Batata Vada

For the Vada Filling

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds in it; when it crackles, add hing (asafoetida), curry leaves, ginger-garlic-green chili paste and sauté for a minute. 
2. Add mashed potatoes, lemon juice, chopped coriander leaves and sauté again for few seconds. Add turmeric powder, salt and mix it well. 
3. Switch of the flame, keep aside and let it be cool for 4-5 minutes.
4. Now take the mixture and divide it into small- small portion and make balls. 

For Besan Covering

1. Take a bowl. Add besan, salt, turmeric powder, carom seeds, pinch of soda in it and mix well, make a smooth lump free batter, using necessary water. 
2. Now heat oil in kadhai/pan for deep frying.
3. Dip each round of the Vada’s balls into the prepared batter and allow it to coat the mixture well. 
4. Now drop the batter coated ball into the hot oil carefully, use same process for remaining balls, and then deep fry them into the hot oil, till all sides become golden brown (fry balls into small-small batches). 
5. Drain fried vadas on paper towel and keep aside. 
6. Serve Vada with green chutney and/or garlic chutney.
7. You can slice each Pav (bun) into half, heat up a little on tava, spread some green chutney and dry garlic chutney inside. Place one vada in each pav and serve it fresh.

Sushi Fever

All you can eat Sushi :)

Me and my husband loved eating Sushi. After having kids, going out to Sushi restaurant for dinner became a rare thing. So my husband came up with an idea. Why not make Sushi at home. I first laughed at the idea, but apparently it was so simple that we started making sushi almost every week now. Below is the recipe and tools needed for rolling Sushi. 

Stuffing:

Avocado
Cucumber
Crabmeat
Shrimp (Cooked and cut into small pieces)
Smoked Salmon
Sesame Seeds

Dried Seaweed

You can have all vegetarian stuffing or you can mix and match with seafood. I don't like raw seafood so we got smoked salmon. We cooked shrimp in a skillet with small amount of oil and shredded it once cooked. 

Sushi Rice Recipe:

2 Cups Jasmin/ Sushi Rice
1/2 cup rice vinegar (Do not try any other Vinegar)1 tbsp oil1/4 cup white sugar1 tsp salt

Cook rice in a rice cooker. In a small saucepan combine rest of the ingredients till sugar is melted. Add the Vinegar sauce to rice and mix well. It will initially look too much liquid, but it will eventually dry out. Your rice is ready now. 

Dipping Sauce:

Wasabi Paste, Soy Sauce (Mix together Soy sauce and very tiny amount of Wasabi and you can dip your Sushi in it 

Ginger on side: thinly sliced young ginger that has been marinated in a solution of sugar and vinegar. 

Tools needed:

Sushi rolling mat or Sushi Roller

Rolling Sushi:

1. Take the sushi rolling mat, cover it with plastic wrap. 
2. Put seaweed wrap (Without the seaweed wrap, it's difficult to hold the sushi together unless you master it, so start with the wrap around. Once you know how to roll it, you can put wrap after the layer of rice, so it stays inside the sushi)
3. Spread a layer of sushi rice on it
4. Sprinkle sesame seeds
5. Add cucumber, crabmeat and other filling ingredients. 
6. Roll the mat and cut the sushi
7. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top once arranged on platter

Here is how Sushi looked on our platter:

Photos of rolling of Sushi taken from site WikiHow.