Vankayai allam koora - a koora (side dish) that brings home the freshness of earth

Just when I was losing faith in the Groundhogs' abilities to predict weather accurately, they returned with a bang on Feb 2nd and declared we were going to have winter for another 6 weeks. How would you contest such accurate prediction :-)? What would we do without these lovable creatures? Though that wasn't the greatest of news, I admire their accuracy, they are way better than most of our weathermen in TV channels. Now that they are done with their one important task of the year (is there anything else they do other than hibernating and popping up once a year?) and met expectations (don't you think the bar is pretty low here!!) and returned underground to continue whatever they were doing, I am left here to stay warm and wait patiently for the onset of warm weather. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about winter but I don't mind seeing the mercury go a little higher on the scale. Whether it is Spring yet or not, I am itching to bring Spring into my kitchen. Today's recipe is one such that brings that whiff of Spring and freshness with ginger.

Spring is somehow wired in my brain as the same as clean, fresh and crisp air and flavors. While there are many herbs and spices that make this happen in the kitchen, ginger definitely tops the list. Combined with the sharpness from green chilies, this masala really elevates fresh vegetables. No powdered spices in this koora, just some tender eggplants sauteed with freshly crushed ginger and chilies and seasoned with a few crunchy dals and mustard, simple enough? This koora works perfectly with rotis or rice.

My advice is to use fresh ginger, take them to a mortar & pestle or another device that lets you crush it. The flavors of ground ginger Vs grated ginger Vs crushed ginger is very different and this recipe definitely loves the crushed version. If you were thinking of using that store bought (or even home made a couple of weeks ago and refrigerated) ginger-green chili paste, please do not do it. There is nothing complicated about this recipe so spend a little time on using freshly crushed ginger.

I have written many posts about eggplant recipes and have also talked about my late blooming love for them. If you are in the mood for reading my eggplant musings just hit the search button and look up other eggplant recipes. My family (except for DD) is of the group where they will give anything for a well made eggplant dish and do not complain if this humble vegetable made its way to their plates every day :-). So our eggplant recipe repertoire is pretty vast as you can probably imagine.

This is a heirloom recipe that is found commonly in most East Godavari Telugu homes. Crushed ginger and green chilies make a really fresh tasting dishes. I add curry leaves because they are one of my favorite flavoring agents in the kitchen. You can replace eggplants with potatoes, and then who doesn't love the spuds?

When I prepared this koora for the first time on my own, I went and looked for the smallest green brinjals thinking that they would be the tenderest ones and hence tastiest too. BH remarked that it had to have some seeds and not be really tiny. He is the expert and I accept my mistakes generously. So the next time I brought home slightly bigger ones and the koora was definitely tastier. So here is my tip to all of you newbies. The tiny ones are picked before they can develop any flavor and they also shed jackets (or skin) as they cook which is not a great experience while eating. The medium sized ones (about a big lime) are the best suited for this koora as they give a meaty texture to it. Pick eggplants that look fresh, are green without any black spots or tiny holes on the skin.

If you noticed, I used both terms - brinjal & eggplant, in Indian cooking there is no difference between the two as they belong to the same general family :-). Local languages distinguish each variety by size and color as pedda vankaya (big eggplant), tella vankaya (the green ones with white interfaces used in this recipe), nalla vankaya or gutti vankaya (usually the small, round purple). I hope the pictures in the post help.

NOTE: Pictures are from 2 different days, the lighter colored one does not have turmeric powder (I do forget sometimes :-)) and also has a Tbsp grated coconut added to it. The original recipe does not have coconut and the dish really doesn't need coconut, but some of you regular readers here already know about my weakness with coconut :-)

What do you need to make vankaya koora? 
8-10 small green brinjal/eggplants
1.5 inch fresh ginger
3-4 green chilies (adjust to your spice tolerance)
6-8 tender curry leaves
2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Seasoning: 
1 Tsp oil
1/2 Tsp mustard
1/2 Tsp chana dal
1/2 Tsp urad dal
1-2 pieces of dry red chilies (optional)
1/8 Tsp asafoetida/hing

How do you make vankaya koora? 

