Kadalaparuppu Pradhaman

Payasam is an integral part of any sadhya/feast.  When it comes to Onasadhya, the payasam has to be something special.  Pradhaaman is considered the king of payasams and is a Kerala speciality. In the land of coconuts, its no wonder that the earlier generations made use of bountiful of coconuts. Milk, in those days, was not available in packets and no refrigerators to increase the shelf life. But now things have changed. Both milk and coconut milk are available in plenty, in ready to use tetra-packs. So making payasam is not that difficult. When it comes to coconut milk, the freshly squeezed milk is any day better than the store bought ones.  With the mixer grinders, extracting milk is not that difficult job either. The basic ingredients for a pradhaman is a main ingredient - rice/chakka varatti/dal/wheat, jaggery, coconut milk - in various thickness. Having said that, the main ingredient determines the taste of the pradhaman and I assure you, each is unique in its taste and there is no way to compare them. This Onam, it was kadalaprauppu/chana dal pradhaman.

I missed the festive atmosphere in Kerala. Also the fresh flowers from garden for the pookalam. Here is the small pookalam made on the Onam day.

And this is the Onasadhya we had - Menu included Parikkai/Bitter gourd thayir pachadi, kaalan, aviyal, elissery, thoran, chips, sharkkaravaratti upperi, pappadam, payasam, sambhar.

You need

• Chana dal/Bengal gram dal/Kadalaparuppu - 1/2 cup
• Powdered jaggery - 1 cup, heaped
• Coconut - 2 medium sized
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn
• Coconut bits - 1 tblspn
• Ghee - 2 tspn

Method

Wash and pressure cook the dal till its well cooked. After the cooker is opened, lightly mash the cooked dal. See to that it doesn't end up in a paste form. We need few bits of the dal to give some texture to the pradhaman.

Grate the coconut and grind it in the mixer using very little water. Take the ground coconut on to a cheese cloth. Squeeze the ground coconut to extract the milk. This is the first, thick milk. Repeat this for two more times to extract the second and third milk. We need 3/4 cup of first milk, 1 1/2 cups of second milk and 2 cups of third milk.

Take the jaggery with half cup of water in a bottom thick vesssel or kadai. When the jaggery melts fully, filter it to remove any impurities. To the filtered jaggery syrup, add the mashed dal and thin, lastly squeezed out coconut milk. Cook this mixture, till it thickens. Then add the second coconut milk extract and continue to cook till it thickens again. By this time, the dal and jaggery mix would have absorbed the coconut milk well. Bring the mix to a boil. Add the first extract of  coconut milk and switch off the heat. Keep stirring for 5 minutes, till its blended well. Stir in the cardamom powder.

Heat ghee in a seasoning ladle. Add the coconut bits. Saute till it starts browning. Add it to the prepared pradhaman. Serve it warm.

Sending this pradhaman to Kerala Kitchen, hosted by Divya.

Vinayaka Chathurthi Special - Poornam and Uzhunthu Kozhukkattai

Hope all who celebrated Vinayaka Chathurthi have feasted on an array of sweet and savory dishes, yesterday.  Both my mother and mother-in-law makes only the sweet and salt varieties of kozhukkattais as prasadam for Chathurthi.  I  too follow the same tradition. Though I make it every year, somehow the recipes have not made it to the blog. This time, I was determined to take pictures and post it here.  Most of the time, too much of work drains me off and I will be in no mood to click pictures. This time, it happened that things started on a slow note right from the morning. So, I thought to myself that I better not hurry up and let the day takes it course. I felt 'Slow and Steady Wins the Race' will hold good for the situation. Those thoughts put me at ease and I clicked some pictures too. 

I prepared the outer covering for both the kozhakkattais together. I took 3 cups of rice flour. I will give the recipe as I made.

Sweet Kozhukkattai/Modak
Yields - 30-35 nos
For the outer covering

• Rice flour - 3 cups
• Water - 6 cups
• Milk - 1 tblspn
• Coconut oil/Ghee - 2 tspn (I added coconut oil)
• Salt - 1/2 tspn

For sweet filling

• Grated jaggery - 1 cup
• Fresh grated coconut - 2 cups
• Ghee - 2 tspn
• Cardamom/Elaichi powder - 1/4 tspn

Method

Take a kadai big enough to hold 6 cups of water. Add water, milk and  oil/ghee. When water starts boiling, slowly add the measured rice flour. Keep stirring so that no lumps are formed. When the dough comes together, remove from the heat. This will take only 5 minutes. Close the dough with a plate. 

