Oondhiyon

Every state and community has its own version of mixed vegetables. In Uttar Pradesh, I once ate a dish with 24 vegetables, excluding onions, cooked on a festival. The Sindhis have their own version of mixed vegetables known as Saibhaji. Oondhiyon is typically cooked during the winter months with ringan (eggplant), kand (purple yam), baby potatoes, shakadia ( sweet potatoes), surati papdi ( no English name that I am aware of), raw bananas, and muthiya (fenugreek fritters). Most of the vegetables are rather elusive, however with a large Gujarati diaspora well settled in the United States, frozen and canned version of some of the vegetables are available. You can buy frozen or canned papdi, however, not finding any of those, I just used fresh snow peas. I used frozen fenugreek for the fritters and did not find purple yam at all.
Oondhiyon is a rustic preparation; make sure the vegetables are chunky and hearty so they can withstand the slow heat and do not disintegrate. Traditionally oondhiyon is cooked in earthen pots on a low flame, with layers of vegetables and spices.
I started off with ½ cup of besan to which I added 1 tspn of ajwain and ¼ cup of fenugreek leaves. This was frozen fenugreek which had been thawed and wringed off excessive water. I made a dough adding water, shaped it into a thin log, cut off pieces, and deep fried them. Meanwhile I chopped my vegetables - thick chunks of 2 raw banana with the peel on and made small slits, slits into 5 baby eggplants, slits into 5 baby potatoes, large chunks of the sweet potatoes with slits. I kept aside 1 ½ cups of snow peas.
And then I blend the following – 5 cloves of garlic, 2” piece ginger, 4 green chilies, 3 tbspn sesame seeds, ½ cup coriander leaves, 2 tspns coriander powder, 1 tspn cumin powder, 2 tbspns oil. I hate peanuts so I used sesame seeds instead. This was the only time I used oil in the recipe and I did not add any jaggery to the blend which an authentic Gujarati will definitely not refrain from.
I inserted some of the spice mixture into the slits I had made in the vegetables, keeping the rest aside. Then take a heavy bottomed pan and layer the vegetables carefully. Add the reserve spice mixture and 1 cup of water. Cook on low heat.
When the vegetables were nearly done, I tasted the veggies and added 1 tspn aamchoor powder ( I was missing the tanginess) and 1 tspn garam masala (I was missing the kick)…making my recipe a departure form tradition. I then garnished the recipe with the muthiya and chopped coriander leaves.