Food for me was a connecting link to my grandmother, to my childhood, to my past. And what I found out is that for everybody, food is a connector to their roots, to their past in different ways. It gives you security; it gives you a profile of who you are, where you come from." - Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
A lot of the food I love is Gujarati food though I am not a Gujarati. The everyday foods I grew up with were not traditional gujarati but I still have a special place in my heart for Gujarati cuisine probably because that's what my mom made best (she was brought up in Gujarat and I was born there, have spent a good number of my holidays there) or probably because the people of Gujarat really know how to bring a soul to the food they cook.
This recipe is one of my most favorites and would be a controversial one too because of the main ingredient tomato. The tomato is pretty infamous among health circles and every one I know often has one or another reason to avoid tomatoes but still ends up using it. Dependent on who you talk to you will learn various senseless ideas about why tomatoes are evil. An ayurvedic physician once told me to remove tomatoes from my diet completely. I was told they are acidic and heating. Later was I to learn that they aggravate Vata and Pitta and are also Abhishandi and Vidahi and ofcourse the curse of belonging to the nightshade family.
So, does that make the Tomato a bad guy? And does that mean enjoying my favorite Sev Tameta nu Shaak will kill me? He'll no! Like I said earlier, there is no such thing as unhealthy food. Food is always healthy, its the diet and lifestyles that make it a wrong choice for some.
The simple way to understand this - According to Ayurveda, when we eat foods that our body is unable to completely digest, the undigested foods create excess doshas in our body and cause imbalance or disease. So the key to living a good healthy life is not avoiding your favorite foods or any ingredients in particular but just cooking them to make them more balancing or in other words more tasty (and when it's tasty, it won't harm). Trust your body and your tongue.
I used to always cook the traditional sev tameta with onions and it was always very tasty. I believe the cooling nature of onions balances the acidity of cooked tomatoes and thats the reason why my tongue always accepted it.
This recipe is another one of my attempts at making food taste great so the tongue which knows better than the brain accepts it. I know this recipe is a success because Avantika you enjoyed it too and your dad loves it too. So here goes:
This is what you need:
Atleast 3 medium sized red juicy tomatoes chopped
Atleast 3 big pods of garlic chopped
1 small piece of ginger
Half a really long Turai peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp of Oil (use one with a cooling potency like coconut or sunflower)
1/4-1/2 tsp mustard seeds (rai)
1/4 tsp carrom seeds (ajwain)
A pinch of asofoetida (hing)
A few curry leaves
And onions (I enjoy it without the onions).
Ama Spice Mix and Sendha Namak (Rock Salt)
Gram flour noodles (Sev) and Chopped Corriander leaves (Hara Dhaniya)
And this is what you do:
Heat the oil and add mustard, you need to hear it crackling before you add ajwain and hing (and curry leaves & onions if u using). Add the ginger garlic n reduce flame.
Sauté it just a bit (careful not to burn) before adding turai and saute again. (Add a pinch of salt if you in hurry but it's not really required). Let it cook on a slow flame for some time. When the turai has released a good portion of the water n become soft, add the ama spice mix, mix to coat and add the chopped tomatoes and water and sendha namak. Cover with a plate filled with water and cook till the tomatoes are very soft, you can then mash it and add the sev - I also added some boondi (gram flour pearls) and chopped cilantro. Serve it piping hot, garnished with corriander leaves and roti or bhakri topped with very little ghee.
And now here's why I do what I do:
Now, if you are anything like your mother Avantika, you will have a lot of questions. I remember I used to question my mom over the smallest of details and she used to answer most of it but a lot of the times my questions drove her crazy to the point where the answer to every question was because I said so. Now, your Naani knows a thing or two about cooking but has very little patience when it comes to answering questions and getting into details. I love finding answers to questions but find repeating tiresome. So, I am going to document it here just in case I need a reminder later some day or am too preoccupied to answer your questions. Remember what I said about cooking being a science as much as an art? And the science makes it interesting, the details are good to know but not to get lost in so feel free to change something here and there to suit your tastebuds.
There are three main ingredients in this recipe and I already mentioned Tomatoes aggravate Vata and Pitta. Did you know that Turai is a great vegetable for pacifying or balancing Pitta and Kapha while Garlic is gr8 for pacifying Vata. This recipe calls for only a small piece of fresh ginger which some say balances all the doshas but depending on the variety you use, it can help balance excess kapha in the body while aggravating pitta. To know more about ginger, catch your Naani or read up the written words.
The seeds and spices used here are warming and hence importantly aid digestion. The mustard helps avoid constipation while carrom speeds up a sluggish digestive system and Hing prevents gas or balances excess Vata.
The original recipe also calls for using a little jaggery which I skipped because the sweet taste is well covered here and since it helps cut out the acidity of tomatoes which is balanced to a certain extent. And because we are not using chillies here, the jaggery can be easily avoided.
About the Tadka:
The Tadka is probably the most important part of any Indian cooking. Most of the flavour, comes from the Tadka. As does the digestibility and Satiety. So it's important not to compromise on the fat (neither quality nor quantity) unless of course a special condition demands.
The fat you use for tadka is almost always taken for granted but when cooking tomatoes, I find it important to use something that is cooling for the digestive system. Cooling oils and ghee are great but not for all cooking, particularly not for all vegetarian cooking.