While the dough for the outer cover cools, we can prepare the sweet filling. Take the jaggery with 1/4 cup of water in a kadai. Let the jaggery melt and the syrup starts boiling. The syrup need not be very thick. It should be sticky and close to the one string consistency. Add the grated coconut, elaichi powder and ghee. Stir well and continue to cook till the liquid dries up and coconut mix is moist. Switch off the heat. 

Leave it to cool. Divide the filling into small balls. 

Take a ball of the dough. Knead it well. Use ghee/oil to apply on your hands. Take a gooseberry sized dough. Flatten it using your fingers. Make it thin. Place a coconut-jaggery ball on the center. Gather the edges and seal it and form a pointed top. Repeat it till you use up all the fillings.

Keep the prepared modaks in the steamer and steam cook for 10-12 minutes or till the modaks have a shiny appearance.

Let it cool on the steamer for few minutes before you take it out on a plate. When you try to remove while hot, it may break.  If you are placing the modaks on a banana leaf then it will be easy since you can pull out the leaf along with the whole lot.

Uzhunthu Kozhakkattai

Yields- 25-30 nos



For the filling

• Urad dal - 3/4 cup
• Grated coconut - 1/4 cup
• Green chillies - 4 nos
• Salt to taste
• Hing powder - 1/4 tspn

To temper

• Oil - 1 tblspn
• Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
• Red chillies - 2 nos
• Urad dal - 1 tspn
• Curry leaves - 1 stalk

Method

Soak the urad dal for 45 minutes. Drain and leave it on the colander for few minutes so that all the water is drained out fully. Take the green chillies and salt in the mixer grinder. Pulse it. Then add the drained urad dal and grind it coarsely. 

Take the ground mixture in a bowl and steam cook it for 10 minutes. Cool it. Crumble the steamed mixture. Heat oil in  a kadai. When hot, add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add red chillies, urad dal and curry leaves. When the dal starts to brown, add the steamed and crumbled urad dal, coconut and hing. Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes and remove from the heat.

The shape of uzhunthu kozhakkattai is different. Its shaped oblong and the keep a tablespoon of  filling from end to end. Horizontally, bring the edges and stick it. You can press down the edges to seal it firm. Steam cook for 10-15 minutes. 

 

If you have some leftover urad dal filling, mix it with cooked rice and Uzhunthu sadam is ready.

Jowar Laddu

Here is another quick and easy recipe using jowar grains. I remembered the laddu posted by Srivalli and checked it and found it suits my BM theme of cooking with five or less ingredients. Noted the recipe and went to the kitchen straight away and the laddus were ready in 15 minutes.  It makes a very healthy snack for kids and adults alike. There is very little ghee used in the recipe and is sweetened with jaggery.  This fits the bill as a nutritious sweet for your after meal dessert.

Time Taken : 15 minutes
Yields : 11 nos

You need

• Jowar grains - 1/2 cup
• Grated jaggery - 1/2 cup
• Cardamom - a pinch
• Ghee - 1 tablespoon
• Cashew - 5 nos, coarsely ground

Method

To prepare this laddu, jowar pops is ground and mixed with jaggery. Ghee is the binding agent.  First the pops are to be made. Heat a pan. When it is hot, add the jowar grains. Keep stirring it. After 2-3 minutes, the grains will start pop. For me, not even half of the grains popped and I stopped roasting further in the fear of  burning the grains.  

Pulse the jowar pops in the mixer grinder. Don't grind it to a fine powder. Add the grated jaggery to it. Pulse it further so that it makes a homogeneous mix. Take the mix to a bowl. Add cashews, cardamom powder and warm ghee to the mix. Mix well.  The mix may look dry but you will be able to make balls out of it. Make lemon sized balls. Press it tight so that it stays together. It is very tasty that its difficult to stop with one.

Check out what my fellow blogging marathoners have cooked for the last day of the marathon.

