Shahi Arvi (Taro root/ Colacassia in Creamy Sauce)

Hope you are having a great weekend. We are enjoying the weekend at our cousin's house in Delaware, kids are running around and the adults are catching up on what's happening in life. Tomorrow we will all be back to business. My 6 year old wants 2 day week and 5 day weekends and sometimes I have the same feeling too, though I don't say it loud to him :-)

Our super talented blogger friend Valli @ Spicing your life & Cooking4allseasons has started another blog event called 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge', so starting today a group of bloggers will be posting recipes on the weekend from cookbooks, recipes jotted down from cooking shows, paper clippings etc. Like everybody I have a ton of cookbooks, 5~6 diaries filled with jotted down recipes from various sources, so I was thrilled when Valli announced this event. This will be a perfect way to try as many dishes as I can from my books and folders. 

For the first week, I have a rich and creamy gravy curry that I made during the A-Z Andhra Dishes. I served it with Zafrani pulao and Kadhu ki Dalcha and it was a super hit at home. Recipe courtesy is a cooking show called 'Just Cooking' n Maa Gold.

Original recipe had the arvi/ colacassia deep fried, but I didn't see the need for deep frying. I shallow fried arvi in couple of tablespoons of oil and the end result was quite tasty. 

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Spicy Colacasia (Sookhi Arvi Curry)

For day 2 of BM# 5, I have a quick and easy arbi/ arvi/ chamadumpa/ colacasia fry that I made for our weekend lunch and it turned out spicy and yummy. My mom makes really good chamadumpa vepudu (arvi fry) that are crisp and delicious. I’ve tried a number of times, but my curry usually ends up being mushy and not crisp. I think the arbi that we get here are a little too mealy and disintegrate when boiled and I might be boiling them a little too much too.

When I saw the recipe and the drool worthy pictures in Pure & Simple cookbook by Vidhu Mittal that I borrowed from the library, I wanted to give the dish a try. My all time favorite dish with arbi is this curry with peanut-garlic sauce from 660 Curries by Ragavan Iyer, but this dish turned out equally good and can be made within 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

Arbi – 8-10, medium sized

Ajwain (Carom) seeds – ½ tsp

Hing (Asafoetida) – ¼ tsp

Red chili powder – ½ tsp (add more if you want more heat)

Ground coriander – 1 tsp

Amchoor powder (dry mango powder) – 1/4 tsp

Salt – to taste

Method:

• Pressure cook arbi for only 1-2 whistles. Once the arbi are cool enough to handle, peel them and squish them or flatten them a little bit with your hands, this will give the veggie more surface area to brown and turn crunchy and yummy.
• Heat 2tbsp oil in a sauté pan; add ajwain and hing; once the seeds start to splutter add the boiled and flattened arbi.
• Add the dry masalas and salt and mix to coat the veggie uniformly. Cook on medium flame until golden brown crust forms on both sides, this will take about 5-6 minutes.

Serve hot with steamed rice and dal.

Lets see what my fellow marathoners have been cooking up today:
Curry in a hurry under 30 min: Aarthi, Divya, Jayashree, Kaveri, Pavani,
Seven Days of Indian Sweets:Gayathri, Priya Suresh,
Seven Days of Microwave Meals: Monika,
Seven Days of Regional Specials:Harini, Vaishali, Suma, PJ
Seven Days of Colorful Dishes Kid's Special: Kalyani
Summer Coolers: Jayasree, Kamalika, Srivalli

Arbi Curry (My favorite curry) & an Upcoming Review

After doing 2 reviews for CSN stores, the CSN Promo team selected me as a Preferred Blogger which means I get to review another product. As a new home buyer who shopped around for months looking for the right bedroom furniture, I know how important it is to find stuff at the right price. CSN has wide variety of cheap bedroom furniture and it is a One Stop Shop for everything you need for your bedroom. So watch out for the upcoming review.
We have a library right on our street, about 10 houses away and even though their timings are not very convenient during the week, I try to take some time out on Saturdays to take a walk and grab a book. Also one cool feature our county has is we can borrow books from any of the 75 libraries in the county and I’ve always managed to get various books from different libraries within 3-4 days.

My first book from our new library is Raghavan Iyer’s 660 Curries. It’s a big book with so many delicious dishes to try, but when I read this Arbi curry in peanut-garlic sauce, my mouth started watering right away. I know fried food is always yummy, but this dish just takes it another level.

Boiled arbi (colocassia) is dusted with besan (chickpea flour) and deep fried. Oh.. my.. these arbi pakodas are sooooo yummy. You can’t pay me enough to deep fry anything, but I can make any number of exceptions for this dish AND I deep fry on a weekday, now that is unheard of in our household. Also the peanut-garlic sauce is to DIE for, this dish is totally addictive—I promise. So people please get some arbi and start deep frying and make this incredibly delicious dish right away.

Ingredients:
Arbi (colocassia) – 10-12 small
Besan – ¼ cup
Chili powder – 1tsp
Roasted Peanuts – 2tbsp
Garlic – 4 cloves
Coriander leaves – ¼ cup, chopped
Green chilies – 4
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Pressure cook arbi until tender. When cool enough to peel and chop into 2” pieces. Alternately follow Raghavan’s method: Thoroughly wash arbi and peel and chop them into 2” pieces. Boil in water for about 15-20 minutes or until fork tender.
  
• Mix chickpea flour, chili powder & salt, then add the arbi and toss around to coat them with the flour mixture. Deep fry until golden brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels to absorb excess oil.
  
• Grind peanuts, coriander leaves, chilies & garlic cloves into a coarse paste. Raghavan suggests using a mortar & pestle to do this, I used my mini food processor instead.
  
• Heat 2 tbsp oil in a sauté pan; add the peanut mixture and sauté till lightly browned and garlic bits start sticking to the bottom.
  
• Add 1 cup water and de-glaze the pan; next add the fried arbi and mix well to coat arbi with the thin gravy. Bring this to a boil; lower the heat and cook uncovered for 6-7 minutes or until the gravy sticks to the pieces.
  

Serve hot with steamed rice and sambar. (don’t forget to mix in some ghee—makes the meal heavenly).

Sunday Meals

This sunday, we decided to do nothing but cook, eat and rest. No laundry... No shopping.. everything will have to wait until next weekend (I don't want to think about all that now...) This is our sunday meals menu..

Lunch:
Bachali kura pappu
Chamadumpala pulusu (Arvi pulusu)
Pudina pachadi (Mint chutney)


Afternoon Snacks:
Boiled peanuts (fresh peanuts in shells boiled with salt)
Mango Custard

Dinner:
Kadai Paneer (Recipe from Indira's Mahanandi - Only change I made is use green, red and yellow peppers and add Patak's Hot & Spicy curry paste)
Chapathi
Chamadumpala pulusu:

Ingredients:
Chamadumpalu (arvi) - 8 medium size
Red onion - 1 medium
Green chilies - 3-4
Tamarind paste - 2tbsp
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Methi powder - little
Dhania powder - 1/2tsp
Jeera powder - 1/2tsp
Jaggery - 1tsp
Turmeric - 1/2tsp
Salt - to taste

For tempering:
Menthulu (fenugrek seeds) - 4-5 seeds
Jeera - 1 tsp

Method:

• Boil chamadumpalu, after they become soft, remove the skin and chop into medium size chunks.
• Heat 1tsp oil in a pan, add half the hopped onion and green chilies and fry till the onions turn transparent. Remove and grind into a smooth paste when cool.
• Heat 1tbsp oil in the same pan, when hot add menthulu and jeera and fry for a minute.
• Add the remaining onion and fry till golden brown.
• Add the onion-chili paste and fry for another 2-3minutes.
• Add the boiled dumpalu, turmeric, tamarind paste, all the powders and water to bring to desired consistency.
• Simmer the mixture on slow flame for 10-15 minutes.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice.