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Recipe: Garlicky Goodness – Lasun Ki Chutney (Dry Garlic Chutney)

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What did you think of the raw mango thovayal that I shared in my previous post? I hope it added a tangy kick to your meals, and if you used it in any offbeat ways (such as as a marinade, or in a fusion dish), I’d love to know. The next dish I’m sharing in this dip series is another recipe that could lend itself to versatile use too. It also has an interesting dry-to-wet storage solution built into its preparation, which you’ll learn about below. This lasun ki chutney (dry garlic chutney) is a Gujarati condiment, one that always existed in my childhood food experiences, and I know it is also made Maharashtra, which borders Gujarat.

It is a dry garlic chutney with a fiery colour, and is made in a ball form that is supposed to last two or three days without refrigeration. This means it travels well, so it is often paired with the equally durable thepla on train journeys and so on. While I was growing up, my mother kept her lasun ki chutney in the fridge, which extended its shelf life a little further too. The concept is like this: it’s a dry chutney, made with minimal water, that is rolled into a ball and stored. Whenever one wants to consume it, one simply pinches some off, adds warm water, makes a paste and enjoys it as an accompaniment. Once water is added, it needs to be consumed immediately.

Aside from theplas, it is typically an accompaniment for bajra ki rotla, dhokla or handvo. Although we now enjoy it year-round, in concept it is the ideal winter condiment for more frugal meals. I am told that farmers in Gujarat typically consume it with bajra ka rotla, a flatbread made with pearl millet flour, in winters. Being very flavourful, it uplifts the thepla or other main staple without the need for other side dishes, especially when the harvest is scarce.

When I first started making lasun ki chutney, I began by making the soft version directly rather than the storable dry balls. I learnt the recipe for my grandfather, who came to live with us when he was 93 and absolutely had to have some of this lovely condiment at every meal. And at every meal, without fail, he would always say, “Garlic is very good for you.” He would sit on the floor and have a full Gujarati main course served to him, and he relished dipping his chapati into a bowl of ghee and eating it with lasun ki chutney. Perhaps because he reminded us every day that this is a nutritious dish, it grew on the rest of us too, and soon we began to have a side of spicy garlic chutney with most of our meals as well.

Garlic is indeed very good for us, and is well-known as an immune system booster, and as an ingredient that keeps blood pressure and cholesterol under control. It’s rich in antioxidants, manganese and fibre, among other nutritious elements. Plus – it’s delicious. Aromatic and pungent, it’s a pleasure for the senses.

That said, I would be remiss not to mention that there are communities that avoid garlic entirely as some believe that it affects the hormones in such a way as to charge us up and make us express our anger. If you do not eat garlic for this reason or any other, I’m afraid this recipe won’t suit you – and I hope you’ll explore the archives and find another one that does.

 

Lasun Ki Chutney

(Yield: 1 small cup)

 

10-12 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

4 Kashmiri red chillies (fried)

½ cup shredded coconut

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Salt to taste

 

Set aside all the ingredients, except the oil, in a food processor. In a flat pan, add the oil and once it has heated, pour the oil into the food processor along with the other ingredients. Make sure that you grind the mixture well. Your dry, coarse garlic chutney is now ready.

Now, make small balls and store them in the refrigerator. When you’re sitting down to a meal over the next few days, pinch off as much as you need, add warm water to make a paste, and enjoy. Have it with dhoklas or theplas, or even add it to Asian stir fries to spice them up, like I do. I’d love to know how you use it!

I’ll end this post by giving you a visual glimpse of the recipe that will round out this dip trilogy. In the photo below, you can see the raw mango thovayal and the lasun ki chutney – along with the forthcoming dish. Any guesses about what it is, or what its chief ingredient is?

 

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Recipe: Garlicky Goodness – Asian-Style Buddha Bowl

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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!

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Recipe: Beat The Post-Festive Blues – Broccoli & Almond Soup

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As I write this in the days after Diwali, the home and the kitchen table are empty. For a few days, the house was abuzz with visiting friends – all we did was eat, compare notes on each other’s specialties, learn, devour and enjoy our time together. Now, even the family have all gone back to their respective workplaces – and it’s me time. How do you re-enter the kitchen after the busiest time of year has quietened down? I cleaned up the home, missing everyone deeply, while contemplating food, love and life. And then I decided to follow the order of the typical restaurant menu, and start with a soup.

