Garlicky Masala Peanuts

You don't realize how time gets away from you when there is a super active, and attention seeking 11 month old at home. I hardly get time to do anything once I'm home from work. I meant to post this recipe two weeks ago, but better late than never.

Our friends had invited us over for a Superbowl party. The host, despite suggesting to have a potluck, had graciously agreed to do all the cooking. Husband suggested taking some snack along. I didn't have much time to make anything fancy. We had just hosted our neighbors for an Indian brunch the day before, and my kitchen was somewhat of a mess. I browsed through the pantry for an idea, and decided to make Masala Peanuts - spicy peanut fritters. Masala peanuts are great to munch on while sipping on a cold beer. This is a popular 'chakana' (the vernacular term to describe all the snacks that go well with alcohol) item in India. Peanuts are coated in a spicy chickpea flour batter and deep fried until golden brown. They are spicy, crunchy, zesty, and just typing this makes me want to have some! I added a touch of garlic powder to the batter - why not? Garlic goes great with peanuts. The only problem was that the besan/chickpea flour I used was the coarse type. I would've preferred fine besan as it stick to peanuts better. Despite that, husband loved the preparation, and so did all the guests at the party.

Garlicky Masala Peanuts

Ingredients:
1 Cup whole unroasted peanuts (with or without skin)
1/2 Cup besan/ chickpea flour
3 Tablespoons rice flour
2 Teaspoons red chili powder (adjust to your liking)
2 Teaspoons cumin-coriander powder
1/2 Teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 Teaspoon amchur/ dried mango powder
2/3 Teaspoon garlic powder
Salt to taste
1/2 Cup water (or as needed)
Oil for frying

• Mix besan, rice flour, and all the spices. Add water little by little to make a thick batter. 
• Add in peanuts and mix until all of them are evenly coated. 
• Heat oil in a frying pan. Add ~1 tablespoon hot oil to the battered peanuts. This hot oil added to the batter before frying is called 'mohan' and helps make the fritters light. 
• Fry battered peanuts on medium heat until golden brown. If you add a bunch of peanuts together, they'll end up sticking together. Take some in your hand, and drop them from the side of the frying pan while separating them with your fingers. This will ensure they don't stick. Be careful with hot oil.
• Take them out of the frying pan and keep on a paper towel to absorb excess oil. 
• The peanuts will be soft right out of the frying pan, but let them cool a bit and they'll be crunchy. 

Serve with a cold beverage!

Bookmark Thursday

Thursdays are usually 'throw something together and rush out the door' kinda dinner nights for us. I have a dance class every Thursday evening (pursuing a long time dream of learning Kathak :) and I don't get much time to cook anything. Hubby helps himself to some leftovers (if he's really hungry) or waits for me to come back and put anything that's available in the fridge in between two slices of bread and call it a sandwich. After almost 5 months, I was home this Thursday. Bonus time! It was a perfect opportunity to go down some of the bookmarked recipes and try 'em out. 

I had been eyeing these glorious Masala Buns posted by one of my favorite bloggers, US Masala. For a while, it seemed like every other blogger was making buns of some sort and I was the only one missing out. A few days back I came across Sangeetha's blog through her HITS event and saw another recipe for stuffed buns. The recipe looked too tempting not to give it a shot.

Masala buns are simple buns stuffed with some kind of curried vegetable filling. They looked very intimidating to me at first, but except for the fact that you have to wait, the recipe turned out to be quite simple. The fun part is, you stuff the buns before they bake. So as you pull a morsel of a fluffy, soft bun, there's a tasty treat inside! Sangeetha had stuffed the buns with spicy cauliflower, which I'm sure would've tasted great. But I went with a more predictable filling - veggies cooked with Paav-bhaji masala. To make the buns a little 'Indian', should I say, I added toasted cumin seeds to the dough. Aromatic, pillowy buns stuffed with paav-bhaji like bhaji. Tell me you won't like that!

Masala Bun 

Ingredients:
Buns:

1 1/2 Cups All purpose flour

1/4 Cup warm water

1/4 oz. Dry active yeast packet

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 Teaspoon salt

1/2 Teaspoon toasted cumin seeds

3 tbspn EVOO + as needed

Stuffing:

1 Tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 Large / 2 medium boiled potatoes

1 Small tomato

1/2 Medium onioin
1/2 Cup mixed veggies - I used peas and bell peppers only

2 Garlic cloves - minced
1/2 Inch ginger - minced

1 1/2 Teaspoons paav-bhaji masala

1 Teaspoon Red chili powder

Salt to taste

Dough for the buns:

• Mix yeast, sugar and warm water and let it stand until the mixture gets foamy (~10 mins). Sangeetha mixed the yeast with the flour itself, but I figured getting the yeast acting would be faster and better. 
• Add flour, salt, EVOO. Bruise the cumin seeds on your palm using the thumb slightly to get all the fragrant oils out and add them to the dough. Knead well using a little bit of water as need to form a stiff but soft dough. The original recipe used milk instead of water, I just took the easy way. 
• Cover the dough with a damp towel and keep in a warm place for ~45mins to an hour so to rise. While you are waiting, start working on your stuffing. 
• Once the dough almost doubles in size, punch it gently and knead again for a few mins. 
• Divide the dough in 6 parts and shape them round. Keep on a greased aluminum foil on baking sheet. Let them stand for another 10 mins or so. The dough will rise again slightly.

Stuffing:

• Chop all the veggies finely. Mash the potatoes. 
• Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add ginger-garlic, onions and tomatoes and saute until the onions are translucent. 
• Add spices, rest of the veggies, salt and cook for 10 mins or until the mixture comes together well. If it becomes too dry, add a little bit of water. Adjust the spices according to your liking. 

Put it together:

• Make a dent in each of the dough balls to form a cup-like shape. Stuff them with a golf-ball size vegetable filling and pinch the dough together to close the dough balls. 
• Brush them with some OO and let them stand for another 10 mins. 
• Bake for 15-18 mins on 375F or until the buns turn golden brown. 
• To serve, brush the buns with a little bit of garlic butter or OO. 

If you have some stuffing leftover - make a sandwich :D.

Dabeli

I've never met an Indian who doesn't like street food. There's got to be something ridiculously good about those spicy-savory-sour-sweet dishes for a country of billions to be crazy about! Street food is a different class of cuisine altogether and call me crazy, but I'll pick that over a 5-star restaurant any day! You can pretty much get anything from sandwiches to noodles on a little streetside cart in India, but what gets me really drooling is the broad category of Chaats. Yum! Bhel, shev-puri, paani-puri, ragada chaat and all those tasty concoctions of tangy tamarind and hot chili-cilantro chutneys, crunchy-thin chickpea flour noodles called Sev, finely diced onion and tomatoes over potatoes or white peas, puffed rice or crispy puris.  

I remember my mom or sister taking me a few lanes down from our house to the park, where a dozen or so vendors with their fully equipped carts used to crowd the corner. We were not allowed to eat there too often for 'questionable' cleanliness to put it in mild words. But it was one of those guilty pleasures that felt better than going to the candy store! The chaat-wallah used every inch of the space creatively. A flat pan of ragda boiling away over a kerosene stove in one corner, every shelf stacked with enough ingredients for the week, containers of chutneys and spices, plates and drinking(?) water, all in one crammed cart. All this left a small cutting-board sized space where he would dice the veggies at the speed of light.

It wasn't until I visited Mumbai, then Bombay, though that I experienced the culture of street food! Mumbai is the Mecca for street food lovers. It's a potpourri of cultures and people from all around the country have contributed to the numerous food carts that have become the lifeline of students, workers, rishkshaw or taxi drivers and every other person who stops by for a quick snack. My cousin, who I used to visit during the holidays, had her favorite designated cart for every item. She was the one who first introduced me to the awesomeness called 'Dabeli'! Ahh - how I fell in love with this delicious 'burger' that was too small for my liking. The Kacchi Gujarati community has made Dabeli a popular item on street carts in Mumbai. And like all other Gujarati dishes, they have managed to bring a sweet element into this yummy chaat item.

Spicy Roasted Peanuts

'Dabeli' literally means pressed in Gajarati. It is a delicious burger with spiced mashed potatoes, spicy roasted peanuts, pomegranate seeds, sev and tamarind-date chutney all sandwiched between a bun, graciously lathered with Amul butter! The butter is applied in such generous amounts that the bread literally melts in your mouth. Dabeli has been one of my favorite street foods all these years. I make sure to visit my cousin's favorite Dabeli-wallah at the time during my busy trips to India. 

Utterly  Butterly Delicious!

I love making Dabeli for dinner once in a while for a change of taste. I have made it from scratch many times before, but this time I took advantage of having all the components available at the grocery store. It's a quick fix meal on a week night. The Dabeli Masala I brought from India was a time saver as well, although it's a simple combination of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, red chili, cloves and cinnamon roasted and ground to a fine powder. 

Everything you need for the best bite ever!

Ready to be 'dabeli' - pressed.

