There are two, maybe three things, that I cannot live without in my fridge. Tomato, curry leaves and coriander. I’ve known coriander since I was a tiny baby, enjoying my cup of warm rasam sadam mashed with ghee. I know it by a few names – kothamalli, kothmiri soppu, dhania, coriander, cilantro. I relish kothamalli. A rasam is never complete without kothamalli. A chaat without dhania is like eating a dish without its finishing touch. I cannot imagine Rava Idli without coriander. It goes with anything, into almost everything. But the coriander is not just about garnish or addition for flavour. There’s Kothamalli Thogayal (a delicately flavoured thick sauce), Kothamalli Pickle, Kothamalli Podi – all of which are made from the leaves and not the seeds.
You can head to this Wikipedia link for your dose of information such as ‘every part is edible’ and ‘the Europeans except the Portuguese gave up coriander from their cooking’. You can check out a “How to Grow” at this link.
There are few new pieces of information about coriander “the herb not the spice” that I gathered today while researching for this post.
The Web Gyaan: Many sites say that the coriander leaves have a pungent taste. And a equally pungent odour.
My Take:Odour? Fragrance would be a more appropriate word. Pungent?!! Babies usually love rasam and most don’t mind massive use of the coriander at all. Babies’ opinion wins hands down. Coriander leaves are fragrant with a mild warm taste.
The Web gyaan: Coriander refers to the seeds, coriander leaves or cilantro to the leaves.
My take:Contray to what the web says is the norm, when we say coriander, we mostly mean the leaves – when we say coriander seeds, we mean the seeds. Note that the we refers to my small world much like the world of the frog that lived in the well.
The Web gyaan: The herb is an aphrodisiac. The Chinese used them in potions for immortality. The Arabian Nights has many stories providing more proof, though fictional, that the herb has aphrodisiacal properties or at least people believed them to be so. The Ayurveda lists it as an aphrodisiac.
My take:I am not sure if anyone ever became immortal from having coriander potions. If coriander is indeed an aphrodisiac and listed by Ayurveda as one, I am surprised that it finds its way into the food culture of the community I hail from. Many times we’ve been chided right on this blog for using onions or garlic in an odd recipe. In not too ancient times, in generations as recent as my grandparents the use of onion and garlic in cooking was considered a sin by Iyengars because these were bad “tamasika bhava” food. To my knowledge coriander leaves definitely don’t occupy this list. I can almost imagine a historical scene – the clever maamis and silly mamas have a grand meet to cook food, eat food, have a community burping session and decide on food rules. The silly mamas boom about the banning of onions and garlic from “saatvik” food. The maamis readily agree – they can do away with tons of peeling, putting up with pungent smell and crying. One really really silly mama who hates coriander suggests, “let’s do away with coriander”. One clever maami retorts, “You mean let’s subject ourselves to tasteless torture? Let’s take a vote”. Coriander wins hands down and stays put in the Iyengar cuisine. Please note that this account is entirely fictional!
The recent addition of a muffin tray to my kitchen was accompanied by an empty gas cylinder. I baked these muffins for breakfast a couple of days back. They’re eggless, savoury and almost oil free.
Makes: 6 medium, 10 small
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour – 1 cup
- Carrots – 1 cup (grated)
- Coriander (Fresh Leaves) – 1/2 cup (chopped into fine bits)
- Black Pepper Corns – 1 tsp (crushed)
- Baking Powder – 1 tsp
- Cooking Soda – 1/2 tsp
- Salt – 1/2 tsp
- Curd – 1 tbsp
- Tomatoes (pureed into medium consistency) – 1/2 cup
- Milk – 3/4 cup
- Olive Oil – 1 tbsp
Method
- Grease or line a muffin tray. Preheat oven to 220 C.
- Saute the coriander in some oil till the crackling sound subsides.
- Mix the All Purpose Flour, Coriander, Carrots, Baking Powder, Cooking Soda, Salt and Black Peppercorns.
- Fold in the Tomato Puree and Milk into the flour mix. Add curd.
- Pour batter into muffin moulds all the way to the top.
- Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Carrot-Coriander Muffins are off to Divya at DilSe for Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB). WHB is a weekly food blogging event started by Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen focused on herbs in cooking.
those are fabulous! let’s have a muffin party! I made some savory muffins yesterday too!
now i am damn kicked about this muffin party idea. we should seriously do it.
My fridge is never without curry leaves, coriander, thick yogurt and tomatoes. Never knew coriander was an aphrodisiac either! It’s certainly used in Jain cooking which is all saatvic.
The 3 things in my fridge that I cannot live without? Yogurt, yogurt, corriander leaves and did I say yogurt 🙂 Loved this recipe of savory muffin. Bookmarked.
hehehehe – loved the fiction in there..hehehe- The possibility of the fact that this fiction could actually have been true is what makes this so hilarious to me.
Savory muffins are the best..luv them. Urs luk chooo cuteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 🙂 🙂
Never imagined muffins with coriander..Thanks for sending this to WHB..Looks pretty..I should try this for sure..
Your post made a good read on coriander. Enjoyed the fiction part. Savory muffins looks delicious. Got to try it soon.
