Indulge at Restore | Restore by Nandi
Author

Nandi Shah

Browsing
Blog

Method: Worth Its Weight In Gold – Coconut Oil

By

The coconut series continues with something a little different this time: coconut oil! Yes, the oil that most of us are used to purchasing can indeed be made not just at home, but even in a city like Chennai, as long as you have coconut trees around. With about a dozen coconut trees at home, and a reliable coconut harvester who was willing to visit, I collected a big batch of coconuts and embarked on my next adventure.

I’m going through a phase where I feel like I want to learn everything there is to know about food and cooking. Nowadays, when I hear about someone making a special jam or baking a new kind of cake, I experience FOMO (“fear of missing out”). Maybe this comes from having been very naughty as a child, and never focusing on my studies then – at least, that’s what I jokingly say to my kids each time they’re surprised to hear that I’ve taken up a new course or have signed up for some workshop. But I believe in challenging myself and growing. I want to be more self-reliant, and discover new things. Even though it’s impossible to truly learn, let alone master, every single possible recipe or method out there, I feel an urge to try. So when my friend Sujata told me that she had successfully made her own coconut oil, I immediately went, “OMG, I want to do this too!” My motivation was perfectly-timed, as the trees were ripe for harvest just then.

Coconut oil is only one of the many ways that the different parts of the bountiful coconut tree can be used. As I create this series for the blog, I’ve been reflecting on the versatility of the tree in its entirety, even though I’m personally only using its fruits. For instance, I recall how when I was growing up, there was a lady who would come home sometimes, take a knife, sit outside with some coconut tree fronds and use a knife to craft a broom (“thodapam” in Tamil) whenever a new one was needed. I’d watched this process many times over the years. Wherever the tree grows, the shells are used as utensils and even as a charcoal replacement, the husks to fashion ropes out of, the leaves in weaving and thatching, the flowers in herbal medicine, and so on. The edible flesh and water aren’t the only good things to come from this amazing tree.

What follows is more of a method than a recipe as such, and what is produced as a result will be a beautiful and versatile ingredient that you can use in everything from food to beauty essentials. Coconut oil is a staple in South India, used for everything from improving hair health to daily frying needs. It’s also something that has attracted the attention of beauty and health enthusiasts internationally. The latest trend I’ve read about is to have a spoonful of pure coconut oil in the mornings, as this is said to be good for the brain. What I will do in this post is walk you through my own process of preparing coconut oil, and my learnings from the same.

In order to prepare your own coconut oil, you’ll need: coconuts, access to a cold pressery, and space to sun-dry. There are many places in Chennai that do cold-pressing, and it should be possible for you to find a unit near you wherever you are.

The first step is to harvest the coconuts, of course. Then, they are peeled and chopped into smaller pieces (they will need to be small enough to feed to the cold pressing unit). The flesh is left to sun-dry for between four and seven days, depending on the coconut. You will know that it’s done when you press it with your thumb and it releases a little bit of oil.

Next, the dried pieces are sent to the cold pressery. I wanted to supervise the process to ensure that there was no dilution of any sort. The unit where I had my coconut oil made used a lovely old machine made of wood and canvas. I put in about 20 kilos of coconuts and got back about about half as much in raw oil.

The process doesn’t end there, however. This huge container of oil I came home with then had to be dried again, so that residual moisture from the coconut flesh gets evaporated. What you have to do at this stage is to pour it out into flat pans, and allow these to dry in the sun for anywhere between three and five days. You will know that it is done when all the dust particles settle at the bottom, and the raw smell goes away. This being my first time making my own oil, I was not sure whether the final product was less fragrant than the store-bought versions because I hadn’t let the coconut pieces dry long enough, or simply because they were free of artificial additives. Either way, once the oil completed the drying stage, it was ready to use. I couldn’t help but marvel at the result.

And there you have it: coconut oil that you can be sure is free of contamination, preservatives or any other issue that may come with commercially-produced brands. I can’t tell you what a delight it is to have your very own cold-pressed coconut oil. That’s something that you must experience for yourself, and if you can, please do.

Embarking on this little adventure was very rewarding for me, but the thing about my FOMO and subsequent hunger to do more is that sometimes experiments don’t turn out as expected. Whenever this happens, I always tell myself that it’s okay, and that I can focus on what I know I do well and can take pride in. For instance, expanding my repertoire of cakes is something that I am really keen to do, and I’m constantly exploring new recipes and whipping up trial batches. You may have seen the new additions I made to the menu recently, and it’s been really wonderful to prepare your orders for this festive season too.

I would even go as far as to say that I like to show off a little with each successful experiment, but when I share how I did it, I pass on that sense of achievement to you. It’s so exciting to have something that is all handmade, and made to order just for you. I’ve been sharing the oil from my coconut trees with very dear friends in glass jars, so in addition to being used at home both in cooking and in grooming, they’ve also become perfect for gifting this year.

I’d love to know if you try out preparing your own coconut oil based on my own experiment here. I’d also love to know how you use it. I am sure that you will find, as I have, that making your own batch of coconut oil is worth its weight in gold.

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: A Coconut Condiment – Coconut Podi

By

I’ve spoken often about how I love growing many of my own ingredients, whether at home or on our farm. I’m excited about sharing this new series about one that is a staple in so many dishes here, and which I’m fortunate to have a lovely homegrown supply of. That hero ingredient is the coconut, and over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing several recipes that star it. We have our own coconut trees in the backyard, and I am always looking for ways to put the yield to use. The coconut climber came by recently, to harvest the trees, and from this abundance of crop I’m making as many things as I can. For any recipe at all that calls for coconut, I use a fresh one. Even coconut milk is squeezed at home.

