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Go back to the kitchen

In a city teeming with processed foods, lifestyle diseases and rising inflation, cooking should be made compulsory for every individual. Here’s why.
by Ritika Bhandari Parekh

It’s time to learn how to cook. Besides getting compliments over time, cooking what you eat will help you respect your body and palate like never before.

Look around the city and you’ll find an advertisement or two on weight loss at every corner. Obesity is one of the major lifestyle diseases on the rise in our country. Blame it on the easy availability of junk food, canned ingredients, the lack of time in our busy schedules, or simply the fear of the kitchen, which has made us prone to this disorder.

Vani HariVani Hari, a US food activist (in pic on left), famously known as ‘The Food Babe’ has a simple solution for maintaining equilibrium in a world of supermarket dinners. She suggests cooking at least 15 meals per week at home. She blogs about how to make better choices at the food section of the market and steer clear of GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) ingredients in your plate.

Everyone – man or woman – should cook

The shocking revelations on her blog related to major food companies like Subway and Starbucks makes one realise how tricky it is to make a healthy eating choice. Luckily, most Indian cities have the advantage of a vegetable market just around the corner and so we should equip ourselves with a few cooking skills. Parents should teach not only their daughter but also their sons how to cook some basic dishes from scratch. The skills will help them survive in the maze of canned foods and their longevity will be attributed to their cooking.

Today, not even milk is free from the grip of the sugar industry, reveals British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. He started the food revolution in the US and Britain to change the way people eat and improve the nation’s health.

Why cook at home?

In his 2010 TED talk Oliver says, “The power of food has a prime place in the house.” He reveals that most Americans have not seen their parents cook and are therefore, clueless as to how to cook besides reheating and thawing frozen food. For him, the culture of eating is passed on at the home.

As a culture, Indian cuisine varies from State to State and even in States, from region to region. So Maharastrian cuisine differs from Konkani with the slight hint of flavours. A Google search willHealthy Indian food reveal how Indians living abroad are trying to make the most of the desi ingredients available to them and recreate the magic of ‘ghar ka khaana’.

With cooking being relegated to the status of an art and Masterchef Australia introducing us to the world of gourmet home cooking, suffice it to say that cooking at home has achieved cult status like never before. People are realizing that home-cooked food is the key to a happy and healthy body. So the next time you are at the supermarket make a better choice and try to pick more real food – one which is not processed or loaded with chemicals.

Lastly, here’s a thought by author Michael Pollanto to sum up, “The most important thing you can do with your health is cook. Cooking is more powerful than any medication.”

(Pictures courtesy www.vedicodyssey.com, wellandgood.com, www.wiseshe.com)

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10 chutneys you can find in Mumbai

Mumbai is home to some awesome cuisines and the secret ingredient that rocks even the dullest fare – the humble chutney.
by Mamta D | @silverlightgal on Twitter

In 1990, when an NRI woman entrepreneur, Namita Panjabi, opened her first Indian restaurant in Chelsea, London, she named it Chutney Mary to commemorate the humble Indian condiment that is today making waves all across the globe. Originally called chatni, this ubiquitous condiment has its roots in Eastern India as early as the 16th century.

Basic chutneysAs you move from one region to another in India, you will come across a variety of ways in which chutney is prepared.

Chutney may be raw or cooked; the former is a concoction of vegetables and the latter a mixture of chopped fruit, vegetables, vinegar and spices.

An Indian housewife can transform an otherwise drab meal into an interesting fare simply by using her imagination and producing innovative varieties of chutneys. Raw radishes, tomatoes, onions even boiled gourd peels and dried orange peels have their own special chutneys.

Chutneys have exceptional medicinal benefits too. Chutney prepared from fresh green curry leaves is said to be an excellent source of iron and protein. Though they were never allowed to go outside frequently in the early days, Indian women nevertheless had extreme ingenuity and skill and demonstrated this in churning out one variety of chutneys after another.

When it was found that these raw chutneys could not last more than a day, the ladies applied further ingenuity and came up with yet another trump card – chutney powder. Spices were roasted and ground with bits and pieces of dried vegetables, peels or leaves. For instance, curry leaves were dried in the sun and finely powdered with roasted spices. The end result – a long lasting, tasty, tangy chutney powder.

Here in Mumbai, we can come across these 10 types of chutneys:

The fiery red lasoon or garlic chutney

The ‘lasoon chutney’, a concoction of garlic and red-hot chillies, garnishes meals to add a fiery dash or to just the local dialect, ‘mirchify’ the meal, be it a dal rice or a simple fare of bhakar. The lasoon chutney is also popular with vada pav makers, who liberally spread it on the pav before dumping the potato vada on it.

The green pudina/dhania chutney

The green chutney typically made of fresh coriander leaves (dhania) or mint leaves (pudina), ginger, garlic, salt and chillies is often used in preparing sandwiches. It can also make a drab chapati tastier when spread over it.

The mirchi thecha

A coarsely ground mixture of raw green chillies, roasted peanuts, salt and garlic and optionally, a few drops of lime juice, this is a quickie, in the sense that it can be made within Mirchi thechaminutes, with the slightest of efforts (in pic on right).

The coconut chutney

This goes well with sabudana wadas, steamed idlis, dosas, and the like. It’s often made of freshly grated coconut, salt, green chillies, and a little bit of tamarind, with a slight variation here and there.

The sweet-sour chaat chutney

Every streetside chaat vendor swears by this. From the bhel puri to the sev puri to the paani puri, this chutney is a given in every chaat dish. In swanky restaurants, there is a more elegant version on offer, but when it comes to lip smacking, finger licking taste, the street side version wins hands down.

pithlaPithle (also called Bombay chutney)

A typical Maharashtrian favourite, this one is made of besan or gram flour paste, and is served as an accompaniment to poori, chapatis, and so on (in pic on left). Though, unlike the other chutneys, this one is not entirely made of raw stuff but requires some amount of cooking on the stove; it can be made in a jiffy and requires very few ingredients.

Raw mango or kairi chutney

This is a seasonal chutney and is made only in the summer. The spicy tangy combination of raw green mangoes (kairis) with red chillies, topped with a seasoning of mustard seeds, is set to be a mouthwatering winner when served in any menu. People eat it with dosas, pooris, chapatis, and even mix it with plain steamed rice.

Tomato chutney

Though originally a South Indian delicacy, today it has been well adopted into the Maharastrian palate. Made from ripe red tomatoes, cooked for long hours on a slow flame with lots of oil and spices, this one can last a whole year and is often stashed away in bottles for a rainy day.

Radish or mooli chutney

Again, this is an import from other States, which has slowly made its way into Maharastrian homes. Ideal for the chill winter months, this heat-inducing radish chutney is made of raw radish, garlic, salt, jaggery, and either red or green chillies.

Pineapple chutneypineapple chutney

Yet another outlander to the traditional Marathi cuisine, this one has probably been smuggled into the State by the Maharashtra-Karnataka (food) border outlaws. It is sweet, spicy, and tangy in parts, because of the pineapple chunks, the red chillies and the tamarind that goes into its making.

Did we miss any chutneys that are commonly available in Mumbai? Tell us about them in the comments section below.

(Pictures courtesy www.iskcon.net.au, vegetarianzest.blogspot.com, www.madhurasrecipe.com, www.saffronsunshine.com, whatscookinginyourworld.blogspot.com)

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Street food and the Mumbai diabetic

Are you a diabetic looking for a snack on the street? There aren’t many options, but here’s presenting seven items.
by Mamta D | @silverlightgal on Twitter

Indian food is considered to be among the best in the whole world. While many countries are content to consume meat, fish, and vegetables in bland form, India prides itself on its rich, tasty and spicy cuisines. Owing to the diverse communities inhabiting India, our food has become all the more rich, sometimes even fusing two or more cuisines together. Besides the regular home-cooked varieties and food that is available in hotels and restaurants, India is also famous for its street food.

From the chhole bhatures of Delhi’s streets to the aloo paranthas of Chandigarh, to the dosai of Chennai and the ubiquitous vada pav of Mumbai, you will find sumptuous spreads right on the street, all at throwaway prices.  Moreover, the roadside stalls are open most of the day and people from any walk of life can consume their wares. Thus, you have a daily wage laborer eating steaming hot vada pavs alongside a well-dressed office-goer. Street food stalls don’t discriminate between their customers.

If at all there are any drawbacks to street food, it is that of hygiene and that they are not diabetic-friendly. The matter of hygiene is a controversial one, but once you have taken the plunge, there’s no looking back. People often jokingly claim that eating street food over the years has made them more immune to illnesses.

As for diabetic-friendliness, sadly there’s not much to cheer. Most of the popular street food is loaded with carbohydrates and/or sugar. For instance, a single vada pav serving is packed with 300 calories and includes 55 gms of carbs. The dabeli which is an import from the street sides of Kutch has approximately 197 calories and 26.5 g of carbs.

Besides vada pav, samosas, and dabelis, there are umpteen roadside idli and dosa stalls. Idlis are high in carbs and have a high glycemic index of 77, so they can hike your blood sugar. Likewise for dosas. If you’re a diabetic, stay away from the nimbu pani and gola carts and the sweet lassi counters.

