4 Comfort drinks to stay warm in winter

By Arunima Mazumdar, TNN | Dec 2, 2012, 12.00 AM IST

Not everyone is fond of the nippy, winter season but everyone's game when it comes to delicious, hot drinks. While some dread going to work in the chilly mornings, others complain about the cold, windy nights. 

How about beginning or ending your day with a warm and soothing beverage to take your mind off the chill outside?

Celebrity anchor-chef Vicky Ratnani brings to you four exclusive hot drinks that'll help you kick the nip out of winter nights and mornings. Cuddle up with a blanket, invite friends for a sleep over, put on a movie, or simply warm up with your family over the comforting brews.

1. Saffron and Apricot Milk

A warm glass of saffron milk topped with the goodness of apricots is ideal for people who are wary of the caffeine in coffee or nicotine in teabefore bedtime. It's cent per cent healthy and has no element that'll awaken you in the middle of the night.

Ingredients
250 ml Milk
A big pinch of saffron
1 tbsp Dried apricots (soaked to soften and pureed)
1 ½ tbsp Sugar
1 stalk of lemon grass bashed
1 Cinnamon stick
A big pinch of masala milk powder

Method:
1. Bring the milk to a steady boil. Infuse the saffron, cinnamon and lemon grass into it.
2. After some time, add the apricot puree and sugar.
3. Let it infuse for 30 minutes.
4. Garnish with masala milk powder and chopped apricots

2. Jasmine Ginger and Citrus Blanket

Tea is quintessential to winter. Infusing the aromatic flavour of Jasmine into the warm beverage calms your fidgety nerves and relaxes the mind to comfort. Make yourself a cup of 'Jasmine ginger and citrus blanket' before going to bed and get ready for an uninterrupted, sound sleep. Alternatively, you could choose to begin your day with a cup of this warm mixture!

Ingredients
250 ml Water
2 Jasmine tea bags
1 tsp Fresh ginger, sliced
1 slice Lemon peel
1 slice Orange peel
2 Black peppercorns
1 tbsp Honey

Method:
1. Heat water and add the flavourings.
2. Infuse the tea bags for about 12 minutes.
3. Serve piping hot.

3. Cookies and soy cream

Chocolate brings comfort to those in distress and its effect doubles when dissolved in healthy soy milk. Cookies and soy cream is a delicious hot drink for kids and adults alike!

Ingredients
250 ml Soy milk
2 Chocolate chip biscuits
1 tsp Hazelnut flavoured syrup
1 tsp Dark chocolate, grated

Method:
1. Heat the milk and then add the cookies to it. Stir till they dissolve.
2. Then, add the hazelnut syrup and mix well.
3. Serve with grated chocolate shavings.

4. High on coffee

This one's for those who need more than just a cup of coffee to obliterate the day's stress. 'High on coffee' is an invigorating mix of caffeine and liquor that adds an extra punch to your drink.

Ingredients
1 Large mug of strong coffee
30 ml Baileys liquor or whiskey
1 tsp Caramel flavour syrup
1 tbsp Whipped cream

Method:
1. Make a strong cup/mug of coffee. Add the liquor and the caramel flavour to it.
2. Top it up with whipped cream and serve hot!

Party dips

Photo: iStockphoto

Madhu Menon :Mint :Sat, Dec 01 2012. 12 54 AM IST

 plenty of ideas for your own interesting dips for the next time you have friends over

Just like every Bollywood movie needs a scene that makes absolutely no sense, every party needs some form of “chips and dip”. They are the easiest things to put together, can be made ahead of time, and don’t need to be reheated. They also give you loads of options to let your imagination and creativity run wild. So if you’ve had enough of serving plain ketchup with potato chips, this column will give you plenty of ideas to come up with your own interesting dips for the next time you have friends over.

First, let’s take the simple stuff—the “dippers”. By this, I mean things you can dunk into your dips. Potato wafers are the most common, of course, and you can find them in any store, but there are lots more you can use. Breadsticks (‘‘grissini” if you want to be fancy), banana chips, corn chips, tapioca chips, crackers and firm flatbreads such as pita, tandoori roti and focaccia (just cut them into smaller pieces) are all excellent candidates for the job. Want more options? You can flavour most breads with spices and herbs to create interesting variations. So focaccia can be flavoured with rosemary and olive oil, tandoori rotis can be brushed with butter and garlic or chaat masala, and breadsticks can be made tastier with some basil and parmesan cheese and baked. Want healthier options? Many vegetables can be cut into long strips and used as dippers. Firm and crunchy vegetables are best for this. Carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, celery and radish are just a few examples. It’s a great way to follow mum’s “eat your vegetables” advice and not gain a truckload of calories.

