Pakoda - Bhaji is quite famous in Maharashtra. All weddings must have these, when guests are invited, you have to have this item. Its been quite long time since we had bhaji so i decided to make them on Monday but decided to give it a twist. Given that eggplant is so easily available here i thought why not use it. The experiment was quite successful so here is the recipe.


Ingredients
2 Cup diced Eggplant
1 Onion
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Cup Besan
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix in diced eggplant, diced onion, chilli powder, besan, turmeric powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, finely chopped coriander leaves and salt to taste. Add in some water to make the paste.
• Heat oil. Add couple of spoon of oil to the paste and mix well.
• Take a small lemon sized ball from the paste and flatten it a bit
• Fry on medium heat till done on both sides. Serve immediately

Notes
Normally i would wait around 5 minutes after mixing all ingredients but before adding water. The salt with all the veggies secrets water so if you wait your paste doesn't end up loosing consistency later on while you are in the middle of frying.

Ajoy just loves lauki kofta so much so that he asks ma to make it every time we go to pune. Till last year, that did work out especially since we visited pune atleast each month. But after coming to Redmond, one thing I am sure Ajoy and me too missed was Ma's special Kofta. So this time when we were in india we did ask her to make it quite frequently but the recipe is so good that eating it once in a year doesn't satisfy the taste buds. So after I got the recipe from her, today I made it on valentine's day. Guess my gift to Ajoy :)


Ingredients
3 Cup Bottle Gourd
1 Cup Carrot
1.5 Cup Besan
3 Spoon Corn Flour
2 Onion
2 Tomato
2 Cup Curd
4 Spoon Sugar
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1 Green Chilli
1/4 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Raisins
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate bottle gourd and carrot and mix well
• Heat oil and add in jeera. Let it sputter
• Add in grated bottle gourd and carrot and mix well.
• Cook well stirring occasionally till the mixture dries up completely. Keep aside to cool down.
• Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
• In a mixie add tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt. Grind well.
• Add in cooked onion and grind to smooth paste. Keep aside
• In the bottle gourd and carrot mixture, add besan, corn flour make soft dough
• Prepare small balls with cashews, raisins and green chilli pieces in the center of them.
• Fry the koftas in oil to brown color and keep aside.
• In a pan add the grinded paste, 3 cups of water and let it simmer for 5-6 minutes till gravy attains consistency.
• Add in koftas and simmer for another few minutes. Take of the heat
• In a bowl, mix in curd, sugar and chaat masala.
• While serving koftas, add in the kofta with the gravy, add curd and then garnish with grated carrot and some cashew pieces and raisins

Notes
Instead of carrot you can use raw banana as well.

After a long time, I thought of trying out something from my so called 'bible' - a cookery book gifted to me during wedding :) This recipe though not exactly similar but is inspired from there. It is easy to digest yet spicy enough to enjoy, making it a good breakfast.


Ingredients
1 Cup Mung Daal
2 Spoon Besan
6 Garlic Cloves
1 Inch Ginger
2 Green Chillies
1 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A Pinch of Eating Soda
Salt
Oil

Method

• Soak Mung Daal in water for 5-6 hours
• After the mung daal is soaked, add garlic cloves, ginger, green chilies and jeera to the mixer with couple spoon of water and grind to rough paste
• Add mung daal without water in it and grind the paste
• To this paste add in besan, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and eating soda and mix well
• Heat oil in pan and fry small quantites of the paste we preapred earlier to get crispy wadas

Notes
Recipe had some more items like coconut, onions, curry leaves etc to be added but I think I liked this way better. It went really well with the coconut chutney

I prepare these kind of bhaji very few times as I always loved those Crab style bhajis more than these. But when I felt like eating these last weekend, I prepared them and turned out quite well.


Ingredients
2 Onions
1/2 Cup Bason
1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Finely chop onions and add the salt to it. Keep aside for 5-10 minutes
• Add Bason, corriander leaves- finely chopped, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, jeera powder and mix to form the paste. Add water if needed.
• Heat the oil in a pan, and add a spoonful of it into the paste.
• Mix the paste well and fry the Bhaji's of small size to crispy brown colour.

