Panch Phoron Tarkari & Kulath ki Dal

Kulath ki Dal from Uttarakand: Horsegram is a completely new ingredient for me. I bought it just before April's Mega marathon in the hopes of using it in one of the dishes, but I didn't use it for any of the dishes. But luckily I found quite a few interesting recipes using it and here I am with the very first dish I made with Horsegram.

This dal is from Uttarakand and it is a very simple and earthy dish which is very mildly spiced. Using rice flour makes the dish thick and creamy.

Recipe from Valli and Vaishali.

Panch Phoron Tharkari (Mixed Vegetable Curry with Panch Phoron): This was one of the most popular dishes that was posted for North eastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Bengal etc. Panch phoron is a mix of 5 seeds -- mustard, fennel, nigella (onion), fenugreek and cumin. The addition of panch phoron to tempering gives any dish a lot of flavor.

This is a very simple semi dry curry that can be made with any combination of mixed vegetables. I used sweet potato, eggplant and regular potato. Traditionally pumpkin is used in this curry, but butternut squash or any other winter squash can be used instead. This curry goes well with rice or roti.

Recipe from Sandhya & Valli.