Gatte Ki curry - "padhaaro mahre des re" for a vegetable free vegetarian curry

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity - Simone Weil

"गाडी रोको ड्राइवर, चलो नीचे उतरो वीरेन और इस धरती पे माथा टेकर आशीर्वाद लो" (stop the car driver, get out of the car Viren and get the blessings of this land by touching your forehead to the ground) so says the graceful and gorgeous Waheeda Rehman to a young Anil Kapoor in the film Lamhe. There is no saying no to Daayeeja (nanny) and he gets out of the airconditioned car, quickly puts his forehead to the hot, sweltering ground and runs back into the sanctuary of the cool car. Though there are many indian movies made with a backdrop of Rajasthan, for me Lamhe holds a special place in heart as I learnt about the fascinating land through the movie. And bollywood has this power to paint images in your mind that you don't even know you were capable of. If romancing with a place is possible, I do have a romantic relationship with Rajasthan :-) Until recently, Rajasthan was part of this fertile imagination in my head that included a mystical desert land full of warrior princes, beautiful girls in colorful lehengas wearing bangles all the way up the arms, splendid havelis, picturesque locales, cold romantic nights and food beyond comparison. Having visited part of Rajasthan recently, I can say that most of the imagery still continues to live on though there are no princes riding horses or camels any more, atleast it is not a daily sight in the cities :-). The place lived up to my bollywood fed imagination and didn't let me down in any way. But there is a whole lot more to the place than what Bollywood lets you imagine which can only be found when you visit and become part of that rich culture and the colorful canvass.

Our India visits have always been about visiting family and so we end up spending the time in the same radius of cities that we always do :-). But this trip we decided to build in a week of vacation before landing in the midst of family. When you have a busy work life through out the year and 3 schedules that wax and wane at different times during the year, vacations are hard to come by and precious. So getting away for a week as part of the india trip was a proposal that none of us wanted to say no to :-). Visiting Rajasthan was on bucket list for a long time and though we started with an elaborate visit plan that included Jaipur to Jaiselmer and everything in-between, time was not on our side to do justice to such a trip. We had to skip touching the desert border and make peace with Jaipur and Udaipur. No regrets though, both cities offer a wide range of rich heritage, unparalleled hospitality and an experience of the colorful Rajasthani culture. So we basked in the offerings of the lake city and the pink city. Jaiselmer is back on the bucket list for another time :-)

A striking impression for me as a first time visitor to Udaipur was of the friendliness of the people. Everyone from the hotel employees to the rickshaw driver we hired to the folks in the stores seemed genuinely gentle and friendly which just made our day every day spent there. It wasn't just the tourism industry impact but seemed ingrained in them. DD & I smiled at each other every time someone would direct their question or response only to BH and not to us, there was nothing derogatory about it as they were very respectful towards us but the conversation always happened with the man of the family. They would easily make a conversation and always eager to plan our itinerary with helpful tips that only locals would be aware of and we took all the advise that was offered to us. We found the same hospitality in Jaipur as well though it is a bigger and more commercial place and more used to tourists.

The demonetization by Indian government was still fresh when we visited and most people were cash strapped. We didn't realize how bad it was until the bills in the wallet had gone spent soon after we took them from the bank when we landed in Mumbai. The daily ATM withdrawal was 4K and when you are a tourist and need to pay cash for every transaction, you really feel the pinch and quickly too as the money seemed to vanish the moment it came out of the machine. To add to the woes, most ATMs never had cash and we spent quite a bit of our vacation time on the road stopping at every ATM to try our luck. A sunday holiday in the middle of our week there only added to the cash starved tourist plight :-)

What I appreciate most about the human ingenuity is that we have this uncanny ability and strength to dig ourselves out of any mess, imposed on us by others or by ourselves. Our cab driver, knowing that we had limited cash that might eat into what we owed him at the end of the day, would stop at gas stations and let us pay for the diesel in the morning as we set out for the day. Almost all gas stations take your credit cards. This guaranteed that we would have spending money and were also able to pay him when we were done :-). Plastic cards are not as prevalent in India as here and most of the small vendors, artisans and road side hawkers have no ability to accept one. Our cab driver infact loaned us a few hundred bucks as we wanted to catch the light and sound show in the Jaipur palace since they wouldn't take the cards. He literally saved our day :-). Thankfully, banks opened on Monday and we were able to pay him back before leaving. The network of cab drivers is unbelievably strong and a well oiled machine. They send messages to each other on which ATM had cash so the clients could be driven there first thing in the morning and also had the inside track knowledge that the cash limit was higher if you had a non indian bank card. So everything turned out well in the end and we had a dream vacation to remember for a long time to come.

