Carrot & Raw Moong Daal Salad (Carrot Kosumalli)

Wishing all my Tamil readers a wonderful and happy Tamil New Year! Make this a year to remember. Make this a year of wonderful events which will make even more wonderful memories once the year is done. Make this year a healthy one. That's the only happiness that lasts even when you don't realize sometimes that it is happiness. Only someone that was recently sick with the flu will have the inspiration to talk all this. So please excuse the generous free advice.

Here's a simple classic traditional raw salad that I want to share with you. This is a basic salad that I make so often while cooking a traditional meal. But never really thought to blog about it before. However, I realized all beauty must be shared no matter how simple or basic. Presenting to you - Carrot Kosumalli.

Here's another traditional Tamil New Year's dish - Manga Pachadi. Please click here for the recipe. The festive food is incomplete without this beauty on new year's day. 

And here's usually how a Tamil New Year's feast looks. Enjoy yours and have a gastronomically blessed day.

Coming back to the salad, here's how simple this can be mixed up.

Grate carrots and set aside.

Wash and soak about 1/2 cup of yellow moong daal for about 1 hr.

And now on to mix the salad.

Mix the carrots and the soaked moong. (of course without the water)

Add finely chopped green chilli.

In a small tadka pan, add a tsp of oil and do a tadka of the following ingredients -

-1 tsp mustard seeds
-1 pinch asofoetida
- few curry leaves
- 1/2 tsp urad daal or gota

Mix all the above to the carrots and moong.

Next up, add finely chopped or scraped fresh coconut. I hear you asking - and yes, frozen will work too.

Add salt to taste and mix well.  If you are the tangy type, add a few drops of lemon juice if you'd like.

And that's pretty much it. I told you it was simple. But this is just absolutely tantalizing good. Try it and I'm sure you'll love it.

Iniya Puthandu Nal Vaazthukkal

Enjoy! Peace Out!

Black Bean and Corn Quinoa Salad

Here’s another good recipe for all you Quinoa lovers out there. How can I be so sure about it? Because I’m a love of Quinoa myself and if you made this for me, I would sit down happily and chow down a big bowl of it. And I’d be happy because I got my protein fix for the day.

Before I go into the recipe, here’s a question for all of you. What is Quinoa known as in Hindi and Tamil?

I heard that it was Thenai in tamil. But, after an extensive Google and Wiki research, I tend to disagree with that.

Thenai is a very common grown grain in India and the English name for that is Foxtail Millet. This is also known as Kangani in Hindi. And one of the points that Wiki talks about is how this grain feeds a lot of poor people in the northern part of India. That can just validate that this is not Quinoa at all because I heard Quinoa costs about Rs 500-600 per kilo. So, now it brings me back to the question – what is Quinoa called locally in India. Looks like even the Agriculture department has not yet categorized it – here’s a glossary for the names of many grains, pulses etc straight from the agri folks! So, if you’ve cracked the case, do share the knowledge!

Meanwhile, check out the Wiki facts on both Quinoa and Foxtail Millet. They clearly belong to different families.

Call it what you want, but this wonderful grain with its nutritious properties makes for a great salad or meal. Here are a couple of my other favorite Quinoa recipes on the blog – Cold Quinoa Salad and Quinoa Stuffed Cabbage Rolls. Just adding al dente Quinoa to any salad makes it more appealing and healthy. But today we’re going to look at a toasted salad recipe where Quinoa is the king. And of course the king has him many flavorful sidekicks!

I cook Quinoa similar to rice in a rice cooker. If you are using raw Quinoa, make sure you wash it clean multiple times. Some store bought packaged Quinoa comes already cleaned but I still wash it a couple of times. Yes, I have trust issues. For 1 cup of Quinoa, add 2 cups of water or veggie broth and cook similar to white rice.

The next step will be to organize the sidekicks. So, here I start with lots of ginger (my favorite), a couple of green chillies, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, corn and black beans. Feel free to substitute your favorite veggies here. Avocados would go great and I know one person who as soon as she reads this will make it along with avocados! Nod your head when you read this, you know who you are.

Now you could just add all these ingredients raw, throw in the Quinoa, mix well and refrigerate for a cold salad. But I wanted it to be a slightly toasted and then chilled salad. Your Kitchen, your wish. Do it anyway your heart desires.

In a pan, add a tsp of oil. Throw in the ginger and green chillies first. Then add the onions and don’t let this over cook or brown. Just sauté for a min and immediately add the bell peppers and tomatoes.

Again, let all the ingredients cook for only a few seconds – they should still be crispy when you eat the salad but at the same time, you won’t have to breathe out the raw onion on your family or co workers!

Add in the corn and black beans in the end. Sprinkle some salt to taste and add about ¼ tsp of paprika or red chilli powder. Toss in the Quinoa and mix well. Switch off the stove immediately.

Finally add some fresh cut cilantro for a fresh flavor.

This is ready to serve as is. I was actually making this late at night to take to work for lunch the next day. So, I ate it cold the next day and absolutely loved it. The onions were still a little crisp and perfectly done. And I could bite into all the veggies and that crunch provided the needed texture rather than all it being a smushy upma consistency. Sometimes that would taste good too – but today I just loved it all crunchy.