Now we need to make some tasty dips to go with those. Let’s try to work out a few simple formulas for dips so you’re not restricted to just the examples I give, but can make your own fun variations. For simplicity, I divide dips into three kinds:

Smooth and creamy: Dips like hummus and cream cheese spreads fit into this category.

Chunky: Guacamole and salsa, for instance.

Smooth with chunky bits: A hybrid of the two—tartare sauce, for instance, has mayonnaise with chopped gherkins, capers and tarragon. (No, these are not culinary school classifications; they just help you think in a more structured manner.)

Smooth and creamy dips offer heaps of variations, sumac, chipotle and numerous other options.

The liquid base: This forms the bulk of the dip. You can use any kind of thick liquid for this—sour cream, cream cheese, yoghurt and pureed vegetables can all work. Usually, the liquid base has a mild flavour to act like a canvass for layering other flavours.

Base flavour: Upon our canvas of the liquid flavour, we can add stronger flavours such as chilli, garlic, ginger, sesame, etc. This gives more personality to the dip. Be careful not to go overboard with them, however. We need all our ingredients to work in balance.

Spices can further enhance the base flavour and give the dip layers of taste.

Acid: No, not sulphuric acid or its cousins. I’m talking about lime juice, orange and other fruit juices, and flavoured vinegars. These will brighten the flavours in your food and help cut through some overbearing richness. They are generally used in small amounts.

Herbs: With their floral tones, herbs can provide some contrast to the palate and round off the other flavours. Again, a little goes a long way.

Let’s try to make a little table with examples, shall we?

Liquid Base: Mayonnaise, cream cheese, yoghurt, ketchup, fruit purees, vegetable purees, sour cream, chilli sauce.

Base flavour: Chilli, ginger, garlic, mustard, honey, sesame paste, peanut butter, strong cheeses like blue cheese, spring onions, strongly flavoured oils like olive oil, fruit and vegetable purees (yes, in smaller amounts, they can be used in a different role), capers, olives, gherkins.

Spices: Chilli powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, amchur, chaat masala, paprika, pepper, star anise, zatar, sumac, chipotle and numerous other options.

Acid: Plain vinegar, cider vinegar, lemon and lime juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, tamarind, kokum.

Herbs: Basil, coriander, mint, dill, rosemary, tarragon, thyme, lemongrass, parsley, marjoram, oregano.

Now if we combine things from each list, we can come up with lots of options for dips. Just remember the thumb rule of contrast: don’t layer strong flavour with strong, and weak with weak.

Want an example? Let’s take hummus, the popular Middle-Eastern dip. We’ll take ingredients from each list and make it work. So we have chick pea puree as our liquid base, garlic, olive oil and sesame paste (tahini) from the base flavour, cumin as the spice, lime juice as the acid, and a touch of parsley as the herb. Now we just whip together some chick peas with garlic, stir some olive oil and lime juice into it (don’t forget some salt), and top it with a wee bit of cumin powder and parsley. Simple, isn’t it? Or whip together some sour cream or mayonnaise, blue cheese, garlic, onion powder, vinegar and some mint, and you’ve got a minty blue cheese dip. Or combine hung yoghurt, garlic, olive oil, cucumbers, lemon juice, salt and dill, and you’ve got Tzatziki, a Greek dip. Don’t stop there; make your own flavoured versions of these (not terribly authentic, but still fun.)

As for chunky dips, the only real difference is that instead of using a liquid base, you will probably use chopped vegetable bits. So salsa is just chopped tomatoes, onions, fresh red chillies, garlic, lime juice, salt and coriander leaves. Want variations? Change the vegetables. Guacamole is essentially a salsa where the tomato is replaced with smashed avocado. Want more variations? Replace the chopped veggies with chopped fruits like mango, pineapple, orange, papaya and even watermelon. Want still more variations? Change some herbs and seasonings. So you can end up with something like pineapple jalapeño basil salsa. (Yes, I just came up with that, but it’s tasty.)

