Ullava Chaaru

Horse gram or ulavallu(telugu), is a staple lentil of many Indian farm families. In our child hood days I remember once in a quarter, my grand mother sister used to get this ulava chaaru from her farm house. They slowly cook it or hours on this charcoal clay oven which gives tremendous flavor to this dish. She always gets this dish as we cannot find it in cities. We used to sit in our back yard with the soup pot in the middle and ate our dinner under the moon light, trust me it is much better than a candle light dinner, wouldn’t you agree with me.

This small, flat, oval bean has an assertive earthy flavor. It is purely a traditional dish, but now a days by knowing the value of it star hotels came forward to provide this dish to the people. It is highly valuable dish for health.

Horse gram is believed to prevent the formation of stones in the kidney and for those with the problem, consuming boiled horse gram water for one month will help to dissolve the urinary stone and can help cure it without surgery. It is also believed to be beneficial for cough and phlegm too.

Staying abroad we miss all these favorite traditional recipes. This week end, I found this horse gram dal in Indian store and thought let’s give it a try, it is definitely a little long procedure but it’s worth the time. I have to say I am proud to make this in America. Besides, missing  the nice smoky flavor from the clay oven,  it is almost close and satisfied my cravings.

Ullavalu (Horse gram dal)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup ulavallu / Horse gram dal (soaked overnight)
• lemon size tamarind, soaked in hot water
• 5 green chilies slit length wise
• 6 small onions (skin peeled)
• 2 whole dry red chilies
• 10 curry leaves
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp jaggery(optional)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 3 garlic cloves

Directions-

1. Soak horsegram (ulavalu) overnight. Pressure cook for 4 whistles.
2. Generally ulavalu will not have a mushy appearance as compared to other lentils like toor dal. The liquid has a dark brown chocolate color.
3. Strain the liquid and keep it separate. Take the cooked dal, mash it or use a hand blender and squeeze out the juice. To the left over pulp, add 1 cup of water and let it boil for 15 mins.
4. 

   Ullava paste after sqeezing

5. Let the dal cool, squeeze dal and extract the juice. After squeezing out the juice (you might get little bit of pulp , that’s ok), Discard the mushy pulp.
6. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a skillet. Add mustard seeds and let them splutter. Now add cumin seeds, whole red chilies, garlic, curry leaves and fry for few seconds.
7. Add the small onions and green chilies and fry for 2 minutes.
8. Add the strained ulavalu water and let it boil. Add salt, tamarind, jaggery and turmeric pwd. Let it cook on low heat for 20- 25 minutes stirring occasionally and till you get a thick soup like consistency.
9. Serve hot with rice and a generous amount of fresh homemade butter or cream.

Very healthy and tasty dish.

Ullava Charu

Pappu Chaaru

Spelling the name itself makes me hungry. For infants, after we start rice, this will be the first dish (atleast for me and my kids) we serve them, this dish has such an important place in every house. It is given to kids and old people to provide them with protein from lentils and is easy to  digest. It is not spicy, yet tasty and healthy. This is a staple recipe in every Andhra house. We can find Samabr in restaurants, but you cannot find this delicious Pappu Chaaru in restaurants.

As a child I am very fussy eater (now, I grew out of it and I talk a lot about food), but this is one of the dish I will not fuss at all. I still remember the aroma of pappu chaaru spreading out of the kitchen that makes every one very hungry. My mom especially uses a little bit of ghee for talimpu / tampering and the aroma of garlic sauteing in ghee with cumin and curry leaves just makes both me and my brother very hungry. My brother especially loves this so much he likes to have it in at least one of his meal.

I remember one time my brother came to visit me, he wanted to have pappu charru. I made a big pot of pappu charru with omelets as a side, my husband and brother had that pot in the middle with omelets on their side and they indulged in enjoying the food so much…I am almost in tears (I am very emotional, it’s a sign of happiness for me. You can imagine telugu movies, right…).

My family loves those small onions that gives a nice flavor when boiled with spices and tamarind. Both my kids love this pappu chaaru.

Pappu Charru

For some people there is slight confusion between Pappu chaarru and Sambar .

Pappu chaaru – uses only green chilies and no need of any powders (Sambar powder)

Samabr – Combination of green chilies, red chilies, chili powder with a special powder made from ( dal, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds and cumin)

When served this with hot rice and freshly melted ghee — ummmm heavenly.

I always make this in large quantity so that we can enjoy the following day with idli/dosa.

This is a very basic dish and a one pot meal. Easy to digest.

Pappu Chaaru Ingredients

Ingredients for Pappu Chaaru

• 1 Cup Toor dal
• 5 small Onions / Shallots
• 7 Green Chilies (adjust the amount according to your taste)
• 2 medium Tomatoes chopped
• 2 medium Carrots chopped lengthwise
• 6 Drumsticks (Munaga kaaya) ( I used frozen Drum sticks)
• lemon size tamarind
• 1 tsp each of mustard seeds and Cumin
• 2 garlic cloves
• ¼ tsp Turmeric (Pasupu)
• Pinch of Asafeotida (Hing)
• 10 Curry leaves
• Handful of Cilantro (coriander ) leaves

Directions-

1. In a Pressure cooker, wash dal and boil it with water (1:2) for 3 whistles. Mean while, add little water to tamarind, microwave it for 45 sec’s and extract the juice.
2. When the pressure is cooled, mash dal with hand blender or a masher.
3. To this mashed Dal, add all the veggies with tamarind extract. Add salt, green chillies, turmeric, little bit of cilantro and few curry leaves.
4. Cover the pressure cooker and let it cook on medium flame for 1 whistle.
5. Let the pressure cool off.
6. Heat a small pan with 1 tbsp oil and ½ tbsp ghee. Add crushed Garlic and let it sauté. Add mustard seeds, when they crack, add Cumin,  Asafeotida, curry leaves and when they are nicely cooked.
7. Add this Talimpu (Tampering) to Pappu Charru. Adjust the taste if needed. Let it boil till you get the desired consistency. ( this will not be thick as sambar, since sambar has powder that makes it thick)
8. Turn off the stove and top it off with cilantro.

Server hot with rice and ghee. Kids will love it.

Pappu Chaaru

Today, as I am cleaning the weeds in my garden, my little boy (Pravan, 14 month old) thought of lending a hand and he pulled some amaranth (Thota Koora) leaves.  As i am cleaning the garden, he came from my back giggling, to show me what he been doing and clapping happily. I was shocked and laughed immediately to see him wanting to help me. He gave me the ones he plucked and went to pull more, then I said, ok let’s make Amaranth Dal (thota koora pappu) today. I cut some stems, put it in a little garden basket and asked him to carry it inside. It is so cute to look at him walking with the basket. When I said, good job!! He clapped to himself happily and got busy with his toys.

While he was occupied with his toys (doesn’t last long), I can make this dal which is easy to fix.

Tip- Adding crushed garlic cloves enhances the flavor of any dal.

Ingredients-

• 1 bunch of Amaranth / Thota kura leaves washed and chopped
• 1 cup Tor dal / Kandi pappu
• Green chilies at least 6
  1 medium sized onion chopped
• Key lime size tamarind
• ¼ tsp of turmeric
• 2 Garlic pods
• 1 tsp each of mustard seeds and cumin.
• 3 Red dry chilies
• Pinch of Hing
• Few Curry leaves
• Salt and chilly powder according to taste

Directions

1. In a pressure cooker, wash Toor dal and keep it to one side of pressure cooker.
2. Add amaranth leaves,chilies, onion, tamarind juice, salt and chilly powder to the other side of the pressure cooker (If you add salt to toor dal,it takes longer to cook.)
3. Add water(1dal:2 water ratio ), turn on the stove on medium high.
4. Let it whistle for 3 times. Wait until the pressure is released, remove the lid.
5. if any water is left drain it into a separate bowl and mash Dal with a masher or pappu gutti.
6. Now, in a sauce pan, over low medium heat, do the popu or tadka (means toasting the mustard, cumin seeds, garlic, red chili pieces and curry leaves in one tablespoon of ghee or oil). Add this tadka or popu to the mashed dal.
7. Check the taste. Mix everything together, cook it for a min and serve.

Tastes great with rice or jowar roti. Dals can be served with rice, ghee and papad.

A typical andhra daily meal with one vegetable fry/vepudu, dal, curry, pickle and yogurt served with rice.

As the name indicates it is little different and has a unique smoky jalapeno flavor. This is a delicacy for some one who likes spicy dishes. I am tired of having dal with tamarind, we use lot of tamarind in our dishes like pulusu, rasam, sambar and  dals. I always look for ways to cut tamarind and here is one such recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of Toor dal
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 3 jalapeno peppers/ 8 green chilies
• 3 dry red chilies
• pinch hing
• pinch turmeric
• curry leaves
• ½ onion finely chopped

Directons

• In a pressure cooker or in a pan, boil Dal and mix salt as per your taste and keep a side.
• Take a pan add ghee,musrtad,cumin,red chili dry, curry leaves, garlic and mix well then add chopped onions, hing,turmuric,green chilies/ Jalapenos, mix well and let all of them sauté till we see jalapenos are soft. Add the boiled dal and if required add water and bring to boil.
• Bring it to your desired consistency and serve it with hot rice and ghee and few papads on side and it is a divine.

Instead of jalapeno you can use different kinds of other peppers. but never use Habanero, it will blow your head. It is the hottest pepper,  do not play with it.

Note- When using pressure cooker to cook dal the ratio is 1 dal:2 water for toor dal.

Today I got fresh Gongura from my garden. It is my pleasure to go and pluck fresh leaves from the garden, straight to the kitchen…it just feels so close to home.

For the people not familiar with this leafy vegetable. Gongura/ Red Sorrel is a leafy vegetable and has very distinctive sour taste. For the past few years we were able to purchase it in Indian stores, here in US too. But from couple years i am proud to own gongura in my garden.  I even freeze it to use in winter.

When cooked with toor dal, channa dal or as pickle, it wakes up the taste buds and makes you crave its unique taste.

Gongura is called the Andhra matha and it is very famous in Guntur. When you talk about gongura to any Andhra people you can see that glow in their face, that’s the power of gongura.

Adding crushed garlic cloves enhances the flavor of any dal.

Coming to the recipe…

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of Gongura leaves separated from stem, washed and chopped
  1 cup of Chanaa dal
  Green chilies at least 6
  1 medium sized onion, cut into small pieces
  1/2 tsp of turmeric
• 2 Garlic pods
• 1 tsp each of mustard seeds and cumin.
• 3 Red dry chilies
• Pinch of Hing
• Few Curry leaves

Directions

1. In a pressure cooker wash channa dal, add gongura leaves, chilies, onion, salt and chili powder. Add water(1dal:3 water ratio ) and turn the stove on medium high. Let it whistle for 4 times.
2. Wait until the pressure is released, remove the lid.
3. If any water is left drain it into a separate bowl and mash dal with a masher or pappu gutti.
4. Heat a small tadka (talimpu) pan over low medium heat. Do the popu or tadka (means toasting the mustard, cumin seeds, garlic, red chili pieces and curry leaves in one tablespoon of ghee or oil).
5. Add this tadka to mashed gongura dal . Stir all of it once, cover with a lid and cook it for a minute. Turn the stove off and Gongura dal is ready.
6. Tastes great with rice or jowar roti. Best way of course is the combination of this dal mixed with rice, ghee, and papad.

Andhra bangala dumpa fry, cauliflower tomato curry, jalapeno pappu

easy to cook, very simple and after all healthy.