REAL JAM RECIPES!

This sweet dish is really delicious. Soft banana pieces covered with caramel and sesame seeds is a healthy dessert.

4 bananas, peeled
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp water
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2/3 yogurt or sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp powdered sugar
lemon peel for decoration

1. Slice bananas in pieces 2 inches (5 cm) long, put in a bowl, add lemon juice and roll them in.
2. Combine water and sugar in a small pan and heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes.
3. Pour off lemon juice and dry bananas with a tea-towel. Lay butter-paper on backing sheet and place bananas on it.
4. Sprinkle bananas with caramel. Do it quickly because caramel congeals right away. Strew with sesame seeds and leave for 10 minutes.
5. Mix yogurt, powdered sugar and vanilla essence.
6. Remove bananas from butter-paper, pour upon yogurt and trim with lemon peel.

In my recent article about Indian cuisine I’ve already written about some facts about curry and other Indian spices. It’s quite true, that Hindus have a lot of spices, but some of those herbs and spices enjoy special popularity and make Indian cuisine unique and unforgettable. Spices can make even a usual dish exquisite. They are an inexhaustible source of vitamins and microelements. Besides, Indian spices are also used in medicine and cosmetology; they normalize digestion system, purge blood and improve memory.

Cardamom is a traditional ingredient of curry. You can buy it in a pod (it must be light green, dark-brown or beige and fuzzy) and grind seeds, but they lose aroma soon.

Asafetida has a specific smell, that’s why it’s used in small amount. Goes well together with chicken.

Chana dal looks like small yellow peas. It’s used as adhesion agent in Indian cuisine.

Chick-pea is hard goldish peas, that has a rich nut taste. It suits perfectly for curry and goulash. Dried chick-pea needs soaking for 6-7 hours (potted one doesn’t require prior soaking).

Cinnamon sticks are made from pressed rolled bark of an evergreen tree, growing in India. Cinnamon is a good flavor not only for pastry and desserts, but also for meat dishes.

Sesame seeds are small and pointed. They impart distinguishing sweet and hot taste relish to food and go well with other spices.

Fragrant cloves do the best for rice and sabja (basil seeds).

Black onion seeds look like onion seeds. They improve digestion.

Small brown fenugreek seeds are very often used in curry and different piquant mixtures.

Curry has various components depending on cook, region and traditions. Usually it consists of turmeric, pepper, sesame, coriander, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom and chili powder. According to proportions curry can be very hot or a little spicy.

Black mustards seeds are smaller then usual mustard. The more you fry them, the hotter they are.

Garam masala is very popular in India. This flavor is highly fragrant. Garam masala consists of sesame, coriander, cardamom and black pepper. In contrast with curry powder this spice is to add when the dish is almost cooked or after cooking.

Cayenne pepper is very poignant. Use it in minimal amount.

Ghee is made by dint of heating butter until evaporation of all water, when refined butter sinks to bottom. The left grease can be heated to high temperatures without being burnt.

Ginger is one of the first Indian spices widespread in western lands. Its fragrance is a bit pungent, but freshening. Fresh ginger root should be smooth and plump. Don’t store it more than a month.

Tamarind is a pod flesh of a tropical tree, that we usually buy as paste or dry mixture. It has dewy sour taste and dark brown color. Tamarind is commonly get soaked in hot water before usage. Sourish water is used then for chutney, curry or other courses.

Fresh turmeric root looks like ginger root, but its pulp has a bright orange color. It maintains its color when grinded or dried. Turmeric imparts warm spicy relish to dishes.

Black salt is mined in India and it has almost violet color. It has a specific aroma of bad egg, in spite of this black salt is used as a laxative and digestive aid.

 It’s a very easy and tasty chutney recipe – try it!

1 mango, peeled and diced
1 tsp ghee or butter
1 red chili pepper, sliced
1 clove garlic, grated
pinch of salt and sugar
curry, oil and apple vinegar to taste

1. Fry mango flesh for some minutes in a pan with butter. Add chili pepper and garlic.
2. Allow it cool, add salt, sugar curry oil and vinegar and make a smooth puree in a blender.

Chutney is Indian dressing, which is made from fruits or vegetables with spices and vinegar. It should be smooth and tender. Besides, I’ve heard it must draw for a couple of weeks to have richer taste, but it’s not obligatory to my mind.

1 cup dried coconut, grated
1 tsp urad dal
3 chilies
1 tsp yogurt
2 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp oil
salt

1. Heat oil over medium heat. Fry coconut and urad dal until coconut is light golden.
2. Place in blender with spices and grind coarsely.

