There are few people in this world, with whom you can share your happiness and also your worries, who’ll always be there for you. They laugh with you in your happiness and give you help and support when you are in sorrow. You feel very comfortable around such people, who you don’t get to know often. They are pretty rare, aren’t they? We think we are very lucky to know a person like this. He is a mentor to V and like a big brother to me. We got to know him because he is V’s colleague and since then, he has become like a family for us here. His name is Sunil (Not to confuse with our other friend Sunil ).
Since Sunil (I call him Sunilanna) is also a Konkani, we have similar tastes. So we go to his home sometimes and make him cook for us and sometimes he comes to visit us. We chat a lot on these occasions and enjoy a lot. Last week, he invited us for a small get-together. He had prepared a lip smacking good spread for us. This chutney is one of them. I took the picture of the dish and also took the recipe from him(this is his mom’s signature dish). Since then I have prepared this at home and each time we taste it, we love it more. Did I say V is a ridge gourd hater who never ate anything with this gourd? He has become a fan of this dish. I am happy that I can buy this vegetable now :).
Ridge gourd is called gosaLe or ghosaLe in Konkani. Shire is the sharp edges of the vegetable. Usually these edges are discarded when this vegetable is used. This chutney is made of these skins. It gets its very nice taste from the ghee and also from the cumin seeds. I have seen many different recipes for this chutney before but had never prepared it. I loved this simple version of the chutney and I am going to prepare it again and again in coming days.
Ingredients: 1 cup skin(the sharp edges) of ridge gourd 1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 2-3 green chilies 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract (optional) Ghee Salt
Method: Heat ghee in a pan. Add cumin seeds. When they start popping, add green chilies and skin. Fry for about 7-8 mins till the color of the skin starts changing (do not burn anything, you can fry one ingredient at a time if you can not manage frying at a time). Take it out on a plat. Add coconut to the same pan and fry for about 3-4mins. Grind all together with tamarind and salt. Serve as a side dish with rice, dosa or idlis .
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 15mins
When I was posting the recipe for date cake , I had mentioned it becomes a huge hit with anyone who tries it. I never knew it would become such a big hit with my readers also. I can safely say, this cake has become one of the most popular recipes from this blog. Even those who had never baked before, had success with this cake. So finally I decided to revisit the recipe.
Last week, there was a Art Of Living event in town and Sunilanna asked me if I can bake a cake for the lunch. I was a bit nervous because I have never cooked anything for large group of people (we had about 30+). Since my friend Purnima had baked this cake many times for different get-togethers, I asked her about the quantity needed.
I decided I had to bake a quantity that is 5 times this amount . I first mixed everything in a large bowl and then divided it among 9″ and 10″ spring form pans which had a zig-zag bottom. Made a simple decoration. It is done with butter cream icing. Since it is eggless recipe, everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.
