Sweet Potato Cutlet

Sweet Potatoes are in abundance this season and in keeping with the year's resolution to eat what is in season, I picked up radish leaves for sarson ka saag and sweet potatoes to make something sweet.The Sarson ka saag and the way we ate it for three days is another story I will reserve for later. The sweet potatoes however lay forgotten among the potatoes. I found them looking almost forlorn when I was skimming the vegetable basket to see what to make as a quick snack for the evening hunger pang. I decided to quickly boil them, season with some chat masala and make a snack. When I shut the cooker, I realized that I had another 10 minutes to kill until they were cooked. So that's when the boiled sweet potato idea turned into sweet potato cutlet idea.

If you have the ingredients at hand, it is super easy to make. I had a cabbage and I added about a quarter of it to increase the bulk and also since cabbages tend to get this really crunchy texture when roasted. Since all the ingredients are cooked, I did not shallow fry the cutlets but roasted them on a thick bottomed tava with very little oil. It takes some patience to fry it this way. If you want, you can add a little more oil and shallow fry it. While it was getting done, I snacked on a little bit of the cutlet dough topped with curd, bhujia and green chutney. Let me show you how I made the Sweet Potato Cutlet.

Preparation Time: 10 Minutes
Cooking Time: 10 Minutes (for sweet potatoes) + 15 Minutes
Makes 6 cutlets

Ingredients for the Sweet Potato Cutlet

Oil - 4 tbsp
1/2 tsp ajwain or carom seeds
A pinch of hing
2 medium sized sweet potatoes
1 small onion chopped
1/4 cabbage chopped
A few sprigs of coriander chopped
1 green chilli chopped
2 pods of garlic crushed
1 inch ginger crushed
salt to taste
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chilli, coriander, cumin powder each
1/2 tsp chat masala
1 tsp rava or semolina
1/2 tsp gram flour

Recipe for the Sweet Potato Cutlet

Peel and roughly chop the sweet potatoes and pressure cook them until soft. While it is getting done, chop up your cabbage, onion and coriander. In a mortar, crush the ginger, garlic and green chillis.

In a pan, heat 1 tbsp of oil and add the carom seeds and hing to it. Then add the onions and fry. When it starts browning, add the crushed masala from the mortar. To this add the cabbage and fry nicely till all the aromas rise up. Now add the dry spice powders - turmeric, chilli, coriander and cumin.

Sprinkle some water and fry until the vegetables are done. While they are getting done, mash the boiled sweet potatoes. Add the onion-cabbage mixture to the sweet potatoes. Allow it to cool for a few minutes. Top with some chaat masala and coriander and mix well. The chat masala already has some black salt in it. Taste the mixture and adjust the salt.

Mix well so that all the spices get uniformly mixed and you have a dough like ball at the end.

Divide this into 6 small balls and flatten them. Place your griddle on the flame on medium heat. Grease it well with 1/2 tbsp of oil. Mix the semolina and the gram flour on a plate. They will be used to coat the cutlet. Normally, only rava or bread crumbs are used. Gram flour helps it bind and that is why I added a bit of it. Run the cutlet on both sides on the rava-gram flour mixture.

Dust off the excess coating. Now place them on the heated griddle and patiently let them roast.

Brush some oil on both sides and roast them on the tava. Let them brown on both sides. Once they are done, serve hot with some green chutney or tomato ketchup.

Lemon Ginger Rasam

There are days when you  have a heavy evening snack and don't really feel like cooking or eating anything heavy for the night. On such days, we do not just settle for good old thayir sadam ( rice and curds), but also have this light and refreshing lemon ginger rasam alongside. The fresh flavors from both the lemon and ginger make it really appetizing even during times when you are feeling under the weather. Instead of garnishing the rasam with coriander leaves, I add the coriander stalks from the "hybrid dhania" that we get here.

The stalks are not tender enough to use in curries or gravies. But it can be used in this rasam since it will be crushed in the mortar. The lemon ginger rasam is really light on the stomach and the juices of lemon, coriander and ginger will help you digest your food much better. What's more, it is so easy to rustle up that it figures on my menu at least once in a week!

To make the rasam, I do not use too much of toor dal. Instead, I use more of the toor dal water. So what I do is that I pressure cook a cup of toor dal with a pinch of turmeric. Then pour 1 and half cups of water into the dal container and give it a swish. Then remove the water separately, along with two tsp of the cooked toor dal. I reserve the rest of the toor dal to make dal the same day. Or it keeps well in the fridge for a week, you can use it on any day you are making a dal or sambar. Once you have this dal water mixture, it takes just five minutes to put together this rasam. Lets see how. 

Preparation Time: 5 Minutes

Cooking Time: 15 Minutes

Ingredients of Lemon Ginger Rasam 

1 and 1/2 cups toor dal water 

2 tsp of cooked toor dal 

1 green chilli, slit lengthwise

1 inch ginger grated or chopped

juice from 1/2 lemon 

2 tsp of chopped coriander stalk

salt and sugar to taste

oil for tempering

4-5 curry leaves

1/2 tsp mustard 

1/2 tsp cumin seeds or jeera

a pinch of asafetida

Method to prepare Lemon Ginger Rasam

Cook about a cup of toor dal and add a cup and half of water to it. Now gently swish the water with a ladle and separate it out from the dal. Take two tsp of the cooked dal and mash it well. Add it to the dal water and set it aside.

In a mortar, crush the ginger and coriander stalk together coarsely.

Now bring one cup of water to a boil on medium flame. Slit a green chilli and add it to the water, along with the coriander-ginger paste.

Once it comes to a rolling boil, add the toor dal and water mixture. Add to it salt and sugar to taste. This is a sweet-sour rasam, hence the need for the sugar. Also, sugar enhances the flavor of ginger.

Prepare the tempering by heating oil, add to it the asafetida and mustard. Once the mustard starts crackling, add the curry leaves and jeera. If you like your rasam spicy, you can add some coarsely powdered pepper to the tempering. 

Now pour the tempering on the rasam. Turn off the heat. Adjust the salt and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon into it. 

That is about it! Enjoy it with steaming hot rice or drink as is as a soup. It is refreshing and light on the stomach. 

Bengali moong dal | Bhaja Muger Dal

Ever since the Bengali Cholar Dal from Dassana's blog was declared a hit at the dinner table, I have been on the lookout for other similar Bengali dishes to break the monotony of the regular tried and tested dals. That's when I chanced upon the Bhaja Muger Dal. This Bengali Moong Dal recipe makes use of fried moong dal. Bhaja in Bengali means "fried". Moong dal is much easier to digest in the night, compared to the channa dal in Cholar Dal, making it a winning combination with roti for dinner. So if you are bored of the regular dal fry or dal tadka and want to try something new, then Bhaja Muger Dal is an excellent option.
After trawling a few bengali cooking websites, I found that the tempering was similar to the cholar dal. So I decided to follow Dassana's recipe itself. It's just got a handful of ingredients going into it. What's more, it is really simple to make and has its distinct taste that comes from the roasting and the tempering.

So how does one make the Bhaja Muger Dal ? Here's how.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 Minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients for the Bhaja Muger Dal

1 cup of Moong Dal
2 tbsp ghee / clarified butter
1 bay leaf
1 pod cardamom
2 dry red chillies ( I used the byadgi variety)
1 inch cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1/2 tsp jeera / cumin seeds
A large pinch of turmeric powder
A large pinch of asafetida (optional)
1 inch ginger grated
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste

How to make Bhaja Muger Dal

In a wide pan, add a tbsp of ghee and roast the moong dal in it, till it imparts a nice aroma. This will take about ten minutes. Do not let the dal burn or brown. So that means, giving ten minutes of your undivided attention to the dal, since once this is done, you are pretty much set with your dal. 

Now pressure cook the dal with enough water in a pressure cooker. I cook for two whistles on low flame and then a third on high. It takes about ten minutes to cook a cup of dal.

While the pressure in the cooker subsides, you can get started with the tempering. Heat the remaining ghee in a pan and throw in the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaf into it. Once their fragrance starts wafting out, add in the rest of the dry spices - jeera, chillies, turmeric and hing. Fry for a minute.

Now top this with the cooked dal. Season with salt and a little bit of sugar. Grate in about an inch of ginger into it. Of late, I have started adding the ginger towards the end of the cooking rather than the beginning. That way, the ginger does not get stuck to the bottom of the pan and its fresh taste is more prominent in the dish.

Simmer for five minutes. Given the presence of spices like cardamom and cinnamon, this dal tends to be a little on the sweeter side. You can up the hotness of the dal by increasing the number of chillies going into it. 

Once all the flavors come together, turn off the gas and serve it hot with phulkas or rice. I served it with methi rotis and a carrot-ridge gourd sabzi on the side. 

Aloo Palak | Lunch Box Series

Lunch box normally comprises 3 rotis and a side dish and a box of curd rice. Side dish is a dal with veggies or some fried sprouts or a vegetables cooked with a gravy. Last week, i decided to take a short cut and cook palak with aloo. Adding potato to anything makes it instantly tasty! Its not really great for the stomach, but once in a way chaltaa hai :)
One more advantage of making a potato dish is that it cooks really easily and all the flavors are absorbed really well into it.
So here goes a really easy side dish for the lunch box. I decided to put together the lunch dabba dishes under the tag,  Lunch Box Series.

Preparation Time: 15 Minutes
Cooking Times:    10 Minutes

Ingredients:

3 large potatoes, cut into large pieces
2 bunches of palak, washed and clean
1 small onion cut into thin slices
1 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Jeera
1 tsp mustard seeds
A pinch of hing
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp of red chilli powder
Salt to taste
Chat Masala to taste (optional)
1 tsp Lemon Juice (optional)

Method:

Place the chopped potatoes in a pressure cooker, with some salt and water and pressure cook until one whistle. While that is cooking, chop the greens and onions. In a pan, add the oil. Once it heats up, add mustard, jeera, turmeric powder and hing.

Once the jeera starts browning, add to it the sliced onions, garlic and ginger.

Once the onion turns pink, add to this the chopped spinach. Fry it until it just about wilts. Now add to this the cumin powder, coriander powder, salt and chilli powder.

Stir for 2-3 minutes. It doesn't need to be cooked for too long. All you need to do now is to add the cooked potatoes to this mixture!

Mix gently depending on how much your potatoes have cooked. Make sure that the palak leaves are not bunched up together but are mixed well with the potatoes. Sprinkle some water to this and cover and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. This will ensure that the masala that is in the palak will stick to the potatoes.
Turn off the heat. Add some lemon juice or chat masala on top as per your taste. Serve hot with rotis.

Carry it in your dabba, heat it up just before eating and enjoy hot aloo with rotis. 

PuLi Inji

One of my favoritestest traditional side dishes is PuLi Inji - literally translated to Tamarind Ginger. I have refrained from trying such a dish till date because these traditional recipes call for very minimum ingredients and one needs to get the mix and balance of all the flavors spot on for the dish to turn out well. The past week, i tasted it twice, first at New Krishna Bhavan then next when a friend made it.
And then the recipe came up as a suggestion when i was reading Chinmayie's latest post. It seemed like a sign and yours truly decided to make the PuLi Inji.
The recipe is adapted from here . I followed the same measurements.

Just that, i made a tadka with mustard, hing and curry leaves first. Added ginger and chilli next.

To it, i added the tamarind pulp and melted jaggery and brought it to a boil.

Then stir it well and let it simmer for a while.Adjust salt and jaggery and tamarind. Easier said than done. Each time you add one item, the other starts appearing to be less. So it will take you a couple of additions to get the right proportions that suit your palette best.  The consistency that you are looking for is gooey and thick. There will be a slight glaze on the surface of the syrup.

At this point, turn off the heat. Transfer to a box or a bottle. This can be stored for a while. But when the quantity is just a cup, be sure for it to be licked clean sooner!

Serve with Pongal/Khichdi, or with plain rice and a big dollop of ghee. Or better still, make it a perfect accompaniment for curd rice!

One Pot Meal- Khichdi

What is the easiest thing to make after a long day out? Dal and Rice. Easier than that? Put the dal and rice together to make Khichdi :) It is my go to food when i am in a hurry. A lot of people don't like the look of it. But for me, it figures on top of my comfort food list. Hot and spicy, with a big dollop of ghee and my meal is taken care of!
To make it a little more healthy, i add some veggies to it. My Gujarati colleague told me that they normally pre soak the rice and lentils, fry the vegetables separately, and then cook everything together in a big pot. But when you are short of time and don't have the patience to go through any process, it is ok to take a short cut. Here is how i do it.

Preparation Time: 15 Minutes
Cooking Time: 20 Minutes
Difficulty: Very Low

Ingredients: 

There are some basic ingredients that need to go in. Beyond that, you can just add whatever you want. I just chopped up a little bit of this and that of whatever i had.

For the tadka:

Ghee                       1 tbsp
Mustard seeds         1 tsp
Cumin Seeds            1 tsp
Hing                         1 pinch
Turmeric                    1 pinch

Other Ingredients:

Assorted vegetables        1 cup
Rice                                1 cup
Dal                                 1/2 cup
Salt                                 to taste
Green Chillies                 Slit, as per your requirement
Ginger+ garlic                  1 tsp, chopped
Onion                               1, sliced

Preparation:

Wash the rice and dal and keep it aside. I normally use 1:1 mixture of moong and toor dal. Chop all the vegetables that you are putting in. I added potato, beans, capsicum and green peas. You can also add  Cauliflower, brinjal, carrots, double beans- anything goes!
In the pressure cooker, add the ghee and all the tadka ingredients one by one. I had fresh turmeric with me. So i skipped the turmeric powder in the tadka.
Now add the onions and fry well.

Once the onions turn brown, add all the other ingredients except the rice and lentils.

After it all fries for a few minutes, add the washed rice and lentils. Saute for five minutes.Add enough water for the rice and dal to cook. Adjust seasoning. Cover and pressure cook on low for two whistles.
Mash it a little after it is done. Check for seasoning. Add some ghee on top and mix well. Be generous this one time. It is the ghee that enhances the taste. :) Scoop out into a bowl, curl up in your favorite spot and eat a hearty meal!

Quick Chole Masala

I have had the pleasure of eating some really yummy chole made by friends and neighbors. My mom normally makes the chana as sundal or in a coconut based gravy. And for some reason, i don't really pick the  kabuli chana too often while buying grocery. This time around, determined to give the chole a try, i picked up chana and Everest Chole Masala. I did not really do too much research for the recipe - just flipped the masala pack and found instructions for cooking. I tweaked it a bit to make it real quick and easy!

Preparation Time  10 Mins
Cooking Time       15+15 Mins

Ingredients 

Kabuli Channa  - 1 cup, soaked overnight
Onion               -  2 small
Tomatoes         -  3 small
Ginger              -  1 inch piece
Garlic               - a couple of pods, optional
Green Chillies   - a couple, as per your desired level of spice
Dhania Powder - 1 tsp
Chana Masala   - 1 tsp
Salt                   - to taste
Kasuri Methi     - for garnishing
Coriander Leaves- for garnishing
Amchur             - 1/2 tsp

For Tempering 
Oil                      1 tbsp
Butter                  1 tsp
Jeera                    1 tsp
Hing                    One pinch

Preparation
Wash the soaked chana and pressure cook with some salt and water for two whistles.

Since i wanted to take the easy way out, I skipped the chopping and took to grinding the ingredients. I had found fragrant fresh turmeric when i had gone to buy this week's veggies. I added that also for good measure for its color and flavor. So i ground together the onions, garlic, ginger, chillies and the turmeric coarsely.

In the pressure cooker, heat the oil and add jeera and hing. The original recipe does not call for hing to be used. But i develop severe gas trouble on making anything with too much aloo or pulses. Hence the precaution by adding the asafoetida.

Now add to it the ground mixture and fry for 5 minutes. Once the onions start browning, puree the tomatoes and add them to the onion. Saute for another 5 mins. Add the chana masala and the coriander powder to this and fry for a couple of minutes.

Adjust the salt and add the cooked chana to this. Add extra water since we need the final product to be slightly watery.

Close and pressure cook for another 2 whistles. This will ensure that the chana is well cooked and the masala is incorporated well into it. After the pressure releases, top it with some kasuri methi and amchur powder. Mix well. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve piping hot with garma garam rotis and a dollop of butter.

Basale Soppu in Curd

Basale Soppu or Basella Alba is a leafy vegetable which I was introduced to sometime ago, thanks to my Havyaka friends. The leaf, that is also known as Malabar Spinach is supposedly as healthy as regular spinach, containing Vit C,A and iron. First look, it is bright green with big leaves and a sturdy stalk.

When you operate it on the chopping board, you will see that it gives out the sticky mucous, like the ladies finger.Simply wash it well and chop it roughly in order to use it in your preparations.

Common way of cooking it is to make a stir fry or a sambar. What i made is a  Thayir Pachadi or tambLi as it is known in Karnataka, just as i make one out of bhindi. Once the leaves are prepped, it just goes into the pan for frying, doesn't need constant attention and is easy to put together.

Preparation Time  10 Mins
Cooking time        10 Mins

Ingredients

Basale Soppu/ Malabar Spinach                1 Bunch
Mustard Seeds                                          1 Tsp
Jeera Seeds                                               1 Tsp
Hing                                                          1 Pinch
Garlic                                                        2-3 pods, crushed
Ghee                                                         for tempering
Curd                                                        1 cup
Coconut                                                   2 Tbsp, grated
Salt                                                          to taste

Heat a Tbsp of ghee in a pan. Add to it the mustard, jeera and hing. Once the mustard splutters, add to it the crushed garlic and roughly broken red chillies.

Once the garlic changes color, add the chopped basale leaves. Add salt immediately if you want the leaves to retain color. Cook until the leaves wilt and lose their crunch.

Now simply stir in this mixture into a bowl of curd. Add the grated coconut and adjust the salt.

The stalk of these leaves makes for a great ingredient for chutney. The chutney recipe is for another time. For now, the Basale Soppu TambLi is ready to eat with hot rice or rotis.

Green Chilli with Besan

I remember tasting this for the first time in the Gujarati Thali at the Rajdhani Restaurant. They had served it alongside the fried snacks and pickles. I gingerly picked up the whole chilli and wondered whether i could stomach it. Let alone stomach, i was not sure if i could eat it in the first place. But the crispy chilies which were coated with besan and a nice sweet and hot masala were yum and left me asking them for more helpings. Ever since, i have wanted to make it as an accompaniment for the thayir saadam ( curd rice) that i eat everyday or for dishes that are not hot enough.
I found organic green chilies at the nearby supermarket and picked them up with this dish in mind. Got back home and immediately set out to make the green chilies with gram flour. The chilies were large, not too hot and were perfect for the side dish. It gets done without much fuss.

Prep Time - 5 mins
Cooking Time - 30 mins

Ingredients:
Green Chilies              About 10-15

For the masala
Saunf ( fennel seeds)          -  half a tsp
Ajwain (Carom seeds)       -  half a tsp
Hing ( Asafoetida )             - a large pinch
Coriander Seeds                -  half a tsp , crushed well
Salt                                    - to taste
Sugar                                 - 1 tsp
Jeera Powder                     - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric                             - One large pinch
Besan (Gram Four)             - 3 tbsp
Oil                                      - 2 tbsp

Preparation
Wash the chilies well.

Wipe and dry the chilies. Halve the chilies and then slit them lengthwise. You could also make diagonal slices if the chilies are too hot.

Heat a large pan and add 2 tbsp of oil to it. Add in the saunf, Ajwain and hing to it.

Stir it around for a minute and add the chilies to it.

Let the chilies cook and get coated with the tadka. This could take about 15 mins when you cover and cook it. Check whether the chillies have wilted and changed color.
Once it is done, add the rest of the ingredients. I like the nutty taste of the coriander and hence added the seeds. But many people don't like it as a whole spice. You could add coriander powder instead.

Make sure to stir it well so that the masala and the gram flour evenly coat the chilies and that there are no lumps in the gram flour. Fry until the raw smell of the besan goes off. If you want to speed up the cooking time, then you could add the besan after it is dry roasted.
Once done, turn off the heat and let it cool. You could store it in an air tight box and serve it alongwith paratha, khichdi, curd rice or eat it just like that :).