Puthucode Pulingari - A variation from the normal pulingari

Puthucode in the title is the name of a village in the district of Palakkad. The village is famous for its Anapoorneswari temple and the Navarathri celebrations. During Navarathri, feast/sadhya is there in the temple. The menu is fixed - Pulingari, Olan and Chadachadayam payasam. The pulingari served is different from the normal recipe and hence it is associated with the name of the village. To know more about this village, read Ammupatti's Thoughts.  During my childhood days, our family made it to atleast one day during the nine day celebrations. As kids, our main attraction was the sadya and the chance to taste the lip smacking pulingari. On one of our visits, we got the souvenir published as part of the festival and the recipe for the famous pulingari was given. From then on, amma made it at home too. It was reseved for special occassions. Not that its difficult to make, but to keep the novelty, its not made often as Sambhar is prepared. In olden days, the vegetable pieces added to the pulingari will be very big. Ash gourd, pumpkin and yam are the veggies added. It is told that after peeling the skin, the whole vegetable is dropped on the ground to break into pieces. The pieces, as is broken, is added to the gravy. During the time when I went, the pieces were not that big, but bigger than what we add in our homes. Just to get that feel, my amma also used to add big pieces. There is no dhanya added here and green chilli is used which is not common in pulingari. Usually pulingari will not have dal added to it. The recipe is simple and easy to make, but the taste is something different from the usual sambhar.

You need

Ash gourd/elavan/kumbalanga - 1/2 kg

Pumpkin/Mathan - 1/2 kg

Yam/chenai - 250 gms

Turmeric - 1/4 tspn

Chilli powder -1/2tspn


Salt to taste

Tamarind - lemon sized

Cooked tuvar dal - 1 cup



To roast

Raw rice -2 tblspn

Methi seed - 1 tspn


Roast raw rice and methi seeds separately till light brown. Powder them separately.

To grind

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup heaped

Green chilli - 2 nos


Seasoning

Oil - 1 tspn

Mustard - 1 tspn

Red chilli - 2 nos
Curry leaves

Method

Wash and peel the vegetables. Chop them into 2 inch cubes. Add two cups of water to the cubed veggies and cook. Add turmeric and red chilli powder and half the amount of salt. The salt is added only for the veggies. The remaining salt will be added to the end. Yam takes more time to cook. You can either cook yam alone in a pressure cooker to speed up the cooking.

When the vegetables are half cooked, extract the tamarind juice and add to it. When the veggies are cooked soft in the tamarind gravy, add cooked tuvar dal and roasted and powdered rice powder.

 Grind the coconut and green chilly to a fine paste by adding enough water. Adjust the amount of chillies according to your spice tolerance.

When the gravy starts boiling, add the ground coconut paste and adjust the thickness of the gravy by adding water. The dal, coconut paste and rice powder will thicken the gravy. Add salt and let it simmer for few minutes.

Remove from fire and do the seasoning with mustard seeds and red chillies. Finally add the powdered methi powder and garnish with curry leaves. The methi powder added at the end gives a nice aroma to the dish.

Enjoy with hot rice with a vegetable side dish and papad.

Eggless Chocolate Yogurt Cake

Last week of March, I had my neice and nephew here for a week's vacation. My 10 year old nephew had his list of things he wanted me to make during their stay. He is a great fan of Naan and Paneer Butter Masala that he can have it for all 3 meals and not get bored by it. Without him telling, I knew that top the list. As with all kids, he too is a chocoholic. I was thinking of  using the zebra cake recipe and make a chocolate cake. I was surprised when he asked me if I could bake using the recipe given on the Cadbury's cocoa tin. Though I have seen it, I have not bothered to try it. I told him I haven't tried it so I can't guarantee the result. He was confident of my baking skills and told I can't go wrong. Hearing his innocent reply, I could not say no and all credit goes to him that I baked my best chocolate cake so far. The recipe was eggless so I needn't make any changes. Few measurements were given in grams which I converted to cups with help of online converter.  The measurements may not be exact and that didnot affect the cake at all. Mava was also in the ingredient list and I didnot add it. May be the addition of mava would have resulted in a rich cake.

You need

Curd - 1 cup

Rawa/semolina- 1/4 cup (50 gm)

Cooking soda- 1/2 tspn

Butter - 1/2 cup (100 gm)

Powdered sugar - 1 2/3 cup (200 gm)

Mava - 50 gm (I didnot use it)

Maida - 1 2/3 cup (200 gm)

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Cocoa powder - 3 tablespoon

Milk - 1 cup


Method

Mix 1 cup curd with rawa and cooking soda. Keep aside for 10 minutes. Beat butter amd powdered sugar. Add soaked curd-rava mixture. Mix well. In a bowl, sift maida, baking powder and cocoa powder until well combined. Add the flour mix to wet mixture. Add 1 cup of milk. Mix gently. Take care not to overmix.

Pour the prepared batter into a greased and dusted tim. Bake at 180 C for 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.


Fudge Icing

Butter - 1/2 cup
Icing sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa powder - 3 tblspn
Milk - few drops

Mix all the ingredients till light and fluffy. Add few drops of milk to get a spreadable consistency. Spread it on the cake.

My niece wanted to add her bit to the cake. So sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of the icing and aranged some tutty fruity.

Back after the break with Chakka Curry - Jackfruit and brown chana cooked in coconut gravy

Finally back after a long break, which was not meant to be this long. A sudden trip to be with my parents and sister's family. I had planned to blog from there. But I couldnot withstand the heat of  North India, though I am used to mercury hitting 40 C in the South. For most of the days I stayed there, I wasn't keeping well . So I was in mood to sit and write for blog. On top of it I had some pending projects to be completed too. In short, I could not do any thing I planned. Except for two days of  outing, I stayed indoors. Our return trip had to be made via Bangalore for want of tickets. That meant few days of staying with my MIL, BIL and family. My nephew and niece had extracted a promise from me that I stay with them during their vacation. And they are happy that I kept my promise.

And after three weeks,we were back home. It feels good to be back home and  to the routine after a break. There are so many pics in my drafts folder to be posted.  Somehome, I was not able to get into the mood to blog after the break. I have been trying to make a post for the past one week with out much success. Hope after this initial reluctance, I will be able to post regularly.

Here is a recipe with the seasonal fruit - Jackfruit. I didnot get to eat much of jackfruit since I was away for almost a month.

You need


Semi ripe jackfruit bulbs- 20 nos

Brown chana - handful
Turmeric  - a pinch

salt to taste

chilli powder - a pinch

To roast and grind

Urad dal - 2 tspn

Red chilli - 2 nos

Cumin/jeera - 1/2 tspn

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup


Seasoning

Coconut oil - 1 tblspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Red chilly- 2nos, broken into two

Grated coconut - 1 tblspn


Method


Wash and soak channa for 6 hours or overnight. Pressure cook till it is soft. You can use cow peas also in place of chana. Remove the seeds from the jackfruit bulb and chop into bite sized peices. The fruit should not be ripe and should be firm. At this semi ripe stage, the taste  will be a mix of sour and sweet. This is ideal to make chakka curry.

Cook the chopped fruit with half cup of water. Add turmeric and salt and a pinch of red chilli powder. When its almost cooked, add the cooked chana and let it cook together for 5 minutes.

Roast the urad dal and red chilli in a teaspoon of oil till dal turn light brown. Grind the roasted ingredients along with coconut and cumin to a smooth paste. Add water just enough to grind.
Add the ground coconut paste to the cooked mix and adjust the consistency by adding water if requied. The curry is semisolid. It gets thicker on cooling.  Do the seasoning along with grated coconut and fry till it turns light brown. Garnish with curry leaves. My measurement of coconut is less compared to what my Amma cooks.  If you wish, you can increase the amount of coconut in grinding and garnishing.

