Peas Pulov and Aloo Gobi..

Sundays' is an interesting day for me and my hubby. For him, it's more of watching 2-3 movies and also enjoy eating my experimental dishes, and for me to try out something different.

On one such day..I lovingly asked my hubby, what do you feel like eating....He was quite for an hour and I thought he has forgotten about it. I was equally breaking my head..what can I cook for lunch..which continues till dinner. I probed him once again.....what do you want me to cook? Thats when he threw a question on me... and it was "Do you know to make peas pulov and aloo gobi?" I was confused..puzzled and excited. I said you'll have it in an hour's time and I got busy preparing it.

Peav Pulov with Alooo gobi sound weird, but make a good combi for eating.

Peas pulov is mildly spiced while aloo gobi to be moderately spiced.


2 md cups of fresh or frozen peas.
2 tspn white pepper
1 tspn ginger garlic paste
4-5 strands of chopped coriander
4-5 mint leaves
salt to taste
2 tbspn oil

Spices:
1 lavang
1 md cinnamon stick
1 small black cardamom
1marath moggu
1/2 jakayi piece
1/2 japatre piece

Grind all the above spices to a fine powder.

Cook rice and spread it across in a wide bowl, so that they dont stick to each other. Add 2 tbspn oil, chopped coriander before mixing the peas masala.

Take a kadai. Add oil, once it's hot, add peas, ginger-garlic paste, salt and the powdered spices. Mix them thoroughly. Turn of the heat and add the mint leaves and saute it. Mix it with the rice completely. Peas pulov is ready.

Aloo Gobi:

4 md sized potatoes: moderately pressure cooked, peeled and cut into cubes.
10-15 cauliflower florets: half cooked

1 tspn garam masala pwdr
1 tspn amchur pwdr
1 tspn salt
4-5 strands chopped coriander
4-5 mint leaves
1 tbspn tomato sauce
1 tbspn oil
1 tspn om
1 tspn ginger-garlic paste

Take a kadai and add oil. Once it's hot, add om, tomato sauce, garam masala, amchur pwdr, salt and ginger garlic paste. Saute them completely. Add potato cubes and cook for 5mins. Followed by florets getting cooked for another 5 mins. Garnish with coriander and mint leaves.

Enjoy eating with jot Peas pulov.

Masala Puri....

My hubby has to eat something in the evening as snack and it has to be quite filling. I was tried of frying bajjies, bondas and pakodas. So there came another request... can you make masala puri at home? I can't say no.. so ended up preparing it for an evening snack...

I browsed couple of cooking sites, but I found them not that interesting for me to try it. On the pertext of preparing it well, I decided to eat masala puri outside and at the same time ask the chat guy how they make it so well. The chat guy shared the recipe and I ended up preparing it at home.

Let me be honest here. No matter how much ever we try to make the best, it does not match the taste that we eat outside.

So for all the Masala Puri lovers like me... go ahead and try this. Also the remaining masala can be deep freezed for not more than 20 to 25days

Ingredients were:

Pressure cook the below items seperately.

1 md cup toor dal, pressure cooked (we can omit this, but has to increase coconut 2 times)
1/4 kg white peas soaked overnight and pressure cooked

Fry the below items with little oil and grind them to a find paste, along with toor dal.

1 md cup grated coconut (3 cups if we are not adding toor dal)
4 tspn coriander seeds
3 jeera
2 tspn pepper
3 lavang
2 cinnamon sticks
2 marath moggu
1/2 jakayi 
1/2 japatre
2 tspn red chilli pwdr
1 tbspn sugar
salt to taste

Take a kadai. Put the masala paste and saute it. Add water to loosen the paste. Pour the cooked peas, sugar and salt and bring it to boil in low flame.

I think from here, we know to smash the puries and add the necessary vegetables to it and enjoy eating. 

I used the below veggies....

Chopped onions, tomatoes and coriander
Grated carrot
Sev mixture
Salt to sprinkle
Chat masala

We managed to eat, masala puri, sukka puri and dahi puri. 

Vada Pav...

Vada Pav....

After enjoying pav bhajji and if there are some extra pav is remaining, what else will strike our mind. It's vada pav... isn't it. 

This is one of the simplest snack that one can make.

Slice pav horizontally into two, smear butter as generously we want to. Toast the pav lightly by pressing two or three times or till pav is crisp and light brown. 

