Okra Gojju with Curd rice

I was blessed with two kannadiga room-mates for a while, thats when I understood the subtleties of varieties of rasam and those flavor-explosions called gojjus. So when I read about RCI karnataka, the first thing that came to my mind was gojju!

As students in Texas, we did not get a chance to visit Indian grocery stores very often and thus typical Indian vegetables did not make it to the table much. This one time when we brought some fresh okra, my sweet room-mate Roopa decided to make some bendekay gojju out of it. I loved it! It was a totally new flavor for me and a taste that I would remember forever :) So, when I decided to make okra gojju for Asha's RCI karnataka, I turned to Roopa once again. And she did send me a detailed recipe. Roopa asked me to use the measurements as a guideline and not to follow strictly. I pretty much stuck to the measurements she had given me :) I will copy-paste the recipe here as is-

"Bhindi/pumpkin gojju :
bhindi cut like that for sabji and pumpkin, cut small and long. approx 1lb.
heat up few spoons of oil (more for bhindi), splutter some mustard, add a tablespoon of urad dal and chana dal. fry till golden.
split a couple of green chillies and add (you will add more red chilli kind of spice later, this is mostly for flavor).
add the cut and washed veggie and cook till almost done or till the sticky stuff is gone.
while this is cooking roast 1 table spoon of white sesame seeds in a hot dry pan till they start to splutter. make a dry powder of it afterwards.
now to the cooked veggies add some :
water - lets say half a cup,
sambar/rasam powder -about 1 tablespoon (or gojju powder, but I use this now till my mom gets me more !),
turmeric - a pinch,
salt to taste,
and jaggery - a 1" cube kinda piece (it has to be sweet)
tamarind paste- about one teaspoon (and sour :) )
and add the sesame powder.
and now boil it till it completely cooks ! goes great with rice or chapathis ...best with curd rice ;)"

I closed my eyes and followed her recipe :) I did not have fresh okra so I used the frozen version. I had to add a good amount of oil to make sure the okra didn't turn out sticky. I heated some oil, added mustard and the lentils and added the okra straight out of the freezer without thawing. Thawing makes it real sticky! Rest of the steps were exactly the same. I did not have any home-made rasam/sambar powder, so I used store-bought 'Badshah' sambar masala.

The gojju turned out real tasty. I still think the one that Roopa had made was better! :) Using frozen okra and store -bought sambhar masala could not match the 'real' thing. But nevertheless it was quite close and very very satisfying.



I made simple curd rice to go with it. Cannot vouch for the authenticity :)
1. Cook rice and let it cool. Mix some curd, chopped cilantro and salt with the rice. Curd should be enough to make the rice thoroughly wet.
2. Heat a little oil, add mustard seeds, chopped green chillies, heeng and a dry red chilli. Add this to the curd rice and mix well.



Okra gojju with curd rice is my entry for RCI Karnataka, hosted by Asha of Foodie's Hope.

Idli Sambhar and Uttapams

I LOVE South Indian food. Only rajma-chawal (kidney beans and rice) come close to my love for masala dosa. I love sambhar, fluffy idlis, crispy vadas, slurpy rasams, the wide variety of rice preparations - lime rice, curd rice, tamarind rice, bisi-bele bhaat, that great variety of chutneys and pickles - just love it all!!

We normally eat south Indian food every two weeks at least. I soak a big batch (too big for the two of us anyways) of rice and daal, make two batches of idlis right away and refrigerate the rest of the batter. Some idlis go in the freezer while some make for lunches. And we have dosas and uttapams for dinner.

Ingredients for basic batter - I realize there are various rice-lentil proportions used to make idlis and dosas. The following makes good idlis and pretty good dosas too, so I just stick to it.
1. 2 Cups rice (parboiled works the best, I mistakenly bought it one time - it made the best idlis ever). But considering that parboiled rice is not available in small packs, I make do with basmati.
2. 1 Cup dhuli urad daal (split black gram).
3. 1 tsp methi (fenugreek) seeds.

Wash and soak the daal and rice (with fenugreek seeds) separately for at least 6 hrs.
Drain water and grind separately. Daal is easier to grind, rice is more of a challenge. Mix well (I mix the batter by hand), cover and let ferment for 10-12 hrs. Fermentation depends on the temperature. This time when I made the batter, it was a towering 102 degrees outside. After letting the batter sit overnight, I kept it in the patio for 2 hrs. When I checked it, the batter had risen all the way to the top! My heart danced, we were going to get fluffy idlis!!

My mom-in-law got me this set of moulds and a stand with a steamer which is one of my favorite things in my kitchen :) . I use non-stick spray to grease the idli moulds. Works very well.

