Salads/Kosambaris Archives

Potato-Coconut Chutney (Batate Kosambari)

3 Comments / Konkani Recipes, Salads/Kosambaris / By Shilpa

Wish you all a very happy new year 2017.

The highlight of 2016 for me was having my parents visit us here in Kansas. They stayed here for 2 months. We had the best time and food. Aayi cooked all my favorites from my childhood. Kids had a fantastic time with grand parents – It was awesome to see the kids running behind aabbu(grand dad) all day long. We took them to all our favorite restaurants. I wish they could stay more but the winter was making me nervous. We were also trying to think about some old/new recipes to post here. This batate kosambari was one such recipe.

Aayi has very fond memories of eating it while she was growing up. This is her grandmom’s recipe. This is a very easy recipe with few ingredients like most of the Konkani recipes. The raw onions give it a nice crunch. We loved eating it with rice and dalithoy while aayi talked about her grandmom.

Pictorial:
Make the chutney with minimum water needed. Then mix with potatoes and onion.

Potato-Coconut Chutney (Batate Kosambari)

Batate Kosambari is boiled potatoes and raw onions mixed in a spicy coconut chutney.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 10

Total Time 20

Servings 3 -4

Ingredients

2 big boiled potatoes peeled and chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut
3-4 red chillies
A small piece of tamarind
Salt

Instructions

Grind coconut, chillies, tamarind, salt into smooth chutney using very little water.
Mix potatoes, onions with chutney.
Serve with dalithoy or any simple dal and rice.

Fenugreek Leaves Salad (Methi Hasi Palya)

6 Comments / Salads/Kosambaris / By Naveen

Fenugreek leaves are used in variety of dishes in Indian cuisine. In few recipes, they form base and in some other they are just used to give distinct flavor. In any case, they are of great nutritional value and if cooked in appropriate way, they become part of healthy diet. Needless to mention, healthy dish can be a tasty one too. In this category of ‘healthy and tasty’ dishes, this Fenugreek Salad(Methi palya) has remained our favorite for quite some time now.

We have learnt this from a close North Karnataka friend’s family. This friend of mine, hardly likes our traditional dishes, due to his inherent dislike for coconut. However irony is we like everything that is made in their kitchen! Their cuisine has fewer dishes but each dish is made to perfection. Generally in any North Karnataka thali, its a practice to serve few Fenugreek leaves by side. But this dish goes extra mile, as its leaves remain raw and crunchy. The dish by itself is very tasty and competes for top spot on their thali, along with traditional Ennegaayi, Kalu, Mirchi Bajji and Gurellu powder. Just because leaves are not cooked, its always referred as Hasi Palya(raw side-dish) in their home.

We have learnt this from them and in this version, we have made one modification. Please refer to Notes for as authentic version as theirs.

Pictorial:
Wash and spread methi on a paper. Chop them.

Grind onions, coriander leaves, chillies, curry leaves, garlic.

Make the seasoning and then add the paste to it. Let it cool to room temperature and then mix with methi leaves.

Fenugreek Leaves Salad (Methi Hasi Palya)

Fenugreek leaves salad with a dressing of freshly ground spice paste

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 2

Total Time 17

Servings 3 -4

Ingredients

1 bunch of fresh Fenugreek leaves
2 tbsp oil
Salt as desired.

For tampering:

1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp cumin seeds jeera
1 tbsp urad dal
1 tbsp chana dal
1 tsp turmeric powder

For grinding:

3 green chillies
6-7 garlic cloves
1/2 cup onion
2-3 strands coriander leaves
3-5 Curry leaves

Instructions

Cut and separate roots of Fenugreek bunch, wash leaves, drain and spread over either a paper or dry cloth. This step is very important to get crunchy texture to dish. We need to ensure we get leaves, without any water.
Chop onion and grind ingredients mentioned above, into smooth paste. No need to add water while grinding.
In a thick bottomed vessel heat oil and add ingredients mentioned. Fry them till they start to splutter.
Add paste prepared earlier and fry till raw smell goes off and oil starts separating. Ensure turmeric is added bit later, to avoid burning.
Allow it to cool. Add 1 tsp of salt or as desired.
Chop Fenugreek leaves and mix with earlier mixture. Its advisable to mix when you are about to serve to retain freshness of Fenugreek leaves.
Serve at this stage along with rice and curry or Jowar roti and Ennegaayi.

Notes

Instead of grinding onion in to paste, you may shallow fry finely chopped onion along with other ingredients for tampering. This may require little more oil and hence we have used onion, while grinding.

Beetroot Salad (Beetroot Kosambari / Kosambir)

2 Comments / Healthy Options, Salads/Kosambaris, Simple and Easy / By Naveen

Some of these kind of recipes are not “Aayis recipes” in strict sense. These kind of dishes are quick to prepare and very helpful for office goers when they return and obliged to cook. They are ready almost in no time. It is non-traditional in the sense, perhaps invented as per need but quite healthy as no oil involved and no cooking needed. In other words, perhaps these kinds of dishes will become ‘Aayis recipes’ of next generation!! This one comes into our family from one of our cousins and off late a regular side dish.

Ingredients:
4-5 green chillies
One beetroot (approx 1 cup grated)
A bowl of curd(yogurt)
2 onions
Salt

Method:

Slit green chillies, chop onions, add half tea spoon of salt and mix well.

To this add grated beetroot. Mix curd and serve. For few minutes you may keep in refrigerator if required. However any dish that has salt and raw chopped onions is likely to leave out water. So it is best to serve once you mix.
This goes well with dal rice.

Serves : 2
Preparation time : 10mins

PS: – If you do not like raw onions, leave it out and add a seasoning could be added to the above to give it a different taste. To make the seasoning, heat a little oil, add mustard, when it starts popping, add urad dal, curry leaves and little asafoetida. Pour this over the salad.

Orange Salad

5 Comments / Salads/Kosambaris, Simple and Easy / By Shilpa

Few days ago, I asked you all to suggest some recipes that I could post here. I got many requests for salads. It is one of those areas that I have not ventured much. Salad for me was something quick, where I threw in lettuce and some other things like cucumbers, tomatoes and added store bought dressing. Very recently, I started making my own salad dressing. Now, any salad I see online asks for a new ingredient – balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar etc. I am not very comfortable buying so many different ingredients which will sit in my refrigerator forever. So I keep looking for simple ingredients that are already in my fridge. Yesterday, I wanted to use up some oranges and blueberries which I had bought on my recent shopping trip. The child in the house refused to eat those fruits although he usually loves them. I prepared this orange salad and it came out better than I expected. So I decided to post it here.

Ingredients:
3 cups chopped lettuce
1 cup peeled orange sections
2 tbl spn raisins
1/4 cup blueberries
Few shavings of Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper

For dressing(all measures are approximates, change according to taste):
Take 1/8 cup fresh orange juice, 2 tbl spn extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 tea spn red chilli flakes, 1 tbl spn honey, 1 tea spn vinegar (I used distilled vinegar), salt. Blend all.

Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl and add the dressing. Toss the salad.
Serve.

Serves : 2-3

Raita with Chutney Pitto (Powder)

2 Comments / Baby/Kid friendly, Salads/Kosambaris, Simple and Easy / By Shilpa

Few weeks ago, we had been to a week long trip to South Dakota. We had rented a house there and we cooked most of the meals at home. Since 3 families went together, the food became a little more elaborate than what I usually make on any trips.Â I took a pack of freshly made peanut chutney powder, my plan was to eat it with rice. My friends mom, who also came with us, prepared this easy but delicious raita with chutney pitto. Although I was a bit skeptical when she mentioned this, I became an instant fan when I tasted this. After coming home, I tried it again. This time, I asked Ishaan to make it and he was very excited. Although, it is not actually a recipe. I thought of posting it here, it is a fun thing to do for kids and tastes great.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup grated cucumber
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1-2 tbl spn peanut chutney powder
1 cup yogurt
Salt

Method:

Mix all the ingredients and serve.

Mint – Onion Chutney (Pudina – Kanda Chutney)

22 Comments / Chutneys and bhajis, Salads/Kosambaris, Side dishes / By Shilpa

I wanted to post this recipe for a long time. This was a regular with chicken biryani at my pachi’s (aayi’s sister) home. It has been over a decade and I still remember the awesome taste of this combination. Somehow I have not prepared this very often, I kept forgetting to get the exact recipe from pachi. But that changed when I was in India this time.

I have a strong dislike for raw onions and my family knows this very well – I still watch in awe when Ishaan, who is a picky eater, loves to eat raw onions!. All my life, aayi prepared (still prepares) two versions of any dishes that involved raw onions. So she was very surprised when I called up my pachi to get this recipe and prepared it. Here the onions are mixed very well with lemon and salt that takes out the strong bite/smell of the onions (atleast that is my explanation for liking this chutney!). I absolutely love this chutney with any pulavs/biryanis. This even tastes good with rotis/chapatis.

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh/frozen coconut
1/2 cup chana dalia (putani/hurigadale)
1/2 cup coriander leaves
1/4 cup mint (pudina) leaves
3-4 green chillies
3-4 garlic
2 tbl spn lemon juice
1/2 cup onion slices
Salt

Method:

Make a thick chutney from coconut, coriander and mint leaves, green chillies, garlic and salt.
Make a coarse powder of dalia.

In a bowl add lemon juice and little salt to onion slices and mix very well (preferably do this with fingers so that the onion is very well mixed with salt and lemon, this takes out strong bite of onion ). Add the chutney and powdered dalia to the onions and mix. Serve.

PS: A little yogurt can be added to the chutney if needed.

Black Eyed Beans – Plantain Pulav with Mint Chutney

12 Comments / My lunchbox, Salads/Kosambaris / By Shilpa

Today was one of those days when I tried to do a little more than my usual weekday work. I left work early and decided to do grocery shopping, so that I don’t have to spend time on it over the weekend. By the time I reached home carried everything to our apartment on 2nd floor, I was tired. Then I picked Ishaan from daycare and reached home totally exhausted. I wanted to make something simple, but then I found a plantain that was sitting in the refrigerator for a while. I thought of making alsande randayi, which is one of my favorite Konkani dishes, but didn’t have grated coconut. So I thought of making a simple pulav which would taste almost like the randayi. I had bought a pack of coconut milk powder a while ago which was sitting unopened in the pantry. So I used that. It took few minutes of prep time.

While that was getting done, I thought a mint chutney would go well with it. So I made this chutney/tambli. It was a very tasty and filling dinner.

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cups basmati rice
1/2 cup black eyed beans (alsande)
1/2 cup plantains chopped into tiny pieces
1 tea spn finely chopped ginger
1 tea spn finely chopped garlic
1/4 cup chopped onions
4-5 curry leaves
1/2 tea spn chilli powder
1/2 tea spn coriander powder
A pinch turmeric
1 cup thick coconut milk
2 cardamoms
2" cinnamon
Ghee/oil
Salt

Method:
Heat ghee/oil. Add cardamoms, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, onion. Fry for few minutes. Then add rice and fry for few minutes. Add turmeric, chilli powder, coriander powder and fry for few minutes.
Add black eyed beans, plantains, salt, curry leaves. Mix well. Add coconut milk and 2 and 1/2 cups water. Let it cook till done. (I used a steel vessel to make the pulav. After the above steps, I transferred the vessel to rice cooker. I use my rice cooker like normal pressure cooker. Easy to clean up. I just add a cup of water to the rice cooker, and then keep the steel vessel with food in it. The rice comes out very well).

Mint chutney : Grind together 5-6 strands of coriander leaves (along with the stems), 4-5 leaves of mint, 1 green chilli(optional) and 1 cup yogurt, salt to a smooth paste.
Serve with pulav.

Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 20mins + cooking time

Pictorial:

Cucumber Kosambari/Salad

18 Comments / Salads/Kosambaris, Simple and Easy / By Varada

Raw uncooked vegetables in the form of kosambaris are liked by many people. We make many different kinds of kosambaris – cabbage, carrot, moong dal to name a few. One more addition to this is cucumber kosambari. I saw this in one of the magazines and tried at home. I make this regularly now as my husband and I both liked it. This can be made with or without yogurt.

Ingredients:
1Â cup tender cucumber pieces(finely chopped)
3/4 cup coarse roasted peanut powder
2Â tea spn green chilli pieces
2Â tbl spn curds/yogurt (optional ) or 1 tea spn lemon juice
Salt
2-3 tea spn chopped coriander leaves
For Seasoning – Ghee, mustard seeds, asafoetida and curry leaves

Method:
Crush the green chilli pieces with salt and add to finely chopped cucumber pieces. While serving, add peanut powder. Add curds or lemon juice to it. Sprinkle coriander leaves over
it. Season it with ghee, mustard seeds, a pinch of asafoetida and curry leaves. Serve as a sidedish with rice.

Serves : 2-3
Preparation time : 15mins

Pictorial: