Thosai - Urid Dahl Pancakes

I've been making Sri Lankan style Thosai since 2011 and I think I now finally have the secret AND the it's not a secret ingredient! When I first started making them they turned out fine, but then my frying pan died and I had to replace it. Of course the magic was in the pan. I figured that all I needed to do was to buy a cast iron "roti thatiya". I could not find one in Germany so when I was last in Sri Lanka I was determined to go and buy one.

I figured this would be very easy after all my mother has one (unfortunately when I last saw it it was split down the middle so I could not steal it off her!). So I trotted off to Kandy town and went to the store where I used to buy fancy household items when I last lived there. Oh lets see now... that would be over 20 years ago. To my despair I found that the much loved Abdul Rahims was no longer where it should have been. In fact there was nothing but an empty shop where it used to be. Come to think of it this does not mean that it does not exist anymore. It might just mean that it has moved. This thought did not occur to me at the time :(

Continuing down the road I dropped into every store that seemed likely to have such a pan. I was offered non-stick at every turn. And as all of you know, non-stick just doesn't cut it. At the last store I could think of I asked the sales man where I could get a cast iron roti thatiya and he pointed me in the direction of a store further down the street.

This store has literally everything (except perishable items) you could want. So I walked in and asked for a roti thatiya. A young gentleman walked up to me and told the sales person to get lost that he would help me (well not in those words, but his words would be boring). I was a bit worried because he didn't look like the other sales people i.e. he wasn't wearing the mandatory t-shirt. So I step back and whispered to the lady at the front desk "meya methana weda karanawada?" (does this guy work here?) to which the answer was "ow" (yes). So I relaxed and told him very politely that I wanted a "roti thatiya". The guy looked at me weird and asked me in English what I was looking for. At this point I got a bit embarrassed. The shop was very obviously owned by a Sri Lankan muslim. Most of the time they speak Sinhala (which is what I had been speaking up to now), but it could be that the sales person didn't understand me. But here is the hitch, what is the translation for a "roti thatiya"? I had absolutely no idea. So speaking in English I asked for a "roti thatiya". This did not go down well. So I said I wanted a pan to make roti. I thought this would help. But the guy did not know what roti were!! I was flabbergasted. How can any Sri Lankan, whatever race, not know what roti were. The term is used in all 3 commonly spoken languages. I guess I could have asked for "a flat cast iron pan which unlike a frying pan is in its entirety flat"!! My guess was he would not have understood that either. At this point, very fortunately, the owner of the shop materialized and very carefully, in English, told him exactly where to go and what to get. So here I was standing in a shop, speaking to the shop keeper in Sinhala, who was then shouting at the sales person in English to get the damn pan off the hook on the wall!

I gathered from the look on the shop keepers face that the sales person was a bit of a dud! But I walked out of the shop with a small cast iron roti thatiya wrapped up in newspaper and tied with a piece of string. I was the happiest person in Kandy (I'd like to say on Earth but I understand that that might be a bit of an exaggeration). And sorry for bothering you with this story when all you want is a recipe, but I just had to get it off my chest.

When I came back to Germany and my husband saw my roti thatiya he just kind of rolled his eyes and I can totally see where he was coming from. The top surface was rust coloured, the edges were painted with black paint that came off everywhere, and there were iron filings in the newspaper wrapping. I gave it a nice wash, and a polish (and ruined a new sponge in the process) and put it away, because I was no longer quite sure that this was going to work.

Well yesterday I was determined that it had been sitting in the basement for long enough. So I took it out and seasoned it and got ready to make some thosai. And the reason I get to share this with you today is because that rusty black thatiya turned out to make the best thosai ever! Not a single one had to be trashed due to sticking. I did trash the first one I made because I was hoping it would pick up all the minute iron filings that were left. But we all agreed that as long as it was actually iron we all needed a bit of extra iron in our diet!

Now to more interesting things.

