Instant Oats Paniyaram

Finding some quick and healthy snack to go with the evening tea is quite a difficult one. There are some which I like and the husband doesn't favor that. Most of the times I end up making cutlets/tikkis, masala papad and the like. Two days back, I was looking for something new to make, since I was bored of making the snacks again. Then I remembered about the oats paniyaram which I have seen in several blogs. I just went with my instinct and prepared the batter. I had some crisp, yet soft paniyarams after half an hour. Since I used non-stick paniyram pan, I could make with less oil.  Let's move on to the recipe.

You need

• Quick cooking oats - 1 cup
• Rice flour - 1 tblspn
• Sour curd - 1/2 cup 
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Salt to taste
• Ginger- 1/2 inch
• Green chilly - 2 nos

To Temper

• Oil - 1 tspn
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 tspn
• Chana dal - 1 tspn
• Hing - few shakes

Method

Grind ginger and green chilly. You can add  green chilly and ginger, chopped. I added the paste to avoid biting into the chilly.  Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Temper with mustard seeds, chana dal and hing. Add the seasoning to the batter. Leave it to 15 minutes or at least for 10 minutes, to give some soaking time for the oats. Add a teaspoon of water if the batter has turned thick on standing.  

Heat the paniyaram pan. I used the non-stick one. Add half a teaspoon of oil in each of the depression. When it is moderately hot, spoon teaspoon full of batter into each hole. Drizzle another half teaspoon of oil on top of each paniyaram. When the bottom is cooked, flip and cook the top side too. Remove and serve with your favorite chutney. 

To this batter, you can add some onions of grated carrot too. The base batter can be dressed up in many ways to suit your taste and ingredients available.

It was very crisp on the outside and spongy on the inside. The slight tang from the curd, heat from ginger and chilly, bite from the chana dal made it an awesome tea time snack. I served with a dip of molgapodi drizzled with the oil from the Punjabi pickle. 

Sweet Potato Methi Tikki

With the New Year, I had decided my drafts folder will get the priority. There are some pics which dates back to more than a year. Hope they get to the post at the earliest. So I decided that my first post for the year will be from the drafts. And here it is.

At home, sweet potato is mostly relished when it is just cooked with some salt and turmeric. Occasionally, amma used to make a stir fry with a dash of coconut and green chilli. One day, I had some  left over cooked sweet potatoes. So I decided to make it into a tikki for the evening snack. While looking in the crisper tray of my fridge, methi leaves in the zip lock caught my attention. The idea of pairing sweet and bitter taste was interesting and decided to go ahead. I have consciously avoided adding onions to it since I felt onions might mask the flavor of methi and sweet potatoes.

You need

• Cooked and mashed sweet potato/Chakkaravalli kizhangu- 2 cups
• Chopped methi leaves - 1 cup, loosely packed
• Cumin - 1 tspn
• Salt to taste
• Turmeric - 1/4 tspn
• Red chilli powder - 1/2 tspn
• Kitchen king masala- 1/2 tspn
• Sugar - 1/2 tspn
• Juice from half of a lemon
• Oil - 1 tblspn + for shallow frying

 
Method

 

Pressure cook sweet potatoes with turmeric and salt. Cool and mash it well.  Heat a kadai with a tablespoon of oil. Add cumin. When it starts browning, add methi, salt, sugar and a pinch of turmeric.  Saute till there is no moisture left and tip in the mashed potatoes. Add red chilly powder and kitchen king masala. Cook till the mixture turns dry. Remove from fire. Let it cool for sometime. Add lemon juice and mix well.  Shape into tikkis and shallow fry on tawa till brown.

 

Serve with tomato sauce and a cup of hot mug of coffee/tea.

  

 

 

Kuzhipaniyaram from scratch

 

What morappam is to PalakkadIyers, is kuzhipaniyaram to TamilNadu. PIs usually make using the left over idli/dosa batter. I don't remember anytime my grandma or my mother making it from scratch. Though, in TamilNadu too, they make from left over batter, usually its made from scratch. For a long time I wanted to try them from scratch and when Viji akka(Vcuisine) posted it, I had to make it. I made this when we had called our friends for dinner before we left to Pune. This was the starter.

