Chana dal-vegetable masala rice

Chana dal sundal (cooked chana dal stir fried in spiced oil with mustard seeds) is one of my favourite things to eat as a side dish with rice and mor kuzhambu. I like to mix the rice and sundal together (as weird as that may sound), which is why I thought that this recipe would work. There's no mor kuzhambu involved this time, though. Just the rice and chana dal. Oh, and some vegetables.

If you think about it, recipes that combine protein, carbs and vegetables in a tasty package have to be top of the list for those occasions where you don't want to spend ages in the kitchen but also don't want to be tempted to order a takeaway. This recipe takes about 30 minutes from start to finish, especially if you prep and cook the vegetables while the rice is cooking. If you have leftover rice, this recipe is even quicker to make. And it tastes lovely.

A word of warning with regard to the chana dal - because it's easy to cook it to mush, I don't add any extra water while cooking it with the rice. I like my chana dal very slightly undercooked so that it still has a gentle bite. If you prefer it well soft, feel free to add another 1/8 cup of water while cooking the rice & dal.

Recipe for: Chana dal-vegetable masala rice

Ingredients:

1 cup basmati rice
1/4 cup chana dal
1 medium potato, chopped into small cubes
1/4 cup sliced runner beans (or green beans)
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 fat clove garlic, sliced
2 medium onions, sliced thin
1 tbsp oil
3-4 green chillies, sliced (to taste)
1 tsp chana masala/garam masala/curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves for garnish
Roasted peanuts, for garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Wash and soak the basmati rice and chana dal together for 15 minutes. Then place in a saucepan along with 2 cups water over high heat. When the water begins to bubble and holes appear in the rice, stir the rice, turn down the heat to the lowest setting, and cover the pan with a lid placed over a clean tea towel (the towel will absorb the steam). Let it be for about 8-10 minutes, then turn off the heat. Let the rice stay undisturbed for 10 minutes so that it can absorb the moisture, then fluff it up.

2. While the rice is cooking, heat the oil in a saute pan until it shimmers, add the cumin seeds and fry them for 10 seconds, then add the green chillies and garlic and stir-fry for 30 seconds or so. Stir in the onions and cook them till they turn soft.

3. Now add the chopped tomato, potato and runner beans/green beans and stir well. Cover the pan and cook on simmer for 10-15 minutes, till the vegetables are done. Stir in the chana masala/garam masala/curry powder and salt to taste.

4. Finally, add the rice-chana dal and mix it in gently but thoroughly with the vegetable masala. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and peanuts, and serve hot with any raita.

Flaxseed peanut puli kuzhambu (tamarind gravy)

I guess I could have called this a vattha kuzhambu except for the fact that I carefully refrained from using manthakkali or chundakkai vatthal (dried berries). This puli kuzhambu tastes very nice, if you ask me. If, however, you DON'T want to ask me, I guess you'll have to make it and discover this fact for yourself, won't you?

Recipe for: Flaxseed puli kuzhambu (tamarind gravy)



Ingredients:

2 tbsp dry-roasted flaxseeds
1 htbsp sambar powder
2 tsp rice flour
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
Lime-sized amount of tamarind/2 tsp tamarind paste
2 tsp tuvar dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp vendhayam/fenugreek seeds
5-6 fresh/frozen curry leaves
1 tbsp gingelly oil/nallennai
Salt to taste
4-5 cups water

Method:

1. Pound or grind the flaxseeds to a fine powder.


2. Dissolve the tamarind in 4 cups water (or extract the pulp from the dry tamarind). Reserve.

3. Heat the oil in a pan, add the asafoetida powder, tuvar dal, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, and mustard seeds. Cover and let the seeds pop, let the dal turn golden brown,

then pour in the tamarind water.

Let this come to a brisk boil.

4. While it is coming up to the boil, mix together the flaxseed powder, sambar powder and rice flour,

add 1/4 cup water and whisk to a pourable mixture without lumps.


5. Now pour this into the tamarind water and stir it in, along with salt to taste.


6. Keep the heat on medium and let the kuzhambu simmer for 10 minutes to let the flavours come together, and for it to thicken. Then add the peanuts and allow the kuzhambu to boil for 5 minutes more.


7. The longer the kuzhambu sits, the better it will taste. Reheat before serving, along with steamed rice and any kootu or vegetable curry.

