Recipe - Mix Veg Poriyal or Palya

Poriyal or Palya is a dish from Kerala and Tamilnadu made by shallow frying vegetables and garnished (and slightly cooked) with freshly grated coconut. It can be made using any vegetables and sometimes even made with chicken or lamb. The recipe remains pretty much the same.

Ingredients: Serve 2-3

1. Cabbage - 1 cup chopped
2. Capsicum - 3/4 cup chopped
3. Potato - 1/2 cup chopped
4. Tomato - 1 small chopped
5. Onion - 1 medium chopped
6. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
7. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
8. Curry leaves - 4-5
9. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
10. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
11. Salt - As per taste
12. Coconut - grated 1/2 cup
13. Oil - 3 tsp

Method:

1. Chop all the vegetables into small sized pieces. Break open a ripe coconut and grate it. 1/2 cup is what we will be using in this recipe. Remaining can be stored in the fridge for use in some other recipe.

2. Heat oil in a wok. Put mustard seeds in. When they start popping, put the cumin seeds and curry leaves. Put the chopped onion after 10 seconds. When the onions turn slightly brown, put the other vegetables in and mix well. Cover the wok and let them cook for about 5 minutes. Keep checking every couple of minutes to make sure that the veggies are not sticking to the wok (the water in the cabbage should help, but still it's better to check). Put all the spices and salt in and cover again for 5 minutes.

3. Once the veggies are almost cooked, put the grated coconut in and mix well. Let it cook for another 3 minutes without covering the wok this time.

4. Garnish with fresh coriander if you like and serve with chapati or appam.

----

Some chefs put the veggies in boiling water to cook them first and then just toss everything together in a hot oil. I don't like doing that. Also, like I said before, any veggies can be put in this or even diced chicken and lamb.

The nagger made this dish and I must say it tasted amazing! 

Recipe - Methi (Fenugreek leaves) Sabzi

Yesterday on the way back when I stopped to buy vegetables, I saw beautiful methi (fenugreek leaves) at the shop. As a kid, I didn't like methi. But I remember seeing fresh methi at a small grocery store in Ipswich many years ago and since it reminded me of India, I ended up buying it and making sabzi. Now, it's one of my favourite veggies. So I ended up buying it and here's the recipe of how I make it. Will upload few other ways of making it some other time.

Ingredients: (Serves 2-3)

1. Methi leaves - 250 gms
2. Onion - 1 medium
3. Potato - 1 big
4. Dry red chillies - 3
5. Garlic - 7-8 cloves
6. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
7. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
8. Turmeric powder - 3/4 tsp
9. Salt to taste
10. Sugar to taste
11. Oil (peanut/sunflower) - 4 tsp

Method:

1. Generally methi leaves are available in a stack of full stalks. The leaves need to be plucked at their base and the stalk can be thrown away or used to make veg stock. The picture below might help in understanding what needs to be plucked. Wash them properly before using them. I hate this plucking part.

2. Peel the potato and cut it into small pieces. Don't make the pieces too thin. About 3 or 4 mm thickness is good, otherwise the potatoes will overcook as methi takes more time to cook. Cut the onion in long pieces as shown. Finely chop the garlic and break the dry red chillies into large pieces.

3. Take 4 tsp of oil in a wok and heat it. Put the cumin seeds. and quickly put the dry red chillies and garlic in. Cover the wok for 10 seconds.

4. Put the onion in and mix it well. Cover and let it cook till the onion is slightly brown. Don't keep the flame too high or the onion will start sticking to the wok.

5. Put the red chilli powder and turmeric powder and mix it. Cook for 30 seconds.

6. Put the potatoes in and mix them well.

7. Now put the washed methi leaves in the wok and try to mix it. The leaves are gonna shrink in size as they heat up when you mix them. So put them in the wok in batches instead of trying to put all of them at the same time. In the pic below, I have put less than half of the 250 gms I had. When cooked, the 250 gms would become even smaller in size than this.

8. When all the leaves are mixed in, put salt and a little water. The water is needed to stop everything from sticking to the wok. Remember, methi leaves have a lot of water in them so don't put too much water. We are not making a curry. Also, you can keep adding water later till the leaves are fully cooked. Cover the pan and let it cook.

9. One medium-low flame, methi can take about 15-20 min to cook. Keep checking every few minutes to make sure there's enough water in it to cook methi. The best way to know if it has cooked is to eating some of it. When it is soft enough for your taste, it's cooked. Just before it's fully cooked, put a pinch of sugar and mix.