Kicking off this series is a condiment, coconut podi. Condiments are popular across Indian cuisines, and South India has a fair share. Dry podis (“podi” means “powder” in Tamil) and wet chutneys, as well as semi-wet, semi-dry variations are made using a variety of spices, dals and ingredients like curry leaves, raw mangoes and more. The idli podi, for instance, is made to last long. Coconut is not an ingredient that can be be kept for that long, so this one has a shorter shelf life. But I can almost guarantee that you’ll reach out so often for it that your stock won’t expire. If made correctly, this coconut podi remains fresh for around 3-4 weeks, stored at room temperature.

One of the reasons why I was especially keen to make a coconut condiment is that I personally love the Sri Lankan sambol, and wanted to see if I could make a vegetarian version of sorts. While sambol uses seafood, I feel this recipe is similar. Like sambol, this podi is not a finely-ground one, and has many tiny coconut pieces. My friend Akila also encouraged me to try this experiment out, and she was happy to share her own basic coconut podi recipe. I’m always aware that different communities and families have their own ways of making the same recipe.

With Akila’s recipe as a base, layered with things I learnt from other recipes I’ve tastes over the years, and finally through speaking with various families to retain some kind of local authenticity, I added my own touches: tamarind and curry leaves.

While I was growing up, we often ate some kind of podi mixed with ghee and rice. It was the perfect impromptu go-to in case the day was too busy to prepare a curry or a dal, and I still reach out for this for the same reason. This podi is also delicious with a bit of ghee and a dosa, or to add flavour to yoghurt. One of the great things about any podi is that it tends to be easy to carry to work, since it won’t cause a mess or have a strong smell in one’s lunch carrier, whereas a curry might.

It smells divine as it roasts, however. The morning that I made this coconut podi, using those freshly-harvested coconuts, my whole home was filled with the most beautiful aroma as it was being prepared. Everyone wanted to have it for breakfast, immediately, lured by that fragrance. I wonder if the same thing will happen in your home!

Coconut Podi

(Yield: 2 cups)

1 cup fresh coconut (shredded)

2 tablespoons urad dal

2 teaspoons sesame oil

¼ teaspoon asafoetida

2 -3 dry red chillies

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

Salt to taste

6-8 curry leaves

1 marble-sized ball of tamarind

 

Add oil to a pan. Once it has heated, add the asafoetida, urad dal, mustard seeds, tamarind, red chillies and curry leaves.  Roast until the urad dal turns golden. Set aside.

In the same pan, dry-roast the coconut on a low flame, using just a few drops of oil, until it turns reddish in colour. Set aside.

Use a spoon to remove only the urad dal from the earlier mixture. Coarsely blend the remaining ingredients together, adding salt. Use a blender, and keep it at room temperature. Once a coarse blend is achieved, add the urad dal and blend everything again. The reason for adding the dal only at the end is so that there is a bit of crunch in the podi. You’ll see what I mean when you taste it!

You may also want to add just a pinch of jaggery to this recipe, if you’d like to enhance the flavour with some sweetness. That was an element I used in some trials of mine, and ultimately eliminated from my final version. If you’d like to, you can eliminate the curry leaves too. It all depends on what combination of spice, sweetness and tang (which comes in this case from tamarind) you most enjoy.

Store at room temperature, and enjoy with dosa, idly, rice, roti or any combination you prefer.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more coconut-ty goodies, from anytime staples to festive specials. Please do subscribe to this blog, so that you’ll know as soon as a new post goes up! Don’t forget to let me know in the comments what you think of the recipes, too. As always, I love hearing from you about how you’ve translated my recipes to suit your own tastes!

 

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Navaratri Happiness – Handvo

By

Handvo is a savoury cake made with lentils, from the Gujarati repertoire. Growing up, I would see it being made by my mother in the traditional way: in the backyard, she would prepare it in a heavy-bottomed brass pot placed on charcoal. She would pour the batter – containing lentils, rice and vegetables – into the vessel, then cover it with a heavy iron lid and let it cook. This was how it was made in most Gujarati homes back then. The funny thing is that although I enjoyed watching the elaborate process outside the kitchen, I found the dish itself quite boring. My mother had given herself a culinary education, learning baking and international cooking styles at a time when such classes were considered unusual, and as a child, I much preferred the foreign dishes she was learning to whip up. Over time, my appreciation for traditional cuisine blossomed, and this is why I am sharing the recipe for this handvo today, during the auspicious period of Navaratri.

I recall that my mother would make a large pot of handvo only about once a month or so. She would bake it in the evening and we would have it fresh for dinner, with the leftovers becoming our breakfast. The baked handvo comes out looking like a cake in height and shape, with a beautiful crust on top, which as kids we prized and fought over (for a dish I had thought dull, that was my favourite part!). So our mother had to divide it equally amongst us all. During Navaratri, however, handvo became our nightly staple. There’s no real link to the festival itself, except that this was my mother’s go-to during that very busy time of year. Even though the process seemed complicated to a watching child, it is actually a simple one-pot meal. It’s also lovely to have during the monsoon season, which usually coincides with the festival.

