Mahanandi

A Cup of Moong dal Payasam for Indian Sweets~101

If I have to choose between a cup of payasam and a slice of cake, I’d always go for the cup. Here, mothers prepare cakes lovingly; back in India, payasams are the norm. Every Saturday my mother would prepare payasam for puja naivedyam. I believe she prepared payasam mainly because of us, four little darlings:), who would come home from school hungry for something sweet. We had half-day school on Saturdays and afternoon meals at my mother’s home always included a type of payasam. Creamy rich with full of cashews and golden raisins, it was like spoonful of heaven on a warm afternoon.

Together between my mom and mother-in-law, there are recipes for at least a dozen different payasams. Who would really need a cook book when you have this type of rich resource right a phone call away? Because they all follow a basic method, it’s not that difficult to remember the procedure. Moong dal payasam is one such easy recipe I picked up from the family.

Moong dal is cooked in sweetened and thickened, rich poppy seed milk. Light golden hue, incredible, inviting aroma and delight to the senses – this is how I would describe this payasam.

Roasted in Ghee – Yellow Moong Dal

Recipe:

Moong dal, yellow (pesara pappu) – 1 cup
Sugar – 1 cup
Milk – 5 cups
Poppy seeds (Khus-khus, gasa gasalu) – ¼ cup
(Soaked in ½ cup of warm water for at least half an hour, to soften them)
Cashews and Golden Raisins, each – ¼ cup
Cardamom (Elachi, aluka) – 6
Ghee (neyyi) – 2 tablespoons

Prep Work:

1 In an iron skillet or tava, heat a teaspoon of ghee on medium heat. Add and roast, yellow moong dal until the color changes from yellow to light red and releases the wonderful fragrance. Remove them to a plate. Aromatherapy starts with this first step.

2 In the same iron skillet or tava, heat a tablespoon of ghee on medium heat. When it is hot, add and toast first golden raisins and then cashews. Golden Raisins puff up like little gold balloons and cashews turn from creamy white to light gold. Take care not to burn. Remove them to a plate.

3 Powder cardamom seeds to smooth powder in a mortar using the pestle or in a spice grinder.

Toasted in Ghee – Cashews and Golden Raisins

In a pressure cooker, take roasted moong dal, sugar, milk and soaked poppy seeds along with the water it’s soaked in. Mix and close the lid. Pressure cook until two whistles. Once all the valve pressure is released, remove the lid and with a wood-masher or immersion blender lightly mash the dal. Pressure-cooking is my method; I follow it mainly for the convenience of not stirring and for the speed. In actual recipe, they would take all the ingredients in a wide, thick-bottomed vessel and cook until the dal reaches fall-apart stage. If you don’t have a pressure cooker at home, then follow the second method. It may take little bit more time, but the end result will be worth the trouble, I promise.

Add the toasted cashews and golden raisins along with the ghee they toasted in. Also stir in the cardamom powder to the cooked payasam. Have a taste and add sugar and milk, if needed. Simmer the payasam on medium-low heat about 20 to 30 minutes, until it reaches thick, creamy consistency. Serve warm or cold.

A Cup of Moong Dal Payasam with Poppy Seeds, Cashews and Golden Raisins

Poppy seeds can block the cooker nozzle and that may create a mess, if they not soaked in warm water beforehand. Soak poppy seeds in water first, if you are to cook this in a pressure cooker.
Chana Dal Payasam – Link

Moong bean guggullu or salad was our after-school snack at least once a week when we were children. One cup of this guggullu (salad) and one cup of tea, we would be set until dinnertime 8pm.

And now, I often prepare them at home for light lunch. This traditional Indian salad is filling, nutritious (good protein and Folate content), and can be prepared within 10 minutes, with some preplanning.

My dear readers, I want to share a happy news with you all.

One of my photos about spice box is picked up and published today, in Christian Science Monitor, an online daily newspaper. All thanks to my blog reader and friend Vijaysree Venkatraman. Thanks Vijaysree!

Link to the published article and photo:
“A Spice Box and A Cookbook Got Her Started“

* Vijaysree blogs at Apropos of Nothing
* My Blogged Piece about Tadka and Spice box – here.
* Publishing world is a tough place to break into, that’s what I’ve heard all these years. I would greatly appreciate if you could contact the editor about her excellent choice of article selection and to show support to the author and the photographer. Thank you!

