Ragda Pattice and Living in Bombay

I think college days are the most fun days for most people. Everyone looks back on their college days with such nostalgia. Everything was so perfect back then and all one needed to worry about was having fun and the next entertainment plans on the horizon. Movies, partying, eating out, meeting boys!!!! The list goes on. I had the good fortune to go to college even for my intermediate which I am not sure many kids do these days. Now it is still school till the 12th and only then college after that.
I went to college in Bombay and for me that was a real experience. I was brought up in a very small township where Vizag was the "big city" for us. So you can just about imagine my excitement on knowing that I was going to Big Bad Bombay for my education and the icing on the cake was that I was going to be in the hostel. I am quite sure that my mom was not very happy about this but dad was quite insistent and I am really glad he did insist. It was a wondeful wonderful time and I grew up in those few years there. I learnt to cope on my own and do things for myself. Homesickness was my constant companion then and it took quite a while before I could shake off that feeling.

But living in Bombay has its compensations. I have to say here that one of the best parts of staying in Bombay was the eating out. Like most students, I did not have a whole lot of money and was always on a tight, really tight budget. But I really savoured every moment of my stay in Bombay. Outside the college gate was this sandwich wallah who would make the most amazing chutney and cucumber sandwiches. Little further down the road was the bhelpuri guy who knew exactly how I liked my bhelpuri . Though I cannot imagine eating off the streets like that now, those days I had absolutely no inhibitions what with having been blessed with a cast iron tummy. On Warden Road there was the Right Place which served up amazing grilled sandwiches just loaded with butter and cheese ( I am just back from a trip to Bombay and made it a point to go to the Right Place. I am glad to report that the taste of the sandwiches is still as yummy as ever and they are still as affordable at Rs.50/-). The Frankies at Scandal Point were all of Rs.5. There was this dosa guy who served delicious crispy dosas for Rs.2 and a dollop of amul butter added to it would increase the cost to only Rs.3. It was unbelievable.

But the single dish that I enjoyed eating was the ragda pattice. I had never tasted it before coming to Bombay. This nicely fried crisp aloo tikki was covered with the white peas masala and all the different chutneys were added on top. Topped with finely chopped onions and sev, IMHO it was food for the gods. delicious to the last bite. It was something that I love to date. But for some reason I always thought it chick peas that were used to make the ragda. Only later I realised that it was white peas that were the main ingredient in the ragda gravy.

In one of Tarla Dalal's books I got the exact recipe which I am giving here.

The recipe for the aloo tikkis is here. The one difference is that you can stuff the centre of the tikki with about half a teaspoon of green chutney to add more flavour.

For the Ragda:

1 Cup white peas soaked overnight

2 boiled potatoes diced finely

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder

2 teaspoons greenchilli and ginger paste

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

2 teaspoons jaggery grated
1 tablespoon of tamarind juice

salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds

6 curry leaves

a pinch of asafoetida (hing)

2 tablespoons of oil

To serve

1/2 cup green chutney (Recipe here)

1/2 cup sweet chutney ( Recipe here)

1 cup nylon sev

1 cup onions diced finely

Make the tikkis as mentioned in an earlier post here.

For the Ragda:

Boil the soaked peas with 3 times the water till soft.

Heat oil and add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, and asafoetida.

Add all the other ingredients when the mustard seeds start to crackle.

Add more water if required to get a gravyish consistency.

Mash the peas a bit.
Keep aside.

To serve:

Place two tikkis on a plate and pour the ragda over it.

Top with chutneys and 2 tablespoons each of the onions and sev.

Serve hot.

Enjoy!!!!

Chennai Bloggers Meet and Aloo Tikki

Today was quite an exciting day, one that I was looking forward to for a while. I have been off blogging for a few months now due to various personal reasons and despite having many commitments, I was simply determined to go and meet everyone. I have to put on record here that I bravely drove many miles to make it there as I was I think the only one from the other side of town.





We had such a blast all trying to guess who the others were (Confession- I had not done my homework well and was struggling a little bit in this department) but all in all it was great catching up with everyone. It ended up being a warm gathering of friends, rather than strangers meeting for the first time. Internet anonymity is all very well but there is definitely something to be said about old fashioned "in person" meeting





Now the all important topic of food. It was so yummy and I think everyone quite lived up to why they were blogging about food. Each dish on the table tasted sumptuous with mouth watering dishes. I needed to immediately take a 5 mile walk to burn off all the extra calories I must have put on eating all that. Fortunately I am off sweets, so that was one less sin I had to worry about. I made Aloo Tikkis as a starter as the food was going to be predominantly Indian.





Now for the Aloo Tikkis. They are one of the simplest yet scores very high on the satisfaction scale.


For about 20 tikkis you will need the following ingredients:

1 Kg Potatoes ( boiled, peeled and mashed)
2 tbsp Coriander leaves
4 green chillis chopped up really fine
2 slices bread
1 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 & 1/2 tsp amchur powder ( dry mango powder)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
1/4 cup Maida ( all purpose flour) mixed in 1/4 cup water to make a coating paste
Bread crumbs
Oil to deep fry.

Method:

Boil, peel and mash the potatoes.

Crumble the bread slices and mix it in as well along with the coriander leaves and green chillis.

Add the dry powders to this.

Shape into tikkis and dip into the coating batter then place in a plate which contains the bread crumbs to liberally coat it.

Deep fry and serve hot along with green chtuney/sweet tamarind chutney/tomato ketchup.

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.

Aloo Jeera- South Indian Style

Sometimes, the simplest of ingredients come together as a wonderful wholesome dish. As a child, I remember my mother's day to day cooking was very simple and very healthy. Most of the vegetables were steamed /boiled and then just a simple popu/tadka of mustard seeds, curry leaves and urad dal. This resulted in the taste of the vegetable coming through rather than having them smothered in sauces and gravies and the flavours totally hidden. Sometimes, for a change each veggie will have one added ingredient to enhance its taste like sesame seeds with lauki ( bottle gourd, sorrakai, anapakai), or jeera powder with beerkaya ( ridge gourd, toori).

I think most home foods are made that way. Simple, not too many ingredients and easily made.

One of the simpler dishes that I like to make is aloo jeera. I love its taste with chapatis and a dal. Though the potato is a much maligned vegetable, it's popularity cannot be doubted.

Now for the recipe

4 medium potatoes boiled

1 tablespoon jeera roasted and powdered coarsely

salt to taste

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon whole jeera ( cumin seeds)

4 curry leaves

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon rice flour

Dice the boiled potato into 1 inch pieces.

Heat oil. When medium hot, add mustard seeds and fry till they splutter.

Now add the jeera till it turns golden brown.

Add curry leaves and when they are fried, add potatoes.

Keep frying on low heat till it starts turning brown.

Add the rice flour. The rice flour helps in turing the potatoes really crisp.

When nicely browned, add the salt, jeera powder and chilli powder.

Serve hot along with chapatis and dal.

Hara Bhara Kababs

You know how we pick up recipes from here and there? Jot them down on a piece of paper and then transcribe them with a lot of interest into our recipe books? My book is full of such recipes. Those that I found interesting when I read it and written down so diligently but never tried out. Various types of recipes... North Indian, Continental (or as we like to refer to them - Bakes), lately Mexican etc. I think the next month should go in trying out all these untried recipes. I am sure I will find a lot of gems out there.. a lot of keepers.
One such recipe was the Hara Bhara Kabab. I had written it down in so many different places but never tried it out. Finally I put my lethargy behind me and took the plunge and was so pleasantly surprised... It turned out extremely well.

Recipe:

4 medium sized Potaoes boiled
3/4 cup Peas boiled
100 gms Spinach

1 tablespoon Green chillies chopped finely
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 teaspoon chaat masala
2 tablespoon cornflour
salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Peel and grate potatoes.
Mash boiled peas.
Blanch the spinach and finely chop it.

Mix the above 3 ingredients with green chillies, coriander leaves, ginger, chaat masala, cornflour and salt.

Divide it into 25 equal portions. Shape into a little tikki or ball and deep fry.
(In case there are worries on high calories that this dish will entail, then it can be shallow fried too.)

Serve hot along with green chutney and tomato ketchup.