For us, Navaratri meant having a quick dinner and then heading out for the garba, a wonderful celebration that my siblings and I looked forward to with great anticipation. In those days, those nine nights of dancing, feasting and prayer were one of the major highlights of the calendar for us Gujaratis in Chennai. No more than 50 to 70 families would get together over the nine nights, and some of these families we’d only get to meet annually, so it was a very special occasion for the whole community. I remember how the fathers would be responsible for blocking the hall and all the event logistics, while the mothers would make the prasad  for the Goddess. Each evening would begin with a prayer, followed by the distribution of prasad, and then… the moment most of us would be waiting for: the dancing would begin. First, the women would begin dancing in a circle. Then, the children would come in, and finally everyone else would join. There would be competitions too, and I would always win a prize.

Garbas and dandiya these days don’t bear much resemblance to how they used to be while I was growing up. Now, they are just another party. The ones in my memory were very graceful and traditional, with a sense of propriety. The whole family used to be involved in those days, and the occasion was about keeping our culture alive. Even the little love affairs and marriages that used to come out of these events all happened under the watch of the parents, and with their blessings. Everything was about a sense of family and community back then, and I cherish those memories. Something about the handvo, which always preceded those evenings of fun, invokes them for me.

There are many varieties of handvo, which use different kinds of grains and dals based on what is in season; warmer grains like bajra are used in winters, while lighter rice and millets are used in summers. Rice leftover from lunch is also used, as are seasonal vegetables, the most common of which is the bottle gourd.

Over the years, the brass pot in the backyard kind of disappeared, and nowadays we see handvos being made in casseroles and glass containers that can be stuck in the oven. This year, I’m making my handvo the same way too, especially as I know that this is how most of you will try out this recipe. In fact, I felt tempted to modernise the method a step further and try out a batch in my waffle pan, as well! (If you’re one of those cooks who uses such tricks-of-the-eye to convince your fussy eaters at home to eat simply and well, this may be something to try out too!)

There are a few other keynotes that make my re:store style handvo distinct from the traditional kind. Firstly, I’ve eliminated the usage of rice, so as to ensure that the dish is carb-free. Most importantly, rather than bake a single large cake-like handvo and cut it into pieces, I’ve experimented with preparing individual portions, similar to dosas or crepes. I find that making the handvo in this method makes the cooking process easier and faster. The fermenting and soaking still require a day’s advance planning (unless you use readymade dal powders), but the actually frying up happens much faster than baking.

Handvo

(Yield: For 3-4 people)

1 cup toor dal

¼ cup urad dal

¼ cup moong dal

½ cup channa dal

¼ cup dahi + 2 teaspoons lemon juice

¾ cup grated bottle gourd (+ optional methi leaves)

¼ cup coriander leaves

2 teaspoons oil

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon green chili paste

½ teaspoon ginger paste

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt to taste

 

Tempering:

2 teaspoons oil

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

½ teaspoon sesame seeds

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

½ teaspoon carom seeds

A few curry leaves

 

Clean the dals and soak them in sufficient water for 5-6 hours.

After this, remove the water and blend the dals coarsely. Add the dahi and lemon juice. Allow to rest for 3-5 hours.

Once the soaking and fermentation processes are completed, add the vegetable of your choice and the remaining spices to the batter. While I’ve made the batter from scratch, you may wish to use readymade dal powders instead.

Heat the oil in a flat pan. Add all the different seeds. Wait till they splutter and then add some curry leaves. Immediately, add 2 cups of the batter. Spread it a little, as you would a thick dosa or uthappam, then lower the flame. Cover the pan with a lid. Allow to cook for about 5-7 minutes. Now open the lid, and be careful as it would have trapped a lot of steam. Flip the handvo. Repeat the same process on this side.

After the handvo cooks and turns golden on both sides, remove it from the pan and make the next one. Cut into pieces and serve with green chutney or sweet mango pickle.

Over a few trials, this was the easiest method of preparing handvo that I discovered. You may of course choose to bake it instead. In that case, put all the batter in a bake-proof bowl. In a small pan, sauté the oil and seeds. Once they splutter, use a spoon to gently drizzle the tempering evenly on top of the batter. Bake at 160°C for half an hour, then slice and serve with the condiments.

The days of brass pots in the backyard and wholesome garba gatherings may have gone by, but the great thing about food is that it lets you keep making new memories. I wish you and your loved ones an auspicious Navaratri. I’d love to know if my easy, uthappam-inspired handvo finds a place in your festivities!

View Post
By
Blog

New On The Menu, This Festive Season

By

This year is one during which the festive season is probably going to be a little different than it usually is. This means that every special occasion is all the more precious, and I know you’ll be choosing the treats and goodies you’ll share with your family with extra care. With this in mind, I’ve been working hard in the kitchen, conducting trials and perfecting new products to add to the re:store menu.

I’m delighted to share that in addition to all your favourites, re:store now has: luscious Persian love cake, addictive almond brittle, charming red velvet cake, and finally, the outstanding sugar-free hazelnut date protein balls (an upgrade on a bestseller you may be familiar with).

I hope you’ll drop me a line with your orders soon. re:store is based in Chennai, but muesli deliveries have been made all over the country and beyond. Please take a look at the complete list of products on the re:store menu and get in touch. I look forward to helping you make your celebrations sweeter!

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Tic-Tac-Taco – Indian Tacos

By

If you’ve been following this blog even for a short while, you’ll know that we are huge fans of Mexican cuisine in my home – both authentic and Indianised, or should I say re:store-ised, versions. This Mexican-inspired Buddha bowl is one example of how these flavours are enjoyed by my family. I’m very happy in my own world of fusion tastes, and am always on the lookout for how to make simple meals more enticing. I happened to come across a photo of Indian-style tacos, but without a recipe, and this inspired me to come up with my own. One day, I had some leftover roti dough, and had the brainwave of putting them to use in this way. The soft taco shells were therefore made by hand, and the entire recipe was made from scratch.

If you think about it, there are already plenty of versions of Indian tacos out there. The kati rolls that are a very popular form of street food fit the bill. They’re perfect for eating on the go, and fit easily into office and school lunch packs. While those are rolled, these tacos are open-faced. I’ve chosen to fill them with two Gujarati staples: potato sabzi, and a salad called kachumber. Where Mexican tacos use red bean paste, I’ve opted for a sweet mango pickle. The overall effect is a fun, international twist on simple Indian cooking.

This is a recipe that lends itself to variety. Replace the pickle with another that you prefer. You may want a spicy or tangy one, if you don’t have a sweet tooth. Substitute the potatoes for a different filling of your choice. Make a Jain version without potatoes or onions. Eliminate the Greek yoghurt dressing and make it vegan. Simply consider the recipe below as a base for your own versatile experiments.

I’ll let you in on a secret… We have a Mexican dinner night every week at home, with crispy tacos and other dishes that veer towards the slightly more authentic (although, as I explained in my Buddha bowl series, authenticity isn’t what I aspire to as much as sheer enjoyment is). I thought that this soft shell version would be a great way to serve a traditional Gujarati meal without anyone thinking that it’s boring. It’s so very delicious no matter if you eat it in a taco or a thali, but the appeal of food so often comes down to presentation. This is why, in addition to the plain rotis and the yellow theplas, I also tried out a roti made with spinach purée for an attractive green appearance. We all need a burst of colour now and then to get us going, and for me, cooking has always been something that fulfills this need – beautifully!

Indian Tacos

(Yield: 6-8 tacos)

 

Taco Shell

Theplas or rotis (recipes here)

Pickle of your choice (I like to use a sweet grated mango pickle), or a sauce of your choice

 

Potato filling

200 grams boiled potatoes

3 tablespoons oil

3-4 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons finely chopped onions

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 finely chopped green chilli

Salt to taste

 

Kachumber

¾ cup finely chopped onions

1 cup finely chopped tomatoes

1 cup finely chopped cucumber

2 tablespoons finely cut coriander leaves

1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 finely chopped green chilli

Salt to taste

 

Greek yoghurt

1 cup yoghurt

2 cloves finely crushed garlic

6-8 finely cut mint leaves

Salt to taste

 

Paneer

½ cup grated paneer

 

Mash the boiled potatoes coarsely with your hand while they are still warm.

Heat a pan and add the oil. Once the oil is heated, add the cumin seeds. Allow them to splutter. Then, add the garlic and the potatoes. Allow the potatoes to become crisp, then add the onions. Add the remaining spices and stir well. Allow to sauté and turn golden slightly. Remove from the flame and set aside.

As for the kachumber, simply put the ingredients together in a bowl and set them aside.

Then, whisk the ingredients of the Greek yogurt together until they are blended well.

To assemble the Indian tacos, place each soft roti or thepla in a taco holder. Use the recipes here, and just add some puréed spinach to the dough if you’d like to make the green ones in my photographs.

Spread a layer of the pickle or sauce of your choice onto the Indian taco shell. Then add a tablespoon or so of potatoes. Top this with the kachumber and the Greek yoghurt dressing. Add a squeeze of lime if you like, then sprinkle the grated paneer on top. Finally, a garnish of coriander leaves will finish the dish off perfectly.

These Indian tacos are a great way to pep things up a bit and get the family to eat more, even though each of the individual components is part of a fairly typical and simple Gujarati meal! It’s all about the presentation, and the taco style makes everything all the more attractive and adds a sense of novelty to the meal. I particularly like to make them in smaller sizes because there’s an irresistibility quotient to them, just like with cupcakes, and no one can stop at just one or two!

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Topped With A Tang – Salad With Passion Fruit Dressing

By

I hope you enjoyed my previous post, in which I gave away the recipe for one of re:store’s bestsellers. As mentioned then, I was on a stop motion video kick and was determined to produce at least a couple of those cute videos, with Anushka’s help to bring everything all together, of course. The chocolate cupcakes were the first star, and I must admit they were the more difficult to shoot of the two dishes I had zeroed in on for this experiment. The second one (the recipe for which I am sharing today) was much easier to shoot, perhaps because the composition was within a single bowl and the overall motion was more stable, and I love the result.

Before we go any further, here it is: the stop motion video for this recipe, a delicious salad with passion fruit dressing.

As you can see, with the shoot for this video, I wanted the dark and moody theme that I usually use in my photography to be reflected too. I also wanted to showcase what a stop motion video looks like when the recipe is simpler, as opposed to the more complex chocolate cupcakes one. As for whether or not I was looking for a contrast between tastes, health quotient and so on – honestly, not really. In this experiment, it was my aesthetic side that took over and determined my choices more than my culinary side.

At the moment, we are enjoying a bounty of hydroponically-grown varieties of greens in Chennai. This form of small-scale agriculture seems to be all the rage in the city, and as we grow some of our own produce ourselves, and as I personally always have an eye on natural and nourishing ingredients, we couldn’t be more pleased by this trend. These organic vegetables grow without soil, and so suffer less from worms and other issues. We have so much at home at the moment that I’ve been making lots of green smoothies and salads. For this recipe, you can use any kind of lettuce that you have available.

