A - Z Andhra Recipes ~ D for Dondakaaya Karapu Kaaya / Gutti Dondakaaya

Stuffed vegetables are prepared commonly all over India, with variations and Andhra cuisine is no exception. Eggplants / brinjal, bitter gourd and tindora / ivy gourd are the commonly used vegetables in the state, when it comes to stuffed preparations. They are usually called gutti koora or kaaram pettina koora or karapu kaaya. In fact,  gutti vankaya, a stuffed preparation of eggplants filled with delicious and flavorful spice and bean powder is one of the popular dishes from the state. For today's recipe, I chose to go with a stuffed preparation using ivy gourd or dondakaaya as it is called in Telugu. The process appears a little tedious though it is not that difficult to prepare it and the yummy curry proves that it is worth the efforts and time involved. This goes as a side dish for rice when served as a part of south Indian meal.

The alphabet 'D' doesn't give as many options as it's preceding alphabets when it comes to recipes starting with that letter in Telugu. There are basically two vegetables in Telugu language that start with that letter. Dondakaaya, the ivy gourd / tindora and the dosakaya, the plump, yellow cucumbers that are slightly sour. As is the norm, those vegetables are used to prepare chutney / pickle, curries and dals. 'D' also stands for draksha (grapes), danimma (pomegranate) and dabbakaaya / dabba pandu (a citrus variety, that can be loosely translated as a pummelo) among the fruits, only the latter being used in a rice preparation. There are spices dalchini chekka (cinnamon) and dhaniyalu (coriander seeds) which don't yield any recipes.
Among the dishes, there is dappalam which happens to be a signature Andhra dish, where a medley of vegetables are cooked in a sweet and sour gravy. The letter 'D' also represents dibba rotte, a dense pancake prepared with rice - black gram batter and again unique to the region. And daddhojanam aka yogurt rice that is common to all southern parts of India. 
 
My mother uses either koora podi or senaga pindi (chickpea flour) for stuffing while my mother in law used to use the pappula podi, (ground roasted chickpeas) which is found commonly in Rayalaseema kitchens. There are various fillings that can be used to stuff in the vegetables depending upon one's preference. For today's recipe, I have used a spicy, chickpea flour filling. My mother roasts the filling mixture at the end, until it is dark golden brown in color or it resembles almost like a burnt mixture though she doesn't let it burn. It has a unique, flavorful taste and that powder can alone be eaten mixed with rice and ghee. I have failed so far to achieve that effect and have given up the idea. I instead roast the remaining filling mixture separately in another pan adding a tsp. of oil until golden brown while the stuffed gourds are cooking separately. I add the fried filling mixture to the cooked gourds at the final stage.   

Ingredients:
25 ivy gourds / tindora / dondakaaya
1 cup besan / chickpea flour / senaga pindi
1.5 tsp. chili powder or as per taste
Salt to taste
2 to 3 tbsp. oil

Method:
* Sieve the chickpea flour into a bowl. Add salt and chili powder to the bowl and mix well. Chickpea flour can be toasted as well before stuffing though the step is optional.
* If possible pick lengthy gourds if you are planning to stuff since more filling can go inside the vegetable that way. Wash the gourds and wipe them dry. Trim the edges slightly and cut them marking  a + slit and go almost to the ends with keeping one end intact. Don't use the gourds that have ripened and appear red inside.
* Stuff the gourds with the prepared filling. Keep the remaining filling aside since it is going to be used later in the recipe.

* Heat 2 tbsp. oil in a wide non stick pan and place the stuffed gourds without crowding. Cook on low flame, covered. Keep turning in between and cook until they are cooked and roasted golden brown through out.
* Transfer the roasted gourds onto a plate and to the same pan add the remaining filling mixture and add a tsp or two of oil if needed. Roast until the raw smell is gone or until it turns a dark golden brown color.

* Add back the roasted gourd pieces to the pan and mix once. Serve hot with steamed rice and ghee.

So far on A - Z Andhra Cuisine,
A for Alasanda Vada
B for Bellam Garelu
C for Chiyali



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Tindora Chutney / Dondakaya Pachadi (దొండకాయ పచ్చడి)

Andhra style chutneys, especially vegetable based ones are a norm in my kitchen. I prepare them regularly and to avoid the monotony, I keep trying different varieties. Tindora chutney is one of them, learnt from my mother. This tindora chutney perks up any boring meal and would entice all tindora lovers. If you haven't liked tindora before, try this chutney and I am sure you will fall in love with this gourd immediately. Though basically eaten with rice, this chutney would taste fabulous even with rotis and other breakfast items like dosas, upma etc. Tindora = ivy gourd/small gourd Ingredients: Tindora slices - 1 &1/2 cup (wash the tindora, trim the edges and slice crosswise into thin circles of about 1/4 cms thickness) Red Chillies - 8 (use a couple more, if more spiciness is preferred) Salt as needed 2 Tbsp tamarind puree ** For tadka - 4 tsp canola / peanut oil, 1 Tbsp Urad dal, 1 tsp mustard seeds, a pinch of fenugreek seeds, asafoetida & turmeric powder each. ** Soak about a lemon sized tamarind in water or nuke it in a microwave (of course, with half a cup of water added) for about a couple of minutes. Squeeze the tamarind using your fingers or passing through a sieve. Discard the seeds and fibre. Use the thick puree extracted as required and save the rest for later use. If using the ready made tamarind paste, the quantity mentioned above varies. The cooking part: Heat oil in a saute pan and add uraddal and mustard seeds to it. When the mustard seeds start to pop and urad dal starts turning reddish, add the fenugreek seeds, chillies, asafoetida and turmeric powder. When the fenugreek seeds also turn red, add tindora slices and stir all the ingredients of the pan once. Lower the heat, cover the lid and cook tindora till done / soften. Stir the ingredients in between. Turn off the heat and let the tindora cool. Grind the tindora coarsely adding tamarind and salt in a blender. Serve with hot rice and a little ghee. Comments

Dondakaya - Kobbari Koora

Crunchy dondakaya (tindora) and tender, fresh kobbari (coconut) come together in this scrumptious subzi. This is lot easier, less time consuming and healthier than the regular tindora fry. This is my mom's recipe and in this version, instead of frying, tindora are steamed and then seasoned.

Ingredients:
Chopped Tindora - 2 cups
Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
Chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt
For popu /seasoning - 1 Tbsp of oil, 1 tsp each of mustard seeds & chanadal, few curry leaves, a little turmeric powder

Cooking:
Wash the tindora and chop the ends. Then cross wise, cut into thin circles. Take the chopped Tindora into a bowl or small vessel and sprinkle a little water (about a Tbsp). Place the tindora container in a pressure pan / cooker and cook till you hear two whistles. After the valve pressure is gone, remove the container. The tindora would be done not the mush way, but on a crisper side. Put the cooked tindora into a colander, to drain any water present.
Heat oil in a pan and add chanadal, mustard seeds, curryleaves, turmeric powder in that order. When chanadal start to turn red, add the steamed tindora, coconut, chili powder and salt and mix well. Let it sit for a couple of minutes on low flame and then turn off the stove.
Serve with hot rice and a spoon of ghee.

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Dondakaya Vepudu & A Tornado Warning

Before writing about the recipe, let me tell you about something that happened today.
After a lazy, late breakfast today, I prepared lunch and was eagerly waiting for the sun to come out of the cloud wraps. For the past two days, it was hot and humid as it could be and today the sun was behind the clouds when I wanted to take my blog pictures. Soon it started to rain and it was almost past two. I quit and took some pictures in that poor light.
The rain stopped in few minutes, every thing was clear and suddenly,a noisy siren began to blow. We knew what it meant. The first time we heard it was last year. It scared the hell out of us and outside it was raining cats and dogs that day. It was a Tornado Warning.
This year though it was not that frightening, a funnel was spotted some where closer to our area. We had to take a shelter as we don't have a basement. We dressed up hurriedly and drove over towards our big, public library. A siren was blowing in that area too and so the staff gathered all the public in the basement, which was atleast 2 floors down. The warning lasted for 30 minutes.
After these two experiences of just alarms, I could not imagine how and what people go through, who have to face the deadly twisters year after year.

