Diwali Dinner
Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights, that celebrates the “victory of light over darkness” and good over evil. In India, Diwali has become a national celebration that has been incorporated into other religions. For five days, celebrants light lanterns, set off firecrackers, decorate their homes, make offerings to Lakshmi (the goddess of prosperity), exchange gifts, and throw parties. Where there are parties, there is party food. It is not uncommon for Indian families to start cooking for Diwali as much as a month in advance! Most Diwali foods, both for offerings and for guests, are sweets, but there are savory treats as well. Like so much party food around the world, these tend to be finger foods, the one common exception being chaats, which are a type of salad.
Aloo Gobi Chaat Ingredients
The word chaat means “to taste,” and is used to describe a mix of a starch, like potatoes or puffed rice, with vegetables and chutney. Chaat is often sold on roadside stands in India and is a staple on buffets in Indian restaurants in the US. One of my favorites combined roasted potatoes, cauliflower, and chickpeas, which I recreated to come up with this recipe. I’m pretty sure the restaurant version involved peeling the potatoes, but I don’t bother, as potato skins are delicious and nutritious.
2 lbs. waxy potatoes*
1 small or ½ large cauliflower (about 1 ½ lbs.)*
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 can chickpeas
1 tsp. salt
Chutney:
1 medium onion*
1.5 cups cilantro (1 large bunch)
1” ginger
1-2 jalapeños or green chilies*
1 lime
1 Tbs. cumin
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. sugar
¼ cup water
*These ingredients can be found at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market
Method
Preheat oven to 425.
Cut potatoes into 1 ½” dice. Cut cauliflower into large florets, about 1 ½” across. Place on baking tray, and toss with oil and salt. Roast in oven for 20 minutes.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then pat dry with a paper towel and let air dry while the potatoes and cauliflower are roasting.
Add the chickpeas to the tray and toss. Roast for another 20 minutes or until potatoes and chickpeas are nicely browned.
While potato is cooking, cut onion into quarters. Set aside ½ cup of cilantro leaves, then cut the rest into 3-4” lengths. Cut ginger into ¼” rounds. Remove stems and seeds from jalapenos. Put onion, cilantro, ginger, and jalapenos into your food processor.
Zest and juice the lime into the food processor bowl, then add remaining chutney ingredients. Blitz until it makes a smooth sauce, adding extra water if needed.
Chop the reserved cilantro leaves and toss with the roasted vegetables and chutney in your serving bowl.
Stuffed Tomatoes Ingredients
When these are made as a side dish for a meal, they are usually cooked in a spicy gravy, but for parties where they are served as finger food, they are simply baked dry. There are many different styles of filling, I chose to use a cheese filling, because there isn’t a whole lot of protein in most Diwali dishes. In India, the cheese would be paneer, but since that isn’t widely available in the US, many Indian families here use cottage cheese as a substitute – they are very similar cheeses, the main difference being just that paneer is pressed into a block.
5-6 medium tomatoes*
½ cup cottage cheese (drain any excess liquid)
½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
1-3 green chilies, deseeded and finely chopped*
1” ginger, grated
1 tsp. garam masala
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. salt
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
*These ingredients can be found at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the tops off the tomatoes. If the bottoms are too round or uneven to stand up, remove a very thin slice off the bottom. Scoop the pulp out of the tomatoes. Reserve pulp.
Sauté ginger, chili, and tomato pulp, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is gone. Add the garam masala and cumin, and sauté another minute, stirring regularly.
Thoroughly mix cottage cheese, cilantro, tomato pulp mixture, and salt in a bowl. Stuff mixture into tomato shells.
Drizzle oil over a baking dish big enough for all the tomatoes. Place tomatoes in the dish and bake until soft, at least 15 minutes (this will depend on how big and how ripe your tomatoes are).
Hara Bhara Kebab Ingredients
Popular North Indian snack which can be found as a street food and in restaurants, as well home cooking. It’s usually served with either chutney or ketchup. Hara bahara means fresh and green in Hindi, for the peas and spinach. Kebab means what you probably think it means, food that is cooked on a skewer, but I’ve never actually seen this skewered.
2 cups fresh spinach leaves, mature or baby*
2 medium, cooked potatoes*
3/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
1-3 green chilies, deseeded and sliced*
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced*
1” ginger, peeled and cut into rounds, then sliced into matchsticks
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. lemon juice
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup cilantro
¼ cup bread crumbs*
Vegetable oil
*These ingredients can be found at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market
Method
If you are using mature spinach, roughly chop the leaves and stems.
In a frying pan on medium heat, heat one tablespoon of oil. Add ginger and chili, and stir constantly for 30 seconds. Add the garlic and continue stirring constantly for another 30 seconds. Add the peas and spinach, along with a couple of tablespoons of water, mix until well combined, and keep cooking while stirring occasionally until the spinach is wilted and the mixture is nearly dry, 3 or 4 minutes.
Pour the spinach mixture and cilantro into your food processor with the chopping blade, and process until it makes a smooth paste.
Remove the peel from the potatoes, place in a mixing bowl, and mash. Add the paste from the food processor, lemon juice, garam masala, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs. Mix until it makes a dough.
Form 2-3 tablespoons of the dough into a ball, flatten to make a patty.
Heat a frying pan or griddle with 1 tablespoon of oil. Pan fry the kababs until golden brown on one side, then turn them over and continue to pan fry until golden on the other side. Add oil as needed.
