The Masala Toast!

Everyone in my friendship circle thought, my first post would be about food, but for some reason it's changed. So here it is, a post on food itself, my passion :) I am a real foodie, but because I need a check on my diet plans, I eat less :) But I always enjoy trying different dishes for my people and would be satisfied if they enjoys. Because of my daily schedule, I am forced to wait till weekends to realize my urge for cooking.  And the girls in my gang knows how I have helped them with my simple recipes, all this while. Whenever someone gets married or moves out to a different place where they really need to cook, I am in help for them. Hope still you have the whole back up of recipes I shared with you, that made you famous before your in laws ;) (pun intended) and among that the most famous is my 28 ingredient Chicken Biriyani, which I used to share with great pride ;) So I have a whole stack of my researches and trials, but the luckiest one to come first here is "The Masala Toast"

This is not just a recipe post, as I am not a great cook and also the experience is what I want to focus here. You may have to go all through to reach the final recipe :)

The scene is Infosys campus, Trivandrum. Since I am in my current project, I never used to go to our FC as we did before. Ours was a very famous lunch gang in FC, the gang which makes most of the noise during lunch time. And I am very famous for my loud laughter ;). After a while each one has moved to different places and finally it came to and end. I really miss you girls, it was an awesome time we had :( So I started having food at my desk from then, because having food alone at FC is such a boring thing, also when young hearts are having food together in front of us :). After a while, I was getting bored with the work alone nature and I thought sitting simply in front of computer is going to make me a junk. Then I thought I would take a walk around the buildings in the evening just to make feel fresh myself. So one thing I forgot to mention in my introduction; I wish to be engaged always. I cannot sit idle at all, at least there should be someone to talk. And if you started talking with me its gone, I am never short of topics while talking. You would be thinking what a hyper creature I am :)

Then I have started a new habit of having papaya juice for evening and my evening snack buddy is Varsha, she is my team mate too. To girls - papaya juice is very good for skin, its good to have this habit :)
Everyday she used to buy something, so that she wont need to stay hungry if she has to stay late. One such day, we have found a very different dish on the menu board of one of our vendors. So my evening snack buddy was hungry very much and she ordered one for her. I was having my usual course Papaya juice! Then she told, swathy chechi try this one its really nice. So I had a bit of it just to know what these guys are stuffing inside that's making it a wonderful toast. It was. She was right. The crispness of the bread was so right and the stuffing was enough dried. It was sort of fusion, western toast in Indian masala stuffing, great minds idea. Hats off to you guys.

I have a capability with foods, that I can guess the ingredients which went inside the dish when I taste it. I think most of the people passionate towards cooking has. But I can just guess for simple dishes. So there it started, my "Khoj" for the ingredients and my passion to try it one day.


So here goes the recipe for 2 toasts, which I tried for my little ones lunch. I couldn't manage to take a pic of it, as was in a hurry to get his lunch ready. Will add next time I tries it out.

I had a different version of what we got there. I had cheese stocked, and I stuffed that too, to make it exciting for him when he opens his box (he is very particular about food, and also a foodie like me. He always talks about his wish to become a chef and the best motivator of my culinary skills ;) ). Its so simple and your little one would enjoy it, for sure.



Breads - 2 slices (brown bread is best. Encourage your kids to use it)
Cheese - 1 slices (optional)

For Stuffing

Boiled mashed potato - 1 small
Veggies - Onion, Green peas, carrot, beans, anything you want to use, even beetroot will go well with this, all these chopped fine  - 1/2 cup
Kasuri Methi - 2 pinches
Garam Masala (I used kebab masala, so it will have little amount of all masala..chilly, turmeric etc)-1tsp
Oil to saute
Salt to taste

Preparation

Boil oil in a pan and sputter mustard seeds.  Add all veggies and saute for sometime, till it becomes soft. No need to overcook. Add the mashed potatoes, salt, kasuri methi leaves and saute for a min. Then add the masala and again saute for a min, your masala should be dry enough for stuffing.
Remove from pan and let it cool down completely.

Arrange one bread  and then the masala should be spread evenly to cover the entire bread surface, and cheeze slice on top of it. Finally the second slice of bread. Press it a little and place it in your toaster.
You can have a tawa also to do the toasting part.

I think these simple recipes can make someones lives simple, especially mom's of school going kids :) Anyway my motivator was very much impressed and got a very big appreciation from him.