Methi Tomato Paneer

This Methi-Tomato Paneer curry recipe is from a Telugu cooking show. It is a simple curry with very simple ingredients, methi, tomato and paneer. It is a great side dish for rice or roti.

I planted my little vegetable garden few weeks back and the saplings have slowly started to grow. My methi plants are also slowly grwoing. Hopefully I can get to cook with my own methi leaves soon :-)

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Zucchini Thoran (Kerala Style Zucchini stir fry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 

Day 25: Z for Zucchini Thoran

It is the last and final day of this month's mega marathon and time sure flew right by. For letter Z, I knew I had to make something with Zucchini, but it took me a while to finalize on what to make.

After discussing with Rajani about the possible zucchini dishes to make, I finally made this zucchini thoran from Kitchen Mishmash. Thoran is a very simple and basic Kerala dry curry that can be made with just about any fresh vegetable. I make cabbage thoran quite often, so I tried making zucchini thoran this time.

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Vellarikka Curry (Kerala style Cucumber Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 
Day 22: V for Vellarikka Curry

There were quite a few options for the letter V in Malayalam. Raw banana (vazhakai), eggplant (vazhuthananga), okra (vendakai) and garlic (velluthulli). I finally ended up picking Vellarikka or cucumber.

This Kerala cucumber curry is a simple side dish made with ground coconut and yogurt sauce. With all these coconut based Kerala dishes I probably ate more coconut in a week than I normally would in a month. I'm not complaining though, it's just that we don't use this much coconut in our everyday cooking. On another note, adding coconut to diet has many health benefits like improving heart health, improves digestion, quick energy boost and so on.

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Ulli Theeyal (Kerala Onion Masala Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 

Day 21: U for Ulli Theeyal

We are starting the final week of 'Journey through the Cuisines' mega marathon and I'm visiting beautiful Kerala -- God's own country this week. My plan for the marathon was to pick a state from each corner of the country -- so I started from the west with Bengali cuisine, then moved north to Rajasthan and then east to Gujarat. Finally this week I'm in deep south in Kerala.

Initially I wanted to do Tamil cuisine and even made 2 dishes, but somehow I wasn't happy with my choice of dishes, so I changed it to Kerala at the very last minute.

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Potato Curry leaf Curry (Aloo Karivepaku Podi Kura)

It is quite frustrating when you can't find that one ingredient (or that one thing) you are looking for -- in my case it's curry leaves. They have been MIA from most Indian groceries in NJ for more than 1 month now. With the mega marathon cooking in full swing, I needed curry leaves for some of the dishes and they were no where to be found. I am thinking of growing curry leaf plant this year in my container garden.

Well, I made today's dish couple of months ago after watching a Telugu cooking show. This was the last of the curry leaves I bought couple of months ago. A spice powder is made with the curry leaves which is then used to flavor the potatoes.

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Sambhariyu Shaak (Gujarati Stuffed Mixed Vegetable Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 3: Gujarati Cuisine 

Day 19: S for Sambhariya Shaak

Today's Gujarati dish is yet another traditional vegetable dish. Here the veggies are stuffed with a spicy coconut filling and then pressure cooked until cooked to perfection. Another amazing recipe from Tarla Dalal.com.

All of my recipes for this week are from Tarla Dala's site. It has been a great resource and I love watching her videos as well. She makes even a hard recipe sound very easy to make.

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Rasawala Chana (Gujarati Saucy Chickpea Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 3: Gujarati Cuisine 

Day 18: R for Rasawala Chana with Rotlis

Today's Gujarati dish is a simple, protein packed curry made with black chana or chickpeas. Rasawala means saucy and in this dish black chickpeas are cooked in a tangy and sweet sauce.

The only time taking part of this dish is the soaking and boiling the chana. The actual cooking time takes about 15 minutes. Served with rotis or even rice, this is a delicious and comforting dish. I made rotlis to serve with this chana.

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Makai Ki Subzi (Rajasthani Corn Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 2: Rajasthani Cuisine 

Day 13: M for Makai Ki Subzi

Today's dish is a very simple to make Rajasthani Makai aka corn curry. Corn is one of the extensively cultivated crops in Rajasthan. Corn is one of their staple foods and is used in various forms from flour to grits to whole corn.

