everyday curry : Kathal ki bhujia | jackfruit stir fry with pepper and dry pomegranate powder

After sharing the achari kathal ki subzi with you, I was going through the kathal (Jack fruit) pictures in my albums and found at four more recipes that needed to be shared here. I know I have been very irregular here but I promise everything will be shared sooner or later.

This kathal ki bhujia is so good you would cook it more frequently for two reasons. One, it is fairly easy to cook once the peeling and chopping is done and two, it is a light curry (sookhi subzi) that can be eaten everyday easily. Kathal subzi is known as a spicy heavy curry normally, but we do cook very light curries with kathal too, Kathal ka dopyaza is a fine example of a light kathal curry.

I will tell you chopping kathal is not to tough. Yes it does take some time but most good things come at a price. Most vegetable vendors will peel and chop it for you if you ask them, but do that only if you are planning to cook kathal the same day or the next day. Else, just tell them to give you a thick slice of the jack fruit like the below picture.

Once you have this slice, just grease your hands and peel off the thick skin. Remove the inner pith too.

Now place the moon shaped jack fruit slice on a chopping board and chop into pieces of required size. For this kathal ki bhujia we need really thin slivers.

Separate the seeds and remove all parchment like seed coats. The chopped and cleaned mature kathal looks like this.

If using fresh kathal, and if it is chopped nicely it takes just about 15 minutes to cook on medium heat. You can always add your own choice of seasoning and spices, I like this kathal ki bhujia with a strong kick of black pepper and an earthy tartness of anardana (dried pomegranate seeds).

ingredients...
(2-3 servings)

chopped kathal like above 2 cups
sliced shallots of baby onions 1/4 cup
mustard oil 1.5 tbsp
cumin seeds
whole dry red chillies 2
ginger julienne 1 tbsp
black pepper corns 1 tbs
anardana 2 tbsp
salt to taste

preparation...

Heat a thick base pan and dry roast the peppercorns and anaradana briefly. Cool and make a coarse powder in mortar and pestle.

Heat mustard oil in a kadhai and tip in cumin seeds and red chillies, add the sliced onions once the cumin and chilly get aromatic and cook till they start getting lightly browned.

Add chopped kathal along with the seeds. Add salt to taste and stir fry for a couple of minutes.

Cover and cook for five minutes and mix once again. Cover and cook again for 5 minutes or till done, stirring in between for uniform browning.

Add the pepper anardana powder and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Serve hot.

This Kathal ki bhujia is great with paratha or roti meals. Nice with dal chawal meals too and even in Indian style grilled sandwiches with green chutney.

We like this kathal ki bhujia with our multi grain rotis.

Choose white fleshed tender but large sized kathal if you are planning to make this kathal ki bhujia. Else you may be left with a too dry bhujia or a melting sweetish kind bhujia that doesn't do justice to this recipe.

The kathal feels nice and soft in the bhujia, lightly caramelized with hints of ginger, pepper and pomegranate seeds. You might end up eating it as a salad too.

Try this kathal ki bhujia and let me know.

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.

kathal ki sookhi masaledar subzi made with minimal oil

For some reason Kathal (jackfruit) ki subzi is a Holi tradition in many vegetarian families in Eastern UP. The hardcore non vegetarians cook a spicy mutton dish to set off the gujhia nd malpua sweetness that the festival brings in. Kathal is vegetarians meat and if cooked the same way it actually tastes really good and serves the purpose of being paired with many many sweet dishes on the festive menu.

Although jackfruit fruits all year round in the southern peninsula, the Gangetic plains have a distinct season for jackfruit which starts around the spring time after the harsh winter. This could be a reason why jackfruit is associated with Holi tradition in many vegetarian family in this region. Those who love this meaty vegetable keep cooking till the season lasts and even pickle it. My mom used to make a pickle of jackfruit slices with raw mangoes and I remember we used to like the kathal ka achar (jackfruit pickle) more than kathal ki subzi. Now I don't care for the pickle and gave away a huge jar to my maid.

Coming to kathal ki subzi, this is not one of my favourite subzi to be honest, I like it occasionally for a change. But one or two odd requests about kathal ki subzi have been coming to me and considering kathal is available throughout the year here in Delhi I feel guilty of not cooking it even if it is occasional. It so happened that one day while my weekly vegetable shopping I came across this subziwala who was cutting very fresh medium sized jackfruit and I bought it just because it looked fresh.

