Thursday, July 24, 2014

Penne Pot Pie

For seven years now, I've been living with a carnivore. His favourite vegetable is chicken, he says. And refuses to eat anything that could have been green, once upon a time. Much worse than my 10 month old Little Monster who loves his vegetable-loaded khichri. To ensure this adult-sized brat eats, dinners in the Sharma-Das household are almost always meat-centric. Mercifully, DH does not do lunch. When you wake up at 11, lunch isn't quite lunch, right? The days I'm at home (which thanks to the LM, is ALL THE TIME these days), I make it a point to go 100% vegetarian. Greens, gourds, leaves, roots, stems, fruits..those are my mid-day indulgences.
Today's lunch was a Penne Pot Pie. Fresh and flavorful. With a mix of vegetables and brought together with a bechamel sauce. LM polished off his khichri while I demolished my single serve ramekin of goodness.

Serves 2
Ingredients:

For Pasta:
Penne- 1/2 cup
Water- 2 cups
Olive oil- few drops

For vegetable filling:
Aubergines- 2 small- cut into thin slices
Peas- 1/4 cup
Chilli- 1- chopped
Carrot- 1 small- thin juliennes
Green pepper- 1- chopped
Spring Onion- small bunch- chopped
Cauliflower- 3-4 florets- cut into smaller florets
Garlic- 3 pods, minced
Tomatoes- 2 medium- chopped

For Bechamel sauce:
Butter- 2 tbsp
Flour- 1 tbsp
Milk- 3/4 cup
Salt- to taste
Peppercorns- 4-5
Dried Rosemary- 1tsp

Process:
Boil pasta with a few drops of olive oil in water till al dente. Drain in a colander. Leave to cool.

In a non-stick pan, heat 1tsp oil. Once hot, arrange the aubergine slices without any overlap. Sprinkle salt. Cook on medium heat for about 2 minutes and flip. Allow to cook till they are soft but still hold the disc shape. Turn off heat. Remove. Reserve with the chopped capsicum and spring onion greens.

In the same pan, add the spring onions and garlic. Once the onion is wilted, add the chopped chilli. Follow that up with chopped tomatoes. Allow to sweat. Add the peas, carrot and cauliflower. Cook covered till almost done.

Add the drained pasta and toss. Turn off heat.

For the sauce, in a thick-bottomed pan, add the butter and flour to make a basic roux.

Add milk gradually and keep stirring to avoid the making of lumps.

To flavour and season, add crushed peppercorns, rosemary and salt.

Turn off the heat just as the sauce begins to thicken.

Preheat the oven at 220 degrees C.
Grease the inside of a ramekin. Arrange a layer of the cooked aubergine slices.

Add the penne-vegetable mix.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables. Add another layer of the aubergine slices.

Sprinkle the chopped capsicum and spring onion greens on top and cover with the reamining sauce.

Bake at 220C for 25 minutes or till the sauce has set and blisters appear on the top.

Cool on a wire rack

Serve warm.

Notes:
Penne can be replaced with any other pasta of choice. I prefer penne because of the ooziness it acquires while cooking.
The aubergines can also be added to the vegetable mix. I love the vegetable and therefore like to keep its sharpness distinct.
The flour roux can be made with lesser butter. I don't skimp on it because the rest of the dish hardly uses any fat, especially if cooked in a non-stick pan.




Sunday, July 6, 2014

Mourning

Brokenhearted, it fell,
marking ugly, raw rashes
on the city's grey skin. 
Like a suppurating wound,
a 5x5 section of the sky
bled. 

Something broke
behind this row of
same-same-same houses
last night. 
Unpretty- its cry,
silenced by 
the smug whirr 
of air conditioning units
and the whine 
of rain-singed concrete. 

She wonders,
silt-skinned witness 
to the scream,
whether the night died
or a dream,
or if it was only a promise,
unclaimed,
breathing its last. 

Monday, June 30, 2014

For love of the Malda Aam #3

So, if you're here, you probably already know of my eternal love for the very niche, very Bihari, Malda aam. I could (have, actually) write lovesongs to its delicate fragrance, its sweet flesh, its creamy texture. The sexiness of this very khaas mango finds somewhat adequate expression in a lovingly crafted, eggless, no-bake cheesecake.

A few friends asked and I'm vain enough to think they meant it, so here goes a detailed recipe.

I used cream cheese in this recipe. If you can't source it or would like to skimp on the fat(really?), you could substitute with the fresh paneer + hung curd mix that works in just about any cream cheese recipe.

This is a 3-step process. Crust. Filling. Glaze. Your optional step 4- garnish. That one is probably my favourite. So all you have to do is prepare the required ingredients for all three parts and then, like a 3-year old with control issues, assemble them in the right order. Simple.

And you don't have to be a Malda fan to make this cheesecake. Any variety with a rich colour and mild sweetness will do.

Mango Cheesecake

Ingredients:
Crust:
Marie biscuits- 200 gms (a lot of recipes ask for digestives but the flavour is too clunky for me.)
Butter- 75 gms (I use salted butter. I love the hint of saltiness in the crust. You could choose to go with unsalted.)

Filling:
Cream cheese - 350 gms
Fresh Cream- 200 gms
Icing sugar- 3 tbsp for the cream
Powdered sugar- 1 cup
Mango pulp- 1.5 cup (about 3 medium sized mangoes)
Gelatin- 2 tbsp
Water- 1/2 cup

Glaze:
Mango pulp- 1 cup
Gelatin- 1 tbsp
Water- 1/3 cup

Process:
Crust:
Break the biscuits into pieces and whizz them into a fine powder.
Melt the butter and add to the biscuit powder.
Using your fingers, bring it all together into a cookie-sort-of mix.
In a springform pan, 8 inch, press the biscuit mix down smoothly. Keep the level a little higher than the ridge of the pan. Smoothen.
Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes- 1 hour.

Filling:
1. Whip the cream with 3 tbsp sugar till it is glossy.

2. With a wooden spoon (you could use a whisk; I'm partial to my wooden spoon) beat together the cream cheese and the sugar till smooth.

3. Heap the gelatin into a small bowl. Heat the half cup of water in a microwave on high for 30 seconds. Pour the water into the bowl. Allow to sit while the gelatin begins to dissolve. Give it a quick stir to ensure uniformity. When about lukewarm, add to the mango pulp and give it a good whisk so it all blends together.

4. Add the mango pulp to the cream cheese mix. Blend together. Finally, add the cream, a few tbsps at a time.

This is your basic filling. If feeling excessively adventurous, add 1 diced mango at this stage and lightly incorporate.
Pour it over the crust.

Again, put in the freezer- this time for 2-3 hours.

Glaze:
Using the same process as before, heat water, add to gelatin, allow to dissolve, add to mango pulp when it loses most of its heat. Smoothen. Pour over the filling. Smoothen the top with a spatula or with the back of a spoon. If you have a longish, blunt knife, that works too.
Chill for 2 hours.
For best results, especially in this humid weather, leave it in the fridge overnight.

And the final, glitzy bit.
Once the cheesecake has set and you've successfully popped it out of your springforn tin, smooth sides and all, go nuts. Garnish with fresh fruit, diced mangoes, green leaves, what you will.




The only thing to remember here is DO NOT attempt to garnish before it is set firmly. The glaze might sweat and it will quite ruin the smooth, unblemished surface of your cheesecake.

That's it. Keep it at room temperature for a bit before serving to avoid the crust being rock-hard and for the glaze to get a certain give.

Have fun.
Keep the mango love alive.