RECIPE: FLAXSEED PEANUT PULI KUZHAMBU (TAMARIND GRAVY)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp dry-roasted flaxseeds
1 htbsp sambar powder
2 tsp rice flour
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
Lime-sized amount of tamarind/2 tsp tamarind paste
2 tsp tuvar dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp vendhayam/fenugreek seeds
5-6 fresh/frozen curry leaves
1 tbsp gingelly oil/nallennai
Salt to taste
4-5 cups water

Method:

1. Pound or grind the flaxseeds to a fine powder.
2. Dissolve the tamarind in 4 cups water (or extract the pulp from the dry tamarind). Reserve.
3. Heat the oil in a pan, add the asafoetida powder, tuvar dal, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, and mustard seeds. Cover and let the seeds pop, let the dal turn golden brown, then pour in the tamarind water. Let this come to a brisk boil.
4. While it is coming up to the boil, mix together the flaxseed powder, sambar powder and rice flour, add 1/4 cup water and whisk to a pourable mixture without lumps.
5. Now pour this into the tamarind water and stir it in, along with salt to taste.
6. Keep the heat on medium and let the kuzhambu simmer for 10 minutes to let the flavours come together, and for it to thicken. Then add the peanuts and allow the kuzhambu to boil for 5 minutes more.
7. The longer the kuzhambu sits, the better it will taste. Reheat before serving, along with steamed rice and any kootu or vegetable curry.

Bitter melon brown rice

I find I'm a bit worried about getting more and more radical with my bitter melon/bitter gourd/karela/pavakkai recipes, in that I’m using this vegetable in a less and less disguised fashion, as it were. I won't hide the fact that I'm feeling kind of - wait for it – meloncholy, the sort that leaves a.... yes, a somewhat bitter taste behind...

Time was when the only way I would even look at this knobbly-looking vegetable was if it was coated in seasoned gram flour and deep fried. And even then it wasn’t exactly welcome on my plate (or on my palate, heh. Tell me you love these punny asides, because I won’t accept a negative answer. What, did you think this was a democratic blog? Tut).

First I made my own karela chips. Then this. And this. And now, karela masala rice! Where oh where will it all end???

Be warned, readers, this recipe is only for those who love this vegetable. (Although, all evidence to the contrary, I still maintain that I’m not a member of the aforementioned karela-loving group. I mean yeah, I eat it. But would I reach for karela over, say, potatoes? Or green beans? Or plantains? No way, no how.) I used brown basmati instead of white rice, and cooked it with a bit of turmeric powder as per Suganya’s advice on her blog, Tasty Palettes – note that the idea for this recipe, and part of the method, is derived from her own post. I added peanuts for crunch (and some relief from the bitterness) and had a cool cucumber raita on the side, which is also, I think, essential to balance the taste.

Remember that rhetorical question I asked earlier? The one I didn’t answer, because it was rhetorical? (See paragraph 3.) Well, its status has just been downgraded from rhetorical to literal, because I’m answering it.

The karela radicality, my dear friends, does not end with this post. It cannot, because there is more to come, a recipe that is even more uncompromising when it comes to bringing the bitterness to the fore. And no clue, not one, about where that radicalisation will end, or when, or even how...

But for now, here’s the recipe to go with this post.

Recipe for: Bitter melon brown rice



Ingredients

1-1/2 cups brown basmati rice, soaked in water for 10 minutes
3 cups bitter melon/karela, sliced
3/4 tsp tamarind paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp oil
a few fresh curry leaves
3-4 tbsp garlic masala powder (or to taste)
Salt to taste
1/4 cup roasted salted peanuts
chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Cook the soaked brown basmati rice in plenty of water to which 1 tsp turmeric powder has been added.



Drain rice and cool when cooked.



2. Dissolve the tamarind paste in 4 cups water and pour along with sliced karela in a saucepan.



Cook the karela till done, but not mushy. Drain the cooked vegetable and reserve.



3. In a wide kadai or wok, heat the 2 tsp oil. Add the curry leaves, urad dal and mustard leaves. Cover till the mustard seeds pop, and the urad dal is golden brown.



4. Add the cooked karela now and stir till the tempering is evenly distributed.



5. Sprinkle 2-3 tbsp of the garlic masala powder and stir it in.



6. Roast the karela over medium heat in the pan, till it starts to crisp up. (You can add 2-3 tsp oil to speed up this process, if you like.)



