Kadai Mushrooms

Kadai Mushrooms

An Indian style mushroom stir fry recipe to go with Indian flatbreads. Quick and easy to make. Highly nutritious, high in proteins and antioxidants.

I love mushrooms and yes just because they are highly nutritious, high in proteins. (One way to make me eat anything is by telling its good for you and for your health.) This healthy and quick recipe gives you a lot of proteins and antioxidants as it includes mushrooms, assorted colourful capsicums and tomatoes. 

Ingredients:

20-25 button mushrooms quartered
Red, yellow and green capsicum diced - 1 each    
1 medium chopped tomato 
1 medium sliced onion
2 table spoons of oil
3 whole dried red chillies
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tea spoon garam masala
1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
2 green chillies finely chopped
1 inch ginger piece finely chopped
10-12 black peppercorns
1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves
1 inch ginger, cut into julienne
Salt to taste

Kadai Masala:

Kadai masala remains the same for any kadai preparation, be it kadai chicken, kadai vegetables, or kadai mushrooms. This masala is prepared with whole, dried red chillies, peppercorns, coriander seeds and cumin seeds. These 4 spices are the most important spices in any kadai masala. You can roast good amount of each of these spices and store them in a air tight container and use them while making any kadai preparation.

Method to prepare kadai masala:

Place a small frying pan on medium heat and let it heat for 2 minutes.

Add coriander seeds, cumin seeds, red chillies and black peppercorns. These have to be dry roasted for 1-2 minutes or till fragrant.

If you like your chillies with seeds removed then deseed them by breaking them into pieces and tapping out their seeds. If your ok with the seeds in then fry the whole red chillies. 

You'll get the amazing aroma of coriander seeds first while dry roasting, after which you'll get the aroma of cumin seeds which means your masala is roasted well. 

Before you grind this let it cool, get it to room temperature otherwise the steam that generates within will make the masala a little moist and we need it absolutely dry. 

You can roast the spices just for a minute or until the coriander and cumin seeds turn a little darker. When you roast cumin seeds until they go a little darker in shade the actual flavour of coriander and cumin seeds is given out. 

So set it aside to cool down completely before you grind this.

You can coarsely grind it or make it into a fine powder.

Dry roast dried fenugreek leaves:

First roast kasuri methi before you start your preparation. Kasuri methi in hindi is dried fenugreek leaves that can be store brought from any grocery store. If you do not get this then just sun dry few, fresh fenugreek leaves. Those are the best and can be used in various north indian dishes preparation.

Add dried fenugreek leaves into a wok and dry roast them lightly for a minute. Make sure you don't change the colour. Its nice green in colour. If you over roast it, it'll go yellow and the colour is not very appetizing. Transfer it into a bowl and set it aside. Let it cool. Once its cooled it gets very crisp.

Method to prepare kadai mushrooms:

Kadai preparation doesn't have any kind of gravvy, you just have to toss on very high flame so preferably use a wok. 

Place a pan on medium heat. Add oil into the wok, add sliced onions and fry them until they are nice and golden.

Once the onions start browning add ginger garlic paste and saute for ten seconds. 

Add green chillies, ginger, the spice powder from the roasted and ground spices and saute for 3-4 minutes.

Add tomatoes and salt and saute for 5 minutes or till the oil separates. Tomatoes have to go just soft or a little pulpy. Don't over cook the tomatoes. 

Whenever you have to cook tomatoes, add some salt to the tomatoes so that whatever moisture is present in the tomatoes is released and the tomatoes cook faster.

Add mushrooms and the three diced capsicums.

Powder the dried and roasted fenugreek leaves with your fingers. You'll be able to powder it very easily and add it to the mushrooms.

Add garam masala powder and toss well.

As this isn't a gravvy, you don't have to cook it for a long time. Mushrooms don't take long to cook. Just saute them for 2-3 minutes.

Once the mushrooms go a lttle soft, remove off heat. 

Transfer them into a serving bowl, garnish with ginger juliennes and serve hot.

Serve hot with hot phulkas or parotas. I'm sure you'll love it.

Serves: 2-3

Preparation Time: 35 minutes

Find more chapathi side dishes here

Tags: Vegetarian, Sides, Mushroom, Side dish, Indian dish, Indian spices, healthy stir fry, high proteins, antioxidants.