Baingan ka raita (Cooling yoghurt with fried eggplant)

This is an excellent raita to serve at parties or on any day that you have made a pullao or biryani. It is fancy and takes some time to prepare, so it is not an everyday raita. (We have plain yoghurt with daily meals, anyhow.)

You will have to make this raita in three steps.

Step 1) Roast you masala: Here you will prepare a red chile powder-cumin masala. The quantity I give here is more than you will need for one raita recipe. I prepare small amounts of this masala to keep on hand for most of my raita recipes.

2 heaping tbs whole cumin seeds
2 tbs powdered cumin
1 tsp red chile powder.

Heat a flat frying pan. Add in the whole cumin seeds and stir frequently, allowing them to color, but taking care not to burn them. Pour them into a wide bowl and keep aside, allowing them to cool. Turn off the flame under the pan, but when you have just poured out the whole cumin seeds and the pan is still very hot, put in the cumin and chile powder. Stir these with a wooden spoon for a few moments, just allowing them to release their oil and fragrance and wake up their flavor. Put this in another bowl and keep aside until it is cool.

When the whole cumin seeds are completely cool, add them into your spice grinder (mine is a small coffee bean grinder) and coarsely crush the seeds by pulsing the button a few times. There should be large bits of seeds and some whole seeds in the powder.

Pour these powders into separate storage containers, and keep them for use in raitas.

Eggplant cubes before frying

Step 2) Frying your eggplant: Select two medium sized, young eggplants. The less seeds, the better. My farmer's market has great eggplant right now, so this is why I made this recipe today.

Chop eggplant into bite sized cubes. The size I do is about 1 inch cubed. Keep aside.

You will need about 1/2 cup flour with a pinch of salt in it. Put this inside of a deep bowl.

Salted flour in a deep bowl for lightly dredging the cubes.

Pour about 2-3 cups oil into a vessel for deep frying. When the oil is hot, quickly toss about 1.5 cups of eggplant cubes in the flour and remove them, tapping off the excess flour, then putting them quickly into the oil. Fry these cubes until they are nicely golden and set them aside on paper towels. Repeat this in batches.

Frying the eggplant cubes

The flour helps keep the eggplant in shape. The good thing about this raita is that you can prepare the eggplant cubes earlier in the day, and keep them out of the fridge on the countertop and they will stay in good shape. You want to add these to the yoghurt mixture just before serving, otherwise moisture can seep out of them and discolor the raita. Even if you plan to fry the eggplant cubes and serve the raita right away, you MUST keep the cubes to the side until they are completely cooled. Do not add hot eggplant cubes to your yoghurt for this recipe.

Keep the fried cubes aside. They can sit out for half a day.

Step 3) The raita...making it all come together

4 cups of plain full fat yoghurt, which is a 32 oz. tub. I prefer Dannon brand since it only contains milk and yoghurt culture. There are no thickeners.
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tsp plus a pinch of salt (or to taste)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp chaat masala from a box
1/4 tsp white pepper

Ingredients for the raita

1 tsp coursely crushed cumin seed powder (see above)
1 tsp roasted cumin powder-chile powder mix (see above

Mix all of this together well.

Add in these vegetables:

1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
2 finely chopped green chiles
1 small carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped onion*
1 tomato, seeds and pulp removed, finely chopped


When you have mixed all of these things together, you can keep this in the fridge until you are ready to serve. At serving time, add in your fried eggplant cubes.

*If the onion seems strong tasting, soak the onion in cold water for 20 mins while you cut the other ingredients, then strain it and add it to the yoghurt. This will temper the sharpness of it so that it won't overpower your light raita.

Fish shami kababs

Usually you see beef, mutton, or chicken shami kababs.

I decided to try to make them using fish. This is a #whattodowithshanmasala recipe.

They came out well. This is a complicated and cumbersome recipe. You can make these for a party. These freeze well so it is nice to make a bunch and then keep some in the freezer to defrost as needed.

I used basa fish, but you can use any kind of firm fleshed, mild white fish. Use half the recipe for a family sized amount of shami kababs, but for a party, this will make around 26-30 patties, depending on how big you make your patties. I make mine by scooping two tablespoons into my hand so that I can be sure that all of the patties will be the same size. I don't have kabab skillz like some people who can make all of the patties the same by eyeballing.

Mise en place ready to go. 

Ingredients:

2 lbs fish filets cut into pieces, soaked in 1/4 cup vinegar, turmeric, and chile powder (1 tsp each) for 30 mins, then rinsed and patted dry
3 cups boiled channa daal (soak 1.5 cups raw daal for one hour, then boil, lower heat and cook for 20 mins until completely tender but still whole, strain, and set aside)
1 small onion chopped finely
1 small onion chopped roughly
14 green chiles (no need to chop since these will get blended)
3 tbs garam masala
2 heaping tbs Shan Shami Kabab Masala
1 conservative tsp elaichi seeds (unhusked black seed)
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1 cup loosely packed cilantro
pinch of salt (maybe 1/2 tsp, but taste the patty dough because it will be fully cooked and adjustable)
1 egg for binding
1 tbs lime juice
3-4 eggs for dipping
3 tbs  oil for making the meat
oil for frying shamis

Method:

Cooked ingredients.

Heat 3 tbs oil in pot. Add in the finely chopped onions and fry for a few minutes until they become clear. Add in ginger garlic paste and 8 green chiles. Stir this until the ginger garlic is golden. Add in the fish and the powdered masalas. Stir until fish is fully cooked. Add in the lentils and mix well.  Stir till this looks very dry. Turn off the flame. Add salt. Be conservative because you can always add more salt but cannot take salt out. Allow this to cool for a few minutes. Add in the remaining fresh green chiles, mint, the roughly chopped onion, and the cilantro, and mix. Transfer to a blender and blend until it is a smooth paste. If I make this full amount, I do this in three batches with lots of scrape downs of the blender jar. Transfer the mixture to a bowl. Taste for salt, and add more if need be. Stir elaichi seeds, and lime juice. Finally, stir in one beaten egg. Put this in the fridge for an hour or two to let it cool completely and firm up a bit.

Blended mixture.

When you are ready to fry, heat up 1/4 cup oil in a wide frying pan. Beat your 3-4 eggs (or however many you need) with a tiny sprinkle of salt. Form patties in your hands and dip them in the egg wash. The fish shami kabab patties are very soft and hard to work with. Fry only a few at a time so you can manage. Put them in the frying pan for a few moments, then turn over and allow to brown on the other side. Remove from oil and keep on a plate covered in paper towels to absorb some of the oil The soft shamis will firm up a bit as they cool down.




Serve these with ketchup or coriander chutney or tamarind chutney. These also go well on a sandwich.

Green Channa Hara Channa Masala

This is a recipe for green desi channay. These are freshly picked, un-hulled (skin on) young desi chickpeas...the small desi variety that is hulled and split to become channa daal, not the larger foreign channa (kabuli or safaid). I usually get these frozen in a bag from the Indian store.

The brand I buy is already cooked and salted. I simply need to pour the bag of frozen channe into a bowl of water and strain them a few times to de-frost them. If you find fresh ones or frozen un-cooked ones, you would need to boil them till tender.

The bag I buy comes with 310 grams of chickpeas, or almost 1.5 cups. This recipe is for that amount.

Ingredients:

1.5 defrosted green channa, method for prep described above. The channe should be a little bit wet from washing.


2-3 tbs oil
3-4 slit whole green chiles
1 tsp zeera
1/8 tsp/a pinch of hing (asofetida)
6-8 curry leaves
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chile powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tbs fresh lime juice
a sprinkle of salt, if desired

Garnish:
1/4 cup or so chopped cilantro

Heat oil in pan. Add in slit green chiles. When their skin starts to blister, add in cumin seeds. As this colors, add in the hing, curry leaves, and all of the dry spices. Let this sizzle for a moment, but take care not to burn. Dump in washed de-frosted channe. Stir the channe into the masala. Turn down the flame and cover. Cook on low for 5 minutes. Turn off the flame. Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt if frozen channe have been pre-salted. (If your channe haven't been salted, I would add salt before closing the lid a step earlier.) Pour on lime juice and mix well. Stir in some cilantro, transfer them to a serving bowl, and add more cilantro to the top of your dish as a garnish.


This dish is dry and goes well as a "side dish." It can be eating plain between bites of other food, or with roti.

Aloo Chholay Chickpea and Potato Curry

This is a #whattodowithShanMasala recipe, meaning that it is required that you have Shan Chana Masala Mix (or your channa masala brand of choice) to make this recipe.

Alu chholay, a classic dish of Punjab. Serve this with roti, or even puris or kulchay. Make it thick or liquidy as per your taste, and if it has a wetter gravy, enjoy it with rice.

You may be wondering why Shan labels their mix chana (also spelled channa), but some people call this legume chhola (plural chholay). Chhola is the Punjabi word. This is what we call in English chickpea or garbanzo bean. To distinguish from the indigenous strain of desi chickpea, the channa daal with it's black outer skin, many people also call the larger, non-indigenous garbanzo Kabuli channa (channa from Kabul, Afghanistan) or safaid channa (white chickpeas).


Step one: Preparing the chholay

Chholay are best prepared in a pressure cooker, but can also be boiled in a regular pot. You will need:

1.5 cups of dried chickpeas
pinch of baking soda
1 black tea bag
1/2 tsp salt
water

Put your dried chickpeas in a deep bowl and wash them well. Cover them in double their amount of water. They will swell and grow as they rehydrate, so you want to make sure that they are in a deep enough amount of water. Add in 1 pinch of baking soda. This helps them soften when they soak and cook. Soak these at least 5 hours, or overnight.

When you are ready to prepare the chickpeas, strain them from the water. Never boil legumes in the water in which they have soaked, as all of the gas causing properties of the legumes will be in the water. It should be discarded (or used to water the plants or something). Put chickpeas in a pressure cooker with double the amount of water of the chickpeas. Add in the black tea bag and the salt. Cover and pressure cook them for about 25 minutes. In my Hawkins, it takes about 8 whistles and then low simmer for 10 minutes. Your pressure cooker cook time may vary.

When done, the chickpeas should be beautifully tender. Keep them aside with their cooking liquid, and discard the tea bag, which should have done its job of coloring the chholay. You will need the chickpeas separately from the cooking liquid, so when you are ready to cook, have the chickpeas strained, and keep the cooking liquid in another vessel.

You can also soak the chickpeas overnight and boil them (no salt) on the stove top for 45 mins to an hour. Add the salt when they are soft. OR you can use canned chickpeas. Canned don't have the fluffy, soft texture of rehydrated boiled chickpeas, though. It's up to you.

Step 2: The masala

1/4 cup cooking oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion chopped (lemon sized onion, or 1/2 American onion)
1 tbs garlic paste
1 tbs ginger paste
1 tsp red chile powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 cup roughly pureed tomatoes (or 2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped)
1 tbs Shan Chana Masala
3-4 small potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite sized cubes
1/2 tsp amchoor
1 tsp garam masala
salt to taste (+/- 1 tsp)


garnish:
chopped green chiles and chopped cilantro

Method:

Heat oil in pan. Add in cumin seeds and allow them to color. Add in onions. Cook onions until they are translucent and turning golden, and browning a little bit on the outside. Don't let them become too brown or your curry gravy will be sweet. Add in the garlic and ginger when the onions are golden. Allow the garlic and ginger to color, then toss in the red chile powder, turmeric, coriander powder, and cumin powder. Allow this to sizzle for a second. Add in the tomato puree. Cook for a few moments until the tomatoes dry up a bit and the oil rises out of the masala paste. Add in the salt, then toss in the chickpeas that you had kept aside. Stir these for a few moments. Now, add in the Shan Chana Masala and stir well. Then, add in 1 cup of the chickpea cooking liquid. Allow this to come to a boil. Add in the chopped potatoes. Bring to a boil again. Cover, turn the heat to low, and cook for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes are completely done. When the cooking is done, turn off the flame and stir in the garam masala and amchoor. Cover and let this rest for 5 full minutes. The liquid will thicken at this point. If you want a wetter gravy, add in 1/2 cup or so more water. Stir in some cilantro, and then add more cilantro and chopped green chiles on the top of the dish.

Creamy Jalapeño Salsa: Krazy Good Green Sauce

This is a creamy jalapeño salsa.

El Regio and El Pollo Rico in Austin, Texas are two Monterrey (that's Nuevo León, México Monterrey) style rotisserie chicken places. They serve this krazy good green sauce there. Theirs is just boiled jalapeños blended with oil and some salt, but mine has a couple of extra ingredients.

Here is my version: (makes a little over 1 cup):

8-9 jalapeños
1 clove garlic
1 tbs or so lime juice
1/2 cup or so oil (light tasting oil*)
1/2 tsp salt or to taste

Put jalapeños in a pot of water and boil for about 20 minutes until they are soft. Remove them from the water. Stick the clove of garlic in the hot water for a few minutes, then remove it. This is a trick to take the sharp edge off of the garlic by cooking it very slightly. Allow your jalapeños to cool completely, then using gloves, remove the stems and seeds with your hands.

Add all off the ingredients except oil to a blender. Turn on blender and grind jalapeños for a moment, then slowly drizzle in the oil till you have a beautiful green emulsification.

This sauce thickens a bit once you refrigerate it, so don't make it too thick to start out with. It should still be a bit liquidy when you take it out of the fridge, not a solid.

OPTION: Alternatively, roast your jalapaños under a broiler/on the stove/on the grill. Allow to cool and remove the stems, seeds, and most of the skin. Use the charred jalapeños and proceed with the rest of the recipe. This yields a slightly smoky green sauce flecked with black charred bits for color. It's very delicious.

*I like sunflower oil for this. I am sure El Regio and El Pollo Rico use soybean oil. For heart healthy oils, a light olive oil works, too. But avoid a strongly flavored olive oil or it will be overpowering in the salsa and give it a strange undertaste. 

Salsa de chile de árbol (Árbol chile salsa)

This is a very spicy salsa that goes well with chicken, goat, or beef. Recipe makes about 2 cups.

Ingredients:

7 roma tomatoes cut in half.
2 cloves of garlic. Wrap these in a pouch made of foil
1 bag of chile de árbol (80 gram bag, better for you if you can find a bag of already "limpios" or cleaned chiles, but if not, the will have the stems and seeds which you must clean)
1/2 tsp Knorr Suiza powder (caldo de pollo), 1/4 of a stock cube, or 1/2 tsp Chicken Better than Bouillon
1 tsp of salt or to taste
1 tbs lime juice
1/2 tsp sugar
2-3 tbs light tasting oil for roasting the tomatoes and frying the chiles

Take your halved tomatoes and rub them in oil, place them with your garlic wrapped in a foil pouch on a roasting sheet and roast at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

While your tomatoes and garlic are roasting, clean your chiles by removing the stems and seeds. That's if you didn't get a bag of chile de árbol "limpios" (already stemmed and seeded).

In a deep pan, heat 1-2 tbs oil. When hot, stir your dried chiles around until the start to puff up and change color. Take care not to burn. You can turn off the flame after a minute, and keep stirring, and they will fry nicely to the perfect color. Pour them onto a plate and keep aside. If you keep them in the hot pan, they will continue to cook for a few moments and can blacken and burn. So, it is better to transfer them to a plate. Keep aside to cool.

When your tomatoes are nicely soft and roasted, set aside to cool.

Dump the tomatoes, garlic, your chicken flavoring, and chiles in a blender. You may need to add 1/4 cup or so of water. Pulse gently so as to leave the chile ground but in visible chile flakes. Stir in the salt, lime juice, and sugar, and pulse again gently. Taste and adjust salt, sugar, or lime juice if necessary. Keep in a jar for up to 2 weeks.

Spicy Urad or Maash Daal Fry (hulled split black lentils)

*In some regions of the Hindi/Urdu speaking world, these are called urad or urid daal. In other regions, these are called maash ki daal. In Punjabi, these are maa di daal. The skin of this lentil is black, but once they are hulled or skinned, they are white. This is the same daal you use for daal makhni, without its skin. It is known as being very filling and heavy on the stomach. The hing (asafetida), lime juice, and the ginger shards in the recipe are supposed to counteract the heavy, gas inducing qualities of this daal. :D This recipe yields a tangy, spicy daal that contains dried red chiles, green chiles added at two stages, and ground red chile powder. You can reduce or amplify the amount of chiles as per your preference. I'd say this comes out medium-hot based on my taste.


To prepare the lentils:

For this recipe you need 1 cup of hulled split black lentils. Wash them well and soak them in water for 1 hour. Discard the soaking water, and add them to a pot in several inches of water. Allow the water to boil. Skim the starchy foam from the top of the water. Lower the heat and boil on med-low flame for 17-20 mins (test at 17 mins) until lentils are completely tender but not falling apart. Strain the lentils and set them aside.

Strained boiled maash ki daal.

The masala:

1/4 cup oil
1 pinch asafetida hing
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
4 whole long dried red chiles
1 purple onion finely chopped (lemon sized Indian onion, if it is a larger American purple onion, use half of it)
2 fresh green chiles chopped finely
1 tablespoon of ginger-garlic paste
1 tomato finely chopped or 1/2 cup fresh tomato puree
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chile powder
1 tsp cumin powder (zeera)
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 tbs lime juice (or to taste, I prefer a strong lime flavor)
salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

The masala.

For garnish:
chopped fresh cilantro (1/4 cup or so)
1-2 chopped fresh green chiles
optionally, matchstick ginger shards (about 1/2 inch sliced)

Heat oil in pot. When hot, add in hing and allow to sizzle. Stir in dried red chiles and cumin seeds. Watch for red chile skin color to darken a bit, then toss in the onions. Cook onions until they are looking golden and brown around the edges (+/- 7 mins). (Pro tip: If your onions look brown around the edges but raw and white in the middle straight away, turn down the flame.) Add in chopped green chiles. Add in garlic-ginger paste. Allow garlic-ginger to turn golden. Toss in tomatoes. Stir for a few moments, then add in all of the powdered masala except for the garam masala. Add in salt. Stir until the water is mostly dried up from the tomatoes and the oil has risen to the top of this masala. Turn off the heat. Add in garam masala. The masala is done. Now, add in the prepared lentils that you have kept aside. Stir gently so that they do not fall apart or become clumpy. Mix well. Now squeeze in/pour in your lime juice and half of the cilantro and some of the fresh matchstick ginger slices. Once again, stir gently. Transfer to a serving dish and add the remainder of the cilantro and the other garnishes.

A close up look: each grain of daal is separate.

Serve with hot puris, whole wheat roti, or corn flour roti (makkai ki roti).

OPTIONS: You can use this same recipe for hulled split moong ki daal. Follow all the same instructions, except boil on low for a full 20 mins during the lentil preparation stage. Some people find maash/urad daal too heavy on the stomach, so you could optionally make this lighter by mixing 1/2 cup moong and 1/2 cup urad daal if this is the case for you.