Ghuguni- RCI Orissa Cuisine

Hello everyone I am back after a break, has been on vacation for a week and was feeling under the weather for a while but now feeling good and back in time for this months RCI.



I really was very excited to cook oriya food for this months RCI hosted by Swapna of Swad , I haven't eaten any oriya food or familier with their names. So I had to go and search online for some Orissa recipies, while looking I discovered that they use lots of paneer and coconut , spices like bayleaf, cinnamon and cardamom are more widely used.



I make Chapthi everyday for dinner so was looking for a Orissa style curry and came across Ghuguni. Ghuguni is a curry made of dried peas as the main ingredient along with potatoes. I reffered a website named Orissa Dairy and followed the recipe mostly except for yellow dried peas I used green dried peas.



Here is how I made it

Vegetables and spices :

Dried green peas - 1cup

Red potatoes - 2

Tomatoes - 1 medium size

For grinding into paste:

Onion, garlic, ginger, 1 green chillie, clove-cinnamon-cardamom -2 each.

Powders:

Cumin-corriander,turmeric,red chilli and garam masala - 1 tsp each.

cumin seeds - 1tsb, Oil - 2tbsp and salt as per taste.

• Soak dried peas for atleast 6 hrs. After that chop veggeis.



• Grind the above mentioned masala into smooth paste using enough water.



• I used pressure cooker to cook both peas and potatoes,peas turned out bit mushy. So I would cook them on open vessle from here on.



• Heat oil in a thick bottomed vessel, when hot enough add cumin seeds , then grounded masala and powders. Cook untill all the mixture combins and raw smell is gone.



• Now to the above mixture add tomatoes , potatoes and peas that are pre-cooked. Add salt and adjust to taste. Add water if needed, to desired consistancy, cover and simmer it down to 10 mins.

Enjoy with chapathis, puri or rice.

I very much enjoyed exploring about Oriya cuisine, experimenting with new food in my kitchen and most of all eating. When tasted it was like sweet surprise with cardamom added along with the other ground spices. Will make this Ghuguni more often from now on.