This is one of my favourites. Mom used to plant taro tubers in our backyard to make these delicious alu wadi’s with their leaves. I’ve never tried making them until recently.

Saffron Trail had blogged about Alu Wadi couple of months back , wanted to try it out but had no idea which would substitute best instead of taro root leaves. Few days back Vee posted a yummy ” Pathrado ” recipe were she had used collard greens. Thanks to both, I tried making Vee’s PATHRADO (in konkani) and Saffron Trail’s ALOO WADI (in marathi) and liked both the recipes, made one with collard greens and the other with swiss chard. The third time slightly tweaked Saffron Trail’s recipe and the results were pretty good. I liked collard greens better than the swiss chard, collard greens are a little crunchier. Here’s the recipe…

Alu Wadi

Ingredients:

* Collard greens
* Gram Flour/besan 1 cup
* Rice Flour 1/4 cup
* Tamarind paste 1/4 tbsp
* Turmeric Powder 1/4 tsp
* Red chilli powder 1tsp to 1 1/2 tsp ( according to you taste)
* Coriander powder 1tsp
* Asafoetida 1/4 tsp
* Salt to taste
* ( For tempering -1 tsp coconut oil/ sesame oil, mustard seeds 1/2 tsp, sesame seeds 1/2 tsp , Grated coconut 2 tsp)

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together except the collard greens using little water and make a thick paste ( urad vada/ ulundu vadai consistency). Rinse the greens under water and wipe them dry. Cut the thick veins so that folding becomes easier.

Apply a even layer of paste on the lighter side of the leaves, stack upto three layers and roll them just like THIS . Steam them in a pressure cooker for 10 – 15 minutes. Check them if they are cooked by inserting a tooth pick. If it comes out clean then its cooked. Let them cool. Then slice them to 1/2?’ pieces.

Heat oil in a pan, pop mustard seeds . When the start to splutter add sesame seeds and saute just for few seconds . Add the slices and grated coconut to this and saute gently for about 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve warm !!!