Spinach Rice

The first year of marriage was a bittersweet one ;). I was very nervous trying out newer dishes and used to look for hints and signs from hubby dear to figure out his feedback. He hardly says anything, whether he likes the dish or not; he would not even mention that salt is too less/more until I tasted and figured it out myself. So I used to be careful and apprehensive about my cooking all the more. Often, I used to be stuck for mixed rice choices then. I was so strongly against making rotis for lunch, so it has to be rice, and rice-dal-rasam-vegetable is too boring. So when I traveled to Chennai once that year and was killing time before my flight back to Bangalore, I dropped into Landmark and was browsing through the culinary section. I came home with 3 lovely books from Mallika Badrinath - a 100 recipes each for tiffin, vegetable gravy and rice dishes. The best thing I love about her recipes is the precision. She never writes "Fry for a few minutes", the way I write ;). She would word it like, "fry for a few minutes until the raw smell goes and there is a nice aroma" or "fry for a few minutes until the gravy starts sticking to the bottom of the pan". And she gives a glossary of food names, in various languages.

I love spinach dishes... Keerai-paruppu is one of my favourites with hot steaming rice... So this recipe from a Mallika Badrinath cookbook, immediately captured my fascination. This is a regular dish at home.

The original recipe in her book states the following:

Ingredients:

Palak (spinach) - 1 bunch

Rice - 1 cup

Green peas - 1 cup

Small Onions - 1 cup

Tomato - 1 medium sized

Green chillies - 2 large

Garam masala - 1/4 tsp

Cashews - 6-7

Salt -  to taste

Oil - 1 tbsp

Oil for rice - 1 tsp

Method:

Wash the rice and green peas. Cook the rice and peas, in an open vessel with a tsp of oil. The oil will help keep the rice grains separate. Let it cool down and keep aside.

Wash and chop the spinach coarsely. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and add the small onions and fry for a few minutes;

Remove 6-8 onions and keep it separate for garninshing. Add tomatoes, garam masala, green chillies and cashews to the remaining onions and fry.

Add the chopped spinach and fry for a few minutes, until the raw smell goes. Allow this to cool down. Grind this mix with required salt and very little water.

Mix the cooked rice with this paste, keep on low flame for 5 minutes; Garnish with small onions, and fried cashews. Add a spoon of ghee. Serve hot with Raita.

After the first few attempts, I made some modifications to this recipe.

If small onions are not available, I use the regular onions. I make the spinach paste and keep it aside. It stays good in the refrigerator for even a week. I cook green peas (microwave for 5 minutes). I add hot rice and mix it at the table. So this is like a keerai thokku.

Blondies

Continuing from my previous post. Here are the promised blondies. I used the same recipe from joyofbaking and this time used sugar instead of Demerara sugar. These turned out so good. Gooey chocolaty and crunchy crust. This recipe was a hit at home... Definitely in my bake-often list :)

Shortbread cookies

 As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I love recipes that don't have the leavening agent. Not that the butter, sugar and flour is very healthy ;), but leaving out the baking powder/soda is a little comforting to me. So I wanted to bake these shortbread cookies when I came across the recipe on joyofbaking.com.

 Shortbread Cookies: (From joyofbaking.com)

2 cups - Maida

1/4 tsp - salt

1/2 cup - powdered sugar

1 tsp - vanilla extract

For Chocolate Dipped Shortbreads:

6 ounces (180 grams) semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Shortbreads: In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter until smooth and creamy (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes).  Beat in the vanilla extract. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated.  Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour or until firm.  

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C with the rack in the middle of the oven.  Line three baking sheets with parchment paper. I use the three baking sheets model from my sugar cookies experience.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch (.6 cm) thick circle.  Cut into rounds or other shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter.  Place on the prepared baking sheets and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. (This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked.) Bake for 8 minutes, or until cookies are very lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

For Chocolate Dipped Shortbreads: Place 3 ounces (90 grams) of the finely chopped chocolate in microwaveable utensil and microwave on high power for 2 minutes. Add the remaining chocolate and stir with a wooden spoon until it has completely melted and is smooth and glossy. Taking one cookie at a time, dip one end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Once all the cookies have been dipped in the chocolate, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, or until the chocolate has hardened.

Shortbread cookies with keep in an airtight container for about a week or they can be frozen.

Makes about 28 shortbread cookies.

Verdict: The cookies turned out great :). My daughter licked off the chocolate from each cookie and then ate the cookies.