Baigan Bharta

I make Baigan bharta in two ways. If I am making a side dish to go with chappati, I make it in the North Indian style with tomatoes and onions. If we are having it as a side dish with rice, I make it in the traditional way with coconut. Both the recipes are very tasty and easy to make.


North Indian style recipe:

Ingredients
1 brinjal
1 small tomato
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon garam masala powder
chilli powder for taste
coriander leaves for garnishing
5 pinches asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon ginger (optional)
1 teaspoon oil
turmeric powder
salt for taste

Method
Roast the egg plant till the skin is charred.

Let it cool for a while. Remove the skin and mash the pulp. In another pan, add oil, asafoetida and cumin seeds. Roast the cumin seeds for a minute and add turmeric powder, onions and ginger. Roast till the onions is transparent. Add chopped tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are soft. Add the mashed egg plant and mix well. Mix in garam masala, salt and chilli powder. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. Serve hot with chappatis.


Preparation time: 20 minutes excluding time to roast egg plant.
Serves: 2


Konkani Style recipe:
Ingredients:
1 medium Egg plant
1/4 cup grated coconut
1-2 green chilies
small piece of tamarind or 1/4 teaspoon tamarind concentrate
asafoetida
salt for taste

Method:
Roast the egg plant till the skin is charred on all sides. Keep it aside till it cools down. Meanwhile make a masala by grinding coconut, green chillies, asafoetida and tamarind. Skin the egg plant and mash the egg plant pulp well. Mix it with the masala and add salt as per taste. (After making the masala, I put the egg plant pulp and give the mixer one pulse, so that the egg plant is well mixed with the masala) Serve hot with rice.

Preparation time: 10 minutes excluding time to roast egg plant.
Serves: 2

Vegetable Fritter / Bhajiya or Bhaji

Bhajiya or (Bajo in Konkani) is a very popular dish. It is served in any Konkani wedding lunch/dinner. Bhajiya can be made with different vegetables like egg plant, cauliflower, raw banana, okra, capsicum, onions, potato, drumsticks, pumpkin, jack fruit, bitter gourd, bread fruit and many other vegetables. I always make these bhajiyas whenever we call over friends for dinner. It is easy to prepare and is liked by all. I made potato, banana and capsicum bhajiyas recently.

Ingredients
Different Vegetables
Chili powder
thyme seeds or ajwain
heeng or asafoetida
Gram flour
oil for frying
salt

Method
Cut the vegetable into thin slices. Apply salt, chili powder, asafoetida to the vegetables. Prepare a batter with the gram flour and water. Add thyme seeds and 1/2 teaspoon salt to the batter. Dip the vegetables in the batter and fry on high heat.

Strawberry Milkshake

We get strawberries from the farmer's market every week. I make strawberry milkshake every weekend with these sweet and juicy strawberries. You can also use frozen strawberries of you don't find fresh strawberries in the market.

Ingredients
12-15 strawberries
2 tablespoon vanilla and strawberry ice cream (optional)
1 1 /2 cups milk
2 teaspoon sugar
3-4 ice cubes

Method
Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend all the ingredients till smooth. Serve chilled.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Serves:

Cucumber Pancakes / Cucumber Dosa / Tavshe Polo

This is a quick cucumber dosa recipe which can be made in a short time. It also makes a great tiffin recipe. This dosa is had with butter and honey.


Ingredients
2 medium cucumbers
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
2 green chilies
2 cups rice powder
1 cup rava or semolina
3-4 tablespoon gur
3 tablespoon grated coconut (optional)
oil for frying
salt for taste

Method
Grate the cucumbers. Finely chop green chilies and mix well with the cucumber and ginger. Mix all the other ingredients and add water to make a thick batter. Keep aside for around 30 minutes. Oil a tava or pan and spread the batter to make thick dosas.
Cook covered and then turn the dosa. Now cook uncovered once you turn the dosa over. Serve hot with butter and honey or chutney pitti. You can also have rasam or any other curry as a side dish with this dosa.


