#PerfectFoodle Recipes - Mango Chilli Rice Paper rolls (with illustrated guide to rolling!)

Anyone who has followed my culinary capers for any significant amount of time will have clued in to my love for Rice Paper rolls. They are so easy to do, allow for advance preparation, last perfectly wrapped in clingfilm and travel very well. Also they can be eaten with the fingers. Coming up with an innovative stuffing was another challenge but in the end the textures of the prawn smothered in spicy sweet mango reduction spiked with chillies and punched up with green onions works perfectly.

Mango Chilli Rice Paper rolls 
Makes 10 rolls, time 40 mins

Ingredients
250g Prawns, cleaned and deveined
1 tsp mustard
Salt
½ cup mango pulp
2-4 Thai Red Chilli, sliced
¼ tsp Lemon juice and zest
1 tsp oil
1 tbsp spring onion
½ tsp chilli oil
1 Pkt Rice paper
Shredded lettuce

Method
Combine lime juice chillies salt and zest mustard and mix add cleaned prawns and toss well. Leave to marinate for 20 mins. Then add mango puree and stir well. Heat oil in a pan add prawn mixture and simmer till prawns are cooked and sauce has dried. To make rolls Dampen rice paper in hot water and lay flat on a smooth surface. Place a little shredded lettuce down one side, top with cooked prawns, drizzle with chilli oil and spring onion. Fold edge of rice paper over the filling, fold sides over and then roll up. Repeat with rest of the rice paper.

Tofu tips, tricks and recipe forTofu and Sprout soup from my Demo at Nature's Basket!

Tofu

While I was demonstrating my Tofu and Sprout soup at the first of Nature’s Basket’s Savor Life series of workshops this Tuesday, I couldn’t help remembering my first experience cooking Tofu. I added it to Thai curry but was unable to get rid of that calcium flavour that tofu inherently carries. I was defeated by that seemingly harmless looking block of tofu and convinced myself that cooking tofu at home was risky business I will never attempt again. Until I tasted the Clay pot braised bean curd with chilli and mushrooms at China House. The succulent chunks of tofu, slightly crispy on the outside, meltingly soft on the inside in their caramelly spicy savoury sauce… awakened me to the potential of tofu.

A little research (thanks to the www) and I figured out where I was going wrong but before that let me run you through a primer on tofu. Called Tofu in Japanese, doufu in Chinese and bean curd in general, tofu is an ingredient that originated in China through a process that is about 5000 years old. Tofu is basically soymilk curd made by coagulating soy milk (much like cheese or paneer) in which the resulting curd is pressed into blocks. Tofu is celebrated for the health benefits it imparts; a great source of high-quality protein, rich in B-vitamins, iron and an excellent source of calcium. Research has also found that people with diets high in soy have significantly lower rates of heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer (breast, colon and prostrate) and fewer menopausal symptoms thanks to disease protecting qualities derived from "isoflavones" found in the soy based foods.

So it’s not surprising that this relative newcomer to the Indian Kitchen, that is now widely available all over the city, is used as a healthy substitute for other ingredients such as paneer in Indian dishes and cheese in Italian ones. But the fact is (and I have concluded this after much trial and error) tofu can be savored for
itself.

There are several types of Tofu available, your selection will depend on the dish you are making. Firm tofu is solid, holding up well in stir fry dishes, soups, or on the grill – good for anything that requires rigorous cooking. Soft tofu is best used in recipes that where it is added as is - oriental soups, or dishes that require minimal cooking - because it is delicate and will fall apart easily. Silken tofu is the softest option available with a creamy, custard-like product texture that works best in pureed or blended dishes like dips, dressings, sauces and desserts. Rule of thumb I use when a recipe does not specify type is to use firm Tofu.

