Cabbage-Beans Parrupu Usili / Cabbage-beans-lentil crumbs stir fry

This is an absolutely yummy Iyer Aathu dish [Tam-Bram home]. A must in all their wedding lunch sessions.This preparation is a slightly tedious process, but worth it. :). Mom used to cook this quite often at home as it used to be one of my favorites.But she had her own name for this, and until some time back I always referred to this as "Vegetable Cola". Lol ;). This is traditionally made with beans, I added some grated cabbage too.

Cabbage-Beans Parrupu Usili

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy

Grated Cabbage 1/3 cup
Beans - Finely chopped , 1/2 cup , steamed/boiled
Curry leaves - 2 Sprig
Mustard - 1 Tspn
Jeera - 1 Tsp
Hing - 1/4 Tsp
Oil - 3 Tbsp

1.Toor dal - 1 cup
2.Jeera - 1 Tbspn
3.Dry Red chilli - 5
4.Fennel - 1/2 Tsp
5.Turmeric - 1/2 Tsp

Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 Tspn


Method

Soak ingredients 1-4 for about 30-45 minutes in 1.5 cups of water. Drain the water and grind along with ginger-garlic paste and turmeric to an almost fine paste with maybe 1-2 Tbsp water.Divide the paste into 4-5 equal portions and steam them in an idli cooker for 5 minutes. I have a microwave idli steamer set and i use that to steam these. If you have one of them, use it and microwave on high for 8 minutes.Once they firm up like idlis, transfer them to a plate and cut each into quarters and let it cool. Maybe 5-10 minutes. Once cooled, pulse them up in your food processor until they crumble completely into extremely tiny particles resembling bread crumbs. This will take a few seconds in your mixie jar, maximum 3 short pulses.Make sure the steamed dal, has no water content, else when you use the food processor to crumble them it will become a paste again.Now the dal crumbs are ready.

Heat oil in  a kadai. Add hing,mustard, jeera and curry leaves. Let it roast. Add in the dal crumbs , salt and stir well. Let it be on flame for 7-10 minutes, keep stirring now and then. Now add in the boiled beans and grated cabbage, mix well. Let this get cooked for another five minutes. You can add more salt if needed at this time. Stir again. Switch off flame.

This goes very well with steamed white rice and kara-kuzhambu. :)


Notes

1. Many recipes suggest crumbling the steamed dal by hand as much as possible and then put it directly in the kadai to further crumble in heat.This method doesn't work out very well, and getting the dal to crumble over heat is difficult and takes a lot of time. So crumble it completely using a food processor.

2. To steam the ground dal, use a microwave idli steamer if you have one, works out much easier and faster and the steamed dal turn out dry the way we want it. So it requires max 5 minutes to cool down before you crumble them using your mixer-grinder.



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Cabbage Stuffed Paratha

Stuffed Parathas - Yum! :). A great way to sneak in veggies and consume them.Another standard North Indian dish,served during breakfast with curd and pickle.This is my first time making a cabbage paratha. Making this kind of paratha has been on my mind for long, reminds me of my lunch time at school with friends.I had two north-Indian friends during my mid-school time and their lunch boxes often had cabbage/spinach/radish/gobi/aloo parathas and i wondered, why mom dint make them. :)

Cabbage Stuffed Paratha

Ingredients

Serves - 4 [Makes about 12 Parathas]
Spice Level - Not spicy

Cabbage -  1 cup, grated well
Salt - as per taste
turmeric powder - 1 Tspn
Chilli powder - 2 Tspn
Green chilli - 5 , chopped finely
Coriander leaves - a handful, chopped well

Wheat Flour - 3 cups
Oil - 2 Tbspn
Water - 1 to 1.5 cup approx.

Wheat flour - 1/2 cup for dusting the dough while making parathas.


Method

Firstly mix the grated cabbage with the salt, chilli powder,turmeric powder, green chilli pieces,and coriander leaves in a bowl. Add 3 cup of wheat flour and oil to the bowl and mix again. Now add water slowly to make a dough for parathas. The grated cabbage will have some water content, so take care to not add too much water. Make a pliable smooth dough like we do for chapathis.

Have a bowl containing half a cup of wheat flour. Pinch golf ball sized dough , dip it in the flour. Place it on your roti-making- board . Flatten the dough with you palm. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough gently into big circle.If the dough is sticky, use the flour to dust it well and continue rolling till you get desired shape and thickness.

Heat a dosa pan. Smear the pan with some oil. Now place the rolled dough on to it. After a minute or two, flip the paratha and cook until both sides are done and you see light/dark brown spots on either sides.

Serve hot with raitha and pickle. :). We had this for dinner and enjoyed it thoroughly.


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