Preparation time: min. 6.5 hours (includes min. 5 hours soaking time); makes approx. 25 

Ingredients:

2 cups	Urid dahl
1 tsp	Fenugreek seeds
5 cups	Water
50 g	Wheat flour
75 g	Rice flour
1 tsp	Salt
1 tbsp	Oil/ghee/butter
1/2 pinch	Turmeric
150 - 180 g	Red onions (optional)
1 sprig	Curry leaves, finely chopped (optional)
100 g	Ghee/butter (optional)

Method:

The urid dahl and the fenugreek seeds need to be soaked. This is what makes this recipe so time consuming. If you want to make the thosai for breakfast or lunch then you should put it to soak before you go to bed the night before. If you want it for dinner put it to soak as soon as you get up in the morning. With a bit of planning it can be simple enough.
However, just for all of you I wanted to figure out what is the minimum soaking time needed. I determined that if you soak it for 5 hours it should be enough but it won't be particularly bubbly.

Wash the urid dahl a couple of times in cold water. You don't need to wash it until the water is clear. In fact I believe that a bit of that starch could be helpful. Drain it and place it in a large bowl with 5 cups of water and the fenugreek seeds. Let it stand for a minimum of 5 hours.

I like to add fried onions and curry leaves to my thosai. It makes them a bit more exotic. If you want to add them to yours slice your onions and curry leaves very fine and fry them in a tablespoon of oil over high heat for about 5 minutes or until they are caramelized. To prevent burning you need to stir them all the time. This whole process will add on about 15 minutes to your prep time. Other things that you might add include brown mustard seeds and finely chopped green chilies (these should be added raw).

Once the dahl and fenugreek seeds have been soaked they need to be processed. I do mine in small batches with my Indian Sumeet food processor. A heavy duty liquidizer or food processor should work too. The water that you used to soak the dahl is also part of the mix, so don't throw it away! Grind or blend until you have a nice smooth paste.

Add the rice and wheat flours and then the salt. I put these together with the dahl into the blender so that I don't have any lumps. Stir in a tiny pinch of turmeric. This will give your thosai a slightly golden tinge (which will do nothing to the taste but do wonders for your next insta post!).

Without turmeric made in a frying pan

If you read the rave above you will now know that for the perfect thosai you need to have a thatiya or a well seasoned cast iron frying pan. Non-stick frying pans don't work very well because the batter does not stick to the pan, thus it's impossible to spread the batter. 

Heat your pan over medium-high heat. You can test if it is hot enough by dropping a drop of batter in the pan. If it sizzles and ... you'll know that it is hot enough.  Put 1/2 tsp. of ghee/butter in the pan and using a paper towel or piece of clean cloth wipe it over the whole surface. Then pour in 2 tbsp. of the batter into the middle of the pan. You may need to adjust the amount depending on how thin you can get your pancakes and how large your pan is. Using the back of a spoon and starting at the middle of the pan, spread the batter across the surface using circular motions until there is no batter left to spread.

If you want to put extra ghee or butter on your thosai do this once the batter is no longer liquid. If you have a thatiya you can do this with a regular knife. If you are using a frying pan it might be a good idea to melt the butter and apply it with a brush.

You can turn the pancake as soon as the bottom has become golden brown. The best way to remove it from the pan is to pass a metal spatula (like the ones we all use for icing a cake) under it, but this only works if you have a thatiya! Cook it on the second side for 20 seconds.

Stack the done thosai on a plate. This will keep them warm for longer. Serve warm.

Thosai can be eaten with any Sri Lankan or Indian curry. Our favourites are potato masala, chickpea curry and red lentil curry.

Stuffed with potato masala and served with mango chutney

Murunga (drumstick) curry

My husband noticed that the local Asian store had drumsticks, one of our favourite Sri Lankan vegetables, so we had to buy some. This little shop, Kashmir Bazar, in Bochum always surprises us with unusual, really fresh, vegetables. In fact I went there because we were expecting company for dinner and I wanted something unusual. What a treat! Of course we came out with more than we went in to buy. Including their super delicious, home made, vegetarian samosas!

Preparation time: 1 hours; serves 6 - 8 if served with at least 2 other curries

Ingredients:

350 g	Drumsticks/Murunga
1 cup	Water
1/2 tsp.	Tumeric
1 tsp.	Salt
1/4 cup	Onion, diced
2	Green chillies, sliced
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/4 tsp.	Dill seeds
3 tbsp.	Coconut milk powder

Method:

Cleaning the murunga is probably the most time consuming part of this recipe. The skin is not edible at all. Thus when you choose your fruits make sure they are fresh, firm and not too thin. If they are really thin there will be no flesh to eat and if they are too thick it's likely that the flesh will be woody. I cleaned mine with a super sharp peeler. Don't try to take all the skin off because the flesh is too soft to be cooked without any skin. Here is what mine looked like once they were cleaned.

