I wanted to post this recipe for a long time. This was a regular with chicken biryani at my pachi’s (aayi’s sister) home. It has been over a decade and I still remember the awesome taste of this combination. Somehow I have not prepared this very often, I kept forgetting to get the exact recipe from pachi. But that changed when I was in India this time.
I have a strong dislike for raw onions and my family knows this very well – I still watch in awe when Ishaan, who is a picky eater, loves to eat raw onions!. All my life, aayi prepared (still prepares) two versions of any dishes that involved raw onions. So she was very surprised when I called up my pachi to get this recipe and prepared it. Here the onions are mixed very well with lemon and salt that takes out the strong bite/smell of the onions (atleast that is my explanation for liking this chutney!). I absolutely love this chutney with any pulavs/biryanis. This even tastes good with rotis/chapatis.
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1/2 cup chana dalia (putani/hurigadale) 1/2 cup coriander leaves 1/4 cup mint (pudina) leaves 3-4 green chillies 3-4 garlic 2 tbl spn lemon juice 1/2 cup onion slices Salt
Method:
Make a thick chutney from coconut, coriander and mint leaves, green chillies, garlic and salt. Make a coarse powder of dalia.
In a bowl add lemon juice and little salt to onion slices and mix very well (preferably do this with fingers so that the onion is very well mixed with salt and lemon, this takes out strong bite of onion ). Add the chutney and powdered dalia to the onions and mix. Serve.
PS: A little yogurt can be added to the chutney if needed.
Red amaranth is a very popular leafy vegetable that we get in the market here. It is in season now, so we go to any santhe( like a local farmer’s market) we can find this in abundance. Some people even get this to our door step. There are many varieties of tamdi (red) bhajji (leafy vegetable), some are bright red – where the gravies look almost like beetroot and some loose that color when cooked. Often, the farmers cut the portion outside the soil which is called modile (literally means cut) bhajji.
We prepare bhajji sasam , randayi , upkari (simple stir fry) etc with this. This ambat (gravy) can be prepared with spinach or malabar spinach ( vali ) also. We usually prepare the fritters(odi) during summer and they are used in such gravies throughout the year.
Ingredients: 3 -5 cups chopped red amaranth 1 cup fresh/frozen coconut 5-6 red chillies 1 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 cup ashguard fritters/ kulave odi Oil 1/2 tea spn tamarind extract Salt
Method: Chop the stem and leafy part of the vegetable separately. Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and fritters. Fry on a low flame till the fritters turn brown. Add the chopped stem and after cooking for sometime, add the leafy part.
Grind coconut, chillies and tamarind to a smooth paste.
Add this paste to the cooked amaranth. Add salt and cook for 2-3 minutes. Serve with chapatis or rice.
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 25mins
