Black Eye Peas Kurma

Well, I'm including a lots of legumes in my diet now. Most of the time I just boil them and eat it without doing any extra work. But I still have to cook for 'B'. So, the other day I made a simple kurma with the Black eye peas. It turned out pretty good. I was tired to make chappathis , so I made cumin rice instead. The next day, I served it for breakfast with dosas. It was a perfect accompaniant for both. So, here is the recipe. Nothing fancy. Just the regular kurma but it has black eye peas instead of the vegetables. But each dish looks and taste different because of the variation in the ingredients we use. Don't you agree?

Ingredients:
Blackeye peas- 2 cups (soaked and pressure cooked for 1 whistle)
cloves- 2
elachi- 1
Onion- 1/2
tomato- 1
ginger garlic paste- 1 tsp
corriander leaves- 2 tbsp
green chillies- 4
saunf- 1 tsp
corriander seeds- 1 tsp
cinnamon- 1/2 "
grated coconut- 1/4 cup
cashews- 4 (optional. I did not add in mine)
Poppy seeds- 1 tbsp (soak for 15 mins in water before grinding)
water- 1 1/2 cups

Procedure:
Soak black eye peas overnight and pressure cook it with some salt and turmeric for 1 whistle. If your cooker needs more whistle time cook accordingly. Grind everything from green chillies to poppy seeds. Then heat oil in a kadai and fry the cloves and elachi. Can use bay leaf also. Then add onions and saute until golden brown. Next add ginger garlic paste and turmeric. After that add tomatoes and cook until soft. Now add the ground paste and saute until the raw smell goes. Maybe 5 mins. Then add water, salt and bring to a nice boil.

Taste the gravy and add more salt or chilli powder if needed. Finally add the boiled peas and corriander leaves. Bring to one more boil and serve hot with rotis, rice or Dosa. It can be had like a soup too. It's so wholesome and fulfilling. Note: If you don't have time to grate coconut and grind it, just use canned coconut milk. Also you can omit coconut if you don't want that fat. In that case you can add some rice flour or some corn flour to thicken the gravy. Either way it tastes good.

Palak and Black Eye Pea Vadas

Here is another dish with Black eye peas. You can call it vadas if you shape it or just drop it in oil without shaping it- you have fritters. This vada tastes very differnt from the channa dal vadas. It is crunchy on the outside and so soft on the inside. Recently I saw these pea fritters in one of our fellow bloggers blog. But I'm so sorry. I forgot who it was. Anyway, that's how I was reminded of this dish that I had made years ago... maybe 4 years back.

I saw this dish in the 'melting pot' foodtv show. A carribean cook did this. I don't remember her name. She served it with cucumber raitha. Initially, I was doubtful of the combination , but I remember that my hubby really enjoyed that combo. I tried to locate the recipe from 'Food TV' but couldn't find it. So, I recreated the recipe to best of my knowledge. Also, I added palak for my touch. It tasted sooo good.

Hey, I know what you are thinking. You might wonder what am I doing with fried foods when I'm bragging that I'm on diet.

Actually, I didn't eat even one. Just tasted the batter for seasonings before frying it. 'B' wanted a tea time snack, so it was made just for him. He relished all the vadas without any one to compete for it. Didn't have time for the raitha. So I served it just with tomato ketchup and sweet tamarind sauce. My hubby liked it both. Ok, it's time for the recipe. Here goes.

Ingredients:
Black eye peas- 1 cup (soaked overnight)
onion- 1/2 (finely chopped)
clove- 1
saunf- 1 tsp
ginger- 1/2 "
green chillies- 3
salt- as needed
palak- 1/2 cup (chopped. can add more if needed)

Procedure:
Drain the soaked peas. Grind it with clove, saunf, ginger, chilli and salt to a coarse batter. Do not add water. Otherwise the batter will become runny and you can't shape it. Scoop out the ground paste and add chopped onions and palak. Mix well. Test for seasoning level. Finally shape them into vadas and deep fry in oil. Serve it hot with cucumber raitha, sauce or mint chutney.