A soup is the perfect post-festive dish both as a detox for the infinite quantities of sweets consumed, and as comfort food that beats the empty-nest blues. As the monsoon continues, I’ve made three things a part of my regular intake: lots of water, this remedy for the sniffle season, and this delicate yet flavourful broccoli and almond soup.

Occasionally, I like to shift from my mainstay local, seasonal vegetables and bring a little bit of the exotic into my kitchen. In Chennai, it is quite rare to find organic “English” vegetables, as we call them here, so when I came across some organic broccoli at my grocer’s, I picked up a few fresh bunches. To these, I added another ingredient from afar: organic almonds from Kashmir. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that even when I go adventuring in my culinary repertoire, I like to add a homegrown twist to anything foreign. And this is where my trusted curry leaves, packed with nutrients and not just a spicy flavour, come in.

Almonds are well-known for their benefits, and are one of the first types of nuts that are recommended as substitutes for unwholesome snacks. Rich in healthy fats, vitamin E, magnesium, antioxidants and other nutritious elements, they reduce blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. They happen to be a favourite in the cakes that are baked in the re:store kitchen, so there are always some on hand – whether to pop into my mouth on the go or to toast and drizzle over a blues-busting soup like this one.

Broccoli is so healthy a vegetable that you may have noticed that it’s almost a synonym for so-good-it-has-to-taste-bad for children’s characters in films and books! This is of course simply untrue, for it’s a tasty ingredient that can be used in versatile ways. From vitamin C to anti-inflammatory Omega 3 fatty acids to antioxidants and studies that support its consumption as being preventative of cancer and heart disease, a bunch of broccoli really is a bouquet of benefits. And as it is rich in fibre, it promotes detoxification – which is what makes it ideal for a post-festive diet.

 

Broccoli-Almond Soup

(Yield – 4-5 cups)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon virgin olive oil

150 grams diced broccoli florets

3 tablespoons chopped onions

1 small cup washed, finely chopped coriander leaves

3 garlic cloves (smashed) + 3-5 garlic cloves (sliced)

2 cups vegetable broth

2 cups water

½ tablespoon ground black pepper

Salt to taste

2 sprigs curry leaves

3 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon slivered, toasted almonds

1 teaspoon lemon juice

 

Heat the oil in a medium-sized saucepan. To this, add onions and garlic. Allow them to sauté till golden, before adding the broccoli. Continue sautéing for a few minutes.

Next, add the vegetable broth, cover the pan with a lid and leave to cook for 10 minutes. Then remove the lid and let the dish cool a little. Blend in the coriander leaves with the rest, and add more water to adjust the consistency of the soup to your preference. Finally, add salt and pepper as well as the slivered, toasted almonds.

In a separate pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil and fry the sliced garlic cloves. As they turn golden, add the curry leaves and turn off the flame. Just the rich, warm aroma of this garnishing as it is being prepared will lift your mood!

Just before serving the soup, pour the cloves and curry leaf garnishing on top. I added a dash of lemon too. Sprinkle the last of the slivered, toasted almonds as the final touch.

I love my soups with a bit of crunch, and the broccoli and especially the almonds bring texture to this simple dish. Perfect for when you aren’t up to making full meals, when you’re feeling under the weather, or when you just need to cut back on the sugar and carbs, this lovely one-pot meal is light and healthy yet so filling. A cup or two of this broccoli-almond soup with just the sound of afternoon rain for company is so satiating. Please try it. I’d love to know what you think in the comments.

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Recipe: Little Millet Rice With Green Beans Poriyal

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Having lived in Tamil Nadu my whole life, the traditional local cuisine has always been a part of me. Millets were a staple in ancient times, replaced more recently by rice and wheat. Unlike what most contemporary nutritionists believe, Macrobiotics suggests that rice, in moderation, does not have negative effects on health. Adding millets into one’s diet, as a healthy alternative or addition to rice, can boost the health quotient without compromising on taste. More importantly, millets are gluten-free, offering a great solution for those who are gluten intolerant.

Nowadays, the health-conscious hark on about quinoa, which is a great superfood –  however, it is not native to India. They tend to ignore the affordable local millets, which offer the same (if not a greater) amount of nutrition and could themselves be superfoods!

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