We
were lucky to reap a lot of brinjals (or rather eggplants) this Summer
and Fall. So, for the entire months of September and October, I had to
think of every kind of eggplant-based dish to use all the ripe bounty.
One of the recipes that I found in Meenakshi ammal’s cookbook sounded
interesting, primarily because of its unique name - Asadu Kootu. “Kootu”
means dhal in Tamil (a dish that is predominantly made with lentils and
pulses), and “Asadu” loosely translates to silly or someone indulging
in bad-behavior. Naughty, misbehaving kids are usually chided with the
term. So, it’s very intriguing as to why a dish would be named so! I
still don’t know the reason, but the recipe itself was easy to follow
and quite similar to most Tamil kootus. But, I added a few extra
ingredients, and used different measures of almost everything. So, here's my adapted recipe.
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of uncooked Thoor dhal
- 4 brinjals/medium Chinese eggplants (I was desperate to use as much eggplant as I could) - cut the eggplants into thin, long pieces.
- 1.5 teaspoons of sambar powder (my addition to the recipe)
- A small lime-sized ball of tamarind
- 2 pinches of Kasuri Methi (dried methi leaves; again, this is just my addition)
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon of salt (more or less)
- 3 green chillies
- A small piece of ginger - finely minced
- Coriander/cilantro leaves for garnishing
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil/vegetable oil
- Freshly prepared ground spice powder from the following ingredients that are dry roasted, and then ground to a powder (you can roast the ingredients separately to avoid over--burning or under-roasting; roast until the ingredients turn light brown)
- 2 tablespoons of coriander powder
- 1 tablespoons of channa dhal / bengal gram dhal
- 1 teaspoon of toor dhal
- 2 teaspoons of split urad dhal
- ½ teaspoon of black pepper
- 2-3 dried red chillies
- ½ teaspoon of Hing
Preparation:
- Cook the thoor dhal till it is soft and mushy (pressure cooking is ideal and fast; cover the thoor dhal with 1 inch of extra water on top)
- Extract tamarind juice by the following process - immerse the tamarind in 1 cup of hot water for 5-10 minutes. When the water is cool to touch, squeeze the pulp to get out all the juice. Strain the pulp, add more water (about 1/2 cup) to it and perform a second round of juice extraction. Throw away the final tamarind pieces.
- In a pan, add a tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, splutter mustard seeds, green chillies. Add turmeric powder and ginger, and saute for a few seconds.
- Add the brinjal pieces and stir/fry for a couple of minutes.
- Add the extracted tamarind juice, salt, sambar powder and let the brinjals steam and cook in the spiced tamarind juice. You may cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for 15 minutes, until the eggplants are tender, and the tamarind water comes to a couple of boils. The boiling is also to ensure that the raw, pungent smell of tamarind dissipates.
- At this point, add the cooked dhal and stir well. Add a cup of water if needed to dilute the mixture. Add the freshly prepared spice powder and mix well. Allow the kootu to come to a boil. Then reduce the heat and let it steep and simmer with a couple of pinches of Kasuri methi. The goal is to remove any raw smell of the dhal, so simmer till the flavors infuse (15 minutes or so).
- Turn off the heat and garnish with coriander/cilantro leaves.
This dish goes well with rice and rotis. It is a mix of sambar and kootu.
Haha! Funny name :-)
ReplyDeleteHey there is something called kathirikai gosthu - is this the same as that?
Yep, there is gothsu :). It's more watery with less dhal and more tomato and onions. Usually that is...
ReplyDeleteI have a huge backlog of recipes to post - especially kathrikai-based. And gothsu is one of them. Not sure when I will get around to it :)