Green Leaves with yellow pigeon peas/ Bhajje Ambat

It is a known fact that Green Leafy vegetables are very nutritious. We have made a point of eating it atleast once a week. Let it be anything like dill, spinach or chickpea leaves goes well with toor dal. We call this as "bhajje ambat" in konkani. "Bhajji" means green leaves and "ambat" is curry. As everyone knows konkani dishes are mainly of coconut, this is also one among those.


Ingredients:
1 bunch green leaves (spinach, dill or any other of your choice)
1 cup toor dal
1/2 cup grated coconut (frozen or fresh)
3 red chillies
1/4 tea spoon tamarind extract
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
1/2 tea spoon mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves
3 tablespoon cooking oil
Salt

Method:
Clean and cut green leaves.
Pressure cook toor dal and green leaves upto three whistles.
Grind red chilly, grated coconut and tamarind extract to a smooth paste.
In a pan, put cooked dal, green leaves and coconut paste, bring it to boil.
In a separate skillet, heat oil and add mustard seeds, curry leaves and chopped onion. Fry this until onion becomes translucent.
Pour this mixture into daal.
Serve hot with rice.

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 40 mins

Note: Add 1/2 cup water while boling if you feel the dal is too thick.

Potato, Tindora and Cashew Dish (Batato, Tendle ani Bibbo Upkari)

I always wonder about that first person who came up with this combo of potato, tindora and raw cashew. Whoever it is, I am sure has a great taste towards food :).

My uncle was an agriculturist and he had cashew trees at his farm. The fruit was called "caju" and these fruits are either red or yellow. Very juicy fruits and tasty too. The fruit has cashews which are harvested to make cashew nuts.

I did not find these natural cashews here and I substituted cashew nuts. I soaked nuts in water for 8-10 hours before preparing this side dish.


Ingredients:
1 cup cut potatoes
1 cup cut tindora
1/2 cup cut cashews
1 table spoon oil
1/4 tea spoon mustard seeds
5 curry leaves
3 red chillies
Water
Salt

Method:
Heat oil in a frying pan.
When hot add mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chillies.
After the mustard seeds start spluttering, add cut potatoes, tindora and cashews and fry for couple of minutes on a low or medium flame.
Add 1 cup water and let the vegetables cook. Add little water as and when required.
Add salt for taste.

Serves: 3
Preparation Time: 25 mins

Karate-Ambade Ghashi

Karate is bitter gourd and ambado is hog plum. This dish has a sweetish taste with a tinge of sourness which we get from using hog plum. The name bitter gourd says it has bitterness and usually it is very difficult to remove the bitterness completely and most of the people do not like bitter gourd for the same reason. But this amazing curry will make you fall in love with bitter gourd.


Ingredients:
1 bitter gourd
jaggery
1 hog plum
1 slit green chilly
1/2 cup grated coconut
5 red chillies
1 table spoon urad dal
1/2 tea spoon mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves
salt

Method:
Wash and cut bitter gourd into thin slices.
Cook this in a pot upto 80%.
Meanwhile heat oil and fry urad dal for couple of minutes.
Grind fried urad dal, grated coconut, red chilli and make a smooth paste.
Once the bitter gourd is cooked drain all the water and pour cut hog plum into the pot.
Add jaggery, green chilli, salt and bring it to boil.
Pour the coconut mixture to this and boil it until bitter gourd is cooked completely.
Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and curry leaves.
Add this seasoning to the curry.
Serve it as a side dish with rice and dal

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 45 mins

Note: I did not get hog plum here, so I substituted it with tamarind.

Hog plum is rarely cultivated and it has been naturalized in parts of Africa, India and Indonesia. It is native to the tropical Americas, including the West Indies. It is called as yellow mombin in english-speaking Caribbean islands, Spanish plum or gully plum while in Jamaica, Omora in Assamese, in Thai it is called makawk.