 

You need

 

• Boiled rice - 1 cup
• Raw rice - 1 cup
• Urad dal - 1/2 cup
• Salt

 

 Seasoning

 

•  Oil - tblspn
•  Mustard seeds -1 tspn
•  Chana dal - 1 tblspn
•  Green chillies - 2 nos finely chopped
•  Curry leaves

 

 Onion - 2 nos, finely chopped

 Oil to fry the paniyarams

 

 

 Method

 

 

 

Soak rice and dal separately for five hours. Grind dal first in the same way as you do for idli/dosa. Grind both the rice together .Take care not to grind it smooth. It will affect the texture of the paniyarams. The ground rice should have rava like texture.

 

 Mix the ground urad dal and rice batter with salt. Allow it to ferment for 8 hours or over night.

 

 Do the seasoning with mustard seeds, chana dal, curry leaves and green chillies and add to the batter. Finally add the chopped onion to the batter. Stir well.

 Heat the appam pan with oil in each of the holes. I used my non-stick pan. Spoon in the batter and let it cook till it starts browning. Flip the paniyarams and cook the other side too. Serve with coconut chutney/ mint chutney/ tomato chutney. I have served along side with coconut chutney and mint chutney.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chakka/Jackfruit Adai

The monsoon has arrived in my part of the world. The late arrival meant few more days availability of mango and jackfruit in the market. In case of jackfruit, once the fruit is cut open, the segments has to be used up in a day or two, in case of refrigeration. I usually buy a small piece from the market. Husband is not very fond of eating jackfruit. I like to eat but there is a limit to which how much I can finish. With the left over fruit segments, I make filling for elai adai, chakkavaratty, chakka pradhaman (Just realised I haven't posted this yet). After a round of all these, I was reminded of the chakka adai. Soaked boiled rice is ground with jackfruit pieces and jaggery. I like the adais not very sweet. The adai with slight sweetness from jaggery and flavor of jackfruit makes a filling  evening tiffin. Those who prefer some sweetness during breakfast can make it in the morning. Adai ,hot from the pan, with a blob of butter- you cannot stop with one.

The quantity of ingredients can be taken as a pointer and not necessary to be exact. Adjust the jackfruit and jaggery to suit your palate

 

Ingredients


Boiled rice/Idly rice - 1 1/2 cups

Raw rice - 1/2 cup

Ripe jackfruit bulbs - 10 nos

Grated jaggery - 1/2 cup

Salt - a pinch

Oil to prepare the adai

Method

Wash and soak the rice for 5 hours. You can soak both the variety of rice together. Grind rice coarsely. Add chopped jackfruit, jaggery and salt. Grind all the ingredients together. Don't make it too smooth. It will affect the texture of the adai. Let the batter be slightly grainy.

Heat a tava. Smear with little oil. When it is hot, pour a ladle of the batter and spread it like dosa. Don't make it very thin. You can use oil or ghee to make these dosas. Using ghee surely enhances the taste. When one side is cooked, flip and cook till it is golden brown. Enjoy hot with some home made butter.

SpotLight Blog #My Experiments With Food ~ Recipe - Aval Kozhukkattai

The calendar is showing a new month and its time for a new blog to be on the spotlight. And this month, the limelight blog is Jayashree's 'My Experiments with Food'. The similarity doesn't end with our names and blog names, our traditional cuisine is same too (Palakkad Iyer cuisine).  I found many interesting, delicious recipes yet not very complicated in her blog.

The first recipe I tried for this series was Aval Kozhukkattai - Steamed balls from beaten rice. It made a quick and filling meal. The preparation is similar to upma kozhukkattai. When I first saw the recipe, my thoughts were how different is it going to be from aval upma/puli aval. The ingredients were almost the same except that tamarind or an equivalent is not used here. I am glad I tried it since it was so different from upma and had a unique taste. It was worth trying.

You need

Coarsely powdered aval/beaten rice - 1 cup
Water - 2 cups
Grated coconut - 2 tblspn
Salt to taste

Seasoning

Oil - 2 tspn
mustard seeds - 1 tspn
Chana dal, urad dal, peanuts - 1 tspn each
Green chilly - 1 no
Curry leaves - few sprigs

Method

I used the rose matta aval which is very tasty and has a thick texture. To get one cup of coarsely powedered aval, take 2 cups of aval. Make sure you don't grind it fine else the kozhukkattais will not have the right texture.

Take a kadai. Heat oil and add the seasoning ingredients. Add water and salt. When water starts boiling, add the powdered aval. Mix well. Cook on low heat till the water is fully absorbed and resembles upma. Add grated coconut and mix well.

