Sambhar

Continuing my focus on South-Indian delicacies, this post today covers another quintessential dish of South Indian cuisine – Sambhar. Sambhar is a nutritious dish made up of tuvar/arhar daal (types of lentils) and mixed vegetables. You can use your own choice of vegetables in the Sambhar and make it healthy as per your preferences. I have made the Sambhar Masala Powder at home too, so that we have our own healthy Sambhar ! South Indian households consume Sambhar nearly everyday; it is served with  idli, dosa, rice, vada, upma etc.

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Paneer Butter Masala

Paneer Butter Masala is one of the most popular paneer recipe in the Indian cuisine. In fact, this could be stated as the 1^stpaneer based item that started the usage of Paneer in Indian kitchens. As the name suggests, it is a spicy paneer curry made in butter. The optimum use of butter, spices, tomatoes and cream makes this curry simply delicious and mouth-watering. In line with my own way of healthy eating (but no compromise on taste), I have replaced the cream with milk and cashew nuts.

Chickpea-Kale Leaves Curry

My health-freak husband, as you all know it 🙂 , bought a whole lot of green vegetables over the weekend for a cleansing/detox diet. However, since I did not do it with him this time 😉 , his diet also went out in 1 day 😜 . As a result, I had much greens in my fridge. So, I picked some of them last night and turned out a super healthy and tasty curry – Chickpea and Kale leaves curry.

Mirch Ka Salan

Exploring the amazing taste present throughout India, I am today presenting a very famous recipe from the region/city of Hyderabad – Mirch Ka Salan. This tasty recipe is made from green chillies, peanuts, coconut, sesame seeds and some freshly grounded spices. Mirch is the Hindi word for chilli and Salan in Urdu language (local language in Hyderabad) refers to curry. Mirch ka Salan is thus a spicy and tangy green chilli curry. I have prepared this Mirch Ka Salan in a slightly different manner, as compared to the traditional style, but it is still toothsome 😋😋.

Kadai Paneer

Kadai Paneer is perhaps the best full-blown paneer dish made – in my humble opinion 🙂 This classic results from an apt combination of paneer (cottage cheese), bell pepper (capsicum), onion, tomato and some of our great Indian spices. This whole dish is prepared in a Kadai/Kadhai (Indian wok) and so the name Kadai Paneer (but I have made in a pan ;P ). It is a simple recipe but with amazing taste, and one which is generally available in almost all Indian restaurants. I believe my use of freshly grounded spices has made a huge difference as I have got the same flavour as that of a Kadai Paneer from a top-end restaurant.

Rajma (Red kidney beans curry)

Rajma (red kidney beans curry) comes from North India, specifically from the state of Punjab, and is omnipresent in eateries of all shapes and sizes. Rajma is essentially the Hindi name for red kidney beans. Rajma curry is prepared using a spicy onion-tomato gravy. People generally prefer this curry with rice as a quick bite, as evident from the consumption of Rajma-Chawal (Chawal is the Hindi name for rice) in Northern India.

Matar Paneer

Matar paneer is the most common form of paneer dish available in almost all Indian restaurants – big or small. It is a delicious curry made from soft Paneer (Cottage Cheese) and Matar (Peas) in a mild spicy tomato curry. It is a very simple, quick, tasty recipe which seems to be is loved by everyone. Today I have made Matar Paneer with only 1 tsp of oil but there is absolutely no compromise in taste and colour.

Rajasthani Bharwan Mirch (Green Chillies stuffed with Chickpea flour)

Getting back into my Rajasthani mould 🙂 , this post presents another speciality from the desert state – Bharwan Mirch. Yes, this inadvertently continues to spread the best of Rajasthani cuisine as I simply cannot resist myself to share more and more speciality of my wonderful Rangeelo Rajasthan ;). For the benefit of all, “Bharwan” in Hindi means stuffed and “Mirch” means green chilli; essentially it is a side dish, made up of green chillies stuffed with spicy chickpea flour mix. Do note that the green chillies used are the long, thick green ones as they tend to be less spicy than the regular small,thin green chillies.

