Vegetable Kurma / Kuruma Recipe

Let me confess and say upfront that I made this very similar to the navratan kurma which The Husband really digs. Boys seem to like mixed vegetables disguised under some spicy gravy don't they? If I make TH a single-vegetable dish, he is okay with it. Add two vegetables, he is happy. Add three, he loves it! True story.



I have another confession too. This picture was taken the day after I made the kurma. This is a pile of leftover vegetable kurma that got reheated, got transfered to a nice bowl, and got clicked. This also explains why the gravy is much thicker than it will be when you make it fresh.

Vegetable Kurma
Serves 4 as a side
Adapted from Sashi Recipes

Ingredients:
2 onions
4-5 green chillies
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1.5 cups mixed chopped vegetables (I used carrots, beans, cauliflower, peas)
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp yogurt (optional)
2 tsp coriander powder / malli podi
1/2 tsp cumin / jeera
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
A few curry leaves
Coriander leaves for garnish
1 tbsp oil
2 tsp ghee
Salt to taste

Grind Together (with sprinkled water if needed):
4 cloves
2" cinnamon stick
2 cardamom pods
5-6 cashew nuts
2 green chillies
1/4 cup grated coconut

How I Made It:

1. Grind the listed ingredients to a fine paste.

2. In a pan, heat the oil and ghee together. When hot, add curry leaves, cumin and fennel seeds. Immediately add the chopped onions, green chilies and saute the onion till it turns golden brown. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry for another minute.

3. Add the vegetables, coriander powder and 1 cup water and allow the vegetables to cook covered in medium flame for a few mins (8-10 mins should be sufficient)

4. Add yogurt (if using) and the ground paste with some salt and allow it to boil for 3 min. Then add the milk, stir well and bring to boil. Remove from fire, garnish with coriander leaves and serve warm with idiyappam, appam, roti, Kerala parotta, etc.

Note:

The dish will have much more gravy than what you see in the picture but the vegetables absorb it if you leave it in the fridge overnight. Still tastes great though. 

Veg Dalia (Broken Wheat) Upma Recipe

This is one of those recipes I can't believe I haven't posted yet. Its true that I mostly make it for dinner and I do prefer dalia upma over rava upma anyday!

This is one of those healthy dishes that don't taste healthy, atleast to me. Its delicious piping hot with some steaming sambar and chutney. I didn't grow up eating this but I definitely make sure we have this for dinner atleast once every 2 weeks. Its perfect for weeknights if you use frozen cut vegetables to jazz it up. 

Vegetable Dalia (Broken Wheat) Upma Recipe

Source: Amma

Total cooking time: 25-30 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1.5 cups broken wheat or dalia

3 cups water

1 tbsp oil

1/4 tsp mustard seeds

1 small onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup mixed vegetables (I use frozen peas, corn, carrots and French beans)

1 tsp powdered ginger or 1/2" grated fresh ginger

2-3 green chillies

Salt to taste

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the onions and green chillies and saute until the onions turn transparent (about 2-3 mins). 

2. Add the ginger powder or grated ginger, whichever you are using, and fry for another 20 seconds. Next, add the vegetables and 3 cups water. Bring to boil and cook closed until the vegetables are soft (about 5-6 mins). 

3. Add salt and the broken wheat in a slow trickle, stirring as you do this. Once you have added all the broken wheat, there should be enough water to cover it completely. If not, add more. Stir frequently and cook until all the water has been absorbed and the upma comes together, soft and fluffy. Pop some of the wheat in your mouth to see if its soft. If not, add more water and keep stirring until its fully done. Also adjust salt at this stage. 

Serve hot with sambar and/or chutney. 

Schezwan Vegetables Recipe - Indo Chinese Series

Understandably, you all loved the Chilli Paneer Recipe I posted last week. Of course, frying up something and mixing it in a delicious spicy sauce should be up everyone's alley, no surprises there.



After moving into the new apartment, we had friends over and I decided on an Indo-Chinese menu. I was badly craving some and grabbed the opportunity to cook some up myself. I made the Chilli Paneer, Vegetable Fried Rice and Schezwan Vegetables for some gravy to go with the fried rice.

