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Recipe: The Perfect Alternative – Vegan Millet “Thayirsadam”

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Thayirsadam is a typically Tamil dish, and translates literally to “curd rice”. It is exquisitely simple and accessible food, which is why it is eaten here on practically a daily basis at households of every background. Even though we are Gujaratis, as lifelong Chennaiites, it is also a go-to in our home. It’s among the comfort foods we reach for whenever we feel down, or when we come back tired from a long trip. It’s also ideal for the day after late night parties, when not much has been prepped for the day’s meals, other than the homemade yoghurt that we ensure is made nightly without fail.

I’ve spoken many times of my deep love for yoghurt ever since childhood, and of how I used to consume it even by mixing it into upma and in other unconventional combinations. My love for it is something I brought into my new home when I got married, and I made it a staple in this household too. It truly is the ingredient that I find most difficult to give up even as we as a family make further inroads into a vegan lifestyle. For a variety of reasons, ranging from wanting to eating healthier to having doubts about the quality and purity of store-bought milk to being moved by the plight of mistreated dairy cows, we have all been veering towards the vegan way. My struggle to at least consume less yoghurt, even if I can’t quite give it up, has made me explore healthy and conscious alternatives. It’s such an integral part of Indian cuisine that it’s not a matter of finding a simple substitute for one or two recipes. I have to match each replacement to the dish, and see how it fares in that unique combination.

I have also been trying to make vegan yoghurt at home. Many of my experiments have failed, but a few attempts have brought me some degree of success. However, as I have yet to perfect a recipe that I feel I can confidently share with you, I won’t do so for now. My fingers are crossed that a vegan homemade yoghurt recipe will one day be featured on this blog.

So for now, we will stick to store-bought vegan yoghurt. Coconut yoghurt is my preferred one for this dish. I love the flavour: simple, versatile and a little sweet. Coconut also takes on the flavour of whatever you add it to, while retaining its own standalone taste. I add a dash of lemon to it so as to evoke the slight sourness of dairy yoghurt.

In addition to trying to eat vegan more often, I am also going through a phase where I am cutting down carbs, which means white rice is something I avoid. This leads me back to a food category that I’m passionate about: millets. Millets have made many appearances on this blog due to my belief in their importance in terms of good health and eco-sustainability. If you haven’t already enjoyed the following recipes, I hope you’ll check out: my vegan chilli bowl starring kodo millet, Indian vegetable salad starring foxtail millet or some authentic local dishes that showcase how millets have always been eaten in this region, such as chakkara pongal and ragi kanji.

In this dish, I have used kodo millet, also known as “varugu” in Tamil. Millets are fibre-rich, which makes them more filling, as well as good for your digestive system. Kodo millet is a gluten-free alternative to rice that I enjoy as much for its taste as for its benefits in regulating blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and the boost in antioxidants that it gives too. For me, veganism is about healthy eating, and that remains the impetus behind many of my food choices.

I’ve always seen food as a vital component of living in alignment with nature. Many of you know that I also maintain a home garden with various daily ingredients, from lemongrass to coconuts to tomatoes. Green chillies are among them, and as I stepped out of my kitchen to pluck a fresh one for this vegan millet “thayirsadam”, some pretty white flowers on the plant caught my eye. I paused to admire them, and I loved being able to include them in the styling for my photoshoot. How special and gratifying it was, to have my abiding love for all things culinary, my intensifying passion for photography, and my reverent love for nature come together…

Vegan Millet “Thayirsadam”

(Yield: 3-5 cups)

50 grams kodo millet

160 grams coconut yoghurt

¼ cup water

2-3 tablespoons raw mango

1 tablespoon coriander leaves

1 tablespoon chopped cucumber

Salt to taste

A dash of lemon

 

Tempering:

1 tablespoon oil

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 green chilli finely chopped (optional)

A few curry leaves

Rinse and cook the kodo millet in 3-4 cups of water. This will take about 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

Once cooled, transfer the millet into a bowl. Add the coconut yoghurt, salt and water. Mix thoroughly. Next, add the cucumber, raw mango and coriander leaves. You may include your choice of crunchy ingredients to add more texture and taste to the dish. Sometimes I use pomegranates or grated carrots, either as a substitute for cucumber or along with it.

