Karela Ki Sabji /करेले की सब्ज़ी (Indian Savory of Bitter Gourd)

Karele (Bitter gourd) Ki Sabji

Karela is known as bitter gourd in English. There are many varieties of bitter gourd. Difference is in color and size, All are bitter. The long and light green is more fleshy and can be used for making vegetable by chopping it but the smaller version can be used to make savory by stuffing it (Bhara Karela) or by chopping it to pieces. Though many feel it is too bitter to eat the bitterness can be well balanced by adding appropriate amount of sugar and amchur powder. Bitter gourd vegetable is very tasty and healthy. The juice of bitter gourd is used in naturopathy to cure diabetes. The recipe I am posting today is the version I like most and has been perfected after lots of permutation combination in my earlier stages of cooking. More credit should go to my husband who braved tasting every time I changed the proportions and he gave his inputs.

Preparation Time: 20-30 min.

Cooking Time: 50-60 min

Servings: 4 Large Servings

Ingredients Required For Making Karele Ki Sabji:

• 1/2Kg. Karela (Bitter Gourd)
• 1/2Kg. Onion
• 2 Teaspoon Saunf (Fennel Seeds)
• 1/2Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Red chili Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Garam Masala
• 2-3 Teaspoon Amchur Powder
• 10-15 ml. of Mustard oil / any cooking oil
• 2 Teaspoon Sugar
• 50 gm  Groundnuts
• Salt to taste

Direction For Making Karele Ki Sabji (Indian savory of Bitter Gourd):

• Scrape the bitter gourd with knife to remove just the protruded green part, do not peel it.
• Cut thin round pieces with the help of potato chip cutter or thin long 3-4 inches pieces.

Thin slices of Bitter Gourd

• Put a spoonful of salt and mix to the pieces of bitter gourd. Cover and keep aside.
• Roast ground nuts and remove the brown cover of ground nuts.
• Grind coarsely the roasted ground nuts. Keep aside the coarse ground nut powder.
• Cut onions to thin long slices.
• Heat oil in a big thick bottom wok till oil is smoking hot.
• Add
• Fennel seeds
• Broken pieces of whole red chilies
• Let the seeds of fennel splutter and chilies (optional) become dark brown in color. Do not let the seeds and chilies become black. Black color means that they have got burnt and the taste as well as flavor of vegetable will get spoilt.

Fennel seeds spluttering in hot oil

• When the seeds splutter add chopped onion and lower the heat.

Onions in oil tempered with fennel seeds

• Cook the onion to transparent state with frequent stirring.

Transparant state of onion 

• Squeeze the bitter gourd pieces. This will remove the bitter juice from them. Discard the bitter juice and keep the bitter gourd pieces aside.
• When the onions are transparent add bitter gourd pieces and mix nicely.

Bitter Gourd added to onions

• Add
• Turmeric powder
• Salt
• Red chili powder
• Mix and cover with a lid.
• Cook for 25-30 min. on low heat with occasional stirring. This will cook the bitter gourd and make the onions little brown.
• If you like the bitter gourd to be more crisp then cook for another 15 min on low heat stirring 4-5 times.

Ready for Groundnut and Garam masala 

• Add amchur powder and sugar and mix nicely.
• Add
• Coarsely ground groundnut
• Garam masala and mix nicely.

Groundnut and Garm masala added

• Cover and keep aside for the flavors of spices to mix with each other.

Ready to Serve

• Serve hot bitter gourd vegetable garnished with fresh coriander leaves with roti/parantha.

Karele (Bitter Gourd) Ki  Sabji

Tips:

• Make sure the fennel seeds and chili pieces do not turn black.
• Cooking should be done on low heat else the bitter gourd will become brown in color but remain under cooked.
• If you are using mustard oil heat it to smoking hot.
• If you wish groundnuts can be omitted. 

