Plantains

Plantains……heard that they are the cousins of banana…..I partly agree with that cause they look almost the same. But when they come to taste and cooking methods, they are entirely different. Plantains are quite larger in size and the skin is even more yellow than the banana. And the flesh is yellow too. You can see few sliced plantains on top of the plantain cake. It doesn’t have the lovely aroma of our banana but has its own distinct smell. I thought of blogging about plantains because I feel that it is not common in Britain and I just want the readers of this blog to familiarize the readers with this amazing fruit. Many of them call plantain as banana but it is NOT.

Back in India (my home town) and in UAE (grew-up here) plantains are always readily available everywhere and my mom used to make some or the other snack out of it for evening tea or even morning breakfast. Here in my locality, plantains are only found in Asian stores and Greek/Turkish stores and the mega stores don’t sell them at all. What initiated me to blog about plantains is the Turkish grocer near our home. Whenever I go to the Turkish shops they always had very ripe plantains where the skin goes black and they always throw them out thinking that they are spoiled. A couple of times when I went there to get plantains, to my surprise, they asked me, “what do you do with these things?”. I told them they can be used to prepare lot of things. Then he asked me “Do they taste good?” I find those questions very funny and always bring a smile on my face when I think of it. Apart from that, what really triggered me to blog about plantains was the cooking competition program called Celebrity MasterChef program on the UKTVFOOD Channel. This is a program where the competitors pass through several test rounds to win the Celebrity Master Chef title. One of the rounds was to identify different kinds of foods provided to them. And there was this plantain. Among the four contestants in that round, two of them couldn’t answer that it was plantain. They told it was banana which really shocked me. Plantains are not bananas.

I think plantain is a very versatile fruit. It can be prepared into many delicacies and savouries at different stages throughout their life from raw till they are very ripe. Plantains are always available in our home and we always had something made from plantains. When plantains are raw and the skin is green, it can be used to prepare the famous ‘plantain chips’ which is seasoned with little turmeric and salt and fried in oil. They are really famous for their crunchiness and a different flavour. Plantain chips from Calicut were the ones we always bought on the way to UAE. That was the all time favourite. It can be used in curries and stir fries. In its raw form, it is also sun-dried and then powdered to make the best weaning food for babies without any additives. When it turns medium ripe, or to say when it just starts ripening, skin turns yellow but still the greens are visible near the stalks, then it is time to prepare another famous dish, Another all time favourite-‘kaayada’ or ‘Unnakkaya’. When it gets really ripe, u can also sauté them in clarified butter or ghee and sprinkle with sugar for that extra sweetness, or steam cook them with skin on etc. When it really ripens and the skin goes to almost black, bake them or make halwas. You can find the recipe for few plantains in my blog itself.

King prawns and Okra in coconut gravy

After all the sweet posts that I have been doing recently, its high time that I spice up my blog with little bit of hot posts like curries or anything that doesn’t have Sugar in it. Let me begin with the prawn and okra curry. Well, about the curry, it always reminds me of my dad. It is one of my dad’s favourite dishes that he constantly talks about whenever my mom prepares it at home. He used to tell us how his mother prepared this dish by picking up the fresh okra from her kitchen garden and fresh, live prawns from the fish monger. Nothing would taste so good as using very fresh and organic vegetables and cooking them straight from the garden. It all happens in golden olden days. But now, where the life is going faster than it should be, supermarket bought stuff are the only choice. My dad is a great prawn lover and is my husband. So my mom kept on making so many dishes with prawn for my dad and so I’m following her footsteps now making prawn dishes for my Husband. This particular curry very well goes with pathiri, plain boiled rice, poori, chappaathi, neypathiri, ottil pollichathu etc. I hope I will post the recipes of all these one by one slowly.

Ingredients

King prawns 200 gm (shelled)
Medium sized Okra – 15 no.s
Onion – 2 cups thinly sliced (2 large ones)
Tomato – 3 small / 2 medium size, chopped
Green chilly – 2 nos (slit lengthwise)
Kashmiri Chilli Powder – 2 tspful
Coriander Powder -2 tspful
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Coconut Milk- 1 ½ cup ()
Fennel seeds -1 tsp
Salt – as reqd.
Water – ½ cup appx.
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 2 twigs
Coconut oil – 4-5 tbs

Preparation:
1. Keep a medium sized sauce pan in medium flame and add 1-2 tbs of oil.
2. Add onions, tomatoes, green chilli and salt and close the lid and cook for about 5 minutes or until tomatoes go soft. The flame should not be too high and the water from the onion should not dry up as well. Don’t make the flame too low as well.
3. At this point, add chilli powder, coriander powder, prawns and stir well. Keep simmering in medium flame until prawns are almost cooked. If the gravy seems too dry, add half cup of water and close the lid.
4. Meanwhile grind the fennel seeds along with turmeric in coconut milk. Keep them aside.
N.B: I used freshly grated coconut about ½ cup and ground it with sufficient water to get 1 ½ cup pf thick coconut milk.
5. When the prawns are ¾ cooked, add Okra and simmer well until the okra is cooked and is tender. Take care not to overcook it. Keep checking from time to time.
When okra is cooked well, add the coconut milk and heat just until it starts bubbling. Don’t keep boiling because it will curdle.
6. Switch off the flame.

For tempering

Heat another pan and add couple of tablespoon of oil. When the pan is smoking hot, add mustard seeds and cover with a lid. When they finish spluttering add curry leaves and let them splutter for a few seconds. Add this tampered oil to the curry made earlier. Serve hot with rice.

Tiramisu without Alcohol

Tiramisu, pronounced as 'ti-ra-mee-su' the very famous classic Italian dessert is made of savioardi/lady's fingers/ sponge fingers dabbed in espresso or strong coffee and alcohol mixture traditionally and mascarpone cream mixture and then sprinkled with cocoa on top. However I have made certain variations from the traditional one avoiding alcohol and using chocolate cake along with sponge fingers. I made it for the Iftar party last weekend and I got a big thumbs-up for this dessert.

Before talking about Iftar party and Iftar, I will give a brief description about Ramadan and what Iftar is. Ramadan is the 9th Month in the Arabic Calendar where all Muslims are obliged to refrain from food and drinks from dawn till dusk and this is called fasting. At dawn we have a light meal called Seher (Pre-dawn meal) and don’t eat or drink the whole day. At dusk we break our fast with dates or water initially and carry on with some snacks. This breaking of fast at dusk is called Iftar. After dusk we are allowed to eat anything until the dawn.

I find Iftar back home quite festive where you have friends and relatives coming over and having food and prayers together. We also prepare different kinds of snacks and meals and share them with others in the neighbourhood to show our love and compassion.

On the first day of the following month, after sighting another new moon we celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr where everyone takes a bath, put on new clothes and go to mosques early in the morning to perform communal prayer. After that, we have friends and relatives coming over and having feast. It’s a great celebration.

Talking about Tiramisu, I made certain changes from the traditonal recipe this time. Instead of using savioardi I experimented with a layer of chocolate cake in the bottom layer and sprinkled the coffee all over the chocolate cake rather than dipping it in coffee. I just used chocolate cake because I had made chocolate cake the very previous day and had quite lot of it. However it was super delicious, I should say. Below here is the original recipe that I have that uses only saviordi and not cake. but in the picture you can see the bottom layer is cake.


Ingredients:

4 eggs separated
500 gms mascarpone cheese
2 cups heavy cream/double cream
30 sponge fingers/savioardi/lady's fingers
8 tbs + 2 tbs sugar
2 cups strong coffee
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbs cocoa powder

Preparation:
1. Prepare 2 cups of coffee by adding boiling water to 2 tbs of coffee+2 tbs of sugar. Keep it aside.
2. Separate egg whites and yolks.
3. In a glass bowl, take egg yolks and add in sugar beat well with the egg beater until you get creamy and pale yellow mixture (zabaglione pronounced as sabayon).
4. Place another vessel on the stove and add hot but not boiling water and set it on low-medium flame. Place the glass bowl with egg yolk and sugar mixture (zabaglione) over the simmering water and whisk well for around ten minutes until the mixture gets thick. Add vanilla essence to this and keep it aside to cool.
N.B: It is important to note that the bowl containing zabaglione should not come in contact with the water underneath since this will curdle the egg and get a grainy mixture. Also it is important not to use a metal bowl for preparing zabaglione since the vessel gets heated up quickly and again the egg will get curdled.
5. Whip the Cream until peaks form and keep it aside. Don’t whip it for too long because it will start forming into butter. You can use wire whisk or egg beater for this.
6. Mix the mascarpone cheese in this whipped cream and mix well until no lumps appear. Add the cooled zabaglione to this and mix well.
7. Whip the egg whites until peaks form and fold into the cheese and cream mixture to keep it light and airy. Dont over mix it..
8. Now take a large clear glass dish, just dip the sponge fingers in the coffee and layer them side by side until you cover the bottom of the dish with the sponge fingers dipped in coffee. Don’t keep the sponge fingers in coffee for long time since they tend to absorb liquid too quickly. Just dab both sides in coffee and that should be more than enough.
9.Pour half of the cheese cream mixture over this lady’s fingers and again layer another layer of savoiardi dipped in coffee over this cream mixture and tip over the rest of cream mixture.

10. Cover and Refrigerate for minimum of 2 hours.

11.Just before serving,dust with cocoa by passing it through sieve or if you want to make it more rich, add some chocolate shavings....hmmmm..yummy!

Chemmeen chamanthi (Dried shrimps with grated coconut)

Chemmeen chammanthi is my favorite side dish ever. It is made of sun dried shrimps sauted and then ground to a smooth or coarse paste. The flavour of dried shrimps is very much different from the fresh ones and it yields an entirely different flavour as well. I love to have this as a side dish for my plain rice. It is very easy to make, tastes delicious but not for people who doesnt like dried seafood.

Ingredients:
½ cup - Dry shrimps( Unakka chemmeen)
2 cups freshly grated coconut/frozen grated coconut
4 Shallots / half of a small onion
1 tbs Kashmiri chilly powder ) OR
Regular red chilli powder – As required.
2 tbs Coconut oil
2 goose berry size Dried tamarind

Preparation:
1. Wash shrimps and leave it in a strainer to strain all the water away
2. Grate Coconut and peel the shallots.
3. Heat oil in pan and add the shrimps and stir fry for few minutes (4-5) in medium flame.
4. Add chilli powder and stir for another minute. Turn the flame off.
5. Grind this stir fried shrimps along with coconut, tamarind and shallots in a food processor to get a coarse mixture or grinder if you want even a smoother mixture.
6. Serve with steamed plain rice.
7. Stores well in an airtight container in refrigerator for more than a week. If storing in refrigerator, keep in room temperature for an hour or two to let the coconut thaw. Else it may be a bit dry. Optionally, you can also microwave just to thaw the coconut.

Dumplings (Luqaimat)

Dumplings are crispy little balls made of fermented batter that is deep fried in oil and then served with sugar syrup. This is another recipe that I used to have during Ramadan in my hostel. My flatmates used to make this but at that time, again, I never bothered to learn the recipe cause I was not into cooking at all. But I have seen them making it and used to give a hand. So I know what consistency the batter has and how it is done. So this recipe that got from here, was altered accordingly to bring that consistency and crispiness that last quite long.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoons yeast
1 tsp sugar
salt as required
1/3 cup yogurt
3/4 cup warm water
oil for deep frying

Preparation:
1. In ¾ cup of lukewarm water, add sugar and yeast and stir well. Keep aside for around half an hour until a thick layer of froth forms over the yeast mixture.

2. Take a large bowl, Add flour, salt and mix well. Then add yogurt and yeast mixture and stir well until you get a sticky batter. You can mix the batter in the food processor if difficult to mix them by hand. I usually use hand for mixing the batter, but it takes quite longer time. Keep it in a warm area for about 4-6 hours.
3. At this stage you can see bubbles formed in the batter. Knock down the bubbles and stir well again.

4. Heat oil (to deep fry) in a pan or wok until it really gets hot.
5. Dip the fingers in water and take a good size pinch of batter(a teaspoon size) and drop in oil slowly. Since the batter is sticky and has dropping consistency, it will be difficult to handle the batter without dabbing the fingers with water. Add few more pinches of batter in oil by dabbing finger in water every time you take the batter.

6.Once they fall in oil they will puff up and take round shapes or almost round shapes. DOesnt matter if it doesnt come into exact round shapes. Deep fry them until they turn golden on all sides. It is very important not to make it golden brown cause it will be hard rather than crispy. Strain them using slotted spoon and place them on kitchen towel to drain out excess oil.
7. Repeat the process until all the batter is fried into dumplings.
8. Transfer into serving dish and pour syrup all over.

For syrup:
Ingredients:
1 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon lime/lemon juice

Preparation:

Put the water in a pan with the sugar and place over a medium heat; bring to boil and allow to boil for ten minutes, removing the froth as it appears. Add the lemon juice and leave to simmer for ten minutes. Pour it over the fried dumplings and serve warm or cold.

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

I got this delicious pudding recipe from here. Since then, it has been one of my family favorites. Apart from the things suggested in the recipe, I Also added 4 tbs of raisins along with chocolate chips and 1 large orange's rind in the custard . I mixed the orange rind along with milk and eggs. I always thought the orange rind gave a lovely and mild taste to the desert and always added them to most of my desert including pineapple souffle. Orange flavor and chocolate works very well together. It enhances the taste of the desert and doesnt stand out at all. I also reduced the amount of vanilla essence to 1 tsp since I found it a bit over powering for my taste. The original recipe accounts for 2 tsp. Im going to make it for the party this weekend.