Sabudana Vada

If you come away from this recipe thinking that this is the bastard love-child of this and this, you would basically be correct.

Isn't that the point? To understand the underlying unity of the subject?

Ingredients

2 boiled potatoes
1 cup sago (soaked)
1 cup crushed peanuts
ginger-green chilli paste
1 tbsp cumin

salt

1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves (missing below)

Recipe

Soak the sago as described here. Boil the potatoes, and mash them.

The crushed peanuts, ginger-green-chili paste, and the spices.

Toss in the sago, and the mashed potatoes.

Mix together. You may need to add some water but don't add too much.

You can just pan-fry them, or bake them.

Sabudana vada

Sabudana Khichdi

Many moons ago, a Chinese work colleague of the CC's asked him why all Indian food tasted like mush. To him, the texture of the food was very important (and rightfully so!)

The CC replied that what he ate in the "Indian" restaurants was hardly characteristic of real Indian cuisine.

To that end, the CC invited the colleague to his place, and not very surprisingly, he (and many others) were utterly delighted at the textural variety exhibited in this simple dish.

The dish is traditionally served with yogurt (thus making a complete meal if a tad carb-heavy.) It's utterly delicious. (The photographs are recent, of course.)

Ingredients

2 cups sago
4 serranos (chopped very fine)
1 cup peanuts (broken)
2 tbsp cumin
1 large potato (diced)
chopped cilantro (lots)
juice of 2-3 limes
salt (to taste)

good Greek yogurt (to serve alongside)

Recipe

Just use the food processor to coarsely break the peanuts, and then chop the serranos real fine.

The key thing is to soak the sago in ice-cold water for a few hours. Basically, it's going to soften via osmosis. To test whether they are ready or not, just pick one out, and press it. If you still feel a hard center, it's not yet ready.

After that, just drain the water, and dry the sago on a towel (as shown below.)

Soaking the sago
Drying the soaked sago
green chillies; crushed peanuts; chopped cilantro
fried cubed potatoes
The potatoes should be cut into smallish pieces. The CC has great success in "pan-frying" them in a non-stick skillet. The taste is outstanding without the grease.

Fry the green chillies, followed by the peanuts.

Add the potatoes and the sago, and stir it vigorously. The sago is going to start clumping no matter what. You just want to control it by stirring.

The cilantro and the lime juice should go in at the very end.

Sabudana Khichdi