I love most of the soups. When I saw an article about soups in my recipe collection from old Kannada weekly, I was very much interested in it. I tried most of them and almost all turned out great. But I was a bit hesitant to try the spinach soup. I am not very comfortable with the strong spinach smell, but still I tried it with few changes and it turned out really good. It is a perfect dish for cold weather.
Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups palak(spinach) 1/2 cup onion(cut into small pieces) 1 tea spn corn flour or maida 2 tea spns butter Pepper powder 1/2 cup milk(optional) Salt
Method: Heat 1 tea spn butter. When it melts, add spinach and fry for 1-2mins. Add 1 cup water and cook till spinach leaves become tender. Grind them into a smooth puree using mixer/blender. Heat remaining butter and fry onions till they turn translucent. Now add spinach puree. Mix corn flour in milk or water and add this to the spinach mixture stirring continuously. Add salt and pepper. When it thickens to desired consistency, take off from heat. Serve hot.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 15mins
Kolmbo is Konkani Sambar. Kolmbo was one of my favorite sambars from my childhood. When I posted my Aayi’s recipe of this, few of my readers said they make it without coconut. So I was searching for the other method to prepare this dish.
Few days back, one of my readers requested for Rajma Kolmbo . I was a bit surprised at this request as I didn’t know that anybody can make a sambar with kidney beans. I was using these beans only for the popular North Indian dish “ Rajma “. I ignored this request for a long time, but then I was always thinking about this. Finally I decided to ask this question in a yahoo group for Konkani recipes. The next day I got a mail from Manjula saying, her mother-in-law prepares the Kolmbo with Navy beans and I can follow the same recipe with Kidney beans.
Well, I had found answers to three things here, the first is, her Kolmbo recipe didn’t involve coconut. Second, it was a Konkani dish with Kidney beans (my husband never eats Kidney beans, but I was sure he would eat any kind of Kolmbo ). Third, I got the answer for recipe request.
As I thought, my husband loved it. See Manjula’s recipe of Kolmbo .
In the above picture, you cannot see any kidney beans, because they all were sleeping in the bottom of the bowl :D. I realised this when I saw this picture just before posting.
Ingredients: 1 cup red kidney beans ( rajma ) 2 tea spn urad daal 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 1/8 tea spn fenugreek( methi ) seeds 4-5 peppers A pinch of turmeric powder A pinch of asafoetida 4-5 red chilies 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 4-5 curry leaves 4-5 strands of coriander leaves 1/2 tea spn tamarind extract (or small 2-3 small pieces of tamarind) Oil Salt
Method: Soak kidney beans overnight.Cook them with a pinch of turmeric in cooker. (They take long time to cook compared to daal ). Heat a little oil and fry urad daal , coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, pepper in that order (take care not to burn anything). Add asafoetida and red chilies and switch off heat. Grind these to a smooth paste along with tamarind and 1-2 tbl spns of cooked kidney beans (beans are ground to give thickness to sambar ). Add the paste and salt to remaining kidney beans. Cook till the sambar becomes thick to required consistency. Garnish with coriander leaves. Heat 1 tea spn of oil and fry mustard. When they start popping, add curry leaves. Add this seasoning to sambar . Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time: 30 mins (including time to cook kidney beans)
