Water melon rind gojju

My little one loves watermelon and every week I buy a huge one, so that it lasts for a week. This time the one I bought had a thick rind, So decided to make some use of it. I know they normally use in sambar but I had never tasted it, so wasn't sure of the taste. I used few pieces in sambar and couldn't tell the difference between lauki and the rind. So I used the rest to make gravy with coconut or Gojju as we call in kannada.

What we need:

2 cups cubed Water melon rind
1 large onion
1/2 cup coconut
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
2 cloves
1/2 inch cinnamon
Few strands of cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 teaspoon red chilly powder
2 tablespoon tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 table spoon oil

How it's made:
Peel the green portion out of the rind, cut the white portion into small cubes. Grind onions, coconut, cilantro leaves, clove n cinnamon into a fine paste. Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add the ground masala, ginger garlic paste, tomato puree and cook for a while. Add chilly and coriander powder, salt and the cubed water melon rind and cook till done.
The fastest  way to cook this is in pressure cooker, put every thing together and cook for one whistle.
Serve with roti or white rice. It tasted like bottle gourd/ lauki to me, I am surely going to try more recipes with this now.

Potato in Green Masala

My mom makes different variety of gojju (thick gravy). This recipe of potato gojju in green masala is one of them. I love this specially with dosa. Since I typically don't like eating dosa or idli with just chutni, mom always made some sort of gojju for me. As I have mentioned before most of my mom's recipe needs grinding. So lets get started with ingredients needed for grinding.

What you need:

for grinding:

1/4 cup- coconut (either dry or fresh)

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 green chillies

2-3 pods of garlic

1/2 inch ginger

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

2 cloves

1/4 inch cinnamon

3-4 stalks of Cilantro

Rest of the ingredients needed:

4 medium sized Potatoes

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 teaspoon oil

salt to taste

How it's made:

Grind all the spices mentioned in the list above with some water to make a smooth paste. Fresh coconut gives more gravy consistency, while using dry coconut makes the masala thick and may end up adhering more on the potatoes. Either way it tastes good.

In a pan heat oil, add mustard, once it splutters, add the potatoes and the ground paste, salt, water as needed and cook till done.

The gravy is very spicy , adjust the amount of black pepper and green chillies to your taste. Serve with dosa. It tastes best with rice appam and you can have it with bread too. I just love the rich green color of the dish and it made with potatoes, what better reason you need.

Mom made this on some festivals days too as this doesn't contain onions and she wouldn't use garlic. (she follows a strict no garlic or onions cooking on all festival days).

Omelet Gravy

My little one was a bit fussy about food, so I made an omelet for her, since it is one of her favorite things to eat. But she didn't seem to want to eat that too. So I was left with a large omelet. For some reason, even though I like eggs I don't prefer plain omelet or  just hard boiled eggs. I had to still make dinner and was wondering what to do, when I remembered the omelet gravy one of my kashmiri friend made in the hostel. Yes, in hostel. Though legally we were not allowed to cook, all of us had a little electric stove that we used to make maggi or tea. She used to make this omelet gravy the days she didn't like eating the hostel food.

The omelet I made for my little one was just with pepper and jeera powder and salt. So It was pretty bland which I thought was ideal to make the gravy. Before blogging about this recipe here, I did a search and found that this dish is called omelet er dalna. they use lot of different spices. But the recipe that I made is still the hostel version may be with few extra added ingredient. Omelet gravy is also made in Srilanka with coconut milk. The recipe here is for two. You can increase the quantity as per your need.

What you need :
For Omelet:
1 extra large egg
black pepper powder
Jeera powder
Salt

For the Gravy:
1 medium onion - finely chopped
3 tablespoon of crushed tomato
1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
1 teaspoon Red chilly powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste
1 tablespoon Oil

How it's made :

Omelet-  Break an egg and beat it until fluffy and mix in all the rest of the ingredients. Heat a skillet and make a thick omelet. You can make the omelet with any other added ingredients as per your taste. Cut the omelet, may be about 1 x 2 inch slices and keep it aside.

Gravy- Heat the oil, add the onions and fry till they turn a little brown, add the tomato, ginger-garlic paste and cook till well blended. Add water, garam masala, chilly powder, salt (just for the gravy- remember your egg has salt in it) and cook for few minutes till you get a gravy consistency. Keep it little watery as the omelet will absorb a lot of gravy. Add the cut omelete slices and cook for few more minutes. Serve hot with white rice. 

One may ask why make omelet, than gravy out of it, can't you just break an egg and put into the gravy. Sure you can, but this tastes completely different and since it absorbs the masala you won't get the egg smell too. If you like eggs give it a try.

Black Chana gravy - karnatakan style

This is again my mom's recipe. This is a spicy gravy with predominant coconut and onion masala. It's a two step process, but worth a try. I like having this with puri.

What you need:
2 cups Kala Chana (chickpeas) - soaked overnite and drained
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoon oil
salt to taste

Masala 1 :
2 large onions
4 pods garlic
1 inch ginger
3 cloves
1/2 inch cinnamon stick
5 -7 strings of cilantro leaves
1 table spoon coriander seeds powder
1 table spoon red chilly powder ( or as per heat intensity)

Masala 2:
1 cup grated fresh coconut
1 big tomato

How its Made:

In a pan add 1 table spoon oil and roast onions, garlic, ginger, cloves and cinnamon till the onion turn dark brown. This gives a nice color to the gravy. Take it off the heat and add coriander, chilly powder and cilantro leaves.Grind to a fine paste with some water. In a pressure cooker heat 1tablespoon oil, add bay leaves and fry for a minute than add the soaked chana. Fry for 2 minutes and add the ground masala paste. Add sufficient water for the chana to cook. Add salt to taste. Close the lid and pressure cook it for 4 whistles.

Meanwhile, grind the grated coconut and tomato to a fine paste. Once the chana is cooked in the first masala add the coconut-tomato paste, mix well. Add water if needed and cook it again for another whistle. Check for the consistency. If too watery than cook it on low heat with the lid off for few more minutes or if its too thick add water and heat it for few minutes.

Serve hot with plain white rice, jeera rice or with puri / roti.

This dish is my entry to 'My legume love Affair-35', hosted by Smitha of Kannada Cuisine.

Besan Gatte in Gravy

Well, the reason I made this was that my husband picked up kala chana besan from the Indian store instead of  regular besan. This besan didn't taste good when I made pakoras or laddoos. Was looking for ways to use the pack of besan I had. I came across this recipe on the internet( surf-india.com), and thought its worth a try. Had heard about this recipe but never had tried it or tasted it before. In Jharkahand and Bihar this is called kala-channa ghoomni. In Rajasthan, gatte ki sabzi in a yogurt based gravy. This recipe is based on the jharkand version but with some modifications. I did not use mustard paste that they suggest. Also I added yogurt in mine. The original recipe calls for the gatte to be cooked and added to the gravy. I thought it would add a nice flavor if I sauteed it a bit in oil before adding to the gravy.

What you need :

1 cup Besan (Gram flour)

2 medium size: Tomatoes(finely chopped)

2 medium size: Onion (finely chopped)

4-5: Green chillies (finely chopped)

1 tbsp: Ginger and garlic paste
1/4 tbsp: Turmeric powder
1/2 tbsp: Red chili powder
1/4 tbsp: Coriander powder
1/4 tbsp: Gram masala
Pinch of Asafoetida
1 tbsp: Cumin seed
1/2 tablespoon: Carom (Ajwain) seed
2 tablespoon yogurt (optional)
Oil
Salt to taste

How It's Made:

Mix well besan, 2 green chillies, carom, 1 teaspoon red chili powder, salt and 1 tbsp oil. Add water into besan to make dough. Pull the dough into 1 cm diameter round and 5-6 inches long rope.
Put it into boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.
Take out the water and cut the besan round into small pieces and keep aside. (Besan rounds are called 'gatte'.) Heat oil in a pan and saute the gatte until it gets a nice crisp outer layer. Remove and keep it aside.
Heat oil in the same pan add asafoetida, cumin seeds, 2 green chilies, stir-fry. Add ginger garlic paste followed by chopped onion, saute until the onions turn brown. Add chopped tomatoes and cook for few more minutes. To this add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, salt, garam masala and water. I also added yogurt at this stage since my gravy wasn't getting thick enough for my liking. Boil till the gravy is well cooked.
Put gatte into gravy and boil for 3 minutes (Heat until gravy is thick).
Serve hot with steamed rice or plain chapathi. 

Pineapple Gojju

I had heard a lot about pineapple gojju. It was on the top on the menu list for weddings in Bangalore for quite sometime. I always wanted to try it and everytime I mentioned it Sri would say, no it will be sweet. This time when he was not around I decided to try out this recipe. Its a south karnatakan recipe and the same can be done with mango too.

What you need:

1 small pineapple, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 tsp. tamarind paste
1 tbsp. jaggery
1 long spring curry leaves
2 tbsp. oil
1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste


For the Masala:
1/2 cup grated, coconut
4-6 red chillies depending on the heat of the chillies
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 tbsp. chana daal ( split bengal gram)
1 tsp.  urad daal (split black gram)
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1 tsp. sesame seeds
1/2 tsp. asafoetida
1 tsp. oil



How to make :

Heat the oil in a pan, fry all masala ingredients (except the coconut) until lightly browned.
Grind it with coconut and little water to a fine paste.
Heat the oil in a sauce pan, add mustard seeds, when it pops add pineapple, turmeric,
curry leaves and fry for 5-8 minutes. Add salt, tamarind juice, jaggery, ground paste.
bring it to boil. cook on low heat until the gojju thickens.
Serve with ghee along with chapatis/dose/rice.

I personally liked it with whole wheat bread rather than rice.