Suggested Variations:

• Groundnuts can be replaced by roasted sesame seeds. Groundnuts and sesame seeds add crunchiness and nutrition to the vegetable.
• Bitter gourd pieces can be blanched in salted water then squeezed. This will make them soft and less bitter also the cooking time will reduce.
• Sugar can be replaced by jaggery.
• 15 ml. of freshly squeezed lemon juice can be taken instead of amchur. But lemon juice should be added just before adding groundnut and cooked for just a minute or two. Lemon juice if cooked for longer time it develops very unpleasant taste.

Baigan-tamatar ki sabzi (Eggplants / Brinjals with Tomatoes)

Granny's Achari Baigan

Eating brinjal savory (Baigan ki sabji) at my daughter’s place was like jogging down the memory lane. It has been years that my grandma left us and though I remembered her cooking yet do not know how such a wonderful dish had not come to my mind earlier. In Kumaon many people at that time not used to eat (as well as store in house) onions and garlic thus my grandmother used to make brinjal my mom’s favorite vegetable with lots of tomato and spices. I had completely forgotten about it till my daughter made it for me. What a delightful experience it was to be reminded of my grandma’s cooking by my daughter. Today I share this recipe with nostalgia of childhood visits to my granny’s place and have nasmed it as Granny's Achari Baigan in her memory. Absolutely easy, least oily full of flavors and taste this recipe is a must try for all brinjal lovers. Even those who do not like brinjal much will fall in love with this brinjal preparation.

Preparation Time: 15-20 minutes

Cooking time: 30-40 minutes

Servings:  6 Large servings

Ingredients Required For Making Granny's Achari-Baigan:

• 1 kg Big Dark Violet Color Brinjal  

Brinjals

• 1 kg Red Ripe Tomatoes

Ripe Tomatoes

• 3 Teaspoon Fennel Seeds
• 3 Teaspoons Kalonji (Black Caraway seeds)
• 1/2Teaspoon Asafoetida powder (I use LG Asefoetida powder)
• 10 ml Mustard oil (any cooking oil)
• 3-4 Teaspoon Red chili powder (or to taste)
• 2 teaspoon sugar (Optional)
• Salt to taste

Direction For Making Grand-Ma’s Achari-Baigan:

• Mix Turmeric, salt, 2 teaspoon Red chili powder to make spices mixture for brinjals. Keep aside for later use.
• Wash the brinjals, tomatoes and dry with a cloth.
• Cut one brinjal horizontally to get 2-2.5 mm round pieces.

Brinjal Pieces

• Immediately sprinkle the brinjal pieces with the spices mixture. Make sure all pieces are coated on both sides with spices mixture.
• Heat non-stick tawa and sprinkle 1 oil on it. Spread oil on tawa and place the brinjal pieces on hot tawa and lower the flame.

Brinjal Pieces Cooking with spices mixture

• Repeat the same with all brinjals.
• Cook for 8-10 min on low flame without covering it.

One side cooked 

• Flip the brinjal pieces and cook on the other side also for 4-5 min. This will make the brinjal pieces soft. Do not cook on high flame and do not overcook brinjal.

I love the stalk also yummy to chew and suck the juices

• While the brinjals are cooking make paste of tomato in a grinder- mixer.
• Take 2 ml oil in a wok and heat it till smoking hot.
• Lower the flame and add Black caraway seeds (Kalonji), Fennel seeds (Saunf) and let them split to get maximum flavor. Make sure they do not burn.
• Add asafoetida mix and add tomato paste.

Ready for tomato paste

Tomato paste cooking with tempering 

• Cook on low flame with regular stirring till tomato paste becomes thick and starts leaving the edges of wok. It took me 15 min.

Tomato paste and Brinjal pieces cooking side by side

Tomato paste ready fort cooked Brinjal pieces to be added

• Add the cooked brinjal pieces to the cooked tomato paste and mix lightly so that the brinjal pieces get coated with tomato paste but not get mashed up.

Brinjal pieces added to tomato paste and mixed

• Add salt and chili powder according to your taste.
• Cover and cook for 2-3 min. stirring with light hands once or twice max.
• Add sugar and mix. Cook for 1 min with lid on the wok.
• Grand-ma’s Achari baigan is ready.

Ready to be served

• Remove from the wok in a serving bowl and garnish with fresh coriander leafs.

