Z is for.... Zafrani Pulav

As we come to the end of our journey in the A-Z of Indian Vegetables, I want to present a Nawabi Dish...the flavourful Zafrani Pulao.
This has been on my mind ever since I saw the movie 'Cheeni Kum', where a proud Amitabh claims that he makes the Best and most Authentic Indian Food in the UK.. until Tabu returns the Zafrani Pulao and pops his pride!
Bits and pieces of the recipe remained in my memory(I liked the movie a lot, and in enjoying the movie, I quite forgot to jot down the recipe!!) So I hunted around the net and found a recipe which was similar .. not the exact, so tweaking it a bit to suit my requirements I attempted this aromatic rice preparation . The end result was a wonderful and delicately coloured and flavoured rice and I was rather pleased with the outcome! What however left me in doubt was.... do you eat this with any gravy vegetable? Please do let me know. I did enjoy eating the pulao without any gravy, savouring every morsel which sometimes brought a whiff of the spices in it, sometimes the sweetness of a plump raisin and the crunch of an almond! (now I know why the Nawabs must have favoured this preparation!!)
Here is the recipe with my tweaks: (for the original recipe, please click on the 'recipe' link given above)

1 cup Basmati Rice (uncooked)

A generous Pinch Saffron Threads

2 tbls. Ghee

1/2 Red Onion sliced thin

1/2 tsp Ginger and Garlic paste

1 Whole Clove

1 Cardamon Pod

1 Cinnamon Sticks (3” pieces)

1 tbsp. Golden Raisins

2 cups Water

3 tbsp Slivered Almonds

5 tsp milk

1 tbsp Yogurt

Salt

Procedure:

Rinse rice 3 to 4 times in cold water, drain well. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Lightly toast the saffron. Remove and add it to some water and keep aside.

Heat the Ghee over medium-high heat; add onions, ginger and garlic. Stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes or until onions soften slightly.
Stir in cloves, cardamom and cinnamon. Cook 1 to 2 minutes more, stirring occasionally to blend flavors.Add rice, and mix till every grain of rice is coated with ghee. Add the almonds and raisins. Add salt and mix well. Add water. Bring it to a boil. Add the saffron, Yogurt and milk.Cook (covered) till the rice is done and every grain of rice is separate. Serve immediately.

This will go to Nupur for the A-Z series.
Nupur has been a great hostess and this whole journey has been an awesome learning experience! Thank You Nupur for this wonderful opportunity!!

Pin It

S is for Sambar

Here I am with another Sambar, this time with vegetables... for Nupur's A-Z of Veges.

Here is what Wiki has to say about sambar .. however, even without this history on sambar, we can safely say..'isey to bacha, bacha janta hai!!' . A must at almost all meals in South Indian homes and well loved by almost everyone!

When I was in college, Ruia in Matunga, Mumbai, for those who are familiar with it, there is a small restaurant called Mani's Lunch home.. in those days we got Idli Sambar for just Rs. 5.50/- and the BEST part was the unlimited chutney and sambar. We would greedily slurp all the sambar and take so many servings that the idli would, by then, get crumbly and disappear into the hot sambar!! Trust me when I say, we made a meal out of it!! To date, I haven't tasted 'that' kind of sambar!!

So today I made another attempt to recreate 'that' magic..... I admit, I was not close, but the end result was quite satisfactory!

3/4 cup Toor Daal

1/2 tsp Turmeric powder

Chopped vegetables (3 nos. Okra, 5-6 cubes radish, 8-10 Madras onion/ pearl onion)

1/2 tsp. Tamarind concentrate (or soak a marble size ball of tamarind in warm water for 15 mins., squeeze out the pulp and discard the solids)

2 tsp. Sambar Powder ( I used MTR brand)

1 tbsp. Oil

1/2 tsp Each Mustard seeds and Cumin seeds

2 nos. red chilly

5-7 curry leaves

2 pinches Asafetida

Salt to taste

small lump Jaggery (optional)

Wash the daal , add double the quantity water to washed daal, add turmeric powder and pressure cook it till soft and mushy

Heat oil, Add the mustard seeds , once the sputter, add Cumin seeds, red chillies, curry leaves and asafetida

Add the vegetables , cover and cook till tender, add water if needed to aid cooking

Add the tamarind conc. / juice, jaggery (opt.) water, salt and bring to a rolling boil.

Add the sambar powder and then the cooked daal.

Cook for 10 mins, till the aroma wafts in the house!

Serve with idli / dosa/ rice

Pin It

Sabudana Khichadi

As we move on to S of the A-Z of Indian Vegetables at One Hot Stove and RCI (Regional Cuisines of India) hosted by Nupur ,we travel to Maharashtra....

Maharashtra.. Mahan Rashtra!! The land of saints..

The land of Raje Shivaji....

The Land of great Artists
Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki
Pt. Bhimsen Joshi
The Nightingale Lata Mangeshkar
Kishori Amonkar

PuLa The Marathi P.G.Wodehouse!!
And the land of Ganesh Utav!

The Marathi LAVNI!





