Mahanandi

Alu Tikki with a slice of Tomato, Lettuce and Tomato Ketchup

Dainty, miniature alu tikkis (Potato Cutlets) from India are a delicious and decent snack. Flavorful golden crust on alu tikkis make them irresistible to children as well as adults. The following recipe is kid friendly and can be put together in a short time.

Recipe:
(For eight to ten alu tikkis)

3 big Russet potatoes, scrubbed
1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice
½ teaspoon each – salt and garam masala powder
¼ teaspoon each – red chilli powder and turmeric
Ghee – 2 tablespoons or as needed

Preparation:

1. Place unpeeled potatoes in a pressure cooker or large pan of water. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender. Drain. Peel as soon as possible, while potatoes are still hot but cool enough to handle. In a big vessel, mash the potatoes to smooth, without any lumps.

2. Sprinkle lemon/lime juice on mashed potatoes. Also add turmeric, salt, garam masala and red chilli powder. Combine thoroughly using a big spoon.

3. Divide the spicy mashed potatoes into lemon-sized equal rounds. Press and shape each portion into a round patty, about your palm size. Keep them side by side on a plate ready to cook.

4. Place a wide, flat skillet on stovetop. Keep the heat medium and season the skillet with ghee. When the skillet is hot, place potato tikkis side by side with gap between them for uniform browning. Cook each side for about 2 to 4 minutes on medium heat until a golden-brown crust forms on top. Remove and repeat the steps to cook remaining alu tikkis.

5. Serve with ketchup or sweet tamarind chutney. Using bread rolls or mini pita bread/naan and with some tomato slices and lettuce, you can also prepare alu tikki burger or an open faced alu tikki sandwich.

Open Faced Alu Tikki Sandwich with Mini Pita Bread and a Glass of Orange Juice ~ Our Midday Snack

We recently received a gift package from dear Trupti of gorgeous food blog “The Spice Who Loved Me”. In her email, she mentioned that she wanted to share her hometown favorites with us in appreciation of Mahanandi. I was surprised, elated and then hesitated to accept. But she insisted. How can I say no to such affectionate soul.

All the items were very carefully packed to withstand several days of journey through the postal system. The package and the items also revealed Trupti’s passion for food and food blogging.

The treats are all locally prepared and special to Newfoundland region, she mentioned. We tried everything and they were all delicious. In fact these nourishing treats saved us two weeks ago when we were recovering from a severe case of flu. Both Vijay and I greatly enjoyed this special surprise gift.

Thanks very much Trupti for this nice gesture, it meant a lot to us!

Why do I blog? – RP of My Work Shop

Food Blogging: Why? – Jason Truesdell of Pursuing My Passions

Powerful Posts & Satirical Cartoons – to move the search & info megalith Yahoo.

Honey-Date-Walnut Cake ~ Fresh Out of the Oven

The classic combination of honey, dates and walnuts is used for this light, moist cake. This is my first ever cake of this type that I baked. Delicious and nutritious, Honey-date-walnut cake is one of my favorite cakes.

Recipe:

1 cup dates
½ cup honey
1 cup walnuts
2 eggs – at room temperature
¼ cup each – milk and butter at room temperature
2 cups – all-purpose flour (maida pindi)
½ cup brown sugar or white cane sugar
½ tsp each – baking powder, baking soda and cardamom powder

Honey, Walnuts and Dates

Dates and Honey: Finely chop dates into thin rings. Take them in a cup and add honey. Keep the dates soaked in honey for about 30 minutes. This is done to soften and further sweeten the dates. The dates that I used in this recipe are Deglet Noor, mildly sweet Tunisian variety. Extremely sweet and soft Medjool type does not need the honey/soaking part.

Walnuts: Finely chop walnuts to small pieces

Eggs: Break eggs into a cup and beat with a spoon. (I removed yellows, my preference.) Sometimes I skip the eggs totally and would add a mashed, ripe banana in its place. This works too.

Sift and add flour to a big vessel. Stir in sugar, baking powder, soda and cardamom powder. Mix.

Add butter, milk and eggs. Also walnuts and dates along with the honey they are soaked in. Combine all thoroughly. If the batter is too tight, adjust the consistency by adding little bit more milk. Pour the mixture into a cake pan. level it evenly.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place the cake pan in the bottom rack for the first 15 minutes, and then move the pan to the top rack. Bake for about a total 30 minutes, until the top of the cake turns to light honey color and when a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Remove the cake from oven. Let cool. Slice and enjoy!