Golpapdi - Wheat flour sweetened with jaggery

A quick look at my recipe index or the labels, will tell you my love for sweets. I have a special affinity to jaggery based sweets. I feel jaggery based sweets are generally healthy compared to the sugar ones. Jaggery is rich source of iron and sweets with this, doesn't call for loads of fat. Golpapdi is one sweet that caught my attention for the simple ingredients and the easier method of preparation. I have tried it few times and not once the jaggery melted from the heat of the flour mix. And every time, I will put the pan back to stove and melt it and then proceed further. The result was still good though it may not come close to the actual golpapdi.

Cut back to January and news paper carried articles on Makarashankaranthi festival and various delicious treats specially made for the festive season. In one of such articles, I read about a variety of jaggery which is soft and suits for til/ellu ladoo. It then dawned on me that such kind of jaggery is required to make golpapdi too.  I found that the jaggery block which I had purchased then was the soft kind. I had casually picked it from the grocery shop and did not find any difference. Then I tried again and finally met success. I followed Tarla Dalal's recipe. 

You need


Whole wheat flour/Atta - 1 cup
Grated Jaggery - 3/4 cup
Ghee - 4 tbspn
Poppy seeds - 1 tspn
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tspn

Method

Heat the ghee in  a pan/kadai. Add the wheat flour to the melted ghee. Keep stirring till the wheat flour turns into a brown color and the aroma of roasted wheat flour in ghee will fill your entire kitchen. Make sure, you don't burn the flour. Remove the pan from fire. The rest of the steps doesn't require any more cooking. Quickly add the grated jaggery and cardamom powder to the roasted wheat flour mix. Keep stirring.The jaggery will melt and it will comes to semi solid mass. Transfer the mix to a greased plate, sprinkled with poppy seeds.  Press and spread the mix evenly with a flat based cup/katori. Mark squares while warm. When cool, store in air tight container.

Please check what my blogging marathon buddies have cooked for the day.

Gulpoli ~ Sesame Seeds and Jaggery stuffed flatbread

Gulpoli as the name suggests is the poli/flatbread with jaggery filling. Gulpoli is generally made for the Makarashankaranthi festival. On googling I found many recipes for gulpoli. The outer dough was same is all the recipes. There was difference in the ingredient list in the filling. Some recipe adds coconut and the ratio of sesame seeds and poppy seeds differ. I bookmarked the recipe from Arti's corner. While going through the recipe, I felt the quantity of jaggery seemed more and then I reasoned myself that since no coconut/dal is used in the filling, quantity of jaggery must be making it up. I doubled the recipe and went ahead. Instead of going for 3 cups of jaggery I used little more than 2 cups. Rolling the flatbread with the stuffing was very easy. No sticking/tearing. I could roll without using much flour for dusting. The trouble started when I started roasting it on the tawa. After few seconds, when the poli warmed up, the jaggery started oozing out and there was a pool of jaggery syrup on my tawa. I knew my doubt regarding the jaggery quantity proved correct. I guess, Arti must have halved the orginal recipe and forgot to scale down the jaggery measurement. Removed the tawa and brought out another one. I worked on the filling. I divided the filling into two. To one part, I added some roasted besan and powdered sesame and poppy seeds. Then after 2 attempts of trial and error, got the filling right.  I searched again to check on other recipe and found a very helpful video. I will make again with the remaining filling.  If only the filling proportion was right, I could have finished rolling and roasting   the polis in flat 20 minutes. I am sure next time, it will be easy for me.

You need

For the dough

• Whole wheat flour/Atta - 1 cup
• All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup
• Oil - 4 tblspn
• Luke warm water - Less than 1 cup
• Salt - a pinch 
• Ghee for roasting.

For the filling

• Jaggery, grated - 1 cup
• Besan   - 1/4 cup, heaped
• Sesame seeds - 4 tblspn
• Poppy seeds - 1 tblspn
• Cardamom powder - 2 tspn
• Nutmeg powder - 2 tspn
• Cashewnuts - 10 nos

Method

Take the  both the flours and mix well. Heat oil in a tadka/seasoning pan. Pour the hot oil on to the flour. Mix well so that the oil coats the entire flour.  Add water in parts to make a soft dough. Cover the dough with wet cloth or bowl and rest it for 2 hours.

