Breadfruit Fritter / Jeev Kadgi Phodi

Bread Fruit fritters is considered a delicacy in Konkani households. Fritters, bhajiya and upkari (sabzi) is made from this bread fruit. Both fritters and sabzi are had as tea time snacks with tea or kasaya. Click here to see how bread fruit looks. 

Ingredients 

bread fruit

besan or gram flour 1/2- 1 cup as needed

pinch of heeng or asafetida

red pepper powder for taste

salt for taste

oil for frying

Method 

Cut the breadfruit depending on how many fritters you are preparing and keep the remaining part in the refrigerator. Skin the bread fruit and slice it as shown in the below picture. The central stem which extends into the fruit should be also removed.

Apply salt, red chili powder to the bread fruit slices and keep aside for 15-20 minutes. 

Mix water with the gram flour to make a thick paste of idli atta consistency. Add salt, asafoetida to the gram flour paste as per desired taste. Dip the bead fruit slices in the gram paste and fry it in hot oil on both sides till done. Serve hot as snacks or as a side dish with meals. 

Pathrado / Konkani Patra / Colocasia or Taro Leaf rolls

Patrado is a Konkani delicacy made with Taro leaves or Patharade paan. It is found in abundance during the rainy season and is grown in backyard kitchen gardens in south India. People in Hawaii also consume  lot of taro leaves and the leaves grow there in abundance all year round due to the unique climate.In Bay area you can find taro leaves occasionally at Indian stores. Taro leaves are available year round at the San Francisco farmer's market and at King's Seafood in Sunnyvale. 

There are various different recipes for making pathrado. I use 100% moong dal for the stuffing. Other variations are 1) 100 % whole moong 2) 75% whole moong or moong dal and 25 % rice 3) 50 % toor dal and 50 % rice 4) 50 % chana dal and 50% rice 5) 25 % chana dal 25 % moong dal and 50 % rice. My mom would prepare it with chana dal and rice in the past but of late she prepares it with moong dal and rice as moong is much lighter on the tummy than chana dal. 

Taro leaves can cause itching in the hands while handling them due to the calcium oxalate. This can be avoided by rubbing hands with tamarind juice before handling taro leaves. I didn't get any itching while handling the ones from King's Seafood though I cannot say the same about the ones we get in India. Pathrado is also garnished with coconut oil to prevent itching in the throat. The secret to tasty pathrado also lies in using tender or young taro leaves as opposed to larger taro leaves.

Pathrado makes a great combination with rice and bland dal or dalitoy. When I was a kid I would relish it with "duddh-sheet" (milk mixed with rice in Konkani). These are the photos from when my mom made pathrado during my last India trip. 

 

Ingredients
10-15 patra leaves

2 cups moong dal or use the pulse and rice combination mentioned above

1 teaspoon tamarind concentrate or half lemon sized piece of tamarind

1 tablespoon jaggery or gur

1 cup grated coconut

pinch of asafoetida

10-15 byadgi red chilies or as per taste

salt for taste

coconut oil for garnishing

Method

Wash and soak moong dal or the desired pulse-rice combination for 4-5 hours. Roast the red chilies on slow flame till crisp. Take care not to burn the chilies. Wash and clean the taro leaves. Gently remove the veins found on back of these leaves with a sharp knife. 

Drain the soaked moong dal  or the pulse-rice combination you are using, and grind it into a smooth paste with jaggery, tamarind, coconut, asafoetida and red chilies.  use as little water as possible to make a paste of thicker consistency. Add salt as per taste.

To make the pathrado take the pathrado leaf and keep it back side up on a plate or "taat" in Konkani. Spread the paste on the leaf.



 If the leaf is small you can keep two leaves side by side.




Keep adding leaves and spreading the mixture until you have around 6-8 leaves depending on the size. The idea is to use as many leaves as possible, but also keep room to fold the leaves into a roll.

When the second set of leaves are added on the lower set place them upside down (see the above photo and the one below). It helps to roll the leaves with ease.







 When the mixture has been spread on the leaves it is time to roll the pathrado. First roll the sides towards the center.

 

Then roll it from bottom to top.





