Stuffed Mushrooms

Mushrooms are a type of edible fungus. Button, cremini, morale, shiitake, Portobello are types of mushrooms available locally and used in a wide variety of cuisines. Mushrooms are one of my favorite foods. I love the meaty texture and flavor. I was first introduced to mushrooms when I was at my grandma- mai’s place. She made a simple maharashtrian bhaji and called it “alimbi”. After that I have experimented with this magnificent fungus in pizzas, cream of mushroom soup (my mom loved it) and mushroom biryani (just like vegetable biryani, but loads of mushroom added at a later stage). I just love mushrooms on my sandwiches, pizzas, and soups, grilled in salads, curried with paneer or chicken, in pastas, filled in raviolis and as stuffed appetizers.
I came across the original recipe on food network website and have modified this to suit our taste. Satya loves this.
1 pack of button mushrooms
Italian bread crumbs
1 small shallot
2 Garlic cloves (yum...)
Olive oil (I use the extra virgin variety…it definitely tastes richer than the usual variety)
Mozzarella cheese
Salt and Pepper.
Clean the mushrooms thoroughly. Cut of the stems into tiny pieces. Dice the shallots into tiny pieces. Cut the garlic into tiny pieces. Heat a non-stick pan on medium-low flame, add olive oil to it.
Add the garlic pieces and brown it a little, do not burn them or it will taste bitter.
Add the shallots to this and cook till golden brown and tender. Add the cut mushroom stems to this. Stir this for few minutes; you will see that the stems lose water very quickly. Cook till tender and add salt and pepper to taste.
Let this mixture cool for a while.
Heat the oven to 350f. Grease the baking dish with a little olive oil so that mushrooms do not stick to it. Brush a little oil on the sides of the mushrooms too so they get tender and brown.
Add mozzarella cheese and little bread crumbs to the mixture and mix well. Invert the mushrooms top side down and fill up the caps with the mixture. Top of the caps with some bread crumbs. Drizzle a little olive oil on the top. Bake in the oven till the bread crumbs look a toasted golden brown to you. Serve with marinara sauce or just as it is. When you take a bite, the end product should have juices oozing from the sides, medley of garlic and tender shallot with cheese & Italian bread crumb flavored mushroom stems, with crisp topping of Italian bread crumbs. Enjoy!
Dipti

Sabudana khichidi

Satya and I are very much fond of a maharashtrian specialty called as sabudana khichidi. Made from sago trees, sabudana is a great source of carbohydrate, with trace amounts of other nutrients. Since it is coupled with ingredients like ghee, salt, sugar, lime juice, green chillies, ground peanut powder, cumin seeds, potatoes, cilantro, it is a meal perfect for Fasting. Even when you are fasting, you have a complete meal consisting of carbohydrates (frm sabudana), proteins (from peanuts), fats (from ghee), fiber (from potatoes, cilantro) and vitamin c (from lime juice). It confirms my belief that eating right in scientific way was followed by Indians since a long time. So that is why, during Fasting my mom used make this nutritious and delicious meal and serve it with yoghurt or khamang kakdi (cucumber raita). I remember as kid eating sabudana khichi the entire day. That’s how much I like it.
After my marriage and moving to Chicago I tried making sabudana khichidi. But have never been successful, till now that is. My mom-in-law makes the best sabudana khichidi. And I really look forward to Thursdays when she would cook it. This year, she gave me some sabudana bought at Grahakpeth, Pune. I bought it from there, because sometimes even when you are following the recipe, it doesn’t turn out as it should because the basic ingredient isn’t good. That’s the case with sabudana I had purchased here in Indian store.
So one fine day I decided to put my skills and the new sabudana to test.
2 cups sabudana (we love it so made lots of it)
1 cup roasted peanuts
ghee –4 teaspoons
1 teaspoon cumin
green chillies (per your preference for hotness)
1 medium potato
salt to taste
sugar to taste
cilantro for garnishing
lime juice (optional)
From this recipe you get 5 servings.
Soak the sabudana in little water overnight and remember to cover it.
Grind the peanut and green chillies together coarsely. This gives the sabudana a great taste. Boil the potato, peel it and dice it into cubes. On the soaked sabudana, add the peanut-chillies mixture, cilantro, salt and sugar and mix it well. Heat ghee in a kadhai and when it is sufficiently hot, add the cumin and boiled potato cubes. Mix it well. Add the sabudana mixture to it. Keep mixing this entire mixture so that it doesn’t stick to the kadhai. Donot cover the kadhai. When sabudana turns from opaque to translucent, it is cooked. Garnish with lime juice if you like. Serve with yoghurt or cucumber raita.
Satya and his brother Amol loved it. I think I will make sabunadana khichidi on a regular basis now, it is a complete meal.
Dipti

Surmai kalvan

The one thing i miss over here in USA is fresh fish. Poplate, surmai, ghol, bombil, teesrya, ravas, chimbori, mandali, prawns MMmmmmmm.... the best thing abt fish is that poplate, surmai etc taste different. everyone asks me if i have tried salmon tilapia etc over here. i have tried it, but nothing compares to indian fish spec. when my mom makes curry and fish fry.:)
here till now i have just cooked promfret and prawns. satya and his bro amol love it. (atleast thats what they tell me)
Yesterday me and satya went to the indian grocery store over here. we get excellent quality mutton and kheema there. on my last year's india trip i had learnt how to cook surmai (king fish) frm my mom. So. we decided to try some.. i got 2 pounds of king fish fillets.
here 's the recipe
2 pounds of king fish fillet
ginger-garlic-cilantro-green chilli
soak some dry tamrind in water
turmeric
red chilli powder
salt
oil
garlic for tadka:)
fresh coconut milk
rice flour/ semolina for frying fish
CURRY
grind ginger, garlic, cilantro and green chilli into a paste
marinate the fillets with the ginger paste, tamrind paste, turmeric and red chilli
heat oil in kadai. add garlic to it ad let it cook till brown, add 1 pound of marinated pieces and cover it. after 7 mins, add some coconut milk and cover it again. add some more red chilli powder / tamrind paste per taste
FRY
use the other 1 pound fish fillets for frying. add enough oil to a tava for frying.
dredge fish fillets in the semolina and shake off the extra. fry one side completely and then fry the next side. make sure that the fish is coooked completely.
serve fish with chappatis and rice and enjoy:)
i know that we did
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