CRISP HOT DAL VADAS

Tucked away in the bylanes of Delhi's crowded Inderpuri is a Tamil colony and market complete with a Malai Mandir, Tamil provision shops, vendors selling jasmine flowers and also the customary Amma flashing her twinkling nose pins selling vadas/bhajjis. Sick of the samosas with a piece of paneer tucked away in the pointed end sold in the snack shops we often used to cycle down to this Amma for her hot vadas and bhajjis and tomato chutney. After consuming what would qualify as a hillock of vadas and bhajjis, washed down with a huge glass of cold refreshing Shikanji( a syruppy, sodaey, limey, salty drink) from the pot-bellied Sardarjee in the main market; cycling back to the hostel used to be quite an ordeal. 

The evenings here have been a bit chilly and windy ...ideal for fried stuff with ginger tea.:) Hence these dal vadas or masala vadas. 

 WE NEED

1. 1/3 cup urad dal
2. 1/3 cup channa dal
3. 1/3 cup arhar dal/ tur dal
4. 1 onion finely chopped
5. 2 green chillies finely chopped
6. 5-6 curry leaves
7. 1/2" ginger grated
8. 1/2 tsp garam masala
9. Salt as per taste

 LETS GET GOING

1. Mix all the dals and soak them for about an hour

2. Drain the water and leave in a strainer for about 10 minutes

 3. Grind the soaked and drained dal roughly. There should be visible   pieces of dals in the mixture.

  4. Finely chop the onions, chillies and grate the ginger. 

5. Add the chopped onions, chillies, ginger and curry leaves to the dal mixture. 

6. Add the garam masala and salt and mix well.

8. Shape into flat cutlet like vadas.

9. Heat oil in a pan and fry the vadas in low heat till crisp and golden  brown.

10. Serve hot with tomato chutney. 

LOVE AT FIRST BITE

I never really liked Kachoris till I bit into one of these Jhodpur's famous pyaz ki kachoris along with those culinary bombs called mirchi vadas washed down with a HUGE (believe me when I say huge) glass of sweet lassi. They were hot, spicy and out of the world. Later on someone directed me to a shop in Dehradun's Ballipur chowk where they made these pyaz ki kachoris (almost close to the pyaz kachoris of Jhodpur) every sunday and thus began my weekly trysts with pyaz ki kachoris. After moving out from Dehradun I have yet to find a shop which sells these kachoris so I tried and tested and failed several times and have now come up with something close to those Jhodpur kachoris.

 

WE NEED 

For the Kachori dough

1. Maida/refined flour 2 cups
2. 1/2 tsp salt
3. 4 tbs ghee/oil
4. 1/2 cup water

For the Kachori filling

1. 3 large onions (chopped)
2. 5 green chillies (chopped) You can reduce or increase the number of chillies acording to the degree of spiciness you prefer.
3. 1 tsp Kalonji/Kalo jeera/nigella seeds
4. 1 tsp sauf/fennel seeds
5. 2 bay leaves/ tej patta
6. 2 tbs dhania powder
7. 1 tbs garam masala
8. 1 pinch Hing/asafoetida
9. Salt to taste
10. 2 tbs besan powder/ gramflour
11. 1 tbs oil

Oil for frying kachoris

LETS GET GOING

1. Mix the maida, salt and ghee till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
2. Add water and make a dough.
3. Cover and keep. 
4. In a pan heat 1 tbs oil, add the bay leaves, hing, kalonji and sauf.
5. When the sauf becomes brown add the chopped oinions and fry till the onions turn pink.
6. Add the chopped green chillies, besan, dhania powder, garam masala and salt. mix well and cook for 5 minutes on a low flame. 
7. Divide the dough into balls (depending on what size you want your kachoris. I make mine into tweleve lemon sized balls). 
8. Stuff the dough with the onion filling and shape into kachoris.
9. Deep fry on a low flame till golden brown.
10. Serve hot with sweet tamarind chutney, pudina chutney or tomato ketchup.

 

 

murukkus for my mama..

My Saila Mama (third maternal uncle) has recently developed severe gluten allergy which means he is off wheat totally. The other day we were all enjoying hot nimkis with tea when Mama remarked with a woebegone face that tea and nimkis used to be his favourite snack. So I thought of making murukkus for him which would also be savoury and crisp (similar to nimkis) but most importantly not having any wheat. I hunted for an old wooden murukku press (inherited from my grandmother) which had not been used since her death  and got into the business of murukku making. I could not handle the three star nozzels of the murukku press so they turned out to be rather large ones...but the taste was very good for a first time murruku maker.
Needless to say I have a very happy Mama now cruching away his murrukus to glory. :) 

WE NEED

1. Par boiled rice 1 cup
2. Urad dal 1/2 cup
3. Salt to taste
4. 1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds)
5. 1 tsp roughly ground pepper corns
6. 1 tsp white seasame (til) seeds
7. Hing (asafoetida) 1 pinch
8. 3 tbs unsalted butter
9. Oil for frying

LETS GET GOING

1. Soak the rice overnight. Drain properly and grind with the help of little water (about 1/4th cup) to a smooth paste.(the paste should not be too watery.
2. Dry roast the urad dal and grind to a powder.
3. Mix in the jeera, salt, hing and seasame seeds with the urad dal powder.
4. Mix this powder into the ground rice paste add the butter and knead into a dough (similar to that for making rotis). 
5. Heat oil in a kadai.
6. Put small amounts of the dough into the murukku press and prees out murukkus into the hot oil. Fry till golden and drain.
7. Store in an airtight container. 

 

DEONARAYAN, DHARMENDRA AND DALMOTH

I am going to talk about the good old days once again when one rupee was a luxury. I mean you could get so much from the wayside shops on the way to school. 50 paisa worth aloo thukpa was enough for two, churan was just five annas a piece (the round ones), suntala mithai, kalo mithai, peppermint drops were all five annas a piece and not to forget the huge khochi (newspaper cones) of piro channa, mattar and dalmoth. I specially remember dalmoth as you really dont get dalmoth anywhere else specially in newspaper cones. It used to be spicy, tangy and really smelly as it used to be salted with rock salt - birey noon or padhey noon(fart salt) as some called it and it did smell like someone around had a bad digestive system.The best ones were those that made you sick later - which were full of chilly powder and rather red. After eating the dalmoth licking the hands carefully, finger by finger was another ritual in itself.

Deonarayan bhaiyya, the grocer near our house sold the dalmoth. His stock was kept in a big tin and he carefully measured out 50 paise/one rupee worth portions in newspaper cones while we would coerce him to add some more. And the most fascinating thing were the faces of film stars stuck on his tins probably from some old magazines - Smita Patil, Mithun, Raj babbar, Sree Devi, Jaya Prada, Jeetendra etc. Films being restricted in my house the photographs were an added attraction, in fact I came to know many of the film stars from my visits to this shop with a lot of help from Deonarayan bhaiyya himself. The last time I visited home I saw that his shop has transformed into something different. Gone were the bright blue wooden walls and the shutters hammered out of old tins and painted a deep green, in its place was a concrete structure painted a staid colour with a glass and steel STD booth added near it. I didn't have to go in to find out if the tins were still having posters of film stars were still around. Deonarayan bhaiyya's shop had changed and I guess after a few years it will inch its way to become one of those unfriendly self service shopping places where you walk around with a trolley and be serviced by a bored attendant at the cash counter.

Here is my recipe for dalmoth, it isn't as good as the original but then you don't fall sick with this.

INGREDIENTS

250 grams split chana dal

100 grams peanuts

2 cups oil

2 tsp powdered rock salt

1/2 tsp pepper powder

1/2 tsp roasted cumin(jeera) powder

1/2 tsp chilly powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

LETS DO IT

Soak the chana dal in water for 2 hours.

Drain the water and spread the dal to dry in shade for a day.

Heat oil in a kadai and fry the peanuts and keep aside.

Fry the soaked and dried dal in the oil on a low flame till it turns crisp and golden.

In the last batch of dal you fry add the turmeric powder just before removing from flame.

Mix all the powders, peanuts and salt in the fried dal and mix well.

Let the mixture cool before packing it in an airtight container.

Finger licking, plate licking, puniu licking, kadai licking...only way to describe aloo thukpa

This is a typical street food from Darjeeling. Ask anyone from Darjeeling and she/he will soon be raving about a stall selling aloo thukpa nearby. It is basically boiled noodles flavoured with raw mustard oil and potatoes in red slurpy hot gravy and sold in newspaper squares or bauhinia leaf plates (the gravy sodden newspaper/leaf plate is invariably licked by the consumer). Many a times the gravy is too red with food colour replete with carcinogenic properties and the dishes selling them are uncovered and who gives it a thought. Ask all those who remain aloo thukpa fans even after repeated bouts of jaundice, diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid etc. Here I have tried to recreate the magic of aloo thukpa sold near my house in a kitchen thousands of kilometers from home.

INGREDIENTS
2 large Potatoes
4-5 cloves of garlic (coarsely crushed)
3 tbs red chilly powder
1 tbs Turmeric powder
3 tbs wheat flour
Salt to taste
2 cups Water
3tbs mustard oil
Boiled noodles – 1 small packet
LET’S DO IT
Boil the potatoes, skin and cut each into eight pieces
Heat oil in a pan and add the crushed garlic.
Add turmeric powder, salt and wheat flour when the garlic turns golden and fry.
Mix the chilly powder in water and add it
Put in the boiled potatoes, cover and simmer for five minutes.
Take off from flame and keep covered for 10 minutes.
Add 1 tbs raw mustard oil to the noodles and toss well.
Serve the aloo with the noodles. Be sure to drench the noodles with the gravy.