One Dish Meals

Usually, through the week, I'm lucky enough to have someone who does the cooking for us. Of course, often on weekends, I like whipping up a little something in the kitchen. but then there are the times when I'm not really in the mood, with a mad weekend of errands or worse, some work left over, and my cook is unwell or has other commitments. Those are the days when I have to perforce cook, and typically those are the busiest days as well, when I want to make something that gets done without too much effort and yet tastes good to kids, hubby and of course, foodie me. Of course, the better alternatives are there too - eat at my parents' place, for instance!

However, to resume, on days when I need a fast yet nutritious meal, I turn to the vast repertoire of rice dishes from Karnataka. Some of the veg combos are ones my mom whipped up or came up with, given the veggies available up north, and some are traditional but all taste good! I usually keep vangibhath powder on hand, making once in 2-3 months or so, and it stays pretty well if you don't add the dessicated coconut, which sometimes can turn rancid and give off that oily smell. So all it takes is to cook up some fluffy Basmati rice, and assorted veggies, add the powder and some tadka, mix it up and dig in!

Here's a couple of plates I made up a few weeks ago:


Peas and fenugreek greens ( Methi-matar) with rice, served with Beetroot or cucumber Tzatziki.
This works very well with kids, particularly the beetroot tzatziki because the zingy fuchsia colour, spiked with the fresh green of coriander leaves makes for an intriguing looking accompaniment. VangiBhath Powder
Ingredients:
Handful Chana Dal
1 tbsp Urad Dal
1 tbsp coriander seeds
5-6 dried red chillies
Handful dessicated coconut
Pinch Heeng ( Asafoetida)
1 inch piece of cinnamon bark
Handful curry leaves

Roast the chana dal in a bandley (wok), using very few drops of oil. Keep aside to cool and roast the urad dal in the oil left over. Keep aside to cool.
Roast the coriander seeds and the red chillies until the chillies turn shiny and give off a warm smell.
Roast the cinnamon bark, curry leaves and the heeng for 1-2 minutes and remove from heat. Put the dessicated coconut into the warm pan and let it roast a little in the remaining warmth of the pan.
Grind the ingredients together finely. Add a little turmeric and mix well. Store in an air-tight jar for upto 2 months. If storing for longer, do not add the dessicated coconut - that can be added each time you make the dish.

Prepare the garnish:
Heat 2-3 tsp oil and add 1 tsp black mustard seeds. When they explode, add curry leaves and about 15-20 cashew nuts broken into quarters. When the cashews are browned, the garnish is done.

Assemble as below:
Make fluffy rice ( about 1/4th cup uncooked rice per adult for flavoured rice dishes).
Add vegetables - the usual suspects include 2 inch long, thin slices of eggplant ( Baingan) , cucumber, diced medium, tinda diced large, methi and matar ( fenugreek greens and fresh peas), green bell peppers with cucumber or eggplant, or by itself with fresh peas. The vegetables need to be cooked in a typical Karnataka tadka - 2 tsp oil with mustard seeds. pop the cut veggies into this after the mustard seeds have exploded, and let them cook until well done.
Top the rice with the vegetables, and heap the Vangibhath powder on top ( to taste). Add the garnish and salt to taste.

Mix well, ensuring that the vegetables, salt and spice mixture are evenly distributed through the rice.
Serve hot or at room temperature with raita/ Tzatziki on the side.

Beetroot Tzatziki
1 beetroot, grated ( raw)
1 red onion, chopped fine
handful coriander leaves, chopped
1 cup yoghurt ( home made curds)
1-2 green chillies, chopped fine
Salt to taste
Mix all the other ingredients together and top with the chopped coriander for contrasting colour.

Down Home Breakfasts

There are many things I love about Karnataka food - the spices, the freshness, the fact that most of the food is not heavy - but what I enjoy most of all is the breakfasts. Give me a good Karnataka breakfast and the rest of the day goes incredibly well. The uppittu, the sajjige, avalakki, the set dose...but what really tantalizes my palate and imagination is akki roti. I don't know why but since childhood, this has been a particular favourite of mine.

We used to typically get this for breakfast when visiting family in Mysore. Somehow mom rarely made this in Delhi when we were kids. Later on, after I started working and mornings were less frantic, she used to make this every once in a while, especially when dad had got fresh green beans from Bangalore, and I always loved it. It got into my repertoire when I got married, particularly because rice flour was easily available at the grocery store in Fontainebleau.

Akki rotti is best had crisp, with a yummy coconut chutney or Ranjaka as an accompaniment. We've carted these handy eats with us on a very long driving holiday to Switzerland, and they came in very handy on stretches where we found no veg food.

Ingredients:
2 cups rice flour
Handful freshly grated coconut
Handful chopped coriander leaves
2-3 green chillies if liked
2 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds
1 red onion, chopped finely
Salt to taste

Mix the ingredients together with a little water to make the dough. Be conservative while adding the water, because this flour soaks it up pretty fast so it's all too easy to end up with a sticky, slushy mess ( and I speak from experience!)

Keep a wide bowl full of water handy on the side.

