Appetizers : Tandoori Vegetables

This is as easy as tandoori can get, it's a quicker and healthier way of doing it too!

You can use any vegetable that's in your fridge and adjust the amounts of vegetables according to the number of people you are making it for.

You need:

• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Capsicums
• Mushrooms
• Zucchini
• Tofu (soya paneer)

• Steamed/ Boiled Potatoes
• Steamed/ Boiled Carrots
• Steamed/ Boiled Arabi / Colocasia
• Steamed/ Boiled Sweet Potatoes
• Steamed Okra/ Lady's Finger/ Bhindi
• Steamed Cauliflower

Anything you like basically.

• A handful of cashews (optional)
• Tandoori Masala (Available as Tandoori 'Chicken' Masala in the stores with a green dot, so it's vegetarian!)
• Salt

Let me explain a few things first before going in to the recipe.

It's always better to steam you vegetables because if you boil them or cook them at a very high temperature you lose out on nutrients. If you don't have a steamer, go buy one or you can buy a vessel with holes at the bottom and put that in a slightly bigger vessel with water. Make sure the water doesn't boil up to the vegetables because then it's as good as boiling them. An even easier thing to do is put it all in cooker vessels and put it in the pressure cooker with water just as you would normally pressure cook rice or daal. Just omit the weight/ whistle when you cover it. Use a steel glass to cover the top and let it cook away and remember every vegetable takes it's own time to cook. So make sure you start steaming vegetables that take longer first and then add in the rest.

The steamer is use is pictured here.

So to start with the tandoori, steam vegetables that you're supposed to and those that can be eaten raw stay raw.

This next step is totally avoidable if you like. It's just to give the vegetables a softer coating so

they become crisper. I've tried it without the cashew and it works fine. Also cashew's are not fattening, at least not as much as curd, which is used as a marinade otherwise, so just give the seed a chance (yes it is a seed).

Put the cashews in a blender with very little water and blend it in to a fine paste.

Add 2 spoons of tandoori masala for every 4 spoons of cashew paste and a little salt. You can add more masala if you like it spicy. Add water and make it to a thick gravy consistency.

If you're not using cashew, use little bit of water with the tandoori masala and salt to make a paste.

Cut all the vegetables in chunks of two inches and de-seed the tomatoes.

In a big bowl, put all the cut vegetables (steamed and raw) add the paste and mix it well so all the vegetables are coated.

Put this in to/ on your grill or just make it on a tawa/ flat pan. You dont have to put any oil just make sure you don't burn it.

When it's crispy on the top, it's done. Squeeze a lime on top and serve.

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Salad Series: Easy Guacamole

Vegan cooking is not so different from cooking non vegan except that you omit a few ingredients (those that come from animals). Indian cooking is easily vegan when you avoid the ghee, paneer, milk, curd and so on.

These are a series of non-fattening, gluten (wheat) free, soy free - vegan recipes many of which will be non-sweet also. (specially for my friend Divya)

I shall begin with a Salad Series with Guacamole (gwahk-ah-mol-lee) my most favourite salad. It is originally a Mexican recipe used as a dip or on top of tacos or even inside tortillas in many different dishes. I like it so much that I have had it at least once a week for 15 weeks in a row last year.

It's addictive and the problem is the avocado is not as nice in Bombay as it is in the south of India where it is grown. It's easier and cheaper to find in say Bangalore, Chennai or Pondicherry.

For the Guacamole you need:

1 Ripe Avocado

1/2 a red or white onion

1 small tomato

1 green chilli (the spicy variety if you like)

salt

1 small lime

Coriander to garnish

Start with the onion, tomato and chilly. Chop everything fine and cut the lime in half. Then move on to the avocado.

The avocado has to be ripe. The way to know is if you press it slightly it gives in. and usually it starts showing dark brown patches and can be fully brown sometimes. If it is still very green and very hard do not cut it. Just wrap it in some newspaper with some bananas and keep checking it everyday.

To cut the avocado, hold it length wise -the place where it would usually be attached to the plant up and the bottom of the fruit should be below. Cut it all the way round starting from the middle of the fruit and keep going down till you come a full circle. The knife should get through the skin with some difficulty and then easily go in until it reaches a seed in the middle of the fruit. Don't try cutting the seed. Just go all the way round the fruit. Now you have two halves of the fruit stuck together. Gently twist the halves and pull them apart. You will have something that looks like this picture below.

Remove the pit with a spoon and then using a knife cut length wise and then breadth wise of the light green flesh of the avocado without cutting the skin. Do this for the other half also and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Sometimes the avocados have parts that have become over ripe and are blackish almost. I usually don't mind using them unless they look really bad.

Once you have it all scooped out, mash it with a fork till it is less chunky. Add in the chopped onion, tomato, chilli, salt, lime juice and coriander. Mix it well and eat it immediately - for two reasons one is that it's so good (!) and two is that avocado is best eaten when it is fresh. It can't really be stored once it is cut because it tends to become black quickly. It will look like a green mash with bursts of red and green.

The avocado has no particular taste when it is ripe, it takes on the flavour of whatever you add in. When unripe it is bitter. You can modify this recipe to your taste and add red chilli flakes or powder instead of the green or add half a clove of garlic even. The original recipe of guacamole also calls for sour cream which is totally unnecessary I think. Why spoil a perfectly natural food with sour cream?!

You could have it as it is or use it as a dip with khakra, roasted rotis, chips, carrots, cucumbers...

Bonus: How to grow your own avocado!

If you are as enthusiastic as me, save the seed and try growing it. I tried with four and now I have four plants growing and I can't wait for them to bear fruit. Takes at least 4 years I hear. Sigh!

So this is how you sprout the seed. First you have to figure out which side will sprout. If you feel the seed you will see that it is two halves under the brown skin. On one side there will be a slight discolouration and thats where it will sprout. That part had to be slightly immersed in water not drowned.

Take four toothpicks and put it into the seed on four sides with the discoloured side down. Place it on top of a small bowl so that the toothpicks hold the seed up. Put water into it and only cover half an inch of the bottom of the seed like this picture below.

This will take at least two weeks to sprout. Keep it in a warm dark place and let it do it's thing. I changed the water everyday. Slowly the seed will begin to split from below and a small root will emerge.

Keep changing the water and eventually you will need to change the bowl to accommodate the growing root and stem which springs upwards eventually. The picture on the right has the root jutting out and the stem coming out of the left of the seed.

This sprouting doesn't work all the time. I think I got lucky but I also had some seeds which didn't do anything. Keep trying and don't give up on the seed.

Let it keep sprouting till it looks like what it is below.

This is when it is ready to plant. Avocado is a tree so make sure you have enough place to let it grow.

Ok I digressed, this was supposed to be about the guacamole but when you are so addicted to it (as I am) the next best thing is to grow your own avacados!

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