Panfusine

Summer time is Salad time.. and I''m not a fan of putting salads together, or maybe I like the way it sounds being called a 'Salsa' (invokes savory spicy visions) I made this over a year ago, and it qualifies enough to be called semi home made, canned corn & beans, with fresh avocado mashed in. spiced with finely minced green chilies, shallots, cilantro & lime.

Whenever the craving strikes for deep fried food, I always try and maximize by trying out new ingredients to fry up, and whatever is sitting in my pantry/ fridge is fair game. This time around it was Fava beans freshly shucked from the pod, mixed with a chickpea batter infused generously with fresh thyme, and fried up.

Pulling out one of my older recipes I'd posted on Food 52 (shoring up all the dishes I made in June for July  posts! This dry chutney is a staple condiment for classic Indian street foods like Vada Pao, & bhajias (tempura made with almost any vegetatable coated with a spiced chickpea batter . 2 tablespoons shredded fresh coconut (OR) 2 tablespoons dessicated coconut 1/4-1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper powder 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes 1 clove garlic Sea Salt to taste In a Mortar, combine all the ingredients & pound till the garlic has completely been minced & incorporated into the powder.

This recipe was all over the news yesterday, thanks to  BBC . a recipe recreated from remnants of food found in pot shards at Farmana in Harappa. Using spices common 3000 years ago on the Indian sub continent. The original called for cumin, which wasn't part of Indian cuisine up until the 3 rd century AD (it was a Mediterranean influence, brought in by Phoenician traders). I replaced the cumin with long pepper (aka Thippili / pippili). and used thin baby eggplants similar to the Japapnese eggplants that are more common to the region rather than the regular ones available in the market. The dis is simple to make. make a paste of fresh ginger, fresh turmeric and long pepper, saute it with sesame oil, add salt and the eggplants. Cover to cook. add grated green mango when the eggplants are halfway cooked. Finish with a garnish of holy basil. I served it up with a traditional pongal.

Pomegranates are out of season in Summer, just when they are most needed to fill that niche of colorful, delicious and healthy salad ingredients. But then currants fill in that niche beautifully, ruby like spherical pearls, they're perfect for this traditional South Indian Kosmalli/Koshimbir salad. Sweet tart and bursting with Juicy flavor.

As far as comfort foods go, Sweet Pongal is right up there on top of the list. A mix of Mung dal  and short grained rice cooked to a mush and sweetened with unrefined sugar. This version surprisingly  does not have any Cardamom to flavor it as is the case with many many South Indian desserts. Instead  it has a micro pinch of edible Camphor along with Saffron for the flavor and color. The taste.. Priceless.

Given that Jackfruits are by definition such huge specimens and it takes a labor of love to prep them, It only makes sense that one tends to want to use up every bit of the fruit. The matted fibers in between the arils are rather inedible and tough. That leaves the seeds. They have a texture and flavor similar to chestnuts and they're traditionally roasted or cooked into stews. This particular version has the jack-fruit seeds boiled with turmeric and then cooked down with a spice blend consisting of fresh coconut, cumin and arbol chiles. Finished off with a seasoning of tempered mustard seeds and curry leaves.  

Around the time that I was on a high after discovering whole Jackfruits for sale at my local Whole Foods, I also discovered a tiny grocery / cafe in my neck of the woods that stocked up on Mexican foods & ingredients, Armed with a BIG bag of Corn husks and cornmeal readily on hand. Whats a girl to do? Make Jackfruit tamales of course. As nonchalant as this sounds, I don't think these ingredients have been combined together. The recipe is accurately written down in my little notebook and plenty of photographs clicked, so I guess this is a teaser/trailer for a recipe to be posted on the main blog.

As you know, Pav bhaji can never be made in small quantities. I have a 5 qt cast iron braising pan exclusively for the dish and the vegetable still overflows while cooking, because I don't think Le Creuset makes a larger braiser. But it seldom goes waste at home. the leftovers are scooped up with toast the next day or eaten straight up cold as is. (All ye who love day old cold pizza, you know what I mean!) These were the leftovers from making a  calabaza squash Pav bhaji . The puff pastry is store bought from Wegmans, just prep the pastry as per the package directions and spoon the warmed up pav bhaji into the cups prior to serving. Top with bits of pickled onion and cilantro. Street food never looked so chic!

Did I mention that I have a stash of Vodkas infused with various Herbs & spices? they sit in my bar cabinet, rather like bottles from a Zoology lab, with specimens of the flora variety floating in clear alcohol (that may or may not have imbibed color from the leaves & fruits they're steeped with. One such bottle has an infusion of Galangal, Lemongrass and Thai basil. its rather strong, since the infusion is over a year old and yours truly is kind of conducting a long term storage taste  experiment. This particular concoction is a combination of that infused vodka, juice of half a lemon and topped off with Fever tree Ginger beer. Cheers!