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.

5 Condiment Chutney

This chutney was an instant idea that I got for dinner today; however, this combination of the ingredients is a familiar one to us as gravy-base. The proportion is what I have tweaked to give a chutney form; I basically tried to prepare ginger chutney and eventually added other ingredients. Ginger is the base and I added onion and garlic for flavour, tomato for tanginess and coconut for texture; it worked perfectly well. It is not only easy and tasty but also healthy because the ingredients are raw ground and sautéed minimally to keep nutrients intact. I cannot call it an invention but it definitely is an innovation.  Kundan just loved it.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Ginger - 4” piece

2.    Garlic – 6 cloves

3.    Shallots – 5

4.    Tomato - 1

5.     Coconut – 2 tbsp grated

6.    Gingelly Oil – 1 tbsp

7.     Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

8.    Asafoetida – 1 pinch

9.    Chili powder – 1 tsp

10. Turmeric powder – 1 pinch

11. Salt to taste

Method:

Step 1: Clean and roughly chop peeled ginger, garlic, shallots and tomato.

Step 2: Grind into a coarse paste the chopped condiments along with grated coconut.

Step 3: Heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, sprinkle a pinch of asafoetida and add the ground paste.

Step 4: Add enough salt, chili powder and turmeric and stir for few minutes.

Step 5: Serve with idli or dosa.

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.