When it comes to salad dressings, those of us who opt for healthier dressings tend to stay with the simple staples like lemon, salt or pepper, but I’ve found a way to retain the health aspect while increasing the flavour of the dressing. This is where the passion fruit comes in.

Whenever a fruit or vegetable retains its foreign name on the market, and doesn’t have a commonly used local Tamil or other Indian name, I know that it’s something that has only in the recent past been cultivated here. So it is with passion fruit, and this post by a fellow food blogger has lots of information about the supply we get here in India, which is grown in the hilly regions.

Long before I began to enjoy this taste, there used to be a passion fruit shrub at our house in Kotagiri. Not having learned yet how much I love it, I would simply give away its yield to our neighbours. The plant is long gone now, but how I wish I had eaten that bounty while I could! I feel this now all the more because passion fruit has a very short growing season here in India. Just in case you happen to try this recipe at a time when it’s scarce on the market, rest assured that you can use a store-bought syrup instead of fresh pulp too. While it may contain added sugars or other ingredients I prefer to avoid, the taste will be the same. It’s the fruit’s unique flavour that really elevates this salad. Passion fruit has a slightly sour flavour and a high citric content, and it goes very well with crunchy apples. The two fruits complement each other, with their mix of textures and tastes. They have a beautiful contrast when put together here.

Passion fruit is a hardy fruit, not very pretty in appearance, but slice it open and you’ll find just the opposite. Its soft pulp looks just lovely speckled with black seeds. My husband loves having some for breakfast whenever it’s in season, slicing it in half, sprinkling some sugar on top, and scooping the flesh out with a spoon. As for me, I enjoy the juice very much and even make it daily when I can. It’s a healthy ingredient, one that’s great to start the day with, and we make ample use of it whenever we get our hands on some. Luckily, I had enough left over during the last passion fruit spree to make it the star of this salad…

 

Salad With Passion Fruit Dressing

(Yield: 1 bowl)

 

Dressing

½ cup passion fruit pulp

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt to taste

 

Salad

2 cups lettuce

¼ cup finely cut spring onions

½ apple (core and sliced)

2 tablespoons chopped dates

2 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds

 

Simply put the salad ingredients together in a bowl and set them aside. Then, whisk the ingredients of the dressing until they are blended well. Pour this over the salad before you serve it. Enjoy!

Sometimes, there really is nothing else easier to prepare than a salad. I’m a huge fan of the food format itself, as you may know, and here are several you may also enjoy: mango salad, millet salad and sundal.

Salads are a great way to increase your vegetable intake, and they give you a boost especially as a mid-day meal that keeps you light on your feet but sated. Do try this one out and let me know what you think? Before I forget, here’s another look at the stop motion video that started off the idea for this post! In case you missed it, do check out my cupcakes recipe too, and the stop motion video that accompanied it. If you use the app, I’m looking forward to connecting on Instagram too.

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Biting Into Delight – Chocolate Cupcakes

By

Many of you know that I picked up the camera because of re:store. What began with taking product shots and creating images for the blog grew into a deep love of food styling and photography, gradually becoming a major component of my work. Cooking and photography are my twin passions, and I have dedicated myself to both through challenging myself, studying and learning, and lots of trial and error. Despite knowing the amount of effort it takes to get really good at something, like anyone in today’s era, I also get excited about attractive new creative forms. I’ll see some interesting content that someone else has shared, and go, “OMG, I have to do this!” So it was with stop motion video. Having seen some charming stop motion videos online, I made it my mission to produce a couple for re:store.

Tada! Here is the first: some cute, classic chocolate cupcakes. Do click on the link to watch the video on Instagram.

Let me tell you, that one minute of fun was a whole day’s work! I’m so glad that I had a friend’s daughter, Anushka, to work with me on the technical aspects. What this experience has taught me is that it isn’t about learning 75 different things, but being able to focus on the handful that one is really drawn to, so as to become good at those. There are so many eye-catching possibilities out there today, but I can’t manage them all, and neither should I aim for that. I need to give myself time to get through one learning, and let it naturally lead to the next one. This dilemma or distraction I had, about whether or not to begin studying stop motion video production, ultimately reminded me that this is how my businesses have grown from inception anyhow. Step by step, following a logical flow of studying, experience and growth, and knowing when to accept help. Doing the next best thing of delegation and collaboration helps me focus on what I am good at, and what is in my control.

Authenticity is a really important part of this blog, and all my work at re:store and at Nandi Shah Photography. Every recipe I share is something that I enjoy, and have prepared, served and eaten multiple times before I decide to showcase it. These are my recipes, containing my touch. For every shoot, I cook, style, photograph and edit everything myself. There’s a lot of love and attention that goes into each post, and there’s already a lot on my hands. In addition to my work, the current scenario has me responsible for the well-being of an entire household, including geriatric family members, and I must use any spare time I have from those responsibilities thoughtfully.

Still, I’m glad I indulged my curiosity about stop motion videos. I deliberated over what recipes would look good in this format, and these chocolate cupcakes were one of two (a different one will be coming up next weekend, so stay tuned for that as well). Even though it’s not a technical skill I want to learn for myself anymore, I enjoyed the process – having company, laughing, joking, learning more things about my camera, and of course, making the cupcakes and enjoying them with tea once the production was all done.

Subsequently, I baked these chocolate cupcakes all over again for the photoshoot for this blog. That was a separate endeavour, and I felt right back at home, doing what I love to do (and striving to better my best each time).

