I finally got to try a recipe from “Cooking at Home with Pedatha” that I had won in a giveaway ages back. I love the book and the pictures and have a lot of recipes bookmarked. Since my cooking for the blog revolves around what is in my fridge, I was looking for a different way to cook the raw plantains I had bought from the Indian store. I liked how those plantains tasted a lot closer to the ones we get back home.

I have used mustard seed powder in pickles, but not in any dry curry. I was a bit skeptical wondering whether there will be any bitter taste, but there was no bitterness and the paste added a lot of flavor to the vegetable. I am sure this paste can be used with other vegetables too. If you want a simpler way to cook vazhakai that involves no grinding, try out the podimas recipe I had posted earlier. Recipe from Cooking at Home with Pedatha.

1 year ago: Vegetable Noodles (Chinese Style)

Pictorial
1. Soak rice and mustard seeds in water for half an hour.2. Drain the mustard seeds and rice. To the soaked mustard seeds and rice, add cilantro, coconut and ginger. Take in a blender.3. Blend to a paste.4. Boil the raw banana pieces along with turmeric and salt until cooked.5. Cooked vazhaikai.6. Heat oil and splutter mustard seeds. Add urad dal, green chillies, asafoetida and curry leaves. Saute until the dal turns golden brown.7. Add the cooked banana pieces.8. Add the paste.9. Mix well and simmer for 7 - 10 minutes. Add salt if needed.10. Curry ready.
We had the yummy side dish with rice.
Enjoy!
Linking to New U – 2013 and Food on Friday – Mustard.