VEGETABLE SAAGU !!!!!!!!!

My today's recipe is from the blog CHEF AND HER KITCHEN. Veg. saagu goes well with chapathi/poori/dosa/idly. It is a polpular side dish of Karnataka. You will get set dosa & saagu in almost all resturas/darshinis of Karnataka.

Ingredients:

2 cups of finely diced Mixed Vegetables(Carrot,Potato,Beans,Green Peas,Cauliflower)

1 Onion,roughly chopped

1/2 tsp Mustard seeds

2 tbsp Oil/Ghee

Salt to taste

To grind:

1" Cinnamon stick

4-5 Cloves

1-2 Marathi Moggu

1/2 cup fresh grated Coconut

1 tbsp Khus khus

1 tbsp Fried gram

5-6 Green chillies

a handful of chopped Coriander leaves,optional

1 tsp Oil

Method: 

• Heat a tsp of oil in a kadai/pan and add green chillies and fry them, but be careful as the whole green chillies might burst.You can make a small slit if you want to avoid bursting.Add cinnamon,marathi moggu and cloves to it and fry for sometime.
• Grind the fried ingredients with grated fresh coconut,khus khus, fried gram, coriander leaves and make it into a smooth puree.
• In a cooker,heat oil crackle mustard seeds and fry chopped onions until pink.Now add vegetables and fry until they are slightly crisp.
• Add the ground masala and fry until the mixture leaves the oil and then add enough salt and 1 - 1.5 cups of water and pressure cook for 1-2 whistles(do not over cook).Once the pressure is released add lemon juice to it and give a good stir.

Serve hot with Poori or chapathy or Set dosa or Atukula dosa.

Notes:

1. You can even add vegetables like cabbage, knol-khol to saagu. My aunt suggests to add even add beetroot but I usually don't add it as it changes the color of saagu, but you can add while preparing the red color sagu.
2. The addition of  Khus-khus is optional but it adds a nice richness to the gravy.You can even add cashewnuts if you want.
3. This sagu would be slightly greenish because of the usage of green chillies and coriander in the recipe.If you want it to be red in color, skip green chillies and coriander in the recipe and add red chillies and tomato while grinding the paste.Also, replace lemon juice with tamarind pulp at the end.

HAPPY COOOKING :))))))))