Schezwan Vegetables Recipe
Adapted from Sailus Food
Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 large onion, cubed into 1" pieces roughly
1 carrot, cut into small, thin discs
8-10 french beans, cut into 1″ pieces
8 baby corns, each cut into 6 round discs
1 green capsicum, cut into 1" pieces roughly

2 tbsps oil

2 tbsps finely chopped spring onion greens (for garnish, optional)

For The Sauce:
2 dry red chillis, halved
1/4 tsp red chilli pwd
1 tsp crushed garlic (about 6 small flakes)
1.5 tsp soya sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsps tomato puree (or 1 tsp tomato paste)
1 tbsp cornflour
1 cup water
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups vegetable stock or water (I used vegetable stock)

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the onions. Cook until soft and transparent - about 3 mins.

2. Add the remaining vegetables with some salt and saute lightly for 3-4 mins.

3. Mix all the sauce ingredients together and add to the cooking vegetables. Let it simmer for 5 mins or until the vegetables are cooked, yet firm. If the gravy is getting too thick, add more water. Adjust salt and add pepper and spring onion greens - and its ready to serve!

This is one of those dishes where the preparation time is higher than the cooking time but the end result is very satisfying and can really help you get rid of your Indo-Chinese craving!

Navratan Korma / Navaratna Kurma Recipe - Step by Step

I love kurmas (or kormas, for those of you who feel that's the way it should be spelled). The ones I grew up eating had lots of coconut or coconut milk in them as you would expect, since the growing up happened in Kerala.

A bit about Navratna Korma although I don't usually like doing yada yada (get to the recipe already!), but this dish is seriously interesting. Navratan means nine jewels and this dish is supposed to contain a mix of 9 fruits, vegetables and fried nuts. In true Mughlai cuisine fashion, cream (or cashew nut paste) is added to form the gravy.

I have seen quite a few variations in the 9 items used by different restaurants. TH is quite the spoilsport, he doesn't like it when sweet stuff is mixed with spicy (Ok, I admit, I am like that too, there's a reason why I married that guy) so I didn't add pineapple to my version, which is quite a popular "ratna" to add to Navratan Korma. Since we also don't like biting into raisins in our curries, and I really couldn't omit all the sweet stuff, I ground it into the paste. Genius, eh?



Navratan Korma / Navaratna Kurma Recipe
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 cups of diced, mixed vegetables - I used carrot, beans, peas, corn and potato (cauliflower will be nice too!)
A few cubes of paneer
10 cashew nuts and 10 raisins soaked in warm water, drained and ground to a paste
1 large onion, minced
1 tomato, quartered and pureed
3 green chillies
1" piece of ginger
4 garlic cloves (or use 1 tsp ginger garlic paste)
1 tsp tomato paste (or use another pureed tomato)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp butter (or ghee)
Salt to taste

The Spice Powders:
2 tsp garam masala (or use 1 tsp freshly ground masala like cloves, cardamom, cinnamon)
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp jeera



Sidenote: I got these blue flexible chopping boards from IKEA the other day and totally love them. Yeah they scratch easily but don't they make awesome  background for the 'ingredients picture'?

How I Made It:


1. Heat the butter or ghee in a kadai / pan.


2. Add minced onions and fry until pink and transparent.


3. Grind the green chillies with the ginger and garlic and add to the onions. If using ginger garlic paste, just crush the chillies and add along with it. Fry for 30 seconds.


4. Add all the spice powders. Fry for a minute.


5. In go the pureed tomato and the tomato paste


6. Mix well and let it cook until the butter appears on the sides (about 4-5 mins)


7. Add milk and about 1/2 cup of water, more or less.


8. Add the chopped vegetables. Mix well an cook covered for another 5 mins or so, until the vegetables are cooked, yet firm.


9. Add the cashew nut-raising paste and mix well. Add salt and paneer cubes. Cook open for another 5 minutes until the gravy thickens and comes together.



Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot with chapati, nan, roti, or pulao. This is a guest-wower recipe, btw.

I am sending this to Divya's Show Me Your Curry event.
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On a very unrelated note, Sig is having a giveaway on her blog so hope on by if you are interested to learn more.

Soya Chunks Kurma Recipe

We like soya chunks, for its meaty texture, for its flavour-absorbing nature and for all that protein it hides in there. What we are not a fan of is the smell it gives out. Here are a couple of tips shared by readers in my Chilli Soya Chunks Recipe post. 

- Add some minced garlic to the nuggets and boil in water for 5 mins. Cool, squeeze out extra water and use

- Soak nuggets in a bowl of hot water along with 3-4 spoons of milk - that takes away the raw soya taste and leaves the soya nuggets creamy and smooth.

