Annaprashana

Creamy Vegetable soup

2010-11-23T03:18:00.003-06:00

With few left over veggies I ended up making this soup.....came out well so thought I would share it with all of you.

Ingredients:
cabbage, onion, green peas and corn - 1 cup
fresh cream - 1/2 cup
butter - 1 tbsp
salt to taste
white pepper

Method:
Add butter in a pan. Saute the chopped onion followed by rest of the veggies. Add water to this and boil the veggies. Once they are half cooked remove from flame and drain the stock. Keep the stock aside and blend the cooked veggies. Mix in the stock along with the cream to the blended veggies. Add salt and white pepper and cook in low flame. Serve hot with some bread sticks.

Eggless Chocolate Souffle

2010-11-18T03:39:00.002-06:00

It was our 6th wedding Anniversary and I wanted to make some desert for A. Got this wonderful and easy recipe from a friend and tried it out. Came out real good!!!

Ingredients:
Milkmaid - 1tin
Cocoa powder - 3- 4 tbsp
Chocolate - 50 gms
Walnuts - 50 gms chopped (optional)
Gelatine - 21/2 tbsp
Milk - 2 cups
Cream - 1 1/3 cup

Method:

1. Whisk the cream in a bowl over a bowl of ice. Whisk it till it becomes stiff. Keep 2 tsps aside for decoration if you need and the rest also aside.
2. Heat water in a pot and when the water com, simmer it. Dissolve gelatine in 1/2 cup water and double boil it over this pot. Keep stirring till the gelatine is completely dissolved. Keep aside.
3. Add cocoa powder to 1 cup milk and double boil this too till it forms a smooth paste.
4. let this cool down and then add to it - gelatine, 1 cup milk, walnuts, chocolate pieces and milkmaid.
5. Add the whisked cream and mix well.
6. Pour it into glass bowls / souffle dish and freeze them in the fridge.
7. Wait for 2 hours to set. While serving garnish with fresh cream that was kept aside and some chocolate shavings.

Iyengar Puliyodharai / Iyengar style Tamarind Rice

2010-11-09T00:14:00.004-06:00

After getting married to an Iyengar.........................most of my relatives keep asking me the recipe for the lip smacking iyengar puliyodharai! To tell you the truth.......I had never prepared one in the last 6 yrs, Until I met a friend who gave me the secret recipe.....which is not a secret anymore. Hope you guys enjoy preparing it and having it too!!!

Recipe for Pulikachal:-

Ingredients
Tamarind – 200 gms
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tps
Salt – 1 1/2 tsp (increase or decrease the quantity according to taste)

For Seasoning
Mustard seeds – 2 tblsp
Red Chillies – 25-30 Nos , broken into pieces (If you don’t want the pulikaichal to be very then break the chillies into 2 pieces and remove the seeds)
Channa Dhal – 1 Tblsp
Urud Dhal – 1 Tblsp
Curry leaves – Fresh and dried (20 to 30 Nos)
Gingly oil - 250 ml

If you are going to store for a longer period then it better to add less quantity of dhal at the time of preparation . Fry and add the required quantity of dhal at the time of mixing pliyodarai.

For Powdering

Methi seeds – heap of 1 tsp
Hing ( Asafoetida or perungayam) – 1 small piece or 1/2 tsp

Dry fry the methi seeds till they are deep brown. Add one teaspoon of gingly oil and fry the hing. It is better to use the solid hing for this preparation because this is the main flavouring agent. Allow it to cool and make it into a fine powder.

Note:- Some of them add 1tsp of dhaniya and 1/2 tsp of black pepper along with methi seeds and hing and powder it. These additions are optional.

Method

-Strain the tamarind into a thick pulp mix it with turmeric powder and salt and set aside.
- Take a thick bottom pan and add the gingly oil. Keep it on medium flame. Once the oil starts fuming add mustard seeds and allow it to splutter completely. Only when the mustard seeds splutters completely the shelf life of pulikaichal will last long.
- Then add the red chillies and the dhal and fry till the dhal is golden brown. Add the curry leaves and allow them get fried completely i.e, till all the water content in the curry leaf evaporates.
-Pour 1/2 a cup tamarind mix and when it starts to boil add the rest. Add a small piece of jaggery for added taste.
-When the pulp gets thick, oil will come up on the sides & the gravy will get deposited at the bottom. This indicates that pulikaichal is done. Switch off the stove and add the prepared methi-hing powder, mix it well and transfer it to another vessel to avoid further thickening.

Preparation of Puliyodarai

1.Just pressure cook 1 cup of raw rice.
2.Take a vessel. Add 1 Tbl spoon of gingely oil and put the cooked rice over the oil.
3.If you are preparing the puliyodharai on the day when you make pulikaichal no additions are required. Approximately for 1 cup of rice (i.e,200 gms of rice) we need 3 tbl spoon full of pulikaichal.
4.Mix it with the rice using a flat laddle so that the rice will not get smashed.

