Brown Rice & Barley Dosa

Brown Rice & Barley Dosa served with Sambar
I always try to alter my recipes to make them more healthy. I do strongly believe that white rice, all purpose flour or maida and other refined products do have very few or no nutritional benefits. Hence I often try to modify my recipes to use whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour/maida and brown rice and rosematta rice instead of white rice. I have also started experimenting with barley since I found out that barley has more fiber than brown rice.

Ever since I made Brown Rice and Barley Dosa, the definition of dosa has changed forever for me. The dosa looks a little brownish unlike the pretty well known snow white dosas.

Veggie Patty with Brown rice & Barley

I just love the veggie patty in the Subway Sandwiches. Last week, I was reading the recipe for Aloo tikki on Homespices and an idea just flashed me to make the veggie patties at home. Aloo tikki is an great alternative for the veggie patties, but I wanted it be filled with veggies and high fiber. I peeked in my pantry and found some brown rice, barley and bits and pieces of leftover veggies. I managed to come up with a my own recipe for veggie patty. It was just delicious, I gobbled up a few for evening snack, they were like cutlets.

Fried Rice with Brown Rice

Vegetable Brown Rice with Chilli-garlic sauce
Brown Rice is the Kernel of rice from which only the hull has been removed. In White rice all the high fiber & nutrient rice outer bran is milled and thrown away, while the brown rice retains all the good stuff that the rice has. But eating brown rice is not as fun as white rice. This has a chewy texture like whole wheat grain and barley.

Moroccan Lentil Soup to start the New Year 2007

This is my first post for the New Year 2007. Thanks to all my readers & fellow bloggers for the support and response shown in year 2006. Hope I will continue to keep you guys posted with more enthusiasm.



Sometime back I had posted the Spanish Lentil Soup and many of my readers liked it. But the recipe used bouillon cube instead of spices. Some of my readers are Vegetarians and its very hard to find a 100% vegetarian bouillon cube. So I did some research on the web and compiled this made from the scratch Moroccan Lentil Soup.

Barley Soup with Chunky Vegetables

I have planned to eat more healthy everyday. Why wait for Jan 1st when I can start it today? My plans is to cut down on rice and chapathi portions in half and to double the vegetables in my diet, include all varieties of cereal grains in the diet. I always loved to experiment with food to produce healthy recipes packed with nutrients without compromising taste. Here is the recipe for Barley Soup with Chunky Vegetables, which I did yesterday.

1/2 cup pearl barley
1 carrot
1 fennel
1 leek
1/4 capsicum
1/2 cup any vegetables of your choice
1 head broccoli/cauliflower
garlic salt/plain salt
fresh or dried herbs like oregano, basil, parsley, cilantro

Before I start with the recipe let me tell you more about the ingredients.

Barley is a cereal grain that is high in fiber and nutrients. It has more fiber than any other cereal grain. Most of the grains like rice and wheat are hulled and all the outer layer would have been removed before it comes to your plate. Barley too is hulled, but the nutrients left after milling is more than any other grain. Read more about barley on WHFoods.

Fennel on the left; Leek on the right

Fennel is the plant that looks like celery, but has a big pale green bulb at the bottom and celery like stalks on the top. The leaves resemble dill leaves. See the picture above. Very fragrant and add great flavor into the soup. Leek is like a giant green onion plant/scallion but is milder than onion. Leeks Lower LDL Cholesterol While Raising HDL Cholesterol. Read more about Fennel and Leek on WHFoods.

Lets start cooking now.
Cook barley in the pressure cooker with enough water to 6-8 whistles. Let it cook down.

In the meantime, Wash the fennel and leek. Separate out each stalks, wash each of it picking by hand and wash down all the dirt collected in them. Wash and Chop all the vegetables into chunks of 1/2 inch or smaller. You can transfer the content of the pressure cooker to a stock pot or continue in the same vessel to save on cleaning. Add carrot, fennel, leeks to the barley and cook on medium flame. You can add any more vegetables of your choice. When almost done, add capsicum and broccoli. Add dried or fresh herbs. Add garlic salt and pepper.

Serve hot with croûtons.

This chunky vegetable soup is a complete meal in its own.

Spanish Lentils / Lentil Soup

A few month back my eyes ran through a packet of whole brown lentils in the local produce shop. Being a health and fitness freak, I wanted to make some recipes with whole lentils. I tried making Indian dals and curries out of it, they were OK but never wanted to try it again. Later I gave up on it. Recently, my friend Manisha who is from Spain, gave me this recipe for Spanish Lentils. She says this is a gourmet food served in restaurants in Spain. Its usually served on the side of the Bread. Spanish paav bhaji!? So here it goes.

Spanish Lentils is very healthy, delicious and also very easy to make. It is somewhat between a soup and side dish. You can eat it like a dip for bread or simply eat it like a soup. The dish is loaded with fiber and veggies that just a bowl makes a complete meal.

The soup is made with whole brown lentils which are available in the local supermarkets. But you can also make this soup with whole masoor and or any other lentils from the Indian Store, but remember you need whole dals with the outer layer. Thats what makes it so healthy.

1 cup lentils
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium potato
1/2 bell pepper
1 tomato
1 carrot
2 tsp oil
pepper
1 bouillon cube or stock cube of your choice
1 tsp lime juice

Soak lentils for 30 minutes. Drain and set aside. Chop all the vegetables into cubes.

In a pressure cooker, heat oil. Fry onion and garlic for a minute. Do not brown them. Add all the veggies and fry for another minute. Add lentils, pepper and stock cube. Add water just enough to cover the lentils. Cook for 2-3 whistles. Adjust salt. Usually the salt in the bouillon cube is enough. Squeeze some fresh lime juice.

Serve with bread.

I used Knorr chicken bouillon cube. You can also use veggie stock cube or any other of you choice. More on bouillon cube here

Chana Chaat

Chana Chaat is one of my hubbys favorite. He has childhood memories of eating chana chat from the street vendors in India. He was able to recollect how the street vendors made it and we tried it at home. The results were wonderful. Now I make it very often.

1/2 cup black chana/kaDLe
1 cucumber
1 medium potato
1 medium onion
2 green chillies
1 tomato
1 lime/lemon
3 tsp chat masala
cilantro

The chat is made from sprouted chana. Hence you need to plan it a day or two in advance. To sprout chana, soak chana overnight or for 12 hrs in water. Drain the chana and let it rest in a colander. You can also tie it in a thin wet cloth. Rest it for another day and you can see nice long sprouts.

Now to make the chat, boil potatoes, peel and chop. Chop cucumber, onion, tomatoes, green chillies and mix together with the chana. Sprinkle chat masala. Squeeze the lime juice. Mix well.

Garnish with cilantro. Serve as an appetizer/salad or like a snack.

Kuleeth Saaru & Usli (Horsegram soup & Stir fry)

Saaru in Konkani or Kannada is a general name for any thin flavored liquid that has to be eaten with rice. Saaru can also be savoured like a soup. Konkanis do often use the liquid from boiling any grains/legumes for making saaru.

Kuleeth Saaru Served with rice

Kuleeth/Kulthi or Horsegram is a brown flat legume. I had written more about Kuleeth in the past along with Kuleeth Dosa.

Kuleeth is cooked with lots of water, the liquid is separated and used to make saaru. The cooked kuleeth grains is used to make Kuleeth Usli, a side dish that can be eatedn along with chapathi or rice or just like a snack.

1 cup kuleeth
6-7 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
2 dry red chillies

Cook kuleeth in a pressure cooker for about 5 whistles. Drain the liquid from the kuleeth to a sauce pan. Add slit green chillies and salt and bring it to a boil. Keep boiling till the green chillies impart hotness into the saaru.

For the seasoning, roast garlic in a tsp of oil, fry broken red chillies and add to the saaru.
Kuleeth Saaru
Serve with rice or drink like a soup.

Kuleeth Usli
Make kuleeth usli or a stir fry snack with the cooked grains.
1 cup cooked kuleeth
2 green chillies
1 sprig curry leaves
1/2 tsp mustard
hing
1 tbsp shredded coconut, optional

Heat 1 tsp oil in a kadai/wok. Splutter mustard seeds, add slit green chillies, curry leaves. Add cooked kuleeth, salt and a little water. Cook till all the water evaporates. Garnish with coconut.

Kuleeth Usli

Serve as a side dish or breakfast or snack.

Bean Soup (Sarupkari)

Sarupkari is a kind of dal made by the konkani people. Unlike other dals, dried beans are used here rather than the dals/lentils. The name sarupkari comes from saaru i.e the liquid dish and and upkari i.e palya/stir fry. So sarupkari is two in one. One can make sarupkari out of any kind of dried beans.

I often make with black beans, rajma, red beans, kidney beans, white beans, whole tuvar or togari in kannada, black eyed peas or green beans/mung beans.

Black eyed peas Sarupkari

3/4 cups any dried beans of your choice
1 potato, optional
7-8 cloves of garlic
3-4 dried red chilies
2 green chillies, optional

Soak beans overnight or for 12 hrs. It is very important to soak beans. It cooks faster, becomes more tastier and also soaking removes flatulence from the beans. Rinse the soaked beans in water 2 times and drain. Add enough water so that beans are covered. Add diced potatoes. Cook the beans in a pressure cooker. Cook until the beans are well cooked. Its better if the beans are broken and looks a little mashed. This brings some thickness to the sauce. Now transfer the cooked beans to a sauce pan, add salt and slit green chilies. Boil for 5 minutes.

For the seasoning heat a tsp of oil, fry crushed garlic cloves until golden brown. Switch off the flame and add broken red chilies. Fry for a minute and add to the beans. Bring it to a boil and switch off the flame and cover the pot.

Serve with rice.

If you do not develop a taste for the sarupkari with rice, you can simply savor on the sarupakri like a bean soup.

Make a Vegetable Soup out of any leftovers

Kuleeth dosa (kuleetha ramnaN)

Kuleeth or kulthi, also called Horse gram in english is a legume. It looks like whole masoor or brown lentil. Kuleeth was the staple food fed for horses in India, and hence its English name. The cooked kuleeth was fed to horses and the liquid after cooking kuleeth was drained, used to make saar. I will post this recipe some other day.


Kuleeth or Horse gram

This recipe for Kuleeth Dosa, called kuleetha ramnaN in konkani, is from the authentic Konkani Cookbook, "Oota Upahara" published in Kannada and "amgele kaaNa jevaN" in konkani by Jaya V Shenoy. The book has been around nearly past 20 years and is a popular cookbook in the Mangalorean Konkani households.

1 cup kuleeth/horse gram
1 cup urad dal
1.5 cup rice/idli rava

To make the batter
Soak kuleeth and urad together. If using rice, soak it separately. Soak time approx 2 hrs. Rinse and clean the above. Grind kuleeth and urad to a smooth paste. Grind rice coarsely to the consistency of idli rava. Batter should be of idli batter consistency. Mix all the batter and add salt. (If using idli rava mix it with kuleeth and urad batter now). The batter can be used immediately, does not need to be fermented.

Now to make ramnaN. ramnaN can be made in 2 different ways

You can steam cook the batter like idli. Traditionally its cooked in a round metal plate with 1 inch depth like the cake tins/dokla stand called vaTTe in konkani


Kuleeth dosa or kuleetha ramnaN

The other way to make is in a round bottomed wok or kadai. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a kadai and splutter a few mustard seeds. Add 2 serving spoonfuls of batter. Place the lid and cook on low flame till the bottom side gets crispy and brown and upper side is cooked. You can turn the ramnaN and roast other side. This turns out like Idli hidden inside a crispy Dosa!

Serve with Sambar or Rasam or Chutney.

Updates
Check out the recipe for Kuleeth Saaru and Stir Fry

Moong or Green gram dosa

Ingredients
1 cup green gram
1/4 cup rice
1/4 inch ginger
4 green chillies
salt to taste

Soak green gram and rice overnight or for 6-8 hrs. Grind to paste in a blender. Add ginger and green chillies and grind till they get crushed. Add salt to taste. Make dosas instantly.