Monday, March 14, 2005

Two-Minute Cooking School 1: Vaangibaath


Vaangibaath and Flamin' Hot Chips! (Click for bigger pic)

Come on over for dinner! :-)

Recipe for Vaangibaath:
Vaangibaath is a rice dish from South India, containing primarily eggplant and some special spices, mixed with hot cooked white rice. The following recipe may not be 100% authentic compared to how the dish is made in South Indian homes.

Chop brinjal (also called eggplant) into medium sized cubes or 2 inch long pieces. Chop onions, just enough to season the amount of brinjal you have.

Heat a few teaspoons of oil in a frying pan. Add some mustard seeds. When the seeds pop, add minapa pappu (Telugu for urad daal) and senaga pappu (Telugu name; I don't know what it is called in Hindi; it is used in South Indian seasoning). Add a dried red-chilli, broken into small pieces. Fry until the pappus and chilli pieces turn brown. Take care not to burn them. Add some chopped onions and fry the whole thing until the onion turns just slightly brown. This is the seasoning. Keep this aside in a plate or cup.

Start cooking white rice in a pressure cooker or rice cooker.

While the rice cooks, add more oil into the frying pan, heat it. Add brinjal pieces and a pinch of turmeric. Fry until the brinjal is cooked. Add a little tamarind extract and salt. Fry just a little bit more, mixing in the tamarind and salt. Add MTR (or any other brand) vaangibaath powder, mix it in with the brinjal, continuing to fry. Lower the flame and add the seasoning of mustard, pappus and onions you kept aside earlier. Stir everything together a little bit more, without removing the frying pan off the stove. The whole mix of vegetables, spices, seasoning and oil is called vaangibaath gojju. When properly done, the gojju should look an exotic reddish-brown, with an awesome aroma and yummy taste.

Add hot cooked rice to this gojju and some grated kobbari (dried coconut). Mix them all together. Squeeze a little lemon juice into it, if you so desire. Garnish with fried cashew nuts. Hot, yummy, vaangibaath is ready!

Vaangibaath is normally spelled vangibath, I just like to spell native Indian words as close to the pronunciation as I can.

MTR Vaangibaath powder ingredients:
Coriander, Black Gram dhal, Chillies, Cumin, Fenugreek, Cinnamon, Refined veg. oil, Cloves and Curry leaves.

Flamin' Hot is a new flavor of potato chips from Lays. It is alright, although not as good as the jalapeno flavor.

10 comments:

  1. yum!
    *drool*

    Overnight it to me. Add a teaspoon of delight, a dash of joy and a hint of mischief.

    :-*)

    -The Guest

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  2. How come this became a universal invite?

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  3. Well, I add a few more. Fry the onions,add the brinjal pieces ,potato cut into small cubes,green peas a hand full and add chilli powder and salt. When the vegetables are cooked stop cooking and then add Idly powder, ( Idly podi ) .Add fresh taniya and then mix it with white rice. Have this with tomato raitha. 1 tea sp oil, rye, green chillies and ginger cut, and add chopped tomatos. cook till the tomatos become into pulp. cool and add curds and salt. Ok fine will steal the chips from ur plate ...to decorate my plate. Let me know if u like .If possible plz take a snap and post it.:)

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  4. Thanks for the recipe in the previous comment, "anonymous"! Why didn't you leave a name? If not of yours, at least of the dish!

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  5. Well that dish is also called "Vaangibaath" in my house.

    ---i---

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  6. Some yummy chips I discovered recently: Zapp's kettle cooked sweet potato chips, which goes really well with anything spicy (esp spicy rasam). This is a limited edition chips, and I've been buying them at each supermarket visit. Try them. Will try your vangibhath one day - feel free to drop in for dinner :)

    Priya.

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  7. AS, it's not clear whether you are posting these recipes for universal audience or indian audience! If you are trying to give a recipe to anyone and everyone, may be you can make sure to give the hindi names of the spices and not use vernacular words. The writeup needs some cleaning up too. I speak Telugu, I cooked vaangibaath once upon a time, but ur recipe had me totally confused - I think it's the way you wrote it. someone from CH :-)

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  8. http://www.indian-recipe.net

    lots of free recipes...i think they update it like daily too

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  9. olrite! Tried it, liked it.

    Didn't have dried kobbari - just roasted some fresh grated coconut at the end, along with the eggplant/brinjal.

    Thanks, LL.

    Priya.

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  10. Every health conscious person wants something light in dinner. Something like rice mixed with vegetable etc. teach students many dishes for different day hours. For more information click to site.

    htttp://www.culinaryschoolsprograms.com/

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Please do not comment as Anonymous. Please use a name when commenting... even a false one will do! :-) You don't have to register to use a name.