New potatoes in the season also make this kathal ki subzi special because the floury sweetish summer potatoes just spoil this spicy curry. Skip adding potatoes if you don't have new potatoes.

Note that most people deep fry the kathal and use a lot of oil to fry the masala paste too when making this subzi traditionally, I avoided kathal ki subzi for the same reason for several year as I had seen my mom cooking it with loads of oil floating in it. Later I figured how to cook kathal with minimal oil and still retain it's flavours. This recipe is my adaptation of the flavours of UP style kathal ki subzi using minimal oil.

This is a pressure cooker recipe to ensure even cooking of jackfruit and letting it absorb the spices without deep frying it.

ingredients...
(4 servings )

peeled and cubed jackfruit 300 gm
boiled peeled, cooled down completely and halved new baby potatoes 200 gm
salt to taste
mustard oil 2 tbsp
hing a pinch or strong hing solution 2 drops
nutmeg and mace powders 1 pinch each

to make a coarse paste..
chopped onion 2 tbsp
dry red chillies 3-4

to make a smooth paste ..
garlic cloves 4-5
ginger slivers 1 tbsp
whole coriander seeds 1 tbsp
cumin seeds 1 tsp
peppercorns 1 tsp
black cardamom 2
green cardamom 2
cloves 5
cinnamon stick 1/2 inch
tejpatta 3
turmeric powder 1 tsp

procedure..

Heat the oil in a pressure cooker pan and tip in the hing, wait till the hing floats up or the oil gets aromatic with hing. Now tip in the coarse paste along with salt and brown it on medium flame.

Tip in the smooth paste and bhuno it all for about 6-8 minutes on medium heat or till it gets aromatic and looks glazed.

Add the cubed boiled potatoes and jack fruit cubes into the masala mix and toss to coat. Stir fry while tossing it till edges of jackfruit and potatoes start getting golden brown. It takes some time as the amount of cooking oil is less but in a pressure cooker pan it doesn't stick to the bottom thankfully.

Add the nutmeg and mace powders in the last and mix well. Then add 1/2 a cup of water, close the lid and let the pressure build up till the first whistle. Lower the heat and cook for 5 more minutes. If the jack fruit is very fresh and tender it might cook sooner, hard jack fruit mat take some more time.

Let the pressure cooker cool down before you open the lid. Serve hot with or without a garnish of coriander greens. In older times kathal ki subzi was made mostly during summer months, the peak season of jack fruit, and coriander greens were a winter produce so it is not a normal garnish for kathal ki subzi. Even tomatoes are not used in all summer subzi recipes traditionally for the same reason.

The kathal absorbs the spices well owing to it's fibrous porous nature and the texture is quite meaty. So if you add spices similar to meat curries it gives a feel of meat to vegetarians apparently. I have never found it comparable to meat personally but all vegetarians consider it to be the vegetarian's meat. I never question that :-)

Poori is a favored pairing with kathal ki subzi during the spring season and specially holi but in summers it is always served with a cooling cucumber raita, sliced and vinegar soaked onions and plain thin chapatis.

Kathal ki biryani | Jack fruit mock meat biryani

Kathal ki biryani is the ultimate vegetarian biryani that even I like. Normally the vegetarian biryanis are never impressive in any way, apart from being a mixed vegetables, nuts and rice cooked together. I prefer my khichdi over vegetarian Biryani. But Kathal or Jack fruit biryani is different.

Raw jack fruit is a meat substitute for vegetarians all over India. Kathal (jack fruit) was never a favourite vegetable when I was growing up. Just the kathal ka dopyaza was something I loved, sometimes the spicy versions of kathal ke kofte or a curry masquerading as mutton curry would be liked too. But I never really craved for kathal. So much so that I had cooked kathal only about 4 times in the last 6-7 years although it is available throughout the year. But then I saw a few kathal ki biryani recipes doing the rounds on fb groups and someone actually asked me to post my version of it.

Now truth be told, I had never had any kathal ki biryani in my life. And this girl from Bangalore would keep requesting me to post more kathal recipes as she loved them and wanted to cook. I brought a whole kathal once and turned lazy in the coming week, made kathal ka dopyaza first as that is my first choice, the remaining kathal got wasted. Yes. Sad.