When buying Tofu keep in mind it is perishable, so buy only as much as you need, check expiration dates and avoid damaged or puffy packets. On opening check that it is not moldy, filmy to the touch, smelling or tasting sour, sharp, or biting. Store leftover, uncooked tofu covered with fresh water and change the water daily to keep it fresh. (I freeze extras in an airtight bag or container.). Use open Tofu within
2-3 days. Freezing is another way to both store and dry out tofu (It will turn yellow but will become white again on thawing.) Freezing changes tofu's texture, toughening it and the subsequent thawing makes it more, chewy and absorbent so it soaks up marinades and sauces better. To thaw tofu quickly, microwave on a paper towel or boil for a few minutes otherwise leave out in a colander under a weight.

Cooking with tofu is easy, with little flavor of its own, like a sponge, it will pick up the flavors of whatever ingredients it is cooked with. Mash, blend, whip, grate, grind, crumble, marinate, simmer, steam, bake, broil, sauté, barbecu, fry, you can do anything you want to Tofu. The key, to cooking it right is in its handling. Drain it well, marinate it and seal in flavours before adding it to a dish

What I was doing wrong earlier was opening the packet, draining, chopping and adding it to my dish like I would paneer. What I should have been doing was discarding the liquid and draining or pressing the tofu. (To remove any residual calcium flavor, I go one step further, rinsing tofu with fresh water). Then either leave tofu to drain in a colander or wrap in a clean absorbent dish towel and weigh down for about 30 minutes. I find this method prepares tofu best for it absorbing the falvours from marinades.

Marinating tofu is the best way to flavor it. Again if a recipe instructs you to marinate tofu without specifying texture, I recommend using a regular firm or extra-firm tofu. When your marinade is thin, you need only to quickly dip the tofu in it for it to be fully absorbed but with thicker marinades you might have to leave it in for several hours or overnight for full absorption. If marinating for less than an hour, leave at room temperature turning occasionally, however for longer periods place in a tightly-covered container in the refrigerator to prevent spoilage.

Tofu acts like a sponge as I said earlier literally. Initially I would go through the time and effort of draining and marinating and still find flavors lacking after I added it to my dishes, especially soups or stocks. Because the tofu "sponge" absorbed any liquid, in this case it drastically diluted the flavours from the marinade and returning the tofu's firmness to its original state. The trick around this is to "lock-in" the flavor. Once marinated, strain out, lightly pan fry or
broil and add to dish.

I know this might sound like a lot of trouble to make an ingredient palatable but there is no excuse for eating boring food. Introduce tofu to your table, not as a fake meat or cheese but as a valued ingredient that tastes good and is good for you!

Tofu and Sprout soup
This recipe is anchored on the flavour of pure vegetables. Bits of Tofu add texture and sprouts offer healthy crunch and fortification.
Serves 4-6
Time 45 mins
1 tbsp olive oil
1 c carrot diced
1 c onion diced
1 c white gourd diced
1 tsp ginger grated
1 ½ l homemade dal, vegetable or chicken stock
2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs
1 cup sprouts
1 cup tofu diced
Sliced lemon
Over moderate heat, cook all vegetables in the olive oil until soft. Add stock, ginger, bay leaf and tofu. Bring to a boil. Taste for seasoning. Ladle into soup bowls or mugs, top with herbs, a handful of sprouts and a slice of lemon and serve.
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Links and GYAN
Tofu is available all over Mumbai, Nature's Basket carries a large seection. Other recips with Tofu - Colorful marinated Tofu stir fry
For those of you that havebeen writing to say you wished you could have come,
16th Feb 2010 (Tuesday) I will be a Natures Basket Warden Road between 05:30 – 07:30 PM
20th Feb 2010 (Saturday) I will be at Natures Basket Bandra between 01:30 – 03:30 PM.

Pez - reaserch roundup

A story on Pez written by me was published in the Saturday (29 June) edition of Times of India, Goa.

In it I comment on how I found my perfect bowl of pez masquerading as porridge on the distant island of Singapore a few years ago!

Researching this article was fun. I already knew that Pez/ Kanji/ Rice porridge is a part of many cuisines around India as well as the world, but to verify that I sent out a mail to friends asking for a little help.

