Continuing with our Karanataka Cuisine series this month, here’s a really quick cucumber ‘curry’ if you may call it that. It’s my kind of curry in a hurry. Goes perfectly with rice, and the mustard seeds ground into the spice paste give the mild cucumber a really good fiery kick. It is the kind of pungent heat that opens up your sinuses. I went one step ahead and ground some freshly plucked mustard greens from the garden to the spice paste, to get an extra mustardy punch. If you don’t have the fresh leaves on hand, you don’t need to bother about them. Since I used the food processor to finely mince the cucumber, this dish took me less than 10 minutes. It’s the perfect last minute addition to a menu when you are expecting guests.
The same curry can be made using boiled and grated beetroots, ripe bananas and ripe mangoes. The sweeter or milder vegetables and fruits pair well with the spices in the curry. I’ve prepared the beetroot sasive several times, but the cucumber curry is even simpler as there is no cooking involved, saves time and I can imagine this would be a perfect curry for the summers.
Recipe for Cucumber Sasive – Cucumber Curry in mustard yogurt sauce
Serves 2
Less than 15 minutes
Recipe for Cucumber Sasive - Easy Cucumber Curry in Mustard Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 large 2 cucumber (400 grams) or medium
- 1 cup yogurt thick
- 3/4 tsp salt
For spice paste
- 1/3 cup coconut grated
- 2 - 3 green chillies
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 10 mustard fresh leaves (optional)
For tempering
- 1 tsp peanut oil sunflower oil or
- 1 red chilli dried
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- pinch asafoetida of
Instructions
- Peel the cucumber and chop into large chunks and finely mince in food processor or using knife and chopping board. If there are too many seeds then scoop them out before chopping. If not, then leave them in.
- Whisk the yogurt well in a medium bowl. Add the minced cucumber to this.
- Using a mixer, in the chutney jar, grind all the ingredients for the spice paste using upto 1/4 cup water, to a fine paste.
- Add this to the bowl of cucumber and yogurt, along with salt and mix well.
- Heat the oil in a small tempering ladle or saucepan. Add the dried chilli, curry leaves, cumin seeds and add the pinch of asafoetida. Once cumin starts spluttering, transfer over the sasive in the bowl.
- Serve with steaming hot rice.
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