Neither can you indulge in the paani puri. Even if you bravely attempt to consume the paani puri foregoing the sweet chutney, you will not be able to go beyond one attempt. The sweet chutney is meant to serve a purpose and doing away with it does not make sense.

But being a diabetic doesn’t have to mean giving up on your taste buds, especially, if you are prone to hypoglycemia and there’s no homemade food at hand.

So what are the good street food choices for a diabetic? Try these:

dhokla#1) Dhoklas: Dhoklas are made of besan (Bengal gram flour) and so offer a decent alternative to the carb-and glucose-rich foods. Dunk them in the fiery green chutney and voila! You have a tasty healthy snack.

#2) Kanda pohe: Made of flattened or beaten rice and often served warm or hot, this street side food is mostly available during the morning hours as a quickie breakfast. Ensure, however, that there are no potato slices or wedges in the pohe.

#3) Bhel puri: Bhel puri that is mixed without the sweet chutney can be a tasty and yet healthy snack. It has puffed rice, peanuts, finely chopped onions, tomatoes, green chillies, and coriander leaves.

#4) Upma: This rava dish is a perennial favourite across many communities. From South Indians to Maharashtrains, everyone loves upma for its taste value and simplicity. A simple onion upma can be ravishing when you’re super hungry.

#5) Misal/Usal Pav: Dipping thick chunks of bread or pav into the fiery red steaming missal that has an array of boiled sprouts floating in it and consuming it before the missal cools down can either be a blissful or a scary experience, depending on how weak or strong your stomach is.True blue Mumbaikars swear bythe missal pav.

#6) Egg bhurji and other egg items: Many roadside corners boast of an anda pav or bhurji pav stall. The bhurji is made in a jiffy with finely chopped tomatoes, onions, slit bhurjigreen chillies and scrambled with raw eggs. The hot bhurji is then slid on to your plate with a slick movement and a slice of pav is scraped on the tava, finally landing on your plate on top of the bhurji. On a cold winter evening, taking quick bites of this hot and spicy combination can be quite orgasmic. These stalls also serve boiled eggs and omelettes with pav.

#7) Kebabs and other items: Street food is not limited to the vegetarian varieties alone. There are kebabs, shawarmas, tandoori nuggets, and so on. Bade Miyan’s at Colaba, the umpteen stalls at Mohammed Ali street or Abdul Rehman street are the places to go to for these.

As you can see, unfortunately, the number of street food choices for a diabetic are quite low in number.  ‘Make do with what’s available’ will be the best policy here than to give in to temptations and have your blood glucose levels shooting up sky high!

(Pictures courtesy asiaexpatguides.com, kiransrecipes.blogspot.com, www.mapsofindia.com)

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Diet ki dukaan

Why do we complicate our diet by bringing in dieticians? What’s wrong with home-cooked Indian food for our dietary needs?
by Anurita Gupta

“Yeh chaar goli, teen teen ghante mein ek baar.” Remember this typical setup of a doctor’s clinic, with a compounder in the next room putting together a pink concoction for cough syrup and some tabs in a small white paper ki pudiya? These days, new-age diet consultants and nutritionists have replaced these doctors, with their ideas of eating small meals every two hours to lose weight.

My visit to a high profile diet consultant,who is not even a doctor in terms of having a degree, was like a flashback to such a doctor’s dawakhana. Just the way the doctor would pretty much hand over the same meds for everything from viral to tummy complaints, this nutritionist had her lines rehearsed: “The key is to eat, but not all at one go!” This instruction was not even given in person. A bunch of us were hustled to a tiny room with a TV by a rude receptionist, and made to watch a video presentation by this nutri-queen telling us about how eating healthy (read: wheat grass juice) would make all the difference.

It didn’t occur to me then, but in the name of personalised advice, this one was doling out tips wholesale.

Dr Loveleena Nadir, renowned gynecologist and nutrition advisor with the Fortis chain of hospitals, says, “It’s quite simple, and yet people are not willing to accept that being fit can be as easy as eating regular home-made meals that are freshly prepared. They will try and figure various formulae, instead of having a typical Indian meal that is automatically filled with protein in the form of dal, complex carbohydrates in multigrain rotis and rice, and iron and other minerals and vitamins that are found in fresh and green leafy vegetables.”

The home connection
Cut to the 90’s when I was in my early teens and would find a trip to the sabzi mandi a great outing with my badi mamma. She was in her 60s then but more fit than many 30-year-olds. Her mantra? Khao sabb kuchh per kaddo vee (you must eat everything but burn it)! We would both walk more than two kilometres each way and carry back huge bags of sabzi and fruit.

