simplefoodsforcomplicatedpeople

  A simple dish that is filling, tasty and is ready in no time. We call it MuTke मुटके, similar to muthiyo. It literally means shaped using the fist - Mutthi. I have used dudhi/lauki in this. You can use coriander, methi leaves, cabbage, sweet corn, carrot anything. I grated a 5 inch long piece of lauki. Added salt, dhania-jeera powder, a pinch of sugar, amchur, green chilies, 2 tablespoons curd. Mixed it all well. Lauki releases a lot of water so you need to quickly add the flours. I have used 2 tablespoons of besan and some jowar and ragi flours. I guess you can use any flours. Make a soft dough. And make small mutke. You can make balls, or small patties too. Steam them like Dhokla. In a large pan, make a tadka of oil, mustard, asafoetida and sesame seeds. Once the seeds splutter, add the mutke whole, or you can chop in small pieces. I added turmeric to the tadka as i had forgotten to do so to the dough. Stir well. You can deep fry the mutke as well. Or eat without any frying at ...

Khichdi is a favourite dish in most of India, especially for dinner. Every family has a different recipe. It is easy to cook, can be cooked with the fewest of ingredients; or can be enhanced with vegetables or different spices - depends on your mood, availability of ingredients, and the time. I usually cook it directly in the small pressure cooker that I have, but sometimes I also make it in a kadhai, with water and some weight on the lid. Today I cooked it in a container in the pressure cooker and then added tadka to it. Take half a cup of rice and half a of cup moong dal - either only yellow, only green or a mix of both. I took only the yellow one tonight. I have taken a pan which I put directly on the stove later. Add 3 cups of water, salt and turmeric. Cover and cook in a pressure cooked. Once the cooker is cool enough to open, take out the pan. Check the consistency. If you want it softer, add some water and cook for 2 minutes till everything is mixed well. Make a tadka of oil, ga...

  A simple dinner. But it needed some prep time. Raw banana fries, tomato saar, rice. For the fries, peel the raw bananas, cut in half. Then make 3 or 4 slices length wise. I took 4 bananas for 3 of us. Sprinkle salt, red chili powder, turmeric, and asafoetida on the chips and coat with hands. Set aside for at least half an hour. Shallow fry in oil. For the tomato saar, cut two tomatoes in half, add some water and cook in the pressure cooker. I cooked these when I put the rice in the cooker. Once a little cool, blend with a hand blender or you can use the mixer wet jar. Pour in a sauce pan, add a cup and a half of buttermilk. Add a slit green chili, one or two crushed garlic cloves, salt, and sugar if you like. Bring to a boil, but see to it that it doesn't overboil, else it splits. You can add one tablespoon of rice flour for thickness, this also prevents it from splitting. Give a tadka of ghee and jeera. Add coriander leaves. Raw bananas are rich in vitamins and fibre. We eat the...

I love pancakes. The Indian version of it. Called dhirdi in Marathi, chila in Hindi. It is similar to a dosa or uttappam, but not made with fermented batter. Actually for me, it is one of the quickest meals I can cook without much preparation. The main ingredients for these dhirdi are rice flour+besan+rawa. You can decide the proportion, you can drop any of these and add some other flours - nachni/ragi, jowar, corn, wheat, even oats. Make a thick batter with water, add about two tablespoons of curd or half a cup of buttermilk. This should be Idli batter consistency. Now, let your creativity take over, or whatever is leftover in the fridge! I had half a cup of spinach sabji leftover from lunch. I put that in the mixer jar, added lots of fresh coriander leaves and some stems, ginger, garlic, green chilies. Made a paste and added to the batter. I tasted it for salt, as the sabji had some salt. Added salt and some turmeric for colour. Let it rest for an hour. (You can make the pancakes imm...

Sunday evening, and like everyone else, I am thinking 'Oh, it's Monday in a few hours!' So I wanted a quick dinner but felt like having something to munch too.  Then I remembered that 3 rotis were left over from lunch. Cut them into 6 pieces each and deep fried. Sprinkled some salt and jeeravan. Yummiest side dish was ready. Made soup in the soupmaker. Made big chunks of 2 beetroots, two tomatoes, one onion, one carrot, and some ginger-garlic. Added salt & pepper and water. All went in the soupmaker and the soup was ready in 20 minutes flat. Plain white rice was good enough with this.

Another simple Sunday lunch. Carrot-tomato koshimbir, AmTi or Daal, Yam/Suran sabji. Poli-cum-  bhakri. Grate one carrot, chop one tomato. Add some crushed groundnut if you have, or fresh coconut. It's okay if you don't have any. Add salt, add sugar if you like. Mix well. Give a tadka of oil-turmeric-mustard-asafoetida. Add a green chili to it. Squeeze some lemon juice. Add fresh coriander if you have. Mix well.  For half a kg Yam - Cut yam in squares. Soak in water with one or two pieces of kokum or tamarind to get rid of the sourness. Chop one tomato and one onion. In a pressure pan or pressure cooker, make a tadka of oil, mustard, turmeric, asafoetida. Add the tomato and onion and saute till they are almost cooked. Add the yam pieces, salt and garam masala. Add a tablespoon of water and cook for one whistle. Check if yam is cooked, most often it gets cooked in this much time. Add coriander if you like. For the poli-bhakri 1/3 wheat flour, 2/3 nachni/ragi and jowar flours. K...

ताकातला पालक aka spinach in buttermilk. I love this type of spinach, goes well with both roti and rice. Whenever I cooked it in BC times, I carried rice also in the tiffin. Clean and chop spinach leaves. Cook in the pressure cooker for one whistle. I usually add peanuts and chana dal in this, it tastes good and adds proteins too. If you want to add, soak a handful for 2-3 hours. Cook in the pressure cooker but in a separate container. Once cool, add a spoonful of besan to the cooked spinach and mash well. Then add buttermilk. Add the peanuts. Salt, sugar if buttermilk is sour. Some goda masala or garam masala. This is not supposed to be a spicy dish so use garam masala in moderation. Boil it only till the besan is cooked. Give a tadka of mustard, asafoetida and chili powder. Stir and serve. You can top it with a tadka of crunchy garlic and a dry red chili. In the small plate is the syrup from the mango murabba I made, have added lemon juice to it. We call it Sudharas, one of my favou...