Khara Papeta

The Zoroastrian Parsi community is a prosperous, peace and fun-loving community. Their cooking combines techniques and ingredients from across the globe, specially known for the unique blend of spices & flavours that makes the food very appetizing, nutritious and wholesome.

At present, Parsi cuisine or Parsi Bhonu (feast fit for a king) is a delicious blend of western and eastern influences. Parsi community in India adopted foods and recipe cooking processes, procedures and ingredients from the Persians, British, French, Germans, Portuguese, Irish, Italian including several others.
They settled in India, first at Sanjan, Udvada, Navsari and Surat in Gujarat and later spread to Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune and other places and adopted the regional cooking techniques. Parsis are known to prefer non-vegetarian (Iranian cuisine) dishes like fish, meat and chicken. They also have a large selection of delectable vegetarian (Gujarati - Indian cuisine) recipes.

The basic feature of a Parsi lunch is rice, eaten with lentils / curry. Dinner would include a meat dish, often accompanied by potatoes / other vegetable curry. Onion-cucumber salad, known as Kachubar is a must for most meals in Parsi household.

Here is the recipe for Khara Papeta, a popular Parsi recipe, made of papeta (potatoes) and tomatoes.


Ingredients:
  • Potatoes, peeled and diced: 4-5 medium sized
  • Onions, finely sliced: 2 large (sliced)
  • Tomato, roughly chopped: 1 large (chopped)
  • Cumin seeds: ? tsp
  • Garlic, finely chopped: 4 flakes
  • Ginger, finely chopped: 1? size
  • Green Chiili, finely chopped: 1-2 (as per taste)
  • Turmeric: 1/2 tsp (optional)
  • White Oil: 2-3 tbsp
  • Salt (to taste)
  • Fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped: 2-3 bunches
  • Chopped coriander leaves & tomatoes and a little grated ginger, for garnishing

Method:

  1. Heat oil and fry the onions until translucent / golden brown in colour.
  2. Add cumin seeds, chopped ginger & garlic and saute for 1-2 minute.
  3. Add potatoes and salt and saute for 2 minutes (I didn't use turmeric, if you want, you can use a pinch for a yellowish tinge).
  4. Add a little water, lower flame and cook until potatoes are tender. Try to dry the water. (Basically this is a dry curry / sabji, but if you want a little gravy, adjust the water accordingly).
  5. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes.
  6. Remove from fire, garnish with chopped coriander leaves & tomatoes. Sprinkle some grated ginger on top and serve hot.

Sending this recipe to RCI - Parsi Cuisine, hosted by Meera, event started by Lakshmi.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kashikeyo Baipen (Screwpine fruit Porridge)

Image
I know I posted this a long time ago but I took some of my old posts out due to some comments I got but then again , I realized  different people make their recipes differently, so why bother what people say. Anyway, the first time I heard of this recipe was from my husband. We had just been married and living in Kulhudhufushi as my husband was working there for 6 months.  I love screwpine fruit and its heady perfume. So there I was making, or rather trying to make, kashikeyo kandhi and hubby kept hovering around, going that's not how my mum used to make. Yes I know ladies,  there are lots of new weds, who read this who have heard this line LOL??. Anyway , a few years later,  I finally tasted the  dish , which by the way was a totally different  dish altogether, so my hubby was right???? .   My mum in law  showed me how to make  it and I love making this, especially during Ramadhan, as its not just a desert dish , it can even be eating...
Read more

DIY Water Balloon Flip Flops!

Image
Easy and Fun DIY Water Balloon Flip Flops! S imply tie water balloons in a knot around the flip flop straps!  We liked the rainbow color pattern... Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Be creative and have fun!  F or my daughters birthday this year we made these bright and fun flip flops at the party. The girls all had a fun time making them and they can't wait to wear them to school on the same day!  We got this idea from my niece who made these at a party a few years ago.  We thought they were so cute that we wanted to try them at our party this year.  We bought black flip flops for every girl from Old Navy, for $2.50 a pair.  I would recommend going a size larger in flip flops.  We bought 3 packs of 500 water balloons and had plenty of water balloons left over, perfect for a water balloon fight! What you'll need: 8 pair flip flops in every one's sizes     1,500 water balloons 8 girls to tie the water balloons onto the flip flo...
Read more

Banbukeyo Hithi ( Breadfruit Curry)

Image
For ages I kept meaning to try one of the Hithi recipes. Hithi means bitter but this is not a bitter curry. Its called hith i because its uses a spice known locally as hithi damui . My mum kept saying its difficult getting hithi damui you can only get it from the local ayuvedhi stalls until my sister discovered after seeing the spice that it was in fact ajwain/ carom seeds . I have seen ajwain seeds in a local shop and also in some of the Indian specialty shops. Ajwain seeds although it looks a lot like tiny cumin seeds  has a slightly different taste. There  are two kinds of hithi , one is this banbukeyo ( breadfruit )  hithi and the other is maalhoskeyo hithi ( plaintain). Recipe : Banbukeyo Hithi Serves 4 -6 1/4 piece of a regular size banbukeyo (about 250g) 2 garlic cloves, finely grated 1/2 inch ginger grated 10 curry leaves small piece pandan leaf 1/4 tsp tumeric 100g smoked tuna 1 small onion thinly sliced 1/2 tsp ajwain or hithi damui 150 ml coconut milk 700...
Read more