Masale Bhat - Spicy Ivy Gourd and Potato Pulao/Pilaf

This spicy rice pulao brings back memories of Nagpur summers, weddings and my grandparents.

I have a soft spot for Maharashtrian food, after all my dear mother is a Maharashtrian. She would cook a lot of these dishes for us when we were growing up. Later on I spent quite some time with my grandparents in Nagpur. It is during this period that I truly learnt what marathi food and culture is all about. Our grandparents would take us along with them whenever they attended marathi natak ( marathi plays / theatre ),  marathi comedy shows, go and see performances of marathi dance and songs and also attend all our relatives marriage ceremonies. It is here I was first introduced to Masale Bhat, one of the main dishes in nearly all maharashtrian wedding feasts.

Most of these wedding would be of someone we were related to but I had never met before. Most of the time the relation to that person was a long and complicated one.
Now if that wasn't enough to spin our heads, calling some relatives Bhau Kaka and Tai Maushi surely confuses a child. I mean who is he, is he a Bhau ( brother ) or is he a Kaka ( uncle ). How can he be both? Same with Tai ( elder sister ) Maushi ( Aunt ). Now keep in mind our Tai Maushi is how my mom addressed her, so to us she becomes Tai Maushi Aaji ( elder sister aunt grandmother !!!! )

 Anyway, once we escaped the introductions, we would make a beeline to the dining rooms, here we would be greeted with the aromas of the wedding feast. With rumbling tummies we would grumble at the lengthy process of the marriage ceremony. Luckily since we were kids we always got to eat first. There was always two kinds of service, one was the "table" service where we would get to sit and eat on chairs and tables, and the other service was the "sit down" service, where we would literally sit on a mat cross-legged on the floor and eat in either banana leaves or steel plates.

I loved it when there were tables and chairs as compared to eating sitting cross-legged on a mat. You see when you sit down the food has to travel twice as long to reach your mouth as compared to when you sit to eat on a chair and table. At that time I had not yet mastered the act of picking up the rice from the plate and then carrying it all the way to your mouth without losing more than half the morsel on its way. Thus it would take me twice as long with double the effort to eat the same amount of food !!!

Anyway back to our dish Masale Bhat. This would always be part of the wedding banquet. This spicy rice dish studded with vegetable and huge chunks of cooked potatoes was one of my favorites. I came across this recipe of Masale Bhat from a cookbook called  Essential Marathi Cookbook by Kaumudi Marathe. This book has an amazing collection of Marathi recipes like Vada Bhat, Bhadang, Dhape Pohe, Patal Bhaji, Dhirda, Methamba and Aluchi Vadi etc. The best part is that they are all written in english .

This recipe is really easy to make and it turned out an authentic tasting Masale Bhat transporting me back to those marriage halls. Even my non-marathi husband and my in-laws enjoyed this dish very much.

I would like to dedicate this dish to my Grandparents, to thank them for always being there for us, teaching us so many things and enriching our lives in so many ways. We love you.

Potato Sabji for Masala Dosa

This is a versatile sabzi that can be adapted to a number of recipes. This time I made it for my masala dosa. You can also use this sabzi for aloo puri or even use this to make all bondas. You can also add a little chopped garlic to this sabzi, if you so desire.

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

5-6 potatoes, boiled, peeled and cubed
1 large red onion, sliced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp channa dal ( optional )
1 inch ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3-4 green chillies, cut in half ( length wise  )
8-10 curry leaves, ( 1 stalk ), washed and finely chopped or use whole leaves.
1/2 tsp turmeric powder / haldi powder
1/4 tsp cayenne / lal mirch powder ( optional )
1/8 tsp granulated sugar
about 1/2 tbsp lime juice ( about quarter of a lime )
a dash of asafoetida / hing
salt, to taste
3-4 tbsp oil

Method

• In a large saucepan, heat the oil and when hot drop in the mustard seeds. when they start to crackle, add the channa dal, ginger, green chilies and curry leaves. Saute for a minute and then add the asafoetida.
• Next goes in the sliced onions. Saute till they turn translucent, then add the turmeric powder and cayenne. Mix it well and next goes in the potatoes. Mix it thoroughly, add the sugar and salt and cover. Lower the heat to medium low and stirring it once, leave it on the fire for another 2 minutes.
• Remove and squeeze the lime juice, mix it well. It is now ready to be had with the Masala Dosa or just plain puris.

Bread Rolls

One of my guilty pleasures in life is ordering tomato soup, in restaurants, for the fried croutons that come with it ( no healthy baked ones for me, that would totally ruin my tomato soup experience ! ). This dish totally tops that pleasure any day. Can you say a giant, stuffed and fried crouton ? Well this is what this dish tastes like. Heaven !!!!!!!

