"मूग धिरडे" (Green Bengal Gram Pancake)

American Pancakes & Crepes are often eggy.Its a little difficult for those who are pure veggies to enjoy them whole heartedly.Personally,I love "I Hop's" pancakes but can understand the problems of vegetarians. "Ruchira" is truly a wonder book for all vegetarians.It has vegetarian pancakes , much nutritious and non-greasy. "मूग धिरडे" (Moon Dal Pancake) is a wonderful brunch snack (similar to dosa or uttapam) or hi-tea appetizer (when made into small pattie sized pancakes). I thought of making it on a lazy Sunday for brunch. Surprisingly , Rohan (my husband who works as a developer at SUN Microsystems ,Menlo Park,USA) gave up his lap-top and decided to dedicate his Sunday into artistic (not creative,since he says Coding & development are most creative) activities like making a meal .He took over the task of today’s blog post and accepted to become the Guest Chef for today while I became his SOUS-CHEF!

Ingredients

green moong-2 muffin-full bowls,soaked for 2 hours (or until they sprout) in lukewarm water with a pinch of soda or Eno-fruit salt (in case you don't have the eating soda)

• 1muffin-full bowl of finely chopped onion
• 1/2 muffin-full bowl of green peas
• 1/2 muffin-full bowl of cilantro or coriander
• 3-4 finely chopped green chilies
• salt to taste
• roasted coriander seed + cumin seed + mustard seed (my addition, crushed with tongs)
• 2-3 cloves of finely chopped garlic (my addition)
• 1 tsp of finely chopped ginger (my addition)
• 1 tsp amchur powder (my addition,dried mango powder)
• 1 tsp dried mint
• 1 tsp kasuri methi (my addition,dried fenugreek leaves)
• 2-3 curry leaves (my addition)
• 1 tsp garam masala powder
• 1 tsp kala masala /goda masala
• 1 tbsp of vegetable oil or cooking spray

The Making of Pancakes

After a wonderful tea in the late hours of morning,I soaked in 2 muffin-full bowls of green moong into lukewarm water , adding little soda to accelerate sprouting process.Rohan blended the moong and green chilies ,into one fine mixture.The mixture was just so thick that my Magic Bullet stopped exhibiting its magic until some water was poured into it.

Don't add too much water though since it has to be spread on the pan evenly like Uttappam or pancakes.

The book suggested sprinkling the chopped onions and cilantro over the pancake,but it was a little too tricky for naive cook like moi.Instead I asked Rohan to whip the onions ,green peas along with the moong batter and added salt, roasted CCM (cumin seed +coriander seed +mustard seed) powder to it.

Rohan added the salt and sugar after the batter was ready.

We used a non-stick flat pan (tawa) to lay the pancake.The consistency of the batter must be good enough to spread easily on the pan (add water accordingly). The non-stick is not quite true to its name and there is always a fear of getting the pancake stuck on to it badly,so better use some cooking oil spray on sides.Flip the sides to evenly cook the धिरडे.

As wisely suggested by Kamala Aji (authoress of the book) to retain the green colour of green moong,no time must be wasted after the moong is minced.

These pancakes could be served with Yogurt and Pecante Medium Sauce (Costco).

And,the beautiful,lush green coloured Pancakes made by Ranadez were all set to serve “a healthy gourmands (glutton/हावरा) appetite”!

Vous avez un bon dimanche!

पट्टी समोसा ( Strip Samosa )

7th of October it is! The birthday of one my best and oldest school gfs , Ruchika. "Many Many happy returns of the day to you sweetheart". We have enjoyed some wonderful years of our life together in school and college. She has added a wonderful set of people into my life with her family.

Being in the US, I cannot actually enjoy her birthday personally, but can provide for a wonderful birthday gift recipe to her. She is also a foodie like me and loves Samosas a lot. Not to forget that she is herself a very creative cook. Fortunately, Ogale Aji had a wonderful recipe for maharashtrain version of Samosas (पट्टी समोसा) in her book which I would be promptly putting to use today inorder to celebrate My best friend's birthday!

T.T = C.C + P.T= 45 minutes max.

Ingredients

• 1/2 muffin-full bowl of all purpose flour (मैदा) and 1/2 muffin full bowl of wheat flour (कणिक).The original recipe suggests on the usage of all purpose flour alone,but I prefer a healthier option.If you dont have much time on hands then you could opt for the ready made samosa /spring roll pastrys available at most of the indian stores.
• 1/8th of muffin-full bowl of hot vegetable oil
• 1 boiled potato, peeled and mashed
• 1/8 th of a muffin-full bowl of green peas
• 1/8 th of a muffin-full bowl of finely cut french beans (फरसबी/फर्सी)
• 1/8 th of a muffin-full bowl of finely cut onion. I did not use it.
• 1/8th of a muffin-full bowl of freshly shredded coconut. You can use the frozen one or the dry shredded coconut. I did not use it. Instead I added some frozen corn.
• 6-9 green chilies (depending on the desired spiciness)
• 1" piece of ginger (आले) , chopped finely
• 5-6 cloves of garlic (लसूण)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1.5 tsps coriander seeds (धने)
• 1/8 th of muffin-full bowl of finely cut cilantro/coriander
• salt and sugar to taste
• 1/2 tsp of garam masala powder
• pomegranate fruit (दालिम्ब)or 1 lemon.
• I used amchur powder (dried mango powder)
• 1/2 tsp dried mint leaves. This is my addition and it gives a wonderful taste to the vegetable.
• fresh finely cut coriander for garnishing the fillet (my addition)

FAQ's

Let me answer some questions aloud regarding the ingredients for most of the recipes by Madame Ogale. Kamala Aji's "Ruchira" promotes maharashtrain but typical Brahmin style of cooking. This style of cooking is quite similar to the Gujrathi cuisine. Sugar, Jaggery, and Coconut form the immortal part of most of the recipes if not all. It's because of the fact that Bramhins originated from Konkan region on western coast of India where coconut, rice and sugarcane are produced grossly. The basic food habits remained the same even after they migrated to other parts of India. The modifications or improvisations that I do are a blend of food at my mother's place in Bombay (which is like Mrs Ogale's style) and cuisine at my husband's residence in Nagpur, Vidarbha which is towards central India (spicy food, without addition of sugar etc).

For the outer cover

Made a fine dough of the half-half flour-maida mixture adding a pinch of salt and 1/8th of muffin-full bowl of hot vegetable oil and set it aside. Then, I made small balls of the kneaded dough. I chose 2 lemon sized dough-lets and rolled them into 2 puris (round flat). I pasted one with a little dash of oil to the other and rolled them together with a little dry flour into a bigger roti. As mentioned in the book , I cut the big roti after roasting it on a non-stick Tawa and cut it into three strips length wise, they would break down into 6 strips. Roast the roti just enough to keep its softness intact.This could be stored for a long time in the refrigerator for later usage.

For the Vegan Fillet

I sauteed the french beans, corn and green peas (CFG-corn, french bean, green peas sabzi) over cooking spray. I made a simple vegetable using the regular mustard seed, asafoetida and haldi tadka (you can try cumin seed tadka too), "green crush mix" (crushed green chilies + crushed garlic + crushed ginger), dried crushed mint leaves, amchur powder, roasted powdered cumin-coriander seed mix and added the garam masala to it for flavour.

I roasted the coriander seeds along with cumin seeds for a minute in a pre-heated oven (150 deg F) put it in a napkin and crushed it with my tongs. You can actually opt for a ready made powder of coriander seeds and cumin seeds which is easily available at Indian stores. But, fresh, roasted, manually ground spices add a value to the taste.

The mashed potatoes and salt went in at the finale along with fresh coriander. I added half stick of lucerne's pepper jack cheese. (Note:This an impromtu ingredient and you may avoid it gladly :)

Dash With Oil and Kadhai

The most interesting step in a recipe is often the toughest to achieve. The intriguing job of filling the vegetable fillet into the "पट्टी " or the strip to be held in a triangular shuttering style.

I had some oil left of previous frying adventure which was not much but good enough to experiment with one. I checked the temperature of oil by putting a small bead sized dot into the frying pan and it popped up in fractions. The oil was hot.

I thought it was a better and healthier idea to bake the samosas, but it din't work well with the sample 2 samosas. So sadly added some more oil to the kadhai.

The samosas were mending their way through the fillet and the folding. The last job was to hold each one of them together till eternity , I pasted some flour + water mixture onto its edges and off they went trodding into the pan.

But, one great idea...The roti land rotis could be used as well for the "outer shell strips" of the samosas. It tasted good too!

And,here they are... ready to serve with Maggi's hot and Sour tomato sauce or Ching's red chili sauce. Costco (http://www.costco.com/) has one great tomato based salsa sauce called Pace's Picante Sauce (medium) which the spicy food lovers can invite into the kitchen for such crunchy moments!! You can also try a quick dates chutney to go with it! Just blend some dates, green chili, tamarind, coriander and salt together and the dip is all ready to be taken!

The only thing that we were left to do was ...."attack, conquer and wish... Ruchika a happy birthday!"

"May the crispness of thought (like the outer crust of samosa), the taste of wonderful things (like the fillet-a little bit of spicy, sweet and sour) in life and love for my recipes :P (that's undoubted and unconditional)".

Cheers!