If you are going to refrigerate and prepare puliyodharai once in a while then , in just 1 tsp of gingly oil fry, 2 broken green chillies, fresh curry leaves, 1pinch of trumeirc powder and 1/4 hing and add to the rice. Add pulikaichal according to the quantity of rice.

If you like your puliyodharai to be crunchy, you can add fried peanuts and cashew nuts.

Note :- For the puliyodarai to taste good preferably use gingly oil. Usually we fry cashews in ghee. But for this preparation it is better to use gingly oil.

Refrigerate it in an air tight container.

Ganesh Chathurthi - Purnam Kozhakattai and Uppu Kozhakattai

2010-09-11T08:10:00.004-05:00

I am a great Ganesha lover like many others and for me celebrations at home pre marriage used to be a different scene....now I still try to follow my traditions and make kozhakattais for Ganesh chathurti!

Sweet/Purnam Kozhakattai:

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:
fresh grated coconut: 1 cup
grated jaggery: ¾ cup
cardamom powder: a pinch

For the outer shell:
Rice flour: 1½ cups
Coconut oil or any other cooking oil: 2tsp
Salt: a pinch

Method:

The stuffing:
Melt the jaggery and strain to remove any impurities. Reheat and make a slightly thick syrup. To test, just remove the spoon with a little syrup from the boiling syrup and drop into a cup of cold water. If the syrup forms a smooth ball, soft to touch, it is ready. Add the coconut gratings to the molten jaggery. Keep stirring until all the water is absorbed and the contents leave the side of the pan. Remove from fire and add cardamom powder.

The rice flour coating:

Heat a pan and add 2 tsp of oil. Add 1½ cups of water and pinch of salt and boil. Meanwhile mix the rice flour in1½cups of water into a smooth batter without lumps. When the water starts boiling add this batter and keep stirring until the rice flour becomes a smooth shiny ball. Remove from fire and cool.

To prepare kozhukkattais:

Knead the rice flour dough well. Take a lime sized portion and form into a cup. Smear little oil on your finger tips to make it easier to handle the dough. Put a smaller size ball of the coconut stuffing inside and close from all sides and pinch the ends together. Repeat till all the dough and stuffing is used up. Steam the kozhukkattais in a steamer or a idli steamer for 15 minutes.

Uppu Kozhakattai:

Ingredients:

For stuffing:
Whole Urad Dal: 1 cup
green chillies: 2
dry red chillies : 2-4
Aesofotida
salt
curry leaves (chopped)
corriander leaves(chopped)
tempered mustard seeds

For the outer Shell:
Same as above used for Sweet Kozhakattai

Method:

Soak the Urad dal for 45 min to 1 hour. Drain the water and grind it along with salt, green and red chillies. Grind it coarsely and add aesofotida. Steam them in idly plates. Let it cool and then with your hand crush them. Add curry leaves, corriander leaves and mustard seeds. Make the outer shell with the rice flour you have prepared already. Fill it with this stuffing and steam them for 15 minutes.

Hope you guys have a wonderful Ganesh Chathurthi with these yummy kozhakattais!!!!

Sabudana Khichdi

2010-09-10T05:15:00.004-05:00

The Sabudana Khichdi is typically a konkani dish. I somehow love this dish and make it often for breakfast or evevning tiffin.

Ingredients:

2 cups sabudana or sago soaked for at least 6-7 hours (soak till the water just touches the top of the sabudana)
Two small potatoes boiled and cut into small pieces
½ cup roasted and coarsely pounded peanuts
For tempering:Jeera, hing, green chilies, curry leaves
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp lemon juice
Finely chopped coriander for garnishing
Grated coconut for garnishing.

Method:

Take oil in a pan , when hot you can put jeera,hing , green chillies and curryleaves. Put the soaked sabudana in this mix and stir for sometime. The sabudana will turn from opaque to transparent. Then you can add the remaining things like boiled potato, chopped coriander. Put sugar, salt and lemon juice. You can garnish this ready khichdi with freshly grated coconut.

Nimki, Manopu and Thattai

2010-09-10T04:25:00.009-05:00

I know I should have posted these last week itself but somehow got delayed. I made Nimki, Manopu and Thattai for Krishnajayanthi. Hope these recipes are useful at some point of time. Apart from preparing for festivals like this, you can also make them for tea time snacks :)

THATTAI:

Ingredients:
1 cup Rice Flour
2 tbsp Urad Dal flour
2 tbsp Bengal gram/Channa Dal
1/2 tbsp white sesame seeds
2 tbsp Ghee
salt to taste
1/4 tsp asafoetida

Method:
Soak the Bengal gram in some water for an hour until soft. Then add all the ingredients together Slowly add water, tablespoon by tablespoon to form it into a dough. Dont add too much water. You should get a tight dough. Take a plastic sheet. Grease it with little oil/ghee. Form a small ball from the dough and place it on the sheet. Grease your fingers and press the ball with your fingers to flatten it. Press it thin. Slowly turn it over your palm. The greased plastic will enable it to slip on your hands easily. Drop it gently in hot oil. Once they are golden brown in colour, drain the oil and place in a paper towel. You can store them in an air tight container.