Notes
I normally apply salt to onion and keep aside as that helps in seperating water and then the paste doesnt loosen after some time.
Since I add the heated oil I dont use eating soda, heated oil is good enough for giving crispiness

It been more than a month since I prepared this but due to all sort of logistic issues in moving out of hyderabad I got little busy and couldnt post the recipe even though I had clicked the photos. So today I am going to post all 5 recipes that were pending. New ones will come as and when I try them :)


Ingredients
1 Bunch of Palak
1/2 Cup Bason
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A Pinch of Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Wash Palak leaves and keep aside.
• Mix bason, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt to taste with water to form a paste
• Heat oil in a pan
• When its slightly warm, add a spoon of oil into the bason paste.
• When oil is hot, dip the two palak leaves at a time in the bason paste and add it into the pan and fry the pakoda on the golden colour
• Repeat for remaining leaves

Notes
I used smalled leaves of palak and the pakodas turned out amazing. Especially the palak was crisp and tasty because of its freshness and tenderness.
Also I dipped two palak leaves at a time so that the pakoda has its taste and still not too much of spinach which wont get crisp.

Whenever we get bottle gourd, ajoy has this demand of Koftas and so yesterday was the day when I obliged and made it for him. Here is the recipe.


Ingredients
4 Cup Grated Bottle Gourd
1.5 Cup Bason
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Aamchur Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Corriander Leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste

Method

• Apply salt to the grated bottle gourd and keep aside for few minutes.
• Squize out water from the bottle gourd and mix bason, 1/2 spoon jeera, 1/2 spoon red chilli powder, garam masala, aamchur powder
• Prepare lemon sized ball out of this mixture and deep fry them in oil over low-medium heat. Keep aside
• Heat little oil in a pan and let the jeera splutter.
• Add the finelly chopped onion and garlic paste and cook till golden brown
• Add turmeric powder, remaining red chilli powder, corriander powder and salt
• Add tomatoes and cook well. Add water and bring to boil. Once the tomatoes are cooked well keep the mixture aside to cool down a bit
• Put the mixture into the mixie and grind to fine paste
• In a pan add this grinded mixture, enough water to make running gravy and koftas and bring to boil
• Garnish with corriander leaves and serve

Notes
I tried to keep the kofta spicy and gravy very less spicy so that one can enjoy koftas rather than gravy. You can vary it to your taste though

It was raining heavily over weekend and I couldnt resist the temptation to have hot bhajis while its raining. But the only sad part of it was when I actually started eating them, the rain had stopped for a while.


Ingredients
2 Onions
4 Spoon Bason
5 Spoon Corriander Leaves
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Chop the onions into thin slices
• Apply Salt and Keep it for a while
• After 5-10 minutes, it will be watery and soft, add bason, red chilli powder, finely chopped corriander leaves, corriander powder and a spoon of hot oil.
• Make paste out of it by adding little water if needed
• Heat oil and fry small portions of this mixture to golden brown colour

Notes
Bhajis are called Crab Style (खेकडा भजी) because it takes shapes because of onion slices.
Keeping the salted onions for a while helps using the water that comes because of salt. Otherwise the paste might get thinner.

When I wanted to try a different kind of bhaji, I came up with this. I had read something similar in news paper couple of months back. Since that time I wanted to try something like this. The outcome was quite nice.


Ingredients
3 Cup Corn
1/4 Spoon Ginger Paste
2 Green Chillies
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
4 Spoon Bason
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Dry Mango(Amchur) Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grind the 2.5 cups of corns, ginger paste and green chillies in the mixer to form coarse paste.
• Mix remaining corns, red chilli powder, corriander powder, dry mango powder, bason and salt to taste.
• Mix 1 spoon of hot oil and water to form thick paste
• Prepare balls out of this mixture and fry in oil till golden brown

Notes
Corn is sweet so ginger, green chillies and red chilli powder give it enough spiciness.
You can add 3-4 spoon of corriander leaves also for better taste

Ajoy had been asking me to prepare vada paav or batata wada since long time.. And I thought there is no better day to prepare this than his bday :) So here is what we had for our breakfast today morning.

Vada Paav


Ingredients
2 Potatoes
6 Paav
1/2 cup bason
1/2 Lemon
4 Green Chillies
1/4 spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 spoon Ginger Paste
A pinch of Eating Soda
1/4 spoon Mustard
1/2 spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 spoon Red Chilli Powder
Salt
Oil

Method

• Boil the potatoes
• Grind the green chillies, garlic paste, ginger paste to form fine paste
• Cut the potatoes into small pieces.
• Add the ground paste, lemon juice to it and mix well
• Heat little oil, add the mustard, let them sputter and then add the half of the turnmeric powder
• Add this oil to the potato mixture and mix well.
• Prepare 6 round and little flat balls out of this mixture.
• In a small vessel, mix bason, red chilli powder, remaining turmeric powder, eating soda and prepare thin batter
• Heat oil in a pan, add 2 spoon of heated oil to the batter
• Dip the potato ball in the batter and fry it in oil
• Cut the pav in half, put the garlic chutney and wada in it and serve hot

Notes
The batter coating on the potato vada shouldn't be thick otherwise the wada won't taste good. Mix more water if its too thick.
We are adding heated oil to the bason because that will make vada less oily.. Making use of soda instead of oil will make it very very oily.
Potato Vada can be served separately with sauce as well. (Without paav)

Garlic Chutney


Ingredients
1/2 Dried Coconut
10-12 pieces of Garlic
4 spoon Red Chilli powder
1-2 pieces of Tamarind
1/2 spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• Heat a pan and fry the grated coconut till golden brown in colour
• In a mixer, first grind garlic pieces, red chilli powder, sugar, salt
• Add the tamarind and grind again
• Now add the coconut and grind to fine powder

Notes
You can save this chutney for few days. It tastes nice with bhakari as well.

Ajoy hates spinach. So i have to be innovative with spinach to make him eat that. And here is the interesting and yummier item I came up with.


Ingredients
1 Spinach
2 Green Chillies
1/2 spoon Garlic Paste
1 spoon Jeera
5 spoon Heaps of Wheat flour
1 spoon Bason
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grind Spinach leaves, green chillies and jeera by adding little water to fine paste
• Mix wheat flour, bason and salt
• Add around a spoon of hot oil in it
• Add the spinach paste to it and make the dough. Add water if required.
• Keep aside for around half an our
• Roll the small puris out of dough and fry them

Notes
The puris are so tasty that you don't even need, vegetable with it or can be eaten with tomato ketchup. Nice item for quick breakfast as well.

I love Suralichi Wadi, and always thought it would be very difficult to prepare this. But when I tried this I found it quite easy and quick.


Ingredients
1 cup Bason
1 spoon Maida
1 cup Coriander leaves
1/2 Coconut
1/2 spoon Ginger paste
2-3 Green Chillies
1 spoon Turmeric powder
1 spoon Mustard seeds
3/4 cup sour Butter milk
2 cup Water
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grind ginger paste, chillies and salt to fine paste by adding very little water
• Mix the bason, maida, grinded paste, turmeric powder(only 1/2 spoon), butter milk, and water well
• Strain it through the strainer that is used for straining flours
• In a pan heat this mixture with constant stirring
• When this mixture thickens, cook for a while by putting a lid
• Take 3 dry plates and divide this mixture in three parts and spread it on 3 plates to form very thin layer
• In a small pan heat around 2-3 spoons of oil, add mustard seeds and let them sputter
• Add the remaining turmeric powder to it and keep aside
• Grate the coconut and chop the corriander leaves finely.
• On three plates sprinkle the oil with mustard and turmeric powder, spread the grated coconut and finely chopped corriander leaves
• Cut the mixture on each plate into 5 vertical strips
• Make a roll out of each strip and garnish with the remaining coconut, oil and corriander