 Place the roll in a steamer (Pedavan in Konkani) or the pathrado can be steamed in a pressure cooker without using the weigh.




Steam it for around 25-30 minutes till it is well cooked. Undercooked pathrado can cause itching in the throat. Cut the roll into 1/2 inch slices and garnish well with coconut oil. 




Remaining pathrado can be shallow fried the next day with rice powder mixed with chili powder. This makes great pathrado phodi.

Alambe Phodi / Mushroom Fritters

Latest addition to our local farmer's market is a stall which sells different varieties of mushrooms. I bought button mushrooms from them this week and made fritters (called phodi in Konkani). It does not involve deep frying, though one can always deep fry it as frying always is enchanting to the taste buds. One can also have these as a appetizer.

I remember watching a show on Travel channel where they reviewed the country's most popular Deep Fry eateries. Here is a site which gives a list of Deep Fried Paradises in US. The strangest of them all was one called Chipshop. Here is a description of the shop in their own words. " In 2001, a British-born cook named Chris Sell established CHIPSHOP in Brooklyn, NY. His goal was to bring British comfort food to the city of New York. Although CHIPSHOP is famous for its fish and chips, it is also famous for its willingness to fry anything. From pizza to chocolate bars, you name it, and CHIPSHOP will fry it.". Interesting!!

Coming back to my humble mushroom fritters, these can be made in in a short period of time. If there are unexpected visitors for lunch or dinner and if you want to add an additional side dish, phodis or fritters are a very useful addition.

Ingredients
10-15 mushrooms
Rava or sooji for coating
red chili powder for taste
salt
oil for frying

Method
Wipe the mushrooms and cut off part of the woody stem. Cut each mushroom into thin slices. Apply salt and chili powder and keep aside for 20 minutes. Grease a tava with oil and heat it. Roll the mushroom slices in the rava or sooji and place on the tava. Cook covered till golden brown on one side. Then flip the mushroom slices to the other side. Cook uncovered till golden brown on the other side. Serve hot.

Dudhi na Muthia

I saw this recipe on Vani's blog. Thanks Vani for sharing this recipe:-)


I make handvo quite often, but this recipe seemed much simpler to make as there was no prior fermentation needed. It took me just 20 minutes (thanks to my food processor , it took me 2 minutes to grate the pumpkin and gourd) to make the batter and 30 more minutes for steaming. I had a small piece of lauki (bottlegourd) left, so I also added a lot of grated pumpkin and carrot. I also added chopped coriander leaves and 3 tablespoon of grated coconut while making the batter rather than as a garnish.

Serve steaming hot with Coriander-mint chutney and Chai.

French Fries

As the winter starts to set here and it gets colder and colder day by day, I look back at wintery days of my childhood. We stayed in Bhopal for quite some time and the temperature would drop to around 3-4 degrees. The sun would set early- at around 4 or 5 pm in the noon. Cold wintery evenings would call for lot of hot, spicy and fried stuff. My mom would cook winter-special food like different bhajiyas (vegetable fritters fried with a coating of Bengal Gram flour), cutlets, omelets along with the regular traditional stuff like dosas and idlis. In these modern age, fried food means a lot of fat and extra calories! So I try to bake food rather than fry it. I make baked bhajiyas, tava-fried cutlets and french fries. Tava-frying takes only 2 tablespoon oil as compared to the cupfuls of oil needed for frying. I have never been a great fan of potato as it makes me feel sleepy and lazy. But my husband Atul loves every dish made of potato and hence I make these tava-fried- french fries very often during the weekends. Season the fries with garlic powder, pepper, salt and chili powder and you have a batch of restaurant quality french fries made right at home. I took the photo of this dish as we were both holding the plate as Atul said " It will take you 5 more minutes to click the photo" and did not let go of the plate!

Ingredients
2-3 potatoes
2 tablespoon oil
pepper
salt for taste

Method
Cut the potatoes into long stripes. Grease the tava with oil and heat it on low-medium heat. Put the potato stripes on the tava. When the are light brown on one side flip them over to the other side. Follow this step so that the stripes are light brown on all sides. Cook on low-medium heat and take care not to burn the fries. Remove from tava when cooked and lay on a kitchen paper to drain the extra oil (if any!). Sprinkle salt and pepper and serve with tomato ketchup and mustard.

