#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe If you had not yet learned to appreciate kale, this recipe is for you! I understand kale can be hard to love (not for me, I liked it from the very first time I ate it!), and I also believe that healthy eating does not have to taste bland or bad. This easy stir fry can encourage you to add kale into your diet! Back in the days when the husband and I lived on different continents, two 30-somethings figuring out what being married would be like, we spent a major part of our time awake on the phone. Amidst the many random things we talked, food wasn't left behind. "What did you eat today?" was a question I asked him without fail, and "Did you eat already?" was his usual. Food is also love for me, so to know if the people I love eat well is no surprise. During those extended conversations I learnt that S, my husband, often ate kale. Blended into a smoothie or tossed into a salad, and sometimes topped on his favourite pasta and chickpeas, kale was a standard in his meals. Although I had tasted it infrequently at my sister M's home in Bangalore, I hadn't cooked it often. No, we get kale in India but not a lot of vegetable vendors sell them. More commonly known through celebrity endorsed detoxing, vegan eating and juice cleansing, kale to an average Indian is unfamiliar, almost absent in the diet unless the person happens to live in a metro and shops at Whole Foods or Nature's Basket and their like. I love my greens. I take a lot of pride in iterating that mother was especially happy to see my plate always wiped clean of the frequent doses of seasonal greens she cooked, unlike my sisters who were picky eaters. Varieties of spinach, mustard leaves, fenugreek leaves, radish leaves, amaranth leaves, colocasia leaves, drumstick leaves and many more were the standard greens I cooked back in India. When S and I got married, and I moved to Canada, I learned about some new greens, seasonal and local, while I missed some of the Indian greens. Of the lot, I got an opportunity to know the best kale I had ever seen, eaten or cooked. And, then I came across, Bonjour Kale: A Memoir of Paris, Love, and Recipes by Kristen Beddard, the founder of The Kale Project. When Kristen moved from New York to Paris with her husband for his job, she missed kale, the green she had been eating since her childhood in Pittsburgh. The fact that she missed a green vegetable like kale so much that she went on to work with local farmers and re-introduced the heirloom vegetable to the French may seem ridiculous to some, but I connect to her on this at every level. It's precisely how I feel when I can't find drumsticks or pointed gourd or curry leaves or amaranth greens here. What appealed to me most about Kristen's memoir is that as her life changed after moving to Paris, and so did her cooking. I find myself in her shoes on several pages of that book, and while I missed the many native Indian greens, my love for kale grew manifold. So much that I eventually started cooking kale in an Indian style, which may be unthinkable for many, with plain sailing seasonings I was used to throughout my life in India. #rozkakhana being a journey of mundane Indian home cooking, is a perfect platform to share my Indian twists to the many foreign vegetables I've come to eat and adore. Greens are essentially referred as saag in the commonly spoken language, Hindi, in India. Every part of the country has typical ways of cooking it. When you go to Kashmir, greens commonly referred as haak are cooked in mustard oil and have hardly any spices except some Kashmiri red chili, garlic or ver masala at times, and heartily enjoyed with rice. In the lower hilly areas of Uttarakhand, greens again take centerstage in meals. Unembellished stir fries, often called bhujjis are tempered with jakhya and dry whole red chilies with generous quantities of mustard oil. Further north in Punjab, greens are cooked into thick saucy dishes, traditionally never in a blender, but by cutting them extremely fine, mashed and tossed in minimal oil and some spices—the classic sarson ka saag comes to mind, a combination of mustard greens along with turnip, fenugreek and radish leaves. On moving to the Gangetic Plains, all regions along the Ganga add greens into gravies or stir fries and cook with legumes, the Banarasi Bhaji for example or stir fries called bhujiya. If you leave the plains and go down south, a whole new world of cooking greens awaits you. Added to various kinds of soups like rasams, pappus, chaarus and saarus, and also eaten as is, greens are essential in the cuisine of this part of India as well. The story of simply cooked greens grows strong in eastern India as well, the region where I grew up and got habituated to eating leafy veggies in their most basic form. Either steamed or sautéed until wilted, greens are never overcooked here. Spices like mustard, cumin, chilies and vegetables like eggplants, pumpkins, turnips — the kinds that cook fast— are commonly added to boost the nutritional quotient, texture and taste alike. I somehow like this version a lot. It brings out the true flavour of the greens and preserves their nutritional value, and is easy to prepare. So, what's the noise about kale and cooking it in a rustic Indian style? Isn't kale like de trop amidst the green leafy veggies which people renounce as bitter and hard to chew? I've only one thing to say. If you don't like kale, you most likely don't know to cook or massage it in the right way! Kale is one of the most versatile greens out there. Its leaves taste earthy and fresh and their alkaline neutrality balances all flavours in any dish they're added. Whatever you want to make, not just salad, even soups, grains, chips or cupcakes for that matter, kale works every time. Checkout Kristen's tips, Keeping a Kale Kitchen on how to buy, wash, massage, de-stem and store kale to learn more. Before you get more adventurous to experiment with kale and after you're bored with adding kale to your smoothies, pastas and rice, make this easy stir fry with bare minimum ingredients in your pantry. Plunge a fork into the tossed greens, top them on a plate of steamed rice or add them as a base to your Buddha bowl — whatever you do, you're not going to regret kale after making this recipe. And, once you start eating it, there's no stopping or looking back. You'll be motivated to add this super healthy green to a lot of dishes you cook and you'll get an idea to play around. I promise! Pro Tip: Massaging the kale leaves helps them wilt when cooking and also makes them softer to eat. You can also add a few drops of lime juice to the oil when massaging the leaves. Caramelized onions impart a slightly sweet taste and crispy texture to the green leaves. I advise not skipping it for this recipe. Dried red chili adds a beautiful aroma and flavours the oil in which kale is cooked. If you don't have dried chili, you can use serrano peppers. Slit the peppers without cutting it fully along the length and de-seed if you wish. Recipe Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 1 bunch of fresh kale 2 tsp oil 1-2 dry red chili, preferably Kashmiri but any other will also do 3-4 garlic cloves crushed or 1/4 tsp asafoetida (use garlic powder or minced garlic as substitute) 1 small onion (red or yellow) 1/2 to 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Wash and de-stem the kale leaves. With 1 tsp oil, massage the kale leaves for about a minutes with 1 tsp oil. On medium-high heat, place a pan and add the remaining oil. Heat the oil properly and then add the dried red chili. Let the chili smoke up (get slightly charred) and then add the onions. Sauté the onions till pink and then add asafoetida. Stir to combine and then add the kale leaves. Sauté and then add salt. Cook further to slightly caramelize the onions. Reduce the heat, add 2-3 tablespoons of water and cover the pan. Cook until kale turns tender. You can open the pan in between to check on the leaves and stir to avoid any burning. Serve with rice or quinoa or couscous! Add another veggie on the side or a protein of your choice.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipes | With oil | Without oil With a nip in the air and markets filling up with colourful winter produce, it's the perfect time to make some delicious pickles and bottle them up for lip-smacking sides for any meal! This traditional pickle of winter carrots, cauliflowers and turnips is not only classic but an absolute favourite of mine! Whether made as a longstanding pickle using oil or as an instant version without oil, it comes together with minimal spices and salt. In my post on Kasrod ka Achaar, fiddlehead fern pickles, I mentioned about the pickling culture in India. I quote from the same post, In India, if not everywhere, of the many things that can narrate a community's eating choices and preferences, pickles are definitely illustrative of what the people making them cherish and what they want to perpetuate. Pickles or achaar as they're called in India, which may have been abated as mere condiments in the modern era, are actually mains in the meals of several communities. Living through years, assimilating in spice and layers of oil and salt, they are culinary timestamps carrying spoonfuls of cultural mores in the subcontinent. For many, the achaar tradition in India is effervescent with memories of summer holidays spent at grandparents' homes and mellow winters atop terraces watching barnis, ceramic jars, filled to the brim, tiffin boxes daubed with oil or glass bottles packed in suitcases, smelling of someone's home. Since every community across the length and breadth of the country have their own styles and methods for pickling, depending on the vegetables, fruits or meat they want to preserve and enjoy, and the spices and oils favoured and available in the region, almost anything that's edible and can find its way to the plate, has the potential to be pickled in India. For this reason, pickle making is also regional culinary knowledge, and learning to make pickles and continuing the tradition is a way of honouring that old art form. Broadly, here are some of the most common ways of pickling in India: With spices (common pickling spices are mustard, onion seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, chilies) Without spices Along with spices, salt is of course mandatory for preservation. For sweet tasting pickles, sugar/jaggery is also used. With oil (in the northern half of the country, mustard oil is favoured for pickling while in the southern half, sesame oil is more common) Without oil From the above options, there are combinations which emerge such as with-spices and without-oil, with-salt-and-oil, and with-spices alone. Winter pickles in North India Mustard happens to be extremely popular in north India for pickling, both as a spice as well as an oil. When I say north India, I'm referring both the extreme north including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, mid-plains including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as well as the western fringe including Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat. In fact, mustard fermented pickles are a category of their own in north India, especially during winters. Mustard lends a sharp pungent tone which goes very well with savoury pickles and acts as a fermenting agent along with chilies. In Indian pickles, we never add water because the vegetables or fruits, which are usually seasonal, have enough water in them to enable the flavours to soak into them. Such pickles pair very well with winter foods which usually tends to be hot and slightly heavier than the summer foods. With ready availability of a variety of seasonal produce in winter, and commonly available and affordable spices like mustard, turmeric and chilli powders, pickling becomes a steady activity throughout most households. A formula for winter pickles Contrary to popular opinion, pickling although involves some experience to render good and balanced flavours, needn't always be a tedious or tough-to-tackle process. I am not someone who has been pickling seasonal produce from a long time but I have observed pickles being made in many different homes, communities and set-ups. Based on this experience, I'm laying down a formula for you to help you experiment with making pickles with some seasonal produce. Please note, this style is a typical style followed in north India. What spices to use? Mustard seeds (coarsely powdered), fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds and turmeric and red chilli powders are the typical spices that are enough to yield tremendous flavour, and also come with health benefits. In fact, you can also make pickles with mustard, turmeric and red chilli powders only! Salt undoubtedly is necessary in all for preservation and taste. Sugar or jaggery are used for sweet tasting pickles, which again help in preservation. Sometimes, just salt and chilies are also enough to make pickles. This works well especially for limes and lemons which have a lot of water content and the sheer play of osmosis creates wonder bombs. Chilies provide the much needed heat. Of all, mustard is key for fermentation in pickles. As the mustard ferments it makes the pickle tangy and stabilizes the heat of chillies and other spices and steadies the saltiness, which you may initially find in savoury pickles. To use oil or not? Oil definitely helps in increasing the shelf life of pickles. But that doesn't mean you can't make pickles without oil. In north India, mustard oil is preferred for pickling. If the vegetables involved don't have a lot of water in themselves, oil helps keep the pickle soft and tender, and adds flavour. Pickles made with oil can last a very long time, sometimes for 1 or 2 years when they have excess oil, at room temperature. For vegetables which are higher in water content, oil isn't a must if you want an instant pickle that you can store in the refrigerator. Mustard, turmeric and red chilli powders with salt render delicious pickles without oil. But, these pickles will not last a long time if not refrigerated. What vegetables can you pickle using this formula? Root vegetables like carrots, radish, turnips, kohlrabi, ginger, fresh turmeric are excellent candidates for pickling without oil or water and with minimum spices like mustard, turmeric and salt. Some varieties of beans like flat beans, chickpea shoots and fresh peas can also be pickled with mustard and without oil or water. Cauliflowers also make great pickles, both with or without oil. But I generally prefer adding oil when cauliflower is involved as it tastes better. How to prepare the vegetables for pickling? Cut the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Wedges, batons, cubes or slices are good shapes. Root vegetables like carrots, radish, turnips, kohlrabi, ginger, fresh turmeric are quite easy to pickle. You cut them in desired shape and then toss in with spices and simply add into clean glass or ceramic jars. They don't need any oil, and when made without oil they're usually ready in a day or 2 to be eaten. In fact, sometimes within a few hours. You can use oil to increase shelf life of such pickles. Without oil, they tend to be more like instant pickles and can even be eaten as salads. Vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, flat beans and peas need a little blanching or parboiling first. This depends on the kind of texture you like in pickles. For root vegetables, I like them crunchy while I prefer cauliflower, broccoli and beans to be slightly tender. If you blanch or parboil veggies, you will need to drain the water after that. If using oil, lay the blanched veggies on a dry plate or cloth and let them dry up and loose any water before you add oil and spices to the pickles. If making without oil, you can simply proceed to mix them in a bowl with spices and salt and then store in clean bottles. Such pickles can stay good for maximum 2 days at room temperature, and then need to be refrigerated. Recipes Check out the formula I use to variate this recipe for other vegetables Longstanding version with oil Ingredients 4 cups of carrot batons, turnip wedges and cauliflower florets I also use the stems and leaves of the cauliflower which adds good texture. To make savoury pickle 4-5 green chillies poked or slit (optional) 1-inch ginger sliced and then chopped as sticks (optional) 3 tbsp black or brown mustard seeds 2 tsp fennel seeds 1.5 tsp fenugreek seeds 1/4 tsp Nigella seeds (optional) 2 tbsp red chilli powder 1 tsp turmeric powder 3 tbsp salt (or 2 tbsp salt + 1 tbsp black salt) Juice of 2-3 limes - this helps in fastening the fermentation process and also adds a bit of sour kick 1 cup mustard oil 1/2 tsp asafoetida (optional) To make sweet-sour or sweet pickle 1-inch ginger chopped fine 3 tbsp black or brown mustard seeds 2 tsp fennel seeds 1.5 tsp fenugreek seeds 2 tsp cumin seeds 10-12 peppercorns 4-5 cloves 2 black cardamoms 2 tbsp red chilli powder 1 tsp turmeric powder 3 tbsp salt 1/3 cup jaggery (if you like it sweeter, add more jaggery) Juice of 2-3 limes or 3-4 tbsp vinegar Method Bring a pot of salted water to boil and then add the cauliflower florets, carrots and turnips. If using the cauliflower stems, add them after 5 minutes, followed by the leaves. Switch off the heat and let the veggies stay in water for about 2-3 minutes. Drain the water and use the water to make veggie stock or soup later. Spread the vegetables on a clean surface and dry them under the fan or in the sun for at least an hour or until quite dry. To make savoury version: Meanwhile, heat the mustard oil until smoking hot and then add the asafoetida if using. Turn off the heat and then keep aside to cool Assemble the whole mustard, fennel, Nigella and fenugreek seeds and grind them coarse. Add the dry powdered spices (turmeric and red chilli powders) and salt and give a good mix. Once the vegetables have dried, mix them with the poked/slit chillies, ginger and the spices + salt. Add the lime juice if using and mix again. Next add the cooled mustard oil and use your clean hands to nicely massage the vegetables and mix everything. Your hands have good bacteria and that helps fermentation. You can of course use a clean and dry spoon to mix too! To make the sweet-sour/sweet version: Coarsely grind the mustard, fennel and fenugreek seeds and keep aside. Dry roast cumin, cloves, cardamoms and peppercorns. Cool and then grind fine. Heat the mustard oil until smoking hot. Add ginger and toss until it's brownish. Add coarsely ground spices, red chilli and turmeric powders and mix well. Then add the finely ground spices and mix well. Cook everything on low heat. Now add the jaggery and cook till it melts. Switch off the heat. Add the vegetables and salt and mix very well. Squeeze the limes/add vinegar into the veggies coated with spices. Let it cool completely for 4-5 hours. Pack tightly in clean sterile jars, and leave in the sun preferably, for at least 4-5 days before eating. You may eat it sooner too but the taste gets better when you leave it to ferment a bit longer with or without the sun. I usually leave it for 2 weeks when I'm patient! Instant version without oil You can use the same recipe to pickle radish, kohlrabi, beans, fresh turmeric, ginger, etc. Check out the formula I use to variate this recipe for other vegetables Ingredients 4 cups of carrot batons, turnip wedges and cauliflower florets I also use the stems and leaves of the cauliflower which adds good texture. 4-5 green chillies chopped (optional) - For this version, use chilies that are less hot like jalapeños because you don't have oil to absorb the extra heat 1-inch ginger sliced and then chopped as sticks (optional) 3 tbsp black or brown mustard coarsely ground 2 tbsp red chilli powder 1 tsp turmeric powder 3 tbsp salt Method Bring a pot of salted water to boil and then add the cauliflower florets, carrots and turnips. If using the cauliflower stems, add them after 5 minutes, followed by the leaves. Switch off the heat and let the veggies stay in water for about 10 minutes. Drain the water and use the water to make veggie stock or soup later. Add the boiled florets, stems and leaves of the cauliflower in a bowl and then top them with carrots and turnips, green chillies and ginger (if using). Add salt, mustard, turmeric and red chilli powders and use your clean hands to nicely massage the vegetables and mix everything. Your hands have good bacteria too and that helps fermentation. You can of course use a clean and dry spoon to mix too! Pack tightly in sterile jars and leave aside for 2-3 hours or overnight. After 2 days at room temperature, you will need to store it in a refrigerator for an extended shelf life of this pickle. You may add a few squeezes of lime or vinegar too for increasing the shelf life. Enjoy with hot parathas or top it on some khichdi or notch up your salad with a helping of this pickle!

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe The concept of stuffing breads isn't unique to the Indian subcontinent. Whether they're cheese and spinach stuffed Turkish gözlemes, or m'semen from the Maghreb — popular in their traditional breakfast, or Afghani bolani filled with some combination of potatoes, cilantro, chives, pumpkin, green peppers and red lentils, or Mexican tortillas which become quesadillas when stuffed with cheese, spices and sometimes meat, or the green onion and cheese filled Azerbaijani qutabs or masu aluvi roshi from Maldives — flatbread stuffed with potatoes and cooked fish — or the many varieties of stuffed parathas in India, layers of dough oozing with fillings are universally delicious for the tongue and filling for the stomach. In my Methi Paratha post, flatbreads made with fenugreek leaves and spices kneaded in the dough, I explained about Indian parathas. The word paratha is derived from two Hindi words, parat (layers) and aata (flour or dough). A paratha, whether stuffed or not, is characterized by it's flaky layers, parats, which is achieved by kneading the dough with some fat like ghee and oil. Food author and historian, K.T Achaya in his book, 'A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food' has described paratha as "Wheat dough rolled out, with frequent folding over while smearing with fat, to a square or triangular shape, and pan fried using a little fat to a layered structure. Cauliflowers, potatoes, spinach and fenugreek or methi leaves can be mixed into dough before frying." Stuffed parathas are flatbreads where the dough is first rolled out a little bit or made into a an open pocket or pouch using one's fingers, the filling is stuffed inside and the pocket is closed, pinching off any extra dough that remains. This stuffed dough is again rolled out gently with some dustings of flour into a circular disc and roasted on a griddle with some fat like ghee or oil. As the weather cools down and winter strides in, I prefer parathas over rotis as these are more filling and the crispy layers of flour and stuffing are sumptuous in every bite. The smell of fat mingling into a paratha getting ready on the griddle makes my winter mornings warm and happy! With a big cup of chai, some pickle or chutney or yogurt, an entire meal comes together which is hearty and nourishing! The process for stuffed parathas For the dough: Mixing: Add the salt into the flour and mix with your clean hands. Next add fat. Using two types of fats ensures a crispy and flaky paratha but even if you use only one kind, it will still work. Then, add water in small doses (say for 1 cup of flour add about 1/3 cups of water intermittently till the dough comes together) and move your hands in circular motions in the bowl to mix water with the dough. Note: Sometimes, if I'm adding spices to the dough I mix them with the dough itself. For example, carom seeds. To make the dough more crispy, I sometimes add a little besan (gram flour). Combining: Bring together the flour to combine with water and form a roughly shaped ball. There's no kneading at this point of time. The aim is to form a pulpy ball of flour and clean the bowl of any remaining flour. Kneading: You may want to slightly wet your hands at this stage or apply some oil on your fingers to get rid of any dough sticking onto them. Now gently pat the dough and apply mild pressure on the dough with the heal of your hand (the portion where your palm ends and wrist begins), stretch it and fold it back. Continue this process until the dough is a smooth and soft ball but continues to a bit tight. It will take roughly 5 minutes. Do not overwork the dough. Resting: Cover with a clean cloth and let it rest for about 20 minutes before you start rolling it. Letting the dough rest helps it settle the moisture. When you rest the dough, it will automatically turn slightly softer. So, avoid making a very soft dough before resting. For the filling: If you want vegetables like cauliflowers, radish, potatoes, carrots or beets or any kind of meat or cheese, it'll be hard to knead them with the flour. Vegetables loose a lot of water on their own and will make the dough sticky and difficult to handle. Additionally, it will be much harder to roll this dough! However, green leafy vegetables like spinach and fenugreek leaves can be chopped fine and directly kneaded with the dough. You can also make puree of spinach leaves or boiled peas and knead that with the flour. The leaves become assimilated in the dough which is easy to roll and handle. A formula to make the filling! The key idea for a filling that's easy to handle while rolling the dough is to maintain similar consistencies for the filling and the dough. Ensure that the dough is soft but not watery, and the same for the filling. For vegetables like potatoes or peas, boil them until tender so that when poked with a fork, you can pierce them but the vegetables don't fall apart. For example, in a pressure cooker, you'd want to cook them for a maximum of 2 whistles. Cool and then mash. You can also grate boiled potatoes instead of mashing. Grating also helps create an easy-to-handle texture for the filling. For vegetables like cauliflowers, radish, carrots, bottle gourd or beets, grate them using the thicker side of the grater. Add salt to the grated vegetables and keep aside so that they loose excess water. After about 10-15 minutes, squeeze the veggies as much as you can with your hands or use a cheesecloth. (Use this water to later make dals, soups or stock!) For paneer or any kind of hard cheese, I prefer grating. For whole lentils like yellow moong or red masoor, boil the lentils to a consistency where they're tender and break between the tips of your fingers but still hold shape. Drain the lentils from water and keep aside ensuring excess moisture is evaporated. (Use this water to later make dals, soups or stock!) You can also roast them in a pan to make sure no water remains. Add spices into the grated or boiled vegetables or cheese or lentils. Typically, I add grated or chopped ginger, chopped green chilies and cilantro, roasted cumin and coriander powders, red chili powder, sometimes amchur (dried mango powder) and garam masala. Mix everything well and keep in mind that any extra moisture doesn't settle into the filling. For powdered lentils like sattu, roasted Bengal ram which is then ground coarse, add spices and a bit of oil and combine in pan. For stuffing and rolling the dough: You can pinch big lemon sized balls from the dough, shape it into a smooth sphere and then press it between your palms to flatten it into a medium thick disc. Now, slowly applying pressure on the sides of the disc, make it into an open pocket where you can stuff the filling and then close and pinch off extra dough. Otherwise, you can roll the lemon sized ball into a smaller medium thick disc using a rolling pin on a smooth clean surface. Then add spoonfuls of filling to this disc and pull the sides of the disc to the center on top of the filling. Holding all the extra dough in the center in your finger tips, twist the stuffed dough ball anti-clockwise, pinching off any extra dough. Once your dough is stuffed, put it back on the rolling surface, gently press with the tip of your fingers to flatten it and then use a rolling pin to roll into a bigger disc. While rolling, apply pressure on the sides than the center. If you maintained similar consistencies of the filling and the dough, your filling will get evenly distributed in the dough. Also, if you have well evaporated any extra moisture in the filling, your dough will not tear apart while rolling. For cooking: A paratha cooks best on medium to high heat. Begin by heating the griddle or tawa on medium heat for 5-7 minutes. Once hot, place the rolled paratha disc on the griddle and let the side underneath get roasted. You will notice the colour of the disc changing on the top surface and air pockets beginning to form. That's the time you flip the paratha using a spatula or tongs. Now smear oil on the surface facing up and let the other side get roasted. Flip again and smear oil on the other roasted side now. Gently press the sides, toss or flip once more before removing off the heat. Recipe A general recipe for making stuffed parathas with vegetables like boiled potatoes or grated cauliflower/radish or grated paneer. Did you check the process? Ingredients For the dough 2 cups whole wheat flour 1 tsp salt 2 tbsp gram flour (optional) ½ tsp carom seeds 2 tbsp ghee 2 tsp oil Water as required For the filling 2 large potatoes, boiled and grated or 2 cups cauliflower florets grated and squeezed to loose water or 1 medium sized white radish peeled, grated and squeezed to loose water or 200 gm paneer grated or 3/4 cup moong or masoor dal boiled and water drained 1 small onion chopped fine (optional) Spices: 1 inch ginger, grated or chopped fine 2-3 green chillies, finely chopped 1 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped Salt to taste ½ tsp coriander powder ½ tsp cumin powder 1 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp garam masala (optional) ¼ tsp amchur powder (optional) For roasting the parathas Ghee or oil as required Method Make the dough In a large bowl, add whole wheat flour, gram flour and ghee and/or oil. Mix well and form a crumb like mixture. Add water as required and knead a soft dough. Cover with a muslin cloth and set aside for 20 to 30 minutes or till in use. Make the stuffing Add boiled potatoes or lentils/grated cauli or radish or paneer, onion, green chilli, fresh coriander, salt, coriander powder, chilli powder, cumin powder, garam masala, and amchur powder. Mix well and keep aside. If using lentils, roast them with the spices in a pan to ensure all water has evaporated. Fill the stuffing into the paratha Divide the prepared dough into equal portions and form small lemon sized balls. Using a a rolling pin, roll a ball into a flat disc and add about 2 tbsp of the prepared stuffing in the center. Carefully bring the edges of the disc to the center and cover the stuffing to form a pocket, pinching off the excess dough as you close it into a ball again. Roll back into a disc applying gentle pressure on the sides. Roast the paratha Heat a griddle and add the prepared stuffed paratha. Let the side facing the griddle get roasted for about 30 seconds. You will notice the top of the paratha, the side facing up change colour. Flip and brush oil or ghee on the roasted face. You will notice brown spots on the roasted side of the paratha. Continue roasting the other side for 30 seconds and then flip and apply ghee or oil to the roasted side. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the rest of the parathas. Serve with pickles and yogurt or cubes of butter!

