Mullangi Mor Kuzhambu

I made mullangi mor kuzhambu or radish yoghurt curry or mooli kadi (okay enough of my translations)... I prepared it with a quite elaborate recipe derived from several blogs and from mom’s kitchen. I’ve used radish in this recipe which is also a first time experience but it really was awesome. I know it sounds like self-praising, but if you had tasted the mor kuzhambu that I had attempted twice earlier you’ll completely agree with me (they had turned disasters). Except for tur dal (pigeon peas) I’ve used every possible ingredient that possibly can go into the mor kuzhambu making; however people generally choose only a subset of this in their recipe.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Curd – 2 cups

2.    Turmeric powder – 2 pinches

3.    Asafoetida – 1 pinch

4.    Radish – 1 large

5.     Curry leaves – 1 sprig

6.    Coriander chopped – 2 tbsp

7.     Green chili – 1

8.    Coconut grated – 2 tbsp

9.    Ginger – 1” piece

10.  Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp

11.  Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp

12.Cumin seeds – ½ + ¼ tsp

13. Pepper corns – ½ tsp

14. Dry chili – 2

15.   Bengal gram or Tur dal – 2 tbsp

16. Raw rice – 2 tbsp

17.  Salt to taste

18. Oil – ½ tbsp

19. Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

20.  Mor milagai/ yoghurt chilies – 2

Method:

Step 1: Soak the rice & Bengal gram together for 15 minutes. Dry roast dry chilies, pepper corns, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds separately.

Step 2: Grind together into a fine paste: the soaked rice & dal, dry roasted ingredients, coconut, green chili and ginger. Dilute it with a cup of water and keep aside.

Step 3: Beat sour curds with turmeric and asafoetida to a smooth consistency.

Step 4: Peel and cut the radish into thick half circles and sauté them in few drops of oil with some salt until it is done. Keep it aside.

Step 5: Now in a kadai prepare tempering by heating some oil, spluttering mustards seeds & cumin seeds, adding curry leaves & yoghurt chilies and then add the masala mix in simmer while stirring.

Step 6: When it starts to boil pour the beaten curds and add the radish and keep stirring until you see it bubbling. Now add salt, mix and transfer to a different container immediately. Garnish with coriander.

Step 7: Serve with hot steamed rice along with appalams (Kundan & I prefer different types of deep fried vathals to go with this)

TIPS:

*Stopping to stir, high heat, unbeaten curds and salted curds might curdle the curry. It doesn’t happen always but I would be careful.

*You can avoid dry chilies & pepper corns and add more green chilies to give brighter color.

*You can avoid rice and add rice flour to the ground masala mix or even skip it completely; it is for thickening the curry and dal would do that job to some extent.

Paavaikai Pitlai

Bitter gourd is called Paavaikai in tamil and paavaikai pitlai is a traditional curry that is usually coupled with rice but it can be had with rotis. This curry is my predilection when it comes to bitter gourd because I do not know any other recipe that uses less oil or no jaggery/ sugar to make a bitter-less bitter gourd dish. I tried this first long back and I can say this is almost the only dish I prepare with karela/ bitter gourd these days. Bitter gourd is highly beneficial in insulin resistance conditions and hence is advised for diabetics. I will strongly recommend this for bitter gourd haters because Kundan was one earlier to eating this.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Bitter gourd – 2

2.    Tomato – 1

3.    Onion – 1

4.    Oil – ½ tbsp

5.     Dry chilis – 1

6.    Bengarl gram – ½ cup

7.     Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

8.    Cumin seeds – ¼ tsp

9.    Asafoetida – 1 pinch

10.  Curry leaves – 1 sprig

11.   Curry/Sambar powder – 1 tsp

12. Coriander powder – 1 tsp

13. Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

14.Tamarind pulp or juice as required

15. Salt to taste

16. Jaggery or sugar – 2 pinches (optional)

17.  Ground coconut – 1 tbsp (optional)

Method:

Step 1: Chop bitter gourd into semi circles, cut onion and tomato roughly.

Step 2: Blanch the bitter gourd in salted water and cook Bengal gram separately until soft but not mushy. Keep these aside.

Step 3: Heat oil in a kadai, splutter mustard seeds, cumin seeds, sprinkle asafoetida, put in the curry leaves & broken dry chili and sauté onion in it until translucent. Then sauté tomato in it and add turmeric powder to it.

Step 4: Pour a cup of water and tamarind pulp, add curry powder & coriander powder, add salt as per taste and let it boil for few minutes until raw smell goes off.

Step 5: Add the cooked channa dal, bitter gourd and ground coconut and then mix well to boil for a couple of minutes more. Adjust spices and add jaggery or sugar at this stage if necessary.

Step 6: Serve hot with rice.

TIPS:

*You can  roast coconut, red chilies, coriander seeds and a spoon of tur dal separately in a drop of oil and grind it into coarse powder; add this instead of curry powder. This is the traditional procedure but I do it little simple.

Hyderabadi Mirchi Ka Salan

I tried this today for lunch as my in-laws have come home. I've heard of this from ma sister long back but had not tried or tasted it earlier so I was curious to try this recipe with the lovely Charleston peppers (bajii milagais as locally called) that I had bought a couple of days back. I had adapted the recipe from tarladalal.com with slight alterations in the flow for convenience sake. This was so lovely in aroma & taste and it goes pretty well with rice or rotis.

Serves: 4

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Charleston peppers – 6

2.    Onion – 1 large

3.    Tomato – 2 large

4.    Garlic – 6 Cloves

5.     Ginger – 1” piece

6.    Coconut grated – 2 tbsp

7.     Cumin seeds – 1 + 1 tsp

8.    Sesame seeds – 2 tbsp

9.    Groundnuts – a fistful

10.             Oil – 3 tbsp

11.  Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

12.Curry leaves – 4 or 5 leaves

13. Kalonji or Nigella seeds – ½ tsp

14.Chili powder – 2 tsp

15. Coriander powder – 2 tsp

16.Turmeric powder – 1 pinch

17. Salt to taste

Method:

Step 1: Dry roast groundnuts, sesame seeds and a teaspoon of cumin seeds and grind them into a powder.

Step 2: In the same mixer jar grind into paste the following ingredients: grated coconut, chopped onion, tomatoes, ginger and garlic cloves.

Step 3: Slit the peppers and remove seeds and use it as whole or just chop them into 2” pieces after trimming the ends as I did.

Step 4: Heat oil in a non-stick pan preferably and arrange the peppers to roast them. They become whitish and the skin bulges slightly; more notably a beautiful aroma of roasting peppers just explodes in your kitchen. Just then drain the oil in the pan and keep the peppers aside.

Step 5: In the same oil splutter a teaspoon of cumin seeds, kalonji, mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Step 6: Add the ground masala paste and sauté until the oil separates.

Step 7: Add chili powder, coriander powder, the ground dry masala and sauté for a minute. Pour two cups of water and add enough salt and let it boil for 3 minutes.

Step 8: Add the roasted peppers and turn off stove.

Step 9: Serve hot with roti or rice.