Avial

This is a dish from Kerala and the motivation to make this dish came from a situational problem faced by chefs - many times we are left with just one or two vegetable of a kind that is not sufficient to make a poriyal or curry or anything. When you have, let's say, 2 carrots, 1 banana, 1 drumstick, a small bit of pumpkin and 10 beans, what do you do? Bingo... enter Avial!!

AVIAL - (Time Required: 30 minutes) - Serves 2 people

Ingredients (Veggies marked as * are mandatory. Rest are for additional look and feel)

Carrots* - 3

Beans - 200 grams

Raw Banana* - 1

Drumstick* - 1

Pumpkin - 200 gms

Coconut - 1 cup

Jeera - 2 tsps

Salt - To taste

Coconut oil - 2 tsps

Sour curd - 1 small cup

Bay Leaf (Pattai) - 2 small pieces

Saunf (Sombu) - 1 tsp

Modus Operandi:

Grind the coconut and jeera with 1 cup water into a fine paste and keep it aside. Cut all the vegetables into long pieces of 2 inch length. Add 3 cups of water to the vegetables, salt to taste and boil them in a pressure cooker for about 15-20 mins. Once the vegetables are cooked, heat oil in a broad pan and add the bay leaf and saunf to it. After the saunf stops bubbling, add the vegetables and coconut paste and stir well without mashing the vegetables.

Cook for 5 minutes and then add 2 tsps of coconut oil and sour curd to the vegetables. Stir and cook for 2 more minutes and then switch off gas.

Goes well with: Rice and dal/sambhar/rasam/curd.

Start Cooking!

One of the many things that people don't know about me is that I cook fairly well :)! I can hear all the noises of disbelief... but trust me.. when you have tried some of the recipes that I am gonna post here you can't wait to get more. So put on your apron and start cooking...!!!

I would like start with my most favorite dish - Rasam! Whether it is common cold or chronic sinusitis, nothing works better than a hot mug of rasam. It is called by different names in different places - from tomato charu in Hyderabad to Mulligatawny (literally "milagu thanni" in Tamil which means peppered water) in Mumbai. With the recipe below, you can start surprising all your friends who love south indian food - let's get started!

RASAM (Time required: 20 minutes) - Serves 2 people

Ingredients:

Tamarind - 1 lemon size

Ripe Tomatoes - 2

Coriander leaves - for garnishing

Curry leaves - 5 to 6 leaves

Mustard seeds - 1 Tsp

Jeera - 1 Tsp

Asafoetida (Perungayam) - 2 pinches

Garlic - 4 pieces

Green Chillies - 1

Pepper powder - 2 Tsps

Dhaniya powder - 1 Tsp

Turmeric powder - 1 Tsp

Salt - to taste

Modus Operandi:

Soak the tamarind in 2 cups of water until it becomes so soft that you can easily squeeze it. Remove the pulp/seeds from the tamarind juice and take the cleared juice in a deep vessel.  Add 2 more cups of water. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze them into the tamarind water. There is no need to peel the tomatoes - just squeeze them along with the pulp and skin into the vessel containing the tamarind juice. Wash the coriander leaves, cut them into small pieces and add it to the mixture. Ground the green chillies and garlic in a mortar or just crush them using a heavy bottomed table spoon and add the crushed mix to the tamarind mixture.Add salt to taste, 2 tsps of pepper powder, 1 tsp of dhaniya powder and a pinch of turmeric powder. 

Heat oil in a tawa and add two pinches of asafoetida. When it starts bubbling, add mustard, jeera and curry leaves. In about ten seconds, add the tamarind-tomato mixture to the tawa. Ensure that you dont let the pan overheat unless you want to see flames-on-pan. Let the concoction boil for about ten minutes. Once you start getting the aroma, switch off the gas. Add a few more corinader leaves to garnish and serve the rasam hot.

Goes well with: Rice, dal and ghee with potato curry or appalam. Also a hot drink on a cold or "cold"-hit day.