Plant based food Archives

Kale Chane for Navratri prasad

Kale Chane ka prasad for Navratri is prepared in India on the 8th or 9th day of the pooja – also called ashtmi and navmi. On the last day, nine young girls (symbolic of nine goddesses) are invited from the neighborhood in the morning to have prasad which includes poori ,sabzi, suji ka halwa and kale chane. During my childhood my friends and I used to get invitations from so many neighbors that after the first two houses, the rest of the aunties used to pack our prasad. Along with the prasad a small gift was given which was always the main attraction and we used to make sure not to leave any house unattended 😂😂.

Now, I also do Navratri pooja and invite small girls from the neighborhood for prasad. It is so much fun to feed them and to keep listening to their non-stop chit-chat about their new bangles, who is eating more pooris or which gifts they got from the other aunties. Hot poori and kale chane is always their favorite. Small kids can’t tolerate very spicy food, so I always use a mild level of spice in kala chana and sabzi for this particular day.

Kala chana/black gram/black chickpeas can be prepared for evening snacks as well. If you can tolerate, increase spices like ginger, green chilies, red chilies and chat masala. Serve them with finely cut onions or onions rings along with a dash of lemon juice. Mouth-watering evening snack is ready!

If you don’t want to go through all these spices, then just boil them with salt and keep them in a small quantity near your work station and keep munching them. If you don’t suffer from acidity, then can munch the overnight soaked ones without boiling them.

There is one more post for Kala chana in the blog. If you are interested, you can check that out as well…

Black Chana with Coriander Gravy (no onion-garlic)

If you cook your food without onion garlic, then this recipe of kale chane for navratri prasad is perfect for you!

Ingredients:

Kala chana 1/2 kg ( 500 grams)
Turmeric powder 2 tsp
Small mustard seeds ( rai) 1 tsp
Cumin seeds (jeera) 1+1/2 tsp
Asafoetida (hing) 1/4 tsp
Oil 5 tbsp
Coriander powder 3 tbsp
Red chili powder 2 tsp
Dry mango powder (amchur) 1 tbsp
Garam masala 2 tsp
Salt as per taste
Water as per requirement

Process:

Wash chana nicely and soak them in the water overnight (water should come up 5-6 inches over the chana in the vessel.)

In the morning you will see that chana has bloomed nicely. Reduce 1/4 water, add salt and turmeric powder. Boil chana in the pressure cooker till it turns soft. It is difficult to tell the exact time of boiling as different types of pressure cookers take different time.

While chana is boiling, let’s prepare spices. In a bowl take coriander powder, red chili powder, dry mango powder (amchur) and garam masala. Add 3-4 tbsp water, mix it well and keep aside.

When chana is boiled, let the pressure cool down completely, open the cooker and shift the boiled chana in a different vessel.

Heat oil in a wok and crackle rai, hing and jeera. Add those soaked spices from the bowl along with water.

With a spatula stir this masala and let it cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add boiled chana, mix it well with spices and let it cook till the water evaporates. Don’t forget to stir in between to avoid burning chana from the bottom of the vessel.

Kale chane ka prasad for Navratri is ready. Shift it in a serving bowl.

April 18, 2022

Deeksha Pathak39 Comments

Gaajar matar gobhi ki sabzi

Gaajar matar gobhi ki sabzi (carrots, peas and cauliflower) is a wonderful combo of three winter vegetables. All vegetable vendors bring fresh red carrots, peas and cauliflower in abundance during winter. Though these three vegetables can be cooked separately, ( Aaloo Gobhi ki sabzi ) as a combo, gaajar, matar aur gobhi creates a delicious vegetable dish. The sweet taste of carrots and peas is balanced by adding ginger, green chilies and garam masala. Kids also love this vegetable as they find their favourite peas here.

Sometimes the taste of gaajar matar gobhi ki sabzi is ruined if peas are not of good quality. They remain hard until carrots and cauliflower are completely cooked. To avoid this issue, I prefer buying very soft peas. But in case you have hard peas, then before cooking them, boil them in a pressure cooker for just one pressure. Now peas will be completely cooked along with carrots and cauliflower. Be careful, don’t boil peas for more than one whistle, otherwise, they will become mushy by the time all the vegetables are cooked.

