Budget Friendly on Kitchen3N

Mustard and Chili Mashed Potatoes and a Giveaway!

Tue, 19 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a lot going on in today’s post. Firstly, we’re talking vegetable peelers and a giveaway! My good friend’s husband has started a company selling premium kitchen products, with their first being this awesome curved Japanese blade vegetable peeler! Using mine was a breeze - the sharp blade made for smooth cuts and the design definitely required less pressure from the hand doing the peeling. The sprout remover on either side helped get those little “eyes” out. I tackled these buds in no time. I will say, though, if you are used to the vertical peelers, it may take some getting used to. But as with any sharp edge, take care to curl the fingers of your supporting hand away while using!Because this is such a great product and think you guys would love it, too, we are giving one away! To enter, simply comment on my FB page responding to this question: What’s the first thing you would use ChefBasix Vegetable Peeler for? Good luck!Secondly, we’re talking about ghee - clarified butter that South Asians use to cook (some dishes) with. It doesn’t have the milk solids of butter, so it has a higher burning temperature. This picture shows how it happens. After melting the butter over low heat, you keep it on until it attains this golden color, not the amber color you would look for while making browned butter. We are just looking for the milk solids in the butter to toast up to give the ghee a nice nutty flavor. You don’t want to get to that light brown stage, otherwise you will lose too much moisture. Once you’ve gotten the right color, take it off the heat. You can let it cool in the pot, but I poured it into this bowl to show you what was going on. The milk solids sink to the bottom so you only spoon off the fluid on top. Left to cool long enough it will congeal and resemble the store bought ghee. This last step is not totally necessary in today’s dish, as we are not cooking with the ghee. It’s more for aesthetic purposes so you don’t have bits of brown running through the mashed potatoes (don’t toss it, though! spoon it over toast for a snack!). Finally, we are talking about aloo bhorta (mashed potatoes)! It seems like potatoes are a universal comfort food. When coming back from a family trip, or on days when we were low on groceries, dinner looked like this: steamed rice, aloo bhorta, an omelette and daal. South Asian immigrant parents have an almost militant attitude toward eating out. Take out was a non-existent concept. As newcomers, our parents had to reign with frugality. Though we were brats about it and whined about wanting pizza or burgers, our parents did the hard work of making every single meal from scratch. The aloo bhorta and omelette were studded with pieces of raw onion and slivers of green chilis. Most of my time during those meals were spent picking out the aforementioned bits to get to the good stuff. I was never a part of the set-my-mouth-ablaze-to-enjoy-my-meal set. So now, since I’m in charge of my kitchen, I’ve started to substitute scallion for the raw onion and dried red chili for the fruity spice of the green chili (or Thai chili as it’s known to some). The dried red chili still has some heat - just not as explosive as its green counterpart.

Fettucine with Mushrooms and Leeks

Sun, 08 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using a dastardly amount of heavy cream in everything. Coffee - splash of cream. Pie - whipped cream. Fruit - sweetened AND whipped cream. Pasta - cup o’ cream.

I have a officially regressed from my diet of quinoa salads, eggs, oatmeal, and fruits/veggies. Size 2 - it was nice knowing you!

But let’s talk about the shrooms here. People can get downright militant when it comes to mushrooms: Don’t wash them!! Don’t crowd the pan!! Don’t season them too early!! All advice I’ve taken to heart many a time. And as much as I love properly sautéed mushrooms with bits of brown butter speckling the surface and all the right caramelization in all the right places, these mushrooms fare perfectly fine all in one pan, with leeks and all! And not just “fine”. How can I explain to you how well mushrooms and leeks pair without going into a series of clichéd analogies? Let’s try some non-clichés. Mushrooms are to leeks as

Spinach Purée with Quinoa (Saag ar Quinoa)

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I did it! I conquered the quinoa! I thought about ways to desi-fy it since practically anything cooked in a curry sauce in this house gets consumed in minutes. Since I had this bag of frozen spinach in the fridge, I thought about doing a take on the classic palak paneer, replacing the protein in the form of paneer (cheese) with quinoa.

Easy Fried Rice

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Ever since I started cooking for myself, my taste for takeout has rapidly declined (pizza and sushi exempt). Take chinese takeout for example: when I was a kid, it was the ultimate treat. My Friday lunch if I used my allowance wisely. I’m not sure what you know about Bengali moms, but they are pretty militant in their meal regiment. Rice, vegetable saute/bhorta, some kind of protein curried, and daal. That is what you have for dinner, every night. Without fail. Every bengali kid who grew up here knows the struggle to have something different on the table (first world problems, I know). And the retorts that follow: “Eh? Pizza? How is that any kind of food? What with all that cheese…and they wonder why American kids are so fat!”. This is usually said as one or more uncles are stuffing their faces with beef or goat curry and are working away at a Mt Everest sized mound of rice on their plate.