Zunka Bhakar immediately puts you in the rustic mode- a very traditional rural soul food preparation- no nonsense, nothing fancy, screams out less is more and very comforting food combo from the states of Maharashtra, upper Karnataka and Goa. I simply love this food and even today enjoy relishing it in the dhabas while travelling!

Zunka is a simple preparation of besan (gram dal flour) and onion with few other ingredients. Dry version is often called Zunka and thinner version (patal) is called Pitla. I usually tend to keep my Zunka little thinner so that I can enjoy it with my rice too. The taste is super awesome and when you serve it with Jowar Bhakri(Jolad roti)- it's like having a food orgasm, no kidding :P
Simplicity at its best- hold perfectly apt for this Zunka Bhakar combo!


 Jowar or Sorghum bhakar or bhakri (flat bread) is not very easy to make. Wait don't panic or scroll down :)... Perfect way of making it comes only with the practice. Originally it is rolled out into a flat roundel using just the palms of your hands by tapping it on the ball of dough to make a bhakri. But I am not still there :) I use my rolling pin to roll it out and am happy with the results so far. Very healthy stuff and a good change from my regular phulkas and chapatis.

I have a very fond memory of this zunka bhakar from my childhood days. I had gone visiting my uncle in summer vacation to Mumbai and we were out doing some site seeing under the scorching sun. Me and my cousins were so hungry that day that we turned into mean little winners, our uncle took all the cousins to a dhaba kind of place where they served their speciality zunka bhakar and few other items. He ordered zunka bhakar for everyone without even asking us what we wanted and I still remember the way we hogged it all. Hunger, sun, tiredness and YUM SOUL food- calls for nothing less than but magical happiness!:) We literally licked our plates off :) and that memory is still so fresh on my mind.


Let us take a look at the recipe of Zunka Bhakar or Pitla:

Zunka (Pitla)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup gram flour (besan)
• 2-3 cups water
• 2-3 green chillies slit
• 1 small onion chopped
• 10 curry leaves
• pinch asafoetida (hing)
• 2-3 pods of garlic chopped
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• salt at per taste
• handful of chopped cilantro for garnish
• 2-3 tbsp oil

Preparation:

• First take the besan (gram flour) and add little water to make a smooth paste and keep aside.
• In a pan heat some oil. Add mustard seeds and jeera, as it splutters add chopped garlic, curry leaves, green chillies and saute quickly for few secs.
• Add the chopped onions and saute till translucent. Add turmeric, salt and mix everything.
• Once done add the besan paste prepared previously into the pan. Add about 2 cups of water ( if you want it dry add less water). Stir everything together.
• Cook for about 5 minutes, till all the water evaporates and a thick yellow somewhat paste like residue is left, adjust quantity of water as per your preference.
• Garnish with cilantro, chopped onion and serve hot with Jowar Bhakri or any kind of Roti.

Jowar Bhakri (Jolad Rotti)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Jowar flour (Sorghum flour)
• 1 tbsp rice flour
• 1/4-1/2 approx (water)
• 1/2 tsp oil
• salt to taste

Preparation:

• Take jowar flour, rice flour in a wide mouth mixing bowl or deep plate, to that add salt to taste.
• Boil water on the stove with oil and slowly add this hot water into the flour mixture while you keep mixing it with a wooden ladle. Stop pouring water once you see a nice soft dough is formed.
• Keep aside for the dough to cool down, say 10 minutes.
• Once the dough cools a bit, start to knead it and continue to knead for at least 5 minutes. Give a nice massage to the dough as you knead it with the palm. It should be a soft dough. For best results gather all the dough and press it using palms of your hand.
• Take a small portion from the dough and form a ball shape, keep it on a wax paper dust some flour and roll it out neatly and gently using a rolling pin. Don't put too much pressure as it will break. You can try patting it with your palms and flattening the ball into a round shaped roti. ( I usually pat it till its like 3 inches in diameter and then roll out with a rolling pin)
• Doesn't matter if it the shape is not a perfect circle. :)
• Heat a skillet or tawa, place bhakri, the side on which we applied dry flour it should face upward.
• As soon as you place bhakri, apply water on the top of bhakri and spread water evenly all over bhakri. (I use a paper towel, soak in water and spread the water evenly over the bhakri)
• Roast it just till the time water starts to evaporate from the top side of the bhakri.
• Now flip the bhakri and cook from other side for a couple of minutes more. At this point of time you can increase the gas heat.
• Now take the skillet away from the gas, lift the bhakri using tongs and roast it on direct gas heat from both the sides. ( you skip this step if not comfortable, just roast on the tawa on both sides)
• Serve hot with a dollop of ghee/butter over it and your favorite vegetable Zunka or Non-Veg curry.

