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One of my readers requested for recipes with moth beans – matki. These are one of my favorite beans to cook, as they do not require pre-soaking. Sprouting these is also easy compared to any other beans. So I use them frequently. This is one recipe I made up. This is not any traditional recipe, but I decided to name it amti anyway. This was very delicious. I served it with flavored rice and it made a very nice meal. You could even serve this for guests.

Ingredients:
1 cup moth beans (matki) sprouted
1 cup spinach
1/2 cup tomato
1/2 tea spn cumin seeds
1/4 cup onion
Oil
Salt

For paste – Fry a little in oil and grind with 1/4 cup coriander leaves
2 cloves
1″ cinnamon
1 tea spn chopped ginger
1 tea spn chopped garlic
4 red chillies
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tea spn coriander seeds
1/2 tea spn cumin seeds
1/4 tea spn methi seeds

Method:
Heat oil and add cumin seeds. When they start popping, add onion. Fry till they turn brownish. Now add tomato, salt and cook till tomatoes are mushy.
Add chopped chopped spinach, sprouted beans and ground paste. Cook till done.
Serve hot with flavored rice or rotis/chapatis.

Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 30mins

PS: To save some time, cook the beans in pressure cooker before adding it to the dish. Sprouting the beans is optional.

It has been a very long time we ate any fish. So last weekend, I bought a beautiful salmon piece. I normally stay away from this fish due to its strong smell. If at all I buy it, my favorite dish to make is Sig’s Roasted Salmon Steaks with on a bed of potatoes, leeks and fennel. I have tried this so many times now and this alone makes a filling meal. Thanks Sig for a lovely recipe.

This time though, I wanted to try something different. I also wanted it to be a simple recipe. It came out extremely delicious. Curry leaves give a very nice flavor and aroma to the fish, which covers up salmon smell. I used very simple spices that we use for fish fry.

Ingredients:
1 salmon fillet (about 6oz piece)
1 tea spn fresh ginger paste
1 tea spn fresh garlic paste
1 tea spn red chilli powder
7-8 curry leaves
1/2 cup onion
1/2 tea spn tamarind extract
Oil
Salt

Method:
Wash salmon. Apply ginger-garlic, red chilli powder and salt to the fish. (I put everything in a ziploc bag and shake it till the fish is coated well with the spices). Keep it refrigerated for atleast an hour.
Heat oil and add finely chopped onion. Fry till they turn brownish. Add tamarind extract and a little salt (the fish has salt, so add only a little).
Keep the salmon piece on the onions. Add the curry leaves. If required add 1-2 tea spns water. With a spoon, take out some of the onion mixture and put it on salmon piece so that fish absorbs all flavor. Cover and cook.l done. After few minutes very gently turn the fish (only if required).
Serve hot with lemon wedges.

Serves : 1
Preparation time : 20mins

The temperature is dropping very fast here. With the cold weather, we both caught up cold too. Aching throat, runny nose and heavy head was just making things difficult. So after few days of pretty bland food, we started craving for some hot and spicy food. The first thing that came to my mind were idlis. So last weekend, during our ThanksGiving holidays, I made these idlis. We enjoyed them with a steaming hot bowl of sambar.

I hear/read so much about health benefits of brown rice here. I had no clue about this rice when I was back in India. Few months ago, after thinking over it for long, I bought a bag of this rice. I wanted to replace our normal white rice with this. I tried a couple of times and realized we both didn’t like the taste or texture of it. So the remaining bag sat as it is in my pantry. Then I tried Manjula’s brown rice and barley dosa. Do give this recipe a try, it makes very delicious and healthy dosas. Thanks a lot Manjula. So now I knew how to use the remaining brown rice.

While in Bangalore, we used to taste these gingery idlis (I think they were called kadubu or something like that). I was a huge fan. So I added ginger and few green chillies to the batter. It came out amazing.

If you don’t find brown rice or do not want to use it, you can make normal idlis and still make them gingery by adding ginger to the batter.

Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice
1 cup urad dal
1 cup idli rava (or soak 1 cup normal rice and make rava)
2 tbl spns chopped ginger
3 green chillies
Salt

Method:
Soak brown rice and urad dal together for about 6hrs.
Grind them with ginger and green chillies to a very smooth batter. Add the idli rava and grind for just few seconds till it is well mixed with batter (but does not become smooth).
Leave it in a warm place to ferment overnight.
Make idlis. Serve with hot sambar.

Serves : 5-6
Preparation time : 45mins