This year, I had decided to post something at least for one of the American festivals. Even though the lighting around my house, painfully reminds me of Diwali (which is just round the corner), and I terribly miss being at home in India. Although I could almost feel the fireworks of Diwali, I am just trying to enjoy the festivities of Halloween . All my colleagues seem to be so excited about it. So I thought of making something on this occasion just for my readers.
Last year is when I came to know about Halloween. I didn’t know it was so popular. I still remember the days when we saw all the festivities going around us. One of our friends explained the significance of this and about “ trick or treat “. Then I read about it in all the different food blogs (my first stop was of course at my favorite blog ).
So this year, I thought I would make something for Halloween. I initially started with an idea of some cake with white ghosts – something similar to “ Chandamama ” bhooths . Did I say I was crazy about Chandamama while growing up? But I was always scared about the white bhooths (ghosts) pictures. I would never read the first page of Vikram-Betaal . I would flip that page as fast as I could. But now when I wanted to have ghosts on my cake, they were the first things that came to my mind.
I wanted to make these ghosts with Colorflow icing and stick them to cake like I had created birds in this cake . But I was feeling so lazy to mix this icing, I decided to give up the idea. But then I decided to make the bhooths just with normal icing with white color. I asked my husband (who is a huge fan of Chandamama) to draw few of these on a paper so that I could copy them on cake. Following was the outline he drew for me.
This is a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting sent to me by Deepa Raj last year.
We have been trying different cuisines these days. Our latest favorite being Mongolean Grill – BD’s and Genghis Khan . Those who have not been to this restaurant – they have this big collection of vegetables, meat, sauces, dry powders. You can build your own bowl, add whatever vegetables, meat, sauce, spices you want to add and take it to a big frying pan. The chefs empty the entire content on this big pan and use two big iron rod kind of things to flip the content, something like shown in this ad . The final product is a bowl of perfectly fried vegetable/meat mix. Since we build up the whole dish, we can change it according to our taste. Somehow the frying method takes these dishes to a whole new level. I love to watch those chefs do the frying so artistically. When my parents were here, we had taken them to many different restaurants and their favorite was Mongolean.
Though they have all kinds of veggies and meats, the way I build up mine is like this – I add the veggies that I recognize, then goes few shrimps, chicken pieces, few sauces – basically those I can recognize, then I add a generous amount of curry powder, chili powder, salt, garlic powder. Usually one bowl is quite big and very filling. Once the chefs fry it, I add a generous amount of fried sesame on top. Ohh..Yumm…
Now that we love it so much, I wanted to make at least a mock up stir fry at home. Usually I throw in whatever I have in hand. But I usually like to keep it mild. Since I don’t have the curry powder they use, I add a Madras curry powder(I have a huge pack of this and have no idea how to finish this off). I don’t like g aram masala , coriander-cumin in this because they make this dish totally Indian. Both in BD’s and Genghis Khan, a kind of egg noodles is included, which also gets fried with other stuff, if we choose to add it to our bowl. When I am making this at home, I use thin rice noodles. I tried to use Maggi once and it was a huge flop :).
I keep changing the proportions to suit my taste. How you want to make it is your choice. You can totally replace any of the ingredients here. You can even make it a combination of vegetables and meats. I just prefer to make it all veg at home. Just fry everything at a time till all are well cooked. This has become a perfect lunch box item for me and my hubby for last 2 months – less work, healthy, tasty and very filling.
Ingredients: 2 cups of vegetables sliced – onions, capsicum, bean sprouts, zucchini, potatoes, cauliflower, celery, corn 1 cup of cooked and drained rice noodles (or egg noodles) 1/2 tea spn curry powder 1/2 tea spn chili powder 1/2 tea spn vinegar 1 tea spn soy sauce 1/2 tea spn sugar 1 tea spn worcestershire sauce 1/4 tea spn Tabasco sauce 1/2 tea spn fresh chopped ginger 1/2 tea spn fresh chopped garlic 1 tea spn roasted sesame seeds Oil Salt
Method: Heat oil in a big frying pan. Throw in all the veggies, ginger, garlic and fry for about 3-4 mins till the veggies become a bit soft. (I don’t add everything at one time because it requires constant stirring and high heat to cook evenly. So I wait till veggies are bit soft and then add the sauces/spices).
Add all sauces, spice powders, salt and mix for some more time till the veggies are 3/4th cooked. Do not let them cook completely. They should be crunchy.
Now add the noodles and keep mixing for another 3-4 mins.
While serving, top it with fried sesame seeds.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 20mins
PS: Following is my entry to Jai and Bee’s Click photography event . This month’s theme is Noodles .
