Showing posts with label breakfast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breakfast. Show all posts

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Breakfast In Sindhi homes

Before the oats, cereals, muffins, pastries and sandwiches made their appearances at our breakfast table, Parathas, Puri, and rice ruled the kitchens. Early mornings, tea or coffee was paired with home cooked meals.



There was a great variety of paratha made with most inovative fillings, sometimes stuffed with potatoes, sometimes with radish, then, there were cauliflower, cottage cheese, peas and sometimes even fenugreek. There were great varieties of puris too. From plain salt and pepper to more elaborate puris that were stuffed with colorful lentils. Curds, pickle and papads were included with puris and parathas.
But I enjoyed Parathas the most, especially those of potatoes mixed with coriander leaves, green chilies and cumin seeds.

Parathas are basically unleavened dough stuffed with spiced mixture of mashed potatoes/vegetables, which is rolled out and cooked on hot plate with butter. Paired with pickle or curd and a hot cup of tea, it made a perfect Sunday morning.

Puri on the other hand is the unleavened dough usually prepared with wheat flour (atta) or refined wheat flour (maida) or coarse wheat flour (sooji), deep-fried in hot oil till they bloat like a balloon. They can be paired with lentils, or potatoes or pickle and sometimes even with sweets like halwa or jalebi.


In my house, Loli was regularly made. This was made with wheat flour where little ghee/or butter was added before kneading, plain loli had only salt and pepper, while masala loli had finely chopped onions, coriander leaves, pomegranate seeds and chilies. This too tasted great with pickles, papads or curds, but I would enjoy it best with fried eggs, (sunny side up) or sometimes with mutton cooked in spinach and tomatoes.


Pakwan was another great delight where the dough was rolled paper-thin and deep-fried. This was relished with lentils and fried papads.


Nowadays we are too health conscious and will avoid fried stuff out right. Now I see youngsters skipping breakfast or relishing baked crisps of rolled oats stuffed with nuts, honey, raisins, flaxseeds, etc. I too prefer a glass of fresh juice in the mornings. 

Cooked meal early morning is never preferred by today’s youth. Wonder if they know the taste of leftover food that was revamped into different dish the next morning.


Leftover Chappatis were cooked in green masala of coriander leaves, garlic and tomatoes to make a dish called 'Mani seyal'.


Rice was fried into yellow rice by adding garlic, mustard seeds, tomatoes, onions, coriander leaves, green chilies and turmeric powder.

While German households had salami, bacon, ham, eggs and varieties of cheese, French German rolls paired with jam, marmalade, honey. In my house, on the other hand, it was simple dried leftover bread cooked with onion, tomatoes, green chilies and coriander leaves called 'Daboroti seyal'. It tasted heavenly with a hot cup of filter coffee.

In Spain, no matter where I went, at every breakfast restaurant was tortilla Esponola. But in my house, we had delicious omelets of onions, coriander leaves and tomatoes, even a simple omelet with just salt and pepper tasted great. Sometimes we had leftover rotis dipped in egg and fried on skillet.

A typical Italian breakfast is made of hot beverages and something sweet to eat like croissant, pastries, cookies and maybe some fresh juice too, but in my house there was thin sweet vermicelli called ‘Sayoon’ cooked with sugar and cardamom.

Every country that I travelled, I saw people relishing different breakfast but there was always similarity between their food and ours to some extend, especially if they were cooked or fried.

Some years ago, One early morning, in Hongkong, it was 5am and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I decided to take a bus to far off busstop and enjoy the breakfast. I still remember the beautiful taste of Congee I had on the street. The congee is a simple rice broth that contained pieces of chicken and some deep fried shrimps. I had seasoned it with vinegars in chilies and some soy sauce. In my house congee is also made but we just add crackled mustard seeds and we called it ‘Kweerni Khichdi’ I love this with sour curd and deep fried papad.


Breakfast is the important meal of the day, but now I shudder to eat fried food, bread and potatoes is too much carb, chappatis and puris are too heavy, so I have reduced my diet to just one glass of fresh vegetable juice with a simple toast or cookie. Lunch is when I will eat heavy food and dinner is just soup and fruits and sometimes if the mood is right, will eat the breakfast selection of parathas, puri or rice..during dinner time….

Our elders would eat four heavy meals to survive, and they had no diet issues, I just cannot eat so much, but then, I don’t work physically that hard like my granny or other women in my family used to do…


Here is sharing a leaflet from my book on #SindhiCuisine…..

Patatey ji manni

    (Potato Paratha)

Serves 4
Ingredients

2 potatoes, boiled
3 cups wheat flour
2 tablespoon oil
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon red chilly powder
1 tablespoon onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tablespoon coriander leaves, chopped


Method


  1. Mash the boiled potato and add salt, cumin powder, red chilly powder, onions, green chillies and coriander leaves. Keep aside.
  2. Knead the dough for paratha adding salt and 1 tablespoons of oil to the wheat flour.
  3. Roll it on a floured board to about 2 inch circle. Put 2 tablespoon of potato filling in the center and gently pick up the sides, press together to form a ball, covering the filling completely.
  4. Roll out carefully into round paratha, cook on tava on a medium flame till light brown, using small quantities of oil.
  5. Serve with curd and papad.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Breakfast From Left-Overs Rotis


Indian diet is never complete unless we have rotis. Most of my friends have thali type of food in their house, with 2 veggies, dhal, rice, papad, curd, pickle, rotis.

I cannot eat so much food and I am kinda confused when I see so much variety of assorted veggies. Should I eat this or that? I prefer only one type of veggie and it is either roti or rice (never both). But making roti is such a pain. I can roll roti in different maps of the world (sometimes Australia, sometimes Africa) but never round (like our globe). Sometimes my rotis are so hard that you need a nut cracker to break it…er…okay...not so hard. but quite hard if not consumed immediately.

I like guests who volunteer to make rotis for me. My guests understand my discomfort when I touch my waist, wipe my brow, look blushed after every disfigured roti, they get uncomfortable of the thought of digesting my poorly roasted rotis. They volunteer to help. Sweet people. In their own kitchen they may never lift a finger (because they have a big army of cooks and maids) but they do help me if I look miserable.

I think when a real Roti maker hits the market, I won't be surprised if they run to buy me Roti maker on my first big day either as Diwali present or for my birthday. *winks*. 

But most of the time, it’s my maid who helps. She makes enough rotis for everybody to eat, plus there are left overs.

Cooking left over food by re-inventing it into a complete new dish is the fun food. Masala roti made from left-over rotis tastes very delicious. I normally have it for breakfast.

It is very spicy and pungent. I normally put too many chilies, so much so that people will be weeping, wiping their nose but enjoying. I don't offer them tissues (they might finish the whole box), give them napkin instead.

Recently my friend (who has found me on FB after donkey years) wrote to me that she still remembers the masala roti that I used to make centuries ago. She still remembers the taste. Well Hema, if you are reading this, then is the recipe for you… follow the recipe and remember me.. okay?



Mani sayal (saye masale mei)
(Chappatis in green masala)


Serves 4
Ingredients

6 chapatis, broken into small pieces
6 green chilies, finely chopped
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
½ cup fenugreek leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons garlic
2 teaspoons coriander powder
½ teaspoon red chilly powder
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon oil

Method:

  1. Mix together the green chilies, coriander leaves, fenugreek leaves, garlic, coriander powder, red chilies powder, salt, and pound to a coarse paste. Set aside.
  2. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the paste.
  3. Add the chopped tomatoes and turmeric powder, stir and fry.
  4. Mash the tomatoes and add 1 cup water.
  5. When the mixture starts to boil, add small pieces of the chapatis.
  6. Cook on low heat for five minutes, making sure the gravy does not dry out completely.
  7. Serve hot with papad and buttermilk

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

First Bite of the Day


How many times have we heard people advising us to eat the first meal of the day like a king? How many of us know one king personally? I would love to share a meal with a King if I had a chance, but know none in India. I am sure he must be eating same Vada Sambar, Puri Bhajji or perhaps Parathas for breakfast. In that case I say “No, thank you!”

I would rather eat toast and have a glass of fresh fruit juice.

For toast I would need bread, but who needs to bake bread if they are freely available at bread boutiques? On the second thought I think I could try...

I like the Baguette,


When in Spain, this French Baguette was must-shop item on our shopping list. The supermarket near our house used to sell these freshly baked and I would finish half of it while waiting at parking lot. Crusty on the top and chewy within, this long thin loaf was a delight.


Have you tried Sourdough bread?




This is another favorite choice of breads on the days when I am too lazy to make chappatis. This has a distinctly tangy and complex flavor and can be used in the most innovative way. Slice it and top it with vegetables and cheese or simple have it with stew or soups, a perfect meal by itself.

Now-a-days I normally prefer Multi-Grain bread.



Prefer this multi-grain bread because it is most nutritionally complex of all. It has less refined flour and more of other grains like oats, rye, millet and yellow corn. Moreover, it is easily available at the supermarket near my house.

So if my guest plan to spend the night at my house, multi-grain toast is what she gets as the first bite of the day.

Like this morning, I had some straw mushrooms in the fridge and I decided to cook it to make a topping for the toast. In a pan, stir fried garlic, straw mushroom, spring onions, tomatoes, green chilies and coriander leaves.






Transfer the cooked veggies on the bread



 Grate the cheese over the veggies


 and Bake it for 5 minutes.


My guests was all smiles from ear to ear, who wouldn't be?
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

p1

Thank you for your appreciation