Sooyi Bhajjilli Ghashi

This is a traditional Konkani recipe which stimulates all your senses…..Soyi means grated coconut . Bhajjille means fried. So Soyi bhajjilli ghassi is a gravy dish rich with the flavour of fried and ground coconut. The thought of this recipe not only evokes my taste buds , it evokes my olfactory senses …..The smell of fried coconut with coriander seeds and curry leaves is something you should never miss in your life time.

Last week I prepared Chonnyachi Ghassi.
Chonno is a black chick pea , widely used in Kerala. And ghassi is a dish served during all Konkani festivals , weddings and ceremonies.The ones we eat at the temple Utsavs is the best. This is how I prepared it at home..
Soak one cup of black chana overnight and pressure cook it with enough salt and a piece of kokum and keep aside.
Heat pan and add One tsp urud dal and 1tsp fenugreek seeds. Fry and keep aside. Now fry 1 cup coriander seeds and 1 1/2 cup coconut grated. Add 7-8 red chillies (according to taste), add a bunch of curry leaves. Keep stirring till the coconut turns dark brown. Then let it cool . Mix in the fried urud dal and fenugreek seeds and powder . You can store this masala for future use. Mix this ground masala into the cooked channa and boil it. You can replace channa wth other ingredients or combinations like Dal and a vegetable , or channa and another vegetable or green peas .., according to your taste and use the same masala…
We call this masala, Massolu.
Try it out and charge your self
I also submit this to Click event at Jugalbandhi.

From tree top to table top!

The soft breeze is caressing the tall beauties pregnant with its heavy fruits. Amma is sweating heavily in the back yard, partly from washing the heavy loads of laundry and partly from the fear of those heavy fruits ready to be pushed down by the wind.

Its more than two weeks since they called Purusha to drop the coconuts, still there is no trace of him. Purusha is always in demand. He can only be seen like a lightening, flashing here and there in the neighborhood on his bicycle, with the best round coconuts, a sickle and a few ropes.

Now Amma is done with her laundry , and is on her phone calling neighbors to give “purusha alerts” …” ….if you see Purusha hanging around, do direct him to our place…..”

Finally Purusha turns up …..He demands unjustifiable fees for climbing those trees….And as usual he wins….and also gets to choose the best coconuts he can carry along with the fee.

He grips on to the tree with ropes balancing on his feet and climbs up with ease…dropping the bunch of coconuts ….in no time our yard is full of green, orange and brown coconuts and a few broken flower pots , an aftermath of Purusha’s hard work.

When the Sun goes down, everyone in the family is seen carrying these coconut bunches to heap it up in our shed. The next few weeks we would be drinking loads of tender coconut water, eat the various flavors offered by coconut in curries, have papads fried in fresh coconut oil…….

One dish which was commonly made in my home with freshly squeezed coconut milk was “dheeve ummen”, which is a traditional Konkani dish. “Dheeve” meaning white and “Ummen” means gravy.

So hear goes the recipe for “Dheeve Ummen…”

What you need:
1. 2 cups chopped vegetables( potato, bitter gourd, edo , potato and long beans are the usual combination)
2. 2 pieces of kokum( it can be replaced with star fruit or tomatilloes) This is added to reduce the bitterness of the bitter gourd.
3. coconut milk(I used 1 can coconut milk, though usually we use freshly extracted coconut milk)
4. green chilies 3
5. mustard seeds 1tsp
6. cumin 1tsp
7. curry leaves 1 sprig
8. oil to season
9. salt to taste


Method:

Add the chopped vegetables, green chilies and enough salt in a vessel. Add enough water covering the vegetables. Boil until vegetables are cooked. Add coconut milk and simmer for a few minutes. Temper with mustard seeds and cumin and curry leaves and serve hot with rice.

I submit this to Pooja of creative ideas for her VOW Bitter gourd.