You can check out more recipes in the blog for different vegetables:

Vegetables (Curries)

Ingredients:

Carrot 250 gms
Cauliflower 250 gms
Peas 100 gms
Grated ginger 1/4 tsp
Green chillies chopped 3-4
Oil 5 /6 tbsp
Salt as per your taste
Red chilli powder 1 tsp
Coriander powder 2 tsp
Turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder 1 tsp
Tomatoes 2 / lemon juice 1+1/2 tsp /amchur powder 1 tsp
Green coriander leaves for garnishing
Water 3-4 tbsp if required

Process:

Peel, wash and chop carrots. Cut cauliflower in small florets and shell out peas and wash them.

In a wok heat oil and crackle rai, hing, jeera (small mustard seeds, asafoetida and cumin seeds).

Add carrots, cauliflower and peas followed by chopped green chilies and grated ginger.

Add coriander powder, red chili powder, turmeric powder, salt and mix it well with veggies.

(If all the water is drained out from the vegetables after washing and sieving them, add 3-4 tbsp of water after mixing spices. If still some water remains while adding veggies in the wok, then there is no need to add water unless spices start sticking to the bottom of the wok).

Cover the wok and let vegetables cook on sim heat. In between, stir them two or three times until they become soft.

Now add garam masala and chopped tomatoes/lemon juice/amchoor powder. Mix it properly and let the veggies cook for two-three more minutes. Gaajar matar gobhi ki sabzi taiyaar hai.

Transfer it to a serving bowl and sprinkle finely chopped green coriander leaves. Enjoy this winter special vegetables treat with roti, paratha, poori or rice.

January 14, 2021January 14, 2021

Deeksha Pathak78 Comments

Kunduru ki sabzi

Kunduru ki sabzi is my favourite as a side dish with daal-chawal, though it is equally good with chapati and plain paratha too. Kunduru is known by many different names, like, ivy gourd, coccinia grandis, tendli, scarlet gourd, tindora etc. I really like this vegetable when kunduru is completely raw and green from inside. When kunduru ripens, they turn red from inside and look fruit rather than vegetable! Though we can still cook ripened kunduru as a vegetable, but that recipe some other time.

Kunduru ki sabzi can be cooked with or without onions. Onions enhance the taste, look and make it more appealing. But that doesn’t mean that kunduru doesn’t taste good without onion – my mother is a non-onion-non-garlic person and she cooks finger-licking good food!!

There are a few more posts on different vegetables in the blog – if you are interested, can take a look…

Vegetables (Curries)

Ingredients:

Kunduru 1/2 kg
Onions 2 big sized
Green chillies chopped 3-4
Oil 5 – 6 tbsp
Water 2-3 tbsp (if required)
Coriander powder 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder 1 tsp (increase or decrease)
Turmeric powder 1 tsp
Salt as per your taste

Process:

Wash and chop kunduru lengthwise in thin stripes and keep them aside.

Chop onions and shallow fry them in one tbsp oil till they are slightly more than translucent.

Transfer these onions to a bowl. Add remaining oil and crackle cumin seeds (jeera) and asafotida (hing) in the same wok. Add chopped kunduru, spices and cut green chilies. Mix everything well and cover the wok. Keep the heat on sim.

Stir them twice or thrice. Add 2 or 3 tbsp of water if spices are sticking to the bottom of the wok. Cover again and let them cook till they are soft. Add fried onions, mix them with kunduru and let them cook on sim heat for 2-3 minutes more.

Kunduru ki sabzi is ready! Serve it hot as a side dish with daal-chawal or plain parathe/roti.

January 9, 2021January 9, 2021

Deeksha Pathak49 Comments

Homemade Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

Homemade tomato sauce/ketchup is very easy to prepare in our kitchen with a little bit of patience. During the winter season, good quality tomatoes are easily available in abundance. So other than preparing tomato soup this winter season, try some homemade tomato sauce/ketchup also. And trust me, it is really tasty!!

You might be wondering why I am insisting to prepare tomato sauce when it is so easily available in almost all big and small shops. Well, the very first reason is that I grew up watching my mother prepare tomato sauce during each winter season for the whole year. Actually, my siblings and I grew up watching lots of things being prepared by mom rather than buying from the market. Tomato sauce or ketchup, whatever you name it, is one of them!

The second reason is that I always find market bought sauce too sweet, so I never really like it. The biggest advantage of preparing tomato sauce at home is that we can control the quantity of sugar, salt and can have very less preservative or probably preservative-free sauce. And of course, if we will be using the best quality of fresh tomatoes for sauce, we will be a little lenient with our kiddo if he or she is just licking sauce from the plate rather than finishing their sandwich along with it😉.

Usually, while preparing tomato sauce, white salt is added, but I love the taste of black and rock salt. So here I have added all three salts together and all three salts enhanced the taste of sauce! But you can as well use only white salt.

