Mushroom and Spinach Risotto

Risotto....
Rice from Italy....
We love Italian food at home and mushroom is an all time favorite vegetable.
Spinach and mushroom make a perfect combination.
Must I add that it tickles the taste buds and is pleasing to the eye too?
Please do try making plain risotto too.

Ingredients:
Arborio Rice - 250 gms
Spinach - 1 bunch
Dried Mushroom - 50 gms
Vegetable stock - 3 litres
Onion -1 small
Garlic - 4 large cloves
Celery - 2 sticks
Wine - 1 cup (optional)
Salt to taste
Parmesan cheese - nearly 1 cup
Olive oil - 2 tbsp

Soak the mushroom in hot water and chop the onions, garlic, celery and spinach.
Keep the stock to boil, and once it starts boiling, reduce flame and keep warm.

Saute the onion, garlic and celery in olive oil until transparent.

Drain the mushrooms, squeeze the water and add the mushrooms to the onions.
Add the mushroom soaked water to the vegetable stock.

After a minute of frying on medium flame, add the rice and salt. Fry on medium flame for 2 minutes.

Increase flame. Make a well in the centre and add the wine.

Mix well. Once all the wine evaporates, add a ladle of warm stock.

Once this stock gets evaporated, pour in the next ladle. Continue this process till the rice cooks al dente.

Once the rice is cooked to your desired level, turn off flame.
Add the spinach and half of the parmesan cheese to the risotto.

Mix well and keep covered for 2 minutes.
Taste to check salt.

Serve with more cheese on top.
If you have left over Risotto, make arancini.

Grape Juice

My mother used to make this great summer drink often when we lived in Chennai (nee Madras). And many people used to ask her the recipe. It uses just three ingredients.

The colour of my grape juice is not vibrant only because I used white grapes, bought from Pollachi.

Recipe : Mrs. Radha Parameswaran, my mom.

Ingredients:
Grapes - 1.7 Kgs , with stalk
Sugar - 1 cup (more or less according to your family's taste)
Cloves - 4

Method:
Wash the grapes thoroughly.
Remove all the stem and wash again.
Pour just enough water to nearly immerse all the grapes.
Bring to a boil and keep covered for 2 minutes.
Turn off flame after 2 minutes.
Cool.
Use a mixer to pulp.
Sieve this pulp.
Boil sugar with 1 cup water and sieve to remove grime. Cool.
Powder the cloves and mix it with the sugar syrup.
Add the sugar syrup to the sieved grape juice.
Mix well and store in a glass bottle.
You kight have to add some water at the time of serving.

For serving:
Add glass cubes to a glass and add the sweetened grape pulp and adequate water.

Pictorial:

Water just enough to nearly immerse

post boiling / cooking

Making sugar syrup

cooled after cooking / boiling

Turkish Pide

One thing we bought from London was.....a cook book. A Turkish vegetarian cookbook. Makes no sense, but that is what I insisted on buying.

Yes, I am strange.

One recipe that caught my eye was Pide (pronounced pie-day). It is a bread served plain. There is also a stuffed variety available made mostly with meat and cheese. It is shaped like a boat.

This is supposed to be the 'father of pizza'.

It is quite easy to make, not extremely easy.

Ingredients:

For the bread:
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Yeast - 1/2 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Oil - 2 tbsp

For the filling:
Onion -2 medium
Garlic - 4 cloves
Paneer / cottage cheese - 200 gm
Salt
Chilly powder - 1 tbsp
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Tomato - 3 medium
Mint leaves - 3 tbsp
Celery - 1 stalk
Oil - 4 tbsp

Topping (optional):
Jalapenos (Bhajia chilli)

To serve: 
Lemon slices

My advice: Make the filling slightly spicier than you would usually, as the bread will balance it.

Method:

Bread:
Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, yeast.
Add enough water to make a smooth dough.
Knead for 5 minutes and then add 1 tbsp oil and knead again for 5 more minutes.
Coat the kneaded dough with 1 tbsp oil and keep covered in a vessel for it to double in size. (90 minutes)

Filling:
Heat oil in a heavy vessel and fry thr onion and garlic till garlic becomes translucent.
Add the paneer and fry till it becomes golden brown.
Add the tomato and all the powders.
Fry till all the water evaporates.
Turn off flame, allow to cool and add the celery and mint leaves.

How to proceed:
Preheat oven to 250 C for 15 minutes.
Knead the dough again and divide into 6 pieces.
Roll out thinly into a long flat strip.
Place this on top of a buttered butter paper.
Place the filling in the middle.
Bring both the sides together and pinch the ends, so that it resembles a boat.
Coat with oil on the exposed sides of the bread. You can put some til seeds if you wish.
Place the Jalapenos over it.
Bake for 10 - 12 minutes till the sides get golden brown.
Cool a bit.
Cut each pide into 3 inch slices and serve.

Pictorial:

Bombay sandwich

We always have sandwich at 'Haji Ali Fruit and Sandwich shop'. They serve such awesome sandwich, but my friend from Mumbai - Shefali Arvind always disagrees. She says that the sandwich wallah in Mumbai makes the most awesome sandwiches!

I have never had the guts to eat the roadside sandwiches in Mumbai (do I dare say unhygienic?), but when a video of a sandwich wallah from Mumbai was circulated in (one of my many) WhatsApp group, I had to make it at home.

The green chutney sandwich made with cucumber is light and non-guilty! If you are worried seeing the amount of butter and cheese used in this white bread sandwich recipe, that would be a great option!

Note: I have not added any salt or Chaat masala in my recipe as in the video. As I felt there was enough salt in the cheese and green chutney. Chaat masala is not liked by my family.
I do not have a sandwich maker, so I used a tawa.

Ingredients for 3 sandwiches:

Bread - 9 slices
Tomato - 3 medium (cut into rounds)
Onion - 2 medium (minced)
Capsicum - 1 large (minced)
Cheese grated - 4 tbsp
Butter - 6 tbsp (room temperature)
Green chutney* - 6 tsp
Pepper - 3 pinches

* if you do not have mint, make chutney with only coriander leaf, green chilly, roasted gram, salt and lemon juice.

Method:
Assembling the sandwich is fairly easy.
Apply green chutney on a slice of bread.
Top with onion and capsicum.
Place a buttered slice of bread on top.
Apply butter also on top of this second bread.
Place your tomato and cheese on top.
Cover with a slice of bread which has green chutney spread on it.
Apply butter on top.
Grill on a medium hot tawa / sandwich maker till golden brown on both sides.
Cut into pieces and serve.

Pictorial: