Tasty ways to eat Green Leafy Vegetables!

We get green leafy vegetables so abundantly in Bangalore - and so fresh, and so cheap (compared to so many other vegetables) - that I am so grateful every time I see a push-cart full of greens coming my way on the road - which is every day :)

And I wonder why so many people don't eat enough of it, or have vitamin/mineral deficiencies when these leaves are so abundantly available.

So have tried to add as many recipes as possible with green leafy vegetables in here - just click on the label Green Leafy Vegetables, and you will see them all. They are all tasty and easy too, believe me!

Please do send any good recipes you have with leaves, will add here and acknowledge you.

Methi-Aloo-Oats Paratha - an Easy Healthy Breakfast!

This one is such a feel-good breakfast on those days when you need a lot of energy/when you have so much work you don't want to be bothered by hunger/late lunch. And I managed to sneak in some oats too, without any change of taste!

And this paratha will not break easily when you roll it out, because there's no onion in it. Even non-experts can make this one!

Ingredients (for 6 parathas)

1. Potatoes boiled in cooker - 3 (The potato basically holds the leaves together and makes paratha soft, you can reduce this quantity and add more leaves. If you add oats, that will also serve as a binder)
2. Methi leaves finely chopped - 2 bunches (Fenugreek leaves). You can also use spinach leaves instead. (Keep the leaves in salt water for a while and wash, so that they are clean. Dry them in a towel after you wash them - if there's water in the leaves, the mix could get watery, and you may not be able to re-use it the next day. )
3. A small cup of oats, powdered (optional - the traditional paratha does not have this, this is just for the health factor!)
4. Coriander leaves chopped (optional)
5. Green chilly, crushed - 1
6. Garlic - a few cloves, crushed
7. Coriander powder
8. Jeera powder (Cummin powder)
9. Salt

Flour for making chapathis - keep dough ready, like you do for chapathis. I add a little soya or ragi flour to the wheat flour.

Procedure

1. Mash potatoes well.
2. Add the chopped methi leaves, chopped coriander leaves, crushed garlic and chilly, coriander and jeera powder (add a teaspoon, mix and add more if you want), powdered oats, and salt, and mix well.
3. Now roll out thin chapathis with the dough - the edges should be thinner than the centre.
4. Add this mixture in the centre, take the edges of the chapathis and close over the mixture, make a ball, then flatten it a bit, and roll it out as thin parathas gently. Gently, so you don't break it!
5. Cook them on a tava with a little ghee. It's okay to have some ghee for breakfast, you'll burn it all away! And since this paratha does not break easily, you don't have to add much ghee.
6. Serve with curd and pickle. Well, I have a friend who eats this with jam and loves it!

Leafy Dals!

Mixing with dals is a great way to eat green leafy vegetables - and a very quick and tasty way to make a balanced dish. Goes great with chapathis and rice.

Ingredients

Tuvar dal/Moong Dal/Any other dal of your choice. Tuvar is the best for this, I find. (Dal = Pulse)
Sabbajgi (Dill - the thin needle-like leaves - very high in iron, and fragrant)
And/or Methi (Fenugreek leaves)
And/or Palak (Spinach)
And/or Drumstick leaves (highly nutritious) and any other leaf you get in the carts of the leaf-vendors.
Tomato
Garlic
Green Chilly
Onion (optional)
Jeera/Ajwain (Cummin seeds/Om seeds)
Hing (Asafoetida)
Turmeric
Salt

Procedure

You can do this 2 different ways - and the tastes are slightly different.

Method 1

Cook dal in cooker, with the chopped leaf of your choice. With Tuvar dal, sabbajgi, methi, and palak go very well, either all together or individually. Add a pinch of turmeric while cooking.

When dal is cooked, add some oil in a deep pan and add the seasoning.

You could try jeera, then a chopped green chilly, then the hing, then a chopped tomato and fry a bit. If you have the time, chop and onion and fry after the jeera.

Crushed garlic can be added before the chilly if you like the taste, or you can add it right at the end, after the dal is ready.

Now add the cooked dal+leaves to this, add salt and boil just a little. Leafy dal is ready!

Method 2

Cook dal alone in the cooker, with turmeric.
Add the chopped leaves in the seasoning, after the tomato, and stir-fry for a little bit until the raw look has gone.
Now add the cooked dal to this and boil a little.
Here the taste of the leaves will be stronger. I quite like it this way too. The green will remain dark green this way, so the curry looks nicer.

Methi Chicken

Recipe from my friend Poorna - she's tried it out, says it's great:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRDBbwI0_sA

Methi = Fenugreek leaves

Pack a healthy lunch the Mix & Match Kichdi Way!

I take kichdi for lunch every day - and there's so many varieties of it, I haven't yet run out of combinations! If you can get your kids to eat this, you don't have to worry about them not getting enough nutrition anymore :)

Ingredients

The basic concept is this:

• Half glass rice
• Half glass broken wheat (you get this in packets in grocery shops). Or millets - you get millets so easily these days.
• One dal/Soya Chunks/Frozen peas/Frozen corn (Soya is very good if you are feeling tired - it gives instant energy)
• One Vegetable
• And/or one Green Leafy Vegetable

So it's as healthy as it can get, and it's all cooked in one go in a cooker! And you can mix and match with all the vegetables/dals you like - just see if you can sneak in some green leaves also, to complete the nutrition.

I usually have this with pickle or some chutney, so the kichdi by itself is bland - though you can always try out various kinds of seasoning to change that.

Procedure

The measurements in here should give you enough kichdi for 2 people, for a meal. So I just cook once in 2 days for my lunch box, I just vary the pickle/chutney to change the taste.

Heat a pressure cooker (the small one in which you cook directly) and add a little oil and add a seasoning of your choice. Jeera is a good option. Also Panch Phoren, described earlier in this blog.

Add a split green chilly and/or some crushed garlic, which is optional. Or add a chopped tomato and fry a bit. If you have the time, fry a chopped onion and then the green chilly and then the tomato. I normally do only the chilly and tomato.

Now add whatever chopped vegetables/green leafy vegetables you want. You can add sabbajgi (dill - those spiky needle-like leaves very high in iron), drumstick leaves/methi leaves/spinach. Just stir-fry for a few seconds.

Vegetables - carrot/potato/cauliflower are the most obvious, you could try others too.

Then add the washed rice - half a glass, or even a little less than that.
Dal - half glass. You can use Tuvar dal/Moong Dal/Soaked Green gram/any other soaked dal you like.
Or/and some frozen peas/corn, or soya chunks which you have already soaked in boiling water with salt, and drained and washed.
Half glass broken wheat

Add 3.5 glasses of water to this - this measurement leaves it just the correct consistency without making it dry or watery.

Add salt to the water and taste - add half a teaspoon and then adjust. It is very important to add the salt - this makes sure the kichdi does not get watery.

Put lid on cooker, and cook for 2 whistles.

Eat this with pickles/chutney/leftover sabji from previous night's dinner :)
Non-vegetarians can add some leftovers from their chicken/meat/prawn/fish dishes in the end, after the kichdi is cooked.

You can also crush some garlic and mix in the end - you get the full medicinal benefits of garlic if it is taken raw, so this will be almost raw, but slightly cooked because of the heat.

To make this more like a biriyani, you can use some ginger-garlic paste along with the seasoning, and add some cloves/cinnamon etc. Or of course, some ghee at the end.

Basically, the whole point is that you can mix and match, just make sure you have the basic concept in place :)

How to prevent Capsicum Bite :)

I don't know about you, but I don't like that strong taste that capsicum has, it kind-of-bites - :) - discovered a way to get rid of that, through a friend's pasta recipe.

Just hold the entire capsicum over a flame, on your gas stove for a while until it starts to blacken a bit and wrinkle and splutter. You can stick it on a fork or something. If you have a grill, then just grill it.

Now keep it aside until it cools. And then cut it and use it any way you want - it will not bite any longer!

Spinach Cutlet

Not yet tried out, but sounds like a great way to get that spinach in :)

http://www.aayisrecipes.com/2010/04/21/spinach-cutlet/

Paanch Phoron: A new flavor!

Tired of the same old onion-tomato, ginger-garlic combination? Try out this Bengali mix of spices - so easy to make, and gives a totally different flavor!

From master-chef Antara -

http://salivaah.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html


I added some tamarind to it towards the end - like how her mother did, in the pumpkin dish she prepared for us when we visited her. Delicious!

Spinach and Mushroom soup

My friend Poorna's recipe - delicious! And so easy, and so nutritious. We had it both hot and cold - good either way.

http://gourmetgubbie.blogspot.com/2009/03/cream-of-spinach-soup.html

Chicken Cutlet

My mother's recipe - improvise as you deem fit :)

Ingredients

Minced chicken 500 gms (you can also buy pieces and cook and grind them in the mixie. I bought 500 gms and I got 12 cutlets out of it - reduce as required)

3 Potatoes medium sized, this acts as the binder

Chopped onions

Chopped green chilly

Chopped ginger

Chopped coriander leaves (cilantro)

2 eggs

Bread crumbs (I powdered rusk in the mixie, that's nice too)

Salt

Procedure

Boil potatoes and keep ready.

Fry the chopped onion, chillies and ginger until a lil brown.

Add the minced chicken and salt and stir and cook. This cooks real fast. The chicken may curl up and form lumps, keep breaking them.

Alternatively, cook chicken in salt separately and then pass in through grinder so that it becomes fiber-y. I am guessing this consistency may be nicer.

And then add that mix to the fried-onion-chilly-ginger mix. This mix should be dry in the end, no water.

Now let it cool enough for you to roll the mix with your hands.

Mash the potatoes and add to chicken. Also add the chopped coriander now and mix everything well.
Check taste.

Break 2 eggs and carefully separate the white and yellow. Use a sieve or just break in half and keep pouring out the white.

Mix one of the yellows into the chicken mix. Two will make it watery - so keep the second aside and make an omelette or something :)

Keep the white aside in a flat vessel.

Now make round patties with the chicken-potato mix so that they hold well together.

Keep the bread crumbs and the egg white ready in two separate open vessels.

Dip each cutlet into the egg white and then immediately into the bread/rusk crumbs so that it is coated well and dry.

Now heat oil in a wide pan and shallow-fry each cutlet.

Serve hot with tomato ketchup, if you like it that way! Or make a burger.

Pesarattu/Green Gram Dosa with Spinach

Easiest ever dosa! No fermentation required, so you can make this even if you haven't planned it 2 days ago.

Ingrediants

Green gram: 1 glass (serves 2 people, increase as required)
Ginger pieces (optional)
Dry Red chilly (optional)
One bunch spinach (palak) (optional)
Salt

Procedure

Soak green gram in water overnight.
Grind in the morning. Well, that's about it :) :)
If you want, add some ginger and red chilly to the mix, and/or spinach, while it is grinding.

This grinds real fast. Becomes soft and fluffy. Hardly needs any water. Just take out the batter, add very little salt, and make dosas on a hot non-stick pan.

The batter will be fluffy, don't add much water. It won't spread as easy as regular dosa, but just spread it thin, it won't break, and it will come out real crisp! Turn it over and cook the other side too, if you find any uncooked parts.

Now serve this with any chutney you want!