Caramel Melon

Yellow Melon is sweeter and flavorsome than the pink one. I am not very keen on experimenting with Melon other than making the occasional smoothie or juice with lemon or orange zest. Some time back I watched a very famous English lady making a melon salad with chilies, onion and coriander leaves. I even saw her friends eating that and saying it was so yummy. But then you really cant be sure with English, since they never give their true opinion. They always say it is awesome for fear of upsetting the listener.
Anyway I tried her Melon Cilantro salad and trust me, it was awful. A lesson learned, Coriander and Melon doesn't go together !!
This time I had some yellow Melon and I wanted to try it with salted Caramel. A word of warning, though. Serve it immediately. If you keep it, the caramel will melt and sink into the Melon, forming a pool of watery Caramel around the Melon. But eaten immediately, it brings smiles.

To make this, Cut slices of the Melon. Melt sugar to make a Caramel. Pour over cut slices and sprinkle sea salt. Serve immediately and enjoy.

Steamed Pork Buns ( Baozi / Mantou)

If you walk down the street , any street, in Shanghai, you will find at least two Mantou vendors. It is very easy to spot them because they always have their huge tall Steamers ready to give you the juiciest and softest buns you have ever tasted.
I have been longing to make steamed buns myself and by trial and error succeeded in making  soft Buns today. They might not look very professional, but they did taste awesome with a very succulent flavorsome filling and soft and cushion like dough.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

2 to 2 and a half cups flour
1 and a half teaspoon yeast
quarter cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon oil
2 teaspoon baking powder

Mix yeast with sugar and water. Stir till yeast dissolves and keep it aside for a couple of minutes till frothy. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Place the flour in a large bowl and make a soft dough with the yeast and oil. Knead till soft for about 5 minutes. Place the soft dough in an oiled bowl and keep in a warm place for about an hour,

For the filling
 1 teaspoon oil
2 or 3 spring onion, chopped fine
250 gms Pork mince
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon chopped chillies
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce

Make a paste with Cornflour and 1 and a half tablespoon of water and keep aside.
Heat the oil and add spring onions until it wilts. Add the mince and stir.Add everything else except Cornflour paste and Shaoxing wine and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the Shaoxing wine to the Corn flour paste and add this to the Pork. Stir for a  minute till the mixture comes together as a paste. Remove from fire and cool completely.

To assemble
Divide the dough in half and  Roll each half  on a lightly floured surface to form a long sausage. ( about 12 inches long). Cut the logs into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten it slightly to form a flattened circle.
Lightly dust a surface and roll each circle into a three and a half inch circle. The edges should be thinner than the middle. Hold the circle in your palm and place about two or three teaspoons of the filling on the circle. Flatten the filling , taking care to leave at least half inch around the edge. Fold the buns and let it rest for half an hour. When it is well risen, place on the steamer and steam for 15 minutes

You can see how it is assembled in this video here .

Radish and Cucumber salad with seasoned Yogurt

Cucumber is really a cool vegetable. It is very refreshing in summer. It is delicious either raw or cooked. We use Cucumber a lot in our traditional cuisine and most of the time it is in combination with yogurt or tamarind. 

 
Today I went to the fresh produce market and got some good organic Cucumber. They even had the flowers still attached to the fruit.

I am going with a vegetable theme this week , as an attempt to detoxify without starving myself to death. Cucumbers are an excellent choice for detox, or that is what people say. Whether it helps detox or not, I love Cucumber ( Well, everyone knows that. That is why we chose to name our spa, Cucumber :)  )

It was really hot and humid today and so I decided to make a Yogurt mint dressing to go with it. Though garlic is considered heat inducing, I added a bit of garlic too, because along with Cucumbers I got fresh garlic too.

What I did was pretty simple, but nevertheless gave me a dish I was so pleased with.

I washed the Cucumbers and peeled them into strips with a peeler. I also cut the unpeeled radish to thin slices. Then I sprinkled some salt into it and left it aside while I was preparing the Yogurt sauce.

