I first read about this dish when a reader commented about this dish on Indira’s blog sometime last year. I tried to recreate the same in my kitchen and it was amazing and has been a regular. Broccoli is easy to eat for me only when I make this dish!

Ingredients:
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2 head of Broccoli or a packet of cut florets
2 medium sized onions
A pinch of turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of chili powder
Oil, Salt to taste

For the Paste :
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1/2 cup of toor dal and chana dal
1×1 piece of ginger
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
2 green chillies

For the Popu:
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1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of urad dal
A pinch of Asafoetida/hing
1 red chilli
A few curry leaves

Method:
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1. Wash and pat dry the broccoli and steam exactly for 6 minutes and remove and place in Ice cold water so that they don’t lose the green color

2 soak the Ingredients for the paste in warm water for at least 15-30 minutes and grind into a coarse paste and place in a pressure cooker and cook without a whistle for 8-10 minutes .

3. Do the Popu /tadka/seasoning in a skillet by heating oil and adding urad dal, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, red chilli , curry leaves and hing

4 Add the finely chopped onions and saute until pink, add the steamed broccoli florets, the coarsely ground patoli paste , salt, turmeric and cook until all the ingredients mix well , not more than 5 minutes.

5.Remove and serve hot with rice

Colocasia leaves have an acquired taste, at least K wasn’t very happy with eating them , K simply adores arbi roots , assuming that he would like the leaves too, I decided to try this recipe .I love colocasia leaves, because the recipes that I have for these amazing leaves are handed over to amma by her grandmother and amma can still remember the smells and taste of her transforming these dull green leaves into delectable dishes and amma tried to do the same.

I remember amma telling me that she could never get the same taste as her grandmother could whenever she tried cooking these leaves and gave up sometime back. I assume the reason is that my great grandmother used to cook them on a kattala poyi , a couple of wood pieces thrown in to make a stove and always used brass vessels to cook.

The patoli thats made in my household has always had a mixture of toor dal and chana dal in equal quantities.

Ingredients:
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A bunch of colocasia leaves
1/4 cup toor dal
1/4 cup chana dal
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
4 dry red chillies or green chillies

For the Popu:
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1 teaspoon urad dal
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 dry red chili
a pinch of asafoetida
curry leaves

Wash and pat dry the colocasia leaves, remove stems and chop finely. Cook colocasia leaves in 3-4 glasses of water, a pinch of turmeric and salt. on a stove top or microwave. If doing in a microwave, keep covered and microwave for about 6-8 minutes.

Keep 1/2 cup of water from the cooked leaves before straining. Strain the leaves and keep aside.

For the Paste:
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Place the toor dal and chana dal , cumin seeds, red/green chillies in a bowl and keep covered for atleat 20 minutes. Grind into a thick, coarse paste. In a pressure cooker, without the whistle ,cook for 10 minutes this mixture, by adding half a cup of the water remaining from cooked colocasia leaves. Once done. Remove from heat and keep aside.

In a wide skillet, add oil and do the popu/tadkaseasoning by adding urad dal, mustard seeds, 1 dry red chili , a pinch of asafoetida,curry leaves and once the mustard seeds and curry leaves pop add the colocasia leaves and saute for 2 minutes. Add the coarsely ground patoli paste , salt to taste and cook for another 3-4 minutes and remove from heat. Serve with hot rice and its yummy!