GATS website

Recipes
(a collection of original/borrowed recipes for GATS members)

Aaloo Mattar Made Easy ( Mahadevan Ramesh) : Folks, in this post I will give you an 'aloo'grithm to make your very own pot of Aaloo Mattar, with a slight variation on the main recipe. For those of you who reckon Indian dishes in western terminologies, this is the same as Curried Potatoes and Peas in a creamy sauce with tomatoes and fresh coriander. It may sound a little odd for a South Indian to give the recipe for a typically North Indian dish - sort of like males trying to sing Meera Bhajans. But let the finger-licking results speak for themselves. Recipe

Kacca Channa (Kuram T Narayana) : In the good old days, many of our readers may have travelled on Southern expresss from Madras to Delhi. On the way, between Nagpur and Itarsi tribal villagers take a free ride selling kacca channa and Guava. The channa they sell is green and raw. They mildly heat the channa (with a coal pot), add onions, green chillies, and nimbu. During travel, the channa tastes excellent. Improvising on such channa is difficult. But channa, when served appropriately, goes excellently with beer, the divine drink of our andhra gaarus. The touching taste of chillies, the crispness of the onions, the mildly cooked brown channa, and the sourness of fresh nimbu all make the beer go down the throat causing a sublime ecstacy to our intellect. Your Gastronomy Rao, after considerable experimentation, has perfected the technique of making channa masaala of the Indian rail variety. Note that channa means indian channa, not chick peas. Here is the recipe. Recipe

Pineapple Curry (Ashokkumar Patel) : An Indian curry with some traditional vegetables and some new-world additions. An exotic, flavorful, yougurt dish, with crunchy nuts, spice and tropical fruit. Low in fat and high in fiber and carbohydrates. Recipe

Sandavai / Idiyappam with Tomato Kurma (Kay Canada) : Ooooh! Sandavai! I remember the fresh 'Eat-me-right-now' smell that comes when my mother steams the Idlis for making this kind of Idiyappam. I have no clue why, we, people from Kongu Naadu area of Tamilnadu, call it Sandavai, instead of the well known name, Idiyappam. This is not an everyday dish - It takes some time to prepare it and so it is usually a delicacy or a special-occasion dish. Many people make Idiyappams using different recipes, but you goto a house in Kongunaadu for Idiyappam, you'll know, the smell is totally different, because of the coconut and cardamom used while grinding the batter and while steaming it. Remember the 'Eat-me-right-now' smell? In our community, this is one dish, which HAS TO BE SERVED as the first meal, to the new bridegroom ('maapillai' in Tamil), when he goes to visit his in-laws, for the first time, after the wedding. It usually is a pain (you'll know why, soon) to make this special dish for a lot of people, but since it's just the two of us and since we both, are crazy Sandavai fans, we make it often. These days, I've been posting some 'Kongu cuisine' recipes, because I've been missing home crazily. Now, I guess, I'll just make this into a series of Kongu cuisine. I'm giving the recipe for 2. This recipe doubles, triples very well. :) Recipe

Eggs In Spicy Onion Sauce (Tina Jennifer D'Silva) : Original recipe by Maya Kaimal. I have just seemed to have fallen in love with her recipes. She brings beautiful dishes from the heart of Kerala & the kind of spice blend that she uses in her cooking makes the dish really unique in taste & look. Recipe

Ginger Ice Cream (Sanjiv Singh) : Ginger is not something I would normally think would go in an ice cream, but thanks to Dave Steier, I have been smacking my lips on this exotic, mock Chinese recipe from Barbara Tropp's book on Chinese cooking. Be warned that unless you have an ice cream maker, this recipe in non-trivial.You can buy the preserved ginger at an oriental store (there is an excellent brand made by Tung Chun Soy & Canning Co). Recipe

Neer Mor (Priya Balaji) : Can be made in a jiffy and a great thrist quencher! Recipe

Cocunut Milk Pulav (Sujatha Narayan) : Back home my mom prepares this coconut milk rice aka Thengaippal Satham with freshly extracted coconut milk and lots and lot of coriander leaves. No need to say, the coconut brings a wonderful taste to the food where the coriander leaves and a bit of garlic adds a nice aroma. Every time I go home for vacation, this will probably be the first dish my mom prepares for me, and then the other favorites follows. ; ) Recipe

OH, CALCUTTA: COCONUT SHRIMP by Lon Hall: This dish is adapted from "The Varied Kitchens of India" by Copeland Marks. Although it is a Bengali dish, from Calcutta, its complex mixture of hot and sweet flavors gives it a flavor much like the dishes of Indonesia. It is best made with very fresh shrimp, and it cooks astonishingly quickly. Recipe

Dabeli with Nimbu Soda by Ashwini: Reading about Bombay, the city I love (my home away from home) got me nostalgic about it's food. A typical Bombay snack could only mean vada-pav, but I opted out of deep frying and decided on Dabeli. Dabeli is originally a Kutchi/ Gujarati dish. Just as Bombay welcomes people from all over the country, so has it welcomed their food, and Dabeli is now a common snack sold on Bombay roads. It is also called Double Roti or Kutchi Dabeli and is an easier option to vada pav (though that dish has a very special place in my heart). Recipe

Paneer Jhalfrezi by Manisha: Enjoy this with naan. It's a colorful stir-fried dish that is very easy to put together. Recipe

Mixed Bean Tomato Rice by Meenakshi: It's mid-week. Which just means that energy levels of us regular 9-5 folk are slowly dying out. It's also raining heavily out side, which means that a warm comfort meal ranks high on the wish-list! The simple solution - a one pot meal warming enough to drive away those heebee-jeebees. One pot meals are a great way on saving time when it's called for. Sometimes all you want and need to do is put everything but the kitchen sink into one big pot and hope that it forms into something delectable. One pot meals are also a great way fo rme to clean up my fridge of leftovers. Many a times, I've added any vegetable within arms reach into a thick hearty stew. But not today. I wasn't in the mood for soup or stew. True, it's droopy and cold out, but that just makes me crave for a huge helping of warm flavoured rice. A can of mixed beans, some left-over rice and a bag of cherry tomatoes struck a cord in my head. And then. everything was good again! Recipe

Milagu Kuzhambu by Satish Ramachandran: Milagu kuzhambu is a South Indian dish that has never made it to the many cookbooks that dot the horizon. Folklore and tradition dictate that it be made and served when one is recovering from fever or if the weather is very cold (as it sometimes gets in the hills there) - possibly coz pepper is supposed to "warm up the body". Recipe

Mint Chutney by Satish Ramachandran: Puthina is mint (in Tamil, I think). Thogayal is a paste whose closest approximation is a dip (though it is coarser and more solid than a dip) - it is traditionally had with plain rice with some kuzhambu (often spinach-based). Recipe

Uppuma by Meenal Mehta: Indeed, every south Indian woman will impart a small difference in flavour when making her Upma. This variation is obtained by varying or emphasising some particular spice, thereby making for variation. Apart from rava,upma is widely made with vermicelli and cous-cous also. These dishes are sometimes not regarded as being Upma, and are known in many regions by other names. Recipe

Parrupu Urundai Kulambu by Shalini: Parrupu Urundai Kulambu one of my fav. kulambu but I had always thought it was a very time consuming kulambu and never tried it. Today i got up a little early than the usual and was bored with regular sambars and kulambus and wanted to make this for a change. Wow what a surprise, it consumes lesser time than any other kulambu!... Recipe

[to be continued ...]