Cake and Care Package to Our Friends

Vijay’s classmate and friend became a proud parent of a cutest baby boy, couple of days ago. They came home from hospital yesterday and this is the care package we sent today for them. Chapatis, aloo chole, idly, peanut chutney and honey-date-walnut cake.
Congratulations Dimpy and RP!

Notes:
Honey tends to thicken during winter time. Microwaving for couple of seconds usually lightens the honey.
Flour Choice: King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
Recipe Source: My own creation

John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
Thu Mar 8, 11:00 AM ET

“Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) apologized on Thursday after recipes from the blog of an Indian housewife were used without permission on Yahoo’s India’s new Malayalam-language Web portal.
The reproduction of the recipes, which were taken from a blog in Malayalam run by a housewife in Kerala, in Southern India, sparked an online protest among bloggers.”

You can read the press release – here.

Great news and I think this is a huge victory to our food blogging community. Our protest worked!

Updated on March 9th:

Looks like I have spoken in haste. Yahoo released a press statement but yet yo apologize to Surya Gayathri personally and new revelations of content and image theft by several Yahoo portals have come forward.

We are going to kick this protest up a notch!

You can find and follow the discussion at Dining Hall and Food Blog S’cool – food bloggers community websites.

Again, my sincere request to the editors of Indian newspapers and web magazines. Please put a stop to this frequent shameful and painful content theft. Its really beneath you. Acknowledge us food bloggers and respect our work. Respect the copyrights law. Please request permission before using the content from our blogs. We would be more than happy to lend the content, really who doesn’t want to get featured in a hometown newspaper. Let’s work together and make it pleasant.

Brinjal Dal mixed with Rice and Ghee (Vankaya Pappu Muddalu)

Traditionally in Nandyala, dal is usually prepared with less water. The idea is to make round balls of rice, dal and ghee called pappu mudda or amma/mama mudda . Mothers prepare this small rounds to feed children in our homes. Less water means tight dal means firm, round amma mudda.

We love this type of rice-dal muddas. For dal fans, this less water dal is a must try. You will be hooked, I promise. The taste is completely different from watery type of dal. There are some vegetables which suit this type of tight dal, and brinjal is one of them. Young, firm, white fleshed brinjals are cooked with toor dal and red chilli powder. The taste is really special and this traditional dal from Rayalaseema region is a must try for purple/green brinjal fans.

Firm, white fleshed purple brinjal pieces and Toor dal

Recipe:

½ cup of toor dal and 1½ cups of water
2 purple or green young, firm and white fleshed brinjals – cut to small pieces
1 onion – cut to chunks
½ tsp each – red chilli powder, turmeric and salt
2 marble sized tamarind pieces

Popu or tadka ingredients:
1 tsp of oil and
½ tsp each – chopped garlic, curry leaves, urad dal, cumin and mustard seeds

Take toor dal in a pressure cooker. Wash and drain. To this washed dal, add one and half cups of water. Also the brinjal, onion, red chilli powder, turmeric and tamarind. Mix with a spoon. Cover and pressure-cook to two or three whistles until the dal is cooked to fall-apart stage.

Once all the valve pressure is released, remove the lid. Add salt. With a wood masher or whisk, mash the dal to smooth consistency. Have a taste and adjust the salt level to your liking.

Now in a saucepan, heat oil to do the popu or tadka. Add and toast the popu ingredients in the order mentioned above starting with chopped garlic and the final item would be toasting the mustard seeds. When mustard seeds start to jump around, add the mashed dal to this popu. Mix and cover with a lid.

To serve, add a small cup of cooked rice to a plate. To it, add a tablespoon of ghee and a big ladle full of dal. Combine them all thoroughly. Shape the mixture into round balls using your hand. Place the rounds on a plate and enjoy. A side dish of curry/ papad/pickle will enhance the experience very much. Finish off the meal with a glass of buttermilk or yogurt and some fruit for dessert.

Brinjal Dal mixed with Rice and Ghee (Vankaya Pappu Muddalu)

Kitchen Notes:
From Telugu to English, Mudda = Round shape
Prepare this dal only with white fleshed, firm brinjals. Black seeded ones are not suitable and the dal will taste bitter.
We usually add red chilli powder to brinjal dal. Not that good with green chillies

My temperature got a rise; from a cool 98 it reached 99 this afternoon. No, it’s not another flu attack and I think it is all because of our lunch.

This morning I prepared a special curry. Potatoes, brinjals and tomatoes together cooked with Punjabi wadis. Like Punjabi Sun, wadis – the sun dried lentils and spices mixture, a Punjabi specialty are hot, the kind that makes one warm, tingly and perspire. They look pale brown in color and inside, you will find a maroon colored combination of lentils, like urad dal, moong dal and spices like black peppers, cumin and red chilli. They are ground together and the mixture is sun dried in round shapes. Usually added to curries, they are savory, full of flavor and completely delectable! Just the right thing to have when recovering from a flu attack to wake up those taste buds.