Piyava Odi / Rice and Onion Fritters / Konkani Onion Vadi / Onion Oodi

I have been wanting to eat this dish since a long time now. This was a common item in our meal at my home in India. We would make a jars full of onion and garlic Odi or fritters and store them for the rainy and winter season. My grandmother would also make these in summer and send us these fritters. We also made "Same-tha-pan" or rice papads with sesame seeds steamed on banyan tree leaves. Steaming them on the leaves gives the papads a mild flavor of the banyan tree leaves. Potato wafers and many pickles adorned our jars in the summer season. Coming back to the onion fritters, ensure that you make it when the sun is hot. These need to be dried in the hot sun for 2-3 days until they are crisp and stored in air tight containers.

Ingredients
1 cup rice
5-6 byadgi red chilies
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 medium onion chopped into small pieces

Method
Soak the rice for 7-8 hours. Wash it and grind it into a very fine paste with red chilies. Put the paste in a heavy bottomed pan and add 1.5 liter of water to the paste. Cook the paste on medium flame stirring it constantly. Let it come to a boil, then reduce the flame and stir continuously. Ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
Once it is cooked it will be semi- transparent. Cook till the dough becomes thick and most of the water evaporates. Let it cool completely. Add onion pieces and mix well.


Grease a few plastic sheets with a mixture of oil and water. I ripped off two ziplock bags and used them as plastic sheets. I usually spread a plastic carpet in the patio. I then put a cotton chaddar or rug on the carpet and then put these plastic sheets on the cotton sheet. I kept spoons along the sides of the ziplocks to avoid it from flying around the patio due to wind.


Dip your fingers in water and take small pieces of the rice dough and drop it on the plastic sheets. The odi should be around the size of a dime. Make vadis with all the remaining dough and lay them on the plastic sheets. I tore up few of the good old ziplock bags and used them to dry the odis.


When they dry completely, store them in a airtight container. Fry them in hot oil and serve hot with rice.


Variations: To make garlic odi or garlic fritters, add 10-15 raw garlic cloves while grinding the rice paste. Omit the onion pieces if you are making garlic odi. To make plain Odi, just add around 1 teaspoon(or as desired) heeng or asafoetida to the rice paste while cooking it. 

Guacamole

Ingredients
1 avocado
1 tomato
4-5 tablespoon finely chopped onion
1-2 jalapeno or regular green chili (as per your taste)
5-6 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves or cilantro
juice of half a lemon
salt for taste

Method
De seed the avocado and peel it. Remove the flesh of the avocado and put it in a bowl. De seed and chop the tomato into small pieces. De seed the jalapeno chili and chop it finely. Put all the ingredients in the bowl and mash and mix all the ingredients with the back of a fork or a spoon. Serve immediately with tortilla (corn) chips.

Potato Gojju

Potato gojju is a very frequently made side dish at my home. It goes well with dal chawal or rasam. It is a very flexible dish to make and can be made with which ever ingredients are available on hand. It can be made with just potatoes or a tomato can add a tangy-sour flavor to the gojju.

Ingredients
2 boiled potatoes
1 medium tomato
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 green chili or as per taste
4-5 curry leaves
1 teaspoon coconut oil or any other oil
salt for taste

Method
Wash and roughly chop the tomato. Cook the tomato well with very little water in the microwave or stove top. Chop green chilies. Mash the tomato, green chilies, salt and potato well with your fingers. Add water as per desired consistency. Season the gojju with mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Tomato Chutney

In Bhopal we had a neighbor who was from Orissa. When we were leaving Bhopal for Pune in the summer of 97, D aunty had invited us for dinner. She had prepared tomato chutney. We loved the chutney and asked for the recipe. It was an interesting combination of tomatoes and dates---sourness and sweetness. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
3 tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped dates
1 teaspoon kalonji or Nigella
pinch of fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon oil
salt for taste

Method
Chop the tomatoes into quarters. Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds splutter, add fenugreek seeds, kalonji and turmeric powder. Fry for a minute and add the tomatoes. Add a cup of water and cook till the tomatoes are soft and well cooked. Add dates, chili powder and salt for taste. Cook well for around 10 minutes till the dates are soft. Serve hot with roti or rice.

