Gujarati Meal: Part 1 - Sambhaaryu Shaak

One of my other resolutions for my blog for 2008 which I forgot to mention in the look back on 2007 was that I was going to make plenty from the other blogs and more importtantly, POST about it.

Lat week I decided to make it a Gujarati day. That is one cuisine that we all enjoy at home. But just try saying "Let's eat out today, I feel like eating Gujju food today" and see the look of horror on the husbands face. He thinks that we want to eat out all the time. But as I have said time and again, the kids want to eat out a lot of the time. So I decided that a compromise was in order. On the spur of the moment said "ok, today is gujju lunch day at home".

I had earmarked many recipes to try out. Quickly fished them all out. This was one of the easiest meals to prepare. Did not take much time and was relatively simple in terms of ingredients and ease of preparation.

This is one recipe I saw on Coffee's blog here and had promised to try out. It looked very interesting.

Sambhaaryu Shaak tasted as good as it looked on her blog. The only mistake I made was I let it cook for a bit longer than it should have and the end product did not look quite like it should have. It got too brown instead of the beautiful red and very dry instead of the nice gravy that was on her picture. Next time, I will make sure that I watch it all the time and get it to the right shade of yumminess.

But this is a definite make again recipe. It was simply fabulous. Next time I will also try it out with baby eggplant and onions and potatoes all together. I am sure it will be delish.

Here I have to only point out one thing. The only painful thing is the stuffing. So this is recommended only for a smaller quantity and not for a large dinner party unless you have help.

Thanks Coffee for a great, easy to make recipe.

UPDATE: I am cutting and pasting her recipe as she has posted it.

3-4 potatoes peeled ( or baby eggplant or onions)

1 big tomato finely chopped

2-3 tsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

For the Sambharo:

3-4 cloves of garlic

1 tsp red chili powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

3/4 tsp garam masala

4-5 tsp dhanya-jeera/ coriander-cumin powder (about 50% of your sambharo should be made up of this)

1-2 tsp besanJuice of one lemon2-3 tsp sugar (Gujju food is generally on the sweeter side!! If you don’t prefer it then you can omit the sugar and lemon completely.)

A handful of chopped coriander.

To make the Sambharo:

Peel and pound the garlic in a mortar-pestle. You can even grate it in the absence of M/P or use garlic paste, but somehow I have always felt that pounding does make a difference to it.Now add all the other spices to it and mix well. In the end I would pound it again with the pestle for 1-2 min so that the spices blend in perfectly!

To prepare:

Slit the potatoes on both slides, with slits being perpendicular to each other. I would not recommend making a criss cross on the same side as the veggies will often split open while cooking and you wont be able to enjoy it as a whole with spices stuffed in it. Gently open the slits and stuff them with the spices, you can take help of the spoon handle to help you push it till the end. You should have about a cup of sambharo remaining after you stuff all the veggies. You can cook this in a kadai or in pressure cooker, the latter being the faster version. In a pressure cooker, heat the oil, pop the mustard seeds and brown the jeera. Add in the tomatoes and let them soften for about 2 min. Keep about 2 tsp of sambharo and add the rest of it in the tomatoes. Mix it well and let it sizzle for a while mixing in between so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Once it starts releasing a bit of oil, add in the stuffed potatoes, a glass of water and cook for about 3 whistles (will depend on the size of veggies). Once the pressure is released add in the remaining 2 tsp sambharo and give it a good boil. Serve with chapatti or rice.