dinner soups : black carrot soup with walnuts and feta , making the most of the season

I absolutely believe in the theory of demand and supply. Although the market has now started manipulating the demand by creating a fake demand for marketing some cheap and faux foods, the faux foods are made desirable using the medium of advertising, sponsored research and peer reviewing.

In such a situation we as consumers have a bigger responsibility in ensuring the food and ingredients we get are real if not organically grown. We must start asking for foods and ingredients that we want and not fall for what is available, the market responds.

My experience is that when I started asking my neighborhood subziwalas to bring chane ka saag (chickpea shoots) they slowly started bringing and now I see many of them bring it more frequently. Likewise happened for many other greens, heirloom varieties of lime, cucumbers and many more native vegetables. Similar has happened to black carrots too and I am so glad to see them in abundance this year more than ever. That needs to be celebrated and I have been cooking with black carrots a lot this season.

And black carrots are cheaper than the last few years this time, almost half the price I must add. Good news.

And when I want to use a lot of one particular vegetable I normally soup it up. Imagine you consume about 300 gm black carrots in one meal. So much antioxidants and flavonoids in one meal and I do take care to supplement it with enough proteins and fats so the meal is balanced, nutrient absorption is taken care of.

ingredients 
(2 large, meal servings or 6 soup servings for a multi course meal)

500-600 gm black carrots cleaned and diced in irregular pieces
150 gm red shallots or baby onions quartered (use less or skip if you don't like their sweetness)
6-8 pods of garlic chopped roughly
few springs of marjoram or any herb you like (celery works or ad coriander greens)
2 tsp mustard or olive oil, I have been using more mustard oil lately
1 tbsp tahini or roasted sesame paste
2-3 tbsp thick cultured yogurt (whisked)
about 10 walnuts halves
some feta cheese, more the merrier
salt to taste
pepper to taste

procedure
 
Heat the oil in a pressure cooker pan or a deep pan and tip in the garlic, onion and diced black carrots. Add salt and pepper and toss and stir till it all looks glazed and slightly browned at the edges.

Add marjoram or whatever herbs you are using, toss a little and add about 100 ml water. Fix the lid and cook till the first whistle blows. Take off the heat and let the cooker cool. I normally do this in the morning when I cook my breakfast and lunch and leave the pressure cooker undisturbed till required for the dinner.

If coking in a stock pot you need a little more water, cook covered till softened.

Now blend the contents when the soup needs to be served. Transfer the contents of the cooker to a blender along with tahini, yogurt and a little water if required. Blend till smooth.

Transfer to the pot and simmer, adjust seasoning and serve topped with broken walnuts and chunks of feta cheese.

This has been a satisfying delicious soup this season. We normally didn't need any breads with it but you can serve some garlic bread with it and make the meal even more interesting.

We keep some broken walnuts and feta chunks on the side for this soup and keep adding as we go. It does add a lot of texture and flavor to this thick and creamy soup.

Do try soon and let me know if you like. The soup can be made with beet root too but I think the flavours may need some fine tuning as black carrots and beets have very different flavour profile. If you use half red carrots and half beets it might be a better idea.

I crave for my soup dinners when I am traveling trust me. Just back from a long trip to Hyderabad where I was attending the National Permaculture Convergence and even presented 2 sessions about 'health, nutrition and it's correlation with soil' and another on 'native and wild foods'. More on that later, enjoy black carrot soup with walnuts and feta till then.

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recipe of pickled radish and making paratha meals healthier | radish leaves stir fry on the side

Pickled vegetables may be the way you can include more vegetables in your everyday diet with much ease possibly. This is for those who hate eating vegetables normally.

You do consume a bit of salt along with pickled vegetables but you can adjust the salt at the time of serving by adding a few elements to balance.

Normally pickled vegetables shouldn't make the staple vegetable intake but since pickling in certain ways causes fermentation and makes the pickle probiotic by lacto-fermentation, it is worth adding some pickled vegetables as a side dish or even in salads to bring some punch.

What is more interesting to know that this way you get cheap home cultured probiotics and once you use some fresh vegetables and whole grains in the meal you feed some prebiotics to your gut flora too. A healthy gut flora is the key to good health.

Moreover, you can pickle almost all vegetables you get in any season and pickling can be an all year activity on your kitchen counter. Each season has something delicious to pickle. I will definitely keep posting more recipes of probiotic pickles for you all.

Right now the winter months bring these gorgeous red radishes and I love pickling them in so many ways. The mustard pickled radish is one of the favorite way to pickle the mature radishes, the tender ones go into this brined pickle that I love heaping my plate with.

You know this way one can balance the meals. I usually make methi paratha using millet flours (mostly a mix of sorghum, amaranth and barley flour) or I add some whole chickpeas flour to the mix sometimes. The paratha is always made in ghee and is served with some full fat home cultured yogurt.

See how in this platter I have combined the paratha meal with a roasted tomato and coriander leaves chutney, some yogurt, some amla subzi (recipe will be shared soon) and loads of pickled radish.
 

Paratha is anyways healthy if served rightly, but this millet paratha meal has so much vegetables and fiber from whole grains packed into one meal that it makes the meal low glycemic and safe even for those who want to manage diabetes or weight related goals.

Don't worry about the apparent lack of proteins in this meal as sorghum, amaranth and chickpeas are quite a good source of proteins for normal people. Yogurt of course fills in.

Recipe of red radish brined pickle 

ingredients 

3 large radishes (preferably red) almost 600 gm
500-700 ml water (quantity of water used depends upon how you chop the radishes and how packed they are in the jar)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp whole peppercorns

procedure

Clean, wash and chop the radishes in batons. The batons can be according to the size of the jar you want to stack them into. Or slice them if you like. Stack the batons into clean sterilized glass jars.

Heat the water with the rest of the ingredients till it boils for a couple of minutes. Cool down to room temperature and pour over the radish batons stacked in jars. You may need more water if the batons are packed loosely.

Cover the lid and let the radishes pickle on your kitchen platform for at least 24 hours before serving. The taste and texture stays crisp for about 2 days but it depends on the temperature so refrigerate as soon as the radish batons start getting too soggy. It will still be edible when it gets soggy though.

Serve this radish pickle on the side of an Indian meal or with burgers if you like or inside sandwiches or any which way you like. You might end up munching on them as is.

A great way to consume this radish pickle is to add it to some salad. The pickling liquid will serve as a nice dressing too is mixed with some olive oil etc.

The leaves of the radish make wonderful stir fry that we love as stuffing to our parathas or chapati rolls. The recipe of the radish leaves stir fry is simple.

Recipe of radish leaves stir fry 

Just heat some mustard oil (or use any other oil you wish) and tip in some ajwain seeds (Omum seeds), broken dry red chillies and chopped garlic to it. Let them sizzle and then add the chopped leaves of radish. Add salt, mix, cover and cook till the volume is reduced. Then stir and cook for a couple of minutes till the stir fry gets a little dry. 

Add everything to taste, the mustard oil brings much flavour to this stir fry we call mooli ki bhurji. The best taste of this bhurji comes when you use red radish leaves but any radish leaves are good. Add some bits of radish too if you want more of this bhurji to savour.

All such leafy greens are great prebiotic foods and if consumed with whole grains and some proteins they make balanced meals.

You see when such parathas are made using alternative flours they can be a meal in itself. And when these paratha meals are served along with some of these probiotic pickles, some full fat yogurt and may be some more vegetables or chutneys or dips on the side they make a satiating and filling meal that keeps you full till the next meal and you don't end up snacking on nonsense things in between.

Oh and the leftover parathas once quartered and reheated on the griddle make nice tea time snack if you wish. eating healthy is not much of an effort if you plan ahead and keep the ingredients clean and simple.

So make your paratha meals healthier with these probiotic salads of the season. Add more vegetable in every meal and see how your body thanks you in return. Say yes to a big paratha meal any day.

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recipe of beans and mixed greens salad and how to keep leafy greens fresh for longer and ready to use

Convenience is the most critical factor that comes in the way of cooking healthy everyday. We fall back on short cut methods, quick sandwiches, take-aways and home delivered food sometimes when we are occupied with work or just can't handle the housekeeping and kitchen both along with work. If you have young kids the convenience factor counts even more.

Being prepared, shopping for fresh greens weekly and keeping some boiled beans, potatoes, may be some chicken helps a lot when you want to cook or whip up quick meals. Paneer and eggs also help me a lot when I have to cook quick meals. We eat simple meals at home but it has to be tasty and different every time. I just cannot imagine eating the same things everyday, apart from some classics that we cook every season without fail.

I make sure we eat loads of leafy greens everyday but I am not too particular about eating them raw always. I would steam and sautee the greens sometimes, would puree and make dips or cook them into a delicious lentil soup.

How to keep leafy greens ready to use...

Someone on Instagram asked me how to keep the salad greens and other leafy greens fresh for a week in the fridge. I know it is a bit of effort if you want to eat fresh greens regularly. First of all you need to buy them regularly to keep them stocked always. I get to shop for my leafy greens once a week but one can buy 2-3 times a week if possible.

Now a days one can order salad greens online and schedule an alternate delivery to get them fresh always. But what to do when you get to buy them once a week. You have to make sure you process them and store them in such a way that you can use them in salads, stir fries and soups.

Now let's see how we can sort the greens, clean them (or not) and keep them ready to use for quick meals whether those are salads, stir fries or soups.