Is your imagination working yet? If not, stare at the table above for a little longer and some unusual combination will probably come to mind. Before I go, remember that dips are best made a few hours ahead of time and refrigerated. This will give ingredients time to blend their flavours together better. And coincidentally, also reduces last-minute headaches for you. That’s a win-win in my book.

Madhu Menon is a chef, restaurant consultant and food writer. 

How to make…Beetroot vada

Special ArrangementBeetroot Vada.

Nachammai Subramanian :The Hindu :15 Nov 2012

Vegetables when used in vada add to its taste. The best pick from my mother’s recipes for vada is her beetroot vada. The sweet taste of the beetroot blends well with the gram, fennel and cumin to make for a great snack. Beetroot is a rich source of potent antioxidants and nutrients.

What you need

Beetroot, medium sized - 4

Onion, medium sized - 1

Split pigeon pea (toor dal) - 200 gm

Red chillies - 6

Fennel - 1 tbsp

Cumin - 1/2 tbsp

Salt - 1 tbsp

Oil – as required

Water- as required

Cooking instructions

Soak pigeon pea for an hour. To the soaked gram add the red chillies, fennel and cumin. Grind to a coarse mixture. Add little water to make a paste. Keep aside.

Shred the beetroot and fry in a pan (without adding oil) for two-three minutes. To this, add finely chopped onions and fry for two minutes. Now add salt and then the ground mixture. Add water if required. It should have a chapathi dough consistency. Now make small balls from this dough. Fry oil in a pan, flatten the balls and fry them until light brown. Serve hot.

Nachammai Subramanian is a homemaker who’s hobbies are reading, cooking and painting.

A healthy start

Beetroot paratha

Moushmi Kishore :The Hindu:26 Nov 2012

Some easy-to-make and tasty breakfast options.

Power up the day with hearty breakfast recipes that will help keep you full and energized until lunch. It is the prevention meal because it heads off overeating and over snacking during the day and easy way to check you eat better and lose weight.

Make sure your breakfast is well rounded, meaning it packs produce, protein, and whole grains. These recipes are tempting enough to get you out of bed as most of these meals are ready in 15-20 minutes or less, so that they can be whipped up even on frantic mornings, others can be prepped the night before. Time to rise and dine your hearty breakfasts.

Broccoli And Cheese Omelet

Ingredients:

½ tsp olive oil

1 ¼ cups thinly sliced broccoli florets

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1tbspn grated cheese

1 egg, plus 2 egg whites

1tspn red pepper flakes

Salt to taste

Method: Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook broccoli covered, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and some pepper. Transfer to plate. Add cheese to skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until melted and golden in about 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium low. Add egg and egg whites. Keeping egg yolk intact, drag a spatula through the whites to spread them evenly in the pan. Cook covered, until whites are set and yolk is still runny, 1 to 1 ½ minutes. Top with broccoli mixture and fold omelette over. Sprinkle red pepper flakes.

Banana Toast With Walnut, Dates And Honey

Ingredients:

2 tbsp cheese spread

1 slice whole wheat bread toasted

½ banana, sliced on the bias

1 medium pitted date, thinly sliced

1 tbsp coarsely chopped roasted walnuts

1tspn honey

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper.

Method: Spread cheese spread on toast. Top with banana, date and walnut. Drizzle with honey. Sprinkle with pinch of salt and some pepper.

Chickoo And Oat Shake

Ingredients:

2 ½ medium to large chickoos, peeled, deseeded and chopped

1 ¾ cup skim milk

1 cup low fat butter milk

2/3 cup rolled or quick cooking oats

1/3 cup ice-cubes

2 tsp chocolate syrup

2 tsp white cream

1 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Sugar to taste

Method: Freeze chickoos in a single layer on a baking sheet overnight. Combine chickoo, milk, butter milk, oats, ice, chocolate syrup, cream, cinnamon and sugar in a blender. Blend on low speed, then gradually increase speed to high. Blend until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Pour into chilled glasses, and garnish with ground cinnamon. Serve Immediately.

