The Indian Vegan Kitchen (40 page)

GF

1. Peel beets and cut in half.

2. In a small skillet, add beets. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes, until beets are slightly tender. Drain water and cool until beets are easy to handle.

3.
While beets cool, make dressing:
Combine vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, pepper, and cumin powder. Set aside.

4. Cut beets into ¼-inch pieces. In a small bowl, combine beets, kohlrabi, and cucumbers. Toss in the dressing. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Serve chilled.

GF

It is also the speciality of my friends Vandana and Suresh. Suresh is famous for meticulously chopping all the vegetables into bite-size pieces. My husband and I often make a meal out of it; the many vegetables and fruits make it filling and nutritious.

1. Wash the mung dal in 3 to 4 changes of water, until water is relatively clear. Soak for 2 hours or more. In a separate bowl, soak the peanuts. Drain the soaked mung and soaked peanuts.

2. In a small pan, boil the mung with ½ cup water and ¼ teaspoon salt. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. (Mung can also be cooked in the microwave, for 2 minutes on high.) Drain the water and cool the beans.

3. In a separate small pan, boil the peanuts with ½ cup water and ¼ teaspoon salt. Simmer for 2 minutes. Drain peanuts and cool. (Or microwave for 2 minutes on high.)

4. In a medium bowl, combine peppers, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, apple, mango, and cilantro. Add cooled mung and peanuts and mix to combine.

5. Sprinkle mixture with salt, cumin powder, chaat masala, and lemon juice. Stir well and set aside.

6.
Prepare seasoning:
Heat oil in a small skillet on medium heat. Add sesame seeds and curry leaves. Cover with lid. Cook for a few seconds, until the seeds stop splattering. The seeds will become light brown. Add seasoning to salad. Toss well.

7. Marinate at room temperature for 20 to 40 minutes before serving.

GF, LF

1. In a small bowl, combine the diced cucumbers and tomatoes. Stir in lemon juice and black pepper.

2. Just before serving, stir in the black pepper and salt, to taste. (Salt makes the vegetables soft and watery, so it’s best to add the salt just before serving.)

Desserts

L
IFE IS SHORT
, eat dessert first.” I think most Indians subscribe to that saying. Eating sweets galore is tradition, from ancient temples to modern celebrations. In fact, at wedding parties it is considered a sign of status and hospitality to serve guests a few pieces of
mithai
(dessert) on an individual plate—before dinner!

Indian sweets are quite different from Western desserts. The variety of sweets available is remarkably wide, and in many cases there are no Western equivalents. Some of the basic categories are
barfi
,
halwa
,
laddu
, and
kheer
. Traditionally, chocolate is not an ingredient in Indian desserts, although today you’ll find chocolate
barfi
as sweets makers (
halwai
) try to cater to the younger generation.

Because Indians do not use eggs in desserts and ovens were not typically found in Indian kitchens, baked goods are not part of the Indian dessert repertoire. With the migration of Zoroastrians (called Parsis) in the 1500s, and the British in the 1700s, baked goods have been around for a while, but only recently (in the last forty years) have bakeries proliferated in India. The two baked recipes I’ve included—Whole Wheat Cookies (page 202) and Cardamom Cookies (page 203)—have been around for a long time and have a distinct flavor and texture.

The Indian equivalent to the baker and bakery of the Western world are
halwai
and
halwai
shop. A visit to the
halwai
shop is as fun as going to a sensational French bakery. The
halwai
shop is lined with trays of beautifully displayed sweets—the white, gold, and green
barfi
are layered like a wall of bricks, the round
laddu
are neatly stacked in a pyramid shape, and the
halwa
sprinkled with nuts are kept hot in a large, round skillet. And right outside the shop, the
halwai
himself skillfully makes hot
jalebi
—my personal favorite—in a large shallow fryer, then dunks them in syrup. Eat a plate of hot
jalebi
at the
halwai
shop and bring a sackful home for the family.

