Southern Indian food and vegetable Jaipuri recipe
There are certain basic ideas of typical Souther Indian vegetarian cuisine, which I happen to ❤️ because of it’s lightness and connection with yogic and ayurvedic lifestyle.
Hereby I am going to first show you some BASIC PANTRY STAPLES for classical Southern Indian vegetarian cuisine, which can also be veganized very easily, because it usually contains only dairy and no eggs and dairy can be replaced nowadays with no effort.
Legumes: beans, chickbeas, lentils (should be soaked up up to overnight
Root veggies: carrots, cabbage, potatoes, cauliflower, sweet potatoes
Veggies on the ground: tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant, spinach
Spice veggies: onion, garlic, ginger, chilis
Fruit: mangoes, coconut
Spices: garam masala, coconut, curry leave
Unprocessed pure organic cow milk or any plant-based milk of preference
AND SO MUCH MORE!
Food should be prepared in a gentle manner - steaming and slow simmering are the best ways to result in nice textures easily digestable high-nutritious food. Quick few minutes stir-fry or woking are absolutely fine as well, in fact we ARE going to make some easy frying for up to 6 minutes in today’s recipe.
Now I've been making a lot of South Indian vegetarian cuisine (fully veganized) these days. It's firstly because I love such food, but secondly because of a collaboration I do with a local yoga school - our plan is to host a cooking class that would serve our yoga practicioners’ community to widen the lifestyle idea around all this huge science. Overall it's light colorful easy digestible and properly spiced vegetarian food, which also follows the principles of Ayurveda. I have got most of my Ayurveda knowledge from Deepak Chopra - you can explore:
or get this great book by him that goes deep into health matter in the sense of Ayurveda:
Anyways we decided that even though these classical Indian recipes are often vegetarian by containing dairy, we make them vegan in order not to disappoint all the lovely vegans out there that maybe also want to participate in our workshop or simply just make these recipes I'm about to post. I also changed some veggies according to my own taste and to what I happened to have in the fridge - that's totally fine to do that, I think. I hope the Indians are not mad at me. For example I replaced potato with zucchini to make it even lighter, but on the other hand I added chickpeas instead of original cauliflower to boost up the protein. Basically we can say it's a bit of a modernized version of this humble ancient recipe.
And here comes the recipe just right after the recipe video. As you follow the recipe, you might make the preparations as you go, because I add the preparation instructions already to the ingredient list.
VEGETABLE JAIPURI vegan interpretation
YIELDS: 4
TIME: 30 min
INGREDIENTS
oil for light frying
-2 carrots (julienned - meaning cut into relatively thin ribs)
half small zucchini (also julienned, but keep it rustic, don't go too thin)
200 g beans (from can, thoroughly rinsed)
200 g chickpeas (from can, thoroughly rinsed)
half large chili (de-seeded and cubed in small pieces)
2 large ripe tomatoes (cubed) - 1 inside the dish, the other one for garnish
5 cloves garlic (mashed and chopped)
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds (crushed in pestle and mortar)
100 g lightly dry pan or oven roasted cashews (replaces paneer cheese)
400 g full fat or light coconut milk
Cilantro or parsley for garnish
salt to taste, but IF YOU CAN... then make sure it's the certain Indian black salt that gives this specific wonderful "eggy" flavor to the whole dish! Here's an overview of this:
Should be extremely healthy as well! Black salt is less salty than regular salt, so you can add 2 teaspoons instead of one to this whole dish.
INSTRUCTION:
Boil the prepped veggies for 3 minutes in a strongly boiling water, drain well (can also pat with a kitchen towel).
Fry the spices quickly in oil on high heat, but be careful not to burn (max 3 minutes again): chili, garlic, coriander, 1 teaspoon black salt and in the end add one of the cubed tomatoes for some acid. Remove from the pan, wipe the pan with a kitchen towel. Add a bit more oil and lightly fry the veggies. Add the other teaspoon black salt. After 3 minutes add beans and chickpeas and the spice mix.
Then stir and pour in the coconut milk. Adjust the heat until it starts simmering, cover with lid and let it simmer for 3 more minutes for all the tastes to balance out.
Meanwhile chop the herbs and have your tomato cubes ready. Taste for seasoning and add salt if necessary, freshly ground black pepper is also fine.
Serve with whatever you like: rice, naan, potatoes or just like that, no extra additions actually needed because of the nourishing beans and chickpeas.
That's it for today's dish story, BUT MORE TO COME! Thank you for hanging out with me today and now go make some comforting food!