1. Sort the greens by type so you can use them accordingly over the week. The lettuces, rocket leaves etc keep well for 4-5 days in the fridge, the spinach, amaranth leaves, Bathua, fenugreek leaves etc keep well for 10 days, the beet, carrot and knol khol leaves stay good for 4-5 days while the most long lasting leafy greens are the cabbages of all sorts. Think about the green or ed cabbages, Chinese cabbage, pok choi and radicchio etc, the ones that form a head. These stay fresh for a month or so if stored well. 
2. For all salad greens, rinse them well, drain for an hour and pack into cloth or paper bags to refrigerate. For the first 2 days they stay fresh and crunchy so use them directly. If they get softer after a couple of days just tear them first and then dip in chilled water while you prepare the dressing and other ingredients of the salad. And if the salad greens have wilted beyond repair in the fridge blend them into smoothies or just blend and add them to lentil soups in the last minute of simmering.
3. Spinach stays well for a week if it is kept wrapped in a paper or napkin. Choose freshest spinach possible and do not wash it before refrigerating if you are storing it raw. Spinach  should be chopped and cooked immediately after washing else it starts rotting. Baby spinach stays well even after washing and draining the leaves well. You can chop and steam spinach and freeze it in ziplock bags to be added to stir fries and to be blended into soups or to make palak paneer etc.
4. Fenugreek (methi) leaves are a little dry and can be washed and chopped before storage. Keep the chopped, ready to use fenugreek greens in a ziplock bag (pierced to allow aeration) or a cloth bag. These will be great even if they dry up a little bit. 
5. Amaranth greens (both red and green variety) keep well if washed and chopped, stored in a perforated ziplock or cloth bag. If kept unwashed these greens last longer as these are almost drought resistant greens.
6. Bathua leaves I always wash, chop and steam before storage. Bathua (Chenopodium) doesn't keep well because of higher water content in them. So steam bathua and store, chop or blend when required.
7. Purslane (kulfa) has high water content but it is a succulent type plant so it keeps well in the fridge for 2 weeks. It stays good even at room temperature for 3-4 days. 
8. Fennel bulbs, leeks and spring onions keep well if the leaves are trimmed. Keep the leaves separate and use them first, the bulbs stay for longer. Keep them refrigerated in cloth bags or paper bags. Knol khol leaves are better cooked with the bulb like this Monji haak recipe, but keeping the greens separately helps in this case too. 
9. Cabbages last quite a long time. The tighter the head of cabbage the longer it will last in the fridge. My home grown cabbages last about 6 months in the fridge, the ones from the market are already a couple of months old when they reach you. Do not wash the cabbages before storage. The good thing is that the cabbages do not require cleaning and can be chopped quickly before cooking or tossing into a coleslaw or chopped salad. 
10. If you are getting mixed salad greens remember to rinse them first and store in a cloth bag or perforated ziplock, but not for more than a couple of days as some of the varieties of salad greens may spoil earlier and cause other to rot too. Dip them all in chilled water before tossing into a salad. I never use a salad spinner to dry the salad greens but I do let them drain in a colander for some time.

Last but not the least, grow some of the herbs and salad greens in whatever space you have. Try and find more leafy greens that grow wild around you and use them. In this salad you can see some Oxalic leaves that impart a tart bite to the salad. 

Coming back to this beans and mixed greens salad, I have used a native variety of cow peas in this salad which is a brown and smaller variety of black eyed peas. The taste is much better than the regular black eyed peas and it cooks faster too. In local parlance it is called as laal chowli or desi chowli or desi lobiya.

I keep using different types of beans for my salads or hummus or even stews. This laal chowli I find suitable for a stew as well. In fact I stir fried the boiled laal chowli with spinach and bathua (separately) and it tasted so good that I thought of making hummus with it too. The beans were boiled and stocked for making quicker salads for my lunch though.

ingredients 
(serves 2 for a full meal)

1 cup boiled laal chowli (lobiya) or black eyed peas (or use any beans you like)
3/4 cup black grapes halved (or use orange segments)
3-4 large cherry belle radishes thinly sliced or beets thinly sliced
300 gm mixed salad greens torn into bite sized pieces
I used a few oxalis leaves (khatti buti) for a tart bite
2-3 tbsp chopped walnuts

Few pieces of thinly sliced toasted bread (preferably multi grain or whole wheat)

Dressing 
1 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp or more extra virgin olive oil (or use mustard oil)
2 tsp tahini paste (or use sesame powdered fresh)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp minced garlic (2-3 cloves)
2-3 black grapes crushed

preparation 

Make the dressing by whisking everything together.

Add the boiled beans (room temperature) to the dressing and toss with the mixed greens, radish slices and chopped grapes or orange segments.

Sprinkle with chopped walnuts if using.

Fill into a salad bowl and arrange the toasted bread slices to one side. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve immediately.

This salad is a fine balance of flavours and textures. The black grapes give it a sweetish flavour that enriches the dressing so much I felt like making the salad again and again. I used orange segments the next time when I used red cabbage for the salad and it was as good.

Do not skip radish in this salad as it gives a nice crunch, you can add thickly grated or julienne of radish if you want.

