As I said earlier, I am on a fridge/freezer/pantry cleaning spree these days. I should say I am pretty much on the right track so far. There is still a long way to go before I can say I am successful in the “mission”. This is a hearty and delicious rice I prepared last Sunday. I served it with a cold yogurt and we had a very filling lunch. I think I am going to make this regularly hereafter....
I have already given the introduction to this here . This is the simplest of pohas prepared in this way. This was a must in all Konkani wedding breakfasts along with upma. But these days idlis and wadas have replaced this traditional dish. I could not get the red color to this poha because of the chili powder. The large stock of chili powder that I have here gives very good taste but the color is pathetic....
Okra ( bhende ) is one of the most loved vegetables at my home. Every time I see fresh okra at our Indian store, I buy it. I have tried many different recipes in last few days, which are very simple and delicious. This recipe was sent to me by my friend Aruna . She said this is her mother’s recipe with some of her own twists. In Konkani, we call kokum as sol ....
It looks like ages ago when I was working for a IT company in Bangalore!. Anyone who has ever worked in IT industry knows how busy and stressful life can get. During those days, my friends and I loved to take long lunch break together. I looked forward to this time as most of my friends were great cooks. We loved talking about food, exchanged recipes. This is one such recipe I got from my friend Sandhya....
Many people call this as “Kumta masala” as this is readily available in Kumta . What is the first thing any Konkani person can remember when you say “breakfast or evening snack”? Almost 90% of people (especially I have seen guys like it more than girls, it’s just an observation. My father, brother and husband are absolute fans of poha prepared in this way) say it is ‘ Kalayile phovu ‘ (Kalayile means mixed, phovu is phoha/avalakki)....
Do you have a brother or sister whose tastes are very different than yours? I do. While growing up, my brother and I had exact opposite favorites. It was so bad that if he liked something, I would just hate it and vice versa. He never liked crabs and I never liked fish. If idli was prepared, he would always ask for chutney and I would ask for sambar ....
We get white colored huge radishes here in Indian stores. The size of them is quite intimidating to me as I had not seen so big ones before. I never bought them because I thought I cannot finish them in one go, the ambat I make with radish does not require so much. I usually go for the small red ones and use it both for ambat and this other dish ....
Magge or moggem is a special kind of cucumber. It is widely used in cooking at our place. In Bangalore, it is sold as Mangalore Southekayi (cucumber), this is called Dosakaya in Telugu. This is usually cooked before consuming, but there are few recipes where tender magge is eaten before cooking. These sundried cucumbers or magge salli are very popular among Konkanis in our area. Tender magge which are called magge murto are used for this dish....
When I was doing my engineering, there was a “Mandar mess” near our hostel. They used to prepare very delicious parathas . That is the place where I became a fan of parathas . I used to keenly observe them preparing it. I tried many times, after some failures, learnt how to cook alu paratha . Now I am good at making them. This is one of my many versions of alu paratha ....
Long back, Manoj had asked me to post this recipe. He had asked for “karathe puddi sagle”, which looks like a dish from South Kanara(I am not sure though). One thing which came to my mind when I read his mail was the traditional dish with bittergourd called as Karathe sukke. (Karathe – bittergourd, Sukke – sidedish with coconut, where coconut masala is cooked till it becomes almost dry)....
Probably this can be called as South Indian Chole . Few days ago, my friend Aruna sent me this recipe. She tried her best to reach to the origin of this dish. She mailed the person who had introduced this recipe to her. Finally we came to know this recipe is a Salem special . This is a very interesting combination of chickpeas, eggplants and drumsticks, spiced up with sambar powder....
At my home, everyone is a huge fan of eggs. While growing up, eggs were a treat for us. We didn’t have the eggs in refrigerator always(like I do now), but whenever we wanted to eat them, my dad would buy fresh ones from stores. I still remember this thin guy (one of dad’s patients) who used to bring us very fresh eggs occasionally as a gift. Our favorite among all egg dishes was this delicious egg curry....
In our region, finger millet is used by many people along with other cereals. It is called Raagi in Kannada and Nanchano in Konkani. It is healthy and nutritious besides being cold to the body. It is used in preparing nanchanya bolu(a kind of drink) and nanchanya udaak especially in summer. Nanchanya duddali is a common preparation among Konkanis. It is generally prepared with coconut. We make it without coconut also....
The kids turned 6 and 2 couple of month ago(I know I am late to post this!!). We had a combined party for both of them. We decided to have it at our home this time. Last year when we moved into this house, it was one of my dreams to have some large parties. So how could I not have a birthday party for them? It was a bit challenging for me to plan everything this time, since I had a new full time job and I hardly had any free time....
I love dals with lemon juice. Latha’s lemon rasam has been a great hit at my home. We also love dali thoy with some lemon juice on top. I want to slowly increase the usage of lemon and decrease tamarind and tomato in my cooking. Lets see how that goes. This dal is inspired by Sanjeev Kapoor’s Dal bahar recipe that I had seen few years ago on TV. I replaced toor dal with masoor dal (the red colored split masoor dal ) since I wanted some change from “friendly neighborhood dal ” – toor dal ....
Most of our sweets take a lot of time and energy. Very few are very fast to make and do not require much skill, yet taste very good. This is one such recipe. These burfis take hardly any time to make. They taste almost like Kaju(cashew) burfis. I very rarely make sweets at home. No one in the family has any sweet tooth. So I haven’t made these in a long time....
One of my readers requested for recipes with moth beans – matki . These are one of my favorite beans to cook, as they do not require pre-soaking. Sprouting these is also easy compared to any other beans. So I use them frequently. This is one recipe I made up. This is not any traditional recipe, but I decided to name it amti anyway. This was very delicious. I served it with flavored rice and it made a very nice meal....
Usually in North India and in Marathi households, chapathi/phulka is prepared along with lunch or dinner. But Konkani lunch does not include them. We make chapathis for breakfast with various types of potato bhajis . During normal days, mom serves chapathi and egg curry / omlet / bullseye . But during fasting, like in festivals or ‘ ‘panchami ‘- fifth tithi or ‘ekadashi’-11th tithi, where some people don’t eat meat, onion, garlic, rice items, she serves chapathi with potato bhaji (without onion, garlic) or simple upma ....
Vangi-eggplant, bhath-rice is probably one of the most popular rice items in Maharashtra and few places in Karnataka and Andhra. I say few places because it is not very common at my native (which is in Karnataka) but I have seen this a lot in Bangalore. I have seen most of my Andhra friends preparing this dish, so I guess it is popular there also. But the Marathi name suggests it might be originally from Maharashtra....
Vayngana Bharth There are so many different ways of using a roast eggplant (vayngan in Konkani) and there are so many ways to roast an eggplant. Bharth, Bharith or Bhartha are different names of this dish, which is prepared in few different ways. This particular recipe is for a Konkani special vayngana bharth. There are so many ways to roast an eggplant. You can directly do it on stove/fire or bake in oven or broil in oven ....
