KARELA ONION FRY WITH METHI AND RED CHILI SEASONING ,(Bitter Gourd and onion fry)

Karela ( bitter gourd) and egg plant are the few vegetables I love to eat . This dish I had to cook today to please a semi-foe . ( In my previous blog, I had said I had 4 types of foodie or cookie friends, they are friends, semi friends, semi foes and foes. ( I am not giving the classification criteria here,,,but all my blog-foodie friends have one classification..they are friends only because, no matter what I cook, they always end up with saying , drooling, awesome , cant wait to eat etc etc ) 

Coming to eating Karela, I recall, when my elder daughter was 2 years old, she used to eat peeled raw karela ( like Cucumber  salad) with salt, pepper and green chilis, with eyes and nose running...when she would finish, she would throw a big tantrum demanding more...But when she started going to school , she gave up eating Karela because she learnt from her classmates, that bitter was bad ( obviously learnt from parents that any thing bitter was bad). So that was end of her raw Karela eating , but she loves crisp fried Karela rings, with hot rice , salt, ghee and green chilis smashed into it. The point here is , God did not tell us ( or coded it into our brain)  that  sweet or sour was good, bitter was bad taste. We learnt it from others..The perception of taste or all perceptions like feel, smell, sound , sight etc ( the Indriyas)  is given by God. We define good or bad as the society guides us.... 

THE RECIPE

It is just a simple Karela and onion fry with a tempering of fenugreek and red dry chili. Only difference is, the Karela is added before.

INGREDIENTS

Karela ( bitter gourd) 300 gms ( about 5 medium ones) 

Onion 2 

red dry chili 3 broken

Fenugreek seeds 3/4 tsp 

turmeric 3/4 tsp level

Oil 2 tbsp

PROCESS

Wash and cut the Karela to 25 X 6-8 mm  pieces. ( Cut the Karela into 25 mm cylinders and take out long slices, with part of the white flesh,  leaving the core and the seeds. ( no need to scrap or peel).

Wash with water, drain and salt, keep aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze the Karela and take out. ( Salting and washing doesn't reduce the bitterness)

Slice onion and keep aside.

Heat oil and give seasoning of fenugreek and red chili, When the seeds change color, add the bitter gourd .

Keep frying the karela, until some pieces become brown and the volume is reduced to half.

Add the onion and turmeric . ( If you love chili HOT, add red chili powder) 

Stir fry and add 4  tbsp water, mix, lower flame to minimum and cover.

When the water is gone , add green chilis and stir fry on high heat.

Take a bite and adjust salt. When the ingredients are fried and become brown reduce heat to minimum, stick the material to the wall of the Kadhai and allow the oil to drain to the center. ( Do this if you are a health freak and believe that oil fattens and the rice and wheat ( carbohydrates) do not ). Or let the oil mix with the dish. 

Remove form the Kadhai, eat with hot rice or roti....

The Himalayan Blog
I have posted few photos and words at my Indian Himalayan Blog, have a look, you may like it.
http://ughosh.blogspot.com/2010/09/sheraghat-on-saraju-river-like.html

WHITE PEAS GHUGNI from Kichu Khon

The blog-sphere is full of this dish called Ghugni and in its many forms. It is mainly made from Chhole ( chick peas) or Matar (white pleas). Matar is  the matured form of green peas we eat.

My problem has been, I rarely succeeded in making this.  The reason is, no matter how I try, it becomes over boiled most of the time and the only option is to through the mushy stuff. ( Of course I made some dishes with the rejected stuff sometimes.)

So this time I again tried with Matar, just a little quantity. Great tips came from Sahrmila and Deepa too  on boiling the peas. The taste of a very simple Matar  ghugni has been lingering in my mind for decades. I got it at Sahrmila's blog. The recipe suited me. It did not require any elaborate preparation of spices. So I did not have the risk of throwing the spices along with the over boiled Matar.

So friends, if you want to take an excursion from our spicy cooking world , try this. The faint aroma of the Matar, coupled with the nice aroma of ginger, cumin  and red chili will give you a great satisfaction. There is no riot of Ginger, garlic, onion, tomato, chhole masala , garam masala et al) 

Please see the details at Sharmila's blog.

I am just giving you some idea here with a little suggestion on variation.

INGREDIENTS

White peas ( Matar) 1 cup

cumin 1 tsp

red chili dry 2

chopped ginger or Julienne 1 tbsp 

turmeric powder 3/4 tsp.

