Easy Navratan Korma

  

Bubbling in the pot...

Navratan Korma is one of those “typical” Indian foods you always seen on the menus of Indian restaurants here in the US. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s awful. 

I think the issue is that what classifies as Navratan — which means “Nine Jewels” in Hindi — is somewhat subjective. For example, while I think of cashews and sultana raisins as some of MY nine jewels, one takeout place near my apartment apparently considers “rotten pear pieces” and “corn kernels” as its jewels. Ick. 

The best navratan curry I ever had was in Jaipur, at a restaurant called Niro’s. The place has been around for more than 60 years and is listed in nearly every travel guide of the area. If recent traveller’s reviews are to be believed, it may have gone downhill in the past year or two. However, when I was there in 2006, the food was very, very good. It was made even better considering the hoops we jumped through to eat there –  mostly a very, very pushy tour guide who only wanted us to eat at the restaurants he was getting kickbacks from. He was also obsessed with telling us all sorts of details about the concubines of the ancient Mughal kings. Seriously. He was really annoying. 

Anyhow, below is my own simple recipe for Navratan Korma – including  MY nine jewels. Most of the vegetables can easily be substituted with whatever you have on hand or whatever you prefer. However, my necessities for a good navratan korma – and the ones I rarely get at restaurants — are paneer, cashews and sultanas or, even better, dried apricots. I’m not actually a big fan of the lima beans in it, but I’ve gotten them so often in restaurant orders that I’ve  become accustomed to it, and therefore used it in this recipe. 

This is a great dish to cook if you don’t have a lot of exotic Indian ingredients on hand, because the spices called for are all things you should be able to pick up at a basic grocery store. And, if you don’t have garlic or ginger paste, just use fresh garlic and ginger and smash it up. 

 

 

Navratan Korma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Navratan Korma 

Ingredients 

* 2 small onions 

* 2 Tbsp. garlic paste 

* 2 Tbsp. ginger paste 

* 3 tomatoes 

* 2 tsp. coriander 

* 1/2 tsp. turmeric 

* 1/2 tsp chili powder 

* 2 tsp. garam masala 

* 1 cup water 

* 1/4 cup milk 

* 1/4 cup cream 

* Nine “treasures” (below are mine) 

* 1/3 cup cashews 

* 1/2 cup paneer cubes 

* 1 cup potato, sliced into one-inch cubes 

* 15 string beans, cut into halves 

*3/4 cup lima beans 

* 1/2 cup carrots, sliced 

* 1/2 cup peas 

* 1/4 cup sultana raisins or dried apricots, sliced 

Directions 

1. Fry paneer until it is browned. 

2. Grind onion, garlic paste,and  ginger paste in food processor until well mashed. Add some water if you need to make this a paste-like consistency. 

3. Add a teaspoon of oil to a large pan and cook onion-tomato paste, stirring occasionally, for about 8 minutes. Add tomato sauce and spices, and continue to simmer for several minutes. 

4. Pour in water, carrots and potato and a few of the raisins or sliced apricots. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are softened. 

5. Add all other vegetables , cook for 5-8 minutes. 

6. Add paneer and cashews.  Then, stir in milk and cream, simmer for 2-3 minutes. Salt to taste. 

7. Serve over rice, garnish with cilantro if you like. 

Pasta Primavera

This pic turned out blurrier than I expected

This dish falls into a catagory of foods I think of as “first becoming a vegetarian foods.” That’s because my mother made it a lot when I first decided, at 16, to become a vegetarian. 

Pasta Primavera, tofu shepherd’s pie, macaroni and cheese, broccoli pasta, artichoke lasagna, home-made veggie burgers — these were the meals she found and made frequently for me (especially when my meat-loving dad was out of town on business). 

And when I came home from college on some weekends, she would usually end up making pasta primavera, too. And I would take the leftovers home with me in Tupperware containers. 

So, it holds a special, nostalgic,  place in my heart. 

This recipe is pretty easy to make, and it usually pleases just about anybody. The recipe for the white sauce is, I believe, foolproof, and you can use it, as I do, as your base for other more creative white sauce options for other dishes (adding, for example, saffron and walnuts, or some white wine, or a bunch of herbs… it’s up to you). 

Oh, and don’t skip the grape tomatoes on the top, because they add a great freshness (and color) to the meal. 

As a final side note: We’ve started buying higher-quality pasta lately. It started off as an accident when we had to buy orecchiette in an Italian specialty store, and we realized how much better the meal tasted. So, for this recipe, I used a more expensive spinach fettucine, too, and I have to say that it made a big difference. If you can spare the extra two bucks or so, I would suggest you do the same. 

Pasta Primavera 

Ingredients 

1 lb. spinach fettucine or linguine 

Several tablespoons olive oil 

1 cup carrots, sliced into 1/2 inch round pieces 

1 1/2 cup broccoli florets, cut into bite-sized pieces 

4 garlic cloves, crushed 

2 tsp. thyme 

1 cup sugar snap peas, cut into halves or thirds  at an angle (I use frozen ones for this) 

1 1/2 cups yellow and/or green zucchini, cut in half lengthwise, then into 1/4 inch slices 

2 cups mushrooms, sliced 

Grape tomatoes, as garnish 

– For Sauce – 

2 Tbsp. butter 

2 Tbsp. flour 

1 1/2 cups heavy cream 

1/2 cup milk 

One cup grated parmesan cheese 

2 Tbsp. minced fresh herbs 

Black pepper and salt, to taste 

Directions 

1. Cook pasta in boiling water according to directions on package, and drain. 

2. To make sauce, melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When melted, add flour and stir over  a low heat for one or two minutes. Slowly pour in cream while stirring. Keep stirring and allow this to thicken for a few minutes. You will notice a difference in the consistency. Then, add cheese, then milk, herbs and pepper, stirring well. Remove from heat. 

3. Heat olive oil in a large pan and saute the broccoli for two minutes. Add carrots, garlic and thyme. Cover and stir occasionally for 3-4 minutes. Add zucchini and snow peas, cook for 2-3 minutes. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste. Cook two minutes, then remove from heat. 

4. To serve, place pasta in a bowl, put a large spoonful or two of veggies on top, then pour some white sauce on top. Garnish with halved-grape tomatoes and sprinkle with some parmesan on top, if you like. Enjoy!

The Indian Grocer #3: Upma

Upma in a package

Upma is an Indian dish, often served for breakfast, made of refined wheat grains (known as sooji).  

It’s essentially the Indian answer to our boring Uncle Ben’s Cream of Wheat breakfast.  And if anyone is looking for a healthy, filling, warm breakfast dish to add to their bagel-cereal-oatmeal-breakfast lineup, I’d heartily recommend it.  

The problem, for me, is that I can’t make upma from scratch. It doesn’t seem all that hard — but I can’t do it. I’ve watched my mother-in-law make it, I’ve gotten directions from her. I’ve called her when it went horribly wrong and tried the corrections she suggested — but to no avail. For some reason, I always either burn it, or turn it into a gloppy gluey mess.  

Finally, I gave up and just tried the pre-packaged mixtures from the Indian store. It’s waaaayy easier and it tastes pretty good, too. Especially if you cook it with frozen peas and top it with a bunch of stuff like cashews, coconut flakes, cilantro and sev (those little fried vermicelli noodles which you can also buy in bags at the Indian stores). I like to eat it with a few spoonfuls of plain yogurt on the side. As an added bonus, you can even make it in the microwave. 

Finished and plated.

 When my in-laws make this dish, they fill little metal cups (shaped like ramekins) with the finished upma, then invert it on a plate so the whole things comes out in a pretty little circular shape. I don’t have those metal cups, so I shaped mine by hand.  

The MTR brand package of upma costs $1.79  at my grocery store, and one package easily makes enough food for two people — probably for three. Simply follow the directions on the back, which indicate you bring to a boil 2 cups of water (I add just a smidgen more water) , add the mixture, and stir for a few minutes. Add a pat of butter and stir.  

Done. I also add frozen peas in as a I mix, to give the meal a little color.  

Each serving as 4 grams of fat and 165 calories, although it’s unfortunately pretty high in sodium with 530 mg. Ingredients are: Semolina, refined palm-based veg. fat (uh oh), salt, chick pea, lemon powder, green chili, ginger, sugar, curry leaves and mustard. 

As a side note, I’ve had upma two ways: One is the way shown in my photograph, which is rather dry. The other, which I’ve had in some restaurants, is a more watery, soupy way (like how we often think of cream of wheat). I’m supposing that it is just personal preference. If you would prefer this dish more soupy, I think you could just add more water as you cook it — and probably some more ghee or butter. 

Although I’m curious to hear from people with more upma experience than me — how do you make yours? Watery or dry?