everyday subzi : achari kathal | baby jack fruit cooked in pickling spices

Baby jack fruits sell like hot cakes in UP. At least in the eastern part of UP, baby jack fruits are the first jack fruits to appear in the local markets and they are lapped up by vegetarians who want to eat meaty vegetables. Jack fruit is the one meaty vegetable they depend upon the most.

Baby jack fruits are called as katahari or ledha kathal in UP and Bihar too. In Bengal it is known as Ganchh pantha, meaning meat growing on a tree.

It is a pity I have not shared many recipes of jack fruit here on this blog, although it is a very popular vegetable in Banaras and people cook it is many different ways. Of course each home has a different recipe but jack fruit is mostly cooked just like meats, using the same procedures of slow cooking, dum cooking and stewing etc to make the most of the meatiness it has.

This achari kathal is also a spin off of mutton achari. Normally it is cooked with loads of mustard oil and looks shiny and oily with oil floating in the bowl. I would of course make it more suitable for everyday consumption. You can see there is very little oil used to make this achari kathal.

We don't get baby jack fruits here in Delhi and I was talking about this to a colleague of the husband long back. And then someone rang up the bell early in the morning one day, we found the gentleman with 2 baby jack fruits in a bag at our doorstep. How sweet of him to bring baby jackfruits from his own orchards back in UP, from his visit.

I got them cleaned and cubed, then cooked this achari kathal and froze the rest. Will be coming up with more recipes soon.

ingredients...
(3-5 servings)

peeled and cubes baby jackfruit 300 gm
yogurt (dahi) 200 gm or scant 1 cup
hing (asafoetida) a pinch
mustard seeds 1 tsp
cumin seeds 1 tsp
nigella (kalonji) seeds 1/4 tsp
broken dry red chillies as per taste
fennel powder 2 tsp
ginger powder 1 tsp
turmeric powder 1 tsp
chilli powder 1 tsp or to taste
salt 1 tsp or to taste
mustard oil 1.5 tbsp

Normally the baby jackfruit cubes will be deep fried in mustard oil and then cooked along with a gravy but that becomes a really heavy subzi which is okay once in a while. I don't deep fry things much these days as I find it too heavy for my taste, more so because I want to eat more of the subzi.

So the low oil quick method is what I am going to share. The subzi doesn't look rich and oily but it is definitely tasty.

procedure...

Heat oil in a pressure cooker pan and tip in the hing, cumin, nigella and mustard seeds along with broken red chillies. Let them all splutter and get the chillies smoked a bit.

Add the cubed baby jack fruit and toss and cook for 5 minutes or so.

Mix all the powdered spices with the yogurt and whisk in the mean time.

Now pour the whisked yogurt spice mix, into the cooking subzi, stir to mix well, add 1/2 cup water and salt and close the lid with the pressure vent.

Let it cook on high till the first whistle blows. Then lower the heat and cook further for 10 minutes.

Cool the pressure cooker till the pressure gets down, open the lid and adjust consistency. I like it dry so I reduce the watery liquid.

Serve the achari kathal ki subzi hot, warm or at room temperature.

Sometimes I empty the cooker (or pan) and quickly cook another vegetable in it with the remaining grease. The beans on the side were just added with a little salt and cooked till the pressure just starts building up. This way I get some greens too for the meal.

A multi grain paratha suits achari kathal the best. Make it crisp and see how it becomes a meal that you love.

I have shared kathal ka dopyaza, kathal ki sookhi masaledar subzi, kathal ki biryani in the past and am sharing kathal ki bhujia and more recipes with kathal soon. I have the pictures clicked when I cooked them but somehow couldn't share them here. I wish I could have more time to talk about these desi khana more and more.

Kathal is available all over the year in Delhi, it keeps coming to the market from some or the other part of the country and thanks to the varied geographic-climatic conditions we do get almost everything all year round. Not such a thing to boast about but it will be better if we eat the produce of our own country and not start jumping at imported produce. Carbon footprint is not something to be happy about.