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Eggs for breakfast : 12 ways to have eggs for breakfast and include vegetables too | spinach spring onion and feta cheese frittata recipe

Eggs are convenient, quick and cheap source of protein, we must take advantage of this. I do always. It helps that we can pack in loads of vegetables along with our eggs even for the breakfast.

I know many people who balk at the thought of having vegetables along with breakfast and even if they try they get bored with the vegetables. No one ever gets bored with the breads and the fruit preserves and the nut butters or bacon, vegetables feel too boring to be had everyday.

I love my vegetables and can have them any time of the day but even I get bored with the same ways to cook them. Variation is the key when you resolve to eat more vegetables or anything that is good for you every single day.

Eggs and vegetables to be combined for breakfast is the easiest way to ensure one gets the advantage of starting healthy early in the day, this kind of breakfast prevents from any binge eating before lunch time or even after that. Trust me.

The key is to shop for vegetables mindfully, get them cleaned and chopped in advance and be ready for a quick filling breakfast in the morning.

Here is the recipe of the day.
Spinach spring onion and feta cheese frittata.

ingredients 
(2 large servings)
 9" diameter pie dish or pan for baking the frittata (you can choose any deep dish that suits the purpose)
150 gm finely chopped spinach
200 gm finely chopped spring onion, with the bulbs
some sun dried tomatoes to taste
1 tsp minced garlic (optional)
chilli flakes to taste
salt and pepper to taste
fete cheese about 50 gm crumbled
5 eggs

procedure

Whisk the eggs with the minced garlic if using and salt and pepper. Keep aside.

Grease the deep dish, spread the spinach first, press down and then spread the spring onions and the chopped sun dried tomatoes.

Pour the whisked eggs over it and then top it with crumbled feta cheese. You can use any other cheese you like. Toss in some bits of bacon or ham or even boiled and shredded chicken if you like. At this time you would notice the eggs are not visible in the dish.

Bake at 180C in preheated oven, covered with aluminium foil to prevent burning the surface. The frittata should be done in about 20 minutes, check by poking a fork if the eggs are set. You can grate some cheese over it and broil again till it melts.

The eggs will cook and fluff up, you will be able to see the cooked eggs with a rich green mosaic of the vegetables.

 And feta cheese makes plain boiled eggs quite interesting too.

I use feta over some grilled eggplant sliced to make sandwich and supplement the breakfast with boiled eggs. 

Very this sliced of bread, fat slices of eggplants, loads of greens, some feta and boiled eggs. Not much cooking involved to make a filling delicious breakfast.

And then we have boiled eggs topped with loads of this Indian style coleslaw or kachumber.

Plain boiled eggs are halved and then topped with some grated carrot, chopped coriander greens, chopped green chillies or capsicum and some chopped onions. This is drizzled with some extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. A simpler version of this Indian style egg salad is a common street food during north Indian winters, especially in the mountains.

Boiled egg salad with lettuce 

Another egg salad is the one that I make when we have some lettuce growing int he garden.
Some torn lettuce of choice, some thinly sliced onions, and some chopped boiled eggs. Everything is tossed with a light cream based dressing. Mix minced garlic, salt and pepper along with some mustard and whisk, add to the salad and mix lightly.

Serve immediately. This is one versatile egg salad and we keep changing the greens as per season. Some tomatoes and baby spinach also make this salad very nice.

And who doesn't like a nicely scrambled eggs?

This version is a bacon, chives and Parmesan scrambled eggs and is loaded with chopped onions and fat green chillies (mild hot).

1/2 cup minced onions sauteed with butter till brownish, some sliced fat green chillies of cubed capsicum thrown in along with chopped bacon and then some parsley and whisked eggs. Scramble, season and then grate some Parmesan over it and enjoy as it is.

Scrambled eggs with chives

The all season favourite is the chives scrambled egg.  Half a cup of chopped chives for 2-3 eggs and salt and pepper to season. I cook this scramble mostly with a tbsp of light cream or even some milk and not butter.

It turns out great every time. With a multi grain bread and ginger chai this makes a happy breakfast for us.

And talking about the egg scrambles, one of the most popular in my home is the drumstick leaves egg scramble.

We normally make it for a weekend brunch and have it with our multigrain roti. This kind of a brunch takes care of our weekends when we work in the garden or do spring cleaning of the house.

And Spanish omelets need not be too neat and nicely layered.

My Spanish omelets are mostly a mosaic of colours like this.

I saute quartered tomatoes, coloured bell peppers and some chucks of onion with some salt and pepper and then pour whisked eggs. Cover the pan and flip the omelet after a couple of minutes. This Spanish omelet is ready in about 3 minutes and serves one.

Fried eggs demand some bacon or sausages and of course some grilled vegetables. 

I grill the sausages and vegetables in a pan first, empty them all on the plate and then break the eggs in the same pan without adding any more butter to cook them. Wait till the yolk gets ready to your choice and flip them on to the plate. Eat/serve immediately.

Some mushrooms and a mix of peas, carrots and potatoes is a great change to the eggs and vegetable routine too.