Cut the murunga into around 2 inch (5 cm) sticks. 

Once you've got them cleaned and cut the rest is rather simple. Put all ingredients in a saucepan, except for the coconut milk powder, and bring to the boil. Once it is boiled reduce the heat and simmer the curry until the fruit is tender. How long this takes will depend on the maturity of your fruit. Could be 5 minutes, could be 20. Put the lid on to speed things up. You can tell once the fruit is cooked because it becomes kind of translucent. If you don't notice this then just take out a piece and try it (see below for a description of how to eat murunga).

Once the fruit is tender add some coconut milk. Since it's highly unlikely that all your water has boiled off either use very thick coconut cream or coconut milk powder (as given in the ingredients above). If you use coconut milk powder remove some water from the curry, allow it to cool a bit (else the milk powder will clump), add the powder, dissolve and return to the pan. Bring to the boil and then it is ready to be eaten.

Eating murunga is the fun part. Each piece separates into 3 (you will see what I mean once you cook it). Take the end of one of these pieces in your right hand and stick the other end in your mouth. Now pull the flesh off by sliding the piece between your teeth. Turn the piece around to get the other side. My kids love this part! You could also try scraping it off with your fingers but this is tiersome and less efficient, although I believe it is the more polite way!!

Brownies

I've had the urge now for a couple of weeks to bake some brownies, but never got round to it. In fact I wanted to make them for my co-workers in Duisburg and spread the love. Well now that I've baked them, on a Friday evening, there is no chance in hell that they are ever going to see them. Already half of them are gone, some to the neighbours (spreading love there) and the rest in our tummies AND the kids are not even at home!!

There is a bit of a dilemma in my mind about sharing this recipe. Mainly because it's from my Spago recipe book. I've changed it to suit my tastes and converted it to metric units, but does that make it my own recipe? Neither Spago nor Wolfgang Puck has posted the recipe on-line, other people have, but does that make it okay? Copyright is such a complicated thing, especially with recipes. How much do I have to change to call it my own??

Preparation time: 90 minutes ; makes (15 large) pieces  

Ingredients:

350 g	Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
225 g	Butter, unsalted
1 tsp.	Instant coffee
200 g	Flour
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt (leave it out if you can only get salted butter)
4	Eggs, large
400 g	Sugar

Method:

Although the ingredients call for bittersweet chocolate you can use any other type. If you can't get cooking chocolate and want to use regular stuff just make sure you reduce the amount of sugar you put in. You might also want to increase the amount of chocolate!

For this recipe you need to use something called a "bane-marie". Most of us don't have one of these sitting around at home and I would not advise you to go out and buy one! You can use regular kitchen stuff. Basically what it is is a a bowl within a bowl. The inner bowl has water in it and thus distributes the heat evenly to the upper bowl. This is crucial when you have to heat something evenly.

The first thing you need to do is find something in your kitchen that works for you. I use either a Pyrex (with a lip for chocolate) or a metal bowl and a saucepan that the bottom of the bowl fits into but that the whole bowl cannot fall into. In this recipe you need two medium sized bowls.

Put your chocolate, butter and instant coffee into a bowl with a lip. The reason I recommend a lip is because then the evaporating water which condenses on the top of the bowl cannot drip down into the chocolate. Don't forget, if you get even a drop of water in your chocolate it will seize and you'll have to start again. It is a real shame if you have to set aside 350 g of chocolate (I say "set aside" because you can use it in other baking projects, for example, it still works well in cake recipes).  Fill your saucepan with around 4 inches of water (the bottom of your bowl should not touch the water) and bring it to simmer. Place a wooden spoon in the water and then the bowl with the chocolate on top. I put the spoon in there to stop excess steam from building up in the pan. I am rather scared that I might burn myself on the steam. This way the steam always comes out from one side, and I know which side it is. Don't use a metal spoon for this, the water will condense and run into your chocolate (been there, done that)!

Allow the chocolate to melt. Do not stir to often. While your chocolate and butter are doing their thing you can measure out the rest of the ingredients and get another bowl ready with the eggs and sugar. The same method will be used as with the chocolate. Give your chocolate a stir once the bottom has melted. I use a chopstick for this, wooden! And allow it to continue melting. If your water is boiling reduce the heat. You only want it to simmer.

