Savoury oat pancakes

We've been trying to incorporate healthy eating habits into our lifestyle, so we started a 'Wholesome Wednesdays' thing and made sure we ate no processed junk, only natural and nutritious food. Yes, yes, we know, a whole day? Scandalous! Jokes apart, we're trying to coax our bodies into not rebelling (pizzaaaaa), by sneaking in tasty healthy food. What's next, you ask: maybe 'Detox Thursdays' where we make fresh vegetable and fruit juices to cleanse the system. Does that sound too Gwyneth Paltrow?

So our first Wholesome Wednesday had the following items on the menu: breakfast was egg-white omelettes with mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and baby corn; lunch was the oat pancakes. Dinner was roast chicken with fresh parsley and rosemary, grilled broccoli, and yummy cauliflower mash. Overall, Wholesome Wednesday was brilliant. Woohoo, Wholesome Wednesdays! (And we're not even exaggerating.)

Right, so the oatmeal pancake idea came from a nutritionist friend who called it a cheela or chilla. It also looks like a thepla, but a little thicker. This it can be made anywhere in the world, with any combination of ingredients. This is a fully customisable recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup white oats
1 cup yoghurt (more if needed)
1/2 cup semolina (rava/sooji) OR 1/2 cup gram flour (besan) OR 1/2 cup white flour (maida)
1 medium onion
1 medium tomato
1 small capsicum
1 small carrot
Coriander (according to your preference)
1 tsp Ginger (optional)


Flavour combo 1
1 tbsp cumin powder
1 tbsp powdered coriander
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
Salt to taste

OR (Do not use both, it will taste disgusting)

Flavour combo 2
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder (or 4 cloves fresh garlic)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
Any other herbs you like
Salt to taste

METHOD:

- Grind the oats in a mixer until you get a coarse powder. Dump it into a bowl.

- Finely chop all the veggies and add them to the oats.

- Add the flavour combo of your choice and mix well.

- Add the yoghurt as required, to make a thick paste.

- Heat oil in a non-stick pan on a low flame. Put a dollop of the mixture and gently pat it into a half centimetre thickness. This is where it gets a bit sticky (literally), so be cautious and ensure that the pancake is evened out. Make sure it isn't too thick, it might not cook on the inside.

- Cook on low heat for about 3 minutes or until browned, and then turn over carefully. It can be tricky because the mixture doesn't have a lot of elasticity and can break. Use a big spatula if available.

- Serve with yoghurt or coriander chutney.


Tips:

- You can adjust the measurements of everything in this list according to preference.

- You can add more veggies like tomatoes, peas, beetroot, etc.

- Try a sweet variation with fruit instead of veggies. Berries, bananas, apples, pears, and dried fruits like raisins and apricots.

- You can use water or milk if you don't want to use yoghurt, but I'm not sure how much you'd need. Start with half a cup and add as required.

Chicken Dhansak and Brown Rice

Always been a big fan of Parsi folks and their delicious Parsi food! Patrani machchi, sali boti, kheema with eedu on top! Such mouthwatering dishes!

One of my favourite aunts is a proud Parsi lady and she cooks the most delicious food. I got this special Dhansak with brown rice recipe from her. I hope you guys drool as much as we did while cooking it :D

Dhanksak

You will need:

500 g Chicken

2 medium Onions

4 tbsp Ginger-garlic paste

2 heaped tsp of Dhansak masala*

For the gravy (all of the below to be pressure cooked and mixey-ed up):

2 tomatoes

3 brinjals/aubergines

200 gms of Pumpkin
4-5 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp cumin
2-3 medium spicy green chilies

A handful of coriander leaves

A handful mint leaves

Tiny bit of methi/fenugreek leaves (or 1 tsp methi seeds)

2 fists toor dal (soaked)

1/2 fist moong dal (soaked)

1/2 fist masoor dal (soaked)

1/2 fist chana dal (soaked)

1 tsp Turmeric

Red chilli powder to taste

Salt to taste

Method:

1) Add all the gravy ingredients in a pressure cooker and cook for 3 whistles (this may vary according to your cooker, so cook as long as you would cook rice). Mash them all up together into a smooth paste.

2) Coat chicken with ginger, garlic and salt and pressure cook for 15-20mins.

3) Heat oil in a pan. Put a paste of onion, garlic, cumin, green chillies. Stir fry. Add dhansak masala.

