Capsicum With Chickpea Powder (Pappula Podi)

I think adding pappula podi to vegetable preparations is a rayala seema speciality. I may be wrong but I have never seen my part of the family who come from the coastal area ever using it. Obviously, the recipe comes from my MIL who is from Kadapa. I had tried several variations with capsicum over the years and finally settled with this version which happens to be M's favorite one. It is a neat, simple and quick preparation and I prefer it when we have company. Chick pea powder is the star ingredient of the recipe which lends the curry a subtle sweetness and flavor. What do you need for 4 servings: 3 Capsicums (around 4 cups when chopped). Chilli powder 1 tsp Salt according to taste 1 Tbsp dalia - coconut mixture* 1/4 tsp turmeric powder For seasoning / tadka - 4 -5 tsp oil, 1 tsp chanadal, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds How I make it: Quarter the capsicum. Cut out the stalk, remove the seeds and chop. Heat oil in a saute pan / kadai and add all the tadka ingredients. When the chanadal starts to turn reddish, add the chopped capsicum, stir the ingredients once and cover the pan. Let the capsicum cook in its own juices for the next 10-15 minutes on low heat. Stir a couple of times in between for uniform cooking. Then add the chilipowder, dalia - coconut mixture, salt to the curry and increase the heat to medium. Stir once and let the curry cook for five minutes more. Can be served with rice / rotis. * I usually keep the dalia - grated dry coconut mixture ready to use with curries like capsicum and brinjal. Just dry grind dalia (roasted chick peas) - grated copra (dry coconut) in 2:1 ratio into a fine powder and store it in a clean, dry jar. If using the pappula podi, adjust the quantity of chili powder and salt used in the above recipe as the podi already contains red chillies & salt. Post a Comment

Pappula Podi ~ Dalia Powder

If suddenly somebody asks me what do I do with Pappulu (dalia, Bhuna chana, roasted chickpeas), I would say chutney (to go with breakfast dishes) even without thinking. The other things start pouring in after giving a thought. If you ask my kids, they will say, pop some in your mouth. If you ask my husband, he would say pappula podi - spicy powder prepared with it.

This roasted chickpeas / dalia powder is called pappula podi in Telugu. It has a funny name in our family, the gun powder (how ridiculous it may seem). This is one powder which my mom not prepares but a staple powder in my husband's family. This is very simple to prepare among all the spicy powders. Just pop the ingredients into the mixer / blender and grind. No frying involved. I know now how versatile this powder can be and here are some examples of it's multi tasking ability. 1. You can eat it with rice and ghee. When eating rice with pickles like avakaya, gongura etc just mix a tsp of powder into it. 2. Eat it with upma, the thing I learnt from my husband. 3. Use in making curries like capsicum , eggplants etc 4. Turn this into chutney instantly, just by adding water. This tip was from my SIL, who does it to serve with dosas / idlis when there are those power failures in India. 5. To make masala dosa / erra karam (spicy, chillie paste smeared) dosa.

6. To thicken gojjus. The recipe is my MIL's. For my coconut allergic husband, she omits the coconut part and adds garlic. You can add garlic for this recipe too. Ingredients: Roasted chickpeas / Pappulu - 1 cup Dry coconut grated - 1/4 cup Red chillies - 6-8 Salt - Accordingly Grind all the ingredients into a fine powder and store it in a dry bottle.

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Pongal and Roasted Chickpeas- Ginger Chutney

January is the month when harvest festival Sankranthi is celebrated in Southern India. Their main staple food is rice and on the festive occasion, the food prepared reflects the new crops grown and harvested. One of the foods that always figure on that day is pongal. This is also one of the regular breakfast items in a South Indian wedding. I would call it divine food since this is one of the foods that is offered as "Naivedyam" (an offering to diety) and served as "Prasadam" to the devotees in Hindu temples worldwide including the world famous abode of Lord Balaji at Tirumala. This recipe is from my MIL who prepares one of the best pongals that I have ever tasted. I have followed her method and ingredients. My MIL never cooked in small quantities and hence the quantities used here are to suit my taste. She used to serve this with her ginger gojju and chutney. You can use a pressure cooker to keep this preparation simple and fast. If you don't own a pressure cooker, take a big sturdy pot with a thick bottom to cook pongal. You may need more water (than mentioned in the ingredients list), to cook in the pot. In my opinion, both methods will yield the same result. The quantity of the ghee used in the preparation of pongal makes all the difference. The more the ghee, the better the taste.  

Ingredients: 
1 cup rice
1/2 cup moongdal 
4 & 1/2 to 5 cups water
1 tbsp. peeled and grated ginger
1/2 tsp. pepper corns
1/2 tsp ground pepper corns  
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 cup ghee
1 /4 cup cashew nuts
1.5 tsp salt
A sprig of curry leaves 
1/4 tsp turmeric powder (Optional)
  
Method:
* Dry roast moong dal on a medium flame till it starts to turn very light brown and you start to feel the aroma. 
* Wash the rice thoroughly with water and drain. Add rice, moong dal, salt, turmeric powder, pepper corns and water to a pressure cooker and cook for 2 whistles. 
* For the tadka part, heat ghee in a small pan. Add ginger, cumin seeds, pepper powder, cashews, curry leaves in that order. When ginger pieces turn brown, turn off the stove. Add this to the cooked rice - dal mixture and stir. Again turn on the stove and let this mixture / pongal simmer on low flame for 5 minutes so that it can absorb the flavors of the spices added. 
Alternatively, the tadka mixture can be added to rice and moongdal before cooking. There is no need to simmer it at the end, if you cooked rice & dal with the tadka. Serve hot pongal with ginger gojju or chutney. Though it is optional, Pongal is usually served with a generous serving of ghee to make it more delicious. 

 Roasted chickpeas - Ginger Chutney:  
Roasted chickpeas (Pappulu) chutney is the most common chutney prepared in South India. Indian stores sell these roasted chickpeas under the gujarati name dalia. It serves as a side dish for most of the breakfast foods like dosas, idlis, vadas, upmas, pongals etc. It is very easy to prepare and best served fresh. Usually the coconut chutney version has more coconut and a few tbsp. of roasted chickpeas. The other adult at home hates coconut and so I settled at this coconut-less version for our everyday needs. 

Ingredients:  
1 cup roasted chick peas (pappulu) 
One inch piece of peeled ginger  
3 to 4 green chillies
Salt to taste
A handful of cilantro leaves  
For tadka: 
2 tsp oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds 
1 tsp Chanadal (Bengal gram)
A sprig of curry leaves    

Method:
Grind chickpeas, ginger, chillies,salt and cilantro using water into a smooth, thick paste in a blender and transfer it into a bowl.  
Heat the oil in a small pan. Add chanadal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. When chandal turns red and mustard seeds start to splutter, remove from the stove and add to the chutney bowl. Stir and serve with breakfast.  

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Allam Gojju / Ginger Gojju

For Rosie's JFI - Ginger event, I am planning to go overboard a little (assuming not overwhelming Rosie) and presenting a GINGER THALI. All Indians know what a thali is. It is an Indian meal, served on a big plate. Different dishes are served in small cups arranged in it. My Ginger Thali is a simple meal with food items (mainly South Indian) prepared with ginger. Don't assume that all dishes are gingery. You would not even notice that all the items have ginger unless someone tells you. Even if you have slight inclination towards ginger and Indian food, then these dishes are right for you. In South India, appetizers and desserts are not served unless it is a festive occasion. So, I am skipping those. I am sure my friends would come up with them in plenty. I already see Asha's mouth watering Rissoles.

I am going to post ginger recipes from Ginger Thali for a couple of days. Today, I am coming up with the recipe for 'Allam Gojju' which you can eat with rice, pongal, rotis etc. (Ginger is called allam in Telugu, my native language).

The spicy, sweet and the sour gojjus are a speciality of Karnataka, a southern state of India where I grew up. Gojju is usually prepared with a vegetable in a gravy. To a gojju, jaggery imparts the sweetness, the tamarind gives the sourness and spices of course give that kick associated with Indian food. A powder is usually used to thicken the gravy. Here I have used roasted chick pea (Dalia) - coconut powder. Every family sure will have their own favorite when it comes to the powders added to thicken the gravy. (If you don’t have any ingredients used to make this gravy thickening powder, you simply can add a tablespoon of rice flour. Before adding to the gravy, just take care to mix rice flour well with a little quantity of cold water without forming any lumps and then add it to the other ingredients in the wok).

Here in this recipe, ginger has been used in place of the vegetable. I learnt this recipe from my MIL who in turn got this recipe from a cook at her nephew’s wedding. She cooks this primarily to go with pongali / pongal. It is good to go with rice, rotis and other Indian breakfast stuff. It takes hardly 10 minutes to prepare if you have all the ingredients ready. I have no words to describe this dish which has all the flavors infused in it. It is simply delicious. Try it once and this would be on your regular menu.

