Basic cucumber raita

January 5, 2009 at 6:10 am (Epicurious, Indian, Sauce/dressing, Summer recipes, unrated)

On my sister’s final night in Saarbruecken I made dosas and an Indian dish with okra and onions.  Hanaleah claimed not to like dosas (too spicy) or okra, but she really liked both my dishes.  To go along with the dosas, Hanaleah decided to make raita.  She started out with this Epicurious recipe for traditional cucumber raita, substituted red onions for the scallions, and added lemon juice and salt.  Her raita was excellent, and although the recipe is quite simple, I wanted to remember it, so decided to post it here.

• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 cup finely chopped cucumber (unpeeled)
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 Tablespoon finely chopped red onions
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1? Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4? tsp. salt

Here’s a raita recipe from the cookbook “Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking” by Julie Sahni:

• 1.5 cups plain yogurt, whisked til smooth
• 1 cup peeled, grated cucumber
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 tsp. ground roasted cumin for garnish
• 1/4 tsp. paprika for garnish
• cilantro or mint for garnish

She says it can be made 5-6 hours in advance, and makes 4 servings.

I went over to my friend Anusha’s for dinner and she made a really tasty raita. It didn’t have cucumber in it, but it had lots of onions. She gave me her recipe:

• 3 onions, chopped
• 1 pinch black salt
• 1-3 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1.5 cups yogurt [depends on how thick you want it to be]
• 1/2 tomato, chopped
• 1/2 tsp. dried parsley

It seems odd that an Indian recipe calls for dried parsley.  I wonder if Anusha meant coriander?  I tried making this using three quite small onions, and it was very tasty but much too salty for me.  I had to add a lot more yogurt and more lemon juice.  But I really love the raw onions in the raita.  I’ll definitely make it again.