salads can save you from eating junk when eating out | a recipe of healthy salad with green garlic shoots, lotus stem and fresh red peppers | salad meals

How to find healthy options when eating out? 

We often stop for coffee when shopping at a mall and want a quick bite with it too. And we often fix meetings at some approachable cafe or tearoom. The most important question that comes to mind in such situations is, how one chooses what to eat? All the popular options seem to be laden with junk, drowned with sugar laden sauces and trans fat based creams and what not.

Although I don't see any harm if one eats such foods once in a while but if you are someone who has to depend on cafe foods in everyday life it is better to look for options that work for everyday eating. I know a few people who have to eat in cafes at least once a day and this bit of my post is intended for them. I would recommend you search for that small section of the menu that lists salads first. I am glad with the increasing trend at most cafes to include a good salad in the menu and they almost always customize the salad as per demand.

Here is what I found at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf recently when we were at Select City Walk, Saket for some gifts shopping. We tried a couple of sandwiches too to see if they are worth, I was glad both sandwiches came with a helping of green salads on the side and the chicken panini sandwich was good for a filling bite. I found the Mushrooms sandwich a bit unbalanced, too little filling in too thick a bread (a challah) and that makes a sandwich insipid for me.

You can always ask for the kind of bread being used for a sandwich if ordering one, opt for the thinner, lighter breads. 

Wraps and Quesadillas are better options if you want a filling snack to share or a meal for yourself. I found the Corn and cheese Quesadilla quite good and tasty and it came with a side of salad too. Good nutrient value for the calories consumed.

The grilled chicken wrap was good in terms of taste and health quotient, but it needs a salad on the side too. In absence of a salad, this grilled chicken wrap feels too dry to eat even with the salsa it comes with. The salsa is avoidable, too sweet for my taste.

The salads on the menu are good. The better thing is that you can always get your salad customized, ask for a particular dressing, more pepper or order some add-ons with it or have them as is. I had finished all the salads that came on the side of sandwiches so I did not order any more, but the options on the menu were all good.

I must add that CBTL is a lively place, a bit slow service probably because it is quite crowded and you can see people waiting outside for a table. I could see people from all age groups, some really old people were chatting up on a corner table, a family with kids grabbing a sandwich on another and even a new mother feeding her baby on a table quite close to entrance. Especially the breastfeeding mother gave me very good feelings about a place as well as the comfort level a new mother has there.

Coffee at CBTL is decent. We tasted a Blueberry-Mascarpone cheesecake that we could not tolerate for another bite. The much acclaimed cake-pops are best avoided.

Never eat cake-pops at cafes, bakeries or any place that displays it. Not worth your money and your tummy.

Now coming to the recipe of salad I am sharing today. This is one salad I repeat quite often when green garlic shoots are in season. I change the other vegetables sometimes and use mushrooms (quartered) or potatoes (boiled, cooled and thickly sliced) but the green garlic shoots are used in abundance. These garlic chives recipes will give you an idea how I use them for stir fry and cold salads. Garlic chives are lighter flavoured than these green garlic shoots. Check the pickled pesto recipe we call lehsunsagga too, you would love it.

We love garlic and green garlic gives the best flavours of garlic with a good bite too. The trick is not to cook the vegetables too much for this salad and use loads of toasted sesame seeds or any other seeds or chopped nuts for added texture and taste.

ingredients
(2 large meal servings)

lotus stems 1 stick (about 120 gm)
green garlic shoots 3-4 (about 100 gm)
fresh red pepper or bell pepper 1
toasted sesame seeds 1 tbsp
sesame oil 2 tsp
salt and pepper to taste

Note that there are no sauces or vinegar used in this salad, it is the taste of good quality sesame oil and the pungency of green garlic shoots combined with fresh red peppers that gives this salad the much needed flavour. Keep this in mind if you decide to substitute any of the ingredients.

procedure..

Clean and peel the lotus stem, cut into inch long pieces and then cut each piece longitudinally to make batons. Slit open the red pepper, remove seeds and slice into similar sized batons. Chop the green garlic shoots in similar sized pieces too. You might like to slit the base part if it is thick.

