Pritha's cooking

My friend Pritha is a great cook! She made this fantastic meal for us with more than five main dishes ain such a short time... I was mazed to see how much she was able to do with her job which requires more than an hour of driving each way! She used to teach Indian cooking in a community college in New Mexico befoer her current job! I am now hoping to get her recipes so that we call can have them and replicate it wheneever we like!

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Indian Masala Dabba (spice box)

Masala Dabba (spice box) is essential part of an Indian kitchen in any part of South Asia! Spice type and combination may vary between regions, state, family and local areas but the box stays the same! In southern India, the regular essential spices will be cumin, mustard, urad dal, and some sambar masala or ingredients of sambar/rasam powder. In Western India (Maharastra) sambar masala will be replaced by goda masala or kalaamasala while in the east it will be cumin and corainder powder and in North it would be garam masala! Of course in North and east where they use mustard oil for cooking the mustrad seeds get replaces by panch phoron or simple cumin seeds!

Here is a masala dabba that I inherited from my mother -in-law who is from North Karnataka (Bijapur town) and lives in Bombay. Her essential spices included a mix masala powder that she made (I guess her mother's recipe) which she used in almost all her cooking... right from huli (a lentil soup/dal with pigeon pea lentil) to sambar to all her vegetbale dishes! This was her signature spice mix without any specific name! My mother's spice box always have panch phoron ( the five spice mix, see the picture)! Here in our case, it is mixture of east and southwest of India! We have mustard, cumin, urad dal, chili powder, turmeric powder and panch phoron and corander/dumin powder mix! Those are essential in our mixed kitchen....! Additional spices are in the shelf!

dinner sample...

Here are some regional variation in Indian vegetarian cooking! I cooked Shukto which is mixed vegetable dish with bitter gourd or any other bitter vegetables or leaves in it, Split pea lentil soup (matar dal) with asian white daikon. Both are from Bengal and the third one is green beans sauted with spices and coconut. this recipe is from North Karnataka!

Shukto:

It taste bitter because of the bitter gourd or any other bitter vegtables. That is why you eat this mix vegetables with rice at first and then eat other dishes such as dal, sauted or fried vegetables, meat or fish and sweets at the end. A lot of non India friends ahve hard time eating bitter vegetables. Therefore, you have to be willing to try and like bitter food. The intensity of the bitterness depends on how much bitter gourd you use. Here I used:
green plantain - 1
zucchini: 2 small one
potatoes: 2 small red skin
eggplant: 1 long Japanese one
bitter gourd: 1 or 2 small Indian variety

If you have pumpkin or yellow squash you can use that instead of zucchini. you can add radish or white daikon and string beans or French beans there. In India, combination depends on the seasonal vegetables. There are a lot of variation of this dish. In fact, every family or person have their own recipes. And some times cook it differently depending on the availability of spices and vegetables!

Spices:
mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp
panch phoron: a mixture of five spice mix from India (optional)
mustard and white poppy seeds paste: 1 TBSP
oil for cooking: 1 tsp or so ( I use little mustard oil for traditional flavor)
salt: as you want
turmeric: 1/4 tsp or less
ghee: 1 tsp (optional)

Mustrad and poppy seeds paste:
soak both of them in water and grind them in a grinder.

process:
Cut all the vegetables in to small cubes. I use a wok to cook this. In hot oil add mustard seeds and when they splatter I add all the vegetables. saute them for a while with salt and turmeric powder. When the vegetables are some what soft add the mustard seeds paste and let it simmer for another 5-10 minutes. when they are some what dry remove it from the stove.
I like to add the panch phoron later on. But it is not necessary. In a small pan roast the panch phorn ( five spice mix) and coarsely grind it. Add them on the top of the cooked vegetables. ghee is also optional and you can add on tsp at the end!