Wednesday, May 25, 2011

A recipe for capsicum barda palya

Ok I have a recipe after a long time.
I'm sure many people must be making this, or variations of it.

But i'm so thrilled mine turned out great today and I must put it down for myself. I used to make it earlier but in the past three years, for some unfathomable reason, I had stopped.

Including a dal in a subji/palya is a great way for me to mask the taste of a vegetable you don't like (i would love to try this with cabbage which i hate in the cooked form). It also adds volume when you're short of any vegetable. And most importantly it easily adds protein to your day's requirements.

What you need:
Capsicum - 4, chopped medium
Onion - 2, chopped
Kadle bele/Channa dal - a small cup
Green chilli -one (more if you like your food spicy)
Curry leaves
Coriander
Ginger
Jeera
Red chilli powder
Turmeric
Lime or amchoor powder
For seasoning -- mustard, jeera, oma/ajwain, uddin bele/urad dal
Salt and sugar to taste

Method:
1. Soak the channa dal for two hours. Drain excess water.
2. Pop it into the mixer along with the chillie, some chunks of ginger, some jeera,  salt and sugar to taste, turmeric, a dash of red chilli powder, curry leaves and coriander (chopped)
3. Grind it (DON'T ADD WATER), but just enough to make it a grainy grainy  mixture -- don't let it become a paste. It should be chunky...it's ok if you see some unground pieces of dal in it as well.
4. Heat oil in a pan/kadai/bandle, splutter the seasoning (you can vary it and add all you want).
5. Fry the onions light brown.
6. Add the dal mixture and cook it well too (it cooks pretty fast). Cover and let it cook, but keep stirring or dal may stick.
7. Add the capsicum.
8. Taste and check to adjust salt /spice levels. You can sprinkle on some red chilli powder if it sin't giving you a kick ;-)
9. Sprinkle on some drops of lime or add some amchoor powder to add the tang. Cover for a short while and it's done.


6 comments:

Uma said...

oh..sounds simple and yumm...will try it out...

Sahana Rao said...

Sakkat recipe!! Ee weekend nammanelli. ;)

Sahana Rao said...

Hey! One more idea. You can add the mixture of kadlebele masale into the capsicum (small sized) and fry them.
-Then a some water can to be added for the left over kadalebele masala.
-Add the stuffed capsicum in it.

Garima said...

very cool recipe.. must try.. as soon as I have a kitchen of my own! Pakka1

Forever mother said...

Yay!!!
I didn't know a recipe would be greeted so well...I'm not really a great inventor or recipe-writer, so there, now I'm encouraged to share more.
Spicy Sweet, your idea sounds good too, it's something we often do with brinjal, but with another masala...should try ur idea too

Aparna said...

Sounds so yummy!!! A little bit like the paruppu-usili (with beans) made in TN? I'm defly going to try it out! Thanks for sharing.