besan (gram dal/garbanzo flour)

Shepuchi bhaji is a well known Maharashtrian dish. Very popular food amongst villagers and farmers. It falls under the category of either you Love it or Hate it, more or less like Karela (bitter gourd). It has a cult followers of its own if you ask me heheh and I am one of them. I can polish off my plate when I get served these cult vegetable curries like karela, shepu(dill), bitter beans etc. My husband is just the opposite, he doesn't like it at all. One other reason I look forward to make it as I make it once in a while :)


It is used as a herb in western countries. Dill has been used for culinary and medicinal purposes for hundreds of years. Apart from giving a strong, tangy, appetizing flavor and taste, it possesses plenty of medicinal properties. It is very good for health and has a pretty green color on it. Used these days for garnish, flavoring and for styling food plates to present on Internet handles, it is has multipurpose value- so Dill ain't going anywhere soon :)



I have enjoyed it so much while growing up- eating it with jowar bhakri or rice bhakri elevates its taste 10 folds more. I sill get all nostalgic when I visit my hometown in Belgaum and step into our family friends home, that aroma always lingers in their house. Have you ever experienced that? Every house has its own typical aroma and energy around it.



Anyways coming back to Shepu- my moms fav dish is shepu Idlis...well that is one thing which I am not a great fan of maybe because we add loads of jaggery in it... my tastebuds go crazy where ever it finds spice. Even now when I visit home there is a list of things that I want from my moms kitchen and Shepuchi, methichi bhajis are one of them. I am actually drooling as I am writing this as its dinner time and I cant wait to get my hands on it :)

Lets check the simple recipe:


Ingredients: 

• 2 bunch of Dill leaves (about 21/2 cups of chopped dill)
• 4-5 garlic pods chopped (large in size)
• 3 green chillies slit
• 1 onion med size chopped
• 1/4th cup toor dal soaked for 30 mins (or split yellow moong dal)
• 1 tbsp grated coconut for garnish
• 1/4th tsp jaggery 
• 3 tbsp oil
• salt to taste

Dalimbi  or Val, also known as butter beans or Bitter Beans and some call it field beans is a very staple pulse in Maharashtra state, Gujarat state etc. Its funny that in most of my posts I have to mention various names of 1 ingredient - such is the culture and global influence we live in today! It can be cooked as a nice dry Usal or as a nice slurpy Rassa. Some even make it with full fledge ground coconut masala called Birde. This is basically my Mother In Laws recipe, which she makes fondly for her ladla beta ..yes.. you heard me right :) Intentional or not the biaseness oozes out in one form or the other hehe.. Well thats how most moms are. Who knows I may turn out the same way, only time will tell :)

Dalimbi Rassa

Frankly at my home while growing up this dish was not cooked very often but I had tasted it at my neighbors home and I simply love anything that is slurpicious with exquisite red color along with that oil floating on top of the curry. I will never say NO to that, cross my heart. After I married, and as my husband loved it so much, I started getting a bag of split Val or whole Val at home. Usually I get split one. But right now beggars are not choosers applies to us because of lockdowns in most of the states. Just grabbing whatever is found :) in the aisle or in shopping cart online.

Veg Thali

 Coming to the recipe, I have already posted Dalimbi dry Usal on my blog. You can take a look if interested. I like Curry style with more Rassa any day. This particular beans has a nice soft bitter taste to it which has to be complimented with sweet so the usage of gud/jaggery is important and as well as sourness, so kokum water is used in this recipe to give that particular unique flavor to the curry. Use of ginger/chillies and goda masala are few other ingredients that bring out a lovely taste to it.

Lets take a look at the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup val (or butter beans)- soaked and sprouted preferably- yields approx  2 cups
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp jaggery 
• 4-5 kokum petals - washed and soaked in 1/2 cup of warm water for 10 min
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• pinch of asafoetida (hing)
• 1 tsp chopped ginger
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• big pinch turmeric powder
• 1 1/2 tsp goda masala (or onion masala or garam masala pwd)
• handful cilantro finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh coconut for garnish (optional)
• salt to taste

Boiled Butter  Beans

Kokum Petals

Chopped other ingredients

Preparation:

• Soak the val beans in the water overnight or for 8 hours. If you want to make sprouted val beans  (which is more nutritious) then drain the water and keep it to sprout for 8 hours in a muslin cloth tied up. 
• In a saucepan add enough water till val beans is immersed and on med heat cook for 15-20 minutes. Keep a close eye after 15 minutes. It must be just soft. ( It gets mushy quickly and we don't want that). Switch off the gas and drain the water out. Keep cooked val beans dal aside.
• During this time also soak kokum in half cup water and keep aside for 10 min.
• In a pan, heat oil , add cumin seeds-  once it starts to splutter add curry leaves, then add hing and then chopped ginger - saute for couple of min on med flame. 
• Add chopped onion, saute onion till light brown, then add the powders, red chili pwd, turmeric, goda masala - stir quickly on a low flame. 
• Transfer the cooked butter beans to this mixture, add kokum water and discard the kokum leaves, add jaggery, salt to taste.
• Now add 1 cup + more water as per your required consistency and let the curry simmer for few minutes where you will see a nice red color and some oil floating on top! 
• Add cilantro and grated coconut(optional) Your curry is done, serve hot with rice or rotis.

Health Benefits:

Val or Lima beans (butter beans), like any other beans, are rich in dietary fiber. It is a slow burning complex carbohydrate. Val Beans gives you much energy to burn while stabilizing blood sugar. Also, has a good amount of Iron which is very crucial for the body. It is a power packed protein. A good source of manganese and folate along with potassium and has low sodium content.

Getting back to blogging after a short break, feels so good to be back in my comfort zone :)
It was Monday, Presidents day a long weekend in USA. Had a busy rest of the weekend having too much fun! Thought of lazying around while cleaning up the house and at sharp 11:08am had a craving to eat pav bhaji after my eyes wandered on the potato bag in the pantry :) Got lucky as I had all the ingredients in the fridge except pav (Indian bread). After begging for 5 minutes to my Pati-dev who thinks weekends are his right to be a couch potato, sent him off to the store to get the pav while I geared myself to make some YUMM-O street food.


This dish is a big hit at my house and relished amongst my friends. I got this recipe from a Juhu beach vendor in Mumbai on Youtube some years back. Can't go wrong, right? I have customized the recipe just a little bit as per my convenience. I was actually surprised to see couple of ingredients that went into it like kasoori methi and hing. Well, it only adds more great flavors to say the least.

Another huge USP of this dish, can add as many variety of vegetables you want and kids will not even know :) because potatoes overpowers the rest of the clan :)- So yes, Moms can go YAY!!










Pav Bhaji was invented as a midnight dish by street food vendors, made with all the leftover vegetables from the day, mashed up together, with loads of added spice, and butter. Bhaji is the Marathi word for a vegetable dish, and pav probably comes from the Portuguese word for bread.

All I can say is try it and see if you like it.

Ingredients:

For the Bhaji:

• 2 big potatoes boiled, peeled and mashed lightly
• 4-5 ripe tomatoes chopped ( if not sour enough, add extra tbsp of tomato paste)
• 1 capsicum chopped
• 10 flowerets of cauliflower (roughly chopped)
• 1 small carrot chopped (optional)
• 1/2 cup peas boiled
• 1 1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chili pwd (to give more color than spiciness)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/4th tsp turmeric pwd
• 1- 2 tbsp pav bhaji masala (everest or mtr)
• handful chopped cilantro leaves
• 1 tbsp fenugreek leaves
• pinch asafetida 
• 2 tbsp of oil
• food color orange 1 pinch ( if you want that gorgeous color :))

To Fry the Pav:

• Butter
• Cilantro leaves
• Prepared Pav Bhaji

Garnish Ingredients:

• Chopped onion
• Sev
• Lemon pieces
• Dallop of butter on it

6 Pav (store bought for now)
Minimum 2 Pav each person to relish all that goodness of buttery bhaji :)


Preparation:

• In a non stick pan, heat oil, add capsicum, cauliflower, (carrots if using it) and quickly saute it for 2 to 3 minutes. 
• Add ginger garlic paste and let it cook for little bit more till the raw smell goes away. Add asafetida, kasoori methi and cook for a minute.
• Now add chopped tomatoes and saute it for couple of minutes. You can add 1 tbsp butter now and let it cook till you see some oil coming out from the corners. Stir in between.
• Add masalas - turmeric pwd, chilli pwd and pav bhaji masala, salt mix everything together quickly. 
• Add boiled potatoes and with a masher, start mashing everything together. Add water little by little till you get the consistency of thickness/thinness you want. It is always semi thick. Potatoes basically absorb water. 
• Taste it and see if it needs adjustment, if your tomatoes are not sour enough, add lemon juice.
• Add food color if you want.
• Let it cook on sim flame for about 7-8 minutes. Keep stirring in between and add water as you like. Add another tbsp of butter :)
• Garnish it with Cilantro and switch off the gas.

How to fry the Pav just before serving:

• Cut the Pav in the centre and semi open it.
• On a frying pan, add butter, as it sizzles add bhaji, cilantro and place the pav face down and cook for few sec. Drizzle some butter or oil on top and serve hot.

How to Serve Pav Bhaji:
Serve good amount of bhaji in a compartmented plate, chopped onion, cilantro and lemon slices on one end, you can add onions, sev and butter on top of the hot bhaji, and masala fresh pav on the other side.

Trust me, eating is much easier than writing how to serve Pav Bhaji :):) (joke)

If you are street food junkie, you may also like
Missal Pav,  Baked Potatoes Wedges,  Mumbai's special Masala Sandwich

njoY!! happY cookinG!!

Health Benefits:

Due to the increased interest in foods that are low-carb or low-glycemic index, the potato has unjustly earned a bad reputation. Potatoes consumed in simple roasted, grilled, boiled, steamed manner with little or no oil/butter is very healthy and nutritious for health.
It is loaded with calcium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, iron that helps in having strong bones.
It has vitamin B6 which supports heart health.
Choline is a very important and versatile nutrient in potatoes that helps with sleep, muscle movement, learning and memory.

STUFFED BRINJAL CURRY

There are various versions of stuffed brinjal recipes. This is one of the easiest and yummiest recipe you can find anywhere which is based out of Maharashtra. I grew up eating stuffed brinjal cooked in coconut base curry, but that recipe some other time. I simply love this sabjiyon ka raja (king of vegetables) Baingan/Brinjal/Eggplant in any form, be it fried, baked, fire roasted, grilled, in lasagna, rice or in curry. This spicy preparation will send you drooling, guaranteed!

Ingredients:

• 8 medium sized brinjals
• 1 big onion chopped
• 1 tbsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 2 pod garlic chopped (optional)
• 1 inch ginger chopped (optional)
• 1/2 cup peanuts roasted and powdered
• 1/2 tsp jaggery (or brown sugar)
• salt as per taste
• 1/2 tsp tamarind pulp
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 10 curry leaves (optional)
• 2-3 tbsp oil
• cilantro for garnish
• 2 cups water (or more)

Preparation:

• Slit the brinjals in 4 parts keeping the stalk intact. Soak it in salt and tamarind water for 30 minutes.
• In the meantime make a mixture of chopped onions, peanut powder, chilly powder, garam masala, ginger garlic, salt.
• Drain the water from brinjals and stuff it with this onion mixture. Keep the remaining onion mixture aside.
• In a wide non-stick pan, heat oil, add mustard seeds, once it splutters add curry leaves and the remaining onion mixture and saute it for few minutes. 
• Now slowly add the stuffed brinjal and let it slightly roast on all sides, for a couple of minutes on each side. 
• Now add 1 cup water and close the lid, let it cook for 8-10 minutes on low-med heat. Add jaggery and tamarind pulp. Now very gently turn brinjals over and let it cook till done. Last few minutes cook uncovered. Curry thickens, adjust water and spices accordingly. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with bhakri, roti or paratha. It's finger licking good!

njoY!! happY cookinG!!



Health Benefits: King of vegetables, better provide some royal benefits :) It helps in iron production in our body, keeps chronic diseases at bay, helps quit smoking(who knew?), has good amount of vitamin C and is effective as antiviral and antibacterial source, helps to have healthy strong hair, keeps the skin soft and supple, prevents skin cancer etc. Research on eggplant has focused on an anthocyanin phytonutrient found in eggplant skin called nasunin. Nasunin is a potent antioxidant that has been shown to protect cell membranes from damage.