For the Yogurt sauce, I chopped a small garlic clove and added that to a cup of Yogurt. I didn't want the garlic to overpower the flavor, and that is why I chose the smallest clove. I added a teaspoon of chopped mint leaves, a bit of lemon juice and salt. Then I thought , maybe I need to spice it up a bit. So I heated a teaspoon of oil and when the oil was smoking hot, I dropped in some mustard seeds, chopped red chillies and a pinch of Fenugreek seeds. I added the seasoning straight to the Yogurt stirring constantly till evenly mixed. I was scared that the hot oil will curdle the Yogurt, but since I stirred it as soon as added the oil, it was still creamy.

Then I took the Cucumber and radish and crushed it slightly to remove the salty water. Pile them on a plate and serve with the Yogurt sauce.

Coconut Yogurt Cake

Trivandrum is my home. Everytime I am away, It calls me back to it´s green paddy fields and Coconut farms, enticing me with the aroma of Coconut based food. It wont be a lie, if I say that Coconut is in my blood and in my mind. Whenever I feel homesick the comfort food I crave for is  Coconut Chammanthi made with Coconut, chillies, ginger and lemon leaves served with brown rice. In fact, I can be far away from Kerala, but I can never be far from Coconut. Once a Malayali, always a Malayali :)

Here I try to add Coconut to a cake. Considering the fact that this photo was taken by a phone, it has turned out well. And the yellow Jasmine flowers are from my garden.

125 gm softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
half a cup of dessicated coconut
1 and a half cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup thick yoghurt

Heat oven to 180 degrees.
Beat butter and sugar in a bowl till light and fluffy. Beat in eggs.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
Fold in the flour, yogurt and coconut into the butter mixture.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured cake tin.
Bake for about 40 minutes.

Steamed Pumpkin Custard with Chia seeds

Pumpkins have always fascinated me. Growing up in farmer household, Pumpkins was a major part of our diet. We ate it as Erissery or Pachadi or even with dried fish. It was always cooked with Coconut or Yogurt but never with sugar or Jaggery.

When I told my husband that I bought a small Pumpkin and that I was planning to make a soup with it, he suggested to look for recipes for Thailand steamed Pumpkin dessert. It involves a lot of creamy coconut milk and eggs, even the thought makes me drool. But I am the sort of person who cooks with what is in the kitchen . I am too lazy to go out and buy Coconut milk.

So I have modified the version to use milk and eggs instead of Coconut milk.
It turned out pretty awesome, so here it is.

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 cups ( you can use milk and cream in 1:1 ratio )
eggs - 2
Sugar - quarter cup or to suit your taste
Cardamom powder - of one Cardamom
Rice flour - 1 tablespoon
Chia seeds - 1 tablespoon
Pumpkin(small) - 1

First prepare the Pumpkin. Make a Circular cut on the top of the Pumpkin near the stalk and carefully remove the lid. Scrape off the seeds and threads of the Pumpkin with a spoon.
Blend all the ingredients except Chia seeds  and Pumpkin in a  blender till the sugar dissolves. Add Chia seeds and pour into the prepared Pumpkin shell.
Pour the egg milk mixture into the Pumpkin shell and steam for 1 hour or till the custard solidifies.
Remove and refrigerate.
Slice and serve with or without Caramel sauce.

Enjoy.

Grilled Corn Salad with Orange Soy dressing

Corn is one of my all time favorites. I can eat it anytime, anywhere.  Yesterday I bought the coloured Corn from the market and decided to make a grilled corn salad to go with the vegetable theme I have been following this week

I honestly believe and try to make people believe that food is at the best when very little is done to them. So I rubbed the Corn with some salt and grilled it till it charred. Why did I rub it with salt, I dont know. That is how I do it.

Just look at that, all that sweetness with the slight bitterness of the charred skin.

Then I chopped some Cucumber, Scallion and Tomatoes. I made a dressing with lemon juice, orange juice, a pinch of sugar, Olive oil and a Soy sauce.

When the Corn cooled down slightly, I chopped off the kernels and mixed it with the chopped vegetables. I also added some Amaranth leaves.

Heaped them on a plate and drizzled with the dressing.

Enjoy.

