Milagu Kuzhambu with Baby Brinjals ~ SpotLightBlog Recipe

Thanks for the support to the SpotLightBlog series. The second recipe from Shoba's virtual kitchen is milagukuzhambu with baby brinjals in it. Unlike in ennai kathrikkai kuzhambu, here the brinjals are not deep fried, they are just cooked in the tangy, spicy gravy.  I too make milagukuzhambu. But Shoba's recipe was different and addition of brinjals interested me. With hot rice and roasted pappad, its pure bliss.

Ingredients

Black Pepper – 1 tspn

Bengal Gram/kadala paruppu – 1 tspn
Red Chilli – 3 nos
Coriander seeds – 3/4 tspn
Grated Coconut – 3 tspn
Hing - few shakes

Tamarind – lemon sized
Brinjals - 5 small ones
Tuermeric - 1/4 tspn
Curry Leaves, Salt.

Method

Roast pepper in a teaspoon of ghee. Remove the roasted pepper and  add a tablespoon of oil. Roast chana dal, coriander seeds, red chilli. When you are about to remove, add the coconut and roast for few seconds. Cool and grind all the roasted ingredients along with pepper to a smooth paste by adding little water.

Soak the tamarind pulp in warm water for 10 minutes.  Wash and wipe the brinjals clean. Slit each brinjal into four keep the stalk intact. Extract the tamarind pulp in a cooking vessel. Stir in ground masala, salt, turmeric, hing and curry leaves and boil the mix. When it starts boiling, add the whole brinjals with the stalk, one by one to the boiling liquid. Continue cooking on low flame and allow the kuzhambu to simmer and let it reduce to one third. The brinjals would have been cooked well and absorbed the flavors.

Methi kofta in kadhi & Friday Kolam

Kadi is to North Indians  what morkootan/morkuzhambu is to South Indians. Morkuzhambu has liberal use of coconut in it and the choice of veggies determine the taste. And what I like about Kadi is that its very light, no coconut and can be made in a jiffy, though some kadis take the elaborate route too. Next is green, which I try to make atleast thrice in a week. When ever I buy a bunch of methi, it sure gets its way into various dishes in handfuls. This is a Tarla Dalal's recipe where the koftas are not deep fried but steamed. When I saw the reecipe for Kadi and steamed kofta with one of my favorite green, I could not wait to try it out. Kadi was delicious. The koftas didnot breakup and stayed in shape even when I served for dinner. Koftas were not bitter too.

If you feel its too much of time involved, then you can shape the koftas ready the previous day and refrigerate them. Before preparing the kadi, all you will have to do is to just steam the koftas and kadi making will not take more than 10 minutes including the preparation and cooking time.

For Methi Koftas


Finely chopped methi leaves - 1 cup

Whole wheat flour - 1 tbspn

Rava/Semolina- 1 tbspn

Ginger-green chilli paste- 1/2 tspn

Tamarind juice - 1/2 tspn (or lemon juice)

Sugar - 1/2 tsp

Cooking soda- a pinch

Preparing Kofta

Add salt to methi and leave it aside for 5 minutes. Squeeze the water and plce in a bowl. Add all the ingredients for kofta along with little salt and knead to a soft dough. Add little water if required.

Moisten your hands with water and shape the dough into small koftas. I got 12 out of it. Steam in a steamer of your choice and keep it aside. I microwaved it for 2 minutes.

 

 
For Kadhi

1 cup fresh curds whisked with 1 1/2 cups of water

Besan/Chana dal flour - 2 tblspn
Onion - 1
Turmeric  a pinch
Salt to taste

To Temper

Oil - 1 tblspn

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Hing - a pinch
Curry leaves - few


Preparing Kadhi

Combine whipped curd and besan in a bowl. Whisk well and there should not be any lumps.

Heat oil in a pan add cumin. when the seeds crackle, add hing , curry leaves, onion and saute for 5 minutes or so. Add the whisked curd-besan mixture, turmeric powder, salt and bring to a boil over low flame.

Combine Kadhi and Kofta
If you are serving immediately, slowly drop the koftas. Else just before serving, add the koftas to kadhi and bring to a boil to serve hot.

I am sending this to Yasmeen's Bitter Better Health event

Friday Kolam/Thai Velli kolam

Since I was not keeping on good health, I could not do the podi kolam. So only one for this week.

SpotLightBlog - Shoba's Anubavathi ~ Eggless Zebra Cake

Beginning the month of February, I am starting a new series called SpotLightBlog. My bookmark folder is overflowing and I wanted to do some justice to the bookmarked recipes. My first idea was to try one recipe each week and post it subsequently. But choosing one recipe was not easy as I thought to be. Instead, I thought of selecting a blog and trying four recipes and post one every week. I felt that to be a better option and in a way I can show my appreciation to my fellow blogger too. So from this month onwards, one blog will be chosen as SpotLightBlog and I shall showcase once recipe per week and will be posting it every Monday. I had this project in mind for sometime now and wanted to start from January. But the month of January had something else in store fro me in the form of relatives, festivals etc. So it starts from February.

***********

The first blog I have chosen is my dear friend Shoba's Anubavathi, which has lot of traditional recipes and eggless bakes. Recipe for this week is a Zebra cake following Shoba's recipe. I know this is a signature cake of Shoba among her friends and she is quite an expert in baking this cake in various flavors. I didnot make any changes to the recipe. It came out very well. The cake was very spongy and moist and was a winner for an eggless cake. To make Zebra cake, any recipe can be followed. Is the pattern that matters. It comes in practise. First time when I made, the lines were very thin and hardly the pattern could be made out. The second time I made, the patterns were visible, though I felt I could improve better in terms of pattern, since taste wise, the cake was very good.

Ingredients

All Purpose Flour / Maida - 2cups
Baking Soda. - 1 tspn

Baking Powder -1 tspn

Oil - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 1/4 cup
Whole Milk - 1 3/4


Vanilla essence - 1 tspn

Cocoa Powder - 4 tblspn

In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients - Maida, Baking soda and baking power. Mix well.

In another bowl, mix oil and sugar. Wisk well to dissolve the sugar. Add milk and whisk everything together. Slowly, add the dry ingredients to the wet mix little by little. Mix well after each addition with out forming any lumps.

Remove half of the batter to another bowl. To one half add vanilla essence and to the other, add cocoa powder and mix well.

Take a greased and flour dusted pan. Take a ladle which can contain around 4 tblspn of the batter. Add a ladle of chocolate batter on to the centre of the pan. Next add a ladle of the vanilla batter onto the centre of the chocolate batter. Don't try to spread or shake the pan. The batter gets spread on its own. You keep adding both the batter alternatively until you finish all the batter.

The amount of batter added to form a ring is important to get nice and clear pattern. If too little batter is added the lines formed will be very thin and the patter doesn't show well.

Bake the cake in preaheated oven at 170 C for 35 minutes or it passes a toothpick test.
 
 

 
My eldest co-sister had sent me mini cake moulds and I wanted to use that too. So I made 3 mini cakes and used the rest of the batter for the bigger one.
 
 

The patterns have come out better in the mini cake mould. The amount of batter added for each ring was little more here.

 

Kashmiri Pulav ~ Guest Post

I never knew about Anu, a silent reader of my blog, until when I received a query mail from her. After exhange of few mails, the relation ship blosommed from reader to a friend. When I requested her for a guest post, she was happy to play along. Please welcome Anu to Kailas Kitchen and she comes with a plate of delicious looking  Kashmiri Pulao.

Ingredients


Basmathi Rice – 1 cup

Ginger garlic Paste – 1 spoon

Cinnamon – 1 inch piece

Cloves – 3 nos

Cardomom – 3 nos

Cumin seeds – ¾ teaspoon

Aniseed – ¾ teaspoon

Pepper – ¼ teaspoon

Ghee – 2 spoons

Yellow food color – as preferred

Fruits cut into equal sizes( Apples, Pomegranate, Grapes, Pineapples) – 1 cup

Dry fruits (Pista, Cashew, Raisins, Badam) – ¼ cup

Salt – As required


Method

Rinse and soak the Basmathi rice for 5-20 mins

In a kadai, pour a spoon of Ghee and add cumin and aniseed first. Subsequently add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, grounded pepper(can add green chilli if preferred).  Also add ginger garlic paste. Just fry for 30 seconds and add the drained rice. Fry for 2 more minutes

Stop the flame, pour the rice and masala mix in the Rice cooker and add 1 and ½ cups of water along with required amount of salt and cook. Pour the rest of 1 spoon of Ghee.

Fry the Dry fruits with just little ghee and keep it aside

Once rice is cooked garnish with the fruits and dry fruits. I had made Onion Raitha and cauliflower pakodas to serve with the rice.

Mexican Wedding Cookies for Global Kadai Event and Thai Velli Kolam

The idea behind the Global Kadai event announced by Cilantro interested me - indianizing the recipe. One is free to make any changes to suit the availability of ingredients in India. the first recipe is the popular Mexican wedding cookies. Since no egg in the orginal recipe, I  didnot have to look for an egg replacer. No leavening agents like baking powder or cooking soda. I opted for coconut in place of pecans and used cardamom for flavor instead of cinnamon. Though i love cinnamon, to give an Indian flavor, chose cardamom. Coconut and cardamom paired well with the cocoa and its a keeper recipe. I had only 1/2 cup of butter so halved the recipe. I got 2 dozens of cookies.

Baking Temp : 180 C
Time              : 15-18 minutes
Yields            : 2 dozen


You need


Butter, softened - 1 cup

Powdered Sugar - 1/3 cup

Vanilla essence - 2 tspn

All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup

Fresh grated coconut - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup

cardamom - 3/4 tspn

Salt - a pinch

1/2 cup powdered sugar for coating the cookies



Method

Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Mix the rest of the dry ingredients and slowly add to the creamed butter and sugar mix. Gather the ingredients and make a soft dough. Chill the dough for 1-2 hours to firm up. I chilled for 2 hours. Pinch off the dough and make small balls. Line it on a greased baking tray and bake at 180 C for 18 minutes. When warm, roll it on the powdered sugar and leave it to cool.

Though the cookies were less sweet on its own, the sugar coating makes it up. It was very tasty and could not stop with one. I baked it one evening and on the second day only 10 was left.

Here is the kolam for this Friday.

Kappayum Kadalayum ~ Mashed Tapioca with curried brown chick peas

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

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

Turmeric a pinch

Salt


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

Thai Velli/Friday Kolam and By the Book

During the month of Thai/Makaram, every one cleans their courtyard on Thursday evening to decorate with the kolam. So when you see everyone in your neighborhood indulges in the cleaning and decorating, even someone who has not mastered the art of kolam, will be inspired to try your hand at it. Its infectious. Here is my attempt for this Friday.

(9 dots 9 lines)

By the Book :

My dear friend Jayashree has tagged me to show the most loved cookbook. Few years back, if someone has asked me about cookbooks, I would have had a  look like 'Me cooking from a book' kind. I never thought I will follow a cookbook, may be because I have not seen anyone in my family following one. Its kind of passing the recipes from Mother to daughter kind. I was under the impression that cookbooks are for the newbies who are to learn even  how to light a stove too.  After marriage too, I didnot feel the need for one. Whenever I had any doubt regarding any of our traditional recipes, I could call my Mom . (Then she was staying at local call distance). My MIL used to tell she learnt most of the traditional dishes from Meenakshi Ammal's book way back in 1950's.  Later when I heard my co-sis swearing by Mallika Bhadrinath often, I was inspired to buy one for myself. Mallika's 100 Vegetarian recipes (II series) was the first book I got.  It took sometime for me to start trying from the book. After blogging, things have changed in a big way. I got to know about various cuisines, cookbooks. I keep a diary of the recipes I try and now I have close to 15 books. I still have somebooks where I haven't tried even a single recipe. 

