Pui Shaak'er Ghonto - Malabar Spinach and Vegetable Stew

Pui Shaak'er Ghonto

I love the bright colours of the vegetables and spinach in this dish. It looks and is healthy and delicious! 

Dinner generally consists of a vegetable dish, followed by lentils and a main course of fish, meat or eggs. This vegetable stew would, therefore, be served as the first course or a side dish with rice or chapatis.

Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Peppers

Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Peppers

This is likely to become a favourite vegetable dish in our home because it's so simple and takes no time at all to put together. It's composed of pre-sliced mushrooms, onions, red and green peppers, and seasoned simply with some salt, ginger and garlic paste and black peppercorns that are ground to a powder along with mouri/fennel seeds.

A vegetarian couple a while back spent a week with us. Any longer than that would have caused me to eat heads because I was craving non-veg food so badly! But I picked up a few tips and tricks about cooking vegetables, particularly mushrooms. Because they shed so much water, the trick to cooking mushrooms, I was told, is to fry them first in nothing but oil until al dente. More oil is then added to fry the onions and other vegetables and salt should be added at the very end. This produces a dry stir-fry that is delicious served with steamed rice. It can be had with a variety of Indian breads, too.

Crockpot Rogan Josh - Slow-Cooked Lamb Curry

Crockpot Rogan Josh

The crockpot is probably the most under-utilized appliance in my kitchen. It's ideal for these wintry days when temperatures plummet to single digits which makes it bone-chilling to open doors and windows so the house can be aired out. Today I dusted off the crockpot and boldly plugged it in. 

I've never used the crockpot (or slow-cooker as it's sometimes called) to cook Indian meat curries. My sister has, but I think she did a lot of the prep on the stovetop and then put it all in the crockpot to cook slowly. I decided to take the shortest shortcut possible, combined everything in the crockpot and allowed it to do its thing. The result was totally amazing. 

My Beli Mashi (Mum's sister) spent a few months with us when I was living in California and she taught me to make Kashmiri Rogan Josh. I marinated the meat with the rest of the ingredients for a couple of hours, then dumped all of it into the crockpot with sliced onions and set it on high for 2 hours. After giving everything a good mix, the crockpot was set to low, potatoes were added and cooked for 5 hours.

The meat just fell off the bones and the potatoes were cooked to perfection. I doubt meat curries in my house will ever be cooked on the stovetop again. Without the botheration of stirring and making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan, it was completely stress-free cooking!