"I am working on an article on rice gruel/porridge, that is available in a variety of cuisines Indian as well at international. Called Pez/pej/ Kanji/Porrige it is a dish in which rice is cooked in lots of water and can be served with a variety of condiments. Does this sound like something you have come across in your cuisine? Would love any and all info. Recipes would be awesome!"

Friends were more than generous with their replies and my 750 word limit ould not encompass them all but here is a roundup.

Apolina Fos "We in Bassein have a rice porridge called 'kaneri'. It is had every morning as a mid-morning drink around 10am. Those working in the fields have their quota delivered. Rice is coarsely ground (even coarser than semolina). The rice is of course ground in the flour mill. Water is boiled, salted and the rice meal added to the boiling water. A little sugar is added and a little milk is stirred in after the kaneri has cooked. Kaneri like a thin soup and is served in a plate, on its own or with pickles..."

Deccanheffalump of the awesome Pune based blog "The Cooks Cottage" too time out to tell me about the medicinal pez her guru tuned her into, "When I was in Amritsar I was given a recipe by my music master (hindustani zlassical) and a local astrologer for a rice gruel recipe for dysentery/diarhhoea. In a teaspoon of ghee ( yes ghee!) fry some jeera. Add soaked rice and fry for a bit. Now add plenty of water i.e. for a tablespoon of rice about 2 cups of water. Let it cook till thick and soft. Serve. You can also add 1/2 tsp anar dana to this while cooking. I suppose this might be a punjabi recipe? The thing is it works! I gave it everyday to a guest who had viral gastro enteritis and who could keep nothing down. Well this stuck. Tastes good too."

My friend Clarajoy Alookaran of Mediascope, wrote in to share the recipe for the version, generally made for the infirm, in Kerela.

"Wash rice and dry it under the fan/sun. Dry roast the rice on low flame stirring all the while until the rice changes its colour or until you get a fragrance of the roasted rice. Allow to cool. Grind to a coarse powder in the mixer. Take 2 to 3 heaped table spoons of the rice powder, add a lot of water and keep it on low flame, stirring occasionally to a pouring consistency until the rice is soft, add salt and grated coconut mix well. Serve hot with a teaspoon of pure ghee & roasted papad."

Ammini Ramchandran, author of the stellar book "Grains greens and grated coconuts "I published an article on the topic in 2002 in the magazine Flavor & Fortune.
I have it on web site also. Here is a link to the article Hope it will be
of some help.

My food writer friend Marryam wrote " In goa, pez was the farmer's meal between breakfast and lunch, eaten with either water pickle (preserved raw mango in brine) or a piece of fried/dried fish. In Kashmir, a similar thing is called dodh vegra and is a kind of kindergarten pap eaten when someone is ill. It has none of the additions that you have asked about in the Muslim tradition: it is the opposite end of the spectrum from a gourmet dish, so by definition, is eaten when you are too ill to put down meat, spices etc.

Susan Ji young Park wrote to say that the The Book Of Rai forum has a thread on this subject.

I also caught up with a few people on Gmail chat and here is a summary of that exercise:

Mitali Kar checked with her mom and reverted that there is lei or leyee which is what in which rice and water are over boiled and created into a mishmash. This is popular in villages and the the dish is rich because the water gets absorbed by the rice. It can be had during lunch or dinner as it is highly nutritious. For additional flavour one you can add carrots, cauliflowers, beans, potatoes, turmeric and salt.



While I was working on the story, I had rice porridge every way possible. Not because I was trying recipes, but because I was assailed with cravings for the stuff every time I sat down to write! And it's usually the case, when I am engrossed in writing on a subject, I just have to eat what I am writing about which can get complicated at times. The picture above is of a concoction that turned out particularly well. It had a beaten egg added like with Chinese soups, sliced sausages and I ate it with some of the green pepper pickle I had made last year.

Stop Press! Fresh Fish!

Celebrating the twofold joys of living in Mumbai and working from home - in no specific order!

Munna Chauhan, the fish seller proudly displaying his wares.

Is there anywhere else in the world that one can buy fish at one's doorstep?

Every second day or so the watchman will buzz us on the intercom. Machii Chahiye? So, today while I am supposed to be finishing a story on the A-Z of Aphrodisiacs for BTW magazine, I am instead slacking off!

