Tuesday 9 June 2009

9th June 2009 - Dinner - Raajma

Wow, so this was one dish I was all excited about preparing. I wanted it to be just perfect, and had bought all ingredients that were, erm, prescribed.

What?
Raajma used to be one of my favourite dishes before coming to IIT. Then, after eating the vile Raajma-Lashun ki chatni-namkeen poori combination for lunch in the mess for 104 consecutive Thursdays, I had gotten pretty fed up of it. The worst part was that most people used to taste Raajma for the first time in their lives in the mess (a lot of Maharashtrians, for instance) and that would totally put them off. The same happens with Daal-Baati, Rasam and most other dishes which localites have never sampled before.

Anyhow, I purchased Raajma from the Asian shop, got Raajma Masaala too, and bought lemons from Edeka. The lemons here are as big as lousy oranges in India. Three of them weighed 400 grams! I even got myself some Tomato puree.

Vaibhav was away for a Conference Dinner, but I had made it for two people, so once it was ready, I tasted it and as it seemed good, I invited a friend over for dinner ;)

Of course, I had to make extra chapaatis, but if there is anything more satisfying than cooking for yourself, it is cooking for someone else.

I am all charged up now, though, and Chhole is defnitely on the list, apart from a second round of Paav Bhaaji, and some Daal Makhaani too.

How did it look?



Improvements
  • Like most other recipes, even this one was courtesy my mother. She gave a few nifty little tips, and boy, did they work well! Adding fresh lemon juice was the key, and it did wonders.
  • Initially, when I boiled the raajma, it still retained a lot of water, which I then slowly boiled off while cooking the raajma. After that I let it stand for an hour, by which most of the water had been nicely absorbed to leave gravy of just the right consistency.
  • Raajma masaala was of course central to lending it the authentic fragrance and flavour that raajma is so characteristic of.
I often feel I have been very lucky to have been exposed to food from all around the country, something that not many people can boast of. I mean, we are Maharashtrians, but apart from the so called tradiotional dishes, we make Punjabi dishes, Rajasthani dishes, South Indian stuff and lots of other dishes typical of various Indian states. I remember our maid once commented that it would be impossible to figure out where we are from just by looking at the stuff me eat!

6 comments:

  1. Great dish by look of it. I hope it tasted also well. Keep it up. You are a best learner.

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  2. @Both

    Thanks a lot for the encouragement. I really wanted this to be good, and the result was very satisfactory.

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  3. Looks "home-ssional" if u know what I mean :D ... Awesome! Catching up on all ur posts that I missed :)

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  4. hey do u know whats paneer called in europe?
    dont say cottage cheese...i brought it once ...and it didnt seem like one.it was like some flakes in curd..and when i cooked it ,it melted and became liquid
    [:(]

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  5. More and more impressed :) Do keep updating.

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