• Wash the eggplants, remove the stalk end and chop into cubes (really tiny ones are just made into half, medium sized ones chopped into quarters)
• Immediately immerse chopped eggplants into a fresh bowl of water. 

• Heat a wide pan and add 2Tbsp of oil. 
• Strain the water and separate the eggplant pieces. 
• Add the eggplant into the hot oil and stir once so the pieces get coated with oil. 
• Reduce the heat to medium, add salt and turmeric powder, mix once.

• Cover and cook for 5-6 mins on low heat or until the pieces become fork tender.
• Wash, peel and cut ginger into small pieces.
• Take ginger pieces, roughly torn curry leaves and green chilies to a mortar & pestle and crush them into a coarse paste. 

• Once the eggplants are tender, add the ginger-chili paste and give it a good mix. 
• Cover and continue to cook for 2 mins until the flavors mingle well. 

• Switch off and transfer to a serving bowl. 
• Heat the oil for seasoning, add mustard, dals, red chilies (if using) and asafoetida. 
• Let mustard pop and dals turn light pink. 
• Switch off and pour the seasoning over the koora. 

• I prefer to mix the seasoning just before serving as they retain the crunch. 

Notes: 

• Select tender and bright green eggplants. The ideal size is typically a big lime size. 
• Crush the ginger- chili fresh, do not use stored paste for this recipe. 
• We like the ginger flavor, play with the amount of ginger and green chilies you want to use in this recipe as spice tolerances vary.

Gongura Pulihora (Spicy seasoned rice with sorrel leaves) - Summer comes to a close and a new year begins

We are literally baking here for the past few days, temperature is at its northern tip as far as PNW is concerned and us poor folks pampered year long with moderate temperatures are now whining and complaining as loudly and as often as we can. At our home, this is the time of the year we seriously think of getting an air conditioner but by the time we get off our seats and put the thoughts into action, the weather would have changed and temperature gotten normal :-), so has been the story for last 5 years and the same continues this year as well. I don't feel justified spending money on something that I would use for a minuscule percentage of the year, also we spend a big part of the day in air conditioned offices as the week starts where everything is cool and nice, so the AC has been just a passing thought until now, maybe as the glaciers start to melt and the heat becomes unbearable in a few years, we will give it some serious consideration :-). Until then, let me enjoy the abundant sunshine and the naturally available vitamin D. The plants and flowers outside seem to be in complete agreement with what I say. 

I have turned into an infrequent blogger recently and had not even checked the blog for comments or the facebook for reactions in a while. As I logged in today after a couple of weeks of inactivity, a very pleasant surprise awaited when I saw the FB likes is now up beyond the count of 1000. A small but definite milestone and surely a nudge for me to get back to active blogging :-). I promise I will do the best, thank you all for visiting, stopping by to say hello and spreading the word. The recipes I blog about are very close to heart and the stories that go with it are from personal experiences, it makes it all the more fun when strangers stop by to read it. I am in my 5th year of blogging, I do this mainly for my own selfish purposes using the blog space to chronicle the happenings of my life and to document the recipes I cook at home. The pictures are by no means top class but I hope they support the story I write around the recipe and most of all they are fruits of hard work. I feel genuinely happy when this little space gets some TLC and attention.

As I was looking at the stats on my pages, I also saw a few discussions about a recent episode of plagiarism. If you are active in the food blogging world, you probably have read/heard about it by now, I have been just slow to catch on. I don't intent to shame anyone personally but this blogger apparently became popular with hits in the scale of 100,000 on her youtube videos and the website within a span of mere months. Days of instant gratification and personal glory, right? Turns out that most of the recipes were lifted word by word from some of the well established food blogs without so much as an acknowledgement. With the modern tools and easy access to content at fingertips, all you need for a starter kit is a laptop, browser and some good search key words. What gets lost in this crazy craving for popularity is someone else's hard work and effort put into creating the original piece.

Food blogging is a strange world, if you were to take a recipe there isn't much that any of us are creating afresh but the presentations are morphing, the need to have food appealing to eyes is now a well recognized fact.  The recipes by themselves are mostly handed down from generations and enjoyed by many people. Outside of small variations,personal taste differences and the trend of fusion, the core of a recipe is generic across geographies. So if they are all the same, what is plagiarism in the food blogging world? Plagiarism is when you lift content (recipe, pictures, presentation) from another blogger's space without due permission, plagiarism is when you reproduce another blogger's content without any acknowledgement and claim it as your own. Every food blogger worth his or her salt has painstakingly spent time to document what is in the family for ages, been generous to share the recipes with everyone. You will appreciate the effort that goes into each blog piece only if you are a blogger yourself. Just to put things into perspective, it takes me about 5 hours on an average to get a blog post out from the time of cooking, picture taking, processing, thinking of a context to present the content, actually writing the blog, proof reading and publishing it. Some days, it just doesn't come together at all no matter how hard I try while on other days it flows like an easy normal delivery. I do it only because I am passionate about it. So if someone is using the content or pictures from my blog, I would expect them to have the courtesy to acknowledge it. What was heartening about this particular incident was that there was active protest from the bloggers that literally brought the plagiarizing youtube channel and the website down but what is not so good is that this youtube channel is back in business within the week claiming that all non-original content has been removed. I sincerely hope that is the case. Please help food bloggers by identifying stolen content if you see one.

Other than the high temperatures, for me personally it feels like summer is over with DD heading back to school and starting another year. Can't believe the little girl is no longer a little girl but a fine young lady we are extremely proud of. Her summer though short at home was eventful, full of new adventures, memorable with lot of life lessons. We mostly stood on the side lines as she ventured into unknown territories and faced challenges as she always does - with a smile on her face. For me, acknowledging the fact that she is growing up is easy but letting go when needed is the most difficult part and I am trying my best to overcome my urge to try and guide her every so often. I intend to keep at it and hopefully become good decent at it in a few years decades :-)

Both times when she came home from her new adventures, DD was so happy to come back to the familiar kitchen, her own old dining table and have home food. I made this gongura pulihora 2 weeks back when she came home after a 7 weeks stay away and took it to the airport as we went to receive her in the afternoon. The first thing she noticed was the aroma as she climbed into the car and as a spoon full of rice went into her mouth, all she said was, "Ummm..". I made it again a few days later since she liked it so much and even after a week of home food, she was happy to polish it off clean.

This pulihora is a Telugu version of puliyogare or tamarind rice and replaces tamarind with sour sorrel leaves. The tangy rice with the freshly roasted and powdered spices makes it a delectable home coming recipe. It is simple to make, genuine in flavors and brings that comfort feeling when you eat it. Gongura or sorrel leaves are the pride of Telugu cuisine, if you like these tangy leaves, you can get them easily in the stores (Indian or Asian groceries are the best places to find these) during summer. We make pachadi, pappu on a regular basis but the pulihora got added to the repertoire recently. If you are craving for something spicy and South Indian, if you love rice, this is a heavenly eat. It is easy to put together and tastes better as it ages (best eaten the day after or a few hours after making it). You can roast the gongura leaves and store them in refrigerator for later use.

Happy Independence day to all my fellow Indians and people of Indian origin across the globe!

What do you need to make Gongura pulihora? 
1 cup gongura leaves
1 cup cooked rice (use long grained rice such as sona masoori)
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tbsp oil
Spice powder: 
1 Tbsp chana dal
1/2 Tsp urad dal
1/2 Tsp fenugreek seeds
1 Tsp white sesame seeds
1 Tsp coriander seeds
1/2 Tsp cumin
2-3 dry red chilies

Seasoning: 
1.5 Tbsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tbsp chana dal
1 Tsp urad dal
2 Tbsp peanuts
5-7 curry leaves (optional)
1 dry red chili broken into pieces
1/8 Tsp asafoetida
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder

How do you make Gongura Pulihora?

• Pick gongura leaves from the stems and discard the stems. 
• Wash the leaves in a couple of runs of water and spread them on a dish cloth or paper towel to remove all the moisture. Or pat dry the leaves if you are in a hurry. 
• Heat a Tbsp oil in a wide pan, add the leaves and fry them until they wilt and become a single soft mass, takes about 3 minutes on medium heat. 
• Switch off and take the cooked leaves onto a plate. This can be put into a zip lock bag and stored in the fridge for upto a month. 
• Cook 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water and a drop of oil (oil helps to keep the rice grains fluffy)
• Once cooked spread the rice in a wide plate or mixing bowl and let it cool. 
• Dry roast all the ingredients listed under 'Spice powder', start with the dals & fenugreek and once they turn light pink, add coriander, cumin, sesame seeds and red chilies. Roast them until fragrant and the chili crisps up. 