Kadhai Matar (Spicy Green Peas Curry)

Going by my darling daughter’s favourites, and to ensure that she eats without much fuss, I try to use Matar (Peas in English) in most of my curries. On these lines, Kadhai Matar (Green Peas curry) is a very quick, easy, nutritious and a real tasty curry. This triggered last night in my kitchen when my little angel asked me as to what I was preparing; I posed a question to her instead asking what does she wants. And the reply was “I want to eat Matar” 🙂 The usual Matar Paneer immediately came to my mind, but I was in not really in the mood to eat Paneer; and thereby the idea came to me to make a Matar/Peas only curry – and here I present the output as “Kadhai Matar”.

Spinach Kadhi / Kadhi Palak (spinach curry with yogurt sauce)

For all my global friends, Kadhi (it is a Hindi word) is a spiced yogurt sauce thickened with Chickpea flour (gram flour/ besan). It is quick and easy comfort food in India, which is also very light, healthy and tasty. I have gone ahead and combined this light beauty with the more nutritious Spinach (Palak in Hindi), resulting in Spinach Kadhi. I am sure there are some people who may not like to have Spinach on its own – this could be one of the ways of getting this group to eat/like Spinach 🙂 ; I have already covered another way using Spinach Parantha,  Spinach Kofta Curry.

Dana Methi ki Sabji (Fenugreek seeds Dry Curry)

This is back to basics for me – as this dish (again) comes from my native state of Rajasthan 🙂 I am sure all of us are aware of Fenugreek seeds (or Dana Methi in Hindi). However I am not so sure if this particular recipe has ever moved out of Rajasthani households; I say so as even my beloved hubby, a staunch Rajasthani, was not aware of this. Perhaps the bitterness of these seeds may have stopped people from experimenting with it. But that stops now, with this post 😉

Black Chickpea Dry curry (Kala chana)

This post is based on one of my favourite – Black Chickpea (Kala Chana) – and I love both the gravy and dry curry versions. I always prepare this dry curry, along with Semolina-Wheat flour pudding, for serving Goddess Durga on the 9th day of Navratri.

Dhaba Style Daal (Daal Tarka)

Lentils are generically termed as Daal in India (in Hindi language). My Papa and my hubby are absolute daal lovers. Most of the times they only require just daal and chapati as their staple diet – they don’t even need any vegetable curry. And for this reason, I am always experimenting with different daals to satisfy their palate.

Cucumber Curry (Kheere ki Sabji) – now that’s unheard of

Most people use cucumber in salads and/or in raita (dip).  I was also part of this group till marriage. I was introduced to this curry for the 1st time at my husband’s place. I have to admit it – it was a lovely surprise to see cucumber in curry form; and it was indeed tasty and, a quick one to turnaround when in hurry.

Green Peppers with chickpea flour (Besan wali Shimla Mirch)

For the benefit of everyone, Pepper is also popular as Bell pepper or Capsicum. This Post is based one of my Mumma’s hit dish – she used to cook green peppers with chickpea flour so perfect that whenever she was cooking them, our neighbours would call in to demand some for themselves; they used to state that the aroma was simply irresistible.

Tomato-Peas Curry (Sabji)

Most people use tomatoes to make gravy; some also use them as a (minor) component of any curry or a chutney. However I have used tomatoes as the main part of today’s post – the tomato-peas curry. It is a very quick, super easy and lovely sweet / spicy curry. My hubby loves this curry so much  and so I always make this curry as a mains not as a side 🙂

Gujarati Kadhi : A kadhi with a difference

Kadhi is a yogurt gravy with a little bit of chickpea flour, tempered with some spices. There are different versions of kadhi in each and every state of India – Gujarati kadhi, Punjabi kadhi, Rajasthani kadhi etc.