Updated on June 9th:
Thanks Aparna Tula, for taking time to contact the editor to express your opinion of the article and hearty congratulations on your published letter.

*Comments section is closed at this time.*

Naan with walnut-raisin toppings

Hot and fresh from tandoori oven, light and chewy, Naans epitomize everything that is good about wheat flour. But preparing naans at home means inviting disappointment most of the times. Recreating the tandoori magic in a home style-baking oven is impossible and invariable comparison to the Indian restaurant tandoori baked ones will lead to frustration.

But sometimes, mainly because we don’t have an Indian restaurant in this town, I’d prepare them at home following a traditional Punjabi recipe. (This recipe is again from our kind neighbor, an old acquaintance Deviji.) The dough is prepared with milk or yogurt. I usually go with fresh homemade yogurt, for naans with little bit of sour note.

I can’t say the end result is excellent; of course the culprit is the baking method, not at all the recipe fault. What I can say and recommend is they are worth the effort, good in taste department, and come close to the original in texture and softness. So give it a try. But please don’t expect the tandoori magic.

Naans all ready for baking

Recipe:
(For 8 to 10 naans)

4 cups of fresh all-purpose flour
1 to 2 cups of yogurt
(I usually use home made yogurt. Fresh yogurt gives a unique taste to naan. If you are not sure of quality of yogurt, go with milk)
2 tablespoon of melted ghee at room temperature
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
Yeast mixture:
In a small cup, take 2 tablespoons of warm water add pinch of sugar
Stir in 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
Mix and wait for it to rise.
To top:
I went with walnuts and raisins this time.
(Cumin, Sesame seeds, Minced onion, garlic, they all work too.)

Oven Baked Naans

1. In a large bowl, sift flour, stir in salt, sugar and ghee. Add the yeast water. Mix by gradually adding the yogurt. Add and mix until the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl and comes together in solid lump.

2. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands and knead it for 5 minutes. Keep it covered overnight or for at least two hours. (I usually leave the dough covered for overnight.)

3. When you are ready to bake, take the dough out, knead for another 5 minutes. Divide the dough into lemon sized rounds. On a board or countertop, dust a little bit of flour, and roll out each ball into a big round with 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness.

4. Prepare all the rounds like this and neatly place them on a greased or parchment paper lined baking tray for baking. Brush them all lightly with melted ghee. Sprinkle and press toppings (walnuts).

5. Preheat the oven to 425 F. When oven is ready, place and bake for about 5 to 10 minutes. White dough changes in color from light cream to pale pinkish red like baby’s cheeks. Keep an eye on oven and take care not to brown/over bake. Remove and serve hot with a curry.

Naan and Masala Turnips (Shalgam)

Flour choice: King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
History of Naan : Link
More Naan Recipes: Sugar and Spice, Gattina, Egullet

Steam-Cooking the Ripe Plantain

Vijay loves all things plantain; so much so, he even wrote a guest post on homemade plantain chips on my blog few months ago. When I saw the recipe for sweet plantain dessert, at LG’s Ginger and Mango, I knew Vijay is going to like it.

Dessert with sweet plantains usually involves deep-frying, but this traditional Kerala recipe was different and healthy because it was steam cooked. I tried it with one ripe plantain and we both liked the end result. Easy dessert and they were like small venna(butter) biscuits, the kind that would melt in mouth but with gooey, banana sweetness.

Steam Cooked Ripe Plantain Piece ~ Removing the Skin

Recipe:
I ripe plantain
Ghee and sugar – half tablespoon each or to taste.

Wash and cut plantains into 4 or 5 pieces crosswise. Steam-cook them for about 15 to 20 minutes, until they soften. The outer skin will turn black and insides will turn soft. Remove the steam basket from steamer and let them cool. Peel the skin, cut each piece into 3 or 4 thin rounds.

Take melted ghee and sugar in a small cup. Stir until sugar melts in ghee. Lightly dip each plantain round in ghee-sugar mix, remove. Or sprinkle some sugar on top of these rounds and serve. Good treat, I think particularly for toddlers.

Sugar Coated Ripe Plantain Rounds and Semolina Upma with Peanut chutney ~ Our Simple Meal Today

Recipe: LG’s Ginger and Mango – Traditional Kerala Recipe

I have observed a lot of elation here about the recent agreement between India and US to export Indian mangoes to the States. But, from reading what is happening in south and central American countries, which also made similar kinds of agricultural deals with US and other parts of the western world, I can guess what is going to happen to mangoes in India and I am going to list my thoughts.

