This is a snack or I can say chaat item. Until today, I haven’t seen it anywhere else. My maternal grandmother used to prepare this. It was everybody’s favourite at home. Then my aayi and pachi(mom’s sister) started making it. It is usually prepared for evening snack, but pachi serves this with bread for breakfast.
When I read about JFI for dal event at Sailu’s food , I thought this would be the best contribution from me. It is made of moong dal or toor dal (authentic recipe calls for moong dal ). The bhaji is like ‘ sambar ‘, with a very different taste. While serving, add sev to it (around 1 and 1/2 cups bhaji to 1 cup sev ). The sev should be completely immersed in bhaji . Squeeze some lemon juice and enjoy.
Ingredients: 3/4 cup moong dal (or toor dal ) 1/2 cup potato(cut into small pieces) 1/2 cup onion 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/4 tea spn methi (fenugreek) seeds 4-5 cloves 1″ piece cinammon 1/2 tea spn chili powder A pinch asafoetida A pinch turmeric Lemon Salt 3 cups sev
It tastes great when the bhaji is spicy. So increase the spice if your taste buds can tolerate it :).
Method: Cook dal with potato, onions and turmeric. Roast (without oil) methi seeds, asafoetida, cloves and cinnamon. Take out and powder them. When the vessel (used for frying) is still hot, add chilli powder (do not fry the chili powder, just use the hot vessel to warm it a bit). Add the powders, around 1 and 1/2 cups water, salt and crushed garlic to cooked dal mixture. Cook for 7-8minutes. While eating, add sev (around 1 and 1/2 cups of bhaji to 1 cup sev ), squeeze some lemon juice. (do not keep for long after mixing sev. Sev should be still crunchy while eating, to get better taste).
Serves : 3 Preparation time : 15mins
We all know bittergourd has too many medicinal values. I found this article in one weekly. I thought it would be helpful for everybody.
I never understood the importance of home remedies before coming to USA. My father being a doctor, I used to always get immediate medical attention back in India. But when I came here, everything changed. It all started from a serious medical emergency we had to handle soon after coming here. We neither had the insurance nor money to pay the hospital bills (we were still expecting our insuarnce cards). When we called hospital to take appointment, they said we had to wait for 6months!!!. We didn’t know about emergency rooms. Finally though we went to emergency room (thanks to an american lady, who took us to hopital and gave us ride back home in her car), we had to wait 3hrs for meeting the doctor, which was hell in our situation. The doctor talked to us for 5mins, needless to say, it didn’t help us in any way, but since he had prescribed some medicines, we could atleast buy them from pharmacy. (BTW..we got a bill of $1000 for that visit!!!).
Anyway…that incident taught me a lot. India is a land of Ayurveda. There are thousands of home remedies which our elders followed for almost every possible disease. My grandfather who was 93 years old when he passed away, never had any health issues. He did so much of physical work at that age, which we cannot even dream to do. Their medicines were simple, all natural. Then why can’t we follow the same and be healthy? So I started this ‘home remedies’ category few days back. I would like to post all the remedies which I have collected so far. All my readers are welcome to add any remedies they know.
- Bitter gourd is the best medicine for diabetes. It is rich in A, B1, B2, C vitamins and Iron. Drink bittergourd juice in the morning on empty stomach to keep the diabetes in control.
- Bitter gourd reduces fever.
- It is useful for people with vision problems, since it has Vitamin A.
- People suffering from Jaundice, drink 1-2 tea spn of bitter gourd in a day. This reduces jaundice and the yellowish colour of eyes turns back to white.
- This is useful in purifying the blood.
- It is helpful in digestion, joint pain and gas problems.
- It is useful in liver problem, pain and swelling of nerves.
- For piles problems, mix 1 cup curd with 1 tea spn of fresh bitter gourd plant leaves juice and drink. This and the bittegourd juice reduces the piles problems remarkably.
- This kills germs in the stomach.
- This reduces unnecessary body heat.
- Bittergourd slices boiled in water and taken early in the morning cures constipation
Eat any version of bitter gourd to keep yourself away from many diseases and remain healthy.
