Frozen Key lime Pie

Anand's company had a charity pie-contest today. The pie slices were sold for $3 a piece, with the intention of raising money for the food bank (I think). Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, there have been initiatives within our little town to donate food or money to the food bank, so that everybody gets to have a decent Thanksgiving meal. 

On Friday, Anand nudged me to sign up for this contest. I'm glad I did, even though this is my very first pie! Having never attempted a pie before, I searched for some easy recipes that didn't require too much effort or skill in making the ever-challenging pie crust. My culinary mentor, Ina Garten, came to the rescue, as always!

Here is the recipe I followed. There is even a short video clip with this recipe. Although this is a key lime pie, it is acceptable to make this with regular limes. Key limes are difficult to find here; especially at this time.

The basic formula:

1. The crust is made from graham cracker crumbs. Mix the crumbs with some sugar and melted butter and press it on the inside and sides of the pie pan. To ensure easy serving of the pie, I buttered the sides of the pan and placed a disc of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan before preparing the crust. And, I used chocolate graham crackers instead of regular.
2. Bake the crust for 10 minutes at 350 F and allow it to cool.
3. The custard is quite simple. Beat together egg yolks, sugar, lime zest, lime juice, vanilla, and sweet condensed milk. I also added 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a couple of extra spoons of sugar, for I felt the batter was too tart. So, taste your batter and decide accordingly. It depends on how tart the limes are. Borrowing from our Indian method of making lemon juice, I knew the addition of salt would cut the tartness and bring out the flavors much better. 
4. Pour the custard into the prepared crust and freeze overnight. Serve with whipped cream!

How easy is that? The sad part is I couldn't taste the pie to judge if it was any good! And, I couldn't decorate it due to transportation challenges. So, I entrusted that precious responsibility to Anand. I handed him a can of whipped cream, some lime wedges, and detailed instructions, demonstrations, and diagrams on how to decorate before serving. He decided to innovate with the whipped cream decoration, but it still looks pretty! I'm so proud of him for mustering the patience to do this... and photographing it ;).

And, the results of the contest are in! It's incredible that this entry won the first place in the cream-pie division in the company! We are donating the $75 won from this contest to charity as well.

Thank you Ina, for your marvelous and easy to prepare recipes!

Hash Browns

Hash browns - an American breakfast favorite; it's as much as a favorite in our household. It's hard to come across someone who doesn't like potatoes fried in some way! We are all looking for different ways to make crispy potatoes :). 

Following the latkes, Anand wanted to have hash browns for breakfast. Pan fried grated apples reminded him of pan fried grated potatoes. 

Preparing hash browns is quite simple. Here is what I did:

1.  Peel 3-5 russet potatoes (or any kind of potatoes). Grate the potatoes on the largest hole/side of the grater to get long shreds as shown in the picture above.
2. Squeeze the grated potatoes to remove all the starchy fluid. This is an important step. 
3. To this, you may add a couple of spoons of rice flour (to make the potatoes extra crispy), and/or a spoon of curry powder, chilli powder, garam masala, or pepper. Alternatively, you can sprinkle the spice after the potatoes are fried. Do not add salt at this point, for salt is a deliquescent (I never thought I would use this term from Chemistry classes!). It basically absorbs moisture onto itself, thus making the potatoes a little soggy. If you do add salt at this stage (if you believe that salting potatoes before frying is better), squeeze the potatoes again to release the water, before you fry them. 
4. Add some oil to a cast-iron skillet (preferably), take some of the grated potatoes, press them on your palms to make them flat and place them on the skillet. Wait for the potatoes to turn golden-brown on either sides (about 3-4 minutes on each side). Remove the hash-browns and drain the excess oil on paper towels. 
5. If you haven't added any salt or spices, sprinkle some on top of the hot, fried, hash-browns. 

Serve with ketchup! You can also add some grated cheese to this and make it even more unhealthier ;). There is no denying that this soaks up quite a bit of oil. I used olive oil for frying, and thus pacified myself. A cast iron skillet would crisp the potatoes far more evenly than a regular non-stick pan. But, fried potatoes taste good no matter the kind of skillet used!

Apple Latkes

After a conference, our lab was overflowing with extra bundles of Gala apples. After eating apples, drinking apple milkshakes, we were again getting a little tired. So, I collected a few apple recipes and intended to carry out at least one of them. And now, I did. This particular recipe for Apple Latkes sounded very different and interesting, not to mention easy, so that was today's evening snack. I thought I would follow the recipe as is, but both of us felt like trying a savory version. So, here are the steps I followed:

1. I used 3 medium gala apples, simply because it was the only kind I had. I (Anand) cored them and grated them. Squeezed the juices out of them and tossed them in lemon juice (similar to the recipe)

2.  I mixed all-purpose flour, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of chilli powder, a pinch of nutmeg, and a teaspoon of baking powder. I tossed the apples in this, and then mixed them with a tablespoon of curd (instead of egg). Yogurt helps as a binding agent as well.

3. I heated a little bit of butter along with some extra virgin olive oil, and pan fried spoons of the apple batter (similar to the original recipe).

Drain the excess oil and serve! The latkes had a unique flavor - they were sweet, tangy, and savory. I suspect this will work even better with Granny Smith apples, and even more better if the original sweet recipe is followed. Either way, it made for a unique evening snack! It was sort of like apple pancakes.

Tomato Thokku

When tomatoes are in season, everyone is happy. Everything that is cooked is fresh and delicious (and healthy). But as the season ends, and all the fruits that once looked so happy and healthy start looking sad, droopy, and squishy, everyone begins to think of innovative ways of storing and freezing them. We really wanted to freeze the tomatoes in their pulpy states, but it involved a lot of processes and exclusive tools and machinery to sterilize and seal, that we decided it wasn’t worth our time. Maybe it would have been worth our time, but it’s too late for that speculation. 

One of the easiest ways of extending the shelf-life of any fruit or vegetable is to pickle it. And Indians are seasoned at it! Thokku is one form of pickle, specific to tomatoes. It is made from simple, and few ingredients, and if stored right, lasts for at least three weeks. 

 

Ingredients

1. Tomatoes (ripe or unripe) - quantity doesn’t matter much. I started with around 16 tomatoes.
2. 2-3 tablespoons of sesame oil (sesame oil gives more flavor to this)
3. 2 teaspoons of mustard seeds
4. 2 teaspoons of split urad dhal
5. 3 teaspoons of chilli powder (or more, according to individual preference)
6. 2-3 teaspoons of salt (according to preference)
7. 1 teaspoon of turmeric
8. ½ teaspoon of hing
9. A few torn curry leaves

Preparation

1. Dice the tomatoes into small pieces. This is probably a personal preference too, but the finer you dice, the more easily the tomatoes cook. Some people may even blanch the tomatoes in hot water to remove the peel.
2. Heat the sesame oil in a deep pan. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds and let them splutter.
3. Add the urad dhal, hing, curry leaves, and turmeric and saute for a bit on medium heat.
4. Add the tomatoes and saute. When the tomatoes start releasing their juice, add salt and chilli powder. Some people add the chilli powder at the very end so they are sure of the exact quantity of “thokku” after the tomatoes cook down. Doing so would also help you gauge/adjust the amount of chilli powder required. You will not overestimate or underestimate.
5. Stir and let the tomatoes cook down on small-medium heat. Keep stirring now and then to avoid the tomatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
6. The water/juice from the tomatoes should completely evaporate, and the tomato pulp should separate from the oil. For my 16 or so tomatoes, it took 45 minutes to an hour on small-medium heat.

Allow the thokku to cool, and transfer it to a clean, dry, air-tight jar. Even if the jar isn’t air tight, it will last for 7-10 days in the fridge. There are some people who add a few spoons of sesame oil on top of the thokku in the jar. It is supposed to act as an extra dose of preservative, and the thokku tastes great too! You can mix the thokku with cooked rice, or have it as a side-dish with idli, dosai, adai, roti.

