Huli Pudi

For a few months, the Arusuvai friendship chain has been active among food bloggers in India, pioneered by the Yum blog and Bhags and Bharathy, with the premise that food bloggers send little surprise ingredients to each other. After all, the pantry of each avid home cook is full of coveted treasures and to share these with people that you have come to know virtually is a lot of fun.

I have been watching from the sidelines as all sorts of mystery ingredients have been crisscrossing the country.
Logo courtesy "The Yum Blog"

Thank you, dear Latha, for kicking off this fun event here in the US and for sending me your precious homemade gift. It was so exciting to get something in the mail besides the usual junk mail and bills. My patience got the better of me and I ripped the envelope open while I was still in the elevator. The color and aroma of this mystery powder enveloped me right away!

I must say that no one guessed the answer *precisely* but a whole lot of people came very close! Most of you guessed sambar powder. Latha says that "it is what is called "Huli Pudi" which is very similar to Sambar powder". If I understand correctly, huli in Kannada means "sour" but is also the word used for a curry or sambar. It sounds like this is a go-to spice powder for Kannada cooks- with potential uses in sambar, dry vegetable curries, gravies, and those delicious rice dishes such as vangi bhaat and bisi bele huli anna. Here is Latha's beautiful post with the recipe and uses of huli podi. My first use of this precious powder is a predictable one- I made a simple sambar.

Huli-Pudi Sambar

(serves 4-5)
Ingredients:
3/4 C toor dal
1.5 C mixed vegetables cut in chunks (I used onion, eggplant, endamame and carrots)
1/2 t turmeric
1 T tamarind pulp
1 T jaggery
2 t huli podi (or to taste)
Tempering
1 t oil
1 t mustard seeds
pinch of asafoetida
10-12 fresh curry leaves
Method:
1. Soak the toor dal for 15 minutes and rinse well.
2. In a pressure cooker, combine soaked toor dal, vegetables, salt and turmeric. Add water to cover and pressure cook the mixture.
3. Soak the tamarind in 1/2 C hot water and extract the juice.
4. Heat oil, temper it with the ingredients listed. Add the dal-veggie mixture, tamarind, jaggery, huli pudi and salt. Add water if required. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes.

I served the sambar with idlis for a perfectly heavenly Saturday morning brunch. The huli pudi gave the sambar a gorgeous color and irresistible flavor! Now that I have tasted this powder, I can't wait to use it in non-indicated ways- especially with potatoes, as Anita suggested. That would make one delicious filling for masala dosa!

Where does the Arusuvai Friendship chain go from here??
I am sending little mystery packages to
1. Musical, who gives us an unforgettable peek into the Punjabi home kitchen,
2. The Cooker, who always has inspiring and innovative ideas to share, and
3. Mandira, who started the Amish Friendship bread starter chain, which led to the arusuvai chain in India which in turn inspired the arusuvai chain in the US. She was the butterfly who started this butterfly effect, and it is only fitting that the trail leads back to her!

In addition, I plugged the names of all you good sports (whether you are a food blogger or not) who played along in the guessing game into a spreadsheet and used a random number generator to pull out 2 names from the hat- the "winners" are Superchef and AA!! If you would like a surprise ingredient (and a treat!) from my kitchen, please e-mail me your address.

Also, two of those who played along are "local people", so dear Bek and Seema, e-mail me if you would like a surprise too, and I shall deliver one to you :) Any other St. Louis bloggers/ readers (you don't need to have a blog), let me know if you want to play along and I'll be happy to share a surprise ingredient with you too.

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Want a sneak peek into the headquarters of One Hot Stove? Head over to The Perfect Pantry to get a glimpse of my own highly imperfect one! Thank you, Lydia for this chance to reveal a little bit of my kitchen :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Quick "Bisibele" Bhaat

This week at One Hot Stove, it is "Q for quick"! So here is a quick post featuring my favorite quick meal. It maximizes flavor and nutrition while minimizing effort and prep time. Mixed vegetables, lentils and rice come together, and are flavored by tamarind and a ready-made spice mix. The whole thing virtually cooks itself in the pressure cooker and you are in for a treat!

Bisibele rice is a specialty from the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, featuring lentils, rice, vegetables and spices cooked together slowly and lovingly into a festive dish. In my quick khichdi, I use bisibele spice mix to approximate those flavors in a fraction of the time and make faux bisibele rice. Here's how...

1. Prepare 2 cups of mixed vegetables, cut in medium dice. Here, I have used green beans, frozen peas and carrots. Other vegetables that work well are zucchini, eggplant, cauliflower, lima beans etc.


2. Prepare 1 tbsp thick tamarind paste. If you use tamarind pulp, the paste is prepared by soaking 1 heaping tsp of tamarind pulp in a couple of tbsp of hot water, then squeezing out the pulp and discarding the solids. If you are using tamarind concentrate, you can directly use 1 tsp of it instead of the paste.

2. Measure out 1/3 cup rice and 1/3 cup green (unhulled) split moong dal.


3. Have some ready-made MTR brand bisibele masala handy. It is available in Indian and international grocery stores, or in online stores.


4. Other prep: chop half a small onion.

5. Now, in the body of the pressure cooker, add 1 tbsp oil. Make the tempering with: 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, chopped onion, 5-6 curry leaves, pinch of asafoetida.

6. Saute for a couple of minutes, then add 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp red chili powder, 2 tsp bisibele powder (or to taste) and salt to taste.

7. Stir in vegetables, dal, rice, tamarind and 3 cups water. Pressure-cook for the amount of time that you normally need for cooking rice (in my superhuman efficient cooker, it takes one mere whistle).

8. Serve piping hot, with pickle and yogurt on the side, if desired. Potato chips/ papads take this dish to a whole new level :) When I have time, I throw together a pachadi to serve with this khichdi.


MTR's bisibele masala is extremely flavorful and authentic (to the extent that I am able to recognize authenticity of Kannada dishes, at any rate). And no, they are not paying me anything to say this, this endorsement comes straight from the heart. Quick "bisibele" rice is stewy and soupy, and may not be much by way of good looks, but it is the one dish that I make time and again. It has sustained me through countless busy nights, and through rough times at work, and through times of illness. Last week, it fed V when he was unable to eat anything else after dental surgery. Now I have made it so many times, I can make it in my sleep!

Got a favorite flavorful quick recipe? If it has vegetables in it, and Indian or Indian-inspired flavors, you can send it in for the Q of Indian Vegetables!