Masala chai (Indian tea)

According to Wikipedia, masala chai is a beverage from the Indian subcontinent made by brewing tea with a mixture of aromatic Indian spices and herbs. There is no universal recipe or method used for preparing masala chai. It varies among each household based on their taste and preferences.

Nevertheless, all masala chai are basically made up of four components: tea, sweetener, milk and spices. The most commonly used spices are: cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ginger, star anise and peppercorn. These spices can bring many potential health benefits to the body. For example,
a) Cardamom helps to relieve indigestion problems.
b) Clove helps to invigorate the body and is great at relieving flus and colds.
c) Cinnamon helps to lower blood pressure, reduce pains and fevers, relieve symptoms of indigestions, nausea, gas and heartburn. It can also help with menstrual cramps.

I had my first cup of chai latte at an English coffee house many years ago. It was like “love at first sight”. The strong and intense flavour of the mixed spices had produced a warm and soothing effect to my body, making me difficult to resist a second cup. Although I didn’t have this kind of indulgence for quite some time, it has stirred up my interest when I chanced upon a masala chai recipe. When I mentioned this matter to my close friend Mrs R over a casual conversation the next day, she had immediately invited me to her house for a cup of chai! Without a second thought, I happily accepted her kind offer. On that day, she even demonstrated her own method of making chai. Here, I share with you a simple and easy recipe for making masala chai with the courtesy of Mrs R:

Ingredients:
½ cup water
½ cup fresh/ UHT milk
1 piece of fresh ginger
2 cardamoms
2 tsp Indian tea leaves
Sugar (to taste)

Note: My preferred variation: add 1 cinnamon stick (break into pieces) and use a larger piece of fresh ginger.

Methods:
1) Use a rolling pin, pound the ginger and crush the cardamoms.



2) Add water into a small pot/ saucepan and bring it to a boil.
3) Add ingredients in step(1) into the boiling water.
4) After 5 seconds, add in tea leaves.
5) Let it simmer for 1 minute. Then add in milk.



6) Before the milk starts to boil, turn off the heat.
7) Strain the tea and spice residues into a teacup and serve.

Other reading references:
- Chai! Spiced milk tea
- Culinary Teas - Masala chai
- Drink your health with chai tea

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Lentils with pumpkin and tomato

Lentil is a good source of protein but I had never seen it in the Chinese cuisine. Thus, I had decided to cook a non-spicy version of dhal for my family especially my son to try it out. With much help from an Indian friend, recipes from the internet and many personal attempts, I had finally derived at the following recipe.

Ingredients:
200g pumpkin (cut into chunks)
50g yellow lentils (moong dal)- washed and soaked for ½ an hour
1 tomato (chopped)
½ red onion (sliced thinly)

Seasonings:
1 tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp cumin powder (I prefer powder than seeds because the smell is milder)
½ tsp tumeric powder
10 curry leaves (I used 20 leaves because I love the aroma.)
Coriander leaves (coarsely chopped)
Salt to taste
Squeeze of lemon juice (about 2 tbsp)

Methods:
1) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan over medium fire. When hot, stir-fry mustard seeds and curry leaves until the seeds pop.
2) Add in onion and fry until translucent, then add in ground spices (cumin and tumeric powder) and stir to mix well.
3) Add in pumpkin chunks and chopped tomato. Stir-fry for 2 min.
4) Add in enough water (including water used to soak the lentils) to slightly cover the ingredients. This should be about 1 cup.
5) Cover the pan and simmer for 5 mins until the pumpkin is half-cooked.
6) Add in lentils and simmer until lentils turn mushy. It takes about 15 mins.
7) Season with salt. Add in coriander leaves and lemon juice. Cook for another 1 min and turn off the heat.

Notes:
1) The time required to cook pumpkin varies. Eg Japanese & local pumpkin takes longer time as compared to Australian pumpkin. Hence, cut the size accordingly.
2) Lentils (Moong dal) can be cooked easily. Hence, soaking is optional. Previously I used yellow split peas (tun dal) which required longer cooking time to turn mushy ie 1-2 hours.
3) For step (6), alternatively, you can boil the lentils with water in a pot until they turn into puree. Then pour all the ingredients in step (5) into the lentils puree.
4) You can add a variety of vegetables (ie eggplant, cauliflower, potato, carrot) to the dhal based on personal preference.
5) You can also add in chickpeas to substitute some amount of lentils for a variance.

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Indian vegetarian rice

Cooking this one-meal dish is not as difficult as I thought after cooking for several times. Thanks to the advices and guidance from an Indian mother whom I met in my son's playschool and the recipes and cooking tips from here.

Below is the modified recipe I used:

Ingredients:
120g Basmati rice (long grained rice)
240g water
1 medium size onion (red, sliced thinly)
¼ cup green peas (frozen)
¼ cup french beans (chopped)
¼ cup cauliflower (chopped into tiny florets)
¼ cup carrot (chopped)
½ cup golden raisins
¼ cup halved cashew nuts

Seasonings:
2 cardamom pods
2 cloves
2 small ½ inch long cinnamon sticks
½ tsp tumeric powder
1 bay leaf
Oil for cooking (I used olive oil instead of ghee)
Salt to taste
Pinch of sugar

Methods:
1. Wash and drain rice on a kitchen towel. When it is slightly dry, heat 2 tbsp oils in a large pan and splutter cardamon, cinnamon sticks, cloves and bay leaf. Add in rice and tumeric powder and stir continuously for 2-3 mins in low heat and keep aside.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in the same pan and stir-fry the raisins until they turn plump or look like golden grapes and keep aside.
3. Fry the cashew nuts in the same oil until they turn into golden colour. Drain both the nuts and raisin in a kitchen towel.
4. With the remaining oil, saute all the veggies for 2-3 mins in low heat, add in salt, and stir-fry until they are well-coated with the oil and cooked slightly.
5. Remove the veggies and add more oils to the pan to fry the thinly sliced onions until they turn into golden brown. then add a pinch of sugar to the onion while frying so that it will give a taste of nice caramelised onions.
6. Remove the fried onions and drain them on kitchen tower.
7. Keep a spoonful of fried nuts, raisins and half of the fried onions for garnishing later.
8. As I used AMC cooking pot, I mixed everything together and add in water. Cook with medium high heat. When the timer showed 2 o'clock, use a fork to gently separate the rice so as not to get stickly to the bottom of the pot. Cover the lid again and continue to cook with medium heat until the timer hit 3 o'clock. Off the heat and wait until the timer moved back to 12 o'clock (so that the rice will be fully cooked)
9. Garnish with the rest of the nuts, raisins and & onion and serve.

Note: For microwave method and stove-top method, you can follow the steps from here.

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