• Let the mixture cool, then grind it to a powder with a slightly coarse texture. Add this on top of the rice along with salt. 
• Add the cooked gongura leaves on top of the rice. 
• Heat oil for seasoning, add mustard, peanuts, let them roast for 30 seconds. Add the dals, asafoetida, turmeric powder and curry leaves (if using). Stir it with a spoon and roast until the peanuts start to pop and the dals turn golden. 

• Pour the hot seasoning on top of the rice. 

• Once warm enough to handle, gently bring everything together with fingers. Don't put a lot of pressure or the rice will turn mushy. 
• Taste and adjust salt, gongura as needed. 

• Let this rice sit for atleast 30mins for the flavors to mingle together before serving. 

Notes: 

• The leaves can be roasted like described above and stored in the refrigerator for weeks. You can pull out the required quantity and use it in the pulihora, pappu or pachadi. 
• Spice powder can be made ahead of time too and in larger quantities but I prefer to make it fresh. 
• Add cashew nuts in place of or in addition to the peanuts for seasoning if you like. 
• The tanginess in Gongura leaves varies with the variety, taste the rice and adjust if you need more tang, do not add all the leaves at once. 
• I like to use whole leaves in this recipe as they look pretty in the final recipe, if you don't like it, go ahead and chop them before frying in oil. 
• Letting the rice to rest for a half hour is very important for the flavor to come together, allow time for this. 

Gongura (Sorrel leaves) Pappu - exotic comfort made super easy

Didn't I show you my front yard beauties just a couple of weeks back as they popped up along with spring? The flowers are so many now the little tree is bent heavily towards the ground with the weight but still proudly showing off the seasonal bounty. We lost an hour last weekend as most part of US of A sprung forward making me grouchier than normal on the following Monday morning. We were playing board games with DD and a cousin well into the midnight on Saturday and by the time we turned in we had already lost the hour :-(. Oh well, never mind my whining, I do this every spring. You are all such good listeners that I don't have to worry about getting chided :-). The past week has helped catch up some sleep and also tame the body clock so it is like the time change never(almost) happened :-). And the cheery weather always makes me a chirpy, cheerful girl, so all is good!!

Last week was also spring break for the little girl, she was home and we had a great time together though both parents were incessantly coughing and sneezing on the kiddo for the entire week. Kashaya brewed non stop on the stove, cooking was lack luster on the days when the allergies and germs took over the best of me but we fought it back as well as we could. Tired that she was and happy to be home, DD slept through oblivious for most part. I am thankful the germs didn't get transferred to the little one and she went back to school safe and well. By the time she was getting ready to leave I was back to usual self and was able to cook the stuff she loves most and also get some things ready for her to take.

Now that we are back to being the twosome, BH & I threw ourselves in front of the big screen to watch a few movies. "If you don't mind, it doesn't matter" - is an old saying you repeatedly hear but somehow it seemed way more powerful coming from a 5 year old in the movie "Room". This movie made it to Oscars with Brie Larson taking home the well deserved Best Actress award recently. She makes the movie come alive and gut wrenching as does little Tremblay. If I had seen this movie some years ago when I was naive, low on worldly reality, I would have dismissed it as a movie maker's far fetched imagination running wild. Having seen multiple news coverage on similar incidences, I have sadly come to believe people do exist in this world that are capable of doing unimaginable damage to another fellow human being.

The movie is about a young adbucted girl and forced to confinement in a backyard shed for 7 years. She gives birth to a son and they live in the 'room' until the mom plots an escape with her 5 year old. Rest of the movie is about their adjustment to the 'world' as they call it and the never stopping happenings in the world. All I could think of was the unstoppable resilience in the human nature and the hope to overcome hurdles. By no means a light Saturday watch but if it makes someone take positive action to prevent such incidences in the society, it makes it for a well spent 2 hours.

I didn't mean to spoil anybody's appetite, but it is better to be safe than sorry. Let us not forget that most people are kind but be wary of the unkind ones as you send your loved ones out. Spread the love not the meanness.

