From Aloo ke Paranthe to Aloo Tikki's

Not the best looking picture, but they tasted superb! =)

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I'd be writing a blog post on anything remotely related to food.

And yet, here I am talking about aloo (potato) and gobi (cauliflower) ke paranthe (stuffed bread) and tikki's (patties?). Whaddaya gunna do, eh? *shrugs*

To be fair, I've always enjoyed cooking. Never had much of a chance trying my hand at it while I was growing up (that's what happens when you have the world's best cook for a mother!), but when I moved into an apartment with my best friend during our M.Sc. days, I did my fair share of cooking.

That's where experimentation began. And boy, was it fun!

And now that we (my husband and I) have moved to the UK, the experimentation with cooking has begun yet again. =)

Two nights ago I gave my Mom in India a frantic call asking her to email me recipes for aloo and gobi ke paranthe. It was, after all, Rohit's 'cheat' day, which meant carbs galore. No wheat, no gluten, but good ol' carbs.

I made the aloo mix for his and gobi mix for my paranthe, got out some gluten free aata (flour) and went to work on them paranthe.

And what a disaster they were!

I shall not dwell into why (but if questioned, I will blame gluten free aata entirely).

So here I was with a lot - and I mean a lot of aloo and gobi mix but with no intention of trying to make paranthe with gluten free aata again. Ever again.

But I couldn't let all that mix go to waste either. So what do I do? Why, I recycle, of course! =)

I had this ingenius (ok, not that ingenius of even original, but hey!) idea to make tikki's from the mix. And despite what you're thinking, they turned out pretty damn good. =)

Let's take a walk through the tikki preparation, shall we?

What you'll need (or ingredients)

• potatoes / cauliflower
• onion
• ginger
• garlic
• green chilies
• garam masala
• chaat masala (another link)
• salt
  
• chili powder
  
• amchoor powder (another link)
• aata (flour) - gluten free, preferably!
  
  Note: all masalas above should be readily available in a store near you!

What you're going to have to do (or procedure)

[This mix can be used for aloo / gobi paranthe as well as aloo tikki's]

• Boil potatoes and allow them to cool off. You can run them under cold water to speed up the process. Once done, peel off the skin and mash the potatoes.
  Or, wash the cauliflower and allow it to dry. Once dry, grate the cauliflower.
  
  
• Chop up an onion into real small pieces and add to the potatoes.
  
  
• To this, add some grated ginger, garlic and green chilies. Make sure these are grated well else you'll bite into them.
  
  
• Add garam masala, chaat masala, amchoor powder (just a pinch / pinch and a half) salt and some red chilli powder (optional if you have green chillies in there) to this mix.
  I won't give you a specific quantity to add but when you've added the different ingredients, grab a chunk and taste. If it's tangy enough for you, then you've done it right. =)


• Now grab a bowl, pour some aata (gluten free!) into it, add a little water and make a thick paste.
  
  
  
• Get some oil in a pan and heat it.
  
  
• While this oil gets heated up, start rolling the potato + spice mix into little round, flat balls (or tikki's!).
• 
  
• Dip these tikki's (one at a time) in the aata mix and add it to the oil to fry. This layer of aata mix is required to ensure the potatoes don't disintegrate as soon as they hit the hot oil. =)
  
  


• Flip these tikki's occasionally but not too much. Let them cook nicely and you'll have yourself some yummy tasting aloo tikki's! =)

And there you have it...them tikki's! =)

Boy, I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but if you make these at home, lemme know they turn out!

Send me a postcard!

So, I've got a bit of a crazy idea. Not necessarily original, I'll tell you that.

A bit of background (if you know me, you know I like backgrounds with most of my posts!) - I've got four blogs. I've got this one on Blogger, another one on Posterous, one on Wordpress, and the final one on Tumblr.

There's a bit of distinction in my mind as to which host is for what. Posterous is for my #AwesomeHandles, Wordpress for the more serious me and Tumblr for a series of my favorite shots.

This one, ideally, I would like to maintain for the craftster in me. And boy is there a huge craftster in me! =)

Now, given that I've recently moved to the UK and will be setting up the house, I've been going insane trying to figure out what I can create on my own. My Pinterest page will tell you what I've been thinking! =)

During this process, however, I came across an idea. A 'what if', as it were. Again, I know this one's been done before but there's no harm in taking this further and seeing where it goes, eh?

What exactly am I on about? Well, I thought it'd be interesting get a collection of postcards from the lot of you!

I sent out a tweet and had four people ask for my address within 20 minutes. Now that's bloody encouraging!

So this is what I ask of you: wherever you are, whichever part of the world, whether you're at home or on holiday or travelling for work, just take a moment, pick up a postcard (hey, pick up as many as you want!) and mail them to me! =)

If you are interested in sending me a postcard, drop in an email to me at "swatirandev at gmail dot com". Put "I want to send you a postcard" in the subject line and tell me a bit about yourself in the body of the email - heck, even leave the body blank! =) Once I get this email from you, I'll send you my postal address and you can send me the postcard!

A bit complicated, I know, but I thought this was a bit safer than randomly advertising my home address here on the net!

I'm going to keep a collection and constantly update this blog with the postcards that come in.

If you've chanced upon this blog post and have no idea of who I am, you can check out my profile at http://about.me/silv3rglee to know more. And I would especially like to get a postcard from you!

I'm a bit skeptical about the success of this tiny project, but hey, I'll be happy even if I get two postcards! =)

*rubs hands in glee* I can't wait to get all your lovely postcards! =)