4) Add the chicken. Cook for 5-10mins.

5) Add smoothened dal paste.

6) Stir until fragrant.

Brown Rice

You will need:

2 cups Rice

3-4 tsp Sugar/Jaggery

2-3 of 2" pieces Cinnamon

5-6 Cloves

1 tsp Cumin (jeera)

1-2 Bay leaf

Method:

1) Heat ghee. Put cloves, cumin, cinnamon, bay leaf.

2) Add sugar/jaggery, caramelise.

3) Add rice. Pour in water. Cook.

* To make dhansak masala at home, you need:

5 Chillies (up to 10 depending on your preference)
2 Cinnamon sticks
3 Bay leaves
1 ½ tb Cumin seeds
2 tb Coriander seeds
1 tb Green or black cardamom seeds
2 ts Black peppercorns
½ tb Cloves
1 tb Fenugreek seeds
1 tb Black mustard seeds
½ tb Mace
½ tb Ground turmeric

Dry roast these and grind them in a mixer.

Green Chicken

This is another one of our experimental recipes that turned out great! The gravy can be green or brown depending on how long you cook it, and whether you add fresh green chillies or red chilli powder. We don't know what else to name it, so we're open to suggestions :)

The whole thing took about an hour and a half. If you're quick at prep, it will take you less. We're super picky about peeling the garlic, and we want to wash the coriander at least 4 times, plus we hate chopping onions so we had to take frequent "my eyes are watering" breaks!

You will need:

500g chicken
2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

5 tbsp yoghurt

1 cup almonds, made into a thick paste

1/2 cup grated fresh coconut

2 cups of Coriander

3 Onions, sliced

6-7 cloves of garlic

1 inch of ginger

3 tsp of red chilli powder (or use green chillies, like we did)

1/2 tsp of turmeric

Chicken masala (any brand is fine. The one we used had the following ingredients: coriander, chilli, garlic, fennel, cumin, star anise, black cardamom, shahi jeera, cinnamon, poppy seeds, dry fenugreek leaves, dry mint leaves, black pepper, clove, bay leaf, nutmeg)

Oil
Lemon juice (optional)

Salt to taste

Method:

1) Marinate the chicken in ginger garlic paste and yoghurt.

2) Meanwhile stir fry onion and coconut in oil until golden brown. Let it cool. Then make a paste in the food processor/mixer along with coriander, ginger and garlic. You will need to add water in small increments.

3) Fry the the above paste and the almond paste in oil until fragrant.

4) Add the marinated chicken.

5) Add chilli powder, turmeric, chicken masala and salt.

6) Stir and simmer for five minutes.

7) Add hot water and let simmer until the chicken is cooked. You can add the water until the gravy is the consistency of your liking. We prefer a thicker gravy.

Serve hot! :)



Tips:

You can use cashews if you don't have almonds.

You can add mint leaves for a variation of the recipe.

Croissants

You can still see the flour on the counter!

One time, four years ago, I attempted to make croissants. While they looked very cute, they were as hard as rocks and had to be steeped in tea before eating. Obviously, this put me off making them for a while.

Since I have finally figured out how to use dry active yeast successfully (see the bread & pizza base recipes), I decided to give croissants another go. And....SUCCESS! They were soft and still crisp and flaky and delicious and Snigdha had goosebumps when she ate them.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the process, but there are several videos on YouTube of how the process goes. It's long and tedious but not too difficult. I've re-used some pictures from earlier recipes to show the making of the dough.

The major issue I faced was the measurement of the ingredients. This differs in every recipe I've seen, and when we're talking about limited resources and hotter weather like India, this becomes a problem. So after trying two different recipes, I offer my own, simpler version. Because regular butter has been used, no salt is required.

KITCHEN TIP: Cleaning greasy pastry brushes

Happy new year everyone! We hope you had a lovely holiday season. We're looking at some interesting recipes to post soon, but meanwhile, here's a little housekeeping tip.

Over the holidays, we had to use pastry brushes for basting chicken and spreading the glaze on some bread. Of course, this left our brushes pretty greasy. You now get silicone ones, but since a lot of us still prefer the old fashioned nylon ones, here's a pretty easy way of getting them oil-free and clean again!

All you need is hot water and dishwashing soap/liquid.