The Indian food in my home was always plain but wholesome. Not much oil, hardly ever any garlic or onions and the vegetables were always lightly tempered with just a little oil and sparingly cooked.
My grandparents hailed from northern Madhya Pradesh, from Sagar and Bundelkhand, although their roots, many generations before, were Uttar Pradesh near Faizabad.
My grandfather, a freedom fighter who was imprisoned in Nagpur jail for two years during the freedom movement, believed in simple, upright, living. That was reflected in the sparse sattvic but tasty food my grandmother cooked.
Most people mistake north Indian food for the boring tedious butter paneers, dum alus, jalfrezis, you find in restaurants. But home-cooked north Indian food, found across UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is food you would never have eaten. It's too simple to find a place on a restaurant menu and can only be had in people's homes and it's delicious.
My Ammaji's Yoghurt Bhindi is a good sample of that cuisine. I have tweaked it over the years adding a bit of one of my favourite spice -- kalonji. And curry patta.
Ammaji's Mahi Bhindi
Serves: 2
Ingredients
Method
My Note: For a Jain version of Mahi Bhindi, replace the ginger with 1 tsp saunth or dried ginger powder.
For vegan Mahi Bhindi, replace the yoghurt with 200 gm coconut cream and before turning off the heat add a squeeze of lime.
For a different taste, add ½ tsp crumbled dagar phool or pathar ke phool/kalpaasi or stone flower. Another interesting tweak could be to use mustard oil while frying the bhindi. And if you like the spice, add a green chilly cut in half lengthwise.
Mahi Bhindi pairs well with a khichdi like Maharaj Bhanwar Singh's Bajra Khichdi or one of Maharaj Jodharam Choudhary's khichdis.