Fried Bread (Poori) in Sweetened Milk (Paal Bholi)

Paal Bholi is a Tamilian delicacy. It is usually made during the Pongal festival. It can be caloric heavy but is amenable to low-cal modification that is still tasty and flavorful. I tend to make it whenever I am stuck in the house usually during snow days. Today is one of those days. I made the low-cal version because I had a gallon of 1% milk sitting in the refrigerator that was past its expiry date. Mind you, low-caloric or not, it is addictive!

Paal Bholi; Low Cal version

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking tie: 15 minutes
Eating time: 1 minute !

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon of 1% milk
Sugar: 1/4 cup
Saffron strings: a pinch
All purpose flour: 1/2 cup
Corn oil to fry
water: 1 tblsp
salt to taste


1. Pour the milk into a heavy pan or a dish and cook on a low simmer till the milk is reduced in half. (This process will take about 30 minutes.) To prevent sticking, stir the milk regularly. Add sugar and saffron strings. Transfer the milk to a wide shallow dish and continue to heat it on low simmer.

2. While the milk is cooking, in  a bowl mix flour and water and knead to a smooth dough. The dough should be firm. If it is soft, add more flour. Put it in a ziploc bag and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

3. Remove the dough from the bag and make small balls, the size of a quarter. Roll the ball thinly into a round disk (poori).

4. Heat oil in a deep skillet. To test the heat, drop a tiny piece of dough into the oil. If the piece comes up right away sizzling, then the oil is ready for frying.

5. Fry the poori one at a time. Remove from oil when it turns brown and puffy. Drop the poori straight into the hot simmering milk.

6. Turn off the heat. Soak the pooris in the hot milk for 15-20 minutes. The pooris will become soft and soggy with sweetened milk and ready to eat.

Enjoy!

Tangled Valentine!

Happy Valentine's Day to those who care about these things!

Matar Paneer Curry (Dry)

Dry matar paneer is one of the easiest and ridiculously quickest dish to prepare. That is, if you use frozen peas and store-bought cheese. Except for the time, it takes to thaw the peas and the cheese, prep time is almost zero. Cooking time is just about ten minutes. If you already have bread in the refrigerator, in about 15 minutes you can have a tasty and filling meal.

Ingredients (Serves two)

Frozen green peas 5oz
Indian paneer (available in the freezer section of any Indian grocery store) 3oz
Olive oil one tablespoon
Cumin seeds 1 teaspoon
salt to taste
chili powder 1/4 teaspoon
turmeric 1/4 teaspoon
garam masala 1/4 teaspoon

1. Thaw peas and paneer to room temperature.
2. Crumble thawed and softened paneer into little pieces
3. Heat oil in a skillet and roast the cumins till they brown.
4. Add the peas, salt and the spices. Toss the mix thoroughly with a spatula that the peas are completely coated in spies. Cook till peas turn soft.
5. Add the crumbled paneer and blend into the peas with the spatula. Cook the peas and the paneer for an additional  minute or two. Do not cook longer than that because paneer will  overcook and turn chewy, unless you like your paneer chewy.
6. Remove from heat and transfer to a dish. Garnish with chopped fresh coriander and ginger. Serve with Indian roti or make a sandwich with wheat bread.

Enjoy.

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Poha Aval Uppuma: RIce Flakes Breakfast Dish

Poha is a breakfast dish popular in the western state of Maharashtra, India. At its basic it is rice flakes cooked with little salt and green chilies. It can be enhanced with addition of vegetables such as  green pepper, potatoes, onions and green peas. If you want your poha crunchy, you can add some peanuts. Whichever way you  make it,  it is a dish with calorie count and minimal preparation..

