Beetroot Leaves Dal

Beetroot is one of the veggies that I never forget to put in my shopping list every week but its the last one to be used from the fridge. Not my favorite vegetable at all and most of the time I consume it as soup - the recipe is here, because that's the only tasty way to get rid of the veggie :). I hardly venture into making beets poriyal/stir-fry which is the most common dish. If only deep-frying wasnt a sin I would probably make the yummy beetroot vadai all the time ;).

Beet leaves that came along with the veggie were new to me before moving to the US, back home they just sell the beetroot with no leaves on them. I normally discard the leaves, it never struck me to use them as another type of greens or that it could taste pretty good until recently. Now I save these up each time and make this absolutely lip-smacking dal with beet leaves and stems. The yummiest dal that I have made until now and pairs up great with soft home-made pulkas.

Ingredients

Serves - 3
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 30 min

Beet leaves and stems from 3-4 beets - washed and chopped finely [along with the stem]
Masoor Dal - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1 small, chopped finely
Garlic - 1 , chopped well
Ginger - 1 small piece, chopped finely
Green chilli - 2, slit into half
Tomato - 1 Large, chopped well
Red chilli powder - 1 Tsp
Garam Masala - 1 Tsp
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as per need
Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 Tsp
Hing - a pinch
Oil - 1 Tbsp

How do you do it

1. Heat a pan with oil. Add hing and jeera seeds - let them crackle. Add onions, garlic, ginger and saute well.

2. Once the onions are cooked, add green chillies and saute for a minute. Add the tomatoes, little salt and turmeric and mix well. Once the tomatoes becomes soft and pulpy add all the spice powders - red chilli and garam masala and mix well.

3. Now add the masoor dal and wrap well, add the chopped beet leaves and mix again. Add 1-2 cups water, remaining salt - mix well. Cover and cook in medium flame until the dal gets cooked well and everything blends together . Add more water in between if necessary. Switch off flame when you have reached the desired consistency.

Masoor dal gets cooked pretty soon and you wouldn't need a pressure cooker for this recipe. Also the taste lies in the dal getting cooked slowly along with all the other ingredients. So keep it that way.

Serve this yummy dal with any favorite pulao of your of choice or with super soft pulkas.

Continue Reading >>

Beetroot Masala

There are a very few dishes that I make with beetroot, its not a popular vegetable in my kitchen though I would love for it to become one. I think it has to do with its sweet taste and sweet veggies never score with me. I normally make this easy and simple beetroot masala which is quite a good combination with curd rice, I pep up the spices really well so it negates the sweet flavor to an extent. So this recipe is for you if you have a similar story behind the beets or even otherwise ;).

Ingredients

Serves - 2
Spice Level - High
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 15 min

Beetroot - 2 medium sized, peeled, chopped into tooth shaped pieces and pressure cooked
Onion - 1 , chopped well
Tomato - 2 , chopped well
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Ginger - Garlic paste - 1 Tsp
Masala [Curry/Chilli] Powder - 1 Tbsp
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as required
Cumin seeds - 1 Tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 Tsp
Hing/Asafoetida - a generous pinch
Oil - 1 Tbsp

How do you do it

1. After you pressure cook the beetroot , reserve any water that is left so it can be used in the gravy.

2. Heat a kadai with oil. Add the hing, mustard and cumin seeds. Let them pop/roast.

3. Add the onions and curry leaves, ginger-garlic paste and saute till the onions are cooked well.

4. Add the tomatoes now, some salt and turmeric and stir well. Close the kadai with a lid and on medium flame cook the tomatoes till they turn soft and mushy.

5. Add the masala powder now and mix well, add some reserved liquid from pressure cooking the beets. [not more than 1/2 cup]

6. Let the masala powder cook for a couple of minutes. Add the cooked beets now and mix well.

7. Simmer flame and let them cook slowly for about 10 minutes till the beets take in all the flavour. Add required salt in this stage.

8. Once the masala becomes thick, switch off flame.

Serve with curd rice for a very healthy and satisfying lunch :)

Continue Reading >>

Beetroot Paruppu Usili/Beetroot-lentil crumbs stir fry

I have already blogged about the traditional beans usili here and I always stuck to using either beans or cabbage for paruppu usili. I am not very fond of beetroot due to its inherent sweetness , but Amma keeps reminding me to use it at least weekly once due to its high nutrition content. Over the past few months she has been asking me to use beetroot for this dish and I kept postponing it and wasn't very impressed about the idea - I was worried it might be a little sweet. So when she was in Mumbai , she made it for lunch one day and I must admit I was wrong, I enjoyed the dish thoroughly. It was an instant hit. The beetroot is grated finely and it gets blended well with the spiced lentil crumbs that the sweetness disappears and it tastes quite well.We added a carrot too along with beetroot :)

So Amma's target achieved - Giving me a  beetroot dish that I might be fond of. Ah, the things that Ammas' do for their kids however old they might be. :)

Beetroot Paruppu Usili

 
So follow the same recipe as the cabbage-beans-paruppu usili, but just use finely grated beetroot and grated carrot [1 Large beetroot + 1 carrot ] instead of the beans and cabbage.When you add the carrot and beetroot to the lentil crumbs in the kadai, saute well to make sure the rawness of the beetroot and carrot vanishes and they are cooked completely before switching off flame.

Serve with Rice and Rasam.


Print this Post

Continue Reading >>

Beetroot Lentil Clear Soup

Whenever I cook beetroot I am reminded of my mom , who used to try various methods to push this vegetable into our stomach. ;). Beetroot poriyal/masala dint work, due to its inherent sweet taste. I somehow never like the sweet-spice combination in any kind of dish. It has to be either completely sweet or completely spicy. So then came the beetroot soup that my mom created. The color of the soup would be so inviting, and it would be a clear soup mixed with lentils , and it would taste good.
So this became a regular almost every weekend. On Saturdays around 11.00 am, we take a glass of this soup as an appetizer. Some times, I also mix this with rice and have it as a meal with some potato chips on the side.

Beetroot lentil Soup

Ingredients

Serves - makes about 4 glasses
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy

Beetroot - 2 , cut into medium sized pieces
Onion  - 1 Chopped well,
Tomato -1  Large, chopped well
Green chilli - 3-4, slit lengthwise
Curry Leaves - 2 Sprig
Toor dal - 1/3 Cup
Turmeric - 1/2 tspn
Jeera - 1 tspn
Water - 3 cups.

Method

Take a pressure cooker and dump all the ingredients. Pressure cook for 15 minutes. Switch off flame. Let the cooker cool. Once its cooled down, boil the soup, add the required salt. Add pepper powder if needed to increase spice level. Boil for 3-4 more minutes.

Pour in a glass and serve with beetroot piece topped on it. :). It cant get more simple than this . ;)


Print this Post

Continue Reading >>

Beetroot Vadai

This is one of  the deep fried snack which is probably healthy as beetroot can be sold in this way for sure :).You can sneak in other veggies like snake gourd,cabbage,or anything remaining that you might want to finish. And it goes without saying that any shallow/deep fried snack is always a hit :). Now off to the recipe.

Beetroot Vadai

Ingredients

Serves - Makes around 25 vadais
Spice Level - Quite Spicy

Beetroot - 2 medium, grated.
Toor dal - 1/2 cup
Channa dal - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1 big, finely chopped
Dry Red chilli - 7
Curry Leaves - 3 sprig
Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 Tspn
Hing - a pinch
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as per taste
Cumin - 1 Tspn
Saunf - 1 Tspn
Oil for shallow frying.


Method

Soak toor dal, channa dal,red chilli, jeera and saunf in 1 cup of water for 20 minutes. Drain the water and grind it to a paste.It shouldn't be too coarse or either too smooth,somewhere midway. Use only 4-5 Tbspn of water while grinding. Using too much water will result in the vadais absorbing too much oil.It is fine if a few pieces of dal are not fully ground.Now add the grated beetroot, chopped onion, hing, curry leaves,turmeric and salt with this paste and mix well.

Heat about 1/2 to 1 cup oil in a kadai. Once the oil is quite hot, move the flame to sim. Pinch small lemon sized balls of the mix, flatten them on your palm and drop in oil.Fry it for two minutes on low flame and move the flame to medium.Fry until both sides are done well.

Server hot with green chutney as a snack with masala chai. Nothing can beat this kind of snack. :)

Notes

1.While frying make sure,both the insides and outsides of the vadai are done well. If the oil is too hot, the outsides will brown faster,but it will still be undercooked inside.On the other hand if the flame is too low, the vadai will absorb too much oil.So take care while frying.


Print this Post

Continue Reading >>