Peanut Chutney

Peanut chutney is one of the recipes my mom gave me. It is easy to make and goes well with bread sandwich or roti. It lasts for about a month. I am re-posting it and sending it for Let's GO NUTS! event. Here is the recipe.


Ingredients
1 cup peanuts
6-7 byadgi chilies or kashmiri chilies or any other red chili
1/2 teaspoon heeng or asafoetida
3 garlic cloves (optional)
salt for taste


Method
Roast the peanuts and garlic cloves for 10 -15 minutes on medium flame. The garlic cloves should be light brown in color. Cool it down and coarsely grind it with salt, chilies and asafoetida. Store it in a cool and dry container.

Mashed Potato

Who does not love potatoes? It is a versatile vegetable which goes in the making of hundred's of sabzi's, pav bhaji and so many other street foods. Mashed potatoes are a great side dish in these cold freezing winters. I like russet potatoes over yukon potatoes, but any variety of potatoes can be used to make mashed potatoes.

Ingredients
2 russet potatoes
2 tablespoon butter
3-4 tablespoon milk or as per desired
1 tablespoon heavy cream
pepper
salt

Method
Wash and boil the potatoes till soft. Drain them immediately. Peel them and mash them with a potato masher. Add butter, milk, cream, salt and pepper. Mix well with the back of a fork or a spoon. Serve hot.

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Serves: 2

Baked Pomfret with Green Sauce

I get frozen pomfret from Coconut Hill store in Bay area. This is frozen fish from Kerala and tastes like fresh fish. I just keep the fish out for around 1 hour in warm water to de-freeze it. This fish can be baked in the oven or fried on a tava. Both the versions taste great.

Ingredients
1 pomfret fish
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
4-5 pods of garlic
1 handful of coriander leaves or cilantro
4-5 mint leaves or 1 tablespoon dried mint leaves
2-3 green chilies or as per taste
1 tablespoon thick curd
small tamarind piece as per taste
1/2 cp semolina (optional)
salt for taste

Method
Clean and cut the fish as shown below. Remove the fins. tail and head. You can keep the head if you wish to, but I like to cut the head. Pat the fish dry with kitchen paper. Make both horizontal and vertical slits to fill the masala.


Fry the garlic in a pan with one teaspoon oil till light brown. Grind all the ingredients other than fish together with very little water to make a fine paste. Apply the paste on the inside and outside of the fish.

If you are baking the fish, bake it for 15 minutes at 450 degrees or till the fish is cooked. If you are frying it on a tava then roll the fish in semolina or rava and fry on a tava on both sides till cooked. Serve hot with rice.

Coriander-Mint Chutney

Coriander mint chutney is also called sandwich chutney in India as it is usually used for making sandwiches. This chutney can be had with dhokla or dosa too. You can omit the mint if you don't have it on hand or if you are not a great fan. I usually buy fresh mint from the Indian grocery store and dry it in the hot sun. Then I store it in a air tight container. This stays good for 1-2 months.

Ingredients
1 cup chopped coriander or cilantro leaves. (I love to have a dense flavor of coriander leaves, so I usually add 15-20 strands of the leaf. )
1 tablespoon dried mint leaves or 10-12 fresh mint leaves
small piece of tamarind (size of 2 green peas) or1/8 the teaspoon tamarind concentrate
2-3 green chilies or as per taste
3 tablespoon grated coconut
1/4 teaspoon jeera or cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon chopped ginger
1-2 cloves of garlic (optional, I don't use garlic only if I am going to serve the chutney with dosas)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
salt for taste

Method
Wash and chop the mint and coriander coarsely. Grind all the ingredients into a very smooth paste. Serve with dhoklas, dosas or sandwiches. If this is not being used immediately, store it in the fridge. This chutney can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Serves: 5-6

Kabuli Chana Stir fry

I usually make this as a quick snack for evenings. Chick pea is considered to be very nutritious and contains large amounts of protein and is good for growing children. My grand mother would make this every alternative day for me. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1/2 cup chick peas or kabuli chana
1 teaspoon ghee (preferably) or oil
salt and pepper as per taste

Method
Soak the kabuli chana for 8- 10 hours and pressure cook it till soft. Heat ghee in a pan. Add the kabuli chana and fry for 4-5 minutes. Garnish it with salt and pepper powder and serve hot.