Announcing the winner of the giveaway & Red Velvet Cupcake ~ an e-treat for all participants -

After running a promotional giveaway for 10 days and now its time to announce the lucky winner. Thank you readers for your wishes and comments on that post. And Lady Luck has cast her smile on

Shoba of Anubhavati, Tastes from my kitchen. I am sure the gift will delight your daughter who loves waffles. Please mail me your address to claim your gift. Thank you CSN team at counter stools for the opportunity.

For all those who participated., here is a virtual treat for you. Hope you enjoy it. The recipe I follow is from Vcuisine(private blog). I have tried it twice following the recipe to T but have skipped the frosting both the times. This time I have made some changes like substituting part All purpose flour with multi grain, butter with oil etc. Beets puree is used as the coloring agent.

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 cup
Multigrain flour - 1/2 cup
Cocoa powder  - 1 1/2 tblspn
Baking powder - 1 tspn
Vanilla essence - 1 tspn
Salt - 1/4 tspn

Sugar -1 cup
Oil - 1/3 cup

Buttermilk - 1 cup
Beetroot puree - 1 cup (I used only 1/2 cup)

Cooking soda - 1/2 tspn

Lime juice - 1/2 tspn

Method

Steam cook beets and grate it finely. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Mix oil and sugar and whisk till sugar is fully dissolved. Mix grated beet and buttermilk in a separate bowl. Add flour mix and buttermilk alternatively to the oil-sugar combo. Finally add vanilla essence, cooking soda and lime juice. Mix well.

Grease muffin pan and fill 2/3 full. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 35 minutes.

Frosting
Maida - 2 tblspn
Sugar - 4 tblspn
Butter - 1 tblspn
Milk - 20ml
Vanilla essence - 2 drops

Mix flour in milk without forming lumps and cook till they form a pouring consistency. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla till fluffy. Add the cooked maida mix to the cream and frost the cake. The maida mix turned very thick for me and added few drops of milk to it. But the end mixture turned to be slightly runny and when I piped the frosting it started spreading. It didnot affect the taste though.

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.

Microwave Jackfruit Cashewnut Kheer

I was regular with the Microwave Easy Cooking event, started by Srivalli, for sometime. Then later on, my interest in event participation came down and did not bother to cook exclusively for the event. But I didnot want to miss this month's theme of celebrating fellow bloggers hosted by my namesake and dear friend. I had few recipes bookmarked in my mind. But could not get around making anything. When I had few jackfruit bulbs left from what was shared by my neigbour, I immedately decided to make this kheer.  I had tasted cooked jackfruit only with jaggery as sweetner. So I wasn't sure how the kheer with sugar is going to taste. I decided to go ahead. I adapted Priya's recipe. I replaced almond with cashew and used fresh jackfruit. The kheer is very simple gets done in 5 minutes in a microwave. 

You need

Fresh jackfruit bulb - 10 nos  (around 1/2 cup of chopped pieces)
Cashewnuts - 10 nos
Milk - 1 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3 tablespoon
Saffron & Cardamom Syrup - 1 tspn

Method

Soak cashewnuts in warm milk for 10 minutes. Else MW half cup of milk and cashew together for 1 minute. Leave it to cool. Blend cashew along with milk and jackfruit to a smooth puree. Add rest of the milk and sugar. Microwave for 4 minutes. Add saffron and cardamom syrup and mw for 30 seconds. If you like, you can serve it warm. I liked it chilled. It tastes like a pudding. Depending on the variety of jackfruit the kheer can turn very creamy and thick. You can adjust the amount of milk to suit your consistency. Also adjust the sugar according to the sweetness of the fruit.