Marrying into a Telugu family also meant embracing dal or pappu as my soul food. No daily meal is complete without this on the menu. Though I grew up with a protein rich side dish in the form of saaru, huli, tovve etc, eating pappu on a regular basis came only after the marriage :-). Luckily for me, I love lentils and BH is open to experimentation so our food has a much wider variety in terms of lentils used and how they are cooked. Pappu - the quintessential staple of Andhra cuisine which is essentially a concentrated dose of either toor(split pigeon peas) or moong (green gram) dal is the region's response to the dals from the North of India. Andhra kitchens boast of a variety of pappus ranging from plain, roasted dals to exotic variations.

Gongura are the green leaves that are sour/tangy by nature. Pachadi made with these leaves is a delicacy in Andhra. I generally end up making gongura pachadi (a few different ways) whenever I get these leaves home. Of late, our rice consumption during the weekdays is so low that the pachadi gets eaten happily the day I make them (usually weekends and we have rice for lunch) and the rest goes into the refrigerator and becomes that invisible container. And after a few days of ignoring, the freshness is lost, and finally I either force serve it with everything I make or it ends up in the green trash :-(. So one fine day, I decided that I would not succumb to the lure of the pachadi but will try the pappu instead. It was such a hit that I had to ask myself why I hadn't made it before. Needless to say, this pappu is a regular feature in the kitchen now and BH simply loves to eat it from a bowl, no sides (or mains) needed for him to enjoy this :-)

I make most of the pappu variations on a regular basis but some of them are better favorites than others at home. Today's Gongura pappu or dal with sorrel leaves is one such item.  Some bravehearts add additional tamarind juice to this pappu but we are happy with the tang from the leaves itself. You need to balance the salt and spices with the tangyness from the gongura in this dal for it to be really delicious, otherwise you will end up with a super tart pappu. Andhra cooking is also unique in that we use green and red (dry) chilies together in a lot of recipes, the flavors and taste they impart are different and I do this especially in pachadis and pappus. Sauteed in oil, these do not increase the spiciness a lot, so I also use a little bit of red chili powder at the end. Feel free to cut down on or eliminate any of these 3 heat sources from the recipe to suit your taste.

With today's recipe, I have also added a clove of garlic (which if you are a regular reader here will recognize as an ingredient I don't often use) as I am trying to incorporate into my cooking slowly as I keep hearing its health benefits. The fact that BH loves it makes an added incentive. As I gingerly put my feet into the world of garlic, I chose to add just a little and in a form that doesn't release too much flavor and smell. Cutting it into slices versus making a paste makes the flavor mild and I could easily pass the pieces onto BH's plate when they showed up in mine :-). I kinda liked the very slight hint of garlic, so there is still hope for me (becoming a garlic lover someday) in this world :-). If you don't like it, by all means omit it, doesn't affect the taste of the dish.

What do you need to make Gongura pappu? 
3/4 cup toor dal
1 Tbsp chana dal
2 packed cups chopped gongura leaves
1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
1 garlic clove sliced vertically (optional)
1 dry red chili - broken into pieces
2 green chilies
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
Seasoning: 
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp chana dal
1/4 Tsp fenugreek seeds
Garnish on top:
1/2 Tsp ghee (clarified butter)
1/2 Tsp red chili powder (adjust to spice tolerance)
1/8 Tsp asafoetida

How do you make Gongura pappu? 

• Pick leaves from the stalks, wash thoroughly and let the water drain
• Wash the 2 dals in water, pick any dirt, add 2 drops of oil and turmeric powder. 
• Pressure cook with 1.5 cups of water until soft. 
• I start the cooking at medium high and after the first whistle, simmer down the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. If you are more familiar by the number of whistles, use that method. 

• Switch off and let the pressure subside. 
• Heat a wide wok or pan, add the oil followed by mustard, chana dal, fenugreek seeds and the chilies. Slit the green chilies before adding to avoid its popping. 

• Once the mustard pops and the dal turns golden, add garlic slices if using and the thinly sliced onion. 

• Saute for 1-2 mins until onion sweats a little and turns translucent. 
• Add chopped gongura leaves and stir it in. 
• Saute for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently until the leaves wilt and become mushy. 

