My beloved methi

What colour comes to your mind when you hear the words fresh vegetables? Of course green, the colour of those super healthy green leafy vegetables.

Green veggies come in such a great variety of shapes and sizes, that initially I had difficulty in differentiating one from another. There are some green vegetables like chandan batwa which show their face only once or twice in the entire year. Then there are ran-bhajyas which are actually weeds. To name a few they are machul, ambushi and aghada (you will find it everywhere once it rains. It forms a part of patri meaning basket of leaves offered to Ganpati on ganesh chaturthi).

'Which vegetable is this?' I would naively ask the seller and she would first laugh at my ignorance and then share the name. Her innocent, full teeth laughter hidden behind the wrinkles of vagaries of being poor vegetable grower. I am yet to discern the secret behind it.

There are umpteen methods of cooking green veggies. I personally prefer the curry types over dry ones. Also, among curry types I love those which are prepared using buttermilk or curd. Chakwat is my all time favourite.

They have their peculiar characteristics too. Palak is salty in taste. No any salt is required to be added to it while cooking. Ambat chuka, machul and ambushi are naturally sour. I feel that the art of cooking green veggies is that the masalas and the other accompaniments that you add mustn't kill the original taste of the leaves. In fact most of them don't require any masala at all.

I also liked koshimbir made of onion leaves. The cook at my hostel mess would prepare it. No matter how much I tried I couldn't replicate the taste at home.

Then there is lasun pat or lasun leaves. I can't describe its heavenly piquant sourish taste in words.

Of all the green vegetables palak and methi are the king and queen respectively. Here I am sharing with you two of my favourite methi recipes.

Dahi methi

Ingredients – Finely chopped methi leaves one cup, chopped garlic two spoons, four green chillies, mustard seeds, a pinch of hing, besan two spoons, 3/4th cup curd, salt, two spoon oil.

Method

Heat the oil and add mustard to it. Add green chillies, garlic and fry for a while. Then add methi leaves to it. Keep stirring. Mix dahi and besan and add it. Let it boil. Thereafter, add the hing and salt.

Methi Dholana

Ingredients – Methi two cups, two spoons finely crushed groundnuts, one lemon, one onion, red chillies powder, haldi, oil, hing, jira.

Method

Finely chop the methi leaves. Add crushed groundnuts, finely chopped onion, chilly powder and salt to it. Add lime juice as well. Thereafter, heat a spoonful of oil in the tadka pan. Add jira, haldi and hing. Add this seasoning to the aforesaid mixture and stir well. Remember this is a form of salad and the leaves are not to be cooked. Just the seasoning will have to heated and added. Try this recipe. I am sure you will fall head over heels in love with it.

The long story of Paratha

I was a child growing in eighties. In those times doodarshan would run movies from the sixties and seventies on the weekends. The mother of the hero in those movies would be an aging woman clad in white sarees, who would stitch for a living and inevitably cook her son's favourite aloo paratha and gajar halwa with her own hands.

Being raised in a Maharashtrian household aloo paratha was never a part of our platter. But now that I had heard of it, I was dying to taste it. My mother borrowed its recipe from one of her friends and paratha made a grand filmy entry in my home.

Over a period of time, I have fell head over heels in love with parathas. It is filling, tastes delicious and is super healthy.

Of all the parathas that I have tasted, the best one was the one I had at Amritsar. The stuffed aloo paratha was baked in the tandoor and no matter how much I tried I couldn't find that taste in any other part of the world. I knew there existed a parathe wali galli in Chandni Chowk area of Delhi. But I couldn't locate it till date. When you travel by those tourists bus in and around Delhi, the roadside dhabas and joints will fleece you of your money. You order a paratha and they serve it dal, saag and then charge you triple the amount of paratha citing the price of dal and saag which you had never ordered in the first place. I have travelled almost the entire country and fortunately have not come across of such corrupt, unethical practice anywhere else.

Another version of paratha comes from the south of India and is named as banana paratha. The first time I read its name was at the Mango Tree restaurant at Hampi. I was intrigued. I hadn't heard of banana paratha and decided to be adventurous and taste it. It was served with a bottle of honey. Believe me, this Banana Parota, as it is called in the south melted in my mouth. The smooth hot texture of the mashed banana dipped in honey was heavenly.
 

We keep experimenting with parathas at our home. Here is one version which I simply devour – Dhepare.

Ingredients

2 cups bajra flour, ¾ cup wheat flour, 2 spoon dahi, 1 cup chopped methi, I spoon chilli paste, 1 spoon sesame seeds, salt, a pinch of sugar, 1 spoon oil, hing

Method

Mix all the ingredients together. Knead the dogh. Make small balls. Roll the parathas and roast it on the tawa.

I and Idli

Like those romantic novels, where the boy and girl hate each other in the first meeting, I too was introduced with idli on a wrong note. Idli was my mother's signature dish. So every time we had guests, which was at least once in a week, there was idli at home. Familiarity breeds contempt and I began to detest idli.

Then I fell in love with her again. This time idli came in a new form – guntur idli. The same idli, when dipped in tangy sambhar with two spoonfuls ghee, sprinkled with a generous amount of red chutney pudi, tasted heavenly.

India is a diverse country and resultantly idli too comes in diverse form. At my grandmother's house, there was no idli stand. Idli batter was poured into steel bowls and steamed into the steamer. Just two idlis served on the banana leaf and you would be full.

Idli chilly is one of my favourite dishes too. I love the taste of partly cooked capsicum with the chopped shallow fried idli. My father loved plainly fried idli without any accompaniments.

Recently, I cooked vegetable idli and continued my love affair with idli. This variation of idli is my favourite. It looks like a beautiful painting drawn on the canvas. Here is the quick recipe.

Mix the idli batter with diced capsicum, grated carrots and green peas. Add a big spoonful sambhar masala to it. Pour the batter into the idli stand and cook as usual. Eat steaming hot to enjoy the aroma and taste of vegetable idli to the maximum.