Eggplant - Tomato - Cilantro Chutney

I prepared this chutney one day on a whim and it has become a regular since then. All the flavors of the main ingredients - eggplants, tomatoes and cilantro stand out and together make this chutney lip smacking. This can be served along with rice or Indian breakfast dishes or even for sandwiches.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp oil
1 cup eggplant slices
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 cup cilantro leaves
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
4 -5 Green chillies
For tadka: 2 tsp oil, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp black gram / uraddal, few curry leaves and a pinch of asafoetida

Method:
Heat oil and add eggplants, tomatoes, green chillies and turmeric powder. Cook them on low flame until they turn tender. Then add cilantro and salt. Saute until the cilantro leaves wilt and turn off the stove. Let the mixture cool and then grind without adding any water.
Heat 2 tsp oil in a small pan and add the tadka ingredients. When dal turns reddish and mustard seeds start to pop, turn off the stove and add the tadka to the chutney.
Refrigerate the leftover chutney.

Check what other marathoners are cooking during BM#15.

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Baby Lima Beans in Spicy Almond Sauce

Kalyani has posed an interesting challenge of Almond & Ginger for this month's Magic Mingle and I was eyeing some baked recipes using the above mentioned ingredients. In the mean time, the box of Hurst bean bags I won for the MLLA arrived and I decided to create a recipe of my own utilizing the beans as well. And so was born this delicious lima beans curry in spicy almond sauce which garnered appreciation from my kids. I consider this experiment a success since after coming from school, my kids remembered to tell me that the curry I packed for their lunch was very yummy. :)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup dried baby lima beans - soaked overnight (or 1.5 cup soaked or canned lima beans)
1 Tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
a pinch of turmeric powder
1 big onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp coriander powder
Salt to taste
To grind:
6 Tbsp almonds
a handful of cilantro leaves
2 green chillies (I used hot Serrano Peppers. Adjust the quantity as needed.)
a small piece of ginger



Method:
* Pressure cook the soaked beans. If using canned beans, rinse thoroughly and keep aside. 
* Heat oil and add cumin seeds. When they start to brown, add onion and cook until translucent. Then add tomatoes and cook until mushy.
* Mean while, grind the ingredients mentioned under "to grind" adding a little water.
* Add the cooked / canned lima beans, ground paste, salt and coriander powder to the cooked tomato - onion mixture. Cook the mixture on low flame until the raw smell of the almond paste is gone. Turn off  the stove and serve warm with rotis.

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Summer Specials - Minapappu Vadiyalu

Certain Indian, regional food preparations need lot of sunshine and are so meant to be done in summer. Vadiyalu / Papad / Dahi Mirchi are perfect examples that fit into this category. Vadiyalu / papad in a traditional Indian setting are probably equivalent to chips / crackers of the western world. To people who are wondering what vadiyalu are, they can be loosely translated as spicy, dried chips made out of either bean paste, cooked rice flour or sago pearls. Though the basic idea is the same, several varieties of vadiyalu are prepared depending upon what goes into them. The name of a particular vadiyam would give a hint to the ingredient that it has been prepared with. They go under different regional names like vadi / sandige.
Today's recipe minapappu vadiyalu is such a classic example from Andhra. As the name suggests, they are prepared using ground batter of minapappu / uraddal. These fabulous tasting, spicy, dried uraddal chips are a good accompaniment to rice or can be used to prepare pulusu / subzis.
Though the task sounds daunting, this particular one is a child's play if you know how to grind the batter in your grinder. The ingredients mentioned below can be used a rough guideline and can be changed according to one's taste.

Ingredients:
4 cups of uraddal
70 Green chillies (I used Serrano Peppers)*
3.5 Tbsp salt
Asafoetida

* For a kg of uraddal, 1/4 kg of green chillies is usually used. You can taste the batter while grinding, to check the spiciness. Usually the batter should be hot since vadiyalu loose some of the spiciness after drying. Also they have to be hot since they are eaten with plain rice.

Vadiyalu making process:

Soak uraddal overnight. Throw away the water used to soak and wash uraddal in two exchanges of water. Grind uraddal, green chilies, salt and asafoetida together in a grinder into a smooth and a thick batter. If the batter turns watery, it is hard to drop them. If the batter is not smooth, the final vadiyalu would turn very hard.



Choose a spot where there would be plenty of sunshine (from morning to evening) like your backyard or terrace if in India. Spread a clean, thick plastic sheet there. Using a spoon or hand, go on dropping about 1-2 tsp quantity of batter on the sheet without overlapping, till all the batter is used.



Dry them in full sun and get them back home during evenings. Repeat the process till they are completely dry and crisp. The process would take around 3 - 4 days. After they dry well, store them in an airtight container and use them when needed. They stay good for at least a couple of years if stored well.



Frying:
Heat 1 - 2 cups of oil in a kadai. Add a handful of dried vadiyalu and fry them till they brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon. The process would take only a few seconds.  They burn easily if fried longer.
We usually eat them with rice and ghee, slightly crushing the vadiyalu with the hand while eating.