Granny's Achari Baigan

Granny's Achari Baigan

• Serve hot with any type of Indian bread/Dal-Chawal.

Tips:

• Make sure brinjals do not have seeds.
• All utensils used by me are non-stick thus less amount of oil usage. If other non-stick vessels are not used then oil for brinjal pieces cooking will have to be increased so that they do not stick to pan and break.
• Cut the brinjals and add spice to only that many pieces which can be accommodated on your cooking pan/tawa rest can be kept covered in fridge till one lot is cooked.
• Do not add spices mixture to all pieces until unless you can cook them immediately, else juices will start coming out of brinjal and they will become soggy (Undesired change).
• Make sure brinjal pieces are not cut too thin or too thick. Thin pieces will burn off and break while mixing with tomato paste and too thick will become lumpy.
• The wok taken for mixing the cooked tomato paste and brinjal pieces should be large enough to allow them to spread nicely not get crowded, else mixing will take properly also brinjal pieces will get crushed while mixing.
• This dish tastes best with mustard oil.
• Always take chili powder quantity according to the hotness of it. All variety of chilies, chili powders have different degree of hotness.
• Sugar adds that extra element to tangy, spicy, sour taste of Achari baigan. This is the only change I made to original recipe.

Alternative Suggestions:

• I do not throw away the stalk with green on it, but cook a;longwith. It is yummy to chew and suck juices out of it.
• Tomatoes amount can be increased to 1:1.5 ratio by weight. 
• You can cook baigan and tomato paste as directed in recipe and store them separately in fridge. Mix the required quantity of both cook and enjoy as and when needed.
• If tomatoes are too sour in taste then sugar adding is must.

Chili Mushroom (Mushroom Cooked With Capsicum and Spring Onions)

Chilli Mushroom

I am very fond of mushrooms and paneer. So while cooking Chili Chicken I thought why not make chili Mushroom. When I made it for the first time the amount of onions became too much thus made it again. Permutation and combination resulted in the birth of this dish. Tender juicy mushrooms, crunchy capsicum and wonderful flavor os spring onions and sauces is simply delicious and if made slightly drier version then it can be had as appetizer also.

Preparation Time: 15-20 min.

Cooking Time: 20 min

Servings: 6 Large servings

Ingredients Required For Making Chili Mushroom:

• 1 Medium size onion
• 400 gm. Mushrooms
• 1 Bunch of Spring Onion (Having at least 8-10 tender spring onions)
• 200 gm. Capsicum
• 20 ml. Soy sauce
• 20 ml. Green Chili sauce
• 4-5 Green chilies
• 10 ml. Vinegar (Preferably fruit based)
• 2 Tea spoons Corn flour
• Salt to taste
• 2 ml. Olive oil / any cooking oil

Directions For Making Chili Mushroom:

• Peel and cut onion to fine pieces or thin long pieces.
• Wash mushrooms in running water.
• Remove all limp stalks and cap of mushrooms cut them to long thick pieces.

Washed  and Cut Moshrooms

• Set aside for later use.
• Peel onions and cut them to thin long pieces.
• Remove the seeds and stalk from capsicum and cut then to 2 inches pieces.
• Clean spring onions of all yellow leaves and roots and wash nicely.
• Cut the green leaves and shallots to small pieces.
• In a thick bottom wok take oil and heat it.
• When the oil is hot (Not smoking) add the pieces of onion and shallots and cook on low flame with regular stirring till they turn transparent. Stirring and low flame is important as that will avoid onions to go brown.

Onions being fried on low flane

• When the onion  are nicely transparent add capsicum and green chilies and cook on high flame for 2-3 min. with continuous stirring.

Capsicum added to trasparent onions

• Add spring onion leaves and shallots. Cook on high flame for 2-3 min. with continuous stirring.

Shallots and spring onion added 

Ready for Mushrooms to be added

• Add Mushrooms and stir and cook for 2 min on high flame.

Mushrooms added to the mixture of greens

Ready for Corn Flour to be added

• Bring the flame to low and add roasted corn flour and stir to mix.