Kathal is cool, red currants, blueberries and blackberries are not.

everyday subzi : achari mushroom alu | mushrooms, baby potatoes and baby onions stir fry in pickling spices

Mushrooms make quick and tasty curries and stir fries, they are easy to clean and chop without any special skills and are available almost throughout the year. These qualities make them a frequent appearance in my kitchen and I feel adding some chopped mushrooms to my omelets, egg scrambles, soups, stir fries and even mushroom sauce to coat a meat dish. The most common use of mushrooms is done in the morning rush hours naturally. Mushrooms with spring onions is another favourite in winter season.

Since I cook a lunch box for Arvind in the morning I often end up cooking a variant of pickled mushroom stir fry that he likes well with his roti or paratha. This achari mushroom with paneer I cook when there is no other protein for the lunch box and the one I am sharing now is cooked when there is some rajma or chhole or chicken mince to go inside the lunch box. He avoids non veg with bones for lunch box for obvious reasons.

This achari mushroom uses slightly different spices and the end result is quite different too. There are actually many versions of achari mushrooms and a few of them use tomatoes and tomato puree in it but I like achari mushrooms a bit dry.

ingredients
(2-3 servings)
boiled and peeled baby potatoes, halved  6-8
button mushrooms halved or quartered depending on size 200 gm
baby onions peeled, halved or quartered about 12-14

spice powders 
turmeric powder 1 tsp
red chilly powder 1/4 tsp
Kashmiri chilly powder 1 tsp
ginger powder 1/2 tsp
fennel powder 1/2 tsp
asafotida (hing) powder 1 pinch

lime juice 1 tsp mixed with 4 tbsp water
nigella (kalonji) seeds 1/2 tsp
fenugreek (methi) seeds 1/4 tsp
mustard oil 1.5 tbsp
salt to taste

procedure

Mix the spice powders in lime juice solution along with salt and keep aside.

Heat the oil in a pan and tip in the fenugreek and nigella seeds and let them get aromatic. Take care not to bur them. Now pour the spice mix into it and stir well. Cook till the oil floats on top, it takes about a minute or so.

Now add the quartered mushrooms and stir fry till they start wilting. Add the halved potatoes and keep tossing till they get coated for 2 minutes. Add the baby onion quarters in the last and cook for 2 minutes more.

Take off heat and garnish with fresh chopped green chillies. This achari mushroom alu tastes good either hot or at room temperature. A good test of any achari dish. It keeps well in the fridge for 2 days if it lasts that long.

I make the use of the 2 most ubiquitous ingredients potatoes and onions in this recipe but mushrooms are also almost always there in my fridge. I have to buy mushrooms whenever I see them fresh and I wait for the season when they will be cheap.

Oh and if you have bought too many packs of mushrooms they don't spoil in the fridge. Mushrooms keep well for a week normally but if I buy them in bulk I simply keep a few packs of them cleaned and spread over a bamboo plate inside the fridge. The mushrooms dehydrate this way and last for about a month or more, these fridge dehydrated mushrooms can be re-hydrated quickly and used for any recipe easily.

I am sure you also love mushrooms and if you are looking for recipes other than matar mushroom or kadhai mushroom, I gave you many options in this post. Do try them and let me know if you like. Mushrooms are good for health.

And if you want to be indulgent with mushrooms you can make mushroom manchurian, the indo-chinese fusion we make with button mushrooms occasionally.

achari paneer and mushrooms | paneer and mushrooms stir fried with baby onions in Indian pickling spices

Paneer and mushrooms are consumed quite frequently in my kitchen especially for the lunch box meals that Arvind takes every day. Something that stays tasty even when cold, retains flavours and is not messy to eat. I have served this stir fry to large gatherings too and have found that this is one of those recipes that never fail to impress. For a small serving the cooking time is just about 10 minutes.

This kind of achari stir fries are a great side dish with Indian meals of daal, rice, roti and bharta or salads. It can even be rolled up in a roti or stuffed in a sandwich for a quick meal. Suits me many a times.

ingredients
(2-3 servings)
cubed paneer 200 gm
halved or quartered button mushrooms 100 gm
quartered baby onions 100 gm
whole dry red chilly 1 or as per taste
slit green chilly for granish
turmeric powder 1 tsp
kashmiri chilly powder 1 tsp
crushed ajwain seeds 1/4 tsp
crushed nigella seeds 1/4 tsp
crushed fennel seeds 1/4 tsp
salt to taste
mustard oil 1 tbsp
lime juice 1 tsp

procedure

Make a paste of all the powdered spices in 3 tbsp of water and keep aside.

Heat oil in a kadhai and tip in the spice paste slowly. Let it cook till the oil separates, stirring occasionally for about a minute or so.

Now add the baby onions, mushrooms and paneer in that order and keep stirring it for a few minutes. The ingredients do not need much cooking but the spices should penetrate them, high heat and frequent stirring does the needful.

Finish with lime juice and slit green chillies, add coriander greens if using and serve hot or cold. This stir fry stays well at room temperature for a day and refrigerates well for a week or so.

dahi wale achari tindey and another quick recipe of tinda...

Dahi wale tindey or achari tindey as we call this curry, loved by both of us when cooked using baby tindey. What? You can't figure out what tindey is?

Tinda (pl. Tindey) is a gourd family vegetable which can be called an Indian summer squash as it comes in summers along with sponge gourds and ridge gourds. Called Apple gourd in English, it is shaped like apples, but the similarity ends here. This is one of those watery vegetables that gets squishy when cooked and most people dislike it for precisely this reason. If made into a hot spicy curry some people like it but we don't like much spices in summers so I go for a lentil based curry or a yogurt based curry for cooking this squash.

The squishy texture is taken care of if you cook it with firm lentils like chane ki daal (split chickpeas) or green peas. This recipe is simple, just boil some chane ki daal with salt and turmeric powder till done but not pasty. Stir fry some chopped red onions in ghee along with cumin seeds, add cubed tindey and tomatoes and stir fry till slightly mushy. Add minced ginger and chilly powder or chopped green chilies, a little bit of garam masala and mix everything well. Add this mixture to the cooked chane ki daal and simmer for a couple of minutes. Keep the consistency thicker than usual daals and have it like a subzi side dish. It can make a meal too if you add a few cubes of paneer to it.

But the achari tindey or dahi wale tindey is a recipe that requires a bit of accuracy in cooking procedure. Firstly, you need baby tindas for this, secondly they need to be cooked just till they get a bit translucent but retain a bite. Not making it completely mush. It takes about 15 minutes to cook if you are doing 2-4 servings, but take care about the serving size as folks will be helping themselves 2-3 times with this flavorful curry. The consistency of the curry here is laga lipta type as we say in Hindi. That means a coating consistency of the gravy.

ingredients...
(for 2 large servings)

baby tindas (apple gourds) 300 gmm
yogurt 1 cup
one small red onion about 60-70 gm weight
minced ginger 2 tsp or to taste
ginger powder 1/2 tsp (optional)
red chilly powder 1/2 tsp or to taste
yellow mustard powder 1/2 tsp
salt to taste
chopped green chilies for garnish, you can add chopped coriander greens too
mustard oil 1 tbsp or a little bit more

spices to coarsely pound.. (achari spices)
cumin 1 tsp
fenugreek seeds 1/2 tsp
fennel seeds 2 tsp
nigella seeds 1/2 tsp
ajwain seeds 1/2 tsp

procedure...

Clean the tindas, discard the seeded ones. Quarter them all and keep aside. No need to peel the tindas as the baby gourds have very tender skin anyways.

Pound the spices listed under 'spices to coarsely pound' and keep aside.

Make a paste of the red onion and then blend in the yogurt. Keep aside. This can be done while the tindas will be stir fried for a while. Do as convenient.

Heat the mustard oil in a shallow pan or kadhai (I used a copper handi, tinned inside) and tip in the minced ginger. Fry for a few seconds or till it gets aromatic and then add the quartered tindas. Add salt and red chilly powder and stir fry till a few pinkish spots appear.

Now add the blended yogurt and onion, mix well and tip in the pounded spices, yellow mustard powder and the ginger powder if using. Mix again, bring the heat to lowest, cover the pan and simmer for about 10 minutes. It may get ready sooner if the tindas are really tender. Keep an eye and remove from the stove once it looks like this.

The curry looks nice with a coating consistency of a dahi gravy when served. Roti, parathas or any Indian flat breads go really well with this curry. You might like this with a daal on the side or a meat dish may be. Slightly sour in taste, this curry gets a nice aroma of the pickling spices used. The bland taste of tinda gets a new makeover with yogurt and pickling spices. You can make this curry thinner in consistency if you like.