Jeera Rice and dal fry !

Dal & rice is amongst my all time favourites. In some form or the other its always been relished by me all my life. As a little kid, it used to be plain dal with ghee on rice. I still love that. But I need Ghee from a certain dairy in Cochin by name Udaya Dairy. The "neyyu" (ghee) there is out of this world. I'm not a big fan of ghee other than when it is from Udaya ! Mom(and the rest of my family in Cochin) buys butter from there and melts it into ghee and stores it. I love the black residue sorts at the bottom of the vessel. Its yummy !
Ok that was a drift (i'm known for taking long deviations whenever I talk ! Ashok hates that abt me ! I personally love that about myself..hehe)
So the dal and rice evolution. After the " Parippum chaadam" of childhood, it was "varan bhaat" during my days in Pune. A Maharashtrian speciality I would call it. Any time I would go to anyone's house, I would hope they would serve just this dal-rice. Varan Bhaat is so so yummy. And somewhere during college days, Jeera rice and dal fry also become a favourite. I remember, in our college campus there used to be a small restaurant by name "Sahiba". We would die for the jeera rice and dal fry they used to serve there. It was so awesome !

I had no idea whether Ashok would eat this. But my craving for dal rice was building up, and yesterday, I made Jeera Rice and tried out a kind of dal I hadnt made before. I didnt even think twice about trying it out coz I had assumed Ashok wouldnt eat it and this was made just for myself. I was making some other sabzi for him along with roti ! But even Ashok got carried away with the smell of the rice and dal and we ended up eating just that ! Me happy :)

Very easy to cook. Smells good. Tastes awesome. And leaves you with a feeling only simple foods can do to you !

Jeera Rice :

Heat up oil in a pan. Add lots of jeera. Make sure the oil is so hot that the jeera crackles immediately. I like the flavour that the instant crackling brings . Add it to washed basmati rice, add salt, add water and cook the rice.

The dal I made yday needs:
I cup dal - Toor dal, Moong dal, Chana dal - in any proportion you like. I took more than half the quantity of toor dal and some moong dal and a bit of chana dal. )
green chillies
A medium sized onion
ginger garlic paste
curry leaves
corriander leaves
coriander powder - 1tbsp
amchur powder - 1tsp
turmeric powder - 1 tsp
asafoetida - a pinch
ghee, jeera and mustard for tempering
some chopped coriander leaves

Add salt to the dals and cook in a pressure cooker. Heat a little oil in a pan and add green chillies, curry leaves and the onions. Once the onions are transparent, add the ginger garlic paste. Add the cooked dal and adjust the consistency by adding water if needed. Add asafoetida,coriander powder, turmeric powder and amchur powder. Let it boil for about 5 mins. In a separate pan, heat some ghee, add mustard and jeera.
pour it over the dal and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

I added half a tomato too after frying the onions. Thats solely because I had half of it left after making a sandwich for Ashok in the morning. It tasted good with it, but i'm sure it would taste good without it too !
I also added a single dried red chilly as part of the tempering. Thats just because I like the look of it and so felt like adding it.

One more thing about the jeera rice I would want you to try if you love pop corn (eh? what relation ?) !! Leave the jeera rice to cook in an electric cooker and go out of the house for a walk or something. I went to pick up ashok from the rail station while this was cooking and when we returned the house was smelling so good ! I dont know if I was imagining it, but the house was smelling of pop corn ! and I love pop corn ! Which also lead to me picking up one of those pop corn bags and putting it into the microwave today. Yes, I just had to eat pop corn !

Methi Paratha

Everytime I make this one, I aim very high ! I give it all I can so that I achieve what I have been wanting for – for it to taste like how Mom makes it. It always ends up good, but never like Mom’s. There’s hardly anything that goes into it. My kneading and rolling skills are better than my Mom’s. But still the flavour is never like hers (when the players are just 2-3 ingredients ! sheesh ! ).When I made this a few days back, I got kinda close to hers and I was happy ! So I consider myself eligible to post this on my blog :)

What we need :
A bunch of fresh methi leaves.
2 spoons of red chilly powder
A pinch of asafoetida (hing)
3 cups of wheat flour (Atta) and water for the dough  (ofcourse!)
Salt

Boil the methi leaves along with salt, asafoetida and chilly powder. Do not add too much water. Add just enough to cook the methi leaves. We do not want to drain out the water and lose out on all the flavour. The leaves need to boil just for abt 2-3 minutes and then let it cool.
In a bowl take the atta and add the methi leaves along with the water onto the atta. Now knead the dough  well, add a little oil in the end and leave it aside for about 20 minutes.
Roll out the parathas thick or thin , the way you prefer them to be. Heat a tawa and cook the parathas on both sides brushing oil on either side before you cook it.

If the flavours are right, you just need curd and pickle to eat along with it. If the flavours are not rich enough,then make a sabzi and pretend to be eating rotis and not methi parathas :)

Tip : If the methi leaves are too bitter, you can remove part of the bitterness by adding a little salt and leaving them for about half an hour before cooking them. Then squeeze out the water from the leaves and start cooking.

