Corn Salad

Corn is my favorite food, prepared in any form.  I like boiled or grilled corn on the cob with garlic butter sauce, pan roasted corn kernels with garlic butter sauce, fried corn, corn fritters or corn garelu and corn salad in yogurt dressing.  Yes, corn salad in yogurt dressing.  This is my mother in law’s recipe and she use to make the yummiest corn salad I ever tasted.  In fact, i never eaten it anywhere except from her kitchen and have not seen it on anyones menu either.  I never asked her where she got this recipe from or how she came up with it.  Non the less, it is the delicious corn salad i ever tasted in my life.  Unfortunately, i never wrote down her recipe, but saw her prepare it couple of times.  So today, I decided to try it out and it came out very good.  Since yogurt is rich in protein, this recipe goes to Eat Healthy – Protein Rich Contest.  

Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 10 oz Frozen Sweet Corn
• 3-5 Green Chilies (adjust to your taste)
• 1 tbsp crushed Garlic
• Salt to Taste
• ¼ tsp Cumin Powder
• 1 cup Non Fat Yogurt
• 2 tbsp Fat Free Sour Cream (opt)
• Chopped Cilantro for garnish

Preparation:

• In a pan add frozen corn, green chilies, crushed garlic, salt and some water (approximately ¼ cup) and bring to a boil. Cook until water evaporates.  OR In a microwave safe bowl, mix frozen corn, green chilies, crushed garlic, salt and some water and microwave it for 3-4 minutes until corn is thawed and tender.
• When corn cools, mix rest of the ingredients and mix well. Garnish with cilantro and put it in the fridge until ready to serve.

Sorakaya Pachadi / Bottle Gourd Chutney

Sorakaya or anyapakaya belongs to squash family and is called bottle gourd in english.  In Indian cooking, it is used to make curries, gravies, chutneys or a dessert.  Sorayakaya pachadi is one of my favorite pachadis  or chutneys.  When making chutneys, whole spices are roasted in oil and ground to a fine paste with other ingredients.  The blenders in the US are not as powerful as the ones we get in India and I always have a problem grinding the ingredients to fine paste.  So, whenever i make chutneys here, I dry roast the whole spices, sesame seeds and groundnuts to fine powder, and add it to my oil roasted mixture.  If you are cooking this recipe in India or if you have very good grinder or a blender, you may substitute all the powders in the ingredient list with the whole ingredient and roast it in oil along with the chilies. This chutney is my entry for Vegetable of the Week hosted by Pooja.     

Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serving Size: 4-5

Ingredients:

• 1 small Bottle Gourd peeled and diced into 1″ pieces or 3 cups of diced gourd
• 2 tbsp Oil
• 10 Curry Leaves
• 12 – 15 Green Chillies cut into half (adjust to your taste)
• 3 cloves of Garlic or 1 small pod of Garlic
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1 tbsp Cumin Powder
• ½ tsp Methi Powder
• ¼ cup dry roasted Sesame Seeds Powder 
• ¼ cup dry roasted Peanuts Powder
• 2 tbsp Tamarind Paste or small lime sized tamarind
• ½ tsp Sugar (opt)
• Salt to Taste
• Cilantro for garnish

Preparation:

• In a suace pan cook sorakaya pieces with little salt and water until tender.
• In a pan heat oil, add green chillies, curry leaves and garlic.  When chillies change color, add rest of the ingredients and mix well.  
• Remove from heat and let cool.  
• To this mixture add ½ of the cooked sorakaya pieces and make a fine paste.  Add some water if required.  
• Transfer to a serving dish, add remaining sorakay pieces and mix well.  Taste the chutney and add more tamarind paste if you want it more sour.  If you used whole tamarind you can add some lime juice.     
• Garnish with cilantro and serve with hot rice or idlie or dosa.