MANOPU:

Ingredients:

Rice - 3 cups

Moong Dal - 1 cup
white sesame seeds - 1/2 tsp

butter - 2 tablespoons

Aesofotida - 1/4 tsp

salt

oil for frying

Method:

I usually get the rice and Moong dal powdered in the shop. This makes my job easier as i dont have to seive it. Now mix all the above mentioned ingredients and make it into a soft dough. It should not be as the roti dough...but even lighter. We need to use the acchu/ instrumnent to make the manopu. To make this you need the plates which have the star shapes on it. Divide the dough into equal portions and place one in the instrument and press into the hot oil. When they become golden brown remove and drain the excess oil on a paper towel.

NIMKI:

Ingredients:
Maida - 1 cup
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Rava - 1/2 cup
kalaonji/ kala jeera - 1/2 tsp
red chilly powder - 1/4 tsp or acc to taste
pepper powder - 1/4 tsp or acc to taste
salt
butter - 2 tbsp
oil for frying

Method:
Mix all the ingredients together and make like a roti dough. Then divide it into equal portions. Roll each portion out and then cut them with a knife or shaped cutters readily avaiable in the market. Separate the pieces and fry them in oil.

Marie Biscuit Chocolate Balls

2010-08-31T05:19:00.003-05:00

Every Krishnajayanthi apart from the usual sweets I try to make something new............and while browsing through few blogs I came across Sailu's Kitchen. She had the Marie Biscuit Chocolate Balls which was eye catching and easy to make. I made them and it came out very well.....you can try and see it for yourself!!!

Link: http://www.sailusfood.com/2010/07/06/marie-biscuit-chocolate-balls/

Engagement/ Nichayathartham Seer decoration

2010-08-24T08:05:00.006-05:00

Last sunday was my brother in law's engagement and we had a gala time packing and decorating the seer trays. Just as you have decorated baskets in any North Indian weddings we have in South Indian weddings too. We arranged 23 trays with 12 different types of fruits and 11 trays with variety of dry fruits, nuts, sugar and chocolates.

Apart from all this we also keep a granulated sugar tray with the name of the bride and groom written in gems/m&m. We wanted to do it differently and so here is what we did:

Ingredients:

Rice cracker/ butter cookies- (round or square shaped)

dark chocolate

mixed fruit jam

Method:

Cut the dark chocolate into pieces and place it in a microwave safe bowl. Heat in microwave for 30 secs and then whip it well. Keep doing this till the chocolate liqid becomes thick. Transfer it into a ziplock bag. Cut the edge and write the alphabets on the rice cracker/butter cookies. Use it the way you would use a mehendi cone...as simple as that!

For making the red hearts......take few spoons of mixed fruit jam and beat it well with a spoon. Use the same method as above and make your designs on the cookies. Apart from this you can add your own touch by decorating the tray!

Iyengar Avani Avittam Menu

2010-08-24T06:35:00.005-05:00

Avaniavittam/Upakarma is a function followed by Brahmins where they change their sacred thread once in a year. This day in their houses the women folk prepare an elaborate menu for them. Being married to an iyengar, I have started to follow their way of doing things. Today was Avaniyavattam and hence I prepared the following for lunch : More Kozhambu, Saathumadhu ( Rasam in iyengar lingo), Vazhakai/Raw Banana Vegetable, Rava Payasam, Vada and Sweet Appam.

For all those first timers preparing these items or you want to finish quickly...........check out my recipes for easy methods.

Medu Vada:

Ingredients:
Urad Dal - 1 cup
green chillies - 2
Ginger - 1 inch
salt
curry leaves
oil for frying

Method:
Soak the urad dal in water just an hour before your preparation. Once done grind it in a mixie or grinder. In case you want to save time grind the urad dal the previous night without adding salt to it and keep it refrigerated. When you want to make the vadas, grind ginger and green chillies and add it to the urad dal mixture along with salt and fresh curry leaves. Heat oil in frying pan and touch lil water and fry the vadas. For first timers, you can use a plastic sheet where you can pat the vadas and fry them.

Note : Iyengars dont makes holes in the vadas.

Tip: If the urad dal mixture become little watery.... do not panic. Just powder some poha/aval and add it to the batter. This will soak the excess water and also give a nice taste to the vadas.

Sweet Appam:

Ingredients:
Wheat - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1/2 cup or less
elaichi powder
rice flour - 3 tbsp
coconut - grated or cut into small pieces
water
oil for frying

Method:
Heat the jaggery with little water. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and keep aside. Once jaggery has melted add it to the bowl and mix it well. the consistency should be like vada batter. Heat oil and fry them.

Microwave More Kozhambu:

Ingredients:
Curd - 1 cup
ginger - 1 inch
green chillies - 1
Jeera seeds - 1/2 tsp
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
lady's finger/white pumpkin - cut into medium size pieces
mustard seeds, methi seeds and curry leaves for tempering
salt
oil

Method:
Grind green chilly, ginger and jeera seeds. Keep it in a microwave safe bowl and let it cook for 1 min. Once done add curd, turmeric powder and salt and keep it aside. If you are using lady's finger then fry them in little oil and boil it. If white pumpkin is being used then just boil them. When you are going to serve then add the boiled vegetable to the bowl and microwave for 1 1/2 min. Temper it with mustard seeds, methi seeds and curry leaves.

Hope this particular page helps most of us who are either working or first timers!!! Happy Cooking!

Double decker - Potato lettuce Sandwich

2010-08-20T04:11:00.002-05:00

Lettuce!!!! Guess we keep using this only for salad and subs. I wanted to use this in a different way so thought of making this simple stuffing sandwich. This is the easiest sandwich and you can have it anytime!

Ingredients: (serves 2)
Potato - 4 boiled and smashed
onion - 1 chopped
lettuce - 1 cup chopped
salt to taste
chilly flakes
oil -1tsp

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and add onions followed by lettuce. Fry it a little and the add the potatoes. Add salt and chilly flakes. Once done let it cool. Spread the stuffing on the bread and toast it in a tawa or toaster. Serve it with tomchi sauce or just have it plain.

This same stuffing can be used on a roti to make a wrap. You can also use this stuffing on a sub with a topping of mayonnaise and tomato sauce.

Onion and Capsicum Veggie

2010-08-18T00:41:00.003-05:00

When you are all down with maybe very limited veggies in your pantry and donno what to do.............here's the solution. This veggie recipe is basically a bse for making any dry veggie. You can have it like this itself or add more veggies to it acc to your choice (potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower or carrots).

Ingredients: (serves 1)
Onion - 1 chopped medium size
Capsicum - 1 chopped medium size
urad dal
mustard seeds
salt to taste
Oil

Method:
Heat oil in a pan and let the mustard seeds and urad dal splutter. Add the onion and capsicum and let them fry for sometime. I like the capsicum to be in bright green in colour so I always leave it half done to get the crisp taste. Add salt and remove from flame.

Serve this with rotis or just use it as a filling for sandwiches!!!

Rice Khichdi with cauliflower veggie

2010-08-17T23:41:00.004-05:00

Do you know what is heaven???? welll for me on a rainy day or when im down with fever........the best thing that would take me to heaven would be....................a bowl of hot rice khichdi with dry cauliflower sabzi!!! So here is this wonderful recipe for all of you......don't forget to try it today....check out the weather outside!

Ingredients: (serves 2)

For Khichdi:

Basmati Rice/ Reg rice - 3/4 cup
Moong Dal - 1/4 cup
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
garlic - 5 cloves (chopped)
ginger - 1/2 inch (chopped)
green chilly - 1 slit
salt - 1 tsp
mustard seeds
jeera seed
ghee - 1 tsp

For Cauliflower Sabzi:

cauliflower - cut into florets
green peas - 1/2 cup
onion - 1 medium size ( cut into long pieces)
garam masala
salt to taste
mustard oil / reg sunflower oil

Method:

Sabzi:

Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions. Add peas, cauliflower, salt and garam masala. Fry it well in the pan. Once done keep it aside.

Khichdi:

Fry the garlic, ginger and green chilly in little oil. Wash the rice and dal and pressure cook by adding turmeric powder, salt, fried ginger garlic and 3 1/2 cups water. Once the rice is cooked, heat ghee and temper mustard and jeera seeds. Add this tempreing to the rice khichdi.

While serving serve the cauliflower sabzi on top of the khichdi. In case you have no energy to make the sabzi, you can add the veggies of your choice to the khichdi itself while pressure cooking it. Then you can have it with pickle and curd.

Thengai Podi (Coconut Powder)

2010-08-16T22:55:00.004-05:00

This podi/powder is a wonderful item to be used during the days you are in no mood to make rasam and sambhar. Its also a perfect stuff to be used by all those who are single and far away from home...........Hope you guys will try and like it!

Ingredients:

Coconut(fresh or frozen)-3/4 cup

Urud dal-1/2 cup

Hing-1/4 tsp

Salt

Red chillis-6(or according to your taste)

Oil-2 drops

Mustard seeds-1/4 tsp

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add urud dal, red chillis and hing. Fry till golden brown on a very low flame. Set aside and let it cool.In the same pan, add coconut and fry well till it loses moisture and turns light brown. Let it cool.Grind everything(including salt) together to a coarse powder.Store in an air tight container. Mix 2-3 tbsp of this powder with a serving of cooked rice(rice should not be mushy). Add a drop of ghee and have it with chips or papad.

Tofu Tikka Wrap

2010-07-14T01:25:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I wanted to make something different for dinner, so I checked the pantry and I found tofu, capsicum, tomato and onions. I have tasted Paneer Tikka Wraps and frankies....amazing stuffs. I had tofu hence tried the same technique to make this wrap. I bet you guys will also enjoy this low calorie, protien laden wrap.

Ingredients: ( makes 6 wraps)

Roti : Usual ingredients along with wome protien powder. (I use amway's nutrilite protein powder) - Prepare 6 rotis.

Stuffing:
1 Onion - diced
1 tomato - diced
1/2 capsicum - diced
100 gms tofu - diced
1/2 cup curd
1/2 tsp - chilli powder
1/2 tsp - garam masala powder
1/2 tsp - kitchen king powder
1/2 tsp - saunf powder
salt to taste
1 tbsp oil

Method
Prepare 6 rotis and keep them aside. You can also use left over rotis but just heat them once before making the wraps. In a bowl mix curd, all the masalas, salt, tofu and tomato and let it marinate for 15 to 30 mins. Meanwhile in a pan heat oil and let the onions and capsicum fry. Dont burn them. When they are half cooked pour the marinated mixture. Let the ingredients cook till the mixture becomes dry. Add salt if needed.

Place a roti on a plate and fill it with the tofu tikka mixture you prepared. Wrap it up and serve it with pudina chutney or tomchi sauce.

Laccha Paratha

2010-06-26T23:31:00.004-05:00

Whenever we got to a restaurant to eat, I would always want to try laccha paratha. Tried a couple of time but in vain. This time after lot of practise got it right this time....hope you can try it and get it the same way!

Ingredients:

Plain Flour - 2 cups ( If you use maida instead of flour you will get malabar parathas by using the same method )
Salt - To taste
Curd - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
oil - 5 tbsp

Method:

Sieve the flour & make a well to add in the rest of the ingredients like milk & curd. Add in the salt & knead to a soft dough with salt. Do not overwork the dough as it would be become hard. knead it until soft & little bit sticky. Add in the olive oil to the kneaded dough & mix well until soft. Cover it with a wet cloth & allow it to rest so that the curd, milk & salt mix it to make a yeast mix & raises the dough a little bit. The raising gives a clean texture to the dough & gives a soft result. After resting divide the dough into small balls & allow it to rest for another 10 min under a wet towel. In a floury base start to flatten the ball & start to knead it with more oil to a certain level & start to make laccha. Roll the ball as you would do for making rotis and do not worry even if it tears. Once done just make pleets out of the roti and keeping one end in the centre start twisting around it. This will give you the laccha which will look just like unfinished cinamon buns. Leave it to rest in the laccha form & flatten it again & finish it in a hot tawa. Once cooked properly beat it from the sides to get it flaky & serve hot with any kinda curry or gravy.

Kunuku

2010-06-24T04:42:00.005-05:00

Hmmmm..................these rainy days!!! well donno what good or bad these monsoons are doing to the country but I cannot be without having something hot and spicy when it rains. I was at mom's place yesterday and it began raining in the evening.......immediately I suggested she made 'kunuku'. And so here is the recipe for all of you -

Ingredients:

Toor Dal 1/2 cup

Channa Dal 1 cup

Green Chilles 3

Urad Dal 1/4 cup

Rice 1/2 cup

Dried Red Chilles 5

Salt 1 t-spoon

Hing a small pinch

Curry Leaves a few

Cilantro a small bunch washed and finely chopped

Cooking oil for frying

Method:

Soak toor dal, channa dal, urad dal, and rice in water for one hour.Wet grind the above ingredients with chilles, and salt coarsely. Add hing, ginger, curry leaves, and cilantro.Make small balls.Deep fry in oil. Serve them hot with tea or coffee :)

Paneer Makhanwala

2010-06-22T09:52:00.006-05:00

I am trying to be regular these days :) so here is another recipe that i made a few days ago. I came across this recipe a few years ago and this gives the exact taste like you get in any restaraunt. Pls forgive me for the poor quality of the picture.

Ingredients: -

Paneer made out of 1 lt milk/ paneer from the store , diced

200 g cream

2 tbsp butter

1 big onion, finely chopped

3-4 medium sized tomatoes, cut into pieces or use tomato puree

2-3 green chilies, slit lengthwise

1 tsp ginger-garlic paste

1 tsp cumin

1 clove

1” cinnamon stick

2 black pepper corns

2 tsp garam masala

½ tsp turmeric powder

4-5 cashew nuts

1 tbsp Kasoori methi

Salt

Coriander leaves & onion rings to garnish

Method:

1. In a pan, roast Paneer cubes to golden brown by adding 2 tbsp of butter. Remove & soak them in Luke warm water.

2. In the same pan (medium flame), add another tbsp of butter & add cumin seeds. When they start to splutter, add cinnamon, pepper corns & fry for few seconds.

3. Add ginger garlic paste and onion pieces along with very little salt & turmeric powder.

4. When they begin to sweat, add cream, garam masala, cashew nuts, kasoori methi & tomato pieces. Give it a good stir. Allow the tomatoes to cook well & become tender. Remove from flame & cool.

