Besara

My mom left for India last week. Usually she cooks a whole refrigerator full of food before she leaves. But this time, 4 days before she left, the refrigerator stopped cooling. So most things she cooked had to be finished off the same day. The only dish she happily made in a large quantity was this Besara. She was sure that it wouldn't go bad that easily and it did last us 4 days inspite of the refrigerator not really working for most of those days. Besara is another typical oriya dish made with mustard paste. You can make different kids of besara and I love the one with fish too which I will post some other time. This one is the typical veggie besara. Besara has the mild mustard flavor  and a little tanginess from the dried mangoes and the heat from the green chillies...

Ushnish this post is made especially on your request!

Ingredients

Vegetables for boiling

1 cup of cleaned/peeled red potatoes - diced
1/4 cup beans cut into small pieces
1/2 cup plantain - cut into long pieces
1/4 cup raddish cut into long pieces
1 cup of Eggplant - cut into small pieces
few florets of cauliflower
1-2 large tomatoes cut into long slices

Salt to taste
1 tea spoon turmeric powder
1-2 green chillies
1 table spoon of Mustard Oil for tempering
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
handful curry leaves
1-2 Dried Mango pieces (Ambula) [Optional]
sprig of coriander leaves [optional]
handful of Badi [Optional]

For the mustard paste

1 tea spoon Mustard seeds
1/4 tea spoon Cummin seeds
1-2 green chillies (to taste)
2-3 cloves of garlic

How To

Soak the mustard seeds, cummin seeds in water for 1/2 hour. Grind the mustard seeds, cummin seeds with the green chillies and garlic. Add 2-3 table spoon of water and leave it aside for  1/2 hr or you keep it in the refrigerator and you can use for about a week. Some of my friends have tried this with store bought mustard paste and swear it tastes as good. I have never tried it, but you could try it...

Soak the dried mangoes in a little cup of water for 1 hour.

Boil all the vegetables with salt, turmeric powder and little water.

Heat a pan. Ad the mustard oil. Once the oil is hot, add green chillies and curry leaves and add the vegetables and the mustard paste. Add some water and dried mangoes and let the curry boil for few minutes.

Adjust salt and garnish with coriander leaves if you like...

Serve with Fried crushed Badi at the time of serving....

Some other mustard based recipes are : Mushroom Rayee and Vegetable Patua