Methi Mangodi

I bought some mangodis for the first time two years ago. The store manager of the supermarket where I picked it up was really nice and he even told me how to cook the stuff. I have not really made the dish he told me about, but I liked the fact that he took the trouble to explain stuff to me. One day, I shall blog about his recipe.

When it comes to trying out new Gujarati or Rajasthani food, I always stick to my favourite. I picked this recipe from Tarla Dalal's Rajasthani Cookbook. I modified it to suit my taste and we had it for lunch with chapatis. Here I am, sharing this wonderful recipe with all of you.

According to Tarla Dalal (www.tarladalal.com): Mangodis are sun-dried grape sized dumplings made from soaked and ground moong dal or sometimes from urad dal. Due to scarcity of vegetables, the ingenious Rajasthanis use different forms of pulses to whip up healthy and tasty meals. Mangodis or moong dal badis are often used to rustle up several tasty and mouth-watering recipes.

1 bunch Fenugreek Leaves, chopped
1/2 cup Mangodi, crushed
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin Seeds
1/2 tsp Ginger Paste

1 tsp Chilli Paste
1 tsp Coriander Powder

1/4 cup Milk
1/2 cup Curd, beaten
1 tsp Sugar
4 tbsp Oil
Salt to taste



Heat the oil in a pressure cooker and add the cumin seeds. When the seeds crackle, add the ginger-green chilli paste and stir for a minute. Add the mangodi and fry for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the fenugreek leaves and fry for 5 - 7 minutes. Add the coriander powder, milk, curds, sugar, turmeric powder, salt and ½ cup of water and bring to a boil while stirring continuously.


Pressure cook for 1 to 2 whistles or until the mangodis are soft and cooked. Serve immediately with rotis.

Gatte ka Saag

I have spoken endlessly about my love for Rajasthani food. In my post on Mooli Moong Dal, I shared with my plate of Dal Bati Churma that S brought back from Jaipur. While a Rajasthani thali usually has Gatte Ki Kadhi, the one that he brought had Gatte Ka Saag.


I knew, at first bite, that I just had to make this dish at home. After all, once you’ve gotten past the Gattas, there’s precious little that you need to do in order to get this dish ready.


(And I have some news to share: I found Dal Bati Churma in Dilli Haat when I took my parents shopping. So now I know where to go.)


Here is the recipe I used to make Gatte ka Saag at home.


For the Gattas:

3/4 cup Bengal gram flour
1/2 tsp Chilli Powder

1 tsp Fennel seeds

1/8 tsp Ajwain

1 tbsp Curds

2 tbsp Oil

Salt to taste

For the gravy:

2 Onions, ground to a paste
1 tsp Ginger Paste
2 Tomatoes, blanched and pureed
1 tsp Oil

1/4 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Chilli Powder

½ tsp Turmeric Powder

1 tsp Coriander Powder
¼ tsp Garam Masala

Salt to taste
Coriander Leaves for garnish

For the Gattas:

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and knead into a firm dough using as little water as necessary. Divide the mixture into eight 3 inch long cylinders.


Heat plenty of water in a vessel and cook the gattas for 8-10 minutes in boiling water. Drain and cut the gattas into half inch pieces.


For the gravy:


Heat oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the onion paste and ginger and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the salt, coriander powder, chilli and turmeric powders and fry for a minute. Add the tomato puree and fry until the oil separates from the mixture. Add ¼ cup of water and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the cut gattas. Add the garam masala and take off the flame. Garnish with the chopped coriander.


This dish tastes great with rice and dal. I haven’t eaten it with chapattis, but I’m sure it would be lovely. Since this keeper recipe has the wonderful taste of fennel, I'm sending it to Ivy of Kopiaste as she hosts Think Spice... Think Twice this month.

Mooli Moong Dal

I discovered Rajasthani cooking in a big way last year. It was really thanks to RCI Rajasthan. The real Rajasthani food that I love, I can’t even think of making it at home. I’ve reconciled to the fact that I am better off eating my beloved Daal Baati Churma(in picture below) at a restaurant, most likely the LMB in Jaipur.

I will never understand why Bikanerwala doesn’t think of serving any Rajasthani food. You get the same rotis, paneer, chaat and tandoori food. Not to forget Pizza, Noodles and ChopSuey. Even idli, dosa and uttapam. But nothing remotely Rajsthani.


I discovered that some dishes are perfect for me. They are ready in no time, have very few ingredients, are very tasty and pair equally well with rice and rotis. Here is one such. It is very similar to a kootu.


1 cup White Radish, peeled and diced
½ cup Moong Dal
2 Cloves
1 Bay Leaf
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
¼ tsp Cumin Seeds
1 tsp Green Chilli paste
1 tsp Ginger Paste
¼ tsp Asafoetida
1 tsp Oil
½ tsp Chilli Powder
2-3 tbsp Coriander Leaves, chopped
Salt to taste


Heat the oil in a pressure pan. Add the cumin seeds, cloves and bay leaf. When the cumin crackles, add the asafoetida along with the chilli and ginger pastes. Add the chilli powder, moong dal and the radish. Add 2 cups of water with the requisite salt and cook for 2 whistles.


When the pressure is released, open and add the coriander leaves. Mix well.


I am glad to have found one more way to use radish. We had this with some rotis, but I am very sure it would pair well with rice as well.

Gawarfali ki Sabzi

This summer I resolved to try out the summer vegetables that show up in every market I visit. While I always ate all vegetables and cleaned my plate without as much as a whimper, there are vegetables that I dislike. Tinda is one of them. But I bought it, made it, and guess what, ate it too. Likewise, I bought cluster beans and yard long beans, snake gourd and bottle gourd, and everything else that summer threw at me. What worried me was the fact that if I didn’t make certain vegetables, I could no longer retain my title of “not-at-all-picky eater”. Moreover, if and when I have children, I figured my likes and dislikes should not govern their meals. If I forget about a certain vegetable over time, by the time I have children, I might have erased memories of some vegetables from my brain completely. Now that I have a blog, I can cook these vegetables, enjoy them in different ways and save them here for eternity.


Cluster beans (known as Gawarfali in Hindi, Mitkesaang in Konkani, Kotthavarangai in Tamil, Mattikaya in Telugu) happen to be the variety of beans that takes the longest to cook. Appa’s grandmother used to call it, “Avasarathukku edhiri” (loosely translated as the enemy of emergency/urgency). I have learnt that the best way to cook these is in my pressure cooker. Amma cooks them in advance and freezes them so that she can use them at a moment’s notice.


I came across this recipe in Tarla Dalal’s Rajasthani Cookbook and modified it immediately and set to work. (My system is not ready yet for the heat of Rajasthani food and given some health problems I had recently, I am sure it never will be.) It helped that I’d cleaned, strung and chopped the beans earlier. This can be really time consuming otherwise.


2 cups Cluster Beans, chopped, pressure cooked and drained
1 cup Curds
1 tbsp Gram Flour (Besan)
1 tsp Chilli Powder
½ tsp Coriander Powder
1 tsp Oil
¼ tsp Mustard Seeds
¼ tsp Asafoetida
½ tsp Fennel Seeds
Salt to taste


Beat the curds with the gram flour, chilli powder, coriander powder and salt. (A friend recently told me to use the blender to get the perfect texture while beating curds rather than use a whisk.)


Heat the oil in a kadhai. Add the mustard and asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the fennel seeds. As soon as the fennel crackles, add the curd mixture and bring to a boil over low heat, while stirring continuously. Add the cooked cluster beans and cook for another 5 minutes.

We had this with rotis for lunch and I know I will make it again next summer. For this summer, I have several other recipes to try out with this vegetable.

Masala Tinda

I've gone on tirelessly about how I eat all vegetables and how I am not a fussy eater and all that. And I feel sorry for all of you for having believed me all this while. There is one vegetable that I actually "hate". No, it isn't bitter gourd. But it is a gourd nonetheless: the round gourd. This is more popularly known as Tinda. I ate this once some 9 years ago at someone's house in Bangalore. Everyone at the lunch table seemed so excited that Tinda was on the menu. I hadn't eaten Tinda before and I really did eat everything at the time. And so I did. I hated it. Good upbringing made me finish everything that was on my plate and I politely declined further helpings. A few months later, I moved to Gurgaon. Tinda featured in every menu during the summer that followed. Since I "had" to eat vegetables (I've always preferred eating vegetables and dal to rice), I would end up with Tinda on my plate. And when I moved back south, I was happy to get rid of this vegetable.

Now that I am back in Gurgaon, I have let one entire summer go by without as much as even looking at Tinda. But my colleagues kept telling me that it is really a tasty vegetable when made well. So, despite my hatred for this vegetable, I bought some and made this dish last week. It wasn't intended as an entry to any event, but merely as a means of trying out a new vegetable. But since I found this recipe in Rajasthani Cooking by Tarla Dalal and adapted it, this is off to Padmaja at Spicy Andhra as my fourth entry to the RCI Rajasthan - Flavours of the Desert event.

