Thai green mango or raw mango salad recipe to wrap up a crazy weekend

We had a nice brunch of multigrain uttapam yesterday along with some fiery chutneys and curry patta flavoured buttermilk. A nice relaxed late breakfast that powered us for a massive clean up of the cupboards, sorting things to give away and to rearrange, in a bid to get a bit organised. We often neglect housekeeping issues and they keep piling up, this was the weekend we decided to take it head on. And we did. The big breakfast helped a lot.

This thick onion laden uttapam is quite filling and I had made a quick pressure cooker pumpkin mash with coconut cream, the garlic flax seeds chutney adds up taste and fills you up fast too. Quite an energising breakfast/brunch it was.

We decided we will eat some fruits in the evening as usual and then prepare dinner or order something for dinner if we get too exhausted by the end of this exercise. But once we started sorting things to rearrange and bundling up things to discard or give away it just kept stretching endlessly. We had iced tea in between that I had kept ready in the fridge but we really got hungry by late evening. The maid was on leave and I had to start dinner from scratch if I do. Not possible I said and suggested we order something new for dinner. Normally we just call the corner dhaba and get assorted tikkas and roomali roti with loads of onion rings in such times but I wanted something light healthy and yet tasty. Was it such a tall order?

Made some nice strong cold coffee and we sat down to search for online ordering. I was not prepared for the kind of deluge of food options flashing on the screen. We had been hearing about Foodpanda a lot and tried it for the first time. Once I selected my area of residence and cuisine I was amazed to see the number of small and big establishments from near and far offering almost whatever I wanted for myself. Ranging from student breakfasts which is basically cheap, light but tasty breakfast options to sushi and miso soups I could order anything. Amazing.

We ordered a miso soup, a cucumber and seaweed salad and chicken teriyaki with sticky rice, all this with a 20% discount that was offered for the day. Not sure if the discount was for the day or forever as I was ordering food this way for the first time. I am embarrassed a bit about not knowing the options but not sorry about not depending much on take-aways and home deliveries.

Anyway, we enjoyed our meal, too tired to empty it into plates and bowls, we dug into the bowls it came into, and did not regret one bit.

And today the next episode of the operation housekeeping was followed. Same multigrain batter was steamed into idli and had with ghee and garlic flax seeds chutney to be followed by tackling plumbers and electricians. But today I had planned better and kept some green raw mangoes and red onions ready to toss up a nice salad in the evening. And by the end of the day I am feeling accomplished to be able to post the recipe with you as well.

ingredients..
( 2 large servings)

raw green mangoes 2 large or about 300 gm
red onion 1 medium or 100 gm
chopped fresh mint 1/4 cup
chopped fresh green coriander 1/2 cup

the dressing..
minced fresh red chilly or red chilly flakes to taste (keep a bit higher as chilly heat gets denatured by the tartness of raw mangoes)
brown sugar or grated jaggery 1.5 tbsp
salt 3/4 tsp or to taste ( I used a mix of regular salt and black rock salt)
light soy sauce 2-3 tsp
cashew nuts shallow fried in ghee or oil 1/3 cup or about 80 gm

procedure...

Peel the raw mangoes and slice thinly from the sides of the fruit. Arrange the slices and chop them into very thin matchsticks. Chop about 1/4th of the raw mango in really small bits to add texture.

Peel, halve and slice the red onion thinly. Dice a few slices in small bits too to add texture. This salad is a very good mix of taste and texture.

Chop the herbs and chilly. Mix all these together and keep aside, reserving the chopped chili for dressing..

Chop the cashew nuts roughly. Some of the nuts can be whole as it adds to the salad in a very good way. You might feel it is too much cashew but the salad is packed with fiber and balances the overall glycemic index and calorie count both.

Mix the dressing ingredients and whisk lightly with a fork. Pour into the chopped ingredients and give it a good mix. Let it stand for 10 minutes before adding the cashew nuts and digging into the flavours right away.

This salad will cast magic on whoever digs into it. Such a wonderful mix of flavours you would crave for more. This was a huge bowl of salad and we kept digging our forks into the bowl silently till we polished off the last shred. That good.

There is a raw mango and sprouts salad with peanuts that I make and that can also be dressed to taste. Raw mangoes, onions and fresh chillies eaten together are supposed to keep the body cool and energized, thanks to the mineral and vitamins that they pack.

Make this Thai raw mango salad this season. You can pack it to your lunch box, all mixed up and it will get better in a couple of hours stays in the box. This salad makes a nice snack for a bunch of friends too for a weekend drink. Think about it, you might like it rolled up in a crisp paratha too.

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chilled fruit soup for summer | papaya and orange soup with feta cheese and hint of star anise

I know you would say why not a smoothie. But you know a soup is different and this papaya and orange blend makes a real soup with a hint of spice and a tang of kala namak. A chilled soup with fruits makes a nice raw soup, much like Gazpacho but a bit different. You can make gazpacho with whatever combination of vegetables and fruits you like, I often add chucks of papaya or half ripe strawberries to smooth or chunky gazpacho for my meals.

