Mung / Moong jo shaak / Mung Bean Curry

This a quick proteinacious week day meal. My students from Saudi Arabia tell me that this is prison food. That is to say prisoners get mung beans for their meals! Well, mung bean curry has been one of my favs since I was a child. That and Mung Bean Soup (recipe soon).

Ingredients
Ingredients
1 cup dried mung beans; soaked overnight and boiled, mung bean cook very quickly so you don't need to pressure cook
1 onion; finely chopped
3 Cloves garlic; peeled and minced
2 inch ginger; peeled and grated
3 tomatoes; blanched, peeled and chopped
2 - 3 chilies slit through the centre
1/2 tspn tumeric powder
2 tspn coriander and cumin powders
2 tspn oil
salt to taste
1 tblspn chopped coriander for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onions, cook until golden brown, then add the split chilies, let them splutter.
2. Add the tomotatoes, garlic and ginger cook for 5-6 minutes, add tumeric, coriander and cumin powders, cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the boiled beans, with the water the beans were boiled in
5 Cover and cook, until nice and thick, add coriander mix and serve.
I served it with mani / chappatti

Awards and MEME

Awards

Recently I was nominated by Zusana of Zlamushka’s Spice Kitchen and Richa of As Dear As Salt for Rockin' Girl Blogger

Who knew I rocked?!? Thank you girls for thinking of me.

As I got this award from two different people, I can nominate 10 bloggers!!

Asha

Ashwini

Bee

Coffee

Cynthia

Kelly Mahoney

Laksmi

Musical

Richa

Sharmi

All the above are constantly encouraging me by commenting on my blog. Thank you. You all Rock!!

MEME

I always thought MEME meant “me me”, all about me. Anyway I looked it up on wiki and it means “A meme, (IPA: /mi:m/) as defined within memetic theory, comprises a unit of cultural information, the building block of cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution.^[1] Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes). ….” A MEME Tag according to Wiki is “is a blog tag that is included in all posts that reference a meme. When a meme is started on a blog — for example, 'your top five favourite movies' — the meme tag is included at the foot of the text of each post that responds to the meme invitation. By including a memetag, bloggers are recognising the initial creator of the meme and allowing them to track how their meme has spread across the blogosphere through the use of social media tools such as Technorati.”

Any way, I have been tagged for this MEME by Sirisha of Ambrosia....Indian indulgances and

The rules are as follows (straight out of Sirisha’s blog).

You have to post these rules before you give the facts.

* Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of their middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.

* When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.

* At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

As I don’t have a middle name, I am choosing the first part of my nephews name – Pyar which means love. Pyarali is emigrating to Australia with his parents, I am so going to miss him and this brother Sean.

Sean and Pyarali

P is for Painting, both watercolour and mixed media are my passion, recently I have neglected my art. My sister Pari, got me into painting, she gave me some watercolours 15 years ago, so Thank you P.

This meme is to get me back into painting. I recently had my house extended ie My loft converted into a large studio, so I should be painting like mad shouldn’t I?

Y is for All of YOU who read my blog, comment on it and try my recipes. I love cooking, and entertaining.

A is for Airplane – another thing I love to do is travel, one of my best travels was the first time I went to China, about 3 years ago, when I got to travel by train (my best mode of travel) a lot. We took the train from Beijing to Shanghai to Nanjing. Then travelled up the Yangtze river in a cruise boat eventually reaching Xian. Great trip. I went to China again last year this time; the south, and also went to Singapore, Kuala Lampur, Jakarta and Cambodia, if that was not enough I also went to Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal and Italy. This year so far I have travelled to Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, Boston and Maine. Later this year I may go to St Petersburg in Russia and to Dubai in UAE. My travel is both through my work and for leisure. I am a scientist and at least once a year I present my work at conferences and meetings

R is for reading, I am an avid reader.

Reading now: Red Dust by Ma Jian, this was a gift from Anja. Thank you Anja, I love it.

Last read; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

Next to be read: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I would like to tag.

Aly of A Treat a Week

Lia of Spices Corner

Padma of Padma’s Kitchen

Rajita of Hunger Pangs

Zusana of Zlamushka’s Spice Kitchen

Couscous with Tindora and Red Pepper

Ingredients
1 cup couscous
1 and 1/4 cup water
1 cup tindora; washed and sliced in rounds,
1 red romana pepper; sliced into rounds
1 large or 2 small tomatoes; diced
1 tspn mustard seeds
1/2 tspn cumin seeds
5 curry leaves
2 tspn vegetable oil

Method
1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds and the curry leaves, fry for about a minute, or until the seeds pop.
2. Add the sliced tindora and peppers, fry for about 6-7 minutes, and add the tomatoes, stir and cook for a further 5 minutes.
3, Add the couscous, mix and add the water, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Separate the grains using a fork.
I served my with masala fish; recipe to come.

Jahni Alu Rye / Ridge-gourd in a Mustard Sauce

This was a brainchild of Laksmi of Veggie Cuisine
This is my entry for JFI Oriya Cooking. Swapna from Swad is hosting for this event.

Oriya cooking is very new to me, I bought Laxmi Parida's Purba: Feast from the East book, but I must admit I did not find it very useful. Despite the good reviews on Amazon, I found it very difficult to follow. In the end, I just googled and found this recipe. Reference at the end of the page.


Ingredients

2 medium sizes ridge gourds; peeled and sliced into half moon slices
1 tomato; chopped
6 small new potatoes; boil in their skin, and sliced in ½ inch rounds
1 onion; chopped fine
1 tablespoon mustard
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
4 garlic cloves
½ tspn coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt to taste

Method:

1. Mix the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, black pepper and garlic with a ½ cup water, and grind in food processer.

2. Heat the oil in a pan, fry the onion until golden brown

3. Add the ridge gourd and tomatoes. Mix well

4. Add the potatoes; mix

5. Add the mustard mixture and salt, mix well.

6. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes

7. Serve hot with chapatis or parathas.

I have adapted this recipe from this website

Prawn and Leek Gyoza

I made these for Zayn's birthday party, because I know he loves them.

Ingredients

1 packet of gyoza / dumpling pastry (from Chinese / Japanese Store)
1 lb peeled prawns (little ones)
1 leek; chopped fine
1 inch ginger; grated
3 clove garlic; mince
1 tbspn light soya sauce
1 tbspn sesame oil
1 tbspn oyster sauce
1 egg

dipping sauce
1/2 cup light soya sauce
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1 tbspn mirin
1 tblspn sesame oil
1 tspn chili flakes

Method
1. Mix together all the filling ingredients.

2. Place a tspn of this mixture on the dumpling pastry, brush the edges of the pastry with water, fold in half, press together, making some pleats in the front of the gyoza. I was able to make about 40.

3. Place the gyoza in a hot, previously sprayed frying pan, cover and cook for about 1 minute, turn and cook for a further minute. Repeat until all the gyoza are fried.
4. Put one layer of gyoza back in the hot pan, add a little water so that it is half way up the gyoza. Cover and cook until the water has evaporated. Repeat until all the gyoza are done.



For the the dipping sauce: mix everything, microwave for about 30 secs so that the sauce is warm.
Serve the dumpling hot with the sauce.
These turned out delcious and were eaten by my family (of 12) with minutes!

A Mad Puri Party

Anita is having a puri party at the Mad Mad Tea Party Place. I just could not resist it anymore, must have some puri and join the party!

Khari Puri, with Aubergine Curry



And Masala Puri with my nephews; Pyarali and Sean, I miss them (they are in Toronto now)

Bharela Kerala / Stuffed Bitter Gourd

This is what we had for supper on Thursday.

Ingredients
6 -8 bitter gourds
1 cup gram (chickpea) flour
1 small onion; choped fine
1 large tomato; blanched, peeled and mashed
2 cloves garlic; minced
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn tumeric powder
2 teaspn cumin/coriander powder
1 tspn mustard seeds
1/2 tspn cumin seeds

1. Add onions, garlic, tumeric and cumin/coriander powders to the gram flour, mix and then add enough water to make a fairly thick batter.

2. Make a slit in each kerala / bitter gourd without spliting into two, scoop all the seed out with a teaspoon. Stuff the space with batter.

3. Heat some oil in a large frying pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds, after they have popped, add the tomatoes, stir and cook for a few minutes, gently place all the stuffed kerala in the pan and cover. (reduce the heat)

4. After about 10 minutes, turn them over, and cover the pan again. Cook for about 25 minutes altogether. We had it with kadhi, kitchri and chapatis

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