Sweet Potato Spicy Soup

Winter days always bring to mind, images of my older sister, wrapped cosily in a blanket, on a “charpoy” (rope cot) placed on the lush green lawn, sunning herself after a wonderful lunch.

Those were the days we used to live in Jodhpur, a city in the desert state of Rajasthan. Summers in Rajasthan were usually spent indoors to avoid the frequent sandstorms and blistering heat. But we invariably spent the winters outdoors taking in the sun!

The winter sun in Jodhpur was warm without being too hot and bright without being too dazzling. And Sunday afternoons in winter were meant for dozing in the sun, replete after a great meal. Winter meals too, were different from summer meals. Summer meals were light and cooling with lots of liquids and juices. In winter though, we could indulge in the winter vegetables that were available in plenty: the squashes, pumpkins, the gourds and the sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes were our favorite dish for the winter. They were usually brought in fresh from the fields with the mud still sticking to them, by the local farmers pushing their hand carts.

Sweet potatoes are one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat. They contain almost twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin C, four times the RDA for beta carotene, and when eaten with the skin, sweet potatoes have more fiber than oatmeal. All these benefits for only about 130 to 160 calories!

In honor of my sister, here is a recipe for a sweet and spicy winter soup: this is a low calorie, zero fat meal by itself. It is also very quick and easy-to-make. Serve with bread or just eat it hot off the stove!

Here is what you need:
1 large sweet potato
1/4 cup pink lentils
1 habanero or jalapeno (optional – beware the habanero is very spicy!)
2 medium sized tomatoes
2 – 3 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chili powder (if you are omitting the habanero or jalapeno)
1 tsp turmeric powder

Here is how you make this:
Wash and chop the sweet potato. Do not remove the skin. Wash the pink lentils. Add everything in a large pot and cook until the sweet potatoes and pink lentils are soft. Serve hot.

Spiced Yogurt Rice – Thair Sadam

People in some communities in Southern India, usually eat a 3-course meal for lunch everyday. Now, this information could probably make you wonder how they manage to keep slim. But that is a long story meant for another blog post.

They generally start off with rice, vegetables and a spicy tamarind sauce called “sambar“, pronounced “saaam-baaar” and made with tamarind, lentils, some vegetables and a special spice mix called, guess what? sambar powder!

My mother makes the sambar powder at home in huge quantities so she can provide a year’s supply to me and my sisters. The 2nd course is another spicy sauce in soup-like consistency made in a large variety of flavors. This is called “rasam“.

The grand finale of the meal is the most important “thair sadam” pronounced “thaaa-yir saaadam” or yogurt and rice. If one is in a hurry and has no time for the 3-course meal, the first two courses may be omitted. But no responsible Indian housewife will let her child or husband go out the door before filling their stomachs with thair sadam. It is considered the panacea of all illnesses, the most complete and healthy dish.

Now, on a day-to-day basis, South Indians will just ladle home-made yogurt onto rice, mix and eat it with some pickle or vegetable of the day. But there are times when the same bland thair sadam is made into a festive dish. Today’s recipe is this festive thair sadam. I made this with brown rice, but feel free to try it with either white or brown rice. If you’ve been following my blog so far, you’ll probably know that I am a big fan of brown rice, but this is one rice dish that I would recommend you try with white rice first, since it tastes simply fantastic!

Eat and enjoy with the crisp curried potatoes or the green beans. This recipe is dedicated to my friend, Jeff, since this is one of his favorite dishes.

Here is what you need:
1 cup cooked rice (white or brown) (make sure the rice is a bit overcooked and very tender)
1 1/2 cups thick unsweetened yogurt
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar (optional)

To Garnish:
1 tsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp split, peeled urad dal (optional)
1 pinch asofoetida powder
1 habanero or jalapeno pepper (chopped fine) (optional, if you dont like spicy food)
1 sprig curry leaves

Here is how you make this:
Cool rice completely after it is cooked. Mix in the yogurt, salt and sugar. Heat oil in a pan. When oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait until they crackle and add chopped habanero pepper. Fry until crisp. Now add the curry leaves. Fry until crisp. Add urad dal and brown. Add asofoetida powder and take the pan off the stove.

Pour garnish over the yogurt rice and serve with crisp curried potato or green beans.

Greening the Green Beans!

I love green beans, but dislike them when they are fried out of recognition, as is often done in Indian cooking. I especially love the way my mother cuts them – chopped really fine. When you chop green beans really fine, you need to stir fry it for just a few minutes on high heat to bring out the flavor, retain the color and texture and serve it as an accompaniment par excellence – a true gourmet delight!

My mother usually adds a finely chopped carrot to green beans – it makes the dish visually appealing as well as more nutritionally dense. Without much ado, here is the recipe – serve with brown or white rice and any sauce – sambar, rasam, or even with yogurt. This dish has just 1 tsp of olive oil. Low fat, crunchy, flavorful, yummy, and very healthy! Yeah – green beans!

Here is what you need:

1 lb fresh green beans (pick the tender ones which look green and fresh)

1/2 carrot (chopped fine)

1 jalapeno pepper (chopped fine) (optional)

1 habanero pepper (chopped fine) (optional)

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp urad dal (optional, if you cannot lay your hands on this – but it gives a great crunch to the beans)

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 pinch asofoetida powder (helps control the flatulence that beans are known to cause)

2 tbsp fresh grated coconut

1 tsp Olive oil

Here is how you make this:

Rinse thoroughly and chop the green beans fine, as shown the picture. Wash and chop the carrot. In a pan, heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait until the seeds crackle and then add the chopped peppers and fry until crisp. Frying peppers crisp will make them less spicy. Now add the urad dal and brown on low flame. Now add the chopped green beans and carrot. Add salt and turmeric powder. Cover and cook for a couple of minutes. Now stir fry uncovered on high heat for a couple of minutes. Do not overcook. Take off the stove and garnish with grated coconut.

Serve with rice and rasam or rice and yogurt.

Enjoy!

Collar the Collard!

If you are not like my husband, you’ll probably love to eat your salads. And if you are like most people (including me!), you’ll also probably smother those salads with dressings to mask the taste of raw greens and console yourself that some nutrients are getting into your body!

Now, there are some greens that I cannot eat raw in a salad. One of those are the Collard greens. I love them, but simply cannot eat them raw, even if smothered with the aforementioned dressings. I especially love them because they are chock-full of nutrients.

Collard greens are rich in sulfur containing phyto-nutrients that help prevent cancer and produce detoxifying enzymes in the body. These enzymes also cleanse the system. This vegetable is a calcium, vitamin K, A, C and Manganese-laden antioxidant-rich member of the cabbage family.

What more can one want?… hmm… Maybe that it tastes fantastic when eaten?

So here is a Jaya’s original recipe, just for you. This recipe is very healthy – made with just 1 tsp oil. The combination of habaneros and cranberries in this recipe makes it a naturally sweet, partially tart, partially spicy, smooth tasting dish. The perfect, authentic, sweet and sour dish!

Please feel free to share this recipe. As noted in the copyright listed on the site, all I ask is that you indicate the source and share the link to this site.

Here is what you need:
1 bunch fresh Collard greens
1 habenero pepper (chopped finely)(I use the orange variety, but feel free to substitute with red or chocolate habaneros)
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp oil
1 tsp sour cream (optional)

Here is how you make this:
Wash and chop the Collard greens. Blanch in hot water. Drain. Place in a blender with salt and blend until smooth.

Heat a pan on the stove and place the 1 tsp oil. When the oil is hot, add the cumin seeds and brown lightly. Now add the chopped habanero and fry until crisp. Tip: Fry the habanero really crisp if you just want the flavor but not much of the spice. Frying well will make it less spicy. Now add the cranberries and stir fry for about a minute. Now add the Collard green puree and simmer for a few minutes.

Garnish with sour cream and serve hot over brown rice.

Fiiiiiirrrrrrre!

Back in the 80′s and 90′s, when I used to live in the great city of Chennai, in India, we did everything Americans are now trying to do in the name of going Green. The vegetables we bought were  locally grown, organic (because farmers found pesticides expensive at that time), and we patronized small farmers. I am not going to pretend that we did this consciously out of some concern for the planet. No, we patronized the small farmers because that’s what was available to us. One benefit from doing this, which, I only realized after moving to the US and shopping in large grocery stores, was that the vegetables were succulent, fresh, very very tasty and enticing.

But one of the fallouts of doing so was that I had never at that time, seen some vegetables that are usually available in other parts of the world. For instance, I had not seen an avocado, a red, organge or yellow pepper (green peppers were available), a tomatillo, and all those multitude of greens and pumpkins that are available in the US.

So, when I moved to the US and saw a red pepper for the first time, and looked at the price (which was three times the price of a green pepper), I wondered what it was about a red pepper that made it so pricey. And then, it dawned on me when I tasted slivers of it smothered in a guacamole dip at a friend’s place.

Fresh red peppers taste crunchy, juicy, and delectable. Along with taste, red peppers are packed with nutrients – Vitamin C, A, carotenoids and anti-oxidants. And so, started my quest for adapting Indian recipes to use red pepper.

I made a brown rice venn pongal the other day – (I know, I know, it is an oxymoron because the word “venn” in tamil means white! But you’ll see tomorrow what I mean by Brown rice venn pongal.) The brown rice pongal is a totally satisfying, filling, guilt-free rice dish. The flavors are subtle but definitely bland. So I rooted through my fridge to look for something to make an accompaniment to go with the bland brown rice pongal and hit upon the Red Pepper Gotsu.

Here it is, for your pleasure, with my compliments. As usual, I have cut down on the oil and this too, is made with just 1 tsp oil.

Try it and let me know how you like it. But be warned, this dish can be fiery – it is meant to be eaten with a bland main dish. You can, of course, tone it down to suit your taste, but I will provide the recipe as I made it.

Here’s what you need:
Red peppers – 2 (chopped)
Red onion – 1 large (sliced thin)
Orange Habanero peppers – 2  (cut fine) – (cut this out if you would like to tone this down in spice)
Ginger – 1″ piece (grated fine)
Salt -  tsp
Red chili powder – 1 tsp (reduce this if you want to tone this down)
Black mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
Tamarind paste – 1/2 tsp
Olive oil – 1 tsp
Water – 1/2 cup

Heat olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, place the mustard seeds. Wait until the seeds crackle and add the habanero peppers and grated ginger. Stir fry for a minute until the habaneros are fried crisp. Now add the slivered onions. Fry for a minute. Add the red peppers and stir fry for another minute.  Dissolve the tamarind paste in water and add it to the pan. Add salt, red chili powder and cook on high for 3-4 minutes.

Remove from fire and serve with brown rice pongal.

Check back tomorrow for the sumptuous  Brown rice pongal recipe!