Savvy's Hyderabadi Dahi Bhindi Masala, My childhood fren Gannu maharaj, and a newly found Lullaby!!

Hush Lil baby, dont you cry,
mums gonna sing you a lullaby...

Yes, Iam sure many of you would be nostalgic about your favorite childhood lullabies... well i do get nostalgic at times, and the irony is that all i can do is just remember them, God can be cruel at time, reason... i don't know.. well i have just heard 'hush lil baby... ' in books and heard it on television... my lullaby was always just one song... Aarari ra ra ro.. (kanne kallaimaane...).. amma used to hum for me to put me off to sleep... dont know if you would believe it.. i have even asked her to sing it for me till the time i was in 12th standard... yes my last years of school were full of fun, me growing up, anna out for studies, and summer afternoons just me and amma, me running off to get amul kulfi for both of us from a not so distant shop.. and then closing all the windows and doors, making the room cozy and cool, and have a good afternoon nap... wow.. it was bliss....
...ummm those kulfis used to have a taste of ecstasy(as in madhur jaffereys novel, climbing the mango trees).. yes... reminding me of those afternoons...
ok am sorry iam wandering here and there with no direction... there are so many things these petty instances remind me of that i just cannot help it... so aarariraro was sung for her highness swati.. whenever she wished for, by the best mommy in the world, ranjani raman.. and i used to sleep in seconds... and thats the reason i remember only a few words of this lovely lullaby... :) if somebody has it handy please please plase share.. another thing i would love to mention... my aunt jai.. yes i have mentioned her here before, she has only one lullaby to offer to her 2 sons.. hanuman chalisa, this lady is amazing, she has sung hanuman chalisa for sriram umpteen number of times.. and even today after 11 years she is singing it for raghav on demand... and the best part is yet to come... supposedly she sings this lullaby for them, but finally who falls asleep would be her and only her... hahaha... and its been a record that its always her falling asleep first than the kiddo...
OK, so where did this lullaby katha come into picture from, well i have a newly found lullaby... without which i cannot sleep, i wait for 10:00 pm to arrive so that i can have an hour long dose of this lullaby and then doze off to sleep.. and this is none other than Big Boss Season 2.. yes i religiously watch it and if i miss it, i make sure i catch up with the missed episodes... and then me and hubby dear religiously discuss the drama and nautanki on the show for another 10-15 minutes and then doze off to sleep. So had to share this latest fact about me with my blogger frens... :) you can catch hold of my Big Boss Gossip here at CafeTalkies.

On that note CafeTalkies has a lot new in store for you...

All of you who have watched Maan gaye mughle aazam, loved it, hated it, want to read about it, want to crib about it.. here you go....

If you have already seen Rock On, and become an ardent fan of farhan akhtar, hope you all know that most of his songs are sung by him, and the dialogues for the movie were written by him, i have become a biggg fan of him ... so go go go ... read about rock on... and its music review, and if you havent got the chance yet, this will be a biggggg motivator...

A Wednesday... i dont know how many of you have heard of it, this was a low budget movie that released last week, but with a brilliant storyline and some applaudable performance by naseeruddin shah and anupam kher... so heres a humble review for you...

And the Big Boss Gossip of course :D

So this was about my lullaby... now comes my very first Ganesh Chaturthi celebration...


Yes i did it, with full kozhyakattai(sweet and sovoury rice dumplings with cocunut and urad dal fillings...), payasam, and halwa.. wow wow wow... but before that a swati special tadka for this story... :) it was a holiday that day so i had all plans of making all this early in the morning, the alarm rang at 6 in the morning, i wake up look at the time, curse myself that why did i keep an alarm so early on a holiday and dozed off again.. hehe.. i remembered that i had a holiday but ganapati bappa... he would kill me for this... but we r childhood frens so i know its ok with him.. i remember as a child i didnt have any holy inclinations, guru brahma and gajananam were the only two sosthras i knew, and that too it used to come out like .... 'gajananam boothi ganati sevitham, kavithha jambu palasaar pakshidam, guru brahma guru vishni guru devoh maheshwarah.. guru sakshaat parabrahma.. tastsmai shri guruveh namah...' done were my prayers, and this was in a hurry becoause i used to eat vibhuti after the prayers... haha one funny creature i was.... so then if somebody used to ask a stupid question like which god do you guys worship .. i used to answer very confidently Ganesha, (down beneath my reason to that was he was the only deity i found to be freindly, i was scared of others as they seemed very seriuos... so i wanted to maintain a distance with them ..:)).. and then there was a liking for hanuman ji.. well that was heriditery... a belief that anything and everythnig can be soled by his mercy... :) today when i believe in all deities, still there remains a silent partiality for ganesh ji (aka Gannu maharaj) and hanumanji...


