Ask any Indian about moringa flowers and we will be able to vouch for the fact that it makes for a great ingredient. The world may be waking up to the benefits of moringa now, but the ingredient is abundantly available in India and there are many traditional recipes which are cooked up with it. Chef Avinash Martins and former Indian cricketer and current commentator Ajay Jadeja are proving this with their recent farm-to-table collaboration.
In a recent Instagram video shared by Chef Avinash Martins, the duo are seen sourcing fresh moringa flowers from Ajay Jadeja’s home. Ajay Jadeja not only picks the best moringa flowers, but also goes on to prep for the entire dish by chopping up onions, ginger and green chillies. The camera is then handed over to Ajay Jadeja, who captures Chef Avinash Martins cooking a quick moringa flower bhaji or stir-fry with minimal ingredients.
Chef Avinash Martins cooks up this moringa flower or sahjan phool bhaji by first taking the flowers of the stems and washing them up. He then heats a tablespoon of oil, adds slit green chillies and sliced gingers to it. This is followed by onions, the moringa flowers, turmeric powder, salt and lastly, coriander leaves as a garnish. The entire dish took the chef just two-three minutes to cook up.
In his post on Instagram, Chef Avinash Martins also thanked Ajay Jadeja for the entire experience. “This one was totally not planned…..Ajay bhai told me what can we do with the morniga flowers? And I did a quick stir-fry out of it,” he wrote in the post, while also appreciating the fact that the former cricketer helped avert a major disaster in his village to preserve the flora and fauna, including the much-loved moringa flowers.