Egg - Potato Gravy

Ingredients

Eggs - 3

Potatoes - 1 (large) cubed

Onion - 1/2 (large) chopped

Tomato - 1/2 (large) chopped

Mint leaves - 2 tbsp chopped

Tamarind paste - 3-4 tbsp

Jaggery/sugar - 2 tsp

Cilantro Leaves - handful

Oil

Salt

For masala

Onion - 1/2 (large)

Tomato - 1/2 (large)

Garam Masala - 1 tsp

Chilli powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 1 tsp

coconut powder - 3-4 tbsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

Ginger-garlic Paste - 1 tbsp

Peanuts - 2 tbsp

Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

Yoghurt - 1 tbsp

Steps

1. Hard boil eggs with some salt in a pot of water. Drain and cool them. and remove hard shell. Halve them and set aside.

2. Grind the masala ingredients into a fine paste.

3. Heat oil in a pot. Add mustard and cumin seeds. After they splutter, add the onions and salt and fry for few minutes. Now add the tomatoes and potatoes and fry them for a few minutes.

4. Add the masala and fry till the raw smell goes away. Now add the mint leaves, tamarind paste and water and cook till the potatoes are tender. Lastly add the jaggery/sugar and cilantro leaves. Turn off the heat.

5. Now add the eggs into the curry and rest for a while so that flavours seep into the eggs. Take care not to mix the curry too much after adding the eggs as it will disrupt the yolks.

6. Serve with white rice or biryani or rotis.

Meal Today: Coconut Rice and Egg-Potato Gravy

Tips

You can fry the whole eggs before adding them to the curry. Also, you can marinate the potatoes in the masala to make them taste better.

Potato-Chayote fry with mustard - cumin seasoning

Ingredients

Potatoes - 2 (cubed)

Chayote - 1 (cubed)

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Mustard seeds - 2 tsp

Cumin seeds - 2 tsp

Urad dal - 1 tsp

Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

coriander powder - 1 tsp

Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp

Oil

salt

Steps

1 Grind the mustard and cumin seeds coarsely in a mortar.

2 Heat some oil in a pan and add some mustard seeds and let them pop. Add the urad dal, and let it turn golden brown. Now add the potato and chayote pieces and cook. Add salt, chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric and mix well.

3. After the potatoes have slightly browned, add the ground mustard-cumin powder and mash the pieces lightly with a wooden spoon. Serve with rice or rotis.

Serving ideas

Serve with rice or chapathis. A nice side with rasam or perugu annam too. You could also use it in a sandwich.

Meal Today: Ava pettina potato-chayote and roast chickpea powder with ghee and rice

Tips

You can also use boiled potato and chayote if you prefer less oil.

Adding fresh coconut enhances the taste.

Stuffed Okra / Bharwan Bhindi

I found dome nice okra in the store today. So I bought a bag full of them. I made fried okra, okra curry and even put a few of them in sambhar. I was still left with a dozen. So here is how I cooked them.

Ingredients

Besan/gram flour - 2 tbsp

Sesame seeds - 1 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Rasam powder - 2 tbsp

Amchur - 1 tbsp

Roasted nut powder - 1tbsp

Cumin pow - 1 tbsp

Coriander pow - 1 tbsp

Youghurt - 3 tbsp

Steps

1. Mix all the ingredients except oil and make a paste.

2. Make a slit lengthwise to the okra. Take care not to break it open. Remove some of the seeds to make place for the stuffing. Stuff the okra with the prepared paste carefully.

4. To the remaining stuffing, add the seeds from the okra.

5. Heat some oil in a pan and arrange the okra stuffed side up. Cook on medium till the stuffing hardens.

6. Turn the okra and cook on all sides, stuffed side last. Cook till the okra browns. Keep aside.

7. Now add the remaining stuffing to the pan and cook. Add this to the okra and serve.

Serving ideas

If you like this dish dry, do not add the stuffing in step 7. You can top the dish with some fried/sauteed onions.

This dish tastes good on its own. You can also eat it with hot chapathis and sambhar rice.

It can also be had as a finger food with a yoghurt dip.

Tips

Cook the okra on low heat at all times to avoid burning.

For the stuffing, you can also use sambhar powder and coconut powder.

Spinach stir fry / Palakura talimpu

Countless moms urge their children to eat greens pointing at Popeye, the sailor. As a child, I used to watch it. I still remember Popeye saying 'I'm Popeye the Sailorman, I'm strong to the finish, cause I eats my spinach, I'm Popeye the Sailorman...' which brings me back to todays recipe -

Ingredients

spinach - 1 bunch chopped

roasted chickpea/putnala pappu powder - 2 tsp

salt

olive oil

For poppu/tadka/tempering:

mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

urad dal - 1 tsp

Garlic - 4-5 cloves grated

Pepper powder - 1/3 tsp

Steps

1. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and once they splutter, add the cumin seeds and urad dal. Once it turns golden brown add the spinach and mix it so that it gets coated with olive oil. Saute for a minute or two.

2. Add salt, pepper, chickpea powder and garlic. Saute for a couple of more minutes.

Serving ideas

This dish makes an excellent side. It is also good with rice or chapathis.

Meal Today: Mango dal rice with spinach stir fry

Tips

Try not to overcook the spinach. Add garlic at the end to retain the garlicy aroma and flavour.

Use puff pastry to make small rounds or samosas with this as a filling and bake. It tastes good accompanied by tomato salsa and chat masala.

Cluster bean fry / Matikaya karam

I never liked cluster beans much. But this dish changed my mind. The sweetness of the caramelized onions with the bitterness of the cluster beans is a perfect combination in this dish.

Some info on cluster beans : Cluster bean is a boon for diabetics. It is 90% fiber and helps in lowering the blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Commercially, matured cluster bean seeds are crushed and turned into flour known as guar gum. It is used as a thickening agent in food, paper and textile industries. The thickening power of Cluster Bean is more than 5 times that of Corn Starch.

Ingredients

Cluster beans – 1 1/2 lb

Onion – 1 finely chopped

Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tbsp

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 1 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Urad dal - 1 tsp (optional)

Salt

Oil

Steps

1. Prepare the cluster beans and roughly break them into smaller pieces.

2. Put them in a processor and pulse a couple of times for a few seconds so that they are coarsely chopped but are not turned into paste.

3. Heat oil in a pan. Put the mustard, cumin, ginger-garlic paste and later the onions and fry a little.

4. Add red chilli powder, turmeric and coriander powder and mix well.

5. Add the bean mixture along with salt and mix well .

6. Fry them on medium-high till they turn brown. This might take about 30min. Keep mixing at regular intervals.

Serving ideas

Serve with hot rice or chapathis. This also tastes good in a sandwich.

Meal Today: Hot rice with matikaya karam and ulavalu

Tips

This dish requires more oil than others as it takes a long time to brown.

Scrape off the brown bits attached to the pan at regular intervals. It is where the taste lies. Also, after removing the contents to a bowl, you could put rice into the pan and scrape off everything from the pan. It really tastes divine.

The same recipe can be tried out with green peas.

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