Achari Broccoli

I love broccoli (infact I love all winter veggies) and some time back, I went o Russell market with a goof friend D 🙂 and picked up a real nice one.. fresh and green… crisp and tender. And then began the quest to what to make with it. I normally make broccoli in stir fry veggies or baked but this time I want to try something totally different and hence started browsing the many many cooking books that I own (did I tell you thats my latest obsession BTW) and I decided on a nice looking Achari Broccoli recipe in Nita Mehta’s Diet Recipes.

And it turned out very very very yummy…

Ingredients

• 250 gm lauki (the recipe asked for kadu and I replaced it with lauki as no one eats kadu aka pumpkin in my house)
• 150 gm basically a medium sized broccoli cut into florets
• 1 firm tomato chopped (the recipe asked to remove pulp but I used it didn’t do any harm to the recipe or so do I think 😉 )
• 1 tsp oil (the recipe asked for 2 tbsp oil gosh tell me how does it become diet recipe with so much oil haan)
• 2 large onions chopped
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp dhaniya powder
• 1/2 tsp aamchoor powder
• salt and chilli powder to taste (the recipe also had a 1/2 tsp of sugar which I gave a complete miss)

For the Achaari Tempering

• 3/4 tsp nigella seeds (kalonji)
• 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi dana)
• 3/4 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• 3/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 3/4 tsp fennel (saunf)
• 2 red chillies broken

Method

• Boil 1/2 cup of water with 1/2 tsp of salt. Add Broccoli and cook for about 2-3 minutes till crisp tender. Remove from water and keep aside (my tip : dont throw the water away lets use it, it has a lot of nutrients)
• Collect all the achari ingredients for tempering. Heat the oil in kadhai and add all of them together.
• After a minute, add the onions and cool till light brown.
• Add salt, turmeric, dhaniya powder & chilli powder
• Stir for a few seconds and add the lauki to it .
• Stir fry for about 2 minutes and add 1/2 cup of water (my tip : use the same water in which u boiled the broccoli there will still be little left and you can use it for making dal, atta… yeah I am mad this way in saving the nutrients from the vegies.. I think a little something we can do to make sure we are getting good stuff in)
• Cover and cook for about 10 minutes till the lauki is cooked but still holds its shape
• Sprinkle dry mango powder.
• Add the broccoli and tomatoes
• Mix well and cook for about 3-4 minutes
• Serve hot with phulkas and dal tadka… a yummy and a very healthy meal

PS: I think it would turn out very good with our good old cauliflower too, so if u dont have broccoli handy try it with gobhi 🙂