Browsing through some Indian cooking blogs, I came across a Bengali dish from Bong Mom's Cookbook that looked so delectable I could almost feel my eyes water as the pungent mustard rose to the back of my nose. There was a catch though: the dish was fish-based.

I couldn't pass up that fragrant sauce, so I started considering how to adapt this for vegetarian consumption. Sandeepa first fried the fish, and I thought that step an integral part of the recipe, creating the wonderful texture. In a flash of inspiration I had the answer - the typical Andhra dry fry potatoes (bangaladumpa vepudu) would be ideal for this dish. (Well, I am sure it exists in many of the other regional cuisines, but I know it as an Andhra dish of course.)

Once I figured out that bit, the rest was simply a case of following the remainder of Sandeepa's recipe.

When you visit India after a long time away, people want to treat you to something special: I frequently get asked what my favorite dish is, what food I missed most while being away.

The answer is easy: panasa pottu kura - green jackfruit fry!

I guess it starts with my love of the pungency of mustard - not the American innocuous bright yellow liquid with vinegar and sugar, but the eye-watering, sinus-clearing heat of real mustard seeds. This is the reason I love the tartness and the heat of dosavakaya and also the reason why I couldn't resist Sandeepa's recipe - why I had to find a way to adapt it to a vegetarian dish (see Andhra Twist earlier).

But to get back to the recipe at hand: for a long time in the US the only option has been to use green jackfruit in cans; I hate the taste and texture of canned jackfruit though, and so I have never considered that to be a viable option. Then I found frozen green jackfruit, and suddenly panasa pottu kura became a real option again. Granted, the taste and texture can never be the same as the fresh version, but this bears a real resemblance to it.

Part of the chopped jackfruit, turmeric and salt

Now, trying to capture a recipe when you cook with the measurements by feel is not an easy task, so I found one on ammas that had the right proportions.

However, as you who are in the US no doubt know, most of the mustard seeds we get here seem to lack the required pungency, trading it in for bitterness instead. So, I add a smidgen of Chinese mustard powder to the mustard seed and lemon juice paste; you will need to try and see how much you would need.

Anapakayi KuraOkay, confession time: once upon a time I used to use my pressure cooker only for dhal and rajma, rice and soups; all the boiling-type stuff. You can stop laughing at me now; I know that you most likely have been using your pressure cookers constantly in wonderfully versatile ways.

But I have caught on; I might be a late bloomer, but I learn my lessons well. See, I was always scared that I would damage the cooker in some way, and when I saw others serving up dishes from the pressure cooker, I would be amazed, but too timid to ask for the technique.

And then one afternoon almost ten years ago, browsing through Odyssey in Adyar, I found a little book that changed my life. It was called Quick and Exciting Pressure Cooking (Vegetarian) by Anuradha Sinha, published by Nita Mehta books. The book captivated me with its possibilities, and I could not leave the shop without buying it. But as we all know our relationships with cook books can be difficult; if you start off on the wrong foot, no amount of making up can ever erase that first bad impression.

Just as well then that the very first recipe I tried from the book turned out to be an absolute winner! It was titled "Ghia Lajawab" which I have translated (honoring the spirit if not the letter) as "Incomparable Bottle Gourd." It remains a standby dish for me to this day, and over the years I have changed very little in the recipe. This makes a great addition to a thali, or it can be served as a lighter meal with some raita and chapatti.

Today I have four different pressure cookers including a Western one - where the weight doesn't give a whistle, but rather a long, continuous hiss - that is stuck in the back of the kitchen cupboard.
Whenever we (or anyone else we know) go for a visit to India, we always bring back some new rings (gaskets) and spare safety valves, trying to nurse the pots along. If one gets to a stage where we think it might no longer be safe, we retire it from pressure duty and use it as just an ordinary pot; they have served me so well, I can't go so far as to throw them out.

Back when Angel Face was two years old (she just turned seven on Saturday!), she was in tears one day when picked up from daycare. One of the kids there had white-gold hair that shone in the light, and some truly remarkable large bright blue eyes. After some probing, it turned out that several people had come to visit the daycare that day, and every single one of them had made a big fuss about this boy's beautiful blue eyes. And Angel Face was crying her heart out because she only had "ugly brown eyes."

With a lot of gentle discussion, she was made to see that she was extra-special, because she had "chocolate eyes," and chocolate is the yummiest thing on earth; she ended up being thoroughly consoled by this. To this day, if you ask her what color her eyes are, she would say "chocolate" or perhaps "chocolate brown."

She also happens to be highly intrigued by black-eyed peas for the same reason, and so this recipe was prepared especially for her.

My husband selected the recipe while browsing through Jyothsna's wonderful blog, Curry Bazaar. It is a traditional Punjabi dish, and we played around a little with the cooking method for the pulses, and the spicing. Black-eyed peas are not a staple in our house, but it makes for a wonderful variation in the diet.

One thing that became clear is that the recipe scales really well; we used one cup to feed four people, serving it with rice, a bottle gourd curry, plain curds and some avakayi.

An astute reader - Laavanya - asked with what I served the rice parathas; this provided the perfect segue for my next entry: a Gujurati style potato and chickpea curry.

Once I had made the decision to make the rice parathas, the question was indeed to find a good kura to accompany it. I knew that the family would be perfectly capable of eating the parathas by themselves - especially Angel Face, the little monkey that she is - but that would hardly be a proper meal.

The thing that popped into my head was Gujarati style channa masala; a new Indian restaurant opened here about a month ago, serving thalis for lunch and this is always one of the katoris on the thali. I started looking for a recipe, but didn't get very far, until I decided I would use a recipe for Bateta nu Shaak as a starting point.

From that point I just "winged" it, and we were ecstatic with the results. It does not taste quite like the one in the restaurant, and I am not making any claims that this is authentically Gujurati, but the taste was delicious, and the serving dish came back empty from the table.

Note: For the cup of cooked chickpeas in the recipe, I used one can of cooked chickpeas/garbanzo beans.

Appeal: If anyone has an authentic Gujurati recipe for kabuli channa in a very liquid gravy, I would appreciate it if you could point me towards it.

I knew a guy whose name was Joshua, known to one and all simply as Josh. Online his nickname was Rogan. Just that. And it was only the desis (and to some extent the limeys) who got the wonderful pun: Rogan Josh! I still happen to think that's the smartest online name I have ever seen, but then I'm funny that way.

Sra from When my Soup came Alive posted a recipe she'd found in a cookbook for Vegetarian Rogan Josh. And so in honor of that pun, I decided to try it.

Now, this is one recipe where we just couldn't manage to follow the instructions - or even the ingredients. We tweaked it so much, I doubt it could even be called the same dish, so go on over to Sra's blog and check out the original recipe at the link above.

It starts with the fact that we didn't have red pumpkin on hand; we did however have bottle gourd, and given the fact that they are all part of the same extended family, we swapped that in.

Next came the fact of the proportions of the spices: we had to lessen the chilli powder or Angel Face won't eat it, reduce the percentage of aniseed powder since the flavor is pretty dominant, and substitute powdered asafoetida for asafoetida water. And as a final deviation, we substantially increased the amount of yoghurt.

What can I say? Sometimes the inner tweaker just takes over. And it was delicious. The yoghurt really separates with the oil rimming the edges. Depending on your preference you can stir it back into the dish before serving, or try and serve the pieces while catching as little oil as possible. Remember though that the oil serves as a vehicle to disperse the spices, so a lot of the flavor of the dish is in there.

The accompaniment for this is obvious: Kashmiri pulao of course. What was that? You don't have a recipe for that? Oh my goodness, I just might have to scratch around a bit and see if I can dig up mine again...

I don't know where this recipe came from! Maa chellelu Nini found it online about six weeks ago, but she copied and pasted it, and now it doesn't have any URL information - or other distinguishing characteristics - anywhere. It could have come from a blog, or from an Indian recipe site like bawarchi.com, or a generic recipe site like cooks.com. I have no idea.

If you recognize this recipe - either as your own or from somewhere else - please let me know. First and foremost I would like to give due credit, but secondly: this recipe is fantastic! I would like to know where it came from so we can cook more of their recipes.

The biggest change we made to this recipe was to use butternut squash instead of pumpkin because that's what we had on hand. It turned out deliciously; the combination of the natural sweetness of the butternut combined with the distinctive tastes of the coconut and the curry leaves created a lot of happy people around the table; not to mention the richness added by the cashews.

This past weekend we took the opportunity to get up late one morning, cuddling a bit longer under the warm covers before facing the chilly day.

Rather more in the mood for comfort than experimentation, we returned to familiar recipes to make a brunch that fitted the mood perfectly.

The first item we selected was the Sweetcorn and Rice Fritters I entered last month for WBB; it is a firm family favorite, and the reason why we always make sure when we do grocery shopping that we have a supply of cream style corn.

Then, since we wanted this to be a substantial brunch as opposed to a light snack, we wanted to add a kura to it. Trying to come up with something that has both protein and vegetables in it, our thoughts very easily turned to the Chickpea and Potato Curry since everyone loved it. This time, for a little variation, we used some great northern beans instead of the chickpeas. It worked well, although I think I still prefer the chickpea version.

And so, we all had happy tummies with warm and delicious food inside, and we all lived happily ever after (at least for the rest of the weekend).

The End.

:-)

Food bloggers are wonderful people; everyone always seem so willing to help. I was looking for more Gujurati chana-bateta recipes after posting a modified concoction I made a while ago. And people very helpfully suggested that I look at the recipe posted by Trupti from The Spice Who Loved Me.

Now, for those of you with young children at home, this will be a familiar scene. Sitting down at dinner table, Angel Face usually will not eat much of the "proper" food, but instead will load up on the rice, or the bread or pasta or potatoes... you get the idea. To counteract this, we had instituted the "one-bite/one-bite" policy, which says she can have a bite of carbs only after she's had a mouthful of "real food." Sound familiar?

Well, it turns out she loves senagalu and what's more, she lo-o-o-oves them Gujurati style. Well, when you find something that the kid will eat without complaint that happens actually to be good for her with lots of protein (always a concern for us vegies), and that the adults also happen to like, you go for it!

So I tried Trupti's recipe, and it was another winner; I will keep it with the previous recipe, and we will probably alternate them, making one this time, and the other one the next time. As for Angel Face? Like last time, she took a spoon to the katori with the chana-bateta nu shaak in it and finished it off that way before even touching the bhatura. For her second helping, I filled it only halfway, thinking she won't finish it, but she did and asked for more even after that. Now what better endorsement than that do you want for a recipe?

Note: I've made only a few small changes to Trupti's recipe: left out the besan because we like it liquidy and when some of the potato is broken up a little bit it thickens the gravy quite well, and didn't put the jaggery.

My husband has strong opinions about okra (lady's fingers): it should never have the slightest hint of sliminess. I can understand that, and I agree, but he is ever so slightly fanatic about it. He is very - shall we say "careful" - about eating any dishes with this in it. His favorite way (read "just about the only way he likes it") is sliced thinly and dry fried.

So, when about ten years ago I decided to try this recipe from Premila Lal's "Indian Cooking" he was really hesitant, but he wanted to be supportive of my early cooking experiments. Then, about halfway through this recipe it looks as if it is never going to work, and you start wondering whether you should order pizza delivery instead.

But then, all of a sudden, everything just comes together, and you realize that you have an exceptional dish here. Here's the basic concept: you make a rich gravy from ground onions and yogurt, to which you add fried whole young lady's fingers. If you follow the steps carefully in the right sequence, you will end with a delectable meal that will have everyone asking you for the recipe!