Since a few months I am manually making pastes of all kinds of seeds and spices, including turmeric. I soak all of them in a bowl keep it in the fridge and take out little by little as per the recipe and quantity, make the fresh paste and almost immediately use it up. The soaked whole spices take about two to three days to finish. I don't think it's healthy to keep anything in the fridge longer than that. My spice bowl below contains cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black pepper seeds, cinnamon, mace, cardamom and last but least, dried whole turmeric. From these, I took some cumin-, coriander-, black pepper seeds, some turmeric, two cardamoms, broke a few small pieces of cinnamon.
I made the paste on this and pair of old and traditional"sheel-norha", two pieces of heavy stones, as you see below. Not fashionable, not easy and a lot of physical work. But it's a good exercise for me and also it is without exploiting energy like electricity.
I usually start adding bay leaves, a little crushed ginger, sliced chilli, and a pinch of cumin seeds as the seasoning but the day before yesterday I didn't use the bay leaves and ginger. I sautéed the potatoes till they turn golden, added the green chillies and cumin seeds and then the pieces of cauliflower. I let the cauliflowers also turn slightly golden, sautéing by stirring it often. Then I added the paste of spices and mixed everything well. I added salt after about 1-2 minutes, again stirred to mix, covered it and cooked for a few minutes on low heat. I put the induction cooker on 300 in curry mode. If you cook on a gas burner or something similar, just keep the flame low. After a few minutes I added water and a little jaggery because I don't consume sugar.
I let it boil, covered, in the same low temperature till the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.
Usually I add tomato puree before adding water and mix it well and fresh peas after adding the water which I didn't in this case. The rest is the same. Here is another version with peas and tomato (not very visible), bay leaves, from another day:
Sheel-norha
I let it boil, covered, in the same low temperature till the vegetables are thoroughly cooked.
Usually I add tomato puree before adding water and mix it well and fresh peas after adding the water which I didn't in this case. The rest is the same. Here is another version with peas and tomato (not very visible), bay leaves, from another day:
