Sometimes I wonder, how little I knew about Konkani cuisine before I started this blog. The directions to new recipes come from different requests I get here. Batate vaagu is one such dish that I learnt recently, even though I had heard about it before.
Most of the Konkani dishes are known for their very bright red color and spicy taste. Now, few of you may wonder that you never saw the color in my pictures. Yes, I have reduced the heat a lot in my cooking and also the chilies available here (even though I use Byadagi chilies which are popular for their bright color) just make the dish spicy but don’t give that color.
Anyway, batate (potato) vaagu is a bright red colored dish. It is supposed to be quite spicy, may be thats the reason for the name – vaagu also means tiger, fierce like tiger (Okay, I know thats a PJ). There are more than one ways to make this dish. Here is what I tried yesterday. I served this as a side dish with rice and some dal .
Ingredients: 2 cups boiled, peeled, chopped potatoes 1/2 cup tomato 6-7 red chilies 1 tbl spn fresh/frozen coconut 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 4-5 curry leaves Oil Salt
Increase the number of chilies if your taste buds can tolerate it.
Method: Heat a little oil, fry coriander seeds and red chilies. Grind with coconut. Heat oil, add mustard. When they start popping, add curry leaves. Fry for a minute. Add ground paste, tomato and about 1/2 cup water. Cook till tomatoes softens a bit. Add potatoes, salt. Cook for another 5mins. The consistency should be like a thick curry, I made it bit more thicker just to get a concentrated flavor. Serve as a side dish with rice or chapathi .
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 20mins
From my childhood, I have a strong aversion to apple. No matter how much I tried, I cannot get myself to like this fruit. My parents did everything they could to make me eat this. Even now, whenever we talk to them, they tell me to eat it. My hubby has a entirely different story. He has no problem in eating this, but he wants someone to cut it into pieces and give him. He promptly brings 4-5 apples once in a month and keeps them in fridge. On the first day, in full enthusiasm, he neatly cuts and eats one. Thats it. Remaining apples just sit there begging to be eaten. I don’t know how many times this has repeated. I have decided now to reduce such wastage as much as possible(yeah..I do think of making some new year resolutions, but whether I follow them or not is another story).
Yesterday when I saw 5 beautiful golden apples in the fridge, I was really irritated. We were just back from shopping and I had to cook for dinner. As usual, I wanted to make something new. So when I was going through my recipe books, I saw a recipe for apple burfi . One of the main ingredients was khova . I never buy khova unless I have preplanned something with it (which has never happened so far) and I was out of milk (with which I could have made it at home). Then there was a step to create one string sugar syrup, which is not my cup of tea. So I decided to take a chance and change the recipe completely.
I followed my mom’s bottle gourd burfi recipe , which happens to be my absolute favorite. I had very less hopes that it would work out. But it turned out great. It was more or less like the halwas available in India. The entire batch was gone within minutes. I think I am going to buy apples hereafter to make this halwa :).
Ingredients: 2 cups grated apples (about 3-4 apples) 1 cup sugar 1 tbl spn ghee (this is just used for aroma, can be omitted if desired) 2 tbl spn chopped or coarsely powdered almonds 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Method: Peel the apples and grate them. Heat ghee in a thick bottomed (or non stick) pan. Add the grated apple and fry on a medium flame, till all the water is evaporated and it looks like cooked. It takes about 10mins or so.
Now add the sugar. Actually at this step, the apple should be measured and equal volume of sugar should be added.
Cook, mixing occasionally, till the mixture thickens and all the sugar is mixed well with apples. Towards the end, you need to mix continuously, otherwise it sticks to bottom of the pan and gets burnt.
Add the chopped or coarsely powdered almonds and mix it.
When it looks very dry, add cardamom powder, mix .
Transfer the contents on a greased(with ghee ) plate or cutting board. I just used a wax paper. Flatten it with a rolling pin. To avoid sticking to rolling pin, grease it with some ghee .
Cut it into squares. Let it cool down a bit and then take out the pieces and press the ends to the board to get even shapes.
Makes about 15-20 halwas Preparation time : 40mins
