Vegan Thai Green Papaya Salad

Here is one more vegetable based salad, with raw papaya as the key ingredient. This is a vegan / vegetarian take on the Thai papaya salad, I had noted down sometime ago, whose source I could not recall now. It is light and yummy and can be served as a side dish. Blanched green beans and shredded cabbage can also go as add-ons. I had scaled down the recipe to serve two and so can be easily altered based on the needs. 

Ingredients:
2 tsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. palm sugar / brown sugar
2 tbsp lime juice
1 or 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt to taste
2 cup grated papaya
1 grated carrot
1 green onion
1 green chili
4 cherry tomatoes / 1/2 tomato, chopped
A handful of minced cilantro leaves
1 tbsp. peanuts

  Method:
* Peel the papaya, discard the seeds and grate it. Chop the green onions and chili finely. Cut cherry tomatoes if using into halves.
* Combine soy sauce, brown sugar / palm sugar, garlic cloves, salt and lime juice in a small bowl and whisk.
* Combine grated papaya, carrot, green onions, chili, tomato pieces and cilantro in a mixing bowl. Pour the dressing over and toss. Sprinkle peanuts and serve.


This is going to be a part of Blogging marathon #62 under the theme 'Light Salads' and check here to find out what other marathoners are cooking today.

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Dalma

After trying out more than a dozen deep frying / sugar laden recipes in the marathon so far, I thought it was time for some simple comfort food. And so it is dalma for today, which happens to be a popular, vegetarian home-style dal. It comes from the state of Odisha formerly known as Orissa, from the eastern coast of India. This dal was completely different to the ones I have grown up eating. The sweet-sour Andhra style pulusu or the spicy sambhar that uses tamarind or the north Indian style dals - This was none of those. It uses ginger - cumin and the panch phutana tadka that happens to be the signature seasoning of the east Indian cooking. The recipe uses no kind of souring agent, surprisingly and so I was missing the tang I naturally associate with the dals. Otherwise the dal was worth trying. 

Recipe source: Here
Ingredients: 3/4 cup toor dal / pigeon peas
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 cups mixed vegetables (Brinjal , green papaya, raw plantain, potato and pumpkin - Peel all veggies except brinjal and cut into medium sized pieces.)
1 tsp minced ginger
Red chili powder to taste
Salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp shredded fresh coconut
Coriander leaves to garnish
Ingredients for tadka:
1 tsp ghee / oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds / rai
1/2 tsp black cumin / kala jeera
1/2 tsp fennel seeds / saunf
1/2 tsp cumin seeds / jeera
1/2 tsp fenugreek seed / methi ke dana

Method:
* Cook toor dal adding turmeric, ginger, vegetables and about 1.5 cups water if using a pressure cooker. If not using the pressure cooker and cooking toor dal in a sauce pan, add extra water as needed until the dal is cooked soft.
* If you think the vegetables may turn mushy in the pressure cooker, they can be cooked separately on stove top or in a microwave. 
* Dry roast 1 tsp cumin seeds and a red chili in a pan. Cool and grind them fine.
* In another pan, heat oil and add red chillis and the tadka ingredients. When the mustard seeds start to splutter, turn off the stove.
* Add the above tadka, salt, sugar to the dal and stir well. 
* Sprinkle cumin and chilli powders. Garnish it with coriander leaves and coconut. Serve with rice.

Check here to know what other marathoners are cooking.

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Green Papaya Saagu

Somehow, my posts are not getting updated on Taste of India. Readers who would like to get my post updates can subscribe to Veggie Platter by just entering their email id on the side bar. Thanks. And today's recipe is saagu. Saagu, a side dish from Karnataka is prepared with loads of vegetables and usually served with pooris. However, there are a few vegetables which taste good when used alone even with out any onions and tomatoes while preparing saagu. Green papaya is one of those. This simple, non - greasy preparation would take 15 - 2o minutes. Ingredients: Green papaya - Peeled, seeds removed and chopped into small cubes - 4 cups Daliya / Roasted Chickpeas - 1/4 cup Poppy seeds - 1 tsp Cilantro leaves - 2 Tbsp Cinnamon pieces - 1 tsp Moggu / Mogga - 3 (No idea about the English name and definitely, it's not anise / star anise) Green chillies - 5 Salt - 1 & 1/4 tsp For seasoning - 1 Tbsp oil, 1 tsp chana dal, 1 tsp mustard seeds and a few curry leaves

Upper row: L to R - cilantro, papaya, green chilliesLower row: L to R -cinnamon, moggu, poppy seeds, daliya Method: Heat oil in a karhai / deep saute pan. Add chanadal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. When chandal starts turning golden - red and mustards seeds start to pop, add papaya cubes and about 2 cups of water to the pan. Cook for 10 minutes on high flame. Adjust the quantity of water if required. Papaya would be cooked well by this time. It would be done, still holding shape with out turning mushy. In the mean time grind daliya, poppy seeds, cilantro, cinnamon, moggu, green chillies with enough water and grind into a smooth paste. Add this paste and salt to the cooked papaya. (Or go on adding the paste little by little to check the taste instead of adding the whole paste). Allow it to simmer for about five minutes and then turn off the stove. Serve with rotis / pooris. Now coming to my absence from blogosphere, it was not planned. I would like to thank all my readers / fellow bloggers who kept visiting my blog during my absence and also enquired about my well - being. It initially started due to my laziness and later as I prolonged it, it seemed hard to come back. Then it was my kids' health, their schoolwork, our computer crashing down and above all, the death of a dear cousin. I am still grieving over the loss. He was not even 30, had a wonderful career and was married just a couple of weeks earlier. Related posts: Cabbage Saagu Post a Comment