Around about now is the time to put on the oven 160 C in a fan over/180 C regular/350 F.

If you want really thick brownies prepare a 8" by 8" pan. They will take forever to bake so you can add on another half an hour to the preparation time above. I use a quarter tray (13" by 9") for my brownies, which considerably reduces the baking time, saving on energy and allowing for smaller portions. Line the tray with parchment paper so that the cooked brownies are easy to remove from the tray.

Easily removable if you use parchment paper

By now your chocolate is probably melted. Stir it well to incorporate the butter. If there are still a few bumps don't worry take it out of the saucepan and set it somewhere. Go back to it later and give it another stir, that will probably get rid of all the bumps. But if it doesn't don't worry too much, no one ever complained of a lump of chocolate in their brownie, right?

If you need to fill more water into the saucepan do so and bring the water back to simmering. Place the bowl with your eggs and sugar into/onto it. With an electric hand mixer beat the eggs and sugar. Beat it until the sugar dissolves.

To tell that it dissolved stick your finger into the mousse and rub it onto another finger. If there are still sugar crystals you will feel them (lick your finger clean!). By the time your sugar is dissolved you will have a pale yellow looking mousse. Take this off the fire (some things are best described the Sri Lankan way!) and add the chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated.

It's not well incorporated here, just looks pretty!

You will notice that your mousse deflates, this is okay. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix in with a spatula until well incorporated.

Fill this into your prepared tray, pop it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. You can tell that it is done by sticking in a knife. If it does not have soggy stuff on it when you take it out, it is done. Note that it may have crumbs sticking to it. Some people like their brownies soggy, if you are one of these people don't bake it for so long. Brownies are much like chocolate chip cookies and will get hard once they cool down. A typical beginner mistake is to keep baking them until they are hard. If you do this then your brownies will be super hard by the time you get round to eating them. Resist the urge to over bake. My guess is that the sugar and chocolate get hard as the brownie cools down.

Allow your brownies to cool, cut them to the desired size, and then enjoy them (although we enjoyed our straight out of the oven with a cup of Dilmah).

Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry (Wattakka)

Today I need to boost up some curries that I made yesterday. There is not quite enough for two more meals but too much for one. Oh I'm just realizing that us adults don't need lunch tomorrow because we have to go for an on site review at the university. With a bit of luck they will provide us with lunch. Actually I'm pretty sure that hubby will get lunch (he's higher up on the ladder). But I've started cooking my pumpkin so there is no going back now.

As you have probably read by now, I am not 100% Sri Lankan. So my mum never cooked traditional Sri Lankan food. Yes, she cooked curry but there were some things she would just not do. Either because they were too time consuming or because she didn't have the correct implements. Because of this we never had traditional pumpkin curry at home. I absolutely adored it and would stuff myself whenever I got it at my aunts homes. Generally pumpkin is not considered a fancy dish, so you don't get it when there is a celebration. It's more the type of food you get when you go home with your cousins and share whatever has been cooked. Even better if you were not expected!

Now I think I have finally found a way to cook the pumpkin somewhat like my aunts. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. The secret ingredient is ground brown mustard seeds!

Preparation time: 45 minutes ; serves 4 - 8 (depending on how many other curries you have)

Ingredients:

750 g	Pumpkin (any type, cooking  time may vary)
1/2 cup	Diced onions
1 tbsp.	Finely diced garlic
1/4 tsp.	Tumeric
1/2 tsp.	Chili powder (or to taste)
2	Green chilies, sliced
10	Black pepper seeds
	Water to cover
1 tsp.	Salt
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/4 tsp.	Dill seeds
2 tsp.	Brown mustard seeds
1 cup	Thick coconut milk

Method:
Before you start note that the mustard seeds are NOT optional. You can leave out many things but not the mustard. You will also need a good grinder and a stone mortar and pestle. 

You can use any pumpkin you like to make this. The cooking time will of course vary according to which type you use. You can cook it with or without the skin, also depending on the type. In these pictures I used hokkaido pumpkin. You need to cut the pumpkin into cubes around 1 inch cube. The pumpkin will disintegrate if you cut it too small, which is also a reason why you might want to keep the skin on. In my case I removed the skin.

The first step is easy enough. Put all the ingredients except the mustard seeds and coconut in a pot. Do not put too much water. If you have too much water at the end this can be saved by using coconut cream or coconut milk powder. Cover and bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer (12 - 20).

While this is going on you can prepare the mustard. This is how I did it. I first put my seeds into the grinder attachment of my Sumeet (which is a really good, heavy duty Indian liquidizer/grinder) and ground until I had a kind of fine powder. You can probably do this in any spice grinder, or if you don't have one you can use a mortar and pestle or a 'miris gala'. Sadly to release the flavour that you need for this curry this powder is not enough. I put my powder into a granite mortar, added about a teaspoon of water (water is really important), and ground until I had a smooth paste.

You need 1 teaspoon of this paste. Save any extra paste that you may have, you can put it in sandwiches or any where else that you would use mustard. You must have a granite/stone mortar. It won't work with a wooden one. Believe me, I have tried!

Once your pumpkin is just about (al dente) cooked mix the mustard into the coconut milk and then into the pumpkin curry. If you use coconut cream from a can use about 1/2 cup adding some water, if necessary. If you use coconut milk powder it is best to pour out extra water that you might have in the pot and mix the milk powder with this water. Pumpkin is very watery, so the curry tends to become too liquidy very quickly. If you use fresh coconut milk then it will probably be a bit liquid, but on the other hand you've gained on the taste. Do not cover the curry. Bring to the boil and it is ready to serve.

Bratkartoffeln - Fried potatoes

This is a simple recipe that my children love. The only problem with it is that it cannot be really eaten alone, except maybe as a snack. When I make it we have burgers, sausages, or schnitzel together with a vegetable (last night it was carrots).

Preparation time: 45 minutes; serves 4

Ingredients:

1kg	Potatoes
1 tsp.	Salt
	Oil

Method:

Peel and wash the potatoes and then cut them into small pieces about 0.5 cm thick. For smaller spuds I cut them in two first and larger ones into four.

To fry these potatoes it is important that you have a heavy bottomed frying pan, preferably a cast iron one that is well seasoned (i.e. nothing sticks to it). If you use a non-stick pan the potatoes will not get as crunchy and brown. Heat the pan on medium heat and add enough oil so that the bottom of the pan is covered (I need about 1/4 cup). Don't put so much oil in that the potatoes are swimming. You need just enough so that they all get coated with the oil. Once the oil is hot you put in the potatoes, sprinkle them with the salt and toss them in the oil so that they are all coated with oil. If there is not enough oil to coat them just add some more.

Continue frying them, stirring every now and then until all the potatoes are cooked and are as brown as you like them. This takes me 20-30 minutes. If you feel like your potatoes are sticking you can pour in a bit more oil. Scrape the bottom of the pan while you are frying to ensure that nothing sticks to the pan and burns.

You can sprinkle a variety of other things on top of your potatoes once they are cooked through. Roasted onions, garlic powder, cheeses, chilies, herbs are a few that come to mind.

Serve hot.

Pasta with zucchini, mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes

My mother-in-law arrived today to visit and cleaned up the kitchen after dinner 😁 leaving me with a bit of time before getting to bed to finish this blog post. This recipe was totally inspired by some vegetables that were lying around the house that had to be used up. My family insisted it be repeated! It is quite good and I'm really proud when I make something up all on my own and the family likes it. Makes me feel so good. I hope you enjoy it too.

Preparation time: 45 minutes; serves 6 - 8 (figure out how many it will serve based on your usual pasta consumption)

Ingredients:

600 g	Mushrooms
2	Zucchini, medium
500 g	Macaroni, dried
1/4 cup	Chopped dried tomatoes (around 4 large ones)
1/4 cup	Chopped cilantro
4 small sprigs	Oregano
50 g	Butter
250 ml	Whipping cream
2 tbsp.	Thyme infused oil (or oil plus a few sprigs of thyme)
2 tbsp.	Olive oil (if necessary)
1/4 cup	Grated parmesan
1 tsp.	Salt (to taste)

Method:
The first thing I did was to put the water to boil to make the macaroni. While waiting for the water to boil I took the opportunity to wash and chop my vegetables. Interrupting the washing in order to put the pasta in the pot and once again to take them out once cooked. I am horrible with cooking pasta so I always follow the directions on the packet. I always set my timer for the pasta once the water has returned to the boil, otherwise they seem so not done. Al dente is fine but crunchy is not happening. Although maybe Italians like their pasta crunchy! When we were in Rome this spring our host recommended a local restaurant to us. The pasta was so crunchy that we couldn't eat it. We were thankful that the portions were small (although the price was not) so we didn't have to waste too much.

Finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes with some oregano fresh from my garden 

When I made this I purposely cut the vegetables into large chunks so that we could actually taste the vegetables. The sun dried tomatoes were finely chopped since their taste is so intense. Likewise the cilantro and oregano.

I happened to have some thyme and lemon flavoured oil and I used this to fry the zucchini. Fried over high heat until golden. Once I run out of this oil I will just sprinkle the zucchini with fresh thyme. I have a large patch now in my garden.

I removed the zucchini from the pan and put them into a large bowl and threw in the mushrooms into the hot pan adding a bit of olive oil (you might not need any oil to fry the mushrooms and this is okay). This were also fried over high heat, continuously stirring. I think that the high heat helped seal the juices into the vegetables and by cooking them separately neither was was over cooked and each preserved their own flavour. A bit of caramelization just added to the taste.

Now that the mushrooms were cooked I turned them into the bowl with the zucchini and added the chopped tomatoes.

To complete the sauce melt the butter  over medium heat and once the butter has melted add the whipping cream. Keep stirring until the two ingredients are well combined. Make sure the sauce does not boil, simmering is okay. Then just add the vegetables, reheat . 

Add the macaroni or what ever pasta you are using. I like something tubular so that the sauce goes inside and gets stuck there!

Finally I took the pan off the heat and mixed in the salt, cilantro and oregano leaves. As always our kids have to have fresh Parmesan sprinkled on top. With them its usually the more the better (below is my plate!).

Channa Masala (chickpeas) with spinach

So one of my daughters was on a class trip and my husband was away on business so I agreed to inviting two of my little ones friends over to spend the night. I was a glutton for punishment! But better a full house than an empty one. At some point in the afternoon I realized that I had not planned dinner and that I did not want to go out shopping for fresh vegetables. No fear, I figured, a pot of dahl always goes down well, except, of course, when you are out of lentils!! Luckily the pantry was not bare and I found a couple of cans of chickpeas. So I put on a simple meal of chickpeas and rice. It was such a hit (there were not enough left overs for a second meal!) that I reproduced it last night for the rest of the family (and wrote down the recipe to share).

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 4 if served alone with rice 

Ingredients:

1 (75 g)	Onions, chopped
1/2 tbsp. (4 cloves)	Garlic pulp
1/2 tbsp.	Finely chopped ginger
50 g	Butter (or ghee)
1 tbsp.	Ground corriander
2 tsp	Cumin seeds
1/4 tsp.	Chili power (or to taste)
1 tsp.	Tumeric
2 tsp.	Ground cumin
1 tbsp.	Amchur or lemon juice
14 oz	Canned tomatoes (or use fresh ones)
480 g	Cooked chickpeas (= 1 large can of chickpeas)
150g	Frozen spinach
2 tsp.	Garam masala
1/2 tsp.	Salt

Method:

The method is relatively simple and I'm guessing if you are not being neat and pretty and taking photographs that you can probably put this together in less than an hour. The big time consumer is letting it simmer at the end for 30 minutes, but this gives you time to make other delicious things (and if nothing else at least your rice).

Since the first part of this recipe is cooked pretty fast, and because I didn't want to burn anything, I got most things ready before melting my butter. I had two piles. One of chopped onions, garlic and ginger

and one with all the spices

There are heaps and heaps of spices here because I made two cans of chickpeas i.e. I doubled the recipe. Here is everything except the salt and the garam masala. Once I had these two piles set up I put the butter in a heavy bottomed pan and melted it over medium heat. Then added the onions, garlic and ginger, increased the heat, and cooked them until they were soft.

You should stir them every now and then so that they are evenly cooked, but in between there should be enough time to crack open the canned tomatoes and roughly chop them. I first made this with fresh tomatoes and it came out fine. It's just a bit less... well ... tomatoey! 

Once those onions are done it is time to add the spices. I again reduced the heat because I did not want to burn the spices and over a low heat cooked them for 1-2 minutes. Keep stirring them so that they don't burn. Then in go the tomatoes and their juices. Now I put this up to around medium and heated it through. 

While this was happening I drained off the chickpeas and then added them to the pot and gave it a really good stir. On went the lid and I allowed it to simmer while I put together our now favourite potato masala and some rice. After 15 minutes of simmering I added the frozen spinach. I am sure you can use fresh spinach as well but I would cook it and drain the water first (else the masala will become watery). 

Continue cooking for another 15 minutes. Add the garam masala and salt to taste and enjoy!

Mexican (Spanish?) Rice

There is a controversy in our household as to whether this is a Mexican recipe or a Spanish one. I'm guessing you could eat it with either type of food. Our main use of this rice is to stuff it into burritos which is why I claim that it is Mexican! We love burritos and I am a bit bewildered as to why I have not posted our favourite burrito fillers yet! I shall have to look into this. If I ever get round to posting instructions on how to put a burrito together I will link it here.

Preparation time: 1 hour; Serves 8 (with side dishes) 

Ingredients:

350 g	12 oz	Tomato (the riper and redder the better)
75 g	1 medium	Onion
3		Jalapenos (optional)
400 g	2 cups	Basmati rice
75 ml	1/3 cup	Oil
4 cloves	1.5 tsp.	Garlic, minced
475 ml	2 cups	Water
1		Veggie cube
1 tbsp.		Tomato paste
1.5 tsp		Salt
0.5 cup		Cilantro, chopped
1		Lemon

Method:

Take your tomatoes and onions and put them into your favourite food processor. Puree them and measure out 2 cups (a little under 500 ml). Don't worry if you have small pieces of tomato skin in your puree. It makes the rice look nicer in the end. If you have more than 2 cups of puree do not be tempted to put it in the rice. The rice will get too soggy. Of course you could reduce the amount of water and substitute it with any left over puree.

Mince your chilies (if using) and garlic and then wash your rice. Wash it under cold water and keep washing until the water is only slightly milky. The more starch you get rid of the less sticky your rice will be (at least if you are using basmati). Drain well.

The rice needs to be baked in the oven so make sure you pick a pan, with a fitting lid, that can be put in the oven. Make sure it is large enough to deal with the expanding rice. Now heat this pan on medium high and add the oil. Now is also the time to put your oven on at 160 C for a fan oven or 180 C (350 F) for a conventional oven.

Now back to your oil. You will know if the oil is hot enough because the oil will sizzle when the rice is added. Add a grain to check. Once the oil is hot add the rice and fry. Keep on stirring it to prevent it from burning. It should be fried for 6 - 8 minutes, until some of it is golden brown.

Reduce the heat to low and stir in the garlic and chili. Stir continuously until it is well distributed. It always takes me forever to get the garlic well combined, but it is quite essential so that no one ends up with a clump of garlic in their rice.

Now stir in the water, vegetable cube, puree, tomato paste and salt. Just for the record: tomato paste is highly concentrated tomato. I don't know what you could substitute it with if you could not get it but I personally would just omit it rather than use some other tomato product. Mix everything well and increase the temperature to medium high. Bring the whole thing to a boil.

Once it boils take it off the stove top and put it in the oven. The rice should bake for 30 minutes and it needs to be stirred in the middle. So set your timer for 15 minutes, take the pot out of the oven and stir it. Replace the lid and pop it back in for a further 15.


Once you take the rice out of the oven (be careful someone always burns themselves on the hot pan!) add the cilantro and the juice of 1 lime and mix well.

Your rice is now ready to serve. You can add it to a burrito or just use it as your main staple. Try mixing other things into it to turn it into a one pot meal.

Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli

I’ve been trying for some years to make the perfect homemade ravioli. The problem is that here in Germany it is somehow difficult to get vegetarian ravioli. We buy pre-made tortellini without any trouble. Yesterday I came home from work early and the sun was shining brightly into my kitchen (which is unusual given where I live) and I saw the pumpkin I had recently bought on the counter (my newly installed counter!). While drinking a cup of tea I decided to make myself some pumpkin ravioli. Finally, it turned out to my satisfaction so here I am sharing the recipe with you.

If you live somewhere where it is hard to get ravioli this is definitely for you. You can stuff it with whatever is available. You just need to have a lot of time.

Tastes great served with homemade tomato sauce.

