Monday, June 27, 2011

Beetroot, tam style... and my own twist

Well this was way back when I ate it, the taste just lingered on. We had gone for a holiday to Kodai, my parents, bro, sis and me. I had just finished my 11th exams and ofcourse had faired pretty badly. Well if you expect a teenager to be interested in her studies, you must be out of your mind! Somebody please remind me when my son reaches that milestone.

We stayed in this lovely guesthouse of Mahindra's with fruit trees all around. It had an awesome library, so between studying, sight-seeing and eating absolutely yummy food, I would read my road to heaven. Well I was almost there, among the clouds atleast.

Oh but I am forgetting the objective of this blog. You know I hate beetroot, well normally I do. Dad used to force down slices of beetroot sprinkled with lime juice into my throat. But for this one dish, thank the whole tam community for this, it almost made me fall in love with beety roots!

From what I have tasted, this is what I have conjured, I am sure I am missing a few ingredients and adding stuff that I like, but I manage to get the taste and more, nevertheless... my Recipe for your tired tongue :-)

Ingredients
Grate beetroot, could be just 1 big one. Grate or grind half a coconut to get say 1 or half a cup.
Wash a handful of curry leaves and keep them ready, you never know who might just chew them up.
Chop a little piece of ginger into very tiny pieces as an ode to Hopkins and his fetish for fingers!
I love peanuts, so I will add these as well, 1/4 cup is good. You could skip this if you are not pro-peanuts or peanuts symbolize something else alltogether. We would need some mustard and pepper corns too for the seasoning. You could use a green chilli or more to spice it up. A little oil and a tbspn of ghee would just clinch it.

Action time
Now pull out that battered yet shining warrior, well frying pan of yours. Pour some oil, don't overdo it as you are going to anyways mix in some ghee later. Once that heats up throw in the seeds, mustard and peppercorns, gently I mean. Toss in the curry leaves, ginger, sliced green chillies and peanuts and wait for a minute or more for them to turn a little crisp. You can then place the grated beetroot in the pan and fry for a bit. Now is a good time to add that tbsp. of ghee. Well while you are at it and in a slight hurry, add most of the grated coconut as well, keep a little for garnishing it at the end.

From here, its all about frying upto the point you think you can deal with it, longer the wait and the stirring, the crispier it gets. Just before taking it off the pan you have to add the left over coconut shavings and mix it in along with some salt. If you want you could add a teeny weeny bit of ghee again to light up your belly.

Well I am done explaining, let me know if you do take on beetroots my way. And if you have any wisecracks coming my way, spit them out. The next time, if I am upto it,  I will write about how they cook beans in Ooty, but for that I will have to get the beans from there specifically.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A simple recipe for Pork Roast

To make some absolutely yummy pork roast with minimal effort, here is how you would do it.
Wash the boneless pork clean and then marinate it with ginger garlic paste so that its evenly spread over all of the pork. Add some dark vinegar to it. For instance to 0.5 kg pork you would add 2 tbsp. of vinegar. I also add a pinch of turmeric powder for its antiseptic properties.
Once you are done with your marination, which could be for 20 mins to a couple of hours you could start cooking.

Put in a little oil in a heavy bottomed pan or a pressure cooker. Pork has enough fat to keep it going so watch out on the oil you pour. You could choose sesame oil for this dish or stick to the oil you have at home.
Start by adding a tsp or more of sesame seeds, again depending on the meat you intend to cook, sliced green chillies to tingle your taste buds, strips of ginger and some garlic pods if you have them around. Play around with ginger and garlic depending on the flavor you like more. I prefer ginger for this dish.

All right you are all set, go ahead and add the pork and chopped onions and start frying. If its a cooker you are using, after frying it for say 10-15 minutes you could add the Soy sauce of your choice. I prefer the Indonesian soy sauce with pork. It adds to the sweetness of the meat.

Well after that all you got to do is add like a quarter cup water and cook for some time by closing the cooker lid. After 1 or 2 whistles, get it to cool down. Fry the pork further until dry, without the lid ofcourse by adding some salt and black pepper. Umm can you smell the pork or what!

We are done really and all you have to do is place it in a nice bowl for serving. This could be part of a main course or just picked upon with some nice poison of your choice.

If you are the herby kind, then there is a slight deviation here -
Use red wine vinegar instead of the ordinary dark one and go for rosemary...oregano too if you like it.