Zunka (Jhunka)
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Zunka is a quick recipe that is tasty and has high protein. It must be eaten hot. This is also called pitla. There is another variation called jhunkad vadi that I’ll post later. This is a good recipe to keep in your back pocket especially when unexpected guests arrive.
Ingredients:
2 cups besan flour, 2 medium size onions, 2 table spoon ground chili + garlic paste, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafoetida (hing) , 1 tea spoon turmeric powder ,1 tea spoon cumin powder, ½ cup tamarind paste, 1 table spoon jaggery or brown sugar, 1 table spoon roasted peanut powder, 1/4 cup freshchopped coriander (cilantro)and salt .
Process:
Chop onion into small pieces.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a cooking vessel.
Add cumin seeds and mustard seeds.
When mustard seeds break or crackle, add a pinch of asafoetida and cut pieces of onion.
Allow it to turn brownish on low fire fora couple ofminutes.
Add ground green chili +garlic paste and turmeric powder, and heat for 2 minutes.
Then add 4 cups of water and ½ cup tamarindwater.
Add 1 table spoon jaggery and peanut powder and salt to taste.
Allow it to boil.
To the boiling mixture add besan floor in small portions with constant stirring to prevent lump formation.
Close the vessel with a lid and cook for 5-7 minutes on low fire.
Add coriander to garnish.
Tips and Tricks:
Adding hing to the seasoning reduces gas formation.
You can make a paste of besan in a little water and add that to the water so that it mixes quickly and prevents the formation of lumps.
Typically Served With:
This goes well with chapatis, rotti (bhakri) and sometimes with rice too (depending on your tastes).
Filed under: Dals / Lentils (Saar), Meals (Oota) | Tagged: junka, pitla |7 Comments »
Phutani Chutney(Roasted GramDal)
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Phutani chutney can be stored for the longest time. It really tastes good and has so many uses :).
Ingredients:
200 grams phutani, 2 medium size garlic bulbs, 50 grams roasted peanuts or grated drycoconut, 1 teaspoon cumin powder, 2 table spoons red chili powder, 1 table spoon salt, 1 tea spoon sugar., dried curry leaves, ½ lemon.
Process:
Clean and peel garlic cloves.
Mix all the ingredients except lemon.
Grind to a fine powder in the grinder.
Squeeze lemon in it and mix well.
Typically Served With:
This chutney can be eaten with rotis or chapattis with ghee or curd. Also it can be applied over roasted bread slices or bagels or croissantsalong with ghee – it tastes very good.
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: daal, pudi, putani, roasted chana |Leave a comment »
Gural Chutney (Karal or Kare Yelluchutney)
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Gural pudi is a specialty in north Karnataka recipes or even in lingayat recipes. The chutney made with gural seeds is also very yummy!
Ingredients:
200 grams gural seeds, 4 medium size garlic bulbs, 1teaspoon cumin powder, 2 table spoons red chilli powder, 1 table spoon salt.
Process:
Clean and peel garlic cloves.
Roast gural seedsin a shallow pan on low fire till they start making cracking noise and giving roasted smell.
Mix all the ingredients and subject to grinding in a mixer grinder.
Typically Served With:
The gural chutney along with curd tastes good with jowar roti, sajji roti, crisp jowar rotisand chapattis.
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: gural, karal, podi, pudi |5 Comments »
Dry Coconut Chutney
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Dry Coconut Chutney also is a chutney that can be kept around for a longer time (in the refrigerator). This goes well with any meal.
Ingredients:
200 grams grated dry coconut, 4 medium size garlic bulbs, 1teaspoon cumin powder, 2 table spoons red chilli powder, 1 table spoon salt, 1 tea spoon sugar.
Process:
Clean and peel garlic cloves.
Mix all the ingredients and powder in grinder to get red coloured chutney.
Typically Served With
This is good with chapatti as well as jowar roti, sajji rotti etc. You can eat this chutney by mixing with ghee, oil or yogurt (curd).
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: cocunut, pudi |1 Comment »
Peanut chutney (ShengaHindi)
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Shenga chutney is something that goes well with any meal and can be stored for a long time. So on days when you don’t want to cook a variety, having this ready adds variety to any meal. Ofcourse not to mention the protein that one gets via the peanuts!
Ingredients:
200 g Rosted peanuts, 4 medium size garlic bulbs, a few curry leaves, 1teaspoon cumin powder, 2 table spoons red chilli powder, 1 table spoon salt, 1 tea spoon sugar.
Process:
Clean and peel garlic cloves.
Mix all the ingredients and pound in the pounding device to obtain a sticky peanut chutney.You could also grind inthe grinder which gives powdery form of chutney. In order to get slightly sticky form grind the mixture at low speed for short time of few seconds several times.
Tips and Tricks:
For those of you in the US, you can get the salted roasted peanuts (planters) and use it to make peanut chutney in a grinder. It is extremely effective and easy :).
Typically Served With:
This chutney tasts good with chapattis, rotti, katak rotti, sajji rotti etc
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: chutney, groundnut, peanut, pudi |9 Comments »
Agashi hindi (Agashi – Flaxseed)
Posted on March 20, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Agashi chutney or agashi hindiis extremely tasty and flavorful. BTW, I have read reports that chewing on agashi seeds is really effective in curing some forms of cancer. It is also used to lower cholesterol because it is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids.
Ingredients:
Agashi (Flax seeds) – 150 grams, Garlic – three bulbs, salt, and chilli powder
Process:
Roast the cleaned flex seeds on a tawa/ frying pan till the shine on the seed disappears making the seeds brownish black.
Allow these to cool down.
Powder the roasted flex seeds in a grinder.
Add peeled garlic, chili powder and salt to taste.
Grind them well to get a nice powder.
Tips and Tricks:
MTR sells agashi chutney packets..something to stock up when you are in India/Bangalore.
Typically Served With:
I like the way my mami from Columbia – Parineeta Mami uses it. She toasts a bagel and then sprinkles agashi chutney on it! Try it – you’ll be amazed at this Indianized bagel!! This is normally eaten with rotti and chapatti with curds.
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: dry seeds, flax, flex seed |34 Comments »
Onion Pakoda (KandaBhajji)
Posted on March 19, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Onion bhajjis are a treat to eat on a rainy day!
Ingredients:
Onions medium sized 3, Besan flour 200 grams, Rice flour 150 grams, Red Chilli powder to taste, salt to taste, vinegar two teaspoon full, baking soda one teaspoon and half teaspoon asafoetida (hing). Canola oil for frying.
Process:
Cut onion into long pieces. In order to do that, remove the first one or two layers of onion. Cut them in to two halves lengthwise. Each half is further cut in to fine slices lengthwise. Repeat the same for all the onions.
Marinate these cut onion slices in about two table spoon full of vinegar in a bowl for about ten to fifteen minutes.
Add the mixture of besan and rice flour to the bowl containing marinated onion. To this add chili powder, salt to taste, asafoetida and baking powder.
Mix these ingredients thoroughly. As far as possible avoid using water to make the above mix. Just add a little water only as necessary so all the ingredients form a thick paste.
Meanwhileheat required amount (100 to 150 ml ) of oil on the stove.
When the oil is hot, deep fry the small lumps of the above mixture to golden brown.
Tips and Tricks:
The lesser water you put, the more crisp the bhajjis!
Typically Served With:
The onion pakoda thus prepared can be served with murmura, or can be eaten with tomato ketchup/sauce. It can also be used as an appetizer for festival or 3-5 course meals 🙂
Filed under: Festivals, Meals (Oota), Snacks, Spicy Snacks | Tagged: bhajia, bhajji, bhuji, bhujia, pakora |1 Comment »
Raagi Rotti
Posted on March 18, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Ragi roti is a variation of jowar roti. Ragi is an excellent source of iron – so ragi rotti is another healthy food recipe! The recipe is similar to jowar roti.
Ingredients:
Ragi flour, water, a pinch of salt
Process:
Take finely ground ragi ata (flour) 250 grams in a wide mouthed vessel with shallow depth. It can also be a large plate with long edges.
In a separate vessel take just little water (1/2 a cup) and bring it to boil. Add the boiling water to make a dough from the Jowar flour which is already taken in the shallow pan. This dough is called jigatu in Kannada.
Now take this jigatu and add dry jowar flour and knead it thoroughly with just enough water to make dough of such consistency as chapati dough (may be even less water than that).
To make rotti you should press/beat the circular dough with the palm of your hand on a flat surface such as the kitchen platform. Initially use the right hand to beat it in the form of a circle and use the left hand to maintain a circle (video coming soon!).
Dry flour may be used to avoid the dough sticking to the flat surface while preparing the rotti. This is the crucial step!!
Once the rotti is ready, it should be carefully transferred to a hot Tawa.
When the lower part of the rotti gets slightly dry apply water on the upper surface of the roti with a piece of soft cloth and allow it to remain until the water just evaporates a little.
Then carefully reverse the rotti and bake the other side, pressing this side while baking- if pressed gently with a cloth , the roti puffs separating into two layers with steam in side.
Remove it from the Tawa and serve it hot!!
Tips and Tricks:
If the rotti starts crumbling (no jigatu), try to put boiling water in the entire flour to make the dough instead of using jigatu.
Typically Served With:
subjis, chutney, khar byali.
Filed under: Breads, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: bhakri, ragi, roti |1 Comment »
Jolad Rotti
Posted on March 18, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
If I were to pick my favourite food and had to choose only one, then this would be it. My absolute number one favourite! I think I attribute it to my Amma (granny). I used to loathe naps in the afternoon and so used to stay awake when all my other brothers and sisters used to nap. After everyone’s lunch, sometimes my granny would have just a little hot rotti remaining. So she used to take the “birasu” rotti from the previous day and I’d eat a few bites with her. I think that taste has just struck a string in me. This is called bhakri in Marathi. Anyways, here goes the recipe.
Ingredients:
Jowar (Jola in Kannada) or Sorghum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum) flour, water, a pinch of salt
Process:
Take finely ground Jowar ata (flour) 250 grams in a wide mouthed vessel with shallow depth.It can also be alarge plate with long edges.
In a separate vessel take justlittle water (1/2 a cup)and bring it to boil. Add the boiling water to make a dough from the Jowar flour which is already taken in the shallow pan. This dough is called jigatu in Kannada.
Now take this jigatu and add dry jowar flour and knead it thoroughly with just enough water to make dough of such consistency as chapati dough (may be even less water than that).
To make rotti you should press/beat the circular dough with the palm of your hand on a flat surface such as the kitchen platform. Initially use the right hand to beat it in the form of a circle and use the left hand to maintain a circle (video coming soon!).
Dry flour may be used to avoid the dough sticking to the flat surface while preparing the rotti. This is the crucial step!!
Once the rotti is ready, it should be carefully transferred toa hotTawa.
When the lower part of the rotti gets slightly dry apply water on the upper surface of the roti with a piece ofsoft clothand allow it to remain until the water just evaporates a little.
Then carefully reverse the rotti and bake the other side, pressing this side while baking- if pressed gently with a cloth , the roti puffs separating into two layers with steam in side.
Remove it from the Tawa and serve it hot!!
Tips and Tricks:
The rotis if do not get consumed may be eaten later as birasu rotti.
If you want to make crisp rottis like sajji rotti, then you need to make them very thin andbake on very low heat for long time (5-8 mins on low low fire). Typically you can keep two tawas, so once the rotti is cooked, you transfer it to the other tava and bake it on it for about 5-7 minutes turning 2-3 times.
This is a cumbersome procedure!! If one practices for a few days, this is very healthy food (no oil!)
If the rotti starts crumbling when you try to make it(no jigatu), try to put boiling water in the entire flour to make the dough instead of using jigatu. This applies for jowar flour got in grocery stores abroad. The flour is not fresh and so it loses the stickiness (jigatu) as it ages.
When you get fresh jowar flour, keep it in the refrigerator to prevent it from losing the jigatu (this holds especially for folks who get jowar flour from India :-)).
Typically Served With:
Stuffed bell pepper, stuffed brinjal (yengai), hesar kaaLu, jhunkad vadiand any fresh salads. Some chutneys that go well are Shenga hindi (kind of peanut chutney with garlic), aradidda khara etc. Another way to eat it iswith hot jhunka or pitla– calledjhunka bhakri or pitla bhakri. This is a famous combination in Belgaum and Maharashtra.
Filed under: Breads, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: bhakri, jawar, jowar, jwala, roti, rotti, sorghum |5 Comments »
Green Tomato Chutney
Posted on March 6, 2008 by Harsha Bennur
Green Tomato Chutney is one of my favourite chutneys – this is tangy and can be spicy. The other one is hirekai chutney.
Ingredients:
Green tomatoes 2 medium, garlic cloves 5-6 small ones, onion 1 small, green chillies, coriander(cilantro)leaves, curry leaves, jaggery, salt , 1 tablespoon oil, cumin seeds, 2 table spoons peanuts.
Process:
Cut tomatoes and onion into thin slices.
Heat oil in small kadai.
Put green chillis, cumin seeds, peanuts, tomato slices, onion slices and curry leaves one by one and roast till brownish.
Cool the contents, add garlic, coriander (leaves and stems), jaggery and salt and grind in the mixer grinder to a rough consistency.
Typically Served With:
Chapatis
Filed under: Chutneys, Meals (Oota) | Tagged: chatney, jagri |2 Comments »
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