Semolina Pancake

A quick fix breakfast dish, tasty and satiating. Made with ingredients usually available in our daily pantry. Can be eaten with tomato sauce or the green chutney too. For the not so diet conscious a nice blob of butter is yummy option!!

Ingredients

2 cups of semolina
2 cups of yogurt, or adjust according to need
a small bunch of coriander finely chopped
1 tspn of chilli powder
Salt as required
1/4 green, red, yellow bell peppers each chopped fine
1 small tomato chopped fine

All ingredients mixed to make into a batter little thicker than the dosa batter, spread a ladleful on the pan with little oil, cover cook, flip cook to a golden brown and there your pancake is ready to savour.

Koot, A South Indian Curry With Pulses

Ingredients

Moog-whole green gram,
Hara chana-whole green chick peas,
Rajma-kidney beans
Matki-turkish gram,
Vaal-field beans
Chawli-black eyed beans
Green peas

Take quarter cup of each soaked and sprouted or right now in winter a of these are freshly available in the markets.

For making into a paste we need

6 dry red chillies
1 tspn mustard seeds
1/4 tspn asafoetida
1 tspn black gram split- udad dal
1 tspn rice
2 tspns of coriander seeds
1 cup dry grated coconut
1 tspn turmeric powder

Method

Pressure cook all the pulses to 2 whistles if they are fresh or three whistles if they are the dry soaked ones, see to it that they do not become mushy.

In a pan roast all the above ingredients in ghee- clarified butter. Make a fine paste.

Now in a kadhai, take ghee and put the spice paste, let it cook for a bit and then add salt the pressure cooked pulses. bring it to a boil, decorate with fresh chopped coriander leaves, serve with chapati, white rice or even with bread.

                                                               
                                                                     Sarson Ka Saag

Come winter and the market is full of the fresh mustard leaves, green and tempting. Inviting you to make the famous sarson ka saag and makke di roti. So I too made it and enjoyed the evergreen recipe.

Ingredients
All ingredients below to be pressure cooked to just one whistle with just enough water
1 bunch mustard leaves, 1 bunch of spinach leaves, 1 bunch of chenopodium album ( bathua in Hindi and chakwat in Marathi) stocks removed washed, roughly chopped
1 onion roughly chopped
1 tomato roughly chopped
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 inch ginger crushed
3 green chillies crushed
1/2 tspn of salt

For tempering you need 
White butter 2 tspns
1 onion finely chopped
1/2 tspn of ginger garlic paste

For the final step
 2 tspns of corn flour, as in the flour of corn, makai ka aata
1 tspn garam masala

Method
The pressure cooked ingredients should be roughly blended by a hand blender and kept ready

In a deep bottomed pan take the white butter, add the ginger garlic paste, saute, add the onion , saute till golden, add the pressure cooked ingredients, mix well, add salt carefully since we already added a bit, add the makai ka aata, stir to see there are no lumps. Mix well and serve with makke ki roti.

Hummus with Garlic Bread and Cherry Tomatoes

Ingredients for the hummus
200 gms chick peas soaked overnight and pressure cooked with a pinch of soda
8-10 cherry tomatoes
3 teaspoons of olive oil
Salt to taste 1/2 a teaspoon of black pepper powder
Juice of half a lime

Method
Grind all the above ingredients to a fine paste remove in a bowl and cut the cherry tomatoes into fours and use as garnish, tomatoes are optional.

For the garlic bread
Take some olive oil put mix crushed garlic and oregano powder in it, spread it over the bread and toast them on a pan, crisp or soft as u like to eat them.
Garlic toast and the hummus is now ready to savour, if u like more olive oil u can pour some over each serving according to taste.

Rice with fresh winter special pulses

This is a quick fix rice dish, when you have unexpected guests and you need to make a filling dish with ingredients usually available in every household. I have used fresh tur dana or green pigeon peas, harbhara or green whole chickpea. They actually take the taste of the simple dish to another level! I was also pleased to use the fresh coriander which grew in my tiny balcony.

Ingredients
2 cups long grain rice
50 gms harbhara
50 gms Tur dana (fresh green pigeon pea)
1 onion finely chopped

Ingredients to be made into a paste
3 green chillies
1/2 an inch of ginger roughly chopped
1 small tomato roughly chopped
1 onion roughly chopped
1 small bunch coriander cleaned and just roughly torn
4 cloves garlic
Juice of half a lime

Method
Keep the paste ready of the ingredients above mentioned.
In a cooker take little oil, add the chopped onion, let it cook till light brown, add the masala paste, salt to taste, the pigeon peas and the chickpeas, rice, mix well, add water double the quantity of rice, give it 2 whistles and it is ready. Serve hot topped with finely chopped coriander.
This dish according to me does not need any accompaniment, but if you do feel like it, then have yogurt or curry with it.
This tastes good when made with any of the seasonal whole green pulses available in the market.

                             
                              Huli, A typically south Indian Spiced Lentil Curry with Vegetables.

You will surely find this curry in all functions in South indian, weddings and also in temples and maths where there is lunch served after we finish worshipping God. Tangy, tasty and spicy. The picture above shows you the curry with red pumpkin which I have chosen to use in the curry, served with rice. This is usually made with vegetables like white pumpkin, drumsticks, french beans and carrots. 

Ingredients
1 cup split pigeon pea lentil pressure cooked to 2 whistles with the vegetables chopped into medium sized cubes, a pinch of turmeric powder, a pinch of asafoetida, a few curry leaves.

The ingredients below need to be ground into a fine powder
6 dry red chillies
1 tsp poppy seeds
2 marathi moggu
1 small piece of cinnamon
2 tbsp of coriander seeds
1/2 tsp black pepper corns
1 small ball of tamarind
Salt to taste

Method
In a deep bottomed pan put oil, add mustard seeds let them splutter, add turmeric powder, asafoetida and now add the pressure cooked lentil with vegetables, add the ground powder, add water as per your liking to bring it to a curry consistency,  let this come to a boil and add salt only if required since we already added salt. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with steaming hot rice.

There is an option of using onion in the tempering, i have chosen to skip it so I could only taste the aromatics and nothing else. I have also used only red pumpkin pieces.

This cute little pumpkin prompted me to make this dish.

                                    

Double Beans Curry with Egg

Ingredients

200 gms of pressure cooked double beans

2 eggs
1 onion chopped into long pieces
For the paste
2 onions chopped in long piece
2 tomatoes
5 green chillies
Some green coriander leave( a small bunch)
1/2 Dry grated coconut
6 cloves of garlic
2 cloves
A tiny piece of cinnamon
A table spoon of lime juice
Salt to taste

Method
Take a kadhai, put some oil, you can use coconut oil too, put the masala paste, saute for a bit and add the extra chopped onion, saute till the masala leaves the pan, add the cooked beans, add salt ( little extra can be added because we will be adding eggs later, or then taste and add later so it does not become salty) squeeze the lime and let it boil adding as much water to bring it to a curry consistency, now break the eggs directly into the curry stirring gently as you add the eggs, egg will get poached in the curry and give it thickness plus the lovely aroma. The curry is ready to serve with hot chapatis or with steamed rice