Creamed Spinach Wrap

Ingredients:

4 flat out light original flat bread

2 bunch fresh spinach, washed thoroughly

3 tbsp unsalted butter

¼ cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole milk

1 ½ tbsp whipped reduced fat cream cheese spread

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method: Cook spinach in a large pot with ¼ inch water until steam has collapsed leaves, 8-10 minutes. Drain and squeeze out liquid. Coarsely chop. In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour, 1 teaspoon salt and some pepper. Stir for 1 minute. Whisk in milk and simmer until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Fold in chopped spinach. Spread cheese spread over one side of flatbread. Top with creamed spinach. Roll flatbread to enclose filling.

Daal And Vegetable Idli

Ingredients:

1 cup urad daal

½ cup each of channa (black gram) and moong daal

1 small bunch of fenugreek leaves

125gm shelled green peas

1 carrot

½ coconut

1 big bunch coriander leaves

6 green chillies finely minced

1 onion minced

1 tsp mustard seeds

Pinch of asafoetida, salt to taste.

Method: Soak the dals for 4 hours and grind a little coarsely after draining out water. Mince together green chillies, fenugreek and coriander leaves. Grate the coconut and carrot to fine bits. Half boil the peas and grind coarsely. Mix together dals, vegetables, coconut and onion. Heat 1 tbsp oil and put in mustard seeds and asafoetida. When seeds stop crackling put those into the dal mixture and mix well. Grease small round bowls of idli stand with ghee or oil and fill ¾ full. Steam till idlis are firm. Remove them from container and serve them hot with seasoned curd or sambhar or coconut chutney.

Beetroot Parathas

Ingredients:

250gms sifted whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp ghee

1 cup water

2 cups grated beetroot

1 tbsp crushed pomegranate seeds

2 green chillies minced

Handful of chopped coriander leaves

½ piece chopped ginger

½ tsp jeera powder

½ tsp chilli powder

Method: Mix salt and rub ghee in the flour. Add water gradually, knead well and mix the flour. See that dough formed is uniform, smooth, soft and pliable. Mix all spiced ingredients in grated beetroot. Now take a piece of dough and roll it flat like a chapatti. Spread a little ghee or butter and then fill in the grated, spiced beetroot. Seal the edges nicely, sprinkle a little dry flour on top and then roll out the parathas as thinly and as roundly as you can, being careful not to break it. Grease a smoking tava or a girdle with ghee and place the paratha over it. When underside turns a little golden coloured, apply ghee on top side and turn over. Press gently and cover this side also with some ghee keep on turning until paratha turns golden coloured. Serve it hot with 1 tbsp of fresh butter and a bowl of fresh curd seasoned with desirable condiments.

Rain or shine, the selling goes on.

Nimesh Dave : Mid day

My grandma’s recipe: How to make… Elephant yam halwa

Manasadevi Venkatesan : The Hindu, 2 Nov 2012

Dessert fashioned out of tuber

What you need:

Elephant yam (senai kizhangu): One cup

Boiled milk and sugra: 1 ½ cup each

Ghee: Five Tsp

Cashew nuts: 10

Almonds: For topping (optional)

Cooking Instructions

Peel elephant yam and cut into small pieces. Cook chopped yam and cashew nuts with milk in a pressure cooker till soft. Allow the ingredients to cool, grind in a mixer and set aside. Heat one tablespoon of ghee in a non-stick pan and mix ground yam paste and sugar with remaining milk. Cook on low flame till the paste thickens. Add four tablespoons of ghee and continue stirring till ghee separates. Ensure ghee does not stick to pan. Garnish with almonds.

Manasadevi Venkatesan is a home-maker who enjoys cooking. She contributes to cookery columns in various Tamil periodicals. Embroidery is her other passion. This dish was prepared by her grandmother occasionally. The recipe remained in her secretly guarded cookery notebook for several years.

Before the Mise en place

Ensuring freshness. Photo: P.V. Sivakumar


 Vasundhara :The Hindu,3 Nov 2012

Get easy on the must-dos and enjoy a mouthful of nutrition.

Years ago I underwent basic training at the Taj, and, in my first days in the kitchens, was told repeatedly to learn the “meejon”. This was an affectionate diminution of “mise en place” the “putting in place” of ingredients, appropriately cut and prepped, before the actual cooking. Knowing French isn’t necessary to cook, but “meejon” certainly is. But even before that comes the selection.