Now, time for today's recipe Dondakaya vepudu or Tindora fry.

Preparation:
Wash the dondakaya / tindoras well and chop the ends of each tindora. Vertically slit into four pieces and then chop them crosswise so that you end up with finely chopped tindora.
Chop a big onion finely.

Ingredients:
2 cups of chopped tindora
Finely chopped onion
Oil - 1.5 to 2 Tbsp
Chili powder - 1/2 - 3/4 tsp
Salt - accordingly
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Cooking:
Heat oil in a wok and add musatrd seeds. When they start to pop, add turmeric powder and onions. Saute onions on medium flame till they turn translucent and then add chopped tindora. Stir it well and cover the wok with a lid. Turn the flame to low and cook the tindora till done. Then fry the tindora for a couple of minutes more on high. Add salt and chili powder to it and mix it well. Let it sit for a couple of minutes more, mix it once again and turn off the stove.
Serve hot with rice and ghee.


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Masale Bhath / Masala Bhath

Indian cuisine is as wide, varied and colorful as the country itself. Every part of India has it's own culinary heritage to boast about. Probably one's lifetime is not enough to even get to know about the regional cuisines of India.
Kudos to Lakshmi for starting such an amazing event, which gives us a glimpse of regional cuisines of India and an opportunity to try our hand at unfamiliar cuisines. This month's RCI is hosted by lovely Nupur of One Hot Stove and the theme is Maharashtrian cuisine.
I know very little about Marathi cuisine, except a few things like the common foods (Maharashtra & neighboring states) prepared at my home, the chat foods we enjoy at the local eateries, Maharashtrian 'Goda masala' & 'Kokum' which I come across when I go to shop at Indian grocers which have an exotic appeal (to me). I had the opportunity to taste Maharashtrian food as a tourist and I know that this is no way to get acquainted with local cuisine in a true sense.

This event has inspired me to try Masala Bhath / Masale Bhath (this is more appealing, sounds more like Kannada), a spicy, Maharashtrian rice dish. It is a simple, delicious rice - vegetable preparation, spiced up with the masala (powdered spices) added to it. It is simple in terms of preparation. If you have prepared your masala powder in advance, then you can come up with this dish in matter of minutes. The vegetables usually that go into the dish are tindora, green peas and eggplants. Some how the tindora - eggplant combo was not appealing to me and hence I skipped eggplants from the dish. If you are not familiar with Marathi cuisine , then believe me, this dish falls under 'Crowd Pleaser' category.

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 Cup, heaped

Washed and quartered, Tindora - 1 cup ( I used 10 oz frozen tindora)

Green Peas - 1/4 cup

Oil - 3 - 4 Tbsp

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Asafoetida - a few pinches

Cashew nuts - 1 Tbsp

Few curry leaves

Salt

For Masala powder, you need:

Grated Copra / Dry coconut - 1/4 cup
Sesame Seeds - 1 Tbsp

Cloves - 3 - 4

Red chillies - 5-6

1 inch Cinnamon pieces - 2

Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Cardamom - 1

For garnishing:

Chopped cilantro

Preparation of Masala Bhath:

I took the privileges of a cook and went the easier way. I cooked the rice before, instead of cooking at the end along with the veggies..

Cook the rice using two cups of water in a pressure cooker.

On low to moderate heat, dry fry all the masala powder ingredients till they turn light brown in color. Let them cool and grind them into a fine powder. Keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan/wok. Add mustard seeds to the oil. When they start to pop, add cashews, curry leaves and asafoetida. Saute them for a few seconds and add tindora and green peas. Cover the lid and keep stirring in between. Let the tindora cook till they are done. I fried my tindora till they were crisp.

Now add the masala powder to tindora and saute for a few seconds. Then add cooked rice and salt to the tindora mixture and mix till all the rice and vegetables are coated well with the masala powder.

Garnish with cilantro.

Serving:

I served hot masala bhath with papad and raita. If there are any authentic Maharashtrian side dishes that go with this dish, please let me know.

Masala Bhath - My entry to RCI - Maharashtrian cuisine hosted by Nupur.

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