Wheat rava idly from Vcuisine

I was familiar with rava idly but not out of wheat rava. When I saw Viji akka's post on Wheat rava idly, I decided the menu for Sunday breakfast. Usually, Sunday breakfast is puttu/kadala. If for some reasons, I am not making it, then the other option is gothumba rava upuma. So, the same ingredients ( i also add veggies to the upma ), but cooked differently. The addition of crushed pepper corns gives a nice flavor to the idlis. Needless to say, all liked this idli version. I followed Viji akka's recipe to the T except one substituion.I am giving the recipe for the benefit of non-readers of Vcuisine (since it is private) and also for my future referance.

For the batter

Slightly roasted wheat rava (Godumbai Rava) - 2 cups

Urad dal powder - 2 tblspn

Salt

Water - 1 1/2 cups

Baking soda - 1/2 tspn

If you don't have urad dal powder handy, soak 2 tblspn of dal for 30 minutes or so and grind to a smooth paste. Mix urad dal powder in 1/2 cup water without forming any lumps. Add the remaining water and stir in the wheat rava and salt. Mix well and ferment it for 6 hrs or leave it overnight.

Seasoning

oil+ghee - 2 tbspn

grated ginger - 1 tspn

hing powder - 1/2 tspn

coarsely crusheed pepper corns and jeera - 1 tspn

curry leaves

Veggies that can be used - Peas (fresh ones tastes good), diced carrot, capsicum, fresh maize. I used only fresh peas and carrot.

Before preparing the idlis, do the seasoning.

Take a skillet and add oil+ghee. Add the seasoning as given. Finally add the chopped veggies and cook for a minute.

Stir the seasoned veggies to the idli batter. Add 1/2 tspn of baking soda to the batter. (The original recipe says Eno fruit salt)

Spoon the batter into greased idli moulds. Steam cook for 10-15 mts. Serve with any chutney of your choice.

Tomato Ginger Thokku

I adapted tomato ginger thokku also from Viji akka's recipe. Since I was lazy to extract the juice from ginger, I grinded blanched tomatoes along with chopped ginger and proceeded with her recipe

Take a skillet and do the seasoning. Add sesame oil. Add mustard , curry leaves, hing powder. Add the tomato-ginger puree and cook for 3 minutes. Then add the spices - 1/2 tspn of red chilly powder, fenugreek and mustard powder each. Continue cooking till oil starts floating. Yes its really an easy spicy thokku.

Thai Velli Kolam (of 25th Jan)

As I had mentioned in the earlier post on pongal, these are the set of kolams, drawn for the friday,25th Jan. I had drawn few more,but failed to take the snaps.

Morappam/Kuzhi paniyaram

Morappam is a favourite evening tiffin. Me and my sister ask Amma to prepare this on Sundays when we watch movies. Perfect evening snack. Those days, as kids, we never bothered about it being drenched in oil. But things have changed now. I have bought a non-stick appam pan specially for making oil-less(not oil-free !!!) morappams. With non-stick pans, the oil used will be somewhat equal to what is required in preparing a dosa. Thats manageable. So here goes the recipe.

Idly/Dosa batter - 1 cup

Medium sized onion - 1 no

Seasoning

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Chana dal - 1 tspn

Finely chopped green chilly - 2 nos

Curd chilly - 2 nos

Curry leaves - few

Hing powder - 1/4 tspn.

Heat oil in a skillet. Do the seasoning as given and add to the batter.

Stir in the finely chopped onions. Add salt. Mix well.

Adjust the consistency by adding water, so that it is thinner than dosa batter.

Fill the non-stick appam pits each with 1/2 tspn of oil. Pour spoonfuls of the batter into each pit. It will take two minutes to cook one side.

Flip the morappams upside down. Cook the other side also.

Since it is spicy on its own, serve them with a mug of steaming hot coffe/tea. If desired can serve with any chutney of your choice.

Noi arisi pongal (Puli Pongal)

Noi arisi is nothing but broken rice, the rice used to make kanji. This pongal is rice cooked in tamarind water. It is a one pot dish. This is my Dad's faviourite. M paatti (maternal grandma) cooks this best. Even when my Mom cooks, it cannot match my paati's. Its probably because, paati always cooked on stovetop, unlike my Mom/self who takes the easiest route - pressure cooking.

You get broken rice , specially marked for Kanji. If you are unable to get it, grind the rice in mixie. Make sure it is just broken and not powdered.

Let me get into the procedure now.

Things needed

Broken rice - 1 cup

Tamarind - small lemon size

Turmeric - 1/4 tspn

Water - 2 cups

Salt to taste

Seasoning

Sesame oil - 1 tblspn

mustard - 1 tspn

chana dal - 1 tspn

red chilly - 3 nos

curd chilly - 3 nos (add more if you like it)

curry leaves - few

Hing powder - 1/2 tspn

Soak the tamrind in water. Extract the tamarind juice and add water to it so that tamarind plus water will be 2 1/2 cups.

Take the pressure cooker. Add oil and do the seasoning with mustard seeds, chana dal, red chilly and curd chilly broken, curry leaves and hing powder.

Add the tamrind water and turmeric.

Stir in the washed rice and salt.

Mix well. Pressure cook for 3 whistles.

Open it after 20 minutes. Yummy puli pongal will be ready. You can serve with papad or any vadams.

Jujups

When I came across the AFAM event, I noted the fruit is Papaya. I was pondering what to prepare with it. Its mostly used as a vegetable in my kitchen. If it is ripe, it is eaten. I wanted to dish out a not so common recipe using Pappaya. I was discussing with MIL regarding this. It was then she mentioned about Jujups and told me that she has noted the recipe in one of her diaries. She added that she has not tried making it. The search for the recipe diary turned successful. But the Jujups recipe was not in the diary pages, it was noted down in a sheet of paper. The sheet has possibly survived a minimum of 25 years. One can imagine its condition. It was so delicate. If I hold the sheet in my hand, it will turn into pieces. Actually it was almost in pieces. Being in between the diary sheets for so many years, it was maintaining the sturcture somehow.Anyway, I managed to write the ingredients and method and bid a farewell to the paper.

I was not sure how it will turn out. Nonetheless, decided to go ahead with the recipe. My MIL also said she is not sure if the recipe is a fool proof one. Till the final stage of the prepration, I was apprehensive of the end result. Finally, it was worth the effort. It turned out much better than the store bought one. This recipe is a keeper for me.

Before you all get impatient with my long introduction, let me go to the recipe now.
You will require

Grated pappaya - 2 cups

Salt - 2 tspn

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Water - 3/4 cup

Essence (your choice) - 1 tspn (I used orange)

Lime - 2 Nos

Method

Select a ripe and firm papaya. Else when you grate, it will turn mushy.

Soak the grated papaya in water with 2 tspn salt added to it. Leave this for half an hour

Wash and drain the papaya
Take a kadai or a heavy bottom vessel.

Add 3/4 cup water and papaya. Cover and cook the papaya till the whole water is evaporated. It took 15 minutes for me.

Add sugar to it. Keep stirring. When the sugar melts and the papaya turns into a sticky mass, add essence and lime juice. This step took 10 minutes

Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from fire.

Grease a plate with ghee and transfer the cooked mixture to it.

When it is warm and you can hold in your hand, take a spoon
full and shape it. Dip your fingers in water and start rolling. It will be easier to shape them.

Later roll on sugar and keep it aside.

Enjoy your jujups. Once you taste this, you will stop buying from stores.

Next time, I should try in MW. I can make it with less physical strain.

This goes to the monthly event AFAM, hosted by Nags for the month of Jan with the fruit - Papaya.

Morkali/Koozhu

It is a very traditional tiffin. It is mostly prepapred in the evenings since it is labelled as a ligh tiffin. It is known as Koozhu in Kerala whereas in TamilNadu it is called morkali.
It is an easy to make tiffin with simple ingredients.

Rice flour - 1 cup

Buttermilk - 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Salt as required

For Seasoning

Oil - 1 tblspn

Mustard - 1 tspn

Chana dal- 1 tspn

Curry leaves- few nos

Green chilly (chopped) - 1 nos

Curd chillies (thayir molagai) - 3 Nos

Take a bowl. Add oil. Keep in MW for 30 seconds.

Add mustard and again keep for 30 seconds. When mustard splutters, add the rest of the seasoning and leave for 1 minute.

In another bowl, make a thin batter out of the rice flour, buttermilk, water and salt. Mix well. Pour the batter over the seasonings in the first bowl.

Cook in MW high for 4 minutes. Stir once in between.It will be cooked well.

If you touch with a wet finger, it should not stick to your finger.

It can be eaten as it is else can be cut in to pieces.

To cut into pieces,grease a plate with oil and spread the kali on it and level it with a spoon. Cut into squares and serve cool with pickle or chutney of your choice.

This can be cooked on stove top also. Now you can guess why I cooked in MW. Yes, this goes to Srivalli for her MEC-Tiffin, the theme for the month of January.

Kolli Vadam (Tapioca Papad-Sundried)

Once summer sets in, one can see plastic sheets with various type of karuvadams and vathals dried in front of the houses. This is a common sight in my village.

I started before the actual summer set in. Then I will have rush to finish the drying before it gets really hot. Now, I can be little late in starting with the drying work, since sun is bearable till around 10:30 in the morning.

This weekend I made kolli vadam. I have to prepare one more batch. May be in the coming weekend.



Tapioca powder (store bought) - 1/2 kg

Raw rice - 1/2 cup

Pepper powder - 3 tspn

Salt and Hing - as per taste

Oil - 2 tbspn


Wash and soak the raw rice for 2 hrs and grind it to a fine paste.

Allow it to ferment for 6 hrs. It should get a sour taste. I left it overnight.



Make a batter of the tapioca powder and the rice paste with water. Add hing and salt. The batter should be thinner than dosa batter.You measure the said batter. Water required is twice the measure of the batter.


