Masala Oats rotti - super food rolled into super yummy rotti

I thought I had put myself on a weekly routine for the blog until things became a little less rushed in life. But here I am, red faced with shame having missed my Sunday night posting :-(. It doesn't mean I love the blog any less but just that I am hardly finding the time to sit down and compose the post these past few months. if it is not the lack of time, it is the lack of words that just refuse to leave their cozy spot, come out and express themselves coherently. I called it the blogger's block once (yes, it has happened before) and lifts itself off as unpretentiously as it came in. I just need to wait patiently, that is all. When it does happen and I try to write a post, it feels exactly the same way as pulling an unwilling tooth at the dentist's :-). At other times, the words just gush out in torrents like the first rains of season - unstoppable, in tune and totally refreshing :-).

Now that I am reminded of dentists (category of people I live in mortal fear of :-)), I went to my dentist 2 days back, nothing major, routine visit and she asked me to schedule a couple of sittings for the cleaning just like that. Oh, before you all go off and start thinking of me as a stinky teeth, bad breath monster, let me tell you this. Here in US, we pay regular 'well check' visits to doctors, dentists and eye care professionals, this is part of life. Growing up in India, we went to a doctor only when sick and needed medical care. I don't remember going to a dentist at all. To top it, having an older sister in medical school, training to be a doctor only added to that routine. Everything from common cold to bruised knees were treated free of cost and with lot of love at home and we didn't feel the necessity to visit an outside doctor. The rare occasions I remember going to a hospital was when nammamma had a fractured wrist or I was falsely diagnosed with typhoid in my sister's absence :-). Other than that, of course when I delivered my little girl but then my sister was very much there throughout.

Anyways, my dentist visit was part of preventative care. I am not looking forward to her sitting me on a chair open mouthed (for what feels like eternity) while she goes about talking the entire time as she pricks, prods and hurts my gums, all in the name of cleaning. Dentists, I feel, tend to be talkative just to fill that void when the other person in the room cannot really talk much :-). All you can do is just nod your head and grunt even when she says unpleasant things like you need a filling or have a cavity. Well, my appointment is not for another 2 weeks and I won't spend much time thinking about it. All you compassionate people, send me some warm thoughts when you get a chance :-). But for now, away from the dentist's chair, my blogger's block seems to have lifted off magically and I am able to go yap, yap, yap :-)

Back to the recipe today, I have a delicious masala rotti loaded with vegetables and made with the healthy grain - Oats. Oats gained popularity in the last 2 decades or so as one of those super foods, a grain that beats everything else and is marketed and pushed for human consumption. I have elders in the family who still think oats is meant to be used as livestock only :-), some perceptions are very hard to change. I use oats regularly in my kitchen, I am not someone to dispute or uphold the various research around oats but like them in recipes just for variety. Oats being good for health - oh, I consider that as the fringe benefit. There are a bunch of recipes with oats on the blog already. If interested, look them up in the recipe index or search for them on the blog.

Being a South Indian, bred heavily on white, fluffy rice, it is my weakness. I crave for rice (a simple yogurt rice with pickle will bring me cartloads of happiness and cheer me up instantly) and sometimes go into withdrawal if I haven't had rice for a few days. When I was looking to incorporate more grains and bring freshness into the recipes a few years back, I stumbled upon oats, quinoa, different millets etc. Most of these work very well as rice substitutes especially if you mix them up with a spicy side dish. Many work well in idlis, dosas etc too. I have found this 'mix and match' strategy goes well not only with clothes but also with food. It gives the necessary break from monotony, keeps food interesting and invigorating.

Oats get some flak from people who say the carb content is as high or higher (depending on the type of oats) than rice. I would say it is a one sided argument. Oats, being high in soluble fibre is meant to be good for heart and to regulate blood sugar. It digests slowly and keeps you fuller for longer. I had seen the ready to eat Saffola brand oats in Indian supermarkets on my last visit but was surprised find them here locally in my grocery stores. I wouldn't buy them personally since processed oats do not really give you any advantage over white rice or refined flour. To actually benefit from oats, use either the rolled oats or steel cut oats.

Finally, to blow some trumpet - when I was making these rottis for dinner, DD had a couple of her friends at home working on some music practice. As I took hot rottis out of the tawa, I smeared a dab of ghee, rolled it up and gave it to the girls. Polite teenagers that they are, both said it tasted yummy but I really found it truthful when they rolled a few more rottis on their own accord, wrapped them in foils and took with them to munch on as they headed out. It is tried and tasted, so go ahead and make some in your kitchen too.

What do you need to make masala oats rotti? 
Makes about 10 rottis
1.5 cups oats
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup grated broccoli
1 cup chopped fenugreek or fresh methi (optional, I love it)
1 medium potato boiled until soft
1/2 cup grated carrots
2 Tbsp finely chopped onions
2 green chilies - finely chopped
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/4 Tsp red chili powder
1/8 Tsp amchoor powder
1/2 Tsp sesame seeds
2 Tbsp oil - divided use
pinch of turmeric
1 Tbsp wheat flour for dusting

How do you make masala oats rotti? 

• Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a pan, add chopped onion and saute for a min or until it softens. 
• Add grated broccoli, carrots, chopped green chilies & methi followed by salt and mix well. 
• Cover and let cook for 3-4 minutes until the raw smell of the vegetables fades away. 
• Mash the boiled, peeled potatoes and add it to the cooked vegetables. This absorbs moisture. 
• Add the dry powders now - red chili powder, amchoor and sesame seeds. 
• Mix well, taste and adjust salt or spices. Switch off and let cool. At this time the vegetables mixtures should taste strong on salt and spices, or else the rottis turn bland when mixed with flour. 
• Powder the oats into a fine textured powder. 
• Take the wheat flour and oats flour in a wide bowl, add the cooked vegetables and bring them together. DO NOT ADD WATER AT THIS STAGE. 

• The moisture from the vegetables helps bind the dough.
• Add water in drops to get a slightly firmer dough than chapati dough. 
• Knead for a couple of minutes until the dough turns into a smooth ball, cover and let it rest for 20 minutes. 

• Heat a roti griddle or flat pan on medium heat. 
• Divide the dough into 10 equal portions and smooth them into a round ball. 

• Dip the ball into dry wheat flour, flatten it and smooth any cracks at the edges. 
• Roll out the rotti with a rolling pin, do not use too much pressure. Gluten in this dough is very less compared to regular chapati dough so it cracks under pressure. 
• Roll the rotti into a circle of 1/2 mm. 

• Put it on the hot pan, brush it with oil on top. Let cook for a minute before turning it over to the other side. 
• Brush with oil and cook until both sides develop tiny, bright brown spots all over. 
• Take it out and serve it with a cup of cool yogurt. 

Notes: 

• You do need some wheat flour to be able to roll the rottis, this 1:2 (oats:wheat) proportion works well.
• You can replace cooked potato with cooked raw banana (plantain) or skip it all together
• Use spinach instead of methi leaves. 
• Use other vegetables of preference like grated radish, bell peppers, chopped green beans for variety. 
• Green chilies and red chili powder both add to the heat, use according to your taste. 
• Cook the rotti on medium heat until the sides turn a golden brown, raw oats takes time to cook. 
• You can make kadak rotti (it is a North Karnataka specialty made with jowar flour) or crispy rotti by cooking it for longer until it turns brittle, perfect to store and carry on travels. 

Multigrain Zucchini paddu - Eat & stay healthy

Last Summer when I was in India (Ooh that tells me it is already over a year since I have been to India:-(), my personal limit is 2 years between visits and I start becoming all touchy after that. I am digressing, so let me postpone my India visit related rants to another day and get back to where I started. As I have told you before, my BIL is a foodie and a big time enthusiastic cook and he made these yummy, no soak, no grind paddus for us for one of the breakfasts. I love the concept of Paddus and I frequently make these cutesy items from my regular Dosa batter. So, as always I followed him to the kitchen to figure out the ingredients that made the delicious Paddus. He had used wheat flour, rava and a little bit of rice flour with lotsa grated cucumber. I came back to my kitchen and recreated it and my family loved the new recipe.

But then, it was around the time I was looking for healthier alternatives and Oats had become a staple in my pantry. I honestly don't relish the Oats porridge but then that is because I am not a person who can eat sweets for breakfast. So Oats found its way into many savory items in my kitchen and I really like the added texture it imparts to the instant Dosas. So I made certain changes to BIL's recipe - in goes the oats, I didn't replace the rava from the original recipe as it adds crunch. And since Zucchini takes to cooking better than regular cucumbers and also because I love the flavor of Zucchinis, I replaced cucumbers with these all purpose squashes.

