Its Summer time, and the first change that we implement in these days is we alter our diet. We need to stop consuming oily and spicy food and start eating fresh seasonal produce. Seasonal fruits like muskmelons, peaches, watermelons that are high in water content must be preferred.
Vegetables like snake gourd, bottle gourd, spinach should be included in daily diet as they are rich in nutrients. Juices like lemon juice, avla juice, that cater to vitamin C requirement are must in this season. You need to start including yogurt in your diet in form of buttermilk, plain Lassi (sweet/salty), mango Lassi or raita. Raita is a very important side dish that is traditionally served with spicy Indian food like biryanis to counter the spiciness and pacify the palate.
Preparation of raita does not necessarily needs to adhere to any recipe. In fact what I love about raita is that you can add or omit as many ingredients as you like and it would still be as delicious. The only chief ingredient that cannot be omitted is curd. You can take thick-curd or natural curd which comes with some water-content. I prefer natural curd, as I like to retain some water content in raita and not make it too thick. To start with, we beat the curd using a whisk until it turns smooth. We have made use of only few vegetables like onion, cucumber, tomatoes and green chilly. Then add roasted and powdered cumin seeds that imparts a nutty flavor to this raita. I would recommend that you grind the roasted cumin into powder at home, instead of buying the packaged cumin powder. I feel that the packaged version is no where as aromatic as the freshly grounded cumin. Roasted peanuts are grounded into coarse form and added to this Raita. Roasted peanuts make this raita crunchy and gives it a nuttier flavor and is a must add ingredient according to me.
Finally, as we do not want someone to label us as being biased towards vegetables and doing injustice to fruits, we add some Pomegranate aril (red colored seed pod which are encapsulated inside white pith) on top of raita. Pomegranate are low in calories, high in fibre, vitamins and phytochemicals ( they help to keep your heart healthy).
Beat the Summer heat with this awesome Veg Raita, and remember to do some morning workout to stay fit!!
Click here to watch recipe video
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Cook time:
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Serves: 4
- 2 small tomato finely cut
- 1 medium sized onion finely cut
- 1 small sized cucumber cut into small pieces
- 1 green chili chopped finely
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar (I used sugar free 1 tsp)
- 2 tsp roasted cumin finely powdered
- 3 tbsp roasted peanuts coarsely powdered
- 200 gram thick curd
- ½ cup pomegranate
- Finely chop all the vegetables and keep it aside.
- Dry roast peanuts on low flame till it turns brown. Grind the peanuts to make a coarse powder.
- Dry roast cumin seeds and grind it to coarse powder.
- In a bowl, mix all the vegetables. Add sugar, salt, curd and whisk it nicely.
- Now add powdered cumin seeds and mix it well.
- Add powdered roasted peanuts and mix it well.
- Spread the pomegranate on top of veg raita.
- Refrigerate it and take it out for serving before 15 min .
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