A Corn(y) Affair

During the monsoons, one craves for different kinds of food: chai, pakodas/bhajiyas, hot soups, and a favourite of most, corn. Corn can be had in many forms; boiled or roasted with different seasonings like salt, pepper, chaat masala, red chilli powder, lemon juice to name a few but each person has their preference so it can be pretty much anything. Corn is used in a lot of cuisines for different dishes, salads, soups, fritters, chaats, baked dishes, pasta, pizzas, pancakes, in rice dishes , the options are endless.

With the local bhutta (roasted corn cobs) walas by the sea side diminished over the past few years luckily there are a lot of places in the city corn can be found in different disguises. The simplest form of corn can be found in movie theatres and malls at the boiled corn stalls that serve fresh hot boiled corn with different seasoning as per your choice. Soam serves delicious corn khichdi and corn panki. All time favourites of a lot of Mumbai-ites, New Yorker and Cream Center offer amazing creamed corn enchiladas, corn-capsicum quesadillas and cheese corn balls. Samrat at Churchgate have chatpatta corn bhel for the corn lovers. Blue waters at Oshiwara serves one of the best tandoori makkai (corn) in the city.

Corn is such a thing that can be had as a light snack or be used to make a hearty filling dish depending on the time of the day or one’s mood. It tastes equally good hot or cold and goes well with a lot of other ingredients. Here is one of my all time favourite recipe I came up with when I was in one of my experimenting moods and was looking for a fresh change from the usual. It was also featured in Me magazine a couple of months back.

Tri Coloured Corn Soup

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
2 ears American Corn
1 small Red Bell Pepper
1/4th Cup Spring onion leaves
4 Cups Vegetable/Rice/Noodle Stock
Salt to taste

Method:
De-seed bell pepper and cut into squares, place in baking tray, drizzle with olive oil. Roast in a preheated oven at 150 degrees C for about 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile boil the corn and remove the kernels. Keep a handful aside.
Puree the rest till completely smooth adding stock as required.
Take the corn puree in a thick bottomed sauce pan and add stock to get desired consistency. Add salt to taste and boil.

While the soup is boiling. Make a paste of the roasted bell pepper. Keep aside.

Make a paste of the spring onion leaves and keep aside.

Remove 2/3rd and keep aside in a bowl or sauce pan.

In the remaining 1/3rd add the bell pepper paste and mix well and let it simmer for few minutes. Keep aside.

Take another 1/3rd in the sauce pan and mix the spring onion paste and simmer for few minutes.

Can be served in 3 small glasses as shots or small bowls in a platter.

Dumpling Noodle Soup

This is a wonderful time to be in Bombay. The weather is just right… cool enough to encourage walks during the day and open air events in the evenings… to wave away that cold salad and give in to temptation “just this once” with that steaming bowl of cheesy pasta…

And after a marathon week of planning, cooking for and executing of my sons birthday party, with today being a sunday, I was hankering after one of my favourite meals, Chicken Dumpling soup. I like dishes that have lots of bites of goodness in them that come together into "A perfect bite" and this soup, steaming hot, with silky pasta, crunchy vegetables and tender dumplings, topped with fried shallots, chillies, chilli paste, chilli and sesame oil and shredded lettuce is a favourite.

I have many ways of making noodle soup. I do a chicken version of the vietnamese pho, a variation inspired by Kylie Kwongs White-cooked chicken with soy & ginger dressing, and even a maggi soup. The unifying factor in them all is that they start with a good stock as a base in which the noodles are cooked and are served with a variety of toppings.

Chicken Dumpling Soup

First prepare your vegetables

This time I used carrots, cauliflower, green beans, pak choy, chinese cabbage and snow peas. Layer them in that exact order (with stems from pak choy and cabbage going in before the leaves) in a large holed collander so the steam cooks the tougher stuff first.

Now get your stock base going
4 lts water or homemade stock
4 onions cut in six wedges each
12 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 cups ginger slices
3 tbsp Massells chicken stock powder OR 4 cubes of any stock
Salt to taste
1/3 cup oil

Heat the oil in a large stockpot and add the onions, garlic and ginger. Stirfry briskly until the edges of everything is well browned. Add the water or the stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse. Add stock powder if using water, stir well, give it a minute to dissolve. Leave on simmer. Place prearranged collander of vegetables on top of the stockpot and cover with a lid.

Now make the dumplings

500 gms minced meat ( I use chicken mince)
1 egg
2 tbsp garlic, chopped fine
2 tbsp chopped herbs (green coriander, garlic or onion)
1 tsp chilli paste (optional)
1 tbsp corn flour
salt to taste

Combine everything in a large bowl and mix well. Your vegetables should be nicely done by now. Set collander aside and bring soup to a boil again. When it is boiling briskly, start dropping spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture shaped into rough rounds in. Your dumplings will sink at first but rise up again as they get cooked. When you have gone through all the mixture, give the dumpling 2 - 3 mins more to cook and then strain out and reserve in a bowl.

Add 250 gms of noodles to the boiling stock. Allow to cook untill soft and silky and add dumplings back into pot. Serve into individual bowls ensuring a bit of everything goes into each bowl.

Place a platter of condiments on the table so diners can tweak their servings to taste.

Hot - Lee Kum Kee Chui Chow Chilli paste - a tongue twister of a name but what a kick! Just dole out a bowl full.

Also finely minced fresh red or green chillies

Sour - Pickled cucumbers - Peel two cucumbers and slice in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds and eat with a bit of salt, slice white parts up thinly, salt and leave to drain for 15 mins. Squeeze to remove juices and place in a bowl. Add 1 - 2 finely minced chillies if you want (I love a little heat), 1/2 tsp sugar and 1/2 cup of any natural vinegar (not synthetic). Adjust salt and chill untill eating time! TIP: if you have pickers around (those species that pick through everything while you are cooking so you have nothing left) then do 4 times as much. Heck do more anyway these are great in the summer.

Also Lemon

Salty - Chillies and fish sauce - This is a given with fried rice in Thailand, smash as many chillies as you can handle to a pulp in a mortar, add 1/2 cup fish sauce and allow to stand untill eating. You can also add fried onions to this and make it a chutney. I like it with my khichdi and dal rice. If you do not have fish sauce add dried jawla and salt and crush or just add salt.

Sweet - Honey Chilli sauce - the Thai one that is readily available.

Herby- finely minced fresh basil, mint and/or coriander.

Crunch - shredded iceberg lettuce, blanched shredded cabbage and or bean sprouts.