I love making pilafs for weeknight dinners because it is so easy to prepare. In under 30 minutes, you can put a perfectly delicious pilaf together. And the best part is that there are a ton of ways you can innovate with the flavors by using different veggies and grains. Cooking a pilaf is also probably the easiest way to include something healthy in your diet – in any pilaf recipe swap the white rice out for a whole grain such as brown rice, millets or cracked wheat!
I realized I hadn’t put up any radish recipes on the blog – so I have a couple of recipes coming your way. The first one is a Kara Kuzhambu using radish and channa. Kuzhambu is a gravy dish from Tamil Nadu. There are a lot of varieties of Kuzhambu. I love Kara Kuzhambu in restaurants and wanted to give it a shot at home. The traditional Kara Kuzhambu is a tangy gravy with tamarind, tomatoes, and onions and doesn’t use a lot of veggies. But I knew I had to add in some veggies – so instead of the usual combinations like potato or brinjal, I tried something different to up the game 🙂 So here I am with this new recipe! If you are a fan of the traditional kuzhambu and are wary of adding veggies in, think of this as just another side-dish! No matter what the name, the combination of radish and tamarind gives this curry a unique taste.
I always try to include a variety of vegetables in my diet (and in my recipes on the blog too!). With creative use of spices, even the fussy eater can fall in love with vegetables 🙂 Gojju is a Kannada term used to describe any gravy based vegetable dish. Here I have combined sweet pumpkin with a tangy gravy. The spicy red chilies, the tangy tamarind, and the slightly sweet fresh coconut perfectly blend with the taste of pumpkin. this is indeed a lip-smacking curry.This sweet pumpkin gojju reminds me of temple food in Karnataka 🙂 With just 5 or 6 ingredients readily available in your house you can whip this up in under 20 minutes.