Though I liked everything about Rajasthan, food is on a different pedestal altogether. With its high concentration of people that follow Jainism, the place is a vegetarian foodie's dream come true. More than one person had told me that I would find the food delectable and very different but I still wasn't prepared for the taste until I had my first bite. The variety of ghee laden soft rotis (wheat, bajra, missi) itself is enough to satisfy a foodie but the curries served with it are a different ball game. Rajasthan being the desert, green, fresh vegetables are not easy to come by as in other places and it is no surprise that the enterprising people have found ingredients to make the tastiest of the side dishes without developing an enormous dependency on the vegetables.

Versatile potatoes were found commonly along with okra, however outside of these two vegetables the thali (meal plate) almost entirely made do with dals, lentils, besan to offer a distinctive taste in each of the little servings. Yogurt is the key player not only in the usual kadhi but also in many of the gravy preparations. It was easy to see what was going on in the kitchen since many of the places we went for dinner were outdoors and the kitchen was just in one of the nooks. Dal baati made the center piece in many meals and the one dish that is unique to Rajasthani cuisine is the gatte ki sazi/sabji/curry, a gravy made with gram flour dumplings in a yogurt/tomato sauce. It is tangy, spicy and filling all rolled into a single bowl and makes a great side dish for the fresh, hot off the tawa rotis. The preparation ensures that each ingredient lends its best flavor to the dish. Jain delicacies skip onion and garlic in their preparations and even if you are hard core fan of these two herbs, you will not miss them at all while eating a Jain dish.

I was such a gatte smitten foodie  that I ended up getting it for most of meals during that entire week and the taste was still on the tip of my tongue as I traveled beyond Rajasthan, ate other goodies, wrapped up my India trip, came back home and started eating our regular food :-). This past week was a birthday week at home and we ended up adding gatte ki curry into the celebration menu. BH said it took him back to the Udaipur dinner we had :-) and I take that as a compliment.

There are obviously many ways of making gatte ki curry and I found each bowl I ate in 5 different place across Udaipur and Jaipur had subtle differences, this is just the variations from one professional chef to the other not to speak of the umpteen home made versions. There is a Govind gatte subji in which the gattes are stuffed with paneer and additional spices so the culinary experience goes a notch even higher. When I wanted to make gatte ki curry on my own and in my kitchen, here is what I did. Stood in the middle of the kitchen, put on my thinking cap and tried to remember every taste bud  that had tingled when I ate this curry in Rajasthan, then marched over to the pantry to don the apron on self and got to work with the ingredients to reproduce the same, exact feeling at home. Ok, that was just over dramatization of what happened :-). What I have here is a really lip smacking gatte ki curry with a number of tips to get it right even on your first try. I am thrilled I was able to replicate the taste of Rajasthan in my own kitchen and can revisit any time I feel like.

The list of ingredients and procedure looks longish but don't let that deter you. You will find that the ingredients are mostly common between the gatte and the curry and also the procedure is simple enough once you get the hang of it. No complicated grind, chop etc in this one. Go ahead and give it a try, you will be a fan in no time I guarantee you.
What do you need to make Gatte ki curry?
For the gattas: 
1 cup besan/chickpea flour/gram flour
1.5 Tbsp oil
1.5 Tbsp yogurt
3/4 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp red chili powder
1/4 Tsp asafoetida/hing
1 Tsp crushed coriander seeds
1/4 Tsp crushed ajwain/carom seeds
1/2 Tsp Turmeric powder
1/4 Tsp kasoori methi
5 cups water for boiling gattas
2 Tbsp oil for roasting gattas

