Saturday morning noodles for the lazy cooks

Saturdays are little slow as 5 days of working drains our energy and we need something simple and quick to eat on Saturday morning. 

Presenting here our recipe/method for the humble instant noodles. I have used Top Ramen here but this recipe can be used for Maggi, Yippee or any other instant noodles that comes with it's own tastemaker masala. Please note that cooking time for Yippee noodles is lesser than other brands that we have cooked till now.

This version almost always gets us non-sticky noodles to a certain extent. Of course over cooking can also do that to any noodles.

Ingredients:

• Instant noodles with tastemaker - 2 packets (any brand)
• Water - 1.5 cup/packet for boiling the noodles and another 1/4 cup/packet for adding at the end

Recipe:

• Boil the water in a vessel or saucepan. Thick bottomed vessel is better.
• Add the the noodles to boiling water. Mix well and stir the noodles in water. 
• At the same time heat/boil the remaining water separately in a vessel. Mostly I'll microwave the water in a porcelain cup for 30-40 seconds for 2 packets.
• Once the noodles have softened, drain off the water from noodles as much as you can (without pouring the noodles into the sink.  😏It happens).
• Then add the separately boiled water to the drained noodles, mix and put back on heat. 
• Add the tastemaker sachet contents and mix well. Cook for a minute or more, depending on the quantity of the noodles
• Turn off the heat and keep covered for 2-3 minutes. 
• Uncover the vessel, mix again and serve.

Do try this and let us know if your noodles turned out better or worse than your usual method. 

I missed writing about garnishing. Well, lazy breakfast and garnishing don't go well. That we do when we are preparing pan-fried noodles. When we have time and energy to cook.

Onion Chutney

Today we share our recipe for onion chutney recipe. This chutney can be a life saver if you are returning late to home without having dinner outside and you have nothing but idli-dosa batter in your fridge. Or you have enough ingredients to prepare a sandwich but no dip to go along with it.

You can make this chutney in short time, within 10-15 minutes. So, here it goes.

Ingredients:

Onions - 2/3 larges one, chopped roughly.
Garlic - 2/3 cloves, peeled.
Ginger - Small piece, peeled and chopped.
Dry red chillies - 3-4, for grinding.
Tamarind extract/paste - 1 tsp.
Curry leaves - 5-6, for grinding.
Oil - For sauteingas per personal preference (We used gingelly/sesame oil).
Salt - To taste.

For tempering:

Dry red chillies - 2-3.
Curry leaves - 8-10 leaves.
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp.
Cumin/Jeera seeds - 1/2 tsp.
Skinless Urad dal - 1/2 tsp.
Oil - For tempering, as per personal preference (We used gingelly/sesame oil).

Preparation:

Sauté the chopped onions along with the cloves of garlic and the ginger in heated oil.

Add salt and sauté until the onion don't have the typical raw smell. 

Turn off the heat, add in curry leaves, half of the dry red chillies, the tamarind paste/extract and mix well.

Once the mixture is cooled , grind it in mixie . Add water if needed but we got best results without water. We prefer thick chutney to watery chutneys.

Pour into a bowl.

Tempering:

Heat 2-3 tsp oil in thick bottom vessel. 

Once heated add the remaining red chillies, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal and curry leaves. 

Once the seeds and dal start spluttering, pour the oil and its contents over the chutney bowl.

You are all set!

Serving:

Serve with dosa, idly, uthappam, rava dosa. Even samosa, bhajjis (fritters) and sandwich will taste great with this chutney. 

You can vary the spiciness to suit your individual taste but this one tastes best when spiciness is high.

Variation

Add chopped tomatoes during the sauteing stage to make tomato-onion chutney. 

A Little Video of our Kitchen Preparations.

Here's a small video of our kitchen preparations this year. Well almost. Some pics are from previous years but they were too good looking to be excluded. We'll try to put up more videos in future.

Thanks for watching.

Baked Pasta, some continental food for dinner.

Saturday night dinner was a surprise from wife as she cooked up two variations of Baked Pasta.

It's not very difficult to cook as the ingredients are few and the dish doesn't need too much preparation. We used macaroni pasta as the base. Boiled the pasta in water and drain once cooked. Chopped broccoli, beans, carrots and sweet corn were the main ingredients. In addition purple cabbage was used in the pasta with white sauce only version. The other version had white sauce and tomato sauce.

Tomato and white sauce based

White sauce based This version had purple cabbage as extra ingredient.

White sauce based

Ingredients:

Macaroni pasta (boiled with olive oil and salt, and drained).

Cheese slices.

Broccoli florets.

Carrot slices.

Chopped beans.

Sweet corn kernels.

Chopped purple cabbage.

White sauce/tomato sauce.

Olive oil for tossing vegetables.

