The Pizzazzy

During my recent trip to the wet market I came across garlic chives. This is very popular ingredient in Manipuri Cuisine. Finding it here was like finding a treasure and I remembered all the  preparations using the garlic chives. Needless to say that it was quite a mouth watering moment. I got myself a bundle of the same.

Garlic chives adds a nice garlic like flavour to the dishes, quite mild and very good. Let me tell you what I did with them. I made pakodas using them. Earlier the day I had soaked some urad dal (black gram). So my job was easier. Here’s a step wise guide to making perfect urad dal pakodas using garlic chives.

1. Soak some urad dal in water overnight.
2. Remove the black skin by rinsing it carefully. Thats a trick I can’t explain here.
3. Keep aside around 2 tablespoon of dal.
4. Take some 3-4 garlic cloves. 2-3 green chillies. Some ginger.
5. Chop them and add to the washed dal, which is now white.
6. Add around 2-3 tablespoon besan (Chick peas flour)
7. Add salt to taste, turmeric, red chilli powder.
8. Run through the mixer/grinder to make a coarse paste, add water if required. (generally mine becomes fine so I add the dal that I have kept aside in step 3 to give it a crunchy taste).
9. Take a handful of coriander leaves, take the whole bunch of garlic chives. Chop them finely.
10. Add this to the paste. Don’t forget the cooking soda (only a pinch).
11. Add some water to make a thick batter.
12. Heat a good amount of cooking oil in the deep pan.
13. Drop scoops of batter in the oil gently using a spoon.
14. Deep fry till they are cooked properly.
15. Remove and serve with your choice of sauce.

The above can be done without the garlic chives. But the flavour of garlic chives is awesome.

PS: Garlic chives when added to egg also makes great omellette.

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It began with me getting up early and making us a good hot cuppa, which we had over some gossip. It followed with a good breakfast of Poha (a Maharashtrian dish), and since I had run out of fresh coriander I added French onions to garnish and it was really great. Also used red chillies instead of green ones. This added the desired green and a bit of red color to the yellow base and it also enhanced the taste. (Cooking Tip of the day: Use french onions in Poha) 

I spent some time on my blog and then we got ready and left for Cityhall where we planned to spend the afternoon and part of our evening. We also wanted to be back in time for the F1 qualifying. Yes, I have to endure the F1 race on Sundays and also the qualifying rounds on Saturdays every season.

Once we reached Cityhall we hit the food republic, I had a set meal of roasted chicken, Pak Choi with soya sauce, a small bowl of rice, and a clear soup garnished with fried onions, it also had the local ginger paste and chilli paste. Anand had curry chicken with noodles, yeah they do have a meal like that. It was a big bowl of noodles with lots of typical local chicken curry.

After the meal we hit the shops and like all the occasion when I am excited about shopping, Anand like a typical husband did not share the same excitement. One day I am going to write a book titled “Women love shopping and Men love F1” or make it cricket. (Yes, I just came up with that awful name)

In between my shopping we also ate big scoops of ice cream and since I needed to keep up Anand’s good mood, I did the unimaginable; I had a full scoop of ice cream which I have not done in a long time now. 

Some more shopping followed. Then we went to the “Fountain of Wealth”, this fountain is supposed to bring prosperity and good fortune. We followed the instructions and took three rounds of the fountain with our right hand touching the water and making a silent wish.

Again the bouts of hunger started attacking my stomach, so we went to the bombay café at the same mall and ate pani puri and bhel puri.  

On the way back we also caught the practice session of the National Day. By the time we were back it was time for the F1 qualifying race and time for me to check upon my blog. After all that eating we skipped dinner. Not a healthy thing to do, but weekends are an exception.