Cranberry Spicy Chutney

This weekend we went to the Farmer's Market to get our weekly supply of veggies. It was a fun trip with the M-I-L who is visiting us but the scorching sun created a meltdown situation. I love the sights of a market but this year I thought we saw more plant saplings for sale than vegetables. I could be wrong but a lot of variety was missing. We got the usual beans, capsicum, tomato kind of stuff but nothing more spectacular. I started to load the fridge when we got back and thats when I discovered a quarter of a bag of cranberries lying there at the bottom, out of sight. Cranberries are strange things. I bought them with the fond hope of using them for baking but quickly developed a dislike for the sourness it brings to any dish. So I ate them with my cereal a few times and generally forgot about the few left over. To my surprise, 6 months after buying them and not freezing them, they were still fresh in the fridge! I decided to use it up the very next day and started to hunt out recipes.

I found one chutney recipe using the Microwave in Julie Sahni's Microwave Moghul but wasnt convinced that the sourness would be lost. So I decided to try my own method of making this chutney and it did turn out tasty. The only thing I would change would be to increase the green chillies and not use lime. The chutney is very slightly sour but nothing to turn away from. This chutney tastes good with Idlis and Dosas but comes out on top as a sandwich spread. I mixed it with plain white rice and thought it was very well suited for that too! So here is the recipe for it with the changes incorporated.

Cranberry Spicy Chutney

Servings: 1 cup of chutney
Prep Time: 10 mins   Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients

1/2 cup Cranberries (I used fresh and am not sure about using frozen for this recipe)
1 Medium sized Onion
3-4 Garlic pods
1 inch piece Ginger
1 tsp Cumin seeds
10 green chillies (or more depending on how hot the chillies are)
1 tsp Cumin powder
1 tsp Coriander powder
1 tsp Red Chilli powder
Salt to taste (a little extra to beat the sourness)
Bunch of Coriander leaves
4 tsp Oil
1 cup Water

Instructions

1. Cut the onion into big pieces.
2. Wash the cranberries.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the cumin seeds to it.
4. Add in green chillies when the cumin seeds start to sputter. Fry for half a minute.
5. Add the onions and fry till translucent and then add the ginger and garlic and fry for another minute.
6. Now put in the cumin powder, coriander powder and chilli powder and mix well in the pan.
7. Add in the cranberries and toss it with the rest of the ingredients.
8. As the cranberries start heating up they pop and start oozing the juice. Add 1/4 cup water into the pan to prevent over browning of the mixture.
9. Cook the contents over medium flame turning it once in a few minutes.
10. Add in chopped coriander leaves and continue to cook.
11. I cooked this mixture for around 30 minutes after adding the cranberries and made sure that there was water in the pan at all times.
12. Allow the mixture to cool and then grind it to a smooth paste.
13. Serve with idlis, dosas, sandwich, chapati or rice, garnished with coriander leaves.

Pesarattu (Moong Dal Dosa)

Today was a one of a kind foodie day. It started with bread for breakfast, idli for lunch and dosa for dinner. The dotzy was finally confused and called her dinner brunch! I have been inundated with whole green moong dal (green gram) after I ended up buying it every time I visited the Indian grocery store over the past two months. I could not remember that I had bought it already. I have been asking friends to help me use it in bulk and one of my sweet friends S suggested Pesarattu. I thought that was going to be a long drawn process and procrastinated on the idea till another friend S told me how easily it can be done. The clincher was the fact that this is an instant dosa mix (if you have soaked dal handy) and I love a no prep recipe.

The word "Pesarattu" is derived from "Pesaru" which is what Moong dal is called in Telugu and "Attu" which is what Dosa is commonly called in Telugu. Pesara Pappu is what the yellow split moong dal is called. So Pesarattu is simply a moong dal crepe or dosa. And might I add a yummy one at that. The only prep required for this dosa is soaking of moong dals for atleast 6 hrs or even overnight. If the moong beans have sprouted it is healthier.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can add flavours as you please. Add in mint to get a fresher flavour or coriander to get the friendly homely taste. Add in onions and carrots to enhance the flavour.

I think this batter may work well with tomato as well although we might have to spread the batter thicker and sprinkle fine cut tomato pieces on top while on the skillet. I am also going to try this with avocado the next time and avoid rice flour altogether.

Pesarattu (Moong Dal Dosa) 

Servings: 20 Dosas
Prep Time: 8 hrs (soak time) + 10 mins for grinding Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients 

3 cups sprouted Moong dal
1/2 cup Rice flour
1/2 cup Water
1 1/2 tsp Jeera powder
4 Green chillies
A bunch of Coriander
1 Medium sized Onion (optional)
1 Medium sized Carrot (optional)
Salt to taste

Instructions 

Grind all the ingredients together till you get a fine paste. Add more water as required to make it easier to grind and to get it to a spreadable batter consistency.
Add finely chopped onions and grated carrot to the batter and mix well. This step is optional.
Heat a skillet on medium flame.
Pour a ladle of batter in the center of the skillet. Using the back of the ladle (it has to be a heat resistant material ofcourse) spread the batter outward in one continuos circlular motion without lifting the ladle away.
If onion and carrot have been added, be slower with the spreading as it the batter is denser and it may clump.
Allow the dosa to cook till nicely browned on the bottom.
Using a large heat resistant spatula flip the dosa and cook it for a couple of seconds on the other side.
Serve dosa hot with Chutney and / or Chutney powder.

Tomato Puri (not the chaat)

Puris are my darling dotzy's all time favourite breakfast and today being a Sunday we decided to feast on them. 

I had seen that Rafs was hosting the Tried and Tasted event this month and the featured blog was Maayeka. Incidentally I had come across this blog a couple of weeks ago and one of Mrs. Anjana Chaturvedi's recipes, the tomato poori, had caught my fancy. I tried it out today and it was super yummy. I had to really scramble to get pictures before they got devoured. The accompaniment to the puris was the most kid friendly side dish, onion and potato curry. 

The original recipe can be found here. The only deviation I made was to not add the baking soda. 

Tomato Puri

Servings: 16 puris
Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 30 mins 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Whole wheat flour
1/2 cup Fine Semolina (Rava)
1 tsp Cumin powder (or use Cumin seeds)
1 tsp Red chilli powder
1 1/2 tbps Mint leaves (finely chopped)
1 Tomato pureed
Salt to taste
Oil for deep fry

Instructions 

1. Mix the flour, semolina, cumin powder, red chilli powder, salt, mint leaves and oil. 
2. To this add the tomato puree and mix
3. Knead and form a dough, adding a little water if required.
4. Cover and keep aside for 30 minutes
5. Heat the oil till it becomes hot enough to fry.
6. Pinch off dough and roll it in your hands to form 1 1/2 inch diameter balls
7. Using a rolling pin, roll the ball out to a 4 inch wide dough circle.
8. Slide this into the hot oil and fry till golden brown. 
9. While frying, gently patting the poori with a slotted spoon while enable it to puff up.
10. Drain excess oil, remove the poori and place it on a tray covered with paper tissue. This helps absorb any excess oil. 
11. Serve tomato puri hot with onion-potato curry or chutney. 

How to Puree Tomato

1. Boil 3 cups of water
2. Make slits in the tomato and immerse it in the boiling water.
3. Allow it to cook in the boiling water for around 4 minutes till soft
4. Remove from hot water and immerse it in cold (room temperature) water for 5 minutes
5. The above process is called blanching.
6. Remove the skin of the tomato in a thin layer
7. Grind it to a puree in a mixer/blender. Do not add water while grinding.
8. Use the puree in any recipe which requires tomato puree. 

Sending this to Tried and Tasted event being hosted by Rafs!