For the curry: 
2 tomatoes (2 cups when chopped roughly)
3-4 green chilies (adjust to preferred spice tolerance)
1 inch piece ginger
4 cashews soaked for 30 mins (optional and can do without)
1 Tsp cumin
1/4 Tsp asafoetida/hing
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder
1 Tsp red chili powder (adjust to taste) - use a bright colored one for the rich hue
1/2 Tsp coriander powder
1/2 Tsp garam masala powder
1 Tsp besan/chickpea flour/gram flour
2 Tbsp oil
1 cup yogurt
1/2 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)

How do you make Gatte ki curry? 
Making the gattas: 

• Take a wide bowl (so you can move your fingers easily), sieve besan into it to remove any small lumps in the dry flour. 
• Add all the dry ingredients - salt, red chili powder, hing, turmeric powder, crushed coriander, ajwain and kasoori methi. 

• Mix well with your fingers so hing (especially if you are using the wet variety) doesn't stay in one place. 
• Add oil and yogurt into the bowl and mixing with your fingers, bring everything together to form a lump. 

• Add a sprinkle of water if the mixture is very dry (depends on the consistency of your yogurt, I didn't add any water). 
• scrape everything sticking to your fingers, smear a drop of oil on your hand and continue to bring the mixture together into a hard dough and knead it for a couple of minutes. Taste test and adjust salt, chili powder as needed. 

• Keep a sauce pan with 5 cups of water on the stove and bring the water to a rolling boil. 
• Break the dough into 4 equal portions, make a ball and roll it into a log about 1/2inch thickness, smooth the ends. Repeat with all 4 portions.

• Now take the logs one by one and gently immerse in the boiling water, give about 30secs between each log going in to the water to avoid water temperature from falling. 
• Boil the logs for 10-12 mins or until a tooth pick comes out clean. After about 5mins, the logs start to rise to the top of the water. 

• Switch off and strain the water out, reserving it for later use. Let the logs cool down completely before cutting them into bite sized pieces. 
• Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a flat, non stick pan, add the cooled gatte pieces and roast on medium heat until they get a coating of nice golden color on all sides. switch off and keep aside until ready to use. (Do not start eating them as they can be quite addictive :-))

Making the curry or sauce: 

• Make a smooth paste of tomatoes, green chilies, ginger and soaked cashews (if using). 
• Heat oil in a kadai/pan, add cumin seeds and let it splutter. 
• Add coriander powder, turmeric powder, hing and red chili powder to the hot oil and roast for a minute so the flavors are enhanced. 

• Add the ground tomato paste and let it cook on medium heat for 8-10 mins or until the paste looks dry and starts to ooze oil from the sides. 

• At this stage, add whisked yogurt slowly into the pan while stirring constantly. Keep the heat on lowest. 
• Increase heat to medium and let it come to a gentle boil. 

• Add a Tsp of besan in a Tbsp of the reserved water and make a slurry. 
• Add the slurry along with remaining reserved water to the curry and let it boil.  
• At this stage, taste test the curry and adjust any spices to suit your palate. Add more water if you want the curry to be a thinner. 
• Add garam masala powder and salt, mix it in and let cook for a minute. 
• Add the prepared gattas into the curry and switch off. 

• Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve hot with rotis or steamed rice. 

Notes: 

• Besan dough is very sticky unlike the wheat flour dough, ensure you do not make a soft dough. When you make a ball of the dough and place it on the plate, it should not spread but hold the same shape as before. 
• Keep yogurt at room temperature before you start adding it to any hot gravies. This helps to get a smooth texture. 
• Whisking yogurt is also important to get a smooth texture. 
• You can add the dry spices in the gravy later but I found that when these are given an opportunity to roast in hot oil, the flavors are enhanced considerably. Garam masala is added at the end for its complex flavor. 
• These taste best with hot rotis but you can serve it with plain rice or a mildly flavored jeera rice. 

