Spiced Tea / Masala Chai for that sore throat

I am continuing with my series of recipes - hot and spicy to soothe my throat and jog my congested chest and blocked nasal passages and how can tea be left far behind. Our everyday tea cuppa is great to gulp down a sore throat but try a masala chai / spiced tea instead and see the difference. It soothes the throat and at the same time generates heat in the body that opens up the sinuses and aids perspiration.

Ingredients
Water - 2 cup
Milk - 4 tbsp
Tea leaves - 2 tsp
Ginger, crushed - 1tsp
Peppercorn - 7 to 8
Clove - 2
Green cardamom - 1/2, peel and seeds
Sugar as per taste

Use a mortar and pestle / silbatta to crush the ginger, peppercorn, cardamom and clove together. Add the water and this crushed spice mix into your tea kettle and put it on heat. I like to keep it on low to allow the spice enough time to steep. When this mix comes to a boil, lower the heat and let I simmer for a few minutes then add the milk and sugar and let it boil on low. Take off the heat and pour into mugs after a couple of minutes.

Take big sips of the hot tea and let it steam down your throat; the spice and heat warms you instantly.

Notes: I use large mugs and 2 cups of water and milk  reduces eventually to a little less than a cup when the tea is made.
This is more a medicinal tea than the regular masala chai.
When we stayed in the US, I had this tea most evenings on my return from work, it actually thawed me and helped bear the cold Northeast winters.

 

Benefits of:

- Ginger infused in hot water / tea is known to warm the respiratory tract making it a soothing remedy for colds, flu and coughs.
- Cloves are rich in flavonoids and a component called eugenol that is a mild anesthetic and contains anti-inflammatory properties.

- Cardamom, like ginger has anti-inflammatory properties that limit pain and swelling especially mucus membranes, the mouth and throat. It may help prevent and relieve cold and flu symptoms and is used for cough and bronchitis as well. 

Mixed Vegetable Upma / Upumaav / Upama

Upma is one of those foods that is either really loved or absolutely detested by people, leaving hardly any fence-sitters. I do not like the upma on most days unless it is made with vegetables. For my husband it is the most comforting food that he falls back on for breakfast or lunch or dinner. But he likes it made simply, without tomatoes and vegetables which I do not eat. So at our home, if my husband is eating upma you can be sure I am eating something else! When growing up, whenever mom made upma, she cooked something else for me or made sure there was bread and cheese in the frig for me. I can live on sandwiches so her fall back plan for me was always bread with something for the stuffing!

I learnt to make an upma after marriage knowing that this was the go to dish for my husband. Its not easy to get the consistency right especially when you are starting off. Here in this post also, the measures I have given is more approximate than exact. Most of my cooking is done by the look, feel, taste and smell and I am giving you how to do it here. I prefer to add only little of what I like to call taste ingredients like salt, sugar, tamarind, chili powder, etc. initially. You can always add some later though the reverse, i.e., lessening of a taste ingredient is difficult. So be miserly at the start and add little by little as needed.

Broadly, follow these steps for making upma -

In a pan dry roast rawa on low heat till they look crisp which will take about 10 minutes, then keep aside. Heat oil in a kadai / deep pan for phodni / vagaar / tadka / tempering, add the mustard seeds and a few udad dal / split black gram. Tip, take a little more oil than required, it helps in fluffing the rawa when cooked. Once the seeds have spluttered add chopped onions, chopped green chilies and curry leaves, stir fry till the onions are soft and light golden. Add water into this and a little salt. Once it boils, lower heat and check for salt and add more if necessary. Tip, the water should taste a little saltier than you usually take in food. This is because rawa like potato absorbs salt making the upma tasteless if the water had exact salt to start with. Continuing with the upma, Raise the heat and once you have the water boiling again, slowly add the rawa into the boiling water. Add the rawa by tilting the container slightly to create a continuous flow without dumping a lot at one time. Stir the spoon in circles in one direction, mixing all the time. Do not stop stirring, lumps will form and your upma will good only for the trash can. Now, add as much rawa till the time, the mix has come together and it becomes difficult to stir the spoon. Stop adding the rawa, lower the heat and keep stirring to bring the whole mixture together. Tip, keep some boiling water handy incase you added too much rawa by mistake and incase you need to use this extra water the rule is to add little - stir well, then add more if required. If the water is all absorbed then pile all the upma into a mound then take the pan off the heat and keep covered for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then, uncover and stir the upma to fluff it up.

Mixed Vegetable Upma
Ingredients
Rawa / Sooji / Cream of wheat - approx. 1 cup
Pyaaz / Kaanda / Onion - 1 medium, finely chopped
Tamatar / Tomato - 1 small, finely chopped
Gaajar / Carrot - 2 tbsp. finely chopped
Farasbee / Beans / French Beans - 2 tbsp. finely chopped
Vatana / Matar / Green peas - 2 tbsp.
Mirchi / Hari Mirchi / Green Chili - 1 finely chopped
Rai / Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp.
Kadipatha / Curry leaves - 2 - 3 torn into pieces (optional)
Coriander leaves - 1tsp. chopped
Water - 1.5 cups
Oil - 3 tbsp.
Salt to taste

In a pan dry roast rawa on low heat and keep aside. Heat oil tempering, add the mustard seeds and once it splutters add chopped onions, chopped green chilies. Stir fry till the onions till soft and translucent. Add the finely chopped tomatoes and fry it for a minute. Add turmeric powder, stir, then add water into this and a little salt. Add the chopped carrot, green peas and french beans and let it cook for about 5 minutes till still crunchy. Raise the heat till boiling and add the rawa slowly stirring all the while. When the mixture has come together switch off the heat and keep covered. Add the chopped coriander leaves and fluff the upma up. You can also add 1 or 2 tsp. grated coconut to this.

Spoon some into a bowl and get some piping hot tea to go with it! Enjoy!!!

Rose Green Tea

There are tea loyalists and then there are coffee loyalists and each guard their bastions with complete conviction. I am very much a tea drinker. Though I have to admit I stick to coffee when I travel because experience has taught me that vendors can mess a tea whereas not so much an instant coffee. After all for a coffee, all they do is add a little instant coffee to the hot water-milk-sugar mix. If it is light for your taste a little more coffee powder can be added but not so with tea! As for me, a hot cuppa strong tea in the morning coaxes me awake and helps me acknowledge the world around me. A Taiwanese ex-colleague of mine was a green tea loyalist and she had 2 cups a day at work - in mid-morning and evening. She had never had any other tea and it was the same with her family. And that's the first green tea loyalist I met.

 

That reminded me of my trip to Goa with my friend and her sister. We were still in school then and felt very important that we were making that trip alone. It did not matter that her cousin and uncle and aunt would be waiting at the bus stand for us and would escort us every minute from there on! We were staying at her cousin's place and every morning we would have Rose Tea and biscuits while sitting in the verandah  overlooking the greenery around. That was the first time I had a flavored tea and I loved it, though I am not sure if it was green!

 

Years later, when my friend visited Goa I asked her to pick a box of Rose Tea and she got me this :

The Green element to this Rose Green Tea was a bonus. I boiled a cup of water, took it off the heat and added the tea leaves. Then let it steep for 2 to 3 minutes and it was ready to be poured into a mug. Have it steaming hot especially on a cold day. I learnt from practice that a hot mugful of green tea was really good at keeping the cold away during the winters. It's beneficial in a couple of ways - keeps me warm and increases my liquid intake! As for the benefits of green tea, the internet lists quite a few: reduces the risk of heart attacks and cancer, lowers bad cholesterol, controls diabetes and some more. It is the most sought after for its anti-aging and weight loss properties. Both of which I could do with! Cheers!

 

Brunch with leftovers!

Take some leftovers, put them together with some additions and voila! you have a lovely brunch.

On a cold Sunday morning, the urge to sleep in under a warm comforter is really high and hence a meal of leftovers makes life easy. The menu was - an onion and green chilli omelette, potato masala sandwiches, cheese slices, sweet puttu and bananas and tea to round it all off.

I had some potato masala in the refrigerator and I used this to make some stuffed sandwiches which I then toasted with butter in a pan. I also had some puttu which I had steamed with sugar and extra coconut to make an instant sweet ending to our breakfast. Added some small bananas to the steamed puttu - all Kerala style! All this needed was a Kerala chaaya and my meal was ready to be served.

Puttu and Kadala curry - YUM!!!

Puttu (steamed rice cake) and kadala (black gram) curry, a favourite Malayali breakfast, so warm and filling on a wintery morning. Add a malayali chaaya (tea) to this to round off the meal!