Home is where the heart is...

                After having read my blog, my friends and family alike have been bombarding me with one common question – “which restaurant next “?  Well, this time around I thought I would make it a little off – beat. I choose a place that is way closer to my heart than any other restaurant – Home.

                I’m not particularly a home body, considering I spend close to 90% of my time outside home, sometimes coming back only to plunge into my cosy not-so-little bed. Nevertheless, when given an opportunity to savour some delectable home cooked food, I would chose no restaurant over my home. After all, what better way to start your day than having a wholesome breakfast prepared with patience and dedication, garnished with love and care, and served by the caring hands of your mother?

                Here are a few breakfast dishes that I love to kick-start my day with. They are healthy, easy to prepare and fill with you with that feeling of warmth and fullness like only home cooked food can.

Paddu - I call it the hybrid cousin of the dosa and idli. Made from (left – over) dosa batter and cooked in the Aebleskiver pan (traditionally used to make Danish pastry balls), the paddu will and always be my personal favourite.  Generally eaten with coconut or pudina chutney, you can easily devour 10 – 15 of these at one go. If you are someone who loves experimenting with food, then you could also add onions, cilantro or tomaotoes to the batter that give the Paddu a slight tweak to its taste.

Chapathi and egg burjhi- I once promised my mom that if and when I finally gear myself up to learn the art of cooking, then the burjhi would top  my  list of dishes that I would want to learn to cook.It is probably the easiest to prepare and is hence touted  the “ quick – fix” dish in my house. As the name suggests, the oh-so-nutritious egg is the main ingredient of this dish. Eggs are a reservoir of complex amino acids which serve as the building blocks of proteins. They are also rich in a whole lot of vitamins (such as Vitamin A) and minerals. So, if you are desirous of having lustrous hair, strong eyes and a good eye sight, you know what you should be making a part of your diet.

                  The egg burjhi is prepared in just one simple step- sauté coriander leaves, green chillies, tomatoes and a couple of eggs in low flame and within   minutes its ready!. To make it more filling, you could also add potatoes, capsicum, carrots and almost any other vegetable that you can think of.

          Puri and palya: Not exactly a healthy start to your day, but thankfully, since the metabolism of the body is way higher in the morning, weight- watchers needn’t feel guilty about eating them. However, Puri is one dish you could easily go wrong with. Frying it too deeply or preparing it from left over chapathi atta just kill this dish.         Generally eaten in accompaniment with saagu or palya, the puri has different variants all over the country. For eg, the puris made in West Bengal are deep fried in mustard oil ( not a personal fan of it at all), and if you believe in “size matters”  then you could opt for the bathura, the bloated –up version of the puri! Not to forget, my neighbour who is a Mangalorean once prepared puri that had banana mixed in it. Yes, you read that right, BANANA!

              Before I conclude, I must thank my Mom for giving her 100 % to everything she does; cooking is just one of them. Truthfully speaking, she deserves an award for bringing up and putting up with a difficult person like me at home. I couldn’t agree more with the adage “God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created mothers! “