Take a thick bottomed vessel big enough to accomodate the water and batter and some extra space. Once cooked, it will increase in quantity. I used the uruli. It is convenient to prepare karuvadam maavu (dough for sun dried fritters) in the uruli.



Add water. When water is warm, slowly add the batter without forming lumps. Keep stirring. When it starts to thicken, add 2 tbspn of oil and the pepper powder. Mix well. Make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.



It took 10 minutes for me to get the glazy texture. May be it cooked fast since I used uruli. When it gets a glazy texture, you can switch off the heat. Keep it in the same vessel for 5 minutes before you transfer to another vessel.



When it comes to room temperature, drop spoonfuls on a plastic sheet and slightly spread them to the size of a puri with the back of the spoon. Don't make it too thin.

After 4 hours of drying in the sun, try flipping it over. It should get dried in 2 days if it is very sunny.

Happy Pongal

Happy Pongal/Shankaranthi to all of you......
With the start of Makaram/Thai month, every thursday evening, our courtyards will be cleaned and adorned by kolam/rangoli. We put using rice/kola powder and rice paste. Some people change the kolams on monday evenings also. That is Tuesdays and Fridays will have fresh kolams made. I rarely change on tuesdays. But for Fridays it is always new kolam.
This is the start of the series for the month of kolam

Neivedyam for pongal

Vendakkai Vathal

Vendakkai vathal /kondattam (sun dried lady's finger )

Vegetables in season are preserved by sun drying them. Popular veggies sun dried are bhindi,chick peas, mango etc.



Vendakkai vathal on deep frying will be crisp and tasty. You can use the fried ones in preparing raitas too. My vegetable vendor generously gave me 2 Kg of bhindi almost free. So I decided to convert them to vattals.



You will require

Bhindi

Tamarind - lemon size

Chilly powder - 2 tspn

Turmeric - 1/2 tspn

Salt





Wash and dry the bhindis.

Cut them into 1/2 inch long pieces.

Soak the tamarind in warm water.

Extract the juice and add water to it so that it comes to 1 1/2 cup.

Add salt, turmeric and chilly powder. (Adjust these according to your taste)

Transfer the cut bhindi pieces to a pressure cooker. (You can cook directly in the cooker.)

Pour the tamarind mixture.

Steam cook for 15 minutes. (No need to put whistle.)


Drain and dry it under the sun. I got it dried with in 2 days.



sun dried



oil fried

Masala Koorka

Koorka Upperi cooked in grounded masala



It is diffucult to find any Keralite who doesn't have an affinity for this tuber - Koorka. I don't know what it is called in English. With some googling, I found it is called Chinese Potatoes.

This is season, where the vegetable markets are flooded with various kinds of tubers like Kaavathu (Thiruvadira special), Chembu, Kappa/Poola/Kolli and Koorka. I think most of the homes buy kaavathu for preparing kootu/poduthuval on the Thiruvathirai day. After the festival, it is not found with the vendors also. Few homes, who has grown them in their backyards, might prepare, more than once.

Koorka is one of the favourites of the season. Its purely a season root. These small tubers are difficult to be cleaned. But once cooked and eaten, you will forget the laborius task of cleaning them.



There are various, so called easy ways, to remove the skin. Some people put them in cloth/gunny bag and hit it on the ground several times. There are who wash and pressure cook them with the skin and then later on peel off the skin, like we do with potatoes. What I follow is soak them in water for an hour or so. Then scrub them on the washing stone. That seems to be easy for me. Almost all the skin comes out in the process. Whatever little is sticking can be removed, whilie chopping them into pieces.




Now to the preparation

Cleaned and chopped koorka - 2 cups

For Masala

Pearl onion - 10 nos

Red chilly - 4 nos

Coriander seeds - 1 tspn


Make a fine paste of this. Add little water while grinding.



Method
Pressure cook koorka with little turmeric for 3 whistles. It doesn't turn soft even on pressure cooking. So if you keep for an extra whistle also, no need to worry.

Take a kadai and add coconut oil. Season with mustard and curry leaves. Add the grounded masala. Let the masala cook for a minute or two till the raw smell goes.

Add the koorka and salt. Mix well.

Cook till the masala gets coated over the koorka and it is roasted.

Serve with hot rice and sambhar.



Koorka tastes good if it is made as simple 'Mezhukkuparatti' also.

Just add oil,cooked koorkha and salt . Cook till it gets roasted. This is also very yummy.

Ulliyum Molakkum - Pearl onion and red chilly chutney


This red hot chutney (both in color and taste) is a must dip for Idlis and dosas in the wayside eateries (thattukada) and teashops (chaaya kada). In Kerala, in the mornings,tiffin is also served in the teashops. During the latter part of the day, only kadi (bajji/bonda/vada) is served with tea. If any of you have had idli/dosa for breakfast in any restaurant in Kerala, this chutney must have adored your plate.
It is such a simple recipe. It tastes better when grinded on the ammikkal (grinding stone). It blends well unlike in the mixer grinder.
Even now if i prepare in small quantities, I use an ammikkal to get the right texture. This time I blended in the mixie.