This carrot and peas is mostly made pepper hot, the way I like it.

Masala omelet with stir fry vegetables 

The most common thing I do when I make a masala omelet is to throw somee chopped vegetables in the same pan and cover it for a couple of minutes, no extra fat required for this half done stir fry. My vegetables on the side of an omelet is ready to devour.

This way you get some onion, coriander leaves etc in the omelet and some more vegetables on the side.

Stir fry vegetables with soft boiled eggs

I stir fry some vegetables in a pan and boil the eggs on the other stove, quickly soft boiled eggs with warm stir fry with herbs and pepper is very comforting.

I am sure you got an idea how you can eat eggs regularly along with vegetables of your choice and still make it interesting and delicious every single day.

I will keep sharing more ideas because we eat eggs a lot. I keep sharing my meals and breakfasts on my Instagram page too, follow me there if you want more ideas.

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lentil and greens soup to balance the diet regime | lentil soup with broccoli, garlic leaves and carrot leaves

Lentil soups are one of those meals that I cook whenever in doubt. There are times when I want to eat all the vegetables and lentils in a warming comforting meal and don't want to cook an elaborate meal. Especially for dinner I want a warm cup to hold in my hands and sip the goodness slowly.

And recently I found a glass breakfast cup (measuring 700 ml) that I use for my soup meals as well. What is even better is that the huge cup fits in my large palm quite snug with my thumb slipping into the handle. You will find more soup mugs in my home than plates probably, I love my soups so much.

The good thing is that one can add just about any vegetables and greens to lentils and make the most delicious soup, that allows using the seasonal produce in a great way. Knowing what combinations of vegetables you like and adding on the seasonings right works wonders in this case.

I am a great fan of pressure cookers for making life easier when I want healthy and filling meals in a jiffy. And I get a secret pleasure when others try guessing what all has gone into the soup and I reveal the presence of carrot greens in it. Yes this lentil soup has carrot leaves along with broccoli and some fennel leaves.

Now most people hate broccoli and everyone that I know has shrunk their noses to carrot leaves. Luckily they just hate it and say no to these wonderful vegetables when suggested, but when I make the carrot leaves paratha no one seems to mind what leaves are those.

I know carrot leaves have very little taste and a slight bitter aftertaste that even I don't like. But carrot leaves lend themselves well in parathas and soups in combination with some aromatic ingredient.

Note that there are many articles on the internet telling you how 'toxic' carrot leaves are, how the alkaloids are so harmful that it may be deadly but in my experience I never saw any toxic effect of the greens. No one would be able to eat so much carrot leaves to cause death by overdose of alkaloids. If you can have instant coffee you can have carrot leaves too.

I find *mixed lentil (see ingredient list) works better for thick and creamy lentil soups. Although you can use any lentils for making soups, this mix of split black beans with skin, split mung with skin, split red lentils, split pigeon peas and split chickpeas is the current favourite of mine.

Even for this lentil soup the carrot leaves taste great along with some green garlic, a few fennel leaves and a lot of broccoli. I added coconut milk for making the soup smooth and garlic butter because I wanted some warmth.

ingredients 
(2-3 large meal servings or 6-7 soup servings)

100 gm *mixed lentils (split urad daal and split mung with skin, masoor daal, arhar daal and chana daal)
2 small broccoli (250 gm) along with the stems, hard portions removed
5 green garlic shoots (50 gm) chopped (optional)
leaves of 6 carrots (70 gm)
3-4 stalks of fennel (or use coriander leaves or dill leaves)
salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
6-7 pods of garlic peeled and minced
2 tsp butter or ghee
100 ml coconut milk
pepper powder and red chilli flakes as per taste
lime juice 1 tsp

procedure 

Rinse lentils and soak for an hour or so. Or use directly in a hurry.

Place the lentils and all chopped vegetables in a pressure cooker along with 2 cups water, salt and turmeric powder and pressure cook for 10 minutes after the first whistle. Let it cool till you can blend the cooked contents.

I generally pressure cook the above mix in the morning and do not open the lid till the dinner time when I have to cook the soup. Once pressure cooked the contents stay unspoiled till you open the cooker. This way I get cold cooked lentils and vegetables that can be blended conveniently.

Blend the lentils and vegetables mix and return to the cooker pan. Add the coconut milk, adjust seasoning and add the garlic butter too. Simmer till the soup is hot and creamy.

Serve with a little more coconut cream or milk as garnish.

The soup is so delicious I often overeat whenever I make this. I started making this soup when there was a glut of carrots in my garden few years ago but the carrots remained very thin and gnarled as the soil had too many stones. I went ahead and used the leaves and now I always get a bunch of fresh carrots with leaves whenever I spot them in the market. The garden makes me learn so much.