Cooking oil 1 tbsp ( Mustard oil or any other).  I have used 2 tbsp Ghee (clarified butter )

Sugar 1  tsp ( for taste and not for sweetening )

Green chili ( optional. I have added few, I like lot of green chili)

PROCESS
Soak the white peas in water overnight or for 4-6 hrs ( Sharmila has recommended about 1/2 hour, but I had already put it for soaking )
Heat oil / Ghee and add cumin seeds and red chili , don't brown.
Add soaked peas, turmeric, salt and fry.
Add green chili and ginger, sugar and mix.
Add 3 cups of water and pressure cook to 2 whistles, which was 2 1/2minutes. The Matar was not done . So I pressurized for another whistle . Total time under pressure was 41/2 minutes. It was done. I shall use this timing next time.
After opening the cooker, adjust water by adding a little or boiling off.
The taste and look was perfect except that, in my excitement  I forgot to focus the camera and the camera was not in ladies' mode :-)

Of course you can garnish chopped  onion, green chili, lemon juice and coriander leaves after serving on a plate.

If you find the taste is too bland, dont worry, just proceed from here with the usual ones,i.e. onion garlic, ginger, tomato, spices etc etc.

My ultimate destination is to make Mangso ghugni ( Ghugni with small pieces of red meat and befitting spices).

Deepa of Hamaree Rasoi gave me useful tips, " It is very difficult to predict exact boiling time...as the peas vary in their grade, moisture content etc. So it is always better to under cook, check and reboil..experienced people who cook these often, generally make it right in one go. "

If you want to cook this, please read the original recipe 
This awesome recipe is taken from Sharmila's blog   http://kichukhonn.blogspot.com/2008/05/ghoogni.html

VENICE IN WINTER ON A RAINY DAY

VENICE is like a dream..and I am posting few photos and experience on demand from my friends ( some foodie foes also) . March is the   worst  time to visit Venice , but I did not have much choice. The Feb was busy with Venice carnival and I did not have enough money to visit during carnival.  So I and Sunny ( see Cinque tere and Begamo blog) decided to go in March with Mrs and Mr. Rajaraman , my colleague.

Being a reasonably lazy person I always excused ( Hypocrisy) myself out from seeing places. So Sunny and I framed a strategy, decide a place where to go, and book ticket. These tickets are not refundable, so we had to go and in the bargain saw beautiful places of Northern Italy. You can see my earlier blog here on Bergamo and Cinque Tere..( More to come on lakes).

Milano is connected by fast and passenger trains to all places in Italy. So one fine morning we set out to see Venice. ( Venice is there in my blood because I spent many days in 1998 on some official work on main land and used to stay in Venice and commute.)

So here are some photos ..it is pretty depressing beacuse of the rain and cold....but who will post cloudy Venice photos ? So you can treat these as rare ha  ha .

We took a train from Milano Centrale in the morning and were in Vencie by 10-40 AM.

It was cloudy , drizzling and the temperature was 5 deg C.

We got out of the station and my colleagues posed for a photo in front of the Grand canal. (Hummmm, no one took mine :-( ) I liked the big advertisement in the back drop....so took the photo quickly

(NOTE: PLEASE CLICK EACH PHOTO TO ENLARGE AND ENJOY THE DETAILS, I HAVE POSTED REASONABLY HIGH RESOLUTION PICS.)

In front of Venice station, with my colleagues,Sunny and  Mr. Rajaraman and his wife   (the Canal Grande in the back ground)

I love big hoardings, and always try to take photos of hoardings.. See the  picture above and you will know from where I captured this photo at 10X zoom..so very unrealistic.

In front of the Venice station, you get ferry (water bus) to travel through the grand Canal. Always buy a whole day ticket for about 18 Euro and you can make as many trips as you want. A single ride will cost about 6 Euro.

We boarded the Bus for the main destination," San Marco's Basilica", which is an hour's ride. The bus crisscrosses the canal to pick up or drop passengers.

Here are the photos taken from the water bus on the grand canal.

The Austrian bridge, 1st of the 3 bridges (Old ones) as you proceed down the canal

View of buildings along the Grand Canal ( The yellow bordered jetty on the right is a bus stand)

The Academia Bridge ( 2nd one)

The most famous Rialto Bridge 

Rialto Market 

The end of the Grand Canal, to the right is the "Basilica di Santa Maria dela salute"

We got off at San Marcos stop and proceeded towards the Besilica of San Marco.