As I said before, I don't yet have a full bounty kitchen garden but I got some good harvest done before the frost sets in. On that note everything around me is changing colors (I meant the nature) and I am falling in love once more with the beautiful Autumn. Does that happen to you? I loved the Summer very much and now I am starting to love the Autumn, not very faithful, huh :-). Anyways, before leaves change colors completely and fall off, there is still some Summer left in the late blooming Squashes and Zucchinis. I love Zucchinis for their flavor at the same time this vegetable has such a non-egoistic nature and blends into almost anything without making a fuss. So until the market starts to flood with Fall gourds of all shapes, sizes and colors, I am enjoying my Zucchinis.

I started Zucchini plants from seeds this year and as is the gardening norm, one plant grew and survived out of the many seeds I planted. While I was trying to decide if it was indeed a zucchini or a pumpkin looking at the bright yellow flower, one of the flowers quietly morphed itself into a bulb and kept growing longer and greener :-). Although it was not the Supermarket standard good looking, perfect dimensioned zucchini, our garden beauty was in no way inferior to those on the shelves in taste. We cut it this past weekend and there was unanimous voting for making the instant Paddus.

Paddu is called Guntapongalu in the Mysore region and Ponganalu in certain parts of Andhra Pradesh. I use the word 'Paddu' generically as we don't like tongue twisters in our multi language family :-). I make different kinds of paddus with different garnishes (see notes below for ideas) using different bases. Here is a delicious and completely healthy Paddu that can be made without any headache of soak/grind. Do not fret about the taste at all, and for those skeptics here is a testimony from my self declared 'Oats hater' FIL that he can give his mandatory rice a skip when these Paddus are on the menu :-). The first time I made after they landed here, I didn't tell him what was in it until the next day just to make sure I won't be hearing any 'my stomach is not all right today' as an excuse to eliminate the dreaded Oats from his diet.

What do you need to make Multigrain Zucchini Paddu? 
Makes about 30 Paddus
2 cups oats
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup chiroti rava or super fine rava
1 Tblsp rice flour
1 Tsp basan/gram flour
2 cups packed zucchini gratings
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 green chili - chopped into small pieces
1/4 Tsp fresh ground black pepper powder
4-5 twigs of cilantro - finely chopped
1/4 cup chanadal - soaked for 45 minutes in water
1X1 inch piece of ginger - peeled and finely chopped
1/2 Tsp baking soda
1-2 Tblsp oil to roast the paddus

How do you make Multigrain Zucchini Paddu? 

• Run the oats in your blender and make a fine powder of it. 
• Take a wide bowl, add all the ingredients listed above except for the baking soda and oil. Mix into a soft batter. 
• If you are making the Paddus immediately, add the baking soda and mix it in. Do not leave the batter for more than an hour after mixing the baking soda as it tends to collapse the Paddus into soft balls. 

• Heat your Paddu pan/Ebelskiver pan on medium heat, drizzle drops of oil into the holes. 
• Drop a spoon of the batter into the holes, cover and cook for 2 minutes or until the bottom of the Paddu turns light brown. 

• Flip the Paddus over, drizzle drops of oil on top and let cook uncovered for another 2 minutes until the second side turns is cooked. 

• Server hot or warm with any chutney or sambar. We had ours with spicy maagaya pachadi.

Paddu Dressing up suggestions: 

• I usually add a 1/4 cup of small coconut pieces to the batter. 
• Make a seasoning with 1 Tsp oil, 1 Tsp mustard, a pinch of asafoetida, 1/4 Tsp red chili powder and pour it into the batter. 
• Add chopped curry leaves instead of cilantro for a different flavor. 

Notes:

• Go ahead and use regular cucumbers if you can get zucchini or if you like that taste, remember that is how I tasted this first and loved it. 
• I sometimes add a 1/4 cup of yogurt to make the batter lighter and also to give a tangy taste to the paddus. 
• Addition of baking soda makes for a lighter Paddu as you have 2 dense flours in this recipe (wheat flour and oats powder).
• You can increase/decrease or skip the garnishings above per your taste.
• Heat the Paddu pan before dropping the batter into it (if you spray a drop of water on the pan, it should sizzle to indicate the pan is ready)
• This batter is slightly gooey given that it has wheat flour and oats, the resulting paddus are softer unlike the traditional Dosa batter paddus.

