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.

Paper Masala Dosa

These savory, nutritious fermented crepes are a popular breakfast, brunch or evening snack item in south of India. Nowadays, dosas are popular all over India. I have adapted this recipe from Rina' Blog. Thank you Rina for sharing this recipe.

The recipe usually calls for some regular rice and parboiled rice, but I had neither and had this hankering for a beautiful, golden, thin, crispy-edged dosa. So after scouring the web I came across this recipe that called for rice powder. Being a little skeptical, I asked both my mom and my mother-in-law, both denied ever making it with rice powder.

Since it was already Friday and I was really craving for this dish, I went ahead and blindly put my faith in Rina's recipe and I was not disappointed. This dosa, fermented well and rose quite a bit to make wonderful golden crispy dosas. If you do not like paper thin dosas, then you can make it a little thick. However enjoy them while they are still warm....... cold dosas are not at all appetizing.

Sindhi Kadhi

Another Sindhi influenced dish that we love and have adapted to be part of our menu repertoire. This delicious kadhi is a little spicy and a little tangy and is laden with vegetables which makes it quite nutritious too.

Since it is so cold outside, we tend to stay indoors a lot. I will not say winter is my favorite month, there are a lot of things that I do not like but I am going to list the things I do love about winter.  You see I am practicing being optimistic, so here goes. I love to watch the snow fall, I love the way my breath fogs up as I talk. I love cuddling next to lit fireplaces with a mug of hot chocolate in my hand. And I love big bowls of hot soups for lunch and hot dals and curries over rice for dinners. And last but not least I love how everything looks white and pristine the morning after a snow fall.

Jollof Rice ( Ghanaian )

This is the recipe for a yummy, finger-licking Jollof rice from Ghana. A lot of cultures have some kind of tomato rice dishes; in India we have the Tomato Pulao, the Spanish have the Paella, the Cajuns have the Jambalaya, the Mexican have the Spanish Red Rice and the Ghanaians have the Jollof.

Jollof is popular among many West African nations. It is essentially made of onions, garlic, tomatoes, tinned tomato paste and maggi cubes. Maggi cubes are an essential part of Ghanaian cooking. They give the dish the much needed spiciness. When I was in Ghana I remember that the maggi cubes contained MSG.  So if you grew up eating that you will want to add some MSG to your dish, this will definitely increase the umami level of the dish. This is however optional. I recently read this interesting article about MSG and its controversy.

In the version I made, I added some carrots and green beans, this also is optional. I have seen people adding green peas, cabbage and even okra. This is all up to you. Make this dish a couple of hours earlier and let it sit so as to let the flavors really meld together and then your Jollof will taste out of this world.

So go ahead and enjoy this dish from the lands where you will find music everywhere, where talking drums are used as school bells and for other announcements, where there are long stretches of beautiful beaches inviting you to relax and watch the fisherman set to sail at dawn, where luxurious Kente cloths are worn by various chiefs during traditional ceremonies, where libations are offered to ancestors to honor and remember them, where colorful coffins are made depicting the life of the decessed, where scary Juju men  can take away all your money or make you very rich ;o), where Tro Tros  are used to transport the masses to their destination in addition to giving them a bone rattling massage ;o), where the calabash  can either be a musical instrument or a bowl and last but not least where the people are nothing but kind, helpful and always smiling.


Jollof Rice ( Vegetarian )

Vegetable Pulao

The weather has been a little unpredictable of late. There are days that are rainy and then the very hots days and then there are days that give us a brief glimpse of the lovely autumn weather. We were luckily to experience such a day last Saturday. The day was so beautiful that it would have been a shame to waste it indoors, so on the spur of moment we decided to go to the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah valley to fully enjoy the day.

We were eager to leave as soon as possible, that means half-an-hour in our house, as it takes that much time to rally all the troops !! As it was nearing lunch time I had to think fast as to what to make for us to enjoy as lunch on the mountains. The alternative would be sitting in the restaurant having lunch, now while that would have sounded great any other day, that day I did not want to waste time anywhere but on a picnic blanket on top of the mountains in my favorite spot. So I made this Vegetable Pulao as it really does not take long to make and packed the ingredients for the raita. The whole thing was done and packed in less than 25 minutes.

This pulao not only tasted great but looks good too. When I laid out the food for lunch the air was filled with the scent of the fragrant pulao and compared to the peanut butter sandwiches, pretzels and cut-up fruit in Ziploc bags - the family sitting next to us were having - this looked really appetizing and filling.


Mixed Vegetable Pulao