moringa, a vegetable with tough outsides but edible insides. More on that in a bit, but I did find it canned at the local Indian grocery store that has saved more than one of these experiments.

After doing the usual converting math, I doubled the recipe to make sure I’d have enough for both dinner as well as lunch the next day. Other alterations were the tamarind concentrate for pulp, cashews for groundnuts (which Todd doesn’t eat) and butter for the ghee called for in the tempering step (I hadn’t picked any up and it wasn’t as crucial for us to go to the trouble to clarify a pound of butter just to get a few tablespoons).

GUJARATI  DAL

Ingredients:
1.25 cups Split red lentils
1.5 tsp Turmeric powder
4 cups water

2 Tbsp Tamarind Concentrate
1 Tbsp Jaggery (un-centrifuged sugar)
8 Hard, Dry Dates, halved & pitted
8 pieces Drumstick, cut to 2″ lengths
3-4 cups cubed Sweet Potatoes
3 Tbsp Cashews, roughly chopped
4 Green chillies, split
2″ piece of Ginger, minced
2 Tbsp Coriander powder
1 Tbsp Cumin powder
2.5 cups Water

 For Tempering

2 Tbsp Butter
1.5 tsp Mustard Seeds
3/4 tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1.5 tsp Cumin Seeds
4 Dry Red Chillies
3/4 tsp Asafoetida Powder
10 Curry Leaves

For Finishing

3/4 tsp Garam Masala
Coriander leaves to garnish
Kosher Salt, to taste

Serves 4-5

Putting it all together:

Soaking the dal and rice Rinse and soak the lentils for 20-30 minutes. Rising helps you spot any small pebbles or other stuff that might have made it’s way into the bag of beans and the soaking helps speed the cooking time. Granted, lentils for dal have their outer husks removed which is why they cook so fast to begin with, but the soaking is still a good idea. Since I was making basmati rice to go with the dal, I went ahead and soaked both side-by-side while I chopped the rest of the ingredients. Drain each well before moving on to the next step (you don’t cook rice or beans in the water they were soaked in).
Cooking the dal with turmeric The original recipe calls for pressure-cooking the dal but a) I don’t own a pressure cooker and b) lentils cook quickly enough as it is so I just put them on to boil with the water and turmeric (aids digestion, always a good thing) and cooked for 10-15 minutes. The original recipe also calls for churning the dal. I took that to mean stir, but I see from other participants that it means to mash them. The lentils were pretty cooked down into mush already so I really don’t see as this little translation “error” has any bearing on the finished dish, but now we know!
The rest of the dal ingredients The up-side to not using a pressure cooker is that we don’t have to switch pots when we add the next ingredients (tamarind through water) to the pot and simmer the mixture for 15-20 minutes, stirring as needed to keep the mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pot. The goal is to have the sweet potatoes tender before adding the tempering mixture, so if it takes a little more time, it’s okay.
Tempering ingredients for Dal In a small saute pan, heat the ghee or butter until melted and then add the mustard seeds. Once they start to jump around in the pan, add the fenugreek seeds, lower the heat and, once the fenugreek starts to brown, add the rest of the tempering ingredients and cook until fragrant.
Adding the tempering to the dal Add the tempering mixture to the dal and simmer for another 5 minutes or so, just enough to left the flavors mingle. Turn off the head and stir in the garam masala and salt, if needed. Or, if your like me, forget to add the garam masala until after dinner is already on the plates and sprinkle a little on top of each portion to be stirred in just before eating–it works the same. I was also lacking coriander leaves (aka fresh cilantro) for garnish.

Deforesting Dinner

Gujarati Dal with rice, garlic naan and samosasRemember I mentioned something about those mysterious drumsticks? Well, my research had forewarned me that the usual way to “eat” this was to chew the pieces and spit out the inedible husks. Well, that probably works wonders when you’re working with fresh, but the canned version disintegrated by the time the dal was finished and left us pulling the 2″ twiggy bits from the stew before we could comfortably dig in. While I’ll probably skip this (or substitute something like okra) next time, it certainly didn’t ruin the dish for us.

The flavor is both sweet and spicy and was wonderful over the basmati rice I’d prepared–the rice helped tone down some of the spice (could have held back a few of those red and green chillies). The lentils made a wonderful backdrop for the sweet potatoes, dates and nuts. We loved it and were very happy to try this month’s challenge.

Looking forward to the next one!

ICC: Punjabi Kadi Pakoras

Nibbles

It’s that time again–time for us to go tripping over ourselves in the pursuit of success in the Indian Cooking Challenge! And it’s finally something I recognize… sorta.

