Menasina/mensin saaru (Pepper Rasam) - you don't need to be under the weather to enjoy this

I grew up in a place that had 3 distinct seasons in a year - summer, winter and monsoon season tucked in between those two. There was no Autumn as I know here and both summers and winters were very mild in Mysuru. All we needed was a hand knit sweater to get us through the winter. But as with any place, when the seasons shifted, it was invariably accompanied by a sore throat, a sneeze or a head cold. It just wasn't called flu season :-) and instead of the preventative flu shots I have grown so accustomed to now, there were a number of home remedies. It feels to me like we as human beings are losing all of the natural defenses of the body as years go by and cannot repair any damages without the help of strong chemicals :-(, which is scary to say the least.

As a child, even with a sister studying to be a doctor, I remember a lot of simple home remedies. A sore throat was dealt with a hot kashaya, a cold was given its due with a spicy tasty mensin saaru, an upset stomach with a soothing yogurt+fenugreek+sugar mixture or better still advised to stay away from food for a more natural healing, a fever was administered bland food devoid of all spices (what a nightmare :-)). I continue this practice even now before reaching out to a bottle of tylanol or something stronger and it works for me.

Some of these home remedies are so delicious that we used to 'fake' sickness just to get nammamma to make a hot and yummy mensin saaru on chilly nights. This saaru is a natural comforter and healer for most weather related, minor illnesses. Even if it didn't cure anything, it was more psychological and I always felt that my sore throat had gotten better after downing a generous tumbler of mensin saaru :-) and would be ready to go on again. We all simply loved this special saaru that seemed to suit the cozy winter evenings so perfectly.

I went to Mysore when DD was born and was welcomed warmly and with much love by nammamma and anna who had become empty nesters by then with all the children having flown out of the nest. The extremely busy lives they had led until recently seemed to have had a break all of a sudden and they had so much time on their hands and were relearning to live their lives with just the two of them. It probably was the first time they were by themselves in any place in the nearly 5 decades of married life. The hurried pace was gone, replaced with a more mature, deliberate and synchronous pace that worked for both of them and the kitchen for the first time seemed to be almost inactive as she didn't have to cook much at all for the two of them. They were ecstatic to have me home for a few days before and after the baby came. While the pre-baby food was all fancy, spicy and exotic, the post-baby phase was focused entirely on nutrition and what was good for the little one :-). Suddenly the house seemed to come alive with family coming over to visit the expectant mom or the new mom & the infant. Just like that nammamma was back in her busy kitchen making all kinds of yummy food.

Nammamma had this saaru on the top of the list of 'allowed food' for women post a child birth. The combination of pepper, cumin and ghee is an accepted post delivery diet food :-). I didn't complain when she served me the mensin saaru day after day following the birth of my baby for an entire month. It was the time for hot steaming rice, warm mensin saaru and a big dollop of home made ghee specially reserved for the new mom but more than all that it meant two doting parents/grand parents sitting by watching me eat the food :-) while the infant made cooing sounds in the background. 3 generations of the family, sharing love and joy with each other! Nammamma would coax me to eat a little more even though I had had a full share of what I could eat :-) and would sit by the side cradling the baby in her arms. We would talk of all things from when she became a mom for the first time to when she became a grand mom for the first time and everything in between and around those time periods. Those couple of months of having my parents all to myself is one of the best memories I hold close to heart. She took extra effort to make sure, I had the freshest of the food and at the right times during the day. There was no stopping her as what I ate and how I felt was not only was affecting me but her new born grandchild as well :-). And I gave in willingly as well.

Mensin saaru continues to be a favorite saaru version even now. DD loves this and her unusual combination is to eat it with plain idlis :-). She likes to dip her idli in a slightly thick consistency mensin saaru and enjoy. We are currently under the weather :-) in every sense of the word. Rain is coming down steadily for the last couple of days and the temperatures have started their journey down south. In addition to the daily 1000mg of Vit-C and a preventative flu shot, I make the mensin saaru regularly. Some days, we drink it up as a soup and on some days, we use it as a side dish. Somehow magically it continues to have the ability to rid us of the annoying flu symptoms!!

This is how wet and gorgeous my neck of woods looks right now

Tip of the day: Use ghee in this recipe to roast the spices instead of oil. Ghee and pepper are known to be a match made in heaven and the difference in taste is miles apart. Our bodies have a better metabolism in winter than summer and you can easily jog/walk away the extra calories :-) but don't replace with a lower fat oil option please!!

