Mom used to make this dip a lot when we had guests over. I used to just love dipping in the carrots sticks and crisp pita toasts in this yummy and healthy snack.I've been making it quite often these last couple of weeks. My only change and addition is the fresh garlic which makes it taste a lot like Tzatziki. It gives it a nice kick and hopefully wards off some colds, which we are so prone to at this time of the year.
Ingredients
1 cup of labneh/greek yogurt/hung curd cheese ( you can substitute part cottage cheese for a protein boost)
1 small carrot peeled
1 small cucumber peeled
1/4 of red pepper
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
couple of pinches sugar
1 glove garlic (optional)
lemon juice (use it if the yogurt isn't tangy enough)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder (optional)
Method Place the veggies and garlic in a food processor and process till finely minced. Mix everything together. Season to taste. Serve with toasted pitas or veggies.It also makes a great sandwich spread.
A Koki is a traditional Sindhi breakfast; it is a whole wheat flatbread flavored with onions, cilantro and spices.
They way I look at it – it’s a savory pastry that’s been cooked on the tava (iron pan).
So what makes a good Koki?
a decent amount of fat in the form of ghee or oil (not olive please; yes I have made the blasphemous error of cooking Indian food in olive oil and I profusely apologize to my fellow foodies for having done that. I now understand that olive oil NOT meant for cooking at high heat)
Strong upper arm muscles to press down on the Koki to make it brown and crispy
A mom/mom in law/aunt/any elder person who would like to feed you
My mother-in-law makes the best Kokis in the world. Koki is the standard breakfast on the first Saturday when she visits us. Hot off the stove and in to our plates, the Kokis are just amazing.
The only other time it tastes that great is when one is away from home and someone has lovingly packed a stack of these to munch on in the hotel room.
Why, you ask, when there are fast food restaurants at every airport and lack of availability of food is not really a problem any more.
Well..I think its just genes. We just kinda have it in us now. It's inescapable.
Traveling? Oh well, then we must take kokis.
Back in the day, they were the most practical food item to take along. When people traveled on the road for days, and there were no refrigerators. They supposedly last well for a few days at room temperature, although I always keep mine in the fridge.
While the mode and areas of travel have changed since then, the yearning for a taste of home apparently hasn’t.
So we just kinda do that.
Do we actually need them? That's not the point. We're are Sindhis!
And thus, we make and take kokis with us.
On planes, trains and automobiles
to London and to New York, any place we travel
to our picnics and in our lunch boxes
Alright, alright! I'm exaggerating of course, but seriously the best way to eat a koki?
With plain yogurt topped with rock salt and pepper
With muraba / any kind of pickle
With a pat of butter on one that’s just arrived on your plate hot off the stove
With a cup of hot Sweet Chai
Hummus (odd combination, but that’s what you do when you are a Sindhi from Dubai)
And don't forget the papad!
Alright let’s get kokin' ...tee hee , sorry couldn't resist.
Ingredients
2 cup of whole wheat atta flour (available in Indian stores)
¼ cup or more of ghee/ vegetable oil
2 small onions
2 thai green chilies
¼ cup of cilantro leaves washed and trimmed
1 tablespoons anardana (dried pomegranate seeds)
1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds lightly crushed (put them in a sandwich bag and use a rolling pin)
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon of ajwain (bishop’s weed)- optional
Ghee/Oil to fry
Method
Place the onion, cilantro and chilies in a food processor and process till chopped. (It should not be finely minced).
Place the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the ghee and with your fingers, cut it in to the flour (just like a pastry). This is called the ‘mon” in the Sindhi and is what makes the koki crispy.
Add the coriander seeds, pomegranate seeds and the onion mixture and knead lightly to form a dough.Add a little water if you need to.The onion does leave water so it can make the dough soggy if you leave it too long. Let it rest 5 minutes and then bring the dough together.
Heat up a tava to mediumheat.
Make a medium size ball and roll it out using oil or extra flour on the surface if necessary.
Make light indentations on the rolled out koki and place on the tava. Cook on each side, flipping every 20 -30 seconds. Spread a teaspoon of oil/ghee on the top side and flip. Press down with metal flipper (what is it really called??) with all the strength you can muster. This will result in a crispy brown crust.
Serve hot with any of the above mentioned suggestions.
Quick edit- Rahman just won an oscar! Woohoo- Jai Ho!
I picked up a lot of skills from my mom but somehow the "how to make a paratha" along with all her skills with the needle and thread completely bypassed me. Now I could care less about the thread /needle/ sewing part. The problem is that I think heaven is made of chocolates, cheese and parathas . So you see, not being able to make a good paratha used to be a serious issue....er..to me that is.
Want to see an example of my failure? Be my guest.
Ok...got the dough rolled out and the filling inside...
Bring the edges together, pinch in the middle and roll gently with the rolling pin...so far so good
And there you have it...
An absolutely ridiculous disaster.
Its supposed to be rolled out neatly with the filling distributed all evenly through out the paratha.Sadly this traditional method never did it for me. I almost gave up. And then I found a method that worked.It gets the filling evenly distributed and is neat.The only gripe some one might have is that they are not the traditional round but gawd, I don't care! I can make the one food that deserves it's own food group!Yah! OK..this is how I do it and if you have trouble making parathas (I can't be the only one on this planet....am I???? Yikes, am I making a fool out of myself?) like me, do try this method. ..if I can do it, anyone can. This time I made gobi (cauliflower) parathas but I use this method for all kinds of fillings. Ingredients for the dough
1 cup whole wheat chapati flour (available at Indian stores)
1 teaspoon of oil/ghee
about 1/2-3/4 cup water (as much as you need to have an elastic soft dough)
spices like salt, pepper, red chili powder optional
Method Place the flour in a big bowl. Add the oil and water and knead for a few minutes.It should look like this. I like to coat it with a drizzle of oil at this point.Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for about at least 20 minutes.
Ingredients for Gobi (cauliflower) filling
1.5 cups of washed and trimmed cauliflower florets
.5 inch peeled ginger
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves
1 thai green chili (optional)
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon dhaniya (coriander powder)
1/2 teaspoon amchur (mango powder)
1 teaspoon jeera (cumin powder)
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder (optional)
Method Place the first four ingredients in a food processor and process...........till it looks like this...Transfer to a microwave safe bowl. Add the spices and mix well.Cover and cook on high power for about 2-3 minutes. Let the bowl stay covered for 10 minutes. The steamed cauliflower cooks in its own juices. Taste at this point and adjust the spices if you so wish.
Assemble
Alright this is how I do it.Take a small ball of dough and roll it out like a regular roti. Try to make it thin. Dust underneath the roti with flour to make sure it does not stick.Next, spread about 1-2 tablespoons of the gobi mixture on half of the roti like so.Next, bring down the other side of the roti and press to seal the edges . Press down with the palm of your hand gently.Now, roll out gently. Use extra flour if you need it. It's usually helpful as the gobi can be moist.And there you have it, it's neat, easy and slightly unconventional.Heat up a tava or frying pan. Place the paratha gently on the tava. Cook for about 10-20 seconds on medium heat before flipping.Once it looks lightly cooked, smear one side with 1/2-1 teaspoon of oil/ghee and flip again. It should look like this. That's it folks..serve immediately with plain yogurt or your favorite pickle.
The longer you stay away.....the harder it is to get back to blogging. One thing and another.....and it's been about 3 weeks since I updated this blog. Truly speaking..I'm very uninspired right now. My mind feels blocked and I don't know what to write. Food blogs are not just about recipes, are they? If they were, it would be easy to simply post a recipe and be done, but it does not work that way.
Yesterday was Sid's 4th birthday. He had really been looking forward to it and so I asked him yesterday if he was excited to be four. And he said grumpily "No mom, I feel just the way I did when I was three!" I laughed.
Most adults are just like that. We ache, wait and pine for something special to happen. And then when it does, we realize it does not make any difference at all.
Anyways, I don't want to get too serious on you, so here are some Spider man cupcakes that I baked for Sid's party today. Eating healthy and making conscientious choices regarding food comes with challenges. Sid wanted a Spider man party. OK , except if you want to make or buy a Spider man cake, it's going to have tons of color in it. I would've made it in the past. But how can I, now that I am aware of the perils of the horrible blues and reds in commercial food? Plus the son told me very seriously "Mom, make sure you don't put any color on my cake". Yes Sir....four year old son. So I made these....iced the web on the cardboard and placed the cupcakes in the web. A few spiders here and there, a light shake of sprinkles, and a toy spider man to complete the look.
Happy Birthday my sweet son. And remember...with great power comes great responsibility..! ;-)
See ya'll. Hopefully I'll get back in the mood soon and have something exciting to share.
Posts
