What's cooking? ITC Kitchens of India

What’s Cooking?

-          ITC Kitchens of India

The festive season is in the air. So I dust off my crabby head to see if I can rustle up a dish that my

daughter will love.

I share with you one of my daughter’s favorite sweet dishes for the festive season.

 Follow it exactly for best results.

Shakarai Pongal

(Sweet Rice)

Serves 4 people

Ingredients:

Raw rice – 1 cup

Deep brown gud – to taste (my daughter likes it less sweet. So I measure with care

Moong dal – ¼ cup

Milk – 1 litre

Cashew nuts – 100g

Ghee – 2 tablespoons

Coconut scrapings – ½ cup

Powdered Elaichi – 2 tsp

Powdered pachchai karpoor – a pinch

Method:

Roast the moong dal on a heated pan till the raw smell goes and keep it aside.  

Cut the cashew nuts into halves and fry in a teaspoon of ghee till light brown and keep it aside.

Wash the rice thoroughly and add 4 cups of milk. Cook the moong dal and the rice in separate containers in the pressure cooker. For best results, simmer until soft.

 Mash the moong dal until it is a soft mass and add it to the rice all the time ensuring that it is a homogeneous mixture.

 Take a pan and add a little bit of water. Add the gud to it and allow it to simmer.

 Add the coconut shavings to it. When it thickens slightly add it to the rice mixture and mix thoroughly. Add the ghee to it and mix well. 

Garnish it with elaichi powder, pachai karpooram and the fried cashew pieces.

 Give it a robust mix and serve hot.

Or else…

…Call the grocer and ask him for a packet of ITC Kitchens of India’s Jodhpuri Moong Dal Halwa. 

Cut and pour the mixture in a pan and follow the instructions.

Labor: No pain, no sweat

Time taken: 5 minutes

Happiness quotient: Bliss

Any guesses what I’m going to do this festive season? (Wink, wink)

Hint: the answer is in the brackets!

Don’t forget to write the answer in the space below.  A FREE packet of ITC Kitchens of India awaits those who get it right!

Coming up next is a lazy housewife’s guide to Gajar ka Halwa. Look out for it…

The Other Woman - ITC Kitchens of India

The Other Woman

-          ITC Kitchens of India

I kicked myself mentally for putting my foot in my mouth, again!

 You see, I received a call from long lost friends who wished to discuss shop with me and I called them home quite impulsively to talk about it over dinner.

Not that I mind hosting, but calling 20 odd guests…? What was I thinking?

And like the PM said money doesn’t grow on trees. And I should know. I have been blogging without a dime in my pocket. (Tsk, tsk)

So how much would I have to splurge for the event?

By yesterday’s encounter with the vegetablewalah, one dish would set me back by around Rs 180 worth of ingredients. That multiplied by the number of guests and further multiplied by at least 6 or 7 different dishes…? 

I have to confess such math is beyond my comprehension! (Tsk, tsk. Use the calculator.)

And so began my haggling with a very clever vegetablewalah who pleading innocence of the rise in food prices, saying with a wicked smile that it was not he who had announced a hike in diesel prices.(Very funny).

Having bought vegetables by the cartload, I set about making the dishes.

 Tensions ran high as I tried to compete with time…everything was taking far too much time packets of ITC Kitchens of India on the shelves seemed to mockingly say to me. (Oh, dear!)

Three hours of labor later and none too near closing the kitchen, a much harried cook of this household relented to the ‘scorned mistress’ and called up the grocers for some packets of ITC Kitchens of India, on the double! (Dear me!)

An hour later, cut the packets, poured and served hot.

Everybody complimented me on my culinary skills. (Heh, heh)

Savored some moments of bliss…

Then…

Now that you have been well fed, let’s talk shop…

You were saying…? (Wink, wink)

My Daughter's Step Mom - ITC Kitchens of India

My Daughter’s Step-Mom

-          ITC Kitchens of India

An entry in my personal diary:

“23.9.2012

Got up early. Servant didn’t come. So swept the house, had bath and said a prayer.

 Thought to make some good old paneer sabzi, my teen’s favorite.

 Vegetablewalah came.

 Bought 1 kilo of tomatoes for Rs 30, 100 g of ginger for Rs. 10, 100 g of garlic for Rs 15, onions for Rs 20, a small bunch of coriander leaves for Rs 10 (Is there anything I can get for less than Rs 10, I grumble).

 I give him a Rs 100 note. He tucks it in his  pocket and on his way out shouts out that the balance will be adjusted with the following day’s transaction (which is his way of saying, never) I vow on catching him on his word the next day.

Vegetables bought, I ask the local grocery store for my weekly spices and naturally, paneer. That sets me back by Rs. 80...”

Chores beckon me. So I leave the diary incomplete with a promise to complete the entry sometime in the course of the day.

As the sun sets, I sit down to finish my cooking quickly, so that I can watch KBC on time. I grind all the masalas and simmer it in the spices. The smell rewards me for the pools of sweat that are dropping beadily down my nose. 

Just then I notice the teen in the kitchen, looking for something.

She yanks out a packet of ITC Kitchens of India and pours the contents into a hot kadai. (Blink, blink rapidly)

Within a few minutes, she is done with what she came in for.

She helps herself to a large spoonful of the curry and some rotis and removes herself from the kitchen with a, “I’m through dinner, ma. Thanks!”

 So much for nothing?! (Sob, sob!)

I swear I will never cook again…

…at least not as long as there is another KOI in the house!

And then comes a shout: “Ma, ask for some more KOIs. We’ve run out of stock…”

Silence

Huh? (Blink, blink!) 

Realization…

(Wail!)

Ma, what's cooking? Part - 2

Ma, what’s cooking?Part - 2

-          ITC Kitchens of India

Day 2 of my experiments with cooking:

It difficult to search for food that is to my daughter’s liking. So I go to the masters that I buy once in a while in search for something new and appetizing…

Here’s one guru’s recipe from one of her older books:

Kadai Paneer

By Sarla Mafatlal

“Ingredients:

500 grams paneer

100 grams of capsicum

2 teaspoons coriander powder

2 whole red chillies

2 teaspoon kasoori methi

1 chopped green chilly (optional)

2 teaspoons chopped ginger

5 chopped tomatoes…

6 cloves garlic mixed with a little water

Method (Sigh. Is there more?)

1.       Slice the paneer and capsicum into evenly cut strips

2.       1…

3.       to…

4.       8…

5.       steps…

6.       …

7.       …

8.       …”

Darn! Too much work. Where are my Kitchens of India?

Aah, here they are!

Prize one open and pour the contents of the packet into a hot kadai…

Done. 

Serve hot with rotis.

 Bliss!

Ma, what's cooking? - ITC Kitchens of India

Ma, what’s cooking? - Part 1

-          ITC Kitchens of India

I’m a bad cook. That’s what my daughter all of 22 years thinks; “thinks”, being the operative word. She eats some of the food and skips the rest. So I figure everything else is “bleh” as she sometimes says or “whateves” (sic), the teenage word for iffy, I surmise.

It’s time to cook food and I’m hyperventilating. I open a recipe book - some chef’s experiments with microwave cooking, although I don’t microwave either.

The teen’s craving is paneer and so I look for a paneer recipe...

 Gotcha, here it is…

Palak Paneer

Ingredients – you need:

500 grams Paneer

1 bunch of Palak

2 Onions

Tomatoes puree

1 inch Ginger 

Blah, blah

But as I know all this I do it my way…

But it smells the same?!

 (Duh!)

I yank the kadai out of the gas and into the sink.

Then pull out another kadai and follow another recipe from…

…ITC Kitchens of India…

…Which says: “Just heat and eat(?!) Method 1: Cut pouch, empty contents into a frying pan, and heat for 3 - 5 minutes while stirring. Serve hot…”

No kidding, that’s it?!

My daughter smells the food all the way from across her room and says, “Nice”.

That’s her way of saying it is pretty good.

I garnish it with sprigs of coriander and serve it piping hot. (Wink, wink)

 Hold on there’s more…

She calls me the world’s greatest cook! (Blink, blink, wink, wink)

So I sagely offer her such treats three times a week if she stops making Domino’s Pizza her surrogate mother!

We seal the deal with something sweet, again from ITC Kitchens of India. (Again, wink, wink)