How to make...Kothumalli thokku

Source :The Hindu : Metro Plus, Chennai,LALITHA KUMAR :18th Feb 2011 Lalitha Kumar is a home-maker who loves to spend her free-time trying out new recipes,  reading books and writing. Kothumalli thokku is a flavoursome dish, rich in nutrition. Easy-tomake, this recipe has been in our family for many generations.  It can be mixed with hot rice and a little ghee to make wholesome Kothumalli sadham. It can also be had as a sidedish with idli, dosa, chappathi and curd rice. This dish can be preserved for about a week. What you need Coriander - 1 bunch Red chillies - 4 Bengal gram - 1 tsp Black gram - 11/2 tsp Asafoetida - 1 small bit Tamarind, lemonsized ball - 1 Jaggery - 1 tsp Salt - to taste Refined oil - 1 tsp Gingelly oil - 2 tsp

Cooking instructions

Wash coriander and soak in water for half-an-hour. Make sure all the dirt is removed.

Heat refined oil in a pan and add red-chillies and roast them first. Keep the roasted chillies aside.

Then, add Bengal gram, black gram and asafoetida to the pan. Roast and keep aside.

In a mixer, grind the coriander, jaggery, tamarind, roasted chillies and salt together with one tbsp of water.

Then add the roasted mixture of Bengal gram, black gram and asafoetida to the paste and grind together.

Heat gingelly oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. When it crackles

add the ground mixture and fry till the mixture thickens and oil separates

Flygande Jacob or Flying Jacob is a Swedish casserole

Source :The Hindu Metro Plus,Chennai,18th Feb2011

Flygande Jacob or Flying Jacob is a Swedish casserole

 based on chicken with bananas, peanuts and bacon

 and cooked in the oven. 

The dish was invented by Ove Jacobsson who worked

 in the air freight industry, hence the name. 

The recipe was first published in Allt om mat in 1976.

A taste of nostalgia

SPICED RIGHT The menu focuses on food that 
Malayalees are passionate about


Source ; SHONALI MUTHALALY :The Hindu Metro Plus ,Chennai,18th Feb 2011


EATING OUT Kudumbam's cuisine is reminiscent of everything
 flavourful from God's own country

We smell Kudumbam before we see it. It's the scent of coconut oil: lush, intense and unapologetically powerful. For every other part of India, coconut oil might symbolise head massages and banana chips. For a Malayalee, it's a far more primeval scent. It conjures up languid lunches featuring puffy pappadums teamed with red rice and warm avial fragrant with coconut oil.

I stand on the road taking deep breaths like a tourist at a mountain resort. I'm even more at home when I spot Kudumbam's verandah. With its gleaming planter's chair supporting an antique walking stick, it provides an authentic Kerala-setting. The theme continues inside, with beautifully recreated interiors. 

There's a traditional nalukettu, a staple of the old Kerala tharavadu, featuring an open courtyard that floods the room with natural light. A sturdy cupboard bursts with pickles and jams, all made in Kottayam. On top of the cupboard balances a line of glass jars filled with tea-shop snacks: sweet rose cookies, sesame-speckled kuzhalappams and crisp churoti dusty with powdered sugar.

Calling itself Kerala's first boutique restaurant, Kudumbam has been painstakingly put together, with rich details and thoughtful touches. As the resident flautist plays, we wander through and are finally seated at a table upstairs, one of the many quiet nooks in the restaurant which has been intelligently divided into sections to maximise privacy. 

Unfortunately the acoustics let them down — loud voices tend to echo here — so it can feel rather chaotic when packed.

Our waiter's friendly but vague. He seems perpetually preoccupied with more important matters. World peace, perhaps. He hands us our menus, knocks over my water, apologises profusely and wanders away. 