                                            

Those of you who wish to showcase your most cherished cookbook, feel free to take up the tag and link back to Jayashree's post

Moong dal halwa ~ Indian Cooking Challenge

I was happy to note the moong dal halwa for December challenge was the North Indian version since I recently made the South Indian version called Ashoka halwa. The recipe is from a fellow blogger Simran's Mom. Thanks to Latakka who tried both the versions of recipe and gave useful notes, before we all started with the challenge. I chose to follow the recipe with the khova version. I had planned to prepare khoya at home but could not make it. So in place of khoya, I used milkmaid and rest of the recipe is same. I was not quite impressed by the end result though it tasted good. I felt it needed some more perfection. After seeing many successful attempts from my fellow bloggers and notes from their experience, I am tempted to try it soon. 

Here is the recipe

Soaking Time : Overnight

Preparation Time : 15 minutes

Cooking Time : 30 - 45 mins


Ingredients Needed:

Split (Yellow) Moong dal - 1 cup

Sugar -  1 cup
Clarified Butter / Ghee - 1/2 cup

Khoya - 1/2 cup

Cashew nuts and raisins for garnish



You can make any quantity with this as long as you keep this ratio constant : equal amounts of  dal and sugar, half the ghee and khoya.



Method to prepare:

Lightly roast the 1 cup of moong dal, wash, soak overnight and be ground to a fine paste adding  very little water.

Take a thick bottom pan, heat 1/2 cup ghee and fry the moong dal paste till it turns brownish  and releases the ghee.  This step tests your arm strength.

Add sugar and khoya.

Stir fry until both the sugar and khoya are well absorbed. Turn off the heat, then mix in cashew  nuts and raisins.

Happy Pongal/Shankaranthi

Wishing all my readers a happy Pongal/ Shankarathi.

Thiruvathirai Kali and Poduthuval

Hope and wish you all had a lovely start to the New Year. After the celebrations, every one must be back to routine. So am I. We had all most all of the family here for the New Year except my eldest co-sister and niece. We missed them very much. Since Thiruvathirai was celebrated on the 1st, the day started pretty early for me (3:30 A.M) to go to the temple to have the Aruthra Darsanam (The pre-dawn hours of the full moon night, in the month of Margazhi/Danu with the longest nights in the year, marks the auspicious time for Arudhra Darshan). The specialty food for thriuvathirai is kali and poduthuval. Kali is roasted and powdered rice cooked in jaggery syrup. The sweet dish is served with a spicy side- Poduthuval. The main ingredient for the poduthuval is Kavathu and Avarakkai. Some add pumpkin, raw banana etc to it. Each family has their own recipe. In Kerala, many take upvaas/nolumbu on the day and they abstain from eating rice. Kali is made using arrowroot powder and will have consistency of payasam. During the time of thiruvathirai, shops sell this arrowroot powder. I usually stock it up during this season.

Thiruvathira Kali


Raw rice - 1 cup

Powdered jaggery - 1 cup

Whole moong dal - 2 tblspn

Water - 2 cups

Grated coconut - 3 tblspsn

Elaichi powder - 1/4 tspn

Ghee - 1 tblspn



Wash and drain rice. Roast it over low flame till it is pink. Roast moong dal for few minutes tillyou smell the flavor.  Cool and powder rice and moong dal, not very fine. It should be like rava, slightly coarse and grainy. Then only you will get fluffy kali else it will end up in a sticky mass.

Heat water in a kadai/uruli. When water gets heated, add the powdered jaggery. Bring it a boil. When it starts boiling, stir in the powdered rice rava. Lower the flame and let it cook for few minutes. The water will be fully absorbed as the rice rava gets cooked. Add a tablespoon of ghee and elaichi powder. When the kali appears dry and fluffy, stir in the grated coconut and remove from fire. Cover and leave it to cool. Kali taste best when it is cold.

It’s very easy to prepare kali provided you get the measurements right. The amount of water might differ according to the variety of rice. Usually the ratio of rice to water is 1:2.  This time, I made kali from 3 cups of rice.

