Musings about Desi khana

At my parents house a lot of emphasis was given to food. My mother was a fabulous cook and even the simplest of things would taste heavenly. She took a lot of interest in her cooking and meal-time was a very elaborate affair. There are so many things that she made such as karela and kathal, that I feel that mine still don't match up to hers, in spite of following her instructions to the T. Since it was a Jain household, onion and garlic was not part of our cooking. My father did not have onions at all so for us children mom used to fry onion and add it to Rajma once it was made. The beauty of vegetarian food is that it can taste good with even the simplest of spices. One such dish that my mother made very often and which was loved by our whole family was kathal ki sabzi and I am happy to see that now when I cook it for my kids they too freak out on it.                                                                                                        

So here is a recipe for kathal ki sabzi without onion & garlic:

Ingredients:
1 tspn oil
1/2 kg kathal (Jackfruit), cleaned and cubed
A pinch of heeng
1/2 tspn jeera
1 tspn coriander powder
4-5 green chillies, chopped
1/2 tspn garam masala
8-10 tbspn sour curd
Salt to taste
1 and a half cup water

Recipe:
Fry the kathal on medium heat in 3-4 batches. After frying the kathal should turn light brown in color. Once the whole batch has been fried, add the oil, heeng, jeera, coriander powder to a pressure cooker & roast the spices. If it is looking too dry, sprinkle some water so that the spices don't burn and get roasted properly.
Add the green chillies and the fried kathal to the cooker & mix well so that the kathal gets coated evenly with the spices.
Now add the salt, mix and add the water, close the lid & let it cook for a couple of whistles.
Turn off the gas, then once the steam releases open the cooker & add garam masala & sour curd. Mix well and serve.
Goes very well with roti, parantha, poori, plain rice & pulao too.
Tip: the gravy might dry up fast as kathal soaks it up, so add some water & sour curd to it before warming it up & serve.

Kathal ki sabzi