Lai -Ki-sabji/लाई की सब्ज़ी (Indian savory of Leafy Vegetable of Mustard family)

Lai I sabji

Lai is green leafy vegetable of mustard family grown in hills of Himalayan range. In summers it provides much needed warmth to the body. It is tangy and very tasty leafy vegetable. As Pahari people are very fond of potatoes so it is cooked with potatoes (I omit potatoes) or made with thick gravy with the milk of seeds called bhanga (Not to be confused with bhang). Bhanga is the seed of the plant called Hemp from which charas, ganja bhang is obtained but the seeds are used as condiment, which are not intoxicating and very delicious. Wild variety of the same plant does not provide edible seeds but only intoxicants. Thus is prohibited to grow in fields.. Even the cultivation of hemp is done in few places with govt. approval for much required seeds for the regular cooking in Kumaon hills.

In the absence of bhang groundnut milk is used which though does not give the same taste but is very delicious preparation. Our liking for this vegetable was so much that we used to get seeds from Kumaon and grow lai in our garden till we had an open space to grow vegetables. I could not take pic. of the leafs as I was impatient to cook this lovely vegetable.

Lai is rich in Iron, Vitamins and micro nutrients.

Preparation Time: 15 min

Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes

Servings: 4 Large servings

Ingredients Required For Making Lai-Ki-Sabji:

• 10-12 Large leafs of fresh Lai
• 2 Medium size potatoes(optional) 
• 10 ml. Mustard oil
• 1 Teaspoon Cumin seeds
• 2 Whole Red Chilies broken to pieces
• 1/4Teaspoon Hing (Asafoetida)
• 1/2Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• Salt to taste

Directions For Making Lai-Ki-Sabji:

• Remove the tough stem from the base of leafs.
• Check for any infestation in the leafs if they are infested (Being a herb they grow near the soil this makes them prone to pest infestation), remove that part and clean them.
• Wash the leafs in lots of water to make sure they are absolutely clean.
• Cut leafs very fine, finer they are cut tastier is the cooked vegetable.

Finely cut Lai leafs

• Peel and wash the potatoes.
• Cut potatoes to small pieces.
• Heat oil in a thick bottom wok (I use iron wok).
• When the oil is smoking hot lower the flame and add
• Cumin seeds
• Broken whole red chilies
• Let the seeds splutter and chili pieces become dark red. Do not let them to become black.
• Add asafoetida and cook for 2-3 sec.

Tadka TEmparing ready)

• Add potatoes and mix nicely.
• Cover the wok and allow the potatoes to cook for 4-5 min. stirring 2-3 times.
• Add finely cut Lai and mix. If not using potatoes then add the ali to the tempering dierectly.

Finely cut Lai added to tadka

• Add
• Turmeric powder
• Salt

Salt and Turmeric added 

Mixed nicely to mix the oil and spices

• Mix nicely and cover. Allow the vegetable to cook on low flame till the potatoes and leafy vegetable becomes soft. It will take 10-12 minutes. Stir the vegetable every 2-3 minutes else the lower portion which is in contact with wok will get over cooked whereas the upper portion will not get cooked.

Covered and cooking

• The vegetable after cooking should not have any liquid but should not lose its moistness.

Ready for Serving

• Serve the delicious Lai-Ki-Sabji with Dal, Chawal, Chutney and Kumaoni-Kheere-Ka-Raita.

Lai I sabji

(http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2011/10/green-coriander-and-mint-chutney.html
 (http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.in/2012/07/pahari-kheere-ka-raita-cucumber-and.html

Enjoy staple Kumaoni food full of taste and nutrition.

Tips:

• Always clean leafy vegetable with utmost care and wash them two or three times.
• Break the whole red chili before adding else it will burst while cooking.
• Iron wok enhances the taste.
• Mustard oil is best but any other oil can be taken.
• Donot over cook. If the vegetable color becomes very dark this is indication of over cooking.
• To keep the color nice green of the cooked vegetable 1 teaspoon of lemon juice can be added to the vegetable when it is getting cooked.

Suggested variations:

• The preparation with potatoes tastes very nice so they can be added I have omitted it so that diabetic people can also enjoy this preparation.
• 10-15 gm. of ground nut can be made to paste then its milk can be taken out by adding 100 ml. water, and sieving. This milk can be added to the vegetable 2-3 min. before switching off the gas. After adding groundnut milk it should be cooked on high flame with constant stirring so that the vegetable thickens. Cook for 2-3 minutes and vegetable with groundnut milk is ready. (Coconut milk does not go well with it).
• Paste of green chili can be added if you like spicy food. Red chili powder changes the color a bit but can be added.
• Few leafs of spinach (Palak) can be added along with the lai leafs.

Happy healthy cooking and eating.

How To Preserve Lemon Juice

Frozen Lemon Juice ice Cubes

In rainy season and in winters lemon crop is harvested as they ripen in these season but in summers when we aspire to have cool lemonade/ lemon sherbet / or we need to fresh lemon juice for any savory or dessert then we have to make do with expensive and less juicy lemons. Normally it is seen that citrus fruits are converted to sherbet concentrate by mixing it with sugar syrup and adding preservatives or making pickle. But these are useful to make sweet cold drinks only. What do we do when we want to have only salted lemon sherbet or want to have fresh lime soda with salt? What do we do when we want fresh lemon juice in any recipe? This kept on bugging me till one day when I had lots of lemon and tried this method to keep the juice fresh and nice. Wow what a discovery! It solved all my problems and now I get lemons in scores when least expensive in market and preserve them. 
I had blogged about how to preserve whole lemon also but if they are in large number then space crunch in freezer occurs. This metod solves problem of space crunch and bringing the frozen lemons to room temperature before squeezing.

Preparation time: Depends upon the number of lemons used

Cooking time: None

Ingredients Required:

• Lemons as many as you can lay hand in crop season

Direction To Preserve The Lemon Juice:

• Wash the lemons and dry with a cloth.
• Count the number of lemons you are squeezing.
• Cut them to half and squeeze the juice.
• When juice of all lemons has been removed then sieve them to remove seeds.
• Take ice trays and pour the juice in them and put in freezer for setting to ice cubes.
• Count the number of cubes and find out how many cubes have been made out of the lemons you had taken this way you will be able to calculate one cube is equal to how many cubes.

Lemon Juice Cubes

• Take out the lemon juice cubes and store in a good plastic container and use as and when required.

Tips:

• Do not store them in metal container as lemon juice is corrosive.
• Cubes can be made of any size. If they are of small size then you will not have to break them if less quantity is required.

Suggested Variations:

• Some juice can be flavored with ginger juice and frozen.

Frozen Lemon and Ginger Juice  Cubes