Raagi Idly using whole raagi grains

Mercury in my area is been touching new levels before its officially summer. Cases of sun burn is reported on a daily basis and is something unheard of previously. Days are warmer. Even early morning is not so pleasant. I usually finish my cooking by 7 before husband leaves for office. That is to say I don't have to be in the kitchen when the day warms up. But even during the early morning hours,Iam sweating profusely. I prefer breakfast which gets done quickly. Idlis are great saviors since it gets done in a batch. Other than the normal idlies, I make idly with rava, wheat rava and semiya too. It was then I thought of trying raagi idli. Raagi is supposed to have the cooling effect on the body and its ideal for the summer heat. I followed the usual idli recipe where in 2 cups of rice was replaced with ragi grains. It turned out soft and taste of ragi was mild too.

You need

Parboiled rice/idli rice - 2 cups

Whole ragi grains- 2 cups

Urad dal -1 cup

Methi seeds - 1 tspn

Salt to taste


Method

Wash and soak rice,ragi urad dal and methi seeds separately for 6 hours or overnight. First grind urad dal till light and fluffy. While grinding urad dal, don't be tempted to add more water. Add enough water to keep the batter moist. This will ensure fluffy batter. Next grind rice and ragi together till it is smooth. Add the soaked methi seeds also while grinding rice and ragi together.  Add salt and mix the ground dal and rice-ragi mixture . Give a thorough mix with a ladle or better use your hand which aids in fermentation. Leave the batter to ferment for 6 hours.  Make idlis the usual way.

I am planning to increase the quantity of ragi to 3 cups and reduce rice. I think it should turn out well.  I am sending this to JIHVA for breakfast hosted by Suma, an event started by Indira

Promotional Giveaway for my readers

The CSN promotion team at counter stools contacted me sometime back  about a promotional giveaway to my readers. After few email exchanges I decided to go about it. But then life intervened and two days back I

mailed them again to check if the offer is still open. They were kind to say yes and here I present two choice of gifts to my lovely readers. If you are interested in having a counter stool at your kitchen, do visit their exclusive site for counterstools.

Inspired by Srivalli, I followed a healthy diet plan for sometime. In between I had to break. Now I am back at it, though I  cheat at times. Its fine even I am able to follow atleast partially, since its better than no diet plan at all.  I find any other fellow bloggers inspired to follow the diet. If any of you want to follow a strict diet in terms of wieght and nutrition facts, then this is for you.

Nutritional Label Scale

Enough of dieting topic. How about  some home made waffles. Thanks to Bangalore Baker, I got to know about this from one of her posts.Various possiblities of waffles came to my mind. Hope this interests you as much as it did to me

Chef's Choice International WafflePro

To win one of these, all you have to do is leave a comment here. If you are non-blogger, leave your email id so that I can contact you if you happens to the lucky one. This promotion is open for 10 days ie till 5th of April. If you also tweet about it, you will have an additional chance of winning. The giveaway will be shipped to only US/Canada.

I chose to do this post today, since not everyday do I turn a year older. For a change, this year, I get an opportunity to give the gift. Thanks to my lovely readers who visit here often and to those who take time to leave their comment here.

Plantation Style Rice Roti ~ Sptolightblog#2 Recipe

The last recipe from Asha's Foodies Hope is Coffee plantation style rice roti. I had planned to try the baingan masala too but did not have brinjals in hand. I had bookmarked few brinjal dishes and very much wanted to post atleast one eggplant recipe since its one of her favorite veggie. I will try it soon and shall post it then. For now, its just the akki roti. She says this kind of roti is familiar only to people around Hassan, Sakaleshpura and Coorg coffee Plantations. I found this version of roti very useful to use up left over cooked rice. Roti comes out soft and I know I have to go long way to get the super soft kind. I tried with half the measure of her orginal recipe and got 4 rotis. By the time I made the last one, I got the hang of it and promised myself that I make it often and master the technique.

You need

Cooked rice  - 1 cup


Rice flour - less than 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/2 tspn


Method.