For the next half-an-hour we see him at odd intervals, waving shyly from a distance. When he finally turns up we order in a rush before he can canter away. The menu focuses on food that Malayalees are passionate about, from the well-known Syrian beef fry to lesser known items such as sun-dried beef that's then crushed and stir-fried. There's fish, of course. All the local favourites: Kalanchi, Neymeen, Karimeen and Ayoli. Also prawns and squid, besides Kerala's fast food — Trivandrum fried chicken, laced with red pepper and roasted coconut. And, of course, duck roast, a staple at festive lunches and dinners.

 I pick a Kerala meal, which arrives in ten minutes, grandly presented on a leaf-shaped plate. Strangely the rice is lukewarm and every other accompaniment is cold. As a result the food is rather lacklustre. 

The avial, a tumble of bright vegetables generously showered with shredded coconut, redeems the meal. It helps that our waiter's now become part of the family and hovers around endearingly, offering to bring bowls of dal which he insists we spike with generous dollops of golden ghee.

We also order squid fry and okra, but both turn out rather disappointing since they're cloaked in an inexplicable bhaji-style batter. 

Our Kerala parathas are appropriately flaky and go well with the prawn-mango curry, which is tasty if over-embellished with acres of onions. There's a deftly-spiced koottu curry, featuring the ubiquitous Kerala kadala — which are like black chickpeas — along with juicy brinjal. It goes beautifully with red rice. 

There are payasams to end the meal — ada, semiya, broken wheat, split gram — besides carrots, jackfruit and beetroot halwa.

 If you get here at tea time they also offer a wide range of snacks, including the addictive ethaka appam, ripe golden Kerala bananas encased in a crisp batter. Perfect with a cup of scalding, 

thick, sweet Kerala chai.

Kudumbam is at 156, Kodambakkam High Road. Call 28212821 or 28212822 for more details or reservations

Food for the soul

PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.

 The food is served on a thala-bati, small katoris arrayed around a mound of rice
Source :The Hindu :Metro Plus Bangalore

Techies from Bengal, Orissa, Manipur and Bihar living in Koramangala needn't feel homesick anymore, thanks to technocrat-turned-floriculturist and former Rotarian S.K. Ghosh who has started a new branch of his restaurant Bangliana near the IIM on Bannerghatta Road. "These young professionals yearn for wholesome meals," Ghosh explains. "How long can they live on junk food? At first, I brought a Bengali cook over and set up a mess. It was a roaring success. I later set up Bangaliana on August 1, 2004," says Ghosh.

The ambience at Bangaliana is the informal chaos of most homes. The furniture is quasi-office. The walls teem with drawings by Sukumar Ray, accompanied by his brilliant Bangla nonsense verse. The day's specials are chalked up on a white board. A portrait of Swami Vivekananda is set by the cash counter manned by Ghosh or his wife.

"Our USP is fish. Different fish curries, at least five or seven each day," says Ghosh. "We fly in fish from Kolkata at least twice or thrice a week. Over the weekends, we have special dishes. And when it rains, we have khichuri and maach bhaja or begun bhaja, just as you would at home."

Functioning as a home delivery cum catering service, a takeaway and restaurant, from noon to 3 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m., the standees outside its door testify to Bangaliana's culinary claims. Every meal with a non-veg dish can be had for between Rs. 40 to Rs. 95 per head. Isn't that a steal?

The food is served on a thala-bati, small katoris arrayed around a mound of white rice on a plate accompanied by the day's choice of dal and vegetables. The musurir dal (masoor) is delicately flavoured with turmeric and red chilli, tempered with just randhuni (ajwain). It goes perfectly with the farm-fresh shukto at room temperature with each bite of bittergourd, drumstick or plantain yielding ginger-mustard notes, hinting at panch phoron (the traditional mix of whole seeds). The alu-piaj koli is irresistible with the crunchy spring onion blending into the cooked potato and it is very lightly spiced. For zest, we demolish some straw-fried potatoes that whet our appetite.

Now for the fish. We try each with a little rice. The chingri jhal is exquisite, its light gravy of ginger and kala jeera helping the juicy prawns come into their own. The rui kalia is richer, each chunk of succulent rohu done to an exacting tenderness. Next comes pabpa shorse, a whole pink-bellied Indian butterfish, the subtle mustard curry enhancing its flakiness. But our pick of the day was doi pona, a generous slice of plump fish perfectly at home in its sweetish yoghurt gravy.

As a diversion, we sample the mangshor jhol (chunks of mutton and potato redolent of ginger, dhania and jeera). To top off our feast, we lick at digestive, sweet-sour aam chutney (diced mango afloat in syrup).

Ghosh babu will not allow us to leave without sampling his "outsourced sweets", no matter how replete we are. So, we dip into mishti doi, much lighter and less sweet than the usual product. As for the tender, plump rossogolla, it is less cloying and sugary than most.

Bangaliana is located at 355, 1st B Main, 7th Block, Koramangala, opp. HDFC Bank or one could call 25711058/ 98453-66458 to get to know more of this lovely eat-out.

ADITI DE

Vegetarian president brings own cooks to China

Source :Beijing,Indo-Asian News Service, May 29, 2010, 12:32 IST
   
   
       

President Pratibha Patil, a vegetarian, has flown in her own cooks for her six-day China visit, fully aware that she would be visiting a nation known for a cuisine that is primarily non-vegetarian and where gourmet dishes are whipped out of many animal, bird and fish species.

In fact, the president, who attended a sumptuous state banquet on Thursday, given by her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of People, bypassed the non-vegetarian dishes and tucked into a meal which included a special dish of white gourd.

Officials said Patil, who is staying in the majestic Hotel Raffles in Beijing, has a huge suite which has a big kitchen, with separate entry for staff members. Patil is in China on a six-day visit that is taking her to Beijing, Luoyang and Shanghai.

"She is a simple eater. And likes her dal, rice and one vegetable. Her chef knows her liking," an official told IANS, not wishing to be identified as he was not supposed to talk to the media.

The chefs, Laxman Rai and Dheeraj Mani Bhatt, are not only taking care of the president's needs, but also of those of her husband Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat, son-in-law Jayesh Rathore and grandson Dhruvesh Rathor, who are accompanying her in the visit.

As Chinese dining etiquettes demand that guests do not decline any food that is served to them, Chinese authorities were informed about the president's preferences in advance. "She was not offered any non-vegetarian fare (at the state banquet)," said the official.

A huge steel box labelled with bold letters "grocery" was flown to China. In fact, it was one of the few things that were loaded first in the special aircraft Air India One in which the president and her entourage travelled.

"We are carrying everything for the journey. We know her choices so we have packed everything. We wanted to be fully prepared," the official told IANS. Chinese banquets typically serve about ten courses that include food cooked from animal, fish or bird anatomy.

Sharbats -Cold cuts are hot options

Source:Metro plus,vijayawada,24 th April,2010

HARJEET KAUR ALLAGH

 

The simmering heat getting the better of you? Harjeet Kaur Allagh offers a smorgasbord of options on a platter

Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar 
 
Cool preference Sharbats are wonderful substitutes to quench thirst in summer 

The weatherman has confirmed our worst fears. Summer will be more blistering, sweltering and scorching this year. In our eagerness to discover brand new ways to beat the heat and cool down the body, most of us tend to miss the age-old recipes that are sure-fire means of beating the heat.

Try a glass of cold lime juice with a bit of sugar, salt and a dash of cumin powder or grab a tumbler of buttermilk. If neither is accessible, stop over at a coconut vendor and help yourself to tender coconut.

These quick-fix solutions work rapidly to recharge our energy-sapped system. “ Panna is a juice made from boiled or roasted raw mango pulp. Instead of relying on carbonated beverages that make me feel bloated, I prefer mom's recipe for raw Panna – a blend of pudina leaves, coriander leaves, cumin seed powder and a dash of black salt, make a tasty and refreshing drink,” says Pavithra, a professor.

Many homemakers like Rukmini depend on traditional Indian cuisine that contains restorative supplements in preparations like chutneys, sherbets and the vast variety of raitas that we relish. “The key summer advisory for food is to eat light and include ingredients that have cooling properties,” says Rukmini.