We are now walking through the Piazetta San Marco ( Piazza San Marco is different)  to the Basilica of San Marco and the Piazza.To the right is the Doge's palace and Basilica in front

Piazzeta San Marco
This is the Lagoon side entry, photo  taken from the Basilica, to the left is the Doge's palace and to right is Biblioteca Marciana. The famous twin pillars representing Marco and Todaro are at the water front.

Campanile
Make it a point to go up the tower and have a look. We didn't have time . I had gone up the tower earlier, need to fish out the photos with bright sunshine.

Basilica San Marco
This is the Jewel of Venice, the most beautiful piece of architecture with breathtaking mosaics and interiors. The whole Venice was depressing due to cloud cover and lack of sunshine. You must see the night view. The view is obstructed due to maintenance of structures!

View of Mosaics in the Basilica ( Click to enlarge )
At the entrance

Few other mosaics ( click to enlarge)

Piazza San Marco

It is in front of the Basilica. Also called as Courtyard of Europe by French Poet and the tourist hot spot..very good eating joints, shops etc. You can see, even on a rainy day , tables are laid out. If I had time , I would have sat down with a bottle of wine and some tit bits.

Walk around

We just strayed around the narrow lanes full of souvenir shops, eateries. I bought few standard ones like famous Venice masks and few magnetic stickers for the fridges of friends.

The small masks at a shop window

While walking around, I was delighted to see a Sardarji family on the Gondola, who waved at me 

The Gondola ride.

Gondola ride is expensive ( for me, but worth it) at 150 Euro for one hour and 6 persons. We took a ride, I mean the Gondola man took us for a ride. It was really nice and memorable. 

In the picture below, we are entering Rio di Palazzo. This place was used for off loading straw (the place is called Ponte della paglia (straw) ) . Walls on both sides are covered for maintenance..,,to the left is Doge's palace and to the right and at the backside is the famous prison. Beyond the bridge in front, you can see another bridge, which is called Bridge of sighs.

The bridge of sighs

The white bridge connects the court to the prison on the right. The walls are  now all covered, so have a look at internet to see how it looks. Many people think that the name has come from lovers who failed in their affair and used to sigh, standing on the bridge. ( How Bollywoodic and romantic!!!! I wish....ha  ha ).  This is not true. The sighs were of condemned prisoners, who might be seeing the outside world for the last time,( while crossing over to the prison.)

More pictures from the Gondola

The famous fish market on Grand canal ( from the Gondola), going  to the Grand canal is part of the deal)

Back to the Gondola staring point and the famous Island San Giorgio Maggiore in the back ground

Now it was time to get back and we stopped for few minutes at 
Santa Maria

Dela Salute

That famous statue at Santa Maria ( The one below , not the one above, thats NO ONE of SOMEONE)

Bye Bye Venice
At railway station ( Train at 18-20 to Milano Centrale, just enough time for ice cream )

NOTE: 

Dear friends

Venice is well publicized on the net. You get all the information there, and much better Photos and description and guidance, to visit. I am just sharing what I saw.

I am running short of recipes to post ( because I am cooking from my treasure which I dug out from your food blogs, thank you, for this favor). I am planning to add the word "TRAVEL" to my blog tittle .

Happy cooking and exciting travel too....

WARNING, MALWARE

Dear friends

I can't reach most of your blog..Every time I am trying, Google sends warning that the site has malware due to  scripts running from "en.petitchef.com". This may high-jack many of your data without your knowledge.The link itself may not be injecting  the malware, but it might have been infected by 3rd party without their knowledge.  I could inform some of my friends by e mail , who have removed the link en.petitchef.com and I can reach their site.... 

As a general precaution dont post anonymous. 

All comments must be posted after your approval.

Dont click a link coming via email or on blog.

Even if you receive a link from a known friend , don't click. 1st ask if he or she had sent the link. ( Many times it happens, that your friend's email address book has been hijacked and you receive mails from the hijacker as if it had come from your friend.)

When you send mass mail, try to put all address in BCC.

Well I  dont have much idea about these net business, and wont be surprised if I get into malware or spyware trap.

Happy cooking and happy blogging.


