{GARDEN TO PLATE} Radish Recipes: Moong Dal with Radish Greens & Quick Radish Salad

I love to grow radishes, more for the greens, than the radishes themselves. Fresh, pungent and full of goodness, I start snipping the leaves as and when they appear (not all, but some from each radish). Use them in salads, both raw and lightly wilted. They happily go into a Sambar and also pair with veggies like potatoes or carrots. Radish greens can also be sneaked into your kid's pasta along with basil and other greens :) You can also make a simple curry using the radish and the greens. 

Radish leaves - Symmetry

Radish greens are said to be more packed in nutrition than the root itself - especially protein, calcium and iron. It is a pity most supermarkets throw them away and stock only the radish root. I treasure them for their bountiful green leaves. Radish flowers bring so much prettiness to the vegetable patch, and bring in the bees too! 

Radish flowers with seeds forming in the pods

This recipe is a dry curry with moong dal, which I must confess, is not my favourite lentil to start with. It's a slimy thing and that slime that really destroy a dish. In this subzi, I do everything possible to keep the dal dry. No slime in my curry, thank you!

I used up the radish root in a crunchy pickle or salad, call it what you like. The pungency of the radish mellows down a bit while soaking in the spices for an hour and also gives it an ever so slight fermentation, that is absolutely great for your gut health. 

Radish Greens and Moong Dal Curry

Recipe for Moong Dal with Radish Greens 

Prep Time: 1 hour, includes soaking time | Cooking Time: 20-25 mins | Serves 3-4

Eat with roti / naan / steamed rice

Ingredients:

3/4 cup split moong dal (small yellow lentils)

500 grams of radish greens* (just the leaves and tender stems)

1 tbsp ghee

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

pinch of asafoetida

3 cloves garlic

3 dried red chillies

sprig of curry leaves

1 medium onion

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp salt

juice of 1 lemon

to garnish- 1/4 cup freshly grated coconut or frozen (unsweetened)

Preparation:

Wash and soak the moong dal in plenty of water for an hour.

Wash the radish greens in 2-3 changes of water until thoroughly clean. Slice finely.

Crush and mince the garlic.

Peel, halve and finely slice the onion.

Directions:

• In a large pot (approx 3 Litre capacity), bring 1.5Litre water to a boil with a 1/2 tsp of salt. 
• Meanwhile, drain the soaked moong dal and keep it ready. Add to the boiling water. 
• Boil on high flame. Remove any scum with a slotted spoon and discard. 
• After 5-6 minutes of boiling, check on the dal, it must be nearly cooked, but with a bite to it- something like the al-dente texture of cooked pasta. 
• At this stage drain the nearly cooked dal well in a sieve and keep aside.
• Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed pan / kadai / wok, heat the ghee. Add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. 
• Once they splutter, add asafoetida, garlic, red chillies, curry leaves and stir around for 30 seconds. 
• Add the sliced onion and stir on medium flame for 5 minutes until translucent. 
• Add the finely sliced radish greens and stir fry on high flame. They will wilt in 2 minutes or so.
• Add the drained nearly cooked moong dal to this, along with turmeric, 1/2 tsp salt and toss well but gently, taking care not to mash up the dal. 
• Cover and steam cook for a couple of minutes allowing the dal to cook fully, but retain its shape. 
• Pour lemon juice, give it a final stir. 
• Garnish with fresh coconut and serve hot. 

*If you don't find radish greens, by all means use spinach, amaranth or any other local greens you can find. Do mind the cooking time of some greens like swiss chard or collard greens may be much longer, and may not fit this recipe well. 

Recipe for Instant Radish Pickle / Salad 

Prep time: 5-7 minutes | Inactive time: 1 hour | Cooking time: nil 

Serves 3-4 as a condiment 

Ingredients

2 small radishes 

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp white vinegar

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp black pepper powder

1/4 tsp paachphoron powder (if available)

Directions

Scrape or peel the radish. Chop into small cubes.

Add all the remaining ingredients. Rub the spices and seasoning well into the radish using fingertips. Cover and keep aside for an hour at least. Leaving this outside for one hour gives rise to a mild fermentation, which is good for health. While serving, drain off excess liquid with slotted spoon.

This is crunchy with tons of flavour. I have kept the salt low, but you can increase by 1/2 tsp for a better flavour.

If you have the whole paachphoron spices at home, just crush them lightly with mortar pestle or in a coffee grinder and then add to the salad for a stronger punch of flavour. 

Tips for a winter kitchen garden

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So you want to have a little kitchen garden? Don’t let the word ‘garden’ discourage you. A few pots on a sunny window sill, a foot wide soil around your compound, or even a bunch of pots on the waterproofed terrace can all turn into a productive little ‘garden’. The most important thing is to start small, with easy to grow plants.

A few thumb rules apply for kitchen gardening. Soil used to grow any vegetable should be well aerated, neither too loose nor too compact. The depth of the soil needs to be more than one foot. The soil should retain moisture, for example, a mix of red soil clay, small pebbles, vermicompost and once the seed has germinated, cover the top layer with dried leaves. It is worthwhile to do a germination test before sowing. Soak seeds in water for 4 hours, discard floating seeds (these wont germinate) and sow the others. The best time to sow is when there will be three hours of sunlight post sowing, so around 9-10 am in most places would be a good time.

