Poha with sweet-hot twist

In Maharashtra, Poha is favorite dish for breakfast. Most of the dishes of poha I had were savoury (except may be Doodhpoha i.e. like cornflakes add milk and sugar to poha and eat). My mother used to add just a pinch of sugar to balance the flavours of the dish.
In Rourkela I discovered new kind of poha dish which is both sweet and hot. Its very simple to prepare. It required very few ingredients which are easily available at home. You'll need

1 1/2 cup poha
3-4 green chillies
1 small onion chopped
1tbls chopped ginger
3-4 tbls sugar
Salt to taste
1 tbs Cumin seed
3 tbls oil
1/3 cup chopped veg like green peas,beans,carrot

1. Start with washing poha properly. Drain all the water from it. Make sure that poha does not become too soft or the dish will look more like upma than poha
2. In a pan heat oil and then add cumin seeds. Once seeds start spluttering add chilly ,onion and ginger. Fry till onion becomes translucent.
3. Add vegetables and stir for some time. Add very little water and then cover the pan. In you are using beans or carrots then it will need 5-8 min for cooking. For fresh green peas 3-4 min is enough.
4. Once vegetables are cooked, add sugar,salt and mix well. You can adjust sugar according to your liking.
5. Add poha now, mix with veg well. Cover and cook for 3-4 min. You can sprinkle some water if required.
6. Once poha is cooked, take it off from heat. Add 1tsp desi ghee on poha and cover for 1/2 min. This gives nice taste to poha. Sprinkle some sev/namkin while serving if desire.

Serving Marathi Thaali

When I first time went to my in-laws place after wedding, I decided to prepare Brahmani style Marathi thali as novelty. My in-laws doesn't eat onion/garlic/anything sour on Friday's (because of Santoshimata Vrata). And what better that a typical KoBra lunch thali. At my mother's place we used to eat very simple, non-spicy food. The flavours are very mild and most of the dishes have sweetish flavour.So I thought this will be perfectly good dish for Friday lunch.
As this was my first attempt to prepare whole lunch for family of 4, I had to plan every step carefully on Thursday night itself.So I choose recipes which will be easy to cook and tasty. So this is what I served in thali (From left to right)

- Cucumber raita (Kakdichi dahyatli koshimbir)
- Coconut-coriander chutney
- Salt & lemon wedge for Varan Bhat
- Pumpkin flower bhajji
- 3 fold Poli/Chapati
- Moogachi Usal (in bowl)
- Potato bhaji with ginger-green chili paste
- Varan Bhaat (in center)
I served puran poli as sweet, but its not shown in the pic.

In the marathi thali, it is important to place the items at its correct position.The thought behind placing an item at a particular place is to ensure you are eating item in correct quantity.
In a typical thali this is how arrangement is done. The seq no. actually indicates in whar order they'll be served
Left --> Right
1. Salt,lemon piece: Salt is always served first. Its consider inauspicious to directly serve rice/roti/subzi
2. Chutney,Raita (koshimbir), pickle: These are spicier items in the thali generally Koshimbir will be prepared in curd or you can add lemon juice/powdered peanuts.Chutney is served to be eaten with bhajjis. So its generally wet chutney, but you can serve dry chutney.
3. Bhajji/Vada/papad: Something fried is always served in thali. It can be bhajji/pakoda/vada or simple fried papad. Most of the time bhajanicha vada or batata vada is served.
4. Poori/Poli: Poli can be regular poli or sweet one like puranpoli,saanjyachi poli. If srikhand/aamras (mango pulp) is being served as main sweet then poori is served rather than poli.
5. Sweets: Generally thali is prepared for some auspicious occasion as Naivedya or for some special occasion.So it was an unwritten rule to have 5 types of sweets in thali. 1-2 sweets will be treated as main sweets like puran poli,srikhand,basundi,sakharbhat,naralbhat and so on. Other 3-4 sweets will be served in small quantity which can be sheera,kheer,laddoo,puran. Main sweets like srikhand are served in bowl (to be kept on right side).Poli and rice are served as later course.Secondary sweets are served here.
6.Subzi: Generally 1 usal/gravy+ 1-2 dry bhajis are served.Most common is Dalimbi usal and Popato dry subzi.
7. Daal/Saar/Kadhi: Aamti (or daal),tomato/kokam saar, green vegetables like paalak/methi cooked in buttermilk are served.
8. Rice: In first course, Varan-Bhath is served with ghee. In next course pulav or masalebhath is served. As last course plain rice with curd or buttermilk is served. In between you can enjoy eating roti/poori and main sweets.
9. Matta/Spiced buttermilk: Generally in this is served as the spices like jeera/cummin, ginger will help in digetion.

As this was my first time, I reduced the items to make mini thaali. All the receipes were simple and I was able to multi task cooking 2-3 receipes at time easily.
All receipes are given in later blogs. I'm sure even a beginner will feel comfortable cooking these dishes.

2 Potatoes 4 Subzies : Final installment

In the final installment we'll see Indian version of mashed potatoes. You can do it in 2-3 ways like

- Mashed potatoes with Tadka
- Mashed potatoes without Tadka
- For everyday eating
- For fasting

For mashed potatoes, its very important that potatoes are cooked till core. This will ensure smooth texture of the dish. Easy way to achieve it is cut potatoes in half (or quartered) and then cook in pressure cooker (5-6 whistles).
Once potatoes are cooled enough peel them off. Mash completely by hand/sppon. If you want zero lumps then you can use "puran yantra" to mash potatoes.

Mashed potatoes with tadka (for everyday eating):

Prepare tadka with oil, hing,green chilli,cumin seeds. Saute finely chopped onion and tomato (if desire).
When onion becomes translucent, add mashed potatoes,salt and mix together.
Cook it for 2-3 min so that it has light brown colour.

Mashed potatoes with tadka (for Fasting): Follow above mentioned receipe with few changes like replace oil with ghee. Remove hing,onion and tomato from ingredients. You can add grounded peanuts instead.

Mashed potatoes without tadka (for everyday eating): In mashed potatoes add finely chopped onion,2-3 green chillies, corriander leaves and salt to taste. Add juice of 1/2 lemon and in the end its optional to add sarson ka oil (or any othetr oil which you like or entirely skip this option).

Mashed potatoes without tadka (for Fasting):In mashed potatoes add grounded peannuts, red chilli powder and salt to taste. Add curd if it feels very dry.

You can try various ingredients to vary taste. One such receipe is available at Noopur's blog "One hot stove"

2 Potatoes 4 Subzies : Part 3

This is another simple but li'l bit hot receipe of potato bhaji.
Again you need very few ingredients

2 medium size potatoes
Salt to taste
3 chillies
1 tbs ginger pieces
6-7 curry leaves

For tempering
2 tbls oil
1 pinch hing
1 tsp turmeric powder

1. Boil potatoes till tender (3-4 whistles of the cooker). Cut into small cubes once cooked and cooled li'l bit.
2. In a mortar roughly grind chillies and ginger pieces with salt. This ensures all the heat is released from chillies and ginger. If you want less hot option then cut chillies and ginger in small pieces and keep aside.
3. Prepare tadka by heating oil in pan. Add hing, turmeric powder, curry leaves along with ginger-chilli paste. Fry for some time (Beware!!!! you might sneeze a lot at this step).
4. Add potato cubes and mix properly. Cover for couple of minutes and serve hot.

2 Potatoes 4 Subzies - Part 2

Continuing from my previous post, this is 2nd installment called "Upavasachya Batatyachya Kacharya" (Quick potato subzi for fasting).

You need

2 medium/large potatoes
Salt to taste

Tempering

2 tbls Ghee/Clarified butter
2 Green Chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds

1.Boil the potatoes till they are tender (should not be completely mashed). Cut vertically similar to part 1 subzi. If the potatoes are cooked too much then you won't have french fries shape by the time subzi is cooked.
2.In a pan add ghee. Add cumin seeds, chilli when ghee is heated.
3.Add salt mix it in ghee.In the end add potatoes and mix well. Cover for 1 min and then switch off gas burner.

You can start eating now.

Served with love: Announcing Back To Basics

Served with love: Announcing Back To Basics

Back To Basics: My entry

I missed deadline for Jaya's Back to Basic event. So now sending post for Aqua's event
My entry: Ginger-Garlic paste

2 Potatoes 4 Subzis: Part 1

Imagine you are back from office after long and hectic day to find no vegetables in fridge. Only your true friends onion and potato are still with you. With no energy to go out again & buy veg and definitely not in mood to cook some elaborate recipes, you can try one of four variations of potato subzi. All these recipes are very tasty and too easy to make. The main theme is obviously potato and you do variations in tempering and the fat used for tempering.

Part 1 : Batatyachya Kacharya (a.k.a. Stir-fried potatoes)


You need

2 medium size potatoes (washed and dried)
1 small onion
Salt to taste

For tempering
3-4 tbls oil
1 tsp mustard seeds (or you can use 1/2 mustard+ 1/2 cumin seeds)
2 green chillies
1 tbls turmeric powder
pinch of hing (if you like)
5-6 leaves of Curry leaves

1.Peel the potatoes (or you can keep skin on) and chop it into equal size vertical pieces. Size does matter here as it will ensure that all pieces are cooked equally at almost same time. Don't make too big pieces as it will increase cooking time and with too thin pieces subzi may burn fast.Try to do french fries size.
2.Chop onions also vertically.
3.Now prepare tadka by heating oil in pan. Once heated add remaining items from tempering.
4.Add onions first, fry for couple of seconds and then add potatoes fry for a min or so.
5.Now cover pan and turn down heat (lowest mark on your gas stove). After 6-8 mins check if potatoes are cooked, stir them for some time and cover again if not cooked yet.
6. You don't have to add water at all as the water from onion is enough to cook potatoes. 2 imp points to note here: don't turn up heat as it will burn potatoes from outside but they will not be cooked properly from inside.Don't put potato wedges in water as they'll stick to pan and it will be difficult to clean the pan. Chop them and immediately add to pan.

Desi Soccer Mom: Back to basics

Back to basics: Ginger-Garlic paste

Back to Basics: Ginger Garlic Paste

This is first time I'm entering any blogging event. Back to basic is what looks very simple but actually needs lot of observation of your mom's kitchen and some time management. I thought I can contribute some good tips here hence the blog.

I work in software company and that to in Bangalore. So you can imagine I spend 12hrs outside home. We always have dinner at home which generally consists of rice, daal and one subzi. As the daal is generally plain, subzi will be spicy with onion, giner garlic paste.

It is easy to cook food quickly if some preparations are done over weekend.Ginger-Garlic paste is one such commonly used item in many receipes and its very simple to add some twist in gravy by some variations in ginger garlic paste.

Take equal amount of ginger pieces and peeled garlic cloves say 1 cup each.The ginger roots should be thoroughly washed to ensure complete mud removal. Dry them on kitech towel for 2-3 hours. Now grind ginger and garlic together without adding water. Adding water will reduces chances of storing paste for more than 3-4 days (a week max if you stay in dry and cold climate). You can do some variations to get different taste to the gravies. Add 2 small onions when preparing paste which helps in thickening gravey.If you fry onions and then add to paste then it gives smocky sweetish flavour. Add couple of red chillies which gives nice pink shade to gravey.This paste stays about 1 1/2 -2 months in fridge.