Mint pesto

Ingredients 1 cup mint leaves 1/2 cup roasted peanuts or walnuts 3 tbsp oil (olive oil best) 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional) Salt 2 tsp Chilli flakes 1 tsp Lemon juice 1/2 lemon Garlic 4 pieces Pulse in mixer till smooth paste. Add 1 tsp olive oil and refrigerate. Use with pasta, crackers, chicken etc. Quite as good as the basil and pine nuts pesto.

Ninav : The nameless dessert

Ninav is a traditional Maharashtrian dessert (well, to make it even narrower, a traditional CKP dessert), made on the day which is called the Data (no not as in data collection). The name ninav literally means no name. The recipe here is not our family recipe, which I only know how to eat. This is a low cal version of a you tube high cal version. It's been modified to use the microwave and hence takes 20 minutes from start to finish. Take besan (gram flour) and wheat flour or maida in the ratio 2:1. Roast with some ghee till golden, or if microwave till golden and redolent of ghee and roasting. Add sugar/brown sugar/jaggery to taste. Add coconut milk (tetra pack or home made) to half the measure you used for the maida. Mix with milk till the whole mixture acquires the consistency of cake batter. Add caradamom powder, nutmeg powder, and optionally, saffron and dry fruit. Pour into a greased pan and microwave for 2 minutes, or till a knife comes out clean. That's it. Enjoy.

Sodyache Kaalwan (Dried prawn curry)

Ingredients (Two servings):

1 small bowl or katori  of dried prawns (sode)
1 large potato
Ginger garlic paste 3 tbsp
Coconut milk (1 bowl or katori)
Chilli powder 2 tsp
Turmeric powder 2 tsp
Coriander leaves one small bunch
1 medium onion, chopped fine or ground to a paste
1 tomato (or tomato paste), optional
Salt to taste.
1 bowl water

Break the dried prawn by hand to 1/2 inch pieces. Soak for 1/2 an hour. Meanwhile chop or grind the onion and tomato. Remove the skin from the potato, and cut to 1/2 inch cubes.
Remove water from the prawns, mix with half the ginger garlic paste, and half the chilli powder and turmeric. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.

Take oil in a kadhai and fry the potato slightly. Fry thoroughly the onion, tomato and remaining ginger garlic paste. Add the prawn and fry, add the potato. Pour the coconut milk (or ground coconut) and fry everything together. Mix with water to the desired consistency for the curry. Adjust the salt.
Bring all ingredients to boil, and add the coriander leaves. Turn off the heat.

Serve with rice (good quality, but not long grain).

Thanks, Purva, that was a delicious lunch.

Venetian Risotto

Ingredients:

Shelled and deveined prawns,  1 cup
Rice 1 and 1/4 cup (arborio)
Stock (1/2 cup), stock from the prawn shells is best.
Onion 1/2
Garlic 6 cloves
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Saffron 1/2 tsp
Bay leaf, one
Salt
Black pepper
Butter 2 tbsp.

Method

Soak rice and set aside for 10 minutes. Chop onion and garlic. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add peeled chopped garlic, onion and bay leaf. Fry till translucent. Add prawn, salt and pepper and fry till the prawn turns translucent. Add the rice and stock and adjust the water. Stir when nearly cooked and add saffron and butter.

Variants: Add 1/2 cup of white wine. Substitute 1 tbsp tomato puree instead of saffron.

Zucchini bread

This is a U.S. recipe arriving to this blog via Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Thanks, Meena, Vasudhaben and Aparna.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon powder, 1 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup cream cheese, 3 eggs, 1tsp vanilla essence, 2 cups grated zucchini, 1 cup walnuts.

Sift the flour, baking soda, cinnamon powder, baking powder together and keep aside. Beat the oil, sugar, eggs, cream cheese and vanilla essence. Fold in zucchini, flour and walnuts. Put in baking tray (or two trays) and bake at 180 degrees C for one hour.

Cream cheese substitute: Mix home made paneer with Amul cream.

Tawa Fish Fry

Ingredients:

Fish fillet (any white fish)
Ginger garlic paste
Mustard oil
Mustard paste
Chopped green chillies
Chopped Coriander
Coriander powder
Jeera powder
Pepper powder
Lemon juice

Make a marinade of all ingredients and lemon juice, and marinate the fish for about 30 minutes. Grill on a hot plate.

Shared by kind permission of the inventor, the chef at the Lemon tree hotel, Gurgaon.

Brain Fry

Ingredients

250 gm brain (goat)
One onion
One tomato
Ginger garlic paste (2 tsp)
Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Red pepper (chilli powder) 1 tsp
Garam Masala 2 tsp
Coriander for garnish
Oil (2 tsp)
Salt to taste


Boil the goat's brain in water till completely cooked.  Marinate with ginger garlic paste, haldi, salt and red pepper for 15 minutes. Chop onion and tomato finely,  the mixture can also be put through a mixer and liquidised. Fry the onion and tomato paste in oil for a few minutes. Put in the marinated brain and fry. Add garam masala and fry again. Remove from heat and garnish with coriander leaves.

The pakistani versions add methi seeds. This provides an interesting bitter variation.
The water in which the brain is boiled makes nourishing stock, which can be reserved for invalids or for soup.

This dish was always made for Rahul, on the grounds that he liked it specially. He always stoutly denied this, and swore that he liked it as much or as little as anything else.  The curious may check it out. Needless to say, only for hard core NV-ians.