Saturday, October 16, 2010

alu sem tamatar ki bhurji



 Bhurji is a dry stir fry vegetable preparation which is scrambled roughly while cooking so that the vegetables get mushed up together a bit to let the flavors mingle together . A mishmash . It's up to your choice how mashed up you want your vegetables or you want them just lightly bruised to take on the flavors of each other. This one is just like that . Potatoes and broad beans are cooked together on low flame to allow cooking in it's own juices and are lightly thrashed with tomatoes to make a colorful mishmash . Healthy , low fat and no spices at all . Spices are great and i love spicy food but it's not always you want spices to be used in your food , this is for such times. Or when the main course is high on spice and you want a milder side dish.

ingredients..
 ( two servings as a side dish )

Potato 1 no. ( chopped in small cubes )
sem or broad beans chopped in small bits 150 gm
tomatoes chopped in small cubes 2 nos.
small garlic cloves 4-5 nos. chopped
ginger 1/2 inch piece chopped finely
green chillies 1-2 nos. chopped finely
fenugreek seeds 1/2 tsp (can be replaced with cumin seeds if you don't like bitter fenugreek seeds in the subzi)
asafoetida a pinch
turmeric powder 1 tsp
mustard oil 2 tsp


procedure...

Heat the oil in a kadai ( i use iron kadai ) , add the fenugreel seeds and wait till fragrant and pink ( take care not to burn them ) . Throw in the chopped ginger-garlic and green chillies and immediately add the chopped potatoes and beans .


Add salt and stir fry on low flame , add turmeric powder , mix well and cover to cook for 5 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes , stir to mix and cover again and cook for a couple of minutes. Open the lid and mash the vegetables lightly ( or completely mash them if you wish ) .

Serve hot with chapatis and any kind of daal or raita . Goes well with daal-chawal meals too . I like it mixed with plain boiled rice very much for a quick meal . The stir fry is wonderfully flavored with just the ginger garlic and a hint of fenugreek .

If you don't like bitter fenugreek seeds coming in your mouth while eating , you can remove the seeds after heating them in the oil. Just heat the oil with fenugreek seeds , put off the flame and remove all the seeds , the flavor is alredy infused into the oil and it will flavor the stir fry wonderfully , keeping the bitter tidbits away . Or if you don't like fenugreek use cumin or nigella seeds instead ....


Also , a small brinjal can be added to this bhurji along with the potatoes and beans , that makes the dish even more mushy and i like it that way if the beans are of the very soft variety .  Some beans are very soft and buttery when cooked but most of the dark green ones can be a bit tough . So with these dark green beans i prefer only tomatoes , the dish is a very traditional chhhaunka ( tempered ) subzi where no spices are used but it's still yummy and can be made hot with chillies if you wish.


Enjoy !!!

13 comments:

  1. Bhurji looks perfect! A complete with some daal and rice.

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  2. Colourful and beautiful looking bhurji..

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  3. sometimes, we dont like some vegies, maybe this is a good idea to mix everything together and make a dish out of it.

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  4. Dear sangeeta
    Subho Bijaya
    Was bit busy, cd not see your postings.
    This is a great dish ( as usual from you). My wife will like it. I am off vegetables as advised by the Doc...( in any case I dont like vegetables except Vendi, Karela, Baigan, Jhimikand and all kind of Sag).
    Have a nice week

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  5. Thanks everybody...

    Devasena.....if you like including veggies in your food even if you don't like them , it may be a good idea .

    Dear Ushnish... shibho vijaya to you too.

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  6. First time here...love the recipes on yur blog...Following yur blog now :)

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  7. I don't think I've ever used fenugreek! I've seen it and smelled it, but that's about it. Will have to get adventurous :-)

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  8. Simple and yummy bhurji..Would like to try it sometimes..

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  9. Hi sangita pl do post a lot of simple subzi recipes like this, by the way you should have a recipe index on ur home page, perhaps iam not seeing it right?

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  10. Nirmala ... many simple subzi recipes are already there in my drafts and i plan to post them soon . I will make a recipe index too , have been really irregular with my blogs ....will try n do the things .

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  11. This is a yummmmmm recipe, one of my favourites as it is not only tasty but very easy to make... Have tried different variations of this bhurji with french beans, minus tomatoes. To make it quicker one can even microwave potatoes and beans for a couple of minutes, I used to do it when I used to get my own dabba.

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