Tag: cooking

Kitchen for One : Eggplant

Today’s a soup kinda day. It’s -9 degrees and windy outside, this is what it looks like from my bedroom window.

I had also grabbed a bunch of spinach last night at the Asian grocery store and I’ve got plenty of canned beans in my kitchen drawer, so it should be an easy fix. But I’m writing about eggplant today.

I went through an eggplant phase in grad school where I added it to every vegetable dish I made. Sambar was incomplete without the mushy teal-skinned floaters, sometimes it was questionably matched into my garam masala-potato dish (tasted good only the first time). But a majority of the time I fried easy circles of it and had it with rice, like at home.

My aunt in Atlanta once made yummy Baingan Bharta for me when I visited her. I ate it with curd and rice at her place, then brought back a tupperware dish of it. I think I rationed it for a week or so, it was smoky and spicy with ample bits of charred skin and I didn’t waste one bit. So when Fall break came, I tried to make my own. I asked Samadipa and she told me, like the recipe, it’s tastier if the eggplant is cooked directly on the stove. But it’d be too messy on the stoves here so I seared it on all sides and then cooked it on a pan.

The version of Baingan Bharta I attempted then was probably a Lite one, cos all I had to do was scoop out the cooked flesh, mixed it with freshly chopped onion and coriander leaves and that was the dish. It was surprisingly tasty and my Bengali friend approved of the looks. There was a fair amount of the skin that inadvertently made its way into my final dish, but I think it only made it better.

Earlier this month on a slow day after Thanksgiving break, I decided to try making it again. This time I followed an oven-recipe that called for broiling the vegetable. I first made holes all over its skin with a fork and then rubbed it with oil, from my grad school recipe. There is zero mess in this recipe, the flesh comes off easily.

Broiling an eggplant : You can see the oil bubbling 🙂

Honestly, it turned out less tasty than my basic coriander-onion-eggplant mix, there was hardly any smoky flavor which makes me think I should’ve kept some of that skin in. Have you tried this dish?

Also here’s an eggplant story that describes my 27-year old personality (not anymore at 28) : Once I walked into a Walmart on a cold winter night to buy an eggplant. I can’t remember why but cooking was most definitely the intention. So I grab one off the grocery section, walk into the self-checkout lane and wait. I’m soon overcome by self-consciousness, standing there with a single eggplant in hand – you’re somehow acutely aware of singlehood while shopping. You would’ve seen the size and girth of eggplants here above too.
So I walked back to the shelf, grabbed a bunch of cilantro that I didn’t need, and walked confidently in to the checkout lane again.

Weeks later I threw out the cilantro-gone-bad from my fridge.

Advertisement

Kitchen for One : Kombucha Mocktail

On Sunday mornings (or whenever I wake up) I put on music and it’s nuts how happy I get. Psychiatrists should be more concerned than they are about this dopamine phenomenon. Sometimes it happens on week nights and my brain decides a cup of coffee would be a great idea – and I only noticed this pattern last week after a series of bad decisions and messing up my sleep schedule. It’s like my subconscious calls for more fixation and chaos at the same time.

Recently somebody asked me what I did till 1.30am every week night. Which is, you know, a valid question and one I hadn’t given much thought. I mean do you think about what you do everyday? I should – I make to-do lists almost everyday. Once some four years ago Bhavana, my senior at work, had said my Chrome always has a 100 different tabs open – Fabric Lore, Stack Overflow, Team Naach, I don’t remember the rest. The sad part is it’s true even now.

Like 70% Indian students in the US I had self-diagnosed myself with ADHD three years ago (“this explains so much!”) but don’t think that’s true anymore. But I try to stay off coffee. I go nuts and my primary emotion is Why isn’t everyone conquering the world right now, there’s so much to see and do before we die!.

So after cleaning out my fridge this morning I was going to visit this Asian market to buy supplies for Korean Army stew, and finally try out Enoki mushrooms from ASMR videos. Then I stopped myself. I was going to publish this mocktail recipe first. Let’s finish 1 out of 389 things that are in progress.

I made this recipe last night, it’s a a 3 ingredient mocktail, 4 if you want to add honey but it’s optional. It’s by Zaynab Issa from Bon Appetit and it came up on their YouTube channel.

