In kitchen 19

Flour & Potato dough

Take 2 boiled potatoes,
Take a large bowl of wheat flour,
Salt,
Turmeric powder,
Coriander leaves,
Ajwain (Carom seeds),
Mash and mix well with water to make a hard dough.
IMPORTANT: keep the dough for 15 mins. and knead again.

This dough can be used to make puri or parantha.

Chilli Pepper Spray in India

Take 2 spoons of chilli powder (lal mirch), 2 spoons of pepper powder (kali mirch).
Take half a glass of refined oil.
Take one bottle of nail polish remover (it functions as a preservative).
Mix these ingredients well.
Filter the coarse grains by pouring the mix through a sieve (chai ki chalni).
Take an empty bottle of Dabur Gulabari or Suthol spray.

Make chilli pepper spray yourself in India

Fill it up. Your chilli-pepper spray is ready.
Carry the bottle in your purse.

NOTE: keep away from children

This is for a girl/woman's self defence. The spray does not harm the eyes permanently. Chilli creates irritation and pepper creates fogginess only for a few minutes. Run away and call for help/complain.

In kitchen 18

Sandesh

The Bengali sweet made easy and nutritious -

Take 500gms of cottage cheese, paneer from the market (Amul malai paneer would be fine, or Verka in the north of India)

Mash it all for 10 mins.

Grind ordinary sugar - 10 tbsp

Mash the mix of sugar and cheese for 10 mins. It will be a pulp.

Heat it for 2 mins in a non-stick fry-pan on low flame on the small burner of the gas-stove. Do not let it dry up. It should not become yellow.

Mash again for 5 mins and then make small balls.

Keep it in the refrigerator to harden.

NOTE: Cheese is all of milk protein. Sandesh is absolutely nutritious, more now if you make it at home. Just remember it spoils in a couple of days - becomes sour so finish it off in 2 days.

in kitchen 17

Chocolate Cake

Use whole wheat flour (not maida) -

Take 2 teacups of flour,
Mix it with 5 spoons of cocoa powder and 1 spoon baking powder and keep aside.
Take a hard anodized cookware and heat it. Remove from the stove in a minute.
Drop a 100gm butter into the cookware and immediately add one cup of sugar and stir.
Add 5 eggs to the mixture of butter and sugar and stir.
Add 4 drops of vanilla essence.

Slowly add the flour mix to the butter mix.

Take a baking pan, smear it with ghee and lace it with butter paper (parchment paper). The butter paper should be bigger than the pan.
Pour the cake mix in it and cook.*

Optional:
1) You can add coffee powder, about 4 gms, to the flour mix;
2) You can add nuts (walnuts taste best with coffee);
3) You can add pieces of chocolate or coffee flavoured biscuits (not cream-biscuits)

*Cooking depends on the kind of oven or stove you are using. For cooking instructions it is best to follow the oven's user manual.

in kitchen 16

 Indian (a new type of) French Toast:

Heat a non-stick frying pan with ghee
Sprinkle salt and chopped onions on it
Crack two eggs and drop their contents straight on the ghee
Take two (or three) slices of bread, tear into pieces and drop on the fluid egg
Immediately cover with the lid of the frying pan
In a minute, turn off the gas. Wait for two minutes.

Shift the half cooked toast onto a plate
Heat the frying pan with ghee again
Shift the toast upside down onto the ghee
Cover with the lid and in a minute turn off the gas.
Wait two minutes before opening the lid and your sizzling new "Indian French Toast" is ready !!

In kitchen 15

Moong Khichdi

An easy way to cook one quick nutritious meal:

Take 1 cup rice and 1 cup moong dal (yellow) in a bowl.

Wash it and pour 1 cup water. Keep aside.

In a pressure cooker, add 1 spoon ghee, salt to taste, half spoon cumin (jeera), 2 spoons soya mini nuggets(optional), heat and stir. Use the big burner.

Add 1 cup water as soon as the ghee is heated.

Add the rice-dal-water mix.

Add a pinch of (packaged) pulao/biryani masala powder (not garam masala) and half spoon of sugar.

Pour 3 cups water into this. Stir and close the lid.

After 2 whistles, turn off the burner.

The exact proportion of rice:dal:water is 1:1:5.

This is suitable for kids, single parents or bachelors. In place of cumin, pieces of onion can also be added. If the masala is hot and spicy, no need to add sugar.

In kitchen 14

Sambhar Dal: for those who already know the basics of cooking it.

Toor dal and a few vegetables.

I usually use the MTR Sambhar masala. It also has cooking instructions.

Some vegetables, such as drumsticks make the sambhar taste excellent, but these are not easily available. Use Okra or ‘bhindi’ instead. The effect is almost the same.

Sweet pumpkin pieces, carrot and brinjals also taste very good in a sanbhar dal.

Boil chunks of vegetables with some salt.

Boil toor dal with sambhar masala.

Heat oil, add mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Add boiled dal and vegetables and pressure cook.

At the end, add melted sugarcane jaggery mixed with tamarind paste. In place of jaggery you can also use enough sugar.

NOTE: You don’t always need to cook dosa or idlis to go with sambhar dal. Just have steamed rice. Sambhar and rice make a nutritious quick lunch at home.