Aubergines in mild yogurt sauce

When cooking vegetables in India we tend to overcook them and smother them in so much oil and spice that oftentimes you cannot even identify the vegetable you have been served. I think that is a bit of a waste because vegetables when cooked with small amounts of spices can be really delicious as well as being healthy. Here is an easy aubergine preparation -- I love aubergines (we call them baiguns in Bengal) as the vegetable has such a rich flavor. In this recipe you need to roast the skin of the baigun first, which really makes it taste richer and smokier. Serve this baigun with fresh made chapatis and a bit of coriander flavored masoor dhal for a light quick lunch.


The Recipe


1 large aubergine or 2 medium-sized ones (don't use small ones as they are difficult to roast)
2 small onions diced
1 teaspoon ginger-garlic paste
small amounts (about 1/3 teaspoon) of coriander, cumin, tumeric and chilli powders
1 cup beaten sour yogurt
salt to taste
pinch of garam masala powder (optional)


Roast the baigun directly on gas top till the skin gets charred. This takes a bit of time if the baigun is large. Keep turning so that all sides of the baigun are nicely charred.
Allow the baigun to cool a little, then rub of the charred skin and mash the baigun well almost into a thickish paste.
In a little oil, fry the onions till translucent; add the ginger-garlic paste and spice powders. Stir well briskly about 2-3 minutes. Add salt to taste and the mashed baigun. Cover and cook 5 minutes more. Just before you remove it from the heat, you can sprinkle a pinch of garam masala powder over it.
Stir the beaten yogurt into the cooked vegetable, mix well and serve hot.

Vegetable kootu

Kootu is a Tamilian word meaning a kind of thick vegetable stew. A simple lunch on a hot summer's day could be a mound of boiled white rice, a katori of lightly spiced kootu, another of sambhar, a glass of salted buttermilk and a bowl of sour curds to round off the meal.

The nice thing about making kootu is that the dish lends itself to many variations, is easy to prepare and rather filling. It is especially good if you are inviting vegan friends over for an Indian meal with a difference. Use a combination of hard vegetables, but just so as to give the dish a robust body include some starchy vegetables in your selection along with some root veggies. If you prefer a tangy taste try adding 1 small raw green mango -- as this will make the stew very sour, omit tomatoes if using the mango.


The Recipe:

1 and a half cup diced mixed vegetables (choose any combination of these vegetables: carrot, potato, a few French beans, 1 tomato, some bits of ridged gourd or any other squash, a bit of Japanese cucumber)
2-3 green chillies slit through the middle
1 teaspoon tumeric
half cup boiled and mashed channa dhal (Bengal gram dhal)
1/2 a coconut grated and blended with 3 chillies and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
salt to taste
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
1 teaspoon oil

Put the diced vegetables in large pan and add enough water to cover the vegetables; add salt, a few curry leaves, chillies and tumeric powder and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer till veggies are cooked through, adding more water if needed to keep the vegetables from drying out completely.
Add the coconut paste and a little more water (if required to keep the vegetables in a thickish sauce) along with the cooked dhal. Cook on medium flame for another 10-12 minutes. Remove from heat.

The Seasoning: Heat the oil, add the curry leaves and mustard seeds and fry a few seconds till mustard seeds start crackling. Remove from heat and pour this seasoning over the vegetable kootu. Serve hot.

Tomato buttermilk curry

This picture shows some accompaniments to a traditional Tamilian meal: fried applams, fried tahir molaggai (dried red chillies stuffed with curd and salt) and a bowl of fresh sour curd.

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I've been away from this blog for so long...but not away from the kitchen! Here is a delicious, very light and refreshing buttermilk curry recipe. This is a traditional Tamilian dish, and once again it's a recipe I learnt from my mother-in-law.

Curry leaves are an essential ingredient in the Tamil kitchen. A defining smell in my mother-in-law's kitchen in her Hyderabad apartment is the fragrant aroma of just fried 'tarka' -- crackling mustard seeds, crisply fried curry leaves and toasted brown fenugreek seeds in a teaspoon of oil -- the prepared tarka or fried seasoning is poured over freshly made dhals, curries or vegetables.

This buttermilk curry is finished with a similar tarka. Prepare the buttermilk fresh from sour yogurt (sour curd) to make this curry really delicious. In Tamil kitchens, buttermilk is prepared by briskly churning a bowlful of sour curds mixed with about a glassful of room temperature drinking water. Traditionally this buttermilk curry is made without the tomatoes, and the usual vegetable added is a few cubes of aubergines. I prefer using tomato as it gives the buttermilk a richer more defined flavor and goes well with the coconut paste.


The Recipe:


1 quantity buttermilk
1/2 a fresh coconut grated and ground into a smooth paste with 2 teaspoons toasted cumin seeds and 3 dried red chillies
handful of curry leaves
half a tomato diced
pinch of tumeric
salt
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
little vegetable oil


Put about 1 cup of water in a pan and bring to the boil, lower heat and add tomatoes, a few of the curry leaves and tumeric and boil for about 5-6 minutes till tomatoes are soft and pulpy. Add the buttermilk and coconut mixture and stir well. Bring to the boil again, then reduce to a low flame and simmer at least 10 minutes till the mixture is well blended and the coconut mixture has lost its raw taste. Add salt to taste.





Seasoning:
Heat 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil, add a few curry leaves and the fenugreek seeds; stir quickly till seeds turn golden brown, add the black mustard seeds and remove from heat as soon as they start sputtering (be careful as this happens quickly especially if the oil is very hot). Pour this mixture into the buttermilk curry and serve hot with steamed white rice and a bit of lime or mango pickle and fried aaplams (poppadums).

Easy maccher jhol

This is how the fish pieces should look once you've shallow-fried them.
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The other day as I was walking through Little India I came across a series of Bangladeshi eateries, one of which was called 'Radhuni' the name reminded me of the 'Radhuni' eatery on Free School Street in Calcutta, also run by Bangladeshis settled in Calcutta. When I was a student, we'd go to Radhuni sometimes and eat maccher kalia and rice. Radhuni was next door to Prince, another small dive with Bangla roots. On a recent trip back home I noticed that Radhuni had disappeared and Prince was looking shabbier than what I remembered it as.

It's difficult to cook traditional Bengali dishes away from home mostly because it isn't easy getting typical Bengali spices and cooking with the very pungent flavored mustard oil sometimes just isnt an option in a fancy rented apartment. So I've learnt to adapt my favorite Bengali dishes, making them easier to prepare and just as flavorful.

This simple maccher jhol (fish curry) takes about 20 minutes to prepare and along with plain boiled rice is a Bengali staple. Use any nice white fish -- here in Singapore I often use a local fish that looks a bit like rui maach; milk fish can also be used. Just don't use a very strong flavored fish like salmon as the point of this dish is the gravy (jhol) that the fish absorbs.

A note on paanch phoron: this is a typical Bengali spice and is basically five spices -- onion seed, fenugreek, fennel, radhuni (i don't know the English name for this) and cumin -- dry roasted and blended together. The spice can be bought ready mixed at Indian or Bangladeshi grocery stores that specialize in Bangla ingredients.



The Recipe

3-4 fish fillets cleaned, washed and patted dry on paper towels then rubbed with some salt and tumeric powder
1 tomato diced; another quartered
1 inch piece fresh ginger cut into small pieces
3-4 green chillies cut into small pieces; 2-3 slit whole green chillies
1 and a 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1 potato sliced into thick rounds
1 teaspoon paanch phoron
vegetable oil
1 teaspoon tumeric
salt
1 teaspoon sugar


In a frying pan that can be covered, heat about 2 tablespoons of oil till smoking hot then shallow fry the prepared fish fillets about 2-3 minutes each side till nice and golden and cooked through. If necessary cover the fish while it fries as some fish like milkfish tend to sputter dangeroulsy when fried in hot oil. Remove fried fish and keep aside.

Put the garlic, chillies and some salt in a mortar. Grind well into a thick paste; add the diced tomatoes and coriander powder and grind some more till tomatoes are mashed and the paste is thick but not too coarse.

Heat the frying pan (you may need to add a little more oil) and when nice and hot add the paanch phoron and then the ground spice paste. Take care not to burn the paanch phoron as this will make the curry bitter. Fry well till the paste is fragrant and oil separates from the paste.
Add the fish pieces and some more salt, sugar and fry till fish is well covered in the paste. Add about two cups warm water and the potato slices, quartered tomato and slit whole chillies. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer 10-12 minutes till potatoes are done.

Serve hot with steamed white rice or luchis.