The soup tastes great when thick and creamy when you are having it as a meal. If you are planning to serve this soup as part of an elaborate meal you must keep it thinner as you wouldn't want a too filling soup to start a meal. Garnish the thinner version of this soup with a slice of lime and see how everyone loves the hint of fennel or whatever herb you decide to add to this soup.

To tell you the truth I make this soup quite often when the broccoli are past their prime. The herbs, the coconut milk and garlic butter lift this soup to another level. The carrot leaves will not even be noticeable in the overall scheme of things trust me.

You can add beet leaves and cauliflowers or simply loads of coriander leaves and tomatoes to make the same lentil soup along with coconut milk or dairy cream or even buttermilk. Try one of these combinations to know what I mean.

The combination of lentils and such vegetables in a soup makes it easier to balance out any eating out or eating for social obligations. Eating simpler meals at home is the best way to be able to enjoy eating out occasionally.

But it doesn't mean you can go berserk when eating out, too much damage to the eating discipline will need more strict measures to undo the damage.

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101 alternative flours | gluten free cake | ragi cake with carrot and orange

Recently I baked a cake for the birthday of a very sweet gentleman I had just met. It was really funny the way I got to know that it was his birthday that day, but once the birthday was revealed we had to do something. And what better to do than baking a cake?

It was last weekend when we were at Tijara Organic Farm, among fresh produce and lovely birds. We spent the weekend eating local cuisine cooked with the farm fresh organic ingredients while shooting pictures of the beautiful property lovingly constructed by Sneh Yadav and Tara Rao.

And it was Tara's birthday that day. I decided to bake a cake that resonated with the principles Tijara Organic Farm lives by.

We went through what was there in the pantry and decided to do a ragi cake with orange and carrots, everything fresh from the farm, ragi flour had come from the organic farmers in Rajasthan. Then I realised I had to work without an oven to bake the cake.

I used to bake a cake in pressure cooker long back, but the pressure cooker available there was too small. We did a lot of improvisations and decided to bake the cake in a ceramic pot with lid. For such baking one has to fill up the base pot with sand and then heat it up on gas stove, then the cake tin is kept over the sand and covered. In case of pressure cooker the lid is fixed without the pressure vent.

Here is how we placed the cake (in a borosil dish) inside the ceramic dish for baking.

Also, while mixing the cake batter that day I kept adding the ingredients by approximate spoonfuls and Sneh asked me whether I do this way always. I actually used to bake so much cakes earlier that the eyeballing method never failed me. I started weighing the ingredients only after I started writing the recipes for you all to follow. My instagram and facebook shares of the birthday cake brought in some requests for the recipe of this gluten free ragi cake.

So after coming back home, I made the cake again, weighing everything so the recipe can be shared. This time I topped the cake with loads of chopped walnuts, the way we like it.

ingredients
(makes 16 squares)

220 gm ragi flour (finger millet flour)
110 gm ghee (melted, at room temperature, or use soft white butter)
100 gm unrefined sugar
220 gm grated carrots
3 large eggs
1.5 tsp baking powder
zest of 2 oranges (I used local kinnows)
juice of one orange
pinch of salt
80-100 gm walnuts or a handful

procedure 

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. The ragi flour, the baking powder and the salt and sieve together or just whisk to mix well.

Grind the unrefined sugar with orange zest in coffee grinder or mixie jar. Now mix the wet ingredients. Add the eggs, ghee and sugar orange zest mix together and whisk till creamy and smooth.

Pour the wet mix to the dry ingredients bowl. Mix lightly while adding the grated carrots. The mixture will be quite thick and resist mixing. Add orange juice to ease out the batter but do not make it flowing consistency. It should be barely flowing.

Now grease a 7"X7" baking pan and pour the batter into it. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts and press using your fingers lightly to make them embed nicely.

Bake at preheated oven at 180C for 40 minutes or till the center becomes firm, check with a skewer if in doubt.

Cool and cut the cake in squares.

This ragi orange and carrot cake fills your home with a pleasant aroma while it is baking. It is difficult to resist but the wait to cool down the cake will be well worth.

This cake has a delicate crumb just like the ragi ginger honey cake I have shared few years ago. If you cut the cake when still warm it crumbs a lot but when you cut in after cooling down it behaves well.

Ragi orange carrot cake makes nice breakfast cake with milk and may be a banana or eggs. If you are baking it for a birthday you can dress it up with some orange chocolate ganache. Or may be some orange buttercream.

The birthday boy (Tara Rao) for whom I baked the cake that day is diabetic and I had baked the cake with lesser sugar. The ragi, ghee and carrots in the cake ensure the cake remains low glycemic even if it is lightly sweetened with sugar. So diabetics can have a decent sized serving of this cake too. 

I know many diabetics who wouldn't eat any desserts because they are denied and whenever they find a change they binge upon mithais and unhealthy cakes from the market. Baking such cakes for them more sense than making them crave for sugary stuff and giving in to temptations.

Tara messaged me that he loved the cake and finished the leftovers with his coffee the next day. Sneh said this was the best cake she has had. I know it was a sweet complement from a friend but Arvind loves it too.

I myself liked it when I tasted a small piece but personally I wouldn't be able to have it for breakfast like Arvind. I like my savoury breakfasts better.

This ragi orange carrot cake will be useful for those who want gluten free options and of course for those who want to watch their weight while enjoying a few pieces of cake sometimes. Do let me know if you try this cake recipe. It always feels great to hear feedback from you all.

I will share a pressure cooker cake soon. I know some of you were waiting for that too but I couldn't manage to do that. A pressure cooker cake needs either a short video or a step by step pictures to understand the process better.

Please not this cake doesn't behave like any white flour cakes but the taste is great. The texture is also very different from regular flour cakes but great nonetheless. Take care of reheating the cake slices before serving (in microwave, or any other method that you may apply) as the cake tastes best when warm. The cakes slices better when cold but tastes good when warm. Small inconveniences that can be overcome when you bake gluten free cakes. This ragi orange carrot cake won't disappoint you trust me. 

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home made cultured ghee and health benefits of ghee | what Ayurveda and modern research say about ghee

Ghee is pure butter fat, also called as butter oil because it is made after clarifying butter. Ghee comes from milk fat (dairy) and can be of 2 types, one is uncultured ghee which is made by skimming all fat from whole milk and clarifying the fat directly to make ghee, but in most Indian homes you will find the cultured ghee.

Cultured ghee is made by skimming all the cream from whole milk, culturing the collected cream with yogurt culture (just like setting yogurt) and when the cream gets sour (cultured sour cream) it is whipped to separate the milk fat which is actually cultured butter. When this cultured butter is clarified by heating, it becomes cultured ghee with the most delicious aroma and taste..

We love our homemade ghee and would do anything to ensure we get good quality ghee if we can't make it at home. Mothers and grandmothers make ghee and collect to gift it to their kids who live away from them, to ensure they eat well and stay healthy. It has become a part of our culture to shower love by adding a spoonful of ghee in the curry or daal on the table. A pot of melted ghee on the dining table is a must have condiment or supplement during family dining.

It is notable that ghee is a good mix of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids and the smoking point is 485F (251C), it indicates ghee is the best suited fat for cooking at high temperature and it has stable saturated bonds.

It is not a surprise that this wisdom and culture around ghee goes back to Ayurveda. Ghee is considered cleansing, toning and nourishing for the system. There is a lot of modern evidence to support the truth behind the super food qualities of ghee.

Ghee contains Butyric acid, named so because it was first discovered in butter, Butyric acid helps maintain a healthy intestinal microbiome, it is actually secreted by many probiotic bacteria in the gut if the person has a healthy intestinal microbiome. This is one of the reasons why probiotic bacteria are considered essential for overall health. 

Butyric acid is also found in good amounts in butter and Parmesan cheese, it helps in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and helps in colorectal cancer.

Butyric acid is known to lower blood cholesterol as well as triglycerides, that indicates it is a potent anti inflammatory agent (read more here). Ghee (and butter too) is definitely a heart healthy fat. There is a reason why ghee and butter eating communities stay healthy.

It is difficult to find good sources of ghee now a days so making it at home is the next best thing.

The resultant ghee stays solid in Indian winters and starts melting as summer approaches, going through different stages of solid-liquid state, some globules of solid fat always found floating even in summers. Daanedar ghee (ghee with some solid fat globules) is a good test of pure ghee.

How to make ghee at home...

There are 2-3 ways to make ghee at home. 

1. You can buy cultured white butter from any organic source and melt it to clarify and make ghee. Strain the ghee to separate the solids before storage.
2. You can buy heavy dairy cream, add yogurt culture to it and let it get sour by keeping it at room temperature for about 4-8 hours. Then churn or whip to separate the fat that makes the cultured butter. This cultured butter can be melted and clarified to make ghee.
3. The third method is the way most of us Indian make our ghee. The whole milk is scalded and then cooled (in refrigerator). A layer of malai (clotted cream) gets formed when we rest the scalded milk overnight, this cream is collected and yogurt culture is added to it. One can collect the clotted cream for 3-4 days and then add the cultured yogurt so a good amount of butter can be made. The cultured sour cream is then churned to separate the butter which is then clarified. I am listing the detailed steps of this process.

The cream is cultured (which we call dahi jamana) till it gets slightly sour and smells wonderfully of rich yogurt. Then the yogurt is churned using a hand blender or in a food processor. Chilled water is added to the sour cream (malai ki dahi) to churn so the butter floats when separated.

Step 1 in the collage below shows how the white butter separates from the liquid buttermilk after the churning process. The true buttermilk comes from this process, we call this cultured buttermilk as mattha or kachhi lassi (lassi without fat). 

Step 2 shows the white butter which has been spooned out directly into a stainless steel pan (kadhai), some of the liquid buttermilk separated even after skimming the butter. It can be drained before clarifying the butter. 

