Oats Pongal!

In a pensive mood after a considerably long and refreshing vacation at a few of the East Coast spotlights, I have not been spending much time in the kitchen this past week. One would expect to be in brighter spirits after a trip of that sorts, but the darned tasks that I had blissfully abandoned before I left, have been daunting me ever since the flight touched down in San Francisco last week. As soon as the pilot announced - "The South West crew would like to welcome you to San Francisco and at this time, we request you to remain in your seats until the seat belt sign is turned off", I closed my eyes and tried not to think of the doom that lied in wait for me. On the car ride back home, we stopped for dinner at Saravanaa's (a South Indian restaurant which is a branch of Saravana Bhavan in India) along with Ashwin who had come to get us. The food was comforting as always and I stuck to eating Rava Idlis with a few mouthfuls of their excellent curd rice. At the end of a trip, I find myself almost always craving for simple home food. Hot rasam with rice followed by curd rice with oil-free pickles like the tiny mangoes' one (maavadu) or the dried lemon one (naarthanga) continue to top the lists. (The chennai-ite in me is still alive and kicking, I note!) In a futile attempt to delay the demise of our trip, we tried to prolong the dinner by punctuating it with a lot of forced conversation. But the parents were tired and I caught them furtively (and longingly) looking towards the exit more than once. Out of pity for them and poor Ashwin as well, who had kindly driven all the way to the airport right out of work, we finally signaled to the waiter to bring us the check. At thirty past nine in the night, we reached home. Scanning through my mental Outlook Calendar, I figured I had to do at least a teeny bit of unpacking, xxx, xxxxwww and yyyzzz but instead, all I managed was to sit around dumbly staring at some TBS show before taking an extra-long hot shower. A few minutes later, I was curled up in bed reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. (Was I in reverse-denial?) I slept fitfully that night and woke up to the sounds of the countless chores buzzing around in my head. I started running around trying to complete all of them at once and here I am, a week later still an avid participant in the mad rat-race!
In the same context, here is something that I read on one of my favorite blogs - a true masterpiece, this post is! With reference to the same post, I am still waiting for the un-invited Sunday evening guy to leave. May be this weekend, he'll pack his bags and bid farewell...I hope so...I would so love that!

Since I have been harried with all those unfavorable thoughts all week, eating healthful and quick-to-make dishes has gained a lot of priority. One such dish which has not disappointed me so far is Oats Pongal - guilt-free and wholesome, it tastes just fine without any dipping! If I were to describe pongal in a single sentence I would say - it is a first cousin of moong dal ki kichdi. I made it this crazy week too when I had no interest whatsoever in cooking! It's been a regular in the basil household since the past year or so after I came up with the idea (of dressing up oatmeal the gratifying pongal way) in my quest for a healthy but delicious dish. Now, it also serves as my pretext to sneak oats into Vee's diet as he cannot stand a steaming bowl of plain oatmeal with milk and fruit. This is off to Suganya's JFI - Whole grains.

Oats Pongal - oatmeal with lentils.

Without further ado, here is the recipe -

Ingredients -

1) Steel-cut Oats - 3/4th cup

2) Green gram dal (moong dal) - 1/3rd cup

3) Ginger - 1" piece

4) Cumin seeds - 1.5 tspns

5) Black peppercorns - 1 tspn

6) Curry leaves - few

7) Oil - 1.5 tspns

8) Ghee - 1 tspn

9) Asafetida - a generous heap

10) Salt - to taste

11) Cashew nuts - 1 tbspn (broken)

Method -

1) Rinse the dal and dunk it in a pressure cooker along with the oats. Add about 3.5 cups of water.

2) Grate the ginger and stir in half of it in the pressure cooker. Also add in 1/2 a teaspoon of cumin seeds along with salt (to taste) and pressure cook for 12-15 minutes or 4-5 whistles. (The cooking time can vary with the cooker. If not done properly, add about 1/2 a cup of water and pressure cook again until done well.)

3) Take the remaining cumin seeds and peppercorns and give them a quick run in the blender. I generally prefer a very coarse powder in my pongal. However, this step could be modified to suit your palate by making it into a fine powder or omitting the grinding altogether.

4) In a small pan, heat the oil and ghee together. Put the cumin and peppercorn mixture and after that turns crisp, toss the ginger, curry leaves, asafetida and cashew nuts. Everything should fry well but take care so it doesn't get charred .

5) Pour over the cooked oats and dal mixture and mix well.

6) Serve piping hot with nothing or coconut chutney!

Game Nite Rasmalai!

We had this Game Nite last weekend and since it was a post-dinner affair, I was left with no choice but to make some dessert. I sound like I am cribbing because I am supposed to be on a diet for heaven's sakes! As a consolation, the other dish I served the guests was a healthy one - mildly spiced popcorn. The rasmalai itself turned out pretty good I thought, given that I was only making it for the second time. This happens to be a dessert I learnt from one of my friends in grad school - Smitha. The first time I made it, it took ages since I was a novice to baking and kind of overestimated the amount I'd need for a party. The result was almost two huge pans of leftover rasmalai....not that my roommates complained though. ;) This time around, I was careful about the quantity so as not to compromise the quality. We served this when everyone was in the midst of an action-packed round of Pictionary and they were quite nonplussed to be served home-made rasmalai and cube-shaped ones at that. I was fine with their bewilderment as long as there was none who screamed sacrilege! Next day, the poor rasmalai managed to pass the ultimate acid test and that too with an A+. How? Well! Appa remarked that it tasted better than the conventional way in which it was made 'coz he felt the malai part never really has a lot of flavor while this modified way seemed to produce malai's which were bursting with taste. The only sad part of this whole affair is the fact that since the past three days, the leftover rasmalai has been sitting in our refrigerator and it feels like an anathema by all means. Vee and I are on a crash 7-day diet plan, you see...

Chilled Rasmalai

Ingredients -

1) Ricotta Cheese - 1 lb tub

2) Sugar - 1.5 cups or lesser

3) Cardamom - 1/2 a tspn (powdered)

4) Whole Milk - 5-6 cups

5) Almonds - a handful (sliced or pounded)

6) Pistachio nuts - a handful (pounded)

7) Saffron - a few strands soaked in a few tspns of milk.

8) Rose Water - a few drops

Method -

1) In a bowl, whisk together the ricotta cheese, half of the 1.5 cups of sugar and a generous pinch of cardamom powder. You can use a hand blender to get a silky consistency. (If you don't have one, the good old fork will do the trick too.) The sugar can be adjusted according to taste, but remember the milk in which the malai will be dunked into, will be sweet too. You don't want to end up making it cloyingly sweet!

2) Grease a baking pan and pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees F.

3) Pour the sweet cheese mixture into the pan (or pans) and spread it out evenly. The amount you pour, should not be more than 1-1.5 inches thicker. This simple check ensures the cheese doesn't take too long to bake. Reach for a second smaller pan if you think the mixture is already laid out thick in the first one.

4) Bake at 300 degrees F for about an hour and leave on broil for 5-6 minutes until the top gets some hazel colored specks. Wait until the knife test yields a neat pass and the cheese springs back from the pan. Importantly, do not expect the cheese to solidify to a hard cake. It will feel slightly soft but when you leave it to cool down, it firms up quite a bit.

5) Remove from the oven and let it cool in the pan. After it has cooled for three quarters of an hour, cut it up in diamonds or squares.

6) As and when the baking happens, you can set the milk boiling in a heavy-bottomed dish.

7) Once it reaches boiling point, add the remaining sugar and simmer. Be sure to stir often so that it doesn't spill over. The cardamom powder, saffron stands, rose water and all the pounded nuts also go in at this stage.

8) Continue simmering until the milk syrup has reduced in quantity but is not too thick like a basundi by any means. Too thick is not good because the malai cubes will refuse to soak well.

9) Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes before adding the cut up sweet cheese cubes. Assembling in a wide mouthed basin helps in avoiding traffic among the pretty cubes.

10) Cover and refrigerate for 4-5 hours before serving. And...let the party begin!