Now, add the dash of lemon.  Set aside.

For the tempering, heat the oil and then add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the green chilli and curry leaves and immediately pour over the millet-yoghurt that was set aside.

Stir gently and refrigerate. Serve once slightly cooled again.

And there you have it: thayirsadam with neither thayir (curd) nor sadam (rice)! This vegan curd millet dish truly becomes a filling meal-in-a-bowl once you scoop in a spoonful of pickle on the side, and add a handful of some delicious, crispy banana chips to add more variety to your meal.

By the way, if you are a fan of curd rice in general, may I suggest that you also try my recipe for Gujarati masala curd rice? And if you’re a vegan who is looking for dairy-like but dairy-free desserts, my take on another Gujarati speciality, in the form of this vegan passion fruit shrikand, may be right up your alley!

 

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Recipe: Mixing It Up – Indian Veg Millet Salad

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I enjoy the creative challenges of coming up with innovative dishes, and salads are a category I worked on happily during the earlier stages of re:store’s journey. Before turning my focus more intently towards baking and photography, I used to take orders for salads. The orders generally came from people who were fitness-focused or preferred to eat smaller meals at work. But that was no reason to eat the same thing every day. So I planned menus of 10-15 salads, rotating them every 3 months.

The salads were inspired by so many cuisines, and people I met, and using a schedule was also something new for me. Before going into business, I’d usually just throw whatever was on hand into a salad. Another thing I learnt was that keeping veggies fresh in India was not easy when they weren’t consumed immediately. Especially when the salad travelled from the re:store kitchen to another’s home, and then commuted with them to their office. So if I put in a fancy leafy vegetable, by the time the customer opened the container at their desk at lunchtime, it would have started to look and taste different. Through trial and error, I figured out ways to use only local and seasonal produce in my salad experiments.

Another thing I don’t believe in is using store-bought dressings, so I made them all from scratch, matching each one to the ingredients used. Naturally, I am also very particular about the hygienic handling of raw vegetables, so I always prepared salads only on the day of delivery.

We often think of salads as a part of Western cuisine, but they are often found in Indian cuisines as well. Whether it’s a home-cooked Gujarati meal or a South Indian one, some kind of raw, cut veggies will be served. While a vegetable smoothie may be a great way to substitute an unhealthy beverage, there are benefits to salads that go beyond taste. God made vegetables crunchy because they are meant to be eaten that way – it all begins by using the teeth and jaw muscles!

The Gujarati word for salad is “kachumber”, and while my recipe contains very diverse ingredients, at its core you could consider it an update on the traditional one. You know how much I love millets, and this salad uses foxtail millet as a base, for substance as much as for its many superfood properties. All the ingredients are available locally and inexpensively. I sometimes use sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin, but the latter are more authentically Macrobiotic here. Even the green peas come from Ooty, not so far away from me at all.

I’d love to share with you some nostalgia about salads and childhood, but let me be honest. Like many people, I often refused to eat vegetables growing up – but now look me, advocating for them!

 

Indian Veg Millet Salad

(Yield: 1 bowl)

Ingredients

Salad

120 grams cooked foxtail millet

½ cup steamed green peas

1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds

1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots

¼ cup cucumber

¼ cup finely cut raw mango

A handful of pomegranate arils

A few sprigs of fresh methi (fenugreek) leaves

 

Dressing

2 tablespoons sweet lime juice

1½ tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon olive oil

A pinch of pepper

Salt to taste

Place all the fresh ingredients in a beautiful bowl. I have mentioned the quantity of the vegetables – however, you can eyeball the amount and decide for yourself how much you want to use. And of course, innovate. Add or delete ingredients depending on your fridge stock. You could even use any other millet if that suits you.

In a small jar, add all the ingredients for the dressing. Shake vigorously. Pour on the salad before serving and mix together till the dressing coats all the vegetables.

That’s all there is to it. A citrusy, profoundly simple dressing lifts the flavours of an unusual but deeply Indian salad. You have the sweetness of pomegranate, the tartiness of raw mango, the crunchiness of seeds and more. A medley of textures. Just mix it all up! I hope you’ll enjoy this easy recipe from the “salad days” of re:store, excuse the pun!

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Recipe: A Dose Of Deliciousness – Ragi Millet Dosa & Peanut Chutney

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I’m always trying to do something new with millets and bring them into everyday dining because they are healthy, seasonal and affordable. In South India, they were actually the ancient traditional staple, not rice or wheat as it is today, and so they can be said to be perfect for Macrobiotic diets here. Different varieties of local millets have featured on this blog in recipes past (I’ve linked to a few at the end of this post). Today, the star is ragi, which you may also know as finger millet, teff or kezhvaragu.

Ragi is rich in calcium, iron and antioxidants, as well as high in fibre. This means that its benefits include everything from weight control to skin rejuvenation to curing anaemia. A dry-season crop that tolerates many different kinds of soil, it is easy to cultivate. It features in a large variety of South Indian dishes, from Kerala puttu to Karnataka ragi mudde to the koozh that is offered to the Goddess in Tamil Nadu. It is also eaten everywhere from Vietnam to numerous countries in Africa, where it originated.

I want to share with you the recipe for ragi millet dosa. Dosa is a South Indian crepe, similar to chilla. It is popularly made with rice flour, which I substitute almost entirely with ragi millet. It’s always exciting to add your own twist to something traditional. That’s the challenge of cooking as well – you can’t just throw in something and hope it sticks. How do you combine flavours so they work well and complement one another? It may seem simple and obvious to take two South Indian staples – ragi millets and dosas – and put them together. But this is not so, because in the case of any millet dosa, it is not only a matter of ingredients. The main question is: will the crepe peel off beautifully? Ragi has a sticky consistency, which can make this tricky. As those of us who make dosas regularly know, certain ingredients are added or removed to facilitate this peeling. This is why I still use a little bit of rice flour in the batter. Rice flour both adds crispiness to the dosa, as well as enables it to peel off properly.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I ensure that all my powders and flours are homemade, ground by a trusted small mill.  We grow both rice and ragi on our farm, so I know for sure that the ingredients in this dish, and any rice-based dishes eaten at home, are organic.

To come back to dosas and twists on the same – you can make your own variations of the dish below by adding vegetables to the crepe after it has been folded, or serving it with an assortment of chutneys. Here, I give you the recipe for a simple peanut chutney, which is a current favourite (peanuts are also grown on my farm). Ragi millet dosa is something I reach for often when I try to stay fit, and it’s always a satisfying meal.

Living in South India, dosa (or dosai) is something I’ve taken for granted. It really is a universally loved dish, as this story about my dog Coco will tell you. When she was pregnant years ago, she absolutely craved dosas! I would have one made especially for her every day, and she would simply refuse to eat it if it did not contain salt! My Coco is now sixteen years old and going strong, and the healthiest in my house since she eats fresh food every day. Now, her son Max also craves dosas, probably influenced by his mother’s taste during her pregnancy with him, and I always share mine with them both.

 

Ragi Millet Dosa

(Yield: 6 dosas)

Ingredients
½ cup ragi flour

1 tablespoon rice flour

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon paste of green chilli and ginger

1 tablespoon grated coconut

¾ cup water

1 tablespoon yoghurt

Finely chopped curry leaves

Finely chopped onions

Salt to taste

In a bowl, mix the ragi and rice flours in water until there are no lumps. Then add all the remaining ingredients. Stir until they all blend well together and become a smooth batter. Do not add too much water as this will make the batter too thin.

