We came to US last week to stay with our daughter for a while. Since both of them love pickles, I started with their favorite cauliflower pickle. Usually I make no-oil, no-masala version cauliflower pickle , it is very healthy as it does not involve even a drop of oil. This time, I wanted to try my mother and grand mother’s version with the pickle masala (mustard, methi are fried and powdered).
On the first day, I made it with a cup of cauliflower and it got over in one meal. So I made another big batch next day. The pickle masala gives a very nice taste to it. It remains good for couple of weeks when stored in refrigerator. It can be eaten on the same day, but for better taste, let it rest for one day. Finish it off while the cauliflower pieces are still crunchy.
Ingredients: 5 cups cauliflower cut into small pieces 4 tbl spns red chilli powder Salt 1/2 cup lemon/lime juice 2 tea spn oil 4 tea spns mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn fenugreek(methi) seeds 1/2 tea spn asafoetida 1/2 tea spn turmeric powder
Method: Wash the cauliflower pieces and spread them on a paper. When the pieces get dried , mix them with salt and lime juice. Keep them aside for 2-3hrs. Heat oil, add mustard seeds, fenugreek and asafoetida. When mustard pops up, take off the heat, powder them. When the pan is still hot, add red chilli powder and turmeric(do not heat the pan, this step lightly warms up the powders and also soaks any oil used for frying mustard). Stir it few moments. Add the powders to cauliflower pieces. Mix well.
Preparation time : 30mins
Pictorial:
Note : We will be reposting some of the old recipes back as and when we prepare them. This is to ensure we have better pictures for the post and also, we can rectify errors, if any, in the post. I am starting with one of our favorite dishes Mosaru vada.
Dahi (Hindi) or Mosaru (Kannada) is yogurt. Dahi vadas are vadas soaked in tasty yogurt mixture. As any other Indian dish, this is also prepared in many different ways. I have tasted the sweetish version in many places. But we always make the spicy version.
When my children were small, I used to regularly prepare this for evening snacks. I would make the vadas at about 12 in the noon and soak them in yogurt mixture so that they would be ready by the time kids reached home. After a long time, I made these last week here.
Ingredients: 1 cup urad dal 1/2 cup yellow moong dal Oil 1 and 1/2 cup yogurt(curd) 3-4 green chilies chopped finelly 1/4 tea spn cumin seeds 2-3 strands coriander leaves Salt
Method: Soak dals in water for around 2-3 hrs. Grind them to a very smooth paste by adding very little water(we use our ultra wet grinder). Mix a little salt(do not add much salt as these soak salt from yogurt). Mix yogurt with around 1/2 cup water to make it watery. Mix well to remove all lumps. Heat a tea spn of oil and add cumin seeds. When they start popping, add this to the yogurt and mix well. Add green chilies and chopped coriander to this and mix well. Heat oil to deep fry. Take a ping-pong sized ball of batter. Deep fry these vadas in hot oil. Drain oil and when they are stilll hot, put them in water. Take out the vada on left palm and press right palm on it to squeeze off all water from the vada . Put these vadas into the yogurt mixture. Leave it for atleast 4-5hrs so that the vadas soak yogurt very well. Those who love spicy, can eat it topped with chutney powder .
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 25mins(excluding the soaking time)
To get the soft vadas after soaking, keep in mind the foloowing two points 1) The yogurt mixture should not be too thick. It should be slightly thicker than buttermilk so that the vadas can soak the water. 2) The soaking time for the vadas should be atleast 3-4 hrs. 3) Make sure the batter is as soft as possible, it is hard to achieve this in mixer or blender. So if you have wet grinder, make the batter in it. 4) Moong dal makes the vadas slightly hard. So if you cannot make a smooth batter, reduce the quantity of moong dal or completely leave it out.
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