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe S, my husband has been coaxing me for a while to post this recipe — a simple pulao made with some rice, a handful of peas and a few chunks of paneer. With few spices at disposal and a solid Dutch oven or pressure cooker, it takes about 30 minutes to make this pulao. As soon as the rice settles in the pot, plates are served with heaps of sunflower yellow rice and crispy edged paneer, and green sweet peas shine amidst all the glory. A bowl of yogurt on the side is sufficient for S to be in la la land! In my childhood, I grew up eating a slightly different version of this pulao, chhena palau, that my mother made. After paneer was generously used in sweet making and tossed over gravies, the remains were usually cooked with rice and whatever vegetables were lying partially-used in the refrigerator. But, in S's house, this pulao is specifically cooked as a special meal. It won't be a folly to say paneer is a celebratory ingredient in their cooking, especially for families who are based in Delhi than Uttarakhand. So, when I cook it on a usual weekday, S's joys see no bound. On every phone call that he would make that day, whether it's his mom in India or brother in the US, he will not forget to declare, "Today is matar paneer pulao day!" I still can't fathom his craze for it, although I find these antics quite cute. :) For me, this pulao is about Aunty P, our cook and house help when my in-laws lived in Delhi. Every time our flight landed in India from any corner of the world, I knew the next day's lunch menu beforehand. There would be chole, a seasonal vegetable cooked as bhuna, a chutney, raita or achar, many rounds of rotis, and a giant pot of matar paneer pulao. "Bacchon ko pasand hai na", "the children like it", Aunty P would say, releasing the valve of the pressure cooker to serve the pulao, making it clear that for the upcoming couple of weeks, food will be of utmost priority. While S and his brother are prime devotees of paneer, Aunty P was quick to recognize I love the dals and vegetables equally. The first time I met her as a newly married bride, she had asked, "Didi, aapko kya pasand hai? Wo banayenge aaj", "What do you like? We will cook that today." I can't say S's home in India was totally unfamiliar to me but there were some intangible feelings of newness slowly moving within, like droplets trickling from railings after a downpour. Those feelings weren't necessarily uncomfortable rather just natural, like all feelings are, and there was something guileless about the way Aunty P asked that question which pulled me a step closer to where I had come to believe would be another home. What followed was a dialogue of some personal exchanges on our foods and habits, and how my mother makes this pulao. Sipping the first cuppa of chai in the morning, I watched her chop and dice vegetables, wash and soak rice, sauté the masala, clean the utensils, boil the dal, and do hundreds of other chores in the kitchen before getting ready to sweep the house clean. "Then let's make the pulao like your mom", she smiled. "Nah, let's make it your way. I want to watch." Ever since, I make it the way Aunty P makes it, with a few additions like star anise and occasional onions. Food is somehow always connected to memories for me, dishes jotted in my mind like Matryoshka dolls, spread in many layers. Matar paneer pulao is as much Aunty P's banter and her love for the children of the house she took care of deeply, as it is mother's flair to turn things around in a pot and churn something delicious with leftovers. Mostly it's an undertone of the mundane beauty of marriage, partnership and togetherness for me, narrating how something that's trifling for years can become out-of-the-ordinary, things that may not matter start to make a difference. So, this dish may not be the cynosure of all eyes and perhaps appears on every other Google search result. But it matters here — in this space I call Roz ka Khana on my blog, a journal of trifling things in my kitchen, a little something that means the world to S. This is Not a Biryani I hold my biryanis very close to my heart, and I believe in the slow cooked process and stages involved in it. So, this is not a biryani. It's a pulao, and calling it biryani would be sacrilegious! Having said that, I love all sorts of pulao too, and in the context of everyday home cooking pulao is far more common than biryani. There are some elaborate ones, but this one specifically is quite easy to make and involves very few ingredients. The most important difference between a biryani and pulao is that, biryani is usually cooked with the draining method and pulao is cooked using an absorption method of rice. So, for a biryani, soaking and draining the water is vital. In the pakki biryani method, as used in the dum pukht style from Lucknow, soaked and drained rice is half cooked and then drained again. This rice is further cooked with the meat or vegetables. In the kacchi biryani method, rice is soaked and drained, and then cooked with the meat or vegetables. Most recipes, especially those involving yakhni, will call for a flavoured stock. Secondly, the aromatics and spices are relatively more than what's used in a pulao. Say what I may, everyone is entitled to their opinion. So, if this works as a biryani for someone, I wouldn't take offence. :) Pulao and Absorption Method of Cooking Rice Pulao on the other hand is cooked with the absorption technique of cooking rice. Rice is washed and cleaned, but not soaked and drained or half cooked and then added. Some recipes of pulao may call for soaking of rice, but half cooking rice and draining the water to cook it again with meat or vegetables is not done in a pulao. Carry-over cooking is extremely relevant in an absorption method of cooking rice. About 10% of the cooking including absorption of the water takes place once the heat is turned off. So, once the rice is cooked, it must be allowed to cool in the same pot with its lid on to allow the remnant cooking to happen in the residual steam and create uniformly cooked rice grains that hold their shape and are not mushy. This cool-off time is important in a biryani too. Pro Tip Many people don't wash the rice while making a pulao. I do that if I'm fully aware of the source of rice. Living in cities, it's not always possible to know where the grains are sourced from. So, I prefer to wash the rice well before cooking. Since, we directly cook rice with the meat or vegetables, chopping the vegetables uniform in size is important for even cooking. For this specific recipe, there aren't any vegetables. I only use green peas (frozen or fresh depending on the season) and paneer. I shallow fry the paneer before hand so that it holds its shape while it sits in the pot of cooking rice. The ratio of water is important in a pulao because too much water will result in a mushy mish-mash of rice and less water will leave the rice slightly hard and uncooked. I typically use long grain white Basmati for this recipe, which needs about 2.25 cups of water for every 1 cup of rice, and cooks in about 15-17 minutes. Once I cover the lid and leave it to cook on low flame, I set a timer for 15 mins and then switch off the heat and let the rice cool off with the lid on for next 2-3 mins to ensure remnant cooking in the residual steam. My golden ratios for rice to water that work for me when cooking by the pulao method: Long grain white rice: 1:2.25 to 1:2.5 Short grain white rice: 1:2 to 1:1:25 Brown rice or any kind of unpolished rice like red rice: 1:3 to 1:3.5 Note: When cooking rice with vegetables or meat, I add slightly more water, and hence the measurement ratios are a range and not just one. Recipe Did you read the pro-tip? Ingredients 1/2 cup long grained rice like Basmati (or any other tice of your choice - see pro tip above for rice type and water ratios), washed and kept aside 150-200 gm paneer sliced into cubes 1/4 to 1/2 cup peas (depending on how much peas you like or if you're using some other vegetable in combination) 1 tsp ghee plus 1/2 tsp oil (and extra if needed) Whole spices for fragrance: 1/4 tsp caraway seeds (optional), 1-2 bay leaves, 2-3 cloves, 1 star anise, 1-inch cinnamon, 2-3 green cardamoms 1/2 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp ginger-garlic paste (optional) 1 green chili, slit slightly (optional, avoid if you don't want a spicy note) 1 small onion or a quarter of a large onion, chopped finely (optional) 1/4 tsp turmeric 1/4 tsp red chili powder 1/4 tsp coriander powder 1/4 tsp garam masala 2 tsp salt, or to taste fresh cilantro leaves to garnish Method In a tall pot or Dutch oven or kadhai (should have a tight fitting lid), heat ghee and oil on medium to low flame. Once hot, add the paneer cubes and lightly toss them on two sides until golden. This will take about 3-4 minutes. Remove the golden cubes and keep aside In the same pot or kadhai, add a tsp more oil if needed, and then add all the whole spices. Toss them around till fragrant (less than a minute), and then add cumin and green chili (if using). Reduce the heat to avoid burning, and immediately add ginger garlic paste if using. Cook till their raw smell disappears — this will take about a minute. Next add onions if using. Once onions turn pinkish to golden in colour, add the rice and toss along with the onions. Sauté for 1-2 minutes and add the peas. Continue sautéing and add turmeric, red chili and coriander powder. Sauté till the masalas are cooked — about 3-4 minutes. Add 1.25 cups (1 cup + 1/4 cup) of water, salt and give a good mix. Add the shallow fried pieces of paneer, cover and cook on low heat for 13-15 minutes. You can open the lid once in a while to check on the rice. Once done, switch off the stove and take the vessel/pot off it. With the lid still on, let the rice cool don for 2-3 minutes. Open and garnish with fresh cilantro. Note: If using a pressure cooker, cook on medium to high heat for 1 whistle, and then on medium to low heat for another whistle. Take the cooker off the heat, and let the steam release naturally. Serve hot with a bowl of yogurt whisked with grated cucumber and salt or roasted and pounded cumin and salt and a drizzle of fresh herbs. You can also some pomegranate jewels or boondi.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe Did you read creamy in the title, and thought of turning away from this recipe? Wait then. It's not what you think. There's no load of cream or butter in this dish. Some healthy yogurt (plant based if vegan) with a few cashews is all you need to stir up vegetables of your choice! Lunch times in schools and offices in India have a special place in my memory. Friends and colleagues always had something new in their dabba (lunchbox), and I was eager to share my food with them and have a taste of their meals. Back in Bombay when I started my first job, we were a small group of people who ate lunch together. Everyone's lunchbox was a delight but A's vegetarian dabba was one of its kind. His mom made everything without any onion or garlic, and oh boy they tasted so good! Whether sautéed greens or vegetables or creamy sauces, they smelled extremely inviting. It's hard to put into words how amazing his mom's skills are when creating Indian dishes that had no onions or garlic! We had a sandwich shack just outside office and on days when I didn't pack my lunchbox, I bought something from there. On countless days A traded his dabba with me for those sandwiches! You bet I called him crazy! Many cookbooks and Indian cooking recipes will call for onions and tomatoes in the gravies. While both ingredients provide the base for the broth into which spices are tossed and blended, they're not the only elements to do so. You can cook an Indian gravy without any onions and tomatoes, or garlic — another sought ingredient to bring a pungent note in gravies. As a matter of fact, several Indian communities such as the Jains, like the one A belongs to, never use onions or garlic in their gravies. In Odisha, where I grew up it's common to not have onion and garlic in many food preparations, especially the food that's offered in temples and prepared at homes as part of religious or spiritual beliefs on certain days of the week. While I'm not tied to the religion aspect so much, I find cooking Indian food without onions and garlic a welcoming change from the standard. Yogurt, coconut milk and nuts are quite handy when you want to prepare a healthy creamy gravy. The age old Mughlai qorma is an example of how beautifully yogurt can be assimilated in a dish, and it's also a precedent to many vegetarian versions of some popular non-vegetarian recipes. This vegetable ensemble surely draws from the classic qorma, which is a Persian technique of braising meat with yogurt. Contrary to popular opinion, gravies without onion and garlic taste great and you'll be amazed with the time saved in the kitchen when you don't have to chop onions or peel garlic! Although many Indian families prefer cooking such dishes for meals used to end fasts (fasting days are usually associated with eating food with no onion or garlic), I'm not attached to any religious ideologies. For me it's a complete meal on it's own as the yogurt (which also adds a good sour tone) and cashews provide the protein and fat while the veggies fulfill the micronutrient needs. With a rice dish or some flatbread on the side, weekday meals get done effortlessly! Pro Tip: One of the best and easiest ways to use leftover vegetables is perhaps making a mixed vegetable stir fry or gravy. There are several ways to make mixed vegetables in India, and no one variety can summarize them all. If you want to make this dish like a stir fry, skip using the yogurt and cashews paste. For a vegan preparation, choose your favourite dairy free yogurt. If you've run out of yogurt or don't want to use it, you can use coconut milk as well. You can also skip yogurt and use tomatoes instead for sourness. The flavours will definitely vary with the alterations, each bringing its uniqueness to your plate and palate alike. Recipe Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 1/4 cup each of carrot sliced, beans chopped large, potatoes wedged, bell pepper chopped large, cauliflower florets and green peas (feel free to use other vegetables of your choice) 2 tbsp oil Whole spices: 1 cinnamon, 2 cloves, 2 green cardamoms 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp ginger paste or minced 1 green chili, finely chopped 3 tbsp yogurt of any kind (vegan yogurt or tomato paste to make it dairy free) Note: All Indian gravies aren't full of sauce. Some dishes have the sauce just enough to coat the ingredients, and this mixed vegetable preparation has a similar texture. You can double the quantity of yogurt (or tomato paste) to make more gravy if you like. 1 tsp coriander powder 1/2 tsp red chili powder 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 4-5 cashews, roughly crushed or ground 1 tsp salt, or to taste Fresh cilantro to serve Method In a wok or pan, heat oil on medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the whole spices. Once fragrant, add the cumin, ginger and green chilies. Reduce the heat slightly and add potatoes. Sauté for about 3-4 minutes and then add cauliflower. Toss for the next 3 minutes and add carrots. After 3 minutes, add the beans and once the beans are sautéed for 3 minutes, add the bell pepper. Add the peas on top and stir to mix. Keep the heat at medium to low, and in a bowl whisk coriander, chili and turmeric powder, ground cashews into the yogurt along with some salt. Pour this mixture over the vegetables and stir continuously for about a minute on low heat. After 10 minutes, the spices will be slowly cooked with the yogurt. Add some water, about 1/3 cup, cover and cook till the vegetables are tender and well cooked yet hold their shape. You can open the lid in between to check for doneness. Add more salt if needed, and stir to combine. Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipes Bhendi Khatta | Bhindi Bhaji | Bendekayi Kayirasa or Huli Okra (or Lady's Finger in English speaking countries) rules my palate till date. I have great fondness for this vegetable and adore the textures it can lend to different kinds of preparations. From stir fries and stuffed preparations to soups, stews and gravies, everything is possible with okra. It can float in a bowl of lentils, like sambar, or shine on its own as crispy kurkuri bhindi. Okra has a long and old history, one that has disputed origins in West Africa, Ethiopia and South Asia. In India, you will find okra in a restaurant's menu, usually as a masala coated Bhindi Do Pyaza or Bhindi Masala, and not as a dish that has soupy or flowy consistencies. Why? Most people can't look past the sliminess, mucilaginous nature, inherent in okra. Okra, the vegetable Okra shares its space with economically important members of the Malvaceae family, or the mallows, like cotton, cacao and durian. It's an inseparable part of the cuisine of India, and Southern United States where okra seeds travelled from Africa through the Trans Atlantic slave trade. The word okra is derived from the Igbo word, ọ́kụ̀rụ̀, that the Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria speak. Okra is also referred as Gumbo in American vernacular or Louisiana creole, although gumbo is a term for soups or other dishes containing okra. Gumbo also originates from the African vernacular, the Umbundu (one of the many Bantu languages of Angola) word ochinggômbo precisely, and is also believed to be a "Portuguese corruption, quingombo, of the word quillobo, native name for the plant in the Congo and Angola area of Africa." Although some geobotanists and food historians claim okra's origins in the "Abyssinian center of origin of cultivated plants," an area between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some believe that it has origins in parts of India, I lean towards Manoshi Bhattacharya's write-up, A short history of how Indians came to eat bhindi for okra's connection with India. Bhattacharya says, "We have no evidence of our Harappans eating bhindi masala and so must assume that it was introduced later by the Arabs or African sailors. Strange, that the Spanish Moor traveler thought it novel enough to merit documentation a 100 years after the "lotus of the earth" tucked into his early Hyderabadi dahi bhindi." Britishers, who ruled the Indian sub-continent for 300 years and owned many American colonies where Africans were enslaved, never developed a taste for bhindi, okra's Hindi name. Bhattacharya further writes, "Despite the close relations with their American colony, the British did not develop a taste for bhindi or, as they called them, lady’s fingers. Those serving in British India often railed against the only two summer vegetables, bhindi and parwal, available in the early 1900s – "the tasteless garbage that