Mirchi Ka Salan

I went grocery shopping and found these really good green mirchi - the ones that we use to make bajji's - the ones that are not too spicy. I just grabbed it up and wanted to make something with it other than bajjis. There was this nice restaurant in Chennai where I once had a really nice Mirchi Ka Salan. I've never really made it before. So, I wanted to try it out.

After googling for a while, I ended up with a few different recipes for mirchi ka salan - some were the hyderabadi. Some had so much coconut in it, I'm guessing it was Kerala's - haha. Anyways. I got the idea and here's my version of it.

Ingredients required -

Sesame Street - oops - that's a kids show - sesame seeds I mean - roast them separately - 1/4 cup
Peanuts - roasted, unsalted, peeled - about 1/2 cup
Coconuts - a little bit
Jeera, Coriander - fry about 1tsp of each separately
Ginger
Garlic
Green Chilli - 2
Red Chilli - 2
Tamarind - enough to make about 2-3 tbsp of tamarind juice
Shimla Mirch - about 5-6


Before you start anything, preheat your oven to 350 and then throw in the mirchis in a pan and bake it for about 15 mins - keep checking to see if the chillies are seared well -they should start to blacken on the outside - remove from the oven when you see a couple of black spots.


In a pan, dry roast sesame seed and remove, then dry roast the peanuts and remove, then dry roast the jeera and coriander seeds and remove. Now, mix them all up in the blender - add coconut to this and grind well into a paste.


In the same pan, now add ginger and garlic, red chilli and green chilli and then onions. Saute them for a while and then add about 2tbsp of tamarind juice. When this is done well, move it to a blender and blend it well.



When the mirchi is done in the oven, cut it open and deseed it. And cut the mirchi into 2 pieces. Add them to a pan and saute for a min. Then add the onion paste and the peanut paste. Add salt, a tsp of garam masala and let it cook for about 10 mins.



You are done. Serve hot with Chappathis or parathas. Enjoy!