Paneer, Bottle Gourd and Mint Parathas-Working Lunch Thali

When Valli was floating her idea of Indian Thali Mela I was quiet. 

That is quite unlike me. Usually I like to be in the thick of things if not doing anything else at least making a noise.

You may wonder why I was quiet. Well there is a reason no three reasons

1. Will I be able to cook an entire festive thali all by myself? I do not know why I wanted one festive thali but I wanted it. I still want to make one but

 2. Will I have eaters? For my family is one are very fussy eaters so I did not want my hard work go down the drain.

3. The most important reason is I do not know how to click it. The pictures suck.  

So I decided to let the festival go by. But I hate failures or giving up before I try so I decided to try. I would love to see your comments on improving my pics.

Doodhi Halwa or Bottle Gourd Halwa

I have already talked about my family lack of sweet tooth so many times that you must be all bored. But that does not stop me from trying out new recipes or reinventing the old ones now that I have found appreciative ‘Bakaras  & Bakaris’ at work!! :)

For Duserra I decided to make Doodhi Halwa or as it is known as in Goa “Konkan Doodhi Halwo”! 

Now Doodhi or bottle gourd has a lot of health benefits (check here) as     Ramdev Baba has kept telling us so hubby dear has stopped grumbling when I buy it. Thanks a lot Baba because of you I have tried many ways of including this veggie in our diet masking it many a times.

Believe me I have used it in Thalipeeth, Pav bhaji, Kofta, Paratha, even tried chutney!! Now the girls have stopped guessing what I am upto.

 I have it the day Apeksha will decide that she wants to learn cooking the cat will be out of the bag and I will tumble like nine pins! Guess each dog has its own day and I have had mine.

Kheer/Payasa with Dodhi/Bottle Gourd & Sago

I have brought a bottle gourd. It was the smallest and the tenderest one the bhajiwala had but was still big enough to fill to big Tupperware boxes when cubed. I made bhaji once but then since I wanted a change I decided to make kheer/payasa.

This could also be because the boys in the opposite cubicle at work were discussing how make kheer out of bottle gourd. They, very authoritatively told me 2 methods one the regular with milk and another with coconut milk. They were insiatant that I use sago or sabudana which I never use.  I am sure both don’t even know where the kitchens at home are but their passionate cooking without flame here in office made me make this kheer,  With milk will try the coconut milk one later. I was supposed to carry it to work but I plain forgot. It’s still in the fridge. 

The ingredients used are approximate.

Ingredients:

1 cup bottle gourd, peeled and cubed to fine pieces

1 tblspn ghee

Few cashew nuts

2 tblspn sago or sabudana, soaked in ¼ cup water

½ cup sugar

¾ litre milk

4 elichi/ cardamom

Few strands of saffron (optional)

Method:

1.       Heat a steel bowl on the gas. When it is hot switch off the gas and drop the saffron strands in it. The strands shrivel add a tblspn or two of milk and keep aside.

2.      Heat the ghee and fry the cashew nuts till golden. Drain and keep aside.

3.       In the same ghee add the bottle gourd and stir fry till the cubes are translucent.

4.       Add the milk, soaked sabudana with the water and bring to boil. Boil till the bottle gourd is well cooked.

5.      Add sugar and continue boiling for a few minutes.

6.      Add the cardamom powder, saffron strands, cashew nuts mix well and switch off the gas.

7.      Serve hot or chilled. Plain or with chapatti or poori.

Sending this to  Radhika's Let’s Cook ~ Scrumptious Breakfasts

Mom Chef's event (Vrat ka Khaana) 

Koftas

I had read in Praia’s Easy N Tasty Recipes here that she had used milk powder and used the paniyaram pan for making koftas. Now paniyaram pan is a new word for me so I googled and found that it meant the pan that we use to make what is called in Kannada as gundpangala or appe in Marathi.

I quite liked the idea and Priya is one of the most innovative cooks that I have had the good fortune of meeting. It stuck; I had to try t out.

Paratha

Paratha with Egg Chat

Paratha

As I said we had EGG CHAT and PARATHA today.

 For PARATHA today I used

2 cups grated bottle gourd/dudhi/ hala kumbalkai

1 tsp coriander/ dhane/ havija powder

2 tsps cumin/jeera/jeergi powder

1 tblspn sesame seeds/til/ yelu

½ tsp haldi/turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

GRIND TOGETHER

2 green chillies

1 small tomato

1 small onion

Some coriander leaves

1 tblspn oil

4 cups whole wheat flour

Salt

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together.

Make small balls using a little dry flour roll out the ball to make a thick paratha about ¼ inch or even less.

Put on a heated tava and roast on both the sides till light brown on both the sides.

Serve hot with curds, boondi raita and tomato chutney or egg chat.

Dhudhi Halwa

Pappa had brought Dhudi in Marathi /Hal kumbalkai in Kannada / Lauki in Hindi/ Konkan dhudhi in Konkani/bottle gourd in English. The maid had peeled and grated it, yesterday, hence so very simple to cook in the morning it was about ¾ kg grated.

Since I did not have khawa /mava /phedas in my store all, better known as the fridge, I boiled ½ litre of milk in a khadhi till it was reduce to half.

Besides this I used

2 cups sugar

1 tblspn of ghee

A handful of cashew nuts

Elichi powder

First squeeze out the excess liquid out of the grated gourd put in a kadhi in which you have heated ghee.

Fry the dhudhi till it is slightly cooked then add to this the reduced milk, sugar, cashew nuts and cook until the milk has evaporated and the mixture is a homogeneous mixture . the whole thing should take 20-30 minutes.but keep stirring else it might burn a bit.

(At this point I became quite bored of stirring the mixture so I put it in the microwave for 10 minutes it was quite dry so I suppose 6-7 minutes is okay).

Add elichi powder and mix well.

Serve chilled.

P.S. Next time I will not add the cashew nuts and try making parathas out of them.

Mixed Vegetable

I have picked up dudhi or bottle gourd and every one is quite reluctant to eat it. The other day I made tahlipeeth out of it (it tasted great). Today this was my experiment on my unsuspecting victims. The vegetable smell good I will get the review from my critics in the afternoon. Though I have used the vegetable that I had a lot of others like mushrooms, corn kernels will taste good.


1 onion chopped fine
1 tomato
4 cloves garlic crushed
1 cup grated dudhi
1-2 florets cauliflower chopped in to small florets
1 capsicum chopped fine
½ tblspn oil
½ tblspn schzwan sauce
2 tblspn tomato sauce
Salt
Cheese for garnishing

Heat oil, add garlic. When the garlic becomes brown add onion fry till translucent.
Add tomato, mix, cover and cook till pulpy. Add the dudhi and cauliflower cook under cover for about 2 minutes. Add the capsicum, sauces and salt. Garnish and serve with chapatti. This can also be used as a filling for toast sandwiches or pizza.