Dahi Vadas in the Oven

 I love having vadas but I do not do any deep frying at home. I only have them when I got out to eat. In UK, I used to buy the mendu vada instant mix pack where I would prepare the batter and make flattened vadas by shallow frying. It was an option since I could not go out often to eat it. However, when I moved to Australia, I have many Indian restaurants near enough so I do not need to make them myself. Indeed, I have also managed to get Mysore vadas and dahi vadas too. I still wondered if I could make vada at home without deep frying. Then I found a recipe which was about cooking the vada in the oven. This sounded good as I can not eat too many dahi vada and for just a couple it was always easier to eat out. Since I have not been out to eat for over a year, I decided it was time to give this oven recipe a try and enjoy guilt free Dahi Vadas.

Ingredients making vadas:

• ½ cup (150 gm) of Urad Dal (husked split black gram lentil)
• ½ cup (150 gm) of Moong Dal (husked split green gram lentil)
• 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Jeera / Cumin seeds
• 1 inch of Ginger finely chopped
• Salt as per taste

Method:

• Wash well and soak urad and moong dals for 4-5 hours or overnight.
• Strain the excess water and then grind together in a food processor. Grind in small batches and add a table spoon of water to ensure it is loose enough to grind but the batter has to remain thick.
• Add the jeera, ginger, salt as per taste and baking powder and mix it into the batter.
• Preheat fan assisted oven to 180 C for 10 minutes.
• Prepare the cupcake moulds / tray by brushing the insides of each mould with any vegetable or olive oil.
• Spoon the batter in the greased cupcake moulds and bake for 15 – 20 minutes.
• Check using toothpick if the centre is coming out clean it is cooked.
• Let them cool for 10 minutes and remove from the mould.   

You will get 8 – 10 vadas depending on the size of your moulds 

Ingredients for dahi vada:

• Prepared vadas
• Plain Greek yogurt
• Green chilli and coriander chutney
• Sweet tamarind and dates chutney
• Roasted cumin powder
• Red chilli powder
• Salt to taste

Assembling  the dahi vada:

• Once the vadas re removed from the mould place them in warm water for couple of minutes.
• Remove from the water and gently squeeze between your hands to remove excess water.
• Place one or two vada in a shallow bowl.
• Whisk some plain yogurt to make it loose. You might want to add a spoonful of water just to get it loosened to the consistency of custard. You can add salt to taste.
•  Pour the dahi over the vadas and cover them completely
• Garnish with some tangy tamarind and dates chutney and spicy green coriander chutney.
• Sprinkle some jeera powder and red chili powder.

Tips for serving:

• You can sweeten the yogurt with a little sugar instead of salt.
• You can also add garlic chutney to the garnish.
• Fresh chopped coriander can also be used to garnish the dahi vada.

 

 

Onion Sambhar

 

Sambhar is one of my favourite dal. This is a South Indian preparation with as many variations as households.  There variations in the spices and ingredients and it always tantalises the palate. It is eaten with rice, dosa, idli or mendu vada.  Till now I used to use the ready-made sambhar powder and very much in the way I prepare most lentils that is boil them make the masala or add onions garlic ginger chillies tomatoes once the lentils have boiled and then temper it with different ingredients. For sambhar that generally mean tempering with mustard seeds, pinch of asafoetida, a teaspoon of urad dal (black gram lentil), a teaspoon of channa dal (split chickpea) and a few curry leaves. It was good sambhar and have enjoyed it for years but recently I got some instructions from a friend about how to make sambhar and the use of freshly ground spices as taught to her by her mother in law. Now this is the kind of recipe that’s valuable and is passed down the generations.

Ingredients

• 150 grams of tuvar dal (split pigeon pea lentils) alternately you can also use masoor dal (red lentils)
• 15 – 20 baby onions (if you do not have these tiny onions you can use 1 large onion cut into chunks. I used frozen baby onions as that is what I had) You can add more onions if you wish.
• 1 table spoon of tamarind paste
• ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• 1 table spoon of olive oil or any vegetable oil
• ¾ teaspoon of mustard seeds
• ¼ teaspoon of asafoetida
• 10 – 12 curry leaves

For sambhar powder –

• 1 teaspoon channa dal (split chickpeas)
• 1 teaspoon urad dal (black gram lentil)
• 8  small red chillies or 4 large ones
• 2 teaspoon coriander seeds
• ¼ teaspoon methi (fenugreek seeds)
• 1 pinch of asafoetida

 

Method

• Wash and clean the lentils. Put in a pan cover them with an inch of water and boil. You can also cook it in a pressure cooker. Once cooked put them aside.
• Put all the sambhar powder ingredients in a frying pan and roast the spices over a hot flame. Stir to ensure it does not burn. In a couple of minutes, you will smell the aroma of the roasted spices. Remove from the pan into a plate so that they can cool down.
• Add the oil and mustard seeds in a saucepan and heat till the mustard seeds start to crackle. Add the asafoetida and curry leaves.
• Then add the onions to the pan. Sauté it for a couple of minutes and add a cup of water, tamarind paste, salt and turmeric powder. Stir and leave it to cook for till the onion softens which should be within 2 – 3 minutes.
• While the onion is cooking take the cooled roasted spices and grind them in a spice or coffee grinder. It does not have to be finely powdered. Some coarse bits are good as they thicken the sambhar nicely. You will get around 2 table spoons of powder.
• Once the onions are cooked add the cooked lentils and the sambhar powder.  Add another cup of water and stir well. Bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of minutes.
• Serve straight away or you can reheat and serve later so this can be prepared in advance.

Tips

1. As suggested in the ingredients you can use red lentils as well which is useful as they cook a lot faster than tuvar dal. I do not use a pressure cooker and find that it is easier to cook tuvar dal by soaking it in hot water. Leave for an hour or so. The check the water level and reheat the pan and bring the lentils to a boil. Again, leave it to cool while the lentil actually gets slow cooked. The third time I just cook it on a medium to low flame or 1 -3 on an electric hob till it is cooked. It takes about 30 – 40 minutes.
2. Also if you do not get baby onions you can use shallots or red onion as they taste sweeter than white onions.
3. I have it on good authority that you can make mixed veg – onions, beans, drumstick, aubergine, potato, gourd, muli (white raddish) or even pumpkin sambhar. The trick is to cook the vegetables before adding the cooked lentils and sambhar powder.
4. You can use fresh tamarind where you soak a handful and then squeeze the pulp for use or indeed use lemon juice. The sourness of the sambhar can be adjusted to your taste. Similarly, the heat in the sambhar powder can be adjusted to your tasted by increasing or decreasing the red chillies.
5. You can add coriander leaves as garnish on top.

Moong Dal with Palak

The only way I used to eat spinach as a child was with moong dal. I was happy to have the tangy and hot dal with rice or even parathas and the spinach blended into the taste of the dal. This can be had just as soup as well on a cold winter day. I have not made it that often myself as I find that you need a half bunch of spinach as the most when making the dal for 2 people. This means that either half a bunch kind of wilted away for the lack of inspiration or I would have to make twice the amount of dal and freeze half to be had later. Unfortunately I have found a couple of such frozen moong and palak dal containers in my freezer as I have not remembered to use it up.

Ingredients

200 gm of moong dal without the husk

½ - 1/3 bunch of spinach chopped

A medium onion finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 inch of ginger finely chopped

Green chillies finely chopped (have deliberately not written how many as you need to put according to how hot you can take, I generally put really hot green long chillies about 2 -3)

Tomatoes (2 medium fresh tomatoes or half a tin of tomatoes)

Spices:

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder 1 teaspoon

Cumin powder 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder 3 teaspoons

Turmeric powder 1 teaspoon

Handful of chopped fresh coriander

For tempering:

Teaspoon of whole cumin

A couple of small dried red chillies

4 cloves

A small piece of cinnamon stick

Quarter teaspoon of hing / asafoetida

3 teaspoon olive oil or any vegetable oil

Method

• Wash the moong dal in cold water. Place in a large pan and covers with water. The water should be 2 inches above the lentils. Bring it to boil and then simmer until the lentils begin to soften.
• Make the temper / tadka – Add the oil and whole cumin to a pan and heat. As the cumin starts turning brown add the dried red chillies, cloves and cinnamon stick to it.
• Once that heats up add the finely chopped onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies. Cook till onions begin to lightly brown.
• Then add the tomatoes and the rest of the powdered spices. Cook till you can see the oil rise back out of the masala (paste) you have made.
• Then add this masala to the cooked lentils. Slowly simmer the lentils to completely get the taste of the spices into the lentils.
• At this point you also add the chopped spinach into the lentils as it does not take very long to wilt. Adjust the amount of water based to get the right thickness for the dal - for it has to be more liquid when you have with rice than with parathas.
• Just before serving you can add the fresh chopped coriander.

Have a go at making this dal and it is especially good on a cold evening. I find that most of my cooking I do is on estimate that comes from practice of many years and so you do need to think of the amounts in terms of your tastes and the amount of lentils to be comparable with what measure you normally use for lentils for your family. Enjoy!

Gurudwara ki Laangar dal (mixed lentils)

This is a dal that is cooked in the Sikh Gurudwaras (temples) for Laangar (that’s the meal served to all devotees who come to the gurudwara). Last week I was watching Madhur Jaffery’s  Curry Nation being shown on the SBS TV. She has been following different kinds of Indian subcontinent cuisines both in restaurants as well as in people’s homes. She finally goes to show one of her own favourites recipes from that region. Last week it was Panjabi cuisine and there were two dishes that made me sit up and think yes I could cook that. The first one was this Laangar dal. The other one was mooli paratha which I shall write in a separate blog.

I generally cook in large amount so I can freeze it for another day. This is a slow cooked dal and so it makes sense to do a larger batch. The amounts used here should actually feed 5 people easily.

·

 I    Ingredients

125 grams Whole Urad (black gram)

125 grams Whole Moong (green gram)

100 grams Split channa dal

125 grams Moth beans (http://chefinyou.com/ingredients/moth-beans/)

1 medium onion finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

4 small green chillies finely chopped

·        Spices

1 Teaspoon of red chilli powder

½ teaspoon of turmeric powder

1 teaspoon of cumin powder

2 teaspoons of coriander powder

Salt to taste

30 grams of butter 

·        For tempering -

1 table spoon of oil (any vegetable oil can be used. I tend to use light olive oil)

A teaspoon of cumin seeds

5 cloves

2 inch long pieces of cinnamon stick

2 dried red chillies

·        Preparation

Put all the dals in a large saucepan and wash thoroughly. Then cover the mixed dals with hot water and leave to soak overnight. I changed the water in the morning and added some more fresh hot water. It begins to soften the dals.

Since this dal takes a good 3 to 4 hours to cook on low heat if you are making for an evening meal its best to start cooking it at around 11 30 am at the latest. Add the chopped onions, garlic and chillies and the dry spices of chilli, turmeric, cumin and coriander powders. Salt has to be to taste. I tend to put about 2 teaspoons. But you should put less as it is always easy to add more. If by chance you find that you have added more salt you can add a potato into the dish you care cooking. This will absorb extra salt and can be then removed from the dish. Also add the butter at this time. Bring the lentils to a boil and then turn the heat down to medium so that it does not boil over. You can cover it with a lid but be careful to check frequently as the water may evaporate leaving it dry and singed at the bottom. You can add some more water if needed. After a couple of hours you can turn the heat down to minimum, cover the pan and leave to continue cooking. 

You get a nice and thick dal with all the beans well softened. You then need to temper the dal. In a small saucepan put the cumin and oil to heat up. As the cumin starts to darken add the dry red chillies, cinnamon and cloves. Please be careful as this is very hot and the cloves and red chilli are likely to splutter. Once it is hot just add it on to the dal. Just before serving you can sprinkle some fresh coriander leaves.

