Gourmet Pizza at home!

Roasted Vegetable Pesto Pizza

Yes, it is possible! Even in my home.While we still eat pizza from the giant take-out chains in a pinch, I always prefer pizza at the local Italian restaurants/pizzerias - non-greasy pizzas that aren't loaded with cheese and "non-traditional" toppings. I've always salivated at the pictures in various food blogs, but never mustered up the courage to try it myself. Well, all that changed today.

The dough resting on the counter.

I made pizza dough using the recipe from Nupur's wonderful blog, modified from Mark Bittman's original recipe. I found the dough extremely simple to work with and it resulted in a wonderfully crisp crust and airy interior. A trip to a few kitchen supply stores, home improvement stores and one tile supply store later, the bottom rack of the oven was layered with unglazed red quarry tiles and I had my baking stone. It was easy on the pocket, and I'm looking forward to baking bread on it.

Unglazed quarry tiles - available at tile supply stores.

The challenge was making pizzas without a pizza peel or a cutter. I'm definitely the wiser for the experience today, and want to invest in these two items as well. This time, I ended up baking the pizzas on a sheet of foil. With a big stash of basil pesto from our home-grown potted basil plant, I decided to make pesto pizzas. One pizza with roasted red bell pepper and zucchini, and another with tomatoes and onions.

Zucchini, Onions and Red Pepper - ready for roasting.

Pizza #1

Pizza #2

This crust is definitely a winner. I might experiment a little to increase the proportion of whole wheat flour, or replace the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour.. but it is great as is. I'm looking forward to many more home made pizzas. Since the recipe for the crust is from One Hot Stove, I'm submitting this to the Blog Bites #6 event.

Hot Avakkai Pickle

One can wax eloquent about Avakkai - the Andhra-style mango pickle. I got inspired when I saw it here and here.. I found baby green mangoes at the Indian grocery store this weekend, and decided it was time to try my hand at making this traditional pickle.

The mangoes were not as sour as I would have liked. I'm not sure if this is going to impact the taste a lot - I will update the post after tasting it in a week's time.

Traditionally, the mango pieces are cut with the seed wall - I have no idea why - but this requires slicing right through the seed and then pulling out the hard seed and chopping the mangoes with the seed wall. Back in India, the vendors carry special apparatus to do precisely that. My kitchen knife was not sharp enough to cut through the seed, so I ended up chopping the mango flesh alone.

The rest of the procedure is easy - powder mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and mix with chilli powder, pickling salt and turmeric. Mix with the mango pieces, combine with sesame oil and stir well to combine.

Ingredients

4 C Green mangoes, cut into approx 1 inch sized pieces
3/4 C Pickling salt
1 C Red Chilli powder (I used a little more, since the chilli powder was not too spicy)
3/4 C Mustard seeds (powdered)
1/4 C Fenugreek seeds
250 ml Gingelly oil
2 T Turmeric

Clean and wipe the mangoes thoroughly. Cut with the seed wall intact, if possible. Let dry for about an hour under the fan/in the sun. Combine powdered mustard seeds, fenugreek, turmeric, salt and chilli powder and stir well. In a dry bowl, add the cut mangoes and the pickle powder and mix well. Next, add the gingelly oil. Mix well and transfer to clean glass bottles/pickle jars. The pickle needs to be stirred thoroughly using a wooden spoon for about a week, or until the mangoes have absorbed the flavour from the pickle base. The oil will separate from the pickle and collect on top. In case the mangoes were a little ripe to start with, or the seed wall was not used, store in the refrigerator to maximize shelf life. Enjoy with curd rice!!

 Update : After tasting, I feel there is something missing from the taste of the mangoes. It is important to pick sour mangoes for making Avakkai, as I feel it makes a lot of difference to the end product.

Weekend Breakfast

Hearty wheat waffles (Recipe source : King Arthur website)

A delicious blueberry compote to go with it ..

Yumm!

Caramelized Onion Pepper Bread

I first came across this bread at the One Hot Stove, one of the first food blogs I started reading. While the recipe seemed easy enough, and  the description and pictures tantalizing as always, this bread was relegated to the must-try list for a long long time. Well, now that I have a little bit of time on my hands, I decided to make it. What an awesome bread this is! I love savoury breads - wait - I love savoury anything. Also, caramelized onions are a revelation to me - the resulting intensity of onion flavour is worth the 30 minutes of time spent, stirring the onions constantly to prevent burning. The slow cooked browned onions taste like Onion Pakodas..

I followed the original recipe from Baking Bites, with a few modifications which I will not be making the next time. I did not have bread flour at hand, so I made the recipe with All Purpose flour instead, which resulted in a drier bread with a crust that was chewier than I would have preferred. All the same, the bread tasted fantastic. Next time though, I will definitely use bread flour. Also, I had just 1 tsp of yeast on hand, so the first rise took a much longer time. So why am I blogging about this? I think this bread is so good that I want the handful of readers this blog has to know about this.

Paruppu urundai Kuzhambu

Want a protein boost to your diet? Run out of vegetables and looking for something satisfying to cook up? It was the latter that prompted me to make this. A traditional Tamil kuzhambu(spicy soup) that is usually served with rice and ghee and a simple vegetable curry on the side. Soul food for me. I loosely followed the recipe from Samaithu Paar by Meenakshi Ammal, my go-to book for traditional South Indian food.