In addition to how they’re perfect for cute videos, I feel like although I’ve shared a variety of baked goods here before, I haven’t done any cupcakes. I also wanted to share something sweet, after several main courses. These classic chocolate cupcakes are a popular product that we get a lot of orders for, but I thought I’d share the recipe for those who want to try them out at home as well, in the spirit of spreading joy in this time.

 

 

Chocolate Cupcakes

(Yield: 12-15 cupcakes)

 

Cupcakes

1½ cups flour

½ cup cocoa powder

1 cup granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

⅓  cup oil

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

¾ cup buttermilk

 

Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

3 cups icing sugar (and a little extra, if required)

A pinch of salt

2 tablespoons fresh cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Preheat the oven to 180° for 20 minutes. Prepare the cupcake pans with liners.

First, prepare the dry mixture. Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

Now, prepare the wet mixture. Whisk the sugar, oil, egg and vanilla extract together.

Mix the flour mixture and the milk, alternating them, into the wet mixture. Beat them all together until the batter achieves a smooth consistency.

Scoop the batter into the prepared pans. Fill the liners to a ¾ level so that the batter has room to rise. If you’re fairly new to baking, you may want to check out this recent post of mine, which has a primer with tips you may find very useful.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool, then top with frosting.

To prepare the frosting, beat the butter until it turns fluffy. Now, add the icing sugar and stir with a spoon. Be gentle, or else you will have the icing sugar dust all over. Once the two have come together, beat well. Add the salt and vanilla extract and beat for approximately another two minutes. If the butter cream is thick and difficult to spread, then add the cream a teaspoon at a time.

As I said earlier, these cupcakes are actually a part of our menu and one of our fastest-moving products. At re:store, we avoid artificial sweeteners that contain harmful chemicals, switching them out for natural or unprocessed ones, and use good old-fashioned ingredients (eggs, butter, oil and cake flour for instance – the basic elements of a cake)  of the best quality available locally. If you’re in Chennai and would like a fresh batch of these cupcakes from the re:store kitchen, especially with the festive season coming up, we’re just a phone call away. They’re delectable at tea-time, and ideal for gifting. As you can see again in the stop motion video, we give a lot of importance to packaging and the finished look of each product.

I’m currently very busy in the kitchen, and happily so, conducting trials for more delicious goodies, and am so looking forward to expanding the product list. Do stay tuned for some lovely new treats from re:store in the coming months, as well as new recipes on this blog as always!

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Garlicky Goodness – Asian-Style Buddha Bowl

By

Having travelled through the tastebuds from right here in South India to Mexico and the Middle East and North Africa, the internationally-inspired Buddha bowl series on this blog arrives at its final destination: back on this continent. As I’ve said earlier, every one of these dishes qualifies as fusion cuisine, a tribute influenced by foreign flavours but by no means authentic. The same goes for this delicious, garlic-infused bowl of goodness, reminiscent of cooking from East Asia.

Indians have been very fond of Asian cuisines for the longest time, and what we eat here is really its own sub-cuisine, commonly known as Indo-Chinese food. While I’ve loved ordering these dishes while dining out, I had always been under the impression that Asian cooking involved too many ingredients or prep and that it somehow wouldn’t work for me. All this changed with the lockdown, which has had my daughter living here with us for the past few months. It’s a joy to have her safely here, rather than alone in Mumbai during the pandemic, and what she’s brought along with her is her love for Asian-inspired recipes. They are her own cooking go-to. Somehow, these dishes seem to come together rather naturally for her, and they taste fabulous. Due to her influence, I’ve been leaning towards (and learning how to make) this cuisine more and more, and enjoying the homemade versions, which tend to be healthier.

Fortunately for us, the ingredients are easily available and fresh. The recipes my daughter and I make together are all vegetarian or vegan, which suits us both. We have lunch together daily, and it’s wonderful to share dishes that I’d always only associated with the restaurant experience. I belong to a generation for whom Indo-Chinese food usually had something to do with a social or celebratory occasion, as I described here, so some of those special memories are also evoked at home now too. Nowadays, due to the large expat population in Chennai, we are lucky to also have a proliferation of Korean and Japanese restaurants, giving diners lots more wonderful variety when it comes to international food. My Asian-influenced and daughter-inspired Buddha bowl below, however, takes its cues from the Indo-Chinese restaurants that I was first exposed to. As a relative newbie to recipes like this one, I can assure you that this one is so easy and so tasty to make that you’ll be whipping it up in no time too!

Asian-Style Buddha Bowl

(Serves 2)

Garlic Rice

2 cups cooked rice

2 tablespoons finely sliced spring onions

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic

1 tablespoon sesame oil

½ tablespoon light soy sauce

Salt to taste

Garlic Bok Choy

1 tablespoon crushed peanuts

½ tablespoon sesame oil

1 bunch cleaned and dried bok choy

½ tablespoon sliced garlic

½ teaspoon grated ginger

2-3 finely cut shallots

¼ teaspoon honey

Salt to taste

A pinch of chili flakes

A dash of lemon

Tofu

6 – 8 slices tofu

1½ tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon hot water

A pinch of sesame seeds

¼ teaspoon honey

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

Broccoli

1 cup sliced broccoli

Salt to taste

Garnish

Cilantro (finely chopped)

Spring onions (finely chopped)

Chili flakes

 

As with all Buddha bowls, each component must be made separately and brought together only when you are ready to serve the meal. Begin by preparing the garlic rice. In a pan, heat the oil. Add the garlic and allow it to sauté until it is golden and aromatic. Now, add the rice. Stir. Add the salt, soy sauce and spring onions. Mix well and set aside.

