Jowar BisiBeleBhath

With my attempts to include jowar in the diet, I tried making Bisibelebath (BBB) using the jowar grains. BBB is one dish which I have tried with wheat and poha/avil as replacements for rice and was quite successful. With the confidence from the earlier trials, I decided for BBB. And I remembered Champa's post featuring an authentic family recipe for BBB. Anything authentic catches my attention immediately. I took this opportunity to try her recipe. Unlike Champa, I took an easy route with cooking jowar and dal. Else I followed her recipe. I reduced the quantities since it was for only 2 people for one meal.  I loved the flavor with the various spices that went into the masala.  

You need

• Jowar grains - 3/4 cup
• Tuvar Dal  - 1/2 cup 
• Tamarind - gooseberry sized
• Salt - to taste
• Turmeric - 1/4 tspn
• Oil - 1 tsp

For the masala:

• Chana dal/Kadalaparuppu - 2 tbspn
• Urad dal - 1 tbspn
• Coriander seeds - 2 tbspn
• Red chillies - 5 nos
• Methi seeds - 1/4 tspn
• Jeera/cumin - 1/2 tsp
• Pepper corns - 1 tspn
• Cardamom - 1 whole
• Cinnamon - 2 1" sticks 
• cloves - 4 nos
• Nutmeg powder - a big pinch
• Poppy seeds - 1 tsp
• Kopra/Dry coconut - 1/2 cup
• Oil - 1 tsp

For seasoning 

• Oil - 1/4 cup
• Mustard seeds - 2 tspn
• Red chillies - 2 broken
• Curry leaves - few sprigs

Method:

Pressure cook jowar and tuvar dal with a pinch of turmeric separately. Soak the tamarind in a cup of warm water. Take a kadai with the ingredients for  masala except nutmeg powder and poppy seeds. Roast on a medium flame till the dal turns golden brown and you can smell  the aroma of roasted spices. Just before  

removing, add nutmeg powder and poppy seeds. Mix well and leave it to cool.

Powder the roasted masala mix to a fine powder. Add the kopra/dry coconut to the powdered masala and pulse to blend finely.  Squeeze the soaked tamarind to extract the juice fully. Add some of the extracted tamarind water to the ground masala to make a thick paste. Reserve the remaining tamarind water.

Take the cooked dal in a pot, add salt, the ground masala paste. Mix well and add the remaining tamarind extract. Adjust the consistency by adding more water. When the the dal starts boiling, add the cooked jowar. Keep stirring so that it blends well. 

In a seasoning ladle, heat 1/4 cup oil. When hot add mustard seeds. When the seeds splutter, add red chillies, curry leaves.  Add the seasoning to the cooking mixture. Stir. Check the consistency and seasonings. If required, add some hot water to make it thin. On cooling, it gets thick. 

I find the jowar BBB very tasty. Though the grains were slightly chewy, it had absorbed the flavors well. May be next time, I shall try to pulse the grains coarsely like the broken wheat. 

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.

Jowar Idli using jowar grains

Food blogging has introduced me to many new grains/flours which  are not part of  my native Palakkad Iyer cuisine. During my grocery shopping, I tend to pick up new grain/flour to try in my kitchen. Most of the time, I will not have recipe in my mind. I had a big packet of jowar grains which I had picked during one of the shopping trips. I relied on Google to throw some recipe links on jowar grains. Most of the recipes used jowar flour. I decided to try idli starting with my usual idli recipe as the base recipe. I was very apprehensive of the outcome. Jowar is an new grain to me and its gluten free. I thought if the idli attempt do not meet success, there is always dosa to look forward.  After 10 minutes of steaming, I was surprised seeing very soft, off white idlis. 

You need

Jowar grains - 1 cup

Idli rice/parboiled rice - 1 cup

Urad dal - 1/2 cup

Methi seeds - 1/2 tspn

Method

Wash jowar, rice and urad dal separately. Soak jowar, rice and methi seeds together. Soak urad dal separately. I soaked it overnight. Jowar requires more soaking time than rice. Soak two hours more than what  you do for the regular rice for idli. 

Grind dal first till fluffy. Remove and grind jowar, rice and methi till it is ground fine. Mix the grain and dal batter with salt. Leave it to ferment for 5-7 hours, based on the weather in your place. 

Take the idli plates. Smear the depression with sesame oil. Spoon the batter and steam cook in a pressure cooker or idli steamer for 10 minutes. 

Remove the cooked idlis and serve with podi/sambhar or chutney.

I love to eat idlis dunked in a bowl of sambhar.

Check out what my blogging marathon friends have cooked for the day.