A culmination of ingredients, flavors and ideas.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Potato Parade

When I found out that the lovely Vaishali of Happy Burp is hosting “Jhihva for Potatoes” for the month of Febuary, I was excited! Potato –that’s an easy vegetable to cook with. There are recipes galore, both Indian and International that make use of this versatile bulb.
Everyone at our home loves Potatoes. What’s not to love about it? It cooks easy, tastes delicious no matter how you cook it and is easily available in most parts of the world!
So without much ado let’s get to the reason for this Post…Potato Recipes!

Potato-Methi Masala Curry


Potato and Methi (Fresh Fenugreek Leaves) – what a perfect combination! Fenugreek leaves have this slightly bitter taste and the humble potato combined with it dulls this effect and gives this curry a rich, exotic creamy flavor that tastes great as a side to chapathis or even with rice. This curry is different from the other aloo methi recipes I have come across. I learnt how to make this curry from my dear grandmother.
She mostly combined traditional masala’s with regular vegetables to make them delicious and authentic. Try them and you’ll surely thank my grandmother for this.

For the curry:
2 Potatoes – Washed, Peeled, Boiled and chopped into cubes. I usually cook my potatoes with some water in the microwave for about 6 minutes.
1 big bunch Fresh Methi Leaves – Wash and chop fine.
1 small Onion – Chopped fine
1 medium Tomato – Chopped into cubes
Salt to taste

For the Masala:
½ cup grated Fresh Coconut
1 clove garlic
5 green chillies
2 cloves
1 small piece cinnamon

Grind the above into a smooth paste with some water. Keep aside.

For the seasoning:
1 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
some curry leaves
a pinch of turmeric powder

To make the curry:
In a pan heat oil, add the seasoning ingredients. When the mustard splutters, add the chopped onions and sauté until light brown. Then add the chopped methi leaves, some salt and about ½ cup water. Cover with a lid and cook for about 5 minutes. Then add the cooked potatoes, the ground masala paste, chopped tomatoes and some more salt if needed. Mix well. Cover with a lid and cook until all the water has evaporated. Stir in between. Serve hot with rice or rotis.

My next Dish is Sabudaana Khicdi.. This simple dish is the traditional dish made on days when the Hindu’s fast from most grains and beans. I make this dish whenever we feel like eating it! No fasting in our home, we are pretty poor when it comes to following religious fasts!
Almost everyone makes Sabudaana Khichdi. It is a Maharashtrian dish that is delicious, bland and chewy. Sabudaana are white, pearly rounds that are hard when dry and are soft and chewy when cooked. They are made from the sap of the tapioca tree. Read more about Sabudaana here.
My way of making sabudaana khichdi varies each time. But I have started to follow this recipe mostly, a recipe I learnt from Radhika .. a friend of mine from whom I have learnt many recipes. She loves giving me these recipes but acts like I am bothering her all the time! But I know .. she loves the attention :-)
Ok, now on to the recipe…

Sabudaana Khichdi


2 Cups Dry Sabudaana (Wash 2 or 3 times in a colander. Drain all the water. Transfer to a bowl. Sprinkle some water and cover with a lid. Keep covered for about 3 hours and keep sprinkling some water and mixing the sabudaana evenly a couple of times in between). The recipe itself is simple, prep time takes a little bit!

2 Potatoes – Peeled and grated. Then keep the grated potato in some water. When you are ready to make the sabudaana, drain all the water well from the potato and use.
1 cup Whole Peanuts – Roasted and ground into a coarse powder. (You may leave the peel on if u want or u can get rid of it after roasting).

1 tsp Sugar
Salt to taste
A few drops of fresh lime juice
Chopped Cilantro for garnishing

For seasoning:
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Jeera or cumin seeds
A few curry leaves
3 green chillies – Chopped fine

To make the Khichdi:
In a pan, heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds and the jeera. When the mustard splutters, add the remaining seasoning ingredients. Sauté for a minute. Then add the grated potato and mix well. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring in between, making sure the potato does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Then add the soaked sabudaana, salt and sugar and mix well. Cook for about 5 to minutes stirring gently in between. When the sabudaana turns translucent, add the coarsely ground peanut powder and mix well. Add the lime juice and mix well. Serve hot garnished with chopped cilantro and grated coconut (optional).
And finally for a simple, traditional Karnataka Dish… Potato Palya. Potato Palya or Potato Curry is a perfect side for Puri, Masala Dosa or even Chapathis. I even use Potato palya as a filler in sandwiches when I have leftovers!

Potato Palya


To make this simple dish you need:
3 Large Potatoes – Boiled, Peeled and roughly mashed. Mash with your hands, since a masher usually mashes it into a very creamy paste, that is usually best for mashed potatoes with biscuits and gravy!
1 Large Onion – chopped lengthwise
3 green chillies – slit lengthwise
a few curry leaves
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste

For the seasoning:
2 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Channa dal
1 tsp Urad dal
¼ tsp Asafoetida or hing

To make the Potato Palya:
In a pan, heat the oil. Add seasoning ingredients. When the mustard splutters, add the chopped chillies, grated ginger, curry leaves and the onions and sauté until the onions are translucent. Then add the turmeric powder and the roughly mashed potato and salt. Mix well. Garnish with chopped cilantro and a few drops of lime juice (optional) and serve hot with puris, chapathis or dosa.
Do check out some more Potato Recipes from my Masala Kitchen:
and
These are my entries to the "Jhihva for Potato" parade at Vaishali's Happy Burp. Enjoy the Parade dear friends and dont forget to leave me a note! I would love to hear from all you wonderful readers. Cheers.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Two Simple Curries

This post has been long overdue! As usual life is hectic with work, home, kids etc. I do cook and sometimes do muster up the energy to take some pictures before the food is devoured. Besides, when I cook later in the evening the lighting is not that great. I prefer to take my shots on weekend when the light is better!
Anyways, here are two simple recipes that are perfect for weekday nights. We are a family who eats rotis/chapathis most times. I love rice and anything that has carbs in it but unfortunately my waist loves it too! Afternoon lunches for us are usually simpler with soups and sandwiches or quick fixes. Dinners are usually chapathis with some nice sabji. I try to make a variety of vegetables so that we are not too bored with the same mundane stuff! These two simple sabjis are nutritious and easy to make.

Green Beans Masala Curry


You will need:
4 cups – Greens beans, strung, washed and chopped fine
1 cup Yellow Moong Dal
½ Onion – Chopped Fine
½ tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste

For the Masala Paste:
½ cup grated coconut
5 Green chillies
A few sprigs of washed cilantro leaves
1 clove garlic
1 small piece cinnamon
2 cloves

Grind the above to fine paste with some water and keep aside.

For seasoning:
Some oil, mustard seeds, asafoetida and curry leaves.

To make the curry:
Cook the Moong Dal with about 4 cups of water in an open pan until cooked. The lentils will split slightly and will be soft to touch when cooked. If you have too much water left, you can drain the water and use it to cook the vegetable. Keep aside.
In a pan, heat the oil. Add seasoning ingredients. Then add chopped onions and sauté until translucent. Add chopped green beans, turmeric powder and salt and mix well. Add about ½ cup of water and cover with a lid. Cook until the water evaporates. Then add the cooked moong dal (moong lentils) and the masala paste and mix well. Cover with lid and cook for 5 to 10 more minutes until well blended and all the water evaporates. Garnish with chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) and serve hot with Chapathis.

My next recipe is a simple recipe – Ridgegourd Curry (Beerakaya Curry)that is even easier to make. Thanks to my friend Radhika for sharing this convenient recipe with me. I made this the other night with Indira’s Avocado Chapathis. Oh, did I tell you about her chapathis! They were soft and tasty and we loved them!

Ridge Gourd Curry


You will need:
2 medium sized Ridge Gourds (Turai, Beerakaya, Heerekai or Peerkanga) – Peel only the ridges. Leave the rest of the skin on there. Wash and chop fine into cubes.
2 tsp Sambar Powder
1 tsp Red chilli Powder
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tbsp Jaggery - powdered(or Brown Sugar)
Fresh grated coconut – 1 tbsp for garnishing
Salt to taste

For Seasoning:
Oil, Mustard seeds, Jeera or Cumin Seeds, Asafoetida and Curry leaves

To make the curry:
In a pan heat the oil. Season with the seasoning ingredients. Add the chopped ridge gourd pieces. Add all the dry powders and the salt and mix well. Add about 1 cup of water, cover with a lid and cook for about 10 minutes or until the vegetable is cooked. Make sure the ridge gourd pieces are cooked yet slightly crunchy. Then add the jaggery powder and mix well. Garnish with grated coconut and some chopped cilantro and serve hot with chapathis or rice.

Have a good time cooking everyone and if you guys do try it let me know. Your comments and thoughts keep me motivated into cooking variety and letting you guys know about it! Cheers!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Weekend Cooking and More

Hey you wonderful readers out there.. Just a little game to challenge your smart brains! What do you think this vegetable is? Care to guess???

All you ghost readers out there, C'mon you can take a guess now.. Can't you???

Update on Feb 13, 2007

And the winner is.... sra, Priya and other wonderful bloggers! It is indeed Daikon Radish or White Radish as we know it. It looks so close to a Potato fry does'nt it?

Before I blog the recipe, I have to tell you guys this story. When I was a teenager (that was many eons back!) my parents and us kids (me and my brother) visited Delhi. On our visit we stayed at a Corporate Guest House (that belonged to one of my mom's friend). These Guest Houses are like 'Service Apartments' as we now know it in India. It is a neat, fully furnished apartment which usually has a caretaker and a cook. And on this visit, the cook at that apartment (I dont remember his name) dished out these wonderful dishes. You can imagine, if I remember it all these years later, then it sure must have been good ;-) He was this 'Bihari babu' who spoke Hindi with the Bihari twang. So anyways, one night he made rotis, muli ki sabji (radish curry), chaawal (white rice) and dal for dinner . We were all so hungry that we gorged up all the rotis and all the chaawal that he made for us and wanted more! He was aghast and amazed at how much rice we South Indians ate :-)

Anyways, this Radish Sabji is an attempt at creating the same sabji he made years back. The only difference is that he had both the radish and the radish leaves in his curry. I did not have any radish leaves with me.

Its quite simple actually. Peel, Wash and chop the radish fine. Then in a pan with some oil, season with Jeera (Cumin seeds) and some turmeric powder and Asafoetida (hing). Add the chopped radish pieces. Add red chilli powder, dhania powder and salt. Add about 1/2 cup water. Cover with a lid and cook for about 5 minutes. Open and let all the water evaporate. In the end add a pinch of garam masala and some chopped cilantro if you want. Fry until slightly roasted. Serve hot with Rotis or Chapathis.

This weekend, I was on a cooking spree. Do you guys do this sometimes? Every now and then, I bring out all my recipe books - I have a ton of these. I pour through them, ogle at the pictures, drool , spend about 2 hours on them and then I shut them and put them back. I'm very picky about the recipes I try. I keep thinking I want to try many but I cannot gather enough motivation to do so... Its just me!

Anyway, this weekend was different. I decided that I must try something. I poured through the books and then finally settled on one - Diwani Handi Sabzi ... Its a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe. It looked delicious and seemed simple yet rich.

So I got out my ingredients and cutting board and look at what happened!

I made some small improvisations... Here's how I made it:
Vegetables: Potatoes-2 - Peeled, Washed and Chopped into cubes
Carrots - 2 - Washed, Peeled and choppe dinto cubes, Green Beans - 1 cup chopped, Green Peas - 1/2 cup, Green Choliya (Green Fresh Channa) - 1/2 cup, 1/2 a bunch Methi leaves chopped fine, 1/2 bunch cilantro or coriander leaves chopped fine.
1 Oinion - Slit lengthwise
1 cup Sour Curds
2 tbsp Heavy Whipping Cream
1 tsp Ginger-Garlic Paste
2 Green chillies - Slit Lengthwise
2 tsp Red Chilli Powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Method:
A handi - "A handi is a round potlike vessel, with a neck narrower than the base. It may be made of metal or in earthenware. It must be heatproof though. If not available use a deep heavy saucepan". [Source: www.bawarchi.com].
Heat some oil and 1 tbsp of butter in a handi or a heavy bottomed pan. Add the chopped onions and saute until light brown. Then add the chopped green chillies and the ginger-garlic paste. Saute for about 2 minutes. Then add the yogurt and cook for about 5 minutes stirring constantly. Then add the chopped veggies, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt. Mix well. Add about 1 cup water and the heavy whipping cream. Cover with a lid and cook until all the veggies are tender. Then add the chopped methi leaves and the chopped cilantro. Mix well and cook for a few more minutes. Serve hot with Rotis or Rice.
The Diwani Handi Sabzi is my entry to lovely Nupur of One Hot Stove's "A to Z of Indian Vegetables" for the Feb 17th deadline.
And finally, here's what we had for Lunch:

Clockwise: Hot Rotis, Diwani Handi Sabzi, Peas Pulav and Radish Sabzi.
Have a great Valentine's day friends!