Mixed vegetable salad with a tangy spicy dressing

Of the three salads that I've made for Blogging Marathon #58, this one is my favourite. Loaded with colorful vegetables and crunchy toasted peanuts, this salad hits the right notes with a dressing that is tangy, spicy and mildly sweet.

What you need :
Cucumber - 1, peeled and cut into long, thin strips
Carrot - 1, cut into thin long strips
Tomato - 1, cut into thin strips
Onion - 1/2 of a small one, sliced fine
Capsicum - different colors - sliced thin and long, 1/4 cup
Corriander - a handful, chopped fine
Salt - to taste

For the dressing :  (This dressing, in my opinion, is the best part of this salad. Make sure to spoon plenty of dressing over each individual serving of salad)


Tamarind - a gooseberry sized ball soaked in water. Extract 1/3 cup of thick juice from the soaked tamarind
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp

Mix the tamarind extract, sugar and chilli powder in a large bowl. Stir till sugar dissolves.
Add all the other ingredients to this and mix well.
Toast a handful of peanuts in half a spoon of oil. Add this to the salad and toss. Serve immediately to retain the crunch of the peanuts.

Veggie puris, anybody???

All mothers are necessarily inventors. Right from the time a child is born, we take on a new avatar. We invent new ways to put them to sleep, new ways to sleep while they sleep without waking them up(i tell you i can write a book on that), new stories to keep them engrossed, silly songs to make them laugh, devious err...clever methods to sneak those veggies in. One such invention is what I am going to talk about today.
A few days back, I thought of making puris for dinner. The little girl (to see what she is up to, click here) loves puris....and we don't have to go through our usual cycle of threats and tears if puris are on the menu, but she doesn't like eating any side dish with the puri. I started off by taking some atta for the dough and then thought, hey, why not add some ragi to this? And while I was kneading together the ragi and atta, I had another Eureka moment. I decided to add some cooked, pureed carrots and some mashed potatoes to the dough. A little salt, some kashmiri chilli powder and there.....I had a complete guilt-free and tasty meal which the little girl and her friend enjoyed.

What you need:
Ragi flour - 1 cup
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Salt
Red chilli powder (I used kashmiri chilli powder)
Carrot - 3 medium sized, cooked and pureed
Potato - 1 large, cooked, peeled and mashed well
Oil - for deep frying

Mix all the ingredients well. Add water if needed and knead to a smooth, pliable dough. Divide the dough into lemon sized balls. Roll into small, thick, circles and deep fry in hot oil until lightly browned on both sides.
I served this with a simple, tangy tomato chutney. To make this chutney, heat a few spoons of oil in a pan. Chop up some onions and tomatoes into large pieces. Fry some red chillies and then the chopped onions in the oil. When the onions starts to brown, add the tomatoes and fry till mushy. Let it cool. Add some salt and grind till smooth.

This is my entry to JFI-Ragi hosted by Madhuram, Creative Food for Kids hosted at Sara's Corner, and Kid's Delight event hosted by Srivalli.

Vathal koottan/kozhambu

The chundakka vathal that I blogged about yesterday is most commonly used in vathal kozhambu. To me, curd rice served with some spicy and tangy vathal kozhambu is heaven on a plate.
Here's what you need to make vathal kozhambu:
Tamarind - a lemon sized ball
Sambar powder - 1.5 - 2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt
Gingely/Sesame oil - 2 tsp
Chundakka vathal - a handful
Shallots - 7 or 8, peeled and halved (optional)
Channa dal - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Methi seeds - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Soak the tamarind in two cups of warm water for 10 minutes. Squeeze to extract tamarind juice and set it aside.
Heat gingely oil in a kadai. Add in the channa and urad dal, methi and mustard seeds, and a pinch of asafoetida. When the mustard seeds pop, stir in the chundakka vathal and fry for a minute. Add the sliced shallots and fry till translucent. Pour in the tamarind extract. Add some more water if needed. Add turmeric powder, sambar powder and salt. Boil until the raw smell of tamarind is gone. Just before removing from the stove, mix a tsp of rice flour with a tbsp of water and stir this into the kozhambu. Garnish with fresh curry leaves. Serve hot or cold. This tastes great with curd rice.
As a child, I remember me and my cousins sitting in a circle around my maternal grandma while she used to place little balls of curd rice in our palms. We used to make a hole in the middle of the rice ball, pour vathal koottan into it and then proceed to gobble it up at a pace which today, is amazing even to me. Iam sure if polishing off a bowl of curd rice and vathal koottan had been an Olympic sport at that time, we'd have carried home the gold.