garnishes the monsoon mourghee (fowl). It would have taken a very frustrated khansama who, forced by necessity, reduced his bhindi gosht to steamed mucilaginous bhindi atop the Sunday roast." The variety of okra that grows in India is slender, with a darker green shade than its other counterparts. It has many regional names: Bhindi in Hindi, Bhendi in Odia and Marathi, Dherosh in Bengali, Bhinda in Gujarati, Bendekayi in Kannada and Tulu, Vendakka in Malayalam, Vendakai in Tamil and so on. Dealing with the slime A good source of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants, okra's benefits lay in its slime, the mucilage that contains soluble fiber when the pods of the plant are cooked. Cooking okra with an acidic agent such as tomatoes, sour curd, tamarind, etc. helps tackle the slime and renders a luscious soupy, almost gravy like texture in dishes. If you have shied from cooking okra in broths or stews thinking that it's going to be disgusting, you're perhaps not using the right accompaniment! Using starchy items such as rice flour or gram flour also helps bind the sliminess in okra and creates interesting textures while adding flavour to the dish. Bhendi Khatta If you have read my Roz ki Bhindi post, okra stir fry, you'd know the age old iron wok my mother has and how she has been churning out the crispiest okra from it for years. While crispy okra undoubtedly is easy to love, okra in a soup or gravy is usually frowned upon. Reason? The obvious mucilage. The easiest way to get rid off the stickiness in okra is to lightly fry it. It doesn't always have to be crispy or batter coated or masala loaded to render something delicious. Gently fry the okra for about 10-15 minutes, and then add it to any gravy or sauce you have going on the side. Quick and easy, and a welcoming change from the same old bhindi fry! I love many soupy okra dishes, but this Odiya style Bhendi Khatta is my earliest memory of okra floating in a sour soup. In Odia, khatta literally means sour. Food preparations which are pronouncedly sour are also called khatta. Nomenclature in Odia cuisine is straightforward that way. There are other sour preparations as well such as kanji, charu and ambila, although these are usually tangy (combination of sweet, sour and tart) than utterly sour. While kanji, charu and ambila are light soupy in texture, a khatta can be soupy, thin gravy-like or a mushy like a chutney. So, kanji, charu and ambila can be thought as varieties of khatta but not the other way around. To make a khatta, you either need the primary ingredient to be sour or you need a steady souring agent to lend sharp acidity to the primary ingredient. Consider the classic Odia tamata khatta, which is nothing but chopped tomatoes tempered with spices like pancha phutana and cooked into a mash or an oou khatta where crushed elephant apple pieces are boiled in water with salt and turmeric and then tempered with pancha phutana and dry red chilies. But a khatta is not always dependent on the central ingredient to be sour. For example, this bhendi khatta or sour okra. To render sour notes to a dish, the Odia pantry relies on the following: Unripe mango when in season Dried mango kernels or ambula Sour curd Fermented rice water or torani Fresh bamboo shoots or Karadi Dried bamboo shoots or Hendua Different types of local limes and oranges Tamarind Tomatoes When making a bhendi khatta, I prefer unripe mangoes, sour curd, tamarind or tomatoes, and depending on the availability and seasonality, I choose the souring agent. A paste or bata made with mustard seeds and garlic adds a nice punch to a sour okra preparation and is usually a constant in most of my okra dishes that have gravy. During summer, raw mangoes and tomatoes are at their best, and I prefer them as souring agents for the bhendi khatta. While the raw mangoes are usually hard to get by in Whitehorse, homegrown local tomatoes are abundant. Serve with rice, dal and some salad on the side. Your summer day is all set, I promise! Pro Tip While the mustard paste is key to the characteristic taste of this khatta, don't add a ton of it. You want a light kick from the mustard and let the tomatoes lend their sweet tart taste. This balance is the only thing needed for this recipe! Go to recipe >> Bhindi Bhaji I can't recall how Ne and I became friends amidst the twenty odd students in the post graduation IT batch at college. Although, I precisely recall how I relished her lunch dabbas. Packed with extra chapatis, which would be layered, and even extra bhaji (vegetables in Marathi), her tiffin smelled of home. Until I met N, I used to think I eat at an extremely slow pace but she put my proclamation at rest! I can guarantee that most of the time, I'd have eaten half her bhaji while she would be at her fifth morsel. Don't ask about my dabba. That would have been over even sooner. Of the many delicious things in Ne's lunchbox, her mom's bhendi chi bhaji has remained special in my memories. My mom rarely, almost never, added tomatoes or coconut to okra stir fry while Ne's mom always did. In my home tomatoes usually met okra in a gravy. And, here was this bhindi sabzi – okra stir fried separately turned soft with an onion-tomato masala, cooked with a tempering of cumin, mustard and curry leaves, sautéed with asafoetida, turmeric, green chilies and some dry masalas and topped with grated coconut and fresh coriander leaves in the end. I'm salivating already! If you will ask about the dry masalas, Ne's mom will say "as per your choice." Saee Koranne-Khandekar says in her book, Pangat: A Feast – Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens, that "every region and every community in Maharashtra adds a unique dimension to the basic concept of stuffed brinjals, bharli vaangi, to make it an entirely new dish. If you're from Pune, you'll add goda masala and if you're from Kolhapur, you'll add kaanda-lasun masala; if you're from the Konkan, you'll add coconut and if you're from Nagpur, you'll use peanuts or sesame seeds instead." Saee's explanation for bharli vaangi and N's mom's directions to use dry masalas as per your choice share an analogy. While Ne's mom's recipe uses coconut, other variations of the Maharashtrian bhendi bhaji may use powdered peanuts or sesame seeds. When I lived in Bombay, I had easy access to a variety of Marathi masalas, and any of those works well for this recipe. However, now that I live in Canada, and the only Marathi masala I sometimes make is Goda Masala, I prefer using simpler spice blends like coriander-cumin and a pinch of garam masala in the end. I also like to add ginger-garlic to this recipe at times. Everything that lends a distinct character to this bhaji is the technique and the trinity of onion, tomatoes and coconut. You must fry the okra until it loses its sliminess as much as possible and prepare the masala in another pan on the side. Once, the okra is about to turn crisp, we stop and wait to add it to the masala that's getting ready. Pro Tip The fastest way to make this bhaji is to have two pans going at the same time. Fry the okra in one and make the masala in the other. Once okra loses its mucilage, add it to the masala and cook further. Go to recipe >> Bendekayi Kayirasa or Huli You know how they tell you that colleagues can't be friends? It's not true or at least hasn't been for me. Most of my close friendships in my adult life were forged in workplaces and fortunately they're not water under the bridge today. Sh happens to be one such friend of mine, my then team lead, super woman, a hard core romantic and someone who always feels like family. On a languid afternoon here in Canada, when I was on the verge of dozing off on the couch post a sumptuous homemade Kannadiga Oota (Kannada meal), reminiscing many lunch-out-today days in Bangalore exploring Uttara Kannada, Karwar, Kodava, Udipi, Mangalore, Maland, Mandya, Dakshina Kannada, and other regional cuisines, my mind lingered a bit more on the bendekayi huli, a tangy sweet spicy okra preparation from the Kannada cuisine. I quickly text Sh in India, knowing well that the night owl would be up. "Huli means sour in Kannada, no?" There's no delay in her response. "Yes. Anything sour. How you'd say khatta in Hindi." "I have seen some call the bhindi huli as bhindi sambar. Now I'm confused." "Yes, if you make it with dal. Mostly tur dal. Else, just huli." "I also add coconut and jaggery. Just the way some communities in Karnataka do. Is it still huli then?" "Some will call this version kayirasa, Lopa. Kayi = coconut and rasa = gravy in Kannada." I dwell on the rasa a bit, thinking of rasam and the rasa theory between our textual chat. Sh further tells me about Govinda Vaidya, a poet in Wodeyar king Kanteerva Narasa Rajendra Vijaye's court who described huli as tur dal cooked with vegetables having the sourness of tamarind, sweetness of jaggery and coconut. " Many sources hold huli as a precursor to sambar, although the Thanjavur sambar story associated with Sambhaji and the Maharashtrian amti is a bough of its own, and there's no dearth to articles like this one that speak about the variety of sambars in South India and some like this one that explore the origins. I like to think of both kayirasa and huli as mediums to add bursts of flavours, not as types of sambars necessarily, although you could add liquid dal and make them so. If you've ever been to a traditional Kannadiga festivity like a wedding, you must have tasted a kayirasa, referred as a gojju sometimes. A kayirasa or huli in a Kannada meal is akin to a rasam in a Tamil meal, a dish that boosts our taste buds, a flavour enhancer. The name of this dish sums it up. It's okra cooked with coconut, jaggery and tamarind with spices like coriander, red chili and ginger. There's no podi, spice blend powder, a fresh paste of spices, tamarind and coconut that's added to the stir fried or boiling okra, and a hint of jaggery to balance everything. Pro Tip Some don't prefer the boiled okra in this recipe. But let me tell you, don't take the 'boiling' too literally. Cut the okra in 1.5 to 2 inch pieces which will ensure less of the mucilage while boiling, and let it boil for about 5-7 minutes. That should be enough. If you're still not convinced, stir fry the okra separately. Fine! But don't fry it crisp please. Fry it only till the slime subsides and then stop. Go to recipe >> Recipes Bhendi Khatta with Tomatoes Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 200 gm okra 2 tsp mustard seeds or 2 tsp mustard powder 4-5 garlic pods or 1 tsp garlic paste 1 dry red chilies or 1/2 tsp red chili powder 1 tbsp oil 1/2 tsp pancha phutana (equal quantities of mustard, cumin, fenugreek, fennel and nigella seeds) 1/4 tsp turmeric 1 tomato, chopped 1-2 green chillies, chopped 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Soak mustard seeds with 2-3 garlic pods and 1 dry red chili in warm water and keep aside or mix mustard powder with garlic paste and red chili powder and keep aside. Chop the remaining garlic pods. Wash and dry the okra with a kitchen towel. Chop into 1.5 long inches. Do not chop them fine. If you're using small okra, you may just chop off the tips and use the okra whole else cut them into 2-3 parts each at max. Heat 1/2 tbsp oil in a pan and add the okra into it. Add some salt and sauté till the sliminess subsides. It will take about 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile make a paste of the ingredients in step one. If using raw mustard seeds and garlic pods, grind into a fine paste. Remove the okra from the pan and keep aside. Add the remaining oil and temper with pancha phutana and chopped garlic pods. Add the tomatoes and green chilies and sauté. Add turmeric and mix to combine. Cover and cook for 5 minutes to soften the tomatoes. Open and add the mustard-garlic-chili paste and mix for about 20-30 seconds. Add the okra and mix to combine. Add water depending on how much gravy you want. For 200 gms of okra, it will be somewhere around 1/2 cup or a bit more. Let it come to a boil and then allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes before turning off the heat. Notes: If using raw mango, grind 3-4 slices of raw mango with 1/2 inch ginger, 1/4 tsp cumin and 1 green chili. Use this paste instead of or along with the mustard paste. If using sour curd, whisk the curd with a little besan (gramflour) and add it to the pan instead of the water and keep stirring. You may cook the okra with the mustard paste or not use the mustard paste at all. Curry leaves along with pancha phutana and dry red chili in the tempering will add a nice aroma in both these versions. If using karadi (dry bamboo shoots), soak it for a few minutes to soften. Add it to the pan when you add tomatoes. Maharashtrian Style Bhindi Bhaji Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 500 gm okra/lady's finger, chopped thin 1 medium onion, finely chopped 1 medium tomato, finely chopped 2 tbsp oil 1/4 tsp cumin seeds 1/4 tsp mustard seeds 5-7 curry leaves 1 green chili chopped (optional) 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste or roughly pounded (optional) 1 tsp turmeric 1/4 tsp asafoetida or heeng 1 + 1/2 tsp any Marathi Masala like Goda Masala, Kaanda-Lasun Masala, Koli Masala etc. or 1 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp red chili powder and 1/4 tsp garam masala 1 tsp salt, or to taste 2 tbsp grated coconut freshly chopped cilantro Method Heat a pan or kadhai on medium heat, and add 1 tbsp oil. Once the oil is hot, add okra. Sauté for a few seconds, and then let the okra simmer on medium to low heat. Stir in between while you chop the onions and tomatoes. Once the okra begin to turn crisp, their edges will start browning, remove from the pan and keep aside. In the same pan, add the remaining oil, and then add cumin and mustard seeds. Just when they crackle, add the curry leaves. Stir and add the onion. Sauté and let the onions turn pink. Add ginger-garlic if using, and continue sautéing until the onions turn brownish. Add turmeric, asafoetida and green chili if using, and stir to combine. If not using any Marathi masala, add the coriander, cumin and chili powders and cook the masala for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes and continue stirring. Let the tomatoes turn soggy and tender. Smash and mix to combine everything and let the mixture simmer till you see oil oozing on the sides. Add the garam masala or the Marathi masala and salt, and give a good mix. Add the fried okra to the onion tomato masala and stir to combine. Adjust salt if needed and increase the heat slightly. Cook on medium to high flame for 4-5 minutes so that the okra gets crispier. Top with coconut and fresh cilantro. Mix and switch off the heat and serve hot! Bendekayi Kayirasa or Huli Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 500 - 700 gms okra or lady's finger, washed, dried and cut into 1.5 to 2 inches 1 tbsp oil (coconut or any other as you may wish) Konkani community in Karnataka typically makes it with coconut oil For the spice paste: 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 tbsp mustard seeds 4-5 whole dried red chilies 1/2 cup grated coconut 1 tsp turmeric powder lime sized ball of tamarind, seeds removed For tempering: 1/2 inch ginger chopped a pinch of red chili powder 2 tsp salt or to taste small cube or jaggery or 2-3 tsp jaggery powder or according to taste Method In a pan, heat 1/2 tbsp oil and add fenugreek, coriander and mustard seeds. Let them sputter and then add the whole dried red chilies. Stir and let the chilies puff up. Add the grated coconut, turmeric and some salt and stir again. Just when the coconut starts changing its colour, switch off the heat. Set the pan aside to cool down. In a pot, heat water and then add the okra along with some salt. Let the okra boil for 5-7 minutes or until it's half done. Or Stir fry the okra just so much that it loses its sliminess. Make a paste of the roasted spices and coconut by adding some water if needed and then add it to the okra. Mix well so that the paste coats the okra. Cover and cook for the next 10 minutes. You may add water if you want a thinner gravy. In a tadka pan or a single-egg fry pan, heat remaining oil, and add ginger and red chili powder. Swirl the pan and as the chili powder turns deeper in colour, pour the tempering into the okra cooking with the coconut spice paste. Stir to combine and let the mixture simmer. Add jaggery and mix again. Taste and adjust salt as needed. Switch off once done. Serve with hot rice or rotis.