DAL ,BHAT AND MASU IN DASHAI

This is the basic meal for the country, consisting of rice and lentils, dal bhat. It is composed of white rice (bhat) and lentils (dal) and it is typically accompanied by a vegetable curry (tarkari), a mixture of spicy vegetables (pickles) and greens (sak) and khasee ko masu.

Recipe of Dal Bhat

Ingredients

For the dal (lentils)

1 cup lentils
3 1/2 cup water
2 onions
2 garlic cloves
Salt
Pepper
1 teaspoon garam masala
5 cardamom seeds
4 tablespoons neutral oil

For the bhat (rice)

1 cup basmati rice
3 cups water
Kosher salt

For the tarkari (vegetable curry )

1 lb cauliflower florets
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
3 carrots, cut into thick slices
1 cup peas
1 onion, minced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
3 cardamom seeds
1 small chili
A few saffron threads
Salt
1 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon cumin
4 tablespoons neutral oil
Water

For the sak (green)

1 lb spinach, chopped
2 onions
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garam masala
Salt
Pepper
4 tablespoons vegetable oil

For the pickles

1/2 lb green beans
1 kohlrabi
3 carrots
2 garlic cloves
1 spring onion
Salt
Pepper
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons cider vinegar or wine
1 lime juice

Preparation

Dal (lentils)

Rinse the lentils with water, drain for 10 minutes and pat dry.
Heat oil over medium heat. Fry the onions and garlic for 1 minute and add the pepper, cardamom, salt and garam masala.
Add the lentils and sauté a little.
Cover with cold water and cook covered over medium heat until the lentils get a little mushy (about 1 hour).


Bhat (rice)

Place the rice in water with salt, bring to boil and then keep on low heat until water is completely absorbed.


Tarkari (vegetable curry)

Sauté onions for a few minutes. Add garlic, salt and garam masala.
Add the potatoes and fry well.
Add water to cover three quarters and add the peas, pepper and remaining spices.
Cook over medium heat for 45 minutes.

Sak (green)

Sauté onions and garlic in hot oil over medium heat for a few minutes.
Add spinach, cook over medium / high for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add salt, pepper and spices.
Place over low heat, cover and cook spinach in juice for 30 minutes.
Reduce the sauce if necessary.


Pickles

Wash and cut the length cabbage, carrots and beans, fry in oil for 5 minutes.
Add 1/2 cup of water and blanch over low heat for 15 minutes.
Add curry powder, vinegar and lime.
Add salt and pepper.
Cook for 5 to 10 additional minutes.
Serve warm or cold.
Serve dal bhat with papadums.

Goat’s meat (mutton) is one of most loved meat varieties among Nepalis. Here is the recipe of pressure-cooked mutton curry. If you are not using pressure cooker, you will just have to cook the curry longer. We Nepali normally love to cook with bones, skin and fats instead of just boneless lean meat. Bone marrow and some fatty meat pieces enhance the flavor of the curry, especially when you make the mutton soup. Goat’s meat has its own deep flavor and doesn’t require much spices and efforts to enhance the flavor.

Ingredients

½ kg Mutton pieces (with bones)
1 medium size Red Onion (finely sliced)
2-3 medium size Tomatoes
1 tbs Garlic and Ginger paste (coarse)
3-4 Cloves
3-4 Green Cardamoms
1 Cinnamon stick
3 Bay leaves (Tejpata)
1 tsp Fenugreek seed
1 tbs  Meat Masala
1 tsp Garam Masala
1 tsp Red Chili powder
1 tsp Turmeric powder
2 tbs Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Butter/Ghee
Salt
Fresh coriander leaves

Method

In a pressure cooker, heat 2 tbs of vegetable oil and fry  cloves, green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves and then fenugreek seed. Fry them for around 15-20 secs in medium heat until aroma starts to develop.

Add finely chopped red onion and fry until it becomes soft and starts changing color. Add ginger and garlic paste and turmeric powder and fry further for around a minute.

Add chopped mutton and cook it for around 5-6 minutes with occasional stirring.

Mutton being cooked

By now the meat starts to become brown. Add a tbs of salt (or according to your taste), meat masala and red chili powder. Cook it for around 2 minutes with occasional stirring and add diced tomato. Cook it further for around 4-5 mins until the diced tomato becomes soft and dissolved in the curry, and oil starts to separate from the masala.

Add garam masala, stir it and add a cup of water. Put the lid of the pressure cooker and cook it for around 15 mins (around 4 whistle) in low heat (if you are not using the pressure, cook the curry for around 25-30 mins in low heat with lid on).  Turn off the heat and let the cooker cools down until the steam in the pressure cooker releases completely. It will take around 5-10 mins depending upon the surrounding temperature.

Take the lid off, add a tbs of butter or ghee and give it a stir. If you want to make more gravy or soup, add more water and bring it to boil in low heat. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves before serving.
This quantity serves 3-4 people. You can eat the mutton curry with steamed rice, roti/bread, dhindo etc.  If you are making soup, you can also eat it as starter.

Pomelo pickle

Laxmi,do you know after Tihar we must have bhogate ko achar as part of festival.I remember this month I spent a lot of time in wild and farms of our relatives and enjoyed a lot and pomelo is one of them .I do not have the idea how to prepare I said but my hubby requested to prepare and I began to request my momma.

Mom made Pomelo pickle using dry-roasted sesame seeds, salt, sugar, yogurt, chili and several other spices. ,bhogateko achar.You can ombine the grapefruit with orange segments, dry-roasted sesame seeds, plain yogurt, sugar, fresh lemon juice, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, timmur, and salt to taste in a mixing bowl.

Paratha

Paratha a tasty food of my life and made by momma at home.People often asked me about my profession I feel that is my food and sleeping habit and television because books and TV are the most friendly and do not debate with me and keep on providing me the information about the world and facebook and google also add a charm in my daily schedule,my soft bed with pillow and laptop just speak many things with colors .

There was a poem about a sad man ,Dukhiko Thauno and my life is part of that Dukhiko Thauno, a poor man has a blanket which is very important for his  life .Even the bed brought to me by my dad has become same poem and the paratha making process helps me a lot of flavors in life.There has been discussions,articles and different blogs about paratha but my recipes does not work so much at all but I have been mentioning below.

In a large bowl take flour, salt, 1 tbsp oil or ghee and mix well to combine. Add water in small quantity and make soft pitiable dough you can keep aside the dough for 30 mins to 2 hours before making paratha too. Divide dough in to 6 to 8 equal portions.

Shape into smooth balls, flatten them and dust with flour and roll into roti. Apply oil or ghee all over roti and sprinkle little flour, fold into half apply oil, sprikle flour, fold again into half to form triangle shape. If you want your paratha to have layers then apply oil or ghee nicely all over and sprinkle flour, if not you won't get layers

Heat a tawa or griller and place rolled paratha, cook in medium flame for around 1 min or until bubbles starts to appear (if you have make good dough and rolled them properly it will puff up nicely as shown in below picture), flip and apply all over oil/ghee or butter, flip again and apply oil/ghee again. Cook for 30 secs to 1 min or until light brown patches, flip and cook again light patches appears. Repeat same for rest of dough.

Food and foodie

No more articles about food ,said the girl who was in orange dress and was depicting the values of dress.Whole night I kept on focusing on TLC about various gowns and value of photo session of family members but comic serials about family also helped me a lot about tastes of life with colors and spices .

To be foodie is not disease by birth , I remember how I used to suck the nutshells of green tea and leaves of tea which were soft with  my primary school classmates as they used to have competition for the weekend.There were tasty but to pretend to do something you uneasy was a matter of prestidge. Whenever market is busy of Tarkari wali or Topiwali,cycle ride,elections,furniture show,child care and beauty tips my focus remains on food.Because food is necessary as base and helps me a lot to understand the taste of visual,audio and other sensory perceptions around me.From facebook to mountains everywhere cuisine colors have been associating in same line and ingredients are just being the best things to describe on televisions and magazine,no matter how is the life one is busy to have a journey between innocence to experience and different foodie worlds are part of daily life.