Punjabi Kadi Pakoras

Punjabi Kadi Pakoras

When we go out to our favorite Indian restaurant we generally order the sampler appetizer to split, so we’ve had pakoras before–several versions of them, too. Granted, they usually come without the Kadi (yogurt sauce) and, at leas the onion variety, resemble more of a hush puppy, but at least we knew what we were shooting for this time around.

My version of the recipe below is based upon the recipe provided by Simran of Bombay Foodie, though the main changes are adjustments required to the measurements. (US cups and British/Imperial cups are NOT the same thing–only took me  a few rounds to remember that little fact!)

Ingredients
Pakoras:

1 medium Onion, sliced lengthwise
5/8 c Besan/Gram Flour
2 t Salt

 3/4 tsp Chili Powder
1/3-1/2 c Water
Oil for deep frying
Kadi:

1 1/2 c Plain Yogurt
1/3 (heaping) cups Besan/Gram Flour
3-4 cups Water
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds
1 1/2 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 1/2 tsp Ajwain (Carom or Oregano) Seeds

 1 1/2 tsp Methi (Fenugreek)
1 large Onion, diced
1 pinch Turmeric
3/4 tsp Chili Powder
Salt to taste
3/4 tsp Garam Masala powder
1 1/2 tsp Amchur (Dried Mango) powder
Slicing onions lengthwise The first step is to slice the onions lengthwise.

Now, I don’t know about your onions, by my onions are usually pretty round so slicing them lengthwise is a neat trick. Based on that whole concentric circles thing, I’m betting you could slice them diagonally and still be fine.

Luckily I did have one onion that was more oval than round. Though I still think lengthwise is anyone’s guess.
Batter Ingredients Start heating your frying oil while you mix up the batter. I set my electric fryer to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and that seems to work well for this sort of light item.

Combine the dry ingredients (besan, salt and chili powder) and mix together, well, before stirring in the water.

Go a little at a time with the water–you want something that’s thinner than paste but thicker than soup–something that will stick to the onion strips!
Battering up the Onion slices As always, depending on how wet your flour is (or how much humidity you’ve got) you may need more or less flour for your batter.

My batter was a little on the thin side, in hindsight–it’s just something you have to get a feel for, I suppose!

Toss your onion slices into the batter and give them several good turns until coated. If you’re still waiting for your oil to come to temperature, they can hang out in the bowl while you prepare the ingredients for the sauce.
Onion Pakoras Fry the battered onions until crispy, then drain on paper towels while you make the sauce.

Since I’m used to these being similar to fritters, I dropped the onion strips into the oil in small clumps. They cook fast, so they will stick together but they’ll also stick to the bundles you drop in nearby. No worries, though: you can always do some separating after they cool off a little bit.

If you stop right here and eat all the onions up, I wouldn’t blame you! I’m impressed that there were enough left for the sauce as Todd and I kept stealing tastes. This is now my official onion-ring recipe and, hey, it’s gluten free!
Kadi paste For the sauce (Kadi), combine the yogurt and besan into a paste, then whisk in water for a very thin batter.

Now, the recipe suggests that what makes this Punjabi is the thick sauce that the pakora are served in, and that a thin, watery sauce is actually a hallmark of Gujarti style dish.

With that in mind, 2 cups seems like more than enough to get a “very thin batter” but, take it from me, you want at least 3 cups of water in there.
Spices and a hot pan Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan (larger than I have here, hint!) and add the mustard, cumin, carom and methi seeds.

The instructions said to let “sputter” for a few seconds.

Folks, if you’ve got one of those splatter screens handy I’d use it at this point. Those little seeds (I’m looking at you, mustard) did NOT like being in the heated oil and took their revenge out on me like popcorn. But without the fluffy white puffs.

It was duck-and-cover mode for those few seconds.
Adding the onions to the spices Seriously, though, heating the spices does bring out the flavors, so it’s worth it–just be prepared.

Next, add in the diced onion (cooling down the pan a bit in the process) and cook until nice and golden brown.

Once golden add in the turmeric, salt and chili powder, give it a good stir before adding the besan and yogurt mixture.

This is when I realized that 2 cups of water wasn’t enough. Once in contact with the heat it immediately firmed up and I ended up whisking in another cup of water, slowly. This was also when I discovered the pan I’d chosen wasn’t really big enough.
The finishing spices--amchur and garam masala Messes were made. It’s not the end of the world.

Let this simmer for 30 minutes and don’t skimp on the time! The seeds need time to soften and impart their savory goodness. Don’t believe me? Taste the mixture after 5 minutes (but tread carefully so an not to bread a tooth on a fenugreek seed) and then after 30–exactly!

Finish the sauce by stirring in the amchur and garam masala powders.
Adding the pakoras Now stir in the reserved pakoras (or what’s left of them–seriously, those onions were amazing!) and cook just long enough to heat them through.

Serve with rice, naan or whatever else you like. It was Todd’s night to cook so we had this as an additional side dish with kebabs that night.

The next day we made sandwiches out of the leftovers in naan with a little drizzle of olive oil and some kosher salt on top. It makes for an amazing lunch.

The test.

So, we’d had pakoras before, but not the sauce. While shopping for ingredients we came upon a heat-and-eat packaged version of Punjabi Kadi Pakoras and thought it would be interesting to try them side by side to see how mine compared.

Purchased and Homemade Punjabi Kadi Pakoras

Purchased and Homemade Punjabi Kadi Pakoras

Right off we could see that the sauce in the packaged dish was deeper-colored and thinner. The purchased pakoras were small, tight dumplings and the fact that they contained spinach and quite a lot of heat were not the only differences. They had a peculiar texture that rang a distant bell. It took several small bites before I figured out what they reminded me of: the meatballs in canned Chef Boyardee Spaghetti. It was the mealy texture that just didn’t suit our palates, and I was very glad that no other pakora I’d ever had had tasted like that!

The only thing I would change about this recipe, if I were to make this Kadi again, would be to leave out the ajwain (oregano) seeds. As I opened each of the spice packets we’d picked up that afternoon I gave each a good sniff. What we discovered was the fenugreek was a major source of that comfort feeling we get from the curries that make us melt into our chairs. And that ajwain has a somewhat antiseptic smell that I did not like. It was less prevalent in the finished sauce but I could still detect it and I think the dish (for me) would be better served without it in the future.

Can’t wait to see what comes up to try next month!

Update: The rest of this month’s participants can be found at the Link-Up over on Spice Your Life.

ICC: Manoharam

Nibbles

After missing out last month due to a crowded schedule, it’s nice to be hanging out with the cooks of the Indian Cooking Challenge again! This month’s recipe is for a sweet treat, Manoharam, which started out very similar to the Kara Sev I made in July but with a finishing twist that makes me think this batch won’t last the week!

Manoharam

Manoharam

I did some liberal rewriting of this particular recipe (shared by Lataji), namely skipping the encouragement to grind your own flour bit–not going to happen at this time. Instead, I did some substitutions based on the Kara Sev recipe and added some spices based on the finished product:

Ingredients for Manoharam

Manoharam

1 c Rice Flour
1/2 c Gram Flour
1 T Ginger
1/2 T Cinnamon
2 t Salt
1 t Nutmeg
1/4 c Olive Oil
1/2 c Water (or as needed)
Adding the oil to the dry Combine dry ingredients and mix until spices are spread out among the flour.

Make a well and pour the olive oil into it. Mix until dough is clumpy and then add water a little at a time until the dough starts to hold together. Knead gently until the dough is smooth.

Divide the dough into 4 parts and roll into balls.
Pressing, frying and draining Heat about 2 quarts of frying oil in a pot or deep fryer to 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Oil a murukku press or (as in my case) a potato ricer fitted with a large die and load the first ball of dough into the press.

Press out long strings into the hot oil, using a knife to carefully cut the strings away from the press, if necessary.
Draining and crunching Frying should only take a minute or two, depending on the thickness of your strings. Drain on paper towels until cool.

Place the fried sticks into a gallon-size plastic bag and crush–but don’t pulverize–the sticks. I could be nice and say it looks somewhat like bran cereal about now but it really looks like kitty kibble.

Measure the resulting pieces. I came up with right around 20 oz, dry volume. According to the original instructions, the powdered sugar used in the next step should be approximately a quarter of the volume crumbled murukku.

I call foul, here, as that was nowhere near enough to coat it all. I think the major issue is that while it says volume on one line, it actually goes between grams (weight) and Liters (volume) in another.
Sugar Syrup at hard-ball stage Instead, make a sugar syrup of

2 c Powdered Sugar
5 oz Water

and cook to hard ball stage (250-265 degrees Fahrenheit). Generally you want to stir the mixture while the sugar is dissolving but not stir once it comes to a boil. Washing the sides of the pot as it boils will keep the sugar from collecting on the walls while the syrup comes to temperature.
Manoharam Remove from the heat (carefully–this can do serious damage so no sudden moves and no sloshing!) and carefully pour over the crushed murukku bits.

Oil your hands and, once the mixture is cool enough to handle, form the sticky bits into 1-inch balls.

