Bebo : “I have a racing car.”
Mittu : “I have seen a REAL racing car”

Bebo : “MY racing car is red”
Mittu: “The REAL racing car was green”

Bebo: “I have FIVE racing cars”
Mittu: “These are tiny, the one I saw was soooo big!”

The verbal war between the 6 year old and 4.5 year old went on for a long time. The stress on ‘I and my’ are quite interesting to listen to. New school, new habits!

Not too different from grown up talk, actually. Like – I made this absolutely great Tawa Sabzi/subji this week. Harry and Guinea Pig 3 (Harry’s cousin who was visiting us) loved it.  I thought I was making a big batch – Wrong! It was just about of this dish to satisfy two hungry, food loving young men.

And Oh, by the end of the day, I overheard Harry telling someone over phone that “MY wife made a great dish today”!

I had a mail from Radhika about Blog Hop Wednesdays and I had jumped on the wagon happily. The idea is to get paired with a new fellow blogger every week, and write about a recipe from your partner’s blog every alternate Wednesday. Great idea and a lot of enthusiastic participants too.

This week my partner is Vaishali, who combines food and crafts in her awesome blog – Ribbons to Pastas. Tawa Sabzi was her last post and with the beautiful photos, it got my attention. I went through each and every recipe in the blog, but kept coming back to this one. So Tawa Sabzi it is!

The recipe requires the cooked veggies to be marinated for 2 hours at least and then browning them. Then, before serving, you need to arrange them around a tawa/pan and coat them with a tomato based sweet and spicy sauce, and then serve.

Ingredients: 

Vegetables of your choice:

Potatoes, Taro Root, Bell Pepper, Okra, Mushrooms, Paneer, Egg Plant etc. Cooked, but should be crunchy.

Marinade: 

Ginger garlic paste  : 2 tsp
Yogurt,thick              : 3-4 tbsp
Red chili powder      : 1 tsp (or per taste)
Turmeric powder     : 1/4 tsp (optional)
Garam Masala            : 1/4 tsp (optional)
Salt/Black salt to taste

Sauce: 

Tomatoes                          : 6-8, big
Ginger garlic paste        : 1 tsp
Green chili                        : 1
Red chilly powder         : 1/2 -1 tsp
Cardamom                       : 1 (optional)
Cloves/Five Spice         : 2 or 1/4 tsp (optional)
Butter                                 : 2 tbsp
Honey                                : 1 tbsp
Kasoori Methi                 : 1 tbsp (optional)
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Boil or microwave the vegetables till they are 90% cooked. We will be browning them again later.
2. Mix the yogurt with ginger garlic paste, garam masala, chili powder, turmeric powder and salt to form the marinade. Coat it over the veggies and refrigerate for 2 hours. I used a wide plate so that the veggies wont get mixed up.
3. After 2 hours or at anytime before you serve, heat a spoonful of oil in a pan and brown the veggies in batches.
4. For the sauce, keep two tomatoes aside and chop the rest roughly. In a sauce pan, add a cup of water – add the cut tomatoes, chili, chili powder, ginger garlic paste. Cook till the gravy thickens and the tomatoes are totally done.
5. Cool, grind in a mixie and then pass through a sieve. Discard the seeds and skin. Grind the two tomatoes kept aside to get a thick puree (or use half cup of ready made puree).
6. Bring the cooked tomatoes to a boil again, add salt, butter, tomato puree and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add honey, Kasoori methi and remove from fire. Keep aside.
7. At the time of serving, in a big tawa or non stick pan, arrange the veggies around it. Heat the tawa and add the tomato gravy in the center. Take the veggie of your choice, coat it with the gravy and serve hot. See the pictures above.

Note:

Check out Vaishali’s blog for the original, detailed recipe.

If you are using a lot of vegetables, you need to increase the marinade and sauce accordingly. This was sufficient for about 600- 700 gms of vegetables.

The choice of veggies are endless – cauliflower, chilies, bitter gourd, mushrooms, broccoli etc etc

If you are making it for the first time, its a good idea to keep it simple and use only 2 or 3 veggies. You need to ensure that the veggies stay together in batches and don’t get mixed up with other vegetables – you need to keep each marinade separately, brown them separately etc- so its better to start simple.

Instead of using a tawa, you can just add the sauce over the vegetables and microwave it at the time of serving.

Can be served as such as a starter or with chapatis/parathas.

Thanks Radhika, for this great event. Please check out here to see what other Wednesday blog hoppers have made.

Linked to Dish it Out  – Tomato and Chilli.