Dahi Aaloo / Potatoes in Yogurt Gravy

I  make potato curry in 2 or 3 ways, a simple dry roast, with onions and peas or as stew with coconut milk. I had heard about potatoes in yogurt but never tasted it. I recently tried this potatoes in yogurt gravy and it was pretty good. The flavors of ginger, green chilli  and yogurt was very refreshing. My husband liked it a lot as well and commented multiple times, it is good.

Here is the recipe


Get Ready

 3 medium sized potatoes boiled, peeled and crumbled
1/2 onion thinly sliced
2 green chillies slit lengthwise ( increase if you need more heat)
1 tsp chopped ginger
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp asafetida powder/ perungayam
Salt to taste
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp besan / kadalai mavu
2 tsp oil
1 tsp jeera / cumin seeds
A few sprigs of curry leaves
Cilantro for garnish
Water as required

Go

Set the potatoes
Add the besan to the yogurt and whisk well till there are no lumps. Set aside
In a pan, add oil and add the cumin seeds and let them crackle.
Add the curry leaves, asafetida, onion ,green chil, ginger and turmeric powder and sauté till the onions are translucent.
Add the crumbled potatoes, little salt, reduce heat and sauté for 1-2 mins
Add the yogurt with besan to the potatoes and  gently stir, but continuously so the yogurt does not curdle.
If the gravy gets too thick add little water to the required consistency of the gravy.
Let it cook for 1-2 mins. Adjust salt as per taste.
Turn the heat off.
Garnish with cilantro.


Serve with phulkas, parathas or rice.

Virgin Mojito / Alcohol free Mojito

Mojito is a famous  alcohol based cocktail drink from Cuba. It has sweetness of sugar mixed with the freshness of mint, citrus flavor and the kick from rum and sparkling water. I always go for a alcohol free mojito when we go for fancy restaurants and absolutely loved the minty citrus taste of it.I wanted to try making at home and found some recipes on line. Instead of making sugar syrup and using sparkling water, many on line resources recommended using Sprite.

The mind and lime are pounded with a muddler, but I did not have that and used a mortar and pestle instead. The day I wanted to make it ,I did not have any lime but had lemons. Sorry for using one boring cup, did not have any fancy ones!

Get Ready:

• A hand full of fresh mint leaves
•  a small wedge of lime/ lemon cut into 4
• 1-2 tbsp lime juice
• Crushed ice
• Sprite
• A nice glass cup to serve

Go

• In a mortar add the mint leaves, lime wedges and pound it  for few minutes till the leaves are semi crushed. Add this to the cup in which you ar are going to serve the drink.

• Squeeze the lime/ lemon juice and add it to the glass without seed

• Add the crushed ice to the glass
• Add sprite and serve immediately
• Garnish with some more mint leaves

Enjoy this summer drink with your fmaily and feel refreshed! 

Try it and let me know if you like it.

Murungai Keerai Stir Fry/ Moringa leaves Stir Fry

Recently I planted some" murungaikkai" seeds and had a small plant growing in my container. While trying to research as how to plant it in the soil, I came across a lot of information about "Moringa" which is how the western world calls our murungaikkai!

It seems Moringa is one of the health foods that has super duper healing powers to cure any ailment listed in the medical textbooks! Well, Our grandmothers and mothers knew this way before wikipedia knew! We all remember the famous Bhagyaraj movie where he uses murungakkai as an aphrodisiac. He is a genius man, I am telling you!

Many homes in south India will have a Moringa tree and we use the pods for making sambar! The aroma of well seasoned murungakkai sambar is just AMAZING. The green leaves are used to make kari, kootu, added in adai or used while making ghee!

while having a conversation with my medical assistants, I heard that one of them had this tree in their house and did not know what to do with the leaves etc. After I explained all the things we do with murungakkai, my MA brought me a whole bag of those leaves.

And, I made this stir fry with Moringa leaves. My family cooks this keerai only with moong dal, coconut ( No onion or garlic) and that is how I remember eating this. I used onions and cooked murungaikkeerai after many many years. I had some friends over and they all loved this dish. i shared this with my medical assistant who also liked the dish.  I want to share this recipe with you all.

Once you have the leaves, remove them from the stem, it is called " elai ayaradhu". The leaves are tiny and one does not need to chop them, but i gave it a rough chop! Like any other greens, once cooked the leaves reduce in quantity.

Get Ready

• 3-4 cups of moringa leaves washed and roughly chopped
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1-2 garlic cloves chopped ( optional)
• 2 tbsp grated coconut
• 1/4 cup moong dal washed and soaked in water X 20 mins
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp urad dal
• 1 red chilli broken in half
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• a pinch of asafoetida
• 1-1/2 tsp salt or per taste

Go:

• In a pan, add oil and do the tadka with mustard seeds, urad dal , red chilli and as asafoetida. 
• Once the mustard splutters and the urad dal is golden brown, add the onions and saute till translucent

• add the chopped moringa leaves, the soaked and drained moong dal.

• add salt to taste, reduce flame and mix all well. do not cover and cook as the greens will become dark
• Add the sugar, this helps to keep the green color and also takes away the  slight bitterness from moringa leaves.
• The leaves will wilt and cook everything till the moong dal is soft, but still retaining it's shape.
• Adjust salt as per taste.
• Add grated coconut and give everything a toss.

•  Turn the heat off. To make it more flavorful, add a tsp of coconut oil at the end.

Serve as a side for rasam, sambar or morkuzhambu!