These dosas can either be prepared immediately, or the batter can be left to sit for about half an hour, letting the flavours blend more.

To fry a dosa is like frying any crepe. Add a few drops of oil on a heated iron griddle. Now lower the flame and pour 1 small cup of the batter onto the griddle, and spread it out in a circular motion until it is spread thin. Dot the edges with oil and increase the flame to high. Allow the dosa to turn dark on the edges, then flip over and allow to fry for a few minutes. Flip again once before you take it off the stove. Fold and serve with the peanut chutney, or a condiment of your choice.

 

Peanut Chutney

(Yield: 1 cup)

Ingredients

½ cup roasted peanuts

1 teaspoon channa dal

1 teaspoon udad dal

1½  teaspoons tamarind paste

1 teaspoon grated ginger

¼ cup water

2 red chilies

A sprig of curry leaves

A few drops of oil

Salt to taste

 


Sauté the dals in a few drops of oil. Once they turn golden, add the dals along with the peanuts and ginger in a blender. Blend until coarse.

Now, to temper the chutney. Put a few drops of oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Wait till they splutter and then add the red chillies and curry leaves. When they have been coated in the hot oil, immediately pour the tempering over the chutney. It is now ready to be eaten as a dip with the crispy hot dosas.

I’m an evangelist when it comes to millets and truly believe in their ability to transform our unhealthy modern diets. This is why they have featured so many times on this blog. If you’re curious about more dishes that incorporate these simple and satisfying ingredients, do check out this tag and spend some time exploring my past recipes. Here are a few of my favourite selections from the same: little millet rice with beans poriyal, chakkara pongal and vegan chili.

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Recipe: Start The Year Sweetly – Chakkara Pongal

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Here in Tamil Nadu, while the Tamil New Year is still months away in April, we celebrate a festival full of joy, renewal and fresh possibilities – just like how the turning of the new calendar year feels. Two weeks into every calendar year, beginning on January 14, Tamil households everywhere observe a series of rituals. Like any Indian special occasion, food and bonding play a huge part of this festival.

Pongal is spread over four days, which when we were growing up meant… school holidays! Despite being a Gujarati family, our neighbours and friends would observe the festival with delight, which meant we too participated. For me, Pongal always brings to mind sugarcane. As a harvest festival, sugarcane is an important part of the décor at this time – but it is also exactly the kind of thing a child loves to eat! My mother encouraged this, as she said that eating sugarcane made the teeth stronger. Those of you who remember those simpler times will know just what I mean. There’s a technique to it. You peel the cane sideways with your teeth, then scrape the sweet juice from it. I loved the fleshier parts between the joints of the cane.

As this is the season to give thanks for the harvest all over India, similar festivals include Lohri and Sankranti. If we happened to visit Ahmedabad at this time of year, the lasting image I have of the celebrations is of seeing the skies fill with kites on the occasion of Uttaran, as people on terrace rooftops would battle to bring the others’ down, in order to be the owner of the sole reigning kite of Gujarat.

“Pongal” literally means “the boiling over”, and the festival is all about the spirit of abundance. The pivotal moment of the day is when a pot of milk, into which every family member puts three handfuls of rice, boils over. The milk spilling over the brim of the vessel is taken as a sign of auspiciousness. As this happens, the family shouts, “Pongal-o-Pongal”!

During Pongal, a dish bearing its name is also eaten. Chakkara pongal literally means “sugar pongal”, but it is jaggery that is used – and which gives the dish its rich colour. Chakkara pongal is also popular year-round as a prasadam  in temples, which is offered to the gods and then eaten by devotees. And the sweetest, tastiest chakkara pongal I’ve ever eaten has always been served on a banana leaf at a temple.