Pearl Onions (Sambhar Onions) - 15 Nos
Red chilly - 7 Nos
Salt to taste

Just blend all the three to a fine paste. The color of the chutney is very appealing.
Steaming idlis and a cup of hot tea with mulakku chutney as dip, is a deadly combination for breakfast.

No doubt,this goes to RCI-Kerala hosted by Jyothsna of CurryBazaar



Since Onion is the main ingredient, this has to be part of the JFI-Onion, hosted by Radhika of Radhiskitchen

Coconut chammandi podi (Chutney powder)



Since the name Kerala means land of coconuts, I thought how can I send entries without a recipe, with coconut as a main ingredient. I wanted to try something which is not so very synonymous with Kerala cuisine for a non-keralite. The usual recipes that comes to one's mind when they talk of Kerala is Puttu-Kadala, Aappam-Ishtu, Avial, Kaalan, Paaladhapradhaman... and the list goes on.

Chutney powder or Chammanthi podi is a common chutney powder in all Keralite homes. The recipe has its own variations. Here is my recipe which uses only few ingredients and gives you a very tasty podi. This goes well with idli, dosa and of course with steaming rice mixed with oil.

Grated coconut - 2 cups
Red chilly - 20 nos
Urad dhal - 1/4 cup
Hing - a small piece or 3 tblspn powder
Tamarind - goosebery size
Salt to taste

Roast the coconut in oil till brown. I kept the grated coconut in MW high for 10 minutes. Later roasted in the kadai for 2 minutes.
Dry roast urad dal.
Add a teaspoon of oil to the skillet. If you are using hing piece, add that to the oil. When it gets fried, remove from oil and add red chillies. Hing piece is fried in oil for easier grinding, else it will be sticky.

When it cools to room temp, powder chillies, urad dal, hing and tamarind. Then add the coconut and salt. Powder fine. Transfer to a air tight bottle.




This my second entry to RCI- Cuisine of Kerala hosted this month by Jyothsna of Currybazar

Gooseberry pickle

Gooseberry Pickle (Nellikai Achar)

An easy to make pickle. In Kerala, during gooseberry season, this pickle will surely find a place in any sadhya(feast). This pickle doesn't have a very long shelf life as it is with pickles as such. It stays fresh for more than a week on refrigeration.

You need

Gooseberry - 1/2 Kg

Salt - 3 tbspn

Water - 2 tblspn

Oil - 2 tblspn

Roast the below ingredients in a tablespoon of oil and powder when it cools to room temperature

Red chilly - 15 Nos. (Adjust accordingly)

Methi seeds- 2 tspn

Hing powder - 2 tspn.

First start roasting the chillies. When it is almost done, add methi seeds and hing powder.

Preparing the berries

Keep the g.berries in a vessel and pressure cook the g.berries for 3 whistles. No need to add water.

When cooled, slightly crush the berries and remove the seed. Take care that it doesnot turn mushy.

Take salt and water in a vessel and boil it for 2 minutes or more so that the salt is completely dissolved. Leave it to cool.

Add the boiled salt water, powdered chilly to the deseeded berries and mix well.

Heat 2 tblspn of oil and when cooled,pour over the pickled berries and transfer to airtight bottles.

This is the first time I am participating for any event in blogosphere. Being a Keralite, I am more than happy to sent in this entry to RCI-Cuisine of Kerala hosted by Jyothsna of CurryBazaar.

Chocolate Maida cake - A Sweet

My sister and her 4 yr old daughter Gauri came from Gurgaon to spend a week with us. Her Kerala visit is after 5 years. I was busy for the one week she stayed with us. My brother-in-law likes this sweet very much and wanted me to send them through her. So on the day of her return, I prepared this.

Maida - 1 cup

Coco powder - 1 tablespoon

Sugar - 2 cups

Oil / Ghee - 3/4 cup ( I used 1/2cup of oil and rest ghee)

Water - almost a cup

Preparation
Seive maida and coco powder together so that they get mixed well.

Take a kadai. Add sugar and water and make sugar syrup of one string consistency.

Add the maida,coco mixture with out forming lumps.

When maida gets mixed with the syrup, add ghee little by little. This step willl take about 10 minutes.

When the mixture starts to leave the sides, transfer to a greased plate.

Allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Then cut into desired shape

I used twice the quantities mentioned here

Dates and Cashew Delight

A pudding with date balls in it. An absolutely yummy dessert, which will be favored by kids and adults alike. An ideal choice of dessert for kids party.

You need for the date balls:

Dates -200 gm
Cashew- 75 gm
Bananas – 2 Nos
Butter /Ghee- 50 gm
Sugar – 50 gm

For the custard you require

Milk – 1 cup
Custard powder – 4tspn
Sugar – 4 tbspn
Vanilla essence – ¼ tbspn

Prepare the date balls to be dropped in the custard

Finely chop dates, cashew and bananas separately.