7. Add the cooked rice now, add salt to taste, and mix carefully till the vegetable is evenly distributed.



8. Stir-fry the rice till it's heated through, then add the peanuts and mix in.



9. Sprinkle the chopped coriander over, and serve the rice hot with a cool cucumber raita and crisps or poppadums.

Roasted bell pepper, tomato and peanut chutney

I have the food blog world to thank for this recipe – not any blog in particular, but quite a few of them that featured recipes for chutneys/thogayals made without coconut and yet – and this is so very important – tasting really, really good. Before these blogs, the only non-coconut chutney/thokku/thogayal recipes that I had heard of, or ever made, were onion chutney and tomato thokku.

Actually, I tell a lie. In the interests of truth, I will have to admit that I knew of a third such coconut-free thogayal, made with roasted aubergine/brinjal. This is something my mom used to make specially for my dad. I have eaten it before, years and years ago, but even then only with extreme squeamishness.

Anyway, we won’t talk about it any more because in my world, aubergines fall in the same category as slugs and snails in terms of food – in other words... yuuurrrrgh! (Regular readers will know this anyway, so I excuse my mentioning my aubergine-phobia yet again on the barely conceivable grounds that a random new reader just might chance upon this very post as their first one on my blog – and wouldn’t it be tragic if they were to go away, very likely forever, without knowing this important fact about me? See? That’s why.)

So, back to happier, tastier things... those thogayals that I would never have thought to make with vegetables that I would not have imagined using, if not for all those lovely food bloggers – vegetables like chow-chow, bell pepper, carrot (carrot!), beetroot, and so on. I cannot thank the food blog world enough for these revelations.

Now, on to the chutney that I made a couple of days back – with slow-roasted yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic and onions as the vegetable base. I added sesame seeds and a couple of tablespoons of roasted peanuts to thicken the chutney and give it a bit of texture along with a gentle nutty taste. I don’t like adding peanuts with gay abandon in thogayal/chutney because then the whole thing turns into a weird sort of peanut butter, rather than a chutney. It’s just me, I guess, but somehow that doesn’t seem right.

If you don’t have an oven, don’t worry. The chutney will taste just as good with the vegetables roasted/cooked on the hob. I oven roasted mine only because I was in no hurry, and because I was slow-roasting a lot of tomatoes anyway.

Recipe for: Roasted bell pepper, tomato and peanut chutney



Ingredients:

2 big yellow bell peppers
3 medium tomatoes
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves
10-12 dried red chillies (or to taste)
Fresh curry leaves, about 20 (optional)
1/2 tsp tamarind paste
2 tbsp roasted peanuts
1/4 tsp asafetida powder
1 tbsp black sesame seeds (can use white too)
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
Salt to taste
4 tsp oil

Method:

1. Deseed the bell peppers and cut into quarters. Cut the tomatoes lengthwise in half, then in half again to make four wedges. Peel and chop the onion in large pieces. Remove the skin from the garlic.

2. Toss the vegetables with 1 tsp



oil and roast in a 160C oven for about 1-1/2 hours (stirring the vegetables after 45 minutes and removing the garlic). (Or if cooking on the hob, heat the oil and stir-fry the vegetables on high heat till well softened and lightly charred.)



The peppers and onions should be lightly charred, the tomatoes semi-dry.



Let cool.

3. Heat 1 tsp oil in a small pan, add the asafetida powder, dried red chillies, sesame seeds and about 10 curry leaves.



Stir till the chillies turn a darker colour, about 30 seconds.

4. Grind the roasted vegetables to a smooth paste along with the red chillies, sesame seeds, curry leaves.



Add the 2 tbsp roasted peanuts and then grind again -



you can leave the peanuts a little chunky if you like.



5. Heat the remaining 2 tsp oil in a pan. Add the remaining curry leaves, mustard seeds and urad dal



and stir-fry till the dal turns a pale golden.



6. Turn the heat down to medium and add the ground bell pepper mixture along with 1/4 cup water and salt to taste.



Cook this for 2-3 minutes, stirring well, until the chutney comes to a slow, gloopy bubbling boil. Turn off the heat and let it cool before transferring to a clean glass jar.



Serve with dosa, roti, idlis, etc, or use as a spread on toast, or as a sandwich filling, or even mix with cooked rice.

Store in the refrigerator.