Mahanandi

Daikon and Chana Dal (Mullangi mariyu Sanaga pappu)

A tablespoon of grated radish eaten daily for several weeks has long been recommended by traditional healers in the East as treatment for Kidney and bladder stones, and for sinusitis. Low in calories and an all around detoxifier, radishes are excellent for us health wise.

The following is my mother’s recipe in which the white radish also known as Daikon, Mooli or Mullangi, is cooked with chana dal and potatoes, and seasoned with dahi mirchi tadka. The recipe is easy to prepare and incredibly tasty. Great when eaten with rice, roti, pasta or with millet.

White Radish Subzi with Pita Bread and Aachar Avocado ~ Brunch Today

Recipe Details:

Artisan Food: Daikon Subzi (Mullangi Kura)
Ingredients: Daikon, Potato, Chana Dal and Tadka Ingredients
Skill level: Easy. From Novice to Expert
Labels: Traditional-India, Vegan, And Wholesome Food
Price: $2.00
Format: PDF

How it Works: After payment via Paypal, PDF will be emailed to you to download the recipe. For any questions about the recipe or the download process, please email me at mailmahanandi@gmail.com .

Artisan Food Aim and Purpose:

“Artisan Food ~ Revenue through Recipes” program aims to raise money, however small the amount, to support the children at Swami School at Nandyala. This will also lend a sense of purpose to my food blogging, and help me feel like I am accomplishing something through my activity in this Web world.

Previously in Artisan Food:

• Avocado Annam
• Chestnut-Lentil Soup
• Healing Herbal Rice
• Maamidi Thokku Pacchadi

Artisan Photo Gallery

Yesterday, I was browsing through the nutritional guidebook – Wellness Foods AtoZ of UC Berkeley. The authors mentioned in that book, that radish-the root vegetable, has less than 25 calories per cup and supplies impressive amount of vitamin-C: 29 percent of the daily requirement in 1 cup of red radish slices. Not bad, right.

When it comes to cooking these red ping-pong ball sized beauties of spring, I have a strict dietary preferences. I don’t like them overcooked or raw. Overcooking usually results in no flavor and raw means the smell. Simple 5-minute stir-fry is a perfect way to enjoy their crisp flavor without the loss of nutrients and is the most common way I prefer. Because I do buy them almost every weekend during springtime from local farmers market, I had to come up with different ways to prepare this completely new vegetable (We don’t get this veggie at Nandyala). One way I make it more enticing is stir-frying it with baby potatoes and baby lima beans. Good and easy recipe with delicious crunchy results.

Recipe:

12 to 15 fresh red radishes – ends trimmed and sliced into medium thick rounds
6 to 8 baby potatoes – Boiled in water until just tender and quartered into 4 chunks
½ cup of baby lima beans – or any kind of beans like chickpeas/nuts of your liking
1 onion – finely chopped
seasoning
1 teaspoon of red chilli-garlic powder
½ teaspoon of each – turmeric and salt (or to taste)
For popu or tadka
1 teaspoon of peanut oil
½ teaspoon of cumin, mustard seeds, minced garlic and few curry leaves.

1 Do the tadka – Heat one teaspoon of peanut oil and add and toast tadka ingredients – cumin, mustard seeds, minced garlic and curry leaves.

2 Add and sauté onions, radishes and baby lima beans for few minutes on medium heat, stirring in-between, until they reach the crunchy/soft consistency you desire.

3 Stir in quartered potatoes and the seasoning (chilli-garlic powder, turmeric and salt). Cook for a further couple of minutes.

4 Serve hot with chapatis or with rice and dal.

Radish-Potato Curry Salad with chapatis and tomato dal

Ravish the radish – One

We love going to the local farmers/flea market on Sundays during spring and summer here. They are the only natural atmosphere, which come close resembling to the vegetable markets of my hometown, Nandyala, India.

Back home at Nandyala, most of the produce sold in markets usually comes from neighboring villages or from the farms around the town. Whereas here in this small city in the USA, where we live now, most of the produce comes in boxes and crates from Oregon and California, even at the local ‘Farmers Market’. Thriving small farms are rare and few, it seems, surprising; after all this is midwest, the heartland of America.

