Pasta Salad with Pesto-Easy Dinner for a Summer Evening

It has been so hot this year – or may be I forget from one July to the next how bad it can get – that my usual enthusiasm/willingness to cook has deserted me more often these past few weeks than I can remember it happening before.

But the family has to be fed; so I decided one evening recently to combine everyone favorite ingredients – that’s cherry tomatoes for Noor and me, corn for Indira and Noor and Shri, pasta and pesto for everyone(most of all Indira) -plus some beans and grated carrots for the nutrition quotient, to make this pasta salad. Now that sure was a very quick and easy dinner ! Here’s what I did :

Pasta with Vegetables and Pesto

Pasta (any short shape) – 150 grams

Carrots – 3 medium sized

Frozen beans – 3/4 cup

Sweet Corn – a 125 gram tin

Cherry tomatoes – 150 – 200 grams

3 tablespoons of readymade pesto sauce

(look for brands that make the pesto with pine nuts, and not cashewnuts, which is the more commonly used ingredient in most commercially available pesto)

Snap the frozen beans in to 1 inch pieces and steam them till they are cooked.

(One way to do this is to place the steamer, with the beans in it,over the pan in which you will boil the pasta, so that both get done at the same time)

Boil 1-1.5 litres of water in a kettle, then transfer to a large pan. Add 1/2 tsp salt and a few drops of any cooking oil, and bring it to a boil again. Add the pasta and leave it to cook, stirring it occasionally.

In the meanwhile chop the cherry tomatoes in to halves and put these in a large salad bowl.

Add the corn to the tomatoes, after draining all the liquid in which it was packed.

Peel,wash, and grate the carrots in a food processor, then add these as well to the corn and the tomatoes.

Once the beans are steamed, leave them to cool for a bit, then mix with the other vegetables along with a sprinkling of salt and the pesto.

Once the pasta is cooked, allow it to cool for a few minutes (pasta that is too hot would make the tomatoes go a little soft) then toss it will the other ingredients in the bowl.

This salad works equally well with a different dressing. Combine 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, and 1/2 a teaspoon of dried basil. Mix this dressing in to the vegetables instead of the pesto.

It is a good idea to make this salad at least an hour before you are ready to eat, since this allows the pasta to soak in all the flavors.

Advertisement

Summer Special – Roasted Bell Peppers in Olive Oil

Now that summer is here, and those gorgeous orange and yellow bell peppers are available in abundance and at decent prices, I am enjoying one of my favorite summer dishes – roasted bell peppers soaked in olive oil.

Cooked like this, these peppers keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. And they are really versatile – they make a delicious and pretty addition to a summer picnic, or buffet; you can add them to a pasta salad; or use them inside some nice olive or walnut bread, or even just plain baguette, in combination with salad leaves for a really delicious, light sandwich.

They are wonderfully easy and quick to make, too.

Roasted Bell Peppers in Olive Oil

(there’ll be enough here to serve as a starter for 6-8 people)

3-4 bell peppers (red, orange and yellow)

6-8 tablespoons of olive oil

1 clove of garlic

Wash and dry the peppers, then cut each in to quarters lengthwise. Remove the core from each piece.

Pre-heat the oven, at 220°C, for 5 minutes. Line the baking tray of your oven with aluminum foil or cooking paper and place the quartered peppers on it with the skin side up. Roast the peppers for about 15-20 minutes, or till most of the skin of each piece blisters. In the meanwhile, grate the garlic in to the oil.

Let the pieces cool on the tray and then peel off the skin. Slice each quarter in to half lengthwise, place all the pieces in a wide plate, and pour the olive oil on them. Cover the plate with cling film, and leave the peppers in the fridge if you are not going to use them the same day.

If you are, then do finish preparing the dish at least a couple of hours before the meal, so that all the flavors get time to mingle.

You could skip adding the garlic to the olive oil, if you don’t like that flavor.

Enjoy, and thank the Italians for this simple but fabulous taste 🙂

About “Cuisine du Monde” Day, in school

I went this morning to complete Noor’s registration at the kindergarten – she will start there in September – that Indira went to as well.

It was a good feeling to go back and meet the teachers again; it is a typical, small, village school, with a very warm, friendly and “familial” atmosphere.

One of their really interesting annual traditions is “Cuisine Du Monde” or world cuisine day . They ask, for this event, all the parents to contribute a food typical of their home country. The first time I participated when Indira attended this school, I remember the children spent the morning tasting paella, sushi, tiramisu, brioche, zlabia, and then went back to their classrooms to identify each of the countries they had tasted the foods of, on a globe. They colored in their respective home countries on a world map, learnt to identify those of their classmates, and exclaimed over the fact that much of the earth is covered in water.

How cool a Geography 101 lesson is that!!

My own contribution that year was coconut laddoos, and potato-tuna cutlets for which I got the recipe from Jinia. Both were big hits. Many of the other mothers asked me for the recipes –always a good sign 🙂

Perhaps I’ll make the same things again for Noor’s class too, at this year’s world cuisine day.

Remembering Biji – Gajar ka Halwa

I started this blog by talking about the shakkarparas and gajar ka halwa I made for Diwali last year.

So I am back to write about the halwa, a dessert that Indira and her father just love.

Though it is in my mother’s kitchen that I first learned to make it myself, I still remember watching my Biji (my maternal grandmother) cook this halwa on her chulha in my grandparents house in a village in Rajasthan, stirring in the cream – or ghee- that gives it that special taste. It was a special treat when we visited her during our winter holidays from school, and a couple of times  we even carried some back all the way from Rajasthan to Bihar, in a big steel box, for our father who loved it as much as we did.

