Panchavati Pongal

Source: Kuty's Kreations!

The hubby and I recently took a much needed vacation to the beautiful NZ. The food was absolutely amazing and we had no problems finding vegetarian food. However, after eating such rich foods and after a long flight I was craving a nice hot and hearty wholesome meal. As soon as we came back I wanted to make ven pongal, which is one of the easiest South Indian meals one can make and is the ultimate comfort food. (It is similar to kichadi.) Normally it is made with moong dal, but of course with my luck I had only a few tablespoons left of it. So I thought, why not create a new recipe with whatever I have? And so came about panchavati pongal!

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup of dhal (Make a mix of moong dhal, urad dhal, tuvar dhal, masoor dhal, channa dhal)
• 1 cup long grain rice
• 2 tablespoons ghee
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 15 peppercorns
• 2 sprigs curry leaves
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger
• Handful of cashew nuts pieces
• Dash of hing

Directions

1. Soak rice and dhal for 20-30 mins (optional step)
   
2. Rinse dhal and rice well
3. Add rice, dhal, 5 cups water, hing, and ginger to pressure cooker. Pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. This really depends on your pressure cooker. It should come out nice and mushy. If it did not come out mushy continue to cook it (add water if necessary). If it is too watery, continue to cook it until some water boils off.
4. Temper cumin seeds, crushed peppercorns, cashew nuts, ghee, curry leaves.
5. Add tempering and salt to taste to the rice/ dhal mixture. Add more pepper and salt as needed. I like my pongal with a lot of pepper.

Kuty's Twist
Like I said, ven pongal is normally made with just moong dhal. You can probably try this with any type of dhal.

This is usually served with chutney or gotsu (an eggplant/ tomato stew). I make my pongal with a lot of pepper kick and am quite happy just eating it plain or with yogurt. :-)

If you have leftovers, I would advise microwaving it with some added water to get back that mushy consistency.

On a side note, it's quite funny how your tastes change as you grow up. I used to HATE eating pongal as a child, especially when it was made with whole peppercorns. Now I can't get enough of it! :-)

Pineapple Fried Rice

Source: Closet Cooking

My apologies for the lack of posts last month. Although I had been doing PLENTY of cooking, I didn't have time to blog due to family visiting me. The good news is that I was able to try a bunch of experimental recipes on my family, which will be coming your way!

So for some reason, I have never had much luck with creating Asian dishes. I'm convinced it's because I'm not adding some "bad for you" secret ingredient like MSG or fish sauce (which the restaurants love to sneak in even though you are ordering a vegetarian dish.) Well this dish is jam packed with flavor and more! The original recipe has shrimp and fish sauce in it. I stripped it down and added my own veggies to create a vegetarian Thai Pineapple Fried Rice!


*Note: The other dish in this image is a failed attempt at making garlic eggplant tofu so I did not post the recipe :-)

**Update: Due to popular demand, you can find the original recipe to the eggplant dish here.

Ingredients

• 2 cups uncooked rice (I used basmati)
• Oil
• 1 red onion
• 5 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 6-7 red chilies
• 1 red pepper (diced)
• 3-5 tablespoons vegetable broth
• 3-5 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1.5 tablespoons curry powder (I used garam masala)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup cashews (roasted)
• 1 medium sized pineapple, cut into small chunks (you can use canned, but I was ambitious and used fresh)
• 1 medium head of broccoli
• 1/4 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 2-3 spring onions (sliced)
• 1/4 cup cilantro (chopped)

Directions

1. Cook rice and completely cool. It's preferable if this is day old rice

2. Cut and steam cook broccoli

3. Heat oil in large vessel

4. Add onions, garlic, red chillies and red pepper and stir-fry until fragrant, about a minute.

5. Add the vegetable broth, soy sauce, garam masala powder and sugar and stir-fry

6. Add the cashews and stir-fry for 30 seconds

7. Add the rice, break up any clumps and stir-fry for a few minutes

8. Add 3/4 of your pineapple, peas, broccoli and raisins and stir-fry to mix them in

9. Taste and adjust the following as needed: soy sauce, garam masala powder. You may need to add salt and as well. Add some red chili powder if the spice isn't enough for you. (If it's too spicy, add more pineapple or sugar.)

10. Remove from heat and serve garnished with chopped green onions and cilantro

Kuty's Twist

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So this dish is actually a good 3 day process. Day1- Cook Rice, Day2- Complete Recipe, Day3- Optimal taste day!

This dish needs to sit for a while for all the spices and pineapple juices to blend together in order for it to have maximum flavor. It should be very spicy after you make it because the spice will die down by the next day. When I made this it was so spicy that I couldn't finish what was on my plate! The next day it tasted perfect because all the pineapple juices had blended in.

You can also add tofu and scrambled egg to this dish.

For the pineapple: Don't be afraid to use fresh pineapple because you have to cut it! I recently embraced my knives set, which I've had for 3 years. Up until now I only used the smaller knives in the first row. I've just started to use the bigger knives and it has made chopping SO much easier and faster. Don't be scared to use the big knives! You'll have your pineapple chopped up in no time. Also, if you want to be fancy, you can serve the rice within the empty pineapple shell :-)