Marinated Tofu with Chilli sauce

It takes some time to love Tofu and once you do, it is very versatile. I have tried many cooking methods with Tofu  and I can honestly say that this is a very simple and easy way to treat Tofu.

We need about.

250 gms firm Tofu
juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoon apple vinegar
1 table spoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped chillies
salt to taste
Chilli sauce to serve

Mix everything except Tofu and chilli sauce and stir till the sugar dissolves. Steam the Tofu and when cold, cut Tofu into cubes and marinate Tofu in the lemon juice mixture. Refrigerate in an airtight container for at least a day.

To serve steam or blanch seasonal vegetables. Remove Tofu cubes from the marinate and top with chilli sauce. Serve and enjoy.

Fried Pork Wonton , Zha Yuntun

There were times when the after school tea time consisted mainly of fried delicacies like Banana fritters (Vazhakkayappam), Lentils fritters, Unniyappam, Sukhiyan etc.

Making these are tiresome . Preparation must start hours before you actually make these snacks, by soaking the lentils , grinding them or fermenting the dough. I am a confessed lazy cook and would always go for the easy method to make equally delicious snacks.

Fried Wontons are easy to make. One you make a batch, you can freeze them on a tray and store in ziplock bags for later use. How convenient life has become.
Filling and folding Wontons store hidden pleasures. Though I am the laziest person in the whole whole world, I can totally sit down some place and go on folding Wontons for a long time. Especially if  Yesudas or Brahmanandan sings in the background.

Ingredients for Fried Wonton:

50 Wonton wrappers, store bought or made
250 gms ground Pork
1 spring Onion,chopped
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped chilies
half a teaspoon dark soy
salt to taste
Oil for frying

Combine everything except Wonton wrappers and frying oil in a bowl. Mix it with a fork till it forms a paste.
Set aside for a few minutes.
Before filling, dust a tray with flour and keep near you. Take a wrapper and place a spoonful of filling in the centre. Fold to form a triangle, pressing well near the filling. Put a drop of water on one of the side arms. Bring the other arm over and press firmly to seal. Place on the dusted tray and cover with a tea towel.
Proceed to fill all the Wontons.
You can freeze the filled and folded Wontons on a tray. Once frozen place desired numbers in Ziplock bags. Will keep for three months. When needed, remove from freezer , defrost and can be steamed, boiled or fried.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hot, drop Wontons and deep fry them till crispy.
Serve with a sweet and sour sauce or Chilli sauce.

Roses are red and eggs are blue

I have seen pictures of bright pink eggs  pickled in Beets and wanted to make some for a long time. Beetroot is not a regular vegetable in Shanghai and I really don't feel like spending 50 dollars at the City shop for half a kilo of Beetroot.

Given the circumstances, we can all adapt. And I attempted to pickle the egg in Purple sweet potato, which is soon becoming a personal favorite.

I first cooked a Purple sweet Potato in water, drained but reserved the cooking liquid. The cooking liquid was deep Purple in color.  I put the shelled hard boiled eggs in the colored liquid and set it aside for 2 hours.
And I got a blue egg to fancy.
Cut the eggs in half and remove the yolks. In a separate bowl, mash the yolk with chopped onions, salt and pepper. Fill the cavities with the yolk and enjoy-

Spicy cold noodles with shredded chicken

This recipe is adapted from a fabulous lady named Fuschia Dunlop. She travelled all around China collecting regional recipes and have written many cookbooks. I cant wait to get hold of some of her cookbooks.

I used fresh noodles to make this dish, but it can also be made with dry noodles. If you are using dried noodles, follow the packet instructions to cook the noodles. Then rinse it in cold water and drain. Add half a teaspoon of sesame oil and mix it to the noodles to prevent it from sticking to one another.

fresh noodles - 500 gms
oil - 1 tablespoon
bean sprout or enoki mushrooms               - 100 gms
bamboo shoots, chopped - 100gms
cooked and shredded chicken - 100 gms

Seasoning
sesame paste - 2 tablespoon
dark soy sauce - half a teaspoon
light soy sauce - half a teaspoon
rice vinegar - 1 tablespoon
sugar - half a teaspoon
chopped garlic - 1 teaspoon
Chilli oil - 1 teaspoon
fried groundnuts -  1 tablespoon
sichuan pepper, ground - half a teaspoon
sesame oil - 1 teaspoon

Cook the noodles in salted boiling water. Rinse in cold water and drain. Add half the sesame oil and mix it well to prevent sticking.
Blanch the bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and enoki mushrooms .
Mix together the vegetables,chicken and noodles .
In a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for seasoning.
Place heaps of noodles into a serving bowl, drizzle with seasoning and enjoy.

