Category: Vegetables

Have you eaten a dish that is super easy to cook, light on the tummy, healthy, and still considered a delicacy? If you haven’t try making this dish at home. The recipe was given to me by my aunt, Kishori mami.

I ate bottle gourd vegetable the way only she could cook it when we travelled from Bombay to Poona during our school vacations. She is also known for making perfect Gujarati chapatis, rolled out doubled, and then opened out once cooked to make two splendid ghee smattered orbs, to get two chapatis out of one.

Our vacations were truly memorable. My cousins and we sisters would raid my aunt’s fridge at night and have midnight feasts. The next morning the soaked almonds were gone and the condensed milk had disappeared. We were little monsters in the garb of children and I’m certain my root canals now, go back to my food monster days.

So here is the recipe of bottle gourd vegetable, Kishori mami’s way.

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Sprouted fenugreek or methi dana as it is called in Hindi is excellent for health. Fenugreek sprouts aid in digestion and help lower blood sugar levels and so are great for diabetics. They also help reduce acidity. These tiny wonder shoots also prevent dandruff and give you radiant skin. Fascinating?!

So today, I’m posting a delicious recipe for fenugreek sprouts and potato vegetable. I’ve made this recipe with sprouted fenugreek seeds (seeds soaked for 24 to 36 hours) and they look like the picture above when they sprout, with little shoots on them. Of course you can make them with soaked fenugreek seeds too. Then you must soak them not until they sprout but until they just swell up and turn a little sticky.

The vegetable is a little bitter because of the fenugreek in it but it is very tasty. Try it and I promise you will love it.

Get healthy! in the most delicious way possible.

Ours is a polarized country, a polarized world even. Still, we all want to be happy. This post includes a recipe, yes, but I am also writing this post because peace and love and unity are important for humankind. I want peace and unity between India and Pakistan and Hindus and Muslims within India.

Below is a poem I wrote some years ago that sadly is still relevant today.

The scourge of barbed wire fences,

The scourge of urban ghettos,

The scourge of my brother under subjection.

When did we turn against each other?

Spew venom and hatred at each other?

Divide ourselves across borders,

Hindus, Muslims? Indians, Pakistanis?

 

There is no worse vice than this,

When we behave this way,

Mazhab nahi sikhaata, aapas mein bair rakhnaa,

But we trample upon human goodness,

Hide behind past lives and reincarnation.

The scourge of barbed wire fences,

The scourge of urban ghettos,

The scourge of my brother under subjection.

I’m moving on to the recipe I mentioned to you about earlier. I’m happy when I cook and blog, and we all strive for joy.

This recipe is called Kacha Pakka Carrot Vegetable or semi cooked carrot vegetable.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

750 gms peeled and grated winter carrots

3 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

10-12 curry leaves

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/4 teaspoon asafoetida

Chilly powder to taste

Salt to taste

Method

1 Heat the oil in a deep bottomed pan on medium heat.

2 Add the mustard seeds and when they begin to pop, add the curry leaves. They will begin to sputter.

3 Add the turmeric powder and asafoetida. Cook for a few seconds.

4 Put in the grated carrots, chilly powder and salt and cook on high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.

5 Remove from flame and serve hot.

 

 

 

Dahi Bataka or potatoes in a curd or yoghurt gravy. This dish is one of my family heirlooms. It comes down from my great grandmother to my granny to my mom and now I’ve noted it down so that family and friends can read it and make this delicious recipe. Perhaps other Gujarati homes also make it, but this is our way and I hope you like it.

Whenever I make this dish, the aroma wafts into the outside of my home, and people passing by wonder what delicious stuff is cooking. The dish is simple to make, like most of the food I put up on my blog, but let me assure you, it tastes divine with hot chapatis or parathas.

I don’t make my dishes too spicy but you can add more chilly powder or green chillies if you want to make your dish spicier.

Here is the recipe.