You can start with either seed or sapling. For newbie gardeners, saplings cut down on the waiting time and also the chances of the seed not germinating or getting affected by pests in the early stages and leading to disappointment.

Lavender

HERBS


I personally started my kitchen garden experiments with a few herbs in my tiny Bombay apartment balcony. The joy in garnishing a dish of pasta with a freshly plucked leaf of Italian basil was unparalleled. That’s the magic of herbs. A little goes a long way, and they are most flavourful when they go straight from pot to plate. Be it basil, rosemary, thyme or mint. Also, unless you are making a pesto (in which case you need lots of basil) you need just a few leaves, for which you don’t need to buy a big expensive bunch from the supermarket.
Don’t ignore the Indian favourite, Tulsi or holy basil. It is excellent in teas to prevent or soothe a bad throat. A sprig of tulsi in a jug of water imparts a delicate flavour and subtle health benefits. Mint easily grows from sprigs that you have bought from the market. It covers ground very quickly, so it is best grown in pots. Curry leaves, a South Indian favourite, grow best in the soil as the roots go quite deep. Curry leaf sapling is available in most big nurseries.
When you buy lemongrass from a supermarket, choose one with the root end intact. After you use up the leaves, keep the root immersed in a jar of water for one week. Once new rootlets develop, this can be sown in soil and soon you’ll have lemongrass leaves sprouting out. These can be used in Thai curries and also to flavour masala chai.

My mum plucking chillies

CHILLIES

While there are different varieties of chillies, kandhari is one that grows well in winters. We got nearly 3-4 kilos of this one from one plant in season. Obviously since they can’t all be used at once, we allowed them to ripen, dried them out in sun and now use it in daily cooking. These can be grown in pots, but the yield will not be as much as when grown directly in soil. You can use the seeds from any dried red chillies at home, to grow that particular variety.

Lettuce patch

OTHER GREENS

Sow garlic cloves in soil and in a few days you’ll find green garlic shoots, which can be snipped and used in chutneys, curries etc. Salad greens like lettuce, rocket etc also grow well in shallow trays. Seeds are available in most online gardening stores. Celery is also easy to grow, both leaves and stems can be used in stocks, soups and salads.

Just harvested carrots

ROOTS

Red radish is a delight to grow as it is ready to harvest in 30 days. Don’t sow too many at a time, as you can eat all of them together. Also, don’t sow the seed deeper than 1-2 cm.
To grow turmeric and ginger, bury a piece in the compost pot, sprinkle water every day and after few days bury it in soil along with some of the compost. This has better success rate. Turmeric leaves lend a delicate aroma to foods steamed by wrapping in them. Of course, it is used to tie around the pongal pot so it is the perfect time to put one in soil before the onset of winter.

Red radish <3 td="">

For inspiration, join relevant Facebook groups such as Grow Your Own Veggies, Organic Terrace Gardening which have many enthusiastic kitchen gardeners, ready with advice, suggestions and support.

Attend local farmers markets, events like Oota from your Thota in Bangalore, or attend seed and sapling sharing events where you can buy seeds, saplings and get inspiration from the rest of the kitchen gardening community.

Start small and bask in the joy of cooking with home grown herbs and vegetables. [With expert inputs from Alladi Mahadevan, organic farmer - theorganicfarm.in] 

Originally published in Hindu Business Line

[Disclaimer: Amazon affiliate links are provided for ease of browsing through relevant seeds available online. Purchasing through the links will support the saffrontrail blog. Thank you]

Tomatoes: Photography, Recipes and Quotes

"Learn to shoot in Manual mode," said Aparna, in her session on Food Photography in our Indian Food Bloggers' Meet. And I have taken it quite seriously. My camera setting has been on Manual for the last few days. 

Today, when a small basketful of tomatoes, plucked from the garden, needed a good wash before stowing them away carefully, I decided to click a few pictures of them. And at 80 Rs a kilo, tomatoes have become precious commodity, a treasure quite deserving their own little photo shoot. I have not edited the photos, thereby trying to preserve the mood and the light they have been shot in, one odd photo has been cropped though. All photos have been shot in natural light, of course :)

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.
Lewis Grizzard

Tried this 2 minute, 2-ingredient pasta sauce? 

“You're always such a disappointment, Augustus. Couldn't you have at least gotten orange tomatoes?”

This South Indian tomato chutney promises to make your idlis, dosas and even curd-rice taste so much better!

I don't care what anybody says: Nothing is better than a tomato you grow. There's something about it that's different than a tomato you can buy. It's a great thing.
Tom Vilsack

Beautifully imperfect

When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top, your soul is in that food, and there's something about that that can never be made by a company that has three million employees.
Mario Batali

Basking in the mellow morning light

Given that tomato prices are sky-rocketing in most parts of India, I know that this is not the best time to be sharing tomato recipes. When there was a similar crazy price hike last year, I wrote a column for Mint on alternatives to tomatoes in Indian cooking and we did come up with quite a list which you may find useful.