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.

Gongura Pachadi - chutney with gongura(Sorrel leaves)

As I said before, my pachadi recipes other than a few (coconut chutney, heerekayi sippe chutney) are all from Amma's kitchen. I tasted gongura pachadi for the first time after I got married. It was a love with first bite :-).

For the uninitiated, gongura or sorrel leaves are green leaves with a tart taste, I have mainly seen the red stemmed versions of this leaf here but I hear there is a green stemmed variety also. Due to its inherent tart taste, these leaves impart a distinct flavor and go very well in recipes for chutneys and dals.

One of BH's atta's is an expert cook and her pachadis(chutneys/relishes) are very tasty, she follows a very traditional way of making the chutneys by hand grinding or pounding the ingredients in a big stone grinder (think much bigger version of mortar and pestle). It is also made with lot of oil for taste and for preserving. Typically this chutney is high on the spices loaded with hot red chilies and is mixed with hot rice and butter (according to my FIL) and eaten. This is a family favorite and like any chutney recipe, has its variations made to suit family's taste buds.

If you are in US, you can get these leaves in Indian groceries, farmers markets and Chinese stores.  It typically starts to show up in mid to late Spring. 

Here is a very low fat version of the yummy gongura pachadi.

What do you need to make Gongura Pachadi?
3 packed cups of gongura leaves (picked from the stems)
3 Tsp fenugreek seeds/methi seeds
2 Tsp white sesame seeds (optional but greatly recommended for flavor)
8-10 dry red chilies (I used only the milder Byadagi variety, if using spicier chilies like the Guntur variety, ease the number down)
1 Tsp cooking oil
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tbslp water for grinding

How do you make Gongura Pachadi? 

• Wash gongura leaves in water, drain them and pat them dry. 
• Heat a heavy bottom pan on medium heat and fry methi seeds until they turn light brown and start to pop. Keep them aside.
• Dry fry the chilies for 2-3 minutes until they crisp up and you see tiny brown spots on their skins. Keep aside.
• Dry fry the sesame seeds until they pop and keep aside. 
• Add oil and drop the cleaned gongura leaves into the pan, fry until the leaves wilt completely and become a single mass (4-5 minutes). 

• Take the red chilies, salt, methi seeds and half of the fried sesame seeds to your blender/grinder, make a dry powder. 
• Add the gongura leaves and blend them together adding water only as needed.
• Add the remaining toasted sesame seeds and give it a whirl in your blender. 

 

• Here is how we relished it - mixed it with hot cooked quinoa, a couple of drops oil and chopped onions with a side of Majjige huli. A bowlful of pachadi vanished in a single meal. 

Notes: 

• You need to balance the tartness of the leaves with a good proportion of red chilies and methi seeds, so the pachadi doesn't turn out primarily sour. 
• Slow toast methi seeds until it turns light brown and red chilies become crisp for enhanced flavor, don't rush through the toasting process. 
• I like the nutty flavor from the sesame seeds, keep a little portion to the last blend/grind cycle to have a few un-powdered seeds in the pachadi. 

Tips: 

• As amma knows my love for spicy food, she fries a couple of red chilies in a Tsp pf oil and pours it on top of the chutney so I can break them and mix it in for the extra punch. If you have people with different levels of spice tolerance, go mild on the chilies while making pachadi but use this trick to please that one person :-)