The ultimate comfort food for dinner – Bhakhri, Khichdi, Kadhi, Shaak

Bhakhri, shaak, khichdi and kadhi is the ultimate comfort food for me. Dinner is called vaalu in Gujarati, and this is a typical combination for dinner in a Gujarati household. There are subsets of this combination of course, which are also quite popular like bhakhri-shaak and khichdi kadhi.

Moving counter-clockwise and starting from bottom left, the picture shows bhakhri, khichdi, shaak, kadhi and a papad on the top. You can also see jaggery and ghee on the bhakhri. Even though this might look like a super long post, making these for dinner is not at all complicated. I just like to make sure I do not miss out on any detail. 

Bataka wada – Raipur Bhajia House Style

Any Amdavadi worth his/her salt will swear by Raipur na bhajia. Non-resident Amdavadis like me, would kill for a plate of Raipur bhajiyas, even when they are in the city just for a few hours. The Raipur Bhajia House near the Raipur Darwaza at Ahmedabad sells the best bhajias in the city. The menu is quite limited. Boiled potato bhajias, Bataka wadas, Methi bhajias and Khaman is all that is available at this shop. Earlier, the shop used to be right in the middle of a very busy junction, causing much traffic problems. So, the shop has now shifted a little on the side, but the popularity of these bhajias remains undiminished. The shop sells just bhajias and no accompaniments whatsoever. No fried chillies, no onions, no chutneys, no water and not even a plastic bag. From as long as I can remember, they have been selling the exact same bhajias wrapped in newspaper with a cotton thread. And people continue to throng this shop. No matter what time of the day or year you go, you have to stand in a queue. The one thing I love apart from the food ofcourse, is that they have a separate queue for women foodies, which is usually much shorter . If you are not an Amdavadi, do pay a visit to the Raipur bhajia house when you are in the city and you’ll thank me.

Obviously, within a couple of days of me being in the city, I had my dose of Raipur bhajias. Driven by the enticingly delicious batakawadas, my mother and I decided to try and decipher their magical formula. Well, we did manage to get close to the Raipur bhajia version with the filling, but their perfect crispy cover still needs to be worked on. So, here come our attempt at cracking the Raipur bhajia house’s bataka vadas.

Now, the bataka wadas that we usually prepare are slightly different. In fact, there are a lot of versions of bataka wadas, but more on that later. The same preparation is called Batata wada in Bombay and other parts of Maharashtra, and is slightly different than this version I’m going to write about today.

Malpuas – soft, rich deep-fried Indian pancakes

As promised, I am back from a hiatus. Had a nice vacation at home and this recipe of a sweet called Malpua is going to mark the beginning of a series of recipes, all by my mother. Every time I visit home, I am reminded of at least a couple of delicacies, that were fairly common at home but have been forgotten by me over time.

Malpua is a very old and traditional sweet preparation. It is very common to see temples where Malpuas are served as prasad. My mother mentioned the other day that Malpuas and doodhpaak is a favourite combination for some people. The ingredients that go into making Malpuas are very easily available in any Indian household and theoretically, the recipe too is quite simple. If you haven’t got a chance to ever have Malpuas, I suggest you eat it somewhere first and then give the recipe a shot. Malpuas are pure indulgence, so dont look at the dripping ghee and enjoy the bliss!

Time for thanks

Vegetarian Delight touched the 10,000 visitors benchmark yesterday. WordPress doesn’t count my own visits to my blog, so the ten thousand number is genuine and therefore quite flattering. Its funny, but at times when I haven’t cooked something for a while,even I refer to this blog to brush up the details of the recipe. I must admit that since last month or so, I have been a little lazy on the cooking front and have just been cooking just to survive. Plus the husband is travelling since last week so I do not spend more than 10 minutes per day in the kitchen. I have been living on strawberry flavoured corn flakes with raisins and cold milk. And when it gets too milky or when all that sugar starts giving me a mild sugar-high, I push myself to make a bowl of kanda poha or upma, at the most. Cooking ain’t so much fun when you have nobody to appreciate or even share it with, you know.

So dear readers, I would like to thank you all for your continued interest in this blog and for making more than 10,000 hungry visits to my blog. Boy, I can’t seem to get over that number! Now that I have the much needed push, I pwomish to get back to regular food blogging.

Keep the comments coming.

Spinach(Palak) and onion soup

Ya ya so I am in one of those short-lived “I’m going to eat healthy” phases. Sticking to the theme of quick and simple recipes I’ve been following since last couple of posts, here’s an ultra simple soup that tastes yummy, especially on those wintery nights, cuddled inside a blanket on a bean bag, with a nice book to read.

Chilly paratha/ Kotthu parotta

Rotis dont taste all that great when cold, hai na? Chilly paratha is a quick and yummy little recipe to turn the dull and boring looking cold chapatis into an interesting filling meal. For a light evening dinner or even a snack you can use the leftover rotis from morning to prepare kotthu parotta (as it is called in Chennai).

Poha for breakfast

When it comes to breakfast, poha rules supreme! This recipe I am posting is mainly based on my mommy’s, with a few additions I picked up during trips to villages in Maharashtra. There are quite a lot of variations of this dish, like in Pune kanda(onion) poha is common while in some parts of MP, boiled green peas are added. I am posting the recipe that I use daily and you can customize it to your own taste.

Sabudana vada

Its monsoon. And when it rains, I crave for crisp and fried food like bhajias with a cup of adrak chai. One such monsoon special crispy fried preparation I like is sabudana vada, which is also used a fasting dish. Even though they taste absolutely yummy in monsoon, go easy on them as sabudana is hard on our stomachs and our digestive systems are not in their best behaviour in monsoon.

Tomato Onion Koshimbir (A Maharashtrian salad)

Tomato Onion Koshimbir (A Maharashtrian salad)

This salad or kachumber or koshimbir reminds me of the summers spent at Ajji’s (Naani’s) house. This preparation is a representative of a typical Maharashtrian koshimbir that usually has finely chopped veggies, the quintessential peanut powder and a tadka for tempering. You can try new salads with grated cucumber or kheera or grated carrot instead of tomatoes and onions, on similar lines.

Besan ke pude/pudla/dosa

Besan pudas or teekha pudla as we call it in Gujarati, is a quick and simple snack. We sometimes also make it for breakfast or in the evening when we are going for a light dinner. On days when you come home from a trip and the vegetable basket is empty or when you are too tired to cook anything elaborate, pudas are a convenient option.