I have tried and they both work. I used the second method for this recipe. The list of ingredients may seem long but its all pantry staple in an Indian kitchen so you won't need to go running for anything, hopefully :)

Soya Chunks / Meal Maker Kurma Recipe

Serves: 2

Preparation time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

1.5 cup soya chunks

1 large onion, sliced long

1/2 cup chopped mixed vegetables (carrots, pea, beans, cauliflower, anything you have in the fridge)

1/4 cup grated coconut, ground in a mixer

1/2 cup coconut milk

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

2 green chillies

1 tsp red chilli powder (optional, or adjust to taste)

A pinch of turmeric powder

1 tbsp oil

Salt to taste

Spices:

1 bay leaf

2 pods cardamom

3 cloves 

1" piece of cinnamon

1 star anise (optional)

1 tsp roasted jeera / cumin powder

1 tbsp coriander / malli powder

How I Made It:

1. Soak soya chunks in a bowl of hot water along with 3-4 spoons of milk. After about 20 mins, drain, squeeze out all excess water and set aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan and add the sliced onions. Fry until transparent and add all the spices. Fry for 2 mins until the flavour and smell comes out. Then add the ginger garlic paste, turmeric and chilly powder/green chillies. Fry for another 30 mins. 

3. Next, add the ground coconut, mixed vegetables and soya chunks. Mix well and cook closed for about 10-12 mins until the vegetables are soft. There's no need to add any water, the soya chunks will give out water as they cook. 

4. Once the vegetables are done, add salt, lower flame to sim and add the coconut milk. Mix well, bring to a soft boil and remove from fire. 

Goes very well with chapatis, rotis, nan and pulao.

Vegetable Cutlets : Step-by-Step Recipe

Vegetable cutlets have never really interested me as a child. Back then, I used to eat red meat and if a certain dish was available in both vegetarian and non vegetarian options, I go for the latter usually. Since then, things have changed a lot and I only cook vegetarian now, keeping TH in mind. Since anything fried get a thumbs-up from him, vegetable cutlets were no exception!

*Disclaimer*- the pictures in this post are going to be less than nice. I made these on a whim one night and all pics were taken in the kitchen (yes, the same one I keep cribbing about for lack of windows or good light).

Except for the first picture. This one was taken on the bright spot near the living room window right after I steamed the vegetables - 1 potato, 2 cups of mixed vegetables like peas, carrot, beans and sweet corn and one onion sliced long. Steam until the vegetables are cooked through yet not mushy. You can alternately pressure cook them 1 whistle.

I know I said step by step recipe for vegetable cutlet but the patties are very straight forward. You can scroll down for the recipe to make the patties. The assembly is what I wanted to focus on in this post.

First, we need bread crumbs. If you live in a fancy place, you will get to buy bread crumbs but that's too silly for me (don't ask me why), so I made my own. Here's what you do.

Heat a skillet until just hot and place a bread slice on it. Don't use any butter, oil, etc. Just dry-toast the bread slice on both sides until lightly browned.

Powder it in your blender or mixer and voila, bread crumbs!

Now we need a sticky coating that comes between the vegetable patties and the bread crumbs so that the bread crumbs will stick to the patties. The most common one is egg whites and that's what my mom uses. I have made this recipe completely vegetarian so here's what you can use instead of eggs whites in to coat the vegetable cutlets.

Take 3 tbsp maida / all purpose flour.

Add about the same amount of water.

Mix well to form a thick-ish paste.

Make patties of desired size (make sure its not too thick, about 1/2" thick patties are best) and place them gently on the maida paste.

Coat both sides well.

Place this on the prepared bread crumbs.

Coat both sides well. Just drizzle bread crumbs on the patty so that you can avoid turning it around too much and breaking it.

Repeat with the rest of the vegetable mixture. I got about 12 cutlets with the amount of vegetables mentioned above.

I refrigerated the patties for an hour just to firm them up. This is optional. After that, pour enough oil in the skillet to drown the cutlets half way. Heat it up until just below smoking point and lay the cutlets carefully in the oil. Make sure the heat is just medium so that the outside doesn't burn and inside remains undercooked.

Flip over when one side is nice and brown. Cook both sides until crisp.

Drain on a kitchen towel and serve with ketchup, mashed lightly in a wrap, with curd rice - there are tons of options!

Oh God, this picture is killing me! I really should stop taking pics in the night.

Here's the recipe, all in one place.

