Tag Archives: Vegetarian

Wheat Kanji

Last week, I went for an Iftar with some friends. Each of us took a dish or two. I made the vegetarian version of Linda’s Chorba M’katfa and Amal’s Basbousa which turned out nicely. The hostess, Hafsa, had made a delicious pot of wheat kanji which she said was a staple she made during the Ramadan season for her family. I requested her to share her recipe on this blog. So, here is the wheat kanji recipe of Hafsa Farook which I am bringing to Angie’s Fiesta Friday #26 co-hosted by lovely bloggers Prudy and Jess. Hafsa did mention that people who were not fond of wheat could substitute the wheat with rice or use half and half of each.
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For today’s music feature, I decided to share some Punjabi music, composed by Pritam Chakraborty, from three fun Hindi movies that will be sure to get you on your feet and dancing. 🙂

The first song is from Anurag Singh’s movie Dil Bole Hadibba (translation: Heart says Hadibba/ hurray, 2009) starring Rani Mukerji and Shahid Kapoor and sung by playback singers, Mika Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan.

The second song is from Imtiaz Ali’s movie Jab We Met (translation: When we met, 2007) starring Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor and sung by Sonu Nigam and Javed Ali.

The last song clip is from Ayan Mukerji’s movie Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (translation: This youth is crazy, 2013) starring Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone and sung by Arijit Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan.

Enjoy the music and the kanji! 🙂
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Wheat Kanji

  • Servings: 12 - 15
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • Wheat – 2 cups
  • Onion – 1 large
  • Ground ginger and garlic
  • Cinnamon – piece
  • Rampe/ pandan leaf – a piece
  • Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
  • Ground cumin seeds
  • Tomato – 1
  • Chilli powder, to taste
  • Corn kernels – 1 can
  • Mushroom – 1 can
  • Coconut milk – 1 cup (thin consistency) and ½ cup (thick consistency)
  • Fresh coriander – a small bunch
  • Salt, to taste
  • Oil, for sautéing

Method:

  1. Soak wheat for at least 5 hours.
  2. Chop up the onion.
  3. Heat oil and fry the chopped onions, ground ginger garlic, piece of cinnamon, rampe and curry leaves. Sauté until it becomes golden brown.
  4. Add ground cumin seeds.
  5. Grate a tomato and add to the pan. Add a little chilli powder and cook for a while.
  6. Drain the soaked wheat and add to the sauté pan together with at least three cups of water. Add more water if the liquid dries up before the wheat is cooked. When cooked, the wheat should not be transparent.
  7. The corn kernels can be added now along with chopped mushrooms. Add a little water if the liquid dries up. Cook for a few minutes.
  8. Add 1 cup of thin coconut milk and ½ cup thick coconut milk to the pan and cook.
  9. Just before removing from heat, add the chopped coriander and salt to taste and cook for a few minutes.
  10. Serve warm.

Recipe source: Hafsa Farook.

Mango Mocktail

Today’s drink has been sent in by Trevor Martil. Apologies for the lack of a photo of the drink. I am sharing this at the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck.

Today’s music features two relatively new composers who are making a niche for themselves in south Indian cinema. The music for the first song clip has been composed by G.V Prakash Kumar, the nephew of A.R.Rahman. Having sung his first song in one of his uncle’s movies, G.V Prakash Kumar started his movie soundtrack composing career at the age of 16. This is a lovely song from his first movie that was released – Veyil (translation: hot sun, 2006) with playback singers Jassie Gift, Kailash Kher, Tippu and Prasanna.

The next song is from Balakrishnan’s debut movie Rummy (2014) with music composed by D.Imman who started his music career in 2002. The playback singers are Prasanna and Vandana Srinivasan, a psychologist and an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Hope you enjoy the music and the drink!

Mango Mocktail

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons mango delight cordial
  • 1/2 teaspoon lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup chilled plain soda
  • Crushed mint leaves
  • Finely chopped apple
  • Crushed ice

Method:

  1. Blend the first four ingredients together.
  2. Add crushed mint leaves, chopped apple pieces, crushed ice and serve.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Savoury Rice

I had tried to get hold of some of the Sri Lankan Burgher cuisine recipes for some time now. While some of the dishes such as lamprais, frikkadels and some kinds of specialty cakes around Christmas time are very popular and are recreated by cafes and bakeries around the country, I was more interested in the home-cooking of Burgher families. Besides Refinceyaa who shared her aunt’s recipe for capsicum with eggs on this blog, I had also asked Trevor Martil who is another of my former colleagues. He recently sent me some of his mother’s favourite recipes. Today’s recipe is one such dish, which Trevor’s mother calls ‘savoury rice with a difference.’ This rice recipe (providing both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options) is what I am sharing at Fiesta Friday together with some special music clips.

The special song clip for today is a rendition, by Amitabh Bachchan, of renowned poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful Bengali poem Ekla Cholo Re written in 1905. This song is from Sujoy Ghosh’s acclaimed Hindi movie Kahaani (translation: Story, 2012) starring Vidya Balan. Translation of the lyrics can be found on Wikipedia.

The next song clip is from Aamir Khan’s talk show Satyamev Jayate (translation: Truth alone prevails). Composed by Ram Sampath for the lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Meenal Jain sings the beautiful Hindi song ‘Sakhi’ at the end of the episode on domestic violence. I think I must have watched all the episodes of the first season in 2012.

Hope you enjoyed the songs and do let me know if you tried out the recipe today!

Savoury Rice

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: average
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Ingredients:

  • 250g cooked rice
  • 150g chicken (vegetarians can substitute this with tofu or mushroom)
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 capsicum chili
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon soya sauce (Trevor’s mother prefers to use Sri Lankan MD brand)
  • turmeric
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • chili powder
  • ginger paste and garlic paste (Again, Trevor’s mother prefers the ready-made MD brand)
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 30g green peas
  • 2 eggs
  • cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, star anise
  • curry leaves
  • 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock (vegetarians can substitute this with vegetable stock)
  • parsley
  • coriander leaves

Method:

  1. Temper spices, star anise, onions, curry leaves.
  2. Add cooked rice, 1/4 cup milk, turmeric. Allow to simmer.
  3. Add green peas, eggs and stir in a tablespoon of butter.
  4. Serve and keep aside.
  5. Cut chicken into small pieces, marinate in soya sauce, and place in a pan.
  6. Cook till water is absorbed.
  7. Add oil and stir-fry adding all vegetables, onions, ginger, garlic sauces and 1/2 cup chicken stock.
  8. Cook and take off heat with gravy.
  9. Pour over rice.
  10. Sprinkle parsley and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil

 

Exotic Muffin Loaf

Ever since I baked my first batch of muffins last month, I have been in a muffin phase. Some of the favourites at home so far has been Joanne’s strawberry buttermilk (I used buttermilk instead of yoghurt) and Rhonda’s apricot almond muffins. It is rambuttan and mangosteen season here in Sri Lanka now and there were a few of the fruits leftover at home when I decided to try baking some muffins with them. As I had used up the entire pack of muffin cups and did not want to wait till I bought a fresh set, I simply decided to use a regular pan and make a muffin loaf. So, today, I am sharing at the Fiesta Friday my adaptation of Rhonda’s strawberry oatmeal muffins with some exotic (at least where muffins are concerned) ingredients. I am also taking this over to Saucy Saturdays #51, hosted by The Flavor Bender, La Petit Chef, Mid-Life Croissant, Take Two Tapas.
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Today’s featured musician is Shankar Mahadevan. A musician that I admire, Shankar Mahadevan was midway in his software engineering career before deciding to change careers and focus on his passion for music. Trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music, he released his first solo album Breathless (1998). The album includes a song called Breathless, sung without a break in the lyrics from start to finish, which was very popular on Sri Lankan television. The hugely popular album opened up many opportunities for Shankar Mahadevan. Eventually, he started the online Indian classical music academy – Shankar Mahadevan Academy in 2010.

Shankar Mahadevan is the vocalist of ‘Remember Shakti.’ For those who haven’t heard of this group, they are a five member lovely fusion group initially started as ‘Shakti’ by John McLaughlin and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain in the 70s. The group was revived in the late 90s with some new members – U.Srinivas (one of my favourite musicians), V.Selvaganesh (son of Grammy award-winning musician V.Vinayakram – one of the original members of Shakti) and Shankar Mahadevan, replacing three of the original members. My first clip for today is therefore an excerpt from a Remember Shakti concert: a beautiful fusion performance of the classical piece ‘Giriraja Sudha,’ composed by 18th century musician  – Tyagarajar – considered one of the most influential Carnatic composers.

Shankar Mahadevan is also part of the successful trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, who became popular in the Hindi movie music composing field in the late 90s. The second music clip for today is from Aamir Khan’s beautiful directorial debut movie Taare Zameen Par (translation: Like stars on earth, 2007) with music composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and sung by Shankar Mahadevan. This touching song won Shankar Mahadevan a national award.

He was introduced to the Tamil cinema playback singing platform by A.R.Rahman in 1997. The last clip is a lovely, upbeat folk tune composed by A.R.Rahman for the movie Mudhalvan (1999), starring Arjun and Manisha Koirala, and sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.

Hope you enjoyed Shankar Mahadevan’s music as much as I did! Happy July 4th to all my American blogging friends!

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Exotic Muffins

  • Servings: 8
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • Flour – ½ cup
  • Baking powder – 1 tsp
  • Salt – 1/3 tsp
  • Oats – ½ to 2/3 cup
  • Brown sugar – 4 tbsp
  • Cinnamon powder – pinch
  • Milk – ½ cup
  • Vegetable oil – 1/3 cup
  • Vanilla essence – ½ tsp
  • Rambuttan – 4, chopped (can add more, I just used what I had in hand)
  • Mangosteen – 1 or 2, chopped (can add more)
  • Cashew nuts – a handful, chopped
  • Raisins – a little for sprinkling
  • Kesari powder – pinch (optional)

Method:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 190⁰C.
  2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the instant oats and sugar to the flour bowl and keep aside.
  3. Chop up the rambuttan and mangosteen. Add a pinch of kesari powder to the fruits in a separate bowl. Add the chopped cashewnuts and raisins to the fruit bowl.
  4. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil and vanilla essence.
  5. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix it just enough to ensure that none of the flour mix is left dry. Almost all the muffin recipes that I have seen stress the point that one should be swift over this mixing and not be concerned over lumps in the batter.
  6. Fold in the fruit and nut mixture.
  7. Transfer the muffin batter to the muffin tray or a normal baking pan. Bake for around 20 mins – the time will vary depending on your oven.

Curry Powder

I decided to share my first recipe post on this blog again, particularly for the Fiesta Friday group. Curry powder blend is usually made at homes in Sri Lanka and therefore differs from house to house in the spices used and the blend ratio. The blend also differs for the type of curry it is used for. Today, I will share my mother’s special blend for vegetarian curries. Interested non-vegetarians can check out these earlier posts for the blend for fish dishes and meat dishes.

spicesThe south Indian musician that I am featuring today is P.Unnikrishnan. Trained in Carnatic music, Unnikrishnan has released several Carnatic music and devotional song albums. He was introduced to the playback singing world of South Indian movies by A.R.Rahman in 1994 and his debut song in the movie ‘Kadhalan’ won him a national award. He also has started dabbling in experimental music.

The first clip is an excerpt from an A.R.Rahman concert where Unnikrishnan sings his award-winning debut song.

The second clip is his lovely rendition of a famous poem by renowned 19th century Tamil poet Bharathiyar.

The last clip is of Unnikrishnan’s daughter, Uthara, who sings a short excerpt of one of her father’s famous movie songs. Uthara recently made her debut in the movie playback singing world at the age of 9 with the release of her first song ‘Azhagu.’

Hope you enjoyed Unnikrishnan’s voice! Do try out my mother’s recipe for her curry powder blend!

