Nagli or Kane or Lady fish is abundantly available in the river near our home. So we get very fresh ones in the market. It is considered as one of the “clean fishes” as it does not have too many bones. It is easy for digestion, so when we introduce fish to babys, we start with nagli. We make few different dishes with this fish. This Nagli Ambat is one of them....

Maddur is a place in Karnataka. In 2005 when we were in Bangalore, we used to make a lot of trips every now and then with my brother, SIL and sometimes with my parents. My brother used to plan all these trips, and whenever we went on Bangalore-Mysore road, he would plan a stop at Maddur to eat these vadas . These vadas are made with rice flour and onions....

This is one of the favourite breakfasts at my home. My colleague and friend Poornima brought this often for lunch(yes..she likes dosas, idlis in lunch box than rice). She always brought 2-3 extra so that we all could eat it. She knew so many good recipes that every time I used to wonder how many more she might know. Her dishes are always perfect(unlike mine, most of the time they come out bad)....

We are not huge fans of burgers. We avoid them when we can. But there are some days when we like a good burger. I personally like chicken burgers and rarely get vegetarian burgers. I have many friends who are absolute fans of black bean burgers. I decided to try my hands at making them at home. But instead of black beans, I used whole masoor. These masoor burgers were hearty, delicious and spicy, the way we like it....

Saar/saru is a very thin soup kind of dish which can be consumed with rice or like soup. I am a big fan of all kinds of sarus as they are very easy to make and very tasty. I have many childhood memories associated with tomato saru . Â While growing up, my grandmother was incharge of our kitchen. During those days, cooking gas was very expensive, so it was used only for making tea/coffee or some quick dishes like sarus ....

I can’t remember when was the last time I participated in any blogging event. This withdrawal was not intentional, I was just trying to balance between my home, office and some bad surprises of life. But now that aayi is here, I thought of participating atleast in one event which looked very interesting to me. It’s Anita’s puri party :). Puri is a kind of Indian bread made with wheat flour and then deep fried....

Okra/bhende is one of the most loved vegetables at our home. My grandmother used to prepare this dish very often. Song is a very spicy Konkani side dish. The most popular song being the batate song – version with coconut and without coconut . The okra version is made with lot of onion, sliced okra, lot of chillies, tamarind and a little coconut. The final dish becomes spicy, sweetish from onion, tangy from tamarind....

We have always loved the very aromatic Lasuni Dal Palak in restaurants in India. When we moved to US, I tried different recipes to get the same strong aroma of garlic to my dals/gravies. Somehow I could not reproduce the same. Then I read about this recipe where garlic is used in 3 ways on some blog (for the life of me, I am not able to locate that recipe, I will update this post with the link when I find it)....

Last few days, due to various reasons, my number of cooking experiments have drastically gone down. I look for some easy dinners which can be made in no time and are equally delicious. What else can fit in this situation other than a simple stir fried noodle dish loaded with vegetables? I have liked all kinds of noodle dishes for a long time now. Remember those Indo-Chinese dishes available in almost every restaurant back home?...

Few years ago, one day my brother and I were roaming around Gandhi bazaar, Basavangudi in Bangalore in the evening. My brother is a great foodie, he knows almost all the good restaurants in Bangalore. He tried to take me to these restaurants every time we went out. So, all of a sudden, he said, there is a famous restaurant called Vidyarthi Bhavan in that area and they serve these amazing beNNe( butter ) dosas ....

My brother and his family hired a cook two years back, after they had a baby. Since my brother is a great cook himself (and a hard critic), when he says something I feel like I should taste it immediately. Few months back he said he likes the chicken dishes prepared by his cook. Then when my parents were visiting them, they noted down the recipe of few of the dishes....

We find drumstick tree in garden of almost each and every house in our area. They provide full iron and so used by everybody especially women to supliment their need of nutritional iron. This is drumstick season. We use the flowers and leaves in konkani cooking along with drumsticks. Drumstick flowers are used to prepare cutlets. My kids used to love these. Many of our neighbors and relatives used to give us these flowers, freshly plucked from the tree....

When I was a kid I simply hated dried seafood. I never even wanted to taste it because of its smell. But now, since husband is a big fan of dried shrimp, I have also started eating it. I have not tried cooking dried fish after I had to throw the entire gravy because of bad smell, I might have brought wrong fish, don’t know. So I decided to try only dried shrimp till I will be able to recognize the dried fish :)....

Many of you asked me for a garam masala recipe. Frankly, I have used many different recipes for this popular spice blend. Some I liked, some not so much. After a while, I just started using store bought one. Then I really started liking garam masala that my friend Pallavi uses. I asked her recipe, she said her mom makes it for her. It is from a Marathi book called Annapurna by Mangala Burve....

This is one more kind of vadi/odi with mirsang (chilies), which is bit less popular than the classic kuvaLe (ash gourd) vadis . This is a must at my home and aayi makes these almost every year. These are generally not used for gravies like ash gourd vadis , but these are served along with papads with meals. A huge amount of green chilies are added to it to make them quite hot....

We all know bittergourd has too many medicinal values. I found this article in one weekly. I thought it would be helpful for everybody. I never understood the importance of home remedies before coming to USA. My father being a doctor, I used to always get immediate medical attention back in India. But when I came here, everything changed. It all started from a serious medical emergency we had to handle soon after coming here....

Phodis are very popular among Konkanis. Chilli powder and tamarind are used to marinate the vegetables to make phodis. In old days the chilly powder was not easily available. So they prepared a pulp of red chillies, tamarind, salt and asafoetida. This pulp was used to prepare phodis of different types. It can also be used to prepare fried fish – usually we do not use asfoetida is not used for fish fry....

Aayi makes some of the amazing pickles I have ever tasted. I never liked any of the ready made pickles because of this reason. She puts very less oil and her pickles remain good for a very long time (more than 2 years, if I don’t finish them off before that). Her pickles are very popular among friends and family. But somehow I don’t remember tasting her sweet pickle. I always loved the spicy pickles, so it is possible that she stopped making this since I never ate it as a kid....

Few days back, one of my readers had asked about the famous “ambe-ananas sasam”. It took me some time to find good ripe mangoes to prepare this dish. Like Airaawat , this is one more dish usually found in any Konkani functions (with mangoes during the mango season, otherwise only with pineapple). Go to any house, you will find one or the other dish with mango. Mango is one friut I loved from my childhood, I have lot of memories with mango....

This I learnt from my pachi (mom’s sister). She usually makes the dough in the night so that she can prepare the paratha for breakfast. Because of methi , this paratha is very good for health. Ingredients: 2 cups chopped fenugreek( methi ) leaves 1/2 cup besan (gram flour) 3 cups wheat flour 1 tea spn chili powder 2 tbl spn each oil and ghee Salt Method: Cut methi leaves into small pieces and add salt....