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipes Chana Dal Lauki | Sorakaya Paalu Koora | Chorakaa Pulissery | Sookhi Lauki Sabzi Another summer vegetable which I love is bottle gourd, also known as calabash. One of the oldest cultivated vegetables, bottle gourd is native to the subcontinent like many of the Asian and African gourds. While its texture and flavour make it suitable for multiple preparations, from savoury to sweet, it still remains amongst the least favourite vegetables. You will hardly find it on a restaurant's menu or Indian cookbooks unless it's made into a kofta, similar to a meatball, and doused in a ton of gravy. Although, widely made in Indian homes, it's often spurned. After my post on bitter gourd, I bring bottle gourd to the forefront along with four easy and interesting recipes to cook it! Bottle Gourd, the vegetable As per the research article, Transoceanic drift and the domestication of African bottle gourds in the Americas, "Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) was one of the first domesticated plants, and the only one with a global distribution during pre-Columbian times. Although native to Africa, bottle gourd was in use by humans in east Asia, possibly as early as 11,000 y ago (BP) and in the Americas by 10,000 BP. Despite its utilitarian importance to diverse human populations, it remains unresolved how the bottle gourd came to be so widely distributed, and in particular how and when it arrived in the New World." Lagenaria is a genus of gourd bearing vines in the squash family, Cucurbitaceae, and it contains six species, all indigenous to Africa and also known to have long existed in Asia. Bottle gourd is the siceraria species of the Lagenaria genus, and is the only one that's cultivated. In fact, bottle gourd or calabash was first cultivated to make bottles and musical instruments This gourd comes in various shapes and sizes, and has many regional names in India. Lauki, ghia, doodhi in Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi and other north and western Indian languages, lau in Bengali and Odia, sorakaya in Telugu, chorakaa in Malayalam and so on. Extremely to digest, bottle gourd is truly a wonder vegetable because you can create as simple or complicated dishes with it. It's full of health benefits which adds a reason on why you should include it in your diet. In today's post, I'm focusing on simple recipes though. Chana Dal Lauki This is the most ubiquitous bottle gourd preparation you will find in many regions across the northern-western half of India, including Punjab, Gujarat, and parts of Maharashtra. Bottle gourd is cooked with Bengal gram (chana dal) along with some basic spices like turmeric, coriander and red chili. Chopped tomatoes or jaggery can lend some sweet-sour acidic tones. Since the gourd itself is quite soft and may not retain its texture upon high pressure or extended cooking, chana dal helps provide a stew like consistency to the dish. The dal also adds the protein quotient, and when served with a carb like rice or roti, a wholesome meal is ready. Chana dal also has a slightly nutty meaty quotient in it, and when paired with bottle gourd, which is neutral to sweet in its flavour profile, the dish is balanced and tasty. In the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, you will find a similar version of chana dal lauki, in stews which are known as koottu. A koottu has lentils (dal) added to vegetables, and usually has coconut although coconut is not mandatory. It's not as watery as a sambar and not dry like a stir fry dish such as a thoran or poriyal. The lentils commonly used in a koottu are hurled yellow split moong dal, hurled white split urad dal or tur dal. I grew up eating this dish owing to the influence of Punjabi neighbours, and my mother's attitude towards developing divergent tastes in our home cooking. It was also a welcoming change from the lau-chingudi (bottle gourd with shrimp) and lau bati basa (bottle gourd cooked in a small vessel or pan with a hint of mustard paste, minimum or no water and steamed in it's own juices), which are more common bottle gourd preparations in Odia households. In my home, it's considered as a vegetable side dish than a dal. It's common to serve it with rice or roti and an additional stir fried vegetable. Pro Tip This dish is a vegetable preparation more than a dal. So, the quantity of dal is less as compared to the gourd. Although, you may make it with more dal. The ratio I usually follow is: for 1 cup of chopped bottle gourd, I use 1/4 cup dal. In the absence of chana dal, you can use split yellow moong dal or tur dal. These dals cook faster and may not hold their texture as a chana dal. Nevertheless, they taste great with bottle gourd. You may or may not use onions and garlic in this recipe. These are completely optional ingredients. If you want to make this as a koottu, first make a paste of coconut, green chillies and cumin seeds along with some water, then temper hot oil with urad dal, dry red chilies, curry leaves and asafoetida, add the bottle gourd, the dal (yellow split chana or moong) plus turmeric with salt and sauté, add the coconut-cumin-green-chillies paste and mix. Add water and pressure cook. Go to recipe >> Sorakaya Paalu Posina Koora Southern Odisha shares its borders with Andhra Pradesh, and the district of Ganjam in the south-eastern fringe, especially has a connection with Telugu food and culture, which is as old as the Nolia fishing community who have a Telugu origin, and continue to speak Telugu even today, and the Telugu Lengayat Dera weaver community who moved to Mohuri and Berhampur on being invited by the Mohuri king and settled to create the famous silk sarees, the Berhampuri patta. My parents' have their roots in Berhampur city of Ganjam, which was a small town in the past. Needless to say, the Telugu influence in their food is palpable. I have spent many summer vacations with my sisters jaunting along the narrow lanes between my grandparents' houses and their Telugu neighbours, smelling mustard, chana dal, urad dal, dry red chilies and curry leaves bloomed in hot oil, tasting tamarind based sauces and stews and chilies soaked in curd, and savouring multiple versions of pappus (dals) and kooras (gravies having no dals). I wouldn't say it's easy to fall in love with those cramped streets and the obnoxious humidity, and the often loud and seemingly rude bawls from people passing by or selling flowers, vegetables, fish and whatnot. For someone who comes from outside, which I think I am too in many ways, I will understand if they don't adore the city at first sight. However, over a few visits, you develop a certain affection for the food, and knowing that much of it also comes from a shared culture, adds a layer of respect for the spirit of inclusion. While machcha ambila (fish in a tangy sauce) and chaaru pani are Odia renditions of Telugu cooking style, sorakaya paalu posina koora is a complete adoption of a slice of Telugu cuisine in our home. So, what's a paalu posina koora anyway? It's all in the name. In Telugu, paalu means milk, posina means pouring and koora means some sort of gravy. I'm giving you loose translations here, and I'm no expert in the language but I can assure that my Telugu friends and acquaintances wouldn't shun these English terminologies. Thus, any vegetable cooked with some amount of milk poured in the end to give a gravy like consistency to the preparation is a paalu posina koora. This usually goes well with soft sweeter gourds like bottle gourd (sorakaya), ridge gourd (beerakaya), etc. The tempering is no fuss — chana dal, urad dal, cumin, mustard and curry leaves in minimum oil. The seasoning is with a few pinches of turmeric and slices of green chilies. You may add some sugar in the end for extra sweetness. Pro Tip Since the dish uses milk, red chilies don't go well in the flavour profile. If you're not fond of green chilies, I'd say use less or don't slit them or perhaps skip it but don't substitute with red chilli powder. If you're afraid that milk may curdle, whisk about 1/4 tsp rice flour or gram flour in the milk before adding it to the pan or wok. Go to recipe >> Chorakaa Pulissery If paalu posina koora is a story of adopting food culture of a neighbouring state I grew up close by, chorakaa (bottle gourd in Malayalam) pulissery is about discovering comfort in the food of places I wasn't associated by birth but through connections I forged as a grown-up. Back in the days when Bangalore was home and I worked in one of the many tech giants, pulissery served in the canteen was my saviour on days I didn't carry my lunchbox. I tasted pulissery for the first time during a sumptuous Onam sadhya, a traditional Malayali banquet, and I knew immediately that it was to become a part of my everyday meals. A pulissery is a curd or yogurt based dish where the gravy usually contains coconut and cumin paste. The consistency is somewhere between watery and too-thick, the curd almost loosened like buttermilk, and the flavour is a delicate balance between sweetness from coconut and sourness from curd. This is not to be confused with erissery, which is thicker and appears almost like a mash, says my closest Malayali friend, M. Both are seasoned or tempered in the end with mustard seeds, curry leaves, dry red chillies and sometimes shallots. The process and the coconut paste may differ from one home to another, but the essence of a pulissery lies in the sour curd or buttermilk and coconut. Some may draw a parallel between a Kerala style pulissery and a north Indian kadhi, but they're not the same. A pulissery never has lentils or dals in any form, while a kadhi may have gram flour (besan) and no coconut. Although, the tempering for both has some similar ingredients, the differences are unambiguous. And, what is a Kerala style pulissery without a glug of pure coconut oil, which you will never find in a kadhi or any of its close kins. A mor kuḻambu is a Tamil relative of the north Indian kadhi, containing coriander seeds and pigeon peas in its coconut paste. Another way to understand the difference of a kadhi from a dish like pulissery is to comprehend the soul of the dish. A kadhi has to be a slow-cooked boiling pot of yogurt with besan whisked into it for thickening. The longer and slower you let this mixture cook (some kadhis have only besan like Sindhi Kadhi), the better in taste and consistency will be the kadhi. That's the heart of the dish —yogurt, which is not just a souring agent for this preparation. A pulissery on the other hand has a gourd or fruit or something else at its center, and other ingredients mix and match to lend it flavour and texture. Yogurt here is not cooked for a prolonged time, and works primarily as a souring agent or a medium to carry the ensemble of the main ingredient with coconut and spices. Pulisserys are made from different soft and water-based vegetables, like ash gourd, cucumber or bottle gourd, and even fruits like mango and pineapple. The bottle gourd version was definitely the latest in the list of pulisserys I had eaten. Every time the menu at the cafeteria failed to impress my extra hungry stomach, I scanned the buffet for some pulissery, which was usually a constant. Few ladles of rice and more of pulissery and a bowl of sambar gratified my heart like nothing else. I would take two appalams, crush one fully atop the sambar-rice, keep the other to bite intermittently through the meal, savouring spoonfuls of pulissery, and I instantly felt at home. Comfort foods are social surrogates that derive their emotional power from their connections to existing relationships. In other words, comfort foods gain their emotional power by reminding us of the people who fed them to us (Triosi & Gabriel, 2011). While my mother never made a pulissery, it somehow always reminded me of her nadia pachedi, an Odia style coconut chutney which includes curd or yogurt. The entire ensemble of sambar, rice and pulissery was a schmaltzy ballad recalling a plate of archetypal rice, dalma and nadia pachedi that mom fed me and my sisters on several days of the week when we returned from school with many rounds of roasted papad. Pulissery still remains that comfort food for me, and now reminds me of the time when I grappled prosaic weekdays in an MNC, awaiting half an hour of quiet with a plate of understated lunch, which momentarily diluted my hiraeth. With time, I learned making delicious pulisserys on my own, and this effortless dish of Kerala is undoubtedly a part of my homemade meals now. Pro Tip In Kerala, you will find the pulissery much more sour than what you'd get in Karnataka. I prefer the sour version more, so I tend to use a sour tasting yogurt or curd. By no means this implies a sour flavoured yogurt! The older the yogurt, the sour it will be. The coconut paste in a pulissery may or may not contain shallots. I prefer using shallots when making a bottle gourd or ash gourd pulissery. For mango, cucumber and pineapple, I don't use shallots. If you can't find shallots, use pearl onions or skip it. Go to recipe >> Sookhi Lauki Sabzi Sookhi Lauki was one of those revelations you have and wonder "why didn't I ever do it before?" You will find many local eateries in Bombay that have a vrat ka khana, foods for fasting, section on their menu. It was one of those days after an utterly long and rather uninteresting lecture in my post grad class when I headed out of the college with a rumbling tummy. At 4 p.m. the canteen wouldn't serve things like roti-sabzi and dal-chawal. So, I landed at one of those piffling restaurants that sell all-day lunches. I opted for few things from the fasting foods entries in their menu. I have usually had the most satisfying meals in places which have no names and non-existent in the list of venerable restaurants and hotels. The plate that arrived had a bowl of sookhi lauki sabzi, bottle gourd cooked as a dry preparation with hardly any spices, dubki kadhi, two chapatis and some rice with complimentary salad. While the kadhi with un-fried pakodis (fritters made of lentils or gramflour which are boiled in the kadhi itself) wasn't new for me, the lauki sabzi definitely made its way to my memories and my kitchen later. This recipe is so simple and has so few ingredients that you'll wonder how can the final dish taste so good. It's all in the tempering I would say, one that you begin the dish with. The oil has to be hot before you add the cumin and mustard, which have to sputter before you add turmeric. You let the turmeric cook, and just before it changes colour, add sliced green chilies and throw in the diced bottle gourd. Sprinkle salt as you stir and that's all to it. The younger the gourd, the tastier the dish will be. Bottle gourd is truly the showstopper of this dish. If you like garlic, a good quantity of minced garlic works really well too. Adding profuse garlic to a simple bottle gourd is something I discovered on my own. The interplay of garlic with green chilli and bottle gourd turns out really delicious. Pro Tip You may add red chilli powder although I would suggest not to. I wouldn't want to take away from bottle gourd's flavour. Even the green chilli is a tad. Don't load a ton of it. Cover and cook the bottle gourd and keep checking in between until done. Don't skip the fresh coriander leaves in the end. They're not just for garnish. They add a lot of freshness and add flavour as well. Go to recipe >> Recipes Chana Dal Lauki Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 2 cups bottle gourd, peeled and chopped (1 small bottle gourd) 1/2 cup Bengal gram, washed, soaked for at least 2 hours and drained 1 tbsp oil 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1 small onion, finely chopped (optional) 1 small tomato, finely chopped or 1 tsp jaggery 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste or minced (or only ginger) 1/4 tsp asafoetida 1 tsp chilli powder 1/2 tsp turmeric 1 tsp coriander and cumin seeds, freshly dry roasted and pounded 1 tsp salt, or to taste freshly chopped cilantro Method In a pressure cooker or instant pot, heat oil and add mustard and cumin seeds. Let them crackle and then add the onion. Sauté and let it turn pink. Add the ginger-garlic paste and toss for about a minute. Add asafoetida, chilli, turmeric, coriander and cumin powder and give everything a good mix. Cook for 3-4 minutes, scrapping the bottom of the cooker or the pot with few splashes of water if needed. Add the tomatoes (if using) and stir to combine. Add the Bengal gram or chana dal and sauté well. Reduce the heat slightly and let the dal absorb the masala — about 4-5 minutes. This will ensure the earthy smell of the lentil to be released into the gravy. Now add the bottle gourd and mix again. Continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes. If you're using jaggery, add it now and mix. Add a little salt, 1 cup of water, mix and close the lid of the pressure cooker or instant pot. For a pressure cooker, cook for 1 whistle on high heat and 2 whistles on medium to low heat. For instant pot, cook at high pressure for 8-10 minutes. Open, add more salt to adjust seasoning. Add the cilantro before serving. Sorakaya Paalu Koora Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 2 cups bottle gourd, washed, peeled and chopped (1 small bottle gourd) - discard spongy middle part and any big seeds 2 tsp oil 1/2 tsp urad dal 1/2 tsp chana dal 1/4 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 7-8 curry leaves 1/2 cup milk 2 or 3 green chillies, slit 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1 tsp salt or to taste Method In a wok or deep pan on medium heat, add oil. Once oil is hot, add mustard seeds, urad dal and then chana dal. Fry the dal till golden brown but take care not to burn them. If you're not used to this, keep the heat slightly less than medium hot. Next add, cumin, curry leaves, slit green chillies, and turmeric powder. Sauté for a few seconds and before anything burns, add the bottle gourd pieces. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add water enough to cover the bottle gourd pieces, then add salt and stir to combine. Cover and cook on medium to low flame for about 15 minutes. Open and check the doneness — the bottle gourd pieces will have a transparent shine and be easy to cut with a spoon but not mushy. If undone, cook for another 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to very low and add milk. Let it cook over low heat till the milk starts boiling. Then turn off the heat and let the gravy rest for 8-10 minutes before serving. Chorakaa Pulissery Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 1 cup bottle gourd, peeled, sliced and chopped 1 cup buttermilk or curd For coconut paste: 2 shallots/small onions (optional), 1/2 cup coconut grated or cut into small pieces, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1-2 green chilies (use as per your spice tolerance) 1/2 tsp turmeric 1/4 tsp red chilli powder (optional) For tadka or seasoning: 2 tsp coconut oil, 2 dried red chillies, 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 5-7 Curry leaves 1 cup water 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Blend coconut along with shallots, cumin seeds and green chillies into a fine paste. Keep it aside. In a pan on medium heat, and add bottle gourd along with 3/4 cup of water, turmeric, red chilli powder and 1/2 tsp salt. Once the water starts boiling, cover and cook on medium to low flame for 15-20 minutes. Once the bottle gourd is cooked well, add the coconut paste and mix. Let it cook for another 1 minute. Add remaining 1/4 cup water if you find the consistency too thick and let it boil. Meanwhile, whisk the curd with remaining salt. Reduce the heat to very low and add the whisked curd into the pan. Stir continuously for 30-40 seconds. Leave it to simmer and turn off the heat when the gravy is just about to a boil. Make sure the curd doesn't boil more than a minute. Keep the pan aside. Heat oil in a small fry pan or tadka pan, add mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds. As they splutter, add dry red chillies and curry leaves. Saute and pour the tempered oil over the prepared gravy. Give a good mix and taste the salt. Add more salt to adjust if required. Sookhi Lauki Sabzi Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 2 cups bottle gourd, peeled, sliced and chopped 1 tbsp oil 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp mustard 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1-2 green chilies chopped 1 tbsp garlic chopped (optional) 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves Method Place a pan or kadhai on medium heat and add oil. Once the oil is hot, add cumin and mustard and let them crackle. Immediately add turmeric powder and stir for 30 seconds. Add the green chilli slices and bottle gourd pieces and stir to combine. Cook with intermittent stirring for about 2-3 minutes. Add salt and mix again. If using garlic, add it now. Mix again. Cover and cook on low to medium flame for 15-20 minutes or until bottle gourd is fully cooked. You can open the pan or kadhai and keep checking the doneness. Every time you open the pan, give a good stir and close again. Switch off the heat when done and add the chopped coriander leaves. Stir to combine. Serve with hot rotis or dal and rice!

