Tag Archives: Recipes

Recipes: Spinach Dal Medley

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Dals are an integral part of an Indian household and whether it is a south Indian Sambar or a plain dal from Punjab, every state, in fact every household has some type of dal preparation which is unique to themselves. I usually make dal at least twice or thrice a week and sometimes when I can’t think of something to make, I just throw something together, hoping what ends up is something edible. This dal was the result of one of those experimentations. I had some spinach which was starting to go bad and so decided to make this power packed protein and iron filled dal. The other good thing about this recipe is that it is a one pot recipe!

Spinach Dal Medley

Ingredients:
1 cup chopped spinach
2 tbsp each of the following dals – toor dal, yellow moong dal, orange masoor dal and chana dal
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
Salt to taste
1 tbsp ghee or oil

Method:
Wash the dals thoroughly and soak in hot water for 10 minutes. Wash the spinach thoroughly to remove all the dirt it may have.
In the pressure cooker, heat the ghee or oil and and when the fat warms up, add the cumin seeds and let the seeds pop.
After the cumin seeds pop, add in the ginger-garlic paste and stir for a couple of seconds. Now add the finely chopped onions and stir until the onions turn translucent.
Now add thechopped and washed spinach and let it wilt.
Then add the washed dals and stir for a bit. Add enough water and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles.
When the pressure reduces, open the cooker and put it on the gas again and stir well.
Add the tamarind paste, salt and red chilli powder as well as the garam masala powder and stir well and also check for seasoning.
Let the dal come to a nice rolling boil. If it is too thick for your liking, thin it as per your taste.
Serve hot over steamed rice with a stir fried vegetable of your choice. This also makes for a very tasty spinach lentil soup.

Recipes: Mixed Pumpkin Poritcha Kozambu

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Tamil Brahmin cooking is generally considered to be quite healthy and satvik. In our everyday cooking, onions and garlic are generally not used and there are people even today who can’t stand the smell of garlic being cooked. My grandmother is one of them. When we make anything with garlic, she generally leaves the kitchen and in fact goes to the room furthest away from the kitchen so the smell does not bother her.

A Poritcha Kozambu is something like a stew which is made by cooking a mixture of vegetables with a paste made of coconut, urad dal and peppercorns and some cooked dal. I had some yellow and orange pumpkin left over when I made some Avial and these were too little to make something with just one of them. So I decided to combine the two to make a fusion kozambu and kootu out of the two vegetables. Generally pumpkins are not used for a poritcha kozambu but this recipe was a huge success. I loved it as did S and the children and this recipe will find its way to my cooking repertoire and I will make it often.

Mixed Pumpkin Poritcha Kozambu

Ingredients:
½ yellow pumpkin, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
½ white pumpkin, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 cup toor dal,
½ tsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp coconut
1 tsp broken urad dal
3-4 dried red chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:
Wash the toor dal and soak in hot water for 10 minutes. Then pressure cook the dal with ¼ tsp turmeric powder until it is soft and mushy. Once the pressure reduces and you are able to open the cooker, mash the dal well and keep aside.
Heat the oil in a small skillet and when it warms up, add the cumin seeds, dried red chillies, urad dal, and pepper corns and fry till the urad dal changes colour to a nice brown. Then add the grated coconut and stir constantly until the coconut is brown and completely devoid of water. Keep aside and let it cool.
When the coconut is cool, grind it completely to a smooth paste using water as needed.
In the same pan, add the chopped pumpkins, ¼ tsp turmeric powder and some salt and cook until the pumpkins are about 70% cooked.
When the pumpkins are cooked, but still have a bite to them, add the mashed dal and the coconut paste and stir well.
Add the tamarind paste and check for seasoning. Let it boil for about 5-7 minutes.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot over steamed rice and a stir fried vegetable of your choice.

Recipes: Paruppu Payasam aka Moongdal Payasam

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A very simple traditional recipe which does not take much time to prepare, I made this payasam the day after Avani Avittam, when S and BB had to say the Gayatri Japam 1008 times. It is traditional to make a sweet on this day, and since I didn’t have much time in the morning, I decided to go with this simple and tasty sweet dish.

Paruppu Payasam

Ingredients:
1 litre milk, boiled and cooled
1/3 cup moong dal
10-15 cashewnuts, halved
¼ to ½ cup powdered Jaggery or brown sugar
1 tbsp ghee
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
Water as required

Method:
Heat a pan and once the pan is warm, dry roast the moong dal till you get a a lovely fragrance. Make sure you don’t over-roast it and burn it. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Fry the cashewnuts in the ghee until they are nice and brown and keep aside.
In a small pressure cooker or a container which you can put inside the cooker, mix the roasted moong dal with some milk and water and pressure cook it for some 3-4 whistles. Open the cooker when it cools down and lightly mash the dal.

If you are doing this on a stove top, the method is the same, only keep an eye on the dal when it is cooking and top up milk or water as needed and then lightly mash the dal.
Once the dal has been mashed up a bit, add in the powdered jaggery and mix well.

Put this back on the flame and then add the balance boiled and cooled milk and cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes until the milk, dal and jaggery gets completely mixed together.

Now sprinkle the cardamom powder and the fried cashewnuts along with the ghee.

Do a taste test and serve hot or cold. If you are making this as an offering, then of course, you can’t taste it. We prefer eating this cold as I feel this enhances the taste, but this is personal preference.

You can also make this with only milk to get a richer taste. Also some people use coconut milk plus normal milk, but I don’t make this version.