Soy Braised Pork Belly

Pork belly is good to eat and good to look at. I buy my Pork from a small butchery run by a smiling young lady and her smiling young man. Every time I go there, they always try to chat to me , of course , in Chinese. I chat with them in English. Actually I shouldn't bother talking to them in English, I should talk in Malayalam. I don't think it makes any difference to them.

For the Soy braised Pork belly we need :

Dark soy sauce - 1 tablespoon
Light soy sauce - 1 tablespoon
Rice vinegar - 1 tablespoon
Star Anise - 3
Cinnamon or Cassia bark - 2 rolls /2 pieces
Cloves - half a teaspoon
Garlic,chopped- 1 tablespoon
Ginger , chopped - 1 tablespoon
Pork belly cut into pieces - 500 gm

First I prepped the Pork belly by plunging it in boiling water. All the blood and those yucky things can be removed by this prep. Drain after two minutes of boiling and wash under running water. The Pork belly is now prepped for braising.

Pour 3 litres of water into a large sauce pan. Add all the spices and the prepped pork belly and boil for 1 hour. Check often and add water if it comes dangerously low. By the end of the cooking time, the Pork will be coated with a glaze. Taste and add more salt if you need . There is enough salt in the soy sauce, so I didn't add more salt, but feel free to if your salt cravings are more.

Prawns with greens

Certain days are like today. Days when I want to taste the real flavour of food. So I keep aside the spices or even vinegar and cook simple food with no frills attached.

One of the perks of living in Shanghai is that you can get fish when it is still alive. So I got my prawns today and all the way back home I was devising methods to kill the Prawns. Do I drain the water and leave them to die ? Or do I freeze kill them ? Or do I get a brooch needle and stab them to death ?
The prawns had no clue of my terrible plans so they continued to poke me and scratch me through the plastic bag.

When I got home, I emptied the bag into a sauce pan and there it was, all feeling each other up with their wiggly feelers.
I steadied myself and put the sauce pan on the stove.

It is one of the most unpleasant things I have done ( other than using the train toilets in India) . I did feel upset  but then,  if I can eat them, I can kill them too. The prawns were boiled in salted water, skin and head e tall. Then I let it cool down a bit and shelled them to reveal the bright orange nakedness.

Then I proceeded to heat a spoonful of oil , asking for forgivence all the while. When the oil became hot, I put chopped up greens ( Mustard greens, garlic shoots, pepper, spinach) along with a bit of garlic and ginger. All that was left to do was to add salt and pepper .




The prawns were unbelievably soft and succulent. The flavor was very clean and neat to the palate. I will definitely make this again.

Lotus root

This week´s wet market shopping got me Lotus root. I love the crunchiness of Lotus root, I love the earthiness of Lotus root .. It will be just enough to say I love and adore Lotus root.

So I bought two lotus roots and made one into a salad with Enoki mushrooms and pepper. The other one I stuffed with Basmati rice and boiled for an hour in a sweet syrupy concoction of staranise, Cassia bark and sugar.

And here is the winner, My fresh greenie salad.

It is very easy to make this salad. Peel and wash the Lotus root . Use a chopstick to clean inside the roots. Cut it along the length, in half and then chop the halves into thin slices. Place the slices in a bowl with water and rice vinegar. This will keep the root white and also removes the bitterness, if any.
Blanch the slices along with pepper , scallion and Garlic flower stalks.
Drain and keep in a salad bowl. Add salt and pepper, give it a shake and you have a crunchy, earthly salad to die for.

I used the other root to make a sweet dish. This is one of the Shanghai street food, where the lotus root is stuffed with sticky rice and boiled in a honey spicey syrup.
I have made my version of the stuffed lotus root.

