Mahanandi

Though ordinary in looks, Aloo methi- the famous north Indian curry is full of flavor. Boiled and quartered baby potatoes are saut̩ed with methi (fresh fenugreek leaves) and generously flavored with pan grilled garlic, onions and green chillies Рthe result is one simple yet delicious curry, which tastes great when combined with rice and dal or with chapatis.

Aloo Methi with Rice and Methi Dal ~ Our Simple Meal Today.

Recipe:
6 baby potatoes – boiled in water until tender and then skins removed and cubed
1 bunch of fresh methi – washed and leaves plucked
1 red onion – finely chopped
4 green chillies – finely chopped
4 garlic cloves – finely chopped
Pinch of turmeric and salt to taste
For popu or tadka – 1 tsp of each, peanut oil, cumin and mustard seeds
*******
In a kadai or sauté pan, heat peanut oil; toast the cumin and mustard seeds. Add and fry the garlic, onion and chillies, stirring well for few minutes. Stir in turmeric and salt. Add the cubed potatoes and sauté them for few minutes until they turn light red. When potatoes are almost done, stir in fresh methi leaves, stir-fry for few minutes, until they wilt. Turnoff the heat, close the lid and allow them to absorb the flavors for few minutes. Turn on to a dish and serve.

Red onion, Methi leaves, Garlic, Green chilli and Baby red potato – Ingredients for Aloo Methi

Williams-Sonoma, the kitchenware shop that sells quality kitchen stuff, has a series of cook books – Like their shop, the cookbooks are very clean, organized, not a lot of recipes, but have an excellent presentation and gorgeous photos. The book size is not too big, not too small; they are like short notebooks with color photo on every page. Each book focuses on one topic. So far, Cookies, Cakes, Muffins, Breads and Risotto – these are the cookbooks, I borrowed from my local library and flicked through. More than anything, they are eye candy.

Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness, my blog friend is blogging recipes from ‘Muffins‘ cookbook. When she mentioned last week that she was going to try cornmeal-jalapeno muffin recipe, I wanted to join in and made a baking date with her. After two renewals and before returning the book to the library, I wanted to try at least one recipe. FInally last weekend, I baked cornmeal muffins from the book.

I followed the recipe mostly and also added some extras, because I was preparing these muffins for our supper. In addition to corn meal, all purpose flour, butter milk and baking powder etc, I have also added cabbage, shallot, chickpeas sauté to the cornmeal dough, so that the muffins baked would be more dinner worthy. They turned out, I can’t say excellent, but acceptable, even after all these extras. I can’t imagine the taste if I tried them bland with only just cornmeal and chillies.

Recipe:
(For 11 muffins)

1½ cups of yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1½ cups of buttermilk
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 teaspoon of each – salt, sugar and baking powder
Some cheese gratings to top the muffins
Veggies I added
3 cups of finely chopped cabbage (I used red cabbage)
3 shallots and 6 green chillies- finely chopped
½ cup of chickpeas (soaked overnight)

First I sautéed the veggies together for few minutes, until they are cooked. In the meantime, I mixed all other ingredients together thoroughly without any lumps. I stirred in the sautéed veggie mixture to the dough. Greased the muffin pan with little bit of oil, leaving one muffin cup empty and filling it with water to prevent warping (following the book suggestion). Filled the muffin cups with cornmeal-cabbage dough. I also sprinkled cheese on top of some. Baked them in a preheated oven at 400 F (200C) for about 25 minutes, until they are golden.

They tasted like baked versions of cabbage bajjis (you know the kind, bajjis/pakoras – veggies mixed in a gram flour-jowar flour-rice flour dough, then deep fried — almost like that).

Cornmeal-Cabbage Muffins

Recipe Source: Adapted from ‘Williams Sonoma-Muffins’, page 46
Things I skipped adding (from the book’s recipe) are 2 eggs, another 1 ½ tsp of baking powder and more oil – reason for my flat muffin tops.

On a blogging break. See you all in a few days.

Thanks to the weird, spring like weather we have in this part of the world, the baby potatoes, which usually appear in market during spring and early summer, are on the market for sale in February. Rulli Brothers, the local Italian grocery shop had a sale going on baby potatoes last weekend. A pound of potatoes for one and half dollars and we could hand pick them from the pile. That’s a change from the usual prepackaged stuff. I picked out two pounds of tiny, key-lime sized baby reds, thinking they would be perfect for ‘Aloo dum’. Every home cook/chef of experience has few dishes in their repertoire, which they are certain about the outcome and happy to prepare and serve. Mine, among other things is, Indian restaurant style Aloo Dum. Baby potatoes cooked in an unforgettable flavorful sauce – the kind of dish that makes you swoon with its rich and satisfying goodness.

Recipe:

The preparation is three step. First boil the baby potatoes until they are just tender. Roast and grind the spices, the vegetables and the nuts for masala sauce. Combine and cook them together. The whole preparation takes about 30 to 45 minutes, if you have everything at hand.:) And the main chunk of it is of course to wait for the potatoes to boil.

Ingredients:

12 tiny baby potatoes
For Sauce- veggies
4 medium sized ripe tomatoes, each cut into four quarters
1 medium sized red onion or 4 shallots cut into big chunks
¼ cup finely chopped coriander
1×1 inch piece of fresh ginger
2 big garlic cloves
Nuts
½ cup cashews
¼ cup fresh grated coconut
Dry masala
6 dried red chillies
1 teaspoon coriander seeds & cumin
½ teaspoon peppercorns
3 small cinnamon sticks and cloves
1 star anise
for popu/tadka
2 teaspoons of peanut oil
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds, cumin and some curry leaves
—
½ tsp of turmeric
Salt to taste

The list is long, but checkout the photo of ingredients together. It’s not much, is it?

Preparation:

Preparation is as I mentioned above, boil, roast-sauté-grind and cook.

Boil the potatoes until they are just fork-tender. When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skin. Prick them with a fork in multiple sites and keep them aside.

Gather the listed ingredients for masala sauce, ready on hand on a big plate. Heat an iron skillet and proceed like this.

1. Roast dry masala ingredients, for few minutes, until they release their smell. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
2. Roast cashews, then fresh grated coconut for few minutes. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
3. Roast ginger and garlic for few minutes. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
4. Finally heat one teaspoon of oil and roast onion and tomatoes for few minutes.

Let them cool down little bit. When they are cool enough to touch, put them in a blender. Add half glass of water and half teaspoon of salt. Grind them into smooth paste.

Cook: Heat one teaspoon of peanut oil in a big wide pan or kadai. Toast the popu ingredients (mustard seeds, cumin and curry leaves) until they start to splutter. Add the grinded masala paste and another half to one glass of water. Stir in turmeric. Taste and add salt if needed. Add baby potatoes. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. Finally stir in finely chopped cilantro and serve.

My Kitchen Notes:
Don’t forget to prick the potatoes, so that they can absorb the sauce.
Onions – avoid yellow onion and go with shallots or red onions
If you want, you can also stir in cream/yogurt at the end.

Aloo Dum and Chapatis

Check out another version of Aloo dum from Lera of Myriad Tastes.

Last week I purchased one packet of shallots (baby onions). With them, I prepared a south Indian special ‘shallot sambhar’ i.e. tiny, baby onions are first peeled out of their dry skin/coverings, then cooked as whole, in thick lentil (toor dal) soup. Tasty and delightful! Like all babies, they are tiny bundles of joy, a gastronomic kind:) and worth the high price.

Shallot Sambhar – Light and refreshing

Recipe:

My sambhar cooking routine is a three-step process.

1. Pressure-cook the toor dal until soft, so that it can be mashed/pureed into smooth paste. Soak the tamarind in water to extract the juice.

2. In the meantime, cut and cook vegetables for sambhar- usually tomatoes and vegetables (shallots). The process I follow is like this. Heat one teaspoon of oil a big saucepan, add and toast popu ingredients. To it, I’ll add chopped tomatoes and cook them until they turn soft and mushy. Then I’ll add and cook shallots (or vegetables), one cup of water and also the seasoning (sambhar powder, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt).

3. Simmering 1 and 2 together- To the cooked tomato-shallot mixture, add the mashed toor dal paste and tamarind juice. Stirring in between, let simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes. Just before turning off the heat, garnish with finely chopped cilantro and serve.

Ingredients:
4 fistfuls of toor dal (3/4 cup)
12 to 15 shallots (baby onions)
2 ripe juicy tomatoes
Seasoning:
1 tablespoon of tamarind juice
1 tsp of sambhar powder
1/2 tsp of red chilli powder and salt
1/4 tsp of turmeric
Cilantro for garnish
Popu or tadka:
1 tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, curry leaves, minced garlic. Also few curry leaves and dried red chilli pieces
Variation
I prepared this sambhar for idlies and for idly sambhar, I usually add half tsp of cloves & cinnamon powder, to spice up the sambhar a little bit.

Ingredients for shallot sambhar

For more detailed sambhar recipe (like how to prepare home made sambhar powder etc.,), check out my other blogged recipes- Okra Sambhar and white radish sambhar.

This is another type of chutney (pacchadi) that we prepare with fresh coconut. Young, fresh coconut, red onion and green chillies, little bit of salt and tamarind juice – all pounded together in a stone mortar for about 10 minutes. The result is dynamite stuff and a completely raw food item. Sweet flesh of fresh coconut mixed together with hot, tangy flavors is a taste worth 10 minutes of my time and energy.

Coconut chutney with rice and shallot sambhar ~ Our lunch today.

Recipe Source: Amma

Eye catching and good looking, the 3 bell pepper curry is a flavorful, quick side dish to make.

1.Take one each of red, yellow and green bell peppers, cut each one into half. Remove the seeds inside and slice them thin lengthwise.

2.Heat one teaspoon of peanut oil in a wide pan. Toast pinch of each mustard seeds, cumin, minced garlic (popu).

3.Add and cook bell peppers, covered for about 5 minutes on medium-low.

4.Remove the lid; add pinch of turmeric, a tablespoon of spicy dalia powder (pappula podi) and salt to taste. Cook/saute them for another 5 minutes openly, on high heat, stirring often.

Serve hot with rice and dal or with chapatis.

Celebrating Steelers Superbowl Sunday with 3 Bell pepper curry.

Why didn’t I think of this idea before? That is what I thought, when I read the post “Avocado Parathas” by GM of ‘The spice is right’ food blog.

I know that avocado is nature’s ghee/butter. And just like them, ripe avocado is full of fat and has no significant taste to speak of. Avocado’s mashed pulp easily mixes with all kinds of ingredients and helps to make their flavors stand out. I had to give it a try.

Yesterday, I tried the recipe. The result – very smooth, tasty chapatis, the kind we know from India and dream of making it here in US. Smooth, silky flesh of ripe avocados when mixed with chapati flour, magic happened. All the fat in avocado made the flour softer, very pliable, easy to handle and chapatis off the griddle (tava), remained soft even after 6 hours. In this cold, winter weather, that’s a miracle, if you ask me.

Recipe:
for 10 to 12 chapatis

2 cups of durum wheat flour
(I used Golden Temple brand wheat flour, available in Indian grocery shops)
1 very ripe avocado (more about avocado-here)
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of warm water
I also added 1/4 tsp of red chilli-garlic powder for a little bit of hotness

Preparation:

Avocado: Take a ripe avocado; cut it into half, going around the pit (seed) in the middle. Twist and separate two halves. Stab the knife into the pit; pull it out, the pit will come out easily. Scoop the flesh of avocado using a spoon, from each half. Take it into a small cup; mash it to a smooth paste, using your fingers or with a spoon.

Flour: Take flour in a big vessel. Sprinkle in salt and red chilli-garlic powder, and mix the flour. Then add the avocado paste to the flour and mix thoroughly. Now gradually adding water, make firm dough. Make sure that dough is not too soft or too hard. Knead the dough for two minutes. Cover and set it aside to rest for about 15 to 30 minutes. In the meantime, prepare a curry for avocado chapatis. I made Brussels sprouts-potato curry.

Rolling out Chapatis:
Knead and rollout the dough into a cylindrical long roll on a wood board. Take small lime sized portions and using hands, shape each into a smooth ball shape.
Take the dough ball on a clean wood board, sprinkle some flour on it and around. Using a rolling pin, press/roll out the dough into a big thin round. You can fry it on a hot griddle or to get more flaky layers, what I usually do is, fold the rolled out round twice, to get a triangle shape (see the photo above) then roll into a big, thin triangle.

Cooking chapatis:
Heat a cast-iron griddle/tava, when it is hot, place the chapati and cook it on each side until golden. While the chapati is cooking on hot tava, I roll out another chapati for frying. I usually make 6 chapatis for the two of us for a meal, takes about 15 to 20 minutes maximum.

Serve hot with curry or dal.

Avocado Chapatis with Brussels Sprouts-potato Curry

Thank you GM for sharing this recipe. It’s really is a very neat and clever idea that I am going to apply quite regularly from now on. Who wouldn’t love soft chapatis anyway?

“What Kind of Food Are You?” – I tried the fun quiz of 5 questions. I expected Indian, but I don’t think the quiz has Indian food in its list of responses. The answer was ‘Italian food’, and I was satisfied. Like Indian, I think of Italian as another no-nonsense, honest kind of food. Though here in US, a little bit over glorified. What? Have you been watching food TV (US) lately? It should be renamed ‘Italian Food TV’ with its 24-hour Italian this and Italian that programming, and its star-cooks falling over themselves proclaiming their Italian heritage. Sometimes I wonder, why am I paying money for this channel on cable, is this a foodtv or a propaganda machine for Italian cuisine. It would be understandable if majority of Americans are Italians or Italian decent, but that is not the case and further, the minority (here the minority status is determined by the skin color) means non-whites, are climbing up to almost 40%. More and more, it looks like American Food TV has decided to disregard diversity and showcase only one cuisine at the expense of others. What a sad, sad thinking!

Well, I am glad to contribute one more recipe of pasta to IMBB #22, the mother of all events and most popular one in food blogosphere, this month hosted by lovely Amy of ‘Cooking with Amy’ fame. Even though I think of my contribution an original, I am sure there is someone, somewhere already written down this version of pasta sauce. Thousands of dedicated Italian cooks, cookbooks and hundreds of fabulous food bloggers, recipe sites – millions of pasta recipes, it got to be there, somewhere. No… then I am happy to cook up millionth one recipe of pasta.:)

Recipe:

Pasta: I used spaghetti, Hodgson Mills brand, whole wheat with flax seed and organic variety. Like pulao/pilaf taste depends on basmati rice, a good pasta dish needs quality pasta. So I do spend few extra bucks on a fine variety. Hodgson Mill brand without a doubt, quality products.
One fistful of spaghetti for one person – that is the measurement I use for spaghetti.

For Sauce:
1 cup of peanuts – roasted and skins removed
3 red bell peppers – deseeded, cut into big chunks
4 dried red chillies and 4 garlic cloves – halved
3 ripe, juicy tomatoes – chopped into big chunks
1 small red onion – chopped into big chunks
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tsp of each-cumin, salt and powdered jaggery/sugar
I prefer to have sauce, lots of it with my pasta, so the above quantities.

Preparation:

Pasta Sauce: Roast the bell peppers, dried red chillies, tomato, onion, garlic and cumin in 1 tsp of olive oil, until they all are brown and golden. Let them cool down to room temperature.

In a food processor, first add roasted peanuts and make a fine powder of them. To it, add the roasted veggies and half teaspoon of salt. Add half cup of water and grind them into smooth paste.

In a big wide pan, heat olive oil and add the peanut-veggie paste. Add one cup of water, jaggery and salt to taste. Mix and cook covered for about 10 minutes on medium-low heat.

Pasta: While the sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta al dente, usually for about 5 to 8 minutes. Drain the pasta into a colander, immediately add it to the sauce. Mix it thoroughly with pasta sauce. Cook, uncovered for about 2 minutes on low heat and serve.

The sauce can be made earlier and just before mealtime, pasta can be cooked and added. One thing I learned about pasta is, it has to be served hot, to get the best taste.

Pasta in chilli-red bell pepper-peanut sauce: sweet, spicy, savory and smoky – A range of delicious flavors, all blended well together for a wholesome, hearty, filling meal ~ Our Sunday dinner and my entry to IMBB Event.

Recipe Source: My Own Creation
Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

Ridge gourd, potato and carrot – this is a veggie match, made in an Indian kitchen. Their flavors compliment each other and when combined with some onion, green chillies, coconut, they make a fresh, satisfying side dish.

This is the kind of veg-medley I love to make when I’m short on time. A pleasing, sweet-spicy taste that pairs well with rice and dal or with chapatis and corn tortillas. Tasty and flexible, lot of curry in less time – what more one could want in a recipe?

Recipe:

2 fresh looking ridge gourds (turai, beera kaya): First peel/or scrape the ridges on outside, wash the veggie, then cut it into bite sized pieces.
1 medium sized potato and carrot – peeled, then cut into bite sized cubes
1 onion – finely chopped
5 green chillies and 1 tbs of coconut powder – made into smooth paste
Salt to taste and pinch of turmeric
1 fistful of fresh or dried peas – I used dried peas (soaked overnight in water)
Popu ingredients – 1 tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin, minced garlic and curry leaves

It’s just like regular curry preparation, only thing you have to keep in mind is – first cook potatoes and carrots, add ridge gourd later, as it cooks faster, compared to potatoes and carrots.

Heat one teaspoon of peanut oil in a big pan. Add popu ingredients. When they start to splutter, add onions, saute for few minutes. Stir in peas, potatoes and carrots. Cover and cook them in their own moisture, for about 10 minutes on medium heat.

When they are little bit softened, stir in ridge gourd pieces, salt, turmeric and green chilli-coconut paste. Cover again and cook them, stirring in-between, till they reach the texture/softness you desire.

Serve hot with chapati/paratha or with rice and dal combination.

Ridge gourd curry and paratha ~ Our lunch.

I bought a quite few amlas (usiri kayalu, Indian Gooseberry) at Toronto and I couldn’t resist making a small batch of pickle with them, following a recipe from Malathi Chandur’s cookbook – “Vantalu-Pindi Vantalu“. The pickle turned out to be hot, spicy good.

Recipe:
For 15 amlas

15 clean, fresh looking, blemish free amlas (usiri kayalu)
½ cup peanut oil
¼ cup of salt and red chilli powder
¼ cup of mustard seeds – roasted & finely powdered (aava pindi)
½ tsp of asafoetida (inguva)

Preparation:

First wash the amlas and dry them using clean cloth, without any sign of moisture.

Heat up 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet and add the amlas and sauté them till they turn light brown. Remove and let them cool down to room temperature.

Heat the remaining oil in another pan to a smoking point. Remove it from heat, let it cool down to room temperature.

Add salt, red chilli powder, mustard powder and asafoetida to the roasted amlas. Mix them all with a clean, dry spoon. Pour and stir in the heated (now at room temperature) oil. Mix them all together, again with a clean dry spoon. Cover tightly and let it stew at least for two weeks. The more you wait, the tasty the pickle becomes and the normal waiting period is one month. I couldn’t wait that long.:)

Just before serving, do the popu or tadka. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan, fry red chilies, cumin and mustard seeds until they splutter, then add garlic flakes and remove from the heat. Add it to the pickle, mix thoroughly and serve with rice and dal.

Amla Pickle (Usiri kaya Uragaya) – spicy and sour like mango pickle and quite tasty in this cold winter weather.

Recipe Source: Malathi Chandur’s Cookbook “Vantalu-Pindi Vantalu“

Ridge gourd is often compared to zucchini, the squash. But the comparison is like saying potato and sweet potato are the same. Except for where they come from, there is no comparison at all taste wise, between those two.

Ridge gourd has a firmer, less watery texture than zucchini, and the flavor is much more intense and sweet, where as Zucchini seems to be full of water and nothing else when cooked and too bland to taste. Given a choice, ridge gourd clearly comes out as the winner, taste wise. Though I dislike character less personalities in life, I do like the bland zucchini. It took some time but it won me over. In case of ridge gourd, I may have made complaining noises about other veggies but never about ridge gourd or ‘beerakaya’ we call it in Telugu. Be as curry or chutney or in dal, I relish ridge gourd in all forms. I even tried growing it here, when we were in Houston albeit unsuccessfully, not good seeds.

Here is a recipe of ridge gourd in tomato sauce, Vijay’s favorite and My Mother-in-law’s recipe:

Recipe:

2 young looking, fresh ridge gourds
Scrape the skin and ridges, wash, then cut into bite size pieces
4 ripe juicy tomatoes – finely chopped
1 onion – finely chopped
4 green chillies
—————-
1 tablespoon of coconut powder
½ tsp of dhania(coriander) powder & turmeric
¼ tsp of salt – or to your taste
Popu ingredients – 1tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves & minced garlic

Preparation:
You know the drill. Heat peanut oil, do the popu, sauté onions, tomatoes and green chillies. Add chopped ridge gourd and all the seasoning. Stir to mix and cook, covered. Tomato juice and water that comes from cooked ridge gourd pieces is going to be enough to make the curry a stew/kurma type. So don’t add any extra water, unless you want a watery, thin version. Cook till ridge gourd pieces are tender and the sauce thickens. Serve it warm.

Though I have to say my favorite is always the dry curry recipe, that I posted a while back, I also make this sauced version sometimes, because Vijay likes it. Either as a sauce for pasta/with chapati/ or with rice, this curry tastes good. Sometimes, we do the dunking thing with toasted garlic bread. Good eat, any way you prefer.

Cooking ridge gourd (beerakaya, turai) in tomato sauce.

Recipe source: Attamma(MIL)

“Brussels sprouts taste almost like cabbage and they have a pronounced and sweet nutty flavor”, said Martha, in one of the episodes on Martha Stewart Living daily show, back in the days. That’s all I needed to know before trying out this winter vegetable.

As a new immigrant to this country, unfamiliar with most of the vegetables available here, no friends or relatives to learn from, Martha is like a mother figure to me. Calm, collected, intelligent and informative, it seemed she actually knew, what she was talking about unlike the current crop of food TV stars. No bam bam.. No unnecessary giggles and no artificial mile-length smiles. What she has is dignity and love of her craft and it reflected on her shows. Back then, I watched her show almost daily and learned so many things too.

I wish she would go back to the old format, because her new shows these days are not like the shows two, three years ago. Don’t they already have enough talk shows to promote movies and TV sitcoms?

I prepare brussels sprouts just like cabbage curry: sliced thin, sautéed with onion and seasoned with green chillis and coconut. I also add some sort of beans, pre soaked in water, like kala chana, chickpeas or dried green peas. If you have not already tried this vegetable, try it this way. I am sure, you are going to like it very much and thank me with a Christmas gift for this wonderful recipe. 🙂

Recipe:

12 to 15 fresh brussels sprouts
1 big onion, sliced thin lengthwise
2 fistfuls of kala chana(black chickpeas), soaked in water overnight
(Dried green peas, chickpeas work too)
4 green chillies and 1 tablespoon of coconut – made into paste
Salt to taste and pinch of turmeric
1 tsp of cumin and mustard seeds, curry leaves etc., for tadka or popu

Preparation:

Wash and Remove outer leaves and trim the bases of brussels sprouts. Check atleast two layers of leaves and remove them too if you find any black spots etc., . Cut each one into half and slice them thin lengthwise.

In a big pan, heat one teaspoon of peanut oil, do the popu or tadka (toasting mustard seeds, cumin and curry leaves). Add and stir fry the onions and kala chana for few minutes. Stir in the brussels sprouts. Add all the seasoning (green chilli-coconut paste, salt, turmeric), mix them together. Cover and cook on low medium heat for about 10 minutes. Leave it like that, don’t open the lid and allow them to cook in their own steam. After 10 minutes, remove the lid, stir them once and add salt if necessary. By now, the sprouts will be tender and done. Switch off the heat and serve immediately.

Brussels sprouts prepared in this way, taste great with chapatis and naans.

Brussels Sprouts Curry and Chapatis ~ Our lunch today.

Recipe source: My own creation

This onion chutney is very popular in North Karnataka and also in our Raayala Seema region. Rural in origin and a favorite of hard working people and farmers, this chunky, saucy, sort-of-sweet, sort-of-spicy chutney tastes terrific with rotis, both wheat and jowar and also with rice.

Recipe:
(for two, for one serving)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 big red onion – cut to big chunks
5 dried red chillies
1 tablespoon grated coconut (fresh or dried)
Small piece of jaggery – powdered (sugar won’t work in this recipe)
Cherry tomato sized tamarind – Presoaked in very little water (one tablespoon is plenty) for about 15 minutes, so that it can grind well.
Salt to taste

Onion is the main ingredient in this chutney; so don’t skimp on the onion. If you have small onions, use two or three, and red onions or shallots are the best for this recipe. At Nandyala, we make it with erra gaddalu (shallots here).

Place an iron skillet on stove-top. Add oil, swirl to coat the pan. When the oil reaches smoking point, add chunks of onion. Saute them to soft brown on high heat stirring frequently. Remove them to a plate, then add the dried red chillies. Saute them to brown. Remove to a plate. Allow them to cool to room temperature. Texturewise and tastewise, this is important. Go, sit down and wait.

When they are cool enough to touch, take the red chillies, coconut, jaggery, tamarind and salt in a mortar or in a food processor. Pound or blenduntil the red chillies are smooth. Then add the onion pieces. Pulse few times to coarse consistency. Do not puree the onions, we do not want that. They should be coarsely crushed like shown in the image below. Stone mortar really comes to a great use for this kind of recipe and I made this chutney in a stone mortar for todays meal.

Remove to a cup and serve with rice or chapati and dal.

Red Onion Chutney and Sona Masuri Rice mixed with Chutney ~ Meal Today

I think in availability, price, food value, versatility and taste, chickpeas are without any match. There is no better way to prove this to the uninitiated than by sampling a few dishes that make use of this tasty and nourishing legume.

For people who are always searching for a new dish to add variety to their meals, one day, they will discover the hearty Punjabi fare, chana masala or this aloo chole; and when they do, I am sure they’ll turn into ‘Choleacs‘ like us. We Love Chole!

Recipe:

3 cups of dried chickpeas
(soaked in water beforehand then pressure cooked to tender)
A fistful of cooked chickpeas made into smooth paste

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
1 large onion and 4 ripe tomatoes finely chopped
1 tablespoon – readymade chana masala powder(any brand will do)
1 teaspoon – garlic-ginger-cilantro paste
½ teaspoon each – red chilli powder, salt and turmeric
For garnish – finely chopped cilantro and lime wedges

Ingredients for Aloo Chole

Heat one teaspoon of ghee or peanut oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add and toast quarter teaspoon each – mustard seeds and cumin, wait till they start to dance; then add ginger-garlic-cilantro paste and onions, saute for few minutes until onions soften.

Add the ingredients – potatoes, tomatoes, chickpea paste, chana masala powder, red chilli powder, salt and turmeric, along with 2 to 3 cups of water. Cook them covered for about 15 minutes, until potatoes are slightly tender.

At this stage, stir in chickpeas. Turn the heat to medium-low, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the curry thickens. (When curry served on a plate, it shouldn’t spread like flodding river.) Garnish with finely chopped fresh cilantro and serve.

My favorite way to have this curry is with limejuice squeezed and few finely chopped onions (washed beforehand in water) on the side with parathas.

Aloo Chole with Parathas – Creating Indian restaurant kind of meal at our home ~ Our weekend brunch.

What we get here in abundance is banana peppers in all seasons. Italians, the majority of population in this small town love their banana peppers, I guess. Usually I stuff banana peppers and cook them like I did cherry peppers.
Mika, my blog friend, posted a wonderful recipe with banana peppers, last month. I tried it today and we both (Vijay & I) really liked it. It is very easy to prepare too.

Recipe:

Take four banana peppers. Wash & dry, slit them in the middle and remove the seeds. Cut them into bite-sized pieces.
In a pan, heat one teaspoon of peanut oil, do the popu or tadka (toasting cumin, mustard seeds and minced garlic). Add the cut banana pepper pieces. Cover and cook them, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes, until they are tender to touch. Stir in spicy dalia powder, pinch of salt and turmeric, then cook for few more minutes and serve.

Tasted real good and hot with spinach dal and rice.

A Meal with Banana Pepper Curry ~ (Banana Pepper Curry, Rice, Spinach Dal and Rice Papads)

Thanks Mika for sharing this recipe, we really liked it.