Notes
Straining the mixture removes the coarse particles of chillies, ginger and gives you smooth batter.
My mom also suggested of cooking the mixture in a cooker(1 whistle) for easy cooking of the mixture. I am going to try it next time
One need to spread the mixture on the plate very quickly. The layer should be as thin as possible. It was my first time and i was not sure how thin it should be so i ended up using only 2 big plates instead of 3, but recomended is 3 :) and I am going to try it next time. But yes take it easy for the first time, you can spread it to your convinient thickness, but don't keep it too thick too :) so 1 plate is not at all acceptable.

I wanted to cook something different with gobi as ajoy keeps getting this quite frequently and i was kind of bored to eat gobi sabji again. Then I had also read about chicken lollipop and had urge to cook bhaji from gobi.. So here is the recipe i came up with :) It has unique taste and resembles lollipop so the name :)


Ingredients
1 small Gobi
2 spoon bason
1 spoon corn flour
1 spoon rice powder
1 spoon rawa
1/2 spoon turmeric powder
1/2 spoon red chilli powder
1/2 spoon cumin powder
1/2 spoon corriander powder
1/2 spoon garam masala
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Separate mid sized florets of gobi and keep aside
• Mix bason, corn flour, rice powder, rawa, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, cumin powder, corriander powder, garam masala in a bowl
• Add salt and water to make thick batter
• Heat oil in a pan and add a spoonful of hot oil in the batter and mix well
• Dip the gobi floret in batter and fry till brown
• Wrap the ends with aluminium foil and serve hot with pudina chutney

Notes
I added a pinch of red colour to the batter to get little red coloured lollipop style gobis as red chilli powder does not give enough redness

After paratha, this is the next dish with another papaya sitting in our fruit basket..


Ingredients
1 raw papaya
1 spoon ginger paste
1 spoon red chilli powder
1 spoon sugar
4 spoon bason
4 spoon corn flour
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grate papaya and add it in a pan
• Add water till papaya is covered and cook on medium heat till papaya is cooked
• Add sugar and cook again, let water dry completely
• In another pan heat oil, add ginger paste, red chilli powder and cook it for a while till ginger paste is completely done
• Add it to the cooked papaya, add salt and mix well
• Let mixture cool down and then add bason and corn flour
• Refrigerate overnight to get the thick and nonsticky batter
• In the morning, take the mixture out of refrigerator and make tikkis - flat round shaped
• Shallow fry on the tawa and serve with the sause

Notes
You can also fry the tikki after covering it with fine rawa or bread crums

In the search of eating some different vegetables than the usual routine we get every week we got bottle gourd.. Which turned out to be too huge for both of us to finish, so we had variety of items out of it.. This one is one of the fastest bfast out of it..


Ingredients
1 cup grated dudhi(Bottle gourd)
1 cup rice powder
1/2 cup bason
1 spoon jeera
2 spoon saunf
1/2 spoon methi
2-3 green chillies
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste

Method

• Crush jeera, saunfm methi to get powder
• Mix it with rice powder, bason, and grated dudhi(Bottle gourd)
• Add finely chopped chillies, salt, milk and water
• Heat tawa (preferably non stick tawa) and pour this prepared batter on it and spread it quickly

Notes
These dosas are little thicker than normal dosas and taste best when served with pickle

Mom dad arrived yesterday and I wanted to cook something different.. And i also wanted to finish off all the green vegies i had so came up with this vada.. It tasted pretty well..