This is fun to make. Peel the root and use a chopstick to clean the inside.
Cut a two inch slice from one end and keep it aside to use as a cap.
Wash and drain rice and stuff the root with the rice. Use the chopstick to push and compact the rice.
Using toothpicks, attach the cap to the root.
Meanwhile boil a large saucepan with water. Add Star Anise, Cassia bark or Cinnamon peel, sugar, honey and whatever nice things you fancy to the water. Place the stuffed root in the boiling water and boil for 1 hour. Remove with a slotted spoon and let it rest.
Remove the spices from the water and reduce it to form a syrup.
Slice the roots and pour the syrup over the slices.
It is so magical to look at the slices let alone eat it.

Roast peppers, Purple sweet potato and Eggplant with Cumin seeds

I had this notion that Eggplants,Tamarind and Okra belonged to a group of vegetables called the 'Asura' veggies, meaning devil's vegetables. How the hell did I get this idea ? From the junk books you buy from the fair grounds !! Some of these books that you buy from a fair ground are treasure boxes of ridiculous suggestions and superstitions.
My grandfather used to have at least one Brinjal plant (as we call eggplants in India) in his backyard. There are times when there is an immense harvest and Eggplant appears as spicy chutney in the breakfast table and as stir fries, curries and dry dishes for dinner. We had an overload of eggplants during the fruit bearing season and  naturally as kids we hated it.

Later on in my life, when I started to cook properly, I have learned to love eggplants  and now  it features in my shopping list every week. I love them in all the three colours and all the different shapes. This week I got the purple round one and of course I have to make a salad with it. It is also the time of the year when you get Purple Sweet Potato (Kumara as Maoris call it) so it makes the carbohydrate part of my one pot wonder food.

Roast a couple of peppers over the flame. Let it cool and chop it into chunks.
Steam eggplant, bamboo shoots. sweet potato and any other vegetable you want to add.
Heat a teaspoon of oil in a wok and drop a teaspoon of Cumin seeds. When it splutters and the aroma rises, add the steamed veggies and give it a stir.
Add some green leaves like Spinach or Bakcoy and spruce it up with chopped cilantro and ginger. Add salt and pepper.
A final stir and the salad is for you to enjoy.

My very first dumpling, Zhengjiao

It is just been over two months since I came to Shanghai, but I have tried a lot of dumplings and steamed buns from various street vendors. I often go to Babi Mantou for their pork steamed buns, and though it has added a layer around my hips, I continue to eat dumplings.

Today I decided to make dumplings on my own because I have my own bamboo steamer from my trip to the HEC.

I wanted to keep it simple and searched for Wonton dumpling recipes. I have found one from Andrea Nguyen and tweaked it up a bit to suit my taste.

You can use the ready made Wonton wrappers of make it yourself from scratch.

To make thin skin dumpling wrappers add half a cup of just boiled water to two cups of all purpose flour. With a wooden spoon bring the dough together, adding more water if needed, to make it a soft dough.

Place the dough in a ziplock bag and rest it for an hour.

After the resting time, knead the dough on lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into four and flatten to a rectangle shape. Cut into squares of 10 X 10 cms.

Filling

 1 cup chopped mushrooms

half a cup chopped greens

half a cup chopped bamboo shoots

1 tablespoon chopped chillies

1 table spoon chopped cilantro

salt to taste

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

half a cup chopped scallions

oil to sautee

Chilli sauce

Rice Vinegar

Heat about a teaspoon of oil and fry all the ingredients except chilli sauce. When the bamboo is cooked remove from fire.

Place a wrapper in the palm of your hand and place a teaspoon of the mixture in the centre of the wrapper. Bring the sides together  and press firmly to form a triangle.

Now bring the two corners of the triangle together overlapping slughtly to form the ´Nurses Cap´shape.

Boil water in a wok or a sauce pan. Line a bamboo steamer with parchment paper or a wet towel and place the filled wontons in the steamer. Steam for 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile add a tablespoon each of  Chilli sauce and rice vinegar to the remaining filling and warm it.

Add the steamed dumplings to the Chilli sauce mixture and serve immediately.