• You can add onion and garlic in this curry. I do not personally like onion in yogurt based gravies and avoid it. Garlic is not a regular in my kitchen and hence it is omitted. 
• If you are adding onion, make a paste or grate it and add it before the tomato paste and let it cook for a few minutes to rid of the raw smell. 
• Gattes are traditionally deep fried after they are boiled to make them richer, crispier and obviously more calorie dense. I chose to shallow fry with a couple Tbsp of oil and I didn't miss the lack of extra oil. 
• The thickness of the gattes is a personal preference, I though like to think of the log size as 1.5 pencils stacked together. The cooking time may vary based on the thickness. 
• Keep the water boiling before adding the logs, this prevents them from breaking. 

Dhokla - Home made and instant

Even at the expense of sounding like a broken record, I state that I am a self confessed snack junkie and a grazer by all ccounts. I love my snacks more than regular food and love spicy ones better than sweet ones. I have successfully transferred that habit of mine to BH in all these years of togetherness. He was the 'happy to overeat' at regular meals but 'not bother about snack' person. On the contrary, some of my best childhood memories are with the snacks nammamma stored in the tin cans and plastic jars. I don't remember our kitchen devoid of some kind of snack item at any given point of time. The quantities used to be large as the house was always filled with visiting friends, family and others :-). I love to keep something in the kitchen for my cravings. These items have varying shelf lives depending on what they contain and how they are cooked.

A lady I knew in Midwest made rotis at home that used to get grabbed almost immediately by people who either had no inclination to cook at home or were busy to do so. I have got rotis from her on occasions when work was too hectic. I could walk into her kitchen and chat with her as she deftly made rotis and packed them hot and soft. I later learnt she also made some curries and was famous for her 'made from scratch' Dhoklas. Once when we had family visiting and went out on a trip, I asked her for a couple of dozen rotis and Dhokla. She hesitated a little bit as it was a long weekend and she had other plans but handed me the Dhokla box when I went to pick up my rotis. One of the sweetest ladies I have met and the Dhoklas were to die for.

She told me later she soaks dal, grinds it and makes the dhokla. I don't go into all that trouble but I do make some real good Dhoklas. Lot of my friends have been asking for the recipe and though I have made it many times in the last year, I had either not taken pictures and the pictures had not turned out to my satisfaction. But I made some this past weekend for a pot luck and remembered to also take pictures. Since everyone liked it at the party, here is an easy and quick recipe for Dhokla. Look for the tip in the notes section to make every Dhokla piece taste equally tangy & good.

What do you need to make Dhokla? 
Makes about 20 1X1 inch piece dhoklas
1 cup besan/fine gram flour
1/4 cup plain yogurt (preferably home made and a day old)
1/4 cup oil (I used Sunflower oil)
1 Tsp eno fruit salt
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp grated ginger
1/2 Tsp green chili paste
1/4 cup water
1/8 Tsp asafoetida powder
1 Tblsp Chopped cilantro for garnish
1 Tblsp Grated coconut for garnish
For seasoning:
1 Tblsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/2 Tsp cumin (optional)
1 Tsp white sesame seeds
1 Tblsp lemon juice

How do you make Dhokla? 

• Take a big bowl, add besan, salt, asafoetida, grated ginger and green chili paste. Mix well.
• Whisk the yogurt once to make it uniform.
• Add oil, eno, yogurt and water and mix it in. Consistency of this batter should be thicker than the regular dosa batter and it should fall in clumps. Follow the proportions above and you get the right consistency. 
• The batter should be mixed well without any lumps, I employ my trusted hands for the job as I can feel the texture better. 
• Pour the mixture into a pressure cooker vessel (or any other vessel you can fit in your pressure cooker) and cook it without the pressure cooker weight for 15 minutes after the steam starts coming out. 
• Switch off and let the steam go down, open the cooker and let the dhokla stand for a few minutes before cutting them into pieces of desired shape and size. 

• Arrange the pieces in a wide plate.
• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, cumin(if using) and sesame seeds. Let mustard crackle. Add lemon juice into the hot oil and switch off the stove. 

• Using a spoon, pour the seasoning all over the Dhokla pieces. 

• Garnish with chopped cilantro and grated coconut.
• Enjoy the moist, melt in the mouth Dhokla with your evening tea or coffee. 