Take a kadai, melt butter. Add dates.

Keep mixing it till it turns dark brown.

Add the chopped banana and cook till it is blended well with the dates.

Add sugar and mix till it reaches halwa consistency. Remove from fire

Allow it to cool. Make gooseberry size balls of the mixture and roll them over the chopped cashew and keep it aside.
If you want to reduce the calorie, you can skip this step of rolling over cashew. It tastes good without this also.


Now let us move on to custard preparation

Mix the custard powder with little milk. See to that no lumps are formed.

Add the mix to the remaining milk. Add sugar.

Boil the mix till it starts to thicken. Remove from fire.

Allow it to cool.
Drop the date balls into the custard.

Refrigerate and serve.

Kalathu Podi - To mix with rice and eat

Recipe for another podi.

Horsegram(Mudirai/Kollu) - 1 cup
Chana dal - 1/4 cup
Urad dal - 1/4 cup
Peppercorn - 4 nos
Jeera - 1 tspn
Red chilly - 4
Salt as required

Dry roast the dals separately, till nice aroma comes .
Roast the rest of the ingredients together.

When cool, powder the ingredients together fine ly,in a mixer grinder.

Mix with hot rice using oil/ghee. Serve papads or mezhukkuvaratti as accompaniment.

I eat with gingely oil even though I love to have with ghee

Copra Kalathupodi

Whole wheat dosa

This time I am posting a dosa out of whole grain.

Whole grains are believed to be nutritionally superior to refined grains, richer in dietary fiber, antioxidants, protein (and in particular the amino acid lysine), dietary minerals (including magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium), and vitamins (including niacin, vitamin B6, and vitamin E).
Source-wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_grain

Whole wheat - 2 cups
Raw rice (Pacharisi) - 1 cup
Cumin seeds - t tspn
Salt

Soak wheat for 8 hrs.
Rice need to be soaked for 3 hrs only. Soak then separately.
Grind both wheat and rice together to a smooth batter. Since we are using whole wheat, u may find the skin of the wheat not grinded fine. Thats alright.
Add salt and allow it to ferment.
Before making dosas, add a tspn of cumins seeds and start preparing dosa.
The dosa will not be very thin but not like uttappam also.

You can serve dosa with any chutney of your choice

Milagu Vellam

You need
Pepper powder -1 tspn
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt
Buttermilk/beaten curd - 1 cup
Water -1/2 cup

Seasoning
Ghee - 1 tspn
Mustard seeds -1/2 tspn
Red chilly - 1 nos
Methi seeds -1/2 tspn
Curry leaves

Boil half cup water.
Add pepper powder,turmeric and salt.

When it boils and starts to thicken, add buttermilk/beaten curd. When the quanity of water is reduced by nearly half, you can add buttermilk. You need not wait till it becomes a thick paste.
The conistency required is watery.

When the mixture starts to froth on the top, remove from fire. You should be careful at this stage, if you let it boil more, the curd/buttermilk will get curdled.

Take a pan. Add ghee. You can subsitute gingely oil for ghee. Add mustard, red chilly,
methi seeds and curry leaves. Add the seasoning to the milagu vellam.

The word vellam means Water in malayalam and malayalam words are an integral part of Kerala Iyer lingua. As the name suggests, the consistency of the gravy is watery. This is usually prepared for dinner in my house during rainy days.

Very light and healthy milagu vellam can be eaten with hot rice, with pappads or any vegetable side dish as accompaniments.

Chena Arachukalakki (Yam coconut chutney)

Arachukalakki is basically a variant of chutney. The basic ingredients for any type of arachukalakki is coconut, green chilly, curd/buttermilk.The vegetable used may vary. Depending on the vegetable,some ingredients are added.

Now coming to chena arachukalakki you require the following ingredients

Chenai/Yam cubed - 100 gms
Grated coconut - 1 cup
Green chilly - 3 Nos
Pepper corn - 5 nos
Tamrind paste - 1 tspn
Ginger - 1 small pcs
Salt

Seasoning

Oil - 1 tspn
Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
Asofeotida - 1/2 tspn
Red chilly - 2nos
Buttermilk/Beaten curd - 1 cup

Grind all the ingredients in a mixer to a caorse paste.
Do seasoning and add to the grinded mixture.
Pour the buttermilk to the pan which is used for seasoning. No need to boil it.
Add the buttermilk to the mixture and mix well. Adding buttermilk to the hot pan enhances the taste.

Arachukalakki can be served as main dish with hot rice and papad. Mostly it is served as side dish with molukkootal as main dish.
Salt pickled mangoes or gooseberry can be used for arachukalakki. In that only the basic ingredients are needed. Salt can be added later if required, since salted mango/gooseberry is used.