Corn Flour Added and Mixed

• Add
• Soy sauce
• Chili sauce
• Vinegar
• Salt and mix nicely.
• Mixing the sauces, flour and vinegar should not take more than 2-3 min.
• Add 50ml. water and bring the flame to high.

Sauces added

Ready to Serve

• Cook with continuous stirring for 2-3 min. Water will help corn flour to get cooked and all ingredients to get mixed with mushrooms nicely.
• Remove from wok in a serving bowl and serve hot with roti/parantha/garlic bread and any soup.

Chili Mushroom

Tips:

• If you want your chili mushroom less spicy and hot then add less green chilies and green chili sauce.
• Mushrooms should never be over cooked as they will lose the juiciness and will become limp and tasteless.
• Make sure the onions are cooked to transparent state on low flame if not cooked properly the raw onion taste will spoil whole vegetable. (First time I made chili mushrooms I made two mistakes 1) Too much onion, 2) Onion partially cooked. Result was bad)
• If the shallots are too big then onion can be avoided.
• Add salt in the last as mushroom juice starts leeching with salt

Suggested Variations:

• Pieces of Paneer (cottage cheese/Ricotta cheese) can be added along with mushroom to make Chili-Paneer-Mushroom.
• Finely cut Garlic can be added when onions are being cooked.
• Do not try to add too many flavor of herbs etc. because mushroom taste will get over powered.

Pan-Fried Aloo Vada For Vada Pav (Indian Pan Fried Potato Patties)

Pan-Fried Aloo-Vada with Chutney

Vada-Pav is the fast food of Maharashtra. Piping hot Aloo-vada, soft pav with hot spicy chutney and finely cut onion, cilantro brings water to every body’s mouth. Being fried it is nightmare for weight watchers. Difficult choice has to be made indulge or control. My daughter in-law overcame this problem by making pan-fried vada with hardly any oil in them. God bless her for this. Delicious least oily these vadas can be had with pav/bread for breakfast/brunch or with chutney/sauce for snack.

Preparation Time: 30-40-min.

Cooking Time: 10 minutes/Vada

Servings: 12 Vadas of Medium Size

Ingredients Required For making Pan-Fried Vada For Vada-Pav:

For Filling:

• 750 gm. Potatoes 
• 1 Inch piece Ginger
• 10-12 Cloves of Garlic
• 5-6 Green Chilies
• 5-6 Sprigs of Cilantro
• 1Teaspoon Olive oil/any cooking oil
• 1 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds
• 1 Teaspoon Mustard Seeds
• 1 Teaspoon Amchur Powder
• 8-10 curry leafs (Kadi patta)
• Salt to taste

For Batter:

• 250 gm. Besan
• 1/2Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Red Chili Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Garam Masala
• 1 Pinch of eating Soda
• Salt to taste

Ingredients For Batter

• Water

• 2 ml. oil for cooking the vadas

Directions For Making Pan-Fried Aloo Vada For Vada-Pav:

• Boil the potatoes.
• Peel and mash the boiled potatoes.

Boiled and Mashed Potatoes

• Cut garlic, green chilies, and cilantro fine.
• Grate ginger.
• In a wok heat 1 ml oil.
• When the oil is smoking hot add
• Mustard seeds
• Cumin seeds
• When the seeds have crackled and spluttered then add
• Kadi patta
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Green chilies
• Cook for 2-3 minutes.

Seasoning Ready For Potatoes

• Add
• Mashed potatoes

Mashed Potatoes in Seasoning

• Turmeric
• Salt and mix nicely.
• Cook for 4-5 min. with continuous stirring.
• Filling (Masala) of Aloo-vada is ready.

Filling For Vada

• Take the filling in a bowl and allow it to cool without covering the bowl.

For Batter:

• In a bowl take
• Besan
• Salt
• Turmeric
• Garam masala
• Red chili powder
• Salt and pinch of eating soda
• Mix all ingredients nicely and start adding water slowly with continuous beating.
• Add water till thick but pourable batter is formed.

Batter of Besan and Spices

For Pan Fried Vada:

• Heat a thick pan with edges.
• When the pan is hot sprinkle 4-5 drops of oil on it and spread the oil with spatula.
• Reduce the flame.
• Divide the filling masala to 12 parts.
• Make round balls and then flatten them by gently pressing then between your palms.

Flattened Filling Ball

• Dip one flattened ball of filling at one time to the batter and coat it nicely with batter.
• Gently place it on the hot oiled pan.

Filling Coated with Batter and Placed on Hot Oiled Pan

• Repeat and place them at 2-3 cm. distances from each other for easy handling while turning over.
• Let the vada cook for 3-4 min. on low flame.
• The lower surface will become golden brown and the upper surface will change the color to darker yellow.

Different Stages of Vadas

• Turn over the Vada and allow it to cook on low flame till the color of the flipped side also becomes golden brown.
• Keep shifting the vadas so that they touch the edge of pan. This will make sure the vada is cooked from all sides
• Vadas are ready.

Pan-Fried Vada with Chutney

• Repeat till all are cooked.
• Cut the Pav (Unleavened bread) / Burger bun to half.
• Apply coriander-mint chutney on one side and place hot Vada on it.
• Sprinkle some finely cut onions, cilantro and place the other half on it.
• Healthy Vada –pav is ready.Or simply sandwich it between two slices of bread lined with sauce/chutney and enjoy with tea/coffee.

Tips:

• Pan with edges is must to make sure batter from the edges of vada is cooked.
• Do not overcook the potatoes while boiling otherwise the filling will not be firm and vadas will not come out nice.
• Mash the potatoes nicely but do not make paste of them.
• While making batter add water in little proportions to avoid the batter from becoming thin.
• Beating of batter should be done continuous to avoid lump formation.
• Do not leave the filling flattened balls in the batter, just dip and then cover rest of the surface with batter using spoon.
• Do not cook the vadas on high flame otherwise the batter will remain uncooked from inside and brittle and hard from outside.

Alternate Suggestions:

• Finely cut onions can be added to the spluttered seeds and cooked till transparent before adding garlic etc.
• One teaspoon oil can be added to besan mixture before adding water.
• If you wish 2-3 drops of oil can be sprinkled over the vadas while they are being cooked.

Healthy least oily Tomato Pickle

Tomato pickle

Pickles make regular appearance in the dining table and are most welcome guests. They have an intrinsic property to make a most dull platter of food look enticing and change the taste to mouthwatering. We Indians are blessed with different variety of food because of the diversity in weather, culture and eating habits of people of different part of our country. Tomato soup, ketchup, sauce etc. are well known as frequently used form of tomato but tomato pickle? It was a surprise to me in late seventies, when I had tomato pickle at my friends place while doing Ph.D. and wondered how the lady converted tomatoes to such innovative yum tasting pickle have. Later when I got married tips from my Andhrite friends and habit of experimenting in the kitchen resulted in this less oily healthy pickle.

 I love having it not only with rice and chapatti but love  using it for making sandwich also. My family loves having curd and rice with tangy spicy Tomato pickle.

Preparation Time: 15 min.

Cooking Time: 45 min

Servings  500 gm. pickle.

Materials Required for Making Tomato Pickle:

• 500 gm. Red Ripe Fleshy Tomatoes

• 100 gm. Tamarind

• 100 gm. Jaggery

• 50 gm. Salt

• 25 gm. Red chili powder

• 1 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder

• 1 tea spoon Chana dal

• 1 Tea spoon Dhuli Urd dal ( Urd dal without green / black cover)

• 15-20Whole Red chilies

Spices for seasoning

• 50 ml. Cooking oil (Ground nut oil / sesame oil / soya oil / olive oil/ Mustard oil)

• 1/4Teaspoon Asafoetida powder

• 5-10 Kadi Patta (Curry leaves)

• 4 Teaspoon Mustard seeds

• 10 ml. Vinegar

Directions For Masking Tomato Pickle:

• Wash and dry tomatoes nicely.

• Cut tomatoes thin long pieces.