Chayote Chutney / Seemae BaDhneKayi Chutney

I came to know about this vegetable when we visited my aunt A in Bangalore. She would make sabzi or chutney out of this vegetable. When my parents shifted to Bangalore, my mom started using this vegetable to make chutney in Bangalorian style. When I came to US, I saw this vegetable in the Indian store by the name of Chayote, but I was not very sure if it was the Seemae BaDhneKayi I had seen in Bangalore. So I never bought this vegetable. Now when my parents visited us, my mom confirmed that the vegetable was indeed Seemae BaDhneKayi and we got it home. This chutney requires only 1 tablespoon grated coconut, but tastes like pure coconut chutney. Also this vegetable does not contain any fat. Read more about Seemae BaDhneKayi here. Here is my mom's chutney recipe.

Ingredients
1 Seemae BaDhneKayi or chayote
1 tablespoon coconut
1 teaspoon jeera
1/2 inch tamarind piece or 1/4 teaspoon tamarind concentrate
1-2 green chilies
salt for taste

Method
Peel the chayote and cut it into small cubes. Boil the chayote pieces till soft. Grind the cooked chayote pieces with the rest of the ingredients into a fine paste. You can serve this chutney with dosas, idlis, rice or roti.


Preparation time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Pomfret or Bhangda Fish Fry / Konkani Fish Fry

 Pomfret fry

Bhanga fry

This time I bought frozen white pomfret from Coconut Hill grocery store. I usually buy it from the Chinese Ranch market, but the frozen fish from Coconut Hill turned out to be very fresh and tastier. I also buy bhagda or Mackerel from the same store. You will also find Indian Mackerel or Bhangda, Sardines (Tarlo) and other kinds of fish in the frozen section. My mother makes the masala and applies it directly to the fish. But recently my grandmom's sister M Pacchi who was visiting them at home taught her to make "masala guli" or "masala ball" and store the remaining masala in the freezer. Here is her fish fry recipe.

Ingredients
1 pomfret fish
8-10 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon tamarind concentrate or juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 cup Semolina or rice powder for coating
oil for frying

Method
Remove the fins and the scales of the fish and cut it into thin slices. I discarded the head and tail of the fish. Chop the garlic cloves and grind it with salt, tamarind juice, turmeric powder and red chili powder into a fine paste. I crush the garlic using stone crusher and make it into a ball using my fingers. If your skin is sensitive to chilli, apply oil to your fingers before doing this.


Coat the fish pieces well with this paste and keep aside for 30 -45 minutes. Store the remaining masala in the freezer for future use. Coat the fish in semolina or rice powder. This can be deep fried in hot oil or shallow fried on a tava. I usually shallow fry it as it consumes less oil. Serve hot with rice and fish or prawn curry.

Preparation time: 1 hour

Konkani Vegetable Fritters / Phodi

Sweet Potato Phodi

Bitter Gourd and Bhindi or Okra phodi

Brinjal or Eggplant phodi

Shallow fried Vegetable fritters or phodis is another traditional Konkani recipe. It does not involve deep frying and is a great way to eat vegetables. Also these fritters can be be put inside bread slices with ketchup they can make great sandwiches. It is great to carry these for picnics and travel. Phodi's can be made with many vegetables like eggplant, potato, okra, yam or suran, taro root, cauliflower, raw banana, pumpkin, bitter gourd or karela, mushrooms, pointed gourd or parwar, radish , sweet potato, ripe plantain, radish, jackfruit, bread fruit and many others. Suran, jackfruit and taro root needs to be half cooked to make fritters.

