Tomato Gojju (chutney)

          This recipe is one life saver for me and to most of us south Indians. It’s the most versatile recipe I ever came across. It can be used to mix with rice or can be used as an accompaniment for chapatti, dosas and idlis, or as a dip or as a side dish too.

          I never knew of this dish until my hubby started to travel. That’s when I came across this dish and got the recipe from 1 of my family friend. After many trial and errors, now I make it with some minor changes to suit our palette.

Preparation time: 15 mins

Cooking time: approx. 1 hour

Ingredients

Tomato 1 kg

Oil ½ cup

Curry leaves 2-3 springs

Mustard seeds 1 teaspoon

Cumin / jeera 1 teaspoon

Chana dal 1 teaspoon

Udad dal 1 teaspoon

Groundnuts a handful

Methi seeds 1 teaspoon

Saunf ½ teaspoon

Haldi – a pinch

Red chilli powder

Sambhar powder 1 tablespoon

Salt to taste

Little bit of jaggery

Grated ginger 1 tablespoon

Chopped green chillies 1 tablespoon

Hing

1. Wash nicely all tomatoes and pat dry all the moisture.
2. Remove the eye part (stalk) of the tomatoes and roughly chop them.
3. In a thick bottom pan or non-stick kadai, pour in the oil.
4. Add mustard seeds, after it starts to splutter, add cumin and curry leaves.
   
   
   
5. Then add the chana dal and udad dal along with groundnut. Fry till it changes its colour.
6. Add methi, saunf, hing.
7. Then add ginger and chillies, fry till they lose their raw flavor.
8. Add the tomatoes and roast a bit.
   
9. Add the salt so that it leaves moisture and it becomes easy to cook.
10. DON’T ADD WATER.
11. Add salt to taste, haldi, red chilli powder and sambhar masala powder. Mix well.
12. Cover and allow it to cook.
13. After the tomatoes are half done adjust the seasoning, and mash them with the back of the ladle so that it becomes mushy and paste like.
14. Add the jaggery.
    
15. Cook well till the oil floats at the top.
16. Allow it to cool before you store it in a clean glass bottle.
17. It can be stored in fridge for early 15-20 days.

Note:

• If you like you can finely chop the tomatoes or puree them.
• You can add red chilli powder according to your taste.
• You can increase or decrease the quantity of the dals and groundnut depending on your liking.
• You can avoid adding any of dals if you don’t like the taste, similar with saunf.
• DON’T ADD WATER. Then the chutney can't be stored for long.
• You can use refine oil or olive oil for this dish.
• The oil acts as preservative for this dish which helps in storage for long time.

Happy cooking :-)

Homemade Gadbad Icecream

          Summer is all about ice creams, fruit juices, fruit salads, coolers and fresh seasonal fruits.

          After lunch or dinner we usually like to gorge on mangoes or litchis or jackfruit or desserts prepared from them especially ice-creams. In summer, lunch or dinner is not ended till you slurp down a bowl of ice-cream.

          This ice-cream is very popular in coastal area of Karnataka, originally from Udupi-Mangalore, this dish is one mouthful or should I say stomach full. As a kid whenever I used to visit Udupi, we had a compulsory rule to visit to Kamat Ice-cream or Diana or when in Mangalore, it used to be Ideal ice-cream to gobble down this heavenly delight. This is the 1^st time I tried it at home, and it was a success. So here is the recipe of the Famous Gadbad Ice-cream.

Ingredients (for 2 people)

1 cup finely chopped fruits (banana, mango, apple, chikko, pineapple)

¼ cup nuts (pista, cashew, badam)

¼ cup coloured tutti frutti and raisins

2 cherries

2 scoop vanilla ice cream

2 scoop mango ice cream

2 scoop strawberry or pineapple ice-cream

¼ cup vanilla custard

¼ cup orange jelly

2 tablespoon rose syrup

Gather all ingredients

• Follow the instructions given on the pack for making the custard and jelly.

