Dill Leaves Stir Fry | Shepuchi Bhaji | Sabsige Soppu Palya

I use various varieties of greens- green/red amaranth, methi, palak and dill leaves regularly in my cooking and I make it a point to use them at least 3-4 times a week to pair with my Jowar bhakris.I prepare either stir fry or dal with red and green amaranth but methi and palak are very versatile greens and can be used for various preparations-snacks,dal,stir fry,curries,gravies,rotis,parathas etc. However, if I want to serve the greens with bhakris,I prefer it in the form of either a simple stir fry or Saag.

This is a typical Maharasthrian style preparation of greens,you can adapt this recipe to prepare any greens stir fry.It is called as 'Shepuchi Bhaji' in Marathi.Usually Maharashtrians do not add any tempering in the greens and keep the garlic to dominate the flavor in the stir fry.I just love this simple stir fry to pair with bhakris or hot phulkas.Dill leaves are good for new mothers as it is known to aid lactation.

'Shepu' is basically Dill leaves,which is also known as 'Sabsige Soppu' and is widely available in Karnataka and Maharasthra regions.It has a distinct flavor,smell and taste, not many like the taste of it.Even I was not a fan of these greens during my childhood but now after marriage I started liking it.As it is available easily here in Mumbai I included it often in my menu and surprisingly hubby dear never complained about it and he too started liking these greens.Today I am posting a very simple stir fry recipe with these greens.If you are interested you can even check my Dill-Dal Stir fry which is how my mom used to prepare where the dill leaves are cooked with toor dal and is later prepared like a stir fry.

Check out few greens recipes in my blog:

• Lal Bhaji(lal math) Saag | Red Amaranth leaves stir fry
• Methi Bhaji | Fenugreek leaves Stir fry
• Dill-Dal Stir Fry/Sabasige Soppu Palya
• Thotakura(Amaranth leaves) Stir fry

Dill leaves Stir fry | Shepuchi Bhaji Recipe:
Serves 2-3
Preparation time: 15 mins | Cooking time: 20 mins | Total time: 35 mins
Cuisine: Maharasthra - Indian | Category: Side dish for Rice/Roti

Ingredients:

1 big bunch Dill leaves/Sabsige Soppu/Shepu
1 big Onion,roughly chopped

4-5 Green chillies,chopped

5-6 Garlic pods

2 tbsp Oil

Salt to taste

Method:

• Clean the dill leaves and wash them properly and chop the leaves finely along with tender stalks.
• Heat oil in a kadai and add chopped garlic and fry until they turn slight brown in color.
• Add chopped onions and green chillies and fry for few mins until onions turn pink.
• Now add the chopped dill leaves and fry for 10-12 mins until the greens are cooked.Take care that you would not over cook the greens,they taste best when they are cooked right.You can initially cover it slightly for 2-3 mins and then remove it later and fry it with out lid.

Serve it hot with Roti/Rice/Jowar Bhakri/Bajra Bhakri.

Notes:

1. You can use green amaranth leaves or red amaranth leaves or spinach or methi leaves and follow the same process.
2. I usually do not add any seasonings in the oil as I like the garlic flavor to dominate in the recipe.You can reduce the garlic if you are not a big fan of it.
3. I like to keep this recipe simple as it tastes best as it is and I love to eat this with Jowar or Bajra Bhakris.
4. Use only tender stems of the greens for this recipe.Chop them roughly.
5. You can add soaked moong dal after you fry onions and cook it together with the dill leaves.Make sure the moong dal is cooked properly but it should hold its shape and not become mushy.
6. You can even add grated coconut at the end.

Technorati Tags: shepuchi bhaji, dill leaves stir fry, sabsige soppu palya, recipes to increase lactation ,recipes for new moms ,post natal recipes, shepu bhaji, suva bhaji

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Khara Bread / Masala Bread with Dill Flavor...Bangalore Iyengar Bakery's Way!!

A hidden foodie in me prompted me to give a trial of baking bread some time back but was not successful because of the poor quality of local yeast available here in India.My husband is very fond of freshly baked breads,naan's etc etc which uses yeast in it,so he promised me that he will buy yeast along with other goodies during his next visit to abroad.Thankfully he could manage to pick few boxes of yeast for me during his last visit to Singapore.
In Mumbai every evening the bread waala's knock the doors and delivers fresh bread,buying a loaf of bread is so convenient here that I never thought of baking a simple bread at home,of course I agree freshly baked bread tastes always better.I wanted to make use of the yeast in a more effective way like making goodies which I don't get that easily here in Mumbai.

In my earlier post I have mentioned my love for the Iyengar bakery goodies which we get in Bangalore especially their khara bread,khara bun,palya bun,plain cake,toast etc etc.I have made this khara bread some time back by adapting some tips and techniques from here and here and added my personal touch to the recipe.I love the flavor of dill leaves which adds a nice taste to this bread and the bread turned super soft and light.Baking breads has become my latest passion after the successful attempt of khara bread which I have already made quite a lot of times.You will get to see lots of my baking experiments from now on in my blog which are already sitting in my drafts.

Ingredients:
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour + extra flour while kneading required
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp olive oil or regular vegetable oil

For the Masala:
1 small bunch dill leaves,finely chopped
1 small bunch coriander leaves,finely chopped
1 big onion,very finely chopped
1 tbsp green chilli paste,coarsely ground
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-3 generous pinches of salt
1 tbsp olive oil or regular vegetable oil

Other Ingredients:
1 tsp black sesame seeds to sprinkle over top
1 tsp butter to brush the bread
1 tsp milk to brush the bread

Method:

• Microwave water and milk together for 30 seconds until it is luke warm to touch.Pour this into a wide bottomed bowl.
• Dissolve in the sugar and yeast in it and mix thoroughly until dissolved.Leave this aside for 15-20 mins until the yeast mixture becomes frothy.This is the important step in proceeding further to the recipe.If the yeast does not proof throw it and start the process again from the scratch.
  
• Meanwhile heat olive oil or regular oil in a pan and crackle cumin seeds over low flame and add very finely chopped onion and fry until it is translucent,add a pinch of salt in between to ease the process.Add coarsely ground chilli paste,chopped greens and mix well and stir fry for a minute.Add enough salt to it and do remember that we add salt even to the dough.Keep it aside until the mixture is cooled.
• Stir in the olive oil and salt to the frothy yeast mixture and slowly add cup by cup of flour into it and mix well,I used a wire whisk for this purpose and mix until you get a lump of smooth dough.
• Now put some flour on the broad white board or feel free to use the well cleaned and wiped kitchen platform(like I did) and take the lump in both hands and knead the bread towards you.
• Follow the same method and knead it properly for 10 mins roughly until you get a non-sticky but still smooth dough.Add flour in between when the dough is sticky.
• Now slightly press the dough with your hands to flatten it and keep the masala(fried onion-greens) mixture in the centre and fold it from all the sides like how we do for stuffed paratha's.
• Slowly start kneading again for 12-15 mins until the mixture is very well incorporated in the dough.The dough might become sticky because of the onions,so please feel free to add the flour when required while kneading the dough.
• Cover this place of platform or the board with some cloth or paper as we need to use this place again for kneading.
• Now grease your hands and a empty big bowl with oil and coat the dough with oil slightly and place it in the greased bowl.Cover with a clean kitchen towel and keep it in warm place until the dough doubles almost.It takes almost one to one-and-half hours depending the climatic conditions.I preheated my microwave for 20 seconds and kept the bowl in it.
• After the first rise the dough would have doubled in size,take a knife and cut into two halves for two medium loaves.Otherwise cut into 3/4 and 1/4 th portions to make a big loaf and 4-5 medium sized buns like I did.
  
• Now again knead the dough gently for 7-8 mins,this process is important as it assures of removing air bubbles formed in the dough.Repeat the process with the other portion as well.
  
• Shape one portion into a loaf and place it in the greased loaf pan(9"x5").Divide the other portion of dough into 4-5 portion and shape them into buns and place them on a baking tray with space in between.
• Keep them again in the warm place for 45 mins - 1 hour for the final rise.Mean while preheat the oven at 220 degrees for 10 mins when you are about to finish the rising time of bread.
• Brush the top of loaf and buns with milk very gently and sprinkle black sesame seeds over the nicely risen loaf and buns and keep it in preheated oven and bake them at 180 degrees for 15-20 mins until the top portion of the bread turn slightly golden and the bread should sound hollow when tapped the crust with hand.I baked the bread and buns separately as my oven size is small,you should take care when you are baking both the bread and buns at the same time as the buns get baked fast.
  
• Brush the top of the bread and buns with butter immediately after removing them from oven.This helps in giving the shine to the crust and also makes the crust softer and even the smell of the bread will be nice.
  
• Run the knife around the edges and slowly remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on the wire rack.

Cut into the slices of desired thickness.Apply generously a dollop of fresh butter on the slice before serving.

This goes straight to champa's 'Bake-Off' event,'EFM-Cakes and Bakes' event going on at Srish Kitchen and also to Pari's 'ONLY-Kids' event.

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Dill-Dal Stir fry/Sabsige Soppu Palya and Rasam

It is always confusing for me what to cook for lunch and dinner daily because of the limited variety of vegetables and greens available here.Dill leaves is one of the greens which are abundantly available here but I rarely cook them at home.My mom makes excellent stir fry with the dal and greens mixture which is surprisingly very dry and complements well with both rice and roti.I like to eat this stir-fry especially with roti as it complements very well with it.Even the rasam which is made up of this mixture is very simple and flavorful and the meal with both the stir fry and rasam is simply yummy.If you like the flavor of dill leaves you will definitely like this combo,give it a try to believe my words.

Ingredients:
1 bunch Dill leaves
1 cup toor dal
1 big onion,chopped
1 tsp green chilli paste
1 tbsp thick tamarind pulp
1 tsp sambar powder
1/2 tsp grated jaggery/sugar
1 tsp chana dal
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
salt to taste

Method:

• Pressure cook dal and dill leaves for 1 whistle.Do not cook more otherwise the dal becomes mushy.You can even cook this on stove top until the dal is cooked slightly.
• Strain the water from the above dal-dill mixture and squeeze out the extra water from it.Save the water which is strained and sueezed fom this mixture for making rasam.
  
• Heat oil in a kadai crackle mustard seeds and add urad and chana dal and fry until golden in color.
• Add finely sliced onions and green chilli paste and fry until they are light brown in color.
• Add the squeezed dill leaves-dal mixture to it and fry for a minute.
• Add tamarind paste,jaggery,sambar powder,salt and fry until the mixture is dry and all the masala's are well blended.

Serve it hot with rice/chapathi/roti.

Note:
Adjust tamarind,jaggery and spicyness according to your taste.



Dill flavored Dal Rasam :

Ingredients:
2-3 cups of water strained from dill-dal mixture(cooked above)
1/4 cup cooked toor dal(optional)
2-3 tbsp tamarind pulp
1 tsp jaggery
1 1/2 tsp rasam powder/sambar powder
salt to taste

for Tadka:
1 tsp oil/ghee
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
a sprig of curry leaves
a pinch of hing

Method:

• Heat the water along with the cooked dal and add tamarind pulp,salt, jaggery,rasam/sambar powder to it and boil properly.
• In a small tadka pan heat oil/ghee and crackle mustard seeds and add curry leaves,hing to it and add the tadka to the boiled rasam and cover it with lid.

Serve it hot with rice and papad.

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Sabsige soppu Chitranna / Fresh Dill leaves rice

Eating greens is always a healthier option for healthy life style.My mom used to include lots of green in our diet right from our child hood but these dill leaves were not available at my place.When ever we used to go to my grany's place for holidays I used to see these greens in the local markets/sabji gaadiwaala's there and I loved the fancy look of these leaves(looks like christmas tree leaves for me..he he)and we used to eat various dishes made out of these greens there in my grany's place.
Here in Mumbai these greens are easily available and so I started exploring more recipes using these greens.I got few recipes from my mom in which these greens are used and here comes the first recipe which I tried using dill leaves.This is like our usual chitranna(lemon rice) just that the addition of onions and dill leaves will completely change the flavor of rice.Dill leaves have very strong flavor and so they need to be well sauted or nicely cooked before using it in any dish.

Ingredients:

1 medium bunch fresh dill leaves / Sabsige soppu (approx 1/2 cup when chopped)
1 cup Regular rice
1 big onion,sliced thin
6-7 green chillies,slit
2-3 tbsp groundnuts
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 lemon,squeezed
2 tsp chana dal
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
a sprig of curry leaves
2 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Method:

• Cook rice with 2 and 1/4 cups water in pressure cooker.Cool the rice slightly by spreading it over a wide plate.
• Wash and chop dill leaves into fine and keep it aside.
• Heat oil in a big kadai and crackle mustard seeds and add ground nuts and fry for a couple of minutes until they are fried and the skins start splitting up.Add chana dal and urad dal to it and fry again for until they turn light brown in color.
• Add green chillies,curry leaves and fry until they wither.
• Add finely sliced onion and fry for a couple of minutes until translucent.Now add chopped dill leaves and fry for a couple of minutes.This process takes some time,the raw smell of the leaves should go away otherwise it tastes very raw.Sprinkle some water while frying if necessary.
• Add turmeric powder to it and mix well.Now add cooked rice,salt and lemon juice and mix well until everything is incorporated properly.

Serve it warm or at room temperature with some chips/murukku and dahi.

Variations to the rice:

• You can avoid ground nuts and add fresh peas instead and follow the same procedure.
• You can avoid onions in the above recipe if you want.
  

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