Banana Pepper Fry

Raw banana -2 Nos
Onion - 1
Green chillies – 4 nos
Ginger paste – 1 tspn
Fennel seeds – 1 tspn
Dhanya powder – 2 tspn
Crushed pepper – 2 tspn
Turmeric – a pinch
Tamarind paste – 2 tspn
Salt
Oil
Curry leaves

Remove the skin and cut banana lengthwise of 1 inch long pieces, as we cut for finger chips. (Not very thin)

Take a kadai. Add 2 tbspn oil. Add fennel seeds, curry leaves.
Then add finely chopped onion.

When onion is almost done, add banana pieces, slit green chilly, ginger paste, dhanya powder, turmeric and salt. Mix well. Sprinkle handful of water.

Cover and cook for 10 mts. With stirring once or twice in between
The mixture will turn dry with masala coated all over the pieces.
If you feel the banana pieces are not cooked well, sprinkle water , cover and cook for sometime.

Add crushed pepper and tamarind paste. Mix and cook for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat.

This spicy dish goes well with sambar rice, curd rice and with chappathis too.

Copra kalathupodi

Kalathupodi/parippu podi is a traditional powder mix which is made in all South Indian homes. Podi recipes varies from state to state, what even from family to family. I am sure every family will have their list of podis.This podi I believe is native to Andhra. I learnt this from mother-in-law. This podi is to be eaten with rice, mixed with ghee. Health freaks can substitute gingely oil for ghee. It also tastes good. I am a big fan of any kind of podis. My mom also makes different kinds of podi. Her recipes will follow soon.

When I started to write about podis, this podi came first to my mind, since it was an integral part in my college hostel days. Whenever we were able to smuggle rice out of hostel kitchen, we mix podi and ghee with rice. Our room senior used to make rice balls and pass it to all the room mates (We were 8 of us in a room).
You require
Grated copra - 1 cup
Roasted Chana dal/Pottu kadalai - 1/2 cup
Red chilly - 15 Nos
Hing - 1 tbspn
I use the Hing piece instead of powder. The piece when roasted and powdered retains the aroma much better than the powder version.

To powder
Slightly roast the chana dal. This is just to make it crisp.
Add a teaspoon of oil (I use Gingely oil). Fry the chillies.
Blend the copra in the mixer.
Remove and grind the chana dal. Seive it so that coarse particles can be grinded again.
Finally grind the red chillies. When it is alsmost powdered, add all the ingredients and salt as required.
The powder should not be very fine.

Tomato Chutney

I don't usually follow a fixed recipe for tomato and onion chutneys. It keeps changing with my mood and also the availability of raw materials. It is very rare that I repeat the same recipe. There will be some change in the list of ingredients used. Usually I don't give much thought to this. But once I started blogging, I am taking to my mind what all I use while making chutneys. I shall keep posting the variations as and when I make.
The first version goes here -

Urad dal - 1 tb spn
Red chilly - 4 Nos
Onion - 1
Medium Sized Tomato- 2
Curry leaves - 2 strand
Salt
Oil for frying

Take a pan. Add one tablespoon oil.
Add urad dal and red chilly. Fry till urad dal turns brown.
Remove dal and chilly from the pan.
Add chopped onion. Saute till it turns transparent
Add curry leaves.
Add chopped tomatoes and cook till tomatoes are done.
Grind all the ingredients together with salt to a fine paste.
Add a teaspoon of coconut oil to the chutney.

Wheat Rava Adai

An easy to prepare nutritious adai. (Adai is a form of dosa with little thickness)


You need

Wheat rava - 1 cup
Green chilly - 5 Nos
Small Onion(Sambar onion) - 10 nos
Tamarind paste - 2 tspn
Onion - 1
Coriander leaves
Salt

Preparation

Soak wheat rava for 2 hours. Just add enough water to cover the rava.
Dry grind green chilly,small onion, tamarind paste and salt in a mixer grinder.
Add the soaked rava to the grounded mixture and run the grinder once. This is just to blend all the ingredients.
The mixture should be in a semi solid state. It should not be watery at all
Add chopped onions and coriander leaves.
Mix well.

Heat an iron girdle or a non-stick pan. Grease with oil.
Take a lemon size of the mixture. Place it on the pan.
Flatten it using your fingers to the size of a puri.
Depending on the size of your pan, you can make 2/3 adais at a time.
When it is cooked on one side, flip over and cook the other side also.

You can serve the hot adais with tomato chutney or any pickle of your choice

Microwave Tips

Some tips for microwave oven usage, for our daily chores in the kitchen.
I shall be updating this post as and when I come across new tips.

1)
To bake corn, keep the corn with the skin for 2 minutes (micro power high).
Tilt the corn so that the upper part moves down. Keep for another 2 minutes.
Remove the peel and brush butter and salt

2)
To melt jaggery – Keep the jaggery in a microwave safe glass bowl. Add 2 tablespoon water. Keep for 2 minutes. You can strain the melted jaggery to remove the dirt, which are usually found.

3)
Sometimes we need grated coconut to be fried brown to add in curries or for making chutney powders.
Keep 1 cup grated coconut in the oven for 3 minutes. You can mix once in between. Coconut will be fried.
You may not get the brown color.
For that, take one spoon oil in a pan. Add the oven fried coconut.
Fry for a minute. It will turn brown.
If you have to do the whole process on the stove, you will need lot more oil and time

Wheat Coconut balls

A healthy sweet- Unlike most sweets where maida or besan is used, here it is wheat flour. Also ghee used is very minimal. And sugar quantity is very less. Usually in sweets, the proportion of sugar is twice or equal to the the quantity of flour. So overall, it is a healthy sweet that can be quickly made with the ingredients which are readily available in the kitchen

You require

Wheat flour – 1 ½ cups
Sugar – 1 cup. You can take a heaped cup of sugar, if you will like it sweeter.
Milk – ½ cup
Grated coconut – 2 tbspn
Cardamom – ½ tspn
Ghee – 2 tbspn


Preparation

Take a heavy bottomed pan. Add ghee.

When it melts, add wheat flour.

Fry till it turns light brown . You can smell wheat then.

Add sugar. Mix well so that the flour and sugar gets mixed evenly. Sugar should not melt.Then the mixture will have a liquid consistency.

Add milk. Keep mixing so that no lumps are formed.

Add cardamom powder.

Mix evenly for another 3 minutes.

Transfer the contents to a plate greased with ghee.

Spread it and let it cool.

Make lemon sized balls.
Don’t wait it to really go cold. You should make balls when your hands can withstand the warmth of the mixture.
You should be fast in making balls. If it cools, you will find it difficult to make balls.

Sambar Rice

A lunchbox recipe

Keep these ready :

Cooked rice – 2 cups
Tuvar dal – 1 cup
Tomatoes – 2 nos
Small onions – 10 nos
Drumstick – 1 no
Carrot – 1 no
Turmeric – a pinch
Chilly powder – 1 tspn
Coriander powder -2 tspn
Tamrind extract – 2 tbl spn

Seasoning
Mustard – 1 tspn
Methi seeds – ¼ tspn
Red chilly – 2 nos
Green chilly – 2 nos
Curry leaves – few

Prepration

Pressure cook tuvar dal with one tomato chopped into pieces.

Take a pan. Add oil and add the seasoning items.
Add onions. Saute till they become soft.
Add chopped tomato.
When it is cooked, add the vegetables. ( You can use bringal/ash gourd/pumpkin). You can use vegetables of your choice.
Add turmeric,chiily powder, coriander powder and salt.
Mix well.Add enough water to cook the vegetables.
Cover and cook for 10 mts.
If the vegetables are cooked well, add the cooked tuvar dal. Mash the dal before adding.
Add the tamarind extract. When it starts boiling remove from fire.
Add fresh coriander and curry leaves.
Take the rice in a bowl. Slightly mash it with the ladle. Mix sambar with the rice well.

Maddur Vada

This popular snack of Karnataka is named after the town Maddur in Mandhya district. This vada is unique to the Karnataka state.
Here goes the recipe for mouthwatering, crispy vadas, which I learnt from a cookery show in a television channel

You need:
Raw rice powder – 1 cup
Wheat flour – ½ cup
Rava – ½ cup
Maida- ½ cup
Onion – 1
Curry leaves – 4 strands
Green chilly – 4 nos
Salt
Oil – for deep frying

How to make the vadas

Mix all the flours,salt, chopped onion, chillies and curry leaves. Mix well
Heat 3 tbspn of oil to smoking point. Pour the oil to the mix
Take a small portion of the mixture and mix water. Make a soft dough.
It is not advisable to mix the whole portion with water, since by the
time we prepare, the mixture will be soggy and it will absorb too
much of oil. Also you may not get crispy vadas.

Take a plastic sheet. Grease it with oil. Take a small ball of the mixture and keep it on the sheet.
Spread to thin vadas of small pappad size by your fingers.
Deep fry with medium flame.

Raddish Chutney

Ingredients

Medium sized raddish – 2 Nos
Onion - 1

Coriander seeds – 1 tb spn
Methi seeds – ¼ tspn
Urad dhal – 1 ½ tspn
Red chilli – 2
Jeera – ½ tspn

Prepration

Grate the raddish and fry it with little oil.
Saute onion.
Roast coriander seeds, urad dal, red chilli, methi seeds and jeera with little oil.
While roasting, add jeera and methi towards the end since it might get burnt.
Grind all the ingredients, except onion, to a fine paste.
Then add onion and grind coarsely.

This chutney goes well with dosa and chappathi.

Baingan Kurma

Things Needed

Brinjal - 1/2 Kg
Onion - 100 gm
Tomato - 200gm
Curd - 1/2 cup
Oil - 2 tbpsn
Garam masala - 1/2 tspn
Salt

Grinding -1

Garlic - 50 gm
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Chilli powder - 1 tbsp
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
cumin seed - 1/2 tsp
khus khus (poppy seeds) - 2 tsp
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Grinding -2

Grated coconut- 1/4 cup

Prepration

Cut the brinjal into long pieces. Apply little chilly powder,turmeric and salt. Keep it for 15 minutes.
Heat oil in a pan and shallow fry the brinjals till light brown and remove.
In the remaining oil, fry onion till soft.
Add the grinded masala 1 to it and fry till aroma comes.
Add the chopped tomatoes and salt
When tomoatoes are cooked, add the fried brinjal and add little water.
Cook for 5 mts till the gravy thickens.
Add the grounded coconut paste and beaten curd.
Cook till it boils.
Sprinkle garam masala powder and remove.

Microwave Tomato Rasam

Required:-

Medium sized tomatoes - 2 Nos
Tamarind extract - 2 tbspn
Water - 2 cups
Red chilly - 3
Jaggery powdered - 1/2 tbspn (Optional)

For Powdering

Pepper - 5 corns
Coriander seeds - 1 tbspn
Cumin seeds - 1 tspn

Slightly fry all the three ingredients and powder them finely.

Prepration

Make puree of the tomatoes

Take a microwave safe bowl. Mix tomato puree,tamrind extract, water,salt, jaggery, powdered masala.Add the red chillies after breaking into two.

Keep in the oven for 4 mts at micropower high

Stir once and keep for another 1 minute depending on your oven type.

Season with mustard seeds. Add curry leaves and coriander leaves.

You can use this rasam with rice or drink it as soup. It will be a good appetizer.

Microwave Mysurpa

This is the microwave version of the mysurpa. Unlike the traditional way of making, this is quite easy and can be quickly made.

Ingredients
Besan flour - 1 cup
Powdered sugar - 2 cups
Ghee - 1 cup
Milk - 2 tspn

Lightly fry the besan. This is just to remove the raw smell of besan. You can as well heat the pan for few minutes till it turns hot. Remove the pan from fire. Then add besan and keep mixing for sometime. That heat is enought to roast the besan flour.

Mix besan,powdered sugar and ghee in a microwave safe bowl. Make sure no lumps are there.

Keep it in oven for 2 1/2 mts at micropower high.

Take the bowl out and add milk and mix well.

Again keep for 2 1/2 mts at micropower high.
Here please check after one minute .Becoz, the heat differs from oven to oven.So there is a chance that it might get burnt if kept for a longer time. So check in between. You can make out the change in the color of the mixture. It froths.

Remove the bowl and mix well.

Transfer the contents to a greased plate.

When cool, cut into pieces.

You get very soft,tasty mysurpas in five mts

Total prepration time - 15 mts

Coriander Chutney

Kothamalli Thokayal


Ingredients

Coriander leaves - 1 cup
curry leaves - 1 strand (optional)
urad dal - 2 tb spn
red chilli - 3 nos
tamarind paste - tbspn
salt

How to prepare
Raost urad dal and red chilli with a teaspoon of oil. When urad dal turns red, remove from fire
Saute coriander and curry leaves for a minute, till they change the color.
Grind all the ingredients to a coarse paste. Thokayals taste good if it is grinded caorsely.

Enjoy with molakootal. This will go with dosa/chappathis also.

Madras Vethakozhambu

I think I should rename this as chennai vethakozhambu...

Ingredients
--------------
Chundakka/manathankkali vethal - 2 tb spn
Red chilli - 2 nos
methi seeds - 1 tspn
small onion - 8 nos (optional)
mustard - 1 tspn
Gingelly oil (Nallennai) - 2 tbspn
tamarind - small lemon size
Salt
turmeric - a pinch

Grinding
--------
Coriander seeds - 2 tbspn
red chilli - 6 nos
jeera - 1 tspn
methi seeds- 1 tspn
curry leaves - 1 strand

Grind the above ingredients in powder form. Don't add water. It is not necessary that it should be powdered finely.

Prepration
------------
Take a wok. Add gingelly oil (I prefer nallennai. it tastes good).
Add mustard seeds. when splutters, add red chilly and vethal.
Let it fry for 2/3 minutes
Add onions and saute till it turns brown.
Then add the grinded masala . Fry for a minute.
Add the extracted tamarind juice, turmeric and salt.
Let it simmer and when it starts to thicken, remove from fire.

Small quanitity of the kozhambu is taken while mixing with rice unlike sambhar and other kootans.

Nenthrapazham varattiyathu - (Banana in jaggery syrup)

Ingredients
Ripe banana - 1
Powdered jaggery - 4 tbspn
ghee- 2 tspn
powdered cardamom - 1/2 tspn

Take one ripe nethrapazham variety of banana. It shld not be over ripe.
Cut into circles of 1/4 inch thick pcs. Don't slice into thin circles since it will be get mashed when u mix later.
Take a non-stick pan.
Add a tspn of ghee and add the banana pcs.
Cook it over low heat.
When it is 3/4 th cooked, add powdered jaggery and mix well.
Cover and cook for 5 mts.
The jaggery would have melted and get coated over the banana pcs. Remove from fire and half a tspn of ghee and a tspn of cardamom powder.

A good breakfast accompaniment. healthy too....

Following the same steps,it can be cooked in microwave oven also.