The basic idea is to grind up lentils with some seasoning, make ping-pong sized balls and drop them into a boiling tamarind soup and cook them. It turns out that this requires some practice and careful monitoring of the consistency of said lentil batter, else the balls disintegrate and create a complete mess. So I followed a trick to ensure that the balls don't fall apart - steam them. Yes, it is one extra step. Yes, the lentil balls don't taste as good as when they are cooked in the tamarind soup. However, I'm willing to make the compromise to ensure they retain their shape.

Ingredients

Paruppu Urundai (Lentil Balls)
1C Toor Dal
5 Red Chillis
1/8 t Asafoetida
1 t Salt

Kuzhambu (Soup)
1 T Sesame oil (Canola/Sunflower/Vegetable ok)
1 T Tamarind paste
1 T Sambhar powder
2.5 C Water
1 T Urad Dal
2 Red Chillis
1/4 t Fenugreek seeds
1/2 t Mustard seeds
8-10 Curry leaves
1 T Rice flour (optional)
Asafoetida, a pinch

Soak the Toor Dal in water for 1-2 hours. Grind with the red chillis, asafoetida and salt, adding as little water as possible. Shape the Dal paste into lemon sized balls, as best as possible and steam them for 15 minutes. I steamed them in my Idli stand.

Mix the tamarind paste with water to make up 2.5 cups of tamarind juice. Heat oil and add mustard, urad dal, red chillis, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. Once the mustard pops, add asafoetida and the sambhar powder. Fry for a few seconds, stirring quickly to prevent burning. Add the tamarind juice and bring to a rolling boil. After 10 minutes, add the urundais, a few at a time, making sure that they have enough room to move around. I had 16 urundais. Allow this to simmer gently for 15 minutes, then make a slurry with the rice flour. Add the slurry to the Kuzhambu, and allow it to boil for 2 minutes before turning off the heat. Serve with hot rice and ghee.

The Kuzhambu was delicious and I will definitely be making this again. Next time, I might be bold enough to cook the urundais in the Kuzhambu itself. It is filling and almost feels like eating Paruppu-usili with Kuzhambu.

I love Ratatouille!

Ratatouille.. Ratatouille.. I love how it sounds and how it tastes! A simple dish from the south of France, which really allows the flavors of the vegetables to shine through. There are a million recipes for Ratatouille out there - the vegetables are either cooked together, or baked or cooked individually and then combined so that they retain their shape. I followed a recipe from Jacques Pepin's show. I love watching cookery shows on PBS and Pepin's show in particular. He demystifies French cuisine for novices like me and presents many simple dishes in his quiet and unpretentious style. Anyway, Ratatouille tastes fantastic at room temperature, or slightly warm. It can be served with bread, pasta or couscous. To me, this was the obvious choice for It's a Vegan World : France.

Ingredients
2 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3 Medium Zucchini/Yellow Squash, diced
2 Bell Peppers (any kind), diced
2 C tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, smashed
1 medium Onion, sliced
1 T Olive oil
1/2 t dried basil
1/4 t dried thyme
1/8 t dried rosemary
1/2 t Cayenne pepper
1/2 t black pepper
2 T black olives (optional)
Salt to taste

Heat olive oil in a wide bottomed pan and add the onions and garlic. When the onions turn translucent, add the bell peppers and saute for a few minutes. Add the diced eggplant and squash, salt and herbs. After about 5 minutes, add the tomatoes, salt, pepper and cayenne. Let cook on low heat for about 20 minutes. Garnish with black olives if desired.

Creamy Potato Leek Soup

While it is hardly soup weather here in Atlanta, I wanted to try and make this soup for the No Croutons Required event this month over at the Tinned Tomatoes. Ever since I made a home made bouillon after reading about it here and here, I have been dying to make quick soups using it. Quick is exactly what this soup is - at least in terms of hands-on time.

While the Potato-leek soup idea fit the Allium theme at No Croutons Required very well, there was another inspiration. We first tried this soup at our favourite soup-and-salad buffet and loved it. It was mild and yet full of flavour, and particularly soothing during fall/winter. When I found a recipe for this soup in Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest (one of my favourite cookbooks), I decided that hot weather should not stop me. I modified her recipe slightly to suit my tastes.

Ingredients

2 large potatoes, scrubbed and diced
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced
4 C vegetable stock (with home made bouillon)
1/4 t dried thyme
1 C milk
1 t pepper, fresh ground
Salt to taste

Start by boiling the stock in a large soup pot. Add diced potatoes and sliced leeks. I peeled the potatoes, but I imagine with new red potatoes, one can leave the skins on. I discarded most of the dark green portions of the leeks since they were too tough. Boil the vegetables in the stock for about 30-40 min on medium heat, until they are tender. Allow it to cool and then puree. Add the thyme, pepper and the milk and reheat gently, not allowing it to boil. I didn't add salt since the bouillon base had plenty.

This soup was very quick and is completely oil/butter free! It tasted very similar to the one in the restaurant and that pleased me quite a bit.