Spread the cooked mix on a plate to cool. Spape the dough into balls and steam cook for 5 minutes. Jayashree has  done this in microwave and I chose to do it on stove top.

The kozhukkattais tasted good on its own. You can serve it with any chutney as dip or sprinkle some chutney powder on it and serve. I got 11 nos of the size shown in the picture.

Kappayum Kadalayum ~ Mashed Tapioca with curried brown chick peas

apioca in any form is welcome at home. The most common one is plain tapioca cooked with salt and a pinch of turmeric with a dip of fiery shallots chutney. Me and my sister are big fans of this combo. Even now when I prepare this combo, I ring up my sister and tell her just to salviate her. During our Alappuzha trip, last year, one late evening,when we stopped for tea , we were offered kappa puzhingiyathu and kadala curry, since that was the oly vegetarian option available that time of the day. Since we were hungry, decided to try the combo.It was a winner. During this year's harvest of tapioca at home, husband reminded me to make this for breakfast. The tapioca harvested at my home cooks pretty quick that it doesn't take more than 10 minutes on stove top.

Tapioca, peeled and chopped into big pieces - 1/2 kg

Turmeric a pinch

Salt


Cook the tapioca in enough water with turmeric added to it. Add salt when its almost cooked. If you add salt in the beginning, cooking will take more time and may not cook soft. You can see cracks on the surface when it is cooked well. Drain and leave it for 5 minutes. Just mash little with a potato masher or back of the ladle. Serve with kadala curry for a filling breakfast or a spicy chutney as dip. The recipe of my kadala curry is same that I make for Puttu. Here I added less of coconut in the ground masala.

Navarathri Day 5 &6 - Kozhukkattai Payasam, Ammini Kozhukkattai & Poori Payasam, Puli Avil

Day 5

Kozhukkattai Payasam

I have heard of kozhakkattai payasam but never got an opportunity to taste. My MIL has tasted it a relative's house and she gave me an outline of the recipe. But didnot know the proprtions well. The recent addition to my cook book collection is Meenakshi Ammal's 'Cook & See' Part II which has a lovely collection of traditional sweets and payasams. Since I had decided to make 9 different payasams for Navarathri, I got an opportunity to try it out.  I tried with half the quantity mentioned in the book. That was  enough to serve 4.


Ingredients



Rice flour - 1 cup

salt - a pinch

Water - 1 cup

Ghee - 1 tspn

Jaggery - 1 cup

Milk - 1 cup

Coconut Milk - 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder -1/2 tspn



Method


Prepare the rice flour in the same way is made for different savouries - Soaking, shade drying and powdering. I get it pound in the flour mill. So that part is easy.


To make Kozhukkattais

Equal quantity of water to the measure flour is used. Here 1 cup of water is heated with a  teaspoon of ghee and a pinch of salt in a shallow vessel. When the water starts boiling, slowly stir in the flour without forming lumps. Turn well for 3-5 minutes. When the flour gets  cooked well (you will know by the change in colour of the dough), switch of the fire and cover  and leave it for 10 minutes. Spread the cooked dough on a plate to cool. Knead well with ghee. Make small balls to the  size of small gooseberries.



To preapre the payasam.

Measure the rolled balls/kozhukkattais. Using the same cup/vessel, measure equal quanitities of water. If you measure 2 cups of kozhukkattais, take 2 cups of water. Boil the water in a wide vessel. When the water starts boiling, add few balls, at a time. Once a batch is added, give time for the balls to cook and come up to the surface. I added in 3 batches (around 25 nos in each batch). Once all the balls are added, while boiling, gently turn the balls with a flat spoon. Don't do stir it often since it will break the balls. Also do not add all the balls at once, since the balls will dissolve in the water. If you keep in mind these aspects, you cannot go wrong. 

Once the kozhakkattais are well cooked, add the powdered jaggery. When the jaggery melts and blends well, add the milk. Cook for two minutes. Add the coconut milk. Just bring it to a boil. Let it not reach the rolling boil stage since it might curdle. Remove and add the elaichi powder. If desired, roasted cashewnuts can also be added.

To make a vegan version, you can use omit milk and use only coconut milk. I liked it very much. Though reading the recipe may give you the impression of a laborious process, it will not take more than 30 minutes to prepare the payasam. Only the kozhakkattai making part takes time. Rest is very easy.