But then as I kept thinking of kathal ki biryani, I picked up a fat slice of kathal on day from the subziwala and cleaned and chopped it almost immediately. Kathal ki biryani was planned for the next day, cooking was to be done early in the morning as I had planned to pack this 'biryani' to Arvind's lunch box as well. I thought it would taste like tahiri if not biryani and he anyway loves tahiri so it wont be a problem. I succeeded in making this kathal ki biryani in about 30 minutes, packed half of it for his lunch and half for myself. It was at my lunch time that I realised it actually was a good 'biryani'. Kathal is quite meaty and works well for biryani if treated well. Finally a biryani for vegetarians.

 I will tell you what do I mean by treating the kathal well. As I repeated the kathal ki biryani lunch box a few times and found out what way kathal tastes best in the biryani.

Just take care to chop the kathal in shreds, separating the seeds (saving it for a curry if the seeds are mature) if the kathal has any. The one I used had very soft seeds so I let them be. Remove the parchment like seed coat from each seed and reserve the fleshy and fibrous parts of the fruit. You would need to smear oil to your hands, the chopping board and the knife when you chop and peel kathal.

Since I cooked this kathal ki biryani in the morning hurry hours, I worked out the shortest possible method for me. I am sure it would work for you too.

ingredients
kathal chopped like above 2 cups packed
basmati rice 1/2 cup
water 1 cup
tejpatta 2 leaves
whole black pepper corns 12
shahi jeera (caraway seeds) 1/2 tsp
cumin seeds 1 tsp
pathhar phool or chhadila (lichen spice)
garam masala (green cardamom, black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and a little mace powdered together) 1 tsp
black pepper powder 1/2 tsp (optional)
whole red chillies 2
sliced onions 1 cup
ginger julienne 2 tbsp (or half as much, I like this biryani a bit hot)

As I mentioned I worked around a shortest possible method to cook this biryani, the fact that the kathal was chopped and refrigerated in advance helped. To make it quicker, I cooked the rice in microwave till the kathal was prepared in a pan of gas stove. Later both were mixed with light hand and microwaved again with a lid. This helped the rice look really separated and kathal stay meaty and not get mushy.

procedure

Wash the rice, add water to it along with the tejpatta and patthar phool. These two spices bring the biryani flavours really well, making kathal ki biryani taste a bit like mutton biryani, although there is a wee hint only, but pleasing to the senses. Cook the rice in microwave as you would normally cook rice, but take it out as soon as the rice is 3/4th done. Cover and reserve. By the time rice cooks to this stage, you will be half done with the kathal on the pan.

To prepare the kathal for biryani, heat ghee in a pan or kadhai and tip in the sliced onions, separated well so they fry nicely. Let the onions fry till they get golden brown. Take out half the onions and reserve, add whole spices, ginger julienne and chopped kathal to the remaining onions in the pan, one after the other, stirring in between. Add salt and cook covered for about 10 minutes, on low flame.

Add the powdered spices, stir and mix well and cook covered till the kathal is done. Take about another 10 minutes. You might need to sprinkle some water during cooking as kathal may get dry and can get charred.

Mix the cooked kathal and the 3/4th cooked rice. Cover and microwave for 5 minutes or till the rice looks fresh and done.

Serve hot with raita and some salad. I had it with one boiled egg and and fruits and vegetable mix raita. These pictures are of my lunch that I had after 4 hours of cooking the biryani. Reheated kathal ki biryani tastes great too.

I cooked this biryani in pressure cooker too one day, as usual in the morning hurry hours, thinking it might be good that way too. The taste was the same, the rice grains looked a bit thicker and the kathal pieces were a bit too soft for my taste. I wont make it in pressure cooker ever. The above method worked best every time I cooked it. Four times to be precise :-)

You already know I loved this kathal ki biryani although I have been vehemently opposing any vegetable pulav being called as biryani all this while. The pathhar ke phool (black stone flower) imparts a hint of meaty flavours to this biryani and this pulav/tahiri steps up a rung towards biryani :-)

Kathal ka dopyaza | an aromatic dry stew of raw jackfruit

Kathal is Jackfruit, a giant fruit that grows anywhere on the tree, even closer to the roots.The fruit is edible in all phases. The baby Jackfruits are prized for the meaty texture they have and are cooked like meat in UP homes. I have a recipe with pictures ready for that and hope I get to post it soon.

