Arrived in Lohaghat and started eating...

susie, saket and me

susie, saket and clare

Heh! Just arrived back in Delhi, its pouring with rain but warm. We have had such a foody feast up in them there Himalayas - I have some delicious recipes to share. Here are just a couple to get you going......

Hemp seed chutney

Ingredients

Hemp seeds roasted

Salt (to taste or left out for me)

Lemon juice

Green chili

Coriander or mint – fresh

Grind all ingredients together and thats it - yum yum

Use this as a relish to accompany a dish such as Veg Pilau, we had hemp seed chutney and the following tomato chutney with ours

Tomato chutney 

2 bulbs of garlic crushed with a good handful of fresh coriander, a small onion, 2 chilli green, salt and lemon juice. All mashed on a stone and mixed with 6 chopped tomatoes and pounded to a paste. Unbelievable amounts of salts added to the mixture at the end by Saket but maybe after tasting we can modify or agree to this. Also lemon juice.

(didn't taste over salty at all)

Some recipes here contain hemp seeds which Susie and  Saket grow here on the slopes near their cottage. We picked over the seeds carefully removing and leaves and twigs. Susie says she learnt to leave the seeds drying in hot sun for months before using, when used fresh as she did once – they were out of action for a few hours, with dry mouths and feeling giggly and dreamy. Once dried and roasted then crushed on the heavy stones they use here for grinding and mushing things together the pate gives a delicious earthy taste to some of my favourites.

Breakfast stuffed paratha 

We climbed out from the cold of the shaded cottage early one morning. My fingers were frozen till we reached the grassy flat hill top, laid out the mat and hungrily scooped into the chuntneys and paratha.

Two finely chopped red onions

Chopped fresh coriander leaf

1-2 chopped green chillis

2 bulbs chopped garlic

Fresh mint chopped

Dried fenugreek leaf (mathi)

Mint chutney masala – which contains mango, mint, salt, coriander, pomegranate seeds, cumin, chili and black pepper - make it up as you go.

Add knob of butter

Can add mashed potato to bulk it out a bit.

Mix all ingredients together on a flat bowl with your hand

You need melted ghee or butter to cook the stuffed Paratha

Heat ghee till hot in pan and then roll out the dough (dough made with whole meal flour and water, with a little mustard oil - or veg oil if no mustard oil available - added at the last minute)

Make a circle with dough just a little bigger than for chapattis. Put on top a handful of finely chopped and mixed stuffing – the finer the better to prevent holes. Make into a small parcel, sealing the stuffing in well, make into a ball in your hand and then roll out gently at first with a rolling pin. Pay attention to the edges or you get fat uncooked bits at the edge. Fry till golden brown in the hot ghee.

Alternative stuffing options are mint and peas chopped mint and mashed peas

Meat option is mince, with masala added of course

Potato is nice too – pre cooked

Cheese and spinach, cook and chopped spinach first then mix with the cheese

Accompaniments are garlic pickle(recipe to follow) or mango chutney, or the tomato chutney (recipe to follow)

Hot mustard oil poured onto peeled garlics with pickle masala mix, and salt to taste. Leave for months and use as a pickle/relish.

Rajma – kidney bean soup - This is totally delicious, takes an age to make but so does all this food in India. We suggest taking the day off, asking friends around and get cooking the spices.

Rajma for six people

Ingredients: Kidney beans soaked overnight (3 good handfuls)

Very finely chopped onions 4-5 lge to medium size

Paste of garlic ( 2 bulbs), ginger(at least an inch), black pepper corns (30 or so), cumin seeds (good handful), cloves(6 or 7), and 6 black cardamom (seeds only), cinnamon (an inch long stick if narrow otherwise half inch if fat, and this needs to be broken into small pieces). Make paste in mixer or on back doorstep adding a few drips of water

Very finely chopped tomatoes 3 or 4 small or 2 large

Sabji masala 2 tsps (mixed spice powders, one portion grd coriander, 2/3 portion grd cumin, small amt red chili pdr and small amount turmeric to taste).

Whole spices: Coriander seeds (handful), 3 bay leaves (broken into two) and 2 black cardamoms (just bite open and add whole, skin and all)

Ghee

Salt to taste (heaped spoonfuls added here)

Method:Heat mustard oil in pressure cooker until smoking

Add a spoon of ghee

Fry onions with bay leaves, black cardamom, 2 cloves and handful of coriander seeds. Fry until onions are well translucent no quick way out.

Add spice paste, fry fry fry adding a dribble of water every now and then to prevent sticking, don’t disappear to work on computer or anything…

Add veg masala, fry fry fry and do as ye are told above..

Add tomatoes, fry with salt fry fry and still don’t go for shower/computer/phone/text etc.. Tomatoes need to cook until dissolved.

Add beans, a lot of water and a knob of butter, check salt, put lid on and now you can do your housework, finish your PhD, twenty situps, shower, chat, watch a good show because this bit is long..say about half an hour

Cook till beans are cooked and soup thick. Resist the temptation to speed up time or over fiddle ie. Stirring. Give it a chance to cook. This dish is definitely far superior in taste the longer it cooks and spices and flavours get in.

Garnish with fresh chopped coriander

Serve with greens or pumpkin/hemp/lemon/garlic mix. Greens can be spinach, mathi (fenugreek), spring onions, leeks or pumpkin cubed and fried in mustard oil, possibly with some cumin seed and fried red chili in, at the last minute before pressure cooking add fresh chopped green chili if desired - then pressure cooked for a blast if pumpkin but just cooked slowly over a low heat if greens. Keep it simple to accompany the delicious kidney bean subji.

Also plain chapattis, of course. Get someone else to make these! Too busy frying.

For desert we had Gulab Jamun which taste like treacle pudding but Susie tells me they are made from cheese milk and sugar, deep fried into balls and then dropped into a sugar solution and boiled. Yum.

Gulab Jamun

spinach sabji which accompanies the rajma well, with chapatis and thats the meal -  enjoy