Dahi Bataka

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

500 gms potatoes boiled in salt water and chopped in to medium size pieces

3 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste

3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

3/4 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon chilly powder

A nice pinch of asafoetida

1 cup or 200-250 gms beaten curd or yoghurt mixed with half cup water

Salt to taste

A few sprigs coriander finely chopped to garnish

Method

1 Heat the oil in a deep bottomed pan. Add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds and let them begin to pop. Now add the ginger garlic paste and a little water and fry for 2 minutes till a nice aroma emanates.

2 Add the chopped potatoes and fry for 2 minutes. Add the turmeric powder, coriander powder, chilly powder and asafoetida. Toss and mix and cook for 3-4 minutes. Mash a few of the potatoes while cooking.

3 Now add the beaten curd and salt to taste and cook on a low flame but don’t allow the dish to boil.

Serve hot garnished with fresh coriander.

 

 

Kacha Pacca Cabbage or Cabbage Vegetable is a quick to make, easy, nutritious and tasty dish made especially by people from Kutch and Gujarat. It can be made spicy by adding a lot of green chillies. You can also garnish the dish with fresh grated coconut.

Mom used to make this when we were kids and we devoured it with relish. We ate it with hot ghee (clarified butter) chapatis.

The asafoetida in this recipe gives it a delicious taste. Asafoetida originated in Persia. The Mughals cultivated it in India to provide their cooks with a ready supply. The Indian vegetarian population took to hing as it was called in India, with great relish. When cooked in oil it produced a garlicky flavour which was loved by devout Hindus who didn’t eat onions and garlic in their food.

Kacha Pacca Cabbage

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

500 gms cabbage

3 tablespoons oil

3/4 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon asafoetida

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt to taste

1 to 2 green chillies (optional)

Garnish

Some fresh grated coconut (optional)

Method

1 Shred the cabbage. Chop the chillies into small pieces if using. Keep aside.

2 Heat the oil in a Kadhai (deep bottomed pan). Add the mustard seeds. When they begin to pop, add the asafoetida, then quickly add the shredded cabbage.

3 Now cook the cabbage for 3 minutes on medium heat, stirring to ensure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan, then add the sugar, salt to taste and finely cut chillies if adding, and cook for another minute.

Garnish with fresh grated coconut if you like and serve hot with hot puffed phulkas or ghee chapatis.

 

Greens, I adore them, they’re tasty the way we Indians make them, and so healthy. I ate a dish similar to this one at a restaurant and it tasted good, so when I found the recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s 100 Essential Curries, I was smitten.

Now, who hasn’t heard of Madhur Jaffrey? The queen of Indian curries. She is an actress par excellence and a chef who put India on the global food map as early as the 70s and 80s when she travelled all over India shooting TV cookery shows for British television. She’s written a whole bunch of cookery books too.

The dish is refreshing and easy to make. Here is the recipe.

Green beans with fresh coconut and sesame seeds

Serves 4

Ingredients

50 gms (2oz) freshly grated coconut (about 8 tbsps)

4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh green coriander, or parsley.

Generous pinch of asafoetida (optional)

1/2 to 1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon plus 1/2 teaspoon salt

450 gms (1 lb) fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 2.5 cms (1 in) lengths

6 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 teaspoon whole black mustard seeds

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper ( optional)

Method

1 Combine the coconut, coriander, asafoetida, green chilli and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Rub the mixture well with  your hands. Set aside.

2 Add 1/2 teaspoon salt to 2 litres (3 1/2 pints) water and bring to a boil in a large pot. Add the cut beans. Boil rapidly for 3 to 4 minutes or until beans are tender, but still bright green and crisp. Drain in a colander and refresh by moving the colander under cold running water. Set aside.

3 Heat the ghee or oil in a 25 to 30 cms (10 to 12 in) wide sauté pan or heavy pot over a medium heat. When hot, put in the sesame and mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop add the cayenne pepper. Stir once and add the beans. Sauté the beans over medium-low heat for 1 to 2 minutes or until they are heated through and well coated with the seeds. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and stir. Now add the coconut- coriander mixture, stir once and remove from the heat. Serve immediately.

I didn’t add the cayenne pepper or the green chilli, and added a nice pinch of asafoetida, and the dish turned out delicious.

I have adjusted the amount of salt and mustard seeds in the recipe and adapted it from the original as on 17th March 2018.