2 cups Tinda, sliced

1/4 tsp Asafoetida
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tsp Chilli Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
1 tsp Dry Mango Powder
2 tbsp Oil
Salt to Taste

Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the asafoetida and the Tinda slices. Add the turmeric powder along with a little water. Cover and cook for a few minutes until the vegetable is cooked.

Add the spices and the salt and mix well. Cover and cook again for a few minutes.


Have my feelings towards this vegetable changed since? Not really. But I know it is tolerable now and with time and a few more experiments, I will be able to incorporate this otherwise sorry vegetable into my regular menu.

P.S. Tinda lovers: Please do not take offence. I am looking for ways to relish the vegetable. So, please help.

Aloo Ki Subji

My cookbooks form a big part of what I'd consider my most prized possessions. And I have talked earlier about the lady I think of as my foster mother. My interest in cooking was shaped almost as much by her as it was by my own mother. Today, her cookbooks are far easier to use and the recipes seem uncomplicated. I don't know if the books have changed or I have.

When a recipe appears to be simple, I am tempted to try it. I also like using a variety of ingredients in my cooking so that the taste seems different each time. While earlier, I'd cook a certain vegetable a certain way, now I am more than willing to check out new methods. Potatoes are not a regular feature in my kitchen. Incidentally, the day we happen to make potatoes is the day my mother in law will specifically ask S what we ate. As soon he tells her, I'll get a lecture on how we should cut down on potatoes. To her, it is almost as though we eat only potatoes everyday. Irony!

I made this dish a few weeks ago. It is adapted from Tarla Dalal's Rajasthani Cookbook. I sometimes wonder if I might actually buy a book on Saraswat Cooking if she authored it. There is a certain amount of faith I place in her recipes and that faith has been built over years. Again, I modified the recipe to suit my bland palate and I was not disappointed. The dish turned out to be so like the one in the picture that I couldn't resist clicking the two together.

4 Potatoes, boiled, peeled and cut into wedges

1 cup Curds, beaten

1 tsp Bengal Gram Flour

1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Fennel Seeds

1/2 tsp Nigella Seeds

1 Bay Leaf

2 Cloves

2" Stick Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

1 tsp Cumin Powder

1 tsp Coriander Powder

1 tsp Chilli Powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder

1 tbsp Oil

Salt to taste

Coriander Leaves for garnish

Whisk the curds with the gram flour, chilli powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder.

Heat the oil and add the mustard, cumin, fennel and nigella seeds along with the asafoetida. When the mustard seeds crackle, add the bay leaf, cloves and cinnamon and fry for a minute. Add the curd mixture and bring to a boil over a low flame. Add the potatoes and salt. Bring the entire mixture to a boil. Garnish with coriander leaves.

This wonderful recipe adapted from my "foster mother's" cookbook on Mother's day is off to Padmaja at Spicy Andhra as my third entry to the RCI Rajasthan - Flavours of the Desert event. Paddu, I hope there are no limits to the number of entries. Happy Mother's Day All.

Arbi Ka Saag

For a long time, I knew of 3 ways in which I could make Arbi (Colocasia). I could make Seppankizhangu Fry (Deep Fried), Seppankizhangu Karumadhu, and Seppankizhangu Mor Koottu. All Tamil dishes. So, I'd buy the vegetable only if I knew I was going to make Sambar sometime soon. I never thought I could make a side dish to go with rotis.

When I came across this recipe, I was a bit skeptical about how well it would pair with rotis given how dry it looked. I was pleasantly surprised when not only did I think my lunch was great, my colleagues kept picking pieces off my plate, and S called from work to say, "You should make this more often!"

As with most Rajasthani recipes here, this is also adapted from the Rajasthani Cookbook by Tarla Dalal.

250 g Colocasia (Arbi/ Seppankizhangu), boiled, peeled and quartered

1/4 tsp Carom Seeds

1/4 tsp Mustard

1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder

1 tsp Chilli Powder

1/2 tsp Coriander Powder

Juice of 1 Lime

1 tsp Oil

Salt to taste

Oil for deep/shallow frying

Shallow fry or deep fry the arbi pieces and keep aside.

Heat the teaspoon of oil. Add the carom and mustard seeds. When the mustard splutters, add the fried arbi pieces, turmeric, chilli and coriander powders, salt and lime juice. Mix well.

Serve hot with rotis.

I deep fried as I made it in the morning when I was short of time. I didn't want to shallow fry then as it really is time consuming. This is off to Padmaja at Spicy Andhra as my second entry to the RCI Rajasthan - Flavours of the Desert event.