Eggplant Bhaji

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Pakoda - Bhaji is quite famous in Maharashtra. All weddings must have these, when guests are invited, you have to have this item. Its been quite long time since we had bhaji so i decided to make them on Monday but decided to give it a twist. Given that eggplant is so easily available here i thought why not use it. The experiment was quite successful so here is the recipe.


Ingredients
2 Cup diced Eggplant
1 Onion
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Cup Besan
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix in diced eggplant, diced onion, chilli powder, besan, turmeric powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, finely chopped coriander leaves and salt to taste. Add in some water to make the paste.
• Heat oil. Add couple of spoon of oil to the paste and mix well.
• Take a small lemon sized ball from the paste and flatten it a bit
• Fry on medium heat till done on both sides. Serve immediately

Notes
Normally i would wait around 5 minutes after mixing all ingredients but before adding water. The salt with all the veggies secrets water so if you wait your paste doesn't end up loosing consistency later on while you are in the middle of frying.

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Lauki Kofta

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Ajoy just loves lauki kofta so much so that he asks ma to make it every time we go to pune. Till last year, that did work out especially since we visited pune atleast each month. But after coming to Redmond, one thing I am sure Ajoy and me too missed was Ma's special Kofta. So this time when we were in india we did ask her to make it quite frequently but the recipe is so good that eating it once in a year doesn't satisfy the taste buds. So after I got the recipe from her, today I made it on valentine's day. Guess my gift to Ajoy :)


Ingredients
3 Cup Bottle Gourd
1 Cup Carrot
1.5 Cup Besan
3 Spoon Corn Flour
2 Onion
2 Tomato
2 Cup Curd
4 Spoon Sugar
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1 Green Chilli
1/4 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Raisins
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate bottle gourd and carrot and mix well
• Heat oil and add in jeera. Let it sputter
• Add in grated bottle gourd and carrot and mix well.
• Cook well stirring occasionally till the mixture dries up completely. Keep aside to cool down.
• Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
• In a mixie add tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt. Grind well.
• Add in cooked onion and grind to smooth paste. Keep aside
• In the bottle gourd and carrot mixture, add besan, corn flour make soft dough
• Prepare small balls with cashews, raisins and green chilli pieces in the center of them.
• Fry the koftas in oil to brown color and keep aside.
• In a pan add the grinded paste, 3 cups of water and let it simmer for 5-6 minutes till gravy attains consistency.
• Add in koftas and simmer for another few minutes. Take of the heat
• In a bowl, mix in curd, sugar and chaat masala.
• While serving koftas, add in the kofta with the gravy, add curd and then garnish with grated carrot and some cashew pieces and raisins

Notes
Instead of carrot you can use raw banana as well.

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Mung Daal Wada

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

After a long time, I thought of trying out something from my so called 'bible' - a cookery book gifted to me during wedding :) This recipe though not exactly similar but is inspired from there. It is easy to digest yet spicy enough to enjoy, making it a good breakfast.


Ingredients
1 Cup Mung Daal
2 Spoon Besan
6 Garlic Cloves
1 Inch Ginger
2 Green Chillies
1 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A Pinch of Eating Soda
Salt
Oil

Method

• Soak Mung Daal in water for 5-6 hours
• After the mung daal is soaked, add garlic cloves, ginger, green chilies and jeera to the mixer with couple spoon of water and grind to rough paste
• Add mung daal without water in it and grind the paste
• To this paste add in besan, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and eating soda and mix well
• Heat oil in pan and fry small quantites of the paste we preapred earlier to get crispy wadas

Notes
Recipe had some more items like coconut, onions, curry leaves etc to be added but I think I liked this way better. It went really well with the coconut chutney

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Onion Bhaji

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I prepare these kind of bhaji very few times as I always loved those Crab style bhajis more than these. But when I felt like eating these last weekend, I prepared them and turned out quite well.


Ingredients
2 Onions
1/2 Cup Bason
1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Finely chop onions and add the salt to it. Keep aside for 5-10 minutes
• Add Bason, corriander leaves- finely chopped, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, jeera powder and mix to form the paste. Add water if needed.
• Heat the oil in a pan, and add a spoonful of it into the paste.
• Mix the paste well and fry the Bhaji's of small size to crispy brown colour.

Notes
I normally apply salt to onion and keep aside as that helps in seperating water and then the paste doesnt loosen after some time.
Since I add the heated oil I dont use eating soda, heated oil is good enough for giving crispiness

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Palak (Spinach) Pakoda

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

It been more than a month since I prepared this but due to all sort of logistic issues in moving out of hyderabad I got little busy and couldnt post the recipe even though I had clicked the photos. So today I am going to post all 5 recipes that were pending. New ones will come as and when I try them :)


Ingredients
1 Bunch of Palak
1/2 Cup Bason
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A Pinch of Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Wash Palak leaves and keep aside.
• Mix bason, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt to taste with water to form a paste
• Heat oil in a pan
• When its slightly warm, add a spoon of oil into the bason paste.
• When oil is hot, dip the two palak leaves at a time in the bason paste and add it into the pan and fry the pakoda on the golden colour
• Repeat for remaining leaves

Notes
I used smalled leaves of palak and the pakodas turned out amazing. Especially the palak was crisp and tasty because of its freshness and tenderness.
Also I dipped two palak leaves at a time so that the pakoda has its taste and still not too much of spinach which wont get crisp.

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Kofta Curry

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Whenever we get bottle gourd, ajoy has this demand of Koftas and so yesterday was the day when I obliged and made it for him. Here is the recipe.


Ingredients
4 Cup Grated Bottle Gourd
1.5 Cup Bason
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Aamchur Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Corriander Leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste

Method

• Apply salt to the grated bottle gourd and keep aside for few minutes.
• Squize out water from the bottle gourd and mix bason, 1/2 spoon jeera, 1/2 spoon red chilli powder, garam masala, aamchur powder
• Prepare lemon sized ball out of this mixture and deep fry them in oil over low-medium heat. Keep aside
• Heat little oil in a pan and let the jeera splutter.
• Add the finelly chopped onion and garlic paste and cook till golden brown
• Add turmeric powder, remaining red chilli powder, corriander powder and salt
• Add tomatoes and cook well. Add water and bring to boil. Once the tomatoes are cooked well keep the mixture aside to cool down a bit
• Put the mixture into the mixie and grind to fine paste
• In a pan add this grinded mixture, enough water to make running gravy and koftas and bring to boil
• Garnish with corriander leaves and serve

Notes
I tried to keep the kofta spicy and gravy very less spicy so that one can enjoy koftas rather than gravy. You can vary it to your taste though

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