Black Rice Pudding Tartlets

The latest book in my cookery book collection is Patisserie Maison by Richard Bertinet. Leafing through the visual treats and the goldmine of information, I stopped at the page where the rice pudding tartlets stared back at me from leaf-shaped moulds. Where do you even get theeeese?
Made with arborio rice and sweet pastry, I immediately thought of my little stock of black rice left in my pantry. I had thought of making risotto ever since I heard that black rice works out well in that dish. But rice pudding in a tart sounded irresistible! Particularly black rice.

Ready for the oven

Earlier we used to get this rice which is rich in antioxidants from the neighbouring state of Manipur but now farmers in Assam are getting into black rice cultivation as there is more profit in growing this crop. You might be interested in checking out this link.
I made the dough for the sweet pastry and as they rested in the fridge, I went ahead with the  rice pudding. So far I have only made Indian style rice pudding that is called kheer. Made with thickened milk, the flavourings are usually saffron or cardamom. But in this case I first cooked 100 grams of rice in a pressure cooker along with the bit of water that was used to soak the rice. Black rice has a nutty texture and the cooking period is a little longer than regular rice.
The other additions to the pudding apart from milk and sugar were: cream, one scraped vanilla bean, zest of one lemon and one crushed cardamom.
The pastry was rolled out and baked blind. After the shells had cooled down, I spread a tablespoon of apricot jam on the base of the shell. Then I filled them up with the pudding and baked them at 180C for about 25 minutes. By that time a crust had formed on top of the tarts and they looked done.

I couldn't resist taking this picture midway through the baking as the pudding bubbled away in the oven.

The crust on top of the filling.

The recipe in the book uses home-made raspberry jam. A teaspoonful of jam is spread on the base of the tarts before the filling goes in. Since the only jam I have now is an apricot jam, I used it.

This dish was a spur of the moment thing. I had seen rice pudding tarts before but had never made any. The leaf-shaped moulds did it and the twist with black rice was worth it. Every bite was delightful with a hint of vanilla, the lemony zing and cardamom and most of all the fragrance of the rice itself.

Green Mango Chutney

This recipe is almost similar to the one in my last post. But when it's the season of green mangoes, one doesn't look for too many options. Chutney or pickle...these are the first things that come to mind.:)
I just got back from a short trip to Haflong. My last visit there about a month ago was  to vote for the MLA (Member of Legislature) elections. My brother-in-law had contested and this time the results were declared. He won by more than 8000 votes. The oath-taking ceremony is tomorrow.
Due to incessant rain the damage to property in our town and in adjoining areas has been immense.  My hometown is on hilly terrain and landslides have been bad this year. We can only hope that the rain stops.

Fallen tree on the roadside, muddy river and more rain-bearing clouds

But otherwise, taking the road to Haflong has always pleasant. The landscape changes drastically once the first rains come. From November to March, much of the landscape is dry but for the rest of the year, the never-ending green is beautiful!

Every house has a mango tree or two. And at my mother's the tree that has borne fruits ever since I was a child is still going strong. My nephew plucked a bunch of mangoes that I brought back with me. Back home it's the garden-of-plenty as there were many other vegetables and leafy greens that went into a fish stew for my first meal at my mother's.

My nephew holds the greens ( from the brassica family) that we had just picked. In the background are areca nut trees. The small bushes on both sides are a variety of edible clerodendrum, the East Indian Glory Bower. And now to the recipe. Like most of my recipes, this one also does not follow exact measurements. I used 4 green mangoes and the other ingredients were added according to that quantity.

Ingredients:
4 green mangoes
2 dried red chillies broken into bits
3 Indian bay leaves/tejpatta, twisted and torn into halves
Turmeric powder
Salt to taste
Cumin powder
Coriander powder
Ginger powder
Red chilli powder
About 2 cups jaggery, grated
2 tbs mustard oil
3-4 tsp lemon juice
Panch puran also written as panch phoron ( a mix of 5 spices mostly used in our region which includes an equal mix of cumin, mustard, fennel, nigella and fenugreek seeds).
Cumin and coriander seeds used in this recipe were toasted and ground earlier. 