Here is a photo of lake Como, Northern Italy..wait for more 

UCHHE (KARELA) CHA-CHADI WITH POTATO AND BODI AND A PATOL ( PARMAL) SIDE DISH

This dish is exclusively for my Vege and Vegan friends, Jain friends and temple dish friends...(Non veges are also permitted to cook and eat ).

The other day SOMEONE demanded an explanation " When most of your Blog friends are vegetarian, why do I see that you are publishing non-vege dishes all the time, entertaining the minority , non vege friends??? Now get down to business and give some vege dishes which you cook every day...". But I am not allowed to give an explanation even if it is demanded. What best I can do or expected to do is to follow it as a command , else I will be barred from entering the kitchen for few days to months, depending upon the degree of the offence. It is like going to jail.

So I am giving 2 dishes at one go. The 1st one is a traditional Bong dish, I love to eat. The 2nd one is a southern fusion, experimental dish. It came out very well.

RECIPE , UCHHE CHA-CHADI 

There are many versions of this recipe, one can use few other vegetables. I will be using Potato and BoDi ( Udad dal dumplings, dried and stored). The flavor comes from the seasoning of Panch PhoDon and dry red chili. Bit of mustard paste , turmeric are added and at the end 1 tsp of mustard oil.

INGREDIENTS

Uchhe ( Karela, bitter gourd) 3 ( about 8 inch long) , cut to 1 inch long and 1/4th inch thick slices. ( leave the core)

Potato 1 large, cut to 25-30 X 8mm X 8mm pieces ( approx) 

BoDi small 12 No or large 6 No

Mustard powder 1 heap tsp , slurried in water with 1 level tsp turmeric. ( you can use 2 level tsp mustard paste) and 1/2 tsp chili powder ( optional). NOTE. It will be quite tasty even if you don't add mustard paste , so don't worry , if you don't have or don't eat Mustard paste)

Green chili 2-3

for seasoning 

Panch PhoDon 1 tsp ( if you don't have this , use 1 tsp of Methi seeds,  Fennel and cumin mixture.

Dry red chili 1 

salt 

Mustard oil 2 tbsp and 1 tsp for garnishing ( garnishing is optional and you can use any other oil) 

PROCESS

Mix salt with the cut Karela and leave aside, till water comes out. Squeeze and give a wash, squeeze. Keep aside.

Heat 1 tbsp of oil and stir fry the BoDis to light brown remove and keep aside.

Heat 2 tbsp oil and stir fry the karela so that some of them become brownish. Remove fried Karela and keep aside.

Heat and give seasoning and add the Potato and green chili 

Sauté for 5 -6 minutes.

Add the karela and keep frying for few minutes.

Add Turmeric, mustard paste , salt and little water, add the fried Bodis broken into piece, reduce flame and cook covered. ( stir from time to time and add little water if dries up).

When Potato is done, add 1 tsp raw mustard oil , (optional), mix and remove.

This dish is good for eating with rice or roti.

THE PATOL ( PARMAL) SIDE DISH ( patol Cha-chaDi with a southern touch)
I just tried a deviation from above spicing and it was good.
INGRESIENTS
*Patol ( parmal) 6 pieces ( I had that many ), scrapped and cut to small pieces. ( 1/2 inch) ( you can use other vege too, like ridge , snake gourd or Zucchini etc
*Oil 1 tbsp  ( more the merrier)
Green chili 2

coconut grated 1 tbsp.

Sugar 1/2 tsp ( this is for taste and not for sweetening)

spice ( make a slurry and soak for 10 min)
Coriander powder 2 tsp 
Cumin powder 1/2 tsp
Turmeric 1 level tsp
chili powder 1 level tsp ( more or less)
Seasoning
Mustrad 1/2 tsp
Cumin 1/2 tsp
dry red chili 1 broken
Udad dal 1 heap tsp
Curry leaves 10 
( I have not used strong spices like garam masala and methi, fennel etc. You can add more coriander powder , it is a very weak spice and good for thickening)


PROCESS
Heat 1 to 2 tbsp oil, give seasoning of cumin, red chili followed by Mustard and Udad dal. Add curry leaves and immediately add the cut parmal and green chili..
Sauté for 5-6 minutes or when some pieces starts browning due to frying.

Add the spice slurry, salt and fry. Add  sugar.
Add grated coconut, add little water and cover. 
The parmal should be done and water should dry out leaving the oil.
Eat with rice or Roti, paratha