Notes:

• Ensure your Eno is fresh & potent. When you add Eno to the mixture, it should feel frothy in your hands as you mix it in. 
• I add asafoetida in most of my non-sweet dishes using besan to ward off the side effects of the flour. You can omit it if you consume besan regularly or do not like the smell of asafoetida. 
• Cooking Dhokla is same as cooking idli, no weight on the pressure cooker, turn the heat down to medium low once it is full steam and cook for 15 minutes. A knife pushed into the Dhokla should come out clean.
• The lady who made the Dhoklas for me said adding lemon juice to the hot seasoning helps Dhokla to absorb the lemon juice uniformly and I find that tip to be very useful. 
• I use plain Eno salt, you can use flavored ones if you like them. 

Bell pepper dry curry with besan and a vent session

I promise I have a recipe today but I just to vent a little bit before I get to the recipe. Thanks for bearing with me, feel free to jump ahead or scroll down to get to the recipe directly :-).

It has been a busy couple of weeks with travel involved and I have spent less time on the blog than I would like to. For a natural home bird like me, travel is not something I enjoy very much. I love to go to places and see sights but the journey itself is what puts me off. I love to go driving but hate air travels, India trip is different though which I look forward to all the time in spite of the long flights. So when I have to travel, I am not a very happy camper. Two weeks back, when we all went to the east for DD's music program, I grumped and squirmed the entire 5 hours on the flight back making BH & DD sitting either side of me go bonkers. But then I had to travel alone for work last week and had only myself to complain to on the journey.

The trip itself was great, lot of work got done, met with my team and had a great time working in the familiar surroundings again while BH & DD did a wonderful job of taking care of home, school, sports practice, other activities and everything else. After a long work week, I headed back on Friday evening to leave the hotel room behind but was bummed when I missed my connection and had to stay overnight in a yet another unfamiliar city. The airlines did nothing to ease the distressed customer except for shoving a 800 number in my face and tell me to get a hotel room for the night. Though I was booked for a late afternoon flight the next day, I was adamant on getting in on one of those earlier flights, so I reached the airport early in the morning, established myself at the gate, kept talking to those agents and made sure my stand by status was well respected and recognized :-). Finally, they put me on an earlier flight to get rid of me. Reached home to be received by yells and shrieks and tight hugs and long licks (Flora) and all the travel sickness and tiredness vanished just like that :-), Great to be home again. Looking back at the additional time and the delay, it is just another character building experience.

To top it all, BH had cooked a wonderful lunch of menthya soppina anna and he said he just followed instructions from here, what more can I ask for? I cleaned the plate completely to wash away a week of eating bread and salads and such..This morning, I logged in to see inquiries and comments left by my blog visitors which just made my day completely, Thank you all.. Weather outside is beautiful, birds are chirping, our small vegetable garden is looking good. Life is good.

Whether you read through my vent session above or hopped directly to the recipe area, here is something that will not disappoint you. A yummy, quick to put together side dish for your rotis or rice. It is a dry curry and goes well with a plain rasam.

What do you need to make Bell Pepper Palya?
2 green peppers - deseeded and cut into bite size pieces.
1/2 medium sized onion - cut into thin long strips
2 heaped Tblsp of besan/gram flour/chick pea flour
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp red chili powder
1 Tblsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp chana dal/kadle bele
1/2 Tsp asafoetida
4-5 curry leaves

How do you make Bell Pepper Palya? 

• Heat a heavy bottom pan on medium heat and dry roast the besan frequently stirring. 
• Besan roasts and gives a wonderful aroma and turns slightly pink, switch off. Keep the roasted flour aside.
• Heat the oil in the same pan, add mustard, asafoetida and chana dal, roast till mustard crackles, add curry leaves. 
• Add the thin onion slices and fry for a couple of minutes until they become soft.

• Mix in the chopped bell pepper pieces, add salt and mix in. 
• Cover and cook on medium heat for 3-4 minutes. 

• Add the roasted besan, red chili powder and cook uncovered for 5-6 minutes until besan cooks and gets incorporated well. 

• Switch off and serve warm with rice or rotis. 

Notes: 

• You can mix & match bell peppers of different colors but I prefer the green ones for this recipe as they do not turn mushy when cooked. 
• You can skip roasting the besan initially but it will take longer for it completely cook and renders the bell pepper very soft.