everyday daal : chane ki daal bathue wali | sagpaita cooked with split chickpeas and chenopodium greens

Sagpaita is a name given to all lentils cooked with winter greens. Spinach, Chenopodium (bathua), Fenugreek greens (methi), Chane ka saag (chickpea greens) or a mix of spinach and dill leaves, fenugreek greens and dill leaves etc is cooked with any lentil to make a saucy daal rich with flavours of garlic, hing and cumin used for the tadka.

Sagpaita is basically a winter food that is considered warming and hydrating for the body at the same time. The lentils used mostly for sagpaita are arhar ki daal (split pigeon peas), chane ki daal (split chickpeas) or urad daal (split black beans) but a mix of lentils is also used. Mung ki daal (split mung beans) is also cooked to make sagpaita but it is mostly with baby spinach or baby fenugreek greens.

All these sagpaita recipes are slightly different from each other despite being a mix of lentils and greens basically but the taste of each sagpaita tells you how and why each one is cooked differently.

We do cook lentils with purslane greens in summers too but somehow sagpaita is a name given to the ones cooked with winter greens only. No wonder, the daal can include a lot of spices and loads of ghee is topped over the bowls of sagpaita. It has to be a winter delicacy as the recipe is tuned to be eaten in winters. All parts of Uttar Pradesh get very chilly during the 2 months of winter and there are various foods made with fresh produce to stay warm.

This chane ki daal ka sagpaita with bathue ka saag is made differently in each family. Some would add a little urad dal to it and some would add some fresh green peas or 'harey chane' but the tempering will always have some hing-jeera-lasun and laal mirch along with mild spices like dhaniya, jeera, kali mirch powder and may be a couple of tejpatta. There is good protein in the daal along with a lot of greens, so the hing and garlic etc is added to allow proper digestion of the sagpaita.

I sometimes add es of paneer to my sagpaita to make it a one pot meal. Otherwise it is best enjoyed with plain boiled rice, some bhujia type dry subzi, raita and papad kind of Indian meals.

ingredients
(2-3 large servings)

For pressure cooking
chane ki daal (split chickpeas 100 gm (scant half cup)
finely chopped bathua (chenopodium greens) 300 gm (2 cups packed)
minced ginger 1 tbsp
salt to taste
turmeric powder 1 tsp
water 1.5 cup

For tempering
ghee 1 tbsp
cumin seeds 1 tsp
hing (asafotida) a pinch
chopped garlic 1-2 tsp according to taste
red chilly powder 1/2 tsp or more to taste
everyday curry powder 1 tsp (optional)

lime juice to serve.
Paneer cubes as per requirement.

procedure

Pressure cook the daal and bathua greens along with the ingredients listed. Wait till the pressure builds up and the whistle blows, then cook on low flame for 10 minutes.

Prepare the tempering by heating the ghee and then adding the ingredients one after the other in the order listed. Make sure the garlic gets pink in colour and turns aromatic before you add the chilly powder and then remove the pan from the stove and pour the ingredients into the cooked daal. Mix well and churn the daal mixture if you like the sagpaita a bit saucy.

Serve hot with some lime juice or hot melted ghee or butter on top. This can be served with all the usual Indian accompaniments for a meal as I mentioned.

When I add paneer cubes I usually let the sagpaita simmer for a few minutes to soften the paneer before serving. Sagpaita or bathue wali chane ki daal has a distinct aroma of hing, cumin seeds and garlic that we call 'hing-jeera-lehsun ka tadka' and a mild kick imparted by red chillies. The base is earthy with bathua and chana dal that makes this sagpaita a very uniquely flavoured daal.

You can cook this daal with arhar (toor or pigeon peas) ki daal as well. The recipe wont changeeven if you use a mix of chane and arhar ki daal. But mung and urad daals need a different treatment. We will talk about that when I share the recipe of sagpaita with those lentils.

Enjoy bathua chane ki daal ka saigpaita till then.

bisibele bhath : the southern khichdi we loved even in the simplest way

Bisibele bhath recipe used to feel very complicated whenever I saw it on other blogs or when friends explained it to me. Roasting a lot of spices separately, powdering them and then cooking a few more things separately to mix them all together to make a khichdi that tastes divine, that was my impression of Bisi bele bhath or BBB as it is called by BBB admirers. Yes Bisibele bhath has admirers, you realise when you talk about it to someone who has grown up eating this. I used to feel really out of place even though I love everything that looks like khichdi, be it our bhuni khichdi, mung ki khichdi or risotto, the firangi khichdi. Even Haleem that we love so much.

