Mysore Masala Dosai

When I was really young, I remember going to Mavalli Tiffin Room in Bangalore (Lal Bagh). Known famously now as MTR, the South Indian food served there was quite special and had that incredible home-made feel to it. MTR now also sells high quality packaged foods and ready-to-eat foods that are a favorite among Indians world-wide.

Anyway, RCI:Karnataka made me want to dedicate a special post to one particular dish that I used to order consistently at restaurants: Mysore Masala Dosai.

What made it special for me the first time I ate it in Bangalore was that it had this fiery, spicy chutney spread on the inside of the dosa, plus potato masala on the side, along with onion and coconut chutneys. It was a meal fit for a Queen!

Use any regular dosai recipe - I used my brown rice dosai recipe - for the dosai batter.

The fiery hot chutney I make is with red chilies, a tiny amount of shallots, very tiny amount of garlic and some grated coconut.

The potato masala is the same as what I posted in my poori-potato recipe

Once the dosai is made, spread a little chutney on the inside, scoop some potato masala in and roll up the dosai. Serve it with an array of chutneys like: coconut chutney, tomato chutney, extra potato masala, and even sambar, if you like.

I used my large rectangular griddle on stove-top to get the dosai a nice big oval - and one such large dosai is a huge and filling meal by itself!

Dalma: Oriya Cuisine

The only Oriyan dish I learnt to make (and that too am not sure is very authentic) is this Dalma. What attracted me to this dish was its simplicity, nutritive value, but most of all the combination of spices.

The spices here are standard in most Indian kitchen, but, the combination was new to me - I had never combined cumin and fennel until I saw it in this dish.

And, after making this a few times over the years, I started dry roasting the Pancha Phoron spices (Cumin, Mustard, Fennel, Fenugreek, Nigella sativa) in larger batches and grinding them to fine powder and using them to spice many dals and curries and even use as rub on chicken and turkey.

Also, instead of just regular cumin seeds, I use a mix of cumin and black cumin (kala jeera/ shahi jeera) seeds which is a good carminative, and complements the dals well - as dals do tend to cause gas if one is not used to it:-)

The recommended ratio of pancha phoron as tempering and garnish is 4:4:2:2:1. But to make the spice powder, I use equal measures of cumin (jeera), black cumin (kala jeera), mustard (brown or black) and fennel(saunf), half a measure of nigella (kalonji) seeds, quarter measure of fenugreek (methi) seeds, and leave out the chilli seeds as I can add chilli powder and adjust to taste as desired when cooking...

Ingredients
1 cup each of diced green plantain, pumpkin or squash, potatoes
1 cup toor dal
½ cup chana dal
2 Tbsp grated ginger
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp brown sugar (optional)
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp dry roasted and ground ground cumin seeds (i use a combination of black cumin + regular cumin seeds)
Tempering: 1 Tbsp canola oil (or ghee), 2 Tbsp Pancha Phoron spices

Preparation

Cook the dal in a saucepan; meanwhile, also cook the vegetables in another saucepan with a pinch of salt

When the dal and vegetables are mostly cooked, combine them and add the spices - turmeric, ginger, garlic, brown sugar and adjust salt to taste and let it simmer gently

Tempering: In a small pan, heat the oil and add the Pancha Phoron spices, allow the mustard seeds to pop and the rest of the ingredients to crackle and brown, but not burn

Add the tempering to the dal, sprinkle the dry roasted cumin powder and serve warm with hot rice and ghee. (It is probably wonderful with hot rotis as well...)

And this is my post for the RCI: Regional Cuisine of India event started by Lakshmi at Veggie Cuisine, with RCI:Orissa hosted this month by Swapna at Swad

arachu vitta sambar

On an average day, if you dropped by to visit my parents unexpectedly, my mom would offer you a meal pretty close to the one pictured here. Perhaps not in the same presentation as above; I believe there is some unwritten rule about placement of the various dishes on a plate or banana leaf which I have not learnt well yet.

Of course, on a festival day, or if you called ahead, the meal above would pale in comparison to the one she would offer then:)

When I read about RCI - Regional Cuisine of India event, I was quite excited as this month's featured region was Tamil Nadu. There are so many distinct flavors just from this region alone, and all of them incredibly mouth-watering, but, I decided to fall back on my favorite comfort food, the food I grew up with, the food my mom would make on an average day...

The picture above shows, from left bottom clockwise: paal paisam, thayir pachadi, arachu vitta sambar, cabbage koottu and home-made chili-lime pickle. Plus, of course, rice.

Paal Paisam

Paal Paisam: This is basically a simple kheer recipe made with milk, sugar and rice, cooked together till well thickened and syrupy. I usually take a short-cut when I make this: 1 cup jasmine rice cooked in 3 cups water, and when rice is done, add 1 can of condensed milk and 1 cup of whole milk and let them cook till well combined and as thick as you prefer. Garnish with raisins and cashew nuts, preferably fried in ghee. Serve at room temperature.

Thayir Pachadi:This is a side usually, made with yogurt, grated or finely diced cucumber, salt and some tempering. There are several versions of it that I hope to make a separate post on just thayir pachadis someday :)

Cabbage Koottu

Cabbage Koottu: The cabbage koottu is pretty much the same recipe as green papaya koottu - just replace green papaya with cabbage:)

Arachu Vitta Sambar: roughly translates to sambar or stew that has some ground spice paste adding the flavor. I saved the best for the last here, as arachu vitta sambar is one of my favorites to eat with plain rice. It is similar to regular sambar recipe, except, this uses a ground spice paste rather than spice powder for the flavoring.

Arachu Vitta Sambar with Pearl Onion

A few different vegetables can be used to make arachu vitta sambar, but my favorite is made with red pearl onions.

Ingredients
12-15 small pearl onions, whole, peeled
salt to taste
1½ cups cooked toor dal
2 Tbsp tamarind concentrate*
1 Tbsp brown sugar¹

for the spice paste:
¼ cup coriander seeds
¼ cup dry grated coconut (or fresh)
2 Tbsp chana dal
4-6 dry red chilies

Tempering: 1 Tbsp canola oil, 1 tsp urad dal, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 4-6 curry leaves

*there are so many varieties of packaged tamarind product available these days, each varying in strength, price and consistency; the Vietnamese tamarind concentrate is my favorite and is the one used in this recipe, but tamarind paste is available at Indian stores which is more intense and thick than the Vietnamese one I prefer; of course, if handy, i always prefer to use tamarind fruit, just shell one or two pods, soak the pulp in water, remove the tamarind seeds, and extract the "juice" :) Experimenting with different versions helped me settle on which one I like, and how much to use to suit my taste...

Preparation

place the whole peeled pearl onions in a pot with 6 cups of water, some salt, tamarind and cook till onions lose the raw flavor

meanwhile, dry toast the spice paste ingredients till aromatic, then combine them in a blender or food processor and grind to a fine smooth paste, adding just enough water to make a smooth paste

when pearl onions are cooked add the spice paste mix, cooked toor dal, brown sugar, adjust salt to taste and let it simmer till flavors meld and the sambar is thicker; garnish with tempering

Tempering: heat oil in a pan, when shimmering, add the urad dal, when it turns golden brown add the mustard seeds, and when they pop add the curry leaves and turn off heat

Stir well before serving with fresh plain hot rice.

¹ Many of my friends and family leave out the brown sugar in the sambar recipe. In fact, in some households it is a strict no-no to add brown sugar or jaggery to sambar and rasam. I have always done it - ever since I found out I like the taste that a hint of brown sugar adds to spicy dishes :P