Kobbari Tovve / South Indian Style Coconut And Lentils

'' Today the tovve is really good Amma!'' declares my ten year old son at the dinner table. Before I can smile a modest thank-you he promptly asks  ''Ajji sent it right?''.  I try not to sound like an indignant ten-year-old with a deflated ego and say  ''No, I made it!''. His spontaneous 'Oh!'' in reply is hastily replaced with a placating ''Great job Amma, looks like you have a bit of Ajji's touch in your cooking today, what say?''. When you are a foodie, take not any chances and irk the cook. Especially if she happens to be the only cook around!!

These instances happen, though not very often in my home. Pitting 40 years of solid experience against 12 stumbling years of it - tough competition! But then I guess even when I graduate to having 40 years of experience, I will still think my mother's cooking had that extra bit of yumminess to it...

Guess being born a South Indian invariably brings with it the fondness for rice and all things coconut. From chutneys to payasams to simple everyday garnishes, coconut finds its way into most cooking. And when life hands us more coconut than we normally use, more often than not, it goes into Kobbari Tovve. Tovve is basically a lentils based dish either with or without vegetables, mostly without sambar powder in it. Needless to say, kobbari or coconut is the star ingredient in this dish.  A spice mix made with roasted coriander seeds, cumin and fenugreek seeds add that subtle but very certainly there aroma and taste to the dish.

These spices are roasted and ground together and stored for a couple of months like sambar powder, rasam powder and the rest. But since everyone doesn't have this spice mix at home, I have made it using the three individually. The taste of the tovve is pretty much close to what my mother makes, though may not be exactly the same. If she lived closer by,  probably I could have got each of these dishes made by her..sigh!

Spicy with the green chillies, subtle but flavorful and loaded with fresh coconut, it may not be entirely disappointing to try this. This makes about 4 1/4 cups of tovve, I would suggest to maintain the level of spices (the coriander, cumin and fenugreek) and alter the amount of the rest to suit your taste. This tastes good with good quality hing, generous amount of chillies and enough tamarind and jaggery to balance it out.

Ingredients :
Toor dal - Pigeon pea Dal - 3/4 cup
Oil - 1 teaspoon
Fresh tomatoes (sour or plum), chopped - 1 cup
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Roasted coriander powder - 1 teaspoon
Roasted cumin powder - 3/4 teaspoon
Roasted methi / fenugreek powder - 1/8 teaspoon
Green chillies, 6-7 (or even more) - ground to a paste, smooth or coarse
Thick tamarind pulp - 1/4 cup (If using sour tomatoes, use less, say 3 tablespoons)
Grated jaggery - 3/4 tablespoon
Grated fresh coconut - 1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup if needed.
Salt to taste

For the tempering
Oil - 2 teaspoons
Mustard - 1 teaspoon
Hing, good quality - a good pinch
Curry leaves - a few

Pressure cook the dal with the turmeric and enough water till the lentils are well cooked and soft, but not completely mushy (this cooked dal will be about 3 cups and a little more) Set aside till the pressure drops completely. In a thick bottomed pan, heat a teaspoon of oil. Add a dash of hing, add the chopped tomatoes and a bit of salt. Cover with about 1/4 cup of water and cook covered till the tomatoes are very soft.  Add the cooked dal,  the spice powders, jaggery, tamarind pulp and the chilli paste. Add the coconut and salt to taste. The tovve is meant to be on the thicker side. Add about 1/2 cup of water if needed to adjust the consistency. Bring to a simmer, cook for about 10 minutes on low heat. Check and adjust the seasoning if needed. Turn off the heat.

Heat the remaining oil, add the mustard. Once it sputters, add the curry leaves and the hing, Pour over the dal and mix. Serve with hot rice, ghee and uppu hacchida menasinakayi (deep fried sun-dried stuffed chillies). I like the flavor best when it is warm (not hot), even better a few hours after its cooked.