Now for the vada:

Wash 3md sized aloos first and pressure cook then with little salt, turmeric and oil. Once it's cooked, remove the skin and smash the potatoes. For the smashed aloos, add and mix the below ingredients thoroughly:

1/2 tspn salt, 1 tspn ajwain
1 tspn red chilli pwdr
1 tspn coriander pwdr
1 tspn pepper pwdr
1 tbspn lemon juice
1 big chilli chopped
4-5 strands coriander leaves chopped
7-8 chopped pudina leaves







Take 2 tbspn of chirotti rava and 2 tbspn of maida and mix them completely. Make small portions of the aloo mix. Roll it on maida and chirotti rava mix and shallow fry it, until golden brown.

Place vada in the pav and enjoy eating it along with masala chai.....

Rajma Chawal ....

There are days where I just go blank. Don't know what to cook, only bcoz I don't want to repeatedly  eat what I have cooked already.

Our traditional recipes are just various kinds of rasam, sambhar, kuutoo, towe, gojjus and many more were already prepared.

As I was excited to try out something different and was checking in the kitchen what is it that I can have my hands on.. I spotted plenty of rajma. That's when it striked that I can make rajma for lunch the next day. I checked with my hubby, if he is ok in eating rajma chawal for lunch and the answer was a big YES. 

This is how I prepared it:

Soak rajma overnight and pressure cook it with 2 whistles, with little salt, turmuric and oil.

1 md onion,chopped
2 big tomatoes,chopped
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp coriander pwdr
1 tsp jeera pwdr
1 tsp red chilli pwdr
1/2 tsp amchur pwdr
5-6 strands of chopped coriander
3 tbsp Oil
Salt to taste
1 small cinnamon stick
1 small cardamom
1 small bay leaf
2 green chillies

Grind cinnamon, cardamon, bayleaf , onions, tomatoes and chillies to a fine paste.

Now take a kadai and add oil, add the above grinded mixture, salt and ginger paste and fry until the raw smell disappears. It's now time to add the red chilly pwdr, coriander pwdr, cumin pwdr, amchur pwdr and garam masala pwdr and saute it. Add cooked rajma now and ensure that it gets completely cooked with the masalas and the gravy. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve it with hot rice.

Peas Curry !!!

I'm always excited to experiment and try something new. I knew what I'll be adding and at the correct quantity. But the result always comes out well. God's grace isin't it.

1 small cinnamon stick
2 cloves
2 md green chillies
1 tspn of khus khus
2-3 pepper

Grind the above mixture.

3md ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 md chopped onion

Take a kadai, add 2 tbspn of oil. 1 tspn of jeera and once it crackles, add onions and saute it. Once it turns golden brown, add the tomatoes and the grinded mixture and 1 tspn ginger garlic paste and mix well, also add green peas. 1 tspn of coriander pwdr, 1 tspn red chilly pwdr, 1 tspn salt, pinch of turmeric, mix well. Bring the mixture to boil in low flame. Garnish with coriander leaves. This can be enjoyed eating with chapatis or poori.

Pav Bhaji !!!!!

My hubby relishes what ever I cook. But, at times he comes up with requests, where I take some time to digest and make up my mind to prepare it. One such request was to prepare Pav Bhaji, either for breakfast or for an evening snack.

I kept thinking, a Pav Bhaji for breakfast....Each time, I was preparing myself to make it, I used to find the necessary vegetables or the masala over at home.

There arrived one Sunday morning where I was ready to cook it and this is how I prepared it:

3 md potatoes boiled, peeled and mashed.
5 md tomatoes chopped
2 md onion chopped
2 md carrot boiled and mashed
1 md cup fresh peas, coarsely grinded.
1 tbspn ginger and garlic paste
3 tbspn oil
6 tspn butter
salt to taste
2 lemon slices
8 pav 
coriander chopped for garnishing

In the kadai, add 2 tbspn butter and 3 tbspn oil. Once the oil is hot and the butter is melted, add onion and saute it. Once it brown add ginger garlic paste, tomatoes, peas, carrot and mashed potatoes and mix them throughly. Add salt and the pav bhaji masala. Keep adding water in small quantities so that the vegetables gets blended in themselves throughly. Also, keep smashing the vegetables in it. Everything should be mixed throughly with the water we have added.

I have heard the best chefs on TV say, that we should be tasting the dish to know if they taste right. So keep tasting it. At times I feel, my tummy full, just by tasting it.

Slice pav horizontally into two, smear butter as generously we want to. Toast the pav lightly by pressing two or three times or till pav is crisp and light brown. Garnish the bhaji with chopped coriander leaves, remaining butter and serve hot with pav accompanied with remaining chopped onion and lemon wedges.