Modak

What you need
2 cups rice flour
fresh coconut grated - 2 cups
Jaggery - 1.5 cup
Cardomom
oil
salt to taste


What to do

For the Filling
1.Cut the jaggery in small pieces, or better buy the one which comes in small pieces.
2. heat a pan on a low flame, add the jaggery. The jaggery quickly gets black on high heat, make sure it melts on low heat.
3. Add coconut to the molten jaggery. Mix well. Keep mixing and let it cook until it gets brown.
4. When the mixture is done, remove from flame, add cardomom powder and keep aside

For the cover
1. Heat 2 cups of water in a pan, add 1 tbsp of oil and a little salt.
2. When it starts boiling, add all the rice flour, give a quick stir and cover.
3. Wait for just about 2 min and remove from flame. Keep it covered.
4. After 3-4 min, remove the mixture in a large plate.
5. here come the tricky part. the mixture is hot, but need kneading right away. The easy way to go is, take a small steel bowl (vaati), oil the base of it(from the outside). And using the oiled base, smash the mixture nicely. Making sure that the lumps if any, are broken up. This process will determine how the end product turns out.
6. After the initial kneading, keep the bowl aside, and knead with hand, the way you would do for rotis. make smooth dough

Now to the main part
1. Take a drop or two of oil and rub the fingers. Take a small dough ball. Hold it like you would hold a sandwich. With the thumbs up.
Rotate it using both hands flattening it out in the process. Try and make it shaped like a small katori (bowl) and not a disk. Can be done if thumbs exert more pressure than the other fingers.
Don't make this too thin.
2. Fill it with a small amount of the above filling.
3. Pinch the sides of the dough katori that you made and take the ends together. Make sure the filling is not spilling out.
4. Make at least 7-8 modaks this way and steam them.
5. Heat water in a large pot. Oil the base of a small pan and keep the modaks in this, making sure they are not crammed up. You can also use Alluminium foil at the base of this pan.
6. Cover and steam for 15 min.
7. When you remove the cover, the water might have entered the small pan with modaks which is fine, Don't panic.

How to serve
Serve the modaks with ghee.

Vanessa special tips
1. You can add dry fruits to the filling or change the proportion of jaggery according to how sweet you want it.
2. You can also go 75-25 with jaggery and sugar
3. If you have a steaming pan for dhokla/idli...they work fine for modaks. Procedure of steaming is same.
4. If you run out of the filling, and there is left over dough, Add some cumin and cilantro to the dough, knead it again. Take some of this dough and roll it with the hand in the form of a thick a stick. Steam these just like the modaks.
These thingies taste magnificent.

Baigan bhartha

What you need
1 large Eggplant (baingan)
1 large tomato
1 large onion
oil, mustard seeds, turmeric
chilli powder
salt
some lemon juice
cilantro (coriander)

What to do
1. Make a small slit on the Eggplant and microwave it, with the baked potato setting. After its done, flip it over and run one more cycle of baked potato setting.
(If you have the Indian style gas, and not the coil, roast it directly on the gas. flipping it continously so that its done from all sides)
2. Finely chop tomato and onion.
3. heat oil in kadai, add mustard seeds. Add turmeric when the seeds splutter.
4. Add all the chopped tomato and onion, cover and cook
5. Put the eggplant in a pan with cool water. Let stay for 3-4 min. Remove its skin and smash it up with a large spoon.
5. Add the Eggplant to the kadai, mix it up. Add salt to taste, chilli powder and some lemon juice.
6. let it cook for 10 min on medium flame, stirring occasionally.
7. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve

Vanessa special tips
1. this bharit tastes magnificent with bhakri rather than roti.
2. Even if you normally dont add lot of chillies, add more than normal red chilli powder in this recipe.
3. Lemon juice and cilantro add the little extra to make it special.
4. When the hot Eggplant is put in cool water, its skin comes off easily.

Moong khichadi (serves 2)

What you need

Rice - 1 cup
Moong dal - 1/2 cup
oil - 2 tablespoons
mustard seeds-Jeera-turmeric-Chilli powder-hing
salt to taste

What to do

1.Wash rice and moong dal together
2. Heat oil in a pan, add mustards seeds and jeera. When they splutter, add hing and turmeric.
3. Add the washed rice and dal mixture and saute well on medium heat
4. After about 5-8 min, transfer the contents to a vessel you can keep in the pressure cooker
5. Add 4 cups of water, salt to taste, red chilli powder. cover and put in a pressure cooker.
6. Let the cooker whistle 4-5 times

How to serve

After the cooker is out of steam :) ... remove the khichadi from cooker , serve with some ghee (clarified butter), pickle and yogurt. Papad goes well too.

Vanessa special tips
1. DO not underestimate the importance of step 3- saute on medium flame. This is what makes khhichadi special
2. Add raw baby onions (or 4 pieces of a large onion) to it in step 5 along with the water. Heavenly.
3. Goda masala (roasted and ground coriander seeds, white sesame, some cloves) is a great addition to this recipe.
4. unlike Pulav/ biryani, khichadi tastes good when its really soft and mushy. Thats the reason we add more than double water and cook for longer than normal rice. Also, works better when made in a vessel in a cooker rather than the base of a cooker.
(I also go the extra step of smashing it up a little in the plate and then adding the ghee.)
5. Achar (pickle) is a MUST