Few days ago, I asked you all to suggest some recipes that I could post here. I got many requests for salads. It is one of those areas that I have not ventured much. Salad for me was something quick, where I threw in lettuce and some other things like cucumbers, tomatoes and added store bought dressing. Very recently, I started making my own salad dressing. Now, any salad I see online asks for a new ingredient – balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar etc. I am not very comfortable buying so many different ingredients which will sit in my refrigerator forever. So I keep looking for simple ingredients that are already in my fridge. Yesterday, I wanted to use up some oranges and blueberries which I had bought on my recent shopping trip. The child in the house refused to eat those fruits although he usually loves them. I prepared this orange salad and it came out better than I expected. So I decided to post it here.
Ingredients: 3 cups chopped lettuce 1 cup peeled orange sections 2 tbl spn raisins 1/4 cup blueberries Few shavings of Parmesan cheese Freshly ground black pepper
For dressing (all measures are approximates, change according to taste): Take 1/8 cup fresh orange juice, 2 tbl spn extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 tea spn red chilli flakes, 1 tbl spn honey, 1 tea spn vinegar (I used distilled vinegar), salt. Blend all.
Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl and add the dressing. Toss the salad. Serve.
Serves : 2-3
No matter how much you change your palette to adjust to new kind of food, you always crave for the food that you grew up eating. I stayed away from my favorite Konkani dishes for a few months, just because I was trying out new things. Now we have reached a stage, we crave Konkani food every single day. Konkani kadis – like Jeer mirya kadi , taka kadi are some of the things that we are having these days. Recently, I made this long forgotten muga dali kadi. It has the same basic spices like jeer mirya kadi , but it also gives the protein due to the addition of one of the easy-on-your-tummy and easy-to-cook dals – yellow moong dal. The garlic seasoning makes it so heavenly. I prepared a big pot and we had it for two days, it tastes much better on the second day.
Ingredients: 1/2 cup yellow moong dal 1 tbl spn fresh/frozen coconut 2 red chillies 1 tea spn cumin seeds 1/2 tea spn pepper 1/2 tea spn thick tamarind extract 1 tbl spn chopped garlic A pinch turmeric Oil Ghee Salt
Method: Cook dal with turmeric and water till it is completely mushy. I cooked it in pressure cooker for about 1 whistle. Heat a little oil and add cumin seeds, pepper. When they are slightly browned, add chillies, coconut. Take off heat and grind to a smooth paste. Add the paste, tamarind and salt to cooked dal. Add enough water to make it into a gravy consistency. Bring it to boil. Heat a little ghee and add garlic. When the garlic is browned, pour it over the kadi and cover. Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 30mins