AND.. (the part we have been waiting for!!!!) the land of GOOD FOOD... naaah, make it GREAT FOOD!!
Like all states, Maharashtra also has a lot of reasons to fast (upvas), sankasti, ekadashi, angarki and ofcourse Monday for Shankar Bhagwan, Tuesday for Ganpati... so on... for the rest of the week.. I have often wondered what is the objective of fasting..... pleasing the Gods? exercising self-control? Internal cleansing? or just another reason to cook some yummy food?
Take for instance,the first reason, pleasing the Gods... how can one please 33 crore Gods by fasting for 1 day?
Self-control? Can staying away from food for 1 day prove that one is in total control?
Internal cleansing, otherwise also known as langhan (loosely...avoiding food, consume only liquids) .. right!! and for the remaining days EAT..EAT..EAT!!
So, cook yummy food.. bingo! that is the explanation!! Take for instance..
"Tomorrow is ekadashi, are you fasting?"
" Are you making sabudana khichadi?"
"Yes"
"YES! "
This was a standard dialogue when I was small... fasting meant only one thing, Sabudana khichadi! This is an all time fav!! Commonly termed as 'fast' (not as in fast food) but,upvas food, this snack is welcome on non-fast days too.
My mother used to make this many a times for my lunch box (I was one of those finicky kids, who always wanted variety in my lunch box)

Sabudana or Sago, looks like small homeopathy pills... and while u describe homeopathy pills u say 'sabudana size pills' !

Making sabudana khichadi (for first timers) is probably not that easy. My best friend (who is a Delhiite) loves this dish and when in B school, once tried her,then, inexperienced hand at it... well to make a long story short... ended up with a gummy mess which firmly and stubbornly stuck to the wok and the ladle. The trick is to get the sabudana non-sticky and non-soggy!
So here's my sure fire recipe for getting a slap up sabudana khichadi



1 cup sabudana/ sago
1/2 cup Ground , roasted peanut powder (I make mine fine, but u can choose to keep it a bit rough)
1 Med Potato , sliced thinly
1-2 Green chillies (+/- to taste)
1 tsp Cumin / jeera seeds
3-4 tbsp Ghee
Salt to taste
Sugar
Cilantro to garnish
Grated Fresh coconut to garnish


Do the prep.
Wash the sabudana 2-3 times.
Add water to soak and soften , keep the level just about 1-2 cms above the sabudana level. Cover and keep, soak sabudana for at least 6-8 hours. I normally soak it overnight.

Add the ground peanut powder to the soft sabudana, add salt and sugar and mix well
Chop the green chillies or (this is what I do) Grind together the cumin and chillies
Heat about 2 tbsp ghee in a kadhai / wok.
Add the green chillies and cumin .Add thinly sliced potato, add this after you have added the chilly-cumin mix and cook till tender
Add the sabudana mix.
Cover and cook for 5 + mins
After you remove the cover, you will notice that the colour and texture of the sabudana has changed. it is now looking a bit transparent
Now DO NOT cover to cook, this will make it sticky
Drizzle another 2 tbsp of ghee around the kadhai/ wok.
Check for salt and sugar
Mix well and cook for another 5-7 mins.
Garnish with coconut and cilantro and serve hot
Khichadi can also be served with a dollop of yogurt.

The sugar is optional , but I just love that slightly sweetish taste that the khichadi acquires along with the spicy taste, so I am more than a little generous with the sugar!

Khichadi can be served , garnished with cilantro and a dash of lemon juice. however, some also prefer it with a coconut-cilantro chutney or plain yogurt.

Another side dish, served with khichadi is 'Ratala Kees' (post coming up soon)

This is one of my entries for the RCI event.. I have planned some more, hope i can make all those!!! See you all soon .. Have a lovely weekend!!

Pin It

R is for Ringan Curry and Radish Sambar

The first time I heard 'Ringan' ... I absolutely did not connect it to the eggplant.. and had it not been mentioned in a blog (Trupti's!!) , I would never have known!! Well, well... so here we are, yet another eggplant recipe! For someone like me, who would not eat eggplant to save her life... I keep buying it for my significant other half.... and this time googling for recipes I came across this recipe, which was easy and different. Having come across recipes where the eggplant was subjected to roasting, stuffing, baking, this was the first, when I saw this vegetable cooked with methi / fenugreek leaves, and so I decided to make an attempt at cooking it

Ingredients:
500 g Fresh ringan / eggplant
200 g Finely chopped tomatoes
10 Pcs finely chopped green chilies (+/-)
½ Bunch finely chopped fresh methi bhaji
1 Tsp haldi
Salt to taste
2 Tsp dhana-jeera

Vaghar ( Tempering ) :
¼ Cup Oil
¼ Tsp Rai
¼ Tsp Methi
¼ Tsp Jeera
Pinch of Hing

Garnish:
¼ Bunch finely chopped fresh dhania.

Method:
Wash and cut the ringan into cubes of about 1 inch. (cut ringan when you are about ready to cook. Rub the pieces into about half a teaspoon of salt to stop them turning into black color.)

Vaghar (Tempering) :
Heat oil in a saucepan and add all the other ingredients for tempering
Add fresh methi and cook for few minutes, steering from time to time. Add pieces of ringan, mix well and cook for about five minutes
Add salt, chilies, haldi and cook further ten to fifteen minutes till ringan are fully cooked
Add dhania-jeera powder and cook for further two to three minutes on a very low heat.

I have no idea how this tasted.. However M was of the opinion that it was 'ok' .. 'ummm'..'hum, good', so I leave it to you guys to try and test and taste!

I also made Radish Sambar. For this recipe I peeked into Mahanandi and had wonderful results!! I am not too fond of radish.. too strong for me and so far have never eaten a radish salad, or vegetable... but I do like Mooli ka Parantha... that is the only exception. I was not too sure of how well this would taste in sambar... I mean would it affect the taste with the tartness? Thankfully no, the taste of sambar is as good as it can get!!! Thank U Indira!!!

Excellent accompaniment with Rice, Dosa, Idli.. Yenjoy!!!

This is going in as my entry for 'R' of Nupur's A-Z of Indian Veges

Pin It