The primary source of sweetener in Indian desserts is white crystallized cane sugar. Sugarcane has been cultivated for centuries and is abundant in India. Whenever sugarcane was fresh harvested, we would have some delivered to the house. It would be our afternoon snack. Just imagine peeling sugarcane with your teeth (that took talent and strong side teeth!) and biting into the juicy and succulent fruit. You chew and chew until all the juices are sucked out, and then (and only then) you spit out the husk. It’s pure sugar ecstasy. To eat sugarcane you have to stand up, bending about 20 degrees so that the juices don’t drip out of your mouth and onto your clothes. Even now when I go to India and sugarcane is available, I love to bite into some just for the fun of it. Somehow the newer generation of kids doesn’t eat it like we did. With all the freshly squeezed sugarcane juice that’s available these days, I guess the younger generation doesn’t like to get dirty or work too hard for their treats. Now they get five times the sugar without any effort (does this sound familiar?).

White crystallized sugar is the final version of the sugarcane processing. There are other in-between stages of purifying sugar that are rarely used today, though one popular by-product is jaggery, also called
gur
. It’s not as shelf-stable as sugar, although it is now available throughout the year. Desserts made with jaggery have a very different taste and texture from those made with sugar. It is rich in molasses and has a soft texture. Brown sugar, as available in this country, is a reverse process of adding molasses to the finished white sugar and thus does not give the same finished results. Jaggery is now available in Indian grocery stores. If you can find jaggery, try both versions and decide which texture you like better. Honey is rarely, if ever, used as a sweetener in Indian desserts. Based on Ayurvedic practices (the science of herbal medicine), which are ingrained in Indian cooking, honey is not to be boiled, for it affects the flavor and develops toxicity. This works well with vegan practices, as honey is an animal product.

Other than sugar, the main ingredients in traditional Indian desserts are milk and ghee—not ideal if you’re cooking vegan, to say the least. Over the years, vegetable oil and shortening have replaced ghee in many desserts. Vegetable oil is used because of health concerns, and shortening is used because it’s cheaper. This is very similar to how the desserts have changed in the United States. Here, we use shortening for cost reasons and oil or margarine instead of butter for health reasons.

Overall, coming up with good vegan Indian desserts without using milk and ghee has been a challenge. I have not included any milk desserts in this book. I chose not to substitute soymilk except in the Whole Wheat Cookies (page 202), for it used very little and would not alter the taste of the finished product. That is not to say you cannot make
kheer
or
halwa
with soymilk; just use the recipes from my previous book,
New Indian Home Cooking
and substitute the milk. In this book I have provided only recipes that were easily made with vegan ingredients. The recipes have been tested with shortening, but I also give an option for ghee or butter where it might make a difference in taste. Choose the ingredient you’re most comfortable with.

In India, as in the United States, desserts are typically high in fat and calories. I’ve cut down on the fat wherever possible, without compromising taste. Enjoy a small piece or a bite occasionally, for everything fits into a healthy diet.

I’ve attempted to simplify the wide array of Indian desserts, which are called
mithai
. Most are cooked on the stovetop; the four main categories are
barfi
,
laddu
,
halwa
, and
kheer
. Then there are other
mithais
that do not fall into these categories, such as
jalebi
,
gulab jamun
, and
rasagulla
, which I’ll call others.

Barfi
is either square- or diamond-shaped and is made with a variety of ingredients. The closest thing that I can use to describe its appearance is fudge. The majority of
barfi
are made with super evaporated milk. Then there are nut
barfi
(see Almond Barfi, page 204) and
barfi
made from different beans, grains, and even vegetables. The majority of
barfi
use milk or ghee as one of the major ingredients.
Barfi
are often lined with a thin layer of edible silver foil called
vark
, which is more like a garnish and makes the
barfi
glitter. Very occasionally, edible gold foil is also used, but only on special requests from wealthy customers.