Take a fistful of dough and form it into a ball. Put the ball of dough in the middle of the frying pan, and using your fingers, press the dough out towards the corners of the pan.

Try and get the roti as thin as possible so it turns out crisp. Warning - your fingers will start to hurt a little bit, but all in a good cause! (The rice flour is too brittle to lend itself to rolling, hence the need to press them out). Occasionally dip your fingers in the bowl of water to keep the dough from sticking to them.

Once the dough has spread out, make 3 holes with the tip of your finger in the middle of the roti. Put the pan onto a hot stove and cover it with a lid that seals it off tightly. Cook under cover for about 2-3 minutes, and then remove the cover. The roti should be looking steam-cooked by now.

Dribble a few drops of the oil into each of the three holes, and taking a bit more oil in a teaspoon, run the teaspoon around the outer edges of the roti. Cook on a medium-high flame, turning over occasionally, until the back is nicely browned, and there are a few brown patches on the front.

Serve hot with traditional Karnataka coconut chutney. You can add fresh, lightly steamed green beans to the dough for an even more traditional touch.

Now the chutney too is a work of art, in my opinion. I hate the typical coconut chutney served at restaurants, particularly outside the south. They basically consust of ground up coconut and a bit of salt.

Homemade chutney - now that's the real thing, with taste and zing. It's so delicious I could eat a bowlful by itself, and it's the icing on the rather bland cake of idli or dosa. Neither idli nor dosa have the same savour when served without this accompaniment.

Ingredients:
1 fresh coconut, grated
1 lime-sized tamarind bit soaked in hot water
1 inch ginger, peeled and chopped
3-4 green chillies
Handful coriander leaves, chopped roughly
Handful Roast chana, peeled ( bhuna hua chana)
Salt to taste

Squeeze the tamarind into the hot water so all the tart juice runs out. Strain the tamarind juice into your blender. Add the rest of the ingredients, and half cup water. Grind finely, adding a little more water as and when needed. Top with the Garnish, and serve with idli, dosa, akki roti, uppittu, plain chapatti and whatever else takes your fancy!

Garnish:
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal( white)
1 red dried chilly
Handful curry leaves, washed and dried
Pinch heeng ( asafoetida)

We had akki roti with this wonderful chutney made by dad for breakfast on Saturday. The weather was lovely - warm but with a cool breeze, so we ate out on our balcony, which has mediterranean-style stucco white walls and orange flooring. The balcony looks out into a jacaranda tree, and beyond that a lawn with frangipani trees, so it was the perfect place to enjoy a lazy breakfast. We wound up with traditional filter-kaapi supplied by dad again ( we don't go for coffee much at our place) while watching the two kiddos run around and play - Gar firdaus bar rue zameen ast, hameen ast, wa hameen ast, to paraphrase Babur!

Marrow - petha family

I, like many Indian school children growing up in the '70s, was addicted to Enid Blyton's books. She had the ability to make the most everyday food sound delicious - tomatoes fresh from the garden, e.g. But I was always puzzled by her references to marrow jam, since the only marrow I was familiar with was bone marrow. It was only years later that I realised she was referring to the petha family of veggies. By and large I'm not a huge fan of this variety of vegetables, finding them too tasteless for my liking. But I do love petha halwa, and petha huli ( sambar). Yesterday I discovered that my one and a half year old also likes petha. We had petha huli for dinner and little miss happily fished out piece after piece of the veggie from the spicy huli and gobbled it up, screaming when her portion was finished.

Dumrothe (Petha Halwa) was served at my sister's wedding feast, many years ago. All the guests relished it, including me, and sadly none was left by the time my parents were free to sit down for their meal. I have tried with varying success to make it at home, mostly because it takes a lot of patience, which is one condiment in short supply at our house.

Dumrothe
Ingredients:
1 petha, medium size, grated finely
1 cup ghee ( clarified butter, recipe on one of my blogs)
1 tsp saffron strands
Half as many cups sugar as of grated petha
Cardamon - 4-5 pods with the seeds removed and crushed into fine powder
1/2 cup pistachio halves

Tie the grated petha into a muslin cloth and hang over a sink or place in a colander with a heavy weight placed on top, to ensure that all the water drains out.
Once the petha is almost dry, put it into a non-stick wok on medium heat and roast, stirring occasionally until it is almost dry.
Add the ghee and the saffron strands, and stir to mix, frying for about 3-4 minutes.
Then add the sugar slowly, stirring to mix.
Once all the sugar is melted and the halwa has taken on a pale yellow colour, remove from heat and stir in the cardamom powder.
Garnish with pistachio halves before serving.

Petha Huli
1 cup arhar dal, well cooked
1 lime sized ball of tamarind, soaked in 1/2 cup warm water for half hour
1 lime-sized ball of jaggery ( or brown sugar if Jaggery is not available)
1 petha, cut into 2 inch long and 1 inch wide segments and boiled until well done
Salt to taste
2 cups water
1 handful fresh grated coconut
1-2 tbsp Huli Pudi ( recipe given below)
Tempering ( voggarane)
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 sprig curry leaves
2 dried red chillies

Squeeze the tamarind juice into the hot water, and strain into a deep steel utensil or saucepan.
Add the cooked lentils and boil for a few minutes to get rid of the 'raw' smell of the tamarind juice.
Meanwhile, blend the fresh coconut along with the Huli Pudi and half cup of water to make a smooth paste.
Add the paste to the lentil-tamarind mix and add the cooked petha, jaggery and salt.
Boil together for 4-5 minutes so the ingredients blend well together.
Add the tempering and serve hot.

