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Recipe: Let’s Chaat – Green Moong Bhel

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When it comes to Indian street food, the first and last word is always “chaat”. Yes, the vendors of sundal and cotton candy on my beloved Marina Beach will put up a fight, but when it comes to tastes savoured throughout India, chaat wins hands down. Chaat is a catch-all term, and extends from fried breads like pav bhajji to pastries called puris, filled with everything from potato to spiced water. Among the popular ones is bhel, also known as bhel puri.

Bhel is usually made with puffed rice as the main ingredient. As I’m always trying to make all the food we enjoy healthier, without compromising on taste, I substituted the puffed rice for the humble and very nutritious mung bean, also known as green gram or moong.

 

 

Moong is a versatile legume, used extensively in Asian cuisines. It can be eaten sweetened as a filling in pastries like mooncakes, stir-fried with vegetables, soaked and softened into a dal, ground into paste for crepes like dosa, and even made into noodles once starched. Moong beans are high in protein, low in carbs as compared to other legumes and pulses, and rich in antioxidants, phytonutrients and fibre. Unlike various other kinds of beans, they are also easy to digest, meaning you won’t feel bloated after eating them.

This Green Moong Bhel brings the tanginess of authentic streetside chaat, thanks to a blend of two chutneys, to the wholesomeness of mung beans. Like all chaat, it’s an anytime dish – and like all chaat, once you’ve enjoyed it, you’ll always have a craving for it.

 

Green Moong Bhel

Ingredients
Bhel (Yield – 4-5 small cups)

½ cup moong beans
½ cup finely cut cucumber
¼ cup finely cut onions
¼ cup cut tomatoes
¼ cup cut raw mango
¼ cup finely chopped coriander leaves
¼ teaspoon roasted cumin powder
3 cups water
Salt to taste

Date Chutney (Yield: 3 Cups)

1 cup jaggery
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup tamarind
¼ cup sugar
1½ + 1 + 1 cups water
2 teaspoons roasted cumin powder
1 teaspoon black salt
¼ teaspoon chilli powder
Salt to taste

Soak the moong beans overnight, or for 6-8 hours. They will triple in size when they have been well-soaked.

On a medium flame, add 3 cups of water, ¼ teaspoon of salt and a pinch of turmeric to the beans and allow to cook. This will take 15-20 minutes. The beans should be soft to the bite.

 

Strain the beans and allow them to cool.

 

 

In the meantime, put all the cut vegetables and the raw mango into a bowl. You can add any vegetables of your choice, whatever you find handily available, and increase or decrease the quantities to your preference. My selection here is a very typically “chaat” selection of fresh, affordable local produce. Keep aside some coriander for garnishing.

 

To this bowl of vegetables and fruit, add two chutneys. You can find the green coriander chutney recipe here (if you’re on a health kick, try not to get distracted by the banana-methi fritters recipe!). It’s an extraordinary simple just-blend-it-chutney, and you can use it in versatile ways.

The date chutney requires just a few more steps. Soak the jaggery, chopped dates, tamarind and sugar in 1½ cups of water for at least half an hour. Then blend this very well with 1 cup of warm water. Sieve the mixture to remove any sediments. Now, add the roasted cumin powder, black salt, chili powder and salt, as well as an additional cup of water, and boil for approximately 15 minutes. You will notice the mixture thickening, and you can adjust this to the consistency you desire by adding more water. This recipe yields a generous three cups of date chutney. Use only as much as you need for the green moong bhel dish, then save the rest in the fridge.

Blend 2 teaspoons each of the two chutneys into the bowl of cut vegetables and raw mango. Then add all the spices as well as the cooled moong beans to the bowl. Mix all the ingredients together nicely, making sure the chutneys coat them well.

Now, serve the green moong bhel in smaller bowls, garnishing with the coriander leaves. I often like to add a bit of crunch on top too, such as crushed peanuts, pomegranate, fried crisps or the puffed rice that is reminiscent of traditional chaat.

You can put this healthy snack on the list along with sundal, pea-pomegranate kachoris, sweet ghugras and, of course, banana-methi fritters and enjoy it with some piping hot chai or coffee. Or have it as an alternative to salad or quinoa, and enjoy a big bowl as a full breakfast or a light lunch. As simple as the dish looks, it’s absolutely loaded with flavours. Healthy can taste so good, sometimes!