And back in those days, since there were no microwaves, she would – as does my mother to this day -add a little more ghee to keep the halwa from sticking to the pan every time she re-heated the leftover portion, which enhanced the taste a little more each time…

My brother likes to tell my mother  that though she is a good cook, her gajar ka halwa is not in the same league as Biji’s.

Maybe it is the love and effort they put in to it, or it might well really be because of the copious amounts of cream and ghee; either way, I do agree with my brother that their gajar ka halwa is the best in the world.

Here’s my recipe, based on theirs:

Gajar ka Halwa

500 gms carrots

500-600 ml full cream Milk

4 tbsp ghee

10 almonds, skinned and halved

2 tbsp raisins

¾ cup sugar (a 200ml measuring cup)

5 green cardamom pods

a few small strips of beaten silver leaves

Peel, wash and grate the carrots in a food processor. Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the carrots, stir the mixture and leave to cook on medium heat, stirring quite frequently until the carrots are very soft and the milk almost completely dries up.

In the meanwhile, after adding the carrots to the milk, soak the almonds in hot water for about 20 minutes, then remove their skins  and halve them. Soak the raisins as well, in half a cup of hot water, then drain the water after 15-20 minutes. Powder the seeds from the cardamom pods.

Once the milk in the pan has almost dried up, add the sugar and cook again until the milk dries up completely. Now add the ghee and cook the halwa for another 7-8 minutes. To finish, stir in the raisins, the almonds and the cardamom powder and after transferring to a serving bowl, layer the silver strips on top.

You could also add a few teaspoons of khoya or dessicated coconut towards the end of the cooking process.

This is just a great dessert on a winter evening.

Carrot Koshimbir

Not just the four of us, but most everyone who has ever tasted this salad loves it.

I first found this recipe 8 years ago, when I invested in a book that has since become my cooking bible -Kaumudi Marathe’s “A Family Treasury”, a great collection on Maharashtrian cuisine.

My mother-in-law was a Maharashtrian, so my husband has grown up on varan, puran poli and salads such as the one I am going to write about today.

I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Ma after I got married, though I did learn to make poha, puran poli, and varan her way. But since then, I have learned to cook many of my husband’s other favorite foods chiefly from this book. Thank you, Ms. Marathe !!

As to the salad – it is the form in which my kids like carrots best. And I have to agree with them, it is the nicest way I have ever eaten this vegetable too, barring my own mother’s-and grandmother’s- gajar ka halwa.

Carrot Salad

4 large carrots

3 tbsp fresh grated (or dessicated) coconut

3 tbsp ground peanuts(the koot I have mentioned earlier)

2 tsp sunflower oil

a pinch of turmeric, a pinch of asofetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

4-5 curry leaves

salt, sugar, and lime juice- to taste

1-2 tbsp fresh, chopped coriander leaves

Method:

Peel, wash and grate the carrots. Heat the oil in a small pan, then add the mustard seeds and wait till they pop. Move the pan off the fire (this keeps the ingredients that you will be adding next from getting burnt) and quickly add the asofetida, turmeric,cumin seeds and curry leaves. Stir them for a few seconds then pour this tempering over the carrots. Now add the coconut and peanuts, the salt, sugar, lime juice, and coriander, and toss everything well before serving.

If you want to make this a few hours ahead, then add the tempering to the carrots earlier but mix in the rest of the ingredients just before serving, otherwise the salad can become somewhat soggy, sometimes.

Also, while you can use dessicated coconut to save time, use freshly grated coconut if you can – this takes the taste to another level 🙂

Noor’s Favorite Tilwale Aloo

Having just documented one of Indira’s favored foods, I feel this urge to be fair and record one of my younger baccha Noor’s favorites too, before I log off for the day.

Actually, we owe their Nanda Mami a big thank you for introducing us to this amazingly simple, but delicious food when she stayed with us for a few days 3 years ago.

It is very versatile, too.  I make this for us to eat with leftover-daal paranthas and raita, or sometimes as part of a first course, to go with a very french salad, when dinner is a more formal affair with guests at home.

And since I am always looking for ways to up the nutrition quotient- the til (sesame) delivers in that department.

A real winner in every way, then !

Tilwale Aloo

500 gms of baby potatoes

2-3 tbsp of sesame seeds

(I tend to add more as I love the crunchy taste)

1/2 tsp of mustard seeds

1/2 tsp of cumin seeds

1/4 -1/3 tsp of turmeric powder

salt to taste

Juice of half a lemon

3 tbsp of sunflower oil

Boil and peel the potatoes. You can try and save time by by trying to find the pre-boiled,peeled baby potatoes available in some places.

In a frying pan, heat the oil (don’t wait till it starts to smoke, though) and add the mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add the cumin seeds and as soon as these turns a darker brown (which releases their aroma) add the sesame seeds. Do take care not to let the cumin go black – IMO this neither looks nor tastes good .

Stir the sesame seeds periodically till they start to go a light brown, then add the turmeric, the potatoes, the salt, and toss everything together once. Remember not to let the sesame go too brown. This can make the taste almost bitter. Continue to turn the potatoes from time to time, over the next 5-7 minutes. Now add the lemon juice and cook the potatoes in this juice for another 5-7 minutes, till they liquid is all absorbed.

Take off the heat, and toss in some fresh, chopped coriander if you like.

This dish tastes best if it is prepared a couple of hours ahead of the meal, because this allows time for the ptatoes to really absorb the flavors.

Another thing – I find it works better to have squeezed the juice from the lemon into a bowl befor you start, ready to be used, rather than squeezing the lemon directly over the cooking pan. This latter way, there’s a risk of the seeds of the lemon falling in to the potatoes and then ending up in your mouth. Not good…

For  a  “hot” flavor, you could add some chopped green chillies (to taste) along with the mustard and cumin.

Anyway you make it, this dish tastes great !