This recipe is of a delicious stew made Sindhi style — a very, very simple and easy recipe. Today I was craving this, so I made it. Aur (rai, mustard seeds) imparts a very good flavour to this dish, hence the name. Feel free to use any vegetables in this preparation, though I like using the basics: potato, carrot, french beans, whole shallots and wadi. Here I’d like to point out that we don’t get wadi in Jakarta, and though I can bring them from India, I’m not really fond of the dry wadis. So for years I’ve been making fresh moong dal kachoris and adding them to the stew at the last moment, just before serving.
Now, about authentic recipes: an aur ji bhaji is normally cooked differently in different houses — there are Sindhis who don’t use any tomatoes in the preparation, and some like me who grew up eating this dish based on a tomato gravy. I’ve tried making it both ways and both are delicious, so I can’t really say which of the two is authentic. Today I’ll share the tomato-based aur ji bhaji. You can serve this with rice or with phulkas. I love eating this with chapati torn into pieces and added to a bowl of aur ji bhaji… yumm.
Method
- Soak ¼ cup dhuli hui moong dal for 2 hours, drain and grind with minimum water, adding a piece of ginger and 1 green chilli while grinding. Season with salt and mix well.
- Fry teaspoons of the mixture to get about 16 fresh wadi/kachori. Keep aside.
- Blanch 2 tomatoes and discard the skin. Put in a mixer jar along with one roughly cut tomato and a small piece of ginger. Grind and strain the juice, discarding the seeds.
- Put the tomato purée in a saucepan, add about 3 cups of water, and add the vegetables: 1 carrot cut into batons, 1 peeled and cut potato, about 15 peeled shallots, and 4 french beans (each cut into 3 or 4). Bring to a rolling boil.
- Add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp red chilli powder, and salt to taste.
- Once the vegetables are tender, add a slurry of wheat flour (about 1.5 tbsp mixed into ½ cup water) until the gravy is thick.
- Add freshly cut coriander leaves and let it simmer while you make the tadka.
- Heat 2.5 tbsp of oil in a small pan. Add 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, ¼ tsp hing, 2 sprigs of tender curry leaves, and 1.5 heaped tbsp of finely minced garlic. Sauté till fragrant, then add to the simmering gravy. Done.
- To serve, add a few kachoris to a bowl and pour the hot gravy over them. Enjoy!
