Indians and their love for lentils and beans is known worldwide. Most homes in India cook some kind of lentil or beans everyday. The dishes in North India and South India, basically my in laws and my mom’s family cook are very similar, except for the modes of cooking.
Being from Rajasthan, we cook more of mung, chana, chanwle, chhole where as, my in laws cooked more of whole mung, toovar and horse gram. Now don’t get me wrong, its not that my mother in law never cooked yellow mung, but it wasn’t cooked like Toovar, which is cooked in 4 different varieties in the house. Where as, my mom only used Toovar daal for khichdi or for making sambhar. All great beans and lentils and so many varieties and I consider myself really fortunate that I have the honor to learn all these great dishes. Its not just a delight to cook them all and enjoy a huge variety, but its a great pleasure to be able to share them all with the world.
Getting back to Chanwle or Black eyed beans. This dish is my own creation and I have a beautiful story attached to it. Mr. Parveez had not tried Chanwle, except at restaurants. So, once we happened to be eating some north Indian thaali and chanwle made their way to one of the foods served. They were cooked lightly in mild spice and had an amazing taste. I, then mentioned to my better half that I have grown eating these beans and since he likes I would love to cook them at home. My next trip to the grocery store had chanwle in the list. I knew I had to soak and boil them, and I thought I would ask my mom for the recipe, not realizing that the time I started cooking dinner in USA, my mom was sleeping in India. The soaked and boiled chanwle looked at me with high hopes of being cooked for dinner and that’s when I made up my own recipe, which was loved by my husband and kids.
I will share my mom’s recipe too on this site. Meanwhile, this recipe is simple, amazing and super delicious and healthy.
The value of eating vegetables is something most of us realize after getting older, specially after having kids. This is the time you understand why your mom took all those strict routes of making you eat Bhindi, turai and patta gobhi. In my case, I always threw a fit when my mom made cabbage or patta gobhi but, since I wasn’t a big fan of Okra/ lady finger/Bhindi either, I had to pick my battle and would normally give in with cabbage.
It was my teen age when I actually started enjoying cabbage and I remember that my mom started adding grated carrot and peas to the cabbage which changed the taste from the tradtional cabbage curry and added a lot more flavor to the dish.
This cabbage curry is my mom’s recipe. There is no onion or garlic added to it. My boys love it and its one of the few ways to serve the greens in a delicious way.
Bissibhelebhaath is a traditional breakfast dish from the southern part of India.
We love curries and specially curries that aren’t made commonly. One such curry is Beetroot. While growing up, Beetroot only made it to our salads, with time I found that people even make pickles out of Beetroot. And, then after I got married, I found that its a pretty popular curry in my new home.
Like all vegetable curries, Beetroot also has loads of unique ways of being cooked. My MIL makes her Beetroot by cooking it with spices and coconut puree, which is amazingly delicious as well. I still remember when Mr. Parveez told me one of his childhood stories about Beetroot. As a kid, he would sometimes take this curry to school and since Beetroot left a little red color on his tongue and he would run around telling his school mates that he had blood for lunch…LOLzzz. Childhood is the best life we live and the memories are so fond and extremely special. The most fascinating part is us remembering everything by looking at things around us….I always love sharing these little stories, after all, every food has a story.
This recipe is one of my experiments with both my favorite veggies, Beetroot and Bell pepper.
Chicken baida roti is an easy and scrumptious dish that can be served as a snack or light lunch. Chicken stuffed in the roti, folded into a square and cooked until crispy. Chicken Baida is similar to Katlamma. Chicken keema cooked with the spices and stuffed in the paratha. Its great by itself, without any sides or serve it with chutney. It is an excellent kids lunch box option. The stuffing and dough can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator and make it into a parantha the next morning for a lovely school lunch.
It makes an excellent Sunday/ holiday lunch for me. My kids and hubby love it. Even this is a favorite on play dates when my boys have their friends over. So make it, its easy and will be loved by all ages….
When I first moved to USA, after being married, this dish was one of the initial kebabs I started making as a side dish with dal chawal. I would even make it as an appetizer when we had guests over. One of the easiest and family loved recipe. The kids love it too and its great to be served as a Sunday Brunch or a play date.
This recipe is a gift from Mr. Parveez…yupp!! You read it right. My blunder savior, my better half and I have a pact, according to which I never try cooking what he makes and vice versa. But this recipe was simple yet delicious that he had to share the recipe since it had to be made every other day in the house.
This recipe was invented by my husband, Muyeen. During his bachelor and happy days, he would do a lot of food experiments. This dish was one of those and the name comes after my mother in law’s home made masala that she invented for her famous daal.
This recipe is crowd pleaser and the flavors are so simple, yet so easy to impress a top class chef. For making this dish in more varieties, contact me.