Nimbe Hannina Saaru - Lemon Rasam

Hot rice and piping hot rasam with loads of palya (vegetable) is one simple meal I really enjoy any day. Give  some good pickle to go with it and it becomes a gourmet meal for me. Rasam or saaru being a staple in the South Indian meal, I can never get bored of eating it. I like eating on a plantain leaf for the flavor it imparts to food, specially if the food is hot. We tend to eat more of rasam as compared to rice and its difficult to eat on one if you are not used to it, particularly rasam. I normally make it with  rasam powder, but hugely relish a change now and then. Hubby is not much of a rasam person, but likes this relatively non-spicy variation.


Nimbe Hannina Saaru or Lemon Rasam, along with a lot of other traditional recipes, bring back memories of my childhood visits to my maternal grand-parents' home. The huge family comprised of  lots of Uncles and Aunts, cousins, Tatas and Ajjis( as a kid left me confused as to who was who) and a few people who served the family for generations. The house had 2 huge kitchens with one of them meant for cooking lunch and snacks, the other one for the evening meal and cooking during festivals. The regular rasam was part of lunch and the Lemon Rasam was what was prepared invariably with the rest of the dinner. And how we used to anticipate and love eating it, with home-made ghee and the subtle smell of food cooked on wooden fire stoves.

I can still close my eyes and smell the rasam the way my grand-mother made it, but can never really bring that taste to it she brought. She had scores of small spice boxes on her kitchen shelf from which she would put 'something' into the huge vessels of food and it would taste magical. I do wish she were alive today, the foodie in me would have loved to pull out her culinary secrets...

Here is an attempt to share one of my most favorite dishes, hope you do enjoy it as much as I do..

Broken Wheat Bisi Bele Bhat

One of South India's most loved dishes in its healthiest form!! Bisi Bele Bhat (BBB for ease)is usually made with rice and lentils, mostly Toor Dal, vegetables and spices. BBB can also be made with thick beaten rice flakes and Moong Dal- this one is reserved for the no-rice day, Ekadashi. Of late, my mother and sister both have been making the BBB with broken wheat and moong dal and it tastes just great. Replacing rice with broken wheat makes it a low GI meal making this delicious dish your dietitian's delight. You can whip up this dish in a hurry on a weekday morning taking the 'shortcut' method,using your sambhar powder or ready-made Bisi Bele Bhat powder. Or opt to make the masala from scratch on the day you make the dish or a day before.

There are of course a number of variations to making the BBB. North Karnataka Folks generally make this masala powder and store it like rasam or sambar powder.  Folks in Bangalore and around the area specially  make this powder fresh on the day the dish is made. Try serving a 'ready masala mix / Sambar powder' BBB to a hard core Bangalorean and see the reaction:-))

Psst.. a secret.. though I can spend hours baking or making desserts, snacks etc, I don't really love to spend time making rasam or sambar powders. Yeah, Mom and Mom-in-law are my lifelines for these quintessential masalas. I prefer to use home made sambar powder or MTR  Bisi Bele Bhat powder to make this scrumptious dish. Serve this spicy dish with potato chips or papad and raitha and there won't be anybody who will not over eat!!!

Muddipalya ( Pepper, Lemon & Greens In Lentils Gravy)

Madhwa Brahmin Cuisine comes with its own amazing variety of delicious food. I grew up in a family where traditional Brahmin food was the staple everyday, with the odd deviations now and then. My mom is an amazing cook and so was my grandmother. Even today, when I go over to my parents place, I unashamedly admit, I hog rice at least 2 times a day with her tongue-tickling chutneys, pickles, rasams, gojjus, huli, tovve etc. Yumm... Somehow, we never seem to get that taste into food  like our mothers effortlessly  do. Hope my daughter says this about me when she grows up too:-))

Coming to Muddipalya, it  is a very common everyday dish in the Brahmin community. The basic ingredients here are Toor Dal and greens. You could dish up lots of varieties with the same basic ingredients. Let me save these for my later posts:-)). In this case, green chillies, crushed pepper, jeera, hing, tomato and lemon go with the lentils and greens, and there you are.  Goes very well with hot rice and the quintessential spoon of ghee.