To eat or not to

Last summer I decided to stop having chicken not completely but cut down as much as possible, I allowed myself to have a chicken dimsum/wantons that I made myself at home but other than that I mostly ate fish, lentils and vegetables. Summer in Sweden is awesome for vegetarians we get all kinds of greens and greens I like starting from hangam (mustard leaves), leibak kundo (purslane),  amaranth, methi leaves and many other varieties of greens we eat in Manipur.

One of the most interesting greens I found was leibak kundo, a vegetable not commonly known to even fellow manipuris. My mother once made kangsoi with some nga ayaiba (smoked fish) and I still remembered the taste, from my days in The Hague I knew that it is available in Turkish vegetable  stores but here I buy it from stoles owned by people from Arabic speaking background. One can even make kanghou with come potatoes and leibak kundo but kangsoi taste the best.

It is much easier to stick to a meat less diet in summer but I do need my daily does of fish and Sweden is Salmon heaven  :) thanks to the neighbouring country Norge we get both farmed and wild caught salmons but also several varieties of sea food.  I was anyways never a fan of meat and since the only meat I ate was chicken it was easy to give it up and for some weird reason whenever I used to cook chicken it used to taste horrible so I stopped cooking chicken long time back. My husband makes really yummy chicken but I normally eat just the gravy.

With summer on the way I plan to continue my meat less diet and some interesting recipes will be uploaded soon.

Purslane (Leibak kundo)

Steamed Pak-choy with Black Bean paste

Steamed Pak choy with Black bean paste

Inspired by the steamed baby Pak Choy I had at Yauatcha last week, I bought some Pak Choy from Foodhall and tried my version of the same. It was not as good as the one I had but considering it was my first attempt it was good.

Recipe:

Ingredients;
1. 4-5 Pak Choy
2. 3-4 Garlic clove
3. Spring onion (optional)
4. Black bean paste
5. Light Soya Sauce ( Preferably  Kikkomon)

Method:

1. Clean and wash the Pak choy and remove the outer leaves use only the tender part.
2. Chop the garlic and spring onion, mix it with 2 tbsp of Soya sauce, 2 tbsp of water  and Black bean paste. Take a big bowl and coat the Pak Choy with the mix.
3. Take out about 1/2 a mt of aluminium foil and arrange the Pak Choy neatly. Cover it well and place the parcel on the heat proof plate of the steamer. Steam for 10-15 mins.
4. Let the parcel cool for 5 mins and take out your best plate and serve hot :)

Comfort Food- 1 Thambou Singju

Thambou Singju

Recently I met my dear fren 'CT' and the first thing she said was 'Why did you never made singju for me?'. I laughed and said because I never had the right ingredients while we were in Hague but I promised that I will make it for her very soon once I procure all the ingredients including Thambou and even Thoiding. We make different kind of singju (Manipuri salad mixed with herbs, chillies and sometimes with Ngari) but Thambou Singju reminds me of my childhood and the uncountable times I have had this comfort food with Aloo-saak, the combination of these two item was lethal, it still is :).

Thambou or Kamal Kakdi (in hindi) is available in many vegetable market in Delhi most of the vegetable stalls/shops in INA Market stock Thambou and even my neighborhood vegetable vendor sells it, in fact INA market sells almost all the Manipuri vegetables, which make me double happy whenever I visit the market. Before making it for 'CT' I decided to make it for myself and it was quite good. The recipe is below:

Ingredients:

1. Thambou (Kamal Kakdi/Lotus Root)

2.Cabbage

3.Spring onion

4. Toningkhok (Houttuynia cordata- Roots and leaves)

5. Thoiding asuba

6. Besan (Lightly roasted)

7.Chili 

8.Salt to taste

Steps:

• Finely (as fine as possible) chop the cabbage,spring onion, Toningkhok and thinly slide the Thambou.
• In a plate/bigger bowl mix the chili with salt and add the chopped vegetables, mix the ingredients well and add Thoiding and Besan, mix all the ingredients again and garnish with coriander leaves (optional). 

Enjoy the super healthy and yummy Singju. 

Cooking revived :)

After more then a month of living in The Hague I am back to my cooking spree again, I've started to enjoy cooking as m finally settled and that for me means....finding the exact store/place to buy things I want to cook, having good pots & pans for cooking and a neat kitchen. The Albert Heijn XL at my neighborhood has almost everything I need and also the "Open Market"  @ Herman Costerstraat, sells things which even Albert Heijn doesn't sell........Hanggam, Green chillies, fresh fish & prawns, crabs to mentions few of the items from Open Market n also its almost half the price.. The Indian store "India Gate" near the Open market is where we get all the dal, masala's, sweets and roti's.