Then, prepare the garlic bok choy. Heat the oil in a pan. Once it is hot, add the garlic, ginger and peanuts. Stir them together. Now, add the bok choy and the honey, allowing the flavours in the pan to coat the leaves well. Sprinkle salt, add the dash of lemon and stir. Set aside.

I prefer the leaves to be a bit raw and crunchy. However, if you like them cooked well and wilted you may make them this way. You may also replace the peanuts with cashew nuts. If you have a nut intolerance, you can avoid the nuts altogether.

To prepare the tofu, first stir all the ingredients except the tofu together in a cup to make a sauce. Set this aside. Now, sauté the tofu lightly in oil.

To prepare the broccoli, drop the sliced vegetable in hot water for a few minutes. If you prefer to, you may sauté it next, or leave it as is. Remove and sprinkle with some salt.

Start assembling the bowl by plating the rice, followed by the boy choy and the broccoli. Finish these off by adding the tofu, which you can top with a teaspoon of the prepared sauce. Place the remaining sauce near the bowl to use as a dip for the tofu and even for the vegetables, if you like them crunchy like I do.

Before serving, garnish the bowl with the cilantro, spring onions and red chilli flakes. As I said right at the start of this series, a beautiful bowl allows the eyes to feast first, and I encourage you to pick one out that elevates your experience of the meal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these Buddha bowl recipes, which pay tribute to different cuisines that I have loved. For other meal-in-a-bowl dishes, do click on the link and see some of the recipes I’ve shared over the years that fit the bill. Some of my favourites include two Indian classics, the dal dhokli and khatta mung, as well as another Asian-style dish, a stir-fry. I hope you’ll check them out!

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: The “Shah-shouka” – Middle Eastern/North African Buddha Bowl

By

Ever since the lockdown began several months ago, I have been coming up with different ways to keep our meals at home interesting, since we cannot dine out. This has meant celebrations in our own garden, as well as creating new trends to look forward to. This Sunday breakfast bowl is one of them.

Our Sunday brunches contain lots of variety to suit everyone’s tastes – my son always wants waffles or pancakes, others have a craving for avocado toast, and so on. I found that the best way to get everyone to try out different components of the spread I wind up serving is to make a brunch bowl, with a little of everything. I strike a deal with my kids: not only do they eat the sweet waffles, but they also get some protein from eggs, plus a boost of avocado.

The star of our meal is the shakshouka, an egg-based dish from the Middle East and North Africa, which I personally encountered in Turkey first. Continuing the Buddha bowl series (previous instalments here and here, and more to come), it’s one of the items from our Sunday spread that everyone in the family agrees on, and wants second helpings of. It’s so popular at home that we call it the “Shah-shouka”.

As I always say with fusion food, we can only make interpretations. My “Shah-shouka” is truly my own, rich with the flavours and style that are unique to my kitchen, just as yours will be your own too. The best part of this for me is that it’s one of the many dishes that gets a dollop of my homemade all-purpose tomato puree, which I also use in my Mexican-influenced Buddha bowl. It’s amazing how versatile it is and how it goes into everything. My version of this dish is Indianised, of course, along with certain ingredients like olive oil that I just have a preference for. You could use rosemary or thyme instead of cumin, if that’s your taste, and make your own interpretation.

If you don’t eat eggs, you can turn this dish into one that is not just vegetarian but vegan, simply by substituting them for tofu slices. They will give you the same protein quotient that eggs do. There’s always a simple solution to everything when it comes to improvising in the kitchen.

“Shah”-shouka

(Serves 2)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups seeded and diced colourful bell peppers

2-3 spring onions

3-4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons cilantro

2 tablespoons parsley

1 cup boiled potatoes

½ teaspoon roasted cumin powder

½ teaspoon paprika (adjust to your taste)

2 tablespoons re:store tomato purée

4 eggs

1 tablespoon feta cheese

Salt to taste

Slices of sourdough and avocados while serving

Heat the oil over a cast iron skillet. Add the onions, garlic, bell peppers and potatoes. Stir on a high flame until they are brown. This will take about 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat and add the spices. Once they have come together, add the tomato purée.

Make sure that all the vegetables are well-coated with the purée and the spices.

Once the mixture is hot, make 4 indentations and pour the eggs into each of them. Allow the eggs to cook to your liking, and season them with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the cilantro and crumble the feta cheese over everything. You may add some cherry tomatoes if you’d like the dish to look dramatic.

Here at home, we serve our “Shah-shouka” with the works: sourdough slices, waffles and lots of fresh avocados. Adding these sides to our individual servings indeed turns this egg dish into a Buddha bowl. This hearty and filling dish is a great way to relax over a meal as a family. I hope you’ll make this a part of your brunch this weekend, too. The portions above serve two, but a larger pan and doubled ingredients will let you serve four. However you choose to have it, tell me how you like your shakshouka. Do stay tuned for another meal-in-a-bowl soon, from yet another part of the world.

View Post
By
Recipes

Recipe: Travelling Through Food – Mexican-Influenced Buddha Bowl

By

As promised, the Buddha bowl series now goes international, after the comfortingly familiar South Indian Buddha bowl. This is a Mexican-influenced Buddha bowl, and I’m making sure that you notice that I emphasise the word influenced.  My family enjoys Mexican-style cuisine very much, and I always end up making the more popular dishes, such as tacos, salsa, nachos and even my vegan take on chili, which you may remember from awhile back (this is a vegan recipe too). But over the years, whenever Mexican friends have visited my home, as much as they relish the meals I put together for them, they also tease me by saying that my style is Indian-Mexican, not authentic. I’m proud of this though. To me, fusion cuisine is all about feeling inspired and bringing different worlds together.

