Black Bean Sabzi

Black beans is also known by the name "Kala Police" in Pune. Not aware of why the name "Kala Police", but it makes a very tasty sabzi. I grind all the spices fresh and that also gives a distinct flavor to the sabzi. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup black beans
2 medium onions
1 tomato
2 garlic cloves
4-5 tablespoon cilantro or coriander leaves chopped
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
4-5 kashmiri chilies
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon jaggery or gur
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
salt for taste

Method

Wash and soak black beans for 8-10 hours. Wash the beans well and keep aside. Chop the onion and tomato into small pieces. Add oil in a pan and add cumin seeds. Add chopped garlic and onion and fry till the onion is brown in color. Add the tomato and cook till the tomato is soft. Fry the kashmiri chilies and coriander seeds for 4-5 minutes and powder them. Mix this powder and the jaggery with the masala. Add turmeric powder and 3 tablespoon coriander leaves to the masala. Cook for 3 minutes and add black beans and 1 1/2 cups of water. Add salt for taste and mix well. Pressure cook the beans till soft. Garnish with the remaining coriander leaves and garam masala. Serve hot with roti.

Preparation time: 40 minutes excluding soaking time
Serves: 2-3

Vegetables in Coconut Milk / Avial / Valval

This is another of traditional Manglorean vegetable curry. Traditionally, valval was made in plentiful during the rainy season when the vegetables like ivy gourds and cowpeas beans or yardlong beans were in plenty. It also uses vegetables like ridge gourd, pumpkin (it is a must), ashgourd, potato, magge ( yellow, oval cucumber)...I guess it is also called Dosakai (they name it so at my local Indian grocery store.). You may also add carrot, peas, snappeas and normal or baby corn. The recipe uses coconut milk, which can be easily found in Indian or International grocery stores in the US, or can be prepared using the following recipe. Here is the recipe for valval.

Ingredients
1/2 cup cubed pumpkin
1/2 cup yardlong beans chopped into 1 inch long pieces
11/2 cups of mixed vegetable (choose from ivy gourds, ridge gourd, ashgourd, potato, magge, carrot, peas, snappeas, corn(baby or normal))
2 cups coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds or jeera
2 pinches haldi or turmeric powder (to obtain the light yellow color)
1 teaspoon ghee or clarified butter
6-7 curry leaves
3 green chilies (thai chilies) or as per taste
pinch of asafoetida
salt for taste

Tips:
The secret behind this dish or any other mixed vegetable is to cut the vegetables into almost equal pieces so that they cook evenly. Else you can cook all the vegetables separately. I usually cut the vegetables into inch to half inch long pieces.

I usually cook all the vegetables and when I switch off the heat, I add the ridge gourd pieces and cover the vessel. Ridge gourd cooks very fast and just the heat from the other cooked vegetables is sufficient to cook it.

The ridge gourd can be skinned or be used with the skin. I skin the ridge gourd and use the skin to make chutney. I never throw the ridge gourd skin as it contains lot of nutrients. I sometimes even leave the skin in the freezer if I am not using it immediately.
I skin the pumpkin, but in India we get pumpkin with a thin skin and we usually don't remove the skin. Same with the ash gourd. You need not skin the other vegetables.
Do not throw the water in which the vegetable are boiled. You can add this to the curry to get it to a desired consistency or use it as vegetable stock to flavor soups.
I cook all the vegetables together with around 1/4 teaspoon salt so that they are salted before adding them to the curry. But be careful when you salt the curry.

Method
Cook all the vegetables till soft. Heat the coconut milk with slit green chilies. When the coconut milk is heated, add the vegetables and get the curry to a boil. This will facilitate all the vegetable flavors to be blended in the curry. In a seasoning pan, add ghee and heat it. When it heats up add mustard seeds and asafoetida. When the mustard seeds splutter, remove from heat and add cumin seeds, turmeric and curry leaves. Add this hot seasoning to the vegetables and cover the vessel with a lid.
The flavor of the seasoning will be absorbed by the curry. Serve the curry hot with rice.

Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves: 3-4

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.

White Navy Beans Curry / Avre Koddel / Konkani Beans Curry

Koddel is another of Konkani curries. It is spicy and is seasoned with garlic or with asafoetida (for people who don't like garlic). It is traditionally made with pulses like avro (navy beans), kulith (horse gram), bagdo (azuki beans). I have also tried it with kidney beans , pink beans, black eyed peas , black beans and pinto beans and it comes out well. Raw papaya , magge, potatoes, ashgourd can be added to the koddel. Here is the recipe for the koddel.


Ingredients
1/2 cup white navy beans (avro) or any other beans
1/2 magge or konkani cucumber (optionally you can use potato, ashgourd or raw papaya or use just navy beans)
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 teaspoon tamarind concentrate or small piece of tamarind
3-4 roasted byadgi red chilies
3-4 cloves of garlic or 1/4 teaspoon heeng or asafoetida
1 teaspoon coconut oil or any other oil
salt for taste

Method
Soak the navy beans overnight or 8-10 hours. Pressure cook magge and navy beans (avro) with 1/4 teaspoon salt till soft. Grind the coconut, red chilies, tamarind into a fine masala paste. Add this masala to the navy beans and magge and add water to get desired consistency (the water in which the beans were boiled can also be added). Heat oil in seasoning pan. Crush garlic and fry it in the oil till it is pink. Add this to the curry and cover it for 5 minutes to allow the flavors of the garlic to be absorbed in the curry. Optionally, if you don't want garlic, the heeng can be dissolved in a tablespoon of water and sprinkled with oil on the curry. Serve hot with rice.


Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves: 3-4

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

Whole Wheat Dosa / Gava ani Urada Polo

My mother used to make these dosas as whole wheat is very healthy. I get whole wheat from the Chinese grocery store. The atta stays in the fridge for 2 days, so I feel it is a convenient way to make quick breakfast. This dosa can be made with ginger- green chili paste or with gur if you want to make sweet dosa.

Ingredients
1 cup wheat
1/2 cup urad dal or split and husked black gram
1 teaspoon salt
oil for frying
1 inch ginger piece
2-3 green chilies

For sweet Dosa:
1/2 cup gur or jaggery

Method
Soak urad dal and wheat in warm water separately for 8 hours.
I change the water and add warm water every 3-4 hours. If you are soaking in cold water or in winter then soak wheat for around 12 hours. Grind half of the urad dal into a fine paste. I check it by putting a drop of the urad dal paste in between my fingers and making a string by stretching my fingers apart. If the string of urad dal paste breaks, I grind it further.

Add half of the wheat in the urad dal and grind further till the wheat is coarsely ground. So, if you grind urad dal and wheat together, the urad dal nor the wheat will be finely ground. Add salt, green chilies and ginger in the final round of grinding. Grind rest of the paste in a similar way. This dosa batter does not need fermenting. Oil a pan and spread the dosa batter thinly. Cook covered on one side. Flip the dosa to the other side and cook uncovered.

Serve hot with sambhar and/or chutney.


Variations: You can make the dosa without the urad dal. You can just omit urad dal. Soak the wheat and grind it with the rest of the ingredients mentioned above. Add maida or all purpose flour. For one cup of wheat add 1/2 cup maida and mix well. Add water to get the consistency of dosa atta and make dosa.