Kothimbir Vadi / Savory Coriander snack

Kothimbir Vadi is a popular starter / snack from Maharashtra. Kothimbir means coriander leaves in Marathi and vadi means wedges.  Coriander is chopped and steamed along with prepared chickpea flour and other spices. After it is steamed it is cut into desired shapes. At this point it can be eaten as is. But I like it when it is shallow fried in some oil. The lightly crisped edges along with toasted sesame seeds, take it to a whole new level. It tastes very good when eaten along with green chutney, or tamarind chutney or even ketchup.  It is a great…

Easy Apple Kheer

Every time, I visit the produce section in the local grocery, the wide varieties of apples there on display catches my attention. With different sizes and colors they are a treat for the eyes. This time around the grocery had a sale on red delicious apples and I splurged and brought more than necessary.  I had a good bit of apples left in the pantry and with some I made the easy Apple crisp. And with the remaining ones I had idea of making either apple halwa or apple kheer. I finally settled for the kheer as it seemed much…

Spicy Broken Wheat Pongal/ Dalia Khichidi

Pongal is a famous tiffin item in South India. It is usually made of rice and moong daal in a pressure cooker with appropriate seasonings. I mostly make it with rice the traditional way, on occasions I make it with rava (Rava Pongal) but this time I made this Spicy Pongal using broken wheat/dalia.  I had a packet of broken wheat lying in the pantry for a long time and was looking for ways of using it. I have tried some kheer with it before, but have not used it much in regular cooking. After looking around on the web,…

Bhel Puri Recipe

Bhel Puri is a combination of puffed rice along with vegetables and spicy, tangy chutney/auce. This is the most commonly sold chaat/fast food in many places in India. It is a snack with an iconic status in Western India. Bhelpuri is low-fat, delicious and eay to make!  After a long day at work, or on days when I have no mood to cook, we have Bhel Puri for dinner. I store all the dry ingredients in the pantry, the chutney in the fridge and we just combine all these to whip up a delectable “khatta-meetha-theeka” light dinner. On the last…

Easy Corn Bread

I remember years ago when we had taken a road trip to Austin, we were tired, hungry and were craving for something warm and hearty. It was dark and colder than the usual and with no many choices on hand we reluctantly stopped at a local café located on the highway. However we were in for a treat, when we tasted their corn bread along with hot black bean soup. We had never tasted such cornbread before, hot, moist and delicious it totally worth the stop we made there.  Again in our recent trip, we tried to locate that place,…

Cabbage Coconut Curry/ Cabbage Kootu

I vaguely remember eating this daal curry at a friend’s place years ago. Her mom had made this for lunch, and she had served it very lovingly. This recipe was new to me then and I recall having taken generous serving of this yummy curry. In Konkani cuisine we have quite a few varieties of daal curries, but they use red chillies for making the coconut masala while this uses green. I had made a mental note of the recipe and now I make it often though substituting cabbage with vegetable I have on hand.  This recipe well suits our…

Konkani Undi/ Steamed Rice dumpling

Blame it on the winter season, but lately I have been on the lookout for ‘chatpata’ steamed food that can be made ‘zhatpat’. One some really cold days, I don’t care for heavy meals, but feel like nibbling on some warm finger food along with hearty soup. So while on quest for such recipes on the net I landed on Lakshmi Canteen a wonderful blog which is a store house of tradition Konkani recipes.  When I looked at her “Undi recipe, I froze as I had completely forgotten about it. It is a well loved breakfast/snack dish our favorite and…