Hope you all are doing great. We are back in Kansas after a long vacation in India. These were some of the best days of my life – We missed V, since he stayed back here due to his busy work schedule. Ishaan had too much fun with my parents, my brother and his family. For the very first time in last 2 and half years, he ate well and slept well. He enjoyed playing with his little cousin N (my brother’s baby). Weather was beautiful there and we enjoyed every single day. I did take some pictures for the blog, which I will be posting slowly in coming days. Right now we are just trying to get adjusted to very cold weather – imagine staying indoors 24/7 after spending so much time playing out!. As far as I am concerned, I am trying hard to get back to routine, aayi spoiled me with all great food and now I am having a bit of hard time waking up and cooking!.
I have been trying to get back to blogging, but I guess it is going to take some time too. On top of it, we are having some technical issues with the blog and we are working on them. So I picked this recipe where I had the pictures processed and recipe written before I left for the vacation. This has become our go to recipe in this weather. I cooked a big batch of this and froze for V before leaving for vacation. I got the recipe in one of Coscto recipe books . I usually make it vegetarian. Give it a try and you will surely like it.
Ingredients: 1 cup white beans 2 cups carrots 1 cup corn 1 tbl spn chopped jalapenos 2 tbl spn chopped coriander leaves 1 tea spn chopped ginger 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/4 cup chopped onion 2 tbl spn lemon juice 1/2 tea spn coriander powder 1/2 tea spn cumin powder 2 green chillies Olive oil Salt 1/4 tea spn black pepper (optional) 1/2 cup chicken (optional)
Method: Soak white beans for about 5-6hrs.
Heat oil and add onion, finely chopped green chillies, ginger, garlic and little salt. Fry for few minutes. If using chicken, finely chop them and add at this stage. Now add corn, jalapenos, carrots, cumin powder, coriander powder, fry for few minutes.
Now add white beans, water or vegetable stock, salt, coriander leaves and cook till white beans are cooked. (I use rice cooker, a slow cooker can be used to make this). When beans are cooked, add lemon juice and cook for another 2-3mins.
I wanted to post this recipe for a long time. This was a regular with chicken biryani at my pachi’s (aayi’s sister) home. It has been over a decade and I still remember the awesome taste of this combination. Somehow I have not prepared this very often, I kept forgetting to get the exact recipe from pachi. But that changed when I was in India this time.
I have a strong dislike for raw onions and my family knows this very well – I still watch in awe when Ishaan, who is a picky eater, loves to eat raw onions!. All my life, aayi prepared (still prepares) two versions of any dishes that involved raw onions. So she was very surprised when I called up my pachi to get this recipe and prepared it. Here the onions are mixed very well with lemon and salt that takes out the strong bite/smell of the onions (atleast that is my explanation for liking this chutney!). I absolutely love this chutney with any pulavs/biryanis. This even tastes good with rotis/chapatis.
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1/2 cup chana dalia (putani/hurigadale) 1/2 cup coriander leaves 1/4 cup mint (pudina) leaves 3-4 green chillies 3-4 garlic 2 tbl spn lemon juice 1/2 cup onion slices Salt
Method:
Make a thick chutney from coconut, coriander and mint leaves, green chillies, garlic and salt. Make a coarse powder of dalia.
In a bowl add lemon juice and little salt to onion slices and mix very well (preferably do this with fingers so that the onion is very well mixed with salt and lemon, this takes out strong bite of onion ). Add the chutney and powdered dalia to the onions and mix. Serve.
PS: A little yogurt can be added to the chutney if needed.
