Konkanirecipes.com

beans sidedish

This is a very easy-to make pachaDi. Bittergourd can be used instead of beans to make karate-pachaDi.

Ingredients

• Beans - about 15
• Onions - 1
• Grated coconut - half cup
• Green Chillies - 2
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying

Method

• Chop the beans very finely and fry with a little oil and salt till the beans are cooked.
• To this add finely chopped onions, chillies and the grated coconut.
• Serve as a side-dish with rice and any curry.

Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 10 minutes

potato sidedish

I was tired of having the usual idli,dosa, chapatis for breakfast. While I was trying to think out of the box, I remembered about the hot and sour batata song which my mom makes. It goes very well with chapatis,puris and even bread. It is very easy to make and all the ingredients required to make it will almost always be available in anybody’s kitchen. But I still wonder why it got the name ‘song’ though. As far as I know there is no special meaning to the name in konkani.

Ingredients

• Potatoes - 4
• Onions - 2
• Chilli powder - 2 teaspoons
• Tamarind - size of a small lemon.
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying

Method

• Boil the potatoes, peel the skin, mash and set aside.
• Soak the tamarind in a little water or you can use tamarind extract.
• In a kadai, take a little oil and fry the onions till golden brown.
• Add about 2.5 to 3 teaspoons of chilli powder (the more the better… ofcourse depends on individual taste) , tamarind and salt. Fry for a few minutes.
• Now add the mashed potatoes, add some water and cook till it reaches a medium consistency.

Make sure to add more tamarind, more chilli and ofcourse a little more salt to get the desired hot and sour taste. Serve with toasted bread, chapatis or as a sidedish with rice.

Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes

parval sidedish

I am very fond of parvals… I was not able to get the English name for this. Parvals look like gherkins/tenDli but are much bigger and have a thicker skin. Also, they taste like phagil… another vegetable very popular among the konkanis. I have not tried any other sidedish with this parval but I simply love this simple fry.

Ingredients

• Parval - about 7 to 8
• Chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying

Method

• Cut parval into long slices. You could probably make 3 slices out of each parval.
• Add salt and chilli powder to this and mix well.
• Shallow fry on a pan on both sides with enough oil till it becomes soft (for about 15 minutes on a low flame)
• Serve with rice and daal or any other curry.

Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes

idli vada

This sunday my MIL and I made an elaborate-Sunday-breakfast :) comprising of idli, vada, sambhar and chutney… and ofcourse tea.Earlier, I was never fond of idlis made at home because they would somehow come out very hard and tasteless. But I particularly like the idlis made by my MIL… they are very soft, fluffy and yummy. So I thought of sharing this recipe with other idli-newbies

idli

Many people use Idli rava (rice sooji) for making idlis. But in this method rice is used directly.

Ingredients

• Urad dal - 3/4th cup
• Rice - 2 cups
• Poha/puffed rice - 1/4th cup
• A pinch of salt
• Baking soda

Method

• Soak rice and daal in separate containers for 4-5 hours (preferably previous afternoon)
• Just 15 minutes before grinding, soak poha.
• Grind the urad daal to a very smooth batter (Do not add too much water, just add as much as needed).Set this aside.
• Now grind the rice and poha. Again dont add more water. Grind this till you get a very fine rava-like consistency of the rice in the batter.
• Now mix the 2 batters, add some salt and keep the batter overnight in a warm place.(Take care to use a big container here as the volume of the batter increases after fermentation)
• In the morning add a little baking soda 15 mins before cooking.
• Grease the idli-stand with a little oil and steam the idlis for about 15 minutes. Open the idli cooker after 5-10 mins and the idlis are ready !!!

Preparation time: 30 minutes + Leave overnight Cooking time: 20 minutes

vada

Idli seems somewhat incomplete without the thoot-vada (vada with hole) and so here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• Urad dal - 1 cup
• Green chillies - 2
• Ginger - half an inch
• Pepper - 4 to 5 grains
• Small and thin slices of coconut - about 10
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Oil for frying

Method

• Soak urad daal for 2 hours and grind it to a very smooth and thick batter. Add water just enough for the mixer.
• Grind ginger, chillies and pepper to a coarse mixture and add it to the batter.
• Also add the coconut pieces,salt to taste and a little baking soda.
• Take some of this batter on your left palm and make a small hole in the centre and carefully place it in the kadai with hot oil.
• Deep fry on a low flame till a reddish brown colour is reached.

Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 5 minutes

sambhar

I use bisibele-bhat powder for making this particular sambhar. However any of the regular/homemade sambhar powder can be used for the purpose

Ingredients

• Toor dal - 1 cup
• Onion - 1
• Tomatoes - 2
• Bisibele-bhat powder/sambhar powder - 3 teaspoons
• Green chillies - 2
• Red chillies - 2
• Curry leaves
• Coriander leaves
• Mustard - 1 teaspoon
• A pinch of hing/asafoetida
• Oil for seasoning

Method

• Cut tomatoes,onions and green chillies to small pieces and pressure cook with toor daal.
• Now add sambhar powder, finely chopped coriander leaves, salt to taste and bring to boil. Simmer for a few minutes.
• Now for seasoning heat a little oil and add mustard. After it stops sputtering, add red chillies, hing and curry leaves in

that order and pour it over the sambhar.

