Spinach Dal

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup masoor dal [Toor dal or Moong dal]
• 2 cups chopped spinach
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 4 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 5 finely chopped green chillies
• 2  chopped tomatoes (small tomatoes)
• Seasoning : 4 red chillies, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp jeera seeds

Preparation

1. Pressure cook all ingredients, except the seasoning together.  [I use an electric cooker, I add 2 cups water and pressure cook on high for 8 mins.]
2. Heat 1 tsp oil, add the seasoning when the oil is hot and fry for a minute.
3. Add the seasoning to the cooked dal and mix.

Onion Sambar

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup moong dal
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1/2 tsp tamarind paste (add it to a tsp of water and microwave for 10 secs)
• 1 tsp jaggery
• 5-6 curry leaves
• 2-3 sprigs of coriander
• 3 tsp sambar powder
• 2 1/4 tsp of oil
• pinch of hing
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp jeera seeds
• pinch of turmeric

1. Add a pinch of turmeric, 1/4 sp oil and 1 1/2 cups (approx.) water to the moong dal and pressure cook. Pressure cooker settings : high pressure, 10 mins, quick pressure release.
2. Heat 2 tsp of oil, add mustard seeds and jeera seeds to it when hot and let it splutter for a minute.
3. Add the onion and fry until translucent.
4. To the fried onion, add the cooked dal, tomato, tamarind, jaggery, sambar powder, hing, curry leaves, coriander leaves and 1 1/2 – 2 cups water. Bring the sambar to a boil and then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Ganesh Chaturthi Menu

1. Khara Kadabu
2. Hirekai Chutney
3. Kosumbari
4. Hoornad Saru
5. Cucumber Majjige Huli
6. Sweet Kadabu

1. Khara Kadabu

For the rice dough:
1 cup water
1 tsp oil
A pinch of salt
1 cup rice flour

• Boil water with oil and salt.
• When the water boils, add the rice flour, stir to make a dough and turn off the heat.
• Allow to cool.
• Shape the dough into little balls and roll it out into a circle.

Stuffing

There are several options for the stuffing, here is one that we tried.

1 cup channa dal
4 green chilles, chopped
half a bunch of coriander leaves
1/2 onion, finely chopped

• Soak the channa dal in water for 3 hours.
• Drain the water from the channa dal entirely.
• Grind the channa dal with the green chillies and coriander without adding any water. The consistency of the ground channa dal should be coarse.
• Mix the onions and add salt to taste.

Assembling and cooking the kadabu.

• Roll out the dough into a little circle.
• Place the stuffing in the centre , fold over and seal. Use a dash of water to seal the kadabu if needed.
• Wrap the kadabu in parchment paper or banana leaf.
• Steam. We used the following pressure cooker settings for an electric cooker. High pressure for 10 minutes and used quick release of pressure.

2. Hirekai Chutney

Peel of 1 ridge gourd
1 onion sliced (optional, we didn’t use it)
1 tbsp channa dal
1 tbsp urad dal
4-5 dry red chillies
1/8 tsp tamcon paste
few curry leaves

• Pressure cook the ridge gourd peels.
• Roast channa dal, urad dal and red chillies
• Fry onion.
• Grind roasted dals, red chillies, onion, ridge gourd, curry leaves, tamcon paste together.
• Season with mustard seeds

3. Kosumbari

1 cup moong dal
2 tbsp coconut
1/2 cup grated carrot
seasoning
4-5 green chillies
mustard seeds

• Soak the dal in water for an hour. Then, drain the water completely.
• Mix grated carrot.
• To prepare the seasoning, heat oil, add mustard, green chillies and curry leaves. Add the seasoning to the dal and carrot mixture.
• Add grated coconut to the mixture.
• Squeeze lime over the kosumbari.

4. Hoornad Saru

To prepare the hoorna:

1 cup kadale bele (channa dal)
1 cup powdered jaggery
2 tablespoon grated coconut

• Wash the kadale bele and cook in pressure cooker.
• Melt jaggery, until it appears frothy.
• Add coconut, dal, cardamom and clove to the jaggery. Stir and continue heating until a thick consistency is reached. (i.e. until the water has evaporated from the dal mixture)

For the rasam:

2 teaspoon rasam powder
1/2 teaspoon tamarind paste

• To the above hoorna mixture, add 4 cups water, rasam powder, salt, curry leaves and tamarind paste.
• Let the mixture boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Cucumber Majjige Huli

1 cup sour curds
1 cup cucumber (the round variety)
1/4 cup channa dal
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons jeera
6 peppercorns
a pinch of turmeric
1/4 cup grated coconut
4 green chillies
small piece of onion (approximately an eighth of an onion)
2 pods garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
4 curry leaves

• Grind  channa dal, coriander, jeera, peppercorns, turmeric, grated coconut, green chillies, onion, garlic, ginger and curry leaves together to a fine paste.
• Boil the cucumber.
• Cook the vegetables with the ground paste.
• Add sour curds and seasoning. To prepare seasoning, heat oil, add mustard and curry leaves.

6. Sweet Kadabu

Stuffing

1 cup grated coconut
1 cup jaggery powder
4 cardamoms

• Heat the jaggery and melt it.
• Add the cocounut to the melted jaggery, constantly stirring until them mixture thickens.
• Mix in the cardamom

For assembly and cooking, follow the same procedure as the khara kadabu.

Cucumber Dal

This is a modified Andhra recipe, we found at http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/2006/10/09/lemon-cucumber-dal-budamkaya-pappu/.
We made it without the onion and garlic so as to let the flavour of the cucumber stand out.

3 yellow round cucumbers
1/2 cup toor dal
4 green chillies, finely chopped
Juice of a 2 inch piece tamarind
Curry leaves

Seasoning
1 tsp jeera

1. Peel, de-seed and cut the cucumber into approximately one inch pieces.
2. Cook cucumber with a little water and the tamarind juice. You can microwave it for 5 minutes.
3. Cook the dal with a pinch of turmeric, a drop of oil and the green chillies.
4. Once the dal is cooked, add the cooked cucumber, curry leaves, seasoning of jeera, salt and simmer.