Chana Madra | Chickpeas in a Spicy Yoghurt Sauce

Himachal Pradesh, a state in the North of India have some delicious vegetarian dishes despite being non-vegetarian over all. This is a dish that is very common, especially at festival time. Chickpeas are simmered in a beautiful sauce of yoghurt and warming spices.

Similar recipes include Roast Eggplant with Crushed Chickpeas and Herbed Yoghurt, Vadai with Yoghurt, and Kadhi.

Browse all of our Chickpea dishes and all of our Yoghurt recipes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.

Matar Pulao | Rice Pulao with Peas

When rice forms a major part of a cuisine then there are infinite recipes using rice. Contrast this with cuisines in which it isn’t so important. When growing up, rice was used mainly for rice pudding and an even rarer rice salad. Apart from that it was unusual to have rice with a meal. I guess my mother bought rice only when she wanted to make a pudding – whereas I keep the pantry stocked with 6 – 8 different types of rice. Sticky rice, black and/or red rice, basmati, short grain rice, risotto rice and pongal rice are fairly standard pantry items.

These days I love rice cooked with spices and a vegetable or with lentils. It forms a great addition to any meal, especially Indian meals. It is also a great way to use up any vegetables sitting at the bottom of the fridge on a Friday night – prior to doing the next week’s shopping.

Peas Pulao or Matar Pulao is a popular dish which was made especially during the cooler months in northern parts of India. It can be made in a pressure cooker or rice cooker as well. This is the second version of peas and rice – the spicing is very different in each one.

Similar recipes include Narangi Pulao, Green Pea Pilaf, Rice in Tomato Juice, and Broad Bean and Dill Rice.

Browse all of our Rice dishes and all of our Pea dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Early Spring recipes.

Narangi Shorba

Blended soups often turn out frothy in our house, due to the high speed blender. A soup cappuccino. I could use a stick blender, but I love the smoothness of our high speed one, and it has a soup function – it heats the soup as it blends! Got to love such a blender in Winter.

Narangi soup, an orange vegetable soup from the North of India, is loved because of its beautiful colour and its sweet-green-chilli flavour. It is light and lovely – the perfect precursor or accompaniment to a meal.

Red Pumpkin is traditionally used but I haven’t seen one here in Adelaide for years. So I substitute with either butternut or kent pumpkin.

Similar dishes include Goan Vegetable Soup, and Tamatar Shorba.

Browse all of our Pumpkin Soups and Shorbas. All Indian Soups are here. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here.

White Pea and Potato Bhatura | Vatana Bhatura

Have you heard of White Pea Bhatura? Chole Masala is a very popular north Indian dish. White Pea Bhatura is very similar except that it uses vatana or dried white peas in place of the chickpeas. As you can imagine, it is very delicious! Bhatura – oh my, a delicious puffed bread.

White peas are very popular in North India. They are smaller than chickpeas, white in colour and smooth and round. Bhatura is a deep fried puffed bread made from a fermented dough.

Chole Bhatura is often eaten as a breakfast dish, sometimes with lassi. It is also a street food snack and even a complete meal. It is often accompanied by onions, tomatoes, carrot pickle, green chutney and pickles.

This is truly delicious! Even without the Bhatura, but especially with them.

Similar recipes include White Peas Curry, White Peas Sundal, and White Peas, Coconut and Green Mango Sundal.

Browse all of our White Pea recipes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Winter recipes.

Hara Mung Dal Fry with Fenugreek Leaves

Whole Mung beans feature a lot in our kitchen as we love the earthy taste. They are comforting and nourishing and we will cook up a large pot of Mung Soup or Dal in times of stress or tiredness.

This recipe is a North Indian style Green Mung Dal (Hara Mung Dal Tadka with Methi) that is great with chapatti or roti, and rice. Boondhi Raita, Kachumber, or vegetable dish can be added. The dal is cooked and then mixed with a paste of tomatoes, onions, ginger, garlic and spices. It is particularly good.

Similar recipes include Khar (Garlicky Mung Beans), Mung Bean Soup with Amaranth Greens, and Sprouted Mung Sundal.

Browse all of our Mung recipes, and all of our Dals. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Summer recipes.

Chana Masala | Channa Masala

My notes on the recipe for this dish say beautiful, hot, deep complex layers of flavour. We’ve been making this for many years, so I am not sure how we missed posting the recipe for you.

Chana Masala is a spicy Punjabi dish where chickpeas are simmered in a sauce made with tomatoes and 11 spices that are perfectly balanced to provide an experience of each spice, should you care to be aware of them.

Is it chana or channa? Transliteration of any other script is always contentious around spelling and pronunciation, let alone in India where different languages and scripts abound. For decades I have called it channa but the consensus online now seems to be chana. Here, on my blog, you will see both. Chana from now on, but older recipes will be channa.

BTW, anardana seeds are dried, sour pomegranate seeds, available from your North Indian grocery.

Similar recipes include Channa Dal with Greens, Turmeric Chickpeas, Tray Baked Spicy Turmeric Chickpeas, Turkish Soup with Chickpeas, Roasted Eggplant with Crushed Chickpeas, and Chickpea Fingers with Tomato Salsa.

Browse all of our Punjabi dishes and all of our Chickpea recipes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Summer dishes.

Achari Gobhi | Cauliflower Cooked with Pickling Spices

Achari means pickling, and achari dishes are made with the same spices that are generally used for pickling vegetables. Using mustard oil gives the cauliflower great colour and favour – grab an Indian Mustard oil at your Indian grocer, or your Supermarket might carry an Australian one. Similar to most achari dishes, amchur is used to give a delicious tang to the dish.

This is a simple sabzi dish to prepare when you feel like eating a chatpata snack.

Are you looking for other Cauliflower dishes? Try Pepper and Turmeric Cauliflower, South Indian Cauliflower Soup, and Rice and Cauliflower Pilaf.

Similar recipes include Achari Mushrooms.

Browse all of our Cauliflower dishes, all Subzis, and all of our Achari dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials here. Or simply browse our Mid Winter dishes.

Eggplant and Tomatoes | Baingan Tamatar

Today’s recipe is an Indian eggplant dish where eggplants are simmered in a tomato base until tender. It is quite simple to make yet yields a delicious result. Serve it with rice for lunch or with other dishes for an Indian feast.

It is an easy recipe – with few spices. A great recipe for people beginning to cook Indian dishes. Because it is easy, it is an perfect dish to cook for lunch, or even to cook early in the day to use with the evening meal.

Similar dishes include Brinjal Kootu, Eggplant Asadu, Smoky Eggplant and Tomatoes, and  Begun Pora.

Browse all of our Eggplant dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.

Urad Dal with Onions Four Ways

Urad lentils, in all their forms, and one of our favourite lentils, partly because of a dal that we made a long, long time ago. We love it. My daughter and I, at our respective places, still often make that recipe in bulk and freeze it for those busy winter evenings when you just need to grab something from the freezer to avoid ordering pizza or buying bags of chips.

Urad dal needs special handling. It needs long cooking, and is best keep soupy (in my opinion). It is a common dal in North Indian cooking, especially in the Punjab, and goes well with tomatoes, onions, butter, cream and yoghurt.

Mustard Greens with Mooli | Daikon Radish with Mustard Greens

Our local green groceries, run by a cohort of Vietnamese and Middle Eastern families, has recently begun stocking Mustard Greens. So we are making the most of them. Today’s recipe pairs them with daikon, the Japanese white radish that is also used extensively in India. When it is cooked, it loses the intensity of its bite and becomes soft and textural with a slight bitterness that is delightful. Matched with some chilli and the mustardy overtones of these greens, the result is a very morish side dish from India.

Similar recipes include Whole Mung Dal with Greens, Sarson ka Saag, Sri Lankan Mustard Greens with Coconut, Steamed Mustard Greens with Shiitake and Sambal, South Indian Daikon Dal,  Mooli and Pumkin Curry, and Daikon Salad.

Browse our Mustard Greens recipes and our Radish dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Autumn recipes.