Ammini Kozhukkattai

Since I pound the flour in large quantity, I decided to make ammini Kozhukkatai for evening prasadom. The kids who comes daily for prasadom loves this and have been asking me when I will be making it for prasadom. The kozhakkattais dough is prepared the same as I mentioned ealier. Since this are savory, my MIL grinds 2 chillies along with a tablespoon of rice flour to a fine paste. This chilly paste is added to the boiling water before the flour is tipped in. This will give a nice flavor and some heat to the kozhukkattais. The kozhakkattais are then steamed for 10 minutes. When cool, it is sauteed in a seasoning of mustard, red chillies and curry leaves.

Day 6 ~ Poori Payasam & Puli Avil



Poori Payasam

Recipe Source : Meenakshi Ammal's Cook & See (II)


Ingredients

Wheat flour - 3/4 cup

Milk - 2 cups

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

Saffron a pinch

Water - 1 1/2 cups

Oil to deep fry.


Method

Knead wheat flour with little water a 2 tspn of ghee. The dough is quite stiff. Roll out into thick pooris. Cut the poories into small diamond shaped peices. Deep fry the pieces till it is crisp and golden brown in color. While frying, something else took my attention away for few seconds, one batch was just brown.

Boil 1 1/2 cups of water in a wide vessel. Whe the water starts boiling, slowly drop the fried  pieces and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add the sugar. When the sugar melts, add the milk and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for few minutes. Add saffron and elaichi and remove from fire. I found the payasam to be very watery. So I mixed 2 teaspoons of arrowroot powder in cold milk and stirred into the payasam  and cooked till the payasam starts thickening. Also next time I will reduce the sugar to 1 cup since it was too sweet for our palette.  My MIL said she has tasted where the pieces are not cut this way. Instead the fried poories are later torn into pieces and added to payasam. I think that might give a better texture to the payasam too. The payasam tasted like the sugar dipped diamond bisuits added to milk.

Puli Avil

I have already blogged about puli avil using lemon juice. Instead of lemon juice for the tangy taste, tamarind extract is used. So the tamarind juice is added soon after the seasoning and its cooked till it thickens. Rest of the procedure is same. Here I have added peanuts too to give a crunch to the avil.

Kozhukkatta - Steamed Rice balls - Guest Post

There are numerous food blogs in the Internet. There are zillion dishes cooked in the kitchen and are not blogged. Each one is a good cook on their own terms. Not everyone has the time/passion to blog about it. So I thought of inviting my friends/blog readers to contribute a recipe to my blog. I discussed this idea with few of my friends and they were happy to play along. I had told them any common dish they prepare is enough and need not prepare for the matter of posting it here. Some told me that they are not good at food photography and the like. And the recipes and photos may not be matched to an avid food blogger. All that matters to me , is showcasing their recipe, on my blog. And I plan to make this a monthly series.

My friend who calls herself Shivakami in her world (a Malayalam blog), sent me the following recipe. Now on to the recipe in her own words-

Ingredients :

Boiled rice – 1 cup

Salt to taste

Grated coconut – half portion of a coconut

Oil – 1 tablespoon

Seasoning
Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon

Urad dal - 2 teaspoon

Small onions(cheriya ulli) - 8-10 nos, chopped

Curry leaves

Method
Soak rice for 3hrs. Grind it coarsely to a thick batter and mix salt. Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard, urad dal, curry leaves and chopped onions one after the other. Add the batter and stir well. Add grated coconut also and mix well.cook till the whole batter gets into a solid mass. Take out from stove. Keep idli cooker on stove. Make small balls of the rice mix. Place them on idli plates and steam cook for 5-10 minutes. This can be made using raw rice too. With boiled rice, kozhukkatais are more soft and has a nice texture.

Raagi Morkali

I got the idea of making raagi morkali when I saw the recipe in a magazine. I didn't remember the recipe. But I tried making it the same way as I make using rice. I have replaced rice with raagi. Rest of the recipe is same. Refer Rice Morkali for the recipe. This I made on stove top. It is ideal when you want to have a quick,filling and healthy snack to go along with tea. This too can be sliced. I was very hungry that I could not wait to spread and slice. I have started making raagi morkali more often than the rice version. When you make it for kids, you can add some grated carrots or corn to make it more nutritious.


I am re posting the Raagi idiyappam

Both the raagi dishes are my entry to Sangeeth's Eat Healthy-Fight Diabetics Event

Sevai- A South Indian Delicacy

Sevai is a healthy dish made from rice. It is distinctly different from idiyappam/noolputtu. Both sevai and idiyappam fits into the description of rice noodles. And the similarity ends there. As kids we were happy to learn if sevai is made for evening tiffin. Probably the ladies who has to make may not have enjoyed much. The tedious work involved can easily put off the idea of making sevai. In most of the houses, the help from male members is warranted while pressing the steamed dumplings. In olden days it was the wooden/brass type. It calls for great strength to press them. Imagine the work involved when it has to be made for a family of 10 (I had stayed in a joint family then).


Ingredients
Parboiled rice (Puzhingalarissi) - 3 cups

Tempering
Gingely oil - 3 tblspn
mustard seeds - 1 tspn
chana dal - 1 tblspn
red chilly - 1
green chilly - 5 nos
curry leaves

Garnish

Grated coconut - 1 cup (optional). In my home, it is a must.

Method
Wash and soak the rice in water for 4 hours. Grind the soaked rice with salt to a fine paste. The batter consistency should be thicker than idli batter.

I am giving three ways to prepare the steamed dumplings. Every house has their own way of making it

1)Sauteing the rice batter into dough and make dumplings and cook the dumplings in boiled water (My amma follows this method).

2) Sauteing the rice batter into dough and make dumplings and steam cook the dumplings in an idly steamer

3) Spoon the batter into oiled idly moulds and steam cook for 10 minutes ( I follow this which I learnt from my MIL) . This is the easiest of the three,according to me.

Press the dumplings into sevai using a sevai press. As soon as it is pressed, sevai is left to cool on a plate. While it is warm, gently separate them.

Heat oil, Season with mustard. When mustard seeds crackle, add chana dal. When dal turns light brown, add red chilly broken into two, chopped green chillies and curry leaves. Add to the pressed sevai. Garnish with coconut. Serve with any chuntey of your choice.

The base sevai can made into Lemon/Coconut/Tamarind sevai. You can convert the base sevai into any exotic dish as you would do with rice. Its all up to your imagination.

Click here to see the Automatic Sevai Cooker.

I am sending this to Srivalli's Rice mela

Adai & Aviyal ~ Kerala Special

Adai, a mixed lentil pancake is very popular in Kerala, especially among Palakkad Iyers. Adai, compared to dosa, doesn't preparation much earlier, since it requires around 3 hours of soaking time only. Doesn't take much time to do the grinding and no wait period for fermentation. Even though the ultimate is paper thin crisp dosa, I love crisp adais very much. This is usually served as after-school tiffin at home. Each home has their own proportion for rice and dal used. For Karthigai Deepam festival, this adai is one of the neivadyams. As is the custom, par boiled rice is not used for neivadyams, its totally avoided when making for Karthigai. Whole pepper and tiny bits of coconut is also added to it. Here is the recipe which I follow on ordinary days.

Raw rice - 1 cup

Parboiled rice - 1/2 cup

Chana dal - 1/2 cup

Urad dhal - 1/2 cup (whole urad/split with skin)

Red chillies - 3 nos

Green chilly - 2 nos

Ginger a small wedge

Curry leaves

Salt

Hing powder - 1/2 tspn

Wash and soak both rice, chana dal and urad dal for 3 hours. Grind the soaked mix along with green chilly, red chilly, ginger, curry leaves and salt to a coarse batter. The batter should not be smooth. Else you will not get crisp adais. It will taste like dosa. Add hing powder and mix well. No fermentation required.

Heat a cast iron griddle. Sprinkle few drops of oil. Take a ladle of batter and spread into thick dosa/pancake. Make a hole in the center. This will enable to get crisp adai. Drizzle oil on the sides and in the hole made in the centre. When one side is cooked, flip and cook the other side. Cook in medium flame, so that its well cooked , since it is made relatively thicker than ordinary dosa. Traditionally it is served with powdered jaggery or butter or pickle.

I am not sure how the combination of adai and avial became popular. May be its the idea of some hotelier to combine two popular dishes of Kerala and serve as Malabar Adai and Avial. However it has become a huge hit. You are sure to find this combo in any Tamilnadu hotels. So here is the recipe for aviyal. I don't prepare aviyal for adai. Sometimes its just co-incidental.

