Every dish in our meal plan will include a recipe. It will give variations from the traditional recipe and the method used to reduce its glycemic load and calorific value.
For example, suppose the meal plan includes Thalipeeth (a Maharashtrian breakfast dish). In that case, you will have the following for it:
Recipe
Ingredients:
– 1 cup grated pumpkin
– 1 cup grated carrot
– 1 cup finely chopped onion
– 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
– 1 cup besan (gram flour)
– 1/4 cup jowar (sorghum) flour
– 1/4 cup bajra (pearl millet) flour
– Salt to taste
– 2 tsp red chilli powder
– 1 tsp turmeric powder
– 1 tsp coriander powder
– 1 tsp cumin powder
– 1/2 tsp baking soda
– Oil/ghee for shallow frying
Instructions:
1. Take the grated zucchini/pumpkin, carrot, and chopped onion in a mixing bowl. Add the chopped coriander leaves and mix well.
2. Add besan, jowar flour, bajra flour, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and baking soda in the same bowl. Mix well.
3. Add water gradually and mix until you get a smooth batter. Make sure the batter is not too thick or too thin.
4. Heat a non-stick tawa or pan on medium heat. Grease with a little oil/ghee
5. Pour a ladleful of batter onto the tawa and spread it in circular motions using the back of the ladle.
6. Cook until the bottom is golden brown. Flip and cook the other side until it’s also golden brown.
7. Repeat with the remaining batter.
8. Serve hot.
Our modifications
The glycemic load of the dish is primarily driven by three ingredients – the gram flour, the jowar flour and the pearl millet flour. The dish’s other ingredients have a zero or negligible glycaemic load.
The traditional recipe includes an equal proportion of the three flours (1/2 cup each). Based on the suggestions by nutritional experts, our chefs have increased the gram flour in the recipe to 1 cup and reduced the other grain flours to 1/4 cup each. This reduces the glycaemic load from the grain flours and increases the protein content in the meal, thus serving to reduce the glycaemic response and, at the same time, enhancing the nutritional value of the meal.
Our chefs find the dish very tasty, even when made only with gram flour, and we remove the grain flour completely. You can try that out, too, for an even more enhanced benefit!