But there are a couple of stalls that sell limited variety of produce and fruits, which are truly locally grown and from real soil. We usually buy whatever they had available that week from them. Along with some fruits and veggies, yesterday I purchased radishes, green onions, corn and I prepared pulao for lunch today with them.

Fresh corn, green onions and red radishes, they all have a very delicate flavor and they don’t take well to overcooking, particularly red radishes. Pulao is perfect recipe for them, lightly sauté and mix them with cooked basmati rice, sprinkle some limejuice, viola… delicious colorful meal with fresh spring flavors will be ready.

Fresh radishes that we get here in spring time are the best. They make a colorful curry-salad, has a bit of crunch and lots of flavor and when served with chapatis, makes a satisfying light lunch.

Recipe:

Fresh Radishes 15 to 20
Red pepper flakes 1 tsp
Salt and turmeric each 1/4 tsp
For popu or tadka: 1 tsp each mustard seeds, cumin, minced garlic & curry leaves

Preparation is very simple. First, scrub and wash the radishes, remove the damaged ones. It’s not necessary to peel if they are fresh. Dice or slice them into bite-sized pieces.

In a pan, add 1 tsp of oil, do the popu, add the radishes, saute them for few minutes. Add salt and red pepper flakes, cover and cook them for few seconds. Don’t over cook them, they will turn into soggy tasteless bits. They taste better when they are served hot. You can prepare this curry while making chapatis. All it takes is 5 minutes, that’s it.

It is difficult to muster much enthusiasm for radishes, I know. But they are rich source of vitamin C and look colorful when cooked. Hold your nose and munch them for your health. That’s the way I eat my radishes.

I enjoy going to flea market on weekends. I feel excited when I find a unique, useful item at a bargain price. Luckily what we have here in Ohio near our home is a flea/farmers market. We can buy stuff and fresh veggies too. Last Sunday, weather was fine and sun was out, so we decided to make a trip to the flea market. I bought cherries, white icicle radishes, red radishes, tomatoes, and cantaloupe. Vijay bought a Sony radio for 3 bucks and yes, it is working. He wanted one for his office room. I saw two very thick, aluminum, restaurant quality pans, but they have no lids, and so I decided to not buy. This is our first visit to this flea market as we recently moved here. Compared the flea market, where we used to go in Pittsburgh, this one is much bigger with lots of stalls. We went there around 9, walked for 3 hours, we still had a lot to browse. Well, the whole summer is ahead of us.

After coming home, I prepared white radish (mullangi) sambhar for our meal. They have mildly pungent taste, sweeter than the red skinned radish and they tasted delicious in sambhar.

White Icicle Radish ~ Fresh from Farmer’s Market

Recipe:

1 cup toordal
1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
One onion (if you find pearl onions, use them as whole, about 6 to 8 ), 2 ripe tomatoes and 6 white icicle radish – sliced thinly lenghtwise
3 tsp of tamarind (imli) pulp
1/2 teaspoon of red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt or to taste
2 teaspoons of sambhar powder (Homemade or storebought)
(I added jaggery to compensate the pungent taste of radish, about a tablespoon.)

Different vegetables give different flavors to the sambhar. You can use carrots, cauliflower, capsicum, potatoes, okra, eggplant, and cucumber; choose whatever you like or combinations.

1. Ingredients for Sambhar ……. 2. Pressure-cooked and Mashed Toor dal

Preparation:

Pressure-cook toor dal thoroughly until it falls apart with turmeric in two cups of water. Mash the cooked dal and make smooth paste. Keep it aside.

While the toor dal is pressure-cooked, heat 1 tsp of oil in a big saucepan. When oil is hot, do the tadka. Add and crackle some mustard seeds, jeera and curry leaves. Add onions, tomatoes, white radish, sauté them until they are well-cooked.

Stir in the tamarind juice, salt, red chilli powder, sambhar powder and one glass of water. Mix well. Cover the pot with a lid. Bring the water to boil and then add the mashed toor dal. Let simmer for fifteen minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally, till the wonderful sambhar aroma fills your kitchen.

Serve hot with rice. Don’t worry about leftover sambhar, it tastes even better the next day.

Sambhar is quite popular all over South India. How did the plain dal or pappu rasam turned into Sambhar? If you are curious, read this quite interesting story.