All you do is crush blackberry (or any other fruit) and mint (or basil), add to it a Kombucha of your choice, stir (don’t shake) and serve in a nice glass. I initially strained the mixture for a picture, but didn’t want to waste any so it’s been added back in. This second picture turned out better too. Here’s the original recipe on their website, I don’t think you need the honey if your fruit releases enough sweet.

I started drinking Kombucha last year after my cousin and my aunt, who’ve both been in the US for a while, recommended it for my gut and acidity. Yoghurt is the alternative, but prolly won’t work for this drink 🙂

Kitchen for One : Skillet Mom

I love that after a day when nothing is sure, and when I say ‘nothing’ I mean nothing, you can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. – Julie Powell

Life is uncertain.

That means, I can do my dorsiflex exercises every night yet not know when my ankle’s full range of motion will be back. My physiotherapist that I pay $100 per session can’t guarantee it will. But I do them everyday and it does get a little better every time, but I don’t know when and whether I’ll attend the jazz classes I signed up for.

It means I can go to bed at 1.30am hoping to get 6 hours of sleep but stay awake until 5 only to wake up at 8 with burning eyes. Or that I might spend another winter in Texas. Or only meet guys who always want something short-term, or watch my favorite bedsheet get stains on it because my dryer decided to act up in that same drying cycle.

But that’s why we love cooking. Because we know that after a long-ass mentally tiring day or week, after lining up that long list I just cranked out, if you cook bacon on your newly seasoned cast iron skillet, the fat will bubble like so and the bacon will crisp up like so and your skillet will be all the better for it.

Plus you end up with a nice breakfast for yourself. 🙂

I love that after a day when nothing is sure, and when I say ‘nothing’ I mean nothing, you can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick.

Julie Powell (1973-2022)

PS : I bought a new cast-iron skillet and had bacon for breakfast thrice this week to “season” it!

Kitchen For One

The lady in the apartment across from mine has a view into my living room-kitchen situation. Only she knows (well, now you do too) the way I chomp down boiling Wei-Wei noodles straight from the pan first thing after I’m back from a grocery trip, standing at the sink with abandoned bags on the floor, leaving the the icecream at peril and the frozen fish to thaw.

Living alone has been a humbling affair so far. I finally realized that the unholy hair that grazed dishwashers in previous apartments must’ve been mine and not a roommate’s. There’s been so many other discoveries from living alone, of course I have to enjoy it since I chose it (and since I pay a ton in rent).

I always wanted to live in Mia’s house from Princess Diaries. With cozy, lived-in cushions strewn across rooms and throw blankets laid on mismatching couches that you could throw yourself onto after a long day at school/work. And most importantly, the many ugly, wide-mouthed mugs.

These were obviously picked up off shelves at a neighborhood Ikea or Walmart by the budget-conscious artist battling Targetly tendencies (we know they’re not from Target cos they’re – did I mention this already? – not pretty). The mugs were the nicest characters in that movie. Held in warm palms at windows as evening rain beat against car wipers working relentlessly on the street, while you’re safe at home with nowhere to be.

So I would’ve never imagined that kitchen towels and not mugs would become my best friend. My palms are constantly wet and they have indeed been saved.

With great freedom comes.. interesting discoveries

The best part about having my own kitchen is obviously the freedom. Last week I found that I can fix the sweetness of my pineapple snack by simply drizzling a little honey over it. This was a snack to sustain me while I waited for my dosa to cook. I should.. elaborate.

Not for the faint of heart – the dosa wait

In the time that dosa crisps (on its first side), I can put together a sandwich from scratch with neatly zigzagged mustard AND ketchup on it AND eat it. So now I’ve lost my sentiment attached to dosas. I like idlis more anyway – practical, fluffy, easy on the stomach. The 20s shifted my priorities and ruined me, and the near-absolute freedom means dosa batter often lives in my fridge for over 3 weeks.

There’s also been more concerning findings. I can and will consume a whole pork curry prepared with 1.25 lbs of meat within 24 hours simply because it tastes good. (It always tastes good too, which might be a problem and is most definitely a brag)*. Boiled milk can last for a week in the fridge, circumstances that led to this finding remain dubious. Costco hotdogs will taste exactly the same at home, nobody misses the crowd.