Ingredients
2 cup palak(spinach) leaves
1 cup methi leaves
1/2 cup corriander leaves
3 cup bason
3 spoon rice powder
1 green chilli
1 spoon red chilli powder
1/2 spoon jeera powder
1/2 spoon corriander powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Chop all the green vegies - palak, methi and corriander finely
• Mix them well and add finely chopped green chillies
• Add bason, rice powder, red chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, salt and mix well
• Add little water and form thick vada dough
• heat oil in a pan
• Add 2 spoon of heated oil to the vada batter and mix well
• Make small flat vadas out of this dough and fry them in oil on medium heat

Notes
Add salt to the chopped vegies and keep aside for some time that way there will be some water because of salt that can be accomodated while making dough itself otherwise batter might become sticky and loose after some time.
Make vadas flat so that they are crispy and fried inside out

This item is a quick and delicious recipe.. Mom use to cook tomato omlette and i modified it little to get this new one :)


Ingredients
4 Tomatoes
1 cup sweet corn
1 cup bason
1 spoonful Rice powder
1/2 tea spoon Garlic paste
4 green chillies
1 spoon jeera
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix bason, rice powder and salt and keep aside
• Crush the jeera slightly and add it to the above mixture
• In a mixer add tomatoes, half cup corn, chillies and garlic paste and grind them to form puree
• Add the puree to the mixture and mix well to form the uniform batter. Use little water if required
• Add remaining corn to it and mix
• Heat the tawa and take spread the mixture on it to form omelette
• Cook it till the side on tawa is crispy, and cook on the other side till it turns brown
• Serve with chutney or sauce

Notes
you can optionally add 1-2 spoons of corriander leaves in the tomato while crushing, but i served it with chutney which has corriander so i avoided it. But while serving with tomato ketchup it would taste good

Today when Ajoy returned back, i wanted to cook something with kothimbir considering he loves kothimbir and here i cooked a mom's recipe.. It tastes awesome and very very easy to prepare.. It goes well in starters and can be a hit item in the parties...


Ingredients
2 cup corriander leaves
1/2 cup Besan
1/4 cup rice powder
1 spoon red chilli powder
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Wash and chop the corriander leaves very fine
• Mix besan, rice powder, chilli powder, salt and a spoon of oil with these finely chopped corriander leaves.
• Add little water if required and form a cylindrical ball with this mixture
• Grease it a little bit and cook it on vapour in pressure cooker for 15 - 20 min till the knife comes out of this ball without mixture sticked to it
• Let the ball cool down and then cut it into thin pieces
• Deep fry the tikkis and serve with sauce

Notes
If by any chance you happen to add little extra water add more besan so that it forms tight ball
Add salt with care as this mixture tends to get salty even with little salt

Last sunday when I prepared cutlet I decided to try out pudina chutney.. I asked ajoy if he can get pudina.. And when I just needed around 3-4 spoons of pudina he came back home with 3 gaddis :) So we had kind of pudina festival at home. The best dish out of it was pudina paratha..


Ingredients
4 spoon chopped Pudina
1 spoon chopped corriander leaves
5 spoon heaps wheat flour
1 and 1/2 spoon besan
1 tea spoon red chilli powder
1/2 tea spoon Jeera powder
1/2 tea spoon corriander powder
Salt
Oil/Ghee

Method

• Mix all ingredients except oil.
• Add 2 spoon of oil
• Make dough of this mixture using water.
• Keep aside for 30 min
• Roll parathas with 3 folds..
• Cook on hot tava and serve with butter, pickle and curd

Notes
With corriander leaves parathas become more tasty but if you like pudina a lot then you can skip corriander leaves.
I cook parathas with oil and put little ghee when its half done. That way taste of ghee mixes with partha and it tastes better.

This is very simple and tasty recipe :) Ajoy just loved it :)


Ingredients
1 cup Oil
1 cup Water
4 cup Besan (Chana daal powder)
Turmeric Powder
Red Chilli Powder
Carom Seeds(ओवा)
Salt
Oil for frying

Method

• Mix oil and water in a container.
• Blend it well using egg bitter till white foam appears
• Add Salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder, carom seeds to taste
• Add Besan and keep mixing it well. (This mixure should be thicker than bhaji(read भजी) mixture)
• Add this mixture to shev maker.
• Hit oil and fry noodle like threads of shev using shev maker. Keep flame low so that shev don't burn.

Notes
To make lasun shev add little garlic paste to the mixture while adding chilli powder.