Grindless Gravy For Curry Mela

As my friend A and I were chatting yesterday, the conversation veered to how sleepy she was feeling. I wasn’t feeling sleepy, probably because my lunch had comprised an omelette made mostly of egg whites. I told her I’d added curry leaves, coriander and red chilli powder to the omelette and she was almost aghast. Almost as if I’d sullied the yellow beauty of the eggs with all that green and red. But if you’re vigilant and don’t let the omelette brown, it’s a pretty combination of yellow and green, I told her. It’s such an omelette that I put into this tomato gravy a few days ago - I’d intended to make the Parsi version where the eggs are broken into the gravy and cooked until set but as an omelette for lunch was on my mind I thought combining the two would make a nice variation. I quickly put together a thick omelette made from four eggs as the gravy was bubbling, tore it up and added it to the gravy and let it cook a while. I’d heard about this from my aunt and made this once earlier, long ago, and it makes for a nice, fulfilling meal either by itself or with rice or bread or chapattis.

Omelette

Eggs, beaten: Four
Coriander: Chopped, as much as you want
Curry leaves: 20
Red chilli powder: 1 tsp
Or Green Chillies: 3, chopped
Garam masala: ½ tsp (optional)
Turmeric: A pinch (optional)
Salt, to taste
Oil: 1 tsp

Oil the griddle, heat it on ‘medium’.

Beat eggs well with the spices. Then add the coriander and curry leaves and green chillies, if using, and mix well. Beat it again a little.

Tip the mixture onto the griddle and let it set. Turn it over and cook on the other side too. Do not let it brown on either side.

Tomato Gravy

Tomatoes: 5-6, chopped
Green chillies: 3-4, slit
Or Red chilli powder: 1- 1-¼ tsp
Onion: 1, chopped
Ginger-garlic paste: 1 tsp
Cumin seed: 1 tsp
Oil: 1 tsp
Garam masala: 1 tsp
Salt, to taste
Turmeric: a pinch
Water: 1-2 cups

In a pan, heat the oil, add the cumin.

Once the cumin pops, add the onion and fry well, till soft and translucent.

Now add the ginger-garlic paste and fry till it mixes well.

Add the green chillies, fry for a minute.

Add the tomatoes and the salt, red chilli powder, turmeric and half of the garam masala. Let it cook till it starts getting pulpy.

Add some water, cover and let it cook well. If the gravy’s consistency and volume is to your liking and if there’s enough to hold the omelette, add the omelette pieces at this stage, otherwise add more water and cook for a little longer.

Once you add the omelette, let it simmer for five or six minutes. Sprinkle with the rest of the garam masala.

This grindless gravy is my submission to Srivalli’s Curry Mela, which, I must say, has almost as many "should nots" as my event did. Eh, Valli?

Eggs Omelette Tomato Event Curry Mela Tomato Grindless Gravy

The Grind Is Over

I won't leave you Sra, she said, sending me another entry when I told her the first one wouldn't qualify. Please don't, send me as many entries as you like, I said.

For the first few days, this was the nature of the conversation I held with some bloggers - an entry would come in, I would check it out, say no in what I hoped was a pleasant manner, and would get another. I've earned much notoriety and some praise as the event evolved and rules went on being added for the first couple of weeks. In the last six weeks, it's been a pleasure to open my e-mail and see an entry waiting - around 40 in all, not counting my own. Thanks, all of you, for participating!

Next to enter was her. When I saw the title, I wondered anxiously if this was another dish I had to turn down, as I had said "no dunking in sauce". But happily, it wasn't.



Trust your instincts when you are tempted to eat at an "authentic" Indian restaurant - home-made is usually better, she seems to say. Here are her nine gems of a curry.



This was a new (to me) and easy combination of mustard oil, paneer and besan - I must remember to make this soon.



It's one of her favourite greens and she makes this dish when she's short on time.



This girl did what so many of us are doing - attempt something because she has a blog. To go with her first attempt into non-instant rava idli, she made this grindless gravy.






Et tu, Brute! was her reaction when I announced the event, buffeted by events as she was feeling. But she rose splendidly to the occasion and made these.






As green as jade, this is a curry often present in Maharashtrian weddings. She has used kokum to make it.





She said this curry was a breeze and I found it very unusual. Check it out on this new blog.




It's a crazy challenge, there are a zillion conditions and it's very clever, she said, and I was quite flattered! Here's this much mulled-over recipe.



Juicy potato was her contribution, literally speaking. Check it out!



She said she made up this dish specially for the event. Delightful, isn't it?




The handy and versatile potato makes another appearance in this event, through this dish. She will show you how to make this spicy dish.



Please play this game in its true spirit and don't look for loopholes in my rules, I said, and Madame took the cue. See what she did!



She made this for the event. Read her piece to find out why it was made and how it turned out! Funny as usual. The piece, that is, not the dish, I hasten to qualify.



This aficionado of Indian cuisine thought long and hard and cooked up something with much potato and not much toor dal in this.



She thought it wasn't difficult when she read about the event, but was proved wrong. See what she came up with.



This blogger had an Old Mother Hubbard moment, and see what she came up with!



Did you know you needn't soak dry black-eyed beans overnight? Here's how it was revealed to her.



This kadai featured a beerakai (ridge gourd/turai)-and-tamarind gravy, take a look.




No way, she told herself, when she found out about this event, but she had to eat her words. In more ways than one, and how!




The pumpkin gets its due in this recipe, helped along by kalonji/nigella. Don't omit that or the coriander powder, it just won't be the same, she says.




Like her, I have roots and shoots sprouting out of my potatoes, sweet potaotes and onions. A bit of cabbage and I have the makings of this fulfilling gravy.



This fan of no-fuss meals realised halfway through the process that she was cooking a grindless gravy. Find out what it is!




This is her second entry, made in energy-conservation mode. And one of the few non-vegetarian entries entered in this event.




She sent in what was to become the first 'fishy' entry - tangy with tamarind and spicy with green chilli.



She claims it really wasn't hair oil she was using to make this dish. What a culture shock the cooking medium in this dish turned out to be!



A prize fillet of trout demanded a dish from across the continents. Warm comfort for her on a cold day.



An unusual combination of cauliflower and pepper - she teaches you how to make a different dish!



Hail the minimalist recipe, she says in the course of her rant. And presents us one with an unusual combination of ingredients, here it is!




She had a couple of ideas, but alas! My rules cruelly shot them down. She soldiered on, and see what she came up with!



She put a lot of thought into this dish, often despairing at the evolving rules, but made it!



There's always stock of this, a happy combination of Mum and Mum-in-law's recipes, in her fridge.



She doesn't really like gravies that have bits and things in them (which is how they look without a blender), she said, but found one for me anyway. Why worry, when she can put it on pizza and jazz it up with cheese?




Here's an easy, hearty, grindless gravy that she made - hop over to her blog and check it out!




This is one of those dishes that has the same name across various States though the recipes often differ. She even has us peek into the legend behind its name.



Fate gave her two good reasons to post this dish. I'm glad this event was one of them.



She's just returned to the world of blogging, and as usual, has an unusual recipe for this event. Here it is!



Curry with all my terms and conditions and deadline was on her mind even as she had to think about Christmas preparations. See what she came up with.




This started off as a very promising poem, but I found out that the point of it all was an entry for the event. She just needs to change the last line and it would speak volumes for what many of us encounter in life sometime or the other.




This multi-coloured dish has an unusual ingredient added to give it richness but let it stay low-cal. Find out what she added.


And here are my own entries:

Vegetables in Dressed Up Coconut Milk

Cauliflower-Brown Rice-Besan Gravy

A Kashmiri-style Paneer

I've listed the entries largely in the order I received them. Some of you didn't send me the details, some of you didn't send me the pictures, some sent pictures that were too large, and some, pictures that were not small enough - I've not used those but have chosen to decorate them with my artwork instead! If there's anything that needs to be amended - mismatched links, mismatched photos, missing entries - please let me know.

A Very Happy New Year to all of you!

Grindless Gravies Round-Up No-grind

A recipe and a reminder

Remind me to never, ever fry paneer. I never do, even when it's recommended, but did that in the interests of authenticity as I make Kashmiri dishes so rarely, but it just made the entire thing rubbery even though I kept it soaked in some water.

Even a half measure like shallow-frying it robbed it of its texture, something The Spouse demonstrated long ago. But the gravy was quite a scorcher if you could discount the oily blobs that overran it. This is my third Grindless Gravy for the event, and it just makes the deadline. What's happening with your entries? If they're sitting in your drafts, please rush them as the deadline ends today.

On to the recipe now, adapted from The Pleasures of Kashmiri Cookery by Anu Wakhlu.

Cottage Cheese/Paneer - 500 gm, cut into 3-cm squares.
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tbsp
Aniseed Powder - 1 tbsp
Ginger Powder/Sonth - 1/2 tbsp
Curds/Yoghurt - 2 tbsp, beaten
Black Cardamom/Badi Elaichi - 2
Regular Cardamom (Green) - 2
Cloves - 3
Peppercorns - 2-3
Bay leaves - 2-3
Oil - 2 tbsp
Water - 2 cups
Salt - to taste

In a pan, heat the oil. Add the red chilli powder and a little water and heat till bright red.

Add the beaten curds and fry for a few minutes. Add all the spices and salt and mix well.

Add 2 cups of water and let it boil.

Add the cottage cheese pieces and cover and cook on a slow fire for about 20 minutes till the gravy thickens.

According to the book, the paneer has to be deep-fried beforehand. Also, once the curry is done, it's finished off with a splash of ghee and shahjeera (caraway) for garnish - I only shallow-fried the paneer, which was bad enough, and didn't have the ghee so didn't use that, or the shahjeera.

PS: Anita has a tip on frying paneer in the comments, take a look.

Grindless Gravies Curds/Yoghurt Paneer/Cottage Cheese Kashmiri

Gravy Drain

It’s not often that life gives you a perfect cauliflower. Lemons it does, in plenty, but not a cauliflower. So when I got one last week, with an unblemished, uniform complexion even at the fag end of the day, I was determined to make the most of it.

As soon as I came home, I did the needful – soaked it in some hot water with a pinch of turmeric and salt, drained it after half an hour, tore it into florets and lovingly stashed it away in the fridge hoping to find a deserving recipe in the next couple of days.

It so transpired that the brown rice I had cooked that day stayed abandoned so when I came upon a Gujarati recipe that called for rice-and-besan patties in a vegetable gravy, I went to bed the day before I made this with fond hopes of my various aims being fulfilled – leftovers used up, several veggies being used up, all nutritious and novel to boot! Plus, it would be another Grindless Gravy!



Next morning saw me add several teaspoons of besan (chick pea flour), way beyond what was prescribed in the recipe, to the rice, after which I was finally able to fashion crudely-shaped patties.

As I proceeded with the rest of the recipe, I wondered if it would be thick enough to qualify for a gravy, but I needn’t have worried, for it did – the besan thickened the water and the one-pot meal was ready! Now let’s see if he can resist this, I told myself, that’ll teach him to reject brown rice.

I reached for my delicately painted but finely cracked porcelain bowl, ladled the gravy into it, took some pictures and then left it on the table while I got ready to go to work.

Back on the table, it's a lovely picture, clean table, lovely dish, fat peas playing peekaboo with the cauliflower and the beans in a rather novel, pale yellow gravy. As I reached for the dish, it split neatly into two, spilling mostly on the napkin that I used to hold the dish, but also on to my newly upholstered dining table chairs – and that, dear readers, is the story of the Gravy Drain!

The recipe I tried to follow was Tarla Dalal’s but I made many, many changes, here it is!

For the patties

Cooked brown rice: 1 cup
Coriander, chopped: 1 tbsp
Besan/Chick pea flour: 8-9 tsp
Green chillies, chopped: 2
Ginger, chopped fine: 1-inch piece
Turmeric: ¼ tsp
Oil: 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

Tempering:
Mustard seeds: 1 tsp
Asafoetida/hing: ¼ tsp
Turmeric powder: ¼ tsp
Chilli powder: ½ tsp
Oil: 1 tbsp

Vegetables:
French beans, chopped: 3/4 cup
Cauliflower florets: ¾ cup
Green peas: ¾ cup
Coriander, chopped: 2 tbsp

Patties: Combine all the ingredients to form a soft dough.

Divide into 15-20 equal portions and roll out into rounds. Keep aside. (They wouldn’t roll out for me, so I just used my hands to pat them into shape.)

Heat oil, pop mustard, asafoetida, turmeric powder, chilli powder and 4 cups of water.

Add all the veggies and salt. Simmer till they are cooked.

Increase the flame and add the patties one at a time.

Simmer for 10-12 minutes till they are firm.

Serve hot garnished with chopped coriander.

Keep those entries coming for Grindless Gravies! Details here.

Grindless Gravies Besan/Chickpea Flour Vegetarian Vegan Cauliflower French Beans Peas Rice Brown Rice Humour

On The Gravy Train

There was gravy drain too, but more about that in the next post!

As I found out, this is another great pantry cleaner – take some odds and ends, vegetably speaking, dress up some coconut milk and you have a great curry. I had some potatoes that were sprouting; sweet potatoes, all twisty and runt-like to begin with that steadily shrivelled with each passing day; a portion of the cauliflower that I had used the greater part of in the gravy drain and some beans.

Now, all I needed was some carrot to give it a bit of colour but seeing as some had gone to pot in my fridge last week, I denied myself any in penance this week! As I debated using the sweet potatoes, Musical’s Thai Curry came back to me – I had wondered about the combination with coconut milk, so this was the perfect occasion to try it. It’s an unusual taste – sweet, sour and mellow all at once. The gravy itself is like silk. And Bee has posted another dish with some of the same ingredients today.

This recipe is adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khazana of Indian Recipes. This is another entry of mine for the Grindless Gravies event.

Potatoes, peeled, diced into 1-inch cubes: 3 small
French beans, cut into 1-inch pieces: 12-15
Cauliflower: ¼ of a flower
Sweet potatoes, peeled, diced: 1 cup
Shelled green peas: ½ cup

Coconut milk: 200 ml (mine came out of a pack)
Tamarind pulp: 2 tbspn (about three dry strips soaked in half a cup of water)
Red chilli powder: ½-1 tsp
Cumin powder: 1 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tbspn
Turmeric: ½-1 tspn
Ginger-garlic paste: 1 tbspn
Salt: To taste

Oil: 1 tsp
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Split, hulled black gram/urad dal: 1 tsp
Curry leaves: 8-10
Dried red chillies: 2

You will need thin coconut milk to cook the veggies – I diluted about a third of the coconut milk with 1-1/2 cups of water.

In a pressure cooker, or a pan, boil vegetables with salt, tamarind extract and thin coconut milk till ¾ done. (In a pressure cooker, this took about three minutes before the weight needs to be put on.)

As that’s cooking, mix the ginger-garlic paste with the cumin, coriander and red chilli powder.

Now, add this to the vegetables and cook for ten minutes. (In a pressure cooker, this could take about 2-3 whistles. Let the pressure drop on its own before you open the cooker.)

Heat the oil, pop the mustard, black gram and the red chillies. Add curry leaves and add this to the curry.

Now add the thick coconut milk and simmer for two or three minutes. You can eat it on its own or with some rice.

Hope you've all put your thinking caps on for Grindless Gravies. The deadline is December 22, that's a whole month more!

Grindless Gravies Coconut milk Mixed Vegetables Vegetarian Vegan Gluten-free

Announcing Grindless Gravies, the Event

So here’s the one-off event I’ve been mulling. Grindless Gravies stems from a day when you really aren’t in the mood for a number of procedures but also want a thick, fulfilling gravy. On some days, I find even the most mechanized of cooking laborious– be it fixing the jar on the blender, filling it with ingredients, waiting, watching and testing to see if the paste is fine enough, and then washing it thoroughly – who wants mango milkshake flavoured with idli batter? Judging from the comments to my previous post, it’s not a bad one and I’m all curious to see how the rules are interpreted and what you all come up with.

A request: Please follow the rules in the spirit rather than the letter (which means that even if you spot loopholes you should ignore them).

Since the food blogosphere is full of events, I’ve decided to give intending participants six weeks to send in their entries. So the last date for entries will be December 22. The host is also giving herself time to do the round-up sometime in the next six weeks ;-)

Here are the guidelines and what you have to do:

1. Please make a thick gravy specifically for this event. You can point to other such dishes on your blog, but the entry itself has to be fresh – just for some fun.

2. No electric grinder, mixer, (hand) blender or food processor or food mill in any form should have been used in the making of the gravy. A quick grating of cheese or onions (or other stuff) is fine but it can’t go on for … more than three minutes, shall we say? The less the labour, the better.

3. You can use packaged/prepared/frozen stuff like ginger-garlic paste, onion paste, tomato puree, spice powders and convenient stuff of that sort to make the dish, but that does not include commercial gravy/curry pastes/powders/mixes that you can just dunk vegetables or meat into to make an instant gravy (the butter masala mix, kolhapuri gravy mix, kadai whatever mix, I’m sure you get what I mean). Nor does it include homemade one-type-suits-all gravy that’s been sitting in the freezer. It can't all be lentils or all curds/yoghurt/all coconut milk (they shouldn't form the bulk of the dish because that makes it too simple and that's no fun - they should be dressed up substantially - please see my On The Gravy Train dish to get what I mean). As I said no dunking veggies or meat in a readymade curry mix and presenting it, I feel compelled to apply the same rule to something where the gravy's overwhelmingly made of one single ingredient so gravies like that are out too! {Sra flees the scene, trying to escape the brickbats and blows ...} It can belong to any cuisine.

4. I don’t mean that you should make the ground equivalents by hand, either. No, you don’t have to make ginger-garlic paste in the pestle and mortar if you don’t have it ready, just find another way to include those ingredients. Paste will take a long time in the p & m, so I usually smash the ginger and the garlic with a lentil masher or the pestle – just one or two thumps should do it. You can even crush the tomatoes with your bare hands. Violent, huh? You can even mash some of the vegetable pieces in the gravy to make it thicker.

6. You could mention the time, the (number of) implements and utensils used for this dish – the fewer the easier the recipe. The gravy can also boil away for as long as you like – if it allows you to catch up with the day’s papers or the news or give yourself a breather, that’s fine. You just don’t have to be in the kitchen watching over the pot, or washing the mixer or assessing paste consistencies.

7. You can send in your entries to srablogATgmailDOTcom. Please say ‘Grindless Gravies’ in the subject. The e-mail should contain the specific link to the dish, your name and blog name. As for photos, please send me a 75 x 75 pixel picture of the dish. I am not computer-savvy, already have a bad wrist and won’t be able to do this myself, please. Your entry will still be included in the round-up, it just won't have the picture.
A link back to this blog/event is necessary.

If you're not a blogger, please mail me the entry with the photo, I'll put it up on my blog with the details.

8. I will do the round-up sometime in the first two weeks of January.

There are a lot of questions, I will add the clarifications here as they come in:

Yes, of course, non-vegetarian, cream and international stuff is allowed

On to my own contribution for this event.

It’s an adaptation of a dish that’s quite new to me, called Gummadikaya Pindi Miriyam (yellow pumpkin with black pepper and flour). From what I understand, this is made with rice flour as one of the thickeners, the other being coconut and ginger, not to mention the mixture of freshly ground coriander, pepper and a smattering of chana daal/split chick peas.

I didn’t have rice flour, omitted the coconut and the chana dal, and used pre-ground spices to make the dish.

Gummadikaya Pindi Miriyam (Yellow Pumpkin with Black Pepper and Chickea Flour)

Yellow pumpkin, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces: 2 cups
Green chillies, chopped: 3, or less
Water: ¾-1 cup-1-1/4 cups
Black pepper, ground: 1 tsp
Cumin, ground: 1 tsp
Coriander, ground: 1 tsp
Turmeric: A pinch
Ginger: 1-inch piece, peeled
Besan/Chick pea flour: 3 tsp
Salt: To taste

Tempering

Oil: 2 tsp
Mustard seed: ¾ tsp
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
Urad dal/Split, hulled black gram: 1 tsp
Red chillies, broken: 2
Asafoetida: A sliver, or a pinch

Coriander/cilantro, chopped: ½ a cup

In a pressure cooker (or a pan), place the pumpkin and the water, season with salt and turmeric and boil till the pumpkin only begins to soften. If you’re using a pressure cooker, just boil it for a couple of minutes – it shouldn’t have boiled just yet.

Now season the vegetable with the ground black pepper, cumin and coriander.

Mash the ginger roughly (I did this with just one blow of the pestle on the chopping board, separated the fibres a bit) and add to the dish. Add the green chillies. Let the pumpkin cook till soft. It should hold its shape, though.

(If you’re using the pressure cooker, now cook under pressure for 3-4 minutes. Let the pressure come down on its own.)

Mix the besan with some water to make a lump-free paste and add it to the curry. Let it boil till thick. Turn off the heat.

In another pan, heat the oil, add the mustard seed, the urad dal, the cumin, the red chillies and the asafetida, in that order. You can even add curry leaves.

Once the urad dal browns and the red chillies just turn colour, turn off the heat and tip into the curry. Garnish with chopped coriander, mix gently.

Happy Deepavali and Season’s Greetings!

Grindless Gravies Event Pumpkin Black pepper Besan Chickpea Flour Vegetarian