Strawberry Raita/Thayir Pachadi

   Raita/thayir paccahadi is a yogurt based salad traditionally served in India with biryani/pulav or any variety rice. With plenty of strawberries in hand, my innovations with strawberries doesn't seem to end. I made tomato rice for lunch yesterday and  while making raita the idea of adding strawberries flashed in.

Ingredients:
      Strawberries - 1/2 a dozen + 1 for decoration
      Coriander - few leaves
      Greek Style yogurt - 2 cups
      Red onion - 1
      Black Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp or Green chillies(chopped)  - 1/2 tsp
      Salt - 1/4 tsp      

      

       Step 1:
        Thinly slice red onion and wash them in a bowl of water . Chop strawberries(reserving one for decoration) and coriander

    Step 2:
     Add the chopped onions and coriander with the yogurt and mix it with a spatula

Step 3:
 Using the peppercorn grinder add some cracked pepper,salt and mix well again. Green chillies or pepper powder can be used instead of cracked pepper

Step 4:
     Garnish with corainder and decorate by placing the strawberry at the centre

Kosambari (With strawberry)

Kosambari is a mung bean salad made in karnataka. There are plenty of versions of kosambari . It's tradionally made with split yellow mung bean ,cucumber ,coriander, carrot ,chilli, lime juice and grated carrots. Retaining the main ingredient yellow split mung bean i  wanted to try out a different combination . With my strawberrymania at the moment i couldn't help but slice in some of these berries into kosambari. This is the first time ever i'm adding a fruit to kosambari and it tasted heavenly.

Main Ingredients:
Yellow Split Mung Bean - 1/2 cup
Fresh lime - 1/4
Baby Chantenay Carrot- 1
Manzanilla olives with lemon and coriander dressing - 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Black pepper powder - 1/4 tsp
Strawberries - 4

Optional Ingredient :

Finely chopped red onions - 1 tsp

Pre-Requisites:
Soak the yellow split mung bean for half an hour in water

Servings:
Serves 2

Salad Preparation Method:
Peel the skin of carrot and grate it.Chop the strawberries and reserve one for decoration. Mix all the ingredients by sqeezing in a dash of Lime.

With legumes, fruit, veg , onion and olive going in , i couldn't ask for more for my one of 5-A-Day!

Sending this entry to this month's challenge 'Legume Salad - No Croutons Required ' @ Lisa's Kitchen  :