Konkanis Special Vegetarian Thali

Saravan month is consider to be the festive month. This is month where most of the Hindu festivals like raksha bandhan, janmashtami, nag panchami, ganesh chaturthi etc are celebrated. In our home, during all these festivals, we follow up preparing many dishes when accompanied really makes one complete thali. After the puja is performed, all the dishes are served in the separate 3 banana leaves and then offered respectively to tulsi mata, holy mother cow and our friendly bird crow. Our people believe that offering food to crow is just offering food to our late ancestor. Belief is ancestors come in the form of crow and bless us. As this belief is passed on to generation to generation and all of them should follow according to our religion. This may sound little different, for a while will keep this matter aside and take a look on this whole thali.
This complete thali was prepared on Ganesh Chaturthi.  This is the typical Konkani Thali which includes rice, dalitoy (konkani dal flavored with asafoetida), sukhi bhaji (sukhi bhaji is the dry vegetable side dish, can be prepared with variety of vegetables), patal bhaji (patal bhaji is the thick gravy mainly prepared with the combination of dry green peas, green gram and potato),  rava kheer,  gulab jamun, kokum kadhi, kele podi (pan fried spicy raw banana) puri,and papad and pickle. In every curry, dal and kokum kadhi listed in this thali consists of coconut which acts as the main ingredients in the dish. Now lets see how to make each dish in detail.



INGREDIENTS
Sukhi Bhaji

• Long beans, chopped - 2 cups
• Cabbage, chopped - 2 cups
• Potato,chopped - 1 cup
• Fresh coconut - 1/2 cup
• Red chilly powder - 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida - a pinch
• Onion - 1 medium
• Ginger - 1/2 inch
• Green chillies - 2 no's
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil - 2 tbsp

• Heat the oil in the pan on medium flame. When the oil heats up, add mustard seeds and cumin seeds.Fry for few seconds.
• Then add asafoetida, grated ginger and chopped green chillies. Saute for 1 minute.
• Then add chopped onion. Fry till onion are transparent.
• Add chopped beans and chopped potato. Cook them without adding water on the medium flame.
• You need to cover the plate on the pan and add little water in the plate. Making this avoid the burning of vegetables.
• When the potatoes are half cooked, add chopped cabbage and salt. Mix everything well.
• When cabbage becomes tender and potato are fully cooked. Add all the dry masala powder.
• Finally add fresh coconut. Mix well and cook for 2 minutes
• Sukhi bhaji is incomplete with fresh coconut. 
• Here we go sukhi bhaji is ready to serve.

Patal Bhaji

• Dry green peas - 1/2 cup
• Green gram - 1 cup
• Potatoes - 2 medium
• Onion - 1 big
• Tomato - 1small
• Ginger - 1/2 inch
• Green chilly - 1 
• Fresh coconut - 1/2 cup
• Jeera - 1/2 tsp
• Coriander seeds - 1tsp
• Red chillies - 3 nos
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Cloves - 2
• Cinnamon - 1/2 inch
• Poppy seeds - 1 tsp
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste

• Wash and soak the dry peas and green gram overnight.
• Next morning, cook the dry peas and green gram along with chopped tomato, salt and little turmeric. I prefer to cook these in open pot. Because in cooker they turns too soft, which is not the right texture for this particular curry. In the halfway, add cubed potatoes. Cook till potatoes are done.
• Slice the onion and scrape out the fresh coconut. Also soak the poppy seeds in the normal water for 15 minutes
• Heat the pan and dry roast the cloves, cinnamon stick, jeera, coriander and red chillies on low flame.
• Do not burn the red chillies. This can spoil the whole curry.
• Once the spices are dry roasted, take out them in the plate.
• In the same pan, heat the oil and add sliced onion, sliced ginger and slit green chillies. Fry till the onion are golden in color.
• Add scraped fresh coconut and fry along with golden onion. Once you see coconut starts getting brown. Turn off the flame and transfer the fried mixture on the same plate in which you had earlier  transfer the dry roasted spices. 
• Allow to cool down completely. Transfer the fried mixture along with spices in the blender. Also add turmeric powder and soaked poppy seeds. Blend the mixture into smooth paste.
• Now the transfer the paste into the pot of cooked dry peas and green gram. Stir well so that all the masala paste and dry peas, green gram are incorporated well.
• Add the salt and water if required. This curry should be thick. Add water only if needed.
• Place the pot on the medium flame and bring it boil.
• Patal Bhaji is ready to serve.

Dalitoy

• Toor dal - 1 cup
• Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Jeera - 1 tsp
• Green chillies - 2 nos
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida - a pinch
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
• curry leaves - 1sprig
• Ghee - 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

• Clean and soak the dal for 1 hour.
• Cook the dal along with turmeric powder and little salt. Mash it if you see any whole dal.
• Blend the coconut, jeera and green chillies  into the smooth paste by adding little water.
• Add the masala paste into the cooked and mashed dal. Mix everything well.
• Heat ghee in the pan and add mustard seeds, asafoetida and curry leaves. Fry till the mustard seeds splutter. Lower the  flame and slowly add the dal coconut mixture. Adjust the salt and water. This dal is of semi thin consistency.
• Bring the dal to boil and cook for 3 to 4 minutes on medium flame.Turn off the flame and dalitoy is ready to serve.
• Dalitoy is also flavoured with garlic. Since this dish was prepared on the festive day. I used the asafoetida or hing to flavour the dal. Both ways, dal taste good.

Rava Pyaz or Rava Kheer

• Milk - 1 litre
• Semolina or rava - 2 tbsp (I used thin variety, this gives great result)
• Bengal gram or channa dal - 2 tbsp
• Groundnuts - 2 tbsp
• Jaggery - 1/2 cup (white one)
• Ghee - 2 tbsp

• Soak the bengal gram and groundnuts for at least 1 hour and cook them until they are soft. This can be done in open pot.
• Heat the ghee in the pan and add semolina. Fry until the semolina or rava slightly changes its colour.
• Bring the milk to boil. Slowly add fried semolina with continuous stirring. There are chances when the semolina is added in one go without stirring, the lumps are formed in the hot milk. Then it is hard to remove those lumps.
• Once the semolina is cooked and milk starts to thicken. Add jaggery and boiled bengal gram and groundnuts.
• Mix well till the jaggery completely dissolves in the kheer. By this time, kheer might become bit more thick. Add 1/2 cup of water. Cook for 2 minutes and turn off the flame.
• Remove the pot from the flame. Do not cover the lid of the pot as soon as you take out from the flame, allow the kheer to cool down a little. Otherwise if you close the lid as soon as you remove from the flame. Kheer turns into sheera then it is very hard to make into kheer consistency.
• With these small tips Rava pyaz or rava kheer is ready to serve.

Kokum Kadhi

• Dry Kokum pieces - 10 pieces
• Fresh coconut milk - 1 cup
• Water - 3/4 cup
• Green chillies -1 no
• Asafoetida - a pinch
• Salt - a small pinch

• Soak the dry kokum pieces into water for at least 2 hour.
• Strain the extracted kokum juice.
• Grind the green chillies. Add it to the extracted kokum juice. Also add asafoetida. 
• Finally mix in the fresh coconut milk. Mix everything well.
• Here you can also season the kadhi with some mustard seeds, red chillies and curry leaves.
• Most the time I keep it plain. My family loves in this way.
• Kokum kadhi is ready to serve.

Kele Podi or Pan fried banana

• Raw Banana - 1 big
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Red chilly powder - 1/2 tsp
• Ginger paste - 1 tsp
• Semolina - 1/4 cup (Fine variety)
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying

• Thinly slice the raw banana and keep them soaking in water.When you're ready to fry the podi.
• Pat dry the banana slice and add in all the listed above ingredients. Mix everything well.
• Heat the frying pan and spread the oil in the pan.
• Place the slices on the pan. Cover and cook the podi on medium flame.
• Kele podi is ready to serve.

Gulab Jamun - Check out the link Here.

And the rest are rice, puri, papad and pickle.