 

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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: For Festivals And Cheat-Days – Banana-Methi Fritters

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If you’ve been following my blog, you’d have noticed that despite my quintessentially Gujarati sweet tooth, my culinary adventures are often based on healthy eating. I hardly ever reach for a fried item first, but these banana-methi fritters are a part of our wide kitchen repertoire at home during Diwali. Perhaps one just can’t feel guilty about indulgence when it comes to special occasions! The festive season isn’t far away, so you may want to try your hand at these fritters and see if you’d like to share them with your friends and family too this year.

Growing methi (known in English as fenugreek, and in Tamil as vendeyakeerai for the leaves and vendeyam for the seeds) is as easy as throwing a few seeds in the soil and allowing them to sprout in a matter of days. This is why I can use freshly-plucked methi leaves for so many of my dishes. Alongside tulsi, lemongrass and numerous herbs, fruits and vegetables, it flourishes right in my home. Whether it’s a traditional Indian staple or a salad (Chennai’s weather makes fresh lettuce difficult to find in the city sometimes, and I love experimenting with healthy substitutes), these pretty greens are a familiar ingredient in the re:store kitchen.

Methi has an array of health benefits. Among them, it helps improve digestion, tackle respiratory allergies, cure anaemia, and lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels (which is why it is used in diabetes management). Due to its high estrogen content, it even helps lactating mothers in the production of milk – I remember being given lots of methi laddoos after giving birth. In addition to these benefits, methi is also known to have a beautifying effect on the hair and skin when used in a paste form as a mask or conditioner.

I’m telling you all this to put a healthy spin on the recipe below – which is a fried indulgence!

The other ingredient in this spicy, crispy snack I’m about to share with you hardly needs to be promoted on the basis of health, because it is so very sweet and tasty. That filling, versatile, portable and very nutritious fruit – the banana! It just so happens that bananas are rich in potassium, fibre, antioxidants and share blood sugar-lowering, cholesterol-management and overall wellness-boosting benefits with methi.

Hundreds of banana varieties are grown in India through the year, and with Tamil Nadu being the source of 23% of the country’s supply, we really have our pick of the fruit here. In fact, the banana tree is auspicious in many Indian cultures, and has a place in wedding and fertility rituals. Similar to the coconut, its various parts have many uses. The banana flower, known as vazhaipoo, is diced and eaten in Tamil cuisine – and traditionally, South Indian food is always served on a banana leaf.

So we have here two key ingredients so nourishing that you can forget you’re chomping on fried deliciousness. Without further ado, here are my banana-methi fritters, served with a green coriander chutney.

 

Banana-Methi Fritters With Green Coriander Chutney

(Yield: 20-25 small fritters)

Fritters
¾ cup chickpea flour
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 finely chopped green chilli or 1 teaspoon chilli ginger paste
¾ cup methi leaves, washed and finely chopped
½ cup ripe banana, pulped or finely chopped
2 cups of oil + 1 tablespoon hot oil
¼ cup water

Chutney

1 cup coriander leaves, washed and finely chopped
1 green chilli
1 tablespoon peanuts
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons water
1 generous slice raw mango (optional)
Salt to taste

In a mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, turmeric, cumin, grated ginger and green chilli and mix. To this, add the banana and the methi leaves. Mix them well with your hands, adding enough water to make a paste-like consistency. Allow this batter to sit for a minimum of half an hour.

Heat the 2 cups of oil. Add 1 tablespoon of hot oil to the batter. The hot oil in the batter helps make the fritters soft. Blend well with your hands.

The remaining oil should be in a pan on the stove, and you can check its heat by adding just a drop of the batter into the oil to see if it sputters. If it does, the oil is ready. Lower the flame and add small spoonfuls of batter into the oil.

Keep the flame low and allow the fritters to fry well. Once the fritters have cooked on one side, flip them over using a butter knife. At this point, you may increase the flame slightly then lower it again, ensuring that the oil doesn’t get so hot that the fritters burn and blacken. You want them to be fried to a golden colour on both sides. Once this colour is achieved, remove the fritters from the stove and drop them onto an absorbent paper to remove excess oil.

Serve hot. I like to complement these crispy banana-methi fritters with a green coriander-based chutney. For this, I use coriander, green chilli, ginger, peanuts, salt, lemon juice and water, usually with a generous slice of raw mango. Simply blend all the ingredients together well in a mixer-grinder. The result is a flavourful chutney that perfectly accompanies the fried fritters.

Between the sweetness of the banana, the bitterness of the methi and the tangy kick of the chutney, you won’t be able to stop at just one! Try it for yourself and see. Let me know what you think in the comments.

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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: An Introduction To Macrobiotics – The Goodness Of Gomashio

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There I was in the freezing cold of the Berkshire mountains in Massachusetts, USA, telling my friends and family back home that I was finally about to do for fun what I didn’t enjoy doing in school – study! I had given myself the gift of learning: specifically, the subject of Macrobiotics, a system of mindful cooking and eating. My classes at the Kushi Institute often took place in the snowy winters, and even from indoors the beauty of my surroundings inspired me every day. Chirping birds, beautiful trees, and a healing science drawn from the principles of Zen Buddhism… Which I brought back to my home in Chennai, with its own trees and birds and mouths to feed.

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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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Recipe: The Curry Leaf & Raw Mango Cooler (aka “Madras Summer”)

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What does summer look and feel like in your city? Here in Chennai, temperatures have been crossing 40 °C (104 °F) – and we’re bracing for May, usually the hottest month of the year! The streets are at their sunniest and most scorching, but pleasantly lined by flowering trees and stalls selling fruit. A few weeks ago, on a short road trip, water mirages accompanied me all along the highway. As for what the season feels like: sweat, thirst and the longing for a cool breeze and a chilled beverage are our primary sensations at present. Come visit, I say – just not today!

Fortunately, there’s a method to the madness of every season. Traditional wisdom and the science of macrobiotics make the best culinary use of fruits, vegetables and grains that thrive at different times of the year. Here in the subcontinent, if there is one kind of produce that is ubiquitous with the sweltering, sultry days of summer, it’s the mango.

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Recipe: The Done-To-Death Chia Pudding… With A Difference

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The dessert du jour is the chia seed pudding – fuss-free, and usually requiring very few ingredients. If you’re like me, you’d have gotten introduced to chia seeds because of your curiosity over the current craze of having them in puddings. The first time I tasted them, they took me back to childhood visits to Bombay and the city’s famous bright-coloured, super-sweet dessert drink known as falooda. They tasted just like the takhmaria (sweet basil) seeds I loved catching between my teeth as I slurped it down… And that’s when I had an inspiration about a very Indian twist on the done-to-death chia seed pudding.

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Recipe: The Salad We Call Sundal

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What is the most descriptive collective noun for coconuts? A cluster? A clump? A crowd? None of them quite sufficed for the copious numbers I found myself with! With five thriving trees in my garden, dangerously dropping their heavy drupes at any given moment, I responded to this abundance in the best way I know how: by bringing them into my kitchen.

So I hired a nimble man to climb up the trees to cut most of the coconuts down, and then we segregated them into tender ones, which yielded nutritious coconut water, and ripe ones with flesh that could be shaved. One of my coconut trees is also the site of an experiment of mine. I have a little basket on a lovely pulley system which takes pieces of papaya up to a nice altitude for the parrots that often flit about. It took a while to convince them that this odd contraption was actually a friendly gesture, but as with people and animals both – at the end of the day, appetite always wins!

restore shaved coconut

The shaved coconuts found themselves in many of my recipes: from coconut rose cupcakes (which you can order here if you’re in Chennai) to sweet-savoury kachoris (which you can make in your own kitchen, with my recipe here) and more. And in the late afternoons, those pristine white shavings of coconut were perfect for a local lentil dish: sundal.

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Recipe: A Vegan Burger That Will Make You Go “Wow!”

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When most people hear the word “burger”, they think of an oily, low-nutrition meal full of sauces and heavy meat, polished off with unhealthy sodas and greasy fries! But what if I told you that I can share with you how I make something that looks like the real thing, tastes just as (or more!) delicious, and doesn’t do anything but nourish your body and soul?

My vegan bean burger is an improvisation on a dish that one of my teachers at the Kushi Institute, Chris Jenkin, used to make for us for lunch sometimes, in a strictly macrobiotic style using East Asian ingredients. I love innovating in the kitchen, discovering ways to turn a dish around and make it vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and so on. I also consider how to source ingredients that are seasonal and readily available. Call it Macrobiotics meets Madras! Here’s a perfect example of how I fine-tuned a recipe so that it makes the best sense for climactic and cultural conditions.

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