Fried cabbage and beets (not together!)

I think it is possible to write this recipe in one line, because that’s how simple it is. Challenge accepted.

Ingredients :

1 cup chopped cabbage

I cup chopped or grated beetroot (Grated is better)

1 Green chilli, or chilli pepper. Chilli peppers are more easy to find where I live. They look like this, and are less spicy than their tiny green cousins:

Tomatoes, cucumber and spinach for salad

Plain yoghurt/curd

salt and pepper

Sunflower oil

Mustard seeds(optional)

Store bought tortillas

Method:

Heat some oil. Pop some mustard seeds in it once the oil gets hot. Fry the chillies and cabbage with some salt until the cabbage becomes transparent. Repeat for the beetroot. You will know the beetroot is cooked when the raw smell and water content disappears, and it starts to get slightly caramelized. There done. Darn it! That was three sentences, not one, but my point still stands.

Now for the salad. You take the tomato, cucumber, spinach, yoghurt, salt and pepper, mix it up, and do what one usually does with salads. Consume it, feel super healthy for a while, and then reward themselves with one kilo of chocolate cake. Maybe skip the last bit.

Where I come from, these stir fries of vegetables are called “palyas”. They mostly consist of one vegetable, without counting onions, and sometimes tomatoes, stir fried with some spices. They are eaten with hot, soft, fresh chapattis, in other words, thin, baked whole wheat dough circles. Indian mothers and grandmas are bestowed special powers by the chapatti gods, which enables them to create perfectly round chapattis. The origin of such powers are one of earth’s greatest unsolved mysteries. (It is just practice, you idiot. And a little bit of patriarchy).

Everyone has their favourite vegetable palya, and one that they despise so much that they had to hide bits of their food behind potted plants or under furniture, or throw them on top of cupboards, only to be found months later by a puzzled family member doing chores. This is based on true events, the perpetrator being my brother. The motive behind these crimes was to not disappoint my mother, and to trick her into thinking the vegetables had been consumed. My favourite ‘palya’ is okhra/ladies finger(I don’t know why it is called that, feel free to imagine)/bhindi. It is a favourite only in when it is cooked well and not the sticky gummy mess it has the potential to be. Green brinjal palya comes quite close. It upgraded from the most hated vegetable to a favourite, thanks to my grandma’s magic. She always made it so firm, well fried, and perfectly spiced.

It is hard for me to find the perfect flour for chappatis. Even if I did find it, I don’t have too much time to make each individual chapatti by hand. If I did that, where will I find the time to procrastinate on school work then? So a good substitute is tortilla wraps, readily available in most grocery stores in Sweden. When I do find the materials and the time management skills, I will be sure to post it here. So, stick around my imaginary, invisible audience.