I am extremely happy for the response of my papaya dilemma . I was in no mood of making any sweet with papaya and by my good luck all the recipes given by you all are spicy dishes. I wanted to make all of them at once but thought I would take it a bit easy. I started with Pappayi ghashi/gassi .
For last one week, I hardly cooked anything. Due to extreme cold conditions here, I was feeling lazy and settled on either restaurant food or rice congee (rice cooked in lot of water called as ‘ pej ‘ in Konkani or ‘ ganji ‘ in Kannada) and pickle. Yeah, it is an amazing dish for cold weather, but we can’t have it for a long time. I saw the blank look on my husband’s face when I said I am going to cook Conjee today. So I dragged myself to cook this ‘ papayi ghashi ‘, which looked extremely simple.
I was hooked to this recipe given by amazing artist Sree . I love all her paintings and I have to say, now I love her recipes too. As she said in her comment , I also liked the sweetish tinge of papayas to this gravy. I loved the taste of cumin seeds in this dish. I felt it is a mixture of varn that we make at home and ghashi or udid methi with mangoes. Pappayi ghashi , rice and pickle was my afternoon lunch and I should say it was heavenly. Thanks a lot Sree (I hope I have followed it exactly as you mentioned).
The bowl in the picture was a gift from a lovely friend for Thanksgiving :).
Ingredients: 15-20 pieces of papaya (they should be sweetish, not very ripe. They should be bit hard but sweet) 3/4 cup grated coconut(fresh or frozen) 1 tea spn cumin seeds(jeera) + 1/2 tea spn for seasoning 1/2 cup onion (preferably shallots) 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1-2 green chilies 3-4 Kashmiri red chilies (I used Byadagi chilies) + 1 chili for seasoning 1-2 pieces of kokum 4-5 curry leaves A pinch of turmeric Oil Salt
Method: Cook papaya with kokum, salt, slitted green chilies and enough water. Grind coconut with cumin seeds(1 tea spn), a pinch of turmeric and red chilies to a paste. Add this paste to cooked papaya. Add water to bring it to desired consistency and cook for around 10mins. Heat oil in a seperate pan and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add cumin seeds, curry leaves and 1 red chili cut into pieces. Now add choppes shallots and fry till they turn translucent. Add this to the gravy and mix. Serve hot with rice and pickle.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 15-20mins
Misal is usually a mixture of 2-3 dishes topped with sev or any such crunchy snack. “ Pharal (Marathi) or Phalar (Konkani)” – “ phal ahaar ” is the food taken on fasting days. The main dish on these days is Sabudana khichdi for most of the Maharastrians.
This recipe is sent to me by Aruna . Here is what she has to say about this dish, “This is served in all Maharastrian restaurants in Mumbai. Every Mumbaikar who eats in these hotels especially in Dadar and Girgaum area, will be aware of this. Even I have not read in any other hotel menu about it. From the taste, I could get the receipe”.
I tried it and loved it more than the normal Sabudana khichdi. Even though you are not a fan of Sabudana Khichdi , do not miss this. It tastes very good.
This dish can be divided into 3 parts : – Sabudana khichdi – Prepare the khichdi without peanuts. Instead of peanuts, peanut gravy is added.
– Potato chivda – I bought Haldiram’s Pancharatan from Indian store. You can use any normal potato chivda mixture.
– Peanut gravy – see the recipe below
Ingredients for peanut gravy: 1 cup peanuts 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds A pinch of asafoetida(hingu) 2-3 green chilies 4-5 curry leaves 1 cup water (add more water if required) 1-2 tbl spn grated coconut (fresh/frozen) Oil Salt
Method: Wash the peanuts and keep aside. In a pan heat oil add the mustard, when they start popping, add asafoetida, green chilies and curry leaves. Add the peanuts mix well. Add enough water, salt and grated coconut. Cook till the peanuts are done.
For serving: In a bowl take the khichidi.
Add the peanut gravy. The sabudana should soak the water.
Add the batata chivda and serve immediately.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 30mins