Of course all personal preferences had to be reaffirmed in the new apartment – do you like eggplant in your sambar, ginger in your dal and tomatoes in your meat? Will you be depressed if you don’t eat rice for 3 days straight? Do you truly like aromatics including the divisive bay leaf, or was that before gaining kitchen real estate?

Then there’s the random lessons I brought with me picked up over time watching homecooks and reading recipes at the back of magazines. Stay away from vinegar when you poach an egg, poaching only needs a vortex – I’ve held on to this theory despite never having done a practical. Add salt to water while it boils to avoid spots on the bottom of pots. Raise the heat when you add mushrooms to anything and do not cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.

The nice thing is life is long enough that I can hope to slowly put them to use one by one. (:

Leaving you with a little bit of Nigella I borrowed.

#21 Postcard – I cooked (and ate) well last week

I didn’t cook or eat properly the last couple of weeks, so I made a conscious effort to not let perishables go to waste the past week.

Warning – I bought pork chops last Saturday that I didn’t want to freeze so you’re going to see a lot of pork. The cooking was almost entirely done in the evenings after work. Also no breakfast – it was mostly leftover hummus or avocado on toast because they’re the easiest things to do on week day mornings.

Everything I cooked was yum! 😀

Pork fried rice/pulao thing. I cut the chops into thin strips, seasoned with paprika and salt, fried them to give a nicely colored crisp. Saute vegetables and ginger-garlic in oil, season, add the pork, then the sauces, then mix in the cooked rice.

Also curd for the tummy ❤

The heart wants what it wants – Rice with rasam and pork!
Cooked rasam on Tuesday night. Lazy pork with curry leaves, red onion and chilly powder, turmeric. I slept so well!
The rasam lasted me for another 3 meals.

Sandwich with lazy pork but without aromatics
I used a peeler to make thin carrot shavings because chopping carrot isn’t worth the effort plus the long slivers sit well within the bread. It wasn’t as crunchy as I’d like though. I coated the vegetables in the leftover fat from the pan.

Crab-cheese poppers – okay this came frozen and I just had to bake them in the oven. Ugh I didn’t click a photo of the dip – it was a ranchy something with bites of pickle.

I worked from office on Thursday. I had avocado toast for breakfast that I took with me (do not compromise, even if in office :P), and had packed orange marmalade sandwiches with me for lunch. They obviously paled in comparison with the lunches I ate all week, and I couldn’t wait to get home to have the rest of my rasam-rice 😀

#20 Postcard – Homemade Hummus

There was a Mediterranean restaurant two minutes from my Atlanta apartment where I ate at least once a month, and I loved their hummus and all their homemade dips.

I’ve tried a couple of store-bought hummus since then and found they all have added preservatives that my body doesn’t take well, and recently found how quick and easy it is to prepare hummus. It only takes 10 minutes to make it at home, especially if you can buy pre-cooked chick peas (get the canned chickpeas if you can so you can use them straight off the can).

The recipe turns out to be economical if you’re making large batches for a party or so, it compares to the price of the store-bought version if you’re only preparing it for two people.

Mine (in the picture) lasted 8 days, I simply stored it in the fridge and didn’t do anything else to preserve it. It was as creamy on Monday morning as it was last Sunday, and didn’t develop a crust at all.

I thought it’d be interesting to do a price breakup like they do on vegan YouTube channels, but the recipe mostly uses partial ingredients (and I’m tired after the week). One full bowl comes to around ~$2.50 and there’s easily more than 15oz of it. To compare, store-bought hummus costs $3.34 for 10 oz, minus washing the dishes and blender etc.

You need two tablespoons of Tahini sauce (recipe below) for 1 can of chickpeas, but I dunked in more than that. It turned out well 😀

Recipe

Ingredients

Chick peas – One can (15 oz) $1.22. You don’t have to remove the skin if you don’t mind it, the canned ones usually get well blended.