But this soup is totally fruity with a hint of spice. You can add a bit of marmalade for a deeper flavour but it tastes great even without that.

ingredients
(2 servings)

papaya cubes (over ripe is the best) 2 cups
deseeded orange segments 1.5 cups
kala namak (black rock salt) 1/4 tsp
star anise powder a pinch
white pepper powder a pinch
citrus marmalade (optional) 1 tbsp
feta cheese or sour cream to top 2-3 tbsp

procedure..

Chill the fruits before peeling and chopping. Or put them into freezer for 30 minutes if in a hurry.

Blend everything together till really smooth. Adjust seasoning and pour in soup cups, top with feta cheese and serve immediately.

Take a picture if you wish and send it to your parents to tell you are eating your fruits alright. It is important :-)

This chilled fruit soup is a really refreshing meal on a hot summer day. You know it had got a bit hot 2 days back here when I whipped up this soup, but it rained again and the summer heat is gone. I am still using the bathroom geyser and we are eating our hot soup dinners too sometimes, in mid April for a change. There is some serious climatic change to be seen definitely.

The cold fruit soup of Hungry looks interesting too, this cold fruit soup I came across is partially cooked. Making completely raw cold fruit soups or cooking them partially to get more depth of flavours is a personal choice. But be assured this soup is very different from a smoothie though technically it might be a smoothie flavoured and plated differently.

One more way to eat your fruits. Just blend it, pour it, top it with sour cream or feta cheese or even hung curd if you please. And devour in it for a quite lunch staring at the signs of spring in the garden, summer gone totally confused in Delhi.

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green goddess lemonade | the best natural thirst quenchers for summers

This green lemonade I have been making with an assortment of the herbs that I grow in my garden. I named them as green goddess just to make them sound fancy. I pluck herbs that I like in the season and blend them together along with strong citrus elements like the Pomelo leaves, lime leaves, lemongrass etc and refrigerate in a small jar mostly. Just a heaped spoonful of this paste dissolved with honey or sugar and a generous glug of lime juice is all what it takes to make a green goddess lemonade my way.

Yes I did that. It so happened last week that I had made the herb paste fresh and was planning to serve this herb infused lemonade to a friend who visited. But when I suggested would she like to have shikanji she took plain water and later had lemongrass tea. Shikanji or shikanjvi is the Hindi/Punjabi name for a lemonade FYI. Later I realised she must have thought about the plain lemonade made with just lime juice and sugar and hence refused. How would she know if I did not tell her the details of what this lemonade actually was. That is when I decided to name it as green goddess lemonade and corrected a mistake.

This lemonade tastes really great with soaked subza seeds (sweet basil seeds) or falooda. I am now running out of my stock of basil seeds I have been using them so much. Had bought a bag from one of my travels last year and had gifted some to my friends too. Time to look for more subza in old Delhi markets now, I hope to find it here and not burn holes in my pocket paying for it.

Note that these are not chia seeds, chia seeds are the seeds of Salvia hispanica while subza is the seeds of Ocimum basilicum. Chia seeds are brownish in colour while subza is black.

Green goddess lemonade recipe

ingredients
(2-3 servings)
Thai basil leaves 10 (or mint leaves 20)
pomelo (or kaffir lime) leaves 2-3
lemongrass shoot 1
honey or sugar to taste
lime juice 3 tbsp
soaked subza seeds 5-6 tbsp

procedure...

Chop all the leaves and lemongrass shoot in small pieces and grind them all together in a blender jar. This paste can be kept in a jar or refrigerated in ice trays for longer shelf life.

Add the paste to 500-600 ml chilled water, stir well and let it stand for 10 minutes. Strain, add lime juice and honey, dissolve well and pour in tall glasses. Top with subza seeds and serve right away.

This is an intensely flavoured lemonade, rich with layers of citrus flavours imparted by the lime juice, pomelo leaves and lemon grass. Pomelo leaves are used to make herbed salt and chutneys in Kumaon mountains, I love that too but we rarely use herbed salts at home so drinks are the best way to use herbs.

Another green goddess lemonade I love is a salty one. Yes we do love our nimbu pani and I like having some variety there as well. 

Blending curry patta leaves to make buttermilk, to be used in idli mixes and poha is something I keep doing regularly. The curry patta powder and the calcium rich curry patta chutney is another way to use loads of curry patta.

To make a savoury lemonade also curry patta is very useful. You might have tasted buttermilk flavoured with curry patta but lemonades are not that common. In this recipe I combined curry patta with tamarind and lime juice both for an intense salty-tangy taste that tastes so good one feels like having 2-3 glasses of it in one go.

ingredients 
(4-5 servings)
curry patta springs 20-25 (or a cup of leaves)
tender lime leaves 10
tamarind (deseeded) 2 pods or a lump about the size of a small lime
peppercorns 5-7
salt to taste
lime juice 1 tbsp

procedure..

