More Navratri Dishes

Even though the first nine days of Navratri celebration will essentially be vegetarian cuisine for most of the household celebrating the festival, it will keep the housewives, accomplished as well as the amateur cooks busy in honing their skill to prepare a lavish spread. The cost of vegetables are proving to be a dampener this time in this part of world due to unprecedented rains in most part of Maharashtra and flood at Nasik which is main source of supply to Mumbai and adjoining regions. Nevertheless, once in a year event will prevail and curries and kormas will again demand the limelight.

If one carefully browses through the menus available during the feast, most of the dishes would be similar to certain extent but the taste and flavor would be unique to each household.  Today we will take a look at the various menu options available which will help you to plan your menu for the occasion if you are looking for more than the usual festival foods.

Sweet Dishes:
Malpua (pancake in sugar syryp), Misti Doi (sweetened and thickened yogurt), Cheenar Payesh (Milk and nuts pudding), Rasgulla and rasmalai(sweetened cottage cheese dumpling), Kesar kheer (saffron flavoured rice pudiing), sabudana ki kheer (sago and milk pudding), makhane ki kheer (lotus root and nut pudding), Mingi paak (melon seed and reduced milk pudding) etc.

The appetizer may include:
Traditional aloo chaat, kurkure aloo (stuffed crispy potato), crispy colocassia (kurkuri arbi), Baingan bhaja (Aubergine fritter), sabudana vada (sago fritter), Dahi –papdi chaat (yogurt and semolina crisp appetizer), ghughni (spicy black gram preparation), exotic kachouri with chutneys etc.

The mention of main courses will sound like the never ending fable consisting of pleasant surprises such as
Gatte ki subji, matar paneer, dal panchratan, gul gobhi etc from Rajsthan to Tooriya posto charchari, aloo potol, cholar dal with coconut slivers, Luchi (Bengali pooris), sukhto (mix vegetable with bitter gourd). The western region may boast of preparations like kacche kele ke kofte (plaintain dumpling), aloo khus khus, kuttu ki poori and parathe (variety of buckwheat bread), cumin tempered rice, sabudana khichdi (sago and vegetable gruel), etc.

And the peripherals like pumpkin chutney, peanut chutney, aubergine pickle, moong sprout salad, tandoori fruit salad etc. Some of the very exotic recipes are also contained in the Indian Curry Manual available with us, so go ahead and try. Happy Navratri and Dusshera.

- Kuntal

Tags: chana, indian curry, tandoor, sambhar, karahi, vindaloo, kebab, desi, tandoori, handi