Aayi’s Recipes Konkan/Konkani food blog, Indian culinary treasures

I am a pickle lover, I cannot have my lunch/dinner without a pickle. While in India, I had a steady supply of awesome pickles from aayi. After coming here, for about 2 years, I relied on our occasional India trips for the supply. I even bought ready made ones couple of times, which were not even close to what aayi makes. Then I started making my own. I must have made my red and yellow lemon pickles atleast 5 times this year. Everytime we finished them in no time. I made a new batch again about 3 weeks ago, while that is getting done, I needed some other option.

So I made another of my favorite pickles – tomato pickle. The recipe is almost same as my earlier recipe. Every time I make this, I slightly modify the recipe to see if it works. Last time, I changed the spice powder to use our standard Konkani spice paste of asafoetida, mustard, fenugreek. I also gave a seasoning of curry leaves. It had a very different taste. This time, I took the seasoning to a new level by adding 1 tbl spn of freshly made ginger paste(I did not take the pictures this time, Please refer my other tomato pickle recipe for pictures). We loved this gingery taste to the pickle.

Ingredients:
1/2 kg tomatoes
1 + 1 tea spn mustard seeds
1/4 tea spn fenugreek seeds
1/2 tea spn asafoetida
1/2 tea spn turmeric
50 gms red chilli powder
10 curry leaves
1 tea spn thick tamarind paste
1 tbl spn ginger paste
50-100gms salt

Method:
Heat oil and fry 1 tea spn mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida taking care not to burn.
Switch off heat and add asafoetida, chili powder and turmeric (stand away from the pan, the strong chili aroma might burn your nose).
Cool to room temperature and powder them together.
In a big thick bottomed or non stick pan, heat 1 tea spn oil. Add all chopped tomatoes and salt.
Cook on a high heat, mixing once in a while to avoid sticking. When all the tomatoes look mashed down, add tamarind. Cook for another 5-10mins.
Add the ground powders. Mix well. Let it cook for another 10mins.
In another pan, heat a little oil. Add remaining mustard seeds. When they start popping, add curry leaves and ginger paste. Fry for few minutes and add this to the pickle. Mix well.
Cool to room temperature and then store in air tight container.
It can be consumed immediately, but it tastes great after 2-3 days. Keep it refrigerated. Remains good for 3-4months.

PS: I usually make my pickles a bit more salty as salt acts as a preservative. But my advise would be to start with 50gms of salt and check if that works out for you. It also depends on the kind of salt you are using. Usually after 2-3 days when the salt seeps in, the actual flavors of pickle can be tasted.

While growing up in coastal India, we always had luxury of getting very fresh fish. Though I don’t miss it much, V misses the Sunday fish lunches very much. So last time when we went to buy fish, I remembered a baked fish which I had seen on TV many times. We came home with Halibut (Please do not ask me what is this fish called in one of Indian languages, I have no idea).

This was the first time we tasted this fish and I just made up the recipe from what I remembered watching on Food Network sometime ago. It came out delicious. I served it with fettuccine pasta with white sauce. It made a nice dinner.

Its mostly a method, not an exact recipe, you can change, mix and match ingredients to suit your taste.

Baked Halibut:
Preheat the oven at 300F for about 10mins.
Take the halibut piece on a parchment paper or silver foil.
Season generously with salt and pepper.

In a bowl, mix together onion, tomato, chopped garlic, chopped black olives, red pepper flakes, chopped jalapeños, red pepper flakes and little salt.
Pile about 2 tbl spns of mixture on the fish piece. Top with few fresh basil leaves.

Fold the foil/paper over the fish.

Bake in the hot oven at 300F for about 30-40mins or till the fish is completely cooked.

Serve with pasta.

I haven’t been cooking anything new lately. That explains the quiet here. Today when I was checking pictures on my laptop, I saw many that I am yet to post. So I thought of posting them before I forget the recipes. Sorry for not being able to take any new recipe requests or not being able to reply to emails/queries. Aayi got her computer/internet problems fixed recently, so I am hoping she would be able to post somethings here (if she finds time).

Snakegourd (paddale/padwale in Konkani) was one of my favorite vegetables while growing up. The staple at my home, with this vegetable was padwale randayi. I wanted to try something different this time and I made these. I had tasted them few years ago at a friend’s place in Belgaum. I don’t have her recipe, so I created my own version. It was yumm.

Ingredients:
1 tender snakegourd (about 10-12 pieces)
Oil

Stuffing:
1/2 cup onion
1/2 cup tomato
1 tea spn chilli powder
A pinch turmeric
1 tea spn garlic chopped
1 tea spn ginger chopped
2 tbl spn fresh/frozen coconut
1/2 tea spn garam masala
1/4 tea spn amchoor powder(optional)
Salt

Method:
Cut the snake gourd into about 2 inch round pieces. Cut open each piece on one side and remove all the seeds.
In a bowl, mix all the stuffing ingredients (all of them are used raw).
Stuff the stuffing into snake gourd pieces.
In a thick bottomed pan (or non stick pan), add a little oil. Keep the stuffed snakegourds, if there is any stuffing remaining, add that on top. Add 1/4 cup water, cover a cook on a very low heat. If required, you can gently move them around, but be careful not to break any of the pieces. Instead of cooking in a pan, you can even cook in cooker to same some time.

Serves : 2-3
Preparation time : 30-45mins