Since I'm pathetic when it comes to being prolific at blogging, I've decided to compensate for the lack of imagination by penning down some recipes which I've come up with (believe it or not - originally). So, heres one which for lack of imagination I am just going to call Mushroom Masala, and this is just a description of how I prepared it about half an hour back. (I was busy devouring it between then and now of course).
My cooking style is highly experimental... This version is still in it's beta-testing phase... It is only the fifth time I've ever tried cooking mushrooms in my life. That is where we get the version 5 from. The minor version of 2 indicates a variant during this attempt to get things right. This is known internally i.e. to myself as 'damage control'; but let us just call it 'careful fine-tuning' to sound more sophisticated.
I must admit that this is being prepared with readily available spice blends and not from absolute scratch. I'm not proficient enough to come up with my own spice blends yet. For that I must apologize. I use masalas made by MDH, but that is because they are the only ones available at the Indian spice store in our neighborhood.
Anyway, enough talking about my exquisite cooking style and let us get on with a description instead:
1 pound button mushrooms sliced
1 Large Onion chopped into two halves longitudinally, followed by fine latitudinal slices.
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Large tomato chopped fine
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 flakes of Garlic chopped very fine
1" diameter slice of Ginger chopped very fine
1/2 teaspoon red-chilli seeds
1-2 Green chillies (Cerranos work best in the US)
1 Bell pepper (or capsicum) chopped into strips of size 2" x 0.25"
1 table spoon Olive oil
1/2 table spoon salt
Spices:
1 teaspoon Red chilli powder
1 teaspoon Ground Corriander (Cilantro) seed masala
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder
1 teaspoon MDH Tava Fry masala *
1/2 teaspoon MDH Kitchen King masala **
Procedure:
Heat the olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Roast the cumin and mustard seeds in this along with the red-chilli seeds. Next we add the chopped onions and continue frying them until they turn Golden brown. We also add the bell peppers to this as well as the chopped green chillies. As the onions start turning golden brown, we add the ginger and garlic. Stir briskly. Next we toss the tomato along with the spices. Mix these well and allow them to roast for about a minute.
Then we add the chopped mushrooms, around 50ml of water and mix everything well. Cover this up and heat for about 10 minutes on a medium flame. I had too much water remaining so I continued cooking it for another 5 minutes without covering the pan until the sauce in the pan around the mushrooms had a thicker consistency. At this point I added a small dab of honey and tossed the mushrooms again to mix thoroughly.
So that is my version of Mushroom Masala... v.5.2 beta... You are free to copy/share/modify or criticize this recipe. Please be aware that this preparation is fairly spicy. You should reduce the amount of chillies and masalas accordingly, if you have issues with spice. The amounts mentioned here produce a fairly rich flavoring which I prefer since I have ethnic taste buds, which my friends in America or Europe should read as "can eat chillies without dying"! I'd rate these ratios as spicy.
* Tava Fry masala is a spice blend which contains cloves cinnamon, nutmeg, black bepper, fenugreek leaves, cumin, pomegranate seeds, dry mango, coriander, caraway, chilli etc.
** Kitchen King masala is another spice blend with much of the same stuff above as well as bay leaf, asafoetida, cardammon seeds and so on