Note: There is no tamarind or any kind of tangy agents in this saaru, tamarind is considered to be off limits during a head cold and this saaru tastes divine with the pepper, cumin and ghee.

What do you need to make mensina saaru? 
1/3 cup Toor dal (see notes for variations)
1/4 cup grated coconut
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp ghee/clarified butter
2 Tbsp milk
To roast:
1 Tbsp urad dal
1/4 Tsp chana dal
1/2 Tbsp coriander seeds
1 Tsp cumin
1/2 Tsp black pepper
1 dry red chili
2-3 curry leaves

How do you make mensina saaru? 

• Wash, pick any dirt from the toor dal and pressure cook it with a pinch of turmeric and 1.5 cups of water. 
• Cook for about 15mins on low heat after the first whistle to get a really mashed up dal. 
• If you are cooking in an open vessel on stove top, I highly recommend soaking the dal for 30-60mins before cooking. 
• Heat ghee in a small pan, add all ingredients under 'to roast' and on a low flame, stirring frequently, roast until the dal turns golden hue (ಹೊಂಬಣ್ಣin Kannada)and you get a heady aroma of the pepper and cumin. 

• Switch off and let it cool
• Grind the roasted ingredients with coconut and 1/4 cup of water until it turns into a smooth paste. 

• Once the pressure subsides from the cooker, open the lid, mash the dal with a whisk and make it into a homogeneous mixture. 

• Add the ground masala paste to the dal along with salt and adjust water to get the right consistency. Remember the saaru thickens as it boils due to the urad dal in the paste. 
• Once it comes to a gentle boil, add milk and let it boil for another couple of minutes. 
• Switch off and let it rest for a few minutes. 

• Serve hot or warm and never cold :-). If you are mixing it with rice, add a dollop of ghee for extra flavor. 

Notes: 

• You can use either toor dal (split pigeon peas) or moong dal (split green gram) for this saaru. 
• The consistency of the saaru is entirely dependent on the intent of its usage. If you want it for drinking make it a thin, butter milk consistency. If you are using it to mix with hot, steamed rice, make it a little thicker. 
• The consistency is controlled two ways, one with water and the other with the amount of dal you add. 
• If you want it as a drink, reduce the amount of dal to about 1.5 Tbsp and add 1/2 cup more of water. 

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.

Zucchini Dal - fresh from the backyard, bursting with flavor

Gardening for me is therapeutic just like baking is. It is almost like bringing up a child with added perks, the plants never become teenagers and they don't grow up to get out of the home :-). Seeing the plants thrive, grow from seeds into a sapling to a mature plant capable of producing flowers or fruits is very fulfilling. Come Spring and we start planning a small kitchen garden every year. Since most of these plants do not survive after the frost in Oct/Nov, it is a new effort every year. Last year, we had loads of fresh Methi and other greens but not much of other veggies. Earlier in Spring, we spent a couple of weekends digging up a patch of land in the backyard, tilled and topped a couple of feet of top soil and made a raised bed and planted a few small tomato, zucchini, cucumber, green beans and peppers. I had some dry beans and okra seeds which I planted separately. I also have a couple of brinjal plants which refuse to grow at all. Any garden enthusiasts out there with tips on growing brinjal - what kind of soil, fertilizers, care etc?

With the beautiful summer we are having, the plants thrived and Tomatoes seem to have over shadowed all other plants and from a distance, the patch looks to be entirely filled with Tomato plants. There are a whole bunch of small green tomatoes, not yet ready for picking. We noticed a bunch of bright yellow and orange flowers on the squash plants and very soon they sprouted small, baby squashes which grew in length and breadth. Last weekend we harvested our first crop of the Summer, a basket full of green zucchinis and a yellow squash. I am preparing myself for some squashy rains from the backyard :-), so look out for recipes with squashes/zucchinis.

Today I decided not to blabber a lot like I usually do but let my pictures do the talking. I will take you on a tour of our yard and I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I do. I am surrounded by a burst of colors, pretty flowers, beautiful fragrances, tiny vegetables and I am content and happy :-).

A fragrant, delicate Jaji mallige (Poet's Jasmine)

A pink Lily with a heady aroma

A bouquet of cheerful white Daisies

Pretty faced Hibiscus

Mildly fragrant, abundant blooms of Roses

A bright yellow squash nestled in the bushes among the big yellow flowers

A green Zucchini shooting out from under the branches

Zucchini or Courgette is a type of summer squash and is considered a vegetable by chefs although botanically it is an immature fruit(Source:Wiki). Zucchini with its delicate flavor blends wonderfully in many dishes and is usually served cooked. I like to add them in Dals, make pachadis or serve them grilled in salads. Cooking a zucchini is very quick and it holds the shape unlike a cucumber without becoming mushy. I made some delicious South Indian Dal (a.k.a pappu) with our home grown Zucchini, very flavorful and tasty. This dal preparation is very similar to the Andhra lemon cucumber pappu (Dosakaya pappu).

What do you need to make Zucchini Dal? 
1 cup Toor dal/pigeon peas (See notes for variations)
1 medium sized zucchini
2-3 green chilies (adjust to taste)
1/8 Tsp turmeric powder
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
2 Tsp finely chopped cilantro for garnish

Seasoning: 
2 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/2 Tsp cumin
1/4 Tsp fenugreek seeds (optional but recommended)
1/4 Tsp Asafoetida
1/4 cup thinly chopped onions
4-5 curry leaves
1 dry red chili

How do you make Zucchini Dal? 

• Soak Toor dal in 3 cups of water for about 45 minutes or until the dal softens up. 
• Wash and pat dry zucchini, remove the ends. 
• Slice the zucchini vertically in half and chop into bite sized pieces.
• Remove the stems and slice the green chilies vertically into half, keep aside one green chili for later.
• Drain the water from the soaked dal, wash it once in running water. 
• Take the dal, zucchini pieces and green chilies in a pressure cooker, add 2.5-3 cups of water and cook it for 2 whistles. The dal should get cooked completely and the zucchinis should not become mushy - See notes below for tips.

• Let the cooker cool down completely. 
• Heat oil in a big pan (that can hold your dal mixture also later on), add mustard, let it pop. Add cumin, asafoetida, dry red chilies. fenugreek (if using) and the curry leaves. Let them fry for 30 seconds. 
• Add the thinly chopped onions and let it sweat and cook to become soft stirring frequently. 
• Chop the preserved green chili into small pieces after removing the stem and add it to the pan just before adding the dal mixture. This will give a very slightly cooked but crunchy bites of chili for that added zing you find in the restaurant Dal Tadka. This is a completely optional step. 
• Add the cooked dal & zucchini mixture, salt, turmeric powder, mix well. Adjust consistency with water (this dal is slightly thick). Garnish with chopped cilantro.
• Let it come to a roaring boil before switching off. Serve warm with hot rice and dollop of ghee or roti.  

Notes: 

• You can add roughly chopped tomato pieces (one medium tomato) in to the seasoning after onion turns soft. Or you can puree the tomato, add it to the Dal & zucchini and let it cook. 
• Soaking Toor dal expedites the cooking process, this is essential in this recipe since you cook both the dal and zucchini together in the pressure cooker. You want the dal to be cooked soft but zucchini should still hold its shape. If this sounds complicated, go ahead, cook the dal and zucchini separately and add them together later. 
• Variation 1: Add a Tsp of grated ginger to the seasoning before adding onion for a flavor boost, I kept it minimal to showcase the fresh zucchini in my dal. 
• Variation 2: you can use any other summer squash, cucumber, lemon cucumber, bottle gourd and such vegetables to replace zucchini in this recipe for an equally refreshing dal. 

Halasina beejada huli a.k.a jackfruit seeds sambar - Summer sensations from India

Are you wondering why I am talking about jack fruit, well not even the fruit but the seeds while everyone is presenting beautiful creations of the Summer fruit - Mango? Jack fruit is also in season in the hot climates of Asia from Mar-Aug (covers the Summer, doesn't it?) and it is every bit as delicious as the mango though the tastes and textures are very different. Lastly, for me, sitting here in my home far away from where I grew up, jack fruit is in season whenever I spot it in the aisles of my grocery store :-). So that is where the story began. For the first time in over a decade, I found some cut jack fruit pieces in my grocery store a few months back and I didn't even trust my sense of smell until I actually saw the quartered pieces nestled among the vegetables next to some melons. I pinched myself once to make sure I wasn't dreaming, picked it up and then the smell just engulfed me. I didn't think DD would remember eating this fruit while in India but she did and she loved it just as much as her ajji (grand mother) does. BH feigns allergy to jackfruit though I think it is non existent but I don't force him to eat it for selfish reasons :-). So whenever I find the fruit in the store, I bring a piece home and as we opened up the jack fruit to get to the yummy 'fruit' part, I started collecting the seeds that come with it. I made about 2 cups (25-30 seeds) in a matter of few weeks :-)

Back in India, as soon as the jack fruits appeared in the market, my father used to ride on his 2 wheeler and choose a humongous, ripe jack fruit, stand it up in front of his drivers seat (imagine Bajaj Chetak) and support it with his feet (I know it was not the safest way to ride a 2 wheeler but I can't find fault with my dad, ever, let us just say he was a safe driver :-)) and ride back home. We would run to the scooter with an old, partially torn gunny sack, help Dad ease the fruit on to it, hold the corners of the sack and bring it inside. Then, Anna would change into his work clothes - jack fruit cutting is a very messy job, involves smearing the knife, cutting board and your hands with a layer of oil if you don't want the sticky, gooey stuff hanging on to you hours later. Then, we would spread old news papers on the floor, move the fruit with the sack onto the paper, generously apply oil to our hands and sit around expectantly. Anna would prepare the big sharp knife and the smaller slightly blunt ones and cut the fruit into half, then quarters and 1/8ths (yes, it had to be a lesson in fractions even then :-)) and then picking one of the small pieces, would deftly go through all the protective layers to reach the fruit, take one out and say, "Give it to Amma and she will know if it is ripe" :-). My mom who doesn't go overboard with any food, can gorge on jack fruit, it is one of her favorite fruits. He did this year after year as far as I can remember as it was one of Amma's favorite fruits. And he knew how to pick the juiciest, sweetest jack fruit by looking at their outside crocodile like skin and the spacing of the spikes on it.

We would all get our own cut pieces to work through the layers and eat the fruit. There is a saying in Kannada, "Hasidu Halasu tinnu, undu maavu tinnu" which roughly translated means - jack fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach and Mango on a full stomach. Jack fruit can be very filling and that is what we filled ourselves with whenever the fruit was brought home. Some cut portions went to the neighbors and we ate a lot, kept some stored away for later but all the seeds were collected onto a separate plate or news paper sheet. Amma would wash and remove the top layer and keep it for drying. These taste great whether you fire roast them or cook them until soft. The seeds have a buttery texture, taste resembling walnuts. While the fire roasted seeds were sprinkled with salt and consumed as a snack, the cooked ones mostly went into a Huli/sambar or a Palya/dry curry with coconut.

So what is this Huli I am talking about? While Sambar is World (well, almost) famous as an accompaniment to Idli and Dosa, in Karnataka we call it 'Huli' (literally meaning 'Tangy'). It is similar in concept to the sambar but has its own variations from family to family. Huli is a staple dish served with cooked white rice in Kannadiga homes, in fact eating sambar with Idli or Dosa is not a common home style food in Karnataka but more of an acquired taste from the neighboring states and also due to the popularity of restuarants. Idli/dosa is almost always accompanied by chutney or other special items at home. Huli is made with a home made spice powder or using freshly roasted and ground spices. Huli always has lentils (usually Toor dal) and tamarind and Karnataka style of making it includes a single vegetable or some well known combinations such as Aalugedde-eerulli (Potato-onion), badane kaayi-kaalu (eggplants - some whole grains like chick peas or cow peas etc). Jack fruit seeds Huli is special given its seasonal nature and Nammamma made it without adding any other vegetables while I have included some onion and carrots here.

I don't make/keep a lot of Huli pudi or Sambar powder at home since our Huli consumption is limited and I like to freshly roast and grind the spices whenever I make the Huli. Also, since I add or delete a few ingredients in the spice mixture depending on the vegetable used, it works out well for me. You can use your regular sambar powder for this recipe, look at the notes for tips to enhance the flavor.

What do you need to make Halasina beejada Huli? 
3/4 cup toor dal
1.5 cup (more or less) jack fruit seeds
2-3 carrots (optional) - peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 medium onion - chopped roughly
2 Tblsp grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 gooseberry size tamarind - soaked in water and juice extracted
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/8 Tsp turmeric powder
To be roasted and ground:
1 Tblsp oil
1 Tblsp coriander
2 Tsp chana dal
1 Tsp urad dal
1/2 Tsp cumin
1/2 Tsp fenugreek
2-1 inch pieces cinnamon
1 clove
6-8 red chilies
Seasoning :
1 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/4 Tsp fenugreek seeds
4-5 curry leaves
1/8 Tsp asafoetida

How do you make Halasina Beejada Huli? 

