I started this blog because I am so interested in adapting traditional Indian recipes to make them healthier, tastier and easier-to-make. During the course of my writings, I have started to solicit reader recipes, since many minds work better than one! Here is a post written by my mother, Madhuram – recipe courtesy, my sister, Indu Sundaresan, author of four books – “The Twentieth wife“, “The Feast of Roses“, “The Splendor of Silence” and “In the Convent of Little Flowers” with a fifth on the way.
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Every culture in the world has some sort of crepe or pancake in its recipe repertoire. In South India, it is the ‘dosa.’ Served in almost all Indian restaurants the world over, the dosa is a fermented batter of rice and a dal (lentils), served usually with sambar (a stew of vegetables and lentils) and different types of chutneys.

When I was young, my brothers and sisters (I come from a family of 10 children!) would wait eagerly by the stove as our mother or grandmother made us piping hot dosas, swept off the pan, crisp, golden and crunchy. When I had children, and learned to cook, dosas were a favorite Sunday treat for them.

Now my daughters make this for their children and below is a recipe concocted by my daughter Indu—more tasty and nutritious than the usual recipe—for her daughter.

The original recipe has only two grains in it—rice and urad dal (black lentils). My daughter’s recipe has five grains to increase the nutrition content of the original dosa—white rice, brown rice, mung dal and whole urad dal and pearl barley in center (shown below, clockwise from white rice on top right corner).

Brown rice is a good source of minerals such as manganese, magnesium, also contains Niacin and has a lower glycemic index than white rice. Barley is loaded with fiber, has no sodium, is very rich in iron and has hardly any fat. Mung dal (split yellow lentils) is rich in protein, dietary fiber and minerals like magnesium, phosphorous and potassium, and urad dal is full of protein.

Here’s the recipe for this Penta-grain Dosa. This can be served with any chutney or even folded with scrambled eggs, or spread with cream cheese, or hummus, or stuffed with mashed potatoes.

Here is what you need:

1/2 cup white rice
1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 cup pearl barley
1 1/4 cup yellow mung dal (equal to the mixture of the brown and whiter rice and barley)
3/4 cup whole urad dal (husked black lentils)
3/4 tsp salt

This will make about 12 to 15 dosas of about 8″diameter. If lesser quantity is needed, use less ingredients, but in the same proportions.

Here is how you make the batter:

Combine the white and brown rice, barley and mung dal in a big bowl and fill with water. Swirl water around and drain to wash the grains. Repeat twice more until water runs clean. Then fill enough water in the bowl to cover about 2 inches above the grains, and let the mixture rest thus overnight.

Put the urad dal in a separate bowl and follow the washing and soaking instructions as above. Fill the bowl with water at the end and let it rest overnight also.

In a blender, grind the first grain mixture with a little water—should grind fine and to a thick batter consistency. Set aside in a large steel bowl or an oven-proof deep dish.

Grind the urad dal with some water also, again to a thick batter consistency. Stir in the urad dal batter with the grain batter. Mix well. Add ¾ to 1 tsp of salt and mix again.

Here is how you ferment the batter:

If the kitchen/room temperature is below 70 degrees F, heat oven to 140 degrees, switch it off, let cool awhile until inside of oven is warm and set the batter bowl inside. Make sure you cover the bowl well with aluminum foil or an oven-proof lid.

Let the batter ferment for 6-8 hours. Upon uncovering the bowl, the batter should have risen an inch or so and become foamy on the top.

This batter can now be refrigerated and used when wanted, or used immediately.

Here is how you make the dosas:
Heat a frying pan or a pancake griddle until hot (but not smoking). Pour a big ladleful of the batter and spread immediately into every widening circles with the flat side of the ladle.

Drizzle a little oil around the edges of the dosa and a little in the center. Keep the flame on a medium to medium high so that the dosa does not burn. When the edges begin to look golden and curl up from the pan slightly (about a minute or so), flip the dosa over to cook the other side for another minute or so.

Take off the griddle—the dosa should be crisp and gold on the edges, a little softer in the middle. Serve with coconut chutney, spicy tomato chutney, sambar, or any of the other accompaniments suggested above.  Enjoy!

I’ve heard a lot of people complain that being a vegetarian is an uphill task. I completely understand.

I know what they mean: they have to be on the job 24/7. Especially if they are cooking for a family and are in charge of the kids diets, they have to be particularly watchful about incorporating different kinds of vegetables in many different dishes, so that the kids are tempted to eat their veggies.

You know by now that I am a big fan of vegetables. I love all kinds of veggies. My idea of a wonderful weekend is a visit to a well stocked produce store. And I invariably buy all my vegetables fresh. The only frozen veggies I buy are green peas.

I love the multitude of greens we get here in the US and so I usually pick up a couple of new ones each week – it allows for variety. Greens are not only good for you, they are also good for your wallet. A bunch of greens usually cost around $2 and it makes a dish that feeds a family of 4! This week I came home laden with mustard greens because they looked so fresh.

Mustard greens are stuffed with nutrients. They have 9 vitamins, 7 minerals, dietary fiber and protein. Best of all, they are a unique source of 3 notable antioxidants: Vitamin K, Vitamin C and Vitamin A. They are known as nature’s free radicals scavenger. Mustard greens are wonderful for children and adults who have asthma. The vitamin C in the greens help them breathe easier. The greens are also particularly helpful for women’s health. They are laden with calcium, B6 and phyto nutients. Read more about Mustard Green’s nutritional value here.

I made a mustard green and lentil combo dish that tasted deliciously smooth and buttery, even though it had no butter. It was also extremely quick and easy to make and is not at all spicy, so the kids will enjoy it too. Serve with brown rice and some salad and you have a healthy and complete meal cooked in just 30 minutes. Yeah! Rachel Ray, I can cook a meal in 30 minutes too.

As usual, this recipe uses just one teaspoon oil for the entire dish, so you have an entire meal for a family of 4 made with just 1 teaspoon oil.

Here is what you need:
1 bunch mustard greens
1 cup yellow lentils (tuvar dal)
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric powder

To garnish:
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch asafoetida powder
1 habanero or jalopeno (chopped fine)
1 tsp olive oil

Here is how you make this:
Wash and boil the lentils in 2 cups of water until soft. Add more water if necessary. When the lentils are cooked, add the chopped mustard greens, turmeric powder and salt. Cook for another 5-7 minutes until the greens are also cooked. Remove from the stove.

Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait until they crackle and add the cumin seeds. Brown for 10 seconds and add the chopped habanero. Fry crisp. Add the asafoetiday powder. Remove from stove and pour the garnish over the lentil and mustard green dish.

Serve hot with brown rice and salad. (If you make brown rice side-by-side in another stove, your entire meal is ready in 30 minutes!)

People in some communities in Southern India, usually eat a 3-course meal for lunch everyday. Now, this information could probably make you wonder how they manage to keep slim. But that is a long story meant for another blog post.

They generally start off with rice, vegetables and a spicy tamarind sauce called “sambar“, pronounced “saaam-baaar” and made with tamarind, lentils, some vegetables and a special spice mix called, guess what? sambar powder!

My mother makes the sambar powder at home in huge quantities so she can provide a year’s supply to me and my sisters. The 2nd course is another spicy sauce in soup-like consistency made in a large variety of flavors. This is called “rasam“.

The grand finale of the meal is the most important “thair sadam” pronounced “thaaa-yir saaadam” or yogurt and rice. If one is in a hurry and has no time for the 3-course meal, the first two courses may be omitted. But no responsible Indian housewife will let her child or husband go out the door before filling their stomachs with thair sadam. It is considered the panacea of all illnesses, the most complete and healthy dish.

Now, on a day-to-day basis, South Indians will just ladle home-made yogurt onto rice, mix and eat it with some pickle or vegetable of the day. But there are times when the same bland thair sadam is made into a festive dish. Today’s recipe is this festive thair sadam. I made this with brown rice, but feel free to try it with either white or brown rice. If you’ve been following my blog so far, you’ll probably know that I am a big fan of brown rice, but this is one rice dish that I would recommend you try with white rice first, since it tastes simply fantastic!

Eat and enjoy with the crisp curried potatoes or the green beans. This recipe is dedicated to my friend, Jeff, since this is one of his favorite dishes.

Here is what you need:
1 cup cooked rice (white or brown) (make sure the rice is a bit overcooked and very tender)
1 1/2 cups thick unsweetened yogurt
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar (optional)

To Garnish:
1 tsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp split, peeled urad dal (optional)
1 pinch asofoetida powder
1 habanero or jalapeno pepper (chopped fine) (optional, if you dont like spicy food)
1 sprig curry leaves

Here is how you make this:
Cool rice completely after it is cooked. Mix in the yogurt, salt and sugar. Heat oil in a pan. When oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait until they crackle and add chopped habanero pepper. Fry until crisp. Now add the curry leaves. Fry until crisp. Add urad dal and brown. Add asofoetida powder and take the pan off the stove.

Pour garnish over the yogurt rice and serve with crisp curried potato or green beans.

It is harvest time in India. A year of hard work has paid off in a golden harvest of rice. This is the rice that will keep the entire village fed for the next year. The paddy is harvested, hulled and stored with great care. And the entire village celebrates. So do the towns and big cities. It is Pongal time!

A time for abundance. A time when joy permeates. A time for celebration. A time to cook newly harvested rice with newly harvested sugar cane that has been made into jaggery – Pongal! The very word “Pongal” means to overflow in abundance.

In India, this is my favorite time of the year. The weather is cool’er’ and the urchins on the street are happier. The kids roll the old bicycle tire with a stick for entertainment and generally run around begging for bits of sugar cane to chew on. In return, they’ll run small errands for the teenage boys – pass the love note to the pretty girl next door with compliments from the “anna” (elder brother) who gave them the bit of sugar cane in exchange. The pretty girl takes the note, reads it, casts a sidelong glance and a shy smile at the pimpled teen boy while briskly shooing off the urchin to hide her embarrassment. Love is in the air! Joy is in the air. And Pongal is upon us.

This year, I decided to make Pongal with brown rice. I am guessing that in the ancient days they used to make Pongal with brown rice before the rich made it fashionable to eat refined white rice. My husband and I love the texture of brown rice. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it is an unrefined carbohydrate and known to be better for health than eating white rice. All in all, it is a happy addiction.

Here is my recipe – shout “Pongalo Pongal” as you make this, so the Gods shower you and your family with wealth, prosperity and good health.

Here is what you need:
1/3 cup split yellow moong dal
2/3 cup brown rice
1 1/2 cups powdered jaggery (available at any self-respecting Indian grocery store)
2 1/2 + 1 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk or 2% milk

To garnish:
3 tbsp butter
25 cashews chopped
25 golden raisins
1 tsp cardamom powder

Here is how you make this:

Heat a pan on medium to low heat and toast the moong dal until light brown and aromatic. Remove from stove and now toast the rice for about 5 minutes on a low setting. Remove from stove. Place the rice and dal together in a dish. Add 2 1/2 cups water and bring to a boil or pressure cook. Cook until tender and set aside.

In another pan, place the jaggery and 1 cup water and bring to a roiling boil until the jaggery melts and become syrupy. Now add the cooked rice and moong dal and 1/2 cup milk. Simmer.

Heat butter in a pan until melted and bring it to a boil. Now take off the stove and cool a bit for about 5 minutes. Place it back on the stove on medium heat and add the chopped cashews. Fry until golden brown. Remove from the pan with a slotted ladle. Now add the golden raisins in the same melted butter and fry for just about 20-30 seconds until they puff up. Remove the pan and pour the melted butter and golden raisins on the simmered Pongal.

Add the powdered cardamom and mix well. Garnish with fried cashews.

Hindus are probably neck-to-neck with the Greeks when it comes to worship. We love variety. So we designate a special God for every aspect of our lives – food, knowledge, wealth, beauty… In the interest of abundance, we also use the multiplier effect of reincarnation by having each God incarnate multiple times into different avatars. We end up with an exponential number of Gods, whose birthdays we celebrate unfailingly each year .  This is the way we keep God and spirituality in our daily lives. There is not a single month in a year when there is no celebratory event revolving around one of the Gods.  Each celebration involves cooking the God’s favorite food and distributing it to family, friends and people around. What a win-win! The Gods are happy and so are we!

This past Saturday was the birthday of Lord Nataraja, an incarnation of Lord Shiva. As Lord Nataraja, Shiva does the ‘Tandava’ or the divine dance of creation and destruction. This dancing God’s birthday is known as Thiruvadarai and tradionally arrives just before Pongal, the harvest festival.

I love the sweet rice dish that is made on this one day each year – it is called Kali – pronounced “ca-lhi”. Because my mother makes it so well, I have never attempted to learn how to make it until now. This year, my mother is visiting India but as luck would have it, my aunt and uncle are visiting their son and daugher-in-law in the US and my aunt too, is a cook non-pareil. She made the Thiruvadarai Kali on Saturday and invited me over so I didn’t miss my favorite dish this year too! I can definitely recommend this recipe. It tasted just fantastic. Kali is traditionally served with a “Kootu” or 7 vegetable stew. Picture shows Kali served with Kootu. I will post the Kootu recipe in another post.

This is the first of my series of posting recipes from my readers. This is also the first of my series of festival recipes. Here is my aunt Chandra’s, Kali recipe.

Here is what you need:
1 cup raw rice (she used white rice, but I will try this with brown rice and post that recipe too)
2 cups powdered jaggery (available in any Indian grocery store)
2 cups water
10 cashews (roasted in melted butter or ghee)
1 tsp cardomom powder
2 tsp ghee (melted butter)
1 tbsp coconut powder (available in any Indian grocery store)

Here is how you make this:
Heat a pan and toast the rice on a low flame until light brown. Remove from the stove and cool. Place the cooled toasted rice in a blender and powder coarsely to the consistency of semolina. Dissolve jaggery in water. Add the dissolved jaggery to the powdered rice and cook over medium heat until all the water is evaporated and the rice is cooked.

Add cardomom powder, coconut powder and ghee and mix well. Garnish with roasted cashews and serve warm.

I love green beans, but dislike them when they are fried out of recognition, as is often done in Indian cooking. I especially love the way my mother cuts them – chopped really fine. When you chop green beans really fine, you need to stir fry it for just a few minutes on high heat to bring out the flavor, retain the color and texture and serve it as an accompaniment par excellence – a true gourmet delight!

My mother usually adds a finely chopped carrot to green beans – it makes the dish visually appealing as well as more nutritionally dense. Without much ado, here is the recipe – serve with brown or white rice and any sauce – sambar, rasam, or even with yogurt. This dish has just 1 tsp of olive oil. Low fat, crunchy, flavorful, yummy, and very healthy! Yeah – green beans!

Here is what you need:

1 lb fresh green beans (pick the tender ones which look green and fresh)

1/2 carrot (chopped fine)

1 jalapeno pepper (chopped fine) (optional)

1 habanero pepper (chopped fine) (optional)

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp urad dal (optional, if you cannot lay your hands on this – but it gives a great crunch to the beans)

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 pinch asofoetida powder (helps control the flatulence that beans are known to cause)

2 tbsp fresh grated coconut

1 tsp Olive oil

Here is how you make this:

Rinse thoroughly and chop the green beans fine, as shown the picture. Wash and chop the carrot. In a pan, heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait until the seeds crackle and then add the chopped peppers and fry until crisp. Frying peppers crisp will make them less spicy. Now add the urad dal and brown on low flame. Now add the chopped green beans and carrot. Add salt and turmeric powder. Cover and cook for a couple of minutes. Now stir fry uncovered on high heat for a couple of minutes. Do not overcook. Take off the stove and garnish with grated coconut.

Serve with rice and rasam or rice and yogurt.

Enjoy!

The thought of Tamarind rice brings back nostalgic memories of long train journeys with my father, mother, two sisters and our dog. I used to love those train journeys, squabbling with my sisters for window seats, top berths, and whose turn it was to take the dog out for a run during a station stop. Best of all, the train journeys symbolized uninterrupted time for reading, dreaming, watching the urchins at the stations and zipping out to fill water bottles.

With journeys usually spanning a couple of days, if you wanted a decent meal while traveling, you were either reduced to ordering from the dining car or grabbing something that an urchin shoved at you while the train stopped for a few minutes at a station. The dining car experience was best avoided because it entailed a dubiously white-coated attendant bringing a grubby tray of cold rice, watery sambar, sour buttermilk and gooey vegetables at one of the train stations.

Succumbing to the urchins’ persistent sales tactics was an exercise in valor. You never knew what hygiene standards had been observed when the food was cooked and how many times the urchin had stopped on the way to the station to throw stones at stray dogs, while depositing the food on the ground.

Either way, you took your chances eating out while traveling. Or if you were lucky enough to have a mom like mine, you got to eat the yummiest home-made Tamarind rice and potato curry, in addition to devouring Enid Blyton books.

My mother would make the spicy tamarind sauce in advance – someday, I will post her recipe. Nowadays, we have an easier alternative to home made tamarind sauce - MTRs Puliyogare mix (dehydrated tamarind sauce mix). This is enormously quick and easy. You can get this mix in any self-respecting Indian grocery store.

Here it is – Spicy Tamarind rice made in just 4 minutes flat, if you have pre-cooked rice. I usually use brown rice and my family loves it.

Here is what you need:
1 cup cooked brown rice (you can also use white jasmine rice or white basmati rice)
3 tbsp MTR puliyogare mix
3 tbsp raw peanuts (you can also use cashews and raisins instead) (optional)
2 dry red chili (broken into a halves) (optional)
2-3 tsp olive oil

Here is how you make this:
Cook rice until tender and set aside.

Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the dry red chili and brown for a minute. Now add the raw peanuts and fry until crisp. Add the MTR mix and immediately add the pre-cooked and cooled rice. Mix well.

Enjoy with yogurt and cucumber raita or plain yogurt.

Now that the world seems to be upside down and we are all focused on the economy, it seems to be a fantastic time to talk about abundance, so we can put the economic crisis behind us. Like the author of The Secret tells us, we get what we focus on, so let’s all focus on PONGAL!

Pongal is also the name of the dish that is made on Pongal day. Traditionally, it is made sweetened with jaggery (molasses) and eaten as a dessert. But, there is a breakfast version of this dish that I am now going to share. The sweet version of pongal is called “Chakkarai pongal” or sweet pongal – duh! The breakfast version, is called “Venn pongal” or white pongal and it is usually made with white rice.

Ever since my foray into the unrefined carbohydrate world, I have looked to see where I could substitute brown rice for white and this experiment of changing “Venn pongal” to Brown rice Venn pongal has been a great success with my family!

Try it – it is simple to make, easy on the stomach, has the right mix of unrefined carbs and protein (from the lentils) and the touch of ginger turns this simple dish into a delicious, aromatic, epicurean delight.

Here’s what you will need:

2/3 cup brown rice
1/3 cup yellow split moong lentils (the ones with the peel removed)
1 1/2 – 2 cups water
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch asofoetida powder (optional)
1 tsp salt
2 dry red chili (broken into smaller pieces)
3 tsp chopped ginger
4 tsp or less cashews (chopped)
1 1/2 tsp Olive oil

To make:

Heat a pan and dry roast the yellow moong lentils until they become aromatic – for about 3-4 minutes. Stir constantly to ensure the lentils do not burn. Remove from fire. Now add the brown rice and dry roast – another 3-4 minutes. Remove from fire.

Mix in the rice and lentils. Add the water (I have provided 2 different ratios for water- add 1 1/2 cups if you like the rice dry and the grains firm, or add 2 cups water if you like the pongal mushy). Cook until all the water is absorbed. Set aside.

In a pan, heat oil. Add the chopped cashews and fry until golden brown. Remove from fire and set aside. Now add the cumin seeds into the same warm oil and stir fry until golden brown. Add the red chili and fry a minute more. Now add the asofoetida powder and immediately add the chopped ginger. Saute for another minute. Now add the cooked rice lentil mixture and salt and mix thoroughly.

Remove and garnish with fried cashews.
Serve hot with Red pepper gotsu or Peanut chutney.
Serves 2.

But one of the fallouts of doing so was that I had never at that time, seen some vegetables that are usually available in other parts of the world. For instance, I had not seen an avocado, a red, organge or yellow pepper (green peppers were available), a tomatillo, and all those multitude of greens and pumpkins that are available in the US.

So, when I moved to the US and saw a red pepper for the first time, and looked at the price (which was three times the price of a green pepper), I wondered what it was about a red pepper that made it so pricey. And then, it dawned on me when I tasted slivers of it smothered in a guacamole dip at a friend’s place.

Fresh red peppers taste crunchy, juicy, and delectable. Along with taste, red peppers are packed with nutrients – Vitamin C, A, carotenoids and anti-oxidants. And so, started my quest for adapting Indian recipes to use red pepper.

I made a brown rice venn pongal the other day – (I know, I know, it is an oxymoron because the word “venn” in tamil means white! But you’ll see tomorrow what I mean by Brown rice venn pongal.) The brown rice pongal is a totally satisfying, filling, guilt-free rice dish. The flavors are subtle but definitely bland. So I rooted through my fridge to look for something to make an accompaniment to go with the bland brown rice pongal and hit upon the Red Pepper Gotsu.

Here it is, for your pleasure, with my compliments. As usual, I have cut down on the oil and this too, is made with just 1 tsp oil.

Try it and let me know how you like it. But be warned, this dish can be fiery – it is meant to be eaten with a bland main dish. You can, of course, tone it down to suit your taste, but I will provide the recipe as I made it.

Here’s what you need:
Red peppers – 2 (chopped)
Red onion – 1 large (sliced thin)
Orange Habanero peppers – 2  (cut fine) – (cut this out if you would like to tone this down in spice)
Ginger – 1″ piece (grated fine)
Salt -  tsp
Red chili powder – 1 tsp (reduce this if you want to tone this down)
Black mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
Tamarind paste – 1/2 tsp
Olive oil – 1 tsp
Water – 1/2 cup

Heat olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, place the mustard seeds. Wait until the seeds crackle and add the habanero peppers and grated ginger. Stir fry for a minute until the habaneros are fried crisp. Now add the slivered onions. Fry for a minute. Add the red peppers and stir fry for another minute.  Dissolve the tamarind paste in water and add it to the pan. Add salt, red chili powder and cook on high for 3-4 minutes.

Remove from fire and serve with brown rice pongal.

Check back tomorrow for the sumptuous  Brown rice pongal recipe!

I started with searching first for the best whole wheat since we eat a lot of rotis. The atta I found in Indian stores seemed very refined to me, despite the fact that the word “atta” is supposed to mean whole wheat flour. So I started searching in the American grocery stores and I found King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and decided to try it for rotis. It is simply delicious! The richness and texture of this flour makes the best rotis, parathas and even naan. Best of all, a 5 lb of King Arthur whole wheat is cheaper than the atta I get at Indian stores. Win, win!

One down.

Next was to replace the much beloved white basmati rice with brown rice. That took some doing simply because white rice is such a staple. My family found it hard to adjust at first too. So I simply made both white and brown rice for each meal and very slowly eased them in to eating brown rice. Right now, I’ve concocted my own brown rice mixture – Organic short grained brown rice, wild rice and barley pearls in the proportion of 4:1:1. The cooked rice does take on the color of wild rice, kind of purplish but the taste is simply fabulous and it goes very well with sambar, rasam or any curries. It also tastes fantastic when you make the sweet “chakkarai” pongal with it! In fact, the brown rice pongal tastes much better than the pongal made with white basmati. Try it!

I have to check my cholesterol again but regardless of whether these major changes benefitted my cholesterol count, one benefit I received is that I enjoy the tastes and textures much more now!