Aviyal gets the unique taste from the assortment of vegetables that go into this dish. Veggies along with ground coconut and coconut oil used for garnish brings out the unique flavor. The vegetable which is used in large proportion for aviyal is ash gourd/poozhanikkai/kumbhalanga. Next comes pumpkin/mathan. I shall list the veggies that can be used for aviyal in the order of the proportion. There is no specific proportion to be followed. Its up to your intuition to add the veggies.

ashgourd/poozhnikkai/kumbhalanga

pumpkin/mathan

Yam/Chenai

Raw banana/vazhakka

Snake gourd/podavalangai

Drumstick/muringakkai

Raw mango one small

Cowpeas/payar
Carrot,beans are the latest additions.

Chopped veggies - 4 cups (Vegetables are cut in 1' inch long strips like for finger chips.)

Grated coconut - 1 cup

Green chilly - 7 nos

Whipped curd - 1/2 cup

Turmeric

Salt

Cook the veggies with turmeric and salt added. Don't over cook the veggies. It should be soft yet firm. Yam can be pressure cooked or cooked separately since it takes longer time to cook.
Grind together coconut and green chillies to a fine paste. Add just enough water to grind.
If you want to serve the aviyal as side, remove the excess water from the cooked veggies. Add the ground paste and stir in the whipped curd. Bring to a boil. Don't let it simmer.
Add a tablespoon of coconut oil and fresh curry leaves.

I am sending Adai to Srivalli's Rice Mela

Award

Shama, Viki and Vidhas has passed the Inspiration Award to me. Thank Shama,Viki and Vidhas for your sweet gesture. It means a lot to me.

Idly fry - Left over magic

Usually, I count and make idlies to avoid left overs. In case of left overs, it will take the avatar of upma, as is the case in many homes. When we had many of our relatives at home, it was idly for breakfast, on most of the days. And my usual counting and making doesn't work. So invariably we used to have left overs. And my hubby's aunt (Lalitha Mami) changed the white tablets to gorgeous looking idly fry. It was an instant hit. Everyone was happy to have some left overs everyday. Thank God, nobody demanded that idly fry should be served for breakfast.

Idlis- 4 nos, quartered

For masala
Garam masala - 1 tspn

Molagapodi - 1 tspn

Cumin powder - 1 tspn

salt

Oil - 1 tblspn

Mix all the masala ingredients together. Coat the idly pieces with the masala. Heat a kadai with 2 tblspoon of oil. Drop the masala coated idly pieces. Shallow fry on medium flame till the pieces are roasted. Enjoy with a cup of hot tea.

Puli Avil and An appeal to vote for my recipe

I am so happy that my entry - Cowpeas leaves stir fry for Sangeeth's Eat Health Protien Rich contest, is shortlisted among the top 15. The final winner is decided by polls. Please do vote for my recipe, its first among the list. Go here to vote.
Thank You.



Now coming to the recipe I intended to post. Its a simple recipe, which can be prepared in a jiffy. Its quite filling too. Its commonly referred to as puli avil in my home, due to its tangy taste and to differentiate the jaggery version which is called Vella avil. For the tangy taste, either lemon juice or tamarind extract can be used. Both the versions of avil usually features in the bommakolu bakshanam menu during navarathri.

You will need

Avil/Poha/Beaten rice (thick variety) - 2 cups

Turmeric - a pinch

Salt

Grated coconut - 2 tblspn

Lemon - 1


Seasoning

Oil- 2 tspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Chana dal - 1 tblspn

Red chilly - 2

Green chilly - 4

Ginger - a small wedge

few curry leaves

Choose avil of thick variety, preferably rose matta avil. If it is thin, there are chances that it will crumble easily when soaked. Wash avil in water and soak in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes. Squeeze the avil to drain out the water completely. Keep it aside.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a kadai. Add mustard seeds. When it splutters, add chana dal, red chilly broken into two, chopped green chillies & ginger and curry leaves. When chana dal turns slightly brown, add turmeric and salt. Tip off the drained avil and mix well. Cook for 3 minutes, till the flavors are well absorbed by the avil. Stir in the grated coconut and remove from fire. Add lemon juice when it is warm. Serve with a cup of coffee/tea.

This makes an ideal evening tiffin after school/office.

If tamarind is used in place of lemon, 1 tablespoon of thick extract can be used and added after seasoning. When the raw smell of tamarind goes, add the avil and follow the same steps as above.

I am sending this to EC who is the AFAM host for this month.

Puli avil has a lovely yellow color and this is off to EC again, for her WYF: Colour in Food event.