Vada Pav

On a rainy day, in a dull weather, you cannot go out and are stuck at home. One of the hot snacks, that comes to your mind is vada pav. I still remember those college days when we used to go to Joshi vade wale in front of Balgandharva, Pune, India. The mouth watering hot vada pavs was one of my favorites. In Atlanta, we miss all those small tapari's and the fun of going out and eating Indian food. My husband one day came home and said, feel like eating vada pav. So I thought why not give it a try. So with all my enthu started to search the net for the perfect recipe and ended up taking a mix of recipes on all the websites. It turned out to be yummy. I was successful in tangling his taste buds and he said "very close to what we used to have in Pune".

Ingredients
Potaotes - 4
Ginger - 1/2 inch
Garlic - 2-3 flakes
Green chilli - 5
Curry leaves - 10
Mustard seeds - 1/2 spoon
Turmeric powder (haldi) - 1 spoon
Salt
Besan (Gram flour) - 5 table spoon
Red chilli powder - 1/2 spoon
Chat masala - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup
Oil for frying
Pav or bread


Method:
1. Grind ginger, garlic and green chillies together into a paste.
2. Peel and mash boiled potatoes.
3. Add ginger-garlic-green chilies paste, coriander leaves, and salt to it.
4. Then take 1 teaspoon of oil in a kadai. Add mustard seeds. As soon as they start spluttering, add turmeric powder & curry leaves. Add the mashed potatoes & mix it properly.
5. Make small flat balls of this potato mixture by pressing in your palm.
6. Now add some salt & turmeric powder to the gram flour . Mix it together. Add some water to make a thick batter without any lumps.

7. Heat some oil in a pan. Dip the balls in gram flour and deep fry till golden brown. Fry some green chillies
8. Slit the Pav keeping the base intact & spread Garlic Chutney. Place the vada into it. Eat it with the fried green chillies mixed with salt.



Tips:
Garlic chutney or groundnut chutney is readily available in Indian stores. It can also be made at home. Add some sweet tamarind chutney to give it the sweet and spicy taste.

Chilly Paneer

We had been to dinner at a friend's place and there they had made chilly paneer as one of the starters. It was yummy. I thought it will be time consuming to make that, but when I asked for the recipe, I found out that it was very easy. So I tried making it and now this has become one of the best starters.

Ingredients:
Paneer (Cottage cheese) - 250 gms
Onions - 2 medium
Capsicum (Green Pepper) - 2 medium
Red Chilli Sauce (I have tried with Ching's red chilli sauce)
Soy Sauce
Tomato Ketchup
Corn starch - 4 spoons
Maida (All purpose flour) - 1 spoons
Oil

Method:
Cut Paneer into small cubes or rectangles as per your wish. Mix 2 spoons of corn starch and 1 spoon of maida and add some water and make a thin paste. Dip paneer pieces into this and deep fry till light brown in color. Or you can directly deep fry paneer pieces without dipping into corn starch mix.

Cut onions and capsicum length wise. Take some oil in pan. Add onions and saute on high flame for 2 mins or till onion becomes translucent. Now add capsicum and saute for 2 more minutes.

Now add paneer pieces when the capsicum (green pepper) has become soft.

Saute for few minutes till all is mixed well. If you like some gravy, mix corn starch in water and make a thin paste and add it. Mix well till the paste is mixed well with paneer and onion and capsicum. Now add tomato ketchup 1 spoon at a time.
Now add red chilli sauce 1 spoon at a time.Taste and see if you get the sweet and spicy taste. As per your taste increase the amount of ketchup to make it sweet and red chilli sauce to make it spicy. When you have reached the right balance of sweet and spicy taste add some soy sauce. Mix all well and chilly paneer is ready to serve. Serve hot.

Some tips:
This tastes better when you mix the ketchup, red chilli sauce and soy sauce just before you are about to serve. I fry the paneer and keep it ready and also saute the onion and capsicum. I mix all together just 5 minutes before I have to serve.

Homemade Tomato Jam

Ingredients:
Tomato - 6 medium sized
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 2 table spoon
Cardamom (Elachi) powder - 1 spoon

Method:
Boil tomatoes in water till the skin starts peeling off. Remove the skin and blend it in blender to get the pulp out of it. Measure the pulp and put it in a pan, add 1/2 the amount of sugar as the pulp. Add ghee. Keep it on slow flame and keep stirring occasionally. Close it with lid incase the tomato spills out. Let it simmer till it becomes thick like jam. Add cardamom powder and stir well for 5 mins. Jam is ready. It tastes good with bread or plain roti. This is my Mom's recipe, she used to make when we were small and my brother and I love it.