• Heat a Tblsp oil in a pan, add all the ingredients listed under "to be roasted and ground" and roast them for 3-5 minutes on medium heat until you start getting a nice aroma and the dals turn pink.
• Switch off and let cool. 
• Take all the roasted ingredients, grated coconut, 1 Tblsp of chopped onion and grind into a smooth paste adding about 1/2 cup of water. 
• Wash the toor dal and jack fruit seeds in a pressure cooker vessel, add chopped onions, carrots and 2 cups of water and cook for 3-4 whistles  - this timing depends on your pressure cooker but the dal needs to be cooked completely and the seeds become tender. 
• Let the pressure subside before opening the cooker, mix the contents, add salt, turmeric and the tamarind extract. Let it come to a boil before adding the ground masala. 
• Mix well and adjust the consistency with water as needed and let it come to a roaring boil before switching it off. 
• Heat oil for seasoning in a pan, add the mustard and fenugreek seeds, let them pop, add asafoetida and curry leaves. Switch off and pour the sizzling seasoning over the Huli. 

• Serve Huli warm or hot with rice or even rotis. 

Notes:

• You can add 1/4 of a medium tomato while grinding the spices to enhance taste. Adjust tamarind based on the tang from tomato.
• Huli always has a tiny bit of jaggery added to it but I don't add it in this particular one since the jack fruit seeds have a faint sweetness to them.
• The consistency of this Huli is generally slightly thicker compared to most other pouring consistency sambars and hence not very well suited for Idli/Dosa accompaniments. Eat it either with rice or rotis. 

• You can skip roasting and grinding the fresh powder and instead use 2 Tblsp of home made or store bought sambar powder. Try dry roasting 2- 1 inch piece cinnamon, take the Sambar powder, roasted cinnamon, 1 Tblsp raw onion, 2 Tblsp shredded coconut and grind it into a paste and add it to the gravy. This brightens up the Huli so much you don't recognize your dated Sambar powder in it :-)

Patholi - Dal & vegetables dry curry

I went for my annual health check last week and came back a bit more confused :-). Good thing is that there is nothing wrong with my numbers and I am as healthy as can be. Talking to my health coach (fancy, huh) I was reminded that quinoa is not all proteins though has high protein content per serving compared to anything else I might be eating in my vegetarian diet. She reiterated the fact that every edible thing has carbs and you just find ways to reduce its intake and start burning extra calories.

I came back home and did my research on 1 cup cooked white rice Vs brown rice Vs quinoa and after a wonderful knowledge session aided by the power of google, concluded that my forefathers were the smartest people to eat fresh food, as close to the source as possible without getting into processing them. Bottom line is the more you process and refine the food, the further away it tends to go from the healthy range. I am not here to lecture everyone on how they should stop eating processed foods, it is essential and convenient in the age we are in but try to make sure majority of your food is un(or under) processed, keep things in moderation, do not obsess about it much, exercise and enjoy life :-).

One thing that always comes back without change is that the main source of protein for a vegetarian like me comes from lentils and I love my lentils. I use quite a bit of sprouts, whole legumes in addition to the regular dal to boost the nutrition quotient. Dal is a regular at home and we do eat it in some form or shape every day. Having said that it can be quite boring to eat the same saaru/huli (Rasam/Sambar) every day and our cuisine offers every conceivable variation to suit every conceivable palate.

Patholi is a dry curry made with lentils and vegetables - each serving brings you both proteins and vitamins. Nammamma didn't make this very often as Karnataka has a special called nuchinunde (I will post it later sometime) which is steamed and delicious. Patholi is my mother in law's recipe and she usually adds Gorikayi (Guvar beans also called cluster beans) or makes it with just sauteed onions. Both taste great. You can add regular green beans instead of the cluster beans.

What do you need to make Patholi? 
2 cups chana dal/kadle bele
2 cups finely chopped gorikayi/cluster beans
1 cup thinly sliced onions
1.5 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
2 Tblsp oil
1/4 Tsp asafoetida
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp (8-10) black pepper corns
4-5 curry leaves
1 dry red chili broken into pieces (optional)
1X1 inch piece ginger root
4-5 green chilies (adjust to suit your spice level)

How do you make Patholi?

• Soak chana dal in water for about an hour.
• Wash and drain the water from the dal and grind it with green chilies and ginger pieces into a coarse paste. Try not to add water while grinding and run the blender in pulse mode to get the right consistency. 
• Cook the cluster beans in 1.5 cups of water until they are soft but not mushy, strain the water and keep the cooked beans aside.
• Heat a Tblsp of oil, add the asafoetida, mustard and pepper corns. Let the mustard crackle. Add the curry leaves, dry red chilies and fry for about 30 seconds. 
• Add the thinly slices onions and saute until onion turns light pink.

• Add the ground dal mixture and spoon the remaining oil around the inside edge of the pan, cover and cook for 6-8 minutes on medium heat.

• Mix it once, add salt and continue to cook for another 4-5 minutes stirring frequently to avoid burning until the dal turns a shade darker in color and the raw smell is gone. 
• Add the cooked cluster beans and mix it well. Cook for another 2-3 minutes and switch off. 

• Patholi is typically eaten with either a tangy pulusu or a majjige huli.

Notes: 

• Use a non stick pan to reduce the oil intake in this recipe. 
• For a lower calorie version, steam the ground dal mixture in your cooker (same procedure as making idli) and once it is cool, fluff up the cooked dal and saute it with fried onions and cooked beans. This version takes much less oil compared to directly frying the dal. 
• Take care to grind the dal into a coarse paste - every dal should be broken up into tiny pieces but should not become a paste. 
• If you blender needs water to run while grinding, go ahead and add it and take the course of steaming the dal before sauteing it. The steaming also absorbs the water and gives you fluffy cooked dal.
• Wash the cluster beans, remove both ends by snapping them off with your fingers and also removing any strings that may be part of the beans before chopping them.
• Covering the pan and letting the dal cook in the steam that develops helps reduce oil. 
• You can use the water used to cook the beans as a broth in any of your curries for an added flavor.

Bassaaru & Palya with Dill leaves - a homely Karnataka experience

When me & younger brother were in elementary school, we lived in a rented house in Mysore that had a huge fenced up yard which was what i think most attracted my parents to take up that house. Over the years we spent in that house before moving away, we planted numerous flowering plants and fruit trees. That yard was where we had our summer drama clubs, climbed on trees to pick berries, put up impromptu and planned dance shows, painted our nails with color pencils and had all the fun with friends. The area was literally infested with kids my age and all of us going to the same school helped since we had the same vacations and holidays.

One drawback of the house according to nammamma (though we never cared) was that there was a wide, deep open drain meant for sewage running behind our house. It was dry for most part of the year except in the rainy season and never actually was used for the purpose it was built for. The mori as we called it in Kannada was deep and much lower than the street level and we kids had strict instructions not to go to the back side of our fenced wall and peep down into the activities that went on in the mori :-). As it was dry most days, it had become a play ground for traunt kids from a nearby neighborhood that never seemed to go to school. The kitchen window when opened overlooked a garden cum vegetable patch on the other side of the mori. When we first moved into that house, nammamma was very hesitant to even open that kitchen window but after some months she felt confident that the vegetables were grown in a healthy way and started getting her greens from there.

In the vegetable patch they mostly grew greens - all kinds of them, amarnath (dantina soppu), fenugreek (menthya soppu), Dill (Sabsige soppu), Coriander (kottambari soppu) and many others that I haven't seen in years and do not know the English names such as honagonne (a small leaved, slightly sweet and supposedly great for eyesight), keere soppu, chakkota soppu (though it had no relation to the similarly named citrus fruit) and so on. The patch looked like a green carpet from far and nammamma would know which was ready to be harvested by the height and density of the patch. I believe it was maintained by a family but we mostly saw two teenage boys tilling the patch, seeding it, hauling water from a dug up well, tending to the plants, harvesting and taking them off to the market for sale.

Although there was no scarcity of street hawkers frequenting our street starting at 6am in the morning with fresh picked vegetable baskets on their heads, nammamma preferred getting the greens from this extended backyard of ours. All she had to do was open the kitchen window and have a quick conversation with the guy in the patch as to what he was picking that day and what she wanted. He would keep some aside for her. After that one of us kids would be told to run around the house and the mori and get the freshly picked greens in a environment friendly basket called butti. The guy would come back later in the day to get his money and we never saw him as we would be at school. Fresh picked vegetables are the best kind and buying local  was a lesson in paying attention to what went into the plate and stomach every day.


