Batata Wara / Wada / Vada

Ingredients
2 lb / 4 large potatoes
6 cloves garlic
2 inch ginger
4 green chillies
1 lime; juiced
2 tbl spn chopped coriander
salt to taste

Batter
1 cup chickpea flour; besan
3/4 cup water
1/3 tspn baking soda
salt to taste

Oil for frying

1. Wash and peel the potatoes , boil and roughly mash.
2. Puree the garlic, ginger and chillies with the lime juice
3. Add to the potatoes with the coriander and salt, mix
4. Make lime sized balls.
5. To make the batter add the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl, add the water in slowly mixing it well. The batter should be like a pancake mix.
6. Heat the oil in a frying pan / kerai / small wok, dip the potato balls in the batter and deep fry.
7. Serve with coconut chutney (recipe to come)

Baked / Roasted Chevro / Chevdo

Ingredients

4 cups thin pawa /poha , (dried cooked flattened rice)

1/2 cup whole almonds

1/2 cup whole cashew nuts

1/2 small red peanuts

1/2 melon seeds

1/2 golden raisins

1/2 cup daria / dalia (roasted split chickpeas - available in Indian shops)

2 tspn tumeric

2 tspn sugar

salt to taste

powdered red chillis to taste

1 tablespoon oil

1 tspn fennel

2 tspn sesame seeds

1/2 tspn mustard seeds

12-14 curry leaves

3-4 cloves

Method

1. Warm the oven to 150 degrees centigrade or 300 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Mix the Tumeric, salt, sugar and red chili powder in a small bowl

3. Place the pawa / poha in 2 large trays and bake for 10 minutes

4. Place in a large container and Stir in the tumeric mix. Don't worry if the mix does not look yellow, the colour will develop.

5. Place the raisins on a baking tray, spray with a little oil, bake for about 5 minutes or until the raisins swell up into tiny balls.

5. Turn up the temperature 175 degrees centigrade / 350 degrees Fahrenheit

6. Bake the Almonds, Cashews nut for 15 minutes

7. Melon seeds, peanuts and daria / dalia for 10 minutes

8 Mix the raisins and nuts with the pawa / poha

9. Heat the oil in a small frying pan, fry the fennel, sesame seeds mustard seeds, curry leaves and cloves and add to the chevro mix.

ENJOY

Tips

you can also add crisps

Use cornflakes instead of pawa / poha

Use mumbra or rice crispies instead.

Rice crispies or cornflakes don't need to be baked.

To make the colour richer add 1tspn of paprika (I did not have any)

Coming Soon... Chevro

Chevro / Chevdo / Chivda as part of my Nasta Series
This batch was made by Firoz in Edmonton, Canada. It is almost fry-free, everything was baked / roasted in the oven. Chachi and I are making this tomorrow. Yes on Christmas day, we are not cooking, we will have our Christmas Lunch (Roast Lamb and trimmings) at Shaheen and Mohsin's house. Anyway I have bought all the ingredients today ready to make some for the whole family.

Ismaili Mitha Thepla (Sweet)

2 cups whole wheat flour (chapatti flour)

½ cup gur / gor / jaggery

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

2 table spoon oil

1 tspn fennel seeds

½ ground Cardamom

½ tspn ground Nutmeg

Vegetable oil for frying

Jaggery or gur is supposed to be good for you, and certainly much better for you than refined sugar. It contains minerals and vitamins lost during refining of sugar. Likewise whole wheat flour is more nutritious than white flour.

1. Mix the flour, fennel seeds, cardamom and nutmeg.

2. Rub in the oil, so that the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs

3. Melt the gur in the microwave (2 minutes or so) and mix with the milk

4. Beat the egg

5. Add above liquid to the flour and make a soft dough

6. Roll into ¾ inch and cut into diamond shapes, or use a biscuit cutter.

7. Fry

These should keep in an airtight container for at least a month.

Aga Khan Primary School, Kampala

Photo from Harji Website
I went to Aga Khan Primary School in Kampala. My memories consist mainly of my first and last class. In the first form, my teacher was Mrs Barrato - I remember sitting on the mat humming, thinking no one would know it was me making the noise!

In my final form at this school my classmates included Naznin Virani, Meboob Jamani, Nazma Dhanani, Minaz Abji, the twins Salma and Shamshad Hajiani, Shafique Bhatia and Merunnissa ? to name a few. Teachers included my form teacher Penny Jiwani, Mrs Mascaranas and Mr Ramji the RE teacher. We had sewing classes in that room over the canteen, where I was constantly scolded by Mrs Sakar Devji, as I was terrible at needlework. My sewing always had blood stains on it from pricking my fingers with the needle! Miss Shahsultan Meghji and Miss Zarina Gulamhusein used to teach us how to cook. I can remember the queen of puddings well because I dropped it and broke the dish on the way home :(. If you are one of my classmates please do comment on this blog.

Some of my best memories are of standing in the Assembly in the hot sun while Mr Jinnah and Mr Hinchcliffe stood high up on the terrace (where the man with the bike is standing in the picture), and singing Bhali Bathowo ginan. At morning Recess time we would buy boiled mogo sprinkled with red chilli powder and salt; so delicious. We would go home for lunch and come back in the afternoon. No food in the afternoon, Chachi use to give us a flask of Ribena which we would drink in the break.

When we got home at about 4.00 o’clock, we would have chai and nasto. Chachi and Malek used to make enormous quantities of various nasta. The store / larder had huge tins about 2 feet high and 1 foot wide full of sev, ghatia, puri, thepla, chevro, mogo katri etc. Then at 6.oo o’clock the men (Bapa and Chacha) would come home from the factory. Special nasta were made for them. Samosa, batata vara, bateta champ, chane atta ja bhajia, dal ja bhajia, kebab, mayai waro pao etc. We children would join them and eat again.

We would have our supper at about 8.00, kitchri and doodh or gosh jo shaak. So much eating but we were very slim (they used to call me a scarecrow, because I was so thin and lanky with big feet!).

All these memories flooded back when I saw this picture of my primary school.

My next project is to make some of those nasta, starting with Thepla.

Kerala ne dungri jo shaak / Spicy Bitter Gourd with Onions

5 bitter gourds / kerala - should be firm to the touch

4 medium onions; sliced fine

2 tblspn vegetable oil

4 garlic cloves; minced

2 inch ginger; grated

2 green chillies; minced

3 medium tomatoes; blanched, peeled and liquidised

1/4 tspn tumeric

1 tspn coriander / cumin powders

Method

1. Scrap the kerala / bitter gourds, and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Discard the ripe ones (with red seeds). Or remove the seeds. The seed in unripe kerala are tender.

2. Soak in salty water for at least 30 minutes

3. Heat the oil, a add the onion, fry until golden brown.

4. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli paste, mix and fry for about 30 secs.

5. Add the bitter gourd and stir for about 5 minutes

6. Add the tomatoes, stir and cook for 5 minutes, add the tumeric, coriander and cumin powders, mix, reduce the heat and cook for about 20 minutes or until the bitter gourd is cooked.

The sweetness of the onions counteracts the bitterness of the kerala, delicious!

We had it served with methi rotlo

Szechuan Green Beans

We had this dish at a Szechuan Restaurant on Leigh Street . Zayn and I discussed that it would go well with Lamb Pilau so we cooked it on Chachi's birthday.

600 gm french long beans; topped and tailed and cut into two

10 cloves garlic; crushed

4 inch ginger; grated
1 onion; chopped finely

1 tablespoon oil

Mix the following ingredients

1 tsp red chilli flakes

1 tablespoon soya sauce

1 tables sesame oil

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1. Steam the beans for 4 min

2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan / wok, add the onions and fry for 1 minute

3. Fry the garlic / ginger,

4 Add the beans and stir fry for a 2 minutes;

5. Add the mixture of chilli flakes, soya sauce, sesame oil and vinegar, mix, and cook for a 30 secs, the beans will be spotted with brown but still crunchy

4 Serve.

I served them with lamb pilau