So, what are you waiting for? Get your protein fix for the day – cook up some Quinoa and get started. Here’s to a healthy you and me!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Avocado and Black Bean Salad

Planning for a weeknight dinner after a long hectic day at work and everything else, is when you need to get your creativity to kick up a notch and work full force. And every time I want to be creative, I think of salads. There's something about throwing in multiple ingredients and bringing them together in a bowl and serving it up with style. Makes you feel like Superwoman. 

And this time it was a mexican style salad. Simple ingredients that come together beautifully. No jazzy special stuff required. Takes about 20 mins to put together the entire satisfying meal including the rice and vegetables. 

Chop and dice the avocado and cucumbers into small bits. I used the small tender Persian cucumbers and just diced them with the skin on.

Arrange on a platter or you can just add to a big mixing bowl if you're not taking pictures for a blog!

Roast some corn with a little salt to taste and also a pinch of paprika or red chilli powder. I use the frozen corn and feel that it definitely taste a hundred times better when you slightly roast the kernels.

Add the corn to the platter.

Chop up a couple of roma tomatoes and about half an onion into small bits and add to the bowl or platter.

Chop up some fresh lettuce into small strips.

Add to the platter.

Next comes the protein. I used the canned black beans - but you can soak and cook regular black beans or even the Indian rajma beans. Wash the beans once to remove the slimy brown liquid and all the unnecessary preservatives.

 Add the beans to the bowl and also add a whole bunch of cilantro chopped finely.

I can just stare at this all evening!

Add all of these below to the veggies and beans -

Salt - to taste
Red Chilli powder or Paprika - 1 tsp
Olive Oil - 1 -2 tsp
Juice of half a lime - squeezed out fresh.

Using a couple of forks, just mix up all the ingredients.

And there people, is the salad of the day!

Fresh. Crisp. Tasty. Fulfilling.

And this is how I multi task and catch up on all shows from back home. Listening to Jesudas singing while making a salad - perfect! Music and Food. My two best friends.

I also made some lemon flavored rice (Chipotle style) and sauteed onions and bell peppers along with the salad. And served them all with some tacos. You could get some tortillas too and roll up some burritos with all these fillings. TH missed his burritos very much!

Fill up some tacos with all the goodness and drizzle on some hot taco sauce on top for a wonderful dinner.

For the cheese lovers in the family, make them happy too!

“To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the perfect salad.” - George Ellwanger (1848-1906) ‘Pleasures of the Table’ (1902)

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Cold Quinoa Salad - Recipe from a reader!

One of my friends and also a regular reader of the blog Charu sent me this message on FB - 

Try this quinoa recipe sometime. Its very easy/low-fat/nutritious. I learnt it from my roommate.
Cook quinoa just like rice in a rice cooker. This is like a cold salad, so keep it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Now cut lots of raw onions to add to the quinoa. And then add uncut cherry tomatoes (small ones, so dont cut) and some finely chopped green chillies. Then add lemon juice (i add quite a bit) and salt to this mix. Finally garnish with lots of mint and parsley. In my recipe, I sometimes skip the mint/parsley, and substitute them with our own cilantro.
Though this sounds too simple, its very tasty and flavorful. Great dinner/lunch/snack for summer. 

 And so I did! All I have to say now is Thank You Charu!

I ended up eating this back to back and made more...loved it. It was simple, easy and soooo satisfying to eat. Perfect for a summer lunch. I'm now planning to make this for many parties as a salad. And this uses all of 0 spoons of oil! NO OIL absolutely. How great is that!

So, are you guys ready to eat a super heatlhy and tasty quick stomach filling meal.

Here we go -

Wash and cook quinoa in a rice cooker. For 1 cup of quinoa, use 2 cups of water. Cool down the quinoa. You can actually place this in the fridge and cool it for a little while.

Add in some chopped onions.

Then, add some grated carrots. Charu had suggested to add cherry tomatoes. I did not have them at that time and the tomatoes I had were quite ripe and seedy. Somehow, I did not want to add them and just skipped it. You could also add some cooked peas - I'm sure that would add flavor and color as well!

Add some finely chopped green chillies.

Then, add some salt to taste and some freshly ground pepper.

Then, I dropped everything - walked to my backyard and picked some fresh mint  - oh the pleasure of growing your own mint! Now, I just wish I had a huge garden and can grow every imaginable fruit and veggie. Maybe...one day maybe..the day I win the lottery!

Add it to the quinoa. You can instead add cilantro or parsley or even some basil. I'm sure they all taste great!

And then about a tbsp of lemon juice or half a freshly squeezed lemon.

Mix well until nicely combined. And then move it right back into the fridge for a couple of hrs. The colder this gets, the tastier it gets! Might not be true - but I like to believe that.

Doesn't this look just gorgeous? But, I'm only almost done - just one more step.

Just before eating, throw in a few crunchy crisp peanuts to give an extra bite. That bite just completes the flavor circle.

As I write this, I want to make another bowl of this to eat. Its been a couple of days. Off I go...

Enjoy. Peace out!