Besan Ka Cheela and Pepper Shrimp

We are done with 7 days of Challenge, woo hoo. Am I glad or what.

Saturday with all that fasting-shasting I was pretty crappy and so was the husband. We were spiteful and had huge rows. Low carb/sugar was showing its effects.

"But I feel lighter", I said to myself, "Maybe I have lost inches(or feet) if not pounds. If I lose my marriage so what, at least I will be thin"

And then came along dear N and made me re-read the rules again. As always I had just skimmed through the rules. I have been doing this since time immemorial. The only times I read and re-read the rules was during TOEFL and that because I thought I wouldn't understand Amriki accent over my headphone

Ok so as it goes I have broken errrr worked around several rules of the challenge. I had potatoes, honey with my yogurt and did no exercise

No wonder the husband was gladly gliding along until the fasting started.

Let me quickly sum up the pros of this process before I crib

* You feel much better about yourself
* All that eating right makes you feel a whole lot better. You do feel light believe me and may even lose pounds if you are strictly adhering to the rules. Actually the husband did lose noticeable inches as claimed by him.
* Remember the guilt after wolfing down a pizza. Well now you don't have any, neither pizza nor guilt
* You learn a whole new lesson on self-restraint and "giving up". If you continue you might achieve moksha soon

Things that did not quiet work for me

* We spent a whole lot of time cooking and packing lunches during the weekday. I was packing 3 dabbas each !!! This was definitely not good for me as I prefer spending weekday evening with my kids rather than in the kitchen. Maybe we also went overboard with the idea, but next time I plan to keep it even simpler

* Don't know why but since so much after-work time was spent in the kitchen that I didn't feel like going to gym at all. That would have cut into my time with the girls but Exercise would have helped

* No eating out on Weekends were tough, I am not going to do weekends next time. Such nice weather and yet we couldn't grab anything and had to be back home for dinner

* This challenge saw both of us(D & me) together in the kitchen a lot and by that I mean A LOT. Now this might be a total incentive for honey-baby-lovey-dovey kind of couples(with no disrespect meant to anyone). But for me this is a hindrance. I have known the husband for a loooong time now and don't feel the need to bond over how to grill salmon just right.
The hubby is a good cook and definitely a help in the kitchen but when he is in there I would rather spend my time with the baby who needs me more. Once the kids are older and can be in the kitchen too maybe we all can have coochie-coo Kitchen time.

On the whole the Challenge was worth it and I am going to do it maybe every alternate week or so. Take it up and feel good.

On Saturday after the fast I didn't want to settle down for anything less but cheela -- a savory gram flour pancake and some hot spicy pepper shrimp. The very thought of it pepped me up until I broke the fast an hour early. Lovely light besan ka cheela with the hot shrimp did heal bruised egos and rumbling appetites to some extent. The Pepper Shrimp is frameworked on Cham's Pepper Mushroom recipe which I altered around a bit to suit my convenience and loved a whole lot


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Besan Ka Cheela or Gram Flour Pancakes

Makes enough for 2(5-6 cheelas)

In a wide mouthed deep bowl add 1 cup of besan(chickpea flour) and fluff with a fork to break lumps if any and aerate

Make a batter with the above Besan + about 1/4 cup of finely chopped red onions + 3 finely chopped green chilli + 1/2 tsp of Carrom Seeds/Ajwain + 1/2 tsp of Cumin Seeds + little Asafoetida/Hing + salt. Add a little more than 1 cup of water slowly to make the batter.

Heat a flat tawa or frying pan.

Grease it with little oil

Pour a ladleful of batter and spread it out to make a circle. This step is same as you would do for dosa or pancake. Add less than 1/2 tsp of oil in droplets along the edges

When your spatula slids under the edges easily, flip the cheela and cook the other side

Pepper Shrimp

Defrost about 10-12 frozen shrimp. I used frozen raw shrimp, substitute with whatever kind you like. Sprinkle some sea salt on them and let them rest for 15-20 minutes.

Heat oil in a Kadhai/Frying Pan. A little more oil boosts the flavors in this dish

Add 5-6 Kari Patta(Curry Leaves) to the hot oil

Add 1/3 cup of chopped red onions and fry

Once the onion turns pink and translucent add 1 tsp of garlic paste

Add 1 tsp of Pepper Powder and saute for half a minute

Add the shrimp

Add 1/4 tsp of Red Chilli powder and 1/4 tsp of Fennel Powder

Add salt and fry the shrimp. You need to sprinkle a little water to bring the spices together and fry

Once the shrimp is cooked you are done. Don't cook shrimp for too long, it might get rubbery.

* If you are not a shrimp eater replace shrimp with mushroom and do not add any water while cooking. Also cook till all the water released by mushroom dries up

The All Purpose Masala Paste & Fish Fry

Today is Day 4 of The 7 Day Challenge, it has been good so far. I am not missing my grains any more, I have become paranoid about going grain free and am eating better in both quality and quantity.

The problem is both me & D are true foodies and cannot live on just salad & soup even if it only for a week so we both have to do a lot of work every day cooking interesting stuff and prepping. Only if I was able to transmogrify into a bovine creature chomping greens in a spring meadow, life would be easier.

I will analyze the pros and cons at the end of 7 days, but believe me even if you don't lose an inch this challenge is worth every salad because of the self-restraint you will acquire by the end of it


Now to The All Purpose Masala Paste which is an efficient homemade packaged solution for busy moms.

If I had any business acumen I would market it and put it on not Patel's but Whole Food's Freezer aisle. But before that I would have to pay hefty royalty fees to Vee and then Coffee, the original creators of this idea. This masala saves me on most weekdays and if you are not already making it, I urge you to refrain and wait till my product is out there.
I promise I will have a fun, family ad out with it too with a jingle that says "Taste mein Best, Mummy aur Mummy Ka Paste"


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Till then you can make it on your own by following these steps

Chop a large red onion roughly

Chop a medium plump red tomato in rough chunks. I keep saying rough because you don't need to spend time and cut in small equal sizes

Peel two to three cloves of garlic and chop in 2-3 pieces

Peel and chop about an inch of ginger, again roughly

Heat little oil in a pan and add the chopped garlic, follow by tossing in onions and then ginger

Fry till the onion is soft and translucent. Toss in the tomatoes and saute till tomatoes turn soft and mushy.

At this point you can get imaginative and add some generic spice powders if you wish, like say Garam Masala or maybe Kasoori Methi. I usually skip this step.

Cool the above and make a paste in your food processor, make a smooth paste not one of those chunky ones.

Cool this paste, pour it in a ice cube tray and freeze

Once frozen, take the frozen cubes out and store in a ziploc bag. I usually make enough to last me a week for impromptu weekday cooking

On a busy week night when all you want to do is just pull a blanket over your head, take some of this cubes out and make a quick gravy in minutes.

Depending on your taste you can vary the proportions and add green chillis to the above

I made a Fish on Day 3 of the challenge using this paste. I had some Tilapia Fillet which I marinated with this paste (I made with Kasoori methi added this time), salt and some red chilli powder for 24 hours. However 30 mins to an hour should be enough. I usually bake this fish drizzled with Olive Oil but then I saw this recipe at Shilpa's and wanted to try this instead.

So for 30 mins before cooking I marinated the already marinated fish with some more garlic paste, red chilli powder and lime juice. For one of the fillets I added tamarind paste instead of Lime Juice.

However I am a Bong who always fries her fish except for maybe Ilish(Hilsa) so I was not sure how just poaching the fish would taste like. I therefore smeared my frying pan with a little olive oil, maybe 1/2 tsp. Added some curry leaves to it and then placed the fish fillet on the pan. Slowly added enough water so that the fish were just submerged in water. Let it cook till all the water has evaporated.

The fish tasted definitely good but I feel this method is best if the fish was more fresh. We had it with some salad and oven baked masala potato fries.

Day 1: Fatoush like Salad

Today was ok. I definitely craved all kinds of grains from Biryani to fish and rice but that was all in my mind.

I sacrificed my morning tea too and still I was ok. I am not a coffee drinker so no problem there.

Lunch was pretty satisfying but I need larger portions tomorrow. After 3pm I wasn't feeling that good though. For some reason I have a pounding headache.

I couldn't do the Fatoush as I didn't have zatar or feta at hand. So my salad was this:

In a bowl add chopped cucumber, chopped red radish, halved grape tomatoes and chickpeas. In a separate bowl make a dressing of Olive Oil + Lime Juice + Minced Garlic + Red Chili Flakes. Toss the salad with this dressing.

I have this dressing saved for the other salads too.

The Keema Chickpea was damn good. I kind of followed the Rajma Keema recipe but did not marinade the keema(minced meat) or anything. I also did not use Whole Garam Masala or my favorite Maggi Ketchup to make it tangier. Added the canned chickpeas after washing thoroughly towards the end of the cooking and mixed well

The Hot & Sour Soup went like this

In a deep bottomed soup pot add very little olive oil. Flavor the oil with minced garlic, ginger and green chillies. Add chopped mushroom(I added carrots).Add vegetable stock, soy sauce, white vinegar, little salt and bring to boil. I did not add the cornstarch which goes in mixed with little water. When the soup comes to a boil add some shrimp. Add lime zest and garnish with chopped scallion. I omitted adding an egg to make the string thingy

Thanks for all your ideas. Cheela wins hands down for weekend menu. I have not had pesarattu so don't know how it will be.

Besan or Gram Flour is flour made from chickpea, a legume. I guess if that is processed even cooking oil is. However Besan contains high proportion of carbohydrate but no gluten. The higher carb is ok or not ?