Petha huli goes well with rotis and rice.

Huli Pudi Recipe
1 handful coriander seeds
I handful dried red chillies
Half handful chana dal
Half handful urad dal
2 tbsp dessicated ground coconut
1 2 inch piece of cinnamon bark
Pinch asafoetida ( heeng)
1 handful dried curry leaves
1 tsp turmeric
Fry the coriander seeds and red chillies together in a wok with one drop of oil, un til the red chillied turn shiny. Keep aside to cool.
Fry the chana dal and urad dal ( add urad after chana is half done) with a drop of oil, until they turn crunchy and light brown. Then add the coconut, cinnamon, asafoetida and curry leaves and fry until the coconut turns slightly brown and gives off a nice, toasty aroma.
Keep aside to cool.
In a dry grinder, powder the coriander seeds and the red chillies together into a fine powder. Add the rest of the fried ingredients and powder until you get a dark brown-gold powder. Then add the turmeric, which helps the keeping power of the powder.
Remove, mix with a spoon and store in a tightly closed clean container.
This powder can keep for up to a month in a dark cupboard, and longer in cold weather.

Maavinakaayi Chitra Anna

I don't know why - perhaps it is to do with our tribal origins - human beings have an inherent need to form groups or cliques, each of which firmly believes in its own superiority over the others. You can see this behaviour in children as young as three on a playground, and of course, as adults, the belongingness and superiority need seems to get reinforced. Naturally, then, as a Kannadiga, though born and brought up in Delhi, I firmly believe in the superiority of South Indian food, in particular Karnataka food, over anything else the world has to offer, in terms of taste, nourishment and satisfaction. I was thrilled to find a food blog event on Karnataka recipes for this month. I debated whether to plunge into BBH - Bisi bele bhaath - a signature dish for both Karnataka and myself - one which my friends repeatedly request when they come over. But in 37 degree heat, BBH ( or RC - reinforced concrete as we fondly call it in the family) is too heavy and spicy, so I decided to save that and make one of my summer favourites.

Mangoes are called the king of fruit and for most Indians they truly are, with their intensely fragrant aroma and succulent golden honey flesh. The number of things the mango lends itself to is also amazing, from Thai salad ( use the semi-ripe mango as an alternate to raw papaya in Som Tham ) to shrikhand, lassi, pickles, ice creams, shakes to being eaten as they are, the juice dripping from one's chin, salted and chillied for the Thothapuri variety or without accompaniment for the badami, Malgoa, Hapoos or the Chausa. One mango dish I look forward to at each Kannadiga wedding down south is fresh mangi pickle - made and consumed within a few hours.

A Karnataka mango dish that appears regularly at our table in the summer is mango rice- maavinakaayi chitra anna - tart, spicy and tongue-ticklingly chatpata, its texture a melange of soft rice and crunchy peanuts. A perfect summer dinner involves mango rice, accompanied by cold curds, straight from the fridge, and a crisp cucumber salad, followed by sweet, sweet mangoes eaten the desi way - skin ripped off using one's teeth, and the flesh bitten into chunks, followed by the ritual suckling and slurping of the gotta - the seed - until it becomes bleached white.

Maavinakayi Chitra Anna



Ingredients:

2-3 green, raw mangoes, grated
1 handful grated fresh coconut, or desssicated coconut
2-3 green chillies
1 dried red chilli
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 sprig curry leaves
1 tsp heeng ( asafoetida)
Pinch turmeric
1/2 cup raw peanuts in their skins
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
1 cup long grained basmati rice, cooked and spread out on a platter
Handful coriander leaves, chopped fine and half cup fresh coconut for garnish

Put the grated mango, coconut, green chillies, red chillies and 1 tsp mustard seeds into the blender and blend until it becomes a smooth mass.
Heat 1/2 the oil in a bandley ( wok).
Add 1 tsp of the mustard seeds and wait for them to pop.
When they pop, add the turmeric, then curry leaves, then heeng.
Add the mango-coconut paste and stir, cooking on a medium flame for 2-3 minutes until the mango is cooked but not overcooked. Set aside.
Heat the rest of the oil and put in the peanuts. Fry them on a medium flame, stirring occasionally until they turn crisp and brown. Remove from heat.
Add the mango paste and the peanuts to the rice, as well as salt, and mix well, checking to see if the flavour is uniformly mixed. It should taste sharply sour, salty and spicy. In case the mango is not sour enough, you can add a bit of lemon juice to the rice.
Let the rice stand for 2-3 hours, so the flavours are fully absorbed and mature.
Garnish with coriander and coconut before serving.

This dish is served cold, so it can be made well ahead of time if you are entertaining guests.