Arbi / colacassia / sepankizhangu makes a delicious side dish as roasted vegetables with spices for chinna vengayam sambar ( shallots sambar) specially .

Makes a perfect side dish for rasam or pepper rasam too .

Recipe :

Ingredients

2 cups small arbi/ colacassia/ taro , whole ones, dont chop

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp split udad dal

2-3 red dry broken chillies

3 tbsp sesame oil

some curry leaves

salt as required

For the masala coating

1 tsp coriander powder

pinch of turmeric powder

1 tsp kashmiri chilli powder

pinch of asafoetida powder

pinch of salt

2 tbsp besan flour or rice flour

Method :

1. First wash the arbi well two to three times, and pressure cook the arbi for 2-3 whistles or cook on stove top till they are just about soft and cooked . This is very crucial; to get perfect roast as the arbi turns mushy very quickly with even one extra whistle.

2. Release the pressure carefully, and allow to cool after rinsing them in cool water so that they stop getting mushy .

3. Now take a bowl and add all the masala ingredients mentioned above, add in the coriander powder, chili powder, turmeric powder , asafoetida powder , pinch of salt. mix all these well . keep aside .

4. Now heat about 2 tbsp sesame oil in a pan, allow the mustard sees to splutter, add in split udad dal, chana dal, some curry leaves.

5. Slice the arbi after peeling them into roundels keeping them little thicker slices .

6. Now toss the arbi gently in the bowl of the dry masalas that we prepared, lastly add the besan flour or rice flour to coat the arbi, make sure to toss well but gently as you dont want to mash them . dont add any water, as the arbi would be moist after cooking . and the dry masalas will coat the arbi well .

7. Now take these well coated arbi roundels to the pan in which we have prepared the oil tempering , toss well in the tempering and allow to cook well covered , so that no water drips in , this way the arbi gets a nice roasted skin and occasionally open the lid to check in so that it is coated evenly , remove when the exterior of arbi looks crisp and browned well .

8. you can bake these too to get a nice roasted effect .

9. Enjoy with lemon rasam, pepper rasam or Mysore rasam .

10. Sauteeing in an iron kadai will give even better roasted effect and a crunchy coat .

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