Ingredients
Any of the above mentioned vegetables. I used egg plant.
red chili powder for taste
few pinches of asafoetida
1/2 cup semolina
oil
Salt for taste

Method
Cut the vegetable into thin slices.



Apply salt, chili powder and asafoetida to the slices. Keep them aside for 10 minutes. Coat the vegetable with semolina on both sides. Place the slices on a well oiled tava or a pan and drizzle a teaspoon of oil on the vegetable slices. Cook covered on medium-high flame and then flip the fritters on the other side. Cook uncovered till the vegetables are caramelized and cooked on both sides. Serve hot with rice.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Pumpkin or squash flower fritters / Dudde mitte phodi

I buy squash flowers at our local farmers market. In India we used to buy pumpkin flowers or buds, but in US they call them squash flowers. These days pumpkin flowers or buds are very rare to find even at the vegetable markets in India, and hence a delicacy. These flowers are very tasty and are very nutritious. We make fritters also called phodi in konkani out of these flowers. Fritters can be made with many vegetables like potato, brinjal, cauliflower, banana, okra etc. These flowers cannot be stored for a long time and wilt very fast, so they should be consumed in a day or two after being picked from the plant. You can also make the besan pakoda out of these flowers. Here is the pumpkin flower recipe.

Ingredients
Squash or pumpkin flowers 10-15
semolina for coating
5 pinches asafoetida (heeng) mixed in 1 tablespoon water.
red chili powder as per taste
salt as per taste
2 tablespoon oil

Method
Wash the flowers and remove the bracts or the small leaves near the stalk of the flower. Cut the flowers diagonally and apply chili powder, salt and asafoetida water to the flowers. Coat the masala gently with hand and do not crush the flowers. Keep them aside for 5 minutes.

Put 1 tablespoon oil on a tava and keep on medium heat. Coat each piece piece well with semolina and put on the tava. Cook covered till the it is soft and then flip on the other side. Fry uncovered this time. Add more oil if needed. Enjoy the fritters.



Preparation time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2

Kairi chutney/Ambule Gojju / Konkani Raw Mango Chutney

I love both raw and ripe mangoes. During my college days, I and my friends used to buy the masala kairi from a vendor who used to sit outside our college during summer afternoons. He would cut the kairi into pieces and apply salt and secret masala (chili powder and other spices). It was a awesome, tangy snack which I miss here in the US.

In the past when there were no refrigerators, my maternal grandmother, who lived in Mangalore, would preserve raw mangoes in sterilized water. In this manner, the mangoes could be used year round, even when the fresh mangoes were not available. She would boil handful of salt and water in a vessel and then add raw mangoes to the water. When cooled, the mangoes along with the water would be put in a ceramic contained called "bharni". Copper aluminum or iron containers could react with the sour mangoes, hence ceramic jars were used. This jar would be kept in a cool and dark place. When fresh mangoes were not available, my grandmother would take out a raw mango from the jar, peel it and use the flesh to make this chutney. My mother also would store around 15-20 mangoes using the same method when we were in Pune. Another method to store the mangoes is to cut the raw mangoes and put them in a glass bottle with salt and keep them in the fridge. The mangoes keep up to 6-9 months if stored in this manner. Raw Mango contains lot of vitamin A and vitamin C and has low sodium. When we were young, we were given mashed rice mixed with milk and ambule gojju as a side dish.

I don't get good raw mangoes here in the US. The raw mangoes I buy from the Indian store have a sweet taste, and they don't impart the sour taste and flavor of Indian raw mango. I then tried the chutney with the frozen kairi from the Indian store. This imported frozen kairi turned out to be very tasty and had the smell and flavor of the Indian kairi. I don't peel the mango skin while making this chutney. This chutney can be served with both rice and chapatti.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup kairi/raw mango pieces
1/2 cup grated coconut
1-2 garlic pods (optional for people who don't like garlic)
1-2 methi (fenugreek) seeds
one pinch heeng or asafoetida
salt as per taste
1-2 green chili

Method:

Grind all the ingredients into a fine paste. Serve immediately after preparing.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Serves 4-5