If you are using freshly cooked rice, spread it on a plate and leave it to cool. Mash the rice with salt in it. Add rice flour to it to get a firm non stick dough. Try not to add too much of rice flour since it will result in tough rotis. Divide roti into tennis ball size rounds. I got 4.

Since I used left over rice from lunch, I pulsed the cooked rice in the mixer and added rice flour to it. I got a homogenous dough. Pat the dough on a greased plastic sheet or on a banana leaf. Heat a tawa and when hot peel and place the roti on it. Cook till you see light brown specs on it. Flip and cook the other side too.

Ashakka had written that it can be half cooked on the tawa and then it can be cooked using a stove top grill which is used for phulkas. I followed this method. Else you can do the entire cooking on the tawa. No oil required. These rotis ideally should puff up. Serve the soft and hot rotis along with any spicy side dish.

Beet Rasam ~ SpotLightBlog#2 Recipe

Third recipe which I tried from Foodies Hope is Beet rasam. Rasam with beet sounded interesting. Rasam at my home is tomato with occasional variances of lemon or pepper rasam. So I wanted to try this beets rasam.  The sweetness from the beets compliments the rasam well.  The recipe for rasam powder is from Asha’s close friends’s mother. Do give it a try and I am sure you will never regret it.  I am glad to have found another way to cook beets.

Ingredients

Tur Dal - 1/4 cup

Beetroot - 1 nos

Lime sized tamarind

Salt

Hing



RASAM POWDER:

TO ROAST AND POWDER:

Coriander Seeds - 4 tblspn

Dry Red Chillies - 3 red chillies

Dry Coconut - 2 tblspn

Cumin Seeds - 1 tspn

Pepper Corns - 1/2 tblspn

Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tspn

Fenugreek Seeds - 1/4 tspn

Curry Leaves



Seasonings

Oil - 1 tblspn

Mustard Seeds - 1 tspn

Cumin Seeds - 1 tspn

Onion - 1 no

Curry Leaves

Dry Red Chilli - 1 broken into two


Method

Roast the ingredients for powder and powder it. You may not require the whole amount of powder. Use necessary and store the rest.

Pressure cook dal. Chop beetroot into fine cubes. Cook beetroot with 2 cups of water and salt in it. When itscooked, add dal, tamarind juice. Let it simmer for few minutes till the raw smell of the tamarind goes. Add 3 teaspoon of rasam powder and let it simmer. You can increase the amount rasam powder to suit your taste level. Store the remaining powder in an airtight container. This powder can be used with vegetable stir fry also. Season with the ingredients listed above and pour onto the rasam. The picture doesn't do justice to the dish. I was in a hurry so could manage only this much with the picture.

Aathirasallu /Athirasam for Indian Cooking Challenge

Srivalli challenged us with Aathirasallu or Athirasam for the the month of February. Athirasam is such a tricky sweet even for an expert cook. I experienced it on my first trial of it when I misunderstood the proportion of rice flour. On my second attempt too, I had my share of failure while making this before I got perfect discs. Irrespective of any number of earlier attempts, for me, making it every time is a challenge. Armed with the hints picked up with the failed attempts, I was determined to get it right from the first one.

Ingredients Needed

Raw Rice - 200 gms

Paku Jaggary - 250 gms

Sesame Seeds - 2 tsp or less

Gasa gasa or Poppy Seeds - 1/4 tsp

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method

I followed the first recipe given where the measurements was in weight. I don't have a wieghing scale and cook the help of online conversions and proceeded. For the 200 gms of rice, I took less than a cup of rice andd soaked it for 6 hours and powdered in my mixie. When I measured, it the flour was around 1 1/2 cups. I took 1 cup of jaggery.

Melt the jaggery and make a syrup of 3 thread consistency. Add  sesame seeds, poppy seeds and cardamom powder to the syrup. Slowly stir in the flour and mix well. The dough consistency should be of chappathi dough. But mine turned out to be gooey. Added around 1/2 cup of flour to get the correct consistency. When you pat the dough to make discs, it should not stick to your hand. Thats the test I do.