First to buy fish, then to decide how I want to cook it for lunch, then because I realise I need to order some vegetables because I do not have eveything I need to make the recipe I want to cook, and then to actually cook the damn thing.

Why do I need to cook fish now? Well; because there are no leftovers from dinner that I can rework into a meal for lunch, because although my son loves fish, my husband is not very fond of it so fish at dinner means making an entire third so we are all happy, a prospect too challenging with the many things I am already juggling at the moment due to the a new baby in the house, because JUST LOOK AT THE WHOPPER I BOUGHT!

I am pretty new to fish in my kitchen so at the moment I can't tell you more thant the fact that the above is a Halwa fish (I have not been able to figure out what it is called in English yet) and I paid Rs. 550 for it. Cleaned and cut into fillets, it gave me enough for 5 -6 meals.

I had been hankering after a dish I had eaten years on a work trip years ago in Aukland, New Zealand. I know it was a whole steamed fish in a thin watery soya sauce with los of spring onions on it, but I cant recall it's name or the name of the restaurant (this was before I became obsessed with food) but I recall the chinese restaurant we had it at was next door to the Air new Zealand office because they were the ones hosting us at the meal.

Well I googled Stemed fish + Kylie Kwong, figuring if there was any chance of me finding a dish such as this it would be a recipe of hers and right enough google did its thing and threw back -Steamed Fish Fillets with Ginger and Scallions.

I now knew what I wanted to do with my fish for lunch but scanning through the recipe I found I was missing a few ingredients.

The scallions were taken care of with a quick call to the corner vegetable seller, who had them delivered to me in minutes, but i was fresh out of rice vinegar/sherry, chinese cabbage and peanut oil. I only had some grape vinegar mom brought me from Turkey and an iceberg lettuce in the fridge.

I decided to wing it.

Steamed Fish Fillet with Ginger and Scallions

4 servings

I cut down the vinegar to 1 tbsp to be on the safe side and Kylie's technique of first steaming the fillets awhile, then adding the cabbage leaf sections to the same steamer basket actually worked out brilliantly with the iceberg because the outer leaves absorbed some of the juices from the fish and the inner leaves stayed crunchy. I also finished with gingelly, til or cold pressed sesame oil in place of thepeanut oil.

2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry
Four 3 1/2-ounce firm white-fleshed fish fillets, such as King George whiting, cod, barramundi or mahi-mahi
2-inch piece peeled ginger root, cut into julienne (very thin strips)
1 Chinese cabbage leaf
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup scallions, white and tender green parts only, cut lengthwise into very thin strips
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
1/4 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, for garnish
Pinch white ground pepper, for garnish

Combine the soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl; set aside.

Combine the water and wine or sherry in a measuring cup.



Place the fish in a shallow heatproof bowl that will fit inside a steamer basket. Pour the water-wine/sherry mixture over the fish, then sprinkle the fillets with half of the ginger. Place the bowl inside the steamer and position over a deep saucepan or wok containing a few inches of boiling water. Cover and steam for 5 to 6 minutes.



Cut the cabbage leaf crosswise into 4 sections and slip them inside the steamer, around the edges of the bowl containing the fish. Cover and steam for 2 to 3 minutes or until the cabbage has warmed through and the fish is opaque. (If the fish is still translucent, cook for another minute or so.)

Arrange the hot cabbage leaf sections on a platter. Use a wide spatula to carefully place the fish on top of the cabbage. Pour any liquid left in the bowl over the fish, sprinkle with sugar and drizzle with the soy sauce mixture, then sprinkle with the remaining ginger and half the scallions.



Heat the peanut oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat until it is moderately hot, then carefully pour over the fish. Sprinkle the fish with the remaining scallions and the cilantro and pepper. Serve immediately.

We had the steamed fish over rice with greens sauteed in Garlic after which I resisted the call of my bed and got back to my computer to finish E - Z of the artile I had left to go. Unfortunately I did not get past F because I then got to writing up this blog entry!