Friday, January 30, 2009

Chow Chow

My husband always tries to prove that I (Konkanis, in general) have some Chinese connection !! Konkani is spoken with a very nasal twang and lots of words sound very Chinese to a lay person.
Out of curiousity, I googled on this word "ChowChow" before I started writing this post. I googled more to find out if this was the way its spelt, because this recipe doesnt feature in any recipe books, not even Rasachandrika (The bible for Saraswat cooking) and guess what the first result was for a breed of dogs found in Mongolia and China !!

chow chow
15/8/12 This pic is an updated one. I seem to have all photos that I uploaded directly into blogger :(

Chow chow is also the name of a vegetable in Kannada - I am not sure of the English equivalent, but its known as Bangalore Kathrikai in Tamil. This recipe has nothing to do with the dogs or this vegetable.

Its a medley of potaoes, beans, carrots and bell peppers in a spicy-tangy dry masala. This is a favourite at Ma's place.

What you need -

3 carrots
2 potatoes
2 green bell peppers
10 french beans (I didnt have these at home, so eliminated it)
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp pepper corns
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 heaped teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
juice of 1 lemon

What you do with it -

Cut the vegetables into bite size pieces
Roast the cut bell peppers.
Parboil the potatoes, carrots and beans
Roast the pepper corns, mustard and fenugreek seeds and powder it
In a kadai, heat 2 tsps of oil and add chilli powder, turmeric powder and the dry masala
Add the vegetables and mix well
Add salt and lemon juice

10 comments:

amna said...

i love the lighting in this pic :)

Archana said...

Thanks Nags.. coming from you, its a huge compliment :) I held the ladle under a hanging light and tried this..

ms said...

Hi archana,
chow chow is called chayote here in the US. Looks good!
ms

TBC said...

This sounds like a good dry preparation. FYI, chow chow is known as chayote squash here.:D

Anonymous said...

Hey, this came out really well.
I have never used this combination of masala so was a bit skeptic but it turned out very nice

Vani said...

Loved the picture, Arch. My hubby is Konkani and I'm a Kannadiga. I tease my hubby that there's some Chinese connection with his family since most menfolk in his family have small eyes!Hey, there may be some truth to your hubby's teasing ;)

Dipsy said...

My fav sabji of all times. Amma always made this for moi.. too good.. thanks akka..:)
Oh and I do eat other veggies than just aloo ..:))

Naina said...

My mom used to say that all these names (chow chow/song etc) have come from a large number of Konkanis who migrated back from Burma. How much of that is true God alone knows!

Sayantani Mahapatra Mudi said...

lovely recipe. we call it squash here and generally add this to stews, dals or sometimes to replace potato in a curry. will try this recipe soon. lovely click.

Girish Kulkarni said...

Hi Archana ... Thanks for your lovely blog page(s). Despite my Maharashtrian sounding name, I am very much an Amchi-galo' - just attended the Konkani Sammelan in New Jersey 2012, last month.
Although male, I am actually a pretty good cook ( ... so he said modestly ... ;-) )... I had to be, because my wife can't cook for nuts ... she's an Adur, and we all know Adurs will eat anything their 'bai' makes, and never learn to cook anything themselves. ^-|-^

Anyway, to come to the point, I have made Chow -chow before and just googled 'Konkani Chow-chow' ...and I got your site !!! So ... either the world is becoming VERY small, or we should be grateful for Sergei Brin's (Co-creator of Google - ) algorithm...

I have a modest suggestion for your chow chow recipe - which if I remember right, was very popular among the caterer-cooks at weddings in the 1970's....

The chow-chow I remember, was a little bit more runny ... like a Kyrus, whereas your photo shows it somewhat more dry. If I may, I would have like to add 1. one-eighth teaspoon sugar, 2 tablespoons of coconut cream ( wattil soyee ) and 2 tablespoons of ground Poppy seed ( Khus-Khus) and some tablespoons of water ( for grinding - ) so the whole dish would be a little more runny.... something a slice of bread could soak into.

Best wishes for your blog, and to you personally.

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