String Beans Stir fry / Lathande Upkari

Lathande Upkari / String Beans Stir Fry or commonly called in Hindi as Chauli/Chowli/Chowlee a very well known dish in Dakshin Kanara. 

Ingredients :

Lathande / String beans – 250 Gms.

Mustard Seed – 1 tsp.

Zeera – 1 tsp.

Curry leaves – few

Green chilli – 1

Oil – 2 Tbsp.

Urad Dal – 1 Tbsp.

Scraped coconut – 2 Tbsp.

Salt to taste

Coriander for garnishing

Method:

Cut the String beans into small pieces as shown in the picture and wash it under running water.

Take a heavy bottom pan, add oil, when oil heats up add mustard seed, zeera and let mustard seed splutter, add curry leaves, urad dal, green chilli and fry till urad dal changes colour i.e. light golden brown.  Add beans and salt and mix well cover and let it cook for 5 minutes (gas should be kept of low flame). Open the pan and add scrapped coconut, again cover and cook for 1 minute. Finally put off the gas and garnish with chopped coriander.

Things to be taken care:

Water is not added, if added it changes the taste and colour i.e. why Lathande Upkari is cooked in low flame so it cooks itself on steam.

Note:

Onion and tomato’s are optional one of each can be added i.e. onion after tempering and fry till its transparent and fine pieces of tomato can be added while adding coconut.

Butter Chakli / Benne Chakuli

Wishing you all a Very Happy Deepavali, I made this crisp chakli for this diwali, a typical benne chakuli available in any mangalore store through out the year but it gives a special feeling when made for diwali.

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 Cups

Urad dal (Black Gram) -1 Cup
Butter - 50 gms.

Jeera - 2 Tbs

Sesame seeds (Til) – 2 Tbs.

Milk of one coconut

Salt to taste

Oil to deep fry

Method:

Dry roast urad dal till light brown i.e. till it releases nice aroma in a heavy bottomed pan, let it cool and grind it into a fine powder.

Wash and soak rice of 1 hour and grind to a fine paste with coconut milk.

Lightly dry roast and crush jeera, dry roast sesame seed. 

Add powdered urad to rice paste, add jeera, sesame seed, salt and butter and kneed like chapatti dough, not too hard or too loose.

Put some dough into the chakli mould after applying little oil within the mould, press the chakli's of desired size on a plastic sheet or butter paper.

Heat oil in a deep vessel and gently lift chaklis and drop it into hot oil. Deep fry in medium flame till light golden brown. Remove, let it cool and store in air tight container.

Things to be taken care:

Chakli should be immediately made after the dough is prepared.

Carefully grate only the white part of the coconut avoiding the brown skin as it will change the colour of the coconut milk which inturn will change the colour of dough.

Coriander Chutney / Kothambari chutney

Coriander leaves a widely used ingredient especially for garnishing.  Coriander chutney can be served with rice as a side dish, with chapatti, dosa, idli, bajia’s, sandwich etc. Apart from giving a distinctive aroma it has high level of nutritional values and very handy to make.

Ingredients:

Coriander leaves - 1 cup

Fresh grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Green chili - 2

Ginger - 1/2 inch

Tamarind - 1/4 tsp

Salt to taste

Method:

Clean and wash the coriander.

Grind all the ingredients.

Serve fresh or can be used refrigerated for 2 – 3 days.

Note:

Coconut can be eliminated.

Lemon juice – ½ tsp / raw mango piece can be added instead of tamarind for taste variation.

If required tempering can be done using mustard seed – ½ tsp, urad dal – ½ tsp and some curry leaves