Simply Living Hardly Thinking

25 years back. We used to stay in Lucknow. Big town for us after living in much smaller cities in Uttar Pradesh. DD used to rule the air waves those days. I happened to hear recipe for this dish on TV and I thought I will give it a shot. Made the same thing again today.

Here is how I made it. It might not be the most correct way but I love it this way.

Pongal – Roast half katori moong dal in a kadhai till it becomes light brown. Take one katori of rice ( I used basmati ) and wash it and add it to roasted moong dal. Add approx 4 katoris of water, salt and some ghee to it and cook it in the kadhai. Fry half katori of kaaju in ghee and keep it separately. In a pan take few spoons of ghee and add ginger pieces, hing, jeera, mustard, pepper and kadi patta. Add fried kaju and cooked rice/dal also to it. Mix it well.

Chutney – Take 4 tomatoes and make a puree in a mixer. In a pan take some ghee. Add mustard, salt, hing and kadi patta. Add tomato puree when mustard is done. Cook for 10 mins on low flames and you are done.

Here are some visuals.

You can make this with leftover rice also. It will transform your rice to a yummy dish which you can even serve to your guests. If your guests figure out that this was made using left over rice, the lunch is on me.

So take a little bit of oil/ghee in a pan. Add jeera to it. Now you take vegetables and cut them into small pieces. Some of the things you can use are – green peas, gobhi, carrot, potatoes. Even if you have 1 or 2 of them, it is fine. Fry it well so that the vegetables get fully cooked. Add 1 katori of rice puree to this once vegetables are done. Add 2 spoons of aam ka achar with lot of achar masala in it. Use the type of achar which does not have the hard part of mango in it.  Add salt to taste. Add some water if it is too thick. Add cooked rice to this and mix it well. Have it with sweet chutney or raita.

This is Namma Bengaluru stuff, mind it.

If you are a Bangalorean, you obviously know what Congress Peanuts are. The red spicy peanuts which you get at every bakery shop across the city. If you are not lucky enough to be a Bangalorean. Here is an easy way to make it.

Take split peanuts without skin ( not even the dark brown one ) and take some oil in a pan. Add Hing ( Asafoetida ) and Haldi ( turmeric ) powder and fry the nuts nicely. Add chilli powder and salt to taste. Be liberal in using the chili powder as it should be spicy ans should look red in the end. Now your Congress Peanuts are ready. Store them in air tight container.

Now you have done all the hard work, it is easy to make what we wanted to start with. Take a bun and cut it into two halves. Apply butter liberally on both sides and fill it up with Congress Peanuts. Enjoy the yummy dish with hot filter coffee.

Haven’t you enjoyed the taste of Maggi as a kid. Here is an interesting twist to that. In our home kids love the maggi with almost no masala so we always end up with a lot of maggi masala packets. I thought it would be a nice idea to put them to use so experimented with it.

Take whatever you have out of the following at home – capsicum, carrot, beans ( boiled ), peas, mushrooms, cauli flower. Mince them in small pieces. Take a little bit of ghee/oil in  a pan and all these ingredients. Use a non stick pan so that you can fry them well without using much oil. Once all these vegetables are cooked add cooked rice to it and also add the maggi masala and a little bit of water. Mix it well. If you have soya sauce at home you might want to add a spoon of that also.

Enjoy the rice with hot and sweet sauce or a Chinese gravy dish. BTW left over rice also can be put to good use in this way.

This is the easiest salad and usually served with burgers/sandwiches on the side. Take a bowl full of shredded cabbage.  Finely mince some capsicum and grate some carrots and add it to the cabbage.  You can also add fresh herbs like parsley. Add half a bowl of mayonnaise and mix it well. Add salt to taste and refrigerate it for 30-45 mins after covering it with a cling wrap.

While serving, freshly hand grind pepper and mustard and sprinkle it on the salad. Decorate it on the plate in various shapes before serving and top it with fresh herbs.

So you don’t have time. Who does? All of us have 24 hours only.

Take 2 nice red tomatoes and chop them into fine pieces. Put 2 cups of water in a pan on gas and add these tomatoes to it. Let this mixture boil for 5-8 mins on full gas. Add salt to taste and a little bit of red chilli powder. Add some coriander leaves to this. When you start cooking, take 15-20 soya chunks and soak them in water after washing them. Squeeze the water out of soya chunks and drop it in the tomato gravy we made. You are all set to enjoy this with bread of your choice.

One variation you can try is to add boiled potatoes instead of soya chunks. Another variation is that you can add few drops of ghee before serving to give it a nice flavour.

Recepie by Avantika and Amlan

Ingredients:

5-6 medium potatoes,

2 green chillies,

2 tblsp mustard oil,

4 tblsp poppy seeds,

salt to taste,

Onion,

Kala Jeera

Cut the potatoes into one inch sized pieces, Keep them in water, Soak poppy seeds in one cup warm water for fifteen to twenty minutes.grind to a fine paste.

Heat up mustard oil, add potato pieces and stir fry on medium heat up for five minutes, (Onion) /till golden. Add the poppy seed paste, salt to taste and slit green chills. Cover and stir fry on low heat up till the potatoes are done.