Heat the sesame oil in a pan and toss in the lotus stem batons first. Add salt just enough for the lotus stem and toss to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the red pepper and toss for 30 seconds and then add the green garlic shoots too. Toss for a minute or till the garlic leaves and shoots become limp. Take off the heat, adjust seasoning and empty the salad in a serving platter. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds and serve right away.

The salad is very filling and tasty. You may want to use a bit more sesame oil to make the salad more flavourful. I don't mind using such good quality oils liberally for such salad meals.

If you are serving this salad to a crowd, make it in huge amounts because this will be the one salad that everyone will keep taking second and third helpings. The salad pairs really well with noodles, plain boiled rice or on the side of grilled fish or chicken.

Fish or chicken can also be added to the same salad to make it more filling if you wish. Thinly sliced chicken breast or fish fillet works well for this salad.

I make quick dinner with this salad tossed with some leftover rice sometimes.

Many readers tell me that they don't get lotus stem in their part of the world. If you are one of those, try using mushrooms, boiled potatoes, peeled and chopped raw plantains or even yams for this salad and see if you like it. But please don't substitute cold pressed sesame oil with anything else for this recipe. Sesame oil is the soul of this lotus stem and green garlic salad.

And toasted sesame reinforces the sesame flavours even more. You can even serve this lotus stem and green garlic stir fried salad as a subzi with Indian meals too. I have a feeling I would like it with khichdi or daal chawal or even wrapped in a thin whole wheat roti too.

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chicken stew the way I like | chicken stew with lotus stem, mushrooms and spring onions

This is the season for large bowls of chicken stews being slow cooked for early winter dinners. I love quick recipes most of the times but I do slow cooking whenever time permits and in those recipes I do some adjustments so it requires lesser active time over the stove. I mean I want to let the stew simmer on it's own for a long time and then add some stir fried stuff and simmer some more. The active time over the stove would not be more than 10 minutes and add another 10 minutes for chopping the copious amount of vegetables that I like to add to my stews.

This chicken stew is made with chicken thighs cut into bite sized pieces and loads of mushrooms, bok choy, lotus stem slices and spring onions. I added a few slices of winter red carrots too but I generally avoid this variety of carrots for my stews. The glossy orange summer carrots are better suited for stews I feel. The stew has flavours of a rich stock that simmers along with the chicken on bone and a tadka of homemade shrimp paste that I add to my meat curries sometimes. This shrimp paste makes such stews really deep in flavours, bringing in the umami factor without using any bottled sauces.

ingredients

2 numbers of chicken thighs on bone cut in 3 pieces each
roughly chopped bok choy 2 cups
spring onion greens chopped in 2 inch long strips 2 cups
spring onion bulbs sliced thinly 1/4 cup
button mushrooms 200 gm pack
lotus stem cleaned and sliced 1 cup
carrot slices 1/4 cup (optional)
fresh ginger root 1 inch piece sliced roughly into 4 pieces
dry shrimps 1 heaped tbsp
garlic cloves 5
salt to taste
freshly crushed black pepper to taste
fresh red chilly of any hot variety like bird chilly or dallae etc few slices (use chilli flakes or chilli oil as a substitute)
water 1.5 liter
sesame oil 1 tbsp

procedure 

Heat water in a deep and wide vessel and add the chicken pieces into it. Simmer for 5 minutes and remove any froth that appears.

Now add the chopped bok choy, spring onions and carrots being used and let the stew simmer on low flame for about an hour. The bok choy that I had was a large mature head so I added it along with the chicken, baby bok choy tastes best when added at the time of finishing the stew.

Make a paste of garlic and dry shrimps or just pound them lightly together. Keep aside.

After about an hour when the chicken is cooked thoroughly and the stock tastes and smells nice, add the salt and pepper and start heating another frying pan with sesame oil.

Tip in the shrimp paste in hot oil and then immediately add the lotus stem slices. Toss and cook for about 3-4 minutes before adding this to the cooking stew. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Clean and chop the button mushrooms in halves or quarters depending upon the size.

