Batate song/ saung

Batate Song served with Cilantro lime rice

Saung/ song is one of the lip smacking relish, marking its spot in konkani lunch sides. I have posted a quick dish and also the kind that

lunch thali

Rice, Masoori saar-upkari, bhenda talasani, cauliflower bhajo

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Kadgi ani chane ghashi / kadgi ani thori ghashi

One of the easiest and most often cooked curry in the Konkani household
is this. Ghashi is what we call for the curry made with the basic ground coconut masala, one vegetable, one pulse followed by mustard seasoning. A simple, quick and a delicious one at that.

Most common combination is Black chana and  tender jackfruit or  sprouted green gram (moong) and tender bamboo shoot which is equally delicious. I believe that the combination is dependent upon the availability as fresh bamboo and the tender jack fruit are both seasonal and for this dish we cannot make do with the brine vegetable (In India, that is).


I have used kabuli chana as it is the one of the staple in my pantry and I make do with the canned kind when I'm pressed for time. Below is a picture of dried tuvar and jack fruit ghashi.


Iingredient's:
1 cup grated coconut,
1 tsp tamarind pulp
8 roasted red chillies
1 can jack fruit
1/4 tsp Methi seeds
1/2 cup Thori aka whole tuvar Daal or
1/2 cup Kabuli chana or Kala chana

For seasoning
2 tbsp oil
¼ tsp mustard seeds
2 sprigs curry leaves
2 red chillies

Soak thori/ chana in warm water for 6 hrs. Drain water and rinse a couple of times. Cook with enough water in the pressure cooker for 5 whistles till almost cooked (not completely soft as it has to further cook with the masala). Do not drain the water the pulse is cooked in.

Drain the canned jack fruit and chop the jack fruit pieces in two. Add it to the cooked chana and cook till soft. About 10 minutes.

Dry roast the red chillies and methi seeds. Grind it along with coconut, tamarind pulp and salt into a smooth paste.Add ground masala  to the kadgi and chana and bring the curry to a boil and simmer for 5 Min's. Take off of heat and season.

Temper by heating 2tbsp oil and when heated to a smoking point add mustard seeds, 2 red chillies and 2 sprig of curry leaves. Add it to the curry and cover. Serve with rice as a side.

 The picture of kadgi ani thori ghashi.


.
Substitute and make your own combo's

Pick one pulse and one vegetable
Thori --for--- black chana , whole vaal, Avro (Navy beans)
Kadgi --for--- Suran (Yam), green plantains, potato

I especially add extra Kadgi since we prefer more of them than pulses. so instead of 1 can, I usually end up with 2 cans.

Gosale upkari

Lunch thali: Surai sheeth, kolmbo, doNNe mirsange bhajo ani gosale upkari

Ridge gourd/ Gosale is always a 'two dishes out one' kind of vegetable. This gourd is always used after scraping off the ridges to make it  edible into any delicacy, be it in upkari (vegetable stir-fry), podi (deep fried )or cutlet. The ridges are then seperately made into a chutney or thambli  (same recipe, thinner consistency and with the addition of mustard and red chillie seasoning) depending on what the cook desires for the day. Today is a upkari and ' gosale shire/ghire chutney' day for me.


 Ridge gourd cut up











 Ridges removed for making the vegetable tender. The scraps are saved to make into a delicious chutney or thambli.






Ingredients:

Ridge gourd/ Gosale - 2, skinned and chopped
Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
red chillies- 2, broken
curry leaves- 1 sprig
coconut- shredded, about a table spoon
oil- 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a pan. Temper with mustard seeds, red chillies, curry leaves. Add in gosale and cook (for  about 10 mins) covered without additon of water.  Add salt and coconut.As simple as that.

Kolmbo

Kolmbo, a konkan variation of Madras sambar with freshly roasted and ground masala with many other vegetables than the regular tomatoes and onions like that of idli sambar. This kind is mainly used as a lunch/dinner side and has marked as one of the main dish for a konkani lunch. The vegetables that goes in this dish are drumsticks/mashinga sang (a must), tindora/gherkins, brinjal/vaingaNa  along with the usual potatoes, tomatoes and onions and are not limited to the mentioned few. In my moms kitchen, carrots, beans and cauliflower are a staple in kolmbo but V thinks that English vegetable were not an addition in the authentic kolmbo. My childhood memories of kolmbo were all the vegetables I hated; stem of cauliflower & knolkol too. The ground fragrant masala is what matters here. All else is secondary, I say!

Kolmbo (this one has only batato ani mashinga sang), surai sheeth, miriye pappod, mirsange happol, batate happol

Ingredients:
Roast:
Oil 1 tbsp
red chillies- 8-10
chana dal- 2 tbsp
urad dal-2 tbsp
coriander seeds- 2 tbsp
jeera- 1 tsp
methi seeds- about 15
turmeric- 1/2 tsp
hing- 1/2 tsp

Grind the roasted ingredients with the following
1/2 cup coconut
1 sprig curry leaves
tamarind paste- 1tsp
salt to taste


Vegetables:
Drumsticks- rough skin peeled lightly
potato- 1 small, cubed
brinjal-4, quatered
pearl onions- about 15
tomato-2, finely chopped
cauliflower florets-about 2 cups
Tindora - about 10, quaterd
carrot -1 cubed

Seasoning: oil, mustard seeds,2 sprigs of curry leaves, 1/4 tsp hing.
cilantro for garnish

Pressure cook 1 cup of tuvar dal.
In a big stock pot, cook all the vegetables till half done, add the ground masala, tamarind paste and salt. Bring it to rolling boil. Simmer & cook till all the vegetables are cooked through. Add the seasoning and garnish with cilantro.
Serve with rice.

beetroot Upkari

• Rooting for  ruby red beetroot, here's a quick & super easy side, nothing glamorous or fancy - just a good for you 'unmessed with' beets.  I've been making repeats with a couple of delicious ways to serve these healthy addition to our diet. A sweetish hot beet upkari  &  oven roasted beets are 2 favourite side dishes devoured happily by both my kids. Did I mention that I have one picky kid & another extremely picky?!
•    A week  ago few of beet shreds went into the red velvet cake as a trial & I was very proud that the kids had no idea that they were eating healthy. I almost feel powerful to have complete control of what goes into their bodies...well, almost! In near future I do have plans of making a raitha & a cold soup as well. Did I mention that I have a few golden beets growing in my kitchen garden?

 

  Ingredients:

• beets - 4, peeled, cut
• mustard seeds - 1/8 tsp
• red chillies 3
• curry leaves- a sprig
• coconut - 1tbsp
• salt

 

• Heat oil in a pan. Temper with mustard, red chillies & curry leaves. Add the matchstick beets, salt & half a cup of water. Cover & simmer for 15 to 20 mins till completely cooked. Garnish with grated coconut.

Shevai ani batate vaagu

Thanks to Deepa & Rajesh Pai who treated us to this amchi feast last evening.  I could tell by Rajesh's  enthusiasm that he was about to debut a  new dish which made this much awaited meet up all the more special.

Dinner was made with great dedication taking care to perfect the shevai (string hoppers) as well as making a innovative chicken dish (yet to be named ) to go along with the string hoppers. Veg lovers  had the option of batate vaagu, karathe nonche & karanda nonche, just arrived from India...yum! What a delish!

Our impromptu meet ( impromtu for us, I think it was pre-planned by the Pai's) made me realise that we must really mean a lot to them as they went all out with the food prep for a simple casual meet.  Either way,  good food to go with great company, who's complaining! ;)
I'm glad to have had the best shevai available to me in the U S from the Pai kitchen.
(Chicken recipe will be borrowed &  posted upon request via mail).

bhajji Upkari/ Amaranth

Ingredients:

A bunch of amaranth leaves, finely chopped

1 tsp mustard seeds

3 dry red chillies,  broken

2 tsp oil

1sprig curry leaves

salt to taste

Heat oil in a skillet, temper with mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilli pieces and wait till seasonings begins to splutter. Add in greens & salt. Stir, cover & cook on reduced heat for about 10 minutes. The very little bit of water in the chopped leaves are just enough moisture to cook this. Take off heat.
Optional; garnish with grated coconut. (Omitted here)

