Muthiye - जनता की बेहद माँग पर :)

GGOP and 2B's mommy wanted me to post a recipe of Muthiye that I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post. I must warn you girls that this is my first attempt at posting a recipe and I am not very good at doing those because I rarely measure anything while cooking. I usually eyeball all the ingredients so all the measurements here are approximate. But this is a really "forgiving" recipe - you can experiment with it to your heart's content. Also, instead of cabbage, you can even use grated "Lauki" (bottle gourd) [can be replaced with Zucchini] or chopped (and washed of course) methi leaves. The measurement remains similar - you take as much of the lauki or methi as you like and add only as much flour as you need to bind everything together. Eyeball the rest of the ingredients. Here it is...

Note: I am sorry I don't have any pictures of the dish right now.

You'll need-

Cabbage - washed and finely chopped/grated - 2 cups

Green Peas (fresh or frozen) - 1 cup

Finely chopped/ grated garlic - 1 Tablespoon

Finely chopped/ grated ginger - 1 tablespoon

Lemon juice - 2 tablespoons

Sugar - 4 teaspoons

Yogurt - approx 1 cup (more if needed. Use yogurt instead of water to bind everything together - it makes the muthiye moist and soft)

Red chili powder - between 1-3 teaspoons. Depends on how spicy you want to make it.

Green chillies (finely chopped) - 1 tablespoon

vegetable oil - 1/2 cup

Coriander powder - 2 teaspoons

Hing - just a pinch

Salt - to taste

Wheat flour - 1-2 level cups - just enough to bind everything together. The recipe turns out better if you mix whole wheat flour (coarsely ground) with regular wheat flour (1:1).

Squeeze extra water out of the shredded cabbage. Add all the ingredients except the wheat flour, vegetable oil and yogurt and mix well. Add wheat flour one cup at a time and mix everything together. Stop adding the flour once you can make loose balls of the mixture that don't fall apart easily. Add vegetable oil and mix well again. You can add Baking Soda too, for extra fluffiness, but adding extra vegetable oil makes them puffy and moist so I prefer it that way.

Add yogurt - only as much as you need to bind everything together. This will give you a very soft dough.

Make small ping-pong sized balls or pat the dough out into the shape of a log and steam (just like idlis). You can take a steamer basket or something similar to steam the muthiye. I use a steel plate with holes (something that many North Indians use to cover the pot of milk etc.). I pour water in a big pan - about 1 - 1.5 inches deep, then I place the bottom insert that comes with a cooker for steaming (looks like an inverted plate with holes), place a flat bottomed bowl or strainer on it and then place the steamer plate with muthiya dough on the top. Using a steamer basket would be much easier but I am not buying one just because I want to reduce/limit the clutter in my kitchen. When the water comes to a boil, cover the pot and let the muthiye steam for about 25 - 45 minutes (depends on how soft the dough is - softer means more steaming required). You'll know it is done when a knife or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

The next part is optional. The muthiye can be eaten simply steamed, deep fried or stir fried. It is a matter of choice. I stir fry them with LOTS OF OIL :D because that is the way J and S like them.

If you steamed the muthiye in shapes of logs, chop them up in 1.5 inch wide pieces. (Helps to let them cool a little first) Heat about half a cup to 2/3 of a cup of oil in a pan. When it is hot enough, add 2 TABLESPOONS of mustard seeds (yes that's a lot but it tastes good, believe me) and some curry leaves (about 8-10) and green chillies (number depending on how hot you like it) sliced lengthwise. Once the sputtering dies down, add the muthiye pieces, lower the flame/heat to 3 quarters and let it cook for as long as you can to turn it brown and crispy. If you don't want the muthiye very crispy, you can get away with using much less oil. To stir it up, just shake the pan back and forth to turn the muthiye (like one turns an omelet without using a spatula). If you use a spatula or a spoon, it might break them up.

Once they are done to the crispiness you like, take them off the heat, garnish with chopped coriander and fresh grated coconut and serve with tomato ketchup and dhaniya chutney.

Note: And this makes it post number 101 in the year 2007 - a record for me! Never before have I blogged so much. Last year I just managed 19 posts and 27 in the year before that. So, 100+ is definitely an accomplishment for me :P