Travels for Taste

Tales of travel and food with a touch of spice

Clear Vegetable soup with an Indian Phodni

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Clear Vegetable soup – my way – Easy Cooking, Healthy Food

Happy New Year everyone! It’s a great way to start a new year on a healthy note hence some soup for new years day lunch light and easy !

Nothing warms us up in winter like a steaming hot soup, if it is filling , easy to make and wholesome it makes life even better! Agree? I love ordering clear vegetable soup when I go eating out and though this is not the typical chinese take away and is a very home cooking and simplistic approach it’s still what a soup should essentially be – wholesome…

You can add as many veggies as you like that would marry well with the basic list I think is essential, I basically use whatever is available in my vegetable tray on the said day !

The following roughly make for 2 large bowls of soup and a small leftover portion for Lunch next day, perfect I say !

  1. Cauliflower 1/4th finely chopped
  2. Small hand full green peas
  3. 2 – 3 large sprigs of spring onion finally chopped
  4. Bottle Gourd – 1/4th finely chopped
  5. 2 large cloves of garlic
  6. A pinch of cummin seeds
  7. Half a tea-spoon ghee or low-fat butter example :Lurpack
  8. 2 small carrots finely chopped
  9. Hand full french beans very finely chopped
  10. 1/4th tomato very finely chopped for flavour
  11. Large bit of fresh ginger smashed with skin to add flavour

Optional : Brocoli, sweet corn,potatoes,cabbage

Method:

  1. Boil all the veggies in water with salt to taste and the large piece of ginger with skin after its washed thoroughly , if it has too much mud on it please remove the skin , no knife skills needed just let yourself go, as Jamie Oliver would say !
  2. While these are almost boiled ,take the ghee/butter in a tadka pan(image pasted below ) add the garlic cloves with skin smash them using a mortar pestle before adding and then add the cumin seeds when the gee/butter is hot and sputtering.Add this ”tadka” or seasoning to the boiled veggie water mix and serve hot.
  3. The toasted garlic and ghee combination give off a sweet flavour and an appetising aroma.
  4. An ideal accompaniment is a boiled sweet corn stub slathered in low-fat butter and a slice of your favourite baguette !

Cheers to good health , easy cooking , healthy and wholesome meals and of course winter warmers !

Clear Veg Soup with an Indian Tadkawholesome goodness of vegetables in a broth!

Baked Salmon and a crunchy vegetable salad

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This is probably my simplest ,fastest and yet very tasty AND healthy meal option. All you need is 2 slices of salmon some salad leaves and a hotch potch collection of any thing that can yumm up a salad! Few Minutes in the oven and hey Presto ! a healthy meal is ready to tuck in.

What I love about the after feel of this kind of a lunch or dinner is that it leaves me full and satiated and not feeling bloaty or heavy or drowsy for that matter!

So my ingredient list goes like this , but honestly for the salad just use any combination of leafy stuff and spices that you have in your fridge and cupboard and slam them together to make your own accompaniment!

  1. 2 slices of salmon fresh
  2. 2 thick slices of lime to wedge into the fish and a large slice to splash over the salad.
  3. one spoon olive oil
  4. Mixed italian herbs to season the fish – better if you have fresh herbs
  5. crushed black pepper and rock salt to sprinkle
  6. some capers for seasoning
  7. Salad leaves of your liking I use the mix leaves packets from the supermarket – rocket,spinach,lettuce mixed with some peppers and red onion sliced  for some colour, crunch and taste.
  8. Cherry Tomatoes
  9. A cheese slice – anything that you fancy
  10. Some onion flakes to dust over the salad

This meal takes lesser time to cook than it took me to write this blog post 🙂

Method:

  1. place the salom piece on a foil, lightly drizzle olive oil , wedge a slice of lime in between and sprinkle sea salt and crcaked black pepper and a generous sprinkle of italian herbs, mine came out of a bottle.
  2. Give the Salmon just enough time in the oven to cook, fish cooks fairly fast and these 2 slices took less that 7 minutes in a pre heated oven.
  3. Once done serve the salmon alongside a generous helping of salad leaves and juicy cherry tomatoes,toss a few capers , tear some cheese to season, give another drizzle of olive oil and a big squeeze  of lime ,finally add some crispy fried onion bits, finish off with sea salt.
  4. Dig in and feel full inside and light and skippity on a full stomach.

P.S: of the time you save when you choose this light, easy and quick dish , grab that novel you have been waiting to get done with enjoy a relaxed afternoon curled up on the sofa…I did…:)

The salmon is ready for the ovenThe salad is all done!Dig into crunchy wholesome goodness and juicy fish

Masoorachi Aamti or Red Lentil Curry

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Akkhe Masoor or whole red lentils

Masoorachi Aamti or Red Lentil Curry – Recipe adaptation from Mother, Mother in Law and a close C.K.P friend – who loves to stir up some spicy CKP fare and generally succeeds at it 🙂

Masoorachi Aamti or Red Lentil Curry

Delicious, easy and quick recipe for using whole red lentils with skin on
Print Recipe
Servings: 4 portions
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

  • 300 Grams MasoorDal (Red Lentil) with their brown covers intact and whole
  • 1 tsp Mustard Seeds
  • 3 cloves Garlic with skin on
  • 5-6 Curry leaves
  • 2-3 Green Chillies
  • 1 tsp Cumin
  • 1.5 tbsp freshly grated soft white coconut
  • 1.5 tbsp Goda Masala
  • 2 tbsp Coriander Powder
  • 1.5 tbsp Ginger – Garlic Paste
  • 3 mediumsized Red onions, chopped fine
  • 1/2 tsp Asafoetida
  • 1.5 tsp Turmeric powder
  • 2 tsp Red Chilli Powder
  • Jaggery to taste
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 – 3 petals Garcinia Indica – wet, salt preserved
  • Fresh leaves of Coriander chopped fine for dressing
  • 2 tbsp Sunflower Oil

