Pumpkin Erissery (Kerala style curry)

I made it for the first time many months ago and did not think much about posting the recipe. A month earlier I was routinely asking my daughter what she wants me to make for lunch. Its a question which comes up every now and then in my house when I am out of ideas on what to make. Imagine my surprise when she says "Amma, make that pumpkin thingy you made long back"! First of all I did not think she would remember a specific dish made once many months ago and second  I did not have pumpkin in the refridgerator. So I took a rain check on it and made her favourite pulav instead.
In keeping with this week's Thanksgiving run-up I decided to bring the vegetable home and make her favorite curry today.

Pumpkin Errisery is really simple to make and turns out into a delicious dish. I think it would be a perfect side dish and looks awesome in the middle of a spread. So make it for a pot luck or party  and get some kudos while taking it easy!

Pumpkin Errisery (Kerala Style Curry)

Servings: 3 cups
Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients 

To Boil

4 cups Pumpkin (cut into 1-inch cubes)
Salt to taste
A pinch of turmeric

To Grind

1 tsp Cumin seeds
3 Green Chillies
1/4 cup Coconut

To Temper

1/2 Medium onion or 4-5 Shallots
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Urad dal
2 Red Chillies
8-10 Curry leaves
3 tsp Oil

Garnish

2 tbsp Coconut

Instructions

1. Grind coconut, green chillies and cumin seeds to a coarse mix and keep aside.
2. Boil pumpkins in water till nearly soft along with turmeric and salt. 
3. Add the ground paste to the pumpkins and continue to cook on simmer till pumpkins are well done.
4. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and add mustard seeds.
5. When the mustard seeds splutter, add red chillies and urad dal and saute for a couple of minutes.
6. Add in onion and saute till transluscent and then put in the curry leaves.
7. Mix well and pour the tempering on top of the cooked pumpkin
8. In the same heavy bottomed vessel fry 2 tbsp of coconut till they are crisp and mix it into the pumpkin curry.
9. Mix well and serve with hot rice or chapathi

Gori Manchurian

Yes, you read it right. There is no spelling mistake in the title of the post. I accidentally made an important discovery which will come in very handy to serve a vegetable which is inherently so dry that it usually gets relegated to second cousin status as compared to beans. Cluster Beans or Gori kayi as it is called in Kannada is a thin and dry variety of beans.
I used to be an extremely fussy eater as a kid and gori kayi was one of the many vegetables that I did not like to eat. Adding to my misery was the abundance of this vegetable in the local market in Hyderabad, thus finding its way to my plate more enough than I would have liked. My mom tried to encourage me in various ways to eat more... well lets just say eat. With gori kayi she found an ally in numbers.She always told me that eating gori kayi would make me really good at math! That was a good reason for me to eat it all up although I might say that 101/100 times I might have got my numbers mixed up! I did hallucinate about pieces of gori kayi making its way up my blood vessels to the math controlling part of my brain.
Coming back to the recipe, it was a fridge clean out session where i discovered a bag of gori kayi and pizza sauce left over from last weekend. The rest as they say is Manchuristory.

Gori Manchurian

Servings: 2 cups
Prep Time: 25 mins   Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

2 cups of Cluster Beans (Gori Kayi in Kannada)
1/2 Medium sized Onion
1/2 cup Toor Dal
1/2 cup Pizza sauce
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
A pinch of turmeric
3 Green Chillies cut lengthwise
3 tsp Oil
Salt to taste

Instructions 

1. Cut cluster beans and onion into small pieces.
2. Wash the toor dal under running water, atleast three times
3. Pressure cook toor dal and cluster beans and keep aside
4. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and add in mustard seeds. 
5. When the mustard seeds splutter, add in green chillies and cumin seeds and saute for a minute
6.  Add in onion and saute till transluscent.
7. To this, add the pizza sauce and fry for a few minutes till the raw smell of tomato has gone
8. Mix in the pressure cooked cluster beans and toor dal. Add salt and continue to cook for a few minutes till the first boil.
9. This curry tastes good with roti or chapathi or plain rice. I enjoyed eating it as is!

Instant Pizza sauce

Ingredients

2 Tomatoes / 5 heaped tsps of unfavoured natural tomato paste

2 garlic pods

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp Olive oil or Vegetable oil or Canola oil

Instructions

1. Grind all the ingredients together adding 1 tbsp of water if required

Sweet Potato Curry - Spicy with a hint of sweet

Sweet potato supposedly has lesser calories, more fiber and more nutrients packed in it than the white potato. But as with a lot of vegetables the debate goes on. Debate not withstanding both the spuds are loved by my family The sweetness of the sweet potato is often off-putting for some in my family which forces us to choose the white variety many times but with the right kind of treatment the sweet potato can provide a stiff competition.
Its an easy curry to prepare and goes well with chapathis but I love it most with rasam rice. Great for the lunch box of a picky eater too.

Sweet Potato Curry - Spicy with a hint of sweet

Servings: 2 cups curry
Prep Time: 15mins     Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients 

4 sweet potatoes
1-2 tbsp Jaggery
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
4-5 Green chillies
1 tsp Cumin seeds
2 tsp Chana Dal
1 tsp Urad Dal
Few Curry leaves
1 bunch Coriander leaves
4 tsp Oil
Salt to taste
3-4 cups Water

Instructions

1. Boil the water, add some salt, turmeric and put in sweet potato halves.
2. When the sweet potato is nearly cooked add in  the jaggery and continue to cook till sweet potato becomes tender to the touch. 
3. Remove the sweet potato halves and peel the skin off and mash it. 
4. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and add mustard seeds
5. When the seeds sputter add the cut green chillies, cumin seeds, chana dal and urad dal and fry for a couple of minutes. 
6. Add in the mashed potatoes and curry leaves and mix well.
7. Adjust the salt as necessary. 
8. Switch off the stove and garnish with coriander leaves. 
9. Serve with chapathis or rice. 

Brussels Sprouts Indian Curry

This has been a week of discovery. The Indian vegetable scene is so deeply engraved in my DNA that I had no need or desire to open the door to a whole host of alien veggies. Till now that is. I am no longer able to procure fresh Indian vegetables beyond the humble beans, cavorting carrots, little peas, rotund potatoes and their cousins, the tomatoes. After endless weeks of producing magic with the same baseline, I stood in front of the veggies section at the grocery store this weekend. I looked at  row upon row of unknown vegetables for whose names I had to refer to the name tags stuck on the racks. Thats when I made a decision to start trying out the local produce. When in Rome and all blah blah. With panic and a deep sense of adventure I picked out among other things brussels sprouts, asparagus and celery.
The week was innaugurated by the cute looking brussels sprouts. Not knowing what to make with it and how they would cook, I decided to try it in the trademark Indian curry. The result was amazing with my dotzy also loving it!

Here is the recipe
What you need to make Brussels Sprouts Curry (To make for 2)

• Brussels sprouts - 15
• Onion - 1 (medium size)
• Tomato - 1 (small size)
• Kadlebele / Chana dal - 1 tsp
• Uddin bele / Urad dal - 1 tsp
• Turmeric  / Haldi - 1/2 tsp
• Mustard seeds / Sasuve - 1 tsp
• Cumin seeds / Jeerige  / Jeera - 1 tsp
• Fenugreek seeds / Menthya / Methi seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Green Chillies - 3
• Curry leaves - 6 (optional, but tastes great with)
• Coriander leaves - a bunch
• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Salt

Preparation to make  Brussels Sprouts Curry  (Time : 10 min)

• Remove the outer layer of Brussels Sprout and wash thoroughly under running water.
• Cut each sprout in half or quarter depending on the size. 
• Cut onions and tomatoes into small pieces
• Slit green chillies in half
• Chop coriander leaves

Method to make  Brussels Sprouts Curry  (Time : 30 mins)

• Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan / kadhai
• Add mustard seeds and allow it to splutter
• Add fenugreek seeds and fry for a couple of seconds
• Add green chillies, curry leaves, channa dal, urad dal, cumin seeds and turmeric and fry for half a minute
• Next comes onion which is fried till transluscent and then tomato is fried till it becomes dry.
• Add in the cut sprouts and cook on medium flame till the sprouts are tender
• Add salt to taste.

My fundas

• It looks like cabbage but tastes a little sour so the onion, tomato combination offsets this.