Start your day with a bowlful of healthy Oats ganji

One of the things BH & I have been consciously working on is making our eating habits healthier, we are not a family that eats outside a lot. At home I try to frequently stir fry, boil, steam as alternatives to deep frying. Nammamma's cooking does not have a lot of oil in it, her taste enhancer is the fresh coconut, she loves her coconut so much that she will put it into coffee if she had her way :-) and since my cooking is heavily influenced by her style, I tend to use less oil naturally and do not miss anything. I completely understand that many health issues are genetically pre determined but I am more of the 'prevent than cure' person. You will be pleasantly surprised to find that you won't find a lot of difference in taste by making small changes in your cooking pattern. I also firmly believe that the taste is induced primarily by the freshness factor of the ingredients you use in making a dish.

Growing up, we had a routine at home, since Anna (my father) used to leave for college around 9ish, he would eat a meal that was the usual Kannadiga fare with rice, saaru/huli and vegetables, come back in the afternoon and eat what is called 'Tiffin' with coffee and have dinner at 9.15pm sharp. He had a mechanical wrist watch that needed winding every day and he would match it to the 9pm English news beginning on radio since it was reliable (unlike TV programs). We would be ready with the plates, water and wait for him to finish the 15 minute news and come for dinner. Since nammamma would be busy in the morning getting the meal ready for father, anyone that needed to leave earlier for school/college will have mosaranna with uppinakayi (curd/yogurt rice with pickle). We will have our full meal later in the day. It changed once anna retired from work though.

I have for many years skipped breakfast during college and working days, grabbed a banana to go instead but I realize it is not a good start to the day. I prefer the weekday breakfast to be something I can prepare in a jiffy in addition to being tasty and healthy. If you noticed the dishes I have so far on my blog I am partial to the 'hotness' coefficient in my meals, I cannot eat a sweet for an early morning breakfast, oat bars, cereals, granola is ok once in a while, I don't like them on a regular basis. The tingling taste of curd (yogurt) I ate for years for breakfast is still fresh and so I have made my own yummy weekday breakfast now with some changes.

I am not going to bore with the health benefits of regularly eating oats, abundant information on the topic is available just a mouse move away. Quick facts are: eating oats on a regular basis is helpful to a healthy heart, it spreads the rise & fall of blood sugar in the body and is rich in its fiber content.

Oats is surprisingly very adaptable to Indian cooking, I have used it in dosas, appams/paddus, upmas with finger smacking results. We didn't like it in idli since it made the idli collapse and become mushy. So, here is a delicious healthy start to your day.

What do you need to make Oats ganji? 
1 cup of oats (I used old fashioned oats)
4 cups of water (adjust water since you need a flowy consistency)
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
3 green chilies (cut into small pieces)
6-8 curry leaves (chopped fine)
1 small red onion (chopped fine about 2 Tblsp)
1 inch piece of ginger root (chopped fine)
1 Tblsp of yogurt (whisked smooth)
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp cumin seeds
1 Tsp of cooking oil

Oats in a bowl ready to be microwaved

How do you make Oats ganji?
Preparing Oats - follow cooking instructions on your oats package, I put it in a microwave safe bowl, add water and microwave for 3 minutes to get soft oats ready. 

• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard & cumin seeds.
• Once mustard crackles, add the green chilies, curry leaves and ginger.
• You want the green chilies to roast crisp so you can bite into it.
• Add the chopped onion and salt, let the onion sweat a little.
• I like a little crunch to the onions, so I don't wait until it softens completely, it is a matter of preference.
• When your onion is sweating, cook the oats (see instructions above)
• Pour the cooked oats into the pan, add water if needed to get the consistency
• Let it come to a boil, add the whisked yogurt, mix and switch off.

Onions turning pink

 Microwaved oats

 Oats ganji starting a slow boil

Your 'Good Morning Healthy World' bowl of oats is ready to be relished

Am sending this to Vardhini's New U event @ Zesty Palette