Deepa Pai, one of my dear readers, sent me a mail few months ago saying, “I was wondering if you have heard this recipe called ‘Dahi Misal ‘. It falls unders ‘ Chaats ‘ and its Maharashtrian Recipe. I can send it to you if you would like to try. Its made with sprouted moong . Its very very tasty and kinda healthy too. My mom tasted this when she visited Bombay some 30 years ago. She got this recipe from that chaatwala . Since then she is been making this”.
Since I am a great fan of chaats , I immediately replied her saying I would be very happy to get the recipe. She sent it to me. At that time, my parents were here with me, so I asked aayi to cook it for us. For such a simple recipe, this tasted great. Very filling, tasty and healthy. Thanks Deepa for sending it to me.
For moong curry: 1 cup sprouted green moong 1/2 cup boiled potato 1/2 cup chopped tomato 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 2-3 green chilies 4-5 curry leaves A pinch asafoetida 1/2 tea spn chili powder 1/2 tea spn coriander powder 1/4 tea spn cumin powder A pinch turmeric Oil 1-2 tbl spns chopped coriander leaves
For masala dahi (yogurt) 1/2 cup yogurt 1/2 tea spn sugar 1/2 tea spn chaat masala Salt
For garnish Sev (I used bhujia ) Onion Coriander leaves
Method:
Heat a little oil, add mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When they start popping, add green chilies, curry leaves and asafoetida. Fry for some time and add onion. Fry till onions are translucent. Add moong , turmeric and about 1/2 cup water. Close the lid and cook till done. Add potato, tomato, chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, salt. Mix well, add extra water if required. Add coriander leaves, mix well.
In a separate bowl, mix all the ingredients of masala dahi . While serving, take some curry. Spread a little dahi according to taste. Spread onion, coriander leaves and spread some sev on top.
Serve immediately with lemon wedges.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 20mins
I promised Zlamushka that I would send her some Christmas special recipes for her Spoonful of Christmas event . When I said that, I had Kuswar- traditional Christmas dishes prepared at Mangalore , recipes in mind. But what I had not checked was the fact that all the Kuswar dishes that I had involved deep frying. They are all so tempting, but I am not in a mood to prepare anything deep fried after the Diwali overdose. So, I changed my plan.
Next in line was the Italian sandwich cookies which look absolutely delicious. I have tried these once before and messed them up. I wanted to give them a second try. So I started and took care not to miss a single step. But looks like making these is not my cup of tea. The cookies turned out like thin sheet even though I had taken all precautions. I am not yet ready to give up on them because they look absolutely delicious, I will give them another try after few days with a new batch of cornmeal(I seriously doubt the cornmeal that I have).
So now, I started going through my recipe collection, which my dad had got for me. There were many dishes which could go well for this event. Then I got this idea of making cookies with cashews. So I took ideas from more than one recipe in the collection and some from the above Italian sandwich cookies, came up with these cookies. I had really little hope that they would turn out good. But to my surprise, they were very very tasty, crunchy and melt in the mouth types. Give them a try to know what I mean.
I will send this to Zlamushka’s spoonful of Christmas event & hope she accepts such trial recipes. Well, I had not read the rules properly, so I haven’t wrapped these. Will see if I can do something about it before they all get over. Well..I have never celebrated Christmas before and have baked these just for the event, so I hope I get some kind of concession ;).
Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter 1 and 1/2 tea spns baking powder 1/2 cup chopped cashews 1/2 cup chopped pecans Zest of one orange 1 egg 1/2 tea spn salt
1 tea spn vanilla extract can be substituted for orange zest. But I loved the orange flavor in these. Instead of adding pecans and/cashews, any kind of nuts can be added. Coarsely powder the nuts leaving few big pieces for better result.
Method: Preheat oven at 375F for about 10mins. Beat together sugar and butter till they are well mixed. Add baking powder, flour, orange zest, egg, salt and mix well. Now add chopped nuts and mix well. Make small balls from the dough and keep them on baking sheet leaving enough space between two. They almost double in volume when done, so leave enough space.
Bake in oven for about 15 mins at 375 F.
Makes about 30 cookies Preparation time : 30mins (excluding baking time)