For finishing the stew just fish out the ginger pieces. I like to keep the spring onion greens so I cut them into bite sized pieces but if you want to discard them at the end you can just tie the long springs together and dunk it into the simmering stew and fish it out in the end.

Add the mushrooms, slices of spring onion bulbs and the hot red chilly, bring it to a soft boil again and serve the soup immediately. If you are planning to serve the stew after some time you have to take care to add the mushrooms and the slices of spring onion bulb in a simmering stew just before serving so they retain the bite and the flavours.

The stew is so good I can smell the aromas form the screen. You would be able to do the same once you taste it. I add raw broccoli florets along with the mushrooms sometimes in this stew sometimes but please don't replace any other vegetables in it. All the other vegetables are crucial for the bouquet of flavours this chicken stew packs. You must make this same recipe once and then decide what else you would like to add to it.

Although I must add that you can replace the bok choy with a mix of cabbage and just a few radish slices. Use different varieties of mushrooms if you wish but lotus stem is more for the textures rather than flavours, that can be substituted with halved baby potatoes. Sesame oil is essential for this stew, if you are using some other cooking oil please add some freshly toasted sesame seeds over the stew while serving. You get the drift?

Try it once this winter and let me know.

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a warm Oriental salad with lotus stem | lotus stem stir fry salad with tamarind chilly sauce

Lotus stem warm salad is something I keep stirring up quite often. I find salads made with lotus stem slices quite filling and satiating apart from being utterly delicious. Yes I have tried simple stir fried lotus stem with salt and pepper too and have found it great for my taste. This lotus stem and chicken sausage stir fry salad with soy honey glaze is a hot favourite and a lotus stem stir fry with sweet and sour sauce and another lotus stem stir fry with spring onions is a regular too.

Apart from being an extremely healthy vegetable, lotus stem is incredibly tasty too. One can cook them with s spicy Indian curry, an Oriental stir fry or a Kashmiri style curry with or without knol khol or turnips added. If you have been reading my blogs for some time you would know that I stock lotus stems always in my fridge.

Many people don't buy lotus stem as they find it difficult to clean it. Finding good quality lotus stem is not tough if you know how to spot the freshest ones. Look for the brightest looking sticks in this case.

Try and find fresh unblemished Lotus stem preferably locally grown as that ensures the freshness. The freshly cut end of a lotus stem should ooze a little milky exudation and should be creamy white in colour. Do not buy if the pores look dirty as it will be a big hassle to clean it properly.

You need to discard the brown ends and peel the skin using a potato peeler. Take care not to peel too hard as half the lotus stem will be wasted that way.

ingredients

lotus stem sliced in half moons or as convenient 2 cups
red onion sliced 1/2 cup
chopped garlic 1 tsp
ginger julienne 1 tbsp
dry red chillies broken 2-3 or to taste
star anise petals broken 1 tsp
tamarind pulp 1 tbsp (freshly made, 1 tsp if using thick ready made paste)
soy sauce 1 tbsp
grated jaggery 1 tsp
black pepper powder (optional)
sesame oil 2 tsp or 1 tbsp

preparation

Heat the oil and tip in the star anise petals, garlic and broken red chillies. Let them sizzle first and then add the sliced lotus stems. Stir fry on medium heat for about 5 minutes and then add salt to taste. Mix well.

Add the sliced onions and ginger julienne. Mix well and cook for a couple of minutes.

Mix the tamarind pulp with soy sauce, grated jaggery and black pepper powder (if using) and pour into the pan. Mix well and let the lotus stem slices coat well.

Serve warm or at room temperature. This is something we can't take our hands off, it is so addictive you would finish the plate as it is. Add a few roasted peanuts and it would make a complete meal. We had it as a starter the other day followed by a nice grilled fish.

This warm salad with lotus stem could be a great accompaniment to any noodle or rice meal that you plan for an oriental dinner.

One of those dull looking but yummy dishes that you keep repeating for the ease of cooking and the taste.

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