• Add cooked dal, a cup of water and mix everything together. 
• Adjust the consistency with additional water if you like. 

• Add salt and let the dal come to a good rolling boil. Switch off. 
• Heat a small pan with ghee in it, once the ghee is hot, reduce the flame and add red chili powder and asafoetida. 
• Switch off and pour this on top of the dal, cover the vessel and let it rest for 10 minutes before stirring everything together. 

• We ate this tangy, spicy pappu with undrallu made with red matta rice. Super delicious :-)

Notes: 

• Toor dal tends to get mashed up completely and I like my dal to have a texture. Adding a spoon of chana dal gives that texture I am looking for. You can make the dish with only toor dal also.  
• Indian cooking uses pressure cooker very effectively for lentils, if you do not own one you can cook the dals in open vessel on medium heat for about an hour. Use slow cooker as another alternative. 

• If you are cooking in an open vessel, it helps to soften the lentils by soaking it in water for 30mins to an hour before cooking. 
• You can skip onion and garlic in this recipe if you prefer, I like onion in my dals and usually add them.

Chegodilu - Crunchy, spicy yet light. Did I say 'addictive'?

Tomorrow is Groundhog's day and it is customary belief that the groundhog will come out of its burrow to see its own shadow. If there is a shadow, apparently it goes right back to its hibernation, continues to sleep for another few weeks but if no shadow falls, it starts roaming around on the surface :-), what was all that about? Groundhog feeling, sensing the arrival of Spring. And why am I talking about the groundhog day? Something strange seems to be happening and I am not an expert on global warming. It is Feb 1 and we haven't even had a decent winter yet(I know, my friends on the east coast will jump at me for saying this after being buried in inches of snow), where I live it has been a very mild winter with hardly any rains and last week we started to notice buds in our Camallia flowers and this weekend they have already bloomed and many petals have fallen on the ground with the wind!! No matter what the groundhog sees and decides to do tomorrow but I feel the plants have already sensed an early spring. Happy Groundhog's day anyways :-) and here is a picture of how our Camillias are looking right now. Pretty, aren't they?

Today also happens to be the Superbowl Sunday when most fans are either burrowed in their homes watching the game or actually watching it from the stadium. It has been a week of superbowl fever all over the place. Seattle very proudly is backing the home team and showing the pride in all conceivable (and some very imaginative) forms of support. Downtown Seattle is dressed up with various good luck messages on the buildings, we had a party and spirit day at work last Friday. The game started an hour back with Seahawks playing the Patriots for their 2nd consecutive SuperBowl trophy, game has just entered the 2nd half and Hawks are leading. We are watching the game (I am trying to type in this post while watching the game, I know that is not very 'fan'ly but I honestly can't sit glued to the screen especially when those ads are playing) at home, rooting for the Hawks.

Update at 7:05PM, Hawks lost, wish I had posted this out earlier. The final few seconds of the game was not really good sportsmanship at all :-(

Will tell you what happened later on if I haven't published this post before the game is over :-). I made some delicious sweet potato muffins, salad and a big bowl of spicy mixture made with rice crispies. Recipes will show up one of these days on the blog, I promise.

Onto today's recipe, I have some crunchy, crispy chegodilu - a deep fried snack from Andhra. Now if you have not heard the name before, here is a breakdown. I am told 'godi' is the metal chain lock used in old homes for protection. It refers to the shape of the snack. If this is too complicated to imagine, just think of modern day ear rings or hoops. Chegodilu (plural) resembles a thick ear hoop/ring. Now, if you follow my blog on a somewhat regular basis, you know I grew up in Karnataka. You probably are wondering why I am talking about chegodilu and not the famous 'kodubale' from Karnataka. I agree when you look at the pictures, it would scream kodubale for those of us coming from Karnataka but here is the difference.. before I explain the difference, let me tell you a quick anecdote.

Kodubale (I don't have the recipe on the blog, gasp, what a shame! given that it is my favoritest of all spicy snacks in this whole world), I promise I won't make you wait for too long, it is just that I want it to be perfect when I present it :-). I make Kodubale quite often and we have shared it with many family members & friends. Everytime I made this and we gave it to someone on BH's side, amma would say "not our chegodilu, kaani chaala bavuntayi" :-)"which translates to "not our Chegodilu, but these are very tasty too" which would pique me about the undiscovered chegodilu. I had to wait quite a few years to actually taste the real deal chegodilu and first impression for someone who grew up on kodubale was that they were very good, but not as good as Kodubale :)).

When I made them at home for the first time, DD took a bite and said, "Oh, these are chakbales ('Chak' from chakli and 'bale' from kodubale)" and I think that is a very apt name because the rice flour is unadultrated in this unlike the kodubale so you taste a hint of chakli. Hence our name for this delicacy at home is chakbale.

So what exactly is the difference between the kodubale and chakbale? Chakbale is made with rice flour, red chili powder adds the heat and asafoetida gives the sharpness. But kodubale is a complex combination of tastes and textures, much more balanced and will talk about it another time. These chakbales are quick to make, stay fresh for a week if kept in an dry, airtight container and finally very addictive (there goes the plan of keeping them for a week :-)). So let us get going to make some chakbales chegodilu before the winter wraps up completely and the groundhogs start to rule the world. Shall we?

What do you need to make Chegodilu?
2 cups water
1.5 cups rice flour
1 Tbsp soaked moong dal
1 Tsp white sesame seeds
1/2 Tsp cumin
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp red chili powder
1/8 Tsp asafoetida
6-8 curry leaves - chopped finely
1 Tsp oil
2-3 cups of oil to deep fry

How do you make Chegodilu? 

• Add water in a pan on medium heat. 
• Add soaked moong dal, sesame seeds, cumin, salt, red chili powder, chopped curry leaves, 1 Tsp oil and asafoetida and let it come to a rolling boil. 

• Lower the heat, add rice flour in a continuous and slow flow to the boiling water. 
• Mix quickly with a spoon, switch off, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. 

• Heat oil to deep fry in a wide pan. 
• Take half of the cooked mixture onto a flat surface, dip your hand in cold water and knead the mixture into a smooth dough. This is important to prevent chegodilu from cracking.
• Keep the remaining mixture covered. 
• Take small key lime size balls of the smooth dough, roll them to resemble pencils, when you reach about 3 inches long, turn the two ends towards each other and press them together with a little overlap. 

• Prepare a few (as many as your pan can hold without crowding) chegodilu. 
• Once the oil is hot (my 'no thermometer' test for this is to drop a pinch of the dough and if it comes bubbling to the top immediately, then the oil has reached the right temperature), add the prepared chegodilu one by one in to the oil. 
• Let them come to the surface on their own (do not disturb at this stage or they will break), flip each one over slowly to the other side. 

• Let them cook (2-3 minutes) on medium heat until they are golden brown all around and the bubbles in the oil die down. 
• Take them onto a tissue lined plate and let cool. 

• Enjoy the crunchy Chegodilu with a cuppa. 
• Store remaining (if any) in a ziplock or air tight container up to 2 weeks. 

Notes: 

• Before kneading the dough, taste the cooked mixture for salt, spice level etc and adjust while kneading. 
• If you are making a large batch, keep the unused dough covered with a damp paper towel so it doesn't go dry. 
• You can make the chegodilu any size of your choice. 
• These stay good for a couple of weeks if left untouched :-)

Wisdom from making it multiple times :-):

• Instead of soaking the moong dal, dry roast it until light pink and add water to the pan to start cooking it. This gives you a pleasant & unexpected bite instead of the softer soaked moong dal effect. 

Kudumulu - a steamed snack full of healthy vegetables

When I got married into a Telugu family and started tasting delicious yet unfamiliar dishes, my thought was like, "Aha, I am going to conquer all of these recipes and make them my own" which I have done to a large extent. But the reality of it is, the Telugu food I have been exposed to represents just one facet of Andhra Pradesh only as is my Karnataka food familiarity. There is so much regional variances and some recipes being very local, you won't even hear about them unless you visit the place. So now I am more cautious when I say I cook Kannadiga and Telugu food, it is more like I cook the food from parts of Karnataka/Andhra. There is so much more to taste, enjoy, learn & blog about :-).

