Vankai Pappu

I’ve made this particualr dal only once before… and it definitely tasted good even on the first try. Simply because its simple, and is a great option if you’re bored with all the other dal options in the kitchen. 🙂

Vankai Pappu

Vankai (brinjal)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup kandi pappu (toor dal)
• 5 medium size vankai
• lime-sized ball of tamarind, soaked
• 8-10 green chillies
• 1 tsp salt
• 1tsp chilli powder
• Tadka: aavalu (mustard seeds), jeera, mina pappu (urad dal), red chilli

Method:

• Cook the dal, chopped green chillies and vankai chopped into long pieces of 6 or 9.
• In the meantime, squeeze the juice from the soaked tamarind and keep ready.
• Once the dal has cooked, mash the dal and chillies well while keeping the vankai pieces intact.
• Add the tamarind juice, salt, chilli powder and mix well
• cook for 10 mins or till excess water dries up
• In a small wok, heat 1 tsp oil and add the tadka.
• Once the aavalu start popping, add to the dal and mix
• Cook the dal for a couple of minutes more and then take off flame.

Serve hot with rice and ghee.

Vankaya Kura – with Kura Podi

This particular recipe is very easy, and is handy at times when you don’t really want to spend too much time in the kitchen! 😉

This recipe uses kura podi (https://teluguveggie.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/kura-podi/), and takes only abt 20 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients:
4-5 vankaya (brinjals/eggplant)
5 spoons of kura podi
3 tsp oil
1/4tsp turmeric
pinch of salt

Method:

• Chop the vankaya into 4 parts each. Keep the pieces as similar in size as possible, and keep in a dish of water till needed.
• Heat the oil in a wok, and when it starts to heat up, add the vankaya.
• Add the salt and turmeric and mix well.
• Put on a lid, and let it braise. Keep checking every 2 mins to ensure the vankaya is done.
• When the vankaya skin is soft to touch i.e. makes a light indent when pressed, add the kura podi.
• Mix well to ensure the podi covers all the pieces.
• Cover again, and let it cook for 2 mins. Turn off the gas when the podi and vankaya starts to stick to the wok.

Serve hot with rice and dal.