Cabbage Molagoottal

Cabbage is one of my favourite vegetables. It adds good value to the meal, its easy to handle and its a flexi vegetable too coz we can make so many dishes with cabbage. Neither fussy nor messy. Love it :) Maybe I should have a separate section in my blog for cabbage dishes..lol ! someday :)
Cabbage molagoottal is easy, quick and the best part is, needs no side dish ! I dont make any side dish when I make this one. We just eat it with plain rice and it tastes awesome. But many a time I end up making rasam along with cabbage molagoottal coz I love the combo. Whenever I make molagoottal (any kind), I'm tempted to make rasam too. But if I'm lazier than usual that day, I dont make it. Not that rasam takes a lot of effort. Thats a very friendly one too :)

What we need : 
A bowl full of chopped cabbage.
Half a cup of toor dal.
3 tbsp of grated coconut
2 green chillies.
2 tbsp urad dal.
1 tbsp jeera
Mustard
Asafoetida
Turmeric powder.
Quite a few curry leaves.

How we make it:
Boil the cabbage in a pan adding just enough water for it to cook.Add turmeric powder, salt and asafoetida.
Cook the toor dal in a pressure cooker.
While this is going on, heat a little oil in a small pan and add mustard and urad dal to it. Let the mustard crackles and the urad dal turn a little brown. Add it to the grated coconut along with the green chillies and jeera. Grind this mixture adding a little water so that its very smooth.
Once the dal and cabbage are cooked, Mash up the dal with a ladle and add it to the cabbage.Add the coconut paste too. Let it all boil together for about 5 minutes. Heat a little oil in a pan and add mustard to it. Once it crackles, add curry leaves and mix it into the molagoottal. Add as many curry leaves as you like coz thats the main flavour and it makes the molagoottal smell delicious !

I was so not in a mood to cook yesterday. Usually I cook around 4-4:30pm coz then I dont have to be in the kitchen after Ashok gets home. Yesterday, I was lazing around doing my own stuff and I couldnt drag myself to the kitchen early and I started cooking very late. But this cabbage molagoottal came to the rescue. Quick and easy and a hearty meal we had last night :) I kind of avoid eating rice at night. Except on days when I have to make something really easy or I'm craving for "home food" . By home food, I still mean what mom cooks :) Exactly what it meant till a few months back when I was staying alone away from home !

Stuffed Baingan

There are two kinds of people. The ones who hate brinjals and the ones who absolutely love brinjals.
I hate brinjals. Till a few months back, I wouldnt have eaten a piece of brinjal even if that was the only sabzi on the table ! I hate the taste,texture, everything about it. But for some reason (and I know what that is), I enjoy cooking brinjal.

I have always had friends who love brinjals and we end up eating it frequently. Though I just stick to the gravy and never the star vegetable of the dish ! And this particular sabzi is the masterpiece of my good friend Jitu. He began cooking a couple of years back and now is an awesome cook. This dish is what he is famous for amongst colleagues and friends ! I dont follow his recipe entirely. There are changes I have made, yet each time I make this dish, I think of him as the reason I made it the first time ! His tastes yum. Mine ALSO tastes yum !! :)

This also happens to be one of the first few sabzis I had made for Ashok and he was mighty impressed.He loves baingan (and not jus baingan!) :)

So here we go – a dish that looks good, tastes good and is super high in calories (thats a disclaimer!)

A picture to start with :                                                               
(taken by Ashok just before we sat down for dinner. Thats to make sure that I post this on my blog ! )

                          

Probably if I had taken a pic immediately after cooking, the coriander leaves on top would’ve looked nice and fresh. Anyway..

What we need :
Small sized brinjals - 4-5
Peanuts - a handful.
Grated coconut - 3 tbsp
A big onion chopped coarsely.
A medium sized onion finely chopped.
Red chilly powder
Kasuri methi
Ginger Garlic paste
Coriander powder
Amchur (Dry mango) powder

How we make it :
Slit each eggplant vertically into four till a little below the stem. Do not slit entirely. This is just to put in the stuffing. Cook in microwave till its soft. This can take close to 3-4 minutes.
Dry roast the peanuts and powder them. Most people take off the skin. I didnt have the patience to do that. Trust me, it tastes good even if you dont undergo that pain ! I always explore such short cuts.
Roast the grated coconut till brown.Next fry the coarsely chopped onion till they're brown.
Mix together the coconut, onion, chilly powder, coriander powder and salt.Grind it to a thick paste. Add water if necessary but it needs to remain thick. Mix the peanut powder to the paste. This is the stuffing.
Stuff each eggplant with this mixture.
Heat oil (liberally) in a pan and lightly fry the stuffed eggplants and keep them aside. In the same pan, add the finely chopped onions and saute till transparent. Add ginger garlic paste and let it fry for a minute or so. Then add the remaining portion of the mixture to the oil and let it cook. Add amchur powder and kasuri methi too.Once the mixture is cooked and turns a little darker in colour add the eggplants to it. Add some water to achieve the consistency you want. Add a little more salt according to the amount of water added. Cover and  let it all cook together for about 5 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Its not the easiest dishes to make. But its worth the efforts and sure to impress baingan lovers !