My first pick for the letter M was Malai Mirch. Gayathri made this for one of the previous BM and I bookmarked to try it. It has very few ingredients and is very quick and easy to make. But my husband is not a big fan of creamy milk based dishes and the calories in the dish scared me to try the dish just for myself.

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Ghugni (Bengali Street food with Dried Peas)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 
Week 1: Bengali Cuisine
Day 7: G for Ghugni
Today I have a very popular street food from Bengal, called Ghugni. It is also quite popular in Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa too. I've made the Jharkhand version for one of the earlier mega marathons. There it is served with dhuska or a lentil based flatbread.

Bengali version is almost similar to that of Jharkhand except it's made with white peas instead of black chickpeas. Read Sandeepa's post to learn more about Ghugni and how it is an integral part of Bengali food. It is like Chole to the North Indians.

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Fulkopi Posto (Bengali Cauliflower curry with poppy seeds)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 
Week 1: Bengali Cuisine
Day 6: F for Fulkopi Posto (Bengali Cauliflower curry with poppy seeds)
Here's another different way of cooking with veggies, the Bengali way. First up was a simple mixed vegetables flavored with just panch phoron, then it was okra in a spicy yogurt sauce and today it is cauliflower cooked in creamy poppy seed gravy.

Letter F was one of the tough letters to find a dish. Initially I wanted to make 'Fuchka', a Bengali variation of our beloved pani puri. But then after looking at couple of recipes, I wasn't sure if it was puchka, phuchka or fuchka. With so much ambiguity, I left it at that (but I still have a pack of store-bought puris waiting to be used). Then I thought of making Fuluri, a lentil based bajji but I wasn't in a mood to deep fry, so finally chose a simpler and easier to make dish.

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Doi Dharosh (Bengali Okra in Yogurt gravy)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 
Week 1: Bengali Cuisine 
Day 4: D for Doi Dharosh (Bengali Okra in Yogurt gravy)
D for Dharosh or Dhyarosh in Bengali has 2 meanings, one is our beloved okra/ bhindi/ ladies finger and the other not-so-nice meaning is someone who's lazy and clumsy. But I am only talking about D for Okra/ bhindi today.

Doi in bengali means yogurt and in this dish okra is cooked in a spicy yogurt sauce. I was planning to make it when my husband was traveling, so I don't have to make him eat a yogurt based dish. But alas I had to make it when he was around and I made sure that he had something else to eat. I didn't tell him that this dish had yogurt in it and was surprised that he served himself a second serving. I kept quiet and didn't tell him about the secret ingredient :-)

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Thai Curried Noodles for #Food of the World

We are visiting Thailand for this month's Food of the World event. Thai cuisine is one of my favorite and I have tried and posted quite a few Thai dishes on the blog. I looked through my 'Buddha's Table' cookbook and found this Curried Noodles recipe.

This is a spicy and delicious dish that is perfect to serve on a chilly winter day. The list of ingredients is long but all of them are easily available in well stocked Asian grocery stores. I made a trip to my local Korean market to get the noodles and some other ingredients and I was set to make the dish.

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Bhindi Masala Curry (Spicy Stuffed Okra Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 59: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Stuffed Dishes

Dish: Stuffed Bhindi Masala Curry

We are starting a new week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Stuffed Dishes'. First up is a delicious stuffed bhindi/ okra in a tomato gravy recipe.

Recipe is from a Telugu cooking show. It looked like a show stopper and I noted it down in my book. As I was looking for dishes to make for this week, this one looked very tempting and luckily I was able to buy some nice looking okra too.

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Thai Zucchini Curry with Red Curry paste

Blogging Marathon# 58: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Bookmarked Dishes

Dish: Thai Zucchini Curry with Red Curry paste
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Hope you have yummy food and lots of fun with your loved ones. We are going to a Thanksgiving party hosted by a dear friend, so we will definitely be having lots of yummy food and fun today.
I am thankful for a lot of things - big thanks to god for this life, thanks to my family and friends for always being there in both happiness and sadness, thanks to the blogging marathon group for keeping me inspired and motivated to keep cooking and blogging.

