Subru Uncle S French Beans Aloo Ki Bhaji French Beans Pot Food

SUBRU UNCLE'S DELICIOUS S. INDIAN SAMBAR VEG CURRY WE ALL LOVE

Steps:

• Prepare the tamarind pulp by first soaking a few pieces of tamarind in 1-1/2 cups of hot water.
• Squeeze the tamarind pieces as well as you can and allow the tamarind pulp (juice) to mix into the hot water.
• Once you have squeezed out half a cup, transfer this to a pot.
• Note that the consistency of the tamarind pulp should be such that you have more tamarind pulp and less water.
• Add the chopped ladyfinger to the pot.
• Allow to boil for 5 minutes.
• This is a neat trick Subru uncle's taught me.
• By doing this, the sticky fluid that comes out of the ladyfinger will not come out.
• Remove from heat and keep aside.
• Now, take a large pot in which you will be preparing the sambar.
• Heat the pot on medium-high flame.
• Once its hot, pour 3 cups of water in it.
• Add the drained toor dal (yellow lentils) and mix well.
• Add garlic and mix well.
• Allow it to boil well (for about 15 minutes).
• Lower flame and add all the chopped and diced vegetables to the boiling lentils (toor dal).
• Mix in turmeric powder, asafoetida powder, salt and Sambar masala powder.
• Fold in the chopped tomatoes.
• Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook until the tomatoes are softened and the veggies are tender.
• In the meantime, prepare the seasoning.
• For this, heat oil in a non-stick frying pan on medium-high flame.
• Once it's hot, add mustard seeds, methi seeds and cumin seeds.
• Allow to crackle and splutter.
• Once this stops, add curry leaves, green chillies and whole red chillies to the pan.
• Mix well and stir-fry for 2 minutes on medium flame.
• Remove the pan from heat.
• Add this seasoning to the sambar.
• Mix well, cook on simmer for 5 minutes and serve this wonderful curry immediately (hot) with cooked long-grain Basmati white rice and low-fat plain yogurt, if required.

SUBRU UNCLE'S PAO-BHAJI

Steps:

• Boil the first seven ingredients(that is, all the veggies), covered, in a very large pot for 30 minutes on high flame or until they are extremely soft (they should be so soft that they break at the slightest touch).
• In the meantime while the veggies are kept to boil, heat 4 tbsps. of oil in a very large sized pot.
• Add 2 tsps. of cumin seeds when the oil is hot.
• Allow the seeds to crackle.
• Once they stop crackling, add ginger, garlic, onion and green chilli.
• Stir-fry on high flame until the masala becomes very dry and starts leaving the sides of the pan (When it is so dry that it appears almost black in colour, that means it is ready. DO NOT burn it, keep stir-frying continuously until it gets very very dry).
• Add pav-bhaji masala powder and turmeric powder to the onion-ginger mixture in the pot.
• Mix well and continue to stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes.
• Remove this pot from flame.
• By now, the veggies would have become extremely soft.
• Remove from flame and with the help of a pounding stone (known as"mandira" in Hindi), mash the veggies extremely well.
• Add the mashed veggies mixture to the prepared masala in the very large pot.
• Stir in a little over 1/4 cup of water.
• Mix well.
• Garnish with corriander leaves, onion rings, ginger juliennes and 2 lemons (halved).
• Serve hot (we like to have it immediately once it's ready) with pao (that's the actual accompaniment to this vegetarian dish) or with white bread or brown bread or parathas (this will go very well with my Pudina/Mint Parathas) or cooked long-grain Basmati rice.
• Enjoy!