Method: 
Wash the mangoes and peel them. We use mangoes with seeds that are very tender. Dice the flesh and discard the white seeds.
Heat the mustard oil in a pan. As soon as it comes to smoking point, add the panch puran, the bay leaves and the red chillies.
Add the diced mangoes and cook for a couple of minutes.
Now add the rest of the spices and sprinkle a bit of water so that the powdered spices do not burn.
Cook till the mango pieces wilt and turn soft. There is no need to add any water.
Add the grated jaggery. As the jaggery cooks it will look as if there is too much liquid in the dish but it will soon thicken.
When the consistency becomes like a thick sauce, squeeze in the lemon juice, give it a good mix and remove from the flame. 
Once the mixture cools down, transfer the chutney to clean jars.

Mangoes on my tree

This chutney need not be refrigerated. It will last for a couple of weeks.
I like it best as an accompaniment to our flatbreads. With pooris, it's simply delicious! 
Fresh ginger can also be used. There was some ginger powder left in my pantry and I finished it off by adding it to this chutney. Adding another acidic element like lemon juice or even amchoor (dried mango powder) adds more zing to the taste. And if you like it sweeter, you can add more jaggery.

Tomato Chutney With Home-grown Tomatoes

It's mid-May and like every year it's the end of the season for my home-grown tomatoes. And how can I end the season without tomato tok? Tok or ambol is a sweet and sour chutney made of acidic fruits. Mangoes, Indian olives, roselle, jujube berries, elephant apples, jamun, and of course tomatoes are a favourite... depending on the season.
The other evening this was one of the dishes on my table. My mother who is recovering from a cataract operation and my sisters/nieces/nephew came over. I made the usual curries that we are all so fond of but this chutney was special as I used the second last batch from my plants. The last batch will finish in a week's time. We have had copious amounts of rain, wind and some hail. So some of these lovelies look a little scarred.

Ingredients:
15 medium tomatoes, blanched, peeled, eyes removed and roughly chopped
2-3 Indian bay leaves/tejpatta
2 dried red chillies, broken into 3-4 bits
1/2 tsp coarsely ground chilli powder (I used bird's eye chillies that I dried at home)
10 dates, seeds removed and coarsely chopped
10-12 cashew nuts broken into uneven bits
1/2 tsp panch puran ( a mix of five spices used in tempering)
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 quarter tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp tamarind paste from soaked tamarind
2 tbs mustard oil
 

Method:
Heat the mustard oil in a pan. When it comes to smoking point add the panch puran. As soon as the spices sputter, throw in the chilli bits and the bay leaves.
Add the rest of the spices and immediately sprinkle some water so that the spices do not burn.
Add the tomatoes and cook till the liquid is somewhat reduced.

Add the dates and the cashew nuts. Season the chutney with a touch of salt.
Cook till the chutney is done and add the sugar. I used very little sugar but it was enough as the dates were sweet.
Lastly, add the tamarind paste. Give it a good stir and remove the pan from the flame. The consistency of this chutney is like a thick sauce.
Adding tamarind paste gives the chutney more zing. Sometimes I also use soaked dried roselle to tok.

Along with this chutney, these were the other dishes on my table. My nieces love bread so I baked this simple bread topped with sesame seeds. The rest of us had rice with: fish curry with poppy seed paste, chicken curry with lemon grass and coconut milk, fried pork, arhar dal with chunks of teasel gourd, aloo sabji, and tok. The heliconias/lobster claws are from my garden. The plant was a gift from a friend from Bangalore. Padma Rao blogs at Garden Tropics.

For the bread lovers I also made a bowl of tzatziki. For dessert it was a simple chocolate cake and mango trifle.:)

Hyacinth Beans & Pasta Soup

I have been busy spring cleaning. The rain and the wind did not help at all!:( And as I went through my drafts (there are a few of them) I came across this piece written during the height of the hyacinth bean season.
This recipe was inspired by Silvia Colloca's hearty Pasta & Bean Soup. There's an endearing quality about rustic one-pot meals. You do have a variation of the same with a little twist and a little change in the ingredients. So with mature hyacinth bean seeds I decided to create this meal. The only snag was the seeds needed to be skinned. I did it over a couple of days as something or the other was cooking or baking in my kitchen. So the beans were taken care of.