Ingredients:
Ginger grated and chopped into fine pieces – 2 Tbsp
Tamarind – A small lemon size
Jaggery, Powdered – 2 Tbsp
Chillie powder – 1 & ¼ tsp
Salt – 1 & ½ tsp
Water – 1 & ½ cups
Oil – 1 or 2 Tbsp
Cumin Seeds (Jeera) – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Chana dal – 1 tsp
Asafoetida(Hing) – ¼ tsp
Turmeric Powder - ¼ tsp
Curry leaves – A few
For gravy thickening powder:
Roasted chickpeas /Dalia (Pappulu , Kadale pappu) - 2 Tbsp
Dry coconut grated – 1 Tbsp

Preparation:
Soak tamarind in water for half an hour. Alternatively, you can put the tamarind & water bowl in a microwave for 2 minutes to fasten the process of soaking. Squeeze two tablespoons of thick tamarind pulp from it.
Grind dalia and coconut into a fine powder.
Heat oil in a wok or a pan. When the oil is hot, add ginger and fry for 30 seconds. Then add chanadal and when both ginger and chanadal start getting brown, add cumin seeds, mustard seeds, hing, curry leaves and turmeric. When mustard seeds start to splutter, add tamarind pulp, jaggery, chillie powder, salt, dalia-coconut powder and water. When it starts to boil, lower the heat and leave it for a couple of minutes. Then, switch off the stove and allam gojju is ready to serve.

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Sankranthi Ellu - Bella / Sankranthi & Sesame Seeds

Happy Sankranthi / Pongal to all of you.



I celebrated only a few Sankranthis in Andhra. I know that there are a lot of beautiful and exciting aspects of the festival. But the few things which pop up whenever I think of it are the eye catching designs of rangolis, the bhogi pallu function and the picnic, we had at the banks of Penna river in Nellore, where my grand parents used to live. People used to gather there to have picnics on Sankranthi.

Sankranthi reminds me the muggulu (rangolis), made in front of the houses decorated with the colors, gobbemmalu and gummadi poolu (flowers from the pumpkin plant). Those beautifully crafted rangolis bring out an unofficial sort of competition among their creators (read young girls). Everybody want their rangolis to be the best in their alleys. I am not talking about the rangolis on the Sankranthi day. Girls start weaving their beautiful designs on the streets, a few weeks earlier. Every day there would be a new pattern and new decorations. My enthusiastic cousins would discuss what they are planning to do the next day. Probably they did not show that much of interest in their studies.

Sankranthi is a three day event in Andhra. The first day is celebrated as bhogi, the second day as sankranthi and the third day as kanuma. On bhogi's evening, an exciting, playful event called 'bhogi pallu poyadam' (pouring the fruits) with little ones is celebrated. Regi pallu, sugar cane pieces and coins are mixed and kept in several small containers. (Regi pallu are sweet & sour, brown colored berries. I have not seen those berries here and don't know their name in English. They are called regi pallu in telugu & elachi hannu in kannada). Infants and toddlers are colorfully dressed, seated and the women & older kids pour the fruit mixture over the little ones' heads. Sometimes neighbors are also invited to participate in the event. I know how much my kids enjoyed during this event during our last visit to India.

Where as when it comes to Sankranthi in Bangalore, it always reminds me the "Sankranthi ellu". Ellu is the kannada word for sesame seeds. Sesame seeds and other goodies are distributed among the neighborhood. Sankranthi , ofcourse is the harvest season and the custom probably started to share their harvest with others. On the festive day, beautifully dressed girls go house to house (known people's) in their neighborhoods distributing ellu, sugarcane, bananas and sankranthi special; sakkare achchu - the tiny sugar models of animals, gods etc. are made using special moulds. Even though our mom used to make plenty of them, it was fun to open the packets given by others just to see which design of sugar achchu we recieved and decide who gets what to eat.

Women prepare ahead, the ellu and the sugar achchus at homes with loads of vigor and enthusiasm. The white colored sesame seeds are slightly fried without browning. The stores sell pale - yellow colored blocks of jaggery, specially meant for the ellu, during the season. The jaggery is bought and cut into small squares. The copra's (dry coconut) black outer layer is scraped and cut into small squares. The peanuts are dry roasted well, skins removed and broken into halves. Roasted chana dal is added. To make it colorful, sugar coated jeera (cumin seeds) are added and are mixed well. My mom takes utmost care when it comes to ellu preparation. She makes sure that the copra is white, the copra and jaggery pieces are cut into uniform squares, peanuts are not roasted black and chanadal added is good. Small quantities of the mixture is put in a small paper bag along with a sugar mould and sealed. When we were young, my sister used to be very eager to go and distribute ellu. My mom learnt to make those sugar moulds for her. It brings me a smile on my face, when I think of it. I made the ellu yesterday for the first time with the ingredients what I could get here, to show my kids. Though my mom would cringe to see her daughter making the ellu which appear to be ready for throwing away.

Enjoy your Sankranthi !!!

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