Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Few recipes with green leaves stem

Tried and tasted by Nivedita 
Hi All,
Most of the times, we discard the vegetable peel, fruit feel and this green leafy vegetables. Most of us, use only the leaves from Spinach, Amarnath leaves and many few green leaves(I do not know English names for those like Rajgiri, Harive, dantina soppu). We do not like the tender stem of leafy vegetables. But it tastes very good and has more nutrition.

When I was in school, this was the toughest task for me, to clean these green leaves. But it was my work! I used to take so much time to clean it. Some times, mom used to get irritated and she used to clean it. That time, I used to collect these stems and play with those, making necklace or used to build spider web with the stems. 
When I was in college, I tried making  sabji using these stems. The taste was good. From then, its become regular in my house to use these stems for sabji, sambhar or salad. 
There are three recipes you can make with these(which I know),
1. With onions and garlic
Recipe for the same :
cleaned, and chopped stem - 1 cup
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 1 small bulb or 6 to 8 cloves, crushed
Green chilly - 1 crushed
Salt to taste
Haldi a pinch
Oil - 1 tbsp
Heat oil in a kadai. Add chopped garlic and saute till brown. Add onion and fry till it changes it color. Add green chilly and cleaned stem. Saute for some time. Add salt, haldi and 1 tbsp water. Cook for few minutes.
Garlic and stem sabji is ready.

2. Just add these stems while making dal or sambhar. It taste good.
3. Clean, chop and steam these stems and use it to make salad with curds, onion and tomato with seasoning of salt and pepper.

4. Now coming to the recipe with the photo:
Here is the recipe with dal,


Cleaned and chopped stem - 1 cup
Chana dal - 1 tbsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Green chilly and cumin seeds paste - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Haldi - a pinch
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Fresh coconut - 2 tbsp grated
Hing a pinch

Soak the chana for one hour in warm water.
Heat oil in a kadai.
Add mustard seeds. When splutter, add curry leaves and hing. 
Add soaked chana and fry for a minute.
Add chopped stem, green chilly paste and 1 tbsp water. Cook for a minute.
Add salt and haldi. Cook with 1/4 cup water till the chana is cooked.
Add Lemon juice and fresh coconut. Adjust the seasoning.
Serve hot with chapati or rice and sambhar.
Sending this to the event hosted by
Nithu at Nithu's Kitchen on 


Keep Smiling,

10 comments:

Priya Suresh said...

Beautiful dishes, even i do many dishes with this green stem...

Umm Mymoonah said...

Yummy yummy, very creative, looks too good.

Mina Joshi said...

The dish looks lovely. I have never used the stems before. New to me.

Hari Chandana P said...

Wonderful and healthy recipe.. perfect for the event.. :)

Kiran said...

Nivedita,
All 4 recipes look delicious.I too love cooking with the stalks of greens in different ways.

Unknown said...

Nivedita, that is such a nice creativity.

kitchen queen said...

lovely and healthy dishes with leaves stem.

RV said...

Most efficient way to use the left over and make it a tasty dish. Nice idea Nive.

Sanjeeta kk said...

Very interesting. Good way to use the stems which we discard normally.

Anonymous said...

Nivedita,
The kids pic is too cute! :)
The stems with dal dish looks interesting! :)

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