I first heard about wadis at Mika’s beautiful The Green Jackfruit blog. Her description of wadis captivated me. After trying them, I can truly say that their flavor profile is unique and they are quite addictive. Give it a try.

Tomato, Purple Brinjal and Red Potato with Broken Pieces of Punjabi Wadi

Recipe:

2 each – red potatoes, brinjals and Punjabi wadis
4 ripe juicy tomatoes
1 onion
1 teaspoon -ginger-garlic-coriander paste (GGC paste)
1 teaspoon – coriander-cumin-cinnamon-cloves powder (CCCC powder/garam masala)
¼ teaspoon each or to taste – red chilli powder, turmeric and salt
1 tablespoon of oil and popu ingredients

Peel the potatoes, wash and cube them to bite sized pieces. Remove the petals of brinjals, wash and cut to one-inch chunks. Add them to a bowl of salted water and keep aside. Break Punjabi wadis (each wadi is usually the size of a big tomato) to 4 to 5 pieces in a cup. Finely chop tomatoes and onion to small pieces.

In a wide skillet, heat oil. Add and saute the broken Punjabi wadi pieces to honey color. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep them in a cup to the side.

In the same skillet, add and saute popu ingredients (half teaspoon each-cumin, mustard seeds and curry leaves). When mustard seeds start to jump around, add the onion and cook to soft. Next, add tomatoes, potatoes and brinjal pieces. Stir in GGC paste, CCCC powder, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt along with a cup of water. Mix and cook on medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes become tender, stirring occasionally.

Just before turning off the heat, stir in wadi pieces. Cook for another 5 minutes so that they would get softened and absorb the curry flavor. Serve warm with chapati or naans.

Potato-Brinjal Curry with Punjabi Wadis and Garlic Naan

Notes:
Punjabi Wadis are available in Indian grocery shops, here in US.
Recipe adapted from Mika’s The Green Jackfruit

Protesting Plagiarism by MSM

Recently, newly launched Yahoo-Malayalam portal published recipes from a blog by Surya Gayathri, a fellow food blogger from India, without permission or giving credit to her work. Total 6 recipes, word by word are lifted and republished. When protested about it, Yahoo silently removed the content without an apology or compensation to the blogger. Not only Surya Gayathri, we the food bloggers community do not think she has been treated fairly by Yahoo. So today is protest day against Yahoo and other stealers.

It started small. Few online editions of news magazines started lifting content and images from food blogs. Now it looks like almost everybody in Indian publishing industry seems to be doing it. From big names like India Times to famous online publications such as Sify, Bawarchi and Rediff are publishing content, mainly images from food blogs without permission or compensating the food blogger. This is not fair, this is copyrights violation and it must stop.

We know that there are not that many images of Indian food on the web. We understand the temptation to steal. But really, you don’t need to get that desperate. Just ask. We will be more than happy to lend the content. Request permission first. Compensate us like you do your photographers or at least provide a link to our blogs. We, the food bloggers are a happy, genial bunch most of the times. Acknowledge us and respect our work. This is my sincere request to the editors of the Indian news papers. Please put a stop to this frequent shameful and painful content theft.

If any of you readers are lawyers, who specialize in copyrights, we please need your assistance. Would you like to help and do some pro bono work on behalf of us food bloggers? Not only Yahoo, we have several big names in Indian publishing industry who are regular content stealers. Many Indian bloggers are victims and attempts by us to contact the editors were failed to generate a response. I would like to see something positive come out of this protest and we need your help very much.

My salute to Surya Gayathri for standing up to Yahoo and to Inji Pennu for organizing the today’s event. I ask you all to participate in the protest. Show your support to the food blogging community. Contact Yahoo and let them know about what you think of this matter.

Logo credit:
Sandeepa of Bong Mom’s CookBook. Thanks Sandeepa!

Hmm… Pancakes

Yesterday, we were craving for something crunchy, like chips. But because of our present health condition, fried stuff is off limits for few more days for us. What I did was, baked some potato chips using microwave oven, to snack during lunch.

I used a mandoline to cut potato so that the slices will be uniform in thickness, and they would bake evenly. One medium-sized red potato, gave about 20 slices. Arranged them side by side in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate. Sprinkled some salt for taste and baked them for about four minutes, turning to other side once after two minutes. In crunchiness they came close to deep fried stuff, and in taste, they are more like dehydrated version of potato. Not bad for the four minute effort. Decent taste to quench the crunchy cravings during recovery time, we thought.