Visiting far away places has become so easy with our virtual tours now. I can search for any recipe and will find atleast a few hits on it on the internet. But then, how do you filter the good ones over the 'ok' ones? I usually let my gut feel guide (I do have a pretty decent gut feel :-))which recipes to go after. I came across this recipe in one of the Telugu food channel program, apparently it is a a popular dish in the Telengana region so amma has no idea and BH had never tasted it (until I made it at home). What attracted me to the recipe was that it seemed like one of those rustic dishes from the villages of India. I am a sucker for simplicity, and the rawness of old recipes. While it sounded promising, I have to honestly admit that I was a little hesitant  to make it as I wasn't convinced that steamed rice flour could result in something delicious. For me, idlis have a coarse & soft texture, I love them with either coarsely ground rice or rice rava. This recipe sounded and looked like idli (with no lentils) and I was not convinced about it the first time I heard of it.

But something with the addition of vegetables and the promise of no soak, no grind yummyness held me back from dismissing it totally. After a couple of weeks of actually churning it over in my head, I decided to give it a try as I was anyway looking for new BF or snack items. Didn't want the family to suffer or grumble if the experiment resulted in a disaster, so put it on my weekend brunch menu. With a safe bet of known khichdi as the main item, I was more than willing to take the risk if the kudumulu didn't make the taste test :-). But here is what happened, we ended up eating the kudumulu instead of the khichdi all the way. The spicy ridge gourd peel chutney on the side enhanced the experience and by end of the meal, I was left with a pot of khichdi and an empty bowl of kudumulu. With such a high rating of approval, I had to sit down and blog about it before I lost the recipe.

This may be a traditional recipe that some of you have grown up eating, for me it is new but will stay on the repertoire. It tastes good even when cold making it an ideal prep ahead breakfast item for a busy week day. I added the rice rava to the recipe since I wasn't convinced about the rice flour alone, the original recipe didn't have it and you can totally skip it. I may not even add it the next time I make this. It is not a soft idli but is very flavorful with the cooked broad beans. The texture is very much like the steamed modaka made on the Ganesha habba, a little soft and transparent but the taste is very different with the added vegetables and the fenugreek leaves. The original recipe on the TV show had the lady add chopped mint leaves but I replaced it with my favorite fenugreek leaves.

Indian broad beans are generally a winter vegetable and I get them regularly as we all love gojju or a simple stir fry with it. With a subtle flavor, this vegetable can make a simple recipe go a long way in the taste arena. These are called chapparada avare kaayi (since they grown on vines which are usually supported by a structure called 'chappara' in Kannada) or chikkudu kaaya in Telugu. These are not the papdi lilva I talk about here, here & here though they belong to the same general category.

What do you need to make Kudumulu? 
1.5 cups rice flour
1.5 Tbsp rice rava
3-4 green chilies (adjust to taste)
1 inch piece ginger
1.5 cup boiled broadbeans pieces
1 cup finely chopped fenugreek leaves
1 cup finely chopped spring onion
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
3/4 - 1 cup hot water

How do you make Kudumulu? 

• String the broad beans (chikudukaaya/chapparadavare), separate ripe beans and chop the skin into small pieces. 
• Steam or boil the chopped beans & a pinch of salt in 1/2 cup of water until they turn soft.
• Make a coarse paste of green chilies & ginger. 
• Take rice flour & rava in a bowl, add all the ingredients except for water and mix them well. 

• Taste and adjust salt or green chilies. 
• Add hot water slowly and using a spoon bring it together into a soft dough. 

• Grease the idli plates, take lemon sized balls, flatten them slightly and place them in the grooves of idli plates. 

• Steam for about 10 minutes or until a tooth pick pushed in the center comes out clean. 
• Switch off, let stand for 5 minutes before removing them from the plates. 
• Serve hot with a drop of ghee and a spicy chutney on the side. 

Notes: 

• Choose broad beans that are mature (but not dry or stringy) for this recipe, more plump beans make it tastier. 
• You can use chopped cilantro or fresh mint leaves in place of fenugreek leaves for a flavor change. 

• Spring onions add a crunch and subtle flavor, do not use regular onions - they don't taste as good steamed. 
• Use the water from boiling the beans as this will be rich in flavor.