A simple spring onion curry made hearty with the presence of chickpea flour or besan. This spring onion curry goes best with rotis or parathas
Spring onions or as some may call green onions or Scallions are an interesting vegetable /herb. Mainly used for garnishing/ salads or in Chinese soups, noodles and sauces, I have never tried to use them as a main ingredient in my cooking. It’s available in Bombay vegetable markets almost all year round. They are sold in bunches, one bunch having upto 8-10 sprigs. I have noticed that the smaller the onion bulb, the fresher the leaves are.
You can’t store spring onions for too long as they start wilting in a 2-3 days.This time a vegetable vendor managed to sell me a really huge bunch. Just using them for garnishing would have resulted in rotten onions in a couple of days and hence this recipe for a curry made with spring onions struck me. Sometimes, one just starts of chopping a vegetable without having a definite plan in mind and as one keeps adding ingredients intuitively, a new dish is born.
In Maharashtrian cooking, there is something called a zunka-which is basically a cooked gram flour paste. The spring onion curry with chickpea flour turned out something akin to a Zunka at the end of my cooking adventure.
Wondering how to use that big bunch of spring onions? Here are some other recipes that make use of spring onions:
Spring onion, Pumpkin and Lentil SoupÂ
Irish Grilled Cheese Sandwich – the picture is enough to entice you
Eggplant and Millets with spring onions
Spring Onion Curry with Besan
Ingredients
Method
- To prepare the spring onion curry, heat the oil in a non-stick pan. Add the cumin seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida, chopped chillies, ginger, garlic. Saute for a few seconds.
- Add the finely chopped spring onions and a pinch of salt. Saute for 1-2 minutes. These onions cook in no time at all.
- Meanwhile, make a thin paste of the gram flour in 2 cups water with a pinch of turmeric powder and salt to taste. Once the spring onions are sauted, pour the gram flour paste into the pan and keep stirring constantly on a medium flame. In 5-6 minutes the gram flour will get cooked as the curry thickens.
- Taste and check if gram flour is cooked. (It shouldn't feel sticky when you taste it) Remove from flame into a serving bowl. Serve hot with Phulkas / Chapatis.
Notes
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love your photos too!
Nandita, first time here..great blog..and all authentic dishes..Spring onion curry looks great…Thanks for sharing..
Nandita, everytime I saw spring onions, I wanted to buy them. But I was not having many recipes with it. Thanks a lot for sharing this recipe.I think I had tasted something like this in my aunty (pachi)’s house (they are marathis), It had amazing taste,but i didn’t know the recipe. thanks again.
Interesting how this has several names. The first time I learned about it, not so long ago, I was sooooo confused! LOL! It’s nice to read more about it here. Thanks!Paz
Hi Micheal- Welcome to my blog, guess I’m seeing you around for the first time. Thanks for your complimentsSudha-been reading your name around in several food blogs but somehow didn’t connect. Good that that we’ve connected now! Shall cya around…Shilpa, Paz-thanks for liking the recipe-trust me it takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish
I got here to say exactly what Shilpa said..I just love the freshness of the spring onions and am always tempted to buy. The only recipe I knew until now was to use them in Stir-frys and Chinese fried rice etc ….This time I’m going to indulge myself in buying them and make this dish, this way of cooking besan is also new to me..so its surely going to be fun 🙂
Oh yes, this is very much like the Zunka that I prepare, Nandita. Are you looking for more recipes with spring onions? I’ll try and blog about some in the future. And hey, my entry for your breakfast event is going up any minute. 🙂
hi nandita,nice recipeI usualy make a dry version of the same.instead of adding water i just add the dry besan to the spring oion when they start cooking and leaving water. It is called zunka in amrathi. Also I dont use ginger, only garlic in dry version. And I make it real hot (6 tb spoon chilie powder and 3 spring oion bunches)…ur curry version will b great with rice.
Hey NAndita have the dal prices hiked up in india ? Yaha shopekeeprs r saying that india has stoped exporting lentils and whaet and we are geting a 1 bag of daal for aorunf 7 bucks. How is the condition in india?
You are on that one, there was recently a news feature that said that exports of pulses/ grains have been reduced considerably to fulfil the internal demand, we are actually importing more foodgrains in India. I can understand the cost increase at your end.Shall fish out the article from somewhere and post it on my blogYou raised a valid point there.
Hi I tried this recipe since it sounded so easy but even though I tried cooking for 20-30 mins i still get a strong the taste of besan from the dish (not sure if that is how it is supposed to taste – you may say what was I thinking making a besan dish without tasting of besan). It almost feels like tasting the batter used for pakodas (well an exageration there but almost true). Is zunka supposed to taste so I have no idea of Marathi dishes? Is there any way to remove the over-powering taste of besan i don’t think i can cook anymore the gravy is extremely thick and starting to stick on the bottom of the pan.
Hello enigma,Thanks for your feedback. Actually I faced no such problem…but the only difference is that i used a non-stick pan as indicated in the recipe, which is why it did not get messy…and you should not get that ‘raw / uncooked’ taste in the end…it will be of a ‘koozhu’ / porridge consistency in the end, but surely cooked. Next time you can try dry roasting the besan for 3-4 minutes till pink and then try it out…or you could make a dry version of the same curry.Start with the same procedure upto sauteeing the spring onions. Then add dry roasted besan to the mix. The wetness in the onions will absorb most of the besan, coating them totally. Then on a low flame, you can keep roasting the besan coated spring onions, adding some more oil during the procedure..it will give you a crispy dry curry, without the sticky texture. You can also add green bell peppers or shredded cabbage in the above method instead of or in addition to spring onions. Hope I have been of help.
Thank you for this very tasty curry!!http://lesnectarsdemaya.over-blog.com/article-30262932.html
Nice blog and sounds like a nice recipe. Bought spring onions and was wondering what to make. I read out the recipe to my cook and she understood immediately! I normally fry spring onions and add a loose paste of pepper and broken chana (pottu kadalai. It tastes yum but I suddenly bored of it.Any ideas for a toddler’s breakfast (1 yr and 4 months). Both baby and I are bored of idlies! We tried maggi today with just a li’ll bit of the masala. Not bad! Please share any ideas you have.
The spring onion recipes was great! I used freshly grounded roasted chicpeas. Thanks.