Egg Masala

This is an interesting egg curry, unlike the usual tomato/tamarind based one. In a attempt to make an egg curry for chapathis, I tried this recipe from my own knowledge of masala curries and it turned out finger licking. This dish can be used for entertaining, as it goes good with biryanis, basmati or any indian style rotis/naas. I tried hard not to put any tomatoes in this dish, as i wanted it to taste and look different.

Ingredients:

Hard Boiled Eggs - 8

Onions - 3 cups (3 big size)

Green chillies - 6-8

Almonds - 1/4 cup (make fine paste)

Cashews - fist full (optional)

Mint - Hand full chopped

Lime Juice - 1/2 lime

Ginger Garlic paste - 2 Tbsps

Corriander powder - 4 tsps

Cumin powder - 3 tsps

Pounded Garam masala (1 Cardamon, 2 cloves, 1 Cm Cinnamon)

Oil - 3 tbsps

salt/Turmeric - as u prefer

Method:

1. In a pan add the oil and fry 1/2 tsp mustard and cashews followed by finely chopped onions and slit green chillies. After 3 mins or so, add the ginger and garlic pastes, turmeric, salt and saute. This stuff has to reduce considerably by constant stirring.
2. Once the onion mixture is nice n translucent add the corriander, cumin, mint and fry.
3. Add Eggs at this stage, followed by almond paste and cook everything with a cup of water as the almond paste tends to thicken quiet fast.
4. Finally add the pounded garam masala, mix well and cover the lid for few mins, so that the masala aroma gets into the curry.
5. Finally add lime juice, test the taste and adjust the salt according to your taste.
6. I like to sprinkle some fresh onions slices on top, as it brings out the masala flavour very well. I did not use any other herbs as i want just the mint flavour to be highlighted in this dish.
7. This dish tastes awesome with some basmati rice, veg fried rice and also naas/rotis.

Donda Fry

This is a "tasty, easy n good looking" way to cook dondakai, which i usually neglect to buy because of the time and efforts to chop this hard veg, as well as the long cooking time. But recipe cuts down all those efforts to half. In this recipe i chop the veg length wise into half, chopping is done. And coming to the cooking time, i use little more oil than we usually use, just for quick frying to avoid constant stirring on medium flame. Cook the veg on higher heat with good amount of oil and add the taste makers in the end.

Herez all you need for this fry.:

Donda kai - 3 cups chopped

Gram flour (basin, ground chana dal) - 1/2 cup

Cumin powder - 1 tsp

Dhani powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

Chilli powder/salt - 1 tsp (upto u)

garlic - thinly chopped 1 tbsp.

Oil - 2 to 3 TBsp

Mustard - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves - 1 stem

Method:

1. Heat a wide skillet which can accommodate almost all the veggies on its base. The skillet is an important choice for frying all veggies uniformly and to save cooking time. Add oil, let some mustard splutter and drop in all the cut veggies along with turmeric.
2. Fry them for 5 mins and cover the lid partially. Dont let the steam drops fall into the pan.
3. Keep frying until the veggies are well cooked. Then add salt - stir, add dhania powder, cumin powder and let them fry in the little oil seeping out of the veggies, at this stage if u dont see any oil in pan, pls add more and let the spices fry in it. Once thats done, add garlic and cook with lid covered for 2 mins.
4. Now add the gram flour, curry leaves and let the flour fry along with vegetable until you get the fried flour smell, about 5 to 8 mins on medium heat.
5. Finally add red chilli powder, saute for a min or 2 (the chilli powder i use is my mom made, she fries the red chillies with cumin, dhania and sends it to grinder. So i need not fry the chilli powder in curries). If u are using raw chilli powder make sure you add it ahead along with the dhania powder.
6. Serve with dal/rasam and rice.
7. My Son, a picky vegetable eater certified this dish as "Delicious".