Deepavali Marundhu

As most of the world probably knows, Deepavali is a high-calorific festival (well, most Indian festivals are). Deepavali is extra special because until a couple of decades back it involved making buckets (literally) upon buckets of sweets and savories. So understandably, our stomach, which is not used to such a pleasurable assault of sugar and fat-laden food, goes through a pretty rough time! Therefore, our great-grandmothers devised a digestive remedy that improves digestion and neutralizes some of the negative impacts of the binging. This remedy is prepared as an integral part of the deepavali celebrations, and is handed out all through the week. “Marundhu” literally means medicine in Tamil. It involves a lot of exotic spices and ingredients which are mostly found only in India. They are extensively used in Ayurvedic medicines. These days, stores sell the medicinal powder spice-mix, making our lives infinitely more easier. Yet, just as a principle, I’m recording the entire procedure and ingredient list. 

My wonderful in-laws, who actively support and participate in much of this blog's activities (although from the background), took the effort to buy all these specialized ingredients in order to present a nice photograph here, so that readers get a visual representation of the rare spices! I'm touched by their gesture and enthusiasm, not to mention the lovely presentation! Thanks a lot to my father-in-law for patiently buying and labeling everything so neatly!

 

Ingredients

1. Omam (dried oregano) - 150 gms
2. Black pepper corns - 50 gms
3. Jeeragam (Cumin seeds) - 50 gms
4. Sukku (dried ginger) - a small quantity - maybe a couple of pieces
5. Sitharathai (I have no idea what the English term for this is, or if even one exists) - a little bit
6. Arisi-thippili (Again, no clue what it is in English) - a little bit
7. Kanda-thippili (Same as above) - a little bit - a couple of pieces.
8. Honey - 1-2 tablespoons
9. Jaggery - Depends on the amount of medicinal powder used (the ratio is usually 1:1)
10. Ghee - 4-5 teaspoons

Preparation

1. All of the spices (1-7 in the ingredient list) are dried in the sun for a day or two (around 12-16 hours)
2. The dried spices are then pounded and ground into a fine powder. The powder is further sifted to make it fine and smooth.
3. As I said, these days, we go to the store and buy this prepared medicinal powder. Assume we are using just 1 cup of this powder. (1 cup of powder results in almost 2 cups of medicine. It is substantial for two people for 10-15 days, with the assumption that one doesn’t consume more than a spoon of it everyday).
4. Dissolve 1 cup of this powder in 1.25 cups of water. Stir finely till there are no lumps. The consistency should be that of a thinned gravy.
5. Heat this on low-medium heat for 10 minutes.
6. Stir 1 cup (or slightly more) of powdered jaggery/brown sugar into this mixture. Keep stirring till the jaggery dissolves.
7. Continue heating this on low-medium heat for about 30-35 minutes or so until the mixture starts getting thick. Keep adding a few teaspoons of ghee and stir as the mixture heats, so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. The consistency of the cooled medicine should be anywhere between a jam and a slightly melted chocolate truffle. And remember, the medicine will harden/thicken as it cools. So remove from heat once it starts to thicken. To test, take a bit of it and cool. If you can roll it into a ball with your fingers, it is done. But if you prefer to have it like a jam, you can remove it a little sooner from the heat. Mine is of the latter consistency.
8. Add a tablespoon or two of honey at the very end, after removing from heat. Mix well. Let it cool. Then transfer to a clean, dry container. This medicine can remain at room temperature for a day. Place it in a refrigerator afterward.

You may wonder why a medicine should contain ghee, sugar and honey! Good question. If you try having this concoction without any honey or sugar, you will shoot to the moon, for the spices are incredibly hot! Of course, they are hot in a good way - pepper, oregano, and ginger are extremely good forms of heat. So, you do need the ghee and jaggery and honey to tone it down a bit. Honey is known to be a good anti-bacterial agent as well, and it is known to heal wounds (such as abused stomach lining!). But, the theory is that the spices override the sugar and the fat. Plus, only a couple or so teaspoons are recommended per day. Else, you would need another set of medicines to counteract the effects of this one!