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.

Rice And Sago Kheer / Dudhpak

Dudhpak is a very easy to make dessert. I just adore the saffron flavor and the dry fruits in dudhpak. It can be made with a combination of rice and sabudana (sago) or just rice. Basmati rice imparts a great flavor to the dudhpak, however you can also use ordinary rice. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup basmati rice (if sabudana is not available use 1 cup rice)
1/2 cup sabudana (soaked for around 3-4 hours)
2 pinches of keshar or saffron
1 tablespoon powdered cardamom
2 tablespoon ghee or clarified butter
1/2 cup chopped nuts(cashewnut, non-salted almonds, dried raisins)
1 cup sugar or as per taste
4 cups of whole milk

Method
Boil the milk and let it reduce on slow flame for 15 minutes. Ensure that you sit it occasionally to avoid sticking to the bottom of the pan. Keep the milk aside to cool it down to room temperature. Take 2 tablespoons of this hot milk and add keshar to it and keep it aside. Chop the nuts into desired sized pieces and fry them in 2 tablespoon ghee or clarified butter. Wash the basmati rice. Boil around 3 cups of water add the rice to it. Cook the rice till it is 3/4 done and drain the remaining water. The rice grains should not stick to each other and it should not be overcooked. Spread the rice on a plate to cool it. Meanwhile boil 2 cups of water and add the sabudana to it. Cook for around 4-5 minutes and drain the water. Mix the sabudana, rice, sugar, cardamom, milk with saffron and dry fruits. Stir it gently to fold in the rest of the ingredients with sabudana and rice. Now add the cooled milk and stir well. Keep the dudhpak in the refrigerator for at least 3-4 hours before serving.

If you want to serve the dudhpak hot, use the same procedure above, but add hot milk to the rice and sabudana mixture and serve immediately.

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Serves: 5-6

Eggplant and Drumstick Sabzi / Vaigana Ani Mashigasange Upkari

This is one of my favorite sabzis and it goes well with spicy sambhar or rasam. Both drumstick and brinjal contain lot of iron and other minerals, so it is a very nutritious combination of vegetables. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
4-5 drumsticks
1 medium brinjal or eggplant
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 red chilies
1 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoon grated coconut (optional)
salt for taste

Method
Cut the ends of the drumsticks and cut each drumstick into 2 inch pieces each. Cook the drumstick in a pressure cooker for 1 whistle or until soft. Cut the brinjal into approximately 1/2 inch cubes. Add oil in a pan and add add mustard seeds. Add red chilies and fry for a minute. Add cut eggplant and cook covered till the eggplant is soft. Add very little while cooking if needed. Mix the cut drumstick and mix it well with the eggplant. Add salt and grated coconut and cook for 5 minutes or till the salt is well blended with the vegetables. Serve hot with rice.


Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serves: 3-4