Jump to Recipe After a hiatus of six months, I committed to make time to write. But what's a personal commitment when you have a little at home! :) On March 27, I gave birth to my very own squishmallow. From being a tiny human in my womb to a chirpy thriving bub figuring out this world, my baby boy has enlivened the sundry colours of life itself — true to his name, Abir (who I'm going to refer as baby A from hereon.) So while baby A naps, here I am today, trying to write again after many failed attempts. 3 days after A was born, the spring sun was peeking through the sky. Fluffy transient snow had begun to settle on the ground. Blue and white mountains, bare trees and the mighty Yukon river set up the most beautiful backdrop as S and I, swaying with happiness, drove from the hospital to bring our boy home. It was late afternoon when we arrived as nervous and excited newbie parents. Everything at home felt a little anomalous, breathing in the frenzied state of affairs in which they were left when my water broke. You know that feeling of not being able to relate to your older self after a major change in life? S went out to run a few errands while A slept through the silence of the house. As I picked clothes off the drying rack and watched the amber gold sky through the window, I felt a bout of melancholy—a feeling of being glutted with emotions. I was trying to put all the pieces together somehow, of pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood and everything in between. Like always, I scribbled to enshrine my thoughts and to remember those fleeting moments later. A pot of tea brewed in the kitchen behind me. The sound of the toaster popping slices of bread, the smell of store-bought soup getting hot on the stove, the sight of plants on the elevation of the kitchen counter, reminded me of what mundane felt like, and amidst the anomaly of all things, the feeling of being home returned. Everyone has somewhere—a space, a place, a spot or a scene—where they feel like themselves, in their own element, close to their being. For me that place has been my kitchen in every home that I have made. I knew I had to cook something in those precise moments—like how we make something sweet in a new house or at the start of a new beginning. Post a c-section, I had been barred from lifting anything heavier than my baby which meant no serious cooking for a while. But I knew I had to make a sweet treat to celebrate my boy's homecoming. What could be the quickest, easiest and yet tasty dessert I could put together while doing almost nothing in the kitchen? It had to be sooji ka halwa—semolina roasted in ghee to an earthy brown, topped with thrice the amount of water and almost the same amount of sugar (or a little less for people like me) as itself. It's basic and plain, and maybe that's why it renders that feeling of home for me every time. I remember my mom often made this halwa as an after-play snack or as prasad (offering to gods) on many occasions or as a something-nice when we were sick or celebrate little achievements of her 'littles'. Before I could begin, A woke up, and there I was at close quarters of my new life. There was not going to be any halwa making in the next hour or so! Holding A in my arms, I showed him around the kitchen where I cooked everything throughout my pregnancy, feeding him even before he was born. S came back and persuaded me that it was getting late and to instruct him on making the halwa the next day. So the halwa got made a day later. I rocked A to sleep sitting in the vicinity of the kitchen and oversaw the cooking. We lit a lamp in the puja mandir (alter) and offered a bowl of the halwa as prasad seeking blessings for our bundle of love. Our children are our hearts walking outside our body as Elizabeth Stone, the author of the Boy I once knew, has aptly said. 259 days of growing, nurturing and caring for a new life inside me. 96 days since A's arrival. 96 days have unfolded as he has grown every minute. 96 days since I became a mother. 96 days of joy, tears, laughter, fatigue and chaos. Still, I'm at a loss of words to describe what this journey has meant. S and I often relive those 36 hours and more leading up to A's birth, going back in time and talking to comprehend, pause and remember. Every time we do so, I remember that first evening of being at home with Abir, falling back to the humdrums of life and that urge to make halwa and the sweet smells of the semolina concoction a day later easing us into our prosaic days after a life changing experience. I cannot think of a simpler and quicker dessert in the Indian meetha genre other than this. Especially, in the plethora of homemade Indian sweets. Perhaps, I am not that good in making a lot of traditional Indian mithai, and so this conclusion 🤷🏽‍♀️. But halwa, and that too with sooji is a no brainer for me any day. I'm looking forward to baby A growing up and making him many more halwas, namkeens and whatnot, and have him around in our kitchen—the heart of every home S and I live. Pro Tip Just remember the ratio of 1:3 for semolina to water and 1:1 for semolina to sugar. Use slightly less sugar if you don't like your desserts too sweet like me. Recipe Ingredients 1 cup sooji (semolina) 1 tablespoon ghee 4-5 cardamoms pounded 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar depending on how sweet you want the halwa to be 3 cups water (optional) 1/4 cup raisins, almonds, cashews, pistachios Method In a pan or wok, heat ghee and then add the cardamom. Next add the semolina and roast on low to medium heat for about 20-30 minutes until the colour changes to light brown. Once the semolina is roasted, add water and stir. Then add sugar and keep stirring on low heat. Be careful as the mixture has the tendency to splutter. Keep mixing and stirring until the halwa comes together and leaves the sides of the pan/wok. Add the raisins, almonds, cashews and pistachios if using and mix. Serve warm and enjoy! Note: You can easily store the leftovers in the fridge and re-heat before eating. If you wish to keep it on the counter, you may have to increase the amount of ghee for shelf-life.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe Hot breakfast! Two words that are enough to light up my face! Growing up I've watched my mother stir up pots of warm goodness in the morning, food that kept us satiated for long and energized throughout the day. Of all those breakfasts, idlis were always a thing of utter joy, no matter how often they were repeated in a month. I remember mother's kitchen. A mildly tart smelling batter of rice and urad dal (matpe beans) and worked upon overnight by good bacteria yielding ample fermentation would be ready on the countertop. A tall pressure cooker would be ready atop the gas stove with water rumbling in it. Maa would fill ladles of the batter in moulds — stacked upon each other on a stand — place the stand in the cooker, close its lid and take the whistle off it. In minutes freshly steamed idlis would dole out to plates and served with many spoons of coconut chutney and guguni (dried peas curry). Yum! I'm almost salivating at the thought of it! While sambar, chutney and podi are typical accompaniments of idli in south India, guguni is more common in Odisha. Although, you'll find loads of tiffin style sambar served with idli in southern Odisha, guguni still remains a favourite. Coming back to idli itself — a steamed fluffy fermented rice and lentil cake which is extremely healthy and light on the stomach while being satiating for the palate when dipped in hot sambar or curries and topped with wet chutneys or dry podis with a helping of ghee or gingelly (sesame) oil. Some bits of history Although idli is quite mainstream across India and not just the southern half of the country, it's origin in south India are hazy. There are multiple theories around the origin of idli. But here's what seems logical to me and has reliable validations: The Tamil Sangam literature has no mentions of idli. The earliest text to mention it is Sivakotyacharya's Vaddaradhane written in Kannada in 920 AD. Even there, the word is 'iddalige', and some historians believe the word 'idli' may have been derived from the 'iddalige.' What's important to note is that the Kannada iddalige was made of soaked urad dal, ground into a paste and mixed with yogurt and spices as Kalpana Sunder describes in the Whetstone article. They further write, "‘Iddarika,’ or fine urad dal balls fried in ghee, also appear in the 12th-century Sanskrit text Manasollasa, which is considered India’s oldest existing cookbook." In either case, there's no steaming and there's no use of rice, which is how idli is made — using steam to cook the fermented rice and urad dal batter. According to food historian K T Achaya, idlis may have come from Indonesia — a country with a longstanding tradition of steamed and fermented food. He quotes the famous Chinese traveler Xuan Zang in his book A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, mentioning the absence of steaming vessels in India in the 7th century. Indonesia's kedli, a fluffy steamed cake could have been the precursor to the Indian idli. Considering the the trade routes between South East Asia and ancient India and the history of Hindu kings of the Shailendra, Isyana and Sanjaya dynasties ruling Indonesia, it's plausible that the cooks employed in the royal kitchens of Hindu kings in Indonesia brought the technique of fermentation and steaming to India. Food historian Kurush Dalal mentions in an Indian Express article, “The South has not been cultivating rice for more than 3000 years. So idli cannot de facto be more than 3000 years old. And when we actually started fermenting rice batter and steaming it the next day is another factor.” Thus it seems more likely that the present day technique to make idlis may have come from Indonesia. Chef Ranveer Brar summarizes it beautifully in an Instagram post, "While there are different claims to its origin & regionality, prominent food historian KT Achaya notes that our Food encyclopedias - Vaddaradhane by Sri Shivakoti Acharya & later the Manasollasa by King Someshvara III mention Iddalige & Iddarika respectively. However both variants used only Black gram or Urad dal, not the rice grits that form the better half (not by measure of course) of the batter ingredients. As a result, the original idli was greyish in colour and was cooked on a griddle, not steamed. The idli we know today is attributed more to an Indonesian influence, specifically inter-marriages between Southern Indian kings & Indonesian royal families who followed the same religion and extensively traded with them. This cultural melange brought in the idea of steam-cooking idlis into the mainstream, refining the batter along the way." There's yet another theory for the origin of idli which links to the Gujarati 'idada' or 'idra.' Made of rice and urad dal, idada or idra is a steamed white dhokla, and is believed to have come to south India with community of silk weavers from Saurashtra in Western India during the 10th century AD. Irrespective of the origins, it's safe to claim that the process of making idlis was perfected in India, more specifically in the south and became one of the most popular and loved meals along with sambar and chutney across India. There isn't one kind of idli The humble idli is quite versatile with many versions that have evolved over time owing to needs and tastes. Rava idlis are made of semolina. Then there's the flat saucer-shaped thatte idli (‘thatte’ is a circular platter) from Bidadi and Tumkur in Karnataka. There's kadubu’ idli or idli batter steamed in stitched jackfruit leaves along Karnataka's west coast. Other varieties include sanna, whose batter is fermented with toddy (a mildly alcoholic fermented beverage made of fresh palm sap), lending it a subtle sweetness. The sanna is usually eaten with pork sorpotel (a spicy, vinegar-doused dish of Portuguese origin) or chicken curry. The Mudaliar community of weavers, who migrated from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu to Ramassery, a village in the Palakkad district of Kerala, make some of the softest textured idlis. The Kanchipuram idli, spiced with cumin, pepper, ginger powder and asafoetida, from Tamil Nadu is traditionally a temple food offering and tastes absolutely divine! And, there are tons of modern spins to the old classic idli with gluten free alternatives like quinoa and oats replacing the rice and dal. The key to making the best idlis When I was in India I had easy access to ready homemade batters from external sources, including ID Fresh Food. I continued to have access to such good batters in Toronto as well where the Indian diaspora has ensured availability of anything you may need to make Indian food. the challenge was when I moved to Whitehorse, a much smaller and isolated city in the cold Canadian north. With readymade idli and dosa batter not in my reach, I had to make batter at home — the key to making the softest idlis! For me, there was no shortcut to learning this. There was of course steady guidance of my mother but what's notable is that the environmental conditions, the kind of rice, the grinding of the grains and lentils, and the extent of fermentation together decide the fate of the final idlis. Since I started making idli batter only when I was away from her, our circumstances and quality of ingredients were quite different, and my results were not identical to hers always. Whitehorse is way colder than the coastal hot Bhubaneswar where my parents live in India, which thoroughly affected how my batter turned out! Here's what I have learned over 2 years and felt useful to be summarized for anyone who loves idlis but struggles to make the batter: The process Soaking: There are many ratios in which you may take rice and urad dal to make idlis. The golden ratio is 4:1 for rice:urad dal. This implies in whichever container/cup you measure rice, you should measure 4 parts of rice and use the same cup to measure 1 part of urad dal. You can definitely try 3:1 and 2:1 ratio for rice:urad dal and experiment! I did too when I started! The kind of rice and dal you use will affect how your idlis turn out. As a rule of thumb, parboiled rice is best! You can also use red rice which has a lot of fiber and adds an extremely good texture to idlis. I prefer the red matta rice from Kerala for this. You can use whole white (hurled) urad dal or split white urad dal. You can also used whole/split black (unhurled) urad dal which packs a lot of fiber and texture to idlis too. Next, you need to soak the rice and dal separately for at least 6-8 hours or overnight. Don't be stingy in how much water you use for soaking! Add as much water as possible in a wide mouthed vessel and ensure the rice and dal are submerged well. Add a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds to the dal while soaking as it helps in fermentation, lends a beautiful aroma and makes softer idlis. You can also soak a handful of beaten rice (poha) and add it to the mix when grinding — this also helps in making soft idlis. Grinding: Drain the water from the grain and lentil and use a good quality grinder to grind the them separately. Grind the rice coarse and the urad dal smooth. Now, to ensure this, add water sparingly as you grind. Traditionally a wet grinder is used to grind the grains and lentils in India. I haven't invested in one here. I use my Ninja and it works pretty well! So, when you grind rice, add about 1/4 or less cup of water and grind. If it's getting stuck, add water incrementally but don't use a setting on the grinder which will make too-fine a paste of the rice. If you soaked beaten rice, now is the time to add it to the rice and grind together. For the dal, grind it to a smooth consistency till it's fluffy and you can blow it off your fingers! Even if you can't grind it that smooth, ensure it's smooth enough with no visible dal particles. Again, the idea is to add water incrementally. Fenugreek seeds will also get grinded with the dal. Mixing: Now, add both the mixtures in a vessel large enough and mix using your clean hands. Yes, your hands. Not a spatula but your hands which have good bacteria and aid in fermentation. Using circular motions of your hands, beat the mixture well to aerate them. Aeration is crucial to the texture of idlis that you'll make later! Love those tiny perforated holes in an idli? That's from aerating the batter! Fermenting: Once you have a somewhat fluffy batter, cover and keep it in a warm place on the kitchen counter and leave it for 6-8 hours to let it ferment. This time will vary depending on where you live. If you live in a cold place like Whitehorse or even London, leaving the batter to ferment on its own will take forever! Use an instant pot to ferment the batter if you have one. Set the pot to yogurt mode and allow about 10-12 hours. It may sometimes take 14 hours also. Another handy trick which I now use is to keep the batter in a lit oven. Turn the light on in your oven but do not turn the oven on! Now, keep the batter in it overnight. By morning, you'll have a lovely well fermented batter. The concentrated heat from the oven light helps the batter ferment faster. After the batter has fermented, you'll notice it has risen and formed air pockets inside. You'll also notice a faint sour smell. Your batter is ready! Steaming: Once fermented, add ladles of the batter in idli moulds that are greased and stacked inside a steamer, and steam for about 10-12 minutes. Traditionally, idli plates are covered with wet muslin cloth or leaves to make it easier to remove the idlis once cooked. I don't have a steamer, so I use my instant pot in steam mode with the vent pushed down so the steam can escape as the idlis cook. You can also use a pressure cooker without putting on its whistle! When adding the batter to the moulds, ensure that you don't fill the moulds too much. You want to give the idlis enough space to rise and take shape. Batter at room temperature usually results in softer idlis than the one straight out of the fridge. I make my batter in a fairly large quantity to last through a week (and many times use the same batter for dosa too) which I store in the refrigerator. However when using old batter that has lasted in the fridge, I first keep the required amount in a bowl on the counter and let it come to room temperature before steaming. Recipe There isn't much to the recipe once you have understood the process. So, here's a short summary. Ingredients To soak and grind: 4 parts of rice preferably parboiled - white, red or any other variety 1 part of whole/split urad dal (mapte beans) - unhurled black or hurled white 1 tsp fenugreek seeds 1/4 part beaten rice (optional) A pinch of salt To make idlis: Rice and urad dal fermented batter made from the ingredients above Oil/Ghee to grease the idli moulds Method Wash the rice well and soak in sufficient water. Wash the urad dal well and soak along with the fenugreek seeds. If using beaten/flattened rice, soak that as well. Let everything remain soaked for about 6-8 hours. Drain the water and keep the wet rice and urad dal separately aside. In a mixer, add small amounts of water intermittently to make a coarse paste of rice. If using beaten rice, add it to the rice while grinding. Add the coarse rice paste into a non-plastic vessel which is tall enough to hold the batter which will rise after fermentation. In the same mixer, add small amounts of water intermittently to make a smooth fluffy paste of urad dal along with fenugreek seeds. Add the urad dal paste to the rice paste in the vessel. Using clean hands, mix the two pastes to aerate the batter. You may use a spatula or whisk for this but hands are best! Mix for at least 5-7 minutes. Note: Some people like to add salt at this stage. I usually add salt after the batter has fermented. You can also add a small pinch at this stage and add the rest after the fermentation. Salt can sometimes hinder the process of fermentation, so I'm cautious in adding it. Leave the batter in a warm dry place to ferment for 8-10 hours or overnight. This time will vary depending on where you live. In warm places, this can happen in 6 hours as well and in cold place, this may take as long as 14 hours. Check out the Fermenting section under process for tips and tricks to help faster fermentation in cold places. After the batter has fermented, you'll notice it has risen and formed air pockets inside. You'll also notice a faint sour smell. Your batter is ready! If you find the batter too thick, add a ladle or two of water and mix but don't make the batter too runny. To make idlis, add water to a steamer or instant pot or pressure cooker and heat the water. Meanwhile, grease moulds with oil or ghee and then pour ladles of batter into the moulds. For a steamer, the moulds are made in a plate. For a pressure cooker or tall pot, the moulds are usually stacked on a stand. Once your moulds are ready, place them in the steamer/instant pot/pressure cooker and steam for 10-12 minutes. Note: For steamer/pressure cooker on a gas/electric stove top, steam at high heat. For an instant pot, first use sauté mode to heat water. Place the idli stand in it and then switch to steam mode with the vent valve pushed down to allow the steam to escape. Set a manual timer for 10-12 minutes and switch off once the timer goes off. Wait for all the steam to release naturally and then hold off a couple of seconds before opening the instant pot. Use a butter knife to remove the idlis from the mould. Serve hot with sambar and/or chutney! Keep a hot cup of coffee ready to sip after you wipe off the plate/bowl! :)