Note: 
1. Vadiyalu come off easily after drying, if using a plastic sheet. Some use cloth instead of plastic sheets. In this case, the vadiyalu don't come off the cloth even after they dry. Sprinkle a little water on the backside of the cloth and remove the vadiyalu using your hands. Again dry them in sun for a few hours and then store them.
2. Adding ashgourd / gummadikaya is another variation.

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Summer Specials ~ Oorina Mirapakaya / Dahi Mirchi / Sundried, Yogurt Chilies

Oorina Mirapakaya / Uppu mirapakaya:

In Telugu, Oorina - marinated, Uppu - Salted, Mirapakaya - chili


These dried chillies are made with small sized chilies with one of their ends, just snipped off.

Last summer, I utilized the sunshine to the fullest extent possible, from a culinary point of view. The year before, when we moved to our own home, summer was almost gone. In around 80 - 85 deg F Midwest weather, I had prepared all those items my mom used to create during the hot summer days back in India - Homemade potato chips, these uppu mirapakayalu, vadiyalu (papad, loosely translated) - with uraddal, sabudana, riceflour and poha. This year, summer has not made it's presence yet and winter & spring are still tugging in our area. I am going ahead and posting the recipe now, hoping it may help any of my readers / chili lovers who wish to try them.
As the name indicates, oorina mirapakayalu are spicy chilies, marinated in yogurt and then dried till crisp in the sun. These spicy sidekicks are loved and cherished in most of the Andhra homes whose inhabitants happen to be a great chili-loving cult on Earth. Try this if you love spicy food or happen to be adventurous. :)

Here are the guidelines to prepare oorina mirapakayalu. I used
50 chilies *
3 cups home made yogurt (Yogurt gone sour is best. However fresh yogurt can be used if you do not have the sour one. If the yogurt is very thicker, you can churn it lightly, with out adding any water.)
1.5 Tbsp Salt
A pinch of turmeric powder
* Usually, the small sized chilies are chosen to prepare oorina mirapakayalu. I forgot to mention M when he went shopping and he picked the longest variety he could find. :)

How they are made:
1. Slit fresh green chilies vertically, keeping the ends intact. Also do not remove the stalks. Alternatively you can just snip off at one end (not the end holding the stalk but the opposite one. Use a scissor or a knife. Check the first image.)
2. Mix the yogurt, salt, turmeric powder in a container / wide plate and soak the chilies in the yogurt mixture for a day.
3. Next day, arrange the slit chilies in the yogurt mixture in a way that they are next to each other and not overcrowded. Put the chilies along with the yogurt mixture in the sun. (Do not throw away the yogurt mixture.) For the next few days, sun dry them till all the yogurt dries up and the chilies change their color from green- light greenish - creamy hue and turn crisp.
You have to bring back home the chilies at evenings and put them in the Sun during mornings. If you are worried about any bugs, you can cover up the container with a mesh cover that allows the sunlight through.
In my Midwest summer, it took about a week to prepare these crunchy beauties.
Store them in a tightly closed, container. They stay fresh for more than a couple of years.

A pictorial description:

1. Slit chilies soaking in salted, yogurt:



2. The yogurt has dried up and Sun soaked chilies are gradually changing color after 5-6 days.






3. Ready to use, after enough sunbathing.



How to serve:
Fry them in hot oil till they turn golden brown and serve. At our home, it is usually served along with rice and pappus, especially the milder ones like beerakaya and potlakaya. Sometimes along with tadka ingredients, these chillies are added to dals made with greens.
You don't chomp on the whole chili since it would be hot. While eating a small muddha / morsel of rice - dal mixture, you just take a bite of chili which makes the meal experience extra special.

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Tomato - Kothimira Pachchadi / Tomato - Cilantro Chutney

This quick and easy chutney comes from my SIL. Tangy tomatoes combine with fragrant cilantro in this lip smacking chutney. It not only goes well with the usual rice, dosa, idli kind of stuff but also for sandwiches.

Ingredients required:
2 medium sized onions (outer layers removed and chopped)
3 medium sized tomatoes (washed & chopped)
1 cup cilantro leaves (washed)
5 Serrano peppers -washed and slit lengthwise. (Any variety of green chillies can be used and the number depends upon the spiciness preferred.)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Tamarind pulp - 1 Tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
1 Tbsp oil
For seasoning - 2 tsp oil, 1 tsp mustard seeds, a pinch of asafoetida

Preparation:
* Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan and add onions, chillies & turmeric powder. Fry them and add tomatoes when the onions turn translucent. Keep frying and when tomatoes turn mushy, add cilantro and saute for a couple of minutes more and turn off the heat. Let it cool down.
* Grind this mixture with salt and tamarind pulp.
* Heat 2 tsp of oil in a small pan and add mustard seeds and when they start to pop, add asafoetida and turn off the stove. * Add this to the chutney and stir well.

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Earlier related posts: 
Tomato Pachchadi 
Tomato Pickle 
Vankaya - Tomato pachchadi 
Tomato aavakaya

Instant Bitter Gourd Pickle ~ Kakarakaya Pachchadi

Before moving on to today's recipe, let me tell you the name of the green vegetable that I asked you to guess in my previous post. Capsicum got the most votes and keeping JFI - chillies in view, some even suggested green chillies. Only Suganya and anonymous (I know it is you, Deepthi) mentioned the veggie along with their other choices of guesswork. Lakshmi went with the Chinese one.
The answer is Indian Bitter Gourd / Kakarakaya / Karela. The idea of playing the guessing game occured to me after seeing the picture and when even my husband guessed the veggie as ridgegourd. It didn't look like karela (except when you paid attention to certain pieces) at any angle and to prove that I didn't scrape the ridges, here are the chopped karela in a bowl, which I used to make this pickle.
Here is a recipe for all bitter gourd lovers and diabetics. It is really a simple preparation and tasted good really the next day. So far tested shelf life of this pickle is a week, refrigerated.

You need:

Finely chopped Indian bitter gourd, seeds removed - 1/2 cup

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - 1&1/2 tsp

Green chillies - 3 or 4 (Can be chopped fine or slit lengthwise)

Juice extracted from two small limes (Or lemons)

Oil - 2 tsp

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Asafoetida - Few pinches

Preparing the pickle:

Heat oil in a small pan and add mustard seeds and asafoetida. When mustard seeds start to splutter, turn off the stove. Let the mustard seeds cool.

To a bowl add chopped bittergourd, salt, green chillies, turmeric powder and lemon / lime juice. Add the mustard seed mixture. Mix well and let it sit for a couple of hours before serving.

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Jalapeno Peppers Curry ~ My version of Mirchi Ka Salan

I had couple of other things in mind for the 'J' event. Even then, I ended up preparing a dish which I never heard of or I should say, I never dreamt of preparing and consuming.
I am not a great fan of peppers and am scared even to eat the mirchi bajjis. So, when I thought of preparing something with Jalapeno peppers, I was sure the entire THING would land up in my husband's plate, who is a great fan of store bought green chilli pickles. I asked him beforehand, whether he was going to eat something prepared with jalapeno peppers and he answered affirmatively.
After tackling the issue of who gets to eat it, then came the question of what I am going to prepare with them? I was not sure about stuffing them, because of their small size. So, I had to drop the idea of mirchi bajjis. Some one's comment about mirchi ka salan about my other post, popped before my eyes. I had no idea what it was and had to google for the recipe. The search proved me once again how ignorant I am about Indian food and how diversified and vibrant, Indian cuisines are. Mirch ka salan sounded interesting, delicious except for the chillies part.
Still, it was decided that Jalapeno peppers Curry would be sent for the 'J' event of Nupur's A - Z Indian vegetables.
Then, I had to concoct my own version of the salan recipe to suit my tastes, as no two recipes were similar on the internet. I experimented and the end product was superb in taste (though I ate the gravy and chillies were finished my husband in installments. Even my 5 year old liked the gravy). The only amendment in future preparations (yes, there are going to be future preparations) would be replacing jalapeno peppers by banana peppers. I underestimated the hotness of jalapenos.

Ingredients required for the gravy:
Peanuts - 2 Tbsp
Sesame Seeds - 2 Tbsp
Grated, dry, unsweetened coconut - 2 Tbsp
Poppy Seeds - 1 Tbsp
Coriander Seeds - 1 Tbsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Heat a small pan and dry fry each ingredient individually till it turns light brown and starts to emit aroma. Cool them and grind into a fine mixture. Collect the mixture and keep aside.

Ingredients:
Jalapeno Peppers - 12
Oil - 4 Tbsp
A big Onion - Chopped fine
Jeera / Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Grated ginger - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Tamarind extract - 1 tsp
Salt - Accordingly
Chillie Powder - 1/2 tsp (Optional)
Water - As needed for the gravy

Method:
Choose a dozen, vibrant, green colored Jalapeno Peepers. Remove the stalks, wash the peppers and wipe them dry. Make a slit along the side of the pepper, keeping the base intact so that it is not split into two pieces. Remove the seeds carefully with the knife, to lessen the hotness of the peppers.
Heat oil in a Karhai / pan and fry peppers till you notice white spots all over them. Remove them with a slotted spoon and keep aside.
Add cumin seeds, ginger, and turmeric powder to the same oil. I have omitted garlic. If using, add at this stage. Fry for a few seconds and add onion. Fry the onion pieces till they turn translucent.
Then add the above ground mixture, and fry for a minute. Add tamarind extract, salt and any chillie powder, if needed. Add water as required to form a gravy. Let it simmer for 5 minutes.
Serve with basmati rice or rotis and keep a pitcher of ice cold water ready. :-)

Note: Try using Indian variety green chillies instead of jalapeno peppers for an authentic version of Mirchi Ka Salan.

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