Peanut Maharaja

I love peanuts! No, I don't use them in pretty much everything I cook, but I do use them often enough that I always have them in my pantry. One very famous peanut item in my family is what we call Peanut Maharaja (literal translation: Peanut The Great King). It is super-quick, super-simple and super-DElicious. My mom used to make it (especially as an appetizer for her lavish parties) and now I make it too.

Sometimes toward the evening, you know how you get hungry all of a sudden and crave for a snack and you keep opening all the cupboards in your kitchen with the hope of finding something good to munch on? Well, that is exactly what happened to me a few hours ago and so I decided to make myself some of that awesome Peanut Maharaja. Of course, I had to share it with the husband and the son.

Needed:

Peanuts of course, onion, tomato, green chillies, cilantro, salt, lemon juice, maybe some red chilli powder.

What I do:

1. I take the desired amount of peanuts in a m-wave safe bowl. Run it in the m-wave for about a couple minutes--- you will know when to stop the m-waving...... basically roasting the peanuts (that traditionally is done in a nice hot pan on the stove).
2. Meanwhile I finely chop the onion, the tomato and the green chilli(es). (Today I did not have any cilantro.........)
3. Then I throw in the chopped onion+tomato+green chilli(es) into the hot m-wave-roasted peanuts. This step is cool coz it makes this lovely sound......you know, cold stuff falling onto hot stuff......followed by a dash or two of lemon juice, salt to taste and a little dash of red chilli powder. Mix it all up with a spoon. 
4. For me step 3 would be the last step. But my husband prefers the onion-tomato mixture to be "cooked" some more. Therefore I run the entire thing once more in the m-wave for about another minute. 
5. That's it. Garnish with fresh green cilantro and eat away!! 

 Peanut Maharaja. Too bad I was out of cilantro- it sure would have added a nice green color--yummy, nevertheless!

Peanut Maharaja is a great snack item. I mean, packed with over 30 essential nutrients (OK, OK- that was from Wikipedia.....!) as well as the dose of lycopene from the tomato (this one I knew!) and the good stuff from the onion (don't want to go overboard with the list)..........this stuff is way better than a bag of junk chips! So go ahead and make this the next time you crave for a quick and satisfying snack.