Tomato pieces for Pickle

• Take thinly cut pieces of tomatoes in a glass / stainless steel container and mix 25 gm. salt and 1 tea spoon turmeric powder in the tomato.

• If the pickle is being made in hot weather / summers then cut and mix salt and turmeric in night cover and leave overnight but if pickle is being made in cold weather / winters then cut and mix salt and turmeric in morning cover and leave for 24 hrs.

After 24 hrs of soaking Juices squeezed from tomato pieces

• Sieve the juices and squeeze the tomato pieces by pressing between the palms.

• Mix the squeezed juice to the sieved juice.

• Keep the squeezed tomato pieces under the s8un for drying on a stainless plate / plastic sheet / glass plate for 4-5 hrs. when the temperature is high ( 40 ^o C or more), 7-8 hrs. in winters when the temperature is 30^o C – 35^oC.

Tomato pieces kept under the sun for drying after squeezing the juices

• Clean the tamarind of the seeds and soak cleaned tamarind and whole red chilies in the tomato juices for 5-6 hrs.  under the sun.

Tamarind and whole red chilli soaking in tomato juices under the sun

• Tomato pieces will become semi dry and the tamarind will soak the juices of tomato and become soft.

Tomato pieces drying under the sun

Dried Tomato Pieces

• Blend the soaked tamarind and chilies to pulp along with juices. Keep extra juices aside.

Juice from tomato pieces , chilies and Tamarind pulp

• Take oil in a thick bottom wok (I always cook in anodized / non-stick wok / pans) and heat on high flame.

• When the oil is smoking hot lower the flame and add mustard seeds. Mustard seeds will splutter immediately.

• Add chana dal and urd dal and cook on low flame till touch of pink starts coming on them.

• Add 4-5 whole red chilies and kadi patta.

• Cook for 30 seconds.

• 

Seasoning getting ready for pickle

Add Asafoetida and immediately add semi dried tomato pieces.

Ready for Tomato pieces to be added

• Stir and mix spices and tomato pieces nicely. Cook with continuous stirring for 3-4 minutes on low flame.

Tomato pieces added to the seasoning

• Add the mixture of tamarind pulp and tomato juices.

Tomato juice left after making pulp of the soaked tamarind added

After 10 min of cooking 

• Mix nicely and cook for 3-4 minutes.

• Add

• Salt red chili powder

• Jaggery

• Mix and cook with regular stirring till all juices are absorbed and the pickle starts leaving the edges of wok.

• Add vinegar and mix nicely.

• Cook again for one minute with continuous stirring.

• Switch off the gas and let the pickle cool without covering the wok.

Pickle ready for bottling

• Store the cooled tomato pickle in a dry glass bottle.

Tomato Pickle

• Enjoy the Tomato pickle with Dosa/ Pesarattu / Idli / da-chawal / mutton or chicken biryan / Stuffed paranthas.It goes well with all vegetarian and non- vegetarian foods.

Tips:

• Do not dry the tomato pieces so much that they become hard.

• Remove the seeds and hard cover of tamarind before soaking in tomato juices.

• Preferably used fruit based vinegar rather than synthetic vinegar because fruit based vinegar has nutritional values.

• Pound /cut the jaggery before adding to the pickle it will dissolve faster.

• Always break whole red chili before adding to oil otherwise it may burst and cause accident.

• Tomato taken for pickling should be fleshier. Lesser fleshy and more juicy the tomato will require more cooking time and hard work.

• Jaggery, salt and red chili powder can be increased or decreased according to the taste.

• Always add red chili powder in small amounts and check the taste for hotness before adding all  said amount of chili powder. The grade of hotness for chili powder differs from one chili powder brand to other and homemade chili powder may have altogether different degree of hotness.

Suggested Variations:

• Peeled whole or sliced garlic can be added to the pickle just before adding the vinegar.

Ready to be bottled

• Grated 4-5 cm. piece of ginger can be added to the oil after adding kadi patta and cooked till the foam due to the moisture of ginger stops coming from oil. Then the semi dried tomato pieces can be added.

• Sugar / brown sugar can be taken in the absence of jaggery.