For garam masala and ginger I have used powdered ones, but whole garam masala and fresh ginger can also be used. If you are using whole garam masala and fresh ginger, tie them in a piece of white muslin cloth. In Hindi we call it ‘potli’. Add this potli in the pressure cooker while boiling tomatoes. The whole flavor of spices will seep out through this potli in tomatoes. After boiling tomatoes, squeeze out all the juice from potli and discard it.

I have not added water while boiling tomatoes. Later, while boiling the pulp that extra water takes a little bit longer to evaporate. To avoid that, after adding chopped tomatoes in the cooker, don’t cover the lid. Keep stirring tomatoes on medium flame and in 5-7 minutes juices of tomatoes will come out. Now close the lid and let the tomatoes boil.

Not adding water is very helpful in increasing the shelf life of sauce.

For preserving the sauce, I have added only vinegar – so the sauce has to be kept in the fridge. But for long time preservation, we need to add sodium benzoate. But my personal suggestion is that rather than adding an extra preservative, we can always prepare a fresh batch of sauce. The lesser the amount of preservative in our food, the better it is!

Depending on the sourness of tomatoes you have to decide how much sugar is enough in sauce. While preparing sauce, once sugar dissolves completely, take some quantity of sauce in a bowl to taste. Now you can check the taste of salt, sugar, spices and add some more if required.

Sometimes kids are very fussy and so obsessed with market bought products that they simply refuse to eat homemade stuff. If you think that your kids will refuse to eat homemade sauce, you can trick them easily. Don’t throw away empty bottles of market bought sauce. Sterilize these bottles nicely and dry them thoroughly. Fill homemade sauce in these bottles and job done! Very soon you will be preparing the next batch of sauce smilingly in your kitchen.

I have a few more sauce recipes in the blog, can take a look at them also…Salted Caramel Sauce, Strawberry sauce ,Pizza sauce

Ingredients:

Tomato 2 kg
Sugar 1+1/2 cups
White salt 1/2 tsp
Black salt 1/2tsp
Rock salt 3/4 tsp
Ginger powder 1/2 tsp
Garam masala 1 tbsp
Vinegar 2 tbsp

Process:

Wash tomatoes nicely and cut them into four pieces.

Boil these tomatoes in an open pressure cooker without adding water. Keep stirring continuously until juices have completely seeped out of tomatoes. Now as there is enough liquid in the pressure cooker, add garam masala and dry ginger powder or the potli of whole garam masala and fresh ginger. Close the lid along with weight and let tomatoes cook until they get nicely boiled.

Once steam from the cooker cools down, open it and let the boiled tomatoes cool down. If potli of spices are added, squeeze out the juice and discard the potli.

Now grind these boiled tomatoes and sieve the puree to get rid of tomato peels and seeds.

Pour this puree in a thick, broad vessel and switch on the stove on high heat. Add all three salts and keep stirring the puree till it starts boiling. Now reduce the heat to medium and let the puree boil till it starts becoming thick. Don’t forget to stir in between – otherwise puree might stick to the bottom of vessel and that burnt smell will waste all our efforts done till now. While stirring, keep scraping the sides of pan.

Be careful – as puree starts becoming thick, it starts spluttering a lot. When puree begins to thicken, add sugar. Stir till sugar dissolves completely and you will notice that the colour of the sauce has changed and the consistency of the sauce is again thin.

Let it boil till it thickens more and reaches the consistency of thick tomato sauce. Switch off heat and let the sauce cool down completely. Add two tbsp vinegar and mix it very well in the sauce. With the help of a funnel or piping bag fill tomato sauce in sterilized and completely dry bottles.

Homemade tomato sauce or ketchup is ready to be served with sandwiches, fritters, pakode, fries, parathe wedges etc, etc…. anything you can think of !!

November 30, 2020April 20, 2022

Deeksha Pathak110 Comments

Stuffed raw tomatoes with paneer

Stuffed Raw Tomatoes with Paneer ( cottage cheese ) is a complete party dish to impress your guests at any occasion. I know – these days what guests, what parties – but still, we can give even ourselves a treat to keep spirits high! So cook these stuffed raw tomatoes with paneer (cottage cheese); but if you are not a big fan of paneer then stuff tomatoes with mixed vegetables, followed by cheese, oregano flakes and black pepper.

You might give homemade fresh paneer a try if you are fine with paneer stuffing. Naturally, I have a post on how to prepare Homemade Paneer/Indian Cottage Cheese!! As I used crushed paneer, just add vinegar or lemon juice in hot milk and milk will curdle. Sieve it, use whey for your gravy based dishes or for kneading flour and use paneer for stuffing!

