Lentils and Onion pokoras also known as "piyaji"

Last weekend we were occupied with house hunting and meeting Rohan’s new teachers at his school. We are looking for a new place to move in soon as possible and the only criteria was it should be closer to my son’s school. Although he enjoys the bus rides and is used to them since last year in Beijing but I thought if I could drop and pick him up it would be an ideal way to see him off.

But unfortunately we couldn’t find any place that suited my needs so tired and weary by lunch time I was exhausted and nothing else entered my mind except for having a delectable lunch. I was too lazy to even think of cooking. When we ladies decide not to light the kitchen, the restaurants come in great rescue and are a great boon to us at times when we call it day off and let our hair loose.

We headed straight to nice buffet lunch and it was superb! My hubby vowed that two wood apples resting for while in our fruit basket would be his dinner and I too seconded his view and for Rohan, an easy egg roll was enough to satisfy him as long as he had his animation characters flashing across the LCD screen.

This was Saturday’s story and Sunday was equally sane, nothing much, just the routine work of cleaning and gearing up for the week ahead. In the afternoon we just took a hop to a park very close to our apartment and it was relaxing and soothing. The pagoda is part of this park and is surrounded by a small lake and is ideal for boating and fishing.

By the time I glimpsed at my watch it was dinner time and something has to be prepared. I had some oversoaked channa dal, so this recipe just popped into my mind. It is very common to Oriya kitchen and is often part of evening tea. I love the taste of dal coarsely grinded and flavored with curry leaves, coriander, ginger and one of the most dominant of all ingredients is the onion (piyaja), that is how the humble bulb becomes what is called in my local dialect ”PIYAJI”.

The ingredients for the recipes

1 cup Channa dal soaked (5 to6 hours)
1 large onion chopped
1 inch ginger grated
Salt to taste
Few curry leaves
2to3 green / Red chilies chopped
2 tablespoon fresh coriander chopped
Oil for deep frying.

Grind the soaked channa dal with no water or use very little water if need to make a coarse paste. Add all the ingredients expect oil. Heat oil in a pan and make slightly flattened balls and deep fry them on a medium fire. Remove and pat them on an absorbent paper to remove excess oil.

Serve hot with coriander chutney.