Chakkara pongal will taste different at each temple, and each home, that you eat it in. Like all traditional staples, it will contain the memories and idiosyncrasies of the hands that made it. How is tradition formed? One ancestor would have done something a particular way, and generations to follow then say, “Our family does this”. Whenever I cook something that carries cultural attachments, I wonder: if I don’t do it, will my kids?

As you may know from following this blog, millets and not rice are the original (and Macrobiotic) staples of this region. This is why a millet known as varugu, which you may know as kodo, is the main ingredient in my variation of chakkara pongal. Varugu is rich in protein and polyphenol antioxidants, and is a better source of fibre than both rice and wheat. It is also gluten-free, which makes it suitable for those with dietary sensitivities. Like all millets, its list of health benefits is long. But make no mistake, as wholesome as its ingredients are, this chakkara pongal is a sweet and sublime dessert.

 

Chakkara Pongal

(Yield – 5-6 servings)

Ingredients
3-4 tablespoons moong dal
½ cup varugu (kodo millet)
3-4 cups water
½ cup jaggery
1 tablespoon ghee
1 tablespoon cashew nuts
1 tablespoon raisins

The secret to chakkara pongal is simply allowing it to cook properly, with the occasional stir. It is a boiled dessert that is so easy to make that you’ll be preparing it from memory in no time!

Soak the moong dal for about half an hour. Meanwhile, wash the millets well and keep aside,

Add 2 cups of water to the dal and cook until par boiled. Now, add the millets and allow both to cook completely. This will take approximately 15-20 minutes. The boiled dal and millets will become and remain soft.

In a pan, roast the cashew nuts and raisins in ghee. For a vegan variant, substitute ghee with oil. Once roasted, add the jaggery, along with a ¼ cup of water. This will help the jaggery melt, releasing its flavours quickly into the pan.

Once the jaggery has melted into the concoction, add the soft mixture of millets and dal and stir well. Add some more water to loosen the consistency as you prefer. Pongal generally is not meant to be in too liquid a state. What you’re aiming for is a congealed texture. Serve hot as soon as it’s ready.

Glistening with ghee, sprinkled with cashews, glittering with raisins, and with a rich dark colour full of the goodness of jaggery… So simple to make, so good to eat. I hope you’ll enjoy a small bowl or two of re:store style, millet-based chakkara pongal with your family this weekend. As you do, just imagine us here in Tamil Nadu, doing exactly the same. Pongal-o-Pongal!

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Recipe: A Bowl Of Satisfaction – Vegan Chili

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Once upon a time, before I decided to turn completely vegetarian again, I used to enjoy the very occasional meat dish. And more often than not, the particular dish that would kickstart my cravings was the chili bowl I discovered in L.A. some decades ago while pregnant. A rich, spicy stew with Tex-Mex origins, it’s a quintessential part of the cuisine of the southern American border regions – and something which reminded me of Indian food whenever I was homesick or longing for comfort food while travelling in the States.

Chili is a meal-in-a-bowl, although you can eat it with tortillas, rice, nachos, fries or other accompaniments if you like. Did you know that the Nahuatl (indigenous Mexican) word chīlli is what gives the chilli pepper its English name too? The dish too takes its name from this most vital ingredient. If you’re interested in a history of the dish, do read this comprehensive article with various legends and records.

Chilli fruits – yes, fruits! – were cultivated in ancient Mexico, and were introduced to the rest of the world through European colonists and traders. Then, based on different climactic conditions, certain places grew famous for particular cultivars: e.g. bhut jolokia (or “ghost peppers”) in India and Malawian kambuzi. In fact, the chilli powder I use to make my chili (yup, the spelling of the two words is close but not exact!) is a ground Hungarian spice known as paprika, made of sweet bell peppers and occasionally cayenne peppers. Each cultivar varies in pungency and intensity, and chillies are eaten in red, green, dried or capsicum/pepper variants. I also use capsicums in this dish.

The festive season has found me inundated with cupcake orders. Despite seeing so many in my kitchen every day now, I haven’t grown tired of stealing one now and again – all under the claim of checking the sugar level of course! Between some recent travel abroad and the sugar buzz around me now, I’ve missed the flavours and smells of Indian spices. Inspired equally by the memory of those long-ago chili bowls and my ongoing delving into the super-foods and smart-foods in our own Indian fields and forests, I decided to make a vegan millet-based chili. I tried and tested this recipe a few times before perfecting it. Fusion food can sometimes be a blunder, and sometimes be a wonder. I’d love to know what you think of this!

 

Vegan Chili Bowl

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon cumin

¾ cup carrots (chopped)

½ cup rajma/kidney beans (soaked)

½ cup onions (finely chopped)

½ cup capsicum (finely chopped)

½ cup green beans (finely chopped)

2 medium size tomatoes blended into a puree (approximately 1 cup)

3 pods garlic (grated)

1 piece ginger (grated)

¾ cup kodo millet

½ cup corn niblets and/or peas

Salt

Paprika

1 tablespoon lemon juice

4 cups of hot water

Chili may be Tex-Mex in origin, but the ingredients of my Vegan Chili Bowl are all easily available and highly affordable in India and elsewhere.

Take a pot and add oil to it. Once it is hot, add the cumin, followed by the grated garlic, ginger and onions. Sauté till golden brown.

Boil the green beans, peas and carrots and strain these. Keep the water aside.

Kidney beans take longer to cook so pressure cook or par-boil them before adding them to the pot. You may substitute the kidney beans for a lentil of your choice. Please note cooking time will differ based on which ingredient you use.

Add all the cooked vegetables to the onions along with the tomato puree, corn, capsicum (I used green capsicum, but you can use yellow or red too), millets, paprika and salt.

Now, add the strained water (approximately one cup) and the cooking water to the above ingredients. Cover with a lid and lower the flame. Allow this to cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. I have used kodo millets, known in Tamil as varagu, which like all local millets has an extensive range of health benefits when eaten regularly. You can just as well substitute this with broken rice or wheat if you have them on hand, if you prefer. However, the cooking time will depend on the grain you’ve used.

Also remember that you can add all sorts of leftover vegetables to this chili – don’t feel restricted by the list I’ve suggested. They will only enhance the flavour and health quotient.

Once the grains are cooked well and tender, add the lemon juice and stir. Then, transfer the hot chili to small bowls and serve with some freshly chopped coriander leaves, fine slices of spring onions and other garnishings like roasted garlic or a handful of nuts. Chili is best eaten warm and fresh.

I love collecting beautiful crockery, and considering that this is a meal-in-a-bowl, I always take a little extra moment to choose the bowl itself well. When I made this the other day, I chose this pretty one with concentric blue circles on the bottom. It’s always a compliment to the cook when something is relished to the very last spoonful, and a nice design on the tableware is revealed.

As more people explore healthy or ethical dining options like turning vegan, our kitchen repertoires should also expand beyond serving and eating obvious items. This Vegan Chili Bowl is just the kind of unexpected dish that will make a vegan guest feel welcomed by your thoughtfulness. They are sure to enjoy it far more than picking at an ordinary salad or an unimaginative dressed-down version of the main course. The best part is that as it is a meal-in-a-bowl, you can be assured that they will be fully satisfied.

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Recipe: Ragi Kanji – The Proof Is In The Porridge!

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When I was a little girl, the month of Aadi in Chennai meant music being blared from temple speakers and a general atmosphere of colour and sound on the streets. Just like with the funeral processions full of flowers and drumming, I thought all of it was pure celebration. Now, as an adult, I appreciate the nuances, but there is still something about this month that catches my eye – and more accurately, my sense of smell. For temples small and large through the city make ritual offerings to the Goddess, which are then distributed to all. The scent of freshly made koozh (pronounced koo-lu), a millet-based porridge, fills the air along with devotional songs.

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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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