The goodness of CHUTNEY...and COOKING PARTIES!
It's been 70 degrees here this week; really loving the warm weather! Last weekend I gave my first Cooking Party Cooking Class; inspired by my friend Bruce who wanted to give a dear friend of his a special birthday present. Instead of going out for dinner I gave him and six of his friends a private cooking class at his house. Bruce choose Indian Street Food as the theme and the menu consisted of traditional Indian street fare. Before we started cooking I gave them a quick tutorial on what Yogic Cooking is and how they can incorporate it into their lives....and then the cooking fun began!Our menu consisted of:Bhel- We started off with the bhel, a light and tasty dish of puffed rice, mung beans, black garbanzo's and potatoes that are tossed with cilantro and tamarind chutney.Pani Puri- We followed that by a delicious treat of mini puffed puri's (bread), that are stuffed with mung beans, black garbanzos and potatoes and then dipped is a minty, spicy water.Chaat Samosas- Then we had Chaat samosas....YUM! These are traditional samosas, topped with Chana Masala, cilantro chutney & tamarind chutney. This group was especially talented...they folded 40 samosas in about 20 minutes-- I was impressed!Falooda- And lastly, we finished the evening of savory, spicy and hot treats with a traditional milk float. It's milk that's flavored with rose essence, has a scoop of vanilla ice cream and is topped with soaked basil seeds....it's one of my favorites--and absolutely perfect to drink on a hot summer's day.The key to all of these tasty dishes is largely about having really great chutney. Once you have a jar of chutney in the fridge, you can use it throughout the week on sandwiches, to flavor a rice dish, use as a dipping sauce for an appetizer, etc, etc. Basically, there's a 101 ways you can use them to spice up everyday cooking. Below are my recipe's for traditional Lilli (green, spicy cilantro) Chutney and the Amli (sweet tamarind) Chutney.ENJOY!xo,Kajalp.s. THANK BRUCE![gallery ids="3544,3545,3546,3547,3548,3549,3550,3551,3552,3553,3554,3555,3556"]
- 10-12 dates
- 1 teaspoon tamarind paste
- ¾ teaspoon chilli pwd
- ½ teaspoon dhana-jeeru (cumin-coriander powder)
- 1 ½ cups water or to desired consistency
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- Directions
- Soak dates in 2 cups hot water for 20-30 minutes.
- Place in blender soaked dates, 1 cup of cooled date water, tamarind paste, chilli powder, dhana-jeeru and salt. Blend until completely smooth. Add more cooled date water until desired consistency is reached. Refrigerate until use.
- 2 cups cilantro, packed
- 1-2 jalapenos (to taste), washed and de-stemmed
- 1 tbsps lemon juice
- ½ cup water
- ½ teaspoon toasted cumin powder
- ¼- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
- Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Add more or less water depending on the consistency desired. Refrigerate until use.
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If you're interested in hosting your own COOKING PARTY...just contact me!
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