Curry powder

Amma's Special Blend Curry Powder


Ingredients

  • Dried red chillies – 100g
  • Coriander seeds(Kothumalli) – 100g
  • Cumin Seeds (Sinna seeraham/ Suduru) – 50g
  • Fennel seeds (Perunjhseeraham/ Maduru) – 50g
  • Fenugreek seeds (Venthayam) – 25g
  • Pepper – 10g
  • Curry leaves – ½ cup
  • Turmeric – 1 piece or 1 tsp (if powder is used)
  • Cinnamon – 2” piece
  • Cardamom – 4 or 5
  • Cloves – 4 or 5

Method

  1. Chop up the dried red chillies and dry roast them. Keep aside.
  2. Dry roast the curry leaves separately and keep aside.
  3. Dry roast the balance ingredients together.
  4. Combine all and grind them together to make the curry powder mix. Store in an airtight container to use when needed.
  5. The ingredients can be scaled up for the desired quantity.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Spicy Curd Rice From Ahila!

Re-blogging Susan from Watch Hatch Fly‘s lovely version of the spicy curd dish… Thank you, Susan, for trying out the recipe and sharing! Warm greetings from sunny Colombo!

Susan's avatarwatch hatch fly

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We spent the last several days at the lake.

I always pack food for the trip, because the lake is located in the twilight zone of Pennsylvania. It’s difficult to describe the area, certainly beautiful, very rural and NO grocery stores. There are a few little stores that will do in a pinch. They tend to carry only essentials (such as ammo or bait. It’s big hunting territory.)

Vegans don’t require ammo or bait, and the blackberries aren’t ripe yet. So, we pack!

I decided to bring Spicy Curd Rice from Ahila@A Taste of Sri Lankan Cuisine. Ahila kindly followed me shortly after I began blogging in October. She generously comments and visits regularly. She always says something about the dogs. Louie would like to say something back:

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I had leftover chick peas, so I threw them into the rice. I used a dried Thai pepper that I bought…

View original post 136 more words

Ginger Date Cake

As today is my eldest sister’s birthday, I felt like sharing one of her recipes today. I decided to bring one of the cakes she enjoys making to the Fiesta Friday together with some lovely music. The recipe is given below after the music fest.

DSC01177The featured musician today is Hariharan. He trained in both Carnatic and Hindustani music though he is foremost a prominent ghazal singer and has released lots of ghazal albums. While Hariharan started his playback singing in the late 70s in Hindi movies, he was introduced to the south Indian movie world only in the early 90s by A.R.Rahman. Since then, he has been awarded both state and national awards for some of his songs. Hariharan was awarded the Padma Shri award by the Indian government in 2004.

I first chose to share a ghazal piece from the launch of the album Hazir 2, Hariharan’s second one with tabla maestro, Zakir Hussain.

The second clip is from a concert where Hariharan sings with Chitra one of their songs from the movie Love birds, the soundtrack of which was composed by A.R.Rahman.

While selecting the last clip to share here, I was trying to decide between two songs. One used to be very popular on Sri Lankan television in the late 90s, Krishna Nee from the self-titled Colonial Cousins album of the music duo – Hariharan and Leslie Lewis. The other was a Bathiya and Santhush single with Hariharan. Finally, I decided to share the one with the Sri Lankan musicians.

Hope you enjoy the music as well as the cake!

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Ginger Date Cake

  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • 250g self-raising flour (optional: can reduce the amount of flour and add roasted semolina ensuring that the total is 250g)
  • 250g margarine
  • 250g sugar
  • 5 eggs, separated
  • 250g dates
  • 100g ginger preserve
  • Vanilla essence

Method:

  1. De-seed the dates and chop them up roughly before letting them soak in a bowl of hot tea.
  2. Chop up the ginger preserve separately and keep aside.
  3. Whisk together the margarine and sugar.
  4. Add the egg yolks and the vanilla essence and continue beating the mixture.
  5. Then add some of the flour, chopped dates and ginger preserve, egg white and mix well before repeating the process till all the ingredients have been mixed well.
  6. Bake at 180⁰C for around 25 minutes.

Capsicum with Eggs

Today’s guest blogger is Refinceyaa Patterson. She mentions that this dish is a creation of her aunt who runs a pre-school in Trincomalee and enjoys cooking. This dish is generally cooked at her home on Sundays or special occasions as it is a favourite of their family.