1. The US, to protect their environment or just because it can, will specify only one of few varieties of mangoes to import from India.

2. Compared to the home market, the profit margin looks great when done business with US. Few may resist at first the lure of dollar, but sooner or later the mango growers will heed the call of money siren and will start to cultivate the US demanded mango types, running down the current variety.

3. This will create a shortage in supply and more importantly in variety at home front. Say in das, bara years, we won’t have a chance to find different treasured varieties like Banginapalli (Andhra specialty) etc.

4. One might say that the Indians are going to get rich with dollar money. Really? How many in India are mango growers? My guess – the number will be less than 0.00001%. But the exports make them unavailable to more than 90% population. Also this type of deals are never about the farmers welfare.

5. It’s not like we are starving for mangoes here. US already imports mangoes from Mexico, Peru and other South American countries. Not enough it seems. Here in US, we could gorge ourselves with Indian mangoes, and people back in India like my hard working mother and father and most of my relatives back at home, won’t be able to afford the US inflated mango prices. You don’t have to look further for an example. The famous basmati rice from India. How many of us had basmati rice every day, growing up? Very rare, in my case never, because first of all we won’t find it and second in rare cases of availability, could not afford. All that is cultivated in India, I guess comes straight to the local Sam’s Club.

That same thing will happen to Indian mangoes in few years. That’s my prediction and I hate the people who pushed this deal with US.

Gandhiji, the great man who lived his life with simple means once observed, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” This deal, in order to bring Indian mangoes near to about a quarter-billion people, is going to make them dear to more than a billion people.

Added on June 5th:
Thank you all for opening up your hearts and to show what you made of. I greatly appreciate it mainly and more so, because I had written this piece last month for Jihvā and kept thinking about it, whether to publish or not. After all this is Indian mangoes we are talking about, a passionate subject for us all; I have seen nothing but welcoming mango thoranams and loud celebratory noises to this deal so far, be it in the mainstream media, blogosphere or in real world. Anything contradicting the self indulgent bully power of US is not popular, and expressing it means inviting abuse and ridicule usually. But my desire to express my point of view was so strong. I am happy that I published this piece and I am glad to see that I am not alone in my concerns. Thank you!

Strawberry mango scones are crisp outside and crumbly and soft inside. What makes them stand out is the flavor combination of sweet and tart in the same bite. This dessert is delicious, attractive and easy to prepare. Don’t fear the fancy title, scones are nothing but freeform style baked cakes.

Recipe:

All purpose flour : 2 cups
Sugar : 4 tablespoons
Salt : ½ teaspoon
Baking powder : 2 teaspoons
Baking soda : ¼ teaspoon
Cold and solid butter : 3 tablespoons, finely chopped
Wet Ingredients
Firm and fresh Strawberries : 1 cup, chopped
Dried mango : ¼ cup finely sliced
Yogurt : ½ to 1 cup of fresh yogurt
Lemon glaze
Lime juice – ¼ cup and sugar- 2 tablespoons. Bring them to a boil in a small saucepan and let the juice thicken a bit – lemon glaze is ready. (Prepare this while baking the scones.)

In a mixing bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder and soda. Stir in sugar and salt. Add and mix the finely chopped butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

To this flour mixture, add strawberries and dried mango pieces. Add the yogurt gradually and mix to form tight, sticky dough. Gently knead the dough for 2 minutes, take care not to break and bleed the strawberries.

Turn the dough out onto a floured or parchment covered baking sheet and press out into a big round with a thickness of half to one inch. (This is the messy and sticky part. Apply oil or ghee to the rolling pin or use flour to prevent dough from sticking. )

Preheat the oven to 425?F. When the oven is ready, place the baking sheet and bake. The dough will puff up and increase in volume. Bake until golden brown, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and drizzle the lemon glaze on top. Let it cool a bit, and slice into 6 to 8 triangle slices. Serve warm and enjoy.

Dough ready for baking

Golden and Glazed

Berry Good Treat ~ Strawberry Mango Scones
For JFI-Strawberries Event, Hosted by Pastry Chef and Baker, the lovely Baking Fairy

Recipe Adapted from Foodblog – “Delicious!Delicious!”
Dried mango Source: Indian grocery shops.
Flour Choice: King Arthur brand All Purpose Flour

Mango and Strawberry – The King and Queen of Fruit Kingdom

RP of ‘My Workshop’ commented that if mango was the king of the fruits, strawberry could be the queen of fruit kingdom. Very true, indeed. The kind of fervor we, Indians, reserve for mangoes is often shown for strawberries by the people here in the States. Romance, weddings and any special occasions of life… there come the strawberries.

The delicate ruby red beauties, the queens of berries, strawberries are high maintaince as queens should be. They don’t like to be crammed and they need a certain temperature for their beauty regime. If it is too hot, they will get spoiled within a day. Too cold, their flavor becomes elusive. Divas and prima donnas, with a mind of their own, they are the attention grabbers. Color, shape and smell… nothing subtle about them, except may be their sweet flavor. Though looks red and bulky, the supermarket variety is more tart than sweet. One has to have a taste of Indian mangoes to know how good mangoes are. Just like mangoes, one must taste freshly picked strawberries from farms or from open meadows to really know how good they are to understand the reason for fervor. Fortunate are those, who have tasted the real things in this life.

Here is a recipe showcasing them both – popsicles or ice pops of mango and strawberries.

Mango and strawberries with little bit of limejuice and little bit of sugar – blend, pour and freeze – homemade popsicles for hot summer days would be ready. Who doesn’t have memories of hot summer days and colorful popsicles?

Recipe:

2 mangoes – peeled, cut and seed removed, finely cubed
15 to 20 strawberries – stems removed and cut into half
Sugar to taste
2 tablespoons of limejuice
****
Blender
Popsicle mold with sticks or popsicle sticks and small cups
Refrigerator

1 Prepare Mango Juice: Take mango cubes in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of mangoes) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

2 Prepare Strawberry Juice: Take strawberries in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of strawberries) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

3 Making Popsicles: Pour the juice into popsicles mold or small cups in a tray. You can prepare at least 4 different types of ice pops with these two juices. Plain strawberry, plain mango, mango (bottom half)-strawberry (top half) and strawberry (bottom half)-mango (top half) combinations. If you are using the cups, then place popsicle sticks into cups. Freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight.

4 Popsicle time: Place the tray in hot water for few seconds and pull out the pops from the molds or cups. Enjoy!

Saying Goodbye to Mango Month and Welcoming the Strawberry Month with Mango-Strawberry Popsicle

Strawberry Popsicle for JFI~Strawberries

Green Beans, Shelled Indian Beans, Baby Lima Beans

Here in the US, farmers’ markets are usually bursting with fresh green beans during this time of the year. When we first moved here, during my getting to know the US veggies better phase, regular staple in my kitchen was curries and pulaos prepared with frozen green beans. Frozen green beans are cheap, already cut and cook easily. Taste not that good, still I bought them. But after a year of frozen stuff, I had enough and I’ve sworn off green beans entirely. Then, I discovered the farmfresh green beans of springtime and how good they tasted. From then on, along with radishes, beans became a springtime staple at my home.

My recipe here is same as the old classic, the favorite of Indian cookbook authors, where beans are cut into quarter inch length pieces, saut?ed with onions and green chilli-coconut paste. To this basic recipe, I have also added two other types of shelled beans to increase the nutritional value as well as taste. The shelled Indian beans (Papdi Lilva, the middle ones in the photo above) are available in frozen section of Indian grocery shops here, year round and baby lima beans; you could get them from regular grocery shops. They both taste little bit sweet and starchy, compliments the mildly woodsy taste of fresh french beans.

Sauteing the three-bean curry

Recipe:

Fresh Green beans – 2 cups of chopped quarter-inch length pieces
Shelled Indian broad beans – ½ cup
Baby lima beans – ½ cup
Onion – 1, finely chopped
Green chillies- 4 to 6 and coconut powder, a tablespoon – made into smooth paste
Turmeric – ½ teaspoon
Salt to taste
For tadka or tiragamata:
1 tsp of peanut oil
1 tsp of mustard seeds, cumin, minced garlic and few curry leaves

Heat peanut oil in a kadai or a wide pan. Add and toast the tadka ingredients. Add and stir-fry the onions for about 2 minutes. Add the green beans, Indian beans and Lima beans. Cook, covered for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Beans will soften within 5 minutes by cooking in their own moisture, sort of like steam cooking. At this stage, stir in green chilli-coconut paste, salt and turmeric. Cover and cook on medium heat for another 5-10 minutes stirring in between. Serve hot with chapatis or with rice and dal.

