Phodani Linguini

While shopping for groceries today I thought of fusing Italian and Maharashtrian cooking styles. And thus how phodani pasta was born.

Now I need to explain some terms before I get on with the recipe.

Phodani - In Maharashtrian cooking, when we cook vegetables, we shallow fry spices and condiments such as mustard seeds, turmeric, chili powder or chopped chilies, cumin, masaala etc. This process is called as Phodani in Marathi and Tadaka in Hindi. We also shallow fry onions, tomatoes etc. However I am not certain if that is part of this Phodani process or not.

Linunini - Pasta is a generic term with many varieties such as Linguini, Spaghetti, Penne, Fettuccini etc.  I am not an expert on this, but I think they are classified based on texture, thickness, geometry etc.

So without further ado, here is my recipe.

Ingredients

• Whole grain wheat Linguini pasta
• Salt, ginger paste, garlic paste, garam masaala
• Green Onions, green chilies, tomatoes, crushed peanuts, cilantro parsley
• Tofu
• Mozzarella cheese (grated), 
• Olive oil, white wine vinegar

Recipe

1. Boil water to appropriate temperature. Add salt to it for taste. Cook the Linguini pasta in the water.
2. While the pasta is being cooked, finely chop green onions, tomatoes, green chilies, cilantro and keep them separate. Also cut tofu into small pieces of appropriate size.
3. As the pasta gets cooked, drain the water and store the pasta separately.
4. In a woke or kadhai, heat olive oil to appropriate temperature. If you are new to the process of Phodani, you can put some mustard seeds in the oil. When the oil is appropriately hot, you can hear cracking sound of the mustard seeds.
5. In the heated oil carefully put chopped onions and shallow fry them till light pink. Add chopped green chilies and stir for a bit.
6. Lower the heat as we do not want to burn the phodani.
7. Then add to that mixture, ginger paste,  garlic paste and stir for a bit. Add garam masaala to this and stir till it becomes homogeneous. Thus now the phodani paste is prepared. Add chopped tomatoes to this and stir till tomatoes get mixed up.
8. Add little quantity of white wine vinegar to the phodani. Stir this mixture again. You may be able to smell the phodani and also the white wine vinegar.
9. Once you are convinced that your phodani mixture is ready, add the cooked pasta to it.
10. Add tomato basil pasta sauce and tofu pieces. Keep stirring till the separate ingredients are mixed. You can also add some white wine vinegar after the pasta is added.
11. Once everything looks properly mixed, serve the dish garnished with crushed peanuts, grated mozzarella cheese and put a couple of cilantro leaves on top.

Here is how my Phodani Linguni looked like after served.

Notes and Disclaimers

1. Please note that I am not responsible in any way if you decide to follow this recipe in full or in part.
2. I chose tomato basil pasta sauce as the colour looks better as compared to alfredo sauce in this particular recipe. And also because that was the only sauce I had at that time. Paneer might be a good alternative if tofu is not available. But I have not tried it so you are on your own.
3. I reserve the right to change this recipe in any way in future.