Hmm … are you sure there’s Z E R O gms of cheese in there? Don’t think I’ll harp on this any longer, though 😉
Liked your take on how the foods came to be classified as permissible and not. 🙂
“If coriander is indeed an aphrodisiac and listed by Ayurveda as one, I am surprised that it finds its way into the food culture of the community I hail from.” – Maybe it’s the degree of the aphrodisiac content, could it be that? 😀
Are drumsticks forbidden?
See this link – it’s interesting.
http://www.itgo.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295§ionid=1&secid=5&Itemid=1
I once had a conversation with Raaga and apparently drumsticks are forbidden. Incidentally there are these 21 verses in Tamizh written by Vedantha Desikar that tells exactly what foods are consumed in saativik bhava and what foods are not to be consumed because they’re tamasik in nature. Probably the classification went by chief function? I am not sure. I’d really like to understand why and how foods were classified as saativik or thamasik. I don’t think it could have been random – but what’s the reasoning behind it?
Amazing! love your take on coriander..
Coriander having an odour is a new and weird one! An these muffins look as good as the previous ones.
Another muffin treat….you really are putting that new muffin pan to good use, aren’t you???
Why is it surprising that an aphrodisiac should make it into the everyday cuisine of your community??? Isn’t henna/marudhani an aphrodisiac and supposedly an extremely important part of most auspicious Iyengar events???
The odour/fragrance part I think, is mainly cultural. While we Indians think of many of our spices as fragrant, other cultures which are not exposed to these strong smells find it difficult to get used to.
Marudhani is an aphrodisiac?! Ok, so I think “progeny” is something all communities are obsessed with.
But then consumption of aphrodisiacs is supposedly not in “saatvik bhava” and therefore not generally accepted. At least that is the justification for the avoidance of onions and garlic that I’ve been getting from numerous sources from my grandfather to a friend who’s an ISKCON devotee to many other such learned people. I am surprised because given the explanation, I don’t get why an exception was made for coriander!
Wow….the muffins look lovely! And your story on the foods is funny 🙂
The ingredients, vegetables or herbs that are considered aphrodisiac are not used for ceremonies (death anniversaries, amavasya and mahalaya paksham). So many vegetables and herbs are avoided on these days and only people who have the habit of performing these ceremonies at home are aware of the cooking methods adopted during these days. There are definitely good reasons behind everyone of the habits and customs observed by our ancestors and it does take some patience and time to understand. It is really surprising that most people are ready to believe the statements made by some unknown scientist and pose 101 questions to our own grandmas! Does it take some odd scientist to prove that thayir saadam is good for health or turmeric kills the bacteria in lentils?
We may not need strict scientific proof but reasoning is required. More so because grandmas did not make up many of these rules, because anybody who had considerable influence did. If you actually read the verses from the Vedas, or Bhagavat Gita, they do not classifcy anything as good or bad but set guidelines. I think it became a rule because some folks thought it should or made it into a rule, whereas the listing of food as saatvik or tamasik was actually a guideline rather than a rule.
There should be reasoning – a reasoning that mind can accept, believe and follow. Otherwise a practice to give women rest during menstruation can become an obnoxious rule that treats them like they are impure.
Very interesting. I think I’m pretty unaware of these types of food rules. I do love my cilantro though, whether or not it has special properties! The muffins look delicious.
such pretty looking muffins da… i was searching for this one.. as i saw pics but didnt comment…. and deary how did d budday go….
hey
Interesting muffin there… am not too fond of coriander, infact i pick out the leaves wherever i see it..so much so that at home i get rasam, sambar, etc without coriander… 😀
but i dont mind using it in gravy’s etc.. and this i shall def try!!:)
Carrot and coriander go so well together. I always make this simple side where grated carrots are used. Would have never thought of putting it in a muffin.
Savory muffins! What a delicious idea. I’ve made the usual sweet carrot muffins before, but this would be much healthier. Thanks for the recipe.
as i was looking out the blogs related to cuisine, i came upon this muffin. muffins with carrot,yogurt and coriander as the main ingredient must be something different. i am to start trying this recipe in my kitchen. thanks for the exciting recipe!
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Wow! Never heard of this before… savory muffins are pretty alien to me. Gonna make it today! Love it
Will let u know how it went
Found your blog while searching for muffin recipes !WOW ! those look delicious. I have a question though: What is All purpose flour ? is it Maida? or ? also do you recommend any particular brand of cooking soda– I once tried adding 1/4 th spoon in some recipe and although it came out good , it left me ( and my husband) with itchy throat 😦
Thanks
Hi Lakshmi, your carrot- coriander muffins are really innovative and nutritious. Iam a nutritionist and i love collection low calorie and healthy recipes. I would like to put your recipe on my blog, kindly let me know if you approve of it. Overall a great blog..keep up amazing posts.
regards
Richa
http://www.aloofries.wordpress.com
This is very special recipe and different. Never heard of it before.
Hi
Nice recipe.I was wondering if I can use atleast part wheat flour instead of maida.I can’t wait to make this-it would make a great breakfas item..I am so tired of cereal!
Geetha
Whats tough now is how the systematic appearance to ones life is not changed. This may sound out of line? It is nearly as if we crawl through life with our eyes closed on, not understanding the true meaning of our own destiny.