5. Grind the above cooled mixture to a fine paste. Don’t add water.

6. In the pan, now add the roasted Paneer cubes along with the paste. Add little water if the consistency is too thick & bring it to boil. Add salt.

7. Allow the Paneer pieces to absorb the masala well. This should take around 5 – 10 minutes.

8. Remove from flame, garnish with coriander & onion rings. Serve hot with any Indian bread or rice.

Kothu Parotta

2010-06-09T22:31:00.005-05:00

I know its been a very loooooong time since we added anything here. Lot of things happening in our lives and we had to take a big break. Lets start again with my recipe of kothu parotta................there are many ways one can do it. This is my version which is made without using eggs. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 packet of frozen malabar parotta/ regular parathas you make at home (5 nos)

1 cup - chopped tomatoes, onion, capsicum
fresh green peas
1 green chilly chopped
fresh corriander leaves chopped
1 tablespoon tomato sauce
1 tsp soya sauce
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp garam masala
salt to taste
oil

Method:

Thaw the frozen parottas and then break them into pieces and keep aside. Heat a pan and add oil. Fry the green chillies, onion, capsicum and peas till they are little crisp. Add tomatoes and the chilli powder and garam masala. Once the raw taste of the masala is gone add the parotta pieces. I like my kottu parotta lil crispy so I let the parotta pieces cook for sometime. Once this is done add the sauces and mix well. Serve hot with corriander leaves garnished on top and nice chill onion raita to go with it.

Paruppu Urundai Kozhambu

2009-11-11T22:37:00.002-06:00

Well this is one of the tam bram recipe. I was so craving to have this last week and ended up making it. This is very healthy and you can just have it with steamed rice.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
Toor Dhal – 1 cup
Sambar Powder – 1 tsp
corriander leaves- 3 tbsp
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Mustard – 1 teaspoon
urad dal -1/4 tsp
chopped tomato - 2
Curry leaves – few
tamarind
sambar powder- 1 heaped tbsp

Method:

Soak toor dal in water for about 2 hours. Wash the dal and drain out the water completely. Put it in a mixie and grind to a thick coarse paste (as you would do for vadai). Add ½ teaspoon salt, sambar powder, a pinch of turmeric powder, few curry leaves chopped to the dal paste. Mix well. Make a small lemon size balls. Set aside.Heat oil in kadai and splutter mustard seeds, urad dal. Then add leaves. Add tomatoes and fry till soft. Add the tamarind paste and sambar powder. Add 3 cups water. Bring to boil. When it starts boiling, add two to three dhal balls at a time and reduce to heat to medium. Allow to boil. Once you finished all the dal urundais, gently turn them with a spoon. Keep the flame to low. Garnish with fresh curry leaves and corriander leaves.

Upma Kozhakattai

2009-11-11T21:24:00.001-06:00

This is one of famous breakfast dishes in most of the iyer households. I got to eat this dish after so many years in my SIL's house. Her MIL taught me how to make them and got to have these heavenly dumplings for breakfast too. When the Japanese can have steamed dumplings, why can't we?

Ingredients:

2 cups long grain rice

1/4 cup shredded coconut (fresh or frozen)

4-5 dry red chillies

1 green chilli

1 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp asafoetida

1 tsp oil

a few curry leaves

Method:

Wash the rice well in several changes of water until the water runs clear. Spread it out to dry on a clean towel or dish cloth for a few hours or even overnight. Coarsely powder the rice in a blender or food processor. Work in batches till the rice resembles bread crumbs. Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan. When it is hot, add the asafoetida and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds pop, add the dry red chillies. When they turn a dark golden brown, add the green chillies and curry leaves. Add 5 cups of water (ratio of rice to water is 2:2.5). When the water comes to a boil, add the salt and shredded coconut. Add the rice rava and stir well to mix. Cover and steam like for "upma" till the rice is cooked. It may still taste a bit raw at this point, but will be fine when it is steamed again. When the mixture is cool, form into small balls. Put the balls in a greased idli plate or in a chinese style steamer or even the steamer of a rice cooker and steam for 10 minutes. The balls will subtly change in color and texture and get a glossy shine. That indicates that they are well cooked. Serve hot with a dab of ghee on top. Serve with chutney of your choice.

