Cashew Mayonnaise | Healthy Mayo, Vegan too

Mayo or Mayonnaise is a thick creamy sauce made by emulsifying egg yolks with olive oil and vinegar or lemon juice. It can be given a makeover or enhanced by adding seasonings or spices. I familiarised with the word mayo when I heard of coleslaw. Being made with eggs it was offlimits for my conservative family. From then on,I associated with Russian cuisine, though it originated from Spain or places in Europe where eggs and olive oil were in abundance.Even Italian aioli is another version of mayo. 

History apart, these days we are flooded with eggless mayos. So its available to all the people though ofcourse original is original. I prefer an eggless mayo and have tasted few of these and most of them are based on nuts or  olive oil. On googling I even saw a weird recipe for eggless mayo made using condensed milk, though I steered clear of it. Few days back the Russian apple salad posted here used vegan cashew mayo  and me being me made the vegan mayo at home by adapting this recipe from savvyvegetarian and it turned out perfecto. 

Ingredients:

Cashews : 1/2 cup

Water: 2 tbsp

Lemon Juice: 2 tbsp

Seedless soft Dates: 1 chopped

Salt: 1/2 tsp

Onion Powder: 1/2 tsp (homemade or store bought)

Garlic Powder: 1/2 tsp (homemade or store bought)

Fresh ground pepper : as per taste

Extra Virgin Olive oil: 2 tbsp

Preparation:

Soak cashews in water for 2 hours, drain and add to the blender bowl. Combine all other ingredients except oil and blend till smooth.

Add  in the oil while the blender is running and let it emulsify.

Add more water if too thick.

Refrigerate and use within a week. 

You can make coleslaw or pasta salad or healthy apple salad. Or use it as a healthy dip for crackers and veggies of your choice.

Healthy and vegan mayo. If you have a problem with fatty cashews you can go for other low fat nuts like almonds, soy mixed nuts etc. or even go for a tofu version. Each version might be tasting slightly different due the nuts used.

The cashew one I made tasted similar to the eggless mayos I have been using though ofcourse without the preservatives. May be those who love the original eggy sauce might have a different opinion. 

Tomato Murabba | Sweet, Spicy & Sour in a Jar

Murabbas refers to savoury or sour pickle or jam  or compote like dish popular in northern India and Pakistan, and even Iran as per wiki. These are spiced up preserves made using fruits and also raw mangoes or other seasonal fruits. 

I usually associate summer as the pickling season atleast here in South thats what I have observed, though ofcourse these days you can do it in winter also if the ingredients are easily available like I did with tomatoes.

I am never a pickle person ie making of it as I always felt it was a strenuous task requiring complete concentration and patience. May be pickling always reminds me of the way the mango pickles are made. I still remember my mom sitting and cleaning and wiping and cutting or sometimes leaving whole the mangoes which were to be pickled adding the right amount of spices and then sometimes waiting for days for the flavours to be mixed well, blah blah blah.....

I prefer something quick and easy and I hit the jackpot with this tomato murabba which turned awesome. I had bookmarked the recipe from goodfood magazine and tried it out with an overload of juicy tomatoes waiting to be used up in my fridge.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes: 2.5 kg

Sugar: 1.2-1.5 kg 

Black peppercorns: 8-20

Cinnamon: an inch stick

Cloves: 6

Black Cardamom:4

Green Cardamom: 8

Bay leaves: 3

Red Chilli Powder: 2 tbsp

Salt:  tbsp

Vinegar: 1 tbsp

Onion Seeds: 1 tsp

Preparation:

Add the tomatoes in boiling water for about a minute and then put them in room temperature water in another bowl.

Peel off the tomato skin and crush/ grind the tomatoes to a coarse paste. Put them in a large vessel, add in 1 kg of sugar along with peppercorns,cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, bayleaves, red chilli powder and salt.

Bring the mix to boil and the let it simmer  for 45 minutes or until syrup like. Check whether you are ok with the sweetness of the murabba otherwise add in remaining sugar as needed to balance the sourness of the tomatoes and mix well. Add in the vinegar and cook for a minute. 

Turn off the heat and add in the onion seeds. Cool and store in sterilised glass jars and refrigerate.

An excellent spread/relish with breads or fritters or even a side with your main course.  I tried and loved it with bread and also as a dip for salted biscuits and other fried tidbits. May be its the taste but do give it a try. Its definitely helpful when you are in a hurry and trying to decide what you are going to stuff in the roti or bread slice for tiffin box. You can definitely get creative with this compote around.

Steamed Pumpkin Puree &Pressure Cooked Pumpkin Butter

Now, I know I have been silent here for a while. Diwali came & went, I made something, but could find time to post. In between thanks to deadline posted my shaped dinner rolls. Now Thanksgiving also came and went and am eagerly waiting for Christmas baking. But still experiments are going on, and so I thought since pumpkin is the flavour of fall, why not pumpkin puree and butter my way. Its very simple also.

Pumpkin puree is rather puree made of cooked -steamed,boiled,roasted or whatever method you prefer - pumpkin. I think steaming is the easiest way and usually prefer this over roasting. You need to have a steamer or atleast a pressure cooker for this. It leaves less water and is over in minutes as well. 

Pumpkin butter on the other hand is concentrated and  optionally flavoured pumpkin puree. Atleast this is the impression that I have got while visiting several sites and recipes. I have adapted mine from this site though I had made using a pressure cooker. I had 2-3 sugar pie pumpkins and I had used them up for making these two. 

Pumpkin Puree: 

Cut the pumpkin in chunky pieces, scoop out seeds, wash well and place in a suitable tray that goes well inside your steamer/pressure cooker. Add water inside the steamer or pressure cooker and place the tray or dish covered with a lid inside and steam away to glory :D for 10 minutes atleast or until the pumpkin turns glossy yellow and will easily fall apart from the skins.  

Take out, cool till you can handle and peel off the flesh into a a vessel,mix in a pinch of salt (optional) and lo, pureed pumpkin is ready to be used in smoothies and bakes.

Pumpkin Butter:

For pumpkin butter, I peeled ,deseeded & chopped pumpkin to about 2 cup of pieces, added about 1/2 cup of peeled,cored & chopped apples,  about 4+ tbsp of demerara sugar,1/2 tsp + of fresh orange zest  and about 1/2 tsp+ of pumpkin pie spice. and another 4+tbsp of water.Mixed everything together and pressure cooked for 3-4 whistles until the pumkin and apples turn mushy. Take out cool till able to handle and blend to a thick brown butter in a mixer.

You can serve it as a bread spread or even use it in baking or as per choice.

Homemade Sour Cream & Ranch Dip

Some of you who are in US might be wondering how come I am posting a homemade version of something that is very easily available there. But in India it has not yet become an ordinary routine stuff though its definitely available in speciality stores at high prices.Basically sour cream is nothing but "mildly soured cream". More plainly it is fermented regular cream or milk cream to which the bacterial culture has been introduced. If you are one of those who make your yogurt at home then you might get it. You add yogurt/sourcream/lemon juice/vinegar to heavy cream to ferment it in the refrigerator and voila you have got sour cream. A very basic recipe.

I had just used the regular low fat (25%) Amul Cream to make mine. Just added 1 tbsp of vinegar to 1 cup (200 ml) of cream and let it sit in the fridge overnight. So you can say I had made low fat sour cream. :)

This will definitely be different from commercial sour cream as different bacterial cultures and commercial thickners and sometimes even MSG(!) are supposed to be used. 

Usually you can substitute thick yogurt or hung yogurt instead of sour cream. 

How sour cream is different from regular yogurt/greek yogurt?

Sour cream has higher fat content than your regular stuff. Once sour cream is formed it thickens the already thick cream. Unlike yogurt sour cream is not very sour, but just mildly. This makes sour cream an excellent choice while baking as it can be sweetened/spiced up as per the dish and it adds fat which ensures butter can be cut down. 

Creme fraiche is also used an alternative to sour cream. If is actually French  for "Fresh Cream" but this is less sour and less thick than sour cream. It comes in between yogurt and sour cream when we think of thickness. Whereas in terms of sourness, yogurt comes first followed by sour cream and then creme fraiche.

Now that sour cream is made the first thing I made was the ranch dip. A Ranch dip/dressing/sauce is actually a mix of fresh herbs -usually parsley and chives, mayo and sour cream. You can add additional seasoning and aromatics like garlic (as much as you can consume raw garlic), hot sauce, routine salt/pepper, worcestershire sauce etc. You can even add buttermilk to make it thin to be used as a dressing/sauce.

I had googled several ranch recipes and have added mine also in the varied list. The given quantities are guestimates and can be changed as per your taste.

Ingredients:

Sour cream -1/2 cup

Eggless Mayonaisse: 6 tbsp +

Fresh Cilantro: 2 tbsp finely chopped

Fresh Parsley: 3 tbsp+ finely chopped

Garlic :1/2 of a clove or can use garlic salt

Salt & Pepper : as per taste

Hot Sauce: few dashes as per taste

Preparation:

Mix together all the ingredients in a bowl or even processor and adjust the salt and seasonings. Can spice it up or play down as per your taste buds.

 I wanted a thick dip to go with my fritters and this one definitely enhanced them. 

Indian or International - Red or Green - Have your pick on Chili Paste!

Though I have talked about sambal oelek and even made the tangy tomato sambal, I have rarely tried to make the Sambal oelek ,the fiery red chili paste. Or for that matter, even the normal green chili paste which my friend had passed on. Everytime I bought green chilies they would be used up and red chillies were rarely used. So recently I decided enough was enough and tried out both green and red chilli paste .

Sambal Oelek:

The words meaning ground sambal or rather ground chilli sauce. Usually it is made by pounding fresh red chilies with salt and vinegar. There are different versions based on the geographies - and thus the type and quantity of the ingredients and also modern version which spice up the basic recipe as per taste and choice. 

I have gone for a modern spiced up version that I had found at Food.com and it turned out to a spicy hot experience for me as well. In my belief that I can handle any type of chili ! :} I halved them and after aome thinking started deseeding  the chilies when I found my fingers starting to burn with heat. So much for the bravado. But after all the effort, the paste was wonderfully spicy hot and a few drops were perfect for any dish that you combine it with. I am posting the original recipe using half a kilo of red chillies though I prepared only with the quantities I had.

Ingredients:

Red Chile: 1/2kilo - 1 lb, optionally deseeded

Garlic Clove: 11 tbsp

Fresh Ginger: 11 tbsp

Lemon grass: 2 stalk : white part only

Vinegar: 12tbsp

Sugar: 8oz, 1 cup almost

Salt: to taste

Lime zest: 1 tbsp

Preparation:
Blend together chilies,ginger,garlic and lemongrass preferably in a mortar and pestle or conveniently in a blender. Drizzle in vinegar while doing this till you are ok with the texture of the paste. Either smooth or slightly chunky.

Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to simmer and add in sugar. Cook while stirring for few minutes while sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add salt and lemon zest and mix well.

Cool a bit and store in sterilized jars.I have refriegerated mine.

 A fiery red chile paste that goes well in dips or sides.You can see the basic version of chilies,salt and vinegar pounded in the mortar and pestle here.

Green Chile Paste:

Now coming to the our local green chile paste. The recipe was given to me by a dear friend who got it from her mother-in-law. This chile paste can be used in place of any recipe that calls for green chiles and the advantage is it will be equally mixed within the dish - be it upma,rices, churmuri like snack,or whatever that requires green chile for spicing it up but sticks out like a sore thumb in the final dish. The paste is very simple and has a long shelf life and does not even require refrigeration. But I do refrigerate to prolong the shelf life.

Ingredients:

Green Chilies: 250 g 

Salt: 100 g

Preparation:

Wash thoroughly the green chiles and remove the stems. Dry the chilies thoroughly in paper towels. Pulse the chiles in a blender adding salt to get a smooth paste. Store in sterilized jars and use as needed.

A simple handy paste.As for me, I use the red paste sparingly while the green one is a must for regular routine work. You can make and store both of them as well. Make your pick and add heat to your life now that Rain Gods are pleased with  Bangalore.. :)