The medium and large sized ones are cooked in this kind of Kathal dopyaza. The ones with large seeds are always preferred for Kathal ka dopyaza as the seeds taste very good in this kind of spices and almost caramelised onions in the finished dopyaza.

This kind of curry is actually a dum cooked (cooked on low heat in a sealed pot) stir fry where the firm textured jack fruit pieces and onions get cooked in their own juices. The whole spices infuse their aroma in a very delicate manner. Some people prefer adding a few pieces of potatoes in it. I make it with just the Jackfruit which I prefer peeling and cutting myself.

It's always advisable to buy a piece of jackfruit with the skin attached, flesh milky white and a gummy white sap oozing.  It stays in the fridge for a couple of days and you are sure it has not been peeled and stored for long before being sold to you. Buying a whole jackfruit will always be good if you need that amount.

To make this dopyaza, peel the thorny skin, slice in rounds or wedges and remove the inner pith. Then cube the flesh and then remove the hard plastic like coat of the seeds as this part is not edible. The hard plastic like seed coat is formed only in mature jackfruits, the one I used was a medium sized fruit so the seeds are just half mature. No hard seed coat to be removed in this case.

ingredients...
(3-5 servings)

Jackfruit, peeled and cubed 250 gm
sliced onions 250 gm approximately
ginger julienne one heaped tbsp
garlic cloves sliced 1 tbsp
whole dry red chillies 2-4 as per taste
tejpatta 3-4
black cardamom 2
green cardamom 2
cloves 5-6
cinnamon stick 1 inch long broken
whole black peppercorns 2 tsp
cumin 2 tsp
turmeric powder 1 tsp
mustard oil or ghee 2 tbsp


procedure...

Normally in the authentic way, the dopyaza is cooked in a round bottom Haandi pan. I have one, but that is not used frequently and is stashed in some deep corner in my small much cluttered kitchen so I cooked it in a kadai. If you are also using a kadai, choose a lid that is smaller so it just covers the cooking vegetables and not fits the rim of the kadai. It keeps the steam inside to make a dum-cooking setting.

Heat the oil in the chosen (thick base) kadai and tip in all the whole spices and tejpatta in it. Let it all sizzle for just a second and add the red chillies and the ginger garlic slivers as well. Wait for them to cook for a minute and then add all the other chopped vegetables and turmeric powder, salt in one go. Mix well.

Now cover the cooking vegetables mix with a smaller lid as I suggested earlier. Keeping all the steam inside to cook the veggies almost without water.


Remember to cook on low flame.

Check the contents after 5-8 minutes, the onions and a few jackfruit cubes would have become brownish and might be sticking to the bottom. At this time you would be required to add about half a cup of water. Mix well.

Cover again and cook for about 8-10 minutes.

The end product looks like this, some sticky brown mass in the bottom of the kadai indicates the dopyaza has been caramelised well. Take care to prevent burning in the last few minutes.

Check the jackfruit pieces if cooked. They give in to pressure and get flat.

Serve hot or at room temperature. No garnish is required. Those cooked red chilies look good enough and may be the tejpatta too adds to the rustic charm.



This kathal ka dopyaza is normally served with chapatis, actually more preferably with plain thin flaky crisp parathas. You can serve it with any kind of thin flat bread. Or as a part of a formal extended menu.

The vegetable is meaty in texture and is much in demand when one needs a special meal for vegetarians. Paneer and mushrooms are other meat substitutes for vegetarians but if you consider the capability to absorb the spices, there is no match to Jackfruit.

I cooked this dopyaza after a couple of years I remember. The last time was when I cooked it for about 30 people when the whole family was together for a wedding.

No wonder this dopyaza is suitable for bulk cooking with wonderful results as it involves dum-cooking. Also the fact that there is not much preparation with spice powders and ginger garlic paste etc.

You might like to remove some of the whole spices before serving. Some people do not like the whole spices interrupting in between. They can give a bitter taste if chewed on accidentally. Just retain a few as garnish.

How many of you have had this UP style Kathal ka dopyaza?