Cooking for a Cause

During this Joy Giving week, Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal decided to celebrate the festival of giving in a different way and I was the benefactor (I chose to be), receiving the tips of her culinary skills through her cooking demonstration at Courtyard Marrriott’s Chinese restaurant ‘Red Sun’  that included some of the dishes which she has created herself by trial and error method and had been successful.

 This was the charity demonstration, proceeds of which would actually benefit the people affected by leprosy living in Baratapuram colony at Chennai.

We were a small group of about 20 members watching closely as she created four dishes in just two hours.

She started her session with cooking demonstration on ‘Tamarind Prawn’, A very simple dish and yet so tasty.

In a bowl she made the combination of sweet/sour/salty sauce by mixing lemongrass, fish sauce, brown sugar and tamarind till dissolved.

In a wok, she fried garlic till golden brown and added lemon grass, Thai chilies, till crisp, then in went the sweet/sour mixture solution to simmer till it was slightly reduced. The sweet aroma of lemon grass was stronger in the room but our attention was fixed on the aromatic fumes emerging from the pans. She added kaffir lime leaves and finally the prawns, stir-fried just for a minute on each side in the sauce and the dish was ready to eat. I shared this recipe with my cousin, who promptly cooked for her hubby earning a brownie point.

The other dishes that she cooked were Asian coleslaw, White sesame curry and Anise and Orange Chicken Puloa.

The cooking demonstration was followed by delicious lunch and the hotel had designed an edible miniature Marriott Home donation box where we could dare to care by helping those who needed our assistance.

Tummy was protesting and we all headed towards the dining room for yummicious lunch

Lovely afternoon where we ate, thought and talked about food.

Rushina is a food blogger who is passionate about her cooking. I met her the first time at Nature Basket, where I am a frequent shopper. And later I attended her workshop at Kala Ghoda Festival, and then there have been many other events where I do bump into her but she is a warm person and is always willing to share her culinary tips.

I have met her several times now and I hope to become good friends in future since we share a common interest and that is:
To cook for the people we love.

Ladies finger! Hmmn..Okra for you, Bhindi for me…

One of the things that I missed the most on my dining table in Spain was 'Bhindis'. This veggie was available only on certain days and that too at Indian Super-market which was far away from my home. These were imported from London and the stock would finish on the day it arrived. Since we lived in the rural regions of Tenerife, (at Icod de Los Vinos) going to Indian Super-market at Puertos de la Cruz was a weekly event, if we were lucky, then we would be able to grab just a kilo of it. We counted (4-bhindis-per-person) and cooked, the rest we stored in the freezer

I wished somebody would locally plant this vegetable so that it was readily available at all times. 

 Since we lived in rural areas, our clients were mainly tourists or farmers, who would visit our shop to buy some electronics from our store. The local natives of the place were very friendly with us and sometimes sold us veggies and fruits that they grew in their farm. One day, I asked them to bring Bhindi and he looked surprised. He had never seen it. I showed him and he looked at it curiously. I asked him to plant it in his farm, but Bhindis need warm climate so he was not sure if he would be successful. Nevertheless, he did plant for me in his warm nursery and brought a big basket full of bhindis for me. But it was just an experiment for him and since Spanish don’t have this veggie on their dinner table, it was not profitable for him. I enjoyed this veggie till his passion lasted and then back to Indian supermarket, once in a while........

Believed to be originated in African regions, it is enjoyed in stews in most parts of the world. In Africa, the bhindis are normally short, thick and quite hard, they are grated and put into chicken and mutton dishes to make stew or thick gravy.

During one of the chats on BlackBerry, my cousin sent me the picture of Bhindi that grows in his garden in Texas. They were quite long, some of them longer than spoons, and they weighed heavy, bending the branch. He said that it was quite tasteless and people just chew and then throw it away.They are mainly used for medicinal purpose.

Bhindis are chopped and soaked in water overnight and drinking its solution early in the morning is good for health, it reduces cholesterol level, blood pressure and it also helps to stabilize the blood sugar by curbing the rate at which sugar is absorbed from intestinal tract. (and Oh..I tried drinking this Bhindi solution too but yucks! I could not continue this slimy stuff, I puked..sorry!)

My cousin in Malaysia says her maid uses bhindi for stuffing fish, it is a part of young ‘tau foo’ cuisine whereby it is stuffed with fish paste and boiled with a selection of vegetables and tofu, interesting recipe I must say, and sometimes they use pork too...

The few years while we lived in Surinam, mom grew many vegetables in her kitchen garden. The soil was very fertile and the weather was warm. We had Bhindis, tomatoes, coriander leaves and also chillie and avocado trees. While she cooked I would go downstairs and pluck out bhindis, tomatoes and chillies, just enough for the cooking, during those days I didn't know how to make Gaucomali, so we just cut avocado and spread it with bread like butter with just salt and pepper (it was so delicious that I can still remember the taste).

In India, Bhindis are served at every home and everybody has their own unique style..

There are so many different ways that one can cook this vegetable that every time I buy it I am set thinking. There is finely chopped deep fried bhindis, stuffed bhindis, bhindi potatoes in green masala or in onion masala or just dumped in Sindhi curry.

In some restaurant they also serve thinly sliced crispy bhindi (have you tried those?, yum..!!)

Even if you simply deep fry it and add dry masalas, it makes a nice accompaniment with dhal and rice. You could add dry powder like coriander powder, mango powder, lots of red chillies powder, jeera powder and coriander leaves.(cough! cough!

My favorite recipe is Bhindi with potatoes. Why? because its easiest to cook......and its quickie like Masterchef's fifteen minutes pressure challenge..lol

I deep fry chopped potatoes and Bindhis till tender

Make an onion masala separately by cooking onion, tomatoes, garlic, green chillies, turmeric powder and coriander leaves.(dump them in the pan and let the low flame do its work)

Mix the fried bhindi and potatoes to the onion masala and cook on slow flame for five minutes.

Lunch is ready..... I have it with chappatis and chopped cucumber….. always tastes good and I love it.

 BTW did you know that the world's most beautiful women, Cleopatra of Egypt and Yang Guifei of China loved to eat Bhinids ??

Mirror, Mirror on the wall........