3-bean curry with chapatis

More about Indian Bean Seeds, Papdi Lilva or Chikkudu Vittanalu – Here

Four Seasons Farmers and Flea Market, Youngstown, Ohio
(About six miles from my home in Boardman)

Boxes and Crates – Out of State Produce

Unloading the Produce

Shopping, Shopping

Flower Pots For Sale

Red Radish Bunches 3 for $1.25

Limes 6 for 1 Dollar

Hot and Fresh Kettle Popcorn – For the Ride Home

Fruits and Vegetables from Farmers Market – Pineapple, Cantaloupe, Grape Tomatoes, Beans, Bell Peppers, Red Radishes, Green Onions, Corn, Baby Red Potatoes and Limes
Total Money Spent – 12 dollars

Strawberries from Local Farms

This is our local Farmers Market in images, for Farmer’s Market Parade hosted by Melissa of Cooking Diva.

Sandwich Fillers and Crunchy Side Snack
Hothouse Cucumber Slices Pickled in Lime juice, Salt and Black Pepper

This is a simple version of cucumber pickle that I often prepare at home. I usually prefer long, smooth, thin skinned cucumbers for this pickle. Mainly because they taste great and I don’t have deal with thick, ugly wax coating that is common on ordinary cucumbers.

How to:

Cut one cucumber into thin rounds.
In a bowl, squeeze 2 or 3 cut limes. To the juice,
Add and mix salt and black pepper powder to taste or about ¼ teaspoon each.
Add and toss the cucumber slices to coat with juice.
Store in a clean jar. Stays fresh upto two weeks, when refrigerated.

Going to be busy for few days for Memorial Day Weekend. Have a great holiday or a neat weekend, my friends!

My fondest childhood memories are of mealtimes at the home of my maternal grandparents where my grandmother- Annapurani in nature as in name- would whip up meal after magical meal prompting my late grandfather to often say in Sanskrit “Anna dhaata sukhi Bhava” (May the giver of rice be happy). If the story of a people’s deepest aspirations can be seen in their metaphor, then this poetic conflation of rice as food itself speaks volumes to the centrality of grain in the foodscapes of India’s many cultures.

One of the other remarkable features of the Indian subcontinent, is that depending on what filter or combination of these that you use- language, religion, culture, region, social identity, you could carve it up into a delightful array of unique variants of regional cuisines.

If I were to cite the major culinary influences that shape my own approach to cooking, I would pick out, as my example, my paternal grandmother Vathsala’s austere, methodical, cooking-with-what’s-on-hand-to minimize-waste? Kumbakonam Iyer style, with Annapurani’s elaborate, lavish, incredibly rich preparations shaped by her own life in Hyderabad and Bangalore; to my mother Jayanthi’s innovative style from her many travels, her tendency towards the fiery twists of her life in the Rayalseema region but always with a strong adherence to the authentic approach of her own paternal grandmother.

So when Indira asked me to guest blog, I could not think of a better tribute to my heritage and to the food grain that has sustained generations of my family, than the humble “Arisiuppma” with two of its popular variations “Thavalaadai” and “Pudikozhakattai”.

Ingredients:

(a) For the “Upma Odasal” or the cracked rice meal:
Rice- 1 cup (Using Brown basmati for this takes it to a whole new level of dense nutty chewy perfection but regular basmati or ay other rice especially par-boiled rice is quite acceptable and is the norm)
Urad Daal– 1 tsp
Toor Daal– 2 tsp
Dried red chilies- 4- 6 (depending on the level of spice tolerance)
Black peppercorns- 1 tsp
Cumin seeds- 1 tsp

(b) Tadka or seasoning:
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Urad dal– 1 tsp
Few Curry leaves
Green chilies- 3 to 4, chopped finely into rounds
Ginger root- 1inch, finely chopped .
Fenugreek seeds- Just a tiny pinch (optional)
Asafoetida- a pinch (the extract of the solid version soaked in water is ideal but the powdered form is acceptable too)
Sunflower oil- 1 tbsp (It is normally used but if you have the gutsJ, coconut oil tadka will make this dish quite ethereal.)
(c) Garnish:
Freshly grated coconut a fistful (can be omitted if it’s not preferred or my paternal aunt’s variation is to substitute it with sauteed onions)
(d) Salt to taste

