Mahanandi

Living in Consciousness ~ Indi(r)a’s Food and Garden Weblog

Puffy P Egg (Egg Puff with Paratha)

Jeanne of EoMEoTE fame invited me to participate in this month’s egg extravaganza, event dedicated to celebrate the goodness of eggs every month with colorful themes. This month theme is weaving a tabloid story around egg recipes. Celebrity gossip, na… but politics…oh boy, they are like hot popcorn to me. I can’t get enough of that gossip and can spend hours and hours reading all sorts of political tedious minutia. They fascinate me, its like following street theater, but with real people (?) who got the power to make decisions that would affect us all. The noise machine, money changing hands and hidden agendas, bad guys and good guys to root for, what’s not to love?:)

Well, this article is written in a political tabloid (=mainstream) story style. I know the saying out there, that people don’t like to spoil their beautiful brains with unpleasantries of politics. So I am cautioning you my gentle reader, what’s ahead of you is a pure political piece – US style.

double_curve.gif

A one powerful chicken egg whose campaign slogan is ‘incredible edible egg’ coming out of a relaxing sauna vacation. Very popular already and 50 percent of people like him left and right.

Journalists taking pictures and throwing out questions:

Sir, Mr. Egg, your slogan “incredible edible egg” is very catchy.
Thank you, thank you.

But sir, people are saying edible is alright but the incredible part, that is a tad over hyped? What is your response?
Egg: aahh… oohh…

(The Egg is a puppet of course. The powerful puppet masters who have a stake in Egg success, the Egg council members come forward and answer.)
It’s no hype! Egg is not only edible but it is 100 percent incredible! You don’t believe it? Well, we are going to bombard you with advertisements until the slogan is ingrained in your brain. Got it? Ha…ha…

A journalist who can speak Indian languages:
Sir, I have tasted some eggs in India, precisely in Nandyala. They didn’t smell or tasted like you. Are you sure you are a real egg? Not a product of artificial hormones?
The Egg, huffing and puffing: Ya, we know you can speak foreign languages. What a showoff (snickers). I have fans that traveled all over the US. Well they say, I am the real thaa…ng.

Is it safe to eat you regularly?
That’s it folks, I have to go…

There are reports that your yellow is not good for health?
No comment… runs off.

Few hours later, the breaking news at a political scandal website:

Puffy P. Egg?
The Incredible Edible Egg Caught with Indian Paratha:

Our sources caught the Incredible Edible Egg wrapped up in Indian paratha and looking all red and puffed up at a home in small town USA. Our close sources who are following this story and who are also friends to The Incredible Edible Egg are saying that this is an unfortunate incident and mistaken identity. The Egg actually went into the house expecting a puff pastry wrap. Our sources are also saying that the homeowner deliberately planned to showcase Egg in a non-traditional, compromising wrap.

We interviewed some common people; they are saying that they

are disappointed in Incredible Edible Egg. “He should have followed the traditional method and should have wrapped himself in puff pastry. Indian paratha? Whoever heard of that?” That is the current buzz in the street, folks.

Will this latest scandal damage the squeaky clean Egg reputation?

We will let you know as soon as we find more information. For more updates of this breaking story and for more salacious Egg scandals, visit Jeanne’s EoMEoTE, your one stop gossip central of all things Egg.

Journalismistic:) Piece by Indira


Hard-boiled and shelled egg is wrapped in store-bought frozen paratha and baked at 350 F for about 20 minutes.

Golden and Flaky ‘Puffy P Egg’ (Egg Puff Prepared with Paratha) and Ketchup ~ My Entry to EoMEoTE

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs (Monday August 7, 2006 at 8:28 am- permalink)
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The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Stuffed and Baked Baby Portabellas

I never made stuffed mushrooms until now. As I was browsing through one of those one dollar cookbooks stocked on the checkout line during my weekend grocery shopping, I came upon a great looking stuffed baby portabella photo. That photo compelled me to tryout the accompanying recipe. I changed the ingredients to suit our tastes and tried that recipe this weekend. As I imagined, they came out perfect and Vijay, who couldn’t wait to taste them, gave his seal of approval by finishing all six in one setting. Ahh.. Weekend hunger. I also baked some potatoes and a small frittata (omelet) for me.