This may or may not really work, all depending on your sugar mixture and how quickly it cools.

It might not be as pretty, but just breaking up the large brick-o-manoharam works just as well and is still just as tasty!

Before the sugar syrup was applied they were perfectly serviceable snacks on their own–much better than the last batch of Kara Sev which suffered from a lack of flavor. After the sugar, those, these little bits of brittle keep calling us back into the kitchen for continued snacking. As I suspected, it’s similar to pretzel or popcorn balls (though obviously without the airiness of the latter) and a nice candy to have around.

ICC: Kara Sev

Nibbles

It’s the 15th of the month so that means it’s time to share another adventure courtesy of the Indian Cooking Challenge! This month we made Kara Sev, another snack food and another round with the fryer. Unlike last month’s Pani Puri which turned into a several-hour ordeal with mixed results, this month was easy as fry–

Kara Sev

Kara Sev

Kara Sev

Ingredients:

2.5 cups Gram Flour
1 cup Rice Flour
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Salt
1 pinch Baking Soda
5 Tbsp ghee
2 cloves garlic, minced
Water, as needed

 My Notes:

*Gram flour is ground chick peas, you should be able to find it in your local organic foods section or you can make your own by drying out canned chick peas and processing in a blender or food processor until smooth

*I increased the chili powder x4 and could have actually gone up more, feel free to spice it up a little more

*I doubled the amount of ghee and could probably use more—you want a breadcrumb-type consistency and for that you need more fat to rub-in

If you’re not familiar with ghee, perhaps you’ve heard of clarified butter? They’re the same thing and if you’ve got unsalted butter, a saucepan and a ladle you’ve no need to hunt it down in a specialty food shop.

Clarifying Butter

Clarifying Butter

Over low heat, slowly melt the butter (for this recipe you’ll need about a stick) until it’s completely liquid. You’ll see a bit of white stuff come to the surface–those are the milk solids and you want to skim those off. The water has sunk to the bottom (in small quantities you have to be careful not to disturb that bottom layer, too) and the pure butter sits in the middle. Ladle off the clarified butter, leaving the water behind, and use as directed.

Now, onto the Sev!

Steps of the Kara Sev

Step-by-Step Kara Sev

1 ) Sift together the dry ingredients. I like to put half the flour(s) into the large sifter, add the seasonings, the finish off with the rest of the flour so that when I sift them together they get more evenly distributed.

2 ) Make a well in the center of the sifted dry ingredients and add the minced garlic and the ghee. Mix together the moist and dry (fingers really work best for this) until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Clumpy ones, sure, but bread crumbs just the same.

3 ) Sprinkle water over the mixture until a dough starts to form. In truth, it was more like shallow handfuls at first, just to get things to hold together, then it tapered off to sprinkles until the dough was fairly solid and no longer sticky.

Let me tell you, at this point the dough smelled fantabulous–the bean flour and the chili powder were activated by the water and if the finished sev smelled this good we were going to be very happy.

4 ) Divide the dough into 4 balls. This is just to keep it manageable.

5 ) Heat canola oil to around 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

6 ) Push the dough through a sev ladle or maker into the hot oil.

Okay, here’s where we reach a bit of a cultural divide–what in the world is a sev maker? Turns out it’s a perforated ladle that you use as a die to create little strings of dough for frying. Not having one of those around I found some pictures of what a sev-maker looked like and they look an awful lot like my potato ricer (that’s it on the left). This is what I used for most of the kara sev (press out strings about 2 inches long then cut off with a knife into the oil–watch for splashing!).

Someone else suggested using  a cookie press and I thought that was an inspired idea. Unfortunately, in the handful of moves since I last used mine, only the tree-die remained with the press. Still, I gave it a shot.

7 ) Fry until just barely colored. The first batch I fried until it was a golden brown and it didn’t have a lot of flavor. Each batch afterwards I fried a little less and the flavor increased. Turns out it only takes a moment or two in the oil for them to cook through so get ’em in, let ’em bubble and get ’em out!

8 ) Drain the finished sticks on a piece of paper toweling.

The batch I tried through the cookie press (don’t forget to spray it with something to prevent sticking!) turned out fine, too, in wider strips, but I only did the one batch of those–the ricer worked best.

Todd really enjoyed snacking on these crunchy strings, I would prefer a little more flavor in the finished product so more salt and more chili powder would not go amiss.

Store the drained sev in an airtight container or plastic bag.

I’m still looking for the perfect dip that goes with these (maybe hummus?) since I’m not a huge fan of a lot of dry snacks but these are pretty addicting once you get started on them.