MoLe means sprouts in Konkani. Every cuisine has it’s own very time consuming but heavenly tasting dishes. “Bagade randayi” is one such Konkani dish. This has a separate place in the hearts of every Konkani person. Making the dish itself is not very difficult, but preparing “bagado” for this dish is very time consuming. So this dish has almost become extinct these days.
When I was a kid, mom prepared this frequently and every member of the house was given a heap of sprouted cowpeas to peel. I don’t say I enjoyed doing it, but still we had to do it. Many times I thought, why the skin has to be removed, why can’t she just use them with skin. But then, the dish wouldn’t taste great with skin, so we had to remove it. Unlike sprouted moong beans where we have to just wash and skins come out of at least 50% beans, we have to remove the skin of these beans one by one.
These are usually called “desi chori” or “whole cow peas” at Indian store.
Here is the procedure for getting the cowpeas ready for the dish. Use any good method to sprout them or follow the simple method described below. – Soak the ‘bagado’ in water and leave it overnight. – Next day morning, it would have become a little bigger in size by soaking water. Drain out the water and keep it in a dry and warm place, like oven. – By the evening small sprouts can be seen. So again add water and leave it overnight, no need to keep in oven for this step. – Next day all of them or atleast 90% of them would have got big and beautiful looking sprouts. – Take one handful at a time on a plate and remove the skin one by one, taking care not to break the sprouts. Some sprouts do break, don’t worry about them. Usually the sprouted ones will be at the top, while taking handful for removing the skin, always take it from top carefully. – There will be some without sprouts and they almost look as the unsoaked version. Discard them. They are usually called “chor bagado” (chor-thief) :). – At the end, you will have two heaps, one with the ready ‘bagado’. Use this heap for the dish. – The other heap is with skin and the ‘chor bagado’. Discard this.
Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups de-skinned ‘bagado’(cow peas) 3/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1/2 tea spn tamarind extract or 3-4 bimbal(bilimbi) 3/4 cup chopped onion 4-5 red chilies Oil Salt
Method: Cook ‘bagado’ with 1/4 cup onion and 2 cups water. If you are using bilimbi/bimbal (green thing shown in picture) cut them in half and add while cooking at this step. Do not use cooker for cooking this. This takes around 5-10mins, so keep an eye not to overcook them. Heat a little oil and fry coriander seeds. Grind them with coconut, red chillies and tamarind(if using) to a smooth paste. Add the ground paste and salt to cooked ‘bagado’. Bring it to boil. Take care not to mix it too much, or else the ‘bagado’ becomes a paste. Heat remaining oil and fry 1/2 cup onion till they turn brownish in color. Add this to the dish and close the lid. Serve as a side dish with rice.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 15mins (excluding the 60-90mins of de skinning ‘bagado’).
PS: This was originally posted on September 9, 2006. I am reposting it with new pictures and better description.
Today we had a small party at home. We had invited five of our friends. Initially we had thought of making it “seafood special”. Then one of them said he does not take sea food, the other friend liked chicken compared to sea food. So finally decided to combine both. I was a bit worried about chicken as we don’t eat it, hubby eats just one piece once in a while. So finally decided to make the traditional chicken, chapathi and yellow flavored rice to go with this, one dry chicken, prawn curry , sola bangada and white rice. I was very happy when all of them liked the lunch.
This chicken dish is the most popular dish at our native. My aayi’s version was one of my favorite chicken dishes. We have a big house with garden surrounded(a typical village house), but still the aroma is so strong that even the neighbors come to know that chicken is cooking :). We absolutely loved this dish. When I prepared it earlier in India, I used to skip some of the steps in hurry to finish cooking soon and it never came out like my Aayi’s. This time I took extra care. Prepared the curry yesterday night as the taste of the curry usually increases on second day. I left out few of the spices, since I did not want my apartment people to throw me out of the house :D, considering there are very few Indians in our apartment complex and I didn’t know how others would take the garam masala aroma.
I recommend this gravy to all the chicken lovers at least once in life. Just forget about the calories for a moment and give it a try and I bet, you will not regret it. It usually looks more darker in color, if proper chilies like “Kashmiri chilies” or “Byadagi chilies” are used. My ‘byadagi chili’ was over, so I used normal ones. Following is the original recipe, I did not include Shahjeera and rock flower and used the spices in less quantity :).
Ingredients: Chicken 1 whole Coconut 2 cups Onion 1 and 1/2 cup Tomato 1 Coriander leaves 6-7 strands Ginger-garlic paste 2 tea spn Oil Salt Garam masala: Cloves 6-7 Cinnamon 2″ piece Nutmeg 2″ piece Pepper 7-8 Shahjeera(caraway seeds) 1 tea spn Dagad phool(stone flower) 1 tea spn Japatri(mace or the skin of nutmeg ) 2-3 Coriander seeds 1 tea spn Red chilies 5-6 Khus khus(Poppy seeds) 1 tea spn Fennel seeds(badishepi) 1 tea spn
Increase or decrease the amount of spices to suit the taste.
Method:
Mix ginger garlic paste with chicken and leave it for around 1-2hrs. Heat oil and fry the spices on a low flame in it taking care not to burn them. When a nice aroma comes out, add 3/4 cup onion and fry till they turn brownish. Grind this to a smooth paste and keep aside. This paste is called as ‘brown paste’.
Roast the coconut(without adding oil) till it turns slightly brownish. Grind to a smooth paste. This takes a very long time to become smooth paste as roasted coconut is being ground (do not mix both pastes as these are added at different stages to the gravy). This paste is called as ‘white paste’.
Heat oil and fry remaining onion till they turn slightly brownish. Add the marinated chicken and fry for sometime. Add 1/2 cup water(if required), close the lid and cook till chicken becomes tender. Add the ground coconut(white paste), cook for a minute. Add tomatoes chopped into big pieces and chopped coriander leaves. When the mixture starts boiling, add the brown paste and salt. Cook for another 5-6mins. Serve with chapati and yellow flavored rice, ie fried rice (gravy does not go well with white rice, so serve it with this rice).
Serves : 8-9 Preparation time : 1 and 1/2 hrs to 2hrs (including time taken to cut onions, grind masala)