What makes this bread roll recipe better than the rest is the tangy soaking water. Generally all the recipes call for soaking the bread slice in plain water, I have even seen a recipe call for soaking it in milk. However, in this recipe lime juice and cayenne/ lal mirchi powder is added to the soaking water elevating this recipe to the next level. Also you can cut of the crust from your bread or not, this all depends on your personal preference . In my personal opinion, I think that the bread slice without the crust stays enclosed much better than the bread slice with the crust on.


I have adapted this recipe from Sindhi Rasoi. You must check out her blog, she has some really cool recipes.

Veggie Puffs or Vegetable Puffs

Hot, crisp buttery puffs stuffed with your choice of vegetables and baked is a favorite teatime snack at our home.

These puffs are widely available in bakery shops in India. The first time I came across them was in Bangalore, India. They used an onion, tomato and carrot filling and some other shops used a potato filling. I have adapted this recipe by adding some paneer too.

Once baked these should be eaten while still warm, as they would taste their best then. These can also be had at room temperature.

Subzi Pakora Chaat

Tempura-like-batter-coated fried vegetables called pakoras layered with hot, sweet, salty and sour chutneys is another popular snack food in India.

This is another great recipe from  660 Curries cookbook, I adapted it a little to my style. You can serve this as an appetizer, or a snack. Just be prepared to make this a lot as this will be the most requested dish at your home.

 This is so simple to make once you have all the chutneys in place. I put off making this dish for the longest time thinking that it would not taste that special. After all pakoras are quite common in our household. However, the other day when I was making some onion pakora, I decided to go all out and make the Sabzi Pakora Chaat. It turned out to be such a hit with both my husband and my son. My son even came for seconds !

This dish does have a couple of chutneys, which are easily available in any Indian grocery store, or you can make them at home. Once the chutneys are in place this dish comes together rather quickly and disappears twice as fast. Do not be intimidated by the number of steps in the recipe, it is fairly easy to make. So once you fry enough of the pakoras , assemble them and pour the chutneys on them and serve. These taste best when hot or warm.

Dabeli

Another tasty Indian snack food. Dabeli comes from the Gujarat region and can easily be termed as another version of an Indian burger. It is a Spiced Potatoes and Pomegranate Sandwich in Raghavan Iyer's words.

This spicy potato mixture enclosed between a burger bun, smeared with a sweet and tart tamarind chutney and a spicy hot garlic chutney and garnished with pomegranate arils and spicy peanuts is a combination of different flavors and textures to form an extremely delicious and addictive snack. The crunchiness of the spicy peanuts, the unexpected burst of sweet and tart pomegranate juice and the heat from the chutneys will leave you wanting for more. I have adapted this recipe from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer.

This is another weekend dish that does not take long to prepare at all. As they were showing a marathon of House Hunters International on HGTV, one of my favorite shows ever. I quickly assembled these and the sat in front of the TV to see all the people buying beautiful homes across the world. It feels wonderful to live vicariously through the buyers pretending that I am buying a pied-a-terre in Paris, or a countryside home near the Alps or a cottage in the English countryside or maybe even a vacation home in the Caribbean. I love this show.

Samosas

The perfect samosa cover has evaded me for a long time now, but no more thanks to this special book called  660 Curries. This book has been the answer to many of my food related questions. Raghavan Iyer, the author, has done a wonderful job of compiling such a wide range of recipes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. His section on various indian chaat recipes alone, which he calls in this book 'appetizer curries', is totally worth buying this book.

Some of the best samosas I have ever tasted came from near the Hanuman Mandir/temple near my granny's house. The Samosa-wala ( person who sells samosas) had his little samosa shack just next to the entrance of the mandir. This spot was frequented a lot by college students, especially during exam time, as they got to do two things in one place -  pray to god to help them pass and eat yummy samosas.

Later on, in our college under a big tree near the gates, one bai / lady use to come carrying a huge cloth-lined basket over her head containing hot delicious samosas. In India there are usually round concrete platforms built around the base of huge trees for the public to sit and rest under the shade. So she would sit on this platform along with her samosa filled basket. The cloth helped keep them warm and soaked up the moisture thus preventing the samosas from getting soggy. She was always surrounded by students, drawn in by the tantalising aroma emanating from her basket. Having samosa at the end of college day was our way to unwind, relax and enjoy this special comfort food while venting our day's frustrations. I wonder if she is still there today under the tree selling those yummy samosas to another batch of students who when they leave college will carry a few special memories, one amongst them will be of our Samosa Bai and her magic samosas

I am so glad to have found this recipe so as to replicate those delightful samosas. These samosa turned out as scrumptious as I remembered them. The addition of ginger and garlic to the filling makes it even more tasty. The cover is very crispy and would fall apart in your mouth into flakes. A little word of caution - these are rich in calories but do not deny yourself the pleasure of having one some, just have them in moderation.

Please do note that my stove is electric; Electric stoves do not get as hot as the gas stoves, so please do adjust your tempertures accordingly.


Samosas