This is a guest post from my husband. He is on his own for 4 more weeks while I vacation in India, so I was worried what's happening to my kitchen. He promised to enlighten me through a blog post, so here it goes.
I was 22 when I went to US and managed to keep myself fed for 7 more years. I have one trusted recipe that I used consistently during all those years, which is coming handy now. It is extremely simple. It will be useful for someone who is terrified about turning on the stove. Conversely, it's unexciting and extremely useless for someone well versed in the art of cooking, especially if you have a cooking blog of yourself. You are not going to find pretty pictures or detailed description for this recipe - you don't need it.
What you need:
Onions, Tomatoes, Cauliflower (Gobi), Frozen peas (mutter), oil, salt and chilli powder.
Preparation:
1. Chop 1-2 onions into fine pieces. You will get faster and better at this as you do it frequently. Don't worry about the tears in your eyes, it will go away.
2. Heat a pan and pour some oil.
3. Stir the onion till the pieces start turning golden brown. Many times you won't get this colour. Simply stir them till you get bored of it.
4. Cut 1-2 tomatoes into small pieces.
5. Stir them with the onion.
6. Add salt and chilli powder, stir the pan till you get a thick mixture.
7. Cut Cauliflower into pieces and add.
8. Microwave frozen peas for about 4 minutes and add.
9. Pour some water and cook till they are done.
10. Remember to turn off the stove - this may come back and bite you sometimes.
That's it. Eat it with rice or store bought chapathi.
I believe this onion-tomato-veg curry is simply the best thing invented since sliced bread for the following reasons:
1. It tastes better than most curries you eat from Indian restaurants. For some reason, stuff you cook simply tastes better. Don't know why.
2. It is extremely healthy. Just watch the amount of oil you put in.
3. It takes less than 30 minutes to cook - less time than picking up something from your friendly neighbourhood Indian restaurant.
4. Remember, I didn't call the recipe "Gobi mutter recipe" - it's a generic recipe. You can make 20 different curries with this one - Mushroom mutter, Mutter paneer, Palak paneer, Aloo mutter, Dhal palak, Aloo palak, Aloo gobi, Aloo gobi mutter - you get the idea. Start experimenting with dhals (channa dhal, masoor dhal, moong dhal, green moong dhal, toor dhal) and legumes (chick peas, rajma). You need to soak legumes overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker. The possibilities are endless and mind boggling.
5. You don't need any fancy ingredients (believe me there are some fancy stuff out there. You just have to open my kitchen cupboard to see 48 boxes of stuff - I am not kidding). You need to go to the supermarket once in two weeks to buy some veggies. Go to Indian store once in two months to replenish chilli powder, salt and dhals.
Bottom line - cooking is not hard, if you are looking to just survive. If you get tired of eating this, I can't help you. Go read a real cooking blog post or find yourself a spouse who thinks cooking is great.
I was 22 when I went to US and managed to keep myself fed for 7 more years. I have one trusted recipe that I used consistently during all those years, which is coming handy now. It is extremely simple. It will be useful for someone who is terrified about turning on the stove. Conversely, it's unexciting and extremely useless for someone well versed in the art of cooking, especially if you have a cooking blog of yourself. You are not going to find pretty pictures or detailed description for this recipe - you don't need it.
What you need:
Onions, Tomatoes, Cauliflower (Gobi), Frozen peas (mutter), oil, salt and chilli powder.
Preparation:
1. Chop 1-2 onions into fine pieces. You will get faster and better at this as you do it frequently. Don't worry about the tears in your eyes, it will go away.
2. Heat a pan and pour some oil.
3. Stir the onion till the pieces start turning golden brown. Many times you won't get this colour. Simply stir them till you get bored of it.
4. Cut 1-2 tomatoes into small pieces.
5. Stir them with the onion.
6. Add salt and chilli powder, stir the pan till you get a thick mixture.
7. Cut Cauliflower into pieces and add.
8. Microwave frozen peas for about 4 minutes and add.
9. Pour some water and cook till they are done.
10. Remember to turn off the stove - this may come back and bite you sometimes.
That's it. Eat it with rice or store bought chapathi.
I believe this onion-tomato-veg curry is simply the best thing invented since sliced bread for the following reasons:
1. It tastes better than most curries you eat from Indian restaurants. For some reason, stuff you cook simply tastes better. Don't know why.
2. It is extremely healthy. Just watch the amount of oil you put in.
3. It takes less than 30 minutes to cook - less time than picking up something from your friendly neighbourhood Indian restaurant.
4. Remember, I didn't call the recipe "Gobi mutter recipe" - it's a generic recipe. You can make 20 different curries with this one - Mushroom mutter, Mutter paneer, Palak paneer, Aloo mutter, Dhal palak, Aloo palak, Aloo gobi, Aloo gobi mutter - you get the idea. Start experimenting with dhals (channa dhal, masoor dhal, moong dhal, green moong dhal, toor dhal) and legumes (chick peas, rajma). You need to soak legumes overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker. The possibilities are endless and mind boggling.
5. You don't need any fancy ingredients (believe me there are some fancy stuff out there. You just have to open my kitchen cupboard to see 48 boxes of stuff - I am not kidding). You need to go to the supermarket once in two weeks to buy some veggies. Go to Indian store once in two months to replenish chilli powder, salt and dhals.
Bottom line - cooking is not hard, if you are looking to just survive. If you get tired of eating this, I can't help you. Go read a real cooking blog post or find yourself a spouse who thinks cooking is great.
Nice post....The onion tomato fry is surely a savior on most occasions. My husband doesn't add any other vegetable to it...he simply stops with onions and tomatoes:)
ReplyDeletelovely write up n post!
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Erivum Puliyum
Wow this is a great guest post .....that would be a simple n comf0orting curry
ReplyDeleteLovely guest post. Very simple and yummy curry.
ReplyDeleteCuisine Delights
My First Event - "COLOURFUL HOLI".