Badi mamma would sweat but never be out of breath. Each of her chores required physical labour – no washing machines for her, and she would lug heavy buckets of hand-washed clothes to the roof to dry. The breakfasts she made were healthy – a grated apple, one bolied egg and two rotis with the sabzi of the day. She was her at her ideal weight of 56 kg with a height of 5ft 6in.

Work complicates matters
We have complicated our lives not just with work but with such little time to concentrate on our health that we pay money for someone to take us back to ‘ghar ka khana’. All our pre-packaged makhani dal and pulao for lunch and many dinner outings have made us ill. No wonder, then, that we are told to have healthy meals in small amounts, just like a medicine.

However the modern concept of ‘eating everything healthy’ in regular doses bears the hazard of completely unhealthy thoughts in our minds against a thali full of proper khana. With a dietician’s advice, we plan ahead and get ziplock bags of healthy, nutritious food. It doesn’t stop there. Many phone apps assist us in carefully calculating our calorie intake of the day.

Dr Nadir says, “It’s important in general to keep your salt intake balanced which, unfortunately, is our biggest problem, because all packaged and fast food is very high in sodium.”

So what’s healthy?

The humble dal chawal and bajre ka rotla were such favourites with gharelu aam ka achaar and mutthi maara pyaaz. I feel so deprived at times, because I don’t have the liberty of time to make or eat the food of my childhood.

Of course, our lives are different than before. Food is mostly a ‘comfort’ for us after a long battle with traffic and sometimes, a painful boss. So fatty, junk food becomes instant relief. With that, we drag our unhealthy selves not back to the kitchen to make a simple, healthy meal, but to knock on the doors of a ‘magic doctor’ who tells us to eat seven medium-sized rotis a day – something that our mothers told us ages ago, for free!

(Pictures courtesy www.myvistahealth.com, www.kidspot.com.au, www.spiceflair.com)

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Food for 2012’s last month

Ziya at the Oberoi Hotel starts a six-day ‘Z’ menu from today; all dishes served will incorporate the letter ‘Z’.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

It’s the last month of 2012, and for most of us, 2013 can’t get here soon enough. So while we’re waiting for the year to end, why not dig into a specially-designed menu with a twist?

Twice-Michelin starred chef Vineet Bhatia has created a fun new menu – the Z menu – for patrons of Ziya, The Oberoi, Mumbai. Inspired by the last letter of the alphabet, it is being served from today to December 16, with each dish incorporating the alphabet Z.

As per a release from Ziya, “Guests will begin their dining experience with Zafran, saffron shorba, Charmagaz marbles and naan malai bruschetta, followed by a choice of either Zucchini Bekti with Bengal gram masala and zucchini korma or Zucchini‐chilli paneer, with Bengal gram masala and zucchini korma.” The next course will offer Zattar chicken tikka with Punjabi paratha and papaya chutney or Zattar saag corn seekh with Punjabi paratha and papaya chutney, followed by Zeera, Cumin lamb pasanda, rice gattas, cumin potatoes, and lamb jus or Zeera, Cumin aubergine gujiya, rice gattas, cumin potatoes, and panch‐phoran tomato sauce.

The restaurant will let you end your meal “with a dose of death by chocolate, by trying Zeher, which is mocha coffee‐chilli choco cheesecake with Cookie kulfi, and sesame butter truffle.” Other vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare will also be available during this time.

(Picture courtesy pioneerwoman.com. Picture used for representational purpose only)

 

 

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Last day: Grab your reward points and coupon code

PoshVine launches in the city today. Still haven’t signed up for great eating out experiences in Mumbai? Do it today.

Early this week, we featured PoshVine, a restaurant concierge service that is launching in Mumbai today. Prior to the launch, we tied up with PoshVine to offer you, our reader, an incredible eating out experience at a nice restaurant of your choice.

Reward points and coupon code

As reward for being our reader, we gave you the chance to sign up on poshvine.com for free, and use a discount coupon code unique to The Metrognome. You could register and immediately be rewarded with 1,000 points, which are redeemable later in lieu of several dining experiences that PoshVine has to offer. You could book a table and have a complimentary drink served to you and your friends, you could redeem your points for a special experience designed and executed by PoshVine – such as a masterclass with a reputed chef, or a food trail in the city – and for signing up, you could get an immediate offer of a one-time special discount on select PoshVine experiences.

We’re telling you all this because this offer ends today. If you still haven’t grabbed your chance for a wonderful eating out experience, sign up on this link http://www.poshvine.com/auth/register and use The Metrognome coupon code PVRCSON28.

It’s great being of help to you! Here’s wishing you and your family a very happy Diwali.

Regards,

The Editor.

 

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