Time : 30 minutes

chutney

I am sure that there is no need to write about the method for making chutney. But even then I am writing it to make the article complete.

Ingredients

• grated coconut - 1 cup
• Green chillies - 3
• Tamarind -
• Red chillies - 2
• Curry leaves
• Mustard - 1 teaspoon
• Oil for seasoning

Method

• Fry green chillies with a little oil.
• Grind coconut,green chillies, a little tamarind and salt with the required amount of water.
• For seasoning heat a little oil and add mustard. After it stops sputtering, add red chillies and curry leaves in that order

and pour it over the sambhar.

Time : 10 minutes

We had been to Honavar this time for Dassera. I will very soon post about the special food my mother makes for this festival. The fun part was that it was raining all the time and so we did not venture out a lot. But we ate a lot of goodies and were content sleeping most of the time away … something you rarely get to do if you are going to office :) On the first day, at about 10 in the night… we heard a loud tabla sound accompanied with somebody’s song over the loudspeaker and guessed it to be Yakshagana . It was very exciting to see a Yakshagana after many years and that too with an umbrella in one hand.

This particular show portrayed ‘Meenakshi Kalyana’ and was performed by the Yakshagana team at Hegde, (Kumta), Uttar Kannada dist.

ashgourd halwa

Ashgourd/white pumpkin/Winter melon is very good for health and has a cooling effect on the body. I especially like the Damroot and Pheta sweets made out of it but I feel taht it may be tedious to make them at home. So I prefer to cook this halwa at home. It is also widely used in making sambhars.

Ingredients

• Grated ashgourd - 2 cups
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Ghee - 2 tablespoons
• Cardmom/Elaichi
• Cashew

Method

• Cook the grated ashgourd in a wide bottomd pan. Do not add any water as it discharges water on its own. It will take about 20 minutes to become soft.
• Now add sugar and cook again for a few minutes on a low flame.
• Add some ghee, elaichi powder and garnish with cashewnuts.

Time required: 40 minutes

buns

I had forgotten about buns for a long time. Then I made it last week and again today morning. Buns resemble puris, are very fluffy, a little sweet and is very easy to prepare for breakfast/evening snacks…..Just prepare the dough in the night, allow it to ferment overnight and make puris out of it in the morning. I made ginger chutney to go with it and I shall write about it in a separate post.

Ingredients

• 2 Bananas ( pachhbaLe, the ones shown in the picture )
• Curd - 3/4th cup
• Maida about a quarter kg
• Sugar - 4 tablespoos
• A pinch of salt
• Baking soda
• Oil for frying

Method

• Blend bananas, sugar, salt and baking soda in a mixer (do not add water)
• Add curds to this mix.
• Now add as much maida as it can hold and make a dough out of this (the dough must not be soft, no water must be added)
• Leave overnight and in the morning make small puris out of it.

Tips

• The buns must be deep fried on a very low flame till it gets the reddish brown colour. Preparation time: 20 minutes + Leave overnight Cooking time: 2 minutes

If my mother was not in a mood to tell me a story, she would sing this song for me… LOL.

ಕಾಣಿ ಕಾಣಿ ಕಾತ್ವಾ ಮ್ಹಾ೦ತಾರಿಚೆ ನಾತ್ವಾ
ಕಾಳೆ ಭೈಲು ಖಾವ್ನು ಗೆಲ್ಲೊ ಧವ್ವೆ ಭೈಲು ಲೆವ್ನು ಗೆಲ್ಲೊ
ಕಿತ್ತಿರೆ ಭೈಲಾ ಲೆವ್ನು ಗೆಲ್ಲೊ?
ಆಜ್ಜಿನ ಮಾಕ್ಕಾ ವಾಡಿಲ್ನಾ
ಕಿತ್ತಿಗೆ ಆಜ್ಜಿ ವಾಡಿಲ್ನಾ?
ಇ೦ದುರಾನ ಮೆಗೆಲೆ ದಾಯಿ ವ್ಹೆಲ್ಲಿ
ಕಿತ್ತಿರೆ ಇ೦ದುರಾ ದಾಯಿ ವ್ಹೆಲ್ಲಿ?
ಆಜ್ಜಿ ಮೆಗೆಲೆ ಬೀಡಾ೦ತು ಹಾಗ್ಲಿ
ಘು ಕಾಡ ದಾಯಿ ವ್ಹರ !!!!

For people who cannot read kannada, here is the English version.
kaaNi kaaNi kaatvaa mhaantariche naatvaa
kaaLe bhailu khaavnu gello dhavve bhailu levnu gello
kittire bhaila levnu gello?
aajjina makka vaaDilnaa
kittige aajji vaaDilnaa?
indurana megele daayi vhelli
kittire indraa daayi vhelli?
aajji megele biDantu haagli
ghu kaaDa daayi vhar !!!!