Recipe:

Baby Portabella Mushrooms -6
Finely chopped onion, bell peppers and green chilli – to taste
Eggs – 6
Oil and salt – to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

2. Wash and wipe the baby portabella Baby Portabella Mushrooms stuffed with onion and yellow bell pepper mixture and egg white
mushrooms. Remove the stems and line them on a foil covered baking tray.

3. In a pan, on stove top, over medium heat, saute the onion, bell pepper and green chilli mixture for about 5 minutes or until soft. Stir in the salt.

4. Divide this sauteed onion mixture between mushrooms. Using the back of a spoon, make a depression in the mixture to form a nest. Break an egg into each mushroom (I added only egg white, removed the egg yolk). Top each egg with a small piece of Monterey jack or cheese of your choice.

5. Bake at 350°F/180°C for about 10 to 15 minutes or until egg whites are set and cheese is melted.

6. I also baked round big slices of potato as a side snack.

Stuffed Baby Portabella Mushrooms
Stuffed and Baked Baby Portabella Mushrooms

I think they are perfect entry for this month’s EoMeote event, hosted for first time by lovely Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness. As part of the entry, she asked for a parody of 70’s song to compliment the dish. I remember the “The 60’s’ and ‘The 70’s” series on VH1 on cable. Yes people, most of my pop culture knowledge is from watching VH1 and E True Hollywood Stories on TV. So here I go…Killing the Famous Diana Ross song “baby Love”. (Stephanie, you asked for it!)

Oh. ..eggy eggs.. oh eggy eggs
Stuffed in baby mushrooms,
You tasted so good.
But what happened to your yellows
Why do they smell so awful?
Whatever they did to you
But.. Baby eggs oh.. Baby eggs..
You are always in my fridge,
You are a staple in my diet
I can’t live without you
Oh.. Baby eggs, oh.. eggy eggs

When I sang this parody out loud, Vijay and Kittaya ran into the basement. Ah.. some people, they don’t appreciate the talent. 🙂

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs,Mushrooms,Vegetables (Monday October 3, 2005 at 9:22 pm- permalink)
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The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Mini Custard Tarts

Lovely Elise of Simply Recipes selected custards for this month’s “Sugar High Fridays” theme. I know that I am not a big fan of custards. Still I wanted to give it a try. Why not? How I felt about certain foods changed with time and may be with the recipe I selected, I might like it. You never know until you try. So, I baked mini custard tarts.

The recipe is simple with only 5 ingredients. All Purpose Flour, butter, powered sugar, eggs and milk. Tart shell is made with the first three ingredients and the custard filling is made with the last three ingredients. All basic, nothing fancy sounds easy, right, so I gave it a try!

Recipe: Tart Shell, One Empty & the Other Filled with Custard

1 cup of all purpose flour
4 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
2 tablespoons of water

To make the dough, sift the all purpose flour into a bowl. Add the powdered sugar, butter and water. Mix and knead to form a smooth, firm dough. Cover and leave to chill in the refrigerator. Meanwhile prepare the custard filling.

Custard:

2 eggs
1/4 cup of powdered sugar
3/4 cup of milk

To make the custard, beat the eggs and sugar together. Gradually add milk and beat until well combined.

Take out the dough from the fridge; divide it into even sized pieces (makes about 6). Flatten the dough pieces into rounds and press into shallow tiny pans. Spoon the custard into the tart shells and cook in a preheated oven at 325° F, for about 30 minutes or until set. Remove the dishes, set aside to cool. To serve, run a knife around the edge of each dish and turn out onto a serving plate. Serve hot or chilled with or without cream.

Custard Tart

The outcome looked, smelled and tasted good. But I am not going to go ga-ga over custard anytime soon. I should have baked a cheesecake instead. I read somewhere that cheesecake is also a sort of custard. Yum… that’d be the one I like more!

Take a look at custard and its many avatars at Elise’s Blog .

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in All-Purpose Flour(Maida),Eggs,Milk & Products,Molasses (Friday September 16, 2005 at 9:21 am- permalink)
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The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Cherry Clafouti

What can one do with cherries, when they are purchased at $1.19 per pound. Of course, bake them with all purpose flour, the only recipe I know using cherries. Giant Eagle, the chain grocery shop, near my home is selling bing cherries for 1.19 a pound this week. No, they are not damaged. They are perfect, plump, sweet and irresistible as always and as good as the cherries I bought at farmers market last week for 3 dollars a pound.

After downing about 3 pounds, we decided to make some sort of dessert with the remaining cherries. So I baked Cherry Clafouti or more like Cherry Custard or two-inch pancake filled with cherries. This is such an easy dessert that is very simple and quick to put together.

Recipe:

Half-pound cherries- cut in half and pits removed
Half-cup pancake mix (or all purpose flour)
One-cup whole milk and one egg
2-4 tablespoons of sugar
For flavoring I added dried and powdered ginger (sonti)

Removing the pits from Cherries Cherries flaoting in flour-milk batter

Preparation:

I’ve added the pancake mix, milk, egg, sugar andsonti in a mixing bowl and whisked them by hand until all the ingredients are well combined and the batter was smooth.

This was only for us two so I used a small 6-inch oven proof-serving dish for baking. After greasing the dish, I filled it with batter and arranged the cherries, more like jam-packed. Baked this in the preheated oven at 350° F for about 40 minutes, until risen and golden. The top will be browned like a pancake and the insides will be gooey with cherry sweetness.

Cherry Clafouti

I didn’t add lot of sugar. The sweetness is all from cherries (I did the quality control by tasting half of each cherry:)). With mild sweetness and a texture falling between a custard and a pancake, cherry clafouti was such a delight. We loved this simple dessert.

Taking a bite of Cherry Clafouti
Cherry Clafouti

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in All-Purpose Flour(Maida),Cherries,Eggs,Milk,Milk & Products,Molasses (Thursday June 30, 2005 at 3:45 pm- permalink)
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Paratha + Frittata (Egg Pizza)

For this month’s EoMEoTE, I got this idea of combining paratha + frittata from the charming couple Mrs. D and Chopper Dave’s post Quittata. I mostly followed their recipe, but instead of puff pastry, I used homemade Paratha and also added the ingredients I liked (eggs of course and vegetables)- that’s how I came up with “Paratta“.

I wanted to make this with 6 eggs, as I felt very guilty to use one dozen eggs just for the two of us. My frugal mentality won’t allow me to even think about such excesses. But 6 were not enough, so finally I brought the number up to 8.

The ingredients I’ve added:

One paratha made to skillet size. (How to make Paratha? Follow the Gif)
8 eggs
One small onion, 2 green chillies- finely chopped
Half cup chickpeas, soaked in water beforehand for about one hour
Sun dried tomatoes, sliced – quarter cup
Few sprigs of cilantro, finely chopped – quarter cup or to taste
One medium sized tomato, sliced in thin round pieces for decoration
Salt to taste or ½ teaspoon

I’ve also added some leftover spinach curry to this mix. I did remove egg yolks because we both can’t stand the smell of yolks. I wanted to add eggplant too, I’ve even cut and prepared but unsure how they’d taste with eggs, at the last minute I’ve dropped adding eggplant slices to the egg mixture. Instead grilled the eggplant slices for a separate meal later in the day.

Eggs, Sun dried tomatoes, Chickpeas, Eggplant, Spinach, Tomato slices, Cilantro and Onions

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350* F

In a big bowl, break only 6 eggs. To these eggs add onions, green chillies, chickpeas, cilantro, spinach and salt. Whisk them together to blend well.

Heat an iron skillet on medium flame and fry the paratha lightly on both sides.

Now, pour the egg mixture on to the paratha and arrange the round tomato slices on top.

Break the remaining two eggs in the same bowl, whisk them well and pour this mixture on top of tomato slices.

Paratha Paratta in Making

Place the iron skillet in oven and bake at 350*F for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the center is set and sides are puffy golden.

When you are sure that paratta is well cooked, remove the skillet from oven. Let it cool for about 5 minutes then loosen the edges with a spatula or knife and slide it onto a serving plate. Cut Paratta into wedges and serve them warm or at room temperature.

Paratha+Frittata = Paratta

Slice of Paratta

This is one new dish that I am going to make frequently as we both were really satisfied with the final result.

My regular readers, you may be curious about my delayed posting today – your guess is right, I wanted to escape the primetime ratings drama by King George the Second. Really, who believes him anymore? (except of course the madcow infected ones.)