Vegetable Cutlets Recipe

Makes: 12

What I Used:

For the patties:

1 potato

2 cups mixed vegetables cut into small pieces

1 small onion, chopped fine

2 green chillies, chopped fine

1/2 tsp red chilli powder (adjust according to heat level desired)

1 tsp chaat masala (or garam masala for a different taste)

A pinch of amchur / dried mango powder

1/4 tsp coriander powder / malli podi

1/4 tsp roasted jeera powder / cumin seeds

A handful of finely chopped fresh coriander leaves / kothamalli (optional)

Salt to taste

2 tsp oil

For the coating:

3 tbsp maida mixed into a paste with 3 tbsp water (approx.)

2 slices of bread, toasted dry on a skilled and powdered

Oil to shallow fry

How I Made It:

1. First, make the patties. Steam cook or pressure cook the vegetables until soft yet firm. Heat oil for patties and add the onions. Fry until soft and transparent. Then add the chilly powder, jeera, coriander, amchur, chat masala and green chillies. Mix well for 30 seconds.

2. Mash the potato well and add with the other vegetables. Let the mixture cook until well incorporated (about 2-3 mins). Add the coriander leaves, if using, and mix well. Add salt just before shaping into patties, otherwise the mixture will sweat and loosen up, making it hard to form the shapes.

3. Place each patty in the flour-water mixture and coat well. Then place on the bread crumbs and coat well.

4. Shallow fry until golden brown on both sides. Serve hot with ketchup, curd rice or mashed up in a wrap or sandwich.

Vegetarian Burger - Step by Step Recipe

TH: "I miss the Mc Aloo Tikki and Paneer Burgers in McDonalds back home. Here, there's no way for us to get vegetarian burgers unless we ask them to remove the patty and eat the burger bun with cheese and lettuce. Damn!"

Nags: "Ok don't fuss. I will make you a burger at home. Its not that hard."

TH: "Ah! Ok, tell me what all stuff we need for it"

Nags: Here's the list of things we need to serve 2 people.

Vegetarian Burgers

4 burger buns

A box of baby greens

4 cheese slices or shredded cheddar cheese

2 tbsp mayo (any kind)

Half an onion, cut into rings

One tomato, sliced into circles

For the patties:

1 large potato

1 onion

1 carrot

10 French beans

1/4 cup green peas

1/4 cup sweet corn

2 green chillies or 1 tsp red chilli powder

Fresh coriander leaves

1 tsp jeera

1 tsp masala powder (any kind)

6 tbsp oil to shallow fry

Salt

For the French fries:

2 large potatoes

Salt

Oil to deep fry

TH: "Err.. that's a lot of stuff just to make us two burger meals each".

Nags: "You want it or not?"

TH: "I do, I do! Ok, let's get started"

Nags: "As always, let's use a picture of the final dish to keep us motivated"

TH: drooool

First, boil all the vegetables except onion until soft. Pressure cooking them for about 2 whistles should do the trick.

Mash up the potato real nice. Cut the other vegetables into tiny pieces. Mix in salt, jeera, green chillies/red chilli powder, chopped coriander leaves and the masala powder. Shape into big-ish patties.

Shallow fry the patties until golden brown on both sides. Set aside.

Now comes the bit where we assemble the vegetable burgers.

We start with a burger bun, of course.

Cut it into half. Hopefully you can do a better job of cutting it evenly than I did.

Grab the box of baby greens or any lettuce you have in the fridge.

Lay it out on the lower half of the burger bun.

Top it off with some shredded cheddar cheese or one cheese slice. This is beginning to get yummier, eh?

Take one vegetable patty and place it on the cheese and greens, pressing down gently without crumbling it.

Spread some mayo over this. Between you and me, I ran out of mayo so I used thousand island dressing here. Use whatever you fancy, its your burger.

Onion rings are next. Aren't they pretty?

Tomatoes. TH's burger has an extra slice and mine has just one because raw tomato really doesn't do it for me.

Now bring in the other half of the burger, place it on the pile and press down gently. You can use a toothpick inserted through the center to hold it all together. We didn't really do all that. Just bite, chomp, gulp and go for the next bite if you're anything like us.

If you feel there is no burger experience without French fries, quickly make some. All you need to do is peel and slice potatoes into long thin slices. Mix in some salt.

Deep fry in oil.

There you go, a homemade vegetarian burger meal.

TH: "I think we should make this a monthly regular like our Pizza Friday"

Nags: "Sure! Now that you know how its done, go ahead. The kitchen is all yours"

TH: "Errr.. gulp.. o..k"

:D