Preparation time: 3 hours (can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen); Serves 3-4 (according to my daughter)

Ingredients:

Pasta Dough

2	Eggs
2 tbsp.	Cold water
2 tsp.	Olive oil
1 tsp.	Salt
2 cups	White flour

Filling

350 g	Butternut squash
2	Garlic cloves
1 tbsp.	Finely chopped oregano
175 g	Tofu
	Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

The first thing to do is to make the dough for the pasta. Mix all the liquids together in a small bowl. I use my indispensable mini-whisk.

Next beat the liquid together with a cup of flour with an electric whisk. Once it was all combined you have to knead it with another cup of flour. I had to pull mine out of the machine and knead it by hand. You can knead it with a machine if you like. My machine is too big for such a small bit of dough so I HAD to do it by hand (I hate kneading). Knead it for about 8 minutes or until the dough is smooth.

Then I put the dough in a bowl and covered it with a plate. You can cover it with anything but it is important that you let the dough sit for a while and that you cover it to prevent it drying out. Mine sat for about 30 minutes while I was preparing the filling.

The best way to cook the pumpkin is to bake it. However, I decided to steam mine. I find that I put my oven on all too quickly. Many of my Sri Lankan family and friends are reluctant to use their ovens because of the large amount of electricity that they use. The electricity supply is also not always reliable and fluctuates quite badly. So since I have a lot of friends and family out there I decided to make this recipe without using my oven. I didn’t boil the pumpkin because it would get too soggy.

For this particular recipe I used butternut squash (known as Dubai Wattakka when I was a child). I assume you could use any other type of pumpkin, although I would stay clear of the stringy type. I peeled my pumpkin and cut it into 1 cm cubes. (The smaller you cut your pumpkin the quicker it will steam.)

Then put it in a steamer and steam it for about 15 minutes, or until tender. You do not want it to be mushy but you do want to be able to mash it. 

While the pumpkin was steaming I ran out to my herb patch and brought in some fresh oregano leaves. If you can’t get oregano don’t despair, you can use any herb or spice to give the pumpkin some taste. Half a tea spoon of dried herbs would also work well. If there are no herbs available try some spices. Curry power, garam masala or ground mustard should give it a South Asian taste (I’ll be trying the mustard next time because I absolutely love pumpkin with mustard. Probably be good with a coconut milk based sauce. Hmmm….).

Finely chop the oregano and the garlic. We really like garlic so I put in two cloves. The filling tasted really strong but once it was in the ravioli it was perfect.

I didn’t want the pumpkin to be too mushy so I mashed the pumpkin roughly with a fork ...

and then added the herbs, garlic salt and pepper. To add a bit of protein to our diet I added some crumbled tofu. You can omit this or replace it with feta cheese, although I think that the texture of the tofu was much better in the end. Once I had mixed this all together I realized that the filling was to soggy, there was too much moisture in it. To get rid of the extra moisture I put the filling in a small saucepan and cooked it over high heat for a few minutes. I stirred it constantly because I did not want it to burn. I am sure I could have dried it out even further but there was no time for that. I can’t really explain how dry your filling should be but if it resembles mush then it is definitely too wet. What this will do is soak through your dough and cause it to break. So if you’re making your ravioli and the pastry breaks it might be because of the moisture in your filling.

By now the pastry has been sitting long enough. On a well-floured surface roll out the pastry until it is very, very thin. I could almost see the counter through my dough. If you have a pasta press then use it to save yourself some time. You can also get molds to make your ravioli with, definitely a time saver. I used a round cookie cutter (5 cm) to cut my dough.

On to the dough I heaped half a teaspoon of filling leaving plenty of place around the edges.

Then I took another cut out piece and stretched it a bit because it needs to be larger than the one with the filling on it so that it covers the filling. Press the sides together very carefully. Make sure you have clean hands when you do this. Any filling on your hands will get onto the outside of the ravioli and you will have a mess. Place the finished ravioli on a surface dusted liberally with flour. Keep going until you are done with either all the dough or all the filling.

Try to cut your dough as sparingly as possible. If you re-roll the dough you will need to first knead it and then leave it to sit for at least 15 minutes so that it is elastic again. I only rolled mine twice and trashed the little bit of dough that was left.

Once you are done you can leave the ravioli to air dry for a bit. Make sure there is enough flour on them so that they don’t stick.

To cook them lower them into boiling water and cook for around 2 minutes. I don't have any pictures of the cooking process because my husband cooked them while I was out playing "soccer mum"!!

Serve with tomato, pesto or a white sauce.