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs,Tomato,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Tuesday June 28, 2005 at 9:09 pm- permalink)
Comments (15)

The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Egg Kurma

Plain eggs halves look beautiful and tasty in this colorful curry – mainly prepared with tomatoes… lot of tomatoes.

Recipe:

6 Eggs, boiled, peeled and each cut into two halves
6 to 8 big ripe juicy tomatoes, cut into small pieces
One small piece of coconut, powdered
1 tablespoon of fresh dhania-jeera(coriander-cumin) powder
4 cloves of garlic – finely minced
Salt and red chilli powder to taste or 1 tsp each

Tomatoes, Dhania-Jeera powder, Dry Coconut piece for Egg Kurma Tomato - Coconut Gravy Thickening on the Stove -

Preparation:

First do the popu (frying few mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves in 1 tsp of oil) in a pan. To it, add all the above ingredients except eggs. Cook it covered on high heat until the tomatoes are softened. Then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes to thicken the gravy. Don’t add water. The gravy must be all tomatoes and coconut. Just before you turn off the heat, add the boiled eggs and mix it once.

Egg Kurma (Egg Curry, Egg Pulusu)

When prepared with fresh ripe tomatoes, with or without the eggs, this will turn into one rich and satisfying curry. The taste of cooked and thickened tomato juice with lightly added Indian masala just explodes in your mouth when eaten with plain rice or with rotis.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs,Tomato (Monday June 27, 2005 at 7:27 pm- permalink)
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The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Egg Pakora (Egg Bhajji)

The Egg Board should offer us, the food bloggers, at least some free eggs. With this month’s IBBM and EoMEoTE themes happening one after another, the publicity, the recipes- this is going to be one incredible edible egg kind of week.

Egg pakoras are one of my favorite street side food during my college years. After coming here I totally forgot about it. I was thinking about what I could make with eggs that was not already included in the EoMEoTE and I could submit for this months IBBM hosted by lovely Seattle Bon Vivant. Then I remembered the egg pakoras.

Say what you will about Indian street fare, but for my money, you can’t get food tastier than samosas or egg pakoras fresh from a street side vendor’s stall. But I am far from India now and I wanted to get a taste of egg pakoras here, so here I go into the kitchen to refresh those student days’ experiences.

Chickpea Flour, Boiled Eggs, Red Chilli Powder, Salt and Vaamu/ajwain
Ingredients to prepare egg pakoras

Recipe:
(Serves two)

6 boiled eggs
1 cup gram flour (Besan Flour)
1/2 tsp each of salt, red chilli powder,
1/4 tsp each of cumin & ajwain/vaamu
A pinch of baking soda
Quarter cup of water
Peanut Oil for deep-frying

Preparation:

1. Cut each egg into 3 circular pieces. I removed yellow from some pieces, but you can keep it if you like to.

2. Gram flour is a fine yellow flour made from garbanzo beans or chanadal. Put the gram flour into a bowl; add salt, red chilli powder, cumin and baking soda. If you want, you can also add ginger-garlic paste to get the extra kick. Stir in these ingredients well. Add quarter cup of water to them and mix thoroughly. Add water if needed, the prepared batter must be tight (tighter than pancake batter and regular bhaji batter). It should form thick coating around the eggs when they are dipped in the batter.

Boiled eggs Taking a Dip in Chickpea Flour Batter Egg Pakoras Frying in Oil

3. Fill one-third of a large deep skillet with oil and heat the oil until it is very hot.

4. Dip the egg pieces one by one into batter, taking caution to coat the egg all around with the batter. This is important because there will be a mini explosion if raw egg touches the hot oil, as you may already know, and that is why the need for a thick batter. Now take the dipped egg pieces and drop them gently into the hot oil, few at a time.

5. Fry the egg pakoras until they are golden brown, turning frequently. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain well on absorbent paper towels.

Arrange the pakoras on a platter and serve them hot or warm with ketchup or cilantro chutney.

Egg Pakoras with Ketchup on the Side

These small egg pakoras are quick and easy to prepare and irresistible as snack.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs,Gram Flour (Besan) (Friday June 24, 2005 at 7:17 pm- permalink)
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