Curd, cumin, khus, sandal, rose water, tamarind and anaardana (pomegranate seeds) are naturally cooling. Go heavy on homemade salads and squash vegetables like bottle gourd, snake gourd, pumpkins, which have high water content. If you don't like these vegetables and prefer foreign cuisines, there are interesting alternatives. Go for soups like gazpacho and smoked chicken cuts, Mediterranean dips and Thai salads instead of heavy spicy food. Tofu, green Thai curries, hummus and the Lebanese version of bhartha are very good alternatives to the hot Indian food. “Cold cuts are fairly foreign to the Indian food habit but the ones like tandoori or dum make great fillings for pita bread sandwiches and wraps, “says Tina, a gourmet cook.

“Steamed dhoklas and idlis and chaat items like dahi bhalla can be substituted for a main course,” opines Asmita, an expert cook.

The right kind of food and drink can help keep the body cool and healthy during hot summer. Here's a list of items that ought to be stocked in your fridge to survive the searing temperatures. Fruit with yoghurt is an ideal combination for breakfast in really hot weather. Fruits have high water content and so they help maintain the body fluid.

Intake of fruits is important in hot weather to bump up your fluid intake. Melons contain more than 90 per cent water and the good news is that they are ubiquitous during summer. Papayas too are available in abundance besides being affordable. For a more exotic drink try the Kiwi-Cooler.

The delicious light green colour of this mocktail is enough to entice you to have the drink. In a tall glass place cup of crushed ice. Pour 1 tsp of sugar syrup, 2 tbsp kiwi crush, 1 tbsp lemon juice over it and stir using a stirrer. Top each glass with a bottle of chilled soda water and serve immediately, garnished with a slice of kiwi.What you experience is simply divine.

The vital Vitamin

Source:Metro Plus,Thiruvananthapuram,24th April,2010

Ensure Vitamin D in your diet

Health and tasteMilk and milk products like cheese are a good source of Vitamin D

Vitamin D is more than just a vitamin: it is also a hormone. Research in the last few years suggests that Vitamin D – traditionally considered a “bone vitamin” – has a role in preventing infection, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. In parallel with this explosion of research, there is a change in the recommendations for optimum intake of this vitamin-hormone. The following is a brief overview of this topic.

Best sources

Vitamin D comes in two forms: D2 and D3. Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) comes from plants and yeast. It is not as effective as Vitamin D3 at raising 25(OH)D levels in the body. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) comes from animal sources and is a more potent molecule.

The best food sources of Vitamin D are fatty fish, eggs, fortified milk and cereals, and fortified milk products such as cheese and yoghurt.

Sunlight: skin makes Vitamin D3 when exposed to sunlight. However, the melanin in darker skin blocks Vitamin D production, and sunscreen with an SPF 15 blocks vitamin D production by 99 percent.

How much of Vitamin D should one take daily? The latest American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines doubled the recommended amount for kids from the previous 200 IU to 400 IU a day for all children.

Vitamin D supplementation should be given to infants who are exclusively breast fed because the Vitamin D content of human milk is low. The Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine society and the AAP now recommend supplementation with 400 IU daily of Vitamin D beginning within days of birth.

For adults, new guidelines are awaited. The Institute of Medicine recommendations from 1997, widely regarded as outdated, suggest dosing at 200 IU for under age 50, 400 IU for age 50-70, and 600 IU for over age 70 with an upper limit of 2000 IU per day. Many experts now recommend at least 800-2000 IU per day for adults. New and definitive guidelines will clarify the matter soon.

Worldwide, at least a billion people have low blood levels of Vitamin D. It is difficult for most people to get adequate amounts of Vitamin D from diet and sunlight alone. Vitamin D supplements may be necessary for more people than previously estimated. However, indiscriminate and excessive use of supplements has significant side effects, so take them only after medical approval.

DR RAJIV M.

THE WRITER IS A SPECIALIST IN INTERNAL MEDICINE