A sunny plant from India , commonly grown in Asia and Africa for 4000 years. It was an important herb used only for medicinal purposes in the 16th century in europe , but became the most important and one of the best culinary herbs in the 17th century. Basil is the easiest herb to grow and thankfully mine is still surviving after being with me :).

It is taken medicinally for cold, chills , cough and flu and also to ease digestion. It is very easy to grow and requires full sun and a moderate amount of water.

Basil tastes best , when the leaves are torn orpounded with oil rather than chopping. The leaves have a warm spicy aroma. It tastes best with tomatoes and bell peppers and also forms the base for an italian pesto.

They say that the warm pepperiness tastes excellent with bittersweet chocolate.

If you cannot get sweet basil use any other type of basil like holy basil(tulsi). So ladies and gentlemen , get out your pots and pans and dish up new, exciting healthy dishes with the herb of this month , basil.

The rules of the event are simple :

Use the Herb of the month in any form , fresh or dried , extracts in any dish which is Vegan or Vegetarian . I will not be posting anything which is not vegan or vegetarian as this is a vegetarian blog. All that I ask is the flavors of that particular herb be prominent and the dish be healthy. It need not be only Indian. Multiple entries are more than welcome.

In case its from your garden or you know a lot about it, I would love to hear from you. Your experience while growing it, tips to grow, medicinal properties, home remedies, storing procedures and anything that you know and want to share.

Post the recipe on your blog and if you could, post the picture also by 15th of every month. Link it back to this post. . I will post the round up in the week after the event is concluded.

Old entries will be only accepted if they are reposted for this particular event.The last date for entries will be 15th of the next month.

Email me your name, name of your blog , name of the recipe ,the picture width 250px, height doesnt matter.

Send the permalink of your recipe/pic to ammaluskitchen(at)gmail(dot)com with Herb Mania - Herb of the month as subject.

If you do not have a blog, send me your name, name of the recipe and a picture and I will post it.

Going forward , I would like to make this event available for others to host , so if you are interested in hosting, please drop in a line at ammaluskitchen(at)gmail(dot)com and I will respond to you at the earliest.

I will post the round up of Herb Mania - Mint early next week. Have a fun filled weekend!!

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Last week, everyday I forgot to get my wife what she asked for.  I would come home empty handed to Dee who would open the door, expecting a bunch of mint…and there I would stand my laptop case in hand, and sorry about my amnesia. So sunday afternoon both of us went hunting for mint. Not in the Asian Market..couldnt find it in Safeway or the walmart neighbourhood….looked for it in every aisle in fry’s. I was about to give up, but Dee, determined as she is, got the lady in the produce section to find out a small box of it.

Guess what….with Paneer at home, I remembered these simple, easy to make and awesome tikkis I had once in a seaside resort back in Chennai. With a weekend full of work, I wanted to compensate for Dee’s cooking during the weekend with this nice Pudina Paneer tikkis served piping hot with sweet’n’sour Date & Tamarind chutney and volunteered to post it too.

Ingredients:

1 cup crumbled paneer

2 tablespoons corn flour

2 tablespoons chopped mint

1 green chilli finely chopped

1 teaspoon chat masala or garam masala (optional)

Salt according to one’s taste

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl , keep wetting your hands to roll the paneer into rounds and flatten them like tikkis. Its important to wet your hands, otherwise its difficult to make the tikkis

Heat a tawa and add a tablespoon of oil and pan fry the tikkis until brown on both sides.

These can crumble , so handle with care ! Serve immediately and enjoy them with sweet and sour tamarind chutney or green chutney!

This goes to Herb Mania - Mint . Last day for entries is tomorrow .

- K

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I have 3 reasons to blog today…

The weather is great here today, though a little humid , its been so long since it has rained in this part of the world, My part of world has brown coloured trees not the usual green , thats how dry it is… so , its been an oasis in the desert for us today with the showers yesterday and the drizzle today.

For most part of the year , Its my off over the weekends. So I dont venture into the kitchen, its invisible for me. However , when I saw my beloved in a sorry state , typing away on his laptop , juggling between 2 phones, weary after traveling too often, I melted as usual and went into the kitchen and wanted to make something fast and get over with it.

I am happy , cos I shed some weight that I have been struggling to , got down 2 sizes, more importantly , my BMI reduced YAY!!!! and went out and bought a new panini grill for ourselves

I had some Rajma coconut rice made from yesterday , grilled some sweet peppers, zucchini and eggplant ,

I made a tamarind marinade for the tofu , let it sit for a couple of hours and then grilled the tofu, wrapped everything into a tortilla and enjoyed it ! If you do not have the patience to spruce up the rice , just use plain rice or you can eliminate it altogether.

Ingredients:

For the Tamarind Marinade and grilling:

2 teaspoons of thick tamarind pulp

1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts

1 teaspoon of ginger

1 tablespoon of dark sesame oil

1 garlic clove , minced

1/4 teaspoon of cumin powder

1 teaspoon of soy sauce

2 shallots , chopped finely

1 tablespoon of honey

a few sprigs of fresh coriander

A few drops of hot sauce like sri racha or black pepper or paprika

Salt to taste

Take all this , except the oil in a food processor and blend into a pulp , then halfway through start pouring the oil and blend to a smooth paste.

Use extra firm tofu , for this , wrap it with paper towels, place it on a plate and place another skillet or a plate which is at least one pound in weight for 20 minutes, so that the water comes out and it becomes dry.

Dice the tofu , and slather it with this marinade , cover and keep atleast for 1/2 hour.

Place the tofu pieces on the grill and grill until the grill marks appear on the chunks and keep aside, It takes about 4 -5 minutes ,we need to flip them onto the other side after 2 minutes

For the Rajma Coconut Rice:

I cooked rice seperately , heated ghee in a skillet , add a can of kidney beans for 2 cups of rice and then added 1/4 cup of coconut , salt and immediately added it to the rice and garnished it with coriander . Trust me m, it was amazing !!

Coconut Rajma Rice , simple yet outstanding!

For the vegetables:

slice the vegetables of your choice using a mandoline , add oil,paprika and salt and grill them until grill marks appear on the veggies

For assembling the wrap , here is a diagramatic representation for people like me , who dont have the patience to wrap it properly,

Finally I was so fascinated by the grill marks , I decided to grill my wrap . It was fantastic.

Tamarind Tofu and Veggie Wraps , delightful!

I served it with Bissap , a traditional african , hibiscus and mint sweetened tea taken from The soul of a new cuisine .

Edible Hibiscus Flowers

Ingredients :

1/4 cup of edible hibiscus flowers , about 6-8

1 vanilla bean split , use the seeds

2 tablespoons honey

2 cups of water

2 mint leaves crushed

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

Take all the ingredients, except the flowere in a saucepan and bring to a boil , Add the flowers and let it seep for atleast 10 minutes .cool and serve chill ! Alternatively , you can make a granita out of it .

Bissap, Traditional African Hibiscus and Mint tea

The wrap goes to Archana’s One dish meals , Sangeeth’s Eat Healthy - Protien Rich Meals

The Bissap goes to my event , Herb Mania- Mint which ends on 15th July and Jihva for Ingredients - Flower Power hosted by Rachna .

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This gift came almost 3 weeks after my birthday but it really made my year, So much love, so much affection… I am truly flattered by this special gift from a special person. Thank you dear friend, I have no words to express how much this means to me. I received this huge package of a Romertomf clay baker and 2 books , The soul of a new cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson and Jill O’ Connor’s Sticky , Chewy , Messy, Gooey plus a whole load of different spice blends from World Market , Soba and Udon noodle packets. This was an unexpected gift and this time I really was jumping all over the house

After the jumping though, I wanted to put the baker to good use and decided to use the baker to bake my Mango Bread . The recipe is from a book called The Home Baker that I picked up from the library for a dollar.

Ingredients:

2 cups white bread flour

1 small mango diced and pureed

1/4 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of honey

1 teaspoon of ginger ( acc to the recipe , I forgot to add it !)

1 & 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast

1 cup of tepid water

2/3 cups of raisins

One egg lightly beaten

Method:

1. Take the flour, sugar, butter, honey and ginger in a warmed bowl and rub the butter in with your fingers until the flour has a crumbly texture.

2. Add the yeast , mango puree , tepid water and knead well on a flour surface for about 5-10 minutes or until its elastic

3. Put it in a clean , greased bowl ( I greased it with a cooking spray) and cover it with a wrap and leave it for an hour until the dough is doubled.

4. Remove from the bowl, knead again , fold in the raisins and leave it again for 40 minutes. Here comes my clay pot into picture

What I did was

• I soaked the claypot in water for a good 20 minutes and dried it , put a parchment paper at the bottom, greased it with a cooking spray , this is important as the bread dough is a little sticky and it might be difficult for the bread to come off once baked. So I placed the dough and covered it
• As per the instructions , they say that the claypot should not be kept in a preheated oven , instead it has to be kept in a cold oven, so after 40 minutes , I brushed the dough with the beaten egg , placed it in the bottom rack of the oven, covered it with the lid and turned the oven to 425 F and did not peek into it for 35 minutes .
• After 35minutes , I removed the lid and lowered the temperature to 400 F and let it bake for another 5 minutes.
• Then it began to brown and I removed it from the oven , let it sit for about 10 minutes , removed it from the pot and let it cool on a cooling rack for about 40 minutes.
• Then, dusted it with confectioner’s sugar and serve.
• The result of it was a nice brown crust on the top and it was very moist and exotic inside.

This goes to dear Meeta’s Monthly Mingle - Mango Mania .

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I am a self confessed sky gazer or a ceiling gazer, especially after a long needed vacation. I’d be dreaming about life if I lived there.. which is practically not possible , Hey , but isnt there a saying ” Dare to Dream ?”

So , yesterday was one of those days when I was gazing at the ceiling ( its too hot to sky gaze) and forgot all about lunch. At noon a phone call from Yamuna shattered my dreams about winning a lottery and buying a million dollar home , atop a mountain … sigh!… Reality struck and hunger pangs increased when an almost empty refrigerator and kitchen stared at my face. All I had was a box of strawberries . With Yamuna , my best pal since 3rd grade, I really cant afford to take chances by hanging up and facing her wrath . Multi tasking was the key. I made this wonderful salad , ate half of it first , took pictures , chilled it for a while and then had a second helping to satiate myself. I realized chilling it makes a lot of difference… And all this while talking to her.

Ingredients:

2-3 cups of sliced strawberries
1 teaspoon coconut flakes( I used the unsweetened variety)
2 tablespoons of rose water
some almonds to garnish ( any nuts of your choice will do)
1/8 teaspoon of cardamom powder
2 teaspoon Honey or Maple syrup + more to drizzle on top

Method

1. wash pat dry the strawberries and slice them.
2. Add the cardamom powder , coconut flakes and liberally douse the berries with rose water and honey. Toss gently so that the strawberries dont turn mushy .
3.Cover and refrigerate atleast for an hour . garnish with almonds or pistachios, drizzle more honey if you want to and serve chilled. It can be served as a fruit serving in an elaborate meal , just as a salad or a dessert for those counting calories!

Strawberry Salad with Gopi’s Mango Lassi

Dear Madhuram has given me a giant hug and considers my friendship special… Thank you Madhu for making my day. I pass this on to each and every person in my life be it family , friends , acquaintances , fellow bloggers who have made an impact in some way or the other. I must say from some I learnt, what to be and from some I learnt, what not to be. Thank you all for teaching me these valuable lessons, It has definitely made me a better human being.

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