I am also thankful that I had this curry recipe in the drafts for today's post, otherwise I would have been scrambling to get this post done :-) I made this Thai Red Curry with Summer squash from Food52 couple of months ago. It came in handy today since I had bookmarked and tried it then.

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Shaam Savera (Spinach-Paneer balls in Tomato sauce)

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Side Dishes for Rice/ Roti

Dish: Shaam Savera

I have a rich and decadent restaurant style curry today. It is called 'Shaam-Savera' aka Spinach-paneer koftas in tomato sauce. I ate it once in an Indian restaurant and absolutely loved the dish. I have been looking for the recipe and an opportunity to make it ever since.

We had my mom and sister's family come over for my son's birthday last month and I made this curry along with yesterday's post Aloo-Gobhi, Mughlai parathas and Jeera rice for dinner. It was a restaurant style meal without going to the restaurant :-)

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Dry Potato-Cauliflower Curry (Sukhi Aloo-Gobhi Subzi)

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Side Dishes for Rice/ Roti

Dish: Dry Aloo-Gobhi Curry

Today's side dish is with a popular combination of Aloo and Gobhi (potato and cauliflower). If you have watched 'Bend it like Beckham' movie you know how important it is to learn to make Aloo-GoBHI in Punjabi families :-)

There are quite a few different ways of making this curry. This particular recipe is from a Telugu cooking show and the chef said this is dhaba style of making this dish. I never ate in a proper dhaba, so I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the curry, but all I can say is it tastes amazing.

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Malaysian Curry Sauce

Roti Canai is usually served with a creamy curry sauce. The one served in our nearby Penang restaurant is made with chicken, so I've never tasted it myself. While surfing for Malaysian curry sauces, I found this one with potato and like I said before in my previous post, anything with potato is welcome in my house.

This curry sauce is made with generous quantity of coconut cream. But I subbed it with regular coconut milk and the sauce was still creamy and delicious. It tasted great with roti canai and even with some plain rice. I also added some green peas to add some protein to the dish.

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Roti Canai with Curry Sauce (Vegetarian Recipe)

Buffet on Table: Week 1 -- Combos from Countries

Day 2: Malaysia -- Roti Telur with Curry Sauce

Next we stop in Malaysia for an addictive combo of Roti Canai with Curry sauce. Some influence of Indian cuisine can be seen in Malaysian cuisine and this combo of roti with curry reflects a lot of it.

We have a really good Penang restaurant near us and they serve delicious roti canai. Unfortunately the curry sauce has chicken in it, so we end up eating just the bread. Penang is a state in Malaysia and is touted as the food capital of Malaysia.

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Mor Kuzhambu and Potato Curry

Buffet on Table: Week 1 -- Combos from Countries

Day 1: Mor Kuzhanbu & Potato Curry

We are starting our Mega marathon today and it's going to be a very very interesting September with lots of delicious International and Indian dishes. Theme for the first week is Combo dishes from different countries.
My first stop is in India, Tamil Nadu in particular. Ever since I saw this combo of mor kuzhambu with aloo/ potato curry in Sandhya's blog, I wanted to try it too. But since the husband is a yogurt-phobic, I was waiting for the right opportunity to make these dishes. Finally I made them while he was travelling and enjoyed all by myself :-)

My mom makes majjiga pulusu too but the method is slightly different from the Tamil Nadu version. Even with my very limited Tamil knowledge, I think even mor kuzhambu literally means majjiga (buttermilk), pulusu (stew). Correct me if I'm wrong my dear Tamil friends :-)

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Gongura Bobbarla Kura (Sorrel Spinach and Black eyed Peas curry)

Last weekend we visited my cousin's place and she has a lovely backyard garden filled with Indian greens and veggies. My mom and I were got very excited and brought home bags full of gongura (sorrel spinach), bachalakura (malabar spinach/ pohi) and some tomatoes.

Indian stores here sell gongura & bachalakura for lot of money. I'm never even tempted to buy these sorry looking greens -- they are almost wilted with absolutely no life left. This explains our excitement when we saw fresh, vibrant greens :-)

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