Lunch for today is very simple. Lemon rice and fruits (grapes, strawberry, apple, banana). Honey is packed separately as it becomes watery if mixed with fruit. I am not very sure whether the banana will remain fresh in lunch box or not. But if I included it separately, it promptly came back without being touched. So I have cut it into pieces and packed today :).
‘KaDamb’ is one of the most popular Konkani breakfasts. It is usually prepared using pumpkin or a special kind of cooking cucumber called as ‘Magge’ or ‘Mangalore southekayi’ (See this for more details of this cucumber). The cucumber version is more popular than the pumpkin version. Pumpkin(dudde) Kadamb is usually made sweet.
When I heard about Meeta’s FMR event , I did not know what would be my entry. Then I remembered, Aayi had mentioned about this dish a few days back. Since we usually preferred the not-so-sweet cucumber version, pumpkin version was prepared very rarely at home.
The authentic version of this dish is prepared on turmeric leaves. Since I could not get hold of these leaves, I used Banana leaves. I got these banana leaves in the frozen section of Chinese store here. Usually the rice rava is prepared fresh by soaking rice for around 1 hr, then dry it for sometime and make rava, but I used the ready made idli rava. I used ‘ Butternut squash ‘ for this.
The other simpler version of this dish is Tausalli .
Ingredients: Grated pumpkin 1 cup Coconut (fresh or frozen) 1/2 cup Rice rava/sooji (idli rava) 1/2 cup Jaggery 1 tbl spn Cardamom powder 1/4 tea spn Salt Banana/ turmeric leaves
Use banana leaves only if the turmeric leaves cannot be found. Turmeric leaves give a great aroma to this dish.
Method: Mix all the ingredients and leave it for around 30min. The mixture leaves some water. This makes the dish more tasty.
Keep two leaves on a flat board in following manner.
Keep a handful of mixture on the leaves.
Fold tightly the bottom leaves followed by top leaves as shown.
Keep these bundles in a vessel.
Steam in cooker/steamer(without putting whistle) for around 10mins.
Discard the leaves. Serve with ghee or chutney powder or asafoetida chutney .
Makes 3-4 Kadambs Preparation time : 30mins Note: I will write the cucumber version separately as I don’t want to confuse between the two.
