Wednesday, June 24, 2009

White Asian Daikon/radish/muli sauted in spices

Daikon or radish is not a very popular vegetable in India. In North India, they are more common for Muli paratha or stuffed flat bread. In Bengal, daikon is either used in mixed vegetables dishes or cooked on its own with aromatic spice and vada made with masoor dal (red lentil) or with vadi (sun dried lentil drop). This somewhat elaborate dish is called mulo ghonto. It is one of my favourite vegetarian dishes. And amazingly it does not have any onion or garlic among the spices.

Recipe:

Dikon or muli or mulo white ones: 5
Oil: 1tsp
ghee: 1 tsp
cumin whole: 1/2 tsp
bay leaf: 2
green chilli: 2 or more
ground cumin: 1 tsp
ground ginger: 1/2 tsp
turmeric: 1/4 tsp or less
Asafaetida: i pinch
salt: as you want
sugar: little bit ( little more than a pinch)
Chili powder: 1/4 tsp or more if you want
coriander leaves /cilantro: 1Tbsp

Optional:
milk: 2 TBSP
vada: made from ground masoor dal (red lentil) paste and then deep fried (optional)
vadi: you can buy sometime in Indian stores as Punjabi vadis. They are sundried ground lentil paste with spices.

Grate the mulis with a grater or food processor. In a bowl in the grated muli add salt, sugar and red chili powder and mix it well. Keep the mixture for five minutes. Water will come out. Press them with your hand and remove the water.

In a pan add some oil. In hot oil put the whole cumin, bay leaf and green chili and asafaetida and turmeric. Add the muli mixture. Saute it for few minutes. Let it simmer. Check it occasionally and stir it so that it does not get stuck at the bottom of the pan. You can add little water too. When it is dry add the little milk and ghee. Cook it for couple of more minutes. Remove from the stove.

In another pan deep fry the vadas or vadis. Then add them to the muli mixture and garnish with coriander leaves.

We generally eat this dish with rice and masoor dal.But ti goes well with rotis or chapatis too.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

GREEN TOMATO CURRY



This is dish that my sister-in-law Vaijayanta made for me last time when Iwas in Bombay. This dish has influence of bith Maharastra and North Karnataka. My in-laws are from North Karnataka (from Bijapur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijapur,_Karnataka)and lived mostly in and around Bombay for many years. Vaijoo as we all call her is also married to maharashtrian from Satara district (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satara). So her cooking is a influenced by Karnataka and Maharashtra both. And then it came to me... so it is not exactly tasted like her... but it was good. I also used a roasted peanut-sesame chutney powder that Madhu made instead of the roasted peanut powder that Vaijoo had told me to use.

Here is the recipe:

Green tomatoes: app 1lbs/1/2 kg
onion: 1/4 of a cup or less finely chopped
garlic:one clove minced
ginger: 1/2 tsp minced
mustard: 1/4 tsp
cumin: 1/4 tsp
curry leaves: a few
asafaetida: i pinch
turmeric: a pinch or as you want
green chillies: couple of them at least
red chili powder: as you want
Roasted peanut and sesame seeds powder or roasted peanut powder (without the skin).
Salt : as you need

In a kadhai or in a large pan add oil and let it get hot. In very hot oil add mustard seeds first. When the mustard splatters, add cumin, curry leaves, asafaetida, green chillies and turmeric. Then add garlic, ginger and onion fry them for couple of minutes. You can add now red chilli powder. Add the green tomotoes and salt. Saute them for few minutes. If you do not want the chunky texture you need to add little water and cover it with a lid and let it simmer. When they are soften add the mixture of roasted peanut and sesame seeds powder and mix it well. Remove from the stove and you are done!

It goes best with chapatis but we had other day with dosas too. Hope you will like it. Please share with all of us, if you have a different version.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Homemade Panipuris/Golgappas for dinner



This is perhaps the most popular Indian street snack in North, East and West India including Pakistan and Bangladesh. You can get them on the road side where vendors stand in one corner with their little stand which contains all those puris in a box, a big clay pot with the tamarind and spice water and potato mixture!
It is an art to cook them and prepare them with the water and stuffing as well as an art to eat them! It took me a while to figure it out how to make them.I got tired of paying $9.00 for a bag of 40 puris in the local Indian grocery stores! Looked for recipes online and found this great Indian cooking site with you tube demonstrations called Manjula's kitchen. Check that site out for vegetarian Indian cooking recipes!

These are not the best pictures! I had to take them in a hurry beacuse they were disappearing quickly-:)

Here is the recipe:

For Puri (Manjula's kitchen):
3/4 th cup of suji/rava
1/4 cup of all purpose flour/ maida
!/4 cup of water
knead them and keep it covered for about half an hour with a moist towel/cloth.
Make tiny balls and roll them in to round puris. Keep them covered with another moist towel. Deep fry them in hot oil. Cook them until they are brown on both side, IF they are white, then they are not crispy and it isn ot fun to eat soggy regular puri with the water and potatoes. Here is the trick that Ms. Manjula does not describe well in her video... if you keep it for too long and wait to roll all the puris and then fry them, the uncooked puris tend to get dry and do not puff up well. If your puris are too thin then they do not puff up as well. You need to roll them about 1 mm thick at least! It is a trial and error method:-)

Potato fillings:
4-5 potatoes
onion: one red one
green chillies: as you want
chat masala: 2 tsps
chickpeas/garbanzo: cooked or cans 1 cup
cilantro/coriander leaves: 1/4 cup
salt: to taste
Sev/mixture snack: 1 cup
tamarind water: as you want

Make your own chat masala:
black salt:1/2 tsp
roasted coriander and cumin powder: 2 tsp
amchur/dried mango powder: 1 tsp
pomegranate seeds: 1/2 tsp


I do boil potatoes really well in the pressure cooker. And mash them very well add all the ingredinets and keep it aside.

Pani/ Tamarind water:

tamarind paste: 2-3 Tbsps
tamarind: 1/4 cup and soak them in water and tehn remove the seeds and other parts and keep the water
Water: 6-7 cups
roasted cumin and coriander powder- 2tsp
Sugar: 1-2 tsp
salt: to taste
black salt: 1/4 tsp
ginger: tiny bit
Onion -1 tbsp
coriander and mint leaves: optional, some from the bunch depends on how minty you want.

Grind all of them in grinder and mix them well.

How to eat: brake one of the puris with your left hand to make a hole, stuf the potato mixture and then dip the whole thing in the tamarind water. You have to eat the whole puri at one go so that water and stuffing do not come out!
 
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