Mulangi Chutney or Radish Chutney

This summer we were at Dharwad, Karnataka, my hometown for my brother's wedding. It was like the old times, where each aunt made something different, some new some old recipes.

Savita Mami, a cook par excellence made "Mulagi Chutney". The best part was none of the kids knew they were eating 'mulangi' or radish. They just gulped down the chutney. I knew this was one recipe that needs mention and try.

As Mami cooks in the same way as my mom a little this and a little that, it is a little difficult to get the right measures. I have tried approximation please feel free to adjust the ingredients.

The yield is about 2 ½ cups with these measures.

Ingredients:

The green leaves of 2 radish (you can use the stalk if tender), roughly chopped

1 cup grated radish

1 small bunch of coriander (optional)

1 cup freshly grated coconut

2 tblspn oil

1 tsp mustard

2 tsp urid dal

1 tsp chana dal

½ tsp fenugreek /methi

1 tsp asafoetida

2-3 springs curry leaves

4-5 green chillies

1tblspn til/ sesame seeds

1 marble sized ball of tamarind

1 tsp sugar

Salt

Method:

1. Heat oil, add the mustard. When it splutters add urid dal and chana dal. Fry till they change colour a bit.
2. Add the green chillies, curry leaves, asafoetida, til. When these are fried a bit add the methi. (Take care that the methi does not turn black for your entire dish will become bitter).
3. Add the radish leaves and stir till the leaves are tender but not cooked.
4. Mix the rest of the ingredients and cool.
5. Grind in the mixer with a little water (if required) and serve with roti, dosa, idli.

Tip: you can use lemon instead of tamarind but make sure you finish it up fast as tamarind is a preservative.

Spring Rolls

Ever since Seema showed me a packet of spring roll wraps, I have been itching to try them out. Since I have not as yet joined office I went hunting for a packet of the wraps. Once I got the wraps it was a small matter to get the necessary vegetables.

I read 2 recipes, but in the end as usual did it my own way, as I read the first one long after my vegetables were chopped and the second because my daughter suggested baking them.

So out of the 16 pieces I made 4 got fried and 12 got baked.
Since I liked the taste of the baked once I am going to bake the rest of them when I get down to it next.

Here are the ingredients

15-20 French beans, chopped very fine
4 small or 2 big carrots, chopped very fine (you may grate them)
3 florets of cauliflower, chopped very fine
¼ of a small cabbage, chopped very fine or grated
1 spring onion greens and onions chopped fine keep them separate
1 onion chopped very fine
4-5 cloves garlic
1 tblspn ginger grated
1 tsp sugar
½ tblspn chilli powder
2 tblspn tomato sauce
1tsp soya sauce
1tsp chilli sauce
½ tsp pepper
Salt to taste
1 tblspn oil

For sealing the spring rolls:

1 tblspn corn flour
1tblspn water

Method:
1. Blanch the French beans, carrots, cauliflower separately and drain them.
2. Heat oil. Add the garlic, ginger, onion both, the onion from the spring onion and the regular onion, on high flame for 2 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir fry for 2 minutes on high flame.
4. Remove from fire and cool.
5. Thaw the spring roll wraps as per the instructions on the packet.
6. Wrap the thawed wraps in a damp kitchen napkin (it is easier to handle) and separate the sheets gently. My sheets were square.
7. Place the wrap on a plate. Put the filling in the centre of the roll; bring one corner of the wrap a little under the diagonal edge. You get a triangle.
8. Fold the two side corners towards the centre there tips overlapping.
9. Drizzle the cornflower sealant on the remaining corner then roll and seal.
10. Glaze the surface of the roll with oil if you are baking it.
11. Preheat the oven to 250ºC. arrange the roll in a borosil tray on the low rack cook on convection 250ºC for 20 minutes


P.S. You can use egg white for sealing the roll.

Vegetable Fish Curry

I am writing after a gap of more than one month. The last month we have spent getting my brother married and wedding food you know……..

Yesterday I cooked after a long welcome holiday, we would have loved fish curry and rice, the Goan staple, but since my FIL is home with us and he doesn't eat fish we had the veggie alternative. The taste was wonderful, 'awesome' as my younger kid put it.

I am sorry there are no photographs as I kept postponing the clicking and the stuff was all over.

I am however recording the process for my future reference.

1 potato, peeled cubed into 8 pieces

3 big florets of cauliflower cut

6 pieces of pumpkin

To grind:

1 ½ cup coconut freshly grated.

3 chillies (Adjust as per taste)

1/8 tsp coriander seeds

½ tsp turmeric

Lemon sized ball of tamarind

Grind the ingredients to a fine paste using little water.

In a pan boil potatoes with a little salt.

When they par boiled add the washed and drained cauliflower.

As the cauliflower is parboiled add the pumpkin and the ground mixture.

Adjust salt to taste.

P.S. I used these vegetables as these were all I had but radish, carrots, green peas etc can be used. Veggies like radish, carrots will need longer to cook so they need to go in first.

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.