Preparation:

Heat a pan, add some olive oil and add all the vegetables. Toss them for a minute or two and then take off the heat. Layer in the bowl - first the sauce, then the pasta, then the vegetables and finally the cheese slices. You can also add the cheese slice in between the pasta and vegetables for more cheesiness. Quantity of cheese slices is totally up to your personal preference. We used exactly one slice per bowl. Then bake in OTG for 20 minutes at 220 C. If you want the cheese to be more stringy/burnt, then increase the overall baking time to 25-30 minutes.

Serving:

Garnish (optional) before serving. We used  red chilli flakes. You can also add various herbs for seasoning like thyme, rosemary, oregano. Scoop out portions and serve. 

Hope you liked this recipe. Do let us know if you have any queries in the comments.

Continental food - Veg. Russian (Olivier) Salad with Pasta

Russian Salad is also known as Olivier Salad. It's a common dish in European countries. It's basically a potato based salad with other ingredients. Normally vegetables and fruits are added, along with sour cream or mayonnaise. Boiled meat or fish can be added if preferred. Pasta is also added as a variation. There are probably hundreds of versions of this dish.

Here we present our version of Veg Russian Salad with pasta. Do try it out and let us know how it tasted.

Ingredients:

• 75 g - Pasta (we used penne pasta) cooked al-dente (boiled fully and then ice water is poured to prevent further cooking due to heat)
• Apple - 1/2 peeled and cubed.
• Black/green grapes - 10-15, washed.
• Potatoes - 1/2 medium size. Boiled, peeled and cubed.
• Carrots - 1 small. Sliced in round/oval. Can be par-boiled if you don't want the crunchy texture.
• Baby corn - 1/2. Sliced round.
• Broccoli - 50 g. Cut to small florets and blanched in hot water.
• Beans - 5/6. Chopped it fine and boil for 3-4 minutes.
• Lettuce - 1 large leaf. Torn with hand in small pieces.
• Mayonnaise - 2-3 tbsp. Can be adjusted as per your personal preferences.

Seasoning:

• Oregano seasoning - 1/2 tsp or adjust.
• Red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp or adjust.
• Salt - To taste.

Things to note:

• It's better if all ingredients are chilled in fridge for at least 1 hour as it tastes better when cold/chilled.
• Check if your mayonnaise is salty as it may change the overall taste.

Preparation:

• Take a large bowl.
• Add and mix all the ingredients, except mayonnaise, in the bowl.
• Then add the mayonnaise and mix well.
• Add the seasoning and mix again.

Serving:

• Pour portions in bowls/plates and serve chilled.
• Bon appetit. Enjoy your pasta.

Hope this recipe is useful. Please leave your feedback/queries as comments.

Making Gulab Jamuns From Readymade Mix

Making great looking Gulab Jamuns is not magic. At least we don't think it is. But our friends and family are mostly awestruck by our Gulab Jamuns. So we decided to share our method of preparing them. What I believe is that making good Gulab Jamuns takes lots of effort. The kneading of the mix with milk into dough takes good amount of shoulder power. Again making the round dough balls takes lots of effort that we have mentioned below. So here goes.

We follow the recipe almost as it is written on the back of packs, with certain deviations. We prefer to use Gits Mix. It has given us the best results.

1. Use lukewarm milk to mix the dough instead of water.

2. Add the milk slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time. If the pack asks you to use 150 ml, measure exactly that much and mix that full amount.

3. Sometimes while mixing you will see the mix will become very sticky but keep on kneading. It'll become dry again. Remember, FINISH mixing the entire measured milk into the dough.

4. The consistency of the dough should be soft. If you don't see oil/ghee on your palm, mixing is not complete. Remember this.

5. Cut the dough into about 1 cm dia. Put in between your palms and press it hard while rotating palms in opposing directions. Reduce the distance between the palms slowly and you will see that the round shape forming slowly. NOTE: If you don't see you palms becoming oily AND warm, you are not putting enough effort 

6. If the dough ball is kinda sticky on your palms, then its having extra water. In that case, compress and roll with extra force to work out some of the water. The moment the palm becomes oily again, reduce the extra force and make a ball to be fried.

7. Either fry it immediately or keep it covered with moist muslin/cotton cloth. The surface of the round dough ball SHOULD NOT dry up before putting in the oil.

8. There must be enough oil that the dough balls do not touch the bottom of the frying vessel.

9. Fry till you get golden brown colour. Remember if you get one shade while frying, it will become lighter than that after soaking because it expands.

10. Making syrup is pretty simple. Follow instructions on the pack. You can increase the water to reduce the sweetness. But cool down the fried balls to room temperature and add to the hot syrup for soaking.

11. Next step is to wait for the GJs to soak up the syrup. At least 2-3 hours it takes to fully soak.

12. Refrigerate immediately and serve chilled or hot, as per your preference. Gulab jamuns with vanilla ice cream s a great combination.

 

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