Its Diwali

[anvi]

Diwali is on Tuesday ,November 1st.What is everyone cooking?Any special dishes-Mithai,namkeen etc?

Diwali Lunch in my home always consists of Puri,Kachori(either urad dal,or potatoes),Alu-Gobhi,Bhindi,Boondi Raita,Rase vali Alu ki sabzee,Kheer,and sooji Halwa.All this is cooked without any onions and garlic.The tadka is a very simple hing and jeera,but still everything tastes just great.

My mother always made tons of gujhiya,gulab jamuns,barfee,mathri,sev,chakri etc.I can never make all that stuff,but i try to make atleast a few things.So this year ,i plan to do gujiya,gulabjamun(from scratch-with mava),coconut laddu's and mathri.

I would love to know what others are cooking up and how they will celebrate Diwali.

[Milagai]

Diwali  is on Tuesday ,November 1st.What is everyone cooking?Any special dishes-Mithai,namkeen etc?

Diwali Lunch in  my home  always consists of Puri,Kachori(either urad dal,or potatoes),Alu-Gobhi,Bhindi,Boondi Raita,Rase vali Alu ki sabzee,Kheer,and sooji Halwa.All this is cooked without any onions and garlic.The tadka is a very simple hing and jeera,but still everything tastes just great.

My mother always made tons of gujhiya,gulab jamuns,barfee,mathri,sev,chakri etc.I can never make all that stuff,but i try to make atleast a few things.So this year ,i plan to do gujiya,gulabjamun(from scratch-with mava),coconut laddu's and mathri.

I would love to know what others are cooking up and how they will celebrate Diwali.

←

wow! can I come to your place?

I won't be making a huge deal for Diwali because:

1. my kids are still a little on the young side and despite my

best efforts don't fully appreciate the full food spread

2. Middle of the week is hard to do the full monty....

but I must make something and I will try a coconut burfi recipe

given by Anzu and see how it goes. Usually I'm no good at making

sweets (burfis and GJ fall apart, etc.)

Milagai

[liv4fud]

milagai, if you need someone to appreciate your full food spread, we are available

:-)

as far as making goes - we don't do much (anything really) out here

most of it is store bought

but we used to do a full spread and then some more

pretty much end of summer is the end of time at our homes for storing grains, spices, etc. Yes a whole years worth!

Then school begins and the whole busy busy schedules kind of die down right near diwali

Thus from now upto the kite festival, its festival after festival of food, food and more food

but its definitely a lot more harder out here to go through the whole enjoyment

[anzu]

Right in the middle of cooking now.

Basically, I'm cooking things which are a little bit fiddlier than food I cook every day. Most have at least three steps, such as boiling, then frying, then making a gravy; or roasting the spices, then grinding them, then stuffing them into a vegetable, then frying the vegetable, then making a gravy for it...

So: Baghare baingan (spelling?) (i.e. small eggplant stuffed with roasted ground spices, fried, then simmered in a tamarind gravy)

Arvi (taro) which has been boiled, peeled, sliced, fried, then simmered in a tomato and yogurt gravy (don't have a name for this dish)

Paneer with cluster beans (guvarphalli) and coriander seeds

Raita: cubed sweet mango and yogurt flavored with curry leaves and mustard seeds (can anyone tell me where this actually comes from?? I've been making it for years, but have no idea of its origin)

Rice flavored with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and tej patta

Rice kheer (cheated and used leftover cooked rice cooked up in the pressure cooker with milk, but it seems to have worked okay)

I was intending to make sweets and chakli, but didn't have enough time. Maybe tomorrow...

Milagai: if your barfi falls apart, try reheating it in a pan with some sugar syrup and/or ghee and/or milk (whichever suits the type of barfi). Stir all together. Your crumbly barfi should re-melt and amalgate with the syrup, etc. Cook again until it forms a ball that comes away from the sides of the pan, then form again. Try with a quarter batch or so of the barfi of you're doubtful and are concerned that the whole batch of barfi might get ruined, but this has worked for me in the past.

And for gulabjamuns, try working the mawa in the food processor, if you have one, for about ten minutes before forming into balls. You won't believe how much easier this makes it to form the balls smoothly, without cracks (and it is the cracks that usually make them fall apart later). I read this tip somewhere or other, tried it out with really believing it would work, and was quite impressed with the difference it made.

Happy Divali to all.

[Milagai]

Right in the middle of cooking now.

Basically, I'm cooking things which are a little bit fiddlier than food I cook every day. Most have at least three steps, such as boiling, then frying, then making a gravy; or roasting the spices, then grinding them, then stuffing them into a vegetable, then frying the vegetable, then making a gravy for it...

So: Baghare baingan (spelling?)  (i.e. small eggplant stuffed with roasted ground spices, fried, then simmered in a tamarind gravy)

Arvi (taro) which has been boiled, peeled, sliced, fried, then simmered in a tomato and yogurt gravy (don't have a name for this dish)

Paneer with cluster beans (guvarphalli) and coriander seeds

Raita:  cubed sweet mango and yogurt flavored with curry leaves and mustard seeds (can anyone tell me where this actually comes from?? I've been making it for years, but have no idea of its origin)

Rice flavored with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and tej patta

Rice kheer (cheated and used leftover cooked rice cooked up in the pressure cooker with milk, but it seems to have worked okay)

I was intending to make sweets and chakli, but didn't have enough time. Maybe tomorrow...

Milagai: if your barfi falls apart, try reheating it in a pan with some sugar syrup and/or ghee and/or milk (whichever suits the type of barfi). Stir all together. Your crumbly barfi should re-melt and amalgate with the syrup, etc. Cook again until it forms a ball that comes away from the sides of the pan, then form again. Try with a quarter batch or so of the barfi of you're doubtful and are concerned that the whole batch of barfi might get ruined, but this has worked for me in the past.

And for gulabjamuns, try working the mawa in the food processor, if you have one, for about ten minutes before forming into balls. You won't believe how much easier this makes it to form the balls smoothly, without cracks (and it is the cracks that usually make them fall apart later). I read this tip somewhere or other, tried it out with really believing it would work, and was quite impressed with the difference it made.

Happy Divali to all.

←

Anzu: thanks so much for the burfi tip.

Yr raita sounds very Kerala - mango + yogurt + mustard seeds + karipatta

Milagai

[Kape]

Burfi does sound more appetizing than barfi ... :--)

[Pumpkin Lover]

Happy Diwali, everyone!!

We're actually Christian, but I love thinking about Diwali--I missed the NYC celebrations this year, and to be honest, I didn't remember it was Diwali today until reading this thread. But I did make a new dish tonight, the baingan ka bhartaa (sp?) from Suvir's cookbook tonight. So we're celebratin' a little bit!

[jw46]

We're actually Christian, but I love thinking about Diwali

Hmm.. Sort of like Everyone is Irish on St Patrick's day?...

[anvi]

A Happy Diwali to every one.

I ended up making Kaddu ki sabzi,Arbi,Alu-gobhi and chole.Also made puri and sooji Halwa.I could not make kheer,cos by the time i got done with all this,it was almost lunch time and i just did not want to be in the kitchen any longer.

For lakshmi pooja in the evening ,i made coconut laddu's with sweetened condensed milk and Gulab jamun.The Gulab Jamun incidentally were made in India by my mom in August.She gave me a box of fried balls,without putting them in the syrup.I have had them in the freezer all this while.I thawed them in the microwave and then left them overnight in sugar syrup.They turned out very well indeed.I love my Mom's Gulab Jamuns and this way i can enjoy them even when i am here in the U.S

I am very intrigued by the paneer and Guvar combination.I have never had it before.I make arbi almost the same way,except that after boiling ,peeling and cutting into pieces,i sprinkle roasted besan,coriander powder,redchilli powder,garam masala,salt,haldi,amchur on them.Then i heat oil ,add ajwain and heeng and than put in the arbi pieces and let them cook until they are crisp.

It tastes pretty good.I made the kaddu with Acorn squash,which i did not peel.It tastes great with raw mango,methi and green chilli's.

[anzu]

Hi Anvi,

re the paneer and guvar: basically I was just using the ingredients that I had and cooking them in more or less the style that I would normally use for aloo mattar! I.e. the paneer standing (sort of ) in place of the potatoes, and the guvar in place of the peas. The whole menu last night was a real hodge-podge of regional cooking styles, because this was essentially Punjabi (husband is Punjabi from Delhi, and this is the style I cook when I don't want to bother thinking too hard about method, etc.).

So: fry paneer slices and set aside. Then fry ginger in ghee, add a bit of cumin, then red pepper and coriander, then turmeric and salt, then chopped tomato, then water, then guvar, cook till soft, and then add the paneer back in (I only add it back at the very end, because I hate the squeaky texture it acquires if you put it in any earlier). That's it. Black pepper if you want it, onion and garlic as well at the beginning if you feel like it, omit the tomato for a variation, use a little yogurt in the gravy if the mood hits you. You know the kind of thing!

Actually I really like using the same spicing with par-boiled lotus slices instead of the potato of aloo mattar, as well.

I really like the sound of your kaddu. I had been going to try out a Sri Lankan kaddu recipe soon, but am tempted to make yours instead. Fresh methi or dried?

I can't believe your restraint of having gulab jamuns frozen for so long... The last time I made them, I made about 80 in one batch, and froze half. However, I was unwise enough to tell my husband this. He ate the first 39 gulab jamuns in one and a half days (I had eaten ONE to check the taste), then pulled out the remainder and ate them up equally fast. Since then, I haven't dared make them again. I'm too worried about the health effects it could have!

Edited November 2, 2005 by anzu (log)

[anvi]

Anzu,

The only reason why the GulabJamun lasted so long was because they were frozen and not in the syrup.It takes atleast a day for the syrup to properly soak through,so there was no impulse eating.I can totally identify with your husband's sweet tooth.I too am like that and there is no chance what so ever of any mithai lasting around my house for more than a couple of days.

For the kaddu sabzee,you chop Acorn squash into about an inch and a half dices.while doing the tadka ,add hing,methi seeds,green chillies, haldi and jeera.Add the kaddu,cover and cook until a little soft-about 3/4th done.Than add chopped raw mango, quantity is based on how sour you want the sabzee to be.in absence of mango ,one can add amchur,some people add tamarind too.Some recipes call for a little sugar,but i prefer mine without the sweetness of sugar.cook further until the mango is softened.Mash it a bit and you are all done.

[Milagai]

My Diwali "feast": I hadn't shopped properly last weekend

so was very limited in what I could make, focusing on a Tamilian vegetarian

feast...

I had to choose between Venpongal (the white, savory pongal)

vs. other dishes because I had only a tiny sliver of ginger left,

so I chose to do plain rice instead.

Plain rice

Puli Koottu (usually made with chickpeas, but I used black eyed peas = lobhia instead) lobhia + finely diced eggplant

Mor kuzhambu (buttermilk with veggies - the ginger went here)

Beans karamadhu (dry beans kari)

Yogurt

What??!! No sweets??!!

Well, someone gave me a box of kaju katli so we had that instead.

I will make sweets on the weekend as I ran out of time,

and what really riles me is that my kids don't really have big

appetites and eat maybe 1 tiny sliver of sweet, and we adults

should not be eating that many, so I have no incentive to make them....

We first fired off the crackers hoarded from 4th July and

then ate. Big kid and husband enjoyed the food, little kid

did his usual drama; I hope he outgrows this soon....

Milagai