Chatpata Pineapple Toast

It is said that Pineapples were discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493 in the Caribbean Islands. This tropical fruit is a fantastic source of Vitamins C, B1, and B6. It also contains enzymes, which enable better digestion. Apart from being all this nutrition-heavy, it is a tasty fruit, perfect to be eaten raw or cooked.
Here is a simple and delicious recipe with this wonder fruit.

RECIPE
Ingredients:
Pineapple - 4 or 5 slices of 80% ripe pineapple
Chilli Powder - 1 tspn (or as you like your spice)
Salt - To taste
Sugar - 2 Tspns
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 3 Tbspns
Half a lemon (optional)

Method:

Marinate the pineapple in salt, sugar, and red chilli powder. Let it sit for 30 - 40 mins.

Spread a tspn of oil in a pan or tava and let it heat. Once hot, toss the marinated pineapple slice(s) and toast both sides of the fruit slice till the desired level of toasting is achieved HOT TIP: This tastes best when it is not over-toasted.)
Remove from the tava and squeeze lemon juice. Chatpata Pineapple Toast is ready to be served.

Serving Suggestions:

This toast can be sandwiched between two slices of bread.
If you wish to keep the sugar out, you can add honey. However, add it after the toasting.
To make it spicier, you can add chat masala or aam chur to it.

Sensational Strawberry Sauce

This is a really simple recipe and is a perfect enhancer for a rather bland dessert. Also, it has the goodness of strawberry!

RECIPE
Ingredients:

• Fresh, ripe strawberries (small - medium) - 1- 1 1/2 cups 
• Sugar- 1 cup
• Water - 1 cup

Method:
In a deep-bottomed vessel, add the water and sugar (in that order) an let it boil.
Remove the leaves and keep them uncut. Add the uncut strawberries and cook the strawberries in sugar water in medium heat (HOT TIP: Cooking in high flame may cause the strawberry pulp to stick to the vessel. Plus you run a risk of burning it!) and keep stirring it continuously.
You will see that the full fruits slowly turn into a thick pulp merging with the sugar water.
It may not be the best thing to add more sugar as the fruit's natuaral sweetness will just work fine.
Remove from heat when you achieve desired thickness.
Let it cool and serve with the dessert of your choice.

Serving Suggestions:

• Make your plain vanilla ice cream or custard more flavourful with this sauce.
• This sauce if made thicker, could work well as a spread for breads.
• Add a spoonfull of this sauce and blend it with cold milk and server a yummy homemade milkshake.

Baby Potato and Curd Curry

RECIPE
Ingredients:

• Baby Potatoes - I Kg cooked and unpeeled
• Onion paste  - 2 1/2 Tbspn
• Ginge garlic paste  - 1/2 to 1 Tbspn
• Curd - 2 Cups Beaten
• Salt to taste
• Chilli Powder - 1 tspn
• Garam Masala - 1/2 tspn
• Green Chillies - Uncut, stem removed
• Oil for cooking

Method:
Heat oil in a kadai, add the onion paste. Cook for a few minutes until the raw smell of the onions are gone. Add turmeric and cook for 2 -3 minutes.
Add the ginger garlic paste and cook.
Once the pastes are cooked, add the curd (It is okay if the curd seperates.) Add the other dry spices and cook for 6 minutes on medium-high flame.
Add the salt followed by the baby potatoes.
Cook the mixture in low flame. Cover it with a lid till the ccurd mixture blends well with the potatoes.

In a fryinng pan, add 2 tspns of oil. Once heated, fry green chillies and add it to the curry.

Serve with steamed rice.

Fusion Chapati Rolls

Chapatis - our very own desi tortillas is a versatile dish, which can be consumed in many ways. I sometimes find having to eat chapatis with subzis or dals very cumbersome, and making a wrap makes the Indian bread a delightful treat.


This Fusion Chapati Rolls is a welcome break from the chapati-subzi monotony and is a perfect mid-meal snack, dinner or a rainy day munch! It also has the goodness of wheat and veggies like zucchini, cheese, capsicum and olive oil.

Recipe


Ingredients:


For the chapatis:
Atta (wheat flour) - 1 cup
Salt - To taste
Water - to knead the dough
Garlic butter - to toast the chapatis (optional)
Butter/oil - As required to toast chapatis


For the filling:


Capsicum - 2 cups finely chopped
Onion - 1 Big onion finel chopped/ thinly sliced
Chillies - 2 number finely chopped (optional)
Freshly ground pepper corns - 3 tsnpsn
Olives - 1/2 cup of pitted and sliced
Chilli powder - 1 tsnp
Salt - To taste
Garam Masala - 1 tspn
Jeera (Cumin) powder - 1/2 tspn
Dhania (Corriander) powder - 1/2 tspn
Olive oil
Grated cheddar cheese - 1/2 cup
Water - to cook


Method:


For the chapatis:

In a mixing bowl, add the atta and salt. Add adequate amount of water to knead the dough.


Once the dough is ready, make them into small balls (the size of 1 big lemon).


Smear them on dry flour and flatten the ball and roll it out on a rolling board.


Heat a tava and toast the chapati on both the sides. (HOT TIP: You could use garlic butter/oil/butter to toast the chapatis for a different flavour. If you are health conscious and like it plain, avoid any of the greasy items to toast your chapatis).


Keep them aside.


For the filling:

In a kadai, heat the 1 tbspn of olive oil. Add the onions and cook it until it turns brown.


Add the chillies and capsicum and cook till soft.


To this cooked vegetables, add the powders and salt. Sprinkle little water and let it cook till the masalas blend with the vegetables.


After 5 minutes, add the olives and freshly ground pepper. Give it a good mix. Let the vegetable mixture cook for 2 minutes. Remove the kadai from the stove and the filling is ready.




For the roll:

Take  a tablespoon full of the filling and put it in a chapati. Spread it evenly.


Add the grated cheese.


Roll the chapati with the filling and toast the roll once again.


Cut the rolls and enjoy the  goodness-filled wrap.


Serving Suggestions:

• Fusion Chapati Rolls taste the best with raithas, pickles.
• You could also try mint chutney or chuney of your choice.
• If you like to take fusion to a new level, you can also try the salsa dip.

Pepper Pataka Fried Rice

My love affair with spicy food will never cease. Give me any food, masala maarke, I would gorge it like there is no tomorrow.
As a dedication to my love for all foods fiery, here comes Pepper Pataka Fried Rice. This is a spicy mix of pepper, pepper, and more pepper.

RECIPE
Ingredients:

• Red, Green, and Yellow peppers - 1 each finely chopped
• Pepper Powder - 1/4 cup
• Pepper Corns (freshly ground) - 1 tbspn
• Basmati Rice - 1/2 cup ( serves 1)
• Water - 1 cup
• Potato - 1 (or 2 small) Cut into small pieces
• Onion - 1 finely chopped
• Garlic - 5 cloves finely chopped
• Salt to taste
• Chilli Flakes - 2 tsnps
• Olive Oil
• Ghee (Clarified Butter) - 1/2 tbspn

Method:

Soak Basmati Rice in water for 30 minutes.

Heat ghee in a kadai (wok). Strain the water from the rice and put it into the hot ghee. In low flame, roast the rice until it turn pink. Add water, close the wok and let the rice cook.

Keep it aside.

In a pan, heat the olive oil and add the onion and garlic and cook till it turns translucent.
Add the potatoes and cook it till it softens. After the potatoes are cooked add the finely chopped peppers and cook in medium flame. To this mix add the pepper powder, salt, and freshly ground pepper corns.
Give it a good stir till the spices and salt blend well with the mix. Cook for a 3-5 minutes.

Add the cooked basmati rice to the spicy veggies and mix well.

Peppery Pataka Fried Rice is ready to do the fireworks!

Serving Suggestions:

• It is best tasted with cucumber raitha, which also evens out the heat  the peppers generate.
• If you like it spicier, try the green chilli sauce. Be warned of the side effects!
• If you like fusion, you could even try Tabasco sauce.

Garlic, Olive, and Jalapeno Pickle

A good side of pickle is the perfect match for some creamy curd rice. I discovered this brilliant idea from : http://priyaeasyntastyrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/11/rm2-day-4-olive-pickles.html

However, I have given my own variation to this pickle by introducing jalapenos and garlic to it.

RECIPE
Ingredients:

• Olives - green pitted and sliced 2 cups
• Jalapenos - sliced 1/2 to 1 cup (depending on your taste)
• Garlic - 10-15 cloves of a big garlic bulb
• Vendhayam (fenugreek seeds) - 4 Tbspns
• Cumin seeds (Jeera seeds)- 2 Tbspns
• Red Chilli powder - 1 Tbspn
• Asafoetida - 1 tspn
• Salt - 4 tspns
• Olive oil - to fry and temper
• Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
• 1/2 cup vinegar

 Method:

Heat oil in a kadai and fry the garlic ( do not fry it till it is brown). Cook for 3 minutes. Add the olives and jalapenos and fry them till they are cooked (HOT TIP: Once the olives and jalapenos shrink and become small, you know it is cooked.)
Keep it aside.

In a pan/skillet kadai, dry roast cumin seeds and the vendhayam. roast them till they turn into a light brown. Remove from the stove. Let it cool and make a fine powder of the spices.

Heat 4 tbspns of olive oil (HOT TIP: Gingely oil also works wonderfully for this pickle). Add the mustard. Once it splutters, add the ground dry spices, red chillies, and salt. Keep stirring continuously in low flame.
Continue this procedure till the oil and the spices separate.

Remove from the flame and add the vinegar. After 20-30 minutes, mix the fried olives, jalapenos, and garlic.
Stir well for the spices and oil to blend well with the fried vegetables.

The the oil and spices in the pickle will take a day or two to settle.

Store it in a clean and dry container. Keep mixing the pickle every couple of hours.
The garlic, olive, and Jalapeno is ready to spice up your dish!

Desi Tomato Cheese Chip Dip

RECIPE
Ingredients:

• Cheddar cheese - 2 cups grated
• Garlic - 1 clove
• Tomato paste - 2 tbspns
• Multi-purpose flour/corn flour - 2 tbspns
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Butter - 2 Tbspns
• Pav Bhaji/Subzi masala - 1 tspn
• Garam Masala - 1/2 tspn
• Red chilli powder - 1/2 tspn (Optional)
• Red chilli flakes - 1/2 tspn
• Salt to taste

Method:

Medium heat a heavy-bottom pan/vessel. Crush the garlic and rub it in the vessel for it to absorb the aroma.
Remove the garlic.
Heat butter in low flame, add the flour and keep mixing it to make sure it does not form lumps. Repeat this procedure till the colour of the flour changes to a mild brown.

Pour the milk bit by bit to avoid lumpiness. Keep stirring.

Let the milk corn and butter mixture cook for 3 minutes on low flame. Add the tomato paste and ensure it blends will the mixture that is cooking. Add the spices and salt (only if you need it as the cheese will have salt).

Let the thick liquid cook for 3-4 minutes for the raw taste of the spices and tomato to go.

Add the grated cheese slowly and keep stirring. Once all the grated cheese is transferred to the spicy mix, cook until it is partially melts (without any lumps of course!)

Remove from the stove and the dip is ready!

Serving Suggestions:

• The chip dip works very well with potato chips, Indian snacks like samosa, chakli.
• This dip can even double up as a spread for your breads and biscuits.