Pakora is vegetables fried in dough. You can use for pakora almost all the veggies, just cut them in equal pieces so that they are cooked at one time. I usually serve pakora as a single dish, with or without chutney.

1 ½ cup besan
3 onions, sliced
1 large potato, finely sliced
1 tbsp ginger, grated
4 green chilies, sliced
1 tsp chili powder
1 bunch cilantro (coriander), chopped
3 tbsp ghee or butter
pinch of soda and salt
oil

1. Stir 1 tbsp ghee with soda, until mixture bubbles. Combine with besan, ginger, chili powder, salt and ghee and add enough water to get thick dough.
2. Add vegetables and cilantro and mix well. Heat oil in a big saucepan to 180 C.
3. Scoop dough with a spoon (moistening spoon in hot water) and put into a pan. Fry until goldish.
4. Put pakoras on the rack to let grease flow down. Serve up with coconut chutney or tomato dressing.

This is another indian tomato dressing, which contains less components and is more quickly to cook.

2 cups oil or yogurt
1 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon asafoetida
2 tomatoes

Combine all ingredients in blender and dress the salad.

Alupatra is a variety of samosa with potato filling. Once I’ve tasted it, I understood why it’s one of the most popular Indian dishes nowadays. You can add also some fresh panir cheese for diversity.

4 potatoes
2 tbsp grated coconut
2 tsp ginger, grated
2 pods hot pepper, sliced
1 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
2 cups wheat flour
2 tsp sugar
1 ½ tsp salt
2 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp garam-masala
½ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp red Cayenne pepper
½ cup water
2 tsp ghee butter
ghee or oil for flying-up in deep fat

1. First of all make a filling. Boil potatoes in their jackets and peel them. Mash potatoes together with grated coconut, all spices, hot pepper, sugar and 1 teaspoon salt.
2. Combine flour, turmeric, Cayenne pepper and ½ teaspoon salt in a big bowl. Rub ghee into flour. Pour in water and make dough. The dough must be tender and springy.
3. Roll out dough in shape of rectangular flat cake 3 mm thick. Place evenly potato blend on top. Collar dough.
4. Slice the roll: the slices should be ½ inch (1 cm) thick.
5. Heat ghee or oil in a deep-fryer or deep pan. Immerse slices into the fryer and cook 3-5 minutes until goldish color.

Today I want to say some words about Indian appetizers and snacks. They consist of many ingredients, such as potato, onion, spinach, chili, and can be called by right vegetarian dishes; they are cooked in rich spices and look very decorative. Indian appetizers can be served as a main dish or an addition to other courses. They will perfectly suit you if you want to snack between dinner and supper. I like to cook it for my children because they always want to filch something dainty from the kitchen. They are simply enraptured with these fragrant snacks; in my turn I’m glad to offer them more than a usual sandwich or even worse harmful chips.

A lot of Indian snacks are taken with chutney and tea. Some of them, for example pakora and seeval, can be cooked right away; samosa and kachori take more time, but no sooner you taste it than you forget a long cooking process at one stroke.

Many appetizers of Indian cuisine cannot be done without ghee, anyway I usually use it for frying-up. Once I tried to replace it with vegetable oil, but I’ve drawn a conclusion that snacks with ghee have much more exquisite taste.

Another component commonly used for Indian snacks is chickpea flour (also known as gram flour or besan). It has a special taste, and it’s easy to find in any oriental grocery.

This salad consists of bean and peas in a tasty marinade. Garam masala contained in the marinade makes it peculiarly delicious.

½ cup bean
2 cups bean-pods, sliced
6 cups cauliflower
1 cup green peas
2 cups oil
1 cup lemon juice
4 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon garam masala

1. Soak beans for 8 hours. Than cook it and pour out water.
2. Stew bean-pods and cauliflower, pour out water.
3. Combine beans with vegetables, add another ingredients and let it pickle for 2-3 hours.

I’ve never met a man who didn’t like tomatoes. This sappy vegetable, rather a berry is ideal for any dish, especially in the form of a dressing.

4 cups water
6 big tomatoes
½ cup butter
½ teaspoon asafoetida
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon rosemary seeds
1 cup flour
8 cups milk
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon turmeric

1. Bring water to a boil, add tomatoes and cook until they are soft.
2. Melt butter in a pan, fry asafoetida, fenugreek seeds and rosemary seeds.
3. Add flour and fry until the mass becomes goldish. Combine with stewed tomatoes, add milk and bring to a boil.
4. Add salt, black pepper and turmeric. Cook for 10-20 minutes.