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I grew up playing around moringa(maskasangi) trees. Everyone has atleast one tree in their garden in our place. My parents always told us how maskasangi was full of iron and slightly nudged us to eat it. But I had never tasted the leaves(pallo). Aayi would make phodi (which is still one of my all time favorite dishes) out of the flowers and the pods were used in many dishes. Few years ago, I started reading about leaves being used in many dishes and when I asked aayi, she also confirmed it....

Mushrooms were available only during season at my native. The season usually is hardly 1-2weeks per year. During this season, these mushrooms were carefully picked from forests and other places by the people who knew which were edible and which were not. So during these days, we used to eat loads of mushroom dishes since many of relatives and friends used to send us these amazingly tasty ones. Both my brother and I developed the taste for these from a small age because aayi makes many tasty dishes with them....

I have learnt a lot of cooking from many people, apart from my mother. One such lady is my friend’s grandmother. She is an amazing cook. I used to go to their home for my studies, while I was doing my bachelors. She used to serve very tasty lunch in the afternoon. I was not at all interested in cooking at that time, so I could not learn much from her....

Shevayi/sevai in Konkani or Shavige in Kannada or rice noodles in English or idiyappam in Malyalam is my all time favorite breakfast. Some Konkanis make it even for lunch, but it was always served as a breakfast at my home. Aayi’s shevayi were one of the best rice noodles I ever had. We had the traditional shevayi press (called as ‘shevayi dante’) at home. It looks like following. My mom would make me or my brother help her in making this....

Many tubers are used in Indian cuisine. They are full of carbohydrates and are easily digestible. Yam or suranagadde is known to many people. Maaddi – tuber from colocasia plant is the other popular tuber available here. This is a type of colocasia with slightly darker and thicker leaves. It is usually available after the rainy season or early winter. Farmers dig out the tubers when the leaves of the plant dry up....

(Icon credits – Sandeepa of Bong Mom’s cook) I’ve posted about this before on Aayi’s Recipes. But this post is here to support the drive to stop plagiarism in the blogging world. Why did I start blogging? It was because I wanted to save the traditional Konkani as well as other recipes which I keep trying. We all bloggers give a lot of time to blogging because we think many food enthusiasts can get benefited from this knowledge sharing....

Weather is getting cold here. So one of the things that I make frequently these days is this hearty vegetable and barley soup. I kept on modifying it till I got something that we both really enjoy. This is so filling that, we sometimes skip dinner after this. Ingredients: 2 cups vegetables – potatoes, green beans, carrots, zucchini 1/2 cup onion 1/2 cup fresh chopped spinach 1 tea spn finely chopped ginger 1/2 tea spn finely chopped garlic 1/2 cup barley 1/2 tea spn dried basil 1/4 cup tomato 2 bay leaves 1/2 tea spn red pepper flakes Pepper 1 tea spn butter Salt...

Aruna gave me this recipe recently. Though I had seen this in one of the recipe books, I had not tried it. But thanks to Aruna, I tried this and it was fabulous. Since so many vegetables are used in it, it can be considered as very healthy too. In the book I mentioned above, they have included sprouted moong also, but since I was not having it handy, I just followed whatever Aruna has mentioned....

I am happy to announce here that we were blessed with our second baby boy – “ Ayaan ” couple of days ago. Life has changed again with us trying to adjust to an almost 4 year old and a newborn at home. We have been very lucky to have my parents here to help us out, I cannot imagine how we would have managed if they were not here....

Majjige huLi – buttermilk gravy with vegetables in it, is one very popular Kannada dish. Like any other traditional dishes, there are many ways of making this. This recipe was sent to me by Aruna . It has become a very regular at home these days. Ingredients: 1/4 cup chana dal 1/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut ( I did not use coconut ) 4 green chillies 1 tea spn cumin seeds 3-4 strands corainder leaves(with stems) 1″ piece ginger 1 and 1/2 cups yougurt 1 and 1/2 cup cooked vegetables any of these white pumpkin(ash gourd) or bottle gourd Oil Salt...

Buttermilk is called Tak (or Taak) in Konkani. Taka kadi is one very simple dish, where buttermilk is seasoned with either garlic or normal seasoning. This is not a Konkani specific dish, as most of the South Indian cuisines have one or the other variations of this. At my home, my parents preferred the garlic version . We love to eat it with rice or drink it as it is....

Few months ago, my son’s friend and his wife visited us. They are from North Karnataka. When they saw cashew trees and fruits, they were very amused. They said they had never seen it before and didn’t know where cashew grew. So I decided to write this post here. These trees are very common at our place. Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) is called kaju in Konkani, geru hannu (fruit)/ geru beeja (nut)/ godambi in Kannada....

Few days back, Shilpa Sane had asked for this recipe. A few points to be noted while preparing fried rice : – The vegetables should not become very soft. They should be crunchy. – The rice should not become too soft, the grains should be seperate, so while cooking rice add a drop of oil. Preferably, do not cook rice in cooker/microwave. Cook with around 1(rice) : 4(water). When rice is cooked, drain off the extra water....

Everyone has their own list of comfort foods, which when savored, makes you very happy and fulfilled. When I think of comfort food, the first thing that comes to my mind is a dali ambat – which is a traditional Konkani dish with toor dal , coconut and a vegetable. Its just out of the world. Any one of a huge list of vegetables can be used for this gravy and depending on which vegetable is used, the gravy gets its unique taste....

These days I am trying to use greens at least once in a week. Because, I find it difficult to do shopping everyday, whenever I buy greens, I have to finish them off in one or two days. Usually I buy spinach, but this time I bought green collard greens . I had no idea what to cook with them, but I was in a mood to cook something new....

Daali thoy(dalitoy/dalithoy) is the first recipe learnt by all konkani people when they start cooking. It is simple daal with chilies, ginger, asafoetida etc. This is a must in almost all Konkani functions and festivals. May be one of the very important comfort food. The traditional recipe does not call for coriander leaves, but I like this dish with coriander leaves. Some places, like in South Kanara, ginger and turmeric are not added....

There are many recipes that are passed on from one generation to another generation. However there are few out of them, which are not liked by this generation… at least at my house. None of my immediate relatives like smell of Shepi( Dill leaves) and hence this one is hardly prepared and would have lost from our contemporary radar but for my wife. Now this one is prepared by my wife for breakfast and she brings this recipe in, from her mother....

Ragi mudde must be one of the most popular items of Karnataka cuisine. I have heard about it from the time I was a kid, but never got a chance to taste this. It was on my to-do list for a long time now, finally I prepared it. In my opinion, it takes some time for any one to get adjusted to the taste of these ragi balls. When I started blogging, I read about ragi mudde over and over again in many places....

This ambat/curry is the most popular konkan curry I ever wanted to share here. As I said earlier, two types of fish curries are very famous at North Kanara. One of them is Tepla ambat (gravy with teppal Tepla meaning ‘with teppal’ and ‘ambat’ meaning ‘curry’) kande ambat. The distinguishing taste to this gravy comes from ‘teppal’ and ‘kokum’. A few days back, one of my reader Mugdha sent me the same recipe where in she had specified tamarind juice instead of kokum....

Since my childhood, our staple combo for lunch and dinner at home, usually has been rice and some kind of gravy/dal with one or more sidedishes. However it has gradually changed in the last 5 years or so. It sometimes amazes me. As much as I love my comfort food, I get pretty bored soon. I crave for something different very often. Considering Ishaan and V also have developed same liking, it has gotten easier for me....