Procedure:

1 In a blender/food processor coarse grind the ingredients listed under “(a)” to a cracked wheat consistency.

2 In a wide-bottomed pan, heat the oil and do the tadka.

3 Once the seeds start to sizzle and splutter, add fresh water in the proportion 1: 3 rice meal and water.

4 Once the water starts to boil, add in the coarsely grinded “(a)” list of ingredients and mix well.

Now when I made it this time, I had to ensure that my pipeline was effective since I was making three dishes with the exact same ingredients. Typically, one would only make one of the three preparations at any given time.

Up to step 4 above is common to all 3 dishes. After this point, the procedure diverges for each preparation.

When the mixture is well mixed and the water is just absorbed, take it off the heat. Depending on your heat tolerance, try not to let it cool down too much. Work rapidly using some cold water to wet hands and roll it into balls. Steam for about 8-10 minutes till done. A special twist here is to bury a smidgeon of jaggery in the center of this so you stumble upon a heart of sweet goodness as a surprise while biting into it.

After step 4, take it off the heat. Once it’s cooled down shape into patties and shallow fry on a griddle. Can be served with ketchup or any chutney if desired or just plain.

(Try as I might, I could not come up with a nifty English equivalent for this dish. Let’s hope this will enter the lexicon alongside the likes of Bulghur, Couscous and Cream of Wheat. )

Keep going from step 4 till the uppma is well done. To serve, especially for kids, a popular pairing is with some ghee and sugar. Pickle and yogurt is also a combination but mostly its just eaten plain and piping hot.

– Guest Post by Janani Srinivasan, Toronto
Jayasri Srinivasan – Ingredient lineups and picture arrangements
Dr.S.Ramachandran – Photographs

Before moving to US, we lived for about 2 years in Hyderabad, India. The capital city of my home state, Andhra Pradesh, lately known as Hi-Tech city, Hyderabad, has its own unique cuisine. A mishmash, a culinary amalgam influenced by people who migrated to this city from small villages, towns all over Andhra and from out of states on jobs, business and to work in political bureaucracy. Foodwise, you can get everything and anything there, almost:). Strong personalities and strong flavors are needed to survive in that city.

One such bold flavored recipe that I learned from a Hyderabad native, is this mango~sesame curry. Unripe mangoes are cooked in jaggery flavored sesame sauce. 3 strong flavors, unbeatable taste, perfect side dish for subtly bland naans/chapatis and puris.

Jaggery, Roasted Sesame Seeds, Unripe Mango ~ Three Strong Flavors

Recipe:

2 green, unripe mangoes – peeled, seed removed and cubed into bite sized pieces
1 cup sesame seeds – lightly roasted and powdered
¼ cup of jaggery – powdered
1 teaspoon of each – red chilli powder, salt and turmeric
For popu or tadka:
1 teaspoon of peanut oil
½ teaspoon of each mustard seeds, cumin and few curry leaves.

1 Heat peanut oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add and toast cumin, mustard seeds, curry leaves.

2 Add mango cubes to the pan, stir in sesame powder, jaggery, chilli powder, salt and turmeric. Add about 2 cups of water and mix thoroughly.

3 Cover with lid and cook on medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the mango pieces soften and the sesame sauce comes together into medium-thick mass. Have a taste and adjust the salt, sweet, spicy levels to your taste. Cook for another couple of minutes and turn off the heat.

Serve warm with chapatis/naans or with puris and enjoy this unique curry of zinging taste.

Mango-Sesame Curry with Puris

Menthi, Methi, Fenugreek:

Picking from the Planter

Cutting into Small Pieces

Fresh, Flavorful Meal on a Sunday ~
Menthi Dal Mixed with Rice, and Mango Pickle

This is my contribution to “Green Blog Project” started and hosted by my favorite newbie food blogger, lovely and talented, an avid gardener from Zone-10, Inji Pennu of Ginger and Mango.

How Menthi Started – Here
Menthi Dal Recipe – Here

Napping Kittaya

Checkout Curious Kiri checking out a Possum and all the other cute kitties of food blogging world at Clare’s Eat Stuff.