 

Kacchi Dabeli

Ingredients:

2 Potatoes

2 Teaspoons Dabeli Masala

1/4 Teaspoon cumin seeds

1/4 Cup peanuts

1/2 Teaspoon cumin-coriander powder

1/2 - 1 Teaspoon red chili powder

Salt to taste

2 Tablespoons oil

Burger buns

1 Small onion finely chopped

1 Pomegranate seeds

Bareek sev (fine sev) for garnishing

Tamarind-date chutney

Butter

Potato stuffing:

Boil potatoes, peel and mash. Add dabeli masala and salt to taste to the potatoes and mix well.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and let them splutter, add in the mashed potatoes and cook everything for a couple of minutes. You can add a little bit of water if the potatoes become too dry.

Roasted peanuts:

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a sautee pan, add peanuts, sprinkle cumin-coriander, red chili powder and salt to taste and let them roast, stirring occasionally.

To assemble:

Toast bread with a generous application of butter.

Make a small patty of the mashed potato and put it on the slice of bread. Top it with some tamarind-date chutney, then onions, peanuts, pomegrante seeds and lastly sev.

Press the other slice of bread on top. You can toast the burger on a pan again or just enjoy it!

Spicy potatoes, crunchy peanuts and sev, tangy-sour chutney and sweet pomegranate to balance it all create the most perrrfect bite ever!!!

Dabeli is a great snack for entertaining too. You can make a little assembly of all the ingredients and let your guests make their own. Or you can make a 'cake' with layers of mashed potatoes and all the other ingredients and let your guest cut a piece for their burger.

Grapes cut in half make a great substitute for pomegranates, providing the same sweetness, crunch and juicy pop in the mouth.

ILOVENY

4 years away from this hodgepodge of cultures, I still miss NY dearly. There's no other place that has the spirit and the vibe of this ever alive city. Most of all, I miss grabbing a 'meal' from one of the roadside carts or a hole-in-the-wall pizzerias and walking down the street munching on food. And yes, everyone around you thinks it's perfectly normal to eat as you run to catch the bus or the train or whatever other 'emergency' you may have. From those $1 bagel and creamcheese carts to falafel kiosks to the famous Chicken n Rice on 53th street, people in NY have grab-and-go meals available from the morning office hours, lunchtime rush to the wee hours after clubbing. The city truly never sleeps along with the hundreds of vendors serving street foods from around the world!

One of my favorite places is the Kati Roll Company serving what they call 'a spicy mixture of meat and vegetables rolled in Indian flat-bread'. The menu is simple but the food more than makes up for the shabby appearance of the place and the bare-looking menu card. My favorite on the menu is the Paneer Kati Roll (makes me drool even as I type this).

Well, how do I get to have Paneer Kati Roll without flying all the way across the country? I make it in my own kitchen. I have come up with my own version of this spicy-savory dish. I don't know what all goes in the original kati roll, but my creation keeps me satisfied between my visits to NY :D.

Paneer Kati Roll

Paneer Kati Roll

Ingredients:

Parathas (Indian flat-bread - slightly thicker than a tortilla) for wrapping
1/4 lbs Paneer - cut into ~1 inch cubes
1/2 Medium onion - sliced
1/2 Small red bell pepper - sliced
1 Teaspoon cumin-coriander powder
1-2 Teaspoons red chili powder - adjust per your liking
1 1/2 - 2 Teaspoons frankie masala/chaat masala
Lemon juice
Salt to taste
2 Teaspoons oil

• Heat a saute pan on medium and sear the paneer cubes on all sides until golden brown. Let the paneer cook in its own oil, you won't need to add any oil. Remove and keep aside.
• Add oil to the same pan and saute the onions and bell peppers on high heat for 30-45 seconds. Don't overcook.
• Lower the heat to medium and toss in the paneer cubes, cumin-coriander powder, red chili powder, frankie and/or chaat masala (I use these for the tangy-salty taste that comes from the dried mango powder and black salt) and salt to taste.
• Mix everything well and saute for 2-3 minutes.
• Take it off the heat and sprinkle some lemon juice.
• Sprinkle some more chaat masala/chili powder if desired, roll the paneer-onion-bell pepper mixture in a paratha and enjoy the kati roll!  

A few notes:

• This is typically made with a maida paratha, but I went for home-made whole wheat paratha. You can get plain parathas/Malaysian parathas from the store.
• This is my no-marination, no-grilling recipe. You can also make this dish by marinating paneer in the spices and a little bit of oil and grilling it.
• Different colored bell peppers taste and look good. Feel free to add them or any other veggies you like.
• You can add some green chutney (cilantro/mint chutney) to the roll.