Corn and Spinach Handvo

 Handvo is one of the most popular Gujarati dishes. I love the way Handvo is traditionally cooked. It has a special pot that looks like a huge bundt pan, there is a tray underneath which is filled with sand and Handvo batter is poured into it and then the whole set up is placed on stove top. It keeps cooking this dish for an hour or so. It does take time but makes a huge batch, and the leftovers taste so good the next days.

Totally worth the wait time to make it. It creates this dark brown colored crispiest edges and top, due to the flour used in the recipe is made from lentils and rice and has soft texture inside it. People compare it with cornmeal cake. SO, its literally like savory cornmeal cake.

I am biased for the traditional way of cooking but, the quickest method comes handy these days with work and other responsibilities. We bake it in the oven, it comes out equally good.

The best part of this dish is it is gluten free ( do not use asafetida) and can be veganized by using dairy free yogurt. Usually, some people also make their own handvo mix at home. I have never made it at home, I prefer the convenience of buying it from stores. Its readily available, so why not.

Handvo mix is made from dry lentils and rice, they are coarsely ground into a dry mix. This dry mix can be stored for long term liek any other flours. When you want to prepare some Handvo, mix the dry ingredients with yogurt and some spices and let it ferment. The process of fermentation is important as the flavors develop and it comes out soft.  

Lots of vegetables are added and then a tempering or Vaghar is done on top of it before it goes into oven to bake. It is so like baking a cake or rather a cornbread. The result is crispy edges and soft interior. If your family members don’t fight over the crispy edges than I don’t know who they are.

There are four basic steps:

1. Mix the dry ingredients with wet and let it ferment overnight. Sometimes, I leave this mix to ferment for 2-3 days in fridge. The day I want to make it, I take it out and let it sit at room temperature for few hours. Room temperature fermentation is important.
2. Once it is fermented, vegetables and other ingredients are added.
3. Then comes the tempering part. The tempering is added on top of it and not to be mixed in. It floats atop.
4. Baked for 30-40 mins and it ready.

Let’s talk about the ingredients:

Handvo flour as I mentioned earlier is readily available. I would recommend you buy store bought.

The other ingredients are quite common and easily available at home.

The base spices – Turmeric, green chilies, garlic and ginger are the base flavor ingredients that lend this dish its flavor. Cannot skip on these. You can increase them a little bit or decrease the quantities. I like to coarsely blend them in food processor or grinder. If you feel fancy, then you can use mortar-pestle too. It should not be very smooth, just roughly pounded.

Sweetness- I add jaggery in this dish but feel free to add sugar if you would like. I like the slight sweetness it gets. Overall, you can skip sweetness if you would like. It contrasts the sourness from yogurt and lemon juice.

Vegetables – You can literally use any vegetables. But the most known vegetable we add in it is Opo Squash which is like Zucchini. It provides very nice moisture to the batter and keeps it soft inside while baking. Opo squash is used in same way as Zucchini. The outer skin of squash is very thick, it needs to be peeled. Use longer greener squash as it has less seeds. It is then grated before adding in. If you get some seeds, they are okay.

Some other variations of vegetables that my mom used, spinach, fenugreek leaves, carrots, or corn etc. I love all the vegetable variations in this recipe. Today, I am sharing with you corn and spinach variation. Feel free to add any other veggies. You can also use chard leaves or kale leaves.

Tempering – Its mostly oil, mustard seeds, sesame seeds and some other ingredients. You cannot skip this step at all. However, you can reduce the quantities of the ingredients. I would say oil, mustard seeds and sesame seeds are the most important ones so do not skip on these. Rest do add value to the dish, but they can be avoided if you do not want to buy all of it.

Baked- It is baked same way as cakes. The only difference is in the color and how it looks from top. It should have dark brown color and not light color. Sometimes, if it’s baked from inside and still does not have good color, you can broil it for 2 minutes to get that color. Because this dish has lentils, the top and bottom layer bakes up darker in color and crispier. It’s the best part of the dish.

Serving-

It is served with green or red chili garlic chutney alongside a cup of tea. It can be an appetizer, or you can have it for dinner too.

Storage – the leftovers can be stored in a container in the refrigerator for few days. It does not go bad easily. It also makes great traveling food because of this reason.

Print Recipe

Corn and Spinach Handvo

Handvo is a baked savory appetizer or snack, made from ground flour made form rice and a mix of lentils, lots of vegetables, and tempered with a vaghar of mustard seeds, sesame seeds. Once baked it has crispy edges and a soft texture inside. It is very easy and flavorful.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time40 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer, dinner, Side Dish

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: baked, corn,, gujaraticuisine, handvo, indian, Savory,, spinach, vegetarian

Author: Devangi Raval

Ingredients

• 3 cups Handva/Oondhwa flour
• ½ cup plain sour yogurt
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 cup corn
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp jaggery or brown sugar
• 2 tbsp green chili paste
• 2 tbsp garlic grated
• 2 tbsp ginger grated
• 2 tbsp neutral oil
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• ½ tsp Eno/baking soda

Vaghar- Tempering

• 3 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1-2 red dried chilies
• 3-4 curry leaves
• 2 cloves
• 1/8 tsp asafetida/hing
• ½ tsp red chili powder

Instructions

• Take a mixing bowl, big enough for the batter to fit in. Add Handvo dry mix, yogurt and water. You might need more water or less too. The batter should be medium thick consistency.
• Let the batter sit at room temperature for 4-6 hours, covered. (If you do not plan on making it immediately, you can leave the batter in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. Just keep checking on it. I like to stir it. I leave out yogurt initially if I am going to store it in the fridge longer and add yogurt for room temperature fermentation.)
• Once the fermentation is done, pre heat the oven at 400 F. Take a round or 9×13 baking pan, grease it with oil. Leave it aside.
• Add ginger, garlic, green chili paste, turmeric, salt, jaggery, oil and lemon juice in the fermented batter. Add vegetables too. Mix well until everything is mixed well.
• Add baking soda and mix very well. You want to make sure the soda is dispersed everywhere in the batter. Pour this batter in the baking pan.
• Tempering – Heat some oil in a small pot on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds crackle, add asafetida, sesame seeds, cloves, curry leaves, red chilies and turn off the flame. Add red chili powder too. Your oil should not be too hot, otherwise the vaghar will burn. It won’t taste good. So be careful. Immediately pour this vaghar on top of the handvo batter in the baking tray. Do not mix at this point. It stays afloat on top.
• Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the top get nice deep brown color and toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If you think its baked but there is not enough browning on top, you can broil for 2 minutes on high. Always be careful when broiling anything. It can burn something very quickly. Put a timer or stay next to the oven.
• Remove it and let it cool down for 10 minutes. If you try to cut into it when it’s hot, it will be little bit soft. After cooling it down, it sets up better.
• Serve it with some tea or coffee as a snack alongside chutneys. You can also serve it for dinner.

Notes

• Once you add, baking soda or Eno, the batter cannot sit longer. The next steps must be followed immediately as the soda or eno starts activating.
• If you use Opo squash or Zucchini, then grate it closer to adding to the batter. It releases a lot of water and can turn brown quickly.
• While adding water to the batter, start with less and then add more if needed. If you added too much water, you could always add a little bit of rice flour in it to thicken it up.
• Makes for great picnic or potluck food. It taste great next day too.
• Gluten Free – Do not use asafetida/hing to make it gluten free.
• You can also make them into muffin pans or any other baking pans. 

 

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XO, Devangi