Make a paste of everything together. Keep refrigerated if required or make the lemonade right away.
Dissolve the paste into a jug or water, adjusting the seasoning and sourness. You can actually make this recipe like a panna (like aam ka panna) or a buttermilk but keeping it simpler is always better. That way you get the intense taste of the herbs used.

Strain the lemonade and serve in tall glasses with or without ice cubes. The combination of curry patta and lime juice and lime leaves make a tingling drink. Add kala namak (black rock salt) if you wish and see how this drink seduces you.

All these herbs provide essential minerals, much needed Vitamin C and hydrate during summer months, teasing your taste buds all at the same time.

The best thing is that they look attractive too, so the kids would lap it up readily when you offer them such lemonades instead of packages juices and cola. Now don't tell me you don't grow herbs so you can't use them. We get all herbs readily in the markets and can grow them in pots if required. Blending them to make the paste is just a matter of 2 minutes and another 2 minutes to strain and serve.

Please don't let the convenience of packaged foods and drinks overpower your sense of freshness and real taste. Make green goddess lemonade and stay happy.

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picture recipe | raw mango and carrot coleslaw

Here is a short recipe of raw mango and carrot coleslaw. Salads in summers is the only food that can be consumed in abundance and we thrive on them. For this raw mango and carrots coleslaw I use the half ripe but firm mangoes or any raw mangoes that are not too tart.

This salad makes use of orange carrots in season, the red onions so good for preventing heat stroke and raw mangoes that are considered great for preventing health strokes too. Chopped green chillies and mint also help the purpose of this salad to provide a cooling accompaniment to meals.

Yes the picture recipes are back again. This picture was shot last year but I have been making this salad at least once a week. Hope you all like it too.

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sorbets without ice cream maker | cooling, re-hydrating chilled treats | aam panna sorbet and litchi and lime sorbet

Aam panna is the quintessential summer drink that every north Indian swears by. Especially in the plains where there is abundance of raw mangoes during hot summer months, often fallen off the trees during hot afternoon winds, the raw mangoes are either boiled or roasted and then liquidized with roasted cumin, hint of hing (asafotida), kala namak and loads of mint. Every home has a different recipe for amm panna and we make it fresh or make an aam panna concentrate sometimes to last a week.

I had not been making any ice creams or sorbets for many years, no particular reason but I guess we had lost interest in home made ice creams. May be more because I am not into ice creams so much, give me fruit yogurt any day and I am good. Arvind likes ice creams more but not too crazy about them.

We siblings used to make a lot of ice pops and lollies using fruit juices, mango pulp and what not but then it was different all those years ago. I used to make a few kulfis using mango pulp or sometimes custard apple in the last few years but that's all I did with frozen desserts.

Last year I made a few instant granitas and sorbets and we both loved them. Real fruit granitas and sorbets are fun to have. We conveniently call them granita when the ice is crushed coarse and a sorbet when it is fine and powdery in the blender. Yes I make the sorbets in blender jar (mixie as called in India).

You can call it a sorbet slush if you want to drink it at a slow pace, just like I do. Summer coolers are survival drinks right now with temperatures soaring around 45 C.

Recipe of aam panna sorbet...

For this aam panna sorbet just boil raw mangoes in minimal water and save the pulp. The water can be added to soups or daals or can be made into a sharbat if you wish. The pulp is freezed in a plastic container or ice cubes for convenience.

If you freeze the boiled raw mango pulp in a container, just unmold it on the chopping board and slice like you would slice bread. It is not too hard as it is not pure water frozen to ice which becomes too hard.

Now tip in these slices or mango pulp frozen cubes (if frozen in ice tray) in the blender along with a large handful of mint leaves, some kala namak (black salt), little sugar and blend at high speed, till the pulp gets powdery in the blender. You can add a few ice cubes too if your raw mangoes were too sour.You can also add roasted cumin powder or sprinkle it over the sorbet once done.

Spoon out the sorbet into serving glasses and enjoy.

Recipe of litchi and lime sorbet...

Yes I made a yummy litchi and lime sorbet as well. Not once but around 5-6 times this season. More because I had managed to de-seed a lot of litchi one day and froze them all in 3 boxes. It is very easy to slice the frozen block once you un-mold it on the chopping board.

And then it goes in the blender right away. I added lime juice and lime zest sometimes and lime juice and fresh tender lime leaves some other times. I liked it more with the fresh tender lime leaves but you can always make it using lime juice and lime zest if you don't get lime leaves.

I think I must have made this litchi sorbet 4 times last week and we would sip on this sorbet slush slowly while watering the garden in the evening.

It is just so good that I might do the messy business of peeling and de-seeding litchi soon once again. It becomes one convenient and refreshing evening snack in the heat wave we are suffering right now.

You see you don't need any ice cream maker for sorbets if you don't aspire perfect rounded scoops of sorbet. You can mange that too if you freeze the blended sorbet once again and blend quickly just before serving. But home made goodness is more than the looks and you would love these sorbets for the real fruit in it.

Litchi sorbet is made without any added sugar.

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