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 😋😋.

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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.

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.

Moong Daal Pakode

One of the best ways for me to enjoy the chilling weather is to devour some good heavy/fatty food; and being a true Indian, Pakoras (Fritters) are always high on my winter quick-to-do list 🙂 My thinking also has a traditional angle – Marwadi households (from the state of Rajasthan) usually observe a month in winter, mid Dec-mid Jan, wherein they prepare and consume fried foods for religious reasons. Hence in order to satiate my own desire and also to be on the right side of our tradition, I am today presenting one of favourite pakore- the awesome Moong Daal Pakore.

Vegetable Hakka Noodles

Continuing my journey of experience, this is my 1st take on Indo-Chinese food – I prepared Vegetable Hakka Noodles last evening. For the benefit of all my friends, Indo-Chinese cuisine is the adaptation of Chinese seasoning and cooking techniques to Indian tastes. It is said to have been developed by the small Chinese community that has lived in the city of Kolkata, India for over a century. Today, Chinese food is definitely an integral part of the Indian culinary scene.

Paneer Masala

Paneer curry without onion and garlic – does it sound a bit weird? May be because we don’t normally get the best paneer curry without onion and garlic, isn’t it? But this is not the case with this one 🙂

Continuing the Rajasthani Delicacy series – Gatte ki Sabji

As stated earlier in my last post, we Rajasthani’s cook multiple unique curries from chickpea flour. This post covers another such chickpea flour based Rajasthani curry with yogurt based gravy, but completely different in taste to the earlier Patod ki Sabji. Honestly, this is my favourite and I am always keen to have it.

My 1st Rajasthani Delicacy – Patod ki Sabji

Being a Rajasthani/Marwadi born and brought up in Bikaner, I have always loved curry/sabjis which are made of Chickpea flour (Gramflour aka Besan). Rajasthani cuisine is famous for using lentils / chickpea flour in their food and making different and delicious vegetables curries. Though there are multiple different types of such curries, all of them are pretty unique in their own taste.