Garlic – three or four big cloves, more if you love garlic like me! ($0.25/4)

Tahini (2 tablespoons)

Sesame Seeds – almost one-third of a 35oz jar for Tahini sauce. Basically enough to make at least 2 tablespoons of Tahini

Olive oil – 2 tablespoons

Lime juice and salt – to taste

Tahini : Blend sesame seeds, olive oil, lime juice and salt to a paste.

Blend chickpeas and garlic to a rough paste (I added just a bit water to help), add tahini, add more olive oil if you’d like to make it richer. Blend until it’s smooth or reaches the texture you like. I like mine a little gritty to have with toasted bread 🙂

Spread on toast or enjoy it as a creamy dip with pita bread, chappathi or even kebab!

#10 Postcard – Pour the rice in the cooker. Don’t think!

Whenever you decide, still unmotivated, to walk into your kitchen again, you will have cooked rice waiting for you. And if you have rice, you have a meal. Sort of.

I hate preaching and sharing unsolicited advice. At 27, many a time I’ve walked uninspired into my kitchen unable to cook, and doubted whether I should keep rice in the cooker to boil. And I can vouch that I’ve never regretted half-heartedly pouring that 1 cup rice-2 cups water in the rice cooker.

So tip a lazy measure into the cooker and go back to sprawl across your couch, watch the rest of that Netflix series. Whenever you decide, still unmotivated, to walk into your kitchen again, you will have cooked rice waiting for you.

And if you have rice, you have a meal. Sort of.

#3 Postcard – Domestic happiness

Of fresh laundry, domestic chores and the increasing returns of cooking. I couldn’t have thought this thought last year.

I cooked ramen noodles today, using my own condiments instead of the packet mix. I got way too full from eating and drifted into sleep while watching KVizzing with the Comedians, on the same couch that I was finishing up my book yesterday.

Cooking is probably the only chore out of all the drudgery that one must go through – including laundry, doing dishes, sweeping/mopping, cleaning up after cooking – where I get increasing returns over time.

I mean, I do get a sense of domestic happiness when I carry a still-warm load of clean laundry from the dryer back to my closet. Each time I walk in to pick up a clean t-shirt or a pillow cover, I can’t wait for the dirty pile to fill up so I can return their sweet Tide scent to them. But the process stays the same. Nothing changes.

But with cooking it’s an improving curve, still, for me.
I have tried pad thai from 6 places here so far. While they didn’t taste all that different, at least half of them had no crunch left in the vegetables and were overwhelmingly doused in soy – which raises the thought I could’ve cooked it better. And I couldn’t have thought this thought last year.
I don’t feel too strongly about pad thai though.

After waking up from my nap, I had another half-plate of my ramen – it smells distinctly of fish sauce which I don’t mind and there is the crunch from cabbage.

There is also some joy in just looking at my kitchen shelf and wondering – what if I get cooped up in here for two weeks? It is a convenient thought because my groceries would never last more than two weeks, and my imaginary emergencies cap at two weeks 🙂

I just had my third cup of kattan for the day, noticed I’m running low on brown sugar and am low-key excited because of the high I get from restocking. There must be a name for this?

#10 recipe – tuna sub roti at ~$1

Student economics : Tuna subway roti at 1 dollarish

(This is for when it’s sunny out and you feel like you can achieve anything in the world, or for when you’re stuck at home and have canned tuna in your shelf.)

In Fall, I used to get footlong tuna from Subway very often, it was the closest thing to Old’s Cool’s tuna sub which was (and still is) my favorite.

So I’ve been home for 14 days now and earlier this week I was trying to find new recipes to cook, ended up breaking this thing down. (Really, it was supposed to be beef and rice this week with premium meat from Austin’s farm but we have a lockdown in Atlanta and my friend is hence happily stuck at home so tuna it is. Woeful days.)
The only toppings I ever get from Subway are onion, lettuce, bell pepper, pickles, tomato but even otherwise putting it together should be easy enough. I’ve also never done such a thorough cost-breakup before so this was fun.
Never doing it again.

Ingredients (and price break-up)

Roti : 30 nos. for $8ish from Halal store (they’re small but they’re Haldiram’s so stop complaining)
[$0.267 each]

Tuna : 5oz can at $3.68. I had earlier used half of the canned tuna to make a coconut + tamarind curry (if you saw the shredded fish in the gravy you’d deem it a desecration but there’s nothing like craving meencurry during a quarantine. Also never doing that again.)
This is approximate but you’d need 1/8 of the can for a generous topping on a roti.
[$0.46]

Bell Pepper : $0.99 each. Used one half for 4 portions, chopped into cubes. I also I cannot believe they were Rs. 4 each in Karol Bagh. They were like Rs. 10 back home, but that seems okay now. Also, too much green in your topping is a sham.
[$0.12]

Onion : $2 for a 2lb bag with 6-7 onions. I diced around one half.
[$0.17ish]

Ketchup, mayonnaise.

Kitchen Equipment : Microwave, included with the apartment so add your monthly rent here. Jk. I will not let you sabotage my student economics.
Including taxes, it adds upto $1.1ish or less.

How-to

Scour the surface of the roti with a fork/knife so it doesn’t puff up in the microwave*. Heat roti in microwave for 1min 30sec so it’s crispy and can hold the tuna salad topping.

Mix tuna, bell peppers and onion in mayonnaise, spread ketchup on roti and top with as much tuna mix as you want. I can’t eat more than two at a time, that’s too much tuna for me which is also why I don’t get the footlong anymore.

The first bite was so similar to a Subway that I was disappointed – do they really use canned tuna from Walmart? I guess getting Subway sandwiches only makes sense if you get better toppings on yours, I’m just the sad boring customer.
It was in fact better than my subway because I could finish it faster so the bread would never get soggy from all that salad.
Missed pickles, did not miss tomato. Maybe if I broke down more dishes they’d come out nice too.

* Giving credit where due : Roti pizza from Bon Appetit.

#9 spring break/quarantine – recipe or something like that

Spaghetti with mushrooms and other things. Also, quarantine and cooking.

This past week at home I’ve cooked more meals than I have this entire semester. Right before spring break and the coronavirus going crazy in the US, I did depend rather a bit much on frozen meals for long (how do you not get tired of your own cooking?). Mashed potatoes and steak in sauce and corn, most of the corn I’d throw out, and some of the steak too. But they’re a better recourse for when I get back from class on Tuesday night than a pack of ramen.

That is not to say that I haven’t been cooking this sem. I almost always have shredded spinach in the bottom drawer of my fridge, and at least one cooked dish. It sits there for a week, while I survive on bread and wheat tortillas and chappathi and ramen and frozen meals and Subway until I finally throw it out. Then I cook another dish to replace it and continue with my bad eating habits.

Coronavirus had me frantically chomping down red rice because somehow it makes me feel healthy and ready to fight illness. In fact if I do get sick, my line of defence is just going to be kanji, but more like red rice in boiling water. I hope it doesn’t get to that.

Recipe

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QFQKYX9vN7MSvtFr7 (I tried to upload the video but WP has issues with me posting stuff. It’s 3 seconds and you’d spend more than that getting there but anyway.)

Cooked this earlier this week. No, it didn’t taste as good as it looks. Next time, I’m frying the beef in a different pan, getting rid of the fat and only adding the meat to the dish. Too fatty for my liking. Also, next time I’ll try to make this a soup, sans fat.

Ingredients : Carrots, mushrooms, spinach, ground beef, spring onion.
I seasoned the beef separately with salt & pepper, spring onion to get rid of the distinct smell of red meat. Not enough. If anyone does something to effectively mask the smell, please do let me know. Coming from somebody who once contracted gastritis simply from the aroma of beef cooking in our kitchen. I just can’t.

Also, Pasta.

Seasoning : crushed black pepper, red chilli flakes, salt
Garnish (and brightens it up flavor-wise) : more spring onion but cut diagonally for aesthetics

Cook all the ingredients in a wide pan, boil pasta separately. Add cooked pasta to the pan when done.
I restrained myself from using soy sauce, I don’t know if it might’ve made the dish better, I always add too much or too less such that it never does any good. Also cooked spinach for far too long, they were heavily shrivelled, bitter and the last of the vitamins left my kitchen by the time I plated.
Do not repeat my mistake, add them at the very end. I mean ender than the end.

Maybe I shouldn’t do recipes, I’m not very good at these.


%d bloggers like this: