recipe of sem ka chokha | mashed broad beans with chilli-garlic and mustard oil

Sem ka chokha is not very common in the thalis people serve to guests now a days even in Banaras or surrounding parts of the state. The koftas and the palak paneer and matar paneer is preferred over chokha in vegetarian thalis for several reasons.

One, the hosts want to serve good looking food to their guests and two, they are never sure whether the guests would like a simple dish that is devoid of spices, cream and even oil, that too made with a green vegetable.

But I have a special knack of serving such food to people and making them say they liked it. Recently when I made this sem ka chokha at a gathering of people from 3 different Indian states I was a little doubtful about the raw mustard oil used liberally in this chokha.

After I got to hear how good the chokha was, I asked whether they could taste mustard oil in it or not. I was not surprised when the answer was negative for this sem ka chokha as well as another salad that I had made. It is not about the pungency of mustard or any other oil but the overall balance of flavours in the dish that speaks for itself. Such a balance of flavours is a treat to achieve in such a simple recipe.

Sem ka chokha is made using the fleshy broad beans usually but it tastes great with any beans you have with you. Just make sure you adjust the seasoning and add a little potato to the chokha if the sem is not of the fleshy variety.

Here I used the thin skinned variety that is known for being a little fibrous.

Nothing that a few pieces of potatoes can't tackle. The potatoes actually bring a desired creaminess to the sem ka chokha and helps balance the flavours too. 

ingredients
(serves 6-8)

500 gm sem, strings removed and chopped finely
100 gm potatoes, peeled and cubed
1.5 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp minced hot green chilies
salt to taste
3-4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 tsp lime juice (if required)
2 tbsp mustard oil
1/4 cup water

procedure 

Add the chopped sem, cubed potatoes, salt and water in a pressure cooker and cook under pressure for 6-8 minutes (after the first whistle). Let the pressure release on its own.

Once the pressure drops, open the lid and mash the vegetables roughly with the help of a wooden spatula. Add the minced garlic and green chilies, the coriander leaves and mustard oil and mix well.
Add lime juice if required.

Empty the mash in a serving bowl and garnish with a few coriander springs.

Serve warm or cold.

The sem ka chokha pairs well with dal chawal meals as well as roti dal meals. You might like to roll up a roti with this and make it a quick meal.

Use any beans that you like but make sure you add potatoes if the beans are not too smooth after boiling. I like a generous drizzle of mustard oil in chokha so I might keep a bottle of mustard oil on the table but feel free to balance it according to your own taste.

Sooran ka chokha,  Baingan ka chokha and Gooler ka chokha are similar dishes with minor variations. Each one of them has it's own identity and represents the seasonal variation of the traditional everyday meals in eastern part of India. In other eastern states the chokha is known as sheddho or pitika and the taste may vary a bit but the dish remains as simple and elemental in it's nature.

Try this sem ka chokha and let me know if you like it. 

sooran ka chokha : a boiled mash of Elephant foot Yam with mustard oil and garlic

Sooran or Zamikand is the name of Elephant foot Yam. It is also called as Oal in Bihar and Bengal.

The problem with sooran is that it looks so ugly people rarely buy it, it also has a reputation of itching your throat if you are cooking the native variety. The native variety has a few small bulbous growth on the surface and the flesh looks a bit more pinkish brown.

Here is a sooran seller in a village market we visited, he has both the varieties. The one that itches more is tastier too and the one that is free of itch is considered useless by some.

The itching sensation is due to the high oxalic acid content in the underground corms but the oxalic acid can be denatured during cooking by using lot of souring agents and marinating the cooked or raw sooran in some sour juices.

The variety I use is the one that doesn't itch. But it is advisable to use some lime juice to the recipe if you want to be cautious. Cooking sooran is not too complicated, the skin can be peeled off easily, then you can chop it in cubes and proceed to make any curry or kabab you wish.

ingredients ...

peeled, rinsed and cubed sooran (yam) 250 gm
chopped onion 1/4 cup
minced green chillies 1 tsp or to taste
minced garlic 1 tsp or to taste
salt to taste
mustard oil (cold pressed) 2 tsp or more. Adding more mustard oil makes this chokha taste almost like English mustard paste.

preparation...

Boil or pressure cook the yam with 1/2 cup of water and salt. Cool down.

Mash along with the rest of the ingredients, drizzle with mustard oil and serve warm, cold or whatever way you like.

Lime juice can be added at the time of serving.

After boiling the yam cubes, all the ingredients can be blended together in a blender jar. That way it makes a nice dip which is quite delicious and creamy on it's own.

This sooran ka chokha is a popular mashed vegetable recipe with the elders of eastern UP and Bihar. I say elders because I have rarely seen youngsters enjoying it the way elders do. Such a pity.

I suggest you stuff it in grilled sandwich along with mustard sauce sometime and see how even the kids love it. The same recipe is known as Kaathalu pitika in Assam.

In fact all types of chokha that we make in UP are known as pitika in Assam. There are some similarities in the cuisine despite geographical separation, local ingredients are used as per convenience.

light meals : muradabadi mung ki daal aur parval ka chokha

Mung ki daal is the most frequent daal in my kitchen. Not only it cooks faster, I like the taste too and the simplicity with which I can dress up this daal into anything I want. I make it into a sookhi mung ki daal sometimes and add some methi sprouts to mung daal some other times. Mung ka dhokla is a recipe I repeat frequently for our evening snacks or weekend breakfasts. But the most simple thing I do with dhuli mung (skinned yellow mung beans) is just to pressure cook it and add some chopped tomato onions and have as it is. I love it as a soup, snack or a meal whatever way I need it.

This way of dressing boiled mung ki daal with just a few chopped raw onion and tomatoes is a very common way of cooking the daal in western UP, specifically Muradabad. My sister's mother in law makes this daal and everyone loves the clean flavours of this simple daal. The most wonderful thing is that there is hardly any recipe to note down. But let me warn you that the simpler recipes need to be accurate to make sense.

Recipe of  Muradabadi mung ki daal

ingredients
(2-3 servings)

To pressure cook..
split mung daal 1/2 cup (rinsed)
water 1 and 1/4 cup
turmeric powder 1 tsp
hing or asafotida 1 pinch
ghee 1/2 tsp
salt to taste

to serve..
roasted cumin powder (bhuna jeera) 2 tsp
chopped tomatoes 1/4 cup
chopped red onions or bulbs of spring onions 1/4 cup
chopped coriander greens 2-3 tbsp
chopped green chillies to taste
ghee to serve 1/2 tsp or more per serving

procedure

Mix everything listed under 'to pressure cook' and pressure cook till the whistle blows up. Switch off the flame and let the pressure cooker rest till ready to be opened. Depending on the size of the pressure cooker, the daal will be thick and done or it may be a little al dante. Let the daal simmer without the lid if needs more cooking but only till it gets thick and done, not mushy or pasty.

Add the bhuna jeera (roasted cumin) powder and half of the chopped onion and mix.

Pour the daal in individual bowls and garnish with the remaining chopped onion, tomatoes and dhaniya patta. Drizzle with ghee and serve hot.

I usually make some bharta or chokha with such simple light meals, mostly when we are home after a long travel or have eaten out a bit. Light home cooked meals serve well on such occasions but I can live on such meals even in my everyday life.

This time I had made this Parval ka chokha that I love to bits and keep repeating it till the parval season lasts. Again the recipe is very simple but needs to be accurate to give the same results.

Recipe of Parval ka chokha 

ingredients 

to pressure cook together..
parval (pointed gourd) 10 large ones (scraped and halved)
baby potatoes 2 peeled and halved
salt to taste
1/4 cup water

to finish..
chopped onion 2 tbsp
minced garlic 1 tsp
minced green chillies 1/2 tsp or to taste
chopped coriander greens 1 tbsp
mustard oil 2 tbsp

procedure 

Mix the ingredients for pressure cooking and cook till the first whistle. Let the pressure cooker rest till ready to open. Mash the boiled vegetables with the help of a potato masher or the back of a serving spoon.

Add all the ingredients to finish and serve right away. This parval ka chokha keeps well for a couple of hours at room temperature and tastes great with daal and multigrain rotis or with daal and rice meals.

Try and cook this mung ki daal and parval ka chokha together whenever you need a light meal to cleanse your body of overeating, festive eating or eating out. Or just to have a pleasure of simpler warm meals cooked at home. I assure you wont be disappointed.

Both these Muradabadi mung ki daal and parval ka chokha are one of those foods that I eat in large amounts. Often without any roti or rice to go with it. I am sure you know it already if you have been reading my blogs for some time.

Cheers.

Gooler, the country fig: a medicinal fruit that can be cooked in many ways | gooler ka chokha and other recipes

My article about Gooler, the country fig or the Indian fig was published in Down to Earth magazine. I am posting the detailed version of the article, the magazine article was a downsized version of all the research I did with gooler and it's properties.

I remember my grandmother telling us bedtime stories and taking us to unknown lands of fantasy. Her stories involved birds, jungle animals, trees and their conversations and we grew up considering these ‘characters’ as our companions. One of the stories that stuck in my mind was when she told about Gooler ke phool  ( Fig flowers) in a story, that these flowers are seen by rare lucky people and whoever is able to see Gooler ke phool finds a treasure or a lost kingdom. This story stayed with me in my childhood and I often enquired the wild fig trees around to find a flower. No wonder I could never be lucky, I came to know later when I studied inflorescences in my biology class much later. The small figs we saw on the trees were actually inflorescences (cluster of flowers) and this special type of closed inflorescence is called as Syconium. There are more reasons why I associate Gooler with my grandmother, she relished Gooler as food and introduced us with the ways it can be eaten.

In the last few years we have seen the fresh plump ripe figs appearing in the upmarket stores, the fruit being sold at a premium price as it is deemed exotic. These fresh figs are the Ficus carica species, this fleshy variety of figs is either imported or grown as exotic fruit only in a few places in India, one variety grown around Maharashtra is called 'Poona figs' (ref. Handbook of Indian Agriculture). This fruit variety is highly perishable and hence most of the produce is dehydrated to form discs that can be re hydrated and used as required. Many of us have been relishing these figs in the dehydrated form called sookhe anjeer, those flattened and dried sweet discs filled with crunchy seeds and chewy dry flesh. Many 'sugar free' desserts including the kulfi and ice creams use sookhe anjeer.

Most of us have forgotten the smaller, more common variety of figs that grows wild all over India and is seen on roadsides or along old buildings. This one is called cluster fig or country fig, Ficus racemosa is the small Indian fig that is equally nourishing as the fruit fig. Goolar is the more common name it is known as in north India. The fruits are loved by Macaques, Squirrels and most birds, particularly Barbets, Tree pies and Parakeets and that is how the seeds get dispersed and this fig variety propagates easily.  

The last time I had the fortune of tasting Goolar ki subzi was a couple of years ago when I was visiting Banaras. The spicy meaty Goolar ki subzi has been a family favourite and my mother had cooked that for us. We miss Goolar here in Delhi though we see it growing around our colony. Goolar is a great shade tree, home to my favourite birds but the fruits were never accessible somehow, this time I asked the gardener to bring me some and he obliged. I cooked chokha and kababs first and then pickled a few for the first time. The pickle is doubly nourishing as it gets some probiotic flora along with the naturally occurring prebiotic fiber.

Considered as cooling, blood purifying, anti inflammatory and healing by Ayurveda practitioners, the raw fruits are valued as a tasty and healthy vegetable. The fruits contain tannins and the soluble and insoluble fiber found in the fruit is prebiotic in nature. That is the reason the raw fruit used as a vegetable was considered extremely good for stomach ailments. I remember my grandmother who lived a healthy and active 105 years, always brought some goolar whenever she had upset stomach. She would make goolar ka chokha mostly but she loved the spicy meaty curry made using goolar as well. People of her generation knew what to eat day to day ailments.

The goolar ka chokha is considered cooling during summer months, a raita mixed with buttermilk is cooling too and highly recommended for stomach upset caused due to amebeosis.

Interestingly, goolar was never cultivated as vegetable or fruit but the abundant bunches of fruits were foraged during harsh summers and beginning of monsoons when the green vegetables would become scarce in the olden days. Ripe fruits used to be plucked by children as they are quite attractive and aromatic, some children would eat the fruits but the taste is not as good, so most of the ripe fruit would get wasted. 

Raw fruits are actually an inverted flower filled with stigma and stamens and hundreds of insects that pollinate this closed inflorescence called Syconium. These insects would complete their life cycle till the fruit is ripe and would escape leaving the ripe fruit empty. This is a great example of symbiosis between a fruit and insect.

To cook the raw goolar, one has to cut them in quarters, clean the interiors of all the fibrous floral parts and the insects and the fleshy envelope of the fruit will be parboiled and then either curried or mashed to make bharta or chokha.

Many vegetable vendors would collect the goolar from nearby jungles and sell them to earn some profit, there was always a demand for goolar as folks knew it is good for health. Even dehydrated raw goolarwould be stored, its powder was used with sugar candy to cure E. coli infection. 

The fresh milky discharge (latex) from the leaves is considered healing for epidermal wounds when applied 3-4 times a day, it helps many kinds of infections of the skin (source). The enzyme ficin present in the fig latex is responsible for its anthelmintic activity and can be given with great benefit in worm infestations especially ascaris and tricharus types (source). Apart from the usage in traditional medicine, scientific studies indicate F. racemosa to posses various biological effects such as hepatoprotective, chemopreventive, antidiabetic, anti inflammatory, antipyretic, antitussive and antidiuretic (source).

Gooler ka chokha recipe 

ingredients 

1.     cleaned, quartered and seed removed goolar 1.5 cup

2.     finely diced onion 1/4 cup

3.     minced garlic 1 tsp

4.     minced green chilly 1/2 tsp or to taste

5.     salt to taste

6.     mustard oil 1 tsp

Procedure

1.     Boil the chopped cleaned goolar in sufficient water till soft. Strain and reserve the gooler.

2.     Mash with a fork or blend in blender and mix the other ingredients after blending.

3.     Serve with khichdi, daal rice meals or as a side dish for any Indian meals.

Gooler ka Kabab recipe 

ingredients 

1.     cleaned, chopped and seed removed gooler 1 cup

2.     roasted chickpeas flour or sattu 2 tbsp

3.     minced ginger, garlic and green chillies 1 tsp each

4.     garam masala 1 tsp

5.     chopped coriander and mint greens 1/2 cup

6.     salt to taste 

7.     ghee to shallow fry

procedure

1.     Boil the cleaned gooler in sufficient water till soft, drain and cool. 

2.     Mash with other ingredients except ghee to make a dough like mixture.

3.     Shape lime sized balls and flatten them between the palm. Arrange to be shallow fried in batches.

4.     Shallow fry using ghee or any oil of choice. Serve hot with green chutney or tamarind chutney.

Gooler pickle recipe

ingredients

1.     cleaned and chopped gooler 1 cup

2.     white vinegar (preferably with mother) 1/2 cup

3.     salt 1 tbsp

4.     chopped green chillies 1/4 cup

5.     crushed mustard seeds 2 tsp

To make the pickle, boil the cleaned gooler till soft, drain the water and let the gooler cool down. Then mix everything together and store in a sterile glass jar. The pickle is ready to eat in 3-4 hours and keeps well for a month or so.

daal bati chokha | making sattu wali litti , baingan ka chokha and arhar ki daal

Daal bati chokha or litti chokha aur daal as we call it, this kind of meal comes under the most favorite types in my household. A hearty meal with all the rustic flavors to appease the hunger, the taste buds and olfactory nerves all at once. Not to mention the fun cooking process.

For many people it has been an extensive work and a dreaded kind of meal because of long cooking time it is supposed to involve. Let me make it simple for you. I have been cooking baati and litti using my microwave and gas stove and it gets ready within minutes. Actually it is more convenient than making chapatis as it doesn't involve rolling and baking on the griddle. Daal and chokha are cooked conveniently too. Chopping some more garlic than usual would be well worth if you are anticipating daal baati chokha for dinner or for a weekend lunch.

Recently, during my Banaras visit i prepared daal baati chokha twice for extended family and friends and it was a baati masterclass for a few people out there ... I have taught many people to make litti and baati this way and it has become the only way to make it in many families around me since then. Very few of my real family and friends know about a litti post i did long time back on this blog, they get live demonstrations so they don't value written words on these pages...i don't mind that though :)

We wanted another round of daal baati chokha after coming home too, this is an addictive kind of meal believe me. The more you have it, the more you want.

The pictures are not very god because it was made for dinner and artificial light does make it look dull and lifeless, so do not go by the looks here as the taste is legendary. Time tested, tradition evolved and loved by all. For me, if a particular kind of dish is made in many regions of the country,  it is a testimony to it's being really good. This recipe is different from Rajasthani baati and more close to Bihari litti chokha , daal baati chokha of UP has a different identity of it's own. I have loved daal bafla of MP too, but that is also quite different from this.

Talking about the difficulty level of this recipe, you just need to concentrate over the daal and chokha and both of them are regular kind of recipes.

Daal is a mix of many lentils cooked conveniently in pressure cooker and tempered with chopped garlic, onion and tomatoes. Simple.

Chokha involves fire roasting the eggplants and tomatoes over gas flame but that can be done in an oven conveniently too. I somehow find it more convenient on gas stove as it is quicker and fun. Just some peeling the burnt skin and mashing with some chopped onion and the chokha is done. Simple.

The whole process of cooking the 3 of these for 2 people takes about 30 minutes. Including roasting , chopping , kneading the dough and assembling everything together.

ingredients and procedure for the baati.... 

Whole wheat flour without any shortening is what i normally use but you can go for a 1 tsp ghee shortening per cup of flour. Knead the flour using water and a little salt making a medium stiff dough. Make balls and flatten the balls to make about 1 cm thick batis , these ones are 5-6 cm diameter , you can make smaller or a bit bigger.

Now grease a MW safe plate with ghee and arrange 6-7 baatis in it and microwave on high for 5 minutes. I made 4 baatis and cooked for 3 minutes.

Place a wire rack on the gas stove and cook the baatis directly over the gas stove immediately after taking them out from the MW. This step has been posted with pictures here.

This flame roasting is to ensure those burnt spots on the surface and it gets a nice crust after this , while the insides are soft and crumbly. You can stuff 1/2 tsp ghee in each of the baati to make it softer and more flavorful too.

Smear ghee, keep them in a covered bowl and serve hot.

Cooking the baati should be the last step in assembling this meal but i wrote it first so you would know how easy and quick it becomes with this technique. Otherwise, making baati is the most tedious job, once this process is made easy you can now think of doing it happily. All the steps of making baati can be handled while cooking the daal and chokha simultaneously.

ingredients and procedure to make the daal...
(2 servings)
toor daal (arhar daal) 1 tbsp
mung daal 1 tbsp
masoor daal(red lentil) 1 tbsp
urad daal (skinned and split black lentil) 1 tbsp
turmeric powder 1 tsp
salt to taste
 for tempering...
ghee 1 tbsp
asafoetida powder a pinch
cumin seeds 1 tsp
minced (not paste) garlic 1 tsp
diced onion 2 tbsp
diced tomatoes 1/2 cup
red chilly powder 1 tsp or to taste
chopped green coriander to garnish
minced ginger 2 tsp

Wash, drain and cook the daals in pressure cooker with salt, turmeric and 4 times water by volume. Cooking time should be 5 minutes after the first whistle.

Heat ghee and add the asafoetida and cumin and wait till the cumin splutters. Tip in the minced garlic and let it brown lightly.

Now add the onion and fry till translucent. Add the tomatoes and a lil salt and cook till the tomatoes are pulped. Add red chilly powder and let it cook for a dew seconds and pour all of this to the cooked daal, let it simmer for a minute, add the minced ginger and chopped coriander, mix well and serve.

ingredients and procedure for the chokha...
(2-3 servings)
one eggplant round variety (approx 200 gm)
2 tomatoes
one medium sized potato
finely diced onion3-4 tbsp
minced garlic 1-2 tsp
minced ginger 2 tsp
minced green chillies to taste
salt to taste mustard oil 1-2 tsp
chopped green coriander as per taste

Roast the eggplant and tomatoes over gas flame or in the oven till cooked.
Keep covered for 10 minutes so the skin can be removed conveniently.
Remove skin and mash both eggplant and tomatoes with cooked potato and mix with all the other ingredients.
Serve hot or warm or cold .

If you want to do it within 30 minutes you should start with placing the eggplant and tomatoes on flame the very first thing. It needs to be turned and rotated every few minutes but you can do the daal preparations side by side. Kneading the dough for 2 servings and assembling the baati is a 10 minute job which requires your hands' involvement constantly.


I hope you found a simple way to enjoy a daal baati chokha whenever you want. A few friends have been asking for a recipe and although it is there on this blog since ages, i wanted to put a fresh post about the beauty of this meal.

Enjoy...