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Usually, when we think of lunch, we think of curries and gravies in India. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the Indian cuisine is full of a variety of curries. A curry, for the unversed, is a delicious curry made from different ingredients, depending on the dish. You know what the culinary experts say. They believe that Indian cuisine is so vast that it cannot be incorporated into a single term. The diversity comes from the different regions of India. Each region has its own specific cuisine that is unique to them. No wonder how one dish gets so intrinsically associated with a particular region, city or country. Take pav for instance. The pav is a soft bun-like bread which is made with yeast. Commonly eaten in Maharashtra and Goa, the pav was brought to us by the Portuguese.
Similarly, several other cuisines have gone under foreign influences and taken shape to the present-day. It is a lesser-known fact that Gujarati cuisine was one of them. The Arab travelers who came by sea, moved to west coast as the direction of the wind allowed. These travelers settled in Gujarat for approximately six months. It was during their stay that they left behind traces of Persian and Gulf heritage. The Gujaratis relish tomatoes and potatoes a lot today. Did you know that they were a gift from the foreigners who settled there? The Arabs introduced the locals to halwa-e-jamia, which was later called Sheero in Gujarati.
Given the large-scale influence of foreigners in the region, they devised a delicious lunch recipe called Sev Tameta Nu Shaak. Shaak, in Gujarati, refers to curry and tameta refers to tomatoes. The yummy combination of a spicy tomato curry, topped with sev is a lunch staple in the region. Sev, for those untouched by the phenomenon, are crunchy and crispy fried pieces of sticks made from besan aka gram flour generally. The fascination of Gujaratis with sev is unmatched. They have it with almost every meal. Hence, sev tameta nu shaak is also prepared with these staple ingredients.
Do you want to try this lunch recipe too? Filled with sour tomatoes, onions and crunchy sev, the curry is a wholesome meal for one. If you’re getting too tempted, then start by slicing tomatoes into halves. The tomatoes are added to a pressure cooker along with water. Once the tomatoes are ready, cool them down by spreading them on a plate. Since the tomatoes would have become soft by now, you have to peel them and chop them. Next, start making the curry masala by adding mustard, cumin and some curry leaves to ghee in a pan. Dice some green chillies with ginger and roast all of this together.
Add some turmeric and red chilli powder to the pan and sweeten it with some jaggery. Boil this altogether with tomato juice and finally, add the crunchy sev in the end since it doesn’t require any cooking. Garnish with chopped coriander and some crunchy sev and enjoy.
Here’s a step-by-step recipe of the dish.
