Rava Ladoo ~ Indian Cooking Challenge

Indian Cooking challenge is the new event of the blogosphere, kick started by Mela Queen - Srivalli. It has been decided to have a trial run before the real show begins and Rava ladoo turned out to be the recipe for same. The recipe which Valli provided is different from what I usually follow. This one was damn easy and everyone loved it. I simply followed the recipe. No changes.

Rava - 1 cup

Sugar -1 cup

Ghee - 4 tspn

Milk - 2 tblspn

Powdered cardamom - a big pinch

Cashew nuts and raisins - few

Grated coconut - 2 tblspn

Take a kadai. Heat 2 tspn of ghee. Roast cashews and raisins. Remove and add the grated coconut. Roast till it is light brown. Remove the coconut and add the remaining ghee. Roast rava till you can smell the aroma of roasted rava. Switch off the flame. To the kadai, add sugar, powdered cardamom, roasted cashews,raisins and coconut. mix everything well. Slowly add warm milk to the mixture. Mix and switch on the flame and cook for two minutes. Remove from fire and stir for two minutes and transfer to a bowl. While warm make small balls and keep for 10 minutes for it to set well. If needed, you can sprinkle some milk for binding, while making the ladoos. I got 14 small sized ladoos.

Mango Mania from other blogs

During the last mango season, I had bookmarked few mango recipes. As with most of the bookmarked list, this also did not make its way into my kitchen. This year, I did not want to give it a miss and had decided to try them, as soon as the season began.

1. Lata's Mango cake


I followed her recipe with some changes. I used half and half of All purpose flour and wheat
flour. No nuts in the cake since I did not have any. And I used fresh mango pulp. I was making the cake for my guests. So I decided to bake in the muffin try for easier serving. The cake batter was less for two batches, so I reduced the muffin size and saved the batter for a small cake in a tube pan.
Ingredients
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup (Aashirvad Atta)
Baking powder - 1 tspn
Baking soda - 1 tspn
Fresh mango pulp - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Milk powder - 1/2 cup
Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
Hot water - 1/4 cup

Preheat oven to 180 C. Sift together the All purpose flour,wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.Blend together mango pulp, water, sugar, milk powder, yogurt, and oil in a blender, until smooth. Mix in the blended puree into flour mixture and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a baking pan and bake for 35 minutes or until done. The cake was very moist, with a slight flavor of mango. The mango flavor is not very intense. I might try the same recipe with some other fruit puree.

2. Ice cream from Bharathy's kitchen laboratory

You need:

Mango pulp - 1 cup

Thick creamy milk - 1 cup

Arrowroot flour/maida - 1 tbspn

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Fresh cream - 1 tblpsn

Keep 4 tablespoons of milk aside to dissolve the arrowroot powder. Boil half litre of milk and simmer for few minutes so that it reduces in volume and gets thick. Stir in sugar and boil till
it is fully dissolved. Add the arrowroot mix with constant stirring to avoid lumps. The milk will get thicker now. Cool and min in the mango pulp. Blend the mix until smooth in a blender. Transfer the mix to a plastic tub and freeze. when it starts to freeze, whip again in a blender with the fresh cream added. Freeze the mixture again till it hardens.

Scoop into cups and enjoy homemade ice cream.

I am sending these to Srivalli's Mango Mela

Mambhaza Kaalan - Mango pulp in yogurt, coconut gravy

Ripes mangoes are best, when eaten as it is. No second opinion about that. But when there is abundant mangoes, which cannot be finished just by eating them alone, it goes into gravy preparations. During my growing up years, in summer, the upstairs room will be filled with mangoes spread on a bed of hay to ripen. Those days, very rarely vegetables are purchased and my grandma always do with the veggies fresh from the garden. In summer, mangoes and jack fruit are the most repeated ones. They are cooked in their different stages. ripe mangoes (mambhazam) is added to sambhar, pachadi or morkootan. My favorite is mambazha kaalan. This is similar to morkootan. May be, it is referred as kaalan for its consistency. Call it any name you like, the dish is absolutely tasty.

You need
Medium sized ripe manges - 3 nos

Beaten curd/yogurt - 1 cup

Red chilli powder -1/2 tspn

salt

turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn

To grind

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup tightly packed

Green chilly - 3 nos

For Seasoning

Oil - 2 tspn

Mustard seeds- 1 tspn

Red chilly - 2 ( broken into 2)

Curry leaves

Methi seeds - 1/2 tspn

Method

Slice the mangoes into big pieces. Cook the mango pieces along with the seed in enough water. Add chilly powder, turmeric and salt to it. When the mango is cooked well, remove the pieces and seed to a plate and leave it to cool. Squeeze the pulp from the cooked mango, discarding the skin and seed. Mix the pulp into the drained water, used to cook the mangoes.

Grind the coconut and green chilly with little water to a smooth paste. Blend the ground paste into mango pulp mix. Mix in the beaten curd and blend everything well. Adjust salt. Bring to a boil. Remove immediately when it foams on the top, else it will become watery because of the yogurt added.
Do the seasoning and enjoy with hot rice and a side of papad.

Optionally you can add some ash gourd or vellarikkai to this. I have not added them. If you like the curry to be little sweet, you can add a piece of jaggery while cooking the mangoes.

This is off to Mango Mela hosted by Srivalli

Paani Puri /Golgappa

During my childhood days, I never knew what a chaat is. No idea of what is bhel/paani pooris are. But later knew about thro friends and my cousins. But never got an opportunity to taste them. During the visit to Chennai after my 10th std, got to taste bhel puri and paani puri. Its only post marriage that I got taste different kinds of chaats on my trip to then Bombay. Blogging has introduced few more street foods, which are speciality to Mumbai like Dabeli,tawa pulao etc. In the place I live, we will have to wait for an exhibition to come up which will have the inevitable chaat and pappad stall. So if I get the craving to gulp down some pani puris, the only option is to make it myself. After repeated trials, I have got the proportion of flour correct for the pooris so that they are crisp and stay puffed for long. I made these the day before and served it for dinner the next day. It retained the puff, which is essential for paani puris.

For the puris

Rava/Semolina – 1/2 cup

Maida/all purpose flour – 1/2 cup

Oil – 1 tblspn

Salt –1/2 tspn

Water as required

Oil to deep fry

Method

Mix all the ingredients except water. Add water little by little to get a soft dough. Leave for 10 minutes. The dough would be tight after the resting time due to the rava present in it. Knead the dough for 5 minutes to soften it. Pinch a lime sized dough and roll into chapathi as thin as possible. Cut into circles with a cookie cutter or the cover of a suitable container. I got around 60 puris.

Heat oil in a wok. When it is moderately hot (not smoking hot), slide 2/3 puris into the oil. It will puff on its own. Gently flip and drain when it is slightly brown. Cool and store in airtight container if you are not using it immediately.

For paani

Green chutney

Coriander leaves – 1 cup

Handful of mint leaves

Green chillies – 3 nos

Cumin/jeera – 1 tspn

Salt

Grind all the ingredients together. Add water to get a smooth paste. I usually freeze this chutney in small portions.

Date and tamarind chutney

Dates seeded – 10 nos

Jaggery – 4 tblspn

Tamarind extract – 2 tblspn

Red chilli powder – 1 tspn

Roasted fennel seeds – 1 tspn

Salt – a pinch

Soak dates in a cup of warm water for 15 minutes. Grind together soaked dates, jaggery, tamarind paste, red chilli powder and salt.

Adjust the consistency by adding water. Heat a kadai and transfer the ground paste. Let it simmer for few minutes till it reaches a saucy consistency. Stir in the roasted fennel seeds.

For filling

There are various options to use as filling – like boiled and mashed potatoes, sprouted moong, onions, tomatoes, boondhis,cooked channa etc…
I have used sprouted black channa and moong, chopped onions and tomatoes. I cooked the sprouted black channa and microwaved moong sprouts for 2 minutes.

Dilute both chutneys with water and keep it in separate bowls or mix them together. Also instead of preparing separate chutneys, you can prepare one chutney with the ingredients ground together.

Take a puri. Make a hole by pressing on the crisp, puffed side. Add the fillings. Dip the filled puri in the desired paani and gulp it down. Enjoy till the puris are finished.

Puliyodarai/Tamarind Rice

Puliyodarai is fondly associated with travel. Lemon rice also shares the travel food tag. When packed and taken for a train journey, it stays good for a day. Also it is a common prasadam in many of the temples. Once the puliyodarai paste is made, preparing the tamarind rice is a breeze. It makes a good lunch box food too. The tamarind paste stays good for a week on refrigeration and for a month on freezing. The preserved pulyodaria paste and some cooked rice will come handy, if you have to prepare a quick lunch. There are umpteen ways to prepare the paste. This is my MIL's recipe and its a favorite with our family. Once you taste ice with the fresh, home made paste, you will never go for the instant puliyodarai powders available in the market.

Ingredients

To dry roast and powder
Red chilli - 3 nos
Chana dal/Kadala paruppu - 1 tspn
Urad dal/Uzhunnu paruppu - 1 tspn
Sesame seeds/Ellu - 1/2 tspn
Methi seeds/vendhayam/Uluva - 1/2 tspn

For the paste
Tamarind - lemon sized
Turmeric - 1/4 tspn
salt

Seasoning

Gingely oil/Nalennai - 4 tblspn
Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
Chana dal - 1 tspn
Roasted peanuts - 2 tblspn
Curry leaves

3 cups of cooked rice.

Method
Soak the tamarind in a cup of warm water. Extract the thick pulp and keep it aside.

Dry roast all the ingredients till the dals turn golden. Cool and powder it fine.

Heat a kadai with gingely oil. Add the mustard seeds. When it splutters, add chana dal, peanuts and curry leaves. Let the dal turn golden brown. Stir in the thick tamarind extract and add turmeric. Let it simmer till it thickens. Add salt and the ground powder. Simmer till it blends well.

Spread the cooked rice on a plate to cool. Drizzle some gingely oil so that the rice doesn't stick together. Add the paste to the cooked rice and mix gently. Serve with fried applams and enjoy your meal. I served with home made tapioca vadam and salad.

Thanks to Nags for hosting MM# Ravishing Rice, an event started by Meeta, since the recipe in my drafts, finally made it to the blog. This post is also for my blog reader A, who wanted the recipe. And thanks to my friend R, who introduced A to my blog.

Mango Thokku

Come Summer, every household will be busy making pickles and variety of sun dried goodies to last the rest of the year. Raw mangoes are pickled in various ways. This is an instant pickle which can be consumed immediately and do not require any standing time before consuming.

Ingredients

Raw mangoes, chopped - 2 cups

Gingely oil - 4 tblpsn

Chilli powder - 3 tspn

Salt - 2 tspn

Roasted and powdered methi/fenugreek seeds - 1 tspn

Mustard powder - 1 tspn

Method
The mangoes should be raw and sour. Wash and wipe the mangoes dry. Chop the mangoes into pieces with skin. If the skin is very thick, you can scrap and chop. The pieces are not chopped uniformly.

Take a MW safe bowl. Add 2 tablespoon of gingely oil and the chopped mangoes pieces. MW high for 3 minutes. This is to make the mango soft. If you want it mushy, keep for another 2 minutes. Add chilli powder, salt, methi powder, mustard powder and the remaining 2 tblspn of oil. Mix well, so that the spices coat the pieces well. MW for 3 minutes. Cool and store in dry, airtight bottles. It will stay good for a week outside and 2 weeks on refrigeration. The chilli powder i used is very hot which is specifically for pickles. You can adjust the amount of chilli according to your taste.
Usually, these kind of pickles are made not to last too long.

This is my entry to MEC:Extras, hosted by Rachel, an event originated at Srivalli's

Dates Kheer

A healthy and delicious kheer with dates. To make a sugar free dessert, you can actually do with out adding sugar too, not to forget the natural sugar in the dates. I have added sugar since I made it when I had guests at home. This is a very easy recipe. Its almost like a dates milkshake transformed into a kheer. And it sure makes a rich dessert. No soaking required if using soft dates.

Ingredients
Dates deseeded - 100 gms/20 nos
Milk - 1 litre
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder -1 tspn
Ghee 1 tblspn
few cashew nuts to garnish

Method
Soak the dates in a cup of hot milk (from the 1 lite) for an hour. Grind to fine paste. If you would like to bite into tiny pieces of dates, you can make a coarse paste. Boil the remaining milk. When it comes to boil, simmer for few minutes in low flame. Stir in the ground dates and simmer till it
blends well. Add sugar and continue cooking till the sugar is well dissolved and kheer thickens. Add cardamom powder and remove from fire. Roast the cashew nuts in ghee and sprinkle on the kheer. You can also roast some finely chopped dates in ghee and add as garnish in addition to nuts. Serve warm or chilled.

I am sending the bowl of kheer to Srivalli's Mithai Mela.

Vella Payar ~ Cowpeas cooked with jaggery

Vella payar brings back nostalgic memories. The first thing that comes to my mind is Navarathri days. This will be invariably prepared as prasadom on one of the nine days. On other festive occasions too, Amma used to prepare this. One day while I was reliving those memories with my husband, I could not resist the temptation to make it immediately. These cow peas are the kind which does not need much of pre-soaking. I soaked them for half an hour in hot water for easier cooking. There are two varieties of black eyed peas - white and brown. Usually brown variety is used for this. I too have used the same.

Ingredients

Black eyed peas/cowpeas/vellapayar/karamani - 1 1/2 Cup cooked

Jaggery - 1/2 cup

Water - 3 Tblspn (just enough to melt the jaggery)

Grated coconut - 3 tblspn

Ghee - 1 tspn (optional)

I pressure cooked the cow peas. Cow peas can be well cooked. Even if turns mushy, its alright. Since on adding to jaggery, they tend to turn hard. Heat a pan. Add jaggery and water. When jaggery is fully melted, switch off the stove. Strain the syrup to remove any impurities. Heat the strained syrup to soft ball consistency. Stir in cooked cow peas. Keep stirring till there is no moisture . Amma says you can find a coat of grey to the cooked mix and that's the indication to stop. Garnish with grated coconut and teaspoon of ghee. Ghee surely adds a flavor to it. And for neivadyams, it is customary to add a drop of ghee to the dish.

