We got off work 4 hours early on Christmas Eve. On the way home, did some grocery shopping. I had invited my parents, my sister's family and a friend's family for lunch at 12 noon. The menu was going to be very simple. Since it was a cold day, I decided to start the lunch with Potato and Leek Soup. The lunch menu was extremely simple - chole, paratha, pulao, yogurt and green onion sabzi.
Potato and Leek Soup:
2 leeks - white and green parts - finely chopped and then washed 6 times (it has too much sand in it, just like methi, so please wash it properly). If you do not chop it finely, then the sand remains in between the leaves, no matter how many times you wash it).
1 tablespoon EVOO (extra virgin olive oil - a la Rachel Ray)
3 cups of chopped onion - yellow
1 tablespoon of chopped garlic
2 tablespoons of aadu (chopped ginger)
1 tablespoon of green marchu (chopped green chillis)
4 potatoes - peeled and chopped
4 cups of vegetable stock - ready made from Safeway - the Organics brand
2 cups of water
Salt according to taste
In a pan, heat the oil and add the leeks, onions and salt. You want to stir this every three minutes. I have an electric stove and I had the setting on 6.
Add the garlic, ginger, green chilli and again let it cook together for about 3 minutes.
Now add the potatoes, vegetable stock and water. I turned the setting on high and after it came to a boil, I reduced the setting to 2. I left it this way for 2 hours.
After that I shut the stove and let the pan sit on the stove.
Chole
5 pound can of Garbanzo beans from Costco
1 can of tomato paste
4 onions - which were chopped along the onions for the soup
garlic, ginger, green chillis
spanish paprika
pomegranate powder
water
salt
In a big pot, 2 tablespoons of oil + jeera and sauted the onions. Once they became translucent, added salt, 1 tablespoon of chopped garlic, 2 tablespoons of chopped ginger and green chillis each. After about 2 minutes, I added 3 tablespoons of chana masala, 2 tablespoons of pav bhaji masala, 3 tablespoons of Spanish paprika. Mixed everything together and added a cup of water.
Once it got all mixed together properly, added the tomato paste and 5 glasses of water. Once it all boiled nicely together, added the Garbanzo beans (strained and washed properly). Mixed it all well together, put the flame on high and brought it to a boil. Once it came to a boil, I added a tablespoon of anardana powder ( pomegranate powder). Turned the flame on 2 and let it sit there until lunch time.
Parathas:
4 cups of Patel's wheat flour
1 cup of Safeway's whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons of oil
3 ladles of plain yogurt
water
I kneaded all of this together into dough and kept it aside, until lunch time.
Pulao:
Since we were 9 folks, I took 9 fistfuls of rice.
2 cups of peas and carrots
1/2 cup of badam and cashews mixed
cloves, cinnamon stick, whole black pepper
Tadka was of ghee + jeera - just cooked it as you would normally make rice.
Most of my guests arrived at 11:55 am. We sat and chatted for a little while. Then I got the soup ready - I used the hand held blender and blended the soup together. While serving the soup, I added a little bit of crushed black pepper. The soup was a hit on this cold day.
While we were waiting for the rest of the folks to show up, I started making the parathas. As soon as one paratha was made, the rest of the gang showed up. So we made all the kids and my father sit down for lunch. My sister and I made the parathas together, while my friend and my mom served lunch. I could not keep up with the demand of parathas, but all I kept on hearing was that it's okay take your time. The pipping hot chole and parathas was doing wonders to everyone's appetite.
We all had delicious Nanak's Ras Malai for dessert. Since we still had a lot of snow outside, the kids went out to make a snowman and igloos. While they were out, we chatted and had tea.
After everyone left, we just relaxed. Everyone had helped in cleaning the dishes and putting away food, so I hardly had anything left to do.
December 26th - just relaxed around the house - did some cleaning, laundry, etc.
December 27th - went to see "3 Idiots" at AMC Rio, Gaithersburg and a very early dinner at CPK.
Please do check out the review of 3 Idiots on "Mumbai Mirror". The author has said everything that I wanted to say about the movie.
December 28th - back to work at 7 am.
The 3 day break was wonderful and badly needed.