Set Jelly

•  You can make ice-cream at home or get from outside. You can get my ice-cream recipe here.
• All above two steps can be made n kept in fridge 1 day in advance.
• Finely chop the fruits of your choice and keep aside. Avoid citrus or watery fruits like orange or plum. (I had used plum, but since it gets too watery its better not to add).

Chopped fruits and nuts

• Soak the nuts for 1 hour in warm water so the skin can be easily peeled.
• Finely slice the nuts and keep aside.
• Next mammoth step is assembling the dish.
• Take 2 tall glasses (since I am written down ingredients for 2 people, you can take as many glasses you want).
• Bottom-most layer is chopped fruits, followed by a layer of jelly.

• Next layer is of 1 scoop of strawberry ice-cream.

• Sprinkle some nuts on ice-cream.
  
  
• Place 1 scoop of mango ice-cream on top, followed by a tutti frutti and little bit of custard.

• Topmost layer is a scoop of vanilla ice-cream with a little drizzle of rose syrup with a cherry on top.

• Pheww… gadbad ice-cream is ready to slurp.

The Final result - yummy Gadbad icecream

Enjoy :-) 

Kadgi Chakko (Jackfruit subji)

         In summer we all eagerly wait for summer fruits; mangoes, jackfruit, cashew etc. While travelling through the coastal route you can smell the awesome sweet smell of cashew and mango flowers blooming, you see jackfruit trees laden with small jack-fruits which when ripe is full of sweet flesh.

          We always associate fruits with sweet dishes or desserts, but we can also make savoury dishes from them, especially when raw fruits are used. For example tender cashew is added in sprouted moong curry or tendli ki subji. We make chutneys from raw mangoes. Similarly, we in Udupi-Mangalore make a dish from tender jackfruit which is called Kadgi Chakko. Kadgi means tender jackfruit. This is a typical Konkani dish made in every household. 

Ingredients

½ kg raw jackfruit

10-12 bedgi red chillies

1 cup coconut

1 tablespoon dania seeds

2 teaspoon udad dal

2 teaspoon methi seeds

Tamarind – size of lemon

Salt to taste

Hing or asafoetida – ½ teaspoon

Curry leaves – 2 strings

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

2-3 dried kokum

1 cup oil

1 tablespoon jaggery/gul

• 1^st step is to remove the prickly outer skin and inner sticky core.

Inner core (the triangle part has to be removed)

• Cut jackfruit into medium size pieces.

• Steam the pieces in cooker, with little bit of water maybe ¼ cup, upto 3 whistles.
• In 1 teaspoon oil, roast 1 teaspoon of udad dal and methi seeds till brown and keep aside.

• Masala: grind coconut, 8 – 10 red chillies, dania seeds, tamarind without adding water. Make a coarse powder. Add the roasted udad dal , methi, along with hing, salt to taste and jaggery and grind it.
• Smear the paste to the boiled jackfruit and keep aside for 10 minutes.

• In a non-stick kadai or hard bottom kadai take 1 cup oil (this is not for health conscious, weak hearted people).
• Add the remaining udad dal and methi.
• When they start turning brown, add mustard seeds.

• After they splutter, add hing, curry leaves, broken red chillies and fry a bit on medium heat.
• Add the dried kokum and the masala smeared jackfruit.
• Stir nicely but with a delicated hand, least all gets mushed up.

• Cook nicely with occasional stirring else it will get struck at bottom and get burnt.
• Cook till oil starts to leave sides.

• Serve hot with pulkas or chapatti. Some like to eat it alone or best combination is hot steamy rice with dalli toy and kadgi chakko… yumm.

Note:

1. This dish, when cooked with more quantity of oil, stays for 2-3 days without getting spoiled and tastes better with each passing day.
2. While getting jack fruit, make sure that jackfruit is neither totally ripe nor tender. The flesh inside should be creamy in colour with seeds formed though not fully developed.
3. Some like it fully mashed up, others like to get chunks of it while eating. So mashing it fully or keeping pieces of it is up to you.