The recipe called for fresh pasta but I used the little stock that I had of store-bought ones. Instead of a chunk of pancetta, I used a chunk of smoked pork and so on. And I didn't really measure everything but went by eye. There are many more herbs added but since I only had coriander (and basil for the garnish) I skipped adding coriander.
Ingredients:
21/2 cups mature hyacinth beans, skinned
Chicken broth
1 cup macaroni, cooked al dente
1/2 cup smoked pork, diced
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped
1/2 cup freshly-made tomato sauce (I had made some earlier and I had left the tomato into chunky bits)
2 potatoes cut into cubes
2 carrots, diced
Grated pepper
Salt to taste
Extra virgin olive oil
A dash of paprika
Grated cheese
Basil for the garnish

Method:
With dried beans, the pre-soaking is necessary. But I used mature beans that were yet to be dried so the soaking was not needed.
Heat water in a large pan and add the beans, potatoes, carrots, smoked pork pieces, one chopped onion and a crushed clove of garlic.
Season with salt and cook till the liquid is reduced by half and the beans are cooked through.
Remove half of the beans to a bowl and mash the bean/potato mixture with the back of a ladle. If you want a finer texture you could use a blender for this. Pour the mashed portion back to the pan.
In another pan, heat some olive oil and fry the onions and garlic.Then add the tomato sauce and the rest of the seasoning. Cook for a few minutes. 
Add the beans and check the seasoning. Make adjustments if that is required.
Add the grated cheese rind and the stock. Simmer on medium flame till it is slightly reduced.
Add the pasta and cook for another 3-4 minutes. 
Before serving, garnish with basil sprigs.
This is a filling soup particularly good during our colder season. That's when hyacinth beans are widely available. 
 

Mawa Cake

Mawa cake

Although I have known about mawa cakes I had never been tempted to make them before. All that changed when I visited Moumita Malla's blog Bongtaste recently. I couldn't wait to get started. Instead of using a muffin mould I used a round tin and I was pretty happy with the way the cake turned out.
Mawa, also known as khoya, is made by boiling milk till it is reduced to 1/4 of its volume. I used nearly 1 litre of full fat milk and kept it on medium flame. It's important to stir the milk constantly so it doesn't stick to the pan. By the time the milk was reduced to the desired quantity it turned into a thick granular paste.

1/2 cup mawa, raisins, cashew nuts and eggs

I made a few tweaks with the measurements resorting to the way I usually bake cakes.:)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup mawa
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted + extra for greasing the cake tin
milk, as needed
1 tsp baking powder
11/2 cups all-purpose flour+ extra for dusting the tin
2 cardamom pods, seeds removed and ground (the covering/skin can be kept in your tea container for that hint of cardamom in your cuppa)
1/2 cup raisins, wash and pat dry with a kitchen towel, then chop coarsely
10-15 cashews, split lengthwise
Method: 
Grease the cake tin and dust it with flour. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Sieve the flour with the baking powder and set aside.
Blend the mawa, melted butter and eggs till well mixed.
Fold in the flour/baking powder mix. Add some milk, if required, to get the consistency you need.
Add the raisins and mix.
Pour the batter in the prepared tin and give it a little tap on your worktop to remove any air bubbles.
Place the cashews all across the surface and bake for 35-40 minutes or till a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

I have always found cardamom extremely overpowering and I usually reduce the mentioned quantity from recipes. But I do have a plant growing in my garden. The other day I was thrilled to notice these pretty blooms on the plant. The stalk was bent with all the recent rain and wind.

Because one slice is not enough!!

It's cake but it's also like like digging into one of our typically Indian milk-based sweets. I'm glad that my friend Chandana stopped by today and I could pack a few pieces for her children. And tomorrow I'm meeting my sisters...glad I'll be armed with mawa cake!!