Luckily, when I dropped the first disc into the hot oil, it did retain the shape and got fried well. When the jaggery is more, thats what usually happens, the disc will disintegtate into strands,which does taste good on deep frying. Enjoyed the crunch from the sesame seeds, when we bite into. Liked the addition of poppy seeds too.

Thanks Srivalli for choosing this for the challenge and my confidence level in making this has surely increased after this attempt.

Muringai Poo Kootu (Drumstick blossom and chana dal in coconut paste)

Some of the widely used flowers in daily cooking are vazhai poo (banana), vepam poo (neem) ,muringai poo (drumstick) and the like. I have cooked only with vazhai poo,  all these years. I have heard of vepam poo pachadi and rasam but never got access to vepam poo. Muringa poo is another one which I wanted to try. I hav a drumstick tree in my backyard. And no one will ever try to pick those flowers willingly since they will have to forego the drumsticks instead. Ever since I saw the post at Nirmala's, I wanted to give it a try. Few days back, when my maid was trying to pick the drumsticks on a top branch, the branch broke since drumstick tree is very fragile. And it had so much of flowers. Infact my maid felt bad about it. But the sight of my maid  with the bunch of flowers, brought a huge smile on my face. Without a delibrate attempt, i have got some flowers . I prepared kootu with the flowers the next day. Thanks Nirmala for inspiring me to try it.

 

You need

Muringai poo - 2 cups ( Use more if u can get)

Chana dal - 4 tblspn

Grated coconut - 1/4 cup

Red chilly - 1 nos

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn

Salt

Turmeric

Seasoning

Oil, mustard seeds, urad dal and red chilly, broken into two.

 

Method

 

Cook chana dal in pressure cooker till soft but firm. Wash the flowers and cook in 1/2 cup of water with salt and turmeric. When the flowers wither, add the cooked chana dal and let it simmer for few minutes.

Grind the grated coconut, red chilly and cumin to a smooth paste. Add little water while grinding. Add the ground paste to the cooking mix and bring to a boil.

Heat a seasoning ladle with a teaspoon of oil and season with mustard, urad dal and red chillies. Add it to the kootu. Serve with hot rice and sambhar.

Mulakuvaruthapuli - Pearl onions in thin tamarind sauce

Mulakuvaruthapuli is to Keralites (atleast to those in Palakkad) as Vathakuzhambu to Tamilians. So you get the drift now. I am not sure if this dish popular in other parts of Kerala. I guess this more of a region specific food. This is one of the comfort foods. A handful of pear onions or shallots and one or two green chillies sauteed and cooked in a thin tamarind sauce and a seasoning of mustard seeds with curry leaves is all that this simple recipe asks for. with some roated papad and hot rice, you have a meal ready with in minutes. Now, this was not a regular at home. As I mentioned, we being Kerala Iyers, Vathakozhambu was more popular. During my growing up years, when we were living as joint family, the only dish cooked with pearl onion was Vengaya Sambhar. Other than that, it was not added to any other dish.

I was introduced to this from my neigbor V aunty. Aunty makes this often and the popular side at their home was egg fry. I have tasted this puli many times at her house. Many years later we moved to our own house in the same neighborhood. It was then Amma started making this at home. Preparing these kind of dishes takes me down the memory lane and its an opportunity for me to  relive those memories. Now a days, I don't make this very often. Last time when I made this after a long gap, I had to call V Aunty to share my memories of this and many other dishes indroduced to me by her.

You need

Pearl onions /Sambhar vengayam/Cheriya Ulli- 10 nos

Green chilly - 2 nos

Tamarind - gooseberry sized

Tumeric a pinch

Salt
 A tiny piece of jaggery (Optional)
Seasoning

Oil - 1 tblspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Curry leaves

Soak tamarind in 2 cups of warm water for 10 minutes. Soaking in warm water helps to extract the juice fully. Peel onions and slice it into two if they are slightly big in size. Heat a kadai with a tablespoon of oil. Add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add the green chllies slit into two and curry leaves. Then add the shallots. Saute till it is transparent. Add the extracted tamarind juice. Add salt and turmeric. If you are adding jaggery, you can add it. Jaggery will mellow down the tangy taste sinec no other spices are added. I usually don't add jaggery. Bring to a boil and simmer for few minutes.  Its ready to serve.