Recipes: Spinach Mint Rice

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During the lockdown, I was experimenting with food and one day found a small bunch of spinach and another small bunch of mint lying in the fridge. I usually make a chutney with the mint, but I didn’t have enough coriander leaves to make my usual chutney, so thought of combining the two. I used my Spinach Rice recipe as the basis of this one and it turned out super yummy! When the rice was cooking, the whole house was enveloped with this pleasant mint aroma and while eating this dish, I was eating with more than just my mouth! And the best part about this recipe is that it is a one pot meal dish. This is a great addition to a lunchbox and both GG & BB have asked me to add this to their lunch boxes.

Spinach Mint Rice

Ingredients:
• 2 cups basmati rice
• 1 bunch spinach
• 1 bunch mint with the leaves plucked
• 2-3 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
• 10-15 curry leaves
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped roughly
• 1 bulb garlic, peeled
• inch piece of ginger, peeled
• 5-6 green chillies
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 10-12 pieces of cashewnuts, chopped into half
• 2 tbsp oil or ghee
• Salt to taste

Method:
• Soak the rice in water for 20-30 minutes and then wash it thoroughly, drain and keep aside.
• Take some water in a large pan and boil it. While the water is boiling, wash the spinach leaves thoroughly and keep aside.
• Wash the mint, curry and coriander leaves and keep aside.
• Blanch the spinach leaves, a few at a time for around 10-15 seconds in the boiling water and remove and keep aside.
• In a blender, blend together the spinach, mint leaves, coriander leaves, curry leaves, garlic, ginger, green chillies and onion into a smooth paste. Keep aside.
• Heat the ghee in a pan and when it warms up, add the cashewnuts and fry until they are brown and nicely toasted. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside.
• In the same pan, with the remaining ghee, add the cumin seeds and let them splutter.
• Then add the blended paste and some salt and let the paste cook for around 5 minutes. The paste should start thickening and at this point add the rice.
• Mix the rice well into the spinach mint paste and once each grain of rice is coated with the paste, remove it to a rice cooker and add the water needed to cook the rice. Cook until it is done and then let it sit for 10 minutes before opening the rice cooker. Fluff it with a fork and add the fried cashewnuts.
• If you are cooking in a pan, when the rice is coated with the paste, add the water and let it cook until the rice is done. Switch off the gas and let it sit for 10 minutes before fluffing with a fork and then garnishing with the cashewnuts.
• Serve hot with a raita and some chips. I served this with an onion pineapple raita. This raita is very simple. Beat some yoghurt in a bowl and add salt and pepper to it. Then add some finely chopped onions, finely chopped pineapples (either fresh or from a tin) and some finely chopped coriander leaves. Taste for seasoning and serve. For the chips, I fried some traditional vadam.
• Vadam is traditionally made by drying a paste made of rice and other ingredients in the sun until all the water is leeched out. Then during days when vegetables are in short supply, you fry these in hot oil and use them as an accompaniment to any rice dish.

Recipes: Dal Dhokli

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Dal Dhokli is a warm and comforting food from Gujarat. One day, during Singapore’s Circuit Breaker, I woke up with a craving for a dish I had never made. So I decided to make it and this dish pleasantly surprised me. It was warm and comforting and a wonderful addition to my repertoire. You can have this as a hearty soup like we did or over rice as some people do.

Dal Dhokli

Ingredients:

1 cup Toovar Dal, washed
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tomato
4-5 cups water plus more, as needed
1 tsp jaggery
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp raw peanuts
1 cup whole wheat flour or atta
2 tbsp chickpea flour or besan
1 tsp caraway seeds or ajwain
2 tbsp ghee
1 tbsp oil
2 green chillies, slit lengthwise
1 tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp asafoetida powder
1 sprig curry leaves
Salt to taste
Finely chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

Soak about 2 tbsp of the raw peanuts in hot water for 15 minutes, drain and keep aside.
Wash the dal thoroughly and cook it in the pressure cooker along with ¼ tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp red chilli powder, 2 tbsp peanuts, the tomato which has a cross made on the stem and about 3-4 cups of water.
Pressure cook it for some 4-5 whistles until the dal is completely mushed. If using the stove top, cook until the dal has broken down completely.
Let the pressure be released and then once the cooker can be opened, carefully remove the tomato, peel the skin which should have started to come out and then put the tomato back into the dal.
Whisk the dal until the dal, tomatoes and the peanuts are completely mixed into a mixture. Keep aside.
Kneed the atta, besan, ajwain, ¼ tsp turmeric powder, oil and salt into a soft dough. Keep aside.
Add the jaggery and another cup or two of water and mix well. Put this back into the flame and cook the dal on a slow simmer.
Make small balls from the dough and roll it into a thin circle or chapati.
Cut the chapatti into largish pieces or even strips.
Add these pieces into the simmering dal and add more water if needed.
Let the pieces cook for another 10 mins on a low flame on simmer.
In a small pan heat the ghee and once the ghee is warm, add the mustard seeds and let it crackle. Then add the asafoetida and then the balance peanuts, the curry leaves and the green chilli let the leaves crackle and the chilli start to brown.
When the peanuts become crisp, pour this tempering over the Dal Dhokli and switch off the gas. Add the lemon juice and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve hot.

Notes: This dish does not keep well as the dough pieces tend to stick together after a while. If you plan on serving this later, then make the dal and about 10 minutes before serving, add the dough pieces and simmer before serving. Add more water if needed as the dough pieces will soak up the water in the dish.