So here's what I do from here - I like to make idlis right away without putting the batter in the fridge. Add a little salt to taste and very gently mix the batter (you don't want to lose all that trapped air). The idli batter should not be thin, a watered down batter will yield flat idlis. While you fill the moulds with idli batter, fill a little water in a steamer/large stock pot and let it come to a boil. You need to make sure that the water will not touch the last idli plate (I just realized I need to take some pics of the moulds and the idli stand to make more sense!)Once water comes to a boil, place the stand in the steamer/stock pot and cover. Keep the flame medium-high. Idlis are normally done in 10-12 minutes. Insert a fork and check if they are done, if it comes out clean you are good to go! Let the idlis cool down for a few minutes before removing them from the moulds.

I let the idlis cool and store one batch in the fridge and one in the freezer. They reheat very well if you sprinkle a few drops of water and partially cover them while microwaving. 30 secs works for me.



To make dosas/uttapams from the remaining batter - I remove the batter from the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature.

For uttapams (Parthiv is my dosa/uttapam expert btw :)) - Add chopped onions, tomatoes, green chillies, cilantro and salt to the batter(you can also add chopped cabbage and grated carrots). If it's too thick, add water to bring it to a pourable consistency. Heat a non-stick pan, spread a few drops of oil on it. Spread uttapam batter just like you would do for a pancake/cheela/pooda/pudla. Cover with a lid and let it cook for a minute or two. Add a few more drops of oil on the side up and then flip. Let cook without covering. Keep flipping and roasting till the uttapams are golden and crisp.

Serve with hot sambhar, coconut and tomato chutneys! :) I will post sambhar and chutney (recipe here) recipes soon... do check back! :)



Thanks to sweet Asha's suggestion, I am also submitting this recipe for RCI Karnataka (hosted by Asha of Foodie's Hope).

Food for the soul - Khichdi

I have not always loved khichdi. In fact, when I was younger khichdi always made me think of being sick. What my little head didn't know at that time was that khichdi is the epitome of comfort food, something that would bring relief to your sick tummy and your depressed soul :) So, slowly and steadily I learnt to love it. My relationship with khichdi once again turned sour when I moved to a hostel for my bachelors. The lady who ran our mess thought of khichdi as a means to use up her (probably) several days old leftovers, and that didn't go too well with my palette. She thought we'd never know if everything was mashed well enough! I sometimes wish it worked that way :)

Well, I didn't stay in the hostel too long and slowly and steadily we were friends again. After meeting Parthiv I was quite happy to find that we shared our love for khichdi. I was used to eating yellow moong daal khichdi with ghee/dahi/raita and Parthiv loved green moong khichdi with gujarati kadhi. So I moved on to green khichdi, but I would still continue to eat it with dahi and make kadhi for Parthiv. And then the new love affair began, I discovered khichdi and kadhi were meant to go hand in hand and happily embraced the combination.
We were visiting my friend R for her baby shower on Saturday. Since dinner was going to be quite elaborate, her mom made a simple sabudana ki khichdi lunch for us. She asked us if were interested in tasting some masala khichdi she had made the day before. I had a spoonful of it and my love for yellow khichdi flared again :) So, I decided to make it for lunch on sunday. One thing that was different in the gujarati style khichdi was the use of mustard for tempering. So I kind of tried to reproduce the amazing taste. Here's the recipe (serves 2)-

Ingredients:
0.5 cup rice (I used basmati)
0.5 cup yellow moong daal - wash and soak for about 15-20 mins.
2 - 2.5 cups water
1.5 tsp mustard seeds
2 cloves
a pinch of heeng (asafoetida)
1 tsp dhana-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp red chilli powder
1.5 - 2 tsp or so of garam masala (preferably non-punjabi style. I think 'MDH' garam masala fits the bill for punjabi garam masala. For my gujarati preparations, I prefer using 'Mother's recipe' brand of garam masala)
salt to taste
1 tblsp ghee/oil (preferably ghee)
1 medium tomato -chopped
A handful of chopped cilantro to garnish

Method:
1. Wash and soak moong daal for 15-20 mins.
2. Wash rice.
3. Heat ghee in a pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds and cloves.
4. As they begin to splutter, add heeng and the rest of the dry spices. Tip: measure and mix your spices before-hand.
5. Quickly add chopped tomato. Be very careful in steps 4 and 5. You have to be quick or the spices will burn.
6. Saute for half a minute or so and add daal-rice mixture. Mix well and add 2.5 cups of water. If you want your grains to be separate, add only 2 cups of water.
7. Add salt, mix and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. 3 whistles for separate grains.
8. Let the pressure cooker cool down. If you feel the khichdi is not cooked yet, add a little more water and cook some more.
9. Add cilantro and mix.

To serve:
We had khichdi topped with a tsp of ghee, with yoghurt, store bought ginger relish/pickle and roasted papads on the side. Parthiv hates pickles so he had his khichdi with just papad.

For healthy variations, you can add peas, carrots, green beans etc. I was tempted to add some sprouted moong but did not want to play around with the taste I was trying to recreate. I wanted my khichdi on the spicy note. You can vary the quantity of spice to suit your taste.