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Courtesy of Refinceyaa Patterson

In the continuing South Indian movie song theme, today’s featured singer is Sujatha Mohan. She started playback singing while still at school in the 1970s. After a hiatus in her singing for most of the 80s, she became popular again when A.R.Rahman had her sing in several of his songs in the 90s. She won state awards for some of these songs composed by A.R.Rahman.

The first song clip is from the 2007 movie Mozhi (translation: Language).

The second song clip is another live performance, this time of Sujatha and Mano, of the song from Bharathiraja’s movie Kizhakku Cheemaiyile (1993). With music composed by A.R.Rahman, this was the song that made me notice Sujatha as a singer. I guess I am partial to folk tunes.

The last clip is not a song by Sujatha but that of her daughter Shweta Mohan, who started her playback singing career in 2006. In this clip, Shweta was invited for a surprise appearance on the set of a music contest where her mother is one of the judges. She sings a few lines of a poem by Bharathiyar, my mother’s favourite poet.

Hope you enjoyed the voice of Sujatha Mohan and do let me know how this recipe turned out for you!

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Courtesy of Refinceyaa Patterson

Capsicum with Eggs

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • 1/4 lb (~100g) capsicum
  • 2 potatoes cut into small pieces
  • 1 large tomato
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 large onion sliced
  • curry leaves
  • 1 oz Maldive fish (optional)
  • a teaspoon of salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 dessert spoon oil
  • 1 cup coconut milk

Method:

  1. Wash and cut the capsicum into four slices (lengthwise).
  2. Add salt, turmeric, curry leaves, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and the capsicum slices to a pan together with a little water.
  3. Cover the pan and cook for a few minutes.
  4. When the water dries up, add the oil and the optional Maldive fish to the pan and fry the contents for a few minutes.
  5. Now break the eggs over the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
  6. Add a cup of the first extract of coconut milk to the pan.
  7. Bring the curry to a boil and take it off the fire.

Recipe source: Refinceyaa Patterson.

Mango Chutney

During a recent visit of my father to Jaffna, he brought back some mangoes from my mother’s childhood home. My mother said that the particular mango tree had been planted by her father. As the mangoes were half-ripe, cooking mangoes, my mother decided to make some chutney out of them. This is a simple, quick to prepare chutney. I have shared earlier a mango chutney recipe that my mother makes when she wants to store the chutney for a few days. I am sharing this instant mango chutney recipe with the Fiesta Friday group as well.

DSC01208Continuing with the theme of featuring south Indian singers whose voice I have enjoyed and appreciated along with the recipes this month and next, today’s featured musician is another of my mother’s favourite singers – renowned south Indian singer K.J.Yesudas. A classical trained musician, he began his movie playback singing career in the early 1960s. Yesudas is said to have sung and recorded over 50,000 songs over his five decade career in most Indian languages as well as foreign languages such as Arabic and Russian. I do not know how he managed the volume because it roughly translates to about 1000 songs a year. He was awarded the Padma Shri (1975) and the Padma Bhushan (2002) by the Indian government.

While selecting Yesudas song clips to share here, I decided to share first an excerpt from one of his older classical concert clips as he is foremost a classical Carnatic musician and I like his Carnatic music repertoire better than his songs for movies.

The second song is from the 1968 Malayalam movie Bharymar Sookshikkuka. This clip is a live performance of K.J. Yesudas with Chitra and Sujatha.

Wrapping up today’s music selection, the last clip is from a very famous popular Tamil song of Yesudas from the 1992 movie Mannan.

Hope you enjoyed the voice of K.J. Yesudas and do try out this chutney!
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Mango Chutney

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Mango – ½ cup, half-ripe
  • Onion – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
  • Sugar – 1 tbsp
  • Salt, to taste
  • Oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Clean and chop up the half-ripe mango. Rub in a little salt and allow it to marinate while you do the next step.
  2. Heat a tbsp oil in a pan. Temper the chopped onion and crushed chillies for a couple of minutes.
  3. Add the chopped and salted mango to the pan together with a tablespoon of sugar. Mix well and let it cook for a couple of minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and transfer the pan contents to a food processor and grind it.
  5. This simple mango chutney is nice on a sandwich.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan