Chaat it up! Restaurant Review

You can take a woman out of India but you will never get India out of her. If you are like me -- you would give up several days of food in return for fresh street made Chaat food on demand, in the middle of the city cacophony. I was up in Oh Canada a few days back -- and some parts around Toronto are as Indian as Chandni Chowk. Actually Chandni Chowk with four times the space and half as many people :-D What better place to look for authentic chaat on the other side of the globe? A simple google search for "best chaat Toronto area" yielded an article from the Toronto Star which recomeneded -- Dhaba (King West, Toronto), Brars (Brampton) and Mirch Masala (Brampton). The first two finds were quickly vetoed because they served Chaat as appetizers! How tacky and high society! Give and take respect, people! Mirch Masala in Brampton, Ontario was touted to be the place to get together with friends over a fun meal. One look at the menu sampler on the article and I was sold. Pani Puri. Bhel Puri. Papdi Chaat. Whats not to like?

We drove into Bramdesh, as the localites lovingly refer to Brampton -- and into this hidden jewel somewhere outside of town

Mirch Masala
8917 The Gore Rd,
Brampton, ON

We pulled into the sprawling strip mall aptly titled Jaipur Gore Mall, lined with Indian businesses -- a Hindu temple, a Hindu Montessori school, Subzi Mandi cash and carry, Chilli Szhezuan Indian Chinese restaurant etc. Snug n the middle was 'Mirch Masala' standing out with its bright yellow sign and the attractive posters boasting of the sheer variety in the menu. "21 Paratha varieties", "51 eggless cake flavors", "100 % Vegetarian". We walk in -- and we are the only ones there! Maybe we were the only chaat crazy ones on a late Sunday afternoon. Well -- no time is better for chaat than right now if anyone cared for my humble opinion.

On glance at the menu and you know you are out for a smogarsboard. Why can't you have yourself a Pani Puri, a Bhel Puri, Dahi Puri, Aaloo tiki chaat and Papdi chaat when you have it all for less than CAD 5.00 a piece? Once you are down with the light stuff, head over to the 11 different varieties of vegetarian burgers. Are you reading this McDonalds? Now that is what I call a happy meal. Try a 'samosa'wich burger -- a burger packed with samosa pieces and spicy chickpea curry, topped with onion, tomato and lettuce. Add chilies to your burger, kick back your shoes and sink in. Samosa does not fancy you today? No problem, try a Indian curry burger or a Bollywood burger or a Greek Burger. Make it a combo and add Masala fries and a soda.

Ok, you really wanted to go to Brars but your chaat crazy wife guilted you into coming to Mirch Masala? Don't worry, you will not be missing out on anything. Have a Paneer Tikka platter - includes grilled paneer tikka, with grilled peppers, tomatoes and onions. With a side of chickpea curry, butter nan and rice for CAD 8.99.

And end the meal with hot gulab jamuns. Wash it all off with a fresh lime soda or masala chai.
Sriracha hot sauce flows free as the Niagara Falls. Goodbye bland food!

Next time you are in the area, stop by at Mirch Masala and enjoy a quick meal. The menu is sure to please all kinds of taste buds. If any locals are reading this -- please enlighten me -- why wasn't the place swarming with people, a place like this deserves dedicated patronage :) Is there a better chaat place I should try?

Dinner Dance

You may graduate from college in four years, but graduating from the college lifestyle can take longer. I have trouble getting up for those early meetings. I am forever running 10 minutes late for everything. Dinner is something I get in the stomach, not necessarily on the table. While I am growing out of these habits slowly and steadily, there are crazy days that I absolutely need to conjure dinner in less than 10 minutes. Most often this is because I am absolutely dying of hunger at the end of the day. I call this my weekday dinner dance. Today being an exemplary day of swooning to the rumblings beats of hunger, I turned the stove on, rummaged for my favorite pan, drizzled a few drops of oil it and placed the pan on the stove. Then I tapped off my shoes and washed my hands. From the freezer, I picked out some veggies – chopped mixed peppers, broccoli or cauliflower, threw in a handful of them in the hot pan added some seasoning. As the veggies rocked and rolled on the stove, I morphed into my pyjamas and washed up. I ran a knife through whatever combination of fresh aromatics I had on hand – onions, garlic, cilantro, and chili peppers and dropped them into the party. Thinly sliced tofu and aimed them into to the pan with seasonings of salt and pepper. The tofu and vegetables browned as I checked out the day’s mail and separated the bills from the junk. Two huge fistfuls of dry thin rice noodles went to the pan, with a cup of water. Now I did some on the spot walking as I patiently let the noodles cook up and the water get absorbed or evaporated. Noodles were transferred to a plastic container and eaten right out of the container. The leftovers were left over in the same container for the next meal which may be the next day’s lunch.

Such is the joy of cooking that satisfies your basic human needs.

Granola bars - bhel puri ishtyle

I have become a breakfast person. I still have difficulty waking up in time for breakfast, but I can have breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I am a self proclaimed coffee addict and quick cooking oats fan. I love my dosas, idlis and vada sambars. If I were to skip a meal before bed, I would dream about the white fleshy doughy morsels of idlis soaked in a spicy mixture. True to my Indian born thirst for the complex spices, I will run a marathon (heck, a triathlon) if the reward was a bellyful supply of chaat – pani puri, bhel puri, pav bhaji and the likes.

And I like crunchy cereal and granola bars. My only peeve is that most American breakfast foods (whatever is vegetarian-izable) is laden with sugar and cannot be enjoyed if you have a spice tooth. Why do granola bars have to be based on honey and sugar syrups. The three primary seasonings in our culinary world are salt, pepper and chili powder – why can’t we have a granola bar or a health bar that actually uses one of them? I decided to break the trends and create the spicy granola bar. The ultimate go-to snack chaat bar. I would base it off the classic Indian street food – bhel puri.

The main challenge involved in steering the sweetness out of the bar – find a sticky substance powerful enough to bind the ingredients together and not fall apart. Bhel puri is like a salad or crumbly granola of sorts made of puffed rice, fried dough chips (papdi – vernacularly translated), chopped onions, tomatoes, spices with a dressing of tangy, sweet, spicy chutneys. Now puffed rice would readily get soggy at the first hint of moisture and that would make for bhel that tastes like cotton. And making the bhel-puri bar healthy would not be a bad idea.

So off I went to the neighborhood Whole foods and spent a leisurely evening of food label reading. I came back with the following

Crispy Brown Rice Cereal (substitute for the rice puffs)

Old fashioned rolled oats (it is a granola bar of course)

Sliced almonds (initial thought was peanuts, but figured almonds are healthier)

Baked pita chips (substitute for the papdis)

Dates (sticky substance + sweet taste)

Tamarind paste (sticky substance + sour taste)

Mixed dry fruit – cranberries and apricots

My game plan was this – just like a traditional granola bar, I would toast the oats and nuts while I create the binding sticky substance. I contemplated using molasses as the sticky agent. But that would be sweet all over again. I decided on using egg replacer as a thickening agent and if ever it shows properties similar to the egg, when baked it should coagulate and bind its neighboring particles together. If all else fails, I may not end up with a bar – it may just be a crunchy granola mixture. But, it shall be spicy and it shall be healthy.

1 cup sliced almonds 1.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats	Spread on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven at 300F for 10 mins. Allow to cool
2 cups brown rice crisps cereal 1 cup baked pita chips broken into bits	Mix together with the toasted ingredients and set aside
2 tbspoon tamarind paste 5 dates (pitted) A handful of coriander leaves A few curry leaves Salt (about half tsp) Any hot sauce (for desired spice level) .5 tsp Cumin seeds	Using as little water as possible blend into a nice sticky paste.
2.5 tsp Ener-G egg replacer 1 tbspoon water	Dissolve the egg replacer with water and combine into the sticky paste. Now in a convenient mixing bowl combine your dry ingredients with the sticky ingredients Grease a baking dish slightly and transfer your mixed granola. Press down firmly to allow all ingredients to acquire stickage. Bake at 300F for 10 minutes or till nice and crunchy Allow to cool overnight and then cut into bars.

I still need to let the bars cool overnight. I may not have achieved the desired level of stickiness – but the bars are still quite warm to touch. I did hazard a taste and not bad ladies and gents, it may be a worthwhile experiment. I forgot to include the dried fruit in the bars – but I can eat those while I wait for the bars to cool.

Whats the verdict? not bad for experiment #1. I still have not dropped the idea completely.

If folks out there want to try making the traditional granola bars, look know further than the Alton Brown recipe.

Southwest Scrambled Tofu

I aspire to be a morning person. Every morning, I attempt to wake up around 6 am, very groggily fix myself a cup of Joe that I drink while catching up on the morning news and weather outlook. With that relatively calm beginining, the hum-drum of the day commences. I will admit I do not do justice to breakfast - the supposed most important meal of the day! However, I am usually big on balanced meals. If breakfast consisted of junk, I try to ensure lunch or dinner fare better!

Being the unabashed tofu fan that I am, most weekend brunches involve tofu put together with the contents of the fridge - different veggies: peppers, spinach, accompaniments: ketchup, soy cheese and warm toasted bread. Here is a Tex-mex variation of tofu scramble with chipotle chillis. These are smoked jalapeno peppers that come in a jar all soaked in Mexican Adobo sauce. The Adobo seasonings include garlic, tomato paste and onion. So, thats all you need for the flavorings. When I run out of the usual green chilis I used for daily fare, I substitute these chipotle chilis.

Here is how I went about making the Southwest Scrambled Tofu. Use firm or extra firm tofu, cut off desired amount from the block, slice thin and squeeze out excess liquid from the tofu crumbling it in the process.

Southwest Tofu Scramble
1 tsp peanut oil 1 cup crumbled tofu (liquid squeezed out) 2 chipotle chilis (or less for a milder flavor), chopped 1 tsp of adobo sauce from chipotle chili jar .25 tsp turmerica pinch of salt (or more to taste)	Heat the oil in a pan (omlette pan works well). Add the tofu, chili, turmeric and the sauce. Add salt if necessary - the Adobo sauce is seasoned. Cook for 2-3 minutes till tofu is dry and resembles scrambled eggs
2 tbsp cooked black beans	Add the black beans to the tofu, heat through. Serve with heartly whole wheat bread

Add a glass of freshly squeezed orange-grapefruit juice, and you have given your metabolism an early morning boost!

On most weekdays I do the cereal routine. If you are like me and flee at the mention of milk, try adding cereal or granola to some greek styled yogurt. Greek yogurt is strained thick yogurt that comes low fat and is readily available in most regular well stocked supermarkets! I like Kashi's Go Lean Crunch cereal. It is delicious and each 1 cup serving has 9 gms of protein, 8g fiber and Omega 3 fatty acids.

This balanced breakfast is my entry to this month's Weekend Breakfast Blogging (WBB), concieved by Nandita of Saffron Trail, hosted this month by Mansi. Thanks for choosing the theme of 'balanced breakfast meals'!

Urban Dal Dhokli Under Pressure (Indian stew)

It is 9:30 pm on a Wednesday. You have just walked into your house tired from the day's turmoil. On the way home, you got cut off on the highway by a jerk talking on his cell phone. You kick off your shoes and examine your mail. Bill. Bill. Pre approved credit card notice. You add this to the rest of the week's mail that must be sorted at some future auspicious time. Coupon for pizza. "I had pizza for lunch", you think to yourself. Something healthy would be good for a change. But what.? You come into the kitchen and open and close the pantry and refrigerator doors as if expecting the contents to change magically each time. You consider ordering take out... Where are all those junk menus when you actually want to find them?

Necessity is the mother of invention. One Pot meals are the unsung heroes of weekday chaos! Pretentious recipes with a long list of ingredients and the saute these first set of ingredients, grind them and set aside type instructions are completely over-rated! They have their place in the food chain of course and some of them are worth most of the effort. But the pure satisfaction of had made a good meal within minutes gives me that heady high feeling of accomplishment.

One such is this 'instant' Dal Dhokli. This Gujarati dish has been chronicled beautifully by our resident regional food connoisseur, Nupur. Traditional preparations require you to knead a spiced up dough and roll it out into thin strips and gently boil it in a soupy dal mixture. The resulting dish is an Indian version of soup / pasta and is a great one dish wonder. I decided to shop for thin spinach fettucine to substitue for the fresh dough as a time saver. And work it does, readers. I was lucky to find good spinach fettucine and - red chili flavored pasta at my grocery store.

Pasta used for dal dhokli - red chili pasta with beetroot and spinach taliatelli

A pressure cooker is an ideal one pot for this version of dal dhokli

Dal Dhokli - quick, under pressure!

"Instant" Dal Dhokli
1 tsp peanut oil a handful of raw peanuts 0.25 tsp cumin seeds 2-3 cloves 0.5 cups toor dal (yellow split peas) .25 tsp asafetida .25 tsp turmeric powder 1.5 tsp salt (or to taste) 3.5 cups of water	Heat the oil in a pressure cooker, add the cumin seeds and cloves. When the cloves puff up, add the peanuts. Add the dal, salt and water. Close the lid the cooker and cook according to the instructions for your pressure cooker for lentils
2 cups flavored pasta of your choosing	Add the pasta to the cooked soupy dal, reduce heat to medium, close the lid (without pressure) and cook for about 15 minutes. Check occasionally to ensure there is enough liquid. The mixture will thicken from the starch of the pasta. Add more water if you would like a more soupy dal.
1 tsp butter or ghee (optional)	Once the pasta is good to desired tenderness - (well past the al dente stage!), add butter or ghee to add richness. Enjoy piping hot.

I also tried putting in the pasta with the uncooked dal with a larger quantity of water. I thought the resulting stew was a little too mushy - but really good anyway. It cut down 10 more minutes of prep time. All in all, this dish will be featuring on my table every so often. Comfort... no sweat!

This humble impromptu meal is worthy of mingling with other unassuming one pot nourishers at Meeta's Monthly Mingle.

Doodh Peda (Milk Fudge) : 6 Minute Guilty Pleasure

When it comes to enjoying Indian sweets, I find Milk Pedas absolutely *irresistible*. Next in the sweet hit list would be all kinds of milk based desserts - likes of Gulab Jamun, Ras Malai, Kala Jamun. At the tail end of the list are all dry fruit based sweets. Kaju Katli (Cashewnut fudge), in my humble opinion is nauseating. Just thinking of it makes my stomach churn uncomfortably. How some people I know (take Hubbie for instance) can down them 4-5 at a time is alarming.

But all good things in life are difficult to come by. Agree? Traditionally to make pedas you must painstakingly boil the milk for hours *without* burning it. However, with the magic of processed foods and invention of appliances for busy people you can enjoy pedas in not 9 minutes, not even 8 minutes, but just 7 minutes and 59 seconds. However, if you were to follow the recipe properly you can cut 2 full minutes of prep time. Hopefully I have made you googly eyed just like those attractive infomercials on TV this time of year :-)

All you need for this recipe is a nice big microwave safe glass bowl (with a wide mouth), a can of sweetened condensed milk, a stick of butter and 1/2 cup of non fat dry milk. I don't regularly endorse brands, but Carnation brand dry milk works best - other brands I have tried have given less than optimal results.

Doodh Peda
1 stick or 1/2 cup unsalted butter	Place butter in a large glass bowl and microwave for 30 seconds or more so as to melt it.
one 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk 3.2 ounces or 1/2 cup of non-fat dry milk	Mix in the condensed milk and dry milk powder and microwave for a minute. Stir vigorously to combine. Repeat the microwaving for a minute and stirring 4-5 times until the texture and color of the mixture resembles cooked oatmeal.
2-3 cardamom pods a healthy pinch of saffron	Grind the black seeds inside the cardamom pods and the saffron into a powder and mix in with the peda mixture. Let the mixture cool until it can be handled by hand. Shaped into small balls and flatten to form pedas. Alternatively spread on a greased sheet and cut into shapes when cooled completely. Decorate with slivered almond or pistachios

Only seriously insanely obsessive picky eaters will be able to tell you have not slaved over the stove for hours. For the rest of us - this tastes as authentic as it gets. There are many variations to this basic peda recipe - but this one has turned out perfectly multiple times and is what I call a keeper recipe. Thanks to my dear cousin who made these pedas specially on my birthday!

All in one solitary meal: Tofu Spinach Roti

I can tell that it has been too long since my last visit to the grocery store because I am all out of junk food. Yes, been a slacker lately - no excuses. Plenty of theories for my lack of motivation to cook (besides the hackneyed too busy at work) -we'll go over them another day.

But, today I was possessed with the will to cook something good. I was surveying the pantry when it came to me - the mother of all one dish meals - the paratha (Indian flat bread). I gathered all elements of the USDA food pyramid - whole wheat flour, tofu, frozen spinach, vegetable stock cube, water and oil. And got to work. Also, in my life when it rains, it pours. So in true overachiever behaviorial pattern, I also launched another unit of processing - laundry. I kneaded the dough for the parathas and put the clothes in the washer as the dough rested. The whole cooking, cleaning and eating process was done before the end of the dryer cycle. Of course, I was eating as I was cooking. Here goes the recipe for the parathas/rotis

Tofu Spinach Roti/Paratha
0.5 cups frozen spinach 1/2 a vegetable stock cube	Place spinach and half a stock cube in a microwave safe bowl (big enough to knead the dough in) and nuke for 1 min to defrost the spinach
1.5 cups whole wheat flour 2-3 tbsp crumbled tofu (no need to drain) 1 tsp chili pow Not more than 1/2 cup water	Add the flour, tofu and chili pow (and salt if needed, the stock cube will have seasonings). Use your hands to incorporate all the ingredients. Add water little by little and knead into a smooth dough. Keep aside for a few minutes if you can spare.
	Divide dough into 10 parts, Roll into balls and flatten to form discs. Using a rolling pin, roll out into discs of about 6in diameter. Shape has no effect on the taste and nutrition. Heat a griddle/shallow frying pan till hot. Slap on a rolled out disc, flip after cooking ~30 sec on each side. Now drizzle some oil if desired and toast both sides applying slight pressure till brown spots appear on both sides.

Eat by itself or with plain yogurt. A proper meal, two loads of laundry and a blog post all in one week night - tonight is going to be hard to beat. If only I can now muster up motivation to put away that laundry!