Рецепт Recipes | Fresh Garbanzo Beans or Lilva Curry with Sweetcorn Flatbread- Hold on to our past through food
“A mother’s love, it knows no end. It begins with a dream, with a silent wish, and it never ever ends.” ~ Kelly.
“What do you want from Udaipur, Gaurav is coming to your city next week” this was the 10th time mom asked me over phone.
“I get everything here, mom. Don’t bother yourself” I replied to her and tried diverting the conversation to the weather in Udaipur.
But mom being mom, she asked Gaurav to come to her home before he left Udaipur and handed over a huge parcel to him.
As they say that “A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity. It didn’t matter if her child were three, thirteen, or thirty.” After being a mother myself, I feel blessed that I can still just be a daughter that gets pampered and showered with love by her mom year after year.
I was in for a pleasant surprise when I opened the pack to see a large zip-lock bag filled with shelled green chickpeas or fresh Garbanzo beans (Lilva), Panjiri, Anjeer burfi, Jaipuri gazak and many such food stuffs I love and miss in my city.
Gaurav is a good old family friend and classmate of my younger brother. I feel really good for him reaching new heights in his professional life. He is managing a flourishing IT company in Udaipur after shunning a lucrative job abroad and deciding to settle in his hometown.
It is strange how we hold on to our past through food, friends and family we leave behind. I was so happy to see someone visiting me from my homeland, Udaipur.
Oh yes, that’s me posing with one of the desserts, a bitter chocolate pie I made for him. Dinner was simple with just two Indian curries, baby corn starters, capsicum pilaf followed with brownies and chocolate pie.
Fresh garbanzo beans or Lilva
Ahh…these green tender chickpeas…so excited to see these fresh green beauties after almost 20 years. I travel to my native during summer when these delicacies don’t make their appearance in the local vegetable market.
Lilva as we call these fresh green channa or garbanzo beans in Hindi, is a winter specialty. Dishes with Lilava are an everyday affair during the months of winter in mom’s kitchen.
These tender beans get transformed into a spicy Lilva curry, sweet Halwa, savory pulav, crisp roti, Kheej, salads, roasted beans or are eaten raw right from the pods at mom’s place.
Here is a link to learn more about this bean. Fresh Garbanzo beans
Mom never cooked any gourmand food at home, not that she knew much about the same. But every meal that she cooked and shared with us did carry a certain taste of memory.
Edible gum or gond
These are Gond crystals, a natural edible gum. Sap or resin extracted from the bark of Acacia tree hardens and form these yellow to brown coloured transparent crystals. The gum is used as binding agent in baking and has medicinal values.
Panjiri, a nourishing Indian dessert
The gond crystals are normally deep fried in pure ghee (clarified butter) before making special ladoos which are given to pregnant ladies for its medicinal values in many home of Rajasthan.
The Panjiri is a winter specialty made in many houses in North and West India. This dessert is heavily laced with dried fruit and nuts and many other medicinal herbs to boost immune system and provide extra calories to sustain the extreme cold conditions there.
In many parts of India Panjiri is given to new mothers as an aid to increase lactation and to provide extra nourishment after delivery. Here is the Panjiri recipe.
The taste of mom’s home- made Panjiri she brought for me after my delivery some 18 years back, still lingers fresh. She added roasted ground fenugreek seeds, few more dried herbs and a tad extra carom seeds (ajwain) to make it more nourishing and to increase lactation dring that phase. And I did hog on this delicacy, all in the name of medicine
I like to cook vegetables in very less spices as I feel more masala mars the freshness of these tender vegetables in the curry. This fresh Garbazo bean curry taste the best with plain Indian flatbreads or roti, but I paired it with sweet corn roti and we loved the combo.
1. Quick Fresh Green Chickpea Curry or Lilve ki subji
Ingredients;
(serve 3)
- 1 cup fresh chickpeas
- 1 large potato
- 2 tbsp. oil
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- Warm water as required
- Coriander leaves to garnish
- Salt to taste
- Spices;
- 3/4 tsp. red chilly powder
- 1 tsp. coriander powder
- 1 tsp. cumin powder
- 1/4 turmeric powder
- A pinch of asafoetida powder
Method; Boil and mash the potato. Shell the green chickpeas.
Heat oil in a pan and add asafetida powder in it. Add mashed potato, green chickpeas and sprinkle a teaspoon of water.
Add rest of the spices, salt and sauté for 3-4 minutes on medium heat. Add required quantity of warm water and keep cooking for another 6-7 minutes.
Mashed potato added to the curry will thicken the gravy. Add a pinch of garam masala for extra flavor in the recipe.
If the green chickpeas are fresh and tender, you don’t need to cook any further.
Take the pan off heat and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
2. Spicy Sweet-corn Rotis;
Ingredients;
1 large sweet corn
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tbsp. chopped fenugreek leaves
1-2 tbsp. yogurt
1-2 tsp. oil
1/2 tsp. red chilly powder
1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
1/4 tsp. carom seeds
Salt to taste
Method; De-husk and grate the sweet corn with a grater.
Wash and chop fenugreek leaves.
Take a large bowl, add wheat flour, salt, chilly powder, turmeric powder, carom seeds and combine all using a fork or your hand.
Add yogurt, chopped fenugreek leaves and grated corn to the above flour mix and mix all the ingredients to form dough.
Moisture in grated corn should be good enough to bind the dough, add little water if you feel that the dough is too hard.
Heat a griddle and make small balls from the dough.
Dust each ball with dry wheat flour and roll into a circular flatbread or roti.
Place the corn flat bread on the hot griddle and cook for a minute.
Flip to other side, smear a little oil and cook it again for 1-2 minutes till it changes colour and light brown spots appear on it. Serve these spicy sweet-corn rotis or flat-breads with chutney, sauce, pickle or any Indian curry of your choice.
Notes;
Replace fresh channa or garbanzo benas with fresh peas or corn kernel in this recipe.
These fresh corn rotis taste good with any chutney or just a dollop of butter.
You can grind the grated corn kernel once again if you find it difficult to roll the rotis with corn grits. Ground sweet corn makes it easier to roll the rotis perfectly.