Check out a few more posts for stuffed vegetables in the blog…

Stuffed brinjal/eggplant/aubergines (Bharva baigan)

Stuffed Capsicum (bharva shimla mirch)

Stuffed Brinjals/Eggplant/Aubergine

Stuffed Chilies(Bharva Hari Mirch)

Pyaaz vaale bharva karele

Ingredients :

Small size raw tomatoes 9-10
Crushed paneer 100 gm (reduce or increase as per the size of tomatoes)
Coriander powder 2 tsp
Turmeric powder 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida powder a pinch
Salt as per your taste
Red chili powder 1 tsp
Dry mango powder/lemon juice 1 tsp
Garam masala 1 tsp
Kasuri methi/ chopped green coriander leaves 2 tsp
Oil 4 tbsp

Process:

Wash tomatoes and scoop out the pulp by cutting the top. You can use pulp for preparing gravy by grinding it for gravy based dishes.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and add paneer along with all spices. Cook this mixture for five minutes and switch off the gas.

Fill this stuffing in scooped out tomatoes and pour rest of the oil in a pan and place stuffed tomatoes in the pan. If you want, can use the top cut part of tomatoes to cover them, though it is not necessary. I used them as it looks fancy to uncover them before serving!!

Remember, we have to cook tomatoes on sim heat. Sometimes, our gas burner doesn’t give very low heat for slow cooking dishes. If that is the case with your burner, just buy one extra small size pan support and use it. This helps in supplying low heat to the cooking pan.

Tomatoes will slowly start becoming tender. When we cook on sim heat then the pan gets heat only at the center, not around the edges of the pan. Keep shifting the position of tomatoes in the pan for even cooking.

As green raw tomatoes are firm tomatoes, it takes some time for them to become soft on sim heat. Once tomatoes are done, sprinkle some kasuri methi or green coriander leaves for garnishing just before serving and uncover them!!

September 12, 2020

Deeksha Pathak106 Comments

Pyaaz vaale bharva karele

Pyaaz vaale bharva karele, ek katori dahi aur garam – garam parathe bana kar koi khila de…bas, itni choti si ichha poori ho jaaye!!! (bitter gourd stuffed with onions, one bowl of curd along with hot parathe… that is all I ask!) I love pyaaz vaale bharva karele a lot. The only problem is that in Bangalore we don’t get those small sized bitter gourds so easily. This week when I was storing my vegetable deliveries in the fridge, I was pleasantly surprised to see that those small sized bitter gourds were delivered. Usually, once I finish my cooking for the day, I don’t go into the kitchen to cook anything else. But seeing those small sized karela I started chopping the onions. I wanted stuffed bitter gourd for lunch!!

Preparation is not a time consuming process if you are not peeling bitter gourd. Many people peel them and smear with salt and keep it like that for an hour or so and later wash it and continue with the rest of the process. This way a lot of the bitter taste gets washed away and probably those who don’t want to eat karela, might find it interesting to give this method a try.

But my mother never cooked karela by peeling them – so I am also used to cooking them this way. Moreover, as I don’t want all the nutrients to be washed away, I never peel them.

There is one more post in the blog on karela Karele ki Sabzi (bitter gourd)

Some more stuffed vegetables recipes :

Stuffed Chilies(Bharva Hari

Stuffed Green Masala Brinjal

Stuffed brinjal/eggplant/aubergines (Bharva baigan)

Stuffed Capsicum (bharva shimla mirch)

Stuffed Brinjals/Eggplant/Aubergines

Ingredients:

Small size bitter gourd 6
Medium sized onions 2Oil 4 tsp
Coriander powder 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder 1 tsp
Salt as per your taste
Coarsely grounded fennel seeds 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder 1 tsp
Dry mango powder 1+1/2 tsp
Oil 4 tbsp

Process:

Wash and cut bitter gourd vertically with a deep cut.

Chop onions fine.

Heat 2 tsp of oil in a pan and sauté chopped onions till they are transparent.

Add rest of the spices along with the remaining 2 tsp of oil.

Mix everything well and sauté this onion masala for 5 minutes on sim heat.

Switch off heat after five minutes and when masala cools down, fill it into all the bitter gourds.

Add remaining 4 tbsp oil in the pan along with karela. Cover the pan and let bitter gourd cook on sim heat till they become tender from all sides. In between, keep on turning them upside – down for even cooking.

Serve them with hot parathas, rotis or as a side dish for rice.

September 8, 2020September 12, 2020

Deeksha Pathak63 Comments