Step 3 shows how the white cultured butter starts melting when we heat the pan. 

Step 4 we already see the butter getting clarified after heating. 

This process of clarifying is very crucial for those who are lactose intolerant. The ghee should be cooked till all the solids get nicely browned and settle down. Stirring the mix a few times helps clump the brown solids together and settle down. You can see in the step 4 that there is a white layer on top of the bubbling ghee that is actually whey protein. The other protein called casein settles down from beginning and later when we cook the ghee further to clarify, even the whey protein settles down and browns. All this browned solid should be removed completely by straining if the ghee is being made for a lactose intolerant person. 

Rest of us can enjoy the brown solids by mixing it with sugar and nuts or any other delicious use. I often add it to my daals or rajma.

The clarified butter gets a golden hue once cooked well. Straining it well and storing in either glass jars or stainless steel jars ensures the ghee stays good for long time.

The ghee starts getting solid after 2-3 days of making it.

Most of the times I save some of the white butter to have it with our millet rotis and the buttermilk is enjoyed fresh. If the cultured cream gets too sour we use this buttermilk to make kadhi. Many families have a tradition to make kadhi whenever butter is churned and ghee is made.

Milk and milk products play a major art in our everyday food in India. Although now many people have started reporting being intolerant to milk, but they still can consume ghee safely.

Immense benefits of ghee suggest we must include it for our everyday meals. Those who don;t consume ghee everyday should try and maintain a healthy gut flora. Infact the countries where ghee is not a traditional cooking fat the populations depend on butter and probiotic foods to maintain healthy gut. Butter has most of the benefits that ghee has but contains lactose and other proteins that may cause health problems to 'some'. See how someone experienced that clarified butter is good for her lactose intolerant kid.

I asked Dr. Sangita Borgave from Pune about ghee and she enlightened with many more wonderful qualities of ghee as described in Ayurvedic texts.

Dr. Borgave says Ghee is a highly revered food article in Ayurveda which has many interesting properties. The most superior type of ghee is cow’s ghee but one can find descriptions of ghee made from the milk of many animals like , buffalo, sheep, camel, horse etc.

Qualities of ghee according to Ayurveda 

1. Rasayana: This term means nourishing all the tissues in the body. In Ayurveda after detoxifying the body with Panchakarma, Rasayana  formulations are given to nourish all the tissues and cells in the body.
2. Madhur: Ghee is sweet in taste. There are six types of taste in the body and Madhur or sweet is the first of these.
3. Dipana: Ghee is one of the best natural digestives and appetite stimulants. The concept of Agni is very important in Ayurveda as this science believes that a weak Agni is the cause of all diseases. Ghee strengthens the Agni, improves digestion and appetite and therefore helps nutrients to reach the tissues.
4. Chakshushya: Ghee is beneficial to the eyes. It strengthens the eyes and eyesight. It is used to treat various eye problems. ( SK: I remember my grandmother making kaajal using ghee).
5. Sheeta: Despite increasing Agni, ghee is cooling in nature. Most herbs which improve the Agni and digestion are hot but ghee is an exception.
6. Decreases Vata and Pitta: Of the three Doshas or elements in the body i.e. fire, wind and water, ghee helps control and decrease the former two. So those who suffer from excess body heat should always use ghee in their diet.
7. Beneficial to the complexion/Enhances beauty: Consuming ghee regularly leads to a healthy glowing complexion.
8. Ojaskara: Oja is an important but complicated concept in Ayurveda. Basically Oja is a substance found in very minute quantities in the body. It contains the best qualities of all the seven tissues of the body. Depletion of Oja leads to several mental and physical diseases and is difficult to treat. Ghee directly nourishes Oja and so should be a part of daily diet.
9. Benefits the voice/speech: Ghee helps build a strong and clear voice. Ayurveda uses ghee to treat many speech disorders.
10. Smritikar/Medhya: Improving memory/increasing intelligence.  Ghee is a very good natural  brain tonic. It should be eaten regularly by children, people in intellectual professions and old people.
11. Aayushyakara: Ghee actually increases the life span. Many studies have clearly shown that consumption of healthy fats like ghee increase the life span, promote longevity.
12. Strengthening: Helps in generalized weakness and general debility post illness.
13. Vrushya: Improving fertility and libido. Ghee is said to be similar in consistency to Shukra or semen. So all Ayurvedic treatments of male infertility, and such problems will include ghee. Ghee also helps women conceive and have a healthy pregnancy and smooth delivery.

Medicated ghees are used to treat a vast number of diseases in Ayurveda but as one can see even simple, plain cow’s ghee is useful in innumerable number of ways. 

Ghee should be a part of everyday meals as it has always been in our homes, else we will be forced to take it as a supplement. Yes ghee is so healing and nourishing it helps prevent many diseases if we take it everyday. 

Thankfully ghee suits everyone including the lactose intolerant if clarified well. Make some ghee yourself using either cultured heavy cream or home made cultured butter. 

   

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