Dahi Pohe (दही पोहे) (Flattened rice with curd)

Thick Flattened Rice

We have a saying, if someone offers you poha (any flattened rice dish), you never say no to it. At least eat a spoonful of it. It has relevance of Shree Krisha and his friend Sudama’s friendship story from Hindu Mythology. Stories apart Poha (flattened rice) is staple food in any Maharashtrian household. Be it, kanda pohe, dadape pohe or dahi pohe. Dahi pohe is also called gopal kala, as it is also specially made at the time of Shree Krishn Janamashtami. It is quite similar to curd rice but is a little different. It is filling and easy to make. It can be a breakfast, snack or light dinner as well.

We get 2 different types of poha thick(Jad-जाड) and thin(Patal-पातळ). For dahi pohe we need thick variety.

Ingredients

Jad Pohe - 1 Cup
Curd - ½ Cup
Milk - 2-3 tbsp as needed

Bharali Mirachi

Ghee for tadka - 2 tsp
Curry leaves - 3-4
Bharali mirachi - 1-2 (this is specially stuffed and dried chilli, you can use regular green chilli if you don’t have this)
Salt to taste
Coarsely ground peanut powder (I learned this trick - adding peanut powder from one of my friend)
Fresh coriander to garnish

Recipe

1. Soak poha in water for just a couple of minutes and immediately drain the water from it.
2. Now add salt, peanut powder (if using) and mix it really well
3. Prepare tadaka with ghee, add jeera when ghee is hot enough. Once jeera starts crackling add chillies, curry leaves to it.
4. Now add the tadaka to poha mixture. Let it cool and then add curd and start mixing everything. Add little milk to adjust the consistency. Garnish with cilantro and dahi pohe are ready to serve.

Note

I also use tsp of metkut powder (special maharashtrian mixture, made up of different dals, wheat, rice and spices). It gives really nice flavour and aroma to poha

Bharali Vaangi (भरली वांगी) (Maharashtrian style stuffed eggplants)

Here is an easy-to-make yet delicious, recipe of a special maharashtrian dish. This is a staple dish back in my hometown where we get a really flavorful variety of eggplants known as “Krishna kathachi vangi” (Eggplants grown on banks of Krishna river). Sometimes I love to use the frozen small brinjals that we get in Indian grocery shops. I find them really close to the ones we get back home. I have used goda masala here which is the traditional maharashtrian masala, but you can substitute it with garam masala.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• Vangi/Brinjal/Eggplants - 5-6 medium size
• Onion - 1 small onion finely chopped
• Garlic - 3-4 small cloves of garlic finely chopped/grated
• Roasted peanuts ground coarsely - ¼ cup
• Fresh coconut - ¼ cup
• Fresh coriander finely chopped
• Goda masala - 1 tbsp (If you don’t have it, you can substitute with garam masala)
• Jaggery - 2 tsp 
• Chili powder - 1 tbsp (use more or less according to taste)
• Salt to taste

Recipe

• Wash and slit brinjals into 4 parts without breaking them apart.
• Put them in the water until your masala is ready to stuff them.
• Now mix onions, garlic, peanut powder, fresh coconut with jaggery, chilli powder and salt.
• Mix the masala really well. You can taste it and adjust the spice and salt accordingly before stuffing eggplants.
• Now stuff the eggplants with prepared masala.
• In a heavy bottom pan, heat oil and make the tadaka with mustard seeds. 
• Add hing and turmeric once mustard seeds start crackling.
• Now add stuffed eggplants and stir them for a minute or two.
• Now add remaining masala to it and mix it with eggplants.
• Add little water, just enough to cook the brinjals.
• Cover it with a lid and cook on low flame until brinjals are cooked.
• Garnish with coriander and fresh coconut and serve hot with roti or bhakri.

Note
If you are using frozen eggplants like I said before, then simply mix those eggplant with masala and add everything into tadaka.
Add a tsp of byadagi chili powder or kashimiri chili powder in the tadka for reddish color gravy

Homemade Shrikhand (घरचे श्रीखंड)

My memory attached with this delicacy is getting fresh buffalo milk, making fresh chakka (hung curd) out of it and then making delicious, smooth and sweet shrikhand out of it. I grew up in a small village where we would get everything fresh from dairy to vegetables. So making shrikhand was fun for us. It was hard work to strain the hung curd through muslin cloth with hand. But at the end it was all worth it. I always loved my grandma's hand made shrikhand. For a long time I was hesitant to try readymade shrikhand. So I started making it at home with the same method using some easy steps to replicate the same taste that I used to love.

I set yogurt at home using whole milk. 2 cups of milk gave me around 1 cup of hung curd (चक्का).

Ingredients

1 cup hung curd
¾ cup powdered sugar + ¼ cup if needed
½ tsp cardamom powder
Pinch of nutmeg powder
Pinch of salt

To add the variation
1 tsp saffron (soaked in milk)
1-2 tbsp chopped almond

Recipe

1. Use the muslin cloth to make hung curd yogurt. Hang it overnight to strain all the water and to get nice thick hung curd (चक्का)

2. Use a food mill or simple strainer or you can use your hand to push it through muslin cloth to make the hung curd really smooth without any lumps. Mix sugar while you are doing this step.



3. Now add cardamom powder, nutmeg powder and pinch of salt to taste and your shrikhand is ready.

4. If you feel shrikhand has come out really thick, you can add little milk to get better consistency.

Now for variation add saffron soaked milk and chopped almond.

(You can use mango pulp to make it Aamrakhand)

Solkadhi (सोलकढी)

Most refreshing maharashtrian drink that goes very well with Misal. I have posted fusion recipe for this solkadhi earlier, using cranberry juice. This is my sister's recipe.

Ingredients

2 cup freshly grated coconut
1/4 cup kokum (आमसूल) soaked in water for at least 1 hour
Green chili 1 or 2
Garlic cloves 3-4 small
Salt as per taste
Chopped coriander


Recipe

1. Soak kokum in water and keep it aside for at least one hour

2. In a mixie jar add grated coconut, chilies and garlic with 1 cup of water and blend it to get smooth paste. Then strain the paste to get freash coconut milk.

3. This step can be repeated for couple more times to get all the coconut milk out of grated coconut

4. Now squeeze the kokum to extract the juices.

5. In a bowl mix coconut milk and kokum concentrate. Add salt to taste and stir well. Taste the solkadhi and adjust the seasoning and garnish with fresh coriander.

6. Solkadhi is ready. It can be served at room temperature or cold.


Tips

1. It goes very well with Misal.
2. You can use ready-to-use kokum concentrate and coconut milk available in the market.

Kolhapuri Misal (कोल्हापुरी मिसळ)

I have been planning to post this recipe, ever since I started this food blog. One of the special kolhapuri recipes that I learnt from my mom. I got the chance to write and post it, while she is making it.

Ingredients for cut/rassa (कट/रस्सा) masala (ओला मसाला)

Fresh grated coconut 1 cup
Onion 1 medium
Garlic cloves 8-10 small
Ginger 1 inch
Black paper 7-8
Clove 5-6
Dalchini 1 inch
Sesame seeds 2 tbsp
Coriander seeds 2 tsp
Cumin seeds 2 tsp
Fresh Coriander 2 tbsp

Other ingredients

Oil 5-6 tbsp
Salt to taste
Chilli powder to taste
Diced onion 2 big
Sprouted moth beans (Mataki) (मोड आलेली मटकी) 1 cup
Potato 4 small
Shev-chivada (शेवचिवडा)* as required 

For garnish:
Finely chopped onion
Finely chopped Coriander
Lemon pieces or juice 

* It's a Kolhapur specialty and not available everywhere. It looks like this, so you can replace it with similar products.

Recipe

1. Cook mataki and potato in a cooker, roughly chop potato and keep it aside.

For Cut/rassa(कट)

2. In a mixie jar, add all the masala ingredients with water as required and grind it to fine paste.
3. Heat oil in a deep pan and add onion. Fry onion till it changes color.
4. Add masala paste. Cook the masala till oil separates.

5. Add Chilli powder at this stage. Cook for another 1 or 2 minutes and add enough water to it and simmer it really well for around 6-8 minutes.

7. Add salt to taste. 

Cut/rassa is ready.

Serving the misal


1. In a bowl mix cooked potato, mataki (about 1 tablespoon each) and shevchivada(शेवचिवडा) (about 2 tablespoon). 
2. Add cut/rassa. 
3. Garnish with finely chopped onion,coriander and fresh lemon juice. 
4. Serve with slice of bread.


Tip
You can make mataki usual (मटकी उसळ) and dry potato bhaji(बटाटा भाजी) instead of using them just plain cooked.

Rava cake (semolina cake)

A very simple, delicious cake, perfect to go with tea or coffee. My mom is making this cake since our childhood. This is her easy to make recipe. She used to bake this cake with sand oven technique or sometimes without sand. So you can bake this cake without oven as well.

Ingredients

Rava 1 1/2 cup
Sugar 1 1/2 cup

Curd 1 cup
Milk 1 cup
Butter 1 cup (use white Indian butter, if it's available)
Baking soda 1/4 tsp
Pinch of salt
Tutti fruity 2-4 tbsp (optional)

Recipe

1. Mix all the above ingredients except tutti fruity in a mixing bowl and keep it aside for at least four hours.

2. Now preheat oven on 180 degree Celsius(350 degree Fahrenheit). Grease the baking dish with butter.

3. Fill the baking dish 3/4 and bake it for 15-17 minutes.
(If you are using tutti fruity, add to the batter at this stage)

4. Check if it's done. Let it cool and then serve.

Milk Mava Powder Modak (खवा पावडर मोदक)

Every year when I visit my friends’ place for ganpati, I try to make homemade “prasad” to offer bappa. This year I made these super easy milk mava powder modak. It hardly takes half an hour to make these sweet delicious modaks. I have made them in four different flavours. You can customise them as per your choice of flavour.

Ingredients

Makes 5-6 modak

For Chocolate modak
Milk mava powder 1 cup
Cocoa powder 1 tsp
Milk ½ cup + 2 tbsp
Powdered Sugar ¾ cup, add more or less as required

For Rose modak
Milk mava powder 1 cup
Rose syrup 2 tbsp
Milk ¼ cup
Powdered Sugar 1-2 tbsp if required, as rose syrup is already sweet

For Kesar modak
Milk mava powder 1 cup
Milk ½ cup
Kesar strands ½ tsp, add them to milk and keep it aside to release flavour and color
Powdered Sugar ¾ cup

Recipe (same for all)

1. Mix milk mava powder and milk and make lump free paste in a pan. (for chocolate flavour add cocoa powder and extra milk)

2. Cook on a medium flame till it starts to come together and starts to become dry. It takes around 8-10 mins.

3. Take it out from flame and add sugar and mix. Let it cool down. 

4. Now you can use modak mould to make modak.