Saaru in Kannada refers to the usual tangy appetizer also called rasam in many other languages that preps you up for a well made south Indian meal. Saaru is usually made with lentils and much thinner in consistency compared to the vegetable laden sambar or hulis. Every day saaru at home is made with toor dal & tomatoes/tamarind and then there are umpteen varieties of lentil free saarus made with the intention of drinking up as an appetizer. These are the comfort foods of every home cooked meal. Bassaaru is a popular variation of the saaru where in lentils and greens are cooked together and strained to get a very flavorful broth which is boiled with fresh roasted and ground spices. Since the saaru has to live up to its consistency, most of the cooked lentils and greens are transformed into a palya (curry) while the juicy broth is made into the saaru. The word bassaru can be broken up as 'basida (~strained)' + 'saaru(~rasam) which just explains the procedure of making this tasty saaru.  

While you can use all you want of the ready made rasam/saaru powders off the shelf for regular saarus, prepare bassaaru with freshly roasted and ground masala paste for best taste. The saaru is spicy with a blend of red chilies, tamarind and salt for taste while the palya is milder. The list of ingredients looks a little intimidating but they are all usually found in the Indian pantries, so go ahead and give it a try.

What do you need to make bassaaru & palya? 
4 cups cleaned, chopped dill leaves
1 cup toor dal/togari bele
2 Tsp salt divided (adjust to taste)
Small lime sized tamarind soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
1/2 cup grated coconut (fresh or frozen) - divided use
5-6 cups of water
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder/arishina pudi
Saaru masala: 
1 Tsp chana dal
1 Tsp coriander seeds
1/2 Tsp cumin seeds
1/2 Tsp poppy seeds/gasagase
4-5 dry red chilies (adjust to taste)
2 cinnamon sticks - 1 inch long each
2 black pepper corns
1 Tsp oil
2 Tblsp coarsely chopped onions - use red onions or shallots for best taste

For Palya seasoning/vaggarane:
1 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp chana dal
3/4 Tsp urad dal
1 or dry red chilies broken into 2 pieces each
3-4 curry leaves

How do you make bassaaru & palya?

• Clean, remove thick stems and chop the dill leaves finely. 
• Wash, pick toor dal, add chopped dill leaves, water and turmeric powder and cook it in pressure cooker until the lentil is cooked soft. 
• Open the cooker after the steam is gone and pour the entire cooked mixture into a sieve to collect the water in a bowl. Reserve both the broth and the dal mixture separately. 

• Heat 1 Tsp of oil in a pan, add all ingredients under saaru masala except onions and fry on medium heat until well roasted,  3-4 minutes.
• When the roasted ingredients are cool, take them to the mixer/blender along with soaked tamarind, chopped onions and 1/4 cup of coconut and grind it to a smooth paste. 
• Add salt and ground masala paste to the reserved broth and bring it to a slow boil. adjust salt, tamarind and water to taste if needed. 
• Add 1 Tblsp of the dal and greens mixture on top before switching off. Consistency of the saaru should be slightly thick (like full fat milk). Bassaaru is ready to be served hot. 

• Take another pan and heat a Tsp of oil and add the seasoning ingredients. When mustard pops and the dals turn light pink, add the reserved strained dal and greens mixture, salt and remaining coconut gratings and mix well. 
• Keep this on the stove for a minute or two to bring it together and switch off. Palya is ready.

Notes: 

• I used Byadagi variety of chilies which gives a bright red color to the saaru but is mild on heat. If you are using other spicy varieties of chilies, adjust the quantity
• Do not add garlic to this saaru as it will overshadow the dill flavor.
• If your cooked dal & greens mixture has less water or is devoid of water, add 2 cups of water, mix well and then run it through the sieve. You need to get the flavored broth for the saaru.
• Bring the saaru to a slow boil as the onion needs to cook and let go of the raw smell.
• The palya tends to get dryer and thicker as it cools because of the cooked dal in it. 

Coming up next on Sattvaa - Guess what we ate bassaaru with? It makes for a very nutritious meal and is a regular meal in the farming communities in Karnataka. I will be back soon with that recipe.