Sundays are meant to be lazy, but Sundays without a scrumptious meal seem just plain wrong. I need my fish fix on a Sunday. While my mother took off to Karjat, I chose to marinate a piece of ravas and make a pasta permissible to my diet. I like the regular ‘Bhajlela Masa’ or shallow fried fish, but a grilled fish with minimum masala, is magic because it retains the flavour of the fish. Quite often Indian style cooking can overpower the original flavour of the meat/fish. Ravas with his moist white meat makes for a perfect grilled fish. Here’s how I made my grilled Ravas.
Lazy Ravas
Ingredients:
1 pc ravas
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
¼ tsp Thyme (if using dried thyme, add ½ tsp)
½ tsp olive oil
1 tsp tabasco
A pinch of freshly ground pepper
Juice of half a lemon
Salt to taste
Method
Wash the fish and rub some lemon juice on it and leave for about 5 minutes. I use a grill in my toaster, so this is the perfect time to switch the grill on to heat up. Add in all the ingredients and rub it into the piece of fish. After about ten minutes, place the fish in the grill and within 5-10 minutes, the grilled fish is ready… Yep, as simple as that!
Now, since my lovely friend was a eggetarian and she too, like me, was on a diet. We decided to to cut the calorie and meat content of a traditional Carbonara sauce. Yes, feel free to object! But I believe that any recipe can be modified to cut out the fattening bit and to cut out the meat. Traditionally, a carbonara is made with pancetta, a kind of special Italian bacon, porcini mushrooms, cream and parmesan with eggs. I chose to retain the mushrooms and the eggs. I was lucky enough to have stumbled upon a stash of dried porcini mushrooms. The aroma of these is just fantastic. My friend who doesn’t really like mushrooms, fell in love with the aroma of porcini mushrooms.
Slimmer's Carbonara
Ingredients:
A handful of dried porcini mushrooms
2 eggs
Freshly ground pepper
Onions sliced vertically
2 tsp milk5-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
Oregano
2 cups of pasta
Olive oil
Salt to taste
Method:
Pour boiling water over the mushrooms and let them soak for about 5-10 minutes. Strain the water and use the same water to cook the pasta. While the pasta cooks, sauté the onions till slightly brown, add I the garlic and then the mushrooms. Take it off the heat. In a big bowl, break the eggs, add the milk. Do NOT whisk. Add in the pepper and the salt. As soon as the pasta is done, quickly strain it and dunk it in the egg bowl. The idea is to cook the eggs with the heat in the pasta. Stir and add in the sautéed mushrooms and onions… Mix well and serve hot.
This entire meal, if well co-ordinated, is ready within 30 minutes!
Also, if you can’t lay your hands on porcini mushrooms, fikar not. Take regular mushooms, slice them and drizzle with olive oil. Grill for about 15 minutes till they’re slightly crisped. The mushrooms need texture. If you add them without grilling, they end up being soft and that doesn’t help the texture of the sauce.
What are you waiting for? Go try now!
