Mahanandi

From Telugu to English, The literal translation of Gutti vankaaya is ‘bouquet of brinjals’. As its name suggests stuffed brinjal curry is not only an Andhra classic, it is also very pretty to look at and the taste is pure fiery heaven. Greenish white brinjals are perfect for this curry. I make this curry only with this particular variety of brinjal. Unlike the purple brinjals, the green ones have a very delicate skin, cook very easily and taste great.

First part of the recipe is selecting the right brinjals:
If you are going to try this recipe with green brinjals like me, for two people, buy at least 15 to 20 very fresh looking, small size, and perfectly round green brinjals. The brinjals should look shiny without any blemishes, or holes and the stem that they are attached to should be in lively green without having that dried, black look. The tender the green brinjals are, the tastier the end result is. The ones with black seeds are very mature (at least half of your pick will be like this), don’t even bother to cook them, they taste bitter. Because they mature very rapidly, cook them on the same or on next day. Trying to keep them fresh and young in the refrigerator, it’s useless.

It takes at least 30 to 45 minutes to prepare the ingredients and another 30 minutes to cook the curry so attempt this curry only when you have the freshest green brinjals.

Second part is preparing the stuffing:
Ingredients for the stuffing change from home to home. Every home has their own recipe for stuffing. I can make five different kinds stuffing. The one I am going to post today is the family recipe.

Dry roast:

1 cup peanuts – roast them, when they are cooled, rub and remove the skins
1 cup sesame seeds – dry roast them

8 to 10 dried red chillies
One tablespoon of coriander seeds
Half teaspoon of cumin
4 cloves, one small piece of cinnamon stick
5 to 6 fenugreek seeds (menthulu)(They taste bitter so limit the number)
1 teaspoon of salt
Tamarind
Soak key-lime size tamarind in half cup of water and microwave it for about 15 to 30 seconds. Let the water cool down and squeeze the tamarind to get the paste.

Make a tight paste: Grind all of the above ingredients to a fine, smooth paste. You have to stuff this paste into brinjals so while grinding, under any circumstances, do not add water. Take this paste onto a plate and divide it into two portions. One is for stuffing and the other half is for sauce/gravy.

Thoroughly wash and dry the green brinjals. Even the freshest ones are not so fresh here, so I depart from the norm and remove the stems of brinjals. If you want, keep the stems. Take each green brinjal and on the end, opposite of stem, make a plus shape slit towards stem side but not all the way through (one vertical and one horizontal slit).

Fill up the plus shape slit (gap) with stuffing. Using your left hand fingers separate the quarters gently, push the stuffing inside with right hand fingers, again gently. Filling up all the slit green brinjals takes time, so have a seat, keep the stuffing and brinjals in front of you. Do it patiently and slowly without breaking the beautiful brinjals. If you do, you won’t get a bouquet but only the petals.:)- So have patience and treat them like a fragile art project.

Cooking:

How I cook them again is different from that of home. Here I use a pressure cooker. What? I know.. my method may be new to you but the results are way better. Pressure cooker makes it fast with less oil and the green brinjals are cooked thoroughly, you can’t find not one hard uncooked piece of brinjal, cooked in this way.

Do the popu or tadka(toasting the black mustard seeds and cumin in one teaspoon of oil). Add half of the peanut-sesame paste that was kept aside and half to one glass of water and one teaspoon of turmeric. Mix them up thoroughly without any lumps. Make the gravy/sauce more on the thin side or watery. Taste it, add salt, red chilli powder and tamarind paste if needed. I also add jaggery, very tiny amount to the gravy (making it mildly sweet). Arrange the stuffed brinjals neatly in the gravy, slit side up. Cover and cook them until the green brinjals are very tender to touch.
I pressure-cook them until one whistle on medium low heat. After the whistle sound, I immediately and slowly release the pressure from the valve by lifting the weight. Resulting in very wholesome, thoroughly cooked stuffed green brinjals.

To serve, with a big spoon gently lift the stuffed brinjals, place them on a plate and pour the sauce around. Tastes great with rice or roti.

Stuffed brinjal curry (Gutti Vankaaya Kura) with rice.

Recipe Source:Amma

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I am going to write it down four other types of stuffings that I know for this cury. The proportions of the ingredients are not specified because there are no hard and fast rules and people at home add a little of this, little of that. So feel free to try various proportions as per your taste.

Type 1:
Dry red chillies + dry or fresh coconut+ chana dal & urad dal + cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds and salt. Sauté and make a paste of them without adding water. Add cashews to make it rich.

Type2:
Besan or gram flour+onions+green chillies+ginger garlic paste+dry coconut powder+coriander powder and salt, make a paste by adding little bit of water.

Type 3:
red onions + dried red chillies roasted in oil then make a paste of them.

Type4:
Fresh coconut+ roasted peanuts+ roasted sesame seeds+dried red chillies+Coriander seeds+Cumin seeds+cloves+cinnamon stick+ chana dal+ urad dal+tamarind +jaggery and salt. This is my favorite of all.

Before me, some other Indian food bloggers also posted their recipes for this curry. More choices from three other fabulous blogs… always a good thing.

Until after I moved out of my parents home to Hyderabad, I didn’t know about any other varieties of brinjals except these greenish white beauties. They are called Poluru Vankaayalu in Telugu. Vankaaya means Brinjal and Poluru is the name of the village, (near my home town Nandyala) in Andhra where they are grown exclusively. So the name Poluru Vankaayalu. Thanks to Thai and Vietnamese, I am able to purchase them here also in US.

When cut open, brinjal filled with black seeds means it’s very ripe and not good for cooking, tastes bitter. The ones filled with white seeds, only they are used for curries and kurmas. They have mildly sweet and buttery taste when cooked and the greenish white skin outside tastes so delicious. Because they mature very rapidly, I always buy a lot. I have to throw away at least half of them because of black seeds. Curry cooked with the remaining white ones, is a rare treat that makes me remember my hometown tastes.

Recipes with Green Eggplant:
Stuffed Green Brinjal Curry
Brinjal-Potato Curry

Weekend herb blogging – It’ s Sage at Kalyn’s Kitchen

Ridge Gourd Curry

Beera kaaya/Turai/Ridge Gourd is often compared as an Indian equal of zucchini, but ridge gourd tastes so much better. They have a succulent and tender flesh with a delicate, mildly sweet flavor, like crisp lettuce pieces. Ridge gourd is one of my favorite vegetables of all time and I don’t think I ever get tired of this vegetable. It tastes great cooked as it is or as medley with other vegetables like potatoes and carrots.

They are available almost year round in India and also here at US Indian grocery shops. If it is your first time buying ridge gourd, keep in mind to select only fresh looking, young, thin ones. The overripe, stout ones, just like all gourds, won’t have much flesh inside of them and taste somewhat bitter. And also avoid any, that feel soft or generally look limp, as they will be dry and not worth using. Some useful tips.

The following recipe is one way I prepare ridge gourd often and enjoy it very much.

Recipe:

2 to 3 young, fresh looking ridge gourds – With a peeler, scrape the outer skin, mainly the protruded hard ridges. Wash and dice into bite-sized pieces.
Small onion- cut into small pieces
1 or 2 green chillies and 1 tablespoon coconut pieces – grind to smooth
¼ cup or 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk
¼ tsp of turmeric
¼ tsp salt or to taste
Popu or tadka Ingredients (cumin, mustard seeds, curry leaves)

Heat a pan and do the popu or tadka (frying half teaspoon of mustard, cumin seeds, dry chilli and curry leaves in one tsp of oil).

To this popu, add onions, saute them for few minutes to soft.

Add the ridge gourd pieces, coconut-green chilli paste, milk and turmeric.

Mix them all well. Cover the pan partially and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Within 10 minutes, the vegetable will be cooked to tender. If there is lot of water in the pan, then increase the heat to high, remove the lid and cook on high heat for few minutes, until all the water evaporates.

At the end, stir in salt. (Salt brings out the water in vegetables, so in saute style curries, always add salt only at the end.) Mix and turn off the heat.

Serve with rice and dal as side dish or with chapati.

Beerakaaya (Ridge Gourd): Raw and cut ~ ~ ~ Cooked and served.

Recipe source: Amma (Mother). We call this curry “palu posina beerakaya kura” in Telugu.

I’ve been quite busy for the past couple of days, cleaning up the house, rearranging things. All these are part of the preparation for the most important festival, ‘Vijaya Dasami’. The ten-day festival, also called ‘Dassera’ or ‘Nava Ratri’, celebrates the Goddess Durga, the Mother Force of Hindu Scriptures. The festival starts from today, 4th Oct and ends on 12th with grand prayers, processions and feasts.

It is very easy to let go of these traditions and say “whatever or next year”. Because we live in an isolated environment, far from our traditions and festivals, particularly from the festive mood and the atmosphere. I understand the values and importance of these festivals so I try to be enthusiastic to follow the rituals and celebrate as much as possible.

What I am going to do on my food blog during these ten days of festival is to try to write about all the food items that I am going to prepare on the grand festival day, Vijaya Dasami. I usually prepare: a dal, two types of curries, rasam, chutney, papads, bajji, chitrannam with lemons, rice and bhakshalu(poli). I am planning to write about one item each day for the next ten days.

I am going to start my festival food with dal, not any dal but the Andhra special –Gongura dal.

For the uninitiated in Andhra cuisine, Gongura is a leafy vegetable and has very distinctive sour taste. For the past couple of years we are able to purchase it in Indian stores, here in US too. I am sorry but I don’t know its English name, it’s usually sold here also as ‘Gongura’, under its Telugu name. When cooked with toor dal or as pickle, it wakes up, more like zings the taste buds and makes you crave its unique taste.

Recipe:

1 bunch of Gongura, leaves separated & washed
1 cup or four fistfuls of toor dal
Green chillies at least 6, jalapeno variety
1 medium sized onion, cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp of turmeric

What makes this recipe unique(my family variation) and so tasty is adding one garlic clove, half tsp of coriander seeds and cumin, all together made into smooth paste and then added to the dal. This paste compliments and gives wonderful aroma and taste when cooked with gongura.

Preparation:
In a pressure cooker, take all of the above ingredients and add one glass of water. Mix them once and pressure cook until three to four whistles or until toordal is tender and breaks apart when held. Wait until the pressure is released, remove the lid and add one teaspoon of salt to this cooked mixture and mash it with a wooden pappu gutti or using an immersion blender into smooth paste.

Now, in a sauce pan, over low medium heat, do the popu or tadka (means toasting the mustard, cumin seeds, red chilli pieces and curry leaves in one tablespoon of ghee or oil). Add the cooked and mashed gongura dal to this popu. Stir all of it once and cover with a lid. Gongura dal is ready.

Tastes great with rice or jowar roti. Best way ofcourse is the combination of this dal mixed with rice, ghee and papad.

Gongura and rice mudda(ball) on sabudana(sago) papad.

We were on the road, traveling for the past couple of days and returned “home sweet home”, last night. During our trip, we made a brief stop at Oak tree road, New Jersey to fill up our pantry and purchased lots Indian grocery and vegetables etc.

There are three main grocery shops on Oak tree road, NJ that I know of. Apna Bazar, Patel Brothers and Subji Mandi. I usually shop at Subji Mandi. Although I am satisfied with their prices and range of Indian stuff they carry, I am still curious to know about the other two shops. Are there any readers of this blog who are regular shoppers at Oak tree road, did or can compare the three and tell me which one you like better. I know it’s all personal, still I want to know what you think of these three shops and your experience of Oak tree road. Any tips and suggestions from a local shopper are greatly appreciated by this out of state, time constrained shopper on rush. Thanks.

One of the vegetables I bought at Subji Mandi are these drumsticks or Munaga Kaayalu. They look like musical sticks, so the name. Greenish firm outside but insides are filled with white colored mildly sweet flesh and tasty small white seeds. They are known to be a great source of Vitamin A. They taste great in sambhar and rasam but my favorite way to cook them is using my mother’s recipe, the traditional curry version with fresh coconut and tomatoes.

Recipe:

3 drumsticks – lightly scrapped with a peeler and cut into small finger length pieces.
3 big ripe juicy tomatoes – cut into small pieces
1 medium onion finely chopped lengthwise
½ tsp of each of red chilli powder and salt
Pinch of turmeric
Make a smooth paste
¼ cup of fresh coconut +
Half inch piece of ginger + 2 garlic cloves and 6 sprigs of fresh cilantro
For popu or tadka
½ teaspoon each of cumin, mustard seeds, minced garlic and few curry leaves

Preparation:

In a pan, heat one tsp of peanut oil over medium heat. Add half tsp each of cumin, mustard seeds, when they start to splutter, add onions, and saut� them for few minutes. Add tomatoes and half cup of water. Cook them covered until the tomatoes soften and turn into juicy mush.

At this stage, add the cut drumstick(Munaga Kaaya) pieces. Stir in coconut-cilantro paste, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric and half glass of water. Cover and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes or until drumstick pieces are tender to touch but intact in shape. Serve warm.

Taste great with rice and with pulao.

Drumstick Curry and Rice
The creamy flesh of drumsticks cooked in this way, soaks up the coconut milk-tomato juice and tastes sweet, spicy and tangy when chewed. Truly an Andhra delight to taste buds.

Recipe Source: Amma

I bought okra (benda Kaayalu) from Wal-Mart supercenter’s frozen section last weekend. As mush as I detest Wal-Mart business practices, I still shop there occasionally for groceries during fall and winter times, as we live in a rural area, and fresh vegetables that I prefer are really pricy after the summer. This behemoth shop carries quite a range of fresh and frozen vegetables at affordable prices year long.

After reading some of the fellow food bloggers posts about okra, I was tempted to dish out my favorite okra recipe from Nandyala, the famous bendakaaya sambar (okra sambar).

Smooth and silky okra when cooked in sambar, absorbs all the wonderful flavors of sambar spices and takes ‘I can’t believe this is okra’ kind of avatar, and goes down without resistance when eaten.

Recipe:

Toor dal (Kandi Pappu):
1 cup of Toor dal – In a pressure cooker, take toor dal and water in 1:2 ratio, cook to soft, and mash the dal to smooth consistency.
Sambar powder Preparation:
1 teaspoon each – cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds, chana dal, urad dal and dry coconut, Dry roast. Cool. Powder them together to fine. Or buy readymade sambar powder from an Indian store. We need atleast a tablespoon of sambar powder for this recipe.
Tamarind:
Soak key-lime sized tamarind in half cup of water for 10min. This will soften the tamarind. Squeeze the pulp and discard the seeds.
Veggies for Sambhar:
Cut – 10 to 15 whole okra, 10 to 15 cherry tomatoes and one onion (What shape and size, see the photo above)
Seasoning:
Salt, red chilli powder and turmeric – half teaspoon each, or to taste.
For popu or tadka:
1 teaspoon peanut oil
½ tsp each – curry leaves, chopped garlic, cumin and mustard seeds

Cooked Okra-Tomato Veggie Mixture……. Toor dal added to the veggie mixture

Preparation:

In a big pot, take peanut oil. On medium heat, do the popu or tadka(toast curry leaves, garlic, cumin and mustard seeds). When seeds start to pop, add the onions and saute to soft. Then add tomatoes and okra pieces. Also stir in sambar powder, red chilli powder, turmeric, salt, tamarind and one glass of water. Bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat, cover the pan, let simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the okra is tender.

Add the cooked and mashed toor dal to the simmering contents in the pot. Mix and have a taste. Adjust the salt and chilli powder to your taste and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve. I usually let it sit for at least for about 15 to 30 minutes, so that when it is served, you can actually taste the flavor of sambar powder.

Okra Sambhar with rice ~ Our Meal Today

Unripe plantain, the vegetable that belongs to banana family is a acquired taste. Like potato, plaintain cubes fried or boiled to soft taste super good. Why not, plantain is nothing but pure startch. There are several different versions of curries with plantain, as it is quite popular vegetable, particularly in South India. This curry with fresh coconut and chana dal is one of them.

Recipe:

2 raw plantains, peeled, sliced into small cubes
Fistful of Chana dal, soaked in water for about 30 mts
Half cup of fresh coconut pieces
5 to 8 green chillies
Pinch of Turmeric and 1/2tsp of salt

Preparation:

First soak chana dal in water for about 30 mts. Meanwhile make a paste of fresh coconut and green chillies by adding a pinch of salt.
Place of a pot of water on stovetop on medium heat, wait for it to boil. Meanwhile prepare the plantains (wash, pee l& cut). When water starts to boil, add these cut plantain cubes to water. Cook them for about 5 minutes on high heat, then pour them into a colander and discard the water.

Now in a big sautepan, add one tablespoon of oil, do the popu i.e (fry one tsp of mustard seeds, cumin and curry leaves), then add the soaked chana dal. Fry them in oil for few minutes. Now add the plantain cubes, turmeric, salt, coconut-greenchilli paste. Mix them thoroughly and cook them covered for about 10 to 15 minutes.

This curry tastes great with rice and Sambhar or dal. But today I prepared chapatis instead of rice. So here it is plantain curry chapatis.