Any one exposed to Maharastra cuisine will have tried this dish at least once. It is very easy to prepare. Usually consumed during the ‘fast’ like sankashti or ekadashi or Navaratri
Sabudana Khichdi is a wholesome food. some add boiled potatoes to this dish. The taste is imparted by the addition of dry roasted and crushed peanuts/groundnuts.
here is how you make it
you need
sabudana khichdi/usli
A cup of Sabudana- soaked for 2 hours and then drained, 2-3 finely chopped green chilles, 1 tb cooking oil, half a spoon of mustard seeds, 1 sp cumin seeds, pinch of asafoetida, pinch of sugar, salt to taste and roasted, skinned and crushed peanuts/groundnuts and a few drops of lemon juice, coriander leaves to garnish
Heat oil. Add mustard seeds. Once they pop/splutter add cumin followed by the green chillies. stir for a while or until the chillies are crisp. add asafoetida, drained/sabudana, salt and sugar and stir for a minute or two. cover and keep on heat for 5 minutes.
Remove from fire. add the crushed peanuts. garnish with coriander leaves and pour lemon juice before serving. serve hot.
I hate spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and this recipe suits my style since it is ready in a jiffy (before you say jack Robinson)..:-)
All you need is:-
baby potatoes boiled and peeled or if unavailable the regular potatoes boiled peeled and cubed
for the red hot sauce: 10- 15 fried red chillies, a marble sized ball of tamarind and 18-20 pods of peeled garlic. mix all these with salt and grind to a smooth paste adding a little water. mix this paste to the baby/cubed potatoes and keep aside for 10 minutes.
Next heat a table spoon of oil in a non-stick pan, add mustard. once it sputters add the potatoes and stir for 10 minutes. your red hot chilly potato ready.
served best with chapathis/rotis
Winter is slowly making it’s presence felt and what better way to keep the chill out of your bones than a hot hot soup
needed: Butternut squash (pumpkin), carrot and Tomato
Cut the butternut and carrot into cubes and slice the tomatoes. Heat a spoonful of butter add the vegetables and tomato and saute on high heat for about 3 minutes. add water and salt and a pinch of sugar/jaggery and cook until tender. after it cools down run in a blender. pour into saucepan and boil. add freshly pounded pepper and serve with or without cream.
Good way to make the children consume vegetables.
🙂
Past two weeks my husband’s been getting lots of pomegranate. My favorite way of eating pomegranate is de seeding the fruit, adding sugar and consuming slow by slow spoonful of it watching movie. The movie was ‘the Philadelphia Story’ ah what an enjoyable movie.
Pomegranate is a nutritionally rich fruit with unique taste with lot of health benefits. google it🙂
So this week we thought or to be honest it was my younger daughter’s idea to attempt something new with the Pomegranates. She has study holidays and except studying she is busy with many other things. i should not complain because in spite of everything she is a topper in her class.
to make pomegranate ice
Juice of two pomegrates- deseed, put in blender and sieve
juice of one lemon
Sugar syrup made from 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Mix everything and deep freeze. half an hour later scrape the frozen ice with a fork and again deep freeze. continue with this process two more times.before serving let it thaw for two minutes, arrange the ice in a glass and decorate with pomegranate seed and mint leaf.
This ice has a tangy and sweet taste to it. the kids will enjoy this. Now being a holiday for the Dussehra festival why don’t you engage your kids with this cold enchanting colourful dish!!
watch this space for pomegranate cake : courtesy my elder daughter🙂 also i am trying out Pomegranate jelly.in a day or two
till then adieu!!
🙂
Soak a glass each of gram dal(chana dal) and rice for two hours. Grind it coarsely with a handful of grated coconut, red chillies, tiny piece of tamarind and a pinch of asafoetida. Do not add water. add salt and bit of jaggery. To this mixture add an handful or two of the cleaned moringa/drumstick leaves. using wet palms roll the mixture into balls and flatten them. Deep fry in oil until crisp and golden brown.
We konkani’s usually have it a side dish and call it dangurr. but it can double up as an evening snack
The month of Shravan brings in its wake a spate of festivals and feasts. Usually the coconuts used in religious ceremony go into the making of sweets and Coconut Barfi is one of them. Its not only a favorite in our household it is the easiest sweet to prepare and can often be prepared in a jiffy.
half a coconut scraped, equal amount of sugar(for one measures of coconut add equal amount of sugar), 8-10 whole cashew nuts. 2 pods cardamom, some ghee to smear on the plate.
run the scraped coconut, sugar and cashew nuts in a grinder for about 3 minutes/ or till you get coarse mixture. stirring in between. Then pour the entire mixture in a thick bottomed pan.
add two table spoon of water into the grinder jar, shake it well and add it the mixture in the pan. keep on low heat, At first the mixture will melt and then slowly will start to thicken. when you can gather it all in a mass/or you can see the mixture gaining a granular look and starts coming up from the sides of the pan, add the cardamom powder and the barfi is ready to be poured into a plate smeared with ghee. when it cools partially cut it into shapes that you like either diamond shape or squares.
Add a teaspoon of cocoa to the above mixture while grinding and you can ‘cocoa’nut barfi. It will taste like chocolate.
Konkanis have a basic curry paste comprising of red chillies, coconut and tamarind.
So for the Sardine’s curry we need
10-12 fresh sardines: head and tail removed, descaled and cleaned thoroughly. apply salt and keep aside
Half coconut: grated
a lemon sized ball of tamarind
Red chillies i use 10-12 byadgi variety of chillies for colour and two of guntur variety for pungency/hot flavor
finely chopped onion and fresh ginger
Grind the coconut along with red chillies and tamarind to a smooth paste. pour this paste into a clay pot or any utensil. add salt bring to a boil. add the chopped onion and ginger. next add the fish one by one. let it boil for a minute or two. add a tablespoon of fresh coconut oil. cover until its time to serve. best served with boiled rice. cooking fish in a clay pot gives it an added flavor
(optionally you skip onion + ginger and instead can fry a tea spoon of coriander + 4-5 pods of garlic in a little bit of oil and add to the coconut+tamarind+chilly mixture before grinding it to a smooth paste)
Sardines – known as pedvo or tarle in konkani. Bhootayi in Kannada
Sardines are known as oily fish and contain Omega-3 fatty acids which also helps regulate age related macular degeneration (AMD). My father says its good for the development of a healthy brain🙂 When ever we got less marks in mathematics he would say ‘you should eat more pedvo’
TIPS: Same recipe can be used in the preparation of Mackerels.
