This dish is really easy to put together when you have boiled rice handy. It’s as convenient to carry around as it is to cook: pack grape and walnut fried rice into a lunchbox for work, school or picnic.

You Need:

[Serves 2]

• Boiled white rice – 2 packed cups
• Black grapes – 1 cup
• Walnuts – 1/3 cup, shelled and broken
• Onions – 1 large or 2 medium
• Fennel powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Sugar – 1/3 teaspoon (optional)
• Salt – to taste
• Pepper – to taste
• Olive oil – 2 teaspoons
• Butter – 1 teaspoon

How To Make Grape and Walnut Fried Rice:

1. Roast the walnuts

Dry roast the broken walnuts on low heat, till aromatic.

Take the roasted walnuts off the heat and keep aside.

2. Brown the onions

Peel and slice the onions thinly.

Heat a teaspoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of butter in a wide pan. Spread the onions in a thin layer on the pan.

Let the onions turn golden-brown leisurely on low-medium heat. The trick to doing this well is to not stir around too much – let the onions heat side down turn a dark hue, then stir before they char.

This process would take around 20 minutes.

Remove the onions from the pan.

3. Saute the grapes

Slice the grapes into halves or quarters if they are large.

Deseed the grape halves if required.

In the same pan used for frying onions, heat another teaspoon of olive oil. Add to it the grape halves.

Sauté the grapes on medium-high heat along with a pinch of salt and sugar (if using – adjust the quantity depending on the tartness of the grapes).

Continue to cook for 4-5 minutes, or till the grapes take on a shiny-brown hue and ooze out their juices.

4. Put it all together

Once the grapes are ready, add to the pan 1/3 teaspoon of fennel powder, 2 cups of cool boiled rice and salt to taste.

Mix gently, making sure the delicate rice grains do not crumble.

Continue to sauté for 3-4 minutes on medium-high heat, or till the rice has taken on the flavors from the grape and fennel.

Add pepper to taste, the fried onions and roasted walnuts.

Mix well and take the pan off the heat.

Grape and walnut fried rice is ready.

Enjoy hot….

…or pack it in the lunchbox for later.

Notes:

Looking for other interesting walnut recipes? Check out adzuki bean salad with walnuts and pears, brown rice with basil walnut pesto, eggless coffee pudding.

You might also like these rice dishes: mint rice, beetroot rice, coconut rice, and a roundup of one-pot rice meals.

The post Grape and Walnut Fried Rice appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

You Need:

• Green grapes – 200 grams
• Fennel powder (saunf powder) – 1/2 teaspoon
• Roasted cumin powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Jaggery – 1/2 tablespoon
• Salt – 1/3 teaspoon (adjust to taste)
• Red chili powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Dry red chilies – 2
• Cinnamon – 1/2 inch stick
• Cloves – 3
• Cardamom – 1
• Panch phoron* – 1 teaspoon
• Oil – 1 tablespoon

*If you do not have panch phoron, use a mix of these whole spices, which you have on hand: fenugreek seed, nigella seed, cumin seed, mustard seed and fennel seed.

In the pic above (clockwise from top-left): green grapes; panch phoron; whole spices – cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, dry red chilies; fennel powder.

How To Make Green Grape Chutney:

Pluck the stems out of the grapes if any, and wash them well.

Break the dry red chilies into 3-4 pieces.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a kadhai or skillet.

To the hot oil, add the whole spices: cloves, cardamom, cinnamon stick.

Follow with panch phoron. When the fenugreek seeds in the panch phoron turns dark, add broken dry red chilies.

Stir around and add the green grapes.

Mix well. Set heat to low and cook covered for 10 minutes, stirring once in between.

After 10 minutes, the grapes would have softened and oozed out their juices.

At this stage, add the salt, jaggery and dry spice powders: roasted cumin powder, fennel powder, red chili powder.

Continue to cook covered, stirring periodically.

Let the grapes stew in their juices till the sauce begins to bubble thickly. The entire cooking time would be about 25-30 minutes.

Switch off the heat and let the grape chutney rest covered for another 10 minutes.

Serve green grape chutney warm or cold, on the side with bread and cheese.

Notes:

Try other fruit-based sides for an Indian meal: sweet mango chutney, apple chutney, sauteed pineapple with spices, papeeta chokha.

The post Green Grape Chutney appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

The recipe broadly follows the ever-reliable Nisha Madhulika’s Kashmiri lauki curry recipe. The main departure is in the way the lauki is cooked (I did not want to deep-fry) and a little switch of ingredients.

You Need:

• Bottle gourd – 350 grams
• Green chilies – 2
• Plain yogurt – 1 cup
• Salt – to taste
• Fennel seeds – 3/4 teaspoon
• Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon
• Cumin powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Red chili powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Turmeric powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Asafoetida powder – a pinch
• Coriander seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Cinnamon stick – 1 inch
• Cardamom – 3
• Cloves – 3
• Coriander leaves – 1 tablespoon, chopped
• Mustard oil – 1/2 tablespoon for cooking the spices + more for shallow-frying

In the picture above: bottle gourd, green chilies, plain homemade yogurt.

How To Make Dahi Wali Lauki:

1. Prepare the ingredients

Peel the bottle gourd, trim the ends. Cut into thin wedges about 2-inches long.

How to make bottle gourd wedges: Slice the bottle gourd into 2-inch tall cylinders. Halve each cylinder vertically, then slice each half as if along the spokes of a wheel.

Keep the yogurt unrefrigerated for 1-2 hours before you plan to make dahi wali lauki [cold yogurt tends to curdle when heated]. Beat the yogurt well with salt.

Keep all the dry spices ready: asafoetida powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, red chili powder.

Grind fennel seeds to powder.

Slice the green chilies finely.

2. Shallow-fry the bottle gourd

Heat a wide non-stick pan with a thin coating of mustard oil. When hot, place the bottle gourd wedges in a single layer. [If the pan does not accommodate all the bottle gourd, cook in batches.]

Shallow-fry on high heat till the surface of the bottle gourd facing the heat has browned a bit.

Flip the wedges over and let the other side brown as well.

When cooked on both sides, remove the bottle gourd wedges from the pan and set aside.

2. Cook the spices

Heat half a tablespoon of mustard oil in a skillet or kadhai.

When the oil is hot, add cinammon stick, cloves and cardamom. Stir and then add cumin seeds and coriander seeds. As soon as the seeds splutter, set heat to low and transfer the dry spices (asafoetida powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, red chili powder) to the oil.

Move the spices around, make sure there’s no charring.

3. Put it all together

Add chopped green chilies, fennel powder along with shallow-fried bottle gourd wedges to the kadhai.

Mix well to coat the bottle gourd wedges with the spices and cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Set heat to low, add the beaten yogurt to the spiced bottle gourd. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of water to thin out the curry. Keep stirring continuously so that the yogurt does not curdle.

When the curry comes to a gentle boil, take it off the heat. Dahi wali lauki is ready.

Stir in chopped coriander leaves.

Serve dahi wali lauki hot with chapatis or plain rice.

Meal in the pic below: dahi wali lauki with Kashmiri saag, chapatis and tomato wedges.

Notes:

Try other yogurt-based curries: quick dahi aloo, dahi arbi, dahi chhole.

The post Dahi Wali Lauki: Bottle Gourd Yogurt Curry appeared first on The Steaming Pot.