Coconut Mango Vadi

Mango season is soon coming to an end, and I am yet to try so many mango recipes. One of my favorite recipes is coconut wadi with mango twist, which I saw and learnt from a cookery show. It takes the traditional Narali wadi to entire different level.

Ingredients

1 ½ cup grated coconut

½ cup sugar

½ cup malai

1 cup mango pulp

Nutmeg(jaiphal) powder

1.      In a non-stick kadai, add the grated coconut, sugar and malai.

2.    Mix well and on low heat let the sugar melt.

3.     Once the sugar melts, add the mango pulp.

4.    Keep stirring or else it will get burnt.

5.     Once the mixture starts to thicken, add nutmeg powder.

6.    You will know that the mixture is ready when it sticks together and forms a lump.

7.     Pour the mixture on a greased plate and make the marking when mixture is still hot.

8.    Once cooled cut into pieces and store.

  

Note:

1.      While scarping coconut, make sure you scrap only the white part of flesh. Avoid the brown part as it spoils the look.

2.    Another trick to know if the mixture is ready is; to collect the mixture in the kadai and let the ladle stand. If the ladle doesn’t drop, then the mixture is ready else keep stirring till it gets ready.

3.     You can also add kesar strands soaked in milk. Kesar also enhances mango flavour.

4.    If you don’t like nutmeg powder, you can add elachi powder.

5.     This sweet can be stored out for 3-4 days, after which it has to be stored in fridge. (Though I promise, once you make, it won’t last long).

Mango Sheera

          Yesterday evening I was thinking what I should make for my daughter’s evening snacks. In this sweltering summer, spending time in kitchen is very bad idea. I wanted to prepare something which can be prepared in a jiffy, it’s healthy and I won’t have to sweat in kitchen for long.

         Its the season of  king of fruits, mango and both of us were tired of mango milkshakes, wanted to make something fulfilling and easy. Then I remembered 1 dish which my mom used to make for us kids…

          Sheera or rawa halwa as its known is all-time favorite dish of all. My mom used to create variations by adding fruits to it to give a distinct flavor. Sometimes she would add kesar, or seasonal fruits like pineapple, mango, chikku or our humble banana. So I thought why not make it today for my daughter. It’s easy and gets ready in around 15-20 minutes.

So here is the list of ingredients for Mango Sheera:

Ingredients

1 cup jada rawa (semolina)

2 cups water

1 – 1 ½ cups sugar

1 medium mango (preferably alphonso or any other pulpy mango would do)

Chopped dry fruits (optional)

Elachi and nutmeg powder

Ghee 2 tablespoon

1.      Deskin and finely chop the mangoes. If you like, you can make pulp by pureeing it. But I like to get chunks of mango while eating.

2.    In a kadai take the ghee, lightly roast the dry fruits.

3.     Add the rawa and roast it till it slightly changes the colour and the aroma of roasting starts to spread. Roasting should be done on slow flame else rawa will get burnt and it won’t taste good.

4.    On other side, keep the water for boiling.

5.     When the aroma of roasting rawa starts to spread, add the boiling water slowly and cover it.

6.    Once the water evaporates, add the mango pieces/pulp and sugar and mix well.

7.     Let it cook till the sugar melts and it becomes the pouring consistency.

8.    Add the Elachi and nutmeg powder and cook for a minute.

9.    Some like to keep it little mushy consistency some like to keep it dry. Cook till you get your favored consistency.

10.                        Once done serve hot or cold.

NOTE :

1.    You can adjust sugar depending on sweetness of the fruit you are using.

2.    Instead of mango you can add other fruit pulp or pieces like chikku, pineapple or banana.

3.     Some take equal amount of rawa, ghee and sugar. But it makes the dish too sugary and too greasy.

4.    As a variation, you can add 1 cup water and 1 cup milk.

5.     If you are adding kesar, soak the strand of kesar in warm milk and then add while adding water.