Bisi bele bhath is no less than Haleem mind you. The dark beauty it is, packed with flavours that makes the meal deeply satisfying and worth admiring too. And this was a short cut recipe that my friend Nirupama typed for me in a hurry one night so I could make a decent Bisi bele bhath with the fresh Pigeon pea lentils she had packed for me during my Hyderabad visit 2 weeks ago.

Yes we were in Hyderabad for a week and experienced harvesting, cooking and eating a farm to table meal along with other things one does in a city seeped with history and old world charm. I met a few dear friends, made a few new friends and brought back some really good stuff home. I bought pickles and kalamkari fabric and my friend Nirupama packed some more foodie gits for me, one of the gifts was this bag of fresh pigeon peas that they call Kandulu in Telugu, Thuvaram in Tamil and Arhar phalli or Tuvar phalli in Hindi. I was amazed to see heaps of this lentil being sold on roadsides towards airport along with seasonal fruits, mainly papaya, oranges and pomegranate.

We never get to see this arhar ki phalli in north Indian markets, fresh green peas are very common during this season and hara chana (fresh green garbanzo) also starts coming but just imagine if we get fresh pods of all the lentils we grow. I think I will use one or the other fresh beans everyday in my cooking.

Fresh Pigeon peas are also called Toor lilva and is used extensively in Marathi and Gujrati cuisines. Some day I will cook all of those things for sure. A proper Undhiyo has been on my list for ever although I have cooked lame versions of Undhiyo a few times.

We had enjoyed this fresh Pigeon peas at Aiyor Bai farm by just boiling them in salted water and snacking on them warm. But this was the first time I was eating these lentils fresh and I wanted to experiment more.

Nirupama recommended the Bisi bele bhath, typed a recipe for me and I mustered the courage to make it for the first time. The divine tasting BBB did not disappoint me even though it was a simplified recipe that Nirupama told me so I could manage to make a decent one.

ingredients
(2 meal portions with some yogurt and papad on the side)

white short grain rice (or broken basmati) 1/4 cup
fresh pigeon peas 1 cup
dry grated or desiccated coconut 2 tbsp
whole coriander seeds 1 tbsp
2-3 Bedgi chillies broken
cinnamon stick 1 inch broken
sambhar powder (ready made from a packet) 1 tbsp
cashew nuts 2-3 tbsp
diced onions 1/2 cup
curry patta 2-3 tbsp
mustard seeds 1 tsp
hing 1 pinch
ghee 1 tbsp

chopped vegetables in bite sized pieces 2-3 cups (I used carrots, cauliflowers and brinjal)

tamarind extract to taste ( I boiled 1 tbsp worth of tamarind with a cup of water, mashed when cool, filtered and added the watery extract to BBB)

procedure

Boil the fresh pigeon peas along with a cup of water and salt to taste in pressure cooker. About 5-8 minutes under pressure (after the first whistle blows). Cool down, open the cooker, add the chopped vegetables and simmer till the vegetables are soft. Add some water if required.

Cook the rice with a cup of water till done. The rice will be watery even after cooking but this is intended.

In the meanwhile, dry roast the broken chillies, cinnamon, whole coriander seeds and the coconut together till they all become a little dark and aromatic. Add the desiccated coconut later if using, grated coconut can be roasted along with everything else. Add sambhar powder in the end and switch off the gas so the powder gets roasted in residual heat. Let them all cool down. Then make a coarse powder and keep aside.

In the same pan, pour ghee and tip in mustard and hing. Let them crackle before adding cashew nuts and fry them till pinkish brown. Add the onions and curry patta and fry till translucent.

Mix the powdered mix with the fried mix and stir well.

Add this mixture to the cooked lentils and rice together, add the tamarind extract, adjust seasoning and simmer for 5 minutes till everything comes together.

The resultant dish will be very aromatic by now. Fry or roast some papad and lay the table. You can't wait for long once the Bisi bele bhath is ready.

I had fried alu ka papad which is a Banaras specialty and a vadi made with puffed rice called Aralu sandige that Nirupama had packed for me. Such meals are enjoyed with extended family most.

I always feel we love such flavours best when there are more people around. People you have grown up with, have made memories together and have eyed the the last yummiest morsels of food from the table together.

Bisi bele bhath will be licked clean by the end of the meal no matter how much you serve. Even this short cut recipe thanks to Nirupama is a keeper and I will be cooking this version a lot. But I will be making the elaborate version of Bisi bele bhath very soon.

Feeling encouraged by the first success of my Bisi bele Bhath.