Durgapuja Spl: Dhokar Dalna

Last year around this time we were in Rourkela for Durgapuja. I had seen Bengal Club's Durga puja on Shivaji park every year so I had some idea about the idols and stalls and pandal's. Rourkela's durga puja was more wholesome experience because for those 4 days we were thinking about only durga puja. Morning time go for pushpanjali and prasad and evening time visit various pandal's and visit the various food stalls. Every pandal was mini jatra. It was such fun.
This year we couldn't go to Rourkela. So it doesn't feel like Durga puja time here in Bangalore.So today we thought of eating Bengali food to celebrate puja.For lunch first we planned to go to "6 Baligunj" in Indiaranagar. This is the best restaurant for Bengali food in Bangalore. Food there has such refined taste which totally negates seemingly high price.
Anyways,about our lunch today; we didn't eat Bengali food, but had homely delicious Oriya style food at Dalma in Kormangala. So though the food was satisfying, I was craving for bengali food, particularly Dhokar dalna.
First time I had eaten Dhokar dalna at 6 Baligunj and I loved it.Whenever we go there most of the time I end up ordering this dish.For long time I was planning to prepare dhokar dalna at home.Today I finally found time and mood to cook dhokar dalna.
Following receipe is from my mother-in-law in which I've done some modifications.

Ingredients:

For Dhokar
1 cup channa dal soaked for 2-3 hrs
2-3 green chillies or 1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp kalonji
1 1/2 tsp coriander powder+ aniseed/saunf powder
2/3 tsp baking soda
salt to taste

For gravy
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cumin seeds
4 green chillies
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 small tomato
3 tsp tomato sauce
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp coriander powder+ aniseed/saunf powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
3 medium potatoes chopped
salt to taste

Recipe:

1. To prepare dhokar (diamond shapes), grind all ingredients together with very little water. Don't prepare very smooth paste rather keep it rough.
2. Oil plate and spread the mixture evenly. Steam this mixture for 10-12 min in cooker (without whistle). After mixture is cooked, cool it down for 7-8 min and later cut it into diamond shapes.
3. Fry these diamond shapes till golden brown and keep it aside.
4. Fry potato cubes and keep aside.
5. To prepare gravy, start with heating oil in wok. Add sugar to oil and let it brown a bit.
6. Add cumin seeds to oil and let it splutter. Later fry onions and ginger-garlic paste till golden brown over medium heat. In the end add chopped tomatoes and all spices. Fry till the masala is cooked.
7. Add tomato sauce to gravey and cook for about 1/2 min.
8. Add potatoes and chana dal diamonds in the masala. Pour some water and cook on low heat (with closed lid) till potatoes are cooked. Add salt in end.
9. This dish has thick gravy but you can adjust consistency as per your desire.

Simply Fry: Pumpkin flower Bhajji

On my first visit to Rourkela, first time in my life I saw pumpkin flower. It is very delicate flower and can't be transportaed over long distances. I think that's the reason I had not seen this flower in Mumbai. Its used for bhajji,subzi etc.

Ingredients:

- 10-15 pumpkin flowers (kakharu phool) cut off stem and remove pollen from flower
- 1/2cup besan+ 1/2cup rice flour (or 1 cup besan)
- 1tbls ajwain or cummin seeds
- 1tbls kasoori methi
- 1tbls chilli powder
- 1tbls turmeric powder
- 1/2tbls eno
- salt to taste
- 1tbs oil
- 1/3-1/2 cup water
- oil to fy

1. Mix all dry ingredients well. Add little water at a time to make thick consistency batter.
2. Fry oil in kadhai for fry. Once its hot add pumpkin flower in batter and fry one by one. This bhajji is prepared and fryed similar to potato bhajji.
3. Serve hot and eat with tomato ketchup or any chutney

Simple delights of life: Varan Bhaat

Staying away from home is not easy specially when it comes to food. Till my BE studies, I had never stayed away from home and definitely never alone.So when I first moved to Pune and then to Bangalore, I was happy that every day I can eat in restaurants. But that joy was short lived as it gets boring to eat same paneer,kurma,naan day after day. I started craving for home cooked food and I had no other option but to start cooking. I used to help my mother here and there and knew recipes in theory. But theory is very difficult than practical is what I realised. So I thought that at least on weekends I should cook something nice.Then I committed my first mistake which most beginners do; try to cook something very elaborate like they show in TV shows. Most of the times the result is disastrous. I don't remember what exactly happened in my case. But anyway I turned my attention to very basic recipes. As I used to see how my Mom used to cook a recipe, I tried to visualize the steps and then confirmed with her on each stage. Once you start cooking on regular basis, you get handle on ingredient quantities, time to cook. Post which cooking some elaborate,complex dishes becomes very easy. Now I cook regular daal,chaval,roti,subzi almost every day and on weekends I try some special dishes. But still sometimes I try to attempt recipe modifications even when I'm trying it for first time and some times results are horrific but now the ratio of failed v/s successful recipes is better.

Here is my recipe of basic varan (boiled daal) which is common in Marathi household. I think each beginner cook should learn this. This will help you survive when staying alone :)

Ingredients*:
1 cup toor daal (this will be enough for 4-5 people or more)
1/2 tbls turmeric powder
1/4 tbls asafoetida(hing)
2 tbls grated jaggery (or 1-2 small pieces of "halls" size)
1 tbs salt

*Note: These are approximate quantities. You can change quantities as per taste.

1. Thoroughly wash the daal. If you've time keep the washed daal aside for 1/2hr. This will help in faster cooking.
2. Add the daal in pressure cooker with 3-4 cups of water depending on the thickness of the cooked daal you want. Generally for cooking rice 1:2 ratio of rice and water is used and for daal its 1:4.If you heat water little bit on high flame (by the time you wash your daal)and then add all ingredients then cooking is faster.
3. Add all other ingredients and close the lid.Light gas burner and keep on high flame.
4. After first whistle, reduce gas flame to low and wait for 2-3 whistles.Switch off burner then.

Varan is served mostly with hot rice. Add lemon juice and ghee in hot varan-bhaat to experience heaven on earth.

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.