The depth of flavour comes from the slow cooking and also when kept for another day. This dal can be eaten with rice or even with parathas as it is fairly thick in consistency. I will make this dal more often. It is truly a dal for winter months but since I have discovered with the summer approaching I will make it more come winter. Hope you enjoy it too.

Dal Dhokali ( A meal in one pot)

This is one of my favourite Gujju dish that is heart-warming and all done in one pot. I have always loved this dish but used to feel it was long tedious process to make it. The kneading of the dough for the dhokali was something that put me off making it. This was especially true when my hand used to hurt due to repetitive strain of typing and writing which was central to my career. Then I became ill and the pain in my hands and arms stopped me from even getting the flour out. But now I am stable and have the time to indulge in making this lovely yummy spicy dish. I find it is very comforting to eat it on a cold evening. In fact it is also good to have this piping hot and to warm you as well as to clear your sinuses when you are having a cold and feeling ill. By the way my measurements are usually an estimate and for feeding 2 people.

·        Ingredients for the dal

150 gms of tuver dal (also spelt as toor dal, split yellow pigeon peas)

1 small onion finely chopped

A small piece of ginger finely chopped

A couple of green chillies (more if you want it hot but I used a couple of different ways to add chillies)

2 – 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped

A few curry leaves (10 – 12)

2 medium tomatoes finely chopped for the sour tang (alternately you can put lemon or lime juice or even tamarind pulp as shown in some of the recipes included in the websites I have provided)

2 table spoons of coriander powder

1 table spoon of cumin powder

Half teaspoon of turmeric powder

1 teaspoon of dry red chilli powder

1 teaspoon of sugar

Salt to taste

·       

Ingredients  for tempering the dal

1 table spoon of vegetable oil

1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds

A hefty pinch of asafoetida

4 cloves

A small piece of cinnamon stick

2 small dry red chillies

·       

Ingredients for making dhokali

200 gms of chappati or plain flour (wheat flour)

1 table spoon of vegetable oil

1 teaspoon cumin powder

2 teaspoon of coriander powder

¼ teaspoon of turmeric powder

½ teaspoon of chilli powder

Salt to taste (about 1½   teaspoons)

Water to mix the dough

·        Preparation of the dal dhokali

You can cook the dal in a pressure cooker as it is a quick way of cooking the dal. 

Once cooked add water to make sure it is fairly liquid. 

Then add the other ingredients and spices into the dal and allow them to cook. 

While you have started the cooking of dal you need to make the dough for the dhokali.

Add the oil and spices to the flour and then add water slowly as you mix the dough. 

You need to get a consistency that will allow you to roll out the dough like a chappati. 

Take a small handful of dough, make a ball and then roll it out in a circle of about 1 cm thickness. 

Then cut it with a knife into small lozenge shapes and add to the dal. 

You should be able to make 6 or so dough balls and roll out all to make the dhokali. 

The dhakali will cook in the simmering dal within 5 – 10 minutes. 

You can chop one with the spoon to check if it is cooked or taste it as I used to when I started cooking this dish first. Now I can tell by the way it appears when cooked.

Once the dhokali is cooked you will need to temper the dal. 

Heat the oil and mustard seeds and asafoetida in a small saucepan or a steel ladle over the heat. 

As the seeds start popping, add the other spices and when it gets popping well pour over the dal. 

This gives as good flavour of the spices. Finally add a handful of chopped fresh coriander and it is ready to serve in large bowls.

There are various version of this recipe on the internet as usual and here are some of the different versions -

http://www.indianfoodforever.com/gujarati/dal-dhokli.html

http://www.tarladalal.com/Easy-Dal-Dhokli-8738r

http://evolvingtastes.blogspot.com.au/2008/02/baroda-dal-dhokli.html (this one gives you a couple of different versions and also information on how to freeze the dhokalis so that you can just add them to the simmering dal)

http://www.khanakhazana.com/recipes/view.aspx?id=4402 (Rajasthani version)

http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com/dal-dhokli.aspx (from a master chef!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhwEe4K6kg (nice but no subtitles in English)

http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/dal-dhokli.php
 

So there you have a whole lot of slightly different ways of making this dish…. you never know you will make one up to suit you from all these different ways. I have made it according to what I remember of my mother’s recipe rather than one set in any recipe book that is way my ingredients always are estimates and I have never measured anything. I thoroughly enjoyed this dish last night and I hope you do too.

Dal Makhani

This is one of my favourite dal and I learnt to make it from my sister. It is a much loved dal from Punjab and a must during the cold winter days. It is a hearty meal just to have this dal with rice. It is whole black lentil cooked with spices and loads of butter in it. I am of course not at all in the favour of using a lot of butter all the time..… just a small dollop now and then. So my version is a healthy one and you can be as naughty as you wish by adding the amount of butter you want.

I also cook a large amount of dal, for at least a couple of meals as it does take a long time to cook. Most people would cool the lentils in a pressure cooker but I prefer not to. I sometimes soak the lentils overnight but it is not necessary to do so. Some people would like to add a small amount of soda bicarbonate to help soften this very hard lentil quickly. However I do find that the final taste of the dal makhani does alter a bit. I have now resorted to adding the required salt at the start of boiling the lentils and it works out well for me.

Ingredients

I roughly take 8 handfuls of the whole black lentils (you should take about 200 gms)

You can add one handful of red beans to this as well.

A medium onion finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 inch of ginger finely chopped

Green chillies finely chopped (have deliberately not written how many as you need to put according to how hot you can take, I generally put really hot green long chillies about 2 -3)

Tomatoes (2 medium fresh tomatoes or half a tin of tomatoes)

Teaspoon of whole cumin

A couple of small dried red chillies

4 cloves

A small piece of cinnamon stick

3 teaspoon olive oil or any vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder 1 teaspoon

Cumin powder 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder 3 teaspoons

Turmeric powder 1 teaspoon

Handful of chopped fresh coriander

Preparation

Boil the lentils (both black gram and red beans) after covering it well. The water should be 2 inches about the lentils. Bring it to boil and the medium simmer until the lentils go soft. If you add your salt at this point it will speed up the cooking time. But do remember that I use estimate of salt from practice and that water will evaporate and be added once the lentil gets cooked.

Make the temper / tadka – Add the oil and whole cumin to a pan and heat. As the cumin starts turning brown add the dried red chillies, cloves and cinnamon stick to it. Once that heats up add the finely chopped onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies. Cook till onions begin to lightly brown. Then add the tomatoes and the rest of the powdered spices. Cook till you can see the oil rise back out of the masala (paste) you have made. Then add this masala to the cooked lentils. Slowly simmer the lentils to completely get the taste of the spices into the lentils. Just before serving you can add the fresh chopped coriander.

Now the time to add the makhan (butter) for the dal makhani is once it has been cooked. So you can add butter to you taste. I would suggest that it is unsalted butter or the freshly made butter as the taste does differ if you used salted butter. The dish is best eaten with plain boiled or jeera rice (cumin rice). It can also be thickened to eat it with parathas.

There are obviously versions of this dal from different places/ chefs/families. The variations are of spices and amount of butter. In the old days the food was cooked over a coal fire and this was kept banked with glowing coals at night to keep the house warm. This fire was used to cook the lentil and so it slowly cooked over night and was well softened by the time the masala was added and returned to the heat. I have seen this being replicated in slow cooker but from the time that masala and lentils are mixed.

Here are some of the recipes I found that look good too -

http://vegeyum.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/dalmakhani/

http://vegeyum.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/dal-makhani-nilgiri/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_makhani (an informative page about the background with a recipe)

http://www.tarladalal.com/Dal-Makhani-%28-Low-Fat-Recipe-%29-3570r

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq9rHij2z20 (fairly good if you need to watch someone do it)

http://www.indianfoodforever.com/daal/daal-makhani.html
 

Try it as I am sure you will come to love it especially on cold chilly night it warms you up nicely. I find that most of my cooking I do it on estimate that comes from practice of many years and so you do need to think of the amounts in terms of your tastes and the amount of lentils to be comparable with what measure you normally use for lentils for your family. Enjoy!