Potato Stir Fry

This is my grandmother's recipe. My sister loves potatoes a lot and when my grandparents visited us when we were in Bhopal in the early 1990's, my sister asked my grandmother to make something "different" for tiffin with alu. So my grandmother made this potato fry and gave us for tiffin. These peppered potatoes taste great with rice and dal too apart from roti. I make this bhaji when I make sambhar or rasam. it is a great dish to make if you don't have time to make dinner. You can also stuff it into bread and make great sandwiches for breakfast. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
5-6 potatoes
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon pepper powder or as per taste
3 tablespoon oil
salt for taste

Method
Wash and peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes. Sprinkle pepper powder, cumin powder and coriander powder on them. Heat oil in a pan and add these potatoes. Cook covered on medium heat till the potatoes are 3/4th cooked. Then remove the cover and cook them on high heat stirring continuously. The potatoes should be a little caramelized on all sides. Sprinkle garam masala on the potatoes. Serve how with roti or rice.


Preparation time: 25 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Kala Chana Sabzi / Chane Upkari

Chana sabzi is made during many festivals or special occasions. During Ganesh Chaturthi, this is served as prashad. This is one of my favorite sabzi's and I even have it as a snack with tea.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup kala chana
2 tablespoon grated coconut
3 green chilies
2 teaspoon mustard seeds
salt for taste
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon oil
5 pinches asafoetida
10-12 curry leaves or kadipatta


Method

Wash and soak the kala chana for 8 to 10 hours or overnight. Pressure cook it with 1/2 teaspoon salt for 2-3 whistles or till soft. In a pan add oil, asafoetida and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds splutter, add slit green chili and curry leaves. Fry for a minute and add the boiled chana. Don't discard the water which was used to boil chana. You can make saar or chana rasam out of this. Add salt and sugar as per taste. Add a cup of water and cook the chana for 10 minutes. Garnish with coconut and serve hot with rice or roti.

Preparation time: 20 minute excluding the soaking time
Serves: 3-4

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

Black Chana Rasam / Chane Saar

We make this saar with the water used to boil kala chana. It is served with rice and can be also had like a soup.

Ingredients
2 cups of water in which chana is boiled.
10-15 boiled kala chana
1 tablespoon grated coconut
3 green chilies
1 tablespoon coconut oil or any other oil
2 tablespoon coriander leaves

Seasoning:
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
asafoetida
8-10 curry leaves

or season with:
3-4 garlic pods

Method

Grind the kala chana seeds with grated coconut to make a fine paste. Put the chana water in a vessel along with the paste and slit green chilies. Get the mixture to a boil. Add salt as per taste. For seasoning, heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add asafoetida and curry leaves. Add the seasoning to the saar and cook covered for 3-4 minutes so that the seasoning flavors are absorbed by the saar.
Alternative, for seasoning, crush the garlic pods and fry in the coconut oil on a low flame till golden brown. Add the garlic pods to the saar.
Garnish with coriander leaves.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2

Gujrati Mixed Vegetable Sabzi / Undhiyo

Undhiyo is a very colorful vegetable sabzis from Gujrat. It consists of multiple vegetables stuffed with green paste made of coconut and herbs and is cooked over slow flame for long time. Undhiyo also called "Undhiyu" is usually made during the winter season when vegetables are available in plenty. 
It is one of my favorite vegetable dish. I had asked the caterer to make Undhiyo as one of the vegetable sabzis as part of my wedding lunch. He made a great non-garlic version and it was a great hit. Such is my love for Undhiyo. Some people think that it takes a lot of time to make Undhiyo and a lot of oil is used in the process. Both of these facts are not true. I made Undhiyo with very less oil and it was prepared little more than an hour. I used frozen suran, surti padpi and ratalu as they are not available in the markets here. I also used beans, peas and carrot which may not traditional Undhiyo vegetables. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
4 medium potatoes
1 carrot
1/4 cup peas
1/4 cup beans
1/2 cup ratalu or red yam
1/2 cup suran or Indian yam
1 cup surti papdi
1/2 cup surti val
1 raw banana
5-6 small eggplant
1 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper powder
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon tumeric powder
1 teaspoon sugar or gur
lemon juice
2 tablespoon oil
salt for taste
5 tablespoon coriander leaves for garnishing

For the Chutney masala:
1 cup grated coconut
2 cup chopped coriander leaves or cilantro
3-5 thai green chilies (or as per taste)
1 inch ginger root
4-5 garlic pods or fresh green garlic (optional--don't use it if someone doesnt like garlic)
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Muthia:
2 cups coarsely chopped methi or fenugreek leaves
1 cup besan or chick pea flour
2 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped thai green chili
oil for frying
salt for taste

Method


For the muthia, mix all the ingredients well. Heat oil till very hot and using a tablespoon drop the muthia mixture into the hot oil. Fry till well done on both sides. Drain the oil on a kitchen paper. Make the muthia's when you are cooking other vegetables.

For the chutney masala, grind all the ingredients-coconut, coriander leaves, ginger, chilies and salt into a coarse paste. Add as little water as possible.

For the Undhiyo:
Now for the undhiyo, peel the banana, potato and carrot and cut them into 1 inch pieces. Leave the eggplant whole with its stalk and cut an X mark on the bottom of the eggplant. I used frozen and cut suran, ratalu, so I didnt have to peel and cut them.

Mark the banana, eggplant, carrot and potato pieces with an 'X' sign with the knife. Cut each potato into 4 pieces. Fill the chutney masala paste into all these pieces. (Keep some 4-5 tablespoon chutney for other vegetables.) Sprinkle lemon juice on these vegetables so that they don't get brown and oxidize. In a pan add 2 tablespoon oil, mustard seeds and asafoetida. One the mustard seeds start to splutter, add coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder and pepper. Stir well and add the cut and stuffed banana, potato, eggplant and carrot. Cook on a low flame for around 15 minutes till the vegetables are 1/2 cooked. Meanwhile, in another pan add 1 teaspoon oil and add surti papdi. Stir fry on high heat for 2-3 minutes and drain on kitchen paper. Stir fry surti val and beans also in similar way. In the same oil stir fry ratalu and suran for 2-3 minutes each. Add the surti papdi, val, suran, ratalu, beans and peas in the same pan as other vegetables and sprinkle the remaining chutney. Add salt, sugar and lemon juice for taste and cook for another 20-30 minutes till all the vegetable are well cooked. Add the muthia and cook again for 5 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Serve hot with rice or roti.




Preparation time: 1 hr 15 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Watermelon dosa / Kalingan Polo

We get lot of sweet watermelon during the summer season. But who knew that the white part of the watermelon- which lies between the red juicy part of the watermelon and the green skin, could be used to make dosas. Every time we ate a watermelon, my mom would make these dosas the next day. She would also give it for my tiffin. In college, all my friends would enjoy them as much as I did. To get the white part scoop up as much white part as you can after removing the red juicy part. Its alright if it includes some of the red part as it will impart red color to the dosa.

Ingredients
2 cups rice
1/2 cup grated coconut
white part of the watermelon
2-3 fenugreek seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method
Soak rice and fenugreek seeds for 5-6 hours. Grind the rice, fenugreek seeds with coconut and white part of the watermelon. Don't add much water as the white part of the watermelon contains lot of water. Add salt and mix well. Oil a pan or tava and spread a thin layer of dosa. Cook covered for a minute. Now flip the dosa and cook uncovered on the other side. Serve with butter and honey, or dry chutney or with ambule gojju.


Preparation time: 30 minutes excluding soaking time
Serves: 3-4