Vegetable Jalfrezi

Life has changed beyond recognition in the past three decades or so. No one imagined what the dual power of Manmohan Singh's Economic liberalization and the internet boom was to become. Now with the smart phone in everybody's hand life has changed in the east as well as the west. When I came to the States last decade, we used to travel with actual maps in hand. When wee did take the wrong exit and boy o boy, all hell would break loose especially because we did mostly make wrong moves in the confusing concrete jungle called New York City. It used to be soooo difficult to get back on track with just the maps on hand. Now with the GPS life is so much more easy, got lost? fine re-route automatically. Hey we now have GPS signals under Lincoln tunnel and Holland tunnel as well! (blaah!! Delhi Metro has cellphone signals under Chandni Chowk....  Not really sure if NYC metro has caught up. It has been ages since I rode the metro the last time)

Life back in India has changed much drastically. It is not just about little conveniences any more. It is about leap and bounds, the change in the way we think. Every time I go back to Bangalore I notice so many restaurants, eateries etc. Karnataka never really had that culture of eating out like say the extent I saw in foodie cities like Amritsar, Delhi and Lucknow. I assume smaller towns too had that culture. Back in the 1990s when my father was posted in Amritsar, we were surprised to see our neighbors buying sweets/Mithai from the sweet shop even on the occasion of say Diwali and other festivals.  Our friends would be surprised to see that my mother could make Gulab Jamoon (out of the pack!!) at home. "You make everything from scratch, we get everything from the bazaar"..they did always say. Also the culture of street food was widely prevalent. People driving in cars (that was a big deal in early 1990s) stopping to grab a quick bite on one of the street side 'thela' was a common sight. That was not as simple in south Karnataka. Road side shacks were mostly for those who could not afford to eat Dose/Idli at the nearest restaurant/Phalahara Mandira. The most we could get from such shacks was assorted Bhajji's which papa would get from some place quite far from where we lived in Mysore ocassionally to add to the meal Amma had already prepared. I was particularly fond of the Egg Bonda. But that shack opened only during the evenings, sort of patronized by people who had had a couple of drinks or more. My grandparents never ate street food. My mother till date is rather suspicious of street food. Despite the time she has spent in the northern heartland, she is still a very much Vidyarthi Bhavan/Janta hotel types.
But our generation went on the become something else. Now eating out is a part of life style. We are very well exposed to different culinary tradition, we are open to trying out new things, we try new restaurants and try to replicate dishes we liked there at home. Despite the dust and the sweat, we still love our street food.Things have changed, changed quite a lot.

To summarize the change, Sunny boy loves Sashimi! while my mother could not get herself to eat an absolutely vegetarian avocado roll with wasabi and ginger pickle to boot! I am somewhere in the middle.
Strangely enough Sunny boy finds Canola oil smelly and yucky while a perfectly smelly fish curry smells just good. Good for me though, fish being a whole food canola oil is mostly GMO, that story for another day, now for some Jalfrezi, something I love in one of the restaurants here and tried to replicate.

We will need,

Mixed vegetables (Green Beans, Carrots, Broccoli, Bell peppers) cleaned and cut into big chunks3 cups ( keep the veggies separate)
Peanut oil 1/4 cup (yes that is a lot)
Cumin seeds 1/2 tsp
Fennel 1/4 seeds
Ginger match stick cut 1"
Onion 1 small sliced
Green Chillies 5-10 as preferred
Cumin powder 1 tsp
Dhania power 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder 1/4 tsp
Tomatoes 2 chopped
Panner 1/2 cup cubed

Garam Masala
Sugar 1 tsp
Juice from half a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Steam vegetables separately till they are half cooked. They should still remain most of their crunch.
• Heat oil in a Kadai. Throw in the cumin seeds and fennel seeds. Once they splutter, throw in half the ginger, saute for a few seconds and follow it with onions.Saute.
• Once the onions change color, throw in the green chillies and the spice powders. Keep stirring making sure the spiced would not burn. Once the spices are fragrant, throw in the tomatoes.
• Cook tomatoes till they are pulpy and the oil separates from the mixture. Now throw in the Panner toss gently in the spices.
• After a minute or two, throw in the remaining vegetables, Garam Masala, sugar, remainng ginger, salt, lemon juice and pepper. 
• Give it a gentle toss.Cook for a few more minutes till the vegetables are a little more tender. Remove from heat.
• Shift the Jalfrezi immediately from the hot Kadai because the hot Kadai will otherwise continue to cook the dish and the vegetables will become mushy by the time it is served. (I had this problem several times and I hate mushy vegetables in a Jalfrezi)
• Serve with Roti and dal