If you are going to try, two things you have to be careful for. One, use a mandoline for uniform thickness and maintain minimum thickness. If potato slices are too thin, they will stick to the plate and even though they turn to crunchy, removing them from the plate would become difficult. Two, while microwaving, after you turn them to other side, keep a watchful eye. Cook in 30 seconds interval. Don’t let them burn, as they tend to get really done really fast at the end.

Potato Rounds Ready to get Microwaved

Vijay went through a severe case of flu-like illness last week. It started suddenly with fever and within a day it got worse with 104 °F temperature. We had to go to emergency and after several tests the doctors diagnosis was Acute Viral Syndrome. With prescription Tylenol, fever is under control now and he is recovering slowly. Poor guy, he dropped nearly eight pounds in a week. That bad. Compared to him, I had a very mild case of flu. Mainly I lost appetite. Sonti Kashayam, tomato rasam, plain toordal rasam, orange juice and capsules in-between – that’s all we could manage these past few days.

We are feeling better today and I couldn’t resist participating in Jihva~Potato event hosted from Pune, India by lovely Vaishali Kamath of Happy Burp. I prepared potato curry for lunch. Just plain, light oil and no onion, the variety we usually have on festival days. Nice, simple side dish and good to recover the appetite.

Red Potato ~ Raw, Cooked and Cubed

Recipe:

Boil or pressure-cook 4 medium sized potatoes to tender. Peel and remove the skin. Cut the potatoes to cubes.

In a wide skillet, heat a teaspoon of oil. Add and toast a half teaspoon each – cumin, mustard seeds, dried red chilli pieces and curry leaves. Add the potato cubes. Sprinkle turmeric, red chilli flakes and salt to taste. If you want you can also add fresh grated coconut and garam masala powder to taste. Mix and cook on medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes until potato pieces brown a bit. Serve hot with a cup of rice and dal or rasam.

Plain Potato Curry and Microwave Oven Baked Potato Chips with Plain Toor dal Rasam and Rice
Our Meal Today and My Entry to Jihva~Potato Event by Vaishali of Happy Burp

The State of Food Network – by an Unrepentant Smoking, Drinking, Traveling Chef

The Wedding : Four Part Series ~ by Ammupatti of Kerala, India

Puttu:A Story from Hindu Mythology ~ by Mathy Kandasamy

March 5th Event Against Plagiarism!

Blog Notes:
Flu season at home. Taking it slow, will resume blogging from March 1st.

Your passion for conscious cooking made Mahanandi the Best Food Indiblog of the year 2006. Thanks to Debashish and team for organizing the Indian Weblog Awards.

I thank you all for nominating and voting for Mahanandi. This award is for you, the visitors and the people who appreciated Mahanandi. Thank you!

Old-Fashioned Oats

Oatmeal tests convictions. Its taste, appearance, origins, the varieties available, and the uberhype surrounding its health benefits – oatmeal was a big challenge to this Indian palate. To like or not to like? I wanted to like it.

First, I had problems with its blandness and gooey texture. Overcoming these two traits was the biggest hurdle for me in appreciating oatmeal. Next I had to make a choice. Instant, old-fashioned or steel cut. Steel cut definitely tasted better but it made a steep cut in my budget and the instant tasted too artificial. Finally I settled on old-fashioned oatmeal. The type which takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to cook. I experimented in several ways while trying out the different versions of oatmeal. I tried adding cinnamon, cardamom, apples, nuts, raisins etc. The wisdom I gained was that trying to jazz up oatmeal is like putting makeup on a pig. Oatmeal is oatmeal. No amount of flavorings can change the basic texture and blandness of oatmeal.

Somehow over the years this gooey gruel grew on us. The rest of our day may be filled with flavors and spiciness but we start the day plainly. Oatmeal now forms our breakfast for at least four mornings of the week. Wake up in the morning, put two pots filled with water on the stove. One for oatmeal and one for tea. Brush teeth, get the newspaper. By this time the water will be boiling. Add oatmeal and tea powder. Let them simmer for five to ten minutes. Have them while reading the paper. Vijay likes it plain and I usually add a teaspoon of honey. All of this may sound unglamorous, but comfort is in the ritual of routine, said our elders. I am used to things changing frequently around me and my way of dealing with change is to practise a comforting routine in militant fashion. Even though oatmeal is still a classic case of food I do not eat for the taste, I am glad I choose to like oatmeal and to make it a part of my daily routine.

Steaming Cup of Oatmeal ~ Our Morning Mini Meal