With small quantity, it doesn't take more than 10-15 minutes to get cooked in jaggery. But when making in large quantities, it surely is a test to your muscle strength since it needs a longer period of stirring, to avoid getting burnt at the bottom.

I am sending this bowl of sweet to Srivalli's Mithai Mela.

Maladoo made healthy with jaggery

Kesari and maladoo were regulars in my kitchen. In my attempt to cut down on the calories, I have shifted to making sweets which uses jaggery for sweetener instead of white sugar. Jaggery based sweets will need very little or no ghee. And you get a healthy and tasty sweet. I chanced upon Anisheetu's recipe similar to maladoo and jaggery in the ingredient list caught my attention. I made a mental note of the ingredients and the method. Here is the recipe which I followed.

Ingredients
Pottukadali/pori kadala/roasted gram dal - 1 cup
Grated jaggery - 3/4 cup
Grated coconut - 2 tblsn
Ghee - 2 tblspn
Powdered cardamom - 1/2 tspn
Cashew/Raisins - few (optional)




Method
Lightly roast the pottukadalai. Powder it finely. Roast coconut till light brown. Alternatively you can MW the grated coconut for 1 minute or so.

Heat ghee in a pan, Roast cashews and raisins. Add powdered jaggery and melt it. No need to add water. Since the jaggery is grated, it melts easily in the ghee. When it starts bubbling, stir in powdered gram dal, roasted coconut and cardamom powder. Remove from fire. Mix well and make balls when warm. It tasted good and fits the bill for a low calorie, tasty sweet.



Time taken - 15 minutes
Yields - 14 medium sized ladoos.







I am sending this to Srivalli's Mithai Mela and Mahima's Under 15 minutes Cooking

Papaya Marmalade

Home-made jams give a nice flavor and is free of preservatives and artificial colors and sweeteners. Home made jams have the intense flavor of the fruit used. Making jams is not that difficult. Now a days I have almost stopped buying jams. Pectin is the one which imparts the glossy look and texture to jam. Take care to add a fruit juice which has high pectin content along with the main fruit. Once you get the hang of it, you will never go for the shop bought ones.

You need

Papaya pulp - 3/4 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Juice of 1 orange

Orange zest - 1 tspn

Crushed cloves - 3 nos (optional)

Wash and peel the papaya. Chop into cubes and give a run in the mixer till it is pulpy. You can add sugar also along with the cubes.

Mix all the ingredients in a MW safe bowl. MW for 25 minutes. Keep stirring at every 5 minutes. Mine took 28 minutes. Since Ii have added some orange zest, its called marmalade. Glossy,yummy, papaya marmalade is ready. I refrigerate since no preservative is used. It stays good for three weeks. It has not lasted longer than that at my home.

Vengaya Pakoda - Onion in Besan Fritters

Vengaya pakoda is a very popular snack in Tamil Nadu. Its hard to find any bakery or tea stall with out selling these. These crispy pakodas is the most sought after accompaniment with a cup of hot tea/coffee. In Kerala, you will find the bajji version more popular. Pakodas are crunchy where as bajjis are crisp and soft. Though both are besan based, the batter consistency makes the difference. At my home, Amma used to make this on most of the Sundays. Post marriage, my husband's family love to have these pakodas/bajji as side for dinner. With the onset of monsoon, these will be made often in my home. This is a favorite with my hubby. There isn't any recipe for this. I usually follow eye ball measurement. without any exact measurement followed, each time it is made, it has a unique taste.

1 medium sized onion, chopped

handful of besan flour - 2 measures

handful of rice flour - 1 measure

salt to taste

a big pinch of chilli powder

few shakes of hing

chopped coriander & curry leaves (optional)

Water to prepare the batter

Oil to deep fry

Method

Mix all the ingredients well. Add water little by little to get a thick batter. The batter should not be very stiff also. Adjust the salt and chilli powder to your taste.

Heat oil in a kadai. When hot, take some batter in your hand, crumble it into small pieces, directly into the oil. Be careful as you do this over the oil. Take care that your fingers do not go near oil. The idea is to get small pieces so that it will fry crisp else it will turn soft. This is a very forgiving recipe. Little more or less of any of the ingredients will not affect the taste but the crunchiness will vary. Too much of water or besan will give soft pakoras.

Drain on absorbent papers and when cool, you can store in airtight containers.

I am sending this to RFRU:Starters hosted by Sunshinemom, an event started by Ramki.