Makki ki roti and Sarson ka Saag - Corn pancakes with mustard greens

2009-10-29T09:35:00.007-05:00

Those cold wintery nights and what would warm you up in this situation??? offcourse Makki di roti aur sarson da saag...wah ki swad! Although Ive spent a sufficient amount of my childhood in the north I was never able to make the makki ki rotis as the punjabis would do. Thanks to my neighbour back in jsr.....she told me the trick. Hope you guys enjoy making and eating them too :)

Sarson ka Saag

Ingredients:

1 bunch sarson(Mustard green)

1 cup packed - spinach

2 tomatoes (finely chopped)

1 red onion (finely chopped)

4 cloves - garlic (finely chopped)

2" - ginger (peeled and finely chopped)

2 - green chillies (chopped)

1 tsp - salt or to taste

2 tbsp - makki ki atta( corn flour)

For Tempering :

3 tbsp - ghee or oil

1" - ginger (finely chopped)

2 - green chillies (finely chopped)

3/4 tsp - red chilli powder

Method:

Wash and clean mustard leaves. Remove the leaves. Hold the stem closer to the leaf and pull the leaf downwards, stringing out the thick fiber of the stem(like the way you string beans). Stems add flavor to the saag, but string them before adding and the stems have to be tender. Chop them finely. Chop spinach and add to the mustard greens. Cook them with 1/2 cup water. Add ginger, garlic and green chillies while cooking the greens into the pan. Add salt. Cover and cook for 15 mins on a medium flame. Remove and set aside until cool. Grind into a coarse paste. Do not grind into a smooth paste. In a small bowl, take corn flour and add couple of tsps of water and make into paste. Set aside. In a separate pan, add ghee and do tadka(tempering) by adding ginger and green chillies. When ginger changes color, add chopped onions and tomatoes. Once they are cooked properly add the ground greens. Add corn flour paste and cook for 2-3 mins. Add red chilli powder and adjust salt. Cook for another 2-3 mins. Add water if the saag is too thick. Turn off the heat. Serve hot with Makki Ki Roti and with a dollop of butter.

Makki Ki Roti

Ingredients:

2 cups - makki ki atta( corn flour)

1/2 tsp - salt or to taste

hot water - to knead

ghee or oil for frying

2 small plastic sheets

Method:

Sieve the flour, add salt and knead gently with hot water to a soft dough. Do not knead the dough well in advance. Place one plastic sheet on the working surface. Place one ball of dough and place the other plastic sheet on it, such that there is plastic sheet above and beneath the dough ball.
Press carefully with your fingers or roll it into slightly thick roti. Heat a pan or tava on low flame. Carefully transfer the roti into the tava and both side by adding ghee. Serve hot immediately with Sarson ka Saag.

Thengoyal with a twist

2009-10-15T11:41:00.004-05:00

With Diwali around the corner, this time I decided to make thengoyal. But making thengoyal the usual way was not my intention at all. One of my friends was mentioning about how they make thengoyal by using coconut milk. That gave me a great idea...............and resulted in an amazing thengoyal with a twist. Hope u guys like it!

Ingredients:

Rice flour 4 cups

Payatham paruppu (Moong dal) 1 cup

Urad dal 1 cup

Butter 2 tsp

Salt

Omam (carom seeds) 1 tsp

Crushed red chilies 4 tsp

Jeera (Cumin) 1 tsp

Ellu (Gingelly/Sesame seeds) 1tsp

Coconut milk – enough to make the dough

oil for frying

Method:

Roast the moong dal and urad dal separately in pan without oil till it turns light brown. Let both the dal’s cool and then grind them separately into a fine powder. Mix the rice flour, moong dal powder, and urad dal powder together. Add salt and butter and mix well. Add the omam (carom), jeera (cumin), ellu (gingelly/sesame), red chilies to the flour and mix well. Add the coconut milk to the flour to make dough Squeeze the dough through a muruku press (achhu) into oil to fry it till its golden brown.

Aval bhel puri/ Poha Bhel

2009-10-07T08:13:00.003-05:00

This recipe was given to me by A's aunt. She's a wonderful cook herself and loves to explore new recipes. Few yrs back when I was very consious abt eating low fat food, she told me abt this recipe which was easy to prepare and tasted just like bhel puri but prep is way diff.

Ingredients:

1 cup poha/ Aval

1/2 cup curd

1/4 tsp red chilly powder

1/4 tsp garam masala

1/2 cup chopped onions and tomatoes

freshly chopped corriander leaves

salt to taste

mustard seeds

1 tsp oil

sev for garnish

Method:

Soak the aval/poha in water till they become soft. In a pan heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they splutter add the chopped tomatoes. add the masalas and let it cook for sometime. Once the tomatoes become soft add the curd and cook for 2 min. Add the poha/aval and salt and mix well till it is well coated with the gravy. Remove from stove and serve it in a cup and garnish with sev, chopped onions and corriander leaves.

More Kali

2009-10-07T08:03:00.003-05:00

This one is my mom and A's favourtie dish. In most of the iyer/iyengar families this is a top rated tiffin item, very easy to prepare and filling too. Any day you have sour curd and you do not want to end up making more kozhambu....this is the dish u need to try.

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 1 cup

Buttermilk – 3 cups

Salt – 1 tsp

Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

Urad dal – 1 tbsp

Chana dal – 1 tbsp

Mor milagai/Chillies cured in yogurt or Red chillies – 4

few curry leaves

Oil – 1 tsp

Method:

Mix the rice flour ,buttermilk and salt and keep aside. Please see that there are no lumps formed. Heat a pan with oil and let the mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal, curry leaves and red chillies splutter. Add the rice flour and buttermilk mixture into the pan. Keep stirring until you feel that its fully cooked. Once done transfer into a plate and set it and cut into pieces and serve with pickle. I just love to eat them as they are :)

Methi Paratha/ Fenugreek leaves indian bread

2009-10-07T07:47:00.003-05:00

I remember those good old childhood days in jamshedpur, where during winter we got fresh methi leaves. Dad used to demand for methi rotis......and why not when they r so tasty. Methi leaves being a little bitter when made into rotis taste out of the world. The best side dish for methi paratha wld be a simple alu and tamatar gravy sabzi..........or just plain achaar (pickle).

Ingredients:

1 cup wheat flour

1 bunch fresh methi leaves

1 tsp red chilly powder

1/4 tsp aesofotida

1 green chilly - chopped finely

2 cloves garlic - chopped finely - (optional)

1/2 cup curd

1 tbsp oil

Method:

Separate the methi leaves from the bunch, wash and chop them. Mix wheat flour, methi leaves, green chilly, garlic, chilly poweder, aesofotida along with the curd. If you need some water to knead it...you can use little. add 1 tbsp oil and knead well enough and keep aside. Make into equal round balls and roll them as you wld make any roti. Make them in a tava and apply little oil on both sides of the paratha and cook them properly. Once done enjoy them hot with ur choice of side dish.

Paneer Kofta Curry - Cottage cheese in spicy gravy

2009-10-02T10:34:00.005-05:00

After a very long time here come's my recipes. I was so bored the other day cooking the same old stuffs, I decided to make paneer koftas. A has tried them in restaurants but was never a big fan of it. So I made the paneer at home and thought paneer kofta's shld be given a chance :)
After having his dinner, A was so happy with the kofta's that he has become a big fan of it now.

Ingredients:

For Koftas:

200 gms Cottage Cheese (Paneer)
2 Potatoes

1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Garam Masala

2 tblsp Cornflour

Oil for frying

For Gravy:

4 Onions
4 Tomatoes

Coriander Leaves

1/2 cup Curd - optional

1/2 cup Cashewnut Powder

1/2 tsp Cumin Seed
1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric

1/4 tsp Garam Masala

1 Bay Leaf

2 tbsp Ghee

Method:

Boil potatoes and peel them.
Grate paneer and potatoes.
Add salt, red chili powder, garam masala, cornflour and mix well.
Make round balls of this mixture.
Now heat oil in a pan.
Fry balls in the oil till brown in color.
Grind onion and tomatoes together.
Chop coriander leaves very finely.
Heat oil in a pan.
Add cumin seed and bay leaf.
Add onion, tomato paste and brown it, stirring continously.
When it leaves oil add curd, cashewnut powder, salt, red chili powder, turmeric, garam masala.
Stir it continously for a minute.
Then add 2 cup of water.
Put on the lid and simmer for 5 minutes.
While serving reheat the gravy and then add koftas to it.
Garnish it with chopped coriander leaves.

Paneer Kofta's go well with rotis as well as rice. I served it up with veg fried rice.

Chana Chaat

2009-09-16T08:22:00.003-05:00

Another super hit dish from my daughter's birthday party was the chana chaat. The recipe for making chana is already there in http://annaprashana.blogspot.com/2009/01/luchi-gughni-authentic-recipe-of-west.html . The only variation while making the masala for the chana, I used only tomatoes, jeera seed and red chillies so that the gravy is very mild. This is because the chana and the masala shld be mild in order to get the taste of other additions made into this dish.

Once the chana is made mix in some tamarind chutney and pudina chutney, chopped onions, corriander leaves and grated carrots. Also crush some papdis or puri's of pani puri as they will give a nice a crisy texture to the dish.

Veg Puffs

2009-09-16T08:07:00.003-05:00

I had planned for my daughter's birthday party over the weekend and deciding the menu when my cousin taught me how to make veg puffs. I was aprehensive at first and was assuming that it would take most of my time, but then they were the easiest to make and definitely a major hit at the party.

Ingredients:

1 packet pepperidge farm puff pastry sheet ( you can make 10-12 big puffs with 1 box)

stuffing- You can use any stuffing of your choice. As there were kids for the party I decided to make the stuffing with only onion and potatoes with very less spice.

1 egg diluted with water to brush over the puffs for them to become brown and crispy

pam olive oil spray

foil sheet

Method:

Thaw the pastry sheets 30-40 min prior to making the puffs. Use a little all purpose flour and place the pastry sheets and roll them little. Note that if you roll them real thin your puffs will break. Cute them into the desired shape and place a spoonful of filling on one piece and cover and seal with another piece. If they dont stick, use the egg wash to stick them together. Plase the foil sheet on a oven safe tray and spray the oil spray. Place the puffs on the tray and brush it with the egg wash. Pre heat the oven at 400 degrees and place them in for 15 minutes. Amazing shop like puffs are ready in a jiffy.

Chola Bhatura

2009-09-02T07:00:00.007-05