--------

TIP:: Methi (Fenugreek) leaves can be quite bitter sometimes. One way to reduce the bitterness is to soak the plucked leaves in water mixed with some salt and sugar for 15 minutes.

Recipe - Dodka (Ridge Gourd/ Toorai/ Turia) Sabzi

I am back. It was a short visit and now I am back to the grind. And the grind starts with getting my car repaired. So I am here at the service station, watching my baby elephant being operated upon as I write another simple recipe. Ridge Gourd is called Dodka, Toorai, Turai, etc depending on which part of the country you are in. There's another variety of this called Silk Squash (Gilka). The difference is in the ridges on the outside and also that the Gilka is much softer and squishy on the inside. You can use either of these in this recipe. This should be eaten with any bread, preferably chapati.

Ingredients - 
Serves 2 people (depending on appetite!)

1. Dodka - 250 gms
2. Moong dal (split green gram or golden gram) - 1/2 cup
3. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
4. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
5. Onion finely chopped - 1 medium
6. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp (or as per taste)
7. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
8. Salt - as per taste
9. Oil (peanut, sunflower) - 3 tsp
10. Fresh coriander/parsley - For garnishing

Method - 

1. Take the half cup moong daal in a bowl and cover it with water. Let it rest for at least 30 min. If you keep it for less time, it will be crispier in the sabzi. So adjust the timing according to your liking.

2. Peel the ridges off the Dodka

3. Chop them into small pieces. If the pieces are too small, they will get all mashed up when cooked, so about 2 cm would be the ideal size of the cubes.

4. Chop the onions (not too fine)

5. Take a wok and put oil in it. When hot, put the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start splitting, put the cumin seeds in and quickly put in the onions. Mix and let it cook for a few minutes on low flame.

6. If you are in a hurry, mix the Dodka pieces with the moong daal in a separate bowl and keep in the microwave on full power for about 5 min. By the time the onions are cooked in the wok, the dodka will be half cooked in the microwave this way.

7. Once the onions are cooked, put the red chilli powder and turmeric powder in and mix in the dodka and moong daal.Put salt as per taste and mix well. If dodka has been cooked already in the microwave for 5 minutes, then 5-7 minutes of cooking should do it otherwise about 10 minutes or until the dodka is soft.

8. Garnish with fresh coriander or parsley

---

This is a very standard way of making dodka and it's the easiest way as well. It's by no means exotic. But then, you don't eat exotic food everyday, do you?

Recipe - Cauliflower & Potato Curry

After last night's semi successful experiment with the fish, I decided to go for ingredients that I know a little better. Cauliflower and potatoes. The maid has already made chapatis (I get bored of making them), so now it was only a matter of making the sabzi and eat!

There are two ways of making this sabzi. Dry and curried. I decided to make the curried one. Even with this I had two options, I decided the short cut method. It's easy and doesn't need a mixer/grinder. This is the method I used when I was in UK and I didn't have the luxury of some of the things that are easily accessible here.

Ingredients -

1. Cauliflower - approx 500 gms
2. Potato - 1 medium
3. Tomatoes - 2 medium
4. Onions - 1 big
5. Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp
6. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
7. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
8. Red chilli powder - as per taste
9. Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
10. Garam masala - as per taste (around 1 tsp should be enough)
11. and of course, Salt

Method -

1. Cut and wash the cauliflower into small pieces (cutting is not exactly what it should be called. it's plucking and cutting happening together). Wash the potato (I don't like peeling them) and cut into small pieces as well. Then thinly chop the onion and tomatoes. I love this part :)

2. Heat oil in a pan and put the mustard seeds in till they start splitting. Then put the cumin seeds and quickly put the onion in. Mix it and let it cook till golden brown (if it's red onion, it's a little tricky to tell if it's golden brown or not). Put the ginger-garlic paste in mix it.

3. Put the cauliflower and potatoes in. Mix well and then then put the turmeric and chilli powder in. Mix well and put the salt in. At this point (after it's cooked of course) it can still be served without any problem. tastes great! but has no curry.

4. Put the Garam masala and the tomatoes in. Mix well and pour a cup of water. More can be used later. Cover the pan and and let it cook for 10 min. Keep making sure that there's enough water. When both the main ingredients are cooked, it's done!

----

33 minutes and a small fight later...

Don't know what's wrong with me since the last couple of months. My mind's not in the right place. I very stupidly put "Goda masala" instead of "Garam masala". It still tasted good, but not the taste that I wanted. I gotto get out of this phase...