Equipment

  • 1 Pan with lid
  • 1 Knife
  • 1 Chopping Board
  • 1 Spatula

Method
 

  1. Soak the washed lentils in luke warm water for about 20 minutes. You can par-boil the lentils too, to save time. t
  2. Heat two large generous tablespoons of oil in a wok, no weight loss tip this, huh? Indeed!
  3. Add mustard seeds and wait for them to pop.
  4. To this hot oil, dd Asafoetida, crushed garlic cloves , let the skin remian attached.
  5. When the garlic is starting to brown add the curry leaves, green chillies, cumin and then the fresh grated coconut.
  6. Now stir in the Goda masala, coriander powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, ginger garlic paste and coriander chilli paste and mix well.
  7. Now add the chopped onion and cook them on a low heat until they begin to break down and caramelise.
  8. Drain excess water from the lentils and add them into this spice and oil mix. Stir well. Cover and cook on medium to low heat until almost done. Check occasionally and stir as so to ensure it does not burn.
  9. Add the soaked Garcinia Indica alongwith the water it was soaking in. Mix well. Cook without the lid on low heat until fully cooked.
  10. Season with finely chopped fresh as ever coriander andserve piping hot with phulkas dripping with ghee (clarified butter) or the plain old boiled white rice.

Recipe Notes

  • Goda Masala – this is a mix of various spices readily available in Asian Grocery stores it’s basically a mixture of dry coconut roasted with a mixture of at least 10 different spices, best of all it’s available to buy online at Red Rickshaw – previously called itadka.com. Refrigerate this pack to increase shelf life,yayay so many tips from me, don’t YOU just LOVE me if u better don’t just READ this make n slurp it all ALONE, drop me A LINE and thank meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) Better still make your own, recipe coming soon – watch this space!
  • Aamsul / Amsul – also known as Kokum or Garcinia Indica, is a plant belonging to the mangosteen family (Clusiaceae). This is one of those revered ingredients that is commonly used in Indian cooking especially in Maharashtra, along the coast. Much like my beloved coconut this fruit has multiple applications and is very versatile, besides it is such a good-looking gorgeous and delicious tropical fruit.
  • Coriander and Chilli paste – 2 small-sized bunches of coriander pureed with 2-3 green chillies – freeze and use on demand, handy and 1 of my 5 “save your face” purees for unwanted guests popping in at odd hours – the other 4 are listed at the end of this recipe.
  • The other 4 SAVE ME NOW pastes are: a garlic ginger coarse paste, Finely grated fresh white coconut paste, Tomato red onion puree -1:3, And the best one for last aye? – a few onions chopped lengthwise n lightly roasted in a kadhai (wok) with fresh white coconut finely grated till they turn slightly brown, then churned into a paste in the mixer.
  • The masoor dal can be done 2 ways for stage 1 of this process, 1st is the short cut which I love as I suddenly get an urge mid-evening to cook this typical CKP recipe to appease my urges to run to Heathrow n take the next flight to my parents home in Pune, hummmmm, so we soak the masoor dal 2 measures feeds 2 adults with a ravenous appetite and leaves some to spare.

Key

This is the key to a mystical tropical paradise…. errrr… sorry but it is not, it is simply the key to some important words that you will encounter pretty often while reading my posts or watching my videos. I am after all a student of Chemistry and treat my kitchen like my personal laboratory where I create my own kitchen experiments! This is why the word ‘Key’ reminds me of my Chemistry textbook in my school years 😉

  • C.K.P stands for Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu a sub-section of the Maharashtrian community in India and they generally hail from the coastal regions and hence are rather partial to freshly grated coconut and amsool in their food, not to mention their love for fresh fish and mutton, oh yeah!
  • Daal is used to loosely to refer to the uncooked Lentil and AAMTI is a Marathi word meaning cooked curry.
  • Coriander for my friends from across the pond is Cilantro.
  • Phodni – Marathi for tempering, also one of my favourite words to say. Follow my hashtag on Instagram #phodnitales , please pretty please? 🙂
  • Kadhai – The Marathi pronunciation sounds like it ends in ‘ee’, while the Hindi pronunciation stretches the first ‘a’ following the ‘K’ to sound like ‘aaa’ , easy or what?!
  • Phulkas – Also called chapattis or the delightful Indian Bread soft and fluffy and fresh off the pan has ghee smeared on it to pack some punch and many, many calories 🙂

EXPLORE MORE RECIPES FROM MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

Random Thoughts

I would totally rechristen the word ‘Method’ in a recipe post with the name ‘Process ‘ Why, well once a Chemistry student and a retail employee I guess some things just stay with you forever. Also, instead of “PREPARATION” I choose the word ”Process” which is drilled into a Retail Managers brain like young parents making their kids rote learn alphabets)

Pic 1: The saucepan contains oil heated and then the asafoetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, then the garlic, chopped green chillies and curry leaves and last but the best one is GODA masala

Pic 2 :Chopped red onion added to the mix

Pic 3: That’s the dal cooking

Pic 4 & 5: All done , the AROMA is filling my senses and transporting me into my MIL’s kitchen , I want to HUG her nowwwwwwwwwww

P.S: Will post pictures to compare the 2 sizes of Mustard seeds at a later date , I am now going to be too busy slurping my Aamti off the plate 🙂

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