She is the owner of one of my favorite food blogs – I have tried so many recipes from that blog , which we have absolutely loved. She is a person for whom, I have very high regards. A great friend who is always ready to help others. Yes, I am referring to Manisha. Probably it is high time I said Thanks to her :).
There are many recipes from her blog, which have become very common at my home. V has a list of dishes which he has been eating for years now. Though he enjoys almost all things I cook, there are only few that go into his list, which he asks for again and again. This is one latest addition to his list. Probably I have cooked this one almost every week after I saw it on Manisha’s blog.
I needed a name for the dish which V would remember easily. So when I tried it first time, I called it Varn – a dish prepared with dal and cumin seeds like this and this (there are some versions which do not have cumin seeds, but I normally follow this combo for varn). Since masoor dal (the red colored dal) cooks very fast, it takes hardly 20mins to cook. I made few changes to the original recipe. Thank you Manisha for this recipe and lot more.
Check out the original recipe .
Ingredients: 1 cup masoor dal (red colored, skinned masoor ) 2 green chillies 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds A pinch turmeric 1/4 tea spn pepper powder Ghee 2 tbl spn lemon juice 2-3 strands coriander leaves Salt
Method: Cook dal with green chillies and turmeric. Heat ghee and add cumin seeds. When they start popping, add cooked dal , pepper powder and salt. Cook for few minutes and before removing from heat, add lemon juice and mix well. Take off heat. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 3 Preparation time : 20mins
This is a modified version of the very popular Punjabi dish kadhi pakodi – gram flour dumplings in yogurt gravy. I wanted to give this a try for a long time now. But due to sheer laziness, I would just make kadhi – buttermilk gravy.
Long time ago, my friend Aruna had sent me a recipe for this dish. What I am posting this today is based on her recipe (for the most part) and the traditional Punjabi version from Anita . This turned out to be finger licking good. I made only few pakodas and most of them were gone before I added them to gravy. I didn’t make them in perfect shape as I was trying to fry them in very little oil. I wrote down the exact recipe, so that I could prepare this next time again. This is more like a South Indian version of the dish with curry leaves and all.
Pakodi: 1/2 cup chopped capsicum (I used orange bellpepper) 1 tbl spn chopped coriander leaves 3 tbl spn besan 1/4 tea spn red chilli powder Oil Salt
Mix all with little water. Make small balls from the mixture. Deep fry in oil. (I shallow fried in little oil like this )
Kadhi: 1 cup thick buttermilk or well beaten and thinned yogurt 1 tbl spn besan 2 green chillies 1 red chilli 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 3-4 curry leaves A pinch asafoetida 1 tea spn ginger-garlic paste 2-3 strands coriander leaves A pinch turmeric Oil Salt
Method: In a bowl, mix buttermilk and besan. Heat oil and add cumin seeds. When they start popping, add green chillies, red chilli, curry leaves, ginger-garlic paste and asafoetida. Add the buttermilk mixture, turmeric, salt and cook till the kadhi thickens. Before serving, add pakodis to kadhi, garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 45mins