Coming back to cooking, the other day I decided to make Chole (Chickpea Curry) but ended up making something else....I was in no mood to make an elaborate dinner so made a quick and easy dish. I am still confused about what to call the dish but nonetheless it was yumm. The recipe is below:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup boiled chickpea.
• 1/2 cup boiled corn.
• 1 Onion.
• 4-5 Green Chilies
• 1 Tomato
• Olive Oil
• Salt to taste 
• Chile Powder (Optional)

Method:

• Chop the onion, green chillies and tomato.
• In a non stick frying pan, heat some olive oil and fry the chopped onion, green chilies and the tomato's.
• Add the boiled corn and Chickpea & fry for another 5 mins. Mix the ingredients together, add salt to taste. Add some chili powder on top. 
• Serve hot with garlic bread. 

Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

I am on a cooking spree these days, and m really into Thai Cuisine, yesterday I made Thai style Mango & Onion salad with fish sauce...me and my husband had it with Deep Fried Red snippier fish... it was not as good as we expected it to be. Just two days back we saw this programme in TLC- Planet Food  the programme was about Thailand cuisine  hosted by Merriless Parker and were totally hooked on to it till the end of the show...it was a late nite show so the next morning  me and my husband decided to make some of the dishes...we went to the Spar supermarket and bought all the ingredients to make Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk...after google searching for the correct recipe and after tweaking it to suit our taste  we made it for lunch today and it was  really...really  yumm....the rating according to my husband is 8/10 which is not at all bad for a first amateuresh attempt. Try it if you love Thai food.

Ingredients

• 500 gm chicken (curry pieces)
• 3-4 tbsp red curry paste
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 Onion (finely chopped)
• 100 ml coconut cream
• 200 ml coconut milk
• 200 ml/1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp fish sauce.
• 10-12 cubes of brinjal (optional)
• 3-4 spring onions( finely chopped.)

Method:

• Take a Kadhai (non stick kadhai) and heat it ,add coconut cream to the hot kadhai. Add the red curry paste and mix it well with the coconut cream cook for 2-3 mins.
•  Add the chicken & cook for 15-20 mins on low flame till the chicken is tender.
• Add the coconut milk, chicken stock  & bring to the boil, cook on low flame and simmer.
• Add fish sauce, spring onion & salt to taste.
• Serve hot with plain rice. (  We had it Manipuri Rice yum yum...)

Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

 Serve hot with Manipuri Rice

Beautiful n healthy Palak (Palak Kangsoi)

The other day I went too 'Lakechowmuni Market' to buy veggies, a vendor was selling beautiful palak...it was green...fresh and tempted me so much that I ended up buying half a kg of it. I made palak Kangsoi with potato's and nga-ayaiba for dinner, its easy to cook Palak Kangsoi the only thing we need to remember is that  to add Palak at the end and here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg (500 gms) Fresh Palak.
• 2 Medium size potato's.
• 1 Onion
• 3 Garlic Clove.
• 1/2 inch Ginger.
• 4-5 Green Chillies.
• Ngari.
• Salt to taste.
• Nga-Ayaiba (Smoked fish)

Method:

• Boil 2 cups of water in a pressure cooker/sauce pan and add chopped onion, garlic, green chillies, ginger in the boiling water. 
• Add Ngari and cube potato's and cook till the potato's are done.
• Add Nga-Ayaiba and add salt. Cook for 10 mins in low flame.
• Add Palak and cover it for 2-3 mins.

Palak gets cooked real fast so remember not to cook it for more than 2-3 mins. Serve hot with Rice.

Palak

Lafuu Tharoo Eromba

Lafuu Tharoo (Banana Flower)is one of my all time fav. veggie. I like Lafuu Tharoo Paknam (Meitei Version of Pancake), Lafuu Tharoo Eromba and best of all is the lafuu tharoo bora (Pakora).Thankfully it's available through out the year here in Agartala and I normally make Eromba as its more convinent and easier. The recipe is simple:

- Make round slices of Lafuu Tharoo and pressure cook it with potato's and dried red chillies.
- Prepare a paste of steamed/Roasted Ngari, Chillies, salt and fried fish.
- Mash the boiled ingredients and mix it with the paste. Add water if required.

Lafuu Tharoo eromba is supposed to have medicinal qualities, it helps our internal system get quickly adapted to change of climate while travelling from one place to another. My mom always prepare this eromba when we go home for holiday and for some reason I can never make eromba as good as my mom's.

Poha for breakfast

I never used to like Poha (Cheng-paak in Meiteilon), it reminds me so much of the TISS, DH evening snacks. They used to make it so horribly, I don’t knw how the cooks at TISS, DH  prepare food....everything tasted the same which in short was “BAD”. I don't know how we survived those 2 yrs.

Coming back to Poha, one fine morning out of the blue I decided to make Poha for breakfast and as usual with few of my own additions. I was not surprised when it turned out so yummy that since then I normally have Poha for breakfast on most Sundays. Making Poha is easy the only issue is with chopping the veggies... its time consuming... so I normally have it on Sundays or holidays only.

Poha

Ingredients:

• 1 Onion, chopped.
• 4-5 Green chilies, slit and chopped
• 1 Potato finely made into small cubes.
• 1 cup fried/roasted peanuts
• Few Curry leaves
• 2 tbsp Oil
• Turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• 2 Cups of good quality Poha (Socked for few mins and the water drained )


Method
•On a non stick pan add 2 tbsp oil. Heat it for 2 mins.
•Add the chopped onion and fry for 3-5 or till it turns golden brown.
•Add the small cubed potatoes, green chilies, tomato and fry for 8-10 mins on low flame or till the potato’s are cooked.
•On a separate pan, fry the curry leaves and add the fried curry leaves  in the pan after the potatos are cooked.
•Add turmeric powder, roasted peanuts, salt and mix it well, fry for another 5 mins.
•Add the socked poha and mix it with the fried ingredients.


Serve hot with a Tea or coffee.
Cooking Time: 25 MinsServes: 3-4 

Interesting Salad

Trying to lose the extra weight (in my case it's accumulated over a period of 5 years) requires dedication, self control and sabse jaruri hai guts. Technically it's my first month on my attempt to lose alot of weight and I have realized that I have very little self control when it comes to good food, when I pass the area of fast food stalls on my way back from office I feel they are all calling me...you knw how it was with the girl in the film "Confessions of a Shopaholic"...it's exactly like that. I literally have to calm myself down and tell myself that "CHILL LADY...THAT FOOD IS NOT FOR YOU" urghhhh me and food...janam,janam ka rishta hai.

The thing about eating "HEALTHY" is that...all "HEALTHY" food are the most boring in this world so I decided to take the take the boringness out of my "HEALTHY" food and make it interesting. I made myself a very yummy sprouts and rajma salad for dinner, I remember having it last year at Golconda Resorts-Hyderabad but my salad was a lil different, the main ingredients:

a) 1 Cup boiled rajma and kabuli chana.
b) 1 Cup chana and whole moong dal sprout.
c) 1 Tomato chopped.
d) 1 onion thinly chopped.
e) 1 medium size cucumber finely chopped.
f) Chaat masala
g) Salt to taste
h) Olive oil (optional)

I mixed all the ingredients and added some chaat masala on top. It tastes real good and it's super light on stomach. One may lighty fry the Chana and moong dal sprouts if you don't like the raw taste of sprouts.

On diet and diet food

I don't remember the last time I bought myself an "S" size t-shirt...for the past 5 years or since the time I started looking like winner of "Miss I am FAT Contest" I have been buying "L" or "XL" size cloths for myself. My mother gets a heart attack everytime I go home and demand to have all the good food...Ooti Thongba, Nga thongba, Chicken, Soibum Iromba, Singju, bora, Keli channa and the list goes on..its my mother who loses her cool and she thinks half of her gray hair is because of me... which of course is not true(mumma I knw you are not reading this so I can write watever I want lol).

About 4 yrs back I gained alot of weight and that gave my mom and everyone I knew a shock...so I decided to lose some weight and after serious dieting n some bit of exercise I lost 9 kgs in 2 months....but that was 4 yrs back and I am again back to being a potential candidate for "Miss I am FAT contest". I enjoy cooking and eating so much that whenever I see good food I just forget that I am fat and the worst is I don't even feel guilty of eating...oops over eating.

Now after enjoying all kinds of food at famous and not so famous places in the country I have decided to stop over eating and go on diet for two months. I realized "not eating" requires alot of disciple and dedication, to avoid the temptation and to say "NO" to food needs alot of guts...atleast for me. I feel funny writing about "NOT EATING" on my food and travel blog but I also know that if I do not control now, I will have to regret later. I am trying my best to eat healthy these days and I hope I will lose some weight with "THE KIND OF FOOD" m having. Its painful to avoid all the good food but lemme try once more and lose 9 kgs.

Stir Fried Veggies

My trip to Delhi is always full of food...shopping and some more food. This time it was more of food and less of shopping...but we did go to Sarojini market (how can I avoid a trip to Sarojini...its the ultimate shopper’s paradise).This time I was invited to my fren “A’s” aunt house and made some really good mixed veg. subzi and we went to my fav. restaurant in Delhi "Nanking" at Vasant Kunj, the food was awesome and as usual I ended up eating much more then I could have ate in a whole week.....we had this stir fried beans and that gave me some great idea abt making stir fried veggies at home, so I bought loads of green veggies which are normally not available in Agartala, like Brocolli, spring onions, button mushroom, corn and few other things like cheddar cheese, oyster sauce and yeah...chicken pickles. I made this really yummy stir fried veggies and gawd it was heaven….I was using oyster sauce for the first time…though I am not cooking often these days….all thanks to the March end blues...which has kept me so busy and also in this heat and humid weather, my kitchen becomes a room oven.

The stir fried veggies was simple to cook…it was 15 mins effort, healthy and really yummy. If only the ingredients were available here..I could have made this often.

Parantha oh yeah I can make Parantha

Despite all my love for cooking, experimenting for new dishes in my modest kitchen, I never tried making parantha first of all coz m not a very roti person, I prefer having rice then roti so it never occured to me that I shd attempt making parantha or plain roti. On my last monthly grocery shopping, I bought a packet of Aashirwad Atta aise he, maine socha thoda rice kaam khati hun and roti banana sikhti hun so finally last weekend I attempted making puri, roti and yeah Parantha that too my fav. aloo ka parantha and my heaven....it turned out quite good, the puri's were super soft and roti's yummy, I was so damn impressed with myself that last weekend I had puri, parantha & roti. I used to get bored thinking of kneeling the dough but now I've become very good, abhi muli and gobi parantha banane ka plan hai....m super excited thinking abt it.

I still prefer rice over roti but plan chapatti is a better option compared to rice, I realized its less messy in terms of making the subzi coz with rice I tend to make abt 3 dishes and with roti I can have just dal, roti and some achar. Y'day I had those parantha with ooti and trust me the combination is lethal.

Recipe-Mixed vegetable

Mixed vegetable my style:

The above pics. looks very yummy hai nah...lekin jitna yummy dikhta hai usse bhi jyada yummy hai yeh...sachi...my boss feels I am the Manipuri version of Kylie Kwong...I think she was just trying to be good to me....but I was mighty happy with the comments...meh and Kylie Kwong waooo...mera sapna pura hogaya...hehehe jokes apart this mixed vegetable is tried, tested, liked by all my frens/family and now my boss...so here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
-One medium size Phul gobi (kobi lei in Meiteilon)
-2 Gajjar
-200 gms peas.
-2 medium size potato.
-2 tomato's.
- 100 gm French beans.
-4-5 green chillies
-Coriander leaves.
-3-4 Spring onion.
-one small size garlic.
-1 medium size onion
-1/2 tbsp Turmeric.
-Red chillies powder for color.
-Salt to taste
Method:
-Chop all the veggies and remember to make big pieces of Phul Gobi.
-Take a non stick pan, add 1& 1/2 tbsp refined oil.
-Add the chopped garlic and fry till it turns light brown.
-Add the chopped onion and fry for 3-4 mins.
-Add the slit and chopped green chillies.
-Add the potato cubes and stir it well. Cover the pan and cook on medium flame for 8-10 mins.
-Add the peas,gajar,chopped tomato & french beans, stir it well and cover the pan.
-Add the cauliflower after 5 mins.
-After cooking for 10-15 mins add turmeric and chillie powder.
-Cook till the potato is done.
-Add salt and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Serve hot with chapati/rice.

Chicken soup for my soul

I once tried making chicken soup when I was in delhi.....the result....TOTAL DIASTER...I added so many things that it turned into some kind of weird "kangsoi" ....that was then..many years back and now I guess I've turned quite a pro. when it comes to cooking..... I made chicken soup this time and the recipe was simple...I boiled some chicken...the left over from making chicken boneless, the recipe..super simple:

-2-3 chicken pieces, Two cups of water and add lil salt and red Chile flacks to it.

-Two whistles in the pressure cooker.

-Once done let the chicken stock cool.

- Added thinly chopped french beans, raddish (gajar) and shredded chicken....when it comes to a boil....add paste of corn flour and at the end..salt to taste and black pepper powder...yummy...the soup is ready...I enjoyed this meal alot...when I am not hungry and still want to make my food interesting.....next time I'll add some mushroom also...m sure it'll taste awesome...