Roast sesame seeds and poppy seeds separately.   Roast besan in a tablespoon of ghee. Grind sesame seeds, Poppy seeds and cashew in the mixer grinder. Add the ground mixture, roasted besan, cardamom powder and nutmeg powder to the jaggery mix. Mix well. Make sure there are no tiny pieces of jaggery. 

Divide the dough and filling into 10 portions each. Take a ball of dough. Roll it into a small circle. Place the filling on the roti and cover with the edges. Seal and roll into a roti of medium thickness. The dough is very elastic and the filling non-sticky. So rolling is very easy and not a messy affair at all. 

Heat a tawa. Smear some ghee and roast the polis on both side, till brown spots appear. The poli will be crisp and tastes awesome when hot. It is equally good even when it comes to room temperature. 

Check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked for the day.

 

Arisi Thengai Payasam - Rice Coconut Payasam with Jaggery

I have settled down well in my new place. Navarathri was the first festival after our move. I kept three steps of Bommai. I got only the small bommais here. Navarathri, here is very quiet since we don't have people visiting golus here. We did the poojas and made payasam in the morning and chundal in the evening. I could not transfer the pics from my camera, since I broke the battery recharger. Yet to buy a new one. There are loads of pics to be transferred and shared with you all. Meanwhile, I have quite a lot of pictures in the drafts, to feed my blog. I thought I will share a recipe of sweet with you all. I have already posted a payasam with coconut and rice, where sugar is the sweetener. This version is similar with jaggery as sweetener. I liked the jaggery version better.

You need

• Raw rice- 2 tblspn
• Grated coconut- 1/2 cup
• Grated jaggery - 3/4 cup
• Boiled milk - 1 cup
• Cardamom powder - 11/4 tspn
• Water - 2 cup

 

 Method

 

Soak rice in water for an hour. Drain and grind rice coarsely . Add coconut and pulse to form a coarse paste. No need to add water.

 

 

Boil 2 cups of water. When it starts to boil, stir in the ground paste. Take care not to form lumps. Cook till the rice is well cooked. By the time the rice cooked, it would have got a thick porridge consistency. 

 

Meanwhile liquidize jaggery in 1/2 cup of water. Add the jaggery syrup to the cooked rice+coconut mixture. Cook till the flavor of jaggery is well absorbed. Add hot milk and switch off the heat. Stir for a minute or so for the mik to be well incorporated into the cooked mixture. Sprinkle cardamom.Serve warm or chilled as desired.

 

Note : Milk tends to curdle when boiled along with jaggery. That's why boiled milk is added at last and no further cooking is done after the addition of milk to avoid curdling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Porulvalangai Urundai - Healthy,fat free sweet balls

I have earlier blogged about the Sathumavu urundai. The steps are the same. That was inspired by the traditional Porulvalangai. Each family has a recipe for this sweet. The difference is what goes into the flour. Basically, healthy ingredients are added to prepare the flour. Once the flour is made, rest of the process is same as blogged earlier. Hop over to read Sunshinemom's post on the same. She shares some interesting facts about the sweet- the origin and what's in the name. And here is my recipe of the traditional sweet.

You need

Whole wheat - 3 cups

Boiled rice/Puzhungalarisi -1 cup

Whole moong - 1/2 cup

Powdered Ginger /Chukku - 1 tspn

Coconut sliced and chopped into bit sized pieces

Method
Wash and drain whole wheat and boiled rice separately. Dry roast wheat,rice and moon till brown. Both wheat and rice will start spluttering when roasted for some time. You can stop when you find more grains start spluttering. Cool and powder the three ingredients together. I usually get it powdered from a flour mill. Mix in ginger powder.

This powder will keep good for more than a month. You can make balls as and when required.
Take 1 cup of jaggery and make a syrup of soft ball consistency. Stir in the coconut pieces. Remove the syrup from fire. With 1 cup of jaggery you can use two cups of flour. Take one cup of the flour in a bowl. Add a ladle of the syrup. Mix with a spoon. Be careful not to touch the hot syrup with your fingers, it will stick to the skin and skin might get burnt also. When the syrup is fully mixed with the flour, slowly roll into balls . Roll the finished the balls in the flour to get a coat over it. These balls harden on cooling. Enjoy these delicious, healthy sweet balls.