I’ve only spent one night in Mexico, en route to Cuba several years ago. That night, my family and I enjoyed dinner at a really nice restaurant, where we ordered a delicacy featuring black ants as a key ingredient. While I didn’t have a bite, my kids found the dish crunchy and tangy and very exciting. What to us was an adventurous dish was just local cuisine in another part of the world. Most of the Mexican food we had tried before was in the USA, and that too must have been one degree removed from authenticity. So to return to today’s Buddha bowl, let’s just say that it has a hint of Mexico, my culinary interpretation.

I often make this Mexican-influenced recipe for lunch, and the current abundance of avocados on the market is all the more reason to do so. These come from Karnataka, where the climate is conducive for their growth. Perhaps it’s because of my Macrobiotics background, but I feel that when all the ingredients in a dish are locally sourced, they tend to go together better. Aside from the fruit, the bowl contains cilantro rice, beans, vegetables and two types of salsa.

I was thinking about the term “Buddha bowl”, and although I know it’s a recently coined term, I believe I can imagine the thought process behind it. Could it be that it was because the Buddha carried a bowl for alms, and as he went from home to home, always received a motley combination of foods, just like the different components of this modern dish?

Carrying a bowl to seek food alms also exists in the Jain community, which many members of my family belong to. My sister, who lives in Mumbai, frequently has saintly women and men come to her home. They carry a bowl, called “patra”, and are supposed to graciously accept whatever is offered to them, although they can request a preferred quantity so that there is no wastage. The alms they receive are called “bhiksha”. Their arrival is considered a blessing, and whatever has been cooked at home that day will be shared with the monks, who are known as “Mahasatiji”. In the Stanakvasi sect of the Jain Shwetambari tradition, there is no idol worship, so the preaching of these monks is sacred and so is their presence. Whenever a Mahasatiji has come by while I’ve visited my sister, I’ve noticed that it feels like a special occasion. There is some protocol involved: the person offering alms needs to have bathed, there is some chanting, and then the Mahasatiji will bless the home before moving on to the next one, where the next person offering alms will look into the bowl and determine what to offer. If my sister had offered roti, for example, they will ensure they offer something that goes with it.

The Mahasatijis also ask for a teaspoon of chickpea flour, which they use to dry wash their patras. They won’t even waste this, as they will let this dry and eat it as well. They do not use soap due to the chemicals, and refrain from electricity too, so they take the stairs up six floors to my sister’s house. The tradition has many principles based on nature and doing no harm.

The patras themselves are made of natural wood, with lacquer, and I have seen them being sold as antiques as well. Perhaps I noticed this because I am always looking for interesting crockery and props for my photoshoots. What kind of vessels do you serve your Buddha bowls in? I’d love to know, as you try out more of this series.

Mexican-Influenced Buddha Bowl

(Serves 2)

 

Beans

½ cup beans (soaked overnight)

2 tablespoons tomato purée (find my recipe here)

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon chipotle cooking paste

 

Tomato salsa

2 tomatoes

Salt to taste

3 slices jalapeño

1 tablespoon cilantro

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

 

Pineapple salsa

2 cups finely chopped pineapple

2 tablespoons finely cut jalapeño

2 tablespoons cilantro

2 tablespoons finely cut onion

Salt to taste

Spicy red sauce

 

Cilantro Rice

1½ cups cooked rice

1 tablespoon oil

¼ cup finely cut cilantro

½ lemon

2 slices jalapeños

Salt to taste

 

Vegetables

2 cups sliced bell peppers

1 cup whole corn

1 teaspoon oil

Salt to taste

Pinch pepper

 

Topping

1 avocado

Salt to taste

Olive oil to drizzle

A squeeze of lemon

Prepare each component, and keep them separate until you are ready to assemble and serve the bowl. Here is the method for the beans. First, pressure cook the beans in water. In a pan, add the oil. Now, add the purée, chipotle paste and salt. I used my fabulous all-purpose tomato puree, which you will surely find convenient to have on hand for many recipes too. Stir. Finally, add the beans. In order to make it in a slightly more gravy style, I added some of the water that I had kept aside.

Next, here are the methods for the two salsas. For the tomato salsa, begin by roasting the tomatoes directly in a low flame until the skins are charred. Peel the charred skins and chop finely. Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl. Mix well and refrigerate until use. For the pineapple salsa, simply combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Refrigerate until use as well.

Now, onto the cilantro rice. In a pan, sauté the rice in oil. Add all the other ingredients and stir on high until it all comes together. You can replace the rice with any grain of your choice.

The vegetables should be sautéed in oil on a pan, and seasoned with salt and pepper as you stir.

Assemble the different components in two medium-sized bowls and add the toppings. Make sure you slice the avocado just before serving, or it will lose colour. Remember what I said in the previous Buddha bowl post about the aesthetics of this serving style and feasting with the eyes first. This dish is best enjoyed warm. You may wish to sprinkle some crushed nacho chips on top for texture too, and I think my kids wouldn’t mind some authentic, crunchy black ants either, if we could find that recipe! As you can see, I’ve also added a bit of green salad on top, as I do love my veggies.

I mentioned earlier that there are avocados galore on the market now, so be sure to come back for the next post, where they will be a starring ingredient…

View Post
By
Load More