Kancha Kadali bhaja or plantain fry

Plantain Fry or Kancha (unripe) Kadali bhaja in Oriya is one more in the back to basics series like the 'Muga Lau Dalma'. Again it is super easy to prepare and can be done very easily within 1/2 hr and with very less ingredients. The key here is not too over cook the plantain, else you have a nice mashed plantain dish.

Plantain is a dish that you need to develop taste for. As a kid I ate it in disguised forms like in cutlets. But slowly over time I have started enjoying it.

Ingredients
2-3 Green Plantain cut into round slices
Red chillies
Punch Phutan
Salt to taste
1 tea spoon of Turmeric powder
1 table spoon of Oil

How To
Boil the plantain in a water and salt and turmeric powder for 10 minutes. Keep an eye, so that plantain is nearly cooked through. This process helps make the cooking faster and allows the dish to use less oil.
Throw the extra water out or use in curries, it has loads of vitamins.
Take another pan. Heat oil in it. Once the oil is hot, add red chillies and punch phutan and the plantains.
Fry for 2-3 minutes to brown the edges and you are done!

Isn't this a life saver in terms of time ? If you don't like plantain, you can cook potatoes in the same way too - uses much less oil.

On another note, the picture in the background is a Patachitra painting from Orissa. These painting are done on special cloth called "Pata" and usually depict Krishna leelas and other folk stories.

Bean bhaja with rice flour sprinkles

Beans fry with rice flour (chaula bata) is cooked and served often as a side dish in Orissa. It goes well with rice and dalma or even as a side dish with rotis... Back home, a paste of rice and garlic and chillies is made on sila pua (heavy stone used for hand grinding) and added to the beans - the taste is heavenly... Here is my easy short cut version of it...

While this dish is nothing really to write about, I like its simplicity and its flavors. Its healthy, yummy and easy to make and hence worth blogging about. What do you say ?


Ingredients


1 cup of Beans cut into long pieces
2 table spoon rice flour
1 tea spoon garlic powder (you can use mince 2-3 garlic cloves instead too)
1-2 green chillies (optional)
1/4 tea spoon red chili powder
1/2 tea spoon turmeric powder
1/2 tea spoon whole cumin
2-3 table spoon oil
Salt to taste

How to


Put oil in a pan and let it get smoking hot. Add the green chilies (if you are using it) and the whole cumin.
Once the cumin sputters, add the beans and salt and turmeric powder and chili powder.
Let it cook for 4-5 min. After the bean is 1/2 done, sprinkle the rice flour and keep stirring. Add 1/2 table spoon of oil if you feel the rice is forming into big balls...
Sprinkle the garlic powder and remove from heat...

Serve hot or warm... The smell of garlic with rice flour is amazing...

Pani Santula

Pani Santula is a very popular side dish of Orissa. It is made in most households at least once a week. Its healthy and yummy.

When my Mom was here in US last time, we went to Bertucci's Italian restaurant. She likes Domino's vegetarian pizza, so I thought she would like Bertucci's. We loved the cozy warm brick oven and the generous helpings of salad. We order pizza, pasta and a roasted vegetable side dish. This dish tasted so much like the Santula described below.

So while this is a age old recipe from an Oriya household, it is enjoyed in different versions in different countries and different states - I am sure. Again though it is simple, you need the correct proportion of vegetables and no over cooking. Also usually there are few items that are essential (not mandatory) in this kind of vegetable Santula that I mentioned below. Of course you can add/subtract anything you don't like/like here...

Ingredients

2 Potatoes cut into small pieces - essential
1 Egg plant cut into a little larger size than the potatoes - essential
Pumpkin cut into small pieces like the potatoes - essential
Radish cut into small pieces like the potatoes - essential
1 Fresh Drumstick or 1 can of tin drumstick - essential
1 carrot cut into small pieces
2-3 Cauliflower florets cut into a little larger size than the potatoes
1-2 Tomatoes - cut into small pieces
Few Okra ends cut off
1 raw banana cut into small pieces
Few Beans cut into small pieces

2 tea spoon of Panch phutana - essential
1 tea spoon of Oil - essential
4-5 garlic cloves crushed - essential
1 small onion sliced thinly
1-2 Chopped green chili
Salt to taste

How to

Boil all the vegetables other than tomatoes, onion and Okra with minimum amount of water and salt.
Add the Okra and tomatoes when the vegetables are nearly cooked. Do not stir too much after that.
In a pan heat oil and add the panch phutana.
Add crushed garlic and green chili and the sliced onions. Saute for one minute.
Add the boiled vegetables and serve fresh.

Updated on May 24th

Panch Phutana is a basic of oriya cooking and has the following :
1 part Cumin seeds
1 part Mustard seeds
1 part Fennel seeds
1/2 part Black Onion seeds
1/4 part Fenugreek seeds

Kakharu Aloo Santula

Santula is basically any vegetables cooked with less or no oil . Bhaja santula is one in which the vegetables are 1st boiled and then sauteed in a drop of oil to get a nice flavor. Kakharu is nothing but Yellow pumpkin.

Whenever I make any bhaja santula I remember this story. This story is about a friend's Aunt who lives in Cuttack. She belonged to a rich family and was in 9th or 10th grade when she got married off to budding IAS officer in the 70's. She being newly married wanted to impress her husband with her culinary skills (limited then). So she asked one of her numerous servants to cut several vegetables and leave for the day. Then she made a big Bhaja Santula of all the vegetables together and then then spent an hour separating it out before dinner. She had a huge variety of vegetables laid out as dinner and her husband was left wondering for days as to why everything tasted the same. She happens to be an awesome cook now but tells this story with a hearty laugh whenever anyone praises her culinary skills.

This is a typical oriya dish. Its pretty common as a pakhala dish too. I love the combination of sweet and spice to it...

This Oriya speciality goes to FIC: Orange, hosted by Aparna.

Ingredients

1/2 tea spoon of oil (very less amount required)
2 tea spoon panch phutan
3-4 dry red chillies (whole)
turmeric powder - to taste
salt - to taste
red chilli powder - to taste
2 big potatoes - cut into long thin strips
a piece of yellow pumpkin - cut into fat pieces. (the quantity of poatoes should be a little more than the pumpkin after cut)


How to

Heat oil in a pan and add dry whole red chillies and then phutan. When it starts to splutter, add the potatoes and fry for a minute. Then add the pumpkin pieces.
Stir well and add salt and turmeric and chilli powder.
Cover and cook for 10 mins or until the vegetables are nearly cooked. Then cook without the lid for 2 minutes on high heat. The dish is ready when vegetables are completely cooked.