When you add anything to hot oil, you are actually flavoring the oil and releasing nutrients into it while reducing the potency of what you fry. So the spices and vegetables that you add directly to the oil have a different effect on your digestion than those that you add later. Notice that in this recipe we add the tomatoes afterwards rather than directly in the oil after the spices. Now how interesting is that? Think about it while you enjoy your shaak with rotli. :-)
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| Turiya Sev Tameta ma |
A lot of the food I love is Gujarati food though I am not a Gujarati. The everyday foods I grew up with were not traditional gujarati but I still have a special place in my heart for Gujarati cuisine probably because that's what my mom made best (she was brought up in Gujarat and I was born there, have spent a good number of my holidays there) or probably because the people of Gujarat really know how to bring a soul to the food they cook.
This recipe is one of my most favorites and would be a controversial one too because of the main ingredient tomato. The tomato is pretty infamous among health circles and every one I know often has one or another reason to avoid tomatoes but still ends up using it. Dependent on who you talk to you will learn various senseless ideas about why tomatoes are evil. An ayurvedic physician once told me to remove tomatoes from my diet completely. I was told they are acidic and heating. Later was I to learn that they aggravate Vata and Pitta and are also Abhishandi and Vidahi and ofcourse the curse of belonging to the nightshade family.
So, does that make the Tomato a bad guy? And does that mean enjoying my favorite Sev Tameta nu Shaak will kill me? He'll no! Like I said earlier, there is no such thing as unhealthy food. Food is always healthy, its the diet and lifestyles that make it a wrong choice for some.
The simple way to understand this - According to Ayurveda, when we eat foods that our body is unable to completely digest, the undigested foods create excess doshas in our body and cause imbalance or disease. So the key to living a good healthy life is not avoiding your favorite foods or any ingredients in particular but just cooking them to make them more balancing or in other words more tasty (and when it's tasty, it won't harm). Trust your body and your tongue.
I used to always cook the traditional sev tameta with onions and it was always very tasty. I believe the cooling nature of onions balances the acidity of cooked tomatoes and thats the reason why my tongue always accepted it.
This recipe is another one of my attempts at making food taste great so the tongue which knows better than the brain accepts it. I know this recipe is a success because Avantika you enjoyed it too and your dad loves it too. So here goes:
This is what you need:
Atleast 3 medium sized red juicy tomatoes chopped
Atleast 3 big pods of garlic chopped
1 small piece of ginger
Half a really long Turai peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp of Oil (use one with a cooling potency like coconut or sunflower)
1/4-1/2 tsp mustard seeds (rai)
1/4 tsp carrom seeds (ajwain)
A pinch of asofoetida (hing)
A few curry leaves
And onions (I enjoy it without the onions).
Ama Spice Mix and Sendha Namak (Rock Salt)
Gram flour noodles (Sev) and Chopped Corriander leaves (Hara Dhaniya)
And this is what you do:
Heat the oil and add mustard, you need to hear it crackling before you add ajwain and hing (and curry leaves & onions if u using). Add the ginger garlic n reduce flame.
Sauté it just a bit (careful not to burn) before adding turai and saute again. (Add a pinch of salt if you in hurry but it's not really required). Let it cook on a slow flame for some time. When the turai has released a good portion of the water n become soft, add the ama spice mix, mix to coat and add the chopped tomatoes and water and sendha namak. Cover with a plate filled with water and cook till the tomatoes are very soft, you can then mash it and add the sev - I also added some boondi (gram flour pearls) and chopped cilantro. Serve it piping hot, garnished with corriander leaves and roti or bhakri topped with very little ghee.
And now here's why I do what I do:
Now, if you are anything like your mother Avantika, you will have a lot of questions. I remember I used to question my mom over the smallest of details and she used to answer most of it but a lot of the times my questions drove her crazy to the point where the answer to every question was because I said so. Now, your Naani knows a thing or two about cooking but has very little patience when it comes to answering questions and getting into details. I love finding answers to questions but find repeating tiresome. So, I am going to document it here just in case I need a reminder later some day or am too preoccupied to answer your questions. Remember what I said about cooking being a science as much as an art? And the science makes it interesting, the details are good to know but not to get lost in so feel free to change something here and there to suit your tastebuds.
There are three main ingredients in this recipe and I already mentioned Tomatoes aggravate Vata and Pitta. Did you know that Turai is a great vegetable for pacifying or balancing Pitta and Kapha while Garlic is gr8 for pacifying Vata. This recipe calls for only a small piece of fresh ginger which some say balances all the doshas but depending on the variety you use, it can help balance excess kapha in the body while aggravating pitta. To know more about ginger, catch your Naani or read up the written words.
The seeds and spices used here are warming and hence importantly aid digestion. The mustard helps avoid constipation while carrom speeds up a sluggish digestive system and Hing prevents gas or balances excess Vata.
The original recipe also calls for using a little jaggery which I skipped because the sweet taste is well covered here and since it helps cut out the acidity of tomatoes which is balanced to a certain extent. And because we are not using chillies here, the jaggery can be easily avoided.
About the Tadka:
The Tadka is probably the most important part of any Indian cooking. Most of the flavour, comes from the Tadka. As does the digestibility and Satiety. So it's important not to compromise on the fat (neither quality nor quantity) unless of course a special condition demands.
The fat you use for tadka is almost always taken for granted but when cooking tomatoes, I find it important to use something that is cooling for the digestive system. Cooling oils and ghee are great but not for all cooking, particularly not for all vegetarian cooking.
When you add anything to hot oil, you are actually flavoring the oil and releasing nutrients into it while reducing the potency of what you fry. So the spices and vegetables that you add directly to the oil have a different effect on your digestion than those that you add later. Notice that in this recipe we add the tomatoes afterwards rather than directly in the oil after the spices. Now how interesting is that? Think about it while you enjoy your shaak with rotli. :-)
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