Arjun Nair, 23, wrote to me from Mexico: “Cooking vegetables is MY Waterloo and I will be reading closely for further advice on how to deal with them, both buying and preparing. I have been spoiled all my life, first by my mother, and then by American ‘everything you need in aisle 4’ food consumerism. Reading your column gives me hope that I too will pick up cooking at some point, and not burn holes through my wallet eating out 24/7. Looking forward to a piece fornaujawans like yours truly who are hungry all the time but have no idea how to navigate through a real food market.”

First come the inventory-check and the list. I start with the staples: potatoes, onions and garlic, which are less perishable, don’t need refrigeration, and can be bought in larger quantities. As readers must know, my big principle is to try to use only seasonal produce. It’s cheaper and tastes better too. The potatoes, like carrots, turnips, radishes and other root vegetables, should be smooth and unblemished. I don’t know about Mexico, but here, summer brings us sweet, stodgy potatoes from cold storage, so try to buy fresh “pahari” tubers from the hills; and, at the beginning of winter, choose new potatoes with thin skins — you don’t need to peel them, just give them a good rub (with a designated scrubber) under running water. And if you’re not cooking them immediately after cutting, keep them in cold water to prevent darkening.

What to watch for

Onions. Use only when cheap, which, in India, means in summer; and look out for wet ones that could be rotting inside. In winter, buy only as much as is absolutely necessary, and, early in the season, go for green spring onions. These aren’t a substitute for full-season red ones, but are good, sautéed crisp-tender, as a stretcher with mushrooms, eggs, potatoes, prawns, paneer: anything that improves with crunchy greens. If refrigerator storage space is an issue, cut off the stalks about two inches from the white bulb and keep separately (long narrow packages occupy less space). Reserve all the greens (except the tough bits). Be careful about storing food with strong smells by drying and then packing it in polythene bags. In any case, remember that milk picks up smells before you can say “Euww”, so ALWAYS keep milk and milk products covered.

New ginger arrives between the monsoon and winter and its price drops with the temperature. Use tender rhizomes in a relish, with lime juice and green chillies. Adding salt turns the slivers a startling pink.

Then come the tomatoes. We don’t have the varieties that the Americas do, and ours are best when red and firm. But if you can only find pale under-ripe ones, store at room temperature till they ripen. Green ones come rarely and if you plan to use them green, refrigerate at once to prevent ripening. Coriander (cilantro, dhania patta, kotmir) is cheaper in winter — in fact itinerant and pavement traders bung it into the shopping bag gratis. Like all green leafy vegetables sold in tied bunches, choose green, fresh looking specimens and store after checking for wet — and thence rotting — stalks. Store in a plastic bag, leaving its mouth open. Some people keep cleaned leafy stalks in a jug of water in the kitchen. I tried — it looked very pretty on the windowsill, like a magazine picture — but didn’t keep them fresh.

In winter I get vast supplies of salad leaves from my father’s kitchen garden. I wrap them loosely in a large, thick kitchen towel sprinkled with water and pack the whole bundle in a large plastic bag, again leaving its mouth open. If the salad is staying a few days, every three days or so it helps to unwrap the whole thing, get rid of the bad leaves and rinse and squeeze the towel. They still turn limp, so perk them up and rehydrate by washing and soaking in chilled water before serving. All green leaves, including those that need to be cooked, should be refrigerated, but despite that, some turn yellow. To keep them green, either cook pronto; or pick, wash and blanch within a day of buying them. Blanching literally means “turning white”, but it actually helps to keep green. Boil a large pot of water, immerse the cleaned and chopped vegetables for 20 seconds, turn off the heat and strain the veggies. Squeeze and freeze in freezer-safe plastic bags. Blanched greens occupy a fraction of the space that raw ones do, as do shelled peas vis-à-vis whole pods.

Green vegetables like beans, okra, cucumbers and all kinds of gourds are best when firm and green: avoid the limp, tragic looking ones that are showing their age. Check beans for tenderness by breaking off a length: it should snap off easily, without resistance from ropey fibre.

So my advice to naujawans like Arjun is that vegetables should be selected in the prime of their life and cooked and consumed as soon as possible; and, if delay is likely, to pause the ageing process by freezing.