Instructions

poha or aval (thick): 1 cup
green chilies : 3
gurry leaves: a sprig
shelled and skinned raw peanuts:  as many as you prefer
mustard: 1 teaspoon
salt to taste; turmeric: 1/4 teaspoon; a pinch of powdered asafoetida

1. Soak poha in two cups of cold water for 30-45 minutes. Poha will absorb all the water and double in size.

2. Drain the soaked poha in a colander to remove any residual water.

3. Heat oil in a deep skillet. Add asafoetida and mustard. Let mustard pop. Add curry leaves and green chilies.

4. Add peanuts and roast till they turn gold brown.

5. Add poha, salt and turmeric. With a spatula turn over the mixture completely. Remove from heat when poha is cooked completely.

Serve hot with coconut chutney or pickle.

Optional

If you vegetables in your poha, cut them finely and add them along with green chilies. Cook till they become tender and then add the poha. Adjust the salt accordingly.

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Pongal Season, Chennai January 2015

January is absolutely the best month to be in Chennai. The weather is incredibly balmy, trees are leafy and green, the mosquitoes behave themselves and the entire city is colorful and in a celebratory mood for the Pongal festival.

It is the season for music festival, arts and crafts shows, textile exhibitions and weddings.

It is the celebration of nature's bounty, winter harvest and the beginning of Sun's northern ascension. In a country where still seventy-five percent of the population lives in villages, Pongal brings farmers and their livestock to the center stage in a grateful acknowledgment of their labor and toil in feeding the country's billion people. Pongal itself means an overflowing cooking pot and every Tamil kitchen at the appointed hour witnesses the milk and rice boiling over the cooking pot. Unsurprisingly, the three-day harvest festival  is also celebrated with varieties of food preparation based on rice and vegetables.

Just before the start of the festival, roadside are filled with carts and stalls of fresh winter vegetables, sugarcane, raw turmeric and fruits.

It is the time for families to do things together.

Even the birds get to partake in the feast!

If cultures reveal their heart and soul in what they celebrate,then Pongal festival is Tamil culture at its best.

Happy Pongal!

The Art of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

St. Peter's Baldacchino, Cathedra Pietri and Gloria

An odd confluence of sightseeing choices exposed me to many works of Bernini and what a wonderful experience it turned out to be! Bernini was the architect responsible for creating the vast piazza with its perfectly aligned colonnades of St. Peter's Basilica and much of its interior decoration including the Baldacchino, Cathedra Pietri and Gloria. He was also the principal architect of Piazza Navona. His sculptural masterpieces were renowned for their multi-dimensionality, dramatic tension and psychological intensity. Many of his sculptures (Rape of Proserpina, Apollo and Daphne and David) focused on that single dramatic moment when a major action is about to happen-in the Rape of Proserpina, it is when Persephone is grabbed by Pluto and we are witness to Persephone's resistance and despair and to Pluto's very ungodly and unattractive mien. In Apollo and Daphne, it is exactly at the point when leaves begin to sprout from Daphne's feet as she turns into a tree to escape Apollo's clutches.  I am posting here photos of some of these great art. Enjoy.

Rape of Proserpina, Borghese Gallery, Rome

Rape of Proserpina

Paulette Bonaparte

David about to fire the slingshot

Apollo and Daphne

Four Rivers Fountain, Piaza Navona

Piazza Navona

Left Colonnade of Piazza San Pietro, Vatican

St. Peter's Baldacchino

Statue of St. Peter on the Piazza

Right Colonnade 

St. Paul and Other Angels

Map-Cut Art

I love maps and even more I love crafting with them. One of my favorite map cutting, especially old city grid maps. I find the art of map-cutting very meditative. Even though it involves the use of knife, the task of cutting each little grid on the map into a lacy whole is both calming and reflective. What I have discovered is that as one cuts along the various lines, sometimes new shapes and images reveal themselves. The maps of Sofia, Bulgaria and Rome, Italy are transformed into birds in flight here.

I start with a city map that is in a square grid format. (I find these maps on Wikipedia.) I cut out each of the square little by little.Then I colorize the open grids. Now the fun begins: I turn it around this way and that to see if I could see any interesting shape within the cutout. I snip away little pieces here and there till I come with an image. I glue a backing paper to the cutout and sometimes as a final touch I coat it with wax (last photo).

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