So Ganesh Chaturthi had to be special, and why not, it was the first time i was getting a chance to make kozhyakattais all by my own... i made both sweet and uppu(salt) ones and some kara urandei(spiced rice balls), and payasam(indian rice pudding) and some sooji banana sheera... (will post about this one soon...)..


And my latest experiment in kitchen... Women's Era's Hyderabadi Dahi Bhindi Masala..
which was first doscovered by sudha(aka savitri aka savvy) my aunt.. yes yes the chowmein and chilli paneer wali ... the super chef of our family... yes she does the most interesting experiments in the family and i can blindly follow her recipes... so this august when i had been home... Garg going there for the first time after marriage was pampered big time after marriage... mouthwatering biryani by jai... and some scrumptious paneer butter masala and dahi bhindi and blah blah by sudha... so for me... the attraction for the day was the so so different dahi bhindi... the method of preperation was different, and the ingredients also were different.. so i just had to try my hands on it once i got back and i did.... so called her one fine day, took the whole recipe and finally did it... and garg loved it.... (well garg didnt have the bhindi as he was too busy with the paneer, so this was another reason for me to try it without any delay)
.. and he loved it... infact i have made it twice since then.. passed on some to anna too and its a hitt... so here we go, so for me it is :

Savvy's(not Women's Era's) Hyderabadi Dahi Bhindi Masala:


Ingredients:

1/2 kg Bhindi(washed, dried, and cut into small 1/2 inches)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal(for tempering)
2-3 dry red chillies
1/2 tsp ginger very finely chopped
4-5 curry leaves
3 medium sized onions filely chopped
2 small tomaotes, peeled and finely chopped
10-15 cashews soaked in milk for 10 minutes
1-2 tsp dessicated/fresh coconut
1/2 tsp amchur
1 cup yogurth/curd/dahi
salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1-2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala/kitchen king

Method:

Sprinkle some salt over the small peices of okra/bhindi/ladies finger, and keep it aside for 1/2 hr. Believe me its worth the wait.
(Thanks to Sia, i missed the most important step...), After half an hour deep fry or atleast shallow fry the bhindi till crispy in generous quantity of oil, i used 3 tbsp)
In the meanwhile get your ingredients for the masala ready.
Heat some oil in a wok, add the mustard seeds to this when it is hot enough, let it splutter, now add the urad dal, dry red chillies(break into peices), curry leaves and jeera, fry till the urad dal is turning red and immedietely add the finely chopped onions.
Fry well till the onions have turned brown, to this add the dry spices(turmeric, salt, coriander, kitchen king, chilli powder) and fry well.
In the meanwhile grind the cashew and coconut together into a fine paste, use the milk in which the cashews were soaked for consistency, and keep it aside.
Once the spices are roasted well, add to this the finely chopped tomatoes, and fry till all are well mixed.
Now add the cashew coconut paste and stir for another minute, add the yogurth, and mix, if you find it very thinch you can add some water or some milk to make it to a consistency of your choice, just balance the salt accordingly.
Add the okra just before you want to serve it and heat it for 5 minutes, this keeps the okra crisp and yummy.
Relish this Hyderabadi delight, we have made it thrice since then and enjoy it d same every time.



This goes as my entry to a very interesting even hosted by one of my favorite bloggers Nags, the Saas bahu aur sensex contest. Seriously frens i like the concept of this movie and the day i see this movie it will definitely come on cafe talkies. I just hope it comes up to out expectations, iam a bit sceptical about this movie as theres this sub plot with tanushree dutta, and somehow iam not too fond of her. I hope this sub plot doesnt screw up the movie.
I enter this recipe as my entry to this event as this has been passed on to me by my chef aunt, and shes one gourmet queen you an blindly follow as far as food goes...
well its quick or not, umm for me it is, the day i tried it i gave her a call at 9 at night and seh was like make it some other day, it will take time, but i wanted to make it becoz i wanted to have bhindi(read it was the only veggie i had ;)) and i didnt want to go for a bhindi fry and a dal with it, i fonud it too lengthy, this was quick definitely compared to that combo and i take it as a shortcut whenever i want to avoid one sookha and one geela veggie and do away with one side dish :) ... for those day when you are back from office at 8 45, want to go off to bed by 10 and want to have your favorite bhindi... but not sookha :)



My deary deary fren Divya of DilSe is hosting her first self created even and am too excited for her, hats off buddy, dont know if i will ever have interesting ideas like this, i think 35 times a month that i should diet, not by cutting down on food but having the right food, i lack ideas and i let the idea go... so Divs deary has an amazing idea... a Diet food event... churn up a diet food, low on carbs, high on protien etc ... and go go .. submit it... :) am eagerly waiting for the roundup divyaa..