Kavathu Poduthuval



Kavathu chopped into cubes - 2 cups

Avarakkai/Indian broad beans - 8 nos

Salt to taste

Turmeric a pinch



To grind

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Green chilly - 3 nos



To season

Coconut oil - 1 tblspn

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tspn

Red chilly - 2 nos

Curry leaves


Method

Wash and peel the skin from the kavathu. Chop them into 1 inch cubes. String the beans and cut one into 2 or 3 pieces according to the size. Add turmeric and enough water to the pressure cooker along with the cut vegetables. Pressure cook for two whistles. The consistency of the poduthuval will be of thick gravy. Some prefer it to be dry. This is each one's personal choice. We like it slightly gravy but not runny kind.

Grind the coconut and green chilly coarsely without adding water. Add the ground coconut and salt to the cooked vegetable and bring to a boil. Adjust the consistency by adding water if needed. Do the seasoning and serve hot with the cold kali. This is the only festival I remember where a sweet dish is served with a salty side.

On a different note:

One of my readers Shrilatha sent me pics of recipes tried from Kailas Kitchen along with the New Year wishes. She really made my day. I am happy to share the pics with you all. Thanks Shri for sending the pics across.

No bake pinwheel cookies

Milk Chocolate

Eggless Orange Cake

I had too much of oranges at home, to be used up. Making juice is one good way to finish up more number of oranges at one go. I thought of cakes and did a search for orange cakes. I wanted a recipe where in orange juice is used and majority of the recipes I found had only the zest in it. Finally I found Shammi's Orange Cake. The feedback by those who have tried was encouraging. Hop over to her blog for more eggless baking recipes. I have changed some ingredients else its almost her recipe. I didn't do the filling. But decided to try my hand in icing the cake, which is a first for me. The amount of sugar and butter in the icing, puts me off, usually. Also me and my husband prefers cake with no frosting. My dad was here when I baked and he pushed me to do the icing. My dad really enjoyed the cake very much. While slicing the cake, I did in a hurried manner and the top slice cracked but managed to keep it whole. I know I have much more to go on the icing part. But for a first timer, I think it will get a pass.

Ingredients


Whole wheat flour - 1 cup

All pupose flour/Maida - 1/2 cup

Cornflour - 2 tspn

Baking powder - 2 tspn

Salt -1/4 tspn


Oil - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Yogurt -1/4 cup

Orange zest - 1 tspn

Fresh orange juice - 3/4 cup ( from 3 ornages)

Orange color a pinch


Method

Sift the dry ingredients - wheat flour, maida, cornflour, baking powder and salt.

Cream sugar and oil. Add yogurt. Beat well. Add a pinch of orange color.

Add the flour mix and orange juice alternatively to the wet mix. Mix well after each addition.

Finally stir in the orange zest.

Transfer the batter to a greased and dusted cake tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 30 minutes.

The cake on its own also tastes very nice. You can just dust it with some powdered sugar and serve.


Frosting

Butter - 1/2 cup

Powdered sugar - 1 1/2 cup

Corn flour - 2 tblspn


Beat all the ingredients together till creamy. Cool the cake well and slice it horizontally.  Spread the frosting on the base slice. Carefully place the top slice over it. In the remaining  frosting, add a pinch of orange color. Cover the cake fully with the frosting. Leave it to set and slice.

Wishing all my readers A Merry Christmas.

Dal Kachori

Kachori is a popular snack in the North India similar to what is bajji/vada to South India. This deep fried snack is a round ball which has a flaky covering made of maida flour with a spicy, dry filling of urad dal/moong dal. There are many variations to the fillings. Fillings can be made according to one's choice and taste. I first tasted kachori at Janpath market during first visit to Delhi. We were feeling hungry and I told my sister that I need to eat first before I can shop any more. It was then my brother-in-law suggested Kachoris and a vendor was just near us in his bicyle. Kachoris was served in the leaf bowls along with a potato gravy. First bite, I just loved it. Seeing the size of the kachori, I thought I can have only one but finished with 3. It was absolutely tasty. After that, my husband used to get this from a North Indian bakery near his office.  Once I decided to give it a try. I used half and half of maida and wheat flour instead of using only maida. Inspite of using atta, the outer cover was flaky.  I got decent kachoris if not the best. 

For outer cover

All pupose flour/Maida - 1 cup
Wheat flour/Atta - 1 cup
Ghee - 2 tblspn ( Don't melt the ghee)
Cold water - 3 tblspn
Salt
Ajwain - 1 tpsn

Mix flour,ghee, salt and ajwain till the flour resembles bread crumbs. Slowly add water to make a dry dough. Don't knead it. Just bring together the flour and make a dough. This is essential to get the flaky crust. Cover and keep it aside for 30 minutes.

Filling

Urad dal - 4 tblspn
Cumin - 1 tspn
Fennel seeds - 1 tblspn
Green chilly - 2 nos
Red chilli powder -1/2 tspn
Coriander + mint - a handful
amchur powder - 1/2 tspn

Oil for deep frying


Method

Soak urad dal in hot water for half an hour. Else you can soak it in cold water for 2 hours.

Drain the urad dal and grind it coarsely with out adding water.

Roast cumin, fennel seeds for a minute. Roast green chilly , coriander and mint in a teaspoon of oil till the leaves wilt.

Grind the roasted ingredients along with salt, red chilli powder with out water. Mix the ground masala to the urad dal paste. Heat a tablespoon of oil and saute the filling. Don't make it dry, it should be moist.

Preparing the kachori

Pinch off a lime sized dough. Press the dough with your fingers to the shape of a poori. Let theedge of the poori be thin compared to the centre.  Place a tablespoon of the filling. Gather the edges and shape into kachoris. Heat oil in a kadai till hot. Lower the heat to medium and deep fry the kachoris till golden brown. Serve with mint chutney or sweet tamarind chutney.

This is off to WYF:Tea Time Snacks hosted by EC.

Eggless Banana Chocolate Cake

In baking, I am trying to  do away with all purpose flour completely. I decided to try a whole wheat cake. I used half cup of wheat flour and 1/2 cup of multigrain flour. The pillsbury brand has come out with a mutligrain flour that has 80 % of atta and 20% of soy, oats, maize, ragi, chana dal and barley together. Since I had that flour in hand, I decided to try that in baking, again thanks to Madhuram's whole grain baking series. And in my attempt to make it healthy, I omitted white sugar and used  brown sugar and  honey. Considering the less amount of oil, the cake was very moist. All in all this is a keeper recipe. I will be trying with coffee flavor soon.

You need

Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup


Multigrain flour - 1/2 cup

Arrowroot powder - 4 tblspn ( you can use corn flour)

Cocoa powder - 4 tblspn

Baking powder ,baking soda - 1 tspn each



Mashed banana - 1 cup

Brown sugar - 4 tblspn

Honey - 3 tblspn

Oil - 1/3 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup + 2 tblspn

Yogurt - 2 tblspn

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tspn

Cashew nuts to garnish - optional

Method

Sift the fry ingredients together - Atta, multigrain flour, arrow root powder, coco powder, baking powder and cooking soda.

Mix banana, brown sugar and honey well. It smells like Panchamritam. Add milk and whisk till blended, followed by yogurt. Finally add oil and vanilla essence. Beat till everything is blended nicely.

Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet mix, mixing after each addition. Transfer to a greased baking tin. I usually dust the greased with some flour before transferring the batter.  Garnish with few cashews on top. If you wish you can add some to the batter too.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 35 minutes or till a skewer inserted comes out clean. I baked at 200 C. The top cracked.

The cake was very moist and spongy. Perfect sponge cake with chocolate flavor and no hint of banana. For those who you like the cake to be sweet, you can increase the sugar by 2 tablespoon.

This is off to Divya's Show Me Your Cake and  Sara's Cakes n Cookies event.