As I had explained in one of my old posts, the next day after Janmashtami is also very special for us. One of the special dishes offered to god on this day is this colocasia-chana cooked in coconut base. VenTi or aLva panna is the stem of colocasia. Some of the leaves are tied into knots and added to the dish. Others are chopped and added. When these leaves and chana are cooked, it gives and amazing taste and a unique aroma. Whenever I eat this dish, the picture of aayi cutting these leaves comes to my mind.
Almost all the festival foods are somehow associated with seasonal vegetables that are available at that time. Janmashtami comes in rainy season, when the colocasia leaves grow in abundance. So that might be one of the reasons for this dish being offered to god on this festival. In our Indian store here, we are finding colocasia leaves a lot these days. But for the first time, I saw some really tender parrot green leaves – which are assumed to be non-itchy. So I made this dish and once again, fell in love with it.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup black chana
2-3 tender colocasia leaves with stems
3/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut
1/2 tea spn coriander seeds
1/4 tea spn tamarind extract
1/2 tea spn mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves
4-5 red chilies
A pinch asafoetida
Oil
Salt
Method:
Soak chana in water overnight.
Tie 4-5 long pieces of leaves into knots(I have no idea what these signifies). Cut all remaining leaves into pieces. Chop the tender stems into pieces (like you do with green beans, cut a small pieces and pull it down to remove the outer skin as much as possible).
Cook chana and leaves-stems separately in cooker. In cooker, use lowest vessel for chana and upper most one for the leaves & stems.
Heat a little oil and fry coriander seeds. Grind these with coconut, red chilies, tamarind into a paste.
Mix together chana, leaves-stems, paste and salt. Cook for about 7-8mins till the dish boils well.
Heat a little oil and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add asafoetida, curry leaves. Pour this seasoning over the ready dish.
Serve as a side dish with rice. This goes very well with cheppi kheeri(sugerless rice pudding).
Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 30mins
Updated:
Read more about colocasia leaves at Jugalbandi.
Shilpa curry looks delicious and healthy. Hope you had nice krishanashtami.
Shilpa,
It is such a delight to see fresh arbi leaves! I am glad you can find them around your place. i am intrigued by the knots in the leaves, would be really interesting to know the significance. Food traditions back home are always excite me a lot!
Great and healthy dish, this one!
Hi Shilpa,
i would like to know from where did you get colocasia leaves…. me and my husband have been searching it for a long time now…. but couldnt find it anywhere….
Shilpa: Sowmya, I got them from Indian store. I think they are also available in Chinese markets, please search there.
Nice recipe! First I thought you tied some thing in those knotted leaves! There must be some reason for that! Loved your prepareation!
Shilpa that is a different combo to try now. Do ask your aayi about the knots. Sometimes there are ineteresting ideas behind such stuff.
Shilpa, You never fail to amaze me with yr recipes.
I didn’t know about this 🙂 And I love narla dhavi kheeri!!
wonderful post again shilpa. my ajji used to make it on a day after janmashtami. i loved eating those leaves knots not coz i liked its taste but the person who got it in their plate was considered to be lucky and blessed by lord krishna 🙂
Where do you get all these Indian leaves? Here I hardly get proper groceries,if I am lucky,some Tondekai!:D
Chana and greens looks great,good one Shilpa:)
Shilpa: Asha, we have atleast 5-6 Indian stores here. One of them is Ambica, where we find almost everything during season. Other Indian stores are like the ones you have mentioned :). Even the guy from Ambica does not know what people cook with many of veggies/pulses, sometimes he asks me :)).
Wonderful post shilpa. I love this dish.
Lovely recipe Shilpa… we make Alu pattal bhaaji from the colocasia leaves…the addition of chana must taste simply amazing:)
Shilpa, Venti Randayi looks so good. Finally, this year the Indian stores in my area have started stocking pathrado paan. I’m in pathrado heaven. It’s nice to be reminded of this dish, though it was not made much in our house. everyone preferred gajbaje and my bapama would add the venti and paan to that. I remember prepping all the stuff with her and she had a very logical/practical reason for the knots and pieces thing. The smaller leaves are more tender and would be mush when cooked till the larger more sturdier leaves cook, so she would knot the younger, smaller leaves so that they cook at the same time as the rest. Also, the larger leaves tend to be more crisp and crack when trying to knot them which is not the case with the smaller leaves.
Then there is an entriely another breed od pathrade pan which is called ganti (knot) paan which we used to make gante bhutti. Do you remember this one, Shilpa?
Shilpa: Thats a nice reasoning Vee, so very true. I donno what a gante bhutti is, bhutti is very new to me, have heard about it only after I started this blog. But I know there are many different kinds of pathrode paan, one with a black stems has roots called “maDDi” which are bigger versions of taro root.
Happy Janmashtami!
Lucky you..those leaves look so fresh and tender. Nice ganTi there.
that looks delicious.. i feel like making hot rotis and digging in.. i am going to ask my grocer about these leaves.. not fair that one state gets it and another does not
🙁
Hey Shilpa…guess what? I have arbi growing in my backyard with several leaves right now! (I planted the roots in spring- lots of watering! 🙂 ) I had planned to make rolls soon, but this looks too good for me to ignore; I love chane gashi, so I am sure this will be loved as well.
Oh, BTW, Vee (past,present, me Vee) found fresh turmeric roots at a shop and grew her own leaves this summer from them- always an option if you can find them- but I’ll check the frozen case at the Thai shops for leaves to try the kheer/payasam.
Shilpa ….Though i heard abt this dish, i have never eaten it. I have just got fresh leaves from the Indian stores, a few for this, patrodo and alvatthi. Thanks for sharing this unique combination.
Hi shilpa Happy janmashtami!
Nice receipe.In southcanara also making same type of curry but name is ganti gajabaje .We put lots of veg with ganti like keerlu ,magge,jeevkadgi and same black chana.Thanks for receipe.
Shilpa,
Lovely recipe..I dont think its made at my place ..we get smaller sized leaves, make ganti of it.Dunno the recipe (I think as Vee says its Bhutti-the tangy taste still on my memory tastebuds!) We used to make Gajbaje, little stems (maybe the stems in Mumbai r not worth using -juna -again unsure)but i think at my place they add up five things to it..corn,dento,Ganti,forgot the last two things as i used to dish out only corn which was cut into cirular pieces and the taste of corn which absorbed this curry was worth fighting for!
Thks for your recipe.Surely wd try it out.I feel proud that you go thru the festivals with detailed amchigele dishes! Priceless!!
what leaves are these Shilpa ?
Shilpa: Sandeepa, the name more popular here for colocasia is taro. I have updated the post with Bee & Jai’s post about these leaves.
Purnima…I guess the two things you cant remember are kirlu (bamboo shoot) and kaboo (sugercane). The best alvatii i have eaten is in Wadala Mutt during Ganesh Chaturti where all the five things you mentioned is used.
Shilpa.. I made this today and it was awesome. Thanks again.
Another amazing dish. We’ll definitely try this soon.
Haven’t had this in ages! Didn’t know we can find these here, that leaf look so fresh. We call these chembila.
Dear shipa,
Hi! After I read your recipe , I remembereed there were some alva paan and ventti in my fridge. My mother makes aalavatti, on Janmashtami and venti we use for venti upkari.
For aalavatti finely chopped colocasia leaves with a few chopped and cleaned venti are pressurecooked along with a slit green chilli and a small piece of chopped ginger.
To this finely ground paste of freshly scraped coconut, 2 dry roasted chillis, tamarind paste and a tbsp of fried urad daal is added. add salt to your taste & season with mustard seeds, curry leaves, 2 -3 pieces of dry chillis and asafoetida.
For ventti upkari if u maroonish ventti it is better , peel and chop, pressure cook with a 2amslols [ kokam] and add jaggery and salt according to your taste . season it with crushed garlic and 2-3 pieces of dry chillis . It tastes good with hot rice. Is very good for health.
Shilpa: Kanchan, we too make alvatti a lot and love it, but since garlic is used, we usually do not make it for any festivals. We also add ambade or keerlu(bamboo shoots) for that. It tastes great. Our way of making it a slightly different. Thanks anyway for mentioning it.
me n let me know where exactly do we get fresh Indian tasting fish. specially big tiger prawns, pomfret type fish.
Thanks a lot for all your help.
Hi Shilpa
Never heard of this dish.But tried as it sounded interesting.Tasted great,just like an accompaniment in an udupi thali.Loved it.Thank you for sharing.
I made this today Shilpa- I like it very much! I thought it would taste like chane ghashi, but no…the roasted coriander seed makes this taste very different. My mother liked it as well, as I spied her taking spoonfuls, when I wasn’t looking, from the dish! 🙂
Very new to me. Should see if i can get this leaf here.
Shilpa, is it safe to eat colocasia/pathrode during pregnancy – 1st trimester? Can you please let me know.
Colocasia is difficult for digestion for few people and may create issues. So we cannot say for sure if it consumed during pregnancy or not, depends on individuals.