Obviously cooking's been going on in Cheenachatti. No one can survive that long without food! OK, maybe some:-) Puttu was one of the stars that made many appearances and I remembered that I had not blogged about Kadala Curry which almost unfailingly accompanies Puttu in its journeys to the netherworld, er.., I mean tummy. I usually make it with canned garbanzo beans which is the best kind of kadala for this kind of curry. Since it is already cooked, soaking and cooking times are pretty much taken care of. But today is when I got blogging time and feeling a little nostalgic, I had made the curry with black kadala. So this post is on that.
In The Mix
Channa/Kadala - 2 cups of black kadala (or 2-3 cans of garbanzo beans)
mustard - 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - a sprig or two
green chili - 3 each cut to 3-4 pieces lengthwise
red onion - 1/2 sliced
ginger - 1/2" piece sliced to splinters
coriander powder - 4 1/2 tbsp
chili powder -2 tsp
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
garam masala - 1/4 tsp (made from equal measure mix of cardamom/cloves/cinnamon powder)
warm milk - 2 cups
water - 1 or 2 cups
salt to taste
How To Do
Soak kadala in water for 4-5 hours. This step is not needed when using canned garbanzo beans. Need to take care to drain the water out if using garbanzo.
Heat oil in a pan, break mustard and add curry leaves. Then saute onion, green chili and ginger in that order and mix well with salt. Add all the curry powders. Add 1-2 tbsp of water so everything mixes well together. Roast the mix till everyone at home get the scent of spice powders in the air and can't wait to taste the curry that goes with it:-)
Add the milk and water and boil. Add kadala, let boil once, lower heat to medium and cook covered for 12-15 minutes. (If you are adding garbanzo the cooking time is 2-3 minutes just so everything blends well.) Stir once or twice during this time so the milk won't get separated out too much. Channa curry is ready to be mixed in with puttu and devoured. Some eat this with flat appams and even rice and while I found it all not too bad, I must admit that for me kadala is made for puttu and puttu only.....
The seasoning part of breaking mustard with curry leaves can be done in the end too. Just do that in another small pan and add to the curry at the very end. The latter looks a lot better while taste remains pretty much the same in either case.
5 comments:
Wow....I never knew milk cd be added to kadala curry. must try this.
picture looks good.
p.s - not to be seen at my page:-(
i was surprised when i read that our stew for appam was derived from the english stew and that they used milk for stew. i was looking for a coconut milk substitute and my husband suggested that i use milk and then once i came across the above info there was no holding me back. i substitute with milk almost anywhere coconut milk is required and has never suffered for it in terms of taste. even appam can be made with milk though in this case alone the taste does suffer some.
Huh...seriously this is news to me:-o.
Sounds like a curry my husband and I would love. Thanks for the tip re. the milk for coconut milk substitute. Even at 58 one can learn something new every day.
i use milk a lot of the time. once you start using it, there is no going back. this is how i ended up trying to use it for appam and found that this is the one case it won't work equaly well as the coc. milk.
the coconut infused appam is too nostalgic to try and replace:-)
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