Quick Betroot curry

I am fond of vegetables and love to cook them in a healthy way with minimal oil.So here's a recipe if you love veggies like the betroot and love cooking in less oil.
Ingredients:

• 3 Large beetroots
• 1 teaspoon Urad dal
• 2 Dried Red chillies
• A pinch of Asafoetida or hing
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds or rye
• 1 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste
• 3-4 teaspoons of shredded cocunut

Procedure

• Wash the beetroots well and place them in a microwave container with water to cook them.Cook on the microwave for 6-8 minutes till it is tender enough to chop
• Cut the boiled beetroots into small pieces.
• Take the oil in a kadhai or fry pan.Add mustard seeds and urad dal and the red chillies.
• Once the mustard seeds crackle, add a pinch of hing to the oil .Once the urad dal has become brown in color ,add the chopped beetroot and salt .Mix well.
• Add the shredded coconut , mix and cook for 2 mins
• Serve hot.Tastes best with rice and rasam or sambar

Crispy and quick dosas

Dosas have been my favourite from childhood.But the tedious process involved in making the batter dettered me from making dosas at home.
My aunt ,Lakshmi , who has been in the US for abt 25 yrs now taught me a simple way and I am going to be indebted to her for sharing with me this delicious and fast process in making my favourite dish.
Ingredients

• 1 cup Urad dal (For more number of dosas you can have more urad dal, but maintain the proportion of urad dal and rice flour to 1:3
• 3 cups Rice flour
• 2 tbsps methi seeds
• A fistful of Rice flakes/poha

The batter

• Soak the urad dal along with the methi seeds in water overnight.
• The urad dal swells well overnight. The next morning ,grind the dal and methi seeds.While grinding the dal, add a fistful of poha/rice flakes.The poha makes the dosa nice and crisp.
• Once the dal has been ground, add slowly 3 cups of rice flour, stirring it to avoid lumps.Add as much water as you feel to get the desired consistency.
• Leave the batter of rice flour and urad dal to ferment for about 10 hours.
• At times the batter ferments and overflows from the vessel so make sure to keep a plate beneath the container.
• Once the batter has fermented for about 10-12 hours, add salt and water if needed and make delicious crispy dosas on a hot pan or tava.
• Server with sambar and coconut chutney.

Yummy Pav Bhaaji

Being in US for 6 months , I have been craving for one of my favourite dishes- Pav Bhaaji.
I decided to try it out this weekend, since I had seen my mom make it at home and it came out yummy.
Ingredients:

• Chopped vegetables: potatoes,peas,cauliflower,capsicum.
• 2 medium sized onions
• Tomato paste of 2 large tomatoes
• Pav Bhaji masala
• Half cup butter(Amul butter gives a wonderful flavour)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic(optional)
• 3-4 small green chillies
• Water
• One Lemon

Procedure

• Cook all the vegetabled in a pressure cooker.Give about 4-5 whistles so that they are completely smashed
• Separate the water from the veggies after steaming and keep the water aside for use in the gravy.
• Smash the vegetables with a large spoon or pav bhaji smasher.
• Add 3/4 of the butter to a sauce pan.Finely chop the garlic and chillies.After the gets hot add the garlic, chillies and chopped onions and fry till the onion gets golden brown.
• Add the tomato paste and let it fry till the butter oozes from the sides of the gravy.
• Now add the smashed veggies.
• Add 2 cups water.
• Add 3 spoons pav bhaji masala and salt.Add half a teaspoon of chilli powder.
• Let the bhaji cook for 10 mins.
• Add half a lemon and stir well.
• Garnish with corrainder and add the rest of butter.
• Serve hot with roasted pav or bread.

Delicious coconut sambar

I started cooking only 1 year back and sambar is one dish I have mastered ,courtesy my mom.
There are two versions of sambar and the first one is the one in which a fresh paste is made and the second one is one in which you use sambar powder (previously made).This post is about the former which is with coconut paste.
For the paste
Roast in oil:

• 2 tbsp chana dal,
• 3 tbsp dhaniya seeds(corrainder seeds)
• 1/2 tbsp methi seeds
• 5-6 red chillis.
  Grind the above with one cup fresh/packed shredded coconut and a little water.

The sambar

• Cook 1.5 glasses of tur dal in a pressure cooker.Give 3-4 whistles so that it is totally smashed.
• Take 2 tbsps oil in a pan/kadai.
• When it is hot, add to it one tbsp rye/mustard, 1 tbsp methi seeds, 1 tbsp urad dal, 1 red chilli.
• After mustard splutters add chopped vegetables for sambar.Approx 2 cups. You can add radish if you want radish sammbar or for vegetable sambar add potatoes,capsicum,carrot,onions all cut in medium sized blocks.
• add tumeric, salt and chilly powder to the veggies and let it roast for 5 mins.
• Meanwhile in a big pan add a spoon of tamarind extract dissolved in 300 ml of water.Chop 2 small tomatoes and add to the water.
• Add half spoon chilly powder,half spoon tumeric powder and salt to the water. Add the roasted vegetables and the paste too.
• Let the water boil .Once the vegetables are fully cooked in the tamarind water, add the steamed dal.Add dal according to the consistency of sambar you desire.
• Once the sambar has boiled garnish with corrainder and serve hot with steamed rice :)