As I said earlier it was very difficult to stay away from my blog. Lot of things happened in this time. First there was a problem in my blog..by the time it was sorted out, my laptop broke down.
Then I travelled to India to visit my mom..which I was waiting for a year.
It was much awaited travel I was waiting for. Then came the drooling cuisine of Mysore.
I was born and brought up in this beautiful city. As I walked through the streets, it was nostalgic.
The cuisine, street food like masala puri, churmuri(I die for it, because people from mysore never like churmuri, from any part of the world, except for in mysore. It is soo authentic of mysore). I am a no excuse of this rule. The evening walk is just a excuse to savour all these. The hot bajjis, vadas and the not to forget fresh sugar cane juice. The old restaurants, which are famous for the morning hot idli vada sambhar, masala dosas, set masala dosa used to be my favourite(two small sized masala dosas).
Some other restaurants during my college days, where we used to celebrate our parties, which introduced north indian food like cutlets, samosas , ohh the list is endless.
Though many new restaurants have come up a lot, ask me, I never try them, but go the same ones, which I used to.
Its been more than 10 years I left the city.
Best of all while enjoying food, one simply gets carried away with the nice smell of mysore jasmine flowers. The pan or the betal leaf the city is famous for.
A special variety of green brinjals which comes from the outskirts of the city, from a place called EERANGERE, and the variety of brinjals is prefixed by the name of the place 'EERANGERE BADANEKAYI'. Badnekayi means brinjals.
This was the street and restaurant food.
Home cuisine is something different, you don't get in hotels or anywhere.
I will be posting few of them in my next posts.
Avarekaalu or hyacinth beans is what mysore is soo famous for.
The crop is between December to march. Miles before you can smell the beans.
People just love the aroma. The beans is like, what is jackfruit to kerala, is avarekaalu for mysore.
During this season of beans, the household will be filled with variety of different food, but everything will have this beans in one way or another, like upma, sambhar, kootu, pongal, nipattu, the list is endless..the beans is soaked and outer skin removed and fried to make mouth watering chivda mix.
Today I am posting the all famous rice rawa/semolina sooji avarekaalu/hyacinth beans upma.
Ingredients:
Rice Rawa - 1 cup,
Oil - 2 teaspoons,
Mustard - 2 teaspoons,
Asafoetida - a fat pinch,
Chana dal - 2 teaspoons,
Urad dal - 2 teaspoons.
Avarekaalu/Hyacinth Beans - 3/4 cup.
Oil - 1 tablespoon,
Green Chillies - 4-5 finely chopped,
Curry Leaves - 12-15 leaves,
Water - 21/2 cups boiling,
Salt,
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup fresh or frozen.
Coriander - 1 tablespoon, finely chopped,
Juice of 1 medium sized lemon.
Method:
You can either use fresh or frozen beans,
Pressure cook beans with enough water and salt for 2-3 whistles.
If you are using frozen beans cook it for 5 minutes in boiling water.
In a pan heat two teaspoons of oil.
Add mustard and asafoetida.
When mustard crackles, add chana dal and urad dal and fry until slightly browned.
Add rice rawa and fry until the raw smell evaporates and keep aside.
In another broad kadai, heat 1 tablespoon of oil.
Add green chillies and curry leaves and fry for few seconds.
Drain water from the beans and reserve the water, you can later use to cook the rawa.
Add beans to the kadai and fry for couple of minutes.
Add the reserved water, if it is less, then add more boiling water, according to the measure.
Adjust salt.
Add rice rawa and mix well.
Take care that there are no lumps of rawa, in the mixture.
Lower the heat completely, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes,
When water is evaporated 90%, remove from heat.
But keep covered for couple of more minutes.
Then remove the lid, add coriander chopped and lemon juice and mix well.
Serve hot with a spoon of ghee and enjoy.
Note:
Making of rice rawa is simple.
Simply mill the raw rice in a flour mill to medium rawa/sooji/semolina consistency.
Sieve it to take out the fine flour and store in air tight containers.
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