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.
Pictorial:
Ambe Haldi(Konkani) or Mango Ginger(English) is very rarely available at our place. These roots look almost like turmeric(Haladi) root and have a strong aroma of mangoes, hence the name Ambe haladi/haldi. The most popular preparation from these roots is pickle. When I saw these roots in Indian store here, I remembered this very old recipe – sasam. I have prepared this only a few times in the past, could not find these roots anywhere after that.
Sasam is a popular Konkani dish with coconut and mustard seeds. One very popular sasam is ambe sasam – this can also be made with pineapple(ananas). When mangoes are not available, it can be made with mango ginger. Unlike mangoes, these roots do not have any sourness. So some kind of souring agent needs to be used when these are used in any dish.
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh/frozen coconut 4 pieces mango ginger 4-5 red chillies 1/2 tea spn tamarind extract or 1 piece tamarind 1/4 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn jaggery (optional) Salt
Method: Peel the mango ginger. Grind with all other ingredients. Add water to bring to a thick gravy. This gravy is not cooked. Serve with rice.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 10mins
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