Optional: Add 1/2 teaspoon jeera seeds or seasoning of mustard seeds and turmeric. 
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Puffed Rice Chat / Charmure Upkari / Konkani Bhel

The other day at 10pm both I and my husband had a craving to eat chaat or anything spicy. In US we don't get chaat food like in India and sometimes we both get bad cravings for Chaats and other Indian street food. I remembered my mom's quick charmure upkari and we had it as a after dinner snack. Here is a quick and easy recipe to satisfy cravings for spicy chaat food.

Ingredients
2 cups crispy puffed rice, murmura or charmuro (if it is not crispy, heat it in a pan on medium flame till crispy)
2-3 green chilies or red chili powder as per spiciness desired
small piece of tamarind or 1/2 teaspoon tamarind concentrate
2 tablespoon grated coconut
1 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon coconut oil (opional)
5 tablespoon finely cut gur or jaggery
salt for taste

Method

Roast the coriander seeds and cumin for 3-4 minutes or till hot. Put it in a mixer and dry grind it till you find a coarse powder. Add cut green chili, coconut, tamarind and salt. Grind into a paste without adding water. Put the paste into a vessel and mix in the cut jaggery. Mix well with hand, crushing the jaggery into the coconut paste. Adjust salt and sugar and add coconut oil. Mix the paste well with the puffed rice and serve immediately. If you keep it for long the puffed rice may get soggy because of the wet paste. You can garnish it with coriander leaves.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2

Gulab Jamun

I am a great fan of fried items and sweets. When we lived in Bhopal for around 8 years, we were introduced to a lot of North Indian snacks, sweets and food. Diwali, Dushera and Ganesh Chaturthi are celebrated with great pomp and show in Bhopal. There are huge jhankis or tableaux made for every festival. Many of these moving tableaux would depict various stories from Mahabharata, Ramayana and other mythological epics or social and current issues like Olympics, global warming an deforestation. As kids we were excited to go with our parents and tried to visit as many of them till late night. But it was definitely the burning of Ravana effigy that stole the show. Huge Ravana effigies would be erected during Dushera in every locality of the city, and it would be burnt on Vijaydashami to signify victory of Good over Evil. We would buy a lot of mithai or sweets from Manohar Dairy in Bhopal during festivals. Their "mixed dry fruit burfi" was out of the world. This dairy also served mouth watering north Indian snacks like chole bhatura and I have never had that tasty snacks and mithai anywhere else.
In Bhopal some areas areas are named numbers.. like "Saath Number", "Dus Number", "Gyrah Number" or Locality no.7, Locality no.10, Locality no.11. No idea why the the district planning department decided to name these areas with these"numbers". These areas also have a lot of shopping, restaurants and also house residents complexes. In Bhopal, there is a store called Chappan Bhog in "Dus Number", if I am not mistaken. This place would serve 56 items. Chappan Bhog was near my father's office and he would often get treats from there. Their unique chuda mixture with cashew nuts and raisins made an excellent snack. They also sold sweets like kaju katli or kaju barfi and gulab jamuns. The other day I was reminiscing old memories of Bhopal and chappan bhog gulab jamuns. So when our friends visited us for dinner last week I decided to make gulab jamuns for dessert. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup milk powder
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoon ghee
milk or cream for kneading
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
oil for frying

Sugar Syrup
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 pinches saffron or rose essence
6-7 pods of cardamom

Method

For the sugar syrup, dissolve the sugar in water and heat it on medium flame for 20 minutes. Add crushed cardamom and saffron and mix well. Keep aside for 30 minutes.
Sieve flour and baking powder. Mix well with milk powder. Add ghee to the mixture. Keep adding tablespoons of milk to the mixture and keep mixing. The final dough will not look like roti atta and it will be sticky. Apply ghee to your fingers and palms while you mix the milk and powders together. Make small balls out of the mixture and deep fry them in hot oil on all sides. I heated the oil and added the gulab jamun balls into the hot oil and then reduced heat when I turned then on the other side. I don't like to fry the jamuns if they look dark in color, but if you want darker color you can fry it till dark brown. Remove from heat and put the balls into the sugar syrup. Keep at least for 40 minutes in the fridge so that the gulab jamuns are chilled and have absorbed all the saffron and cardamom flavor.

Preparation time: 1 hour
Makes around 15-20 gulab jamuns