Fried White Lentil In Spiced Yogurt (eng) / Dahi Vara (hindi)

Hello dear viewers and followers, today i will show u an easy way of step by step method of cooking healthy dahi varas.
This is a known recipe for many people. I like to have this home made and in a healthier way than in restaurants.

Things you will need
1 and half cup white lentils or urad dal (soaked for 1 hour )
Black cumin
Green chillies
Salt to taste
black salt
cumin powder
sour curd
drinking water half cup
sugar
green chillies
a pinch of baking powder

Step 1 : Blend the urad dal (which was soaked) with a little bit of salt , green chillies and baking powder in an electric blender to make a not so soft paste. It should be thick. U may use a bit of water but not too much. It should be thick in consistency or it willhave the tendency to get stuck at the bottom of the frying pan while u are frying it.

Step 2 : Put some black cumin in this mixture and mix it. Check the salt. Now put enough oil in heat for deep frying. When the oil starts to smoke , put the mixture with a spoon into small dumplings in the oil. Fry it well in medium heat till well cooked. It will be crispy and nice. You can enjoy varas with green chutney or tomato sauce too as an appetizer.


Step 3: However we are making dahi varas today so the next step would be to soak these varas in drinking water taken in a bowl for 5 minutes. After they are soaked (this is to make them soft) now squeeze out the water by pressing varas with your palms . Now keep them aside.
Take another bowl , mix sugar , black salt (as much required ) , cumin powder , ( u may also add chaat masala  and amchoor powder aka dry mango powder ) to the sour curd . Now add a bit of water to the sour curd to make it a bit soft in consistency. This mixture needs to get inside the varas well so we have to make sure it is not that thick but a bi watery. Put the varas into this. Mix well. Give 10-15 minutes standing time. Serve with green chutney , tomato+dates sweet chutney , chopped coriander , some raisins (if u wish) and additionally u may top it with sev .

My dahi mixture got a bit too much soaked up by the varas :P  , try to keep more dahi mixture so that the varas stay dipped in them :D nevertheless it was damn tasty :P yummmmmm
Enjoy it ! :) Leave ur suggestions, feedback, follow our blog , follow us on g+ , pin the recipe and like the fb page :) thanks - By Zinnia :)

Roasted Prawn Coconut Curry

ROASTED COCONUT PRAWN CURRY

( I used the coconut shell as a holder for the dish here , and decorated the plate with desiccated coconut on sides and the rice with a fan of ginger  julienne  and 2 cloves and green chillies on sides )

(And this one is without the coconut cap :D hehe )

So , here is my Sunday's Special Dish on the menu....Roasted Coconut Prawn Curry . AND I COOKED IT , I LOVEEEEEEE COOKING ,EATING , Apart from nail arts and writing and makeuppppp ;)

Since am done with my exams , am flirting around with the dishes am seeing on tv , and cookbooks and net and also , some of our bengali known cuisines. This dish i saw some days back on tv , but i dnt rem the exact  name . BUT WHAT THE HECK IS IN A NAME ??????? LOL ....  It's soo good and tasty ....i can't tell u. Ya the preparation is also simple , but has kinda some steps , but the biggest prob with coconut is the hard work of desiccating it . If thats done , then this dish is pretty simple.

But the best part this dish resembles in a lot of ways except for dry roasting the coconut , like our very own Bengali Chingrir malaikari (Prawn in coconut milk curry)

It tastes awesome with hot rice...Bring out the milk from half of the desiccated coconut by boiling it with 2 cups water in simmer, while cooking , i directly strained it thru a tea strainer into the dish , quick and simple ;) and the rest of the desiccated coconut is dry roasted and then made into a paste .

( U can see the peppercorns from the dish , i fished them out put them on top of the prawns , and a tomato flower filled with desiccated coconut for presentation and desiccated coconut all around the plate .)

....And i love decorating dishes , i can even make little animals out of vegetable , lol,,,,will post them slowly ...guess why decorating the dish is soo important? Cuz it's also like makeup...u use lipstick and eyeshadow to makeurself more attractive, similarly i believe , the more u concentrate on the presentation, the more beautiful ur dish looks and the more u wanna eat it ....IT'S CALLED EATING WITH EYES.... FIRST U EAT WITH EYES , THEN U TAKE IN THE AROMA , THEN U TASTE WITH UR TASTE BUDS ;)

OK ENUF OF BABBLING ...lemme tell u how it is diff from Prawn Malaikari , here not just coconut milk but also a paste of masalas with garlic and dry chillies and dry roasted coconut is used. Whole pepper corns are not really used in Prawn Malaikari but here we use that too. Tomato is not used in either of these dishes be it Authentic Prawn malaikari or This one . Green chillies are optional  for both the types, am nt using them.