 
Usually its made with pearl onions. The slight hint of sweetness in these kind of onions complements the tanginess from tamarind.
 
 
 
 

 

 

Eggless Cardamom Raisin Quick Bun ~ SpotLightBlog #2 Recipe

Its been hectic for the past 1 week. It continues to this week also. A demo should be ready by next Monday and host of family/friends functions to attend. In the last 10 days, I have attended more than 5 functions which includes Upanayanams,Sadabhishekam (80th b'day) and AanduNiraivu (First b'day).  I have never attended these many in a short period. And should I say anything about the diet I was following. Indeed I followed it religiously for less than two weeks. I hope to resume my diet soon. So naturally, blogging took backseat.Unread posts count in my reader is in 3 digits. I know I have lot to catch up with. Just realised that its Mondaya and time for my spotlight blog recipe. I didnot want to miss posting it since the pics are ready. So here comes the recipe from Asha's Aroma Hope - Cardamom Raisin Quick Bun. 

As the name suggests, there is no yeast in this , hence no resting time. With 10 minutes preparation and 15 minutes baking time, you have delicious buns ready to be had with tea. Loved the cardamom flavor in the bun. Its hard to stop with one. It tastes absolutely delicious while warm. The orginal recipe had one egg and I replaced it with flaxseed meal. Here is the recipe which I followed.

Ingredients

All purpose flour / Maida - 1 1/2 cup

Baking powder - 2 tspn

Salt - 1/2 tspn

Cardamom powder -1 tspn

Sugar - 1/4 cup

Ghee /Melted butter - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1/3 cup

Flax seed meal - 1 tspn mixed in 1/4 cup water

Raisins - 2 tblspn

Method

Mix the dry ingredients - All purpose flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom powder in a bowl. Mix well and add raisins to it. Beat sugar and ghee well. Add milk and flaxseed meal mixed with water to the sugar mixture. Make a well in the dry mixture. Pour the wet mix and fold so that its just brought together. Drop spoonfuls of mixture on to a greased tray. I got 8 pieces. Bake in a preaheated oven at 200 C for 15 minutes. Mine didnot brown even after 15 minutes. So I just grilled it for 5 more minutes.

Serve warm. Else MW for 20 seconds before serving. It stays good for 2 days kept outside.

Mysore Saaru from Asha's Foodies Hope ~ Blog on SpotLight for March

My spotlightblog idea is well received and the encouraging comments gives the necessary boost to move ahead. This month, March, the spotlight will be on Asha's Foodies Hope/Aroma Hope. Ashakka or her blog doesn't need any introduction here. She is one of the senior bloggers around and she has never failed to encourage her fellow bloggers. She makes it a point to comment on all posts of those blogs which she follow except when she is on a blogging break. Untill recently, her weekly posts will have few pics of the recipes tried from fellow bloggers. Unlike many recipe posts, each post at FH has a minimum of 5 recipes. Don't go by the number of posts in her blog to arrive at the recipe count. Its much, much more. I had tough time selecting recipes even though I was looking at pure veg recipes.

The first is the series is her gramndmother's recipe -Mysore Saaru. This saaru is remotely similar to sambhar but the spices gives it a different flavor and it is very light too. If you have spice powder ready, its very easy to put together this since most of the cooking is done in the pressure cooker and the only thing to be done is the seasoning.

Saaru/Spice powder

Coriander seeds - 2 tblspn
Tuvar dal - 2 tblspn

Poppy seeds, Cumin, raw rice,
mustard seeds and pepper corn   - 1 tspn each

Red chilly - 2 nos
Methi seeds -1/2 tspn
Cinnamon - 1 " stick
Dry coconut - 2 tblspn
Turmeric - 1/4 tspn

Roast the spices in medium heat. This will ensure even roasting of the dals and spices. I didnot have dry coconut/kopra. I roasted the coconut seperate till light brown. Powder the roasted ingredients fine in a mixer grinder. I used only two tablespoon of the spice powder. Store the rest in an airtight container. You can increase the amount of red chillies to suit your spice level.

For the saaru

Tuvar dal - 1/2 cup
Pearl onions - 10 nos
Drumstick - 1 no cut into 1" pieces
Tomatoe- 2 nos
Tamarind juice - 1 tblspn
salt to taste
corinader leaves

To temper
Oil
mustard seeds
cumin seeds
red chilly - 1 torn into two pices
hing
curry leaves

Method

Pressure cook tuvar dal, pearl onion and tomato. Heat oil in a kadai. Add the tempering ingredients. Add tamarind juice and 2 tablespoon of saaru powder and salt. Transfer the cooked dal and vegetables to the kadai. Simmer gently and garnish with curryleaves and coriander leaves.  You can add any vegetable that you normally add to sambhar.

Enjoy with hot rice or steaming idlies.

Aapam - A Kerala Delicacy

The soft,spongy dosa which is slightly thick in the centre and lacy edges is truly an irresistable breakfast dish. Yes, I am talking about aapam, which is a very common breakfast of Keralites apart from puttu. The popular combo is Aapam and Potato stew or Kadala curry. Both the sides tastes awesome with aapam. In Tamilnadu, coconutmilk is usually served as a side which is also a good match for the soft aapam. There are umpteen recipes which guarantee you the best aapam. My recipe is a simple straight forward one, which I have adapted from my Amma. I have eliminated an additional step which Amma follows. Amma uses only raw rice and coconut for grinding. Then she will prepare a thick , but free flowing paste out of a tablespoon of batter mixed with 1 cup of water. The cooked batter paste is then mixed to the batter and left to ferment.  This is to get soft aapam. I omit that step and instead add a handful of urad dal while grinding.

To prepare aapam, you need that special pan to get the perfect shape for aapam - with a dome in the centre and lacy edges.  Now a days you get the non-stick aapam pans which makes aapam preparation a breeze. Earlier, amma used to use the deep kadai for this and had to struggle lifting the appam from kadai. If you don't have an appam pan, you make it on regular dosa tawa. You don't get the shape. But cover and cook only one side.

You need

Raw rice - 2 cups

Split urad dal  - handful

Grated coconut - from half of a coconut

Salt to taste

Cooking soda - 1/4 tspn

Method

Wash and soak rice and urad dal together for 5 hours or overnight. Grind together rice, urad dal and grated coconut till smooth. Add salt and leave to ferment for 6 hours. The batter consistency should be thinner than dosa batter. Add cooking soda and leave it for 10 minutes for the soda to act.  If you are not using the whole batch, divide the batter before you add soda. This way you will have fresh batter to start with the next day. With soda added batter, I feel you don't get the same result the next day.

Keep the aapam pan on the stove and smear little oil on the pan. Take a ladle of the batter and pour, starting from the outer edge to the centre of the pan. Hold the handles of the pan and give a gentle swirl so that some batter from the edges will flow down to the centre. This method will leave only a thin layer of the batter at the edge which will turn crisp on cooking. Cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes on moderate heat. If you like a crisp exterior, you can conitnue to cook for few more seconds for it turn brown else remove.

I served with the chettinad tomato chutney which went very well with aapam.

Aapam is regular for breakfast at home and I have been thinking of posting this for a while. But will forget to click the picture everytime. My R.Manni (co-sister) has been asking for this recipe, for quite a long time and fianlly a mail from my reader prompted me to do the post at the earliest.