Sannapolo

2 cups rice
1/4 cup toor dal
1/2 cup coconut, grated
6 or more dry red chillies
1/4 tsp tamarind pulp
1 cup cabbage/ paddole seeds/ onion/ mashingasang phool- finely chopped
salt
oil to fry

Soak rice and dal for a couple fo hours. Grind coconut, tamarind, chillies to a fine paste using a little water.
Add rice and dal and grind further to make a coarse paste . Add salt. Use one of the following; cabbage with onion, snakegourd seeds, drumstick leaves or flowers.

Heat a griddle with oil, pour a spoonful of batter and spread with the spoon or flatten with hand to a thick dosa.  The beauty of these are the ease making it no-fail side dish  for the novice. Flip over the dosa and fry on the other side till lightly roasted. Serve hot with dalithoy and rice.

Alle piyavu ghashi

Ghashi inspired by my favourite Prabhu family, Roopa's signature dish. It tastes heavenly coming out of her kitchen than mine.  I love the simplicity of this dish, mildly spiced, eye pleasing ( I promise a better pic than the one below) & super-easy to make.
 Here' was my attempt to get as close to the original dish as possible. Turn-out was pretty good considering my poor cooking skills when  it comes to fish. It was way better a day after except that, I knew that I could never reheat it right without breaking the fillets apart. Pretty darn tasty, though.

Ingredients:
8 fish pieces (best with cod, tilapia, pomfret)

1 cup grated coconut

1 onion finely chopped

1" piece ginger, julienned

7-8 long red chillies

Tamarind extract

3-4 green chillies, slit

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 tablespoon oil
Salt

                                                                              ( I promise 'someday' I will load up a better picture of my alle piyave ghashi to do justice to this delicioius curry)

Method:

Grind grated coconut, red chillies and tamarind extract into a smooth paste.
In a pan heat oil and add chopped onion, green chillies and  ginger , saute for a minute. Add  turmeric, ground coconut masala, 1/2 cup of water, salt and bring it to boil. Place the fish and simmer the heat to the lowest heat setting of your cooking range and cook it for 8-10 minutes covered. Serve the curry with boiled rice for the authentic jalke randey taste.

Avro Saar-upkari/ kulitha saar-upkari

 In my house, the easiest way to get my family to eat healthy is to bowl them over is with a soup that is pretty much a simple but forgotten saaru's :  tomato saaru, limbiye saaru, rasam & saar upkaris. So here are a couple of the most nutritious of them all - kulithu/ horsegram  saar upkari & avro saaru upkari.  Prep for all saar upkari's are the same except that avro/ navy bean cooks much faster and doesn't require as much soaking like the horsegram.
Avre saar upkari (pic 1) Kultha saar upkari (pic2)

Kulithu/ horsegram 2 cups
red chillies 3
garlic 3 cloves
salt
oil 1 tbsp

 Soak the  gram overnight. Pressure cook kulithu with  about 3 times as much water for about 10 minutes.( 5-8 whistles).  When the pressure is off,  add salt to the gram  and simmer to thicken the stock. Thickening this enhances the flavour. ( At this point, we can remove kuluthu to make seperate upkari or for koddel or leave it as is and season it,  Some also remove the kulithu by straining and continue with the further reduction of liquid to make it kattu saaru which is tasty in itself without any additional seasoning). 
Temper by heating a tbsp of oil, crushed garlic & red chillies.  When the garlic have been roasted, add it to the saaru & turn off heat.

kele koddel

This koddel/ curry can also be made with a legume/pulse and raw plantains. Pulses can be Avro, alsande or any dried peas.







Ingredients
Raw plantains- 1 no
Coconut 1/2 cup

red chillies 6-8

tamarind paste 1/2 tsp

salt

for the seasoning
oil 2 tbsp
garlic about 4 cloves, crushed
red chillies, 2 broken in bits.

Peel the plantains, quarter them and cut it in cubes.

Cook it with just enough water to immerse the plantains. Cook till almost done.

Roast red chillies in a little oil and grind it along with coconut, tamarind and salt to a smooth paste. Add this paste to cooked plantains and boil.

Season with garlic and crushed red chillies. The garlic is usually fried till it is crispy and dark brown in color. Yum!

Gosale ghire chutney

Ingredients:
peel of 2 ridge gourd ( gosale)
1 cup coconut
4-6 green chillies
1/2 tsp jeera
2 tsp ghee
salt

In a skillet, heat ghee and roast the gourd peel with jeera and green chillies till the peels brown on the edges and wilts. Grind the roasted ingredients with coconut, tamarind, salt and very little water to a coarse paste. This is one of the chutney usually an accompaniment to rice as opposed to breakfast eats.

Dudholi

Among countless number of delicacies pigged out on, DUDHOLI & its taste still lingered. I found another dudholi fan (no bakras [scapegoats] in my home) and so, I got a push to make this( in my defense, I'm only making this to share). I am satisfied of the outcome, hope the other person will be too after tasting this. The verdict will follow in a couple days.
Ingredients:
1 cup Ragi
1 cup coconut
3/4 cup jaggery
cardamom powder
4 tbsp ghee

Grind ragi and coconut together and extract the milk and strain i n a fine sieve to remove the ragi skin & coconut residue( usually done 3 times at least)
Heat ghee in a thick bottom kadai, add jaggery heat till the jaggery melts.
Add 3 cups of water and ragi coconut milk mixture to the jaggery. Keep stirring the mixture on medium heat till it cooks, becomes thick and leaves the sides of the pan.When done, set aside.

Grease a rimmed plate with ghee, pour the hot mixture into the plate,smear it with the spatula and cool,chill in the refrigerator for a couple hours. Cut, serve chilled.

karkala cake

This bowl of goodness is neither a pudding or a cake but is called as both all over Mangalore and Karkala. What's in a name, anyway?
I've been dreaming of relishing this ever since my last visit to India. Incidentally this has been the new 'sweet' dish as an addition to the wedding's breakfast eats taking the place of good old Ksheera/sheera. Karkala cake a new dish?  OK, maybe not new to those living in India, but it is to me who missed out on a whole decade of weddings and other religious occasions back home.

The recipe was found in an almost neglected and as a scrap piece of shabbily written recipe with more scribbles  covering the rest of the paper around it. As excited as I was to find the hidden treasure, I was  also skeptical of the mood I was in while I took down the recipe. Now I was really hoping  I  had paid attention,  as the writing didn't look as neat as it would on my good mood days. Yikes! You know what I mean! ;)

Either way, I was on a quest to make it till I get this right! 
Glad I did, because it turned out heavenly....yeah yeah, bit heavy for just a mush of Yumm'ness but, my friends along with me are  the one's that relished this and gave a positive review so you just have to take my word for it!    Trust me!
    
 So here goes the real part you've been waiting for...
recipe courtesy - Raj maam ( a wedding cook who makes amchi food finger licking good) 


Ingredients:
2 cups ground whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
2.5 cups water(warm)
1 cup ghee (yes, u read it right!)
1/4 cup chopped cashew
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 tsp cardamom powder

Roast wheat flour in ghee till light brownish on a slow to medium flame stirring constantly. The unmistakable aroma of roasted wheat flour is hard to miss. (I usually add 1 whole cashew in the beginning and when the cashew turns brown I know the roasting is done)

Now add all cashew and raisins. Roast for another 2 minutes. At this stage cashew browns real quick.Add the sugar while stirring constantly.

Add the warm water and cardamom. Stir till the whole mixture comes into a ball & leaves the sides of the pan without sticking(which is pretty quick).Done!
See, it was easy after all.
Serve warm.

This dish went to Uma's Poovathingal's house for the Haldi-kukkum prasadam on occasion of Laxmi pooja.
G's note: there is no way you could mess up this dessert. I can take pride in vouching for this fail proof recipe. I'm not going to take credit to the recipe but I assure you that this is a life saver for last minute get-together. I certainly hope that my friends will relish and indulge in this heavenly dessert, guilt free with me.

The most favourite part of making this (apart from taste testing, of course!) was the cleanup of the kadai..absolutely clean, like it was never used... now there is absolutely no excuse or reason to not make this, is there?!
In closing, this wasn't as hard as I thought it would be!

Jeev kadgi podi

Deep fried to crisp.
Masala- rice flour, chilli powder, hing, salt, water.

Podi/ bhajo's

Paagil podi (pic 1) cauliflower bhajo (pic 2)









Leave it to 'Amchi's' to take something healthy and deep fry and relish it like it's the best thing in the world....but hey, I'm not complaining....I am equally guilty of having a nostalgic fondness towards podi's and bhajo's with dalithoy. Yum!

Bhajo's batter is made using besan,rice flour, chilli powder, hing and salt.Usually made out of cauliflower, potato,onion.

Podi's that uses the masala mentioned below are made of kadi ( raw jackfruit), Pagil( kantola), Goint( parwal), karathe(bitter gourd, Mashingasang (drumsticks).

For the podi guli:
Rice- 1 Cups, soaked in water for 2-3 hrs
Red chillies – 20
Hing – 1/4 tsp
salt
Grind all these ingredients into a coarse thick paste with minimal water and apply this to the the choice of your vegetable. Deep fry the goodies and enjoy with dalithoy and rice.

Madgane

Ingredients
1 cup bengal gram /chana dal
15 cashews
1 cup grated jaggery
1 cup coconut
2 tbsp rice, soaked in water
1/2 tsp cardamom powder

Pressure cook dal and cashew nut, just cooked till soft.
Grind coconut with rice to a smooth paste and use a sieve to strain and get milk.
In a heavy bottomed pot, add cooked dal, jaggery, cardamom powder and coconut milk. Bring to a boil over moderate heat. Serve hot.

Happla kismuri

Ingredients:
Red Chillies Pappad/ Happol - 5
Onions,finely chopped - 1
Green Chillies - 3 finely chopped
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
Coconut oil - 2 tsp
Cilantro, few stems, chopped
Salt

Method:
Roast the Pappad on high flame, apply oil. Crush green chillies in grated coconut add this to chopped onions, cilantro and salt. Hand crush the pappad and mix it with coconut onion mixture. Serve immediately.

Chane upkari ani phov

This is one of the breakfast eats which is done at most Konkani get-together's yet is not liked very much if done at home. It is considered very thoughtless of the host if at all it is served to any guest...no idea why! With last minute guest visiting all the time, sometimes it is inevitable to fix this breakfast up. I love this all the more now that I'm away from my home and it is a rare breakfast eats for us over here. A very simple non complicated breakfast.


















CHANE UPKARI
Ingredients:
brown skinned chana – 1cup
Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Red chillies 3, cut in half
Grated coconut – 2 tbsp
Oil – 1 tbsp

Method:
Soak chana for 4-6hrs.
Pressure cook the chana till soft and tender.
Heat oil in a kadai, for seasoning and splutter mustard seeds,red chillies and curry leaves. Now add the cooked chana and salt. Bring it to a good boil. Garnish with coconut. Serve with Phov.

PHOV
Ingredients:
Thin poha 2 cups
coconut 1 cup
jaggrey 1/4 cup, grated
Jeera 1/4 tsp
coriander seeds 1/4 tsp
red chillies 4-8
mustard seeds 1/4 tsp
oil 1tsp

heat oil and roast red chillies, jeera and coriander seeds.
Crush the roasted spice with jaggrey, salt and coconut with a mortar and pestle. Add this coconut-spice mixture till the masala incorporates with poha. Make a seasoning with oil, mustard seeds,red chillies and curry leaves and add this to mixed poha.
This poha in a konkaniites home is served with one or more of the following:-banana, upma, chana upkari, chivda.