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe I cringe, almost delete it and type again, as I write the title of this post. As much as I love taxonomies, of which Indian cuisine is full to the brim and overflowing, I also harbour a soft corner for people who cannot delve deep to understand the nuances of a certain dish across the length and breadth of a country like India — extremely diverse and equally mindboggling to fathom. But in an attempt to simplify, I fear generalization — something that has happened to Indian food over many years of colonization like the misleading 'curry.' How do I define sambar to my North-Indian husband then — another generalization because the northern half of the country is as varied and diverse as the south — who only understands the sambar versions served in restaurants like Sagar or Saravana Bhawan in Delhi. I pull back myself from definitions like "South-Indian Dal", which doesn't explain anything concrete about what is a sambar. So, I turn to what I usually do — decipher the name of something. A bit of sambar history Some sources like the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia indicate that sambar stems from the Tamil word campāram, meaning constituents such as spices or condiments. It's interesting that the Indonesian sambal (chili sauce or paste) also stems from the Tamil campāram. There's more to campāram. It finds its roots in the Sanskrit word, sambāra which means spices. Sanskrit sambāra is said to have become sāmbāra in ancient Marathi and later sambhārā in middle-ages Marathi and the loanword in Tamil, cāmpār giving rise to sāmbār. The Marathi-Tamil connection sāmbār is attributed to Sambhaji, Shivaji's son, who was a guest at the court of his cousin, Shahuji I Bhonsle, the Maratha ruler who reigned Thanjavur (presently Tanjore in Tamil Nadu) from 1684 to 1712. When Sambhaji craved aamti, famous Maharashtrian dal made with kokum (Garcinia indica, a plant in the mangosteen family) as a souring agent, and the head chef couldn't find kokum in Shahuji's Maratha Thanjavur kitchen, he used tamarind as a substitute. So, aamti got a makeover as sambar. Most food historians, including noted academic Pushpesh Pant, believe this theory to be true, noting that there is no mention of sambar before the Tanjavur Maratha era. According to the, Sarabhendra Pakasasthram, a set of two Marathi manuscripts that are now housed at Tanjavur’s Saraswati Mahal library, also lend credence to this theory. - From the article, TBI Food Secrets: India’s Favourite South Indian Dish, Idli Sambar, Has Many Fascinating Legends But somehow I find this 'Sambhaji-sambar' deduction, so repetitive across the internet, at the brink of incogitability. I'm more inclined to the rationale behind words travelling through the languages people spoke across borders and the assimilation of foreign words into local dialects owing to cultural exchanges on trade routes. For example, the Hindustani word masālā, meaning spices, has roots in the Persian word maṣāliḥ (ingredients/spices) and the Arabic word ṣalaḥa (to be fit or usable). Anthoshastra has a good explanation for this etymology. Some propagate that sambar is South-Indian aamti! I don't quite agree with this notion. Aamti uses different spices than sambar, usually the blend called goda masala, and kokum for sourness. While there's a tendency to compare kokum with tamarind, both have different flavour profiles. Kokum is mellowed with a floral tart taste. Tamarind on the other hand is more pungently tangy. Just as there exist variations in aamti across Maharashtra, variations in sambar also exist across the five states in south India — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Anatomy of Sambar The definition of sambar will perhaps remain inexplicit but understanding its anatomy can spur the idea underneath it, the soul of sambar. A sambar isn't a sambar without lentils. Toor dal (pigeon peas) is preferred but adding few spoons of red lentils like masoor is not unknown. There are also sambars that use horsegram, especially in Indian winters. The boiled lentils are flavoured with tamarind and spices, and sometimes coconut and jaggery. There are different ways in how these ingredients are added depending on the region where the sambar is made. Vegetables are also added to a sambar. Most common ones are different kinds of pumpkins and gourds, drumsticks, eggplants, okra, beans, carrots, onions, yam, raw banana, etc. The type of vegetables added again vary from region to region. To the concoction of boiled lentils and vegetables, which have been spiced with a dry powder (sambar podi) or a freshly prepared wet masala and soured with tamarind (and sweetened with jaggery), a seasoning is added as a top note which typically has mustard (and cumin seeds), curry leaves, dry red chilies and at times, asafoetida. This tempering can be done in the beginning of cooking the vegetables also. A note on the varieties of sambar In Tamil Nadu, we usually find dry powders or podis, a blend of spices, being added to sambars and the consistency of sambar is thinner. But there are exceptions to this of course! (How can there not be? It's Indian cuisine after all!) For example, the Arachuvitta Sambar made in Tamil homes which uses some kind of arachu (gourd) along with other vegetables like drumsticks and a paste made of roasted spices ground with freshly grated coconut. In Karnataka, where sambars may take the form of huli (meaning sour and often resembles a gravy), we find the usage of wet pastes to be predominant, which in turn result in slightly thicker than the Tamil sambars. Although sambar has its history tangled between Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, it's rarely called sambar in Tamil homes. An umbrella term kuzhambu, (meaning 'gravy'), is commonly used instead. The Udupi version of sambar in Karnataka (also called koddel in Tulu and kolombo in Konkani) is sweeter owing to the use of coconut and jaggery and typically uses vegetables like white and red pumpkin, drumsticks and okra. In Andhra Pradesh, the term sambar is rarely used like Tamil homes. The Andhra pappu chaaru is thicker and spicier, which is actually a rasam-like dal than a sambar. In the Nizami cuisine influenced Telangana, there's kaddu ka dalcha, which has meat and chana dal along with sambar-like masala. The Palakkad style varutharacha sambar from Kerala also uses coconut like the Udipi sambar and almost any kind of vegetable, which is a different practice from Tamil sambars or Andhra pappu chaarus. As a general practice, tiffin sambars — served with idli, dosa or vadas — are thinner while the ones served in main course with rice, puttu or appams are thicker. Again, exceptions always exist! Sambar Podi vs Fresh Sambar Masala Paste This or that! To do or not to do! The dilemma for anyone learning their ways through Indian cooking! Like many other dishes in the Indian food repertoire, there isn't a rule of thumb for sambar as well. Yes, I'm disappointing you after writing elaborately about the anatomy of sambar. Since there isn't a universal rule, there isn't a dictum to use freshly made wet sambar paste or pre-made dry sambar powder or podi. Every family, community and region have their own preferences and their personal touch when it comes to the sambar masala, whether wet or dry. Although, I feel from my experience that a freshly made wet paste makes most sense when using coconut in the sambar. Grated (or desiccated if you don't have fresh coconut) when ground with roasted spices and some water yields a luscious paste, which when added to the boiling vegetables along with cooked lentils generates aromas that titillate our olfactory senses — much needed to create an inviting setup for the food before it's eaten. Despite the indisputable goodness of a freshly made wet sambar masala paste, we would agree that we all have days when a homemade spice blend feels like a gift-sent-from-another-world! Just like a wet paste, a sambar powder is crucial to how your sambar will taste. So, a freshly homemade sambar podi has fair chances to win brownie points than a store-bought one which has aged for a period unknown and is destined to sit on your kitchen shelves indefinitely again! Of course, there's personal choice of brands one may rely to buy a sambar powder like rasam podis. However, I find it pointless to buy ready masalas when I can easily make them at home. Clearly, I don't go by the notion of one-size-fits-all, and so regularly buying a packet of masala powder doesn't come to me naturally. I prefer making a wet sambar masala paste for coconut based sambars and use my own homemade sambar powder for non-coconut ones. My Sambar Powder The internet is everyone's recipe book in this age, and no doubt a Google search will provide you with numerous sambar powder recipes. In a country thronged with people and their diverse communities who have their own masala powders or set spices for everything cooked in their kitchen, does it make any sense to write down my sambar powder recipe then? In Indian cooking, more often than not, we find ourselves in the grips of 'virtue or aroma of the hands (of the cook)' — kai-gunam, hather gun, kai-mannam, haathon mein swad, nafas — which connects food's preparation, taste and life to the hands of who create it. This credence is a way of life in our kitchens, and perhaps also one of the reasons why Indian food has never been documented as a book of generic sauces, mixes and pastes. Food as we understand, experience and eat sojourns amidst the hands that make it and carries the essence of those hands. So, can there ever be a blanket recipe for sambar powder or rasam podi or a biryani, chole or garam masala? The resounding answer is no. However, there's value in sharing our ways of doing with others, of knowing those little variations that add some tones to a dish we wouldn't otherwise know. Most sambar podis use coriander, cumin, fenugreek, peppercorns, chana tur or urad dals and dry red chilies. Some have curry leaves additionally. But how much of what? There's no universal claim to the quantities either but it's the ratio of these ingredients that will precisely alter how your sambar powder turns out, and the sambar as a result, along with the magic in your hands of course! This is straightforward no-fuss sambar powder that I and my sister M make at our homes. I learnt it from her and then variated after seeing how my Tamil friends make their sambar powders at home. I make it in medium sized batches and churn out another batch when one gets over. It's always fresh, aromatic and assures my sambar is flavorsome. I use it to make both less-spicy-less-tangy tiffin sambars as well as more-spicy-more-veggie-laden sambars that we eat with rice. Enough said! Here's how I make it! Ingredients and quantities explained 1 cup each of coriander seeds and dry red chilies I like the citrus notes of coriander and a good spice factor from red chilies in my sambar. I use good sour tamarind pulp to balance the spice and often add a hint of jaggery if I'm cooking for someone who don't enjoy the hotness of chilies. You can de-seed the red chilies if you like it less hot. The red chilies also add a deep beautiful colour to the sambar powder. 1/3 cup each of pigeon peas (tur dal) and Bengal gram (chana dal) Dals help thicken the sambar and also add nuttiness. Sometimes I add 1/4 cup of urad dal as well if I feel like giving it a Kerala sambar taste. 1/3 cup of black peppercorns (1 tbsp), cumin seeds (1 tbsp) and fenugreek seeds (2 tbsp) Fenugreek seeds are most crucial for that typical sambar like smell and they add some much needed bitter notes. Cumin and peppercorns together add a spicy note. (Optional) 1 tsp turmeric powder and a pinch of salt Turmeric for the colour and salt to bring the flavours together. You can skip the turmeric as we add turmeric to the dal anyway when cooking the sambar. (Optional) 1/3 cup curry leaves Adding curry leaves adds a slightly different flavour and aroma to the sambar. I add curry leaves in the tempering anyway but sometimes ground curry leaves in the sambar powder itself takes it far indeed! Heat a pan and simply dry roast these ingredients in the order in which they're listed, except turmeric and salt, and keep them aside to cool. When cooled, grind in a spice mixer to a fine powder. This makes about 2 cups (nearly 500 gm) of sambar powder. You can easily reduce the quantities to half and make about 250 gm or 1 cup of sambar powder that will stay fresh and smell great for many weeks. Recipe Recipe for an everyday sambar that you can eat with idlis, dosas, vadas, uttapams or rice. Ingredients For tamarind pulp 1 tbsp or a lime sized ball of tamarind 1/3 cup water For cooking dal 1/2 cup tur dal (pigeon peas) - you can use 1/2 cup tur and 1/4 cup red masoor also 1/4 tsp turmeric powder 1 + 1/2 cups of water For cooking vegetables 1 to 1+1/2 cups of medium chopped veggies like eggplant, okra, pumpkin, carrots, beans, radish, ash gourd, etc. I even add atypical vegetables like celery, acorn or butternut squash, etc. 1-2 drumsticks, peeled and chopped into 3-4 inches sticks 5-6 pearl onions or 1 small red onion sliced (optional) 1 tomato, diced or quartered (optional) - I use it only when I don't have enough tamarind Note: You don't have to add all vegetables but kind of vegetables you use decides the flavour of your sambar along with the sambar masala. 1/4 tsp turmeric powder 1/4 tsp red chili powder (optional) - I use it if my sambar powder is not inherently spicy or to make it more spicy for serving a veggie-laden sambar with rice 2 cups of water Salt to taste 2 tbsp sambar powder (optional) 1 tsp jaggery if you like a slightly sweet taste in the sambar For tempering 1-2 tbsp untoasted sesame oil or sunflower or coconut oil or ghee 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 2 dried red chilies, halved and seeds removed 10-12 curry leaves 1/4 tsp asafoetida Method Make the tamarind pulp Soak the tamarind in warm water for 20 to 30 minutes. Squeeze the tamarind in the water itself. Discard the strained tamarind and keep the pulp aside. Cook the dal Add the dal, turmeric powder and salt along with water to a pressure cooker and cook for 9-10 minutes on medium heat. When done, take off the heat and keep aside and let the pressure release on its own. When you open it, the dal should be fully cooked and mushy. Use a wire whisk to mash the dal completely so as the lentils do not hold shape anymore. Cook the vegetables While the dal is boiling, add the vegetables along with the pearl onions (and tomatoes if using) in a deep vessel or kadai, and sprinkle the turmeric (and red chili if using) powders. You can add the onions in the tempering instead if you wish. Add water and salt and let the vegetables cook on medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Add the harder vegetables first and and the softer vegetables like okra and eggplant halfway between other vegetables. You can cover and cook for sometime but do not overcook the vegetables. Make the sambar Once the vegetables are tender, add the sambar powder, cooked dal and the tamarind pulp, (jaggery if using) and mix well. Simmer on medium heat till sambar comes to a boil and then lower the heat. Temper the sambar In a small tadka pan, heat oil. Then add mustard seeds, (onions if using in tempering), dry red chilies, curry leaves and asafoetida. Fry till the curry leaves become crisp, onions are slightly brownish and red chilies change colour. (Take care not to burn the tempering. Take the pan off heat if things are getting out of control and bring it back to heat after few seconds.) Immediately add this tempering to the sambar and cover the vessel/kadai to let the flavours soak inside. Switch off the heat for the sambar and let it remain covered for 4-5 minutes before serving. To serve with idli, dosas, vadas and uttapams, make a thinner sambar, which implies, add more water. To serve with rice, make a thicker sambar. When you store leftover sambar in the fridge, it will thicken up the next day. You can add water and salt to adjust taste and thin it down.

Palak paneer is a combination of protein packed cottage cheese with nutrient rich spinach. It makes a lip smacking wholesome meal when served with rice or flat bread. Or simply relish it as a single no-carb big meal if you are on a diet! Recipe PDF My version of this recipe involves coriander leaves and fenugreek leaves along with spinach for the green puree. I relish a thick creamy texture for this gravy, and I do not fry the paneer at all before adding to the gravy. Tips on making this dish vegan and ideas on how create a yummy palak paneer, further in the post. Although world famous as an Indian food, the art of making paneer was taught by Portuguese to Indians as noted by the venerable K.T Achaya. The history of curdling milk and making cheese is more than 7000 years old when sheep were first domesticated in Mesopotamia (present day Middle East). However paneer is not cheese. It has a close cousin in Turkey called peynir, although the two are different. What is paneer? (If you don't know already) Paneer in its truest form could be regarded as unsalted soft cheese. Although the process of making cheese and paneer are different. After hot milk is curdled using a souring agent like lime juice or vinegar, the fresh curdled product formed is cottage cheese or chhena. Squeeze this cottage cheese in a muslin cloth, press it in the sieve, and leave it to settle for an hour or so. What you get is paneer! Unlike cheese, there is no emulsification in the process of making paneer, rendering it as a perishable product. Can I make this dish vegan? To make this dish vegan, you can use tofu instead of paneer. I have made it with tofu, and it tastes great! The only change I would recommend in the recipe is to stir fry the tofu slightly before adding to the spinach gravy. This imparts a nice smoky flavour to tofu (if your tofu is not already flavoured), and the dish tastes better. What are some tips to cook a tasty palak paneer? I have made palak paneer in many different ways, and eaten it at many restaurants and homes because it's one my most favourite things to eat! What I have learnt over the years: Garlic is an essential element in cooking spinach, or any leafy vegetable for that matter. It adds a punch with its pungent taste and aroma, and helps enhance spinach's usually raw flavour. Don't skip it in the recipe at all! The concept of palak paneer has evolved from saag paneer, where saag stands for an Indian name to any kind of greens like spinach, vine spinach, mustard greens, amaranth, fenugreek leaves, radish leaves, leaves of drumstick, and many more! Hence, adding a note of some other green to spinach always renders a more rounded flavour. I especially like to use coriander and fenugreek leaves, as they are easier to get in Canada. If you don't have access to fresh fenugreek leaves, use kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves). Use a small quantity of onions, but definitely use them. On being fried, onions caramelize and impart a slightly sweet taste to the gravy that helps to balance the pungent ingredients. Adding dry whole spices in the tempering adds a smoky flavour to the dish and a tinge of nutmeg in the end lends the most subtle top notes to the flavours! After adding the spinach puree to the spices in the pan, let it cook for at least 5-7 minutes on a low to medium flame by continuously stirring. Do not add water after this point. Recipe Ingredients For the puree: 2 bundles of spinach or 1 big box of spinach leaves, 2-3 cloves of garlic, ¼ bundle of coriander leaves 200-250 grams of paneer (fresh homemade or store bought) For the gravy: 2 tablespoons of neutral oil, dry whole spices: 2 bay leaves, 1 dry red chili, 4-5 peppercorns, 2 cloves, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1-inch ginger, 3-4 cloves of garlic and 1 green chili grounded coarsely, 1 big red onion or 2 small red onions chopped, 1 pinch of asafoetida, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon red chili powder, 1 teaspoon coriander powder, 1 and ½ teaspoon kasoori methi (dry fenugreek leaves), 1 medium tomato finely chopped, few spinach leaves chopped, 1 tablespoon coarsely ground dry roasted coriander seeds, 1 pinch of nutmeg powder or grated nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of Greek (or normal) yogurt (optional), salt to taste Method Blanch and make the spinach puree: If you are using spinach bunch (and not leaves), cut off a portion of the bundle, keeping a part of the stem intact with the leaves. Wash and clean the spinach leaves. Keep a few leaves separately to chop later. Blanch the spinach and then blend along with the ingredients listed for the puree. Keep the puree aside. Blanching: Dunk spinach leaves to boiling water, keep for about 45 seconds, drain in a colander/strainer and put it under cold running water. Squeeze the spinach leaves a bit. Make the gravy: Chop the spinach leaves which were kept separately. Cut the paneer into cubes. Place a wok or pan on medium heat, and add oil. Let the oil smoke up a bit, and then add the dry whole spices. When the spices impart aroma, add the cumin seeds and let them splutter. Add the minced ginger, garlic, green chili and sauté for about 1 minute till they turn golden. Add the chopped onions and sauté for the next 2 minutes or so. Add the asafoetida, turmeric, red chili and coriander powder, and sauté the onions until they turn brownish. Add the kasoori methi and mix well till you can smell the dry leaves. Add the tomato, and let it cook for about a minute or two. Add the chopped spinach leaves, mix and then add the coarsely ground dry roasted coriander seeds. Add some water to get a gravy like consistency and then add the yogurt. Mix everything and salt to taste. Let it simmer for 2 minutes and then add the blanched spinach. Keep stirring the spinach until the gravy thickens. Taste and adjust salt if needed. Add the nutmeg powder but don’t mix. Add the paneer: Place the paneer cubes in the gravy and slightly shake the pan or wok to let the paneer cubes sink into the gravy. Continue cooking for 5-7 minutes on a low to medium heat. Turn off the heat and relish hot with flat bread or rice!

Tofu isn't everyone's favourite. It's not potato after all! Although tofu isn't cheered as much for its mild flavour, it's a sought choice for a vegan diet. Wait till you cook it well and flavour it appropriately, I can guarantee that you wouldn't mind exchanging it for paneer or any of your favourite meat. Tofu is believed to have been discovered 2000 years ago when a Chinese cook accidentally curdled soy milk by adding nigari seaweed. It was introduced to Japan in the eighth century where it was called 'okabe' at that time. This recipe is a vegan variation of the popular Indian dish, saag paneer. The term saag in India refers to any leafy vegetable such as spinach (palak), mustard greens (sarson), collard, basella (poi), amaranth (lal saag or chaulai), sorrel (khatta palak), fenugreek leaves (methi), kale, goosefoot (bathua) and many more. Some of these greens such as collard and kale are not indigenous to India, and you would hardly find an Indian equivalent name for these greens. For the same reason, I haven't mentioned any Indian names in brackets for these! Recipe PDF Moving to the complexity of the term saag, I would like to let you know some other names of saag. The term saag becomes haak in Kashmir in India and it's a common Kashmiri reference to many types of greens like mujj haak (radish greens), monjji haak (cohlrabi greens), vopal haak (dandelion greens) or vast haak (red spinach or amaranth). So, haak is a collective name rather a single name for an individual green leafy vegetable. It has been often suggested that the collard greens of the western world resemble the Kashmiri haak. While collards have bigger leaves and thicker stems, the Kashmiri collard (haak) is tender and delicate with about three to five leaves in a bunch. The entire leaf is cooked as a whole in a haak as compared to the western collard whose hard stem is discarded. What about this saag recipe? Finding indigenous saag or haak in Canada is not an easy affair. It's almost impossible to find the typical Indian saag varieties in Whitehorse. So, this saag recipe uses kale, collard and one Indian saag, spinach. Contrary to the subtle no-spice saag cooked in Indian homes, this vegan saag paneer resembles the palak paneer you would get in an Indian restaurant or made in an Indian home kitchen. Traditional saag hardly uses any spices. The leaves are boiled and seasoned with salt, asafoetida and green chilies. An occasional appearance of ginger or garlic adds some flavour and sometimes a sprinkle of red chili powder may do the trick. This recipe however blanches and blends the greens to give it a creamier curry like texture. You can make this recipe with paneer too. If you wish to skip paneer or tofu, you can add vegetables like potatoes, pumpkin or eggplants, and that would make a very home style saag. More on that coming shortly in another post! I have used coconut yogurt in this recipe to add an extra creamy and sour tone to the dish. You can skip it or use fresh cream if you're making a non-vegan recipe. To keep the texture of the traditional saag alive to some extent in the recipe, I do not like to blend the greens into an extremely fine paste. If you see the pictures, you will notice it's still not like a creamy curry rather has a slightly raw finesse. I love tossing or grilling tofu in a light chili-oil mix before adding it to any dish, and that's what I have done in this recipe too. This enhances tofu's taste and I recommend not skipping it! If the concept of match made in heaven is true, it certainly bears fruit in the combination of green leafy vegetables, mustard oil and garlic. This trio will never fail you, and undoubtedly I have used both mustard oil and garlic to cook this vegan saag paneer. You can switch to another oil if for some reason you don't like mustard oil or don't have access to it. Recipe Ingredients For the puree: 1 large bunch of kale 1 small bunch of spinach 4-5 collards 1/2 tsp cumin powder 4-5 cloves of garlic 1 green chili 2-3 peppercorns 1 black cardamom For the tofu: 200-250 grams tofu cut into cubes 1/2 tsp oil 1/4 tsp red chili or paprika For the gravy: 2 tsp mustard oil or any other oil of your choice 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 bay leaf 1/2 inch ginger and 2-3 cloves of garlic pounded into a coarse paste 1 medium onion finely chopped 1 medium tomato finely chopped 1/2 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp red chili or paprika 1 tsp coriander 2-3 tbsp coconut yogurt 1 tsp dry fenugreek powder (optional) Method Blanch and make the green paste Tear off the kale and collard leaves from the hard stem, cut off a portion of the stem from the spinach leaves and dunk all into boiling water. Keep for about 45 seconds and then drain under cold running water. Add cumin, garlic, chili, peppercorns and cardamom along with the blanched leaves to a blender and make a slightly coarse paste. Keep aside. Toss the tofu Place a pan or skillet on medium heat and add oil. As soon as the oil is hot, add the red chili or paprika, lift the pan off the heat so that the chili does not burn and gently turn the pan around to let the oil and chili spread in the pan. Add the tofu cubes and let them sizzle. Turn the cubes after 2-3 minutes to let them sizzle on the other side. Then remove the tofu from the pan and keep aside. Make the gravy: In the same pan, add mustard oil and once the oil starts smoking up, add cumin and bay leaf. Add the ginger-garlic paste and sauté for a few seconds taking care to not burn the paste. Next, add the onions and continue sautéing until the onions start turning pink. Add turmeric, red chili, and coriander and sauté till the onions are light brown. Then, add the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are softened. Add splashes of water if the spices stick to the pan or skillet. Add salt to taste. Add the green puree and mix everything well, cover the pan and let the mixture cook for about 4-5 minutes. Open the pan and add the coconut yogurt. Adjust water and seasoning if needed, and then turn off the heat.