Soy Nilgiri Kurma and Dal Rotis

Blogging Marathon# 29: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Cooking with Colors
Dish: Soy Nilgiri Kurma --- Green

Today we are starting the 29th edition of Blogging marathon and my theme for this week is "Cooking with Colors". We can all agree that we eat with our eyes first and the more colorful a dish is, the more healthier and appealing it is. So for the next three days, I'm going to post dishes that have one featured color ingredient.

For the first day, I'm cooking with the color 'Green'. I saw this dish being made on a Telugu Cooking show (abhiruchi) and it looked very appealing, so I jotted down the recipe. As I was looking through my notebook for ideas of dishes to make for BM, I saw this recipe and thought this will highlight the color green really well. 

This dish tastes very earthy and is quite delicious. It is a little time consuming to make, but ones all the components are ready, the curry takes no time to finish.

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Day 14 – Cholent (Vegan Jewish Stew)

First some Wiki Gyan time: Cholent (in Yiddish) or hamin (in Hebrewן‎) is a traditional Jewish stew simmered overnight, for 12 hours or more, and eaten for lunch on the Sabbath. Cholent was developed over the centuries to conform with Jewish religious laws that prohibit cooking on the Sabbath. The pot is brought to boil on Friday before the Sabbath begins, and kept on a hotplate, or placed in a slow oven or electric slow cooker until the following day.

Well I just followed the recipe from veganomicon and Isa’s version of vegan cholent was done in exactly 45minutes. This tasted awesome, very hearty & filling. Isa suggests serving it over rice or with bread, but I went with polenta. I made a few changes to the recipe to accommodate what I have in the pantry.

Recipe adapted from Veganomicon.
Ingredients:
Onion – 1 large, chopped
Potatoes – 2 large, chopped into cubes
Carrot – 1 medium, chopped
Kidney beans – 1 15oz. can or 1½ cups cooked
TVP chunks (Soy chunks like Nutrella)– 1 cup
Peas – 1 cup, fresh/ thawed if frozen
Tomato paste – 2tbsp
Tomato puree – 1 cup
Garlic – 2 cloves
Bay leaves – 2
Caraway seeds (Shah jeera) – ½tsp
Salt & Pepper – to taste

Method:

• Heat 2tbsp oil in a large soup pot; add onions and sauté till they turn translucent, about 5-6 minutes.
• Add garlic, caraway seeds, salt and pepper and cook for another minute.
• Add potatoes, carrots, TVP chunks, bay leaves, tomato puree & tomato paste along with 3 cups of water. Cover and cook for about 25-30 minutes or until the veggies are tender.
• Add kidney beans & peas, cook till they are heated through. Serve hot with rice, polenta or bread. It tasted awesome reheated for lunch too.

Soy Flakes Masala Curry

This is another one of those recipes I jotted down in my little trusty diary during my India trip. I couldn’t find soy flakes in India grocery here, so I bought 2 boxes from India. This recipe goes really well with rotis and chapathis.

Ingredients:
Soy Flakes – 1 cup
Onion – 1 small, chopped
Tomatoes – 2 ripe, chopped
Green chilies – 3
Ginger + Garlic paste – 1 tsp
Coconut (dry or fresh) – 2 tbsp
Poppy seeds (Khus khus) – 2 tbsp
Red chili powder – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Grind coconut and poppy seeds with water into a smooth paste.
  
• Soak soy flakes in 2-3 cups of hot water until ready to use.
  
• Heat 2 tsp oil in a pan, sauté onions till lightly browned. Add ginger-garlic paste and sauté for a minute.
  
• Add green chilies, tomatoes, coconut paste, cook covered till the tomatoes are tender.
• Drain soy flakes, squeeze out the extra water and add to the tomato mixture along with red chili powder and salt. Sprinkle water if the gravy is too dry.
  

We had our soy masala curry with jowar roti (thanks to Shilpa for the easy jowar roti recipe) and pesarapappu charu. Healthy and delicious meal.

Methi-Soya Chunk Masala

I’m back from my short and sweet India trip. Had a great time with the family, great home food, good long chats, quick shopping and bam.. I was on my flight back. I was a little sick when I started in India and was totally sick after getting here (I guess home sickness and the cold weather hit right in my face). I’m slowly getting back to routine cooking and blog hopping.

I had planned on participating in JFI-Jaggery and I had my mom cook Chalimidi with jaggery, but due to technical difficulties I couldn’t post anything from India. I’m going to post it sometime soon.

Getting back to the dish in question, Methi-Soya Chunks masala, I remembered seeing a dish with methi leaves and soya chunks on one of the food blogs, but I completely forgot which one and couldn’t find it again. I just went with my instincts here and it turned out pretty good. This would go well with Jeera rice or chapathis.

Ingredients:
Methi leaves – 1 big bunch
Mini soya chunks- ½ cup (boiled per package directions)
Onion – 1 big
Tomato – 2 ripe
Green chilies – 2
Milk – ¼ cup
Corn flour – 1 tsp (mix with little water to form a smooth paste)
Red chili powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – pinch
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds (jeera) – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Method:

• Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan, add jeera and let the seeds splutter. Fry onions till they turn light brown.
• Add tomatoes and cook covered till done.
• Add methi leaves, turmeric, cumin powder and red chili powder. Cover and cook till the leaves wilt, about 5 minutes.
• Mean while dry fry the boiled soya chunks (optional). I just like the texture of fried chunks.
• After the leaves are wilted, add the milk and bring it to a slow simmer. Add the fried chunks and salt, cook for 3-5 minutes. Add corn flour mixture and cook for 1 minute or until the gravy thickens. Serve with rice or chapathi.

Soyachunks-Aloo-Matar Masala

When I was in India, I never liked the taste or the texture of soy chunks (meal maker). Even after coming the U.S., the tried cooking with them once before and I didn’t like it. But after tasting soy meat and soy burgers and seeing recipes on other blogs, I decided to try our good old Nutrela soy chunks. Just to be on the safe side with the texture I bought mini chunks instead of the regular ones and I loved the way this dish turned out.

I took an easy route and made Soy chunks-matar masala recipe printed right on the box, with the only exception that I added potato to it. If you don’t buy nutrela brand soy chunks, here’s the recipe for you.

Ingredients:
Soy chunks – 1 cup (boiled as per package directions)
Potato – 1 large chopped
Peas – ½ cup (I used frozen, thawed peas)
Onion – 1 medium chopped
Tomatoes – 2 medium chopped
Ginger+garlic paste – 1 tsp
Red chili powder – 1tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Fry the onions in 1 tsp of oil till lightly browned. Remove from heat, when cooled, grind into a paste.
• Fry the boiled chunks in 2tsp of oil, till slightly browned on all sides.
• Heat 1tbsp of oil in a pan, add ginger+garlic paste, onion paste and fry for 2 minutes. Add chopped potatoes and ¼ cup of water, cover and cook for 5 minutes or till the potatoes are just tender.
• Add tomatoes and cook covered for 5 more minutes.
• Add red chili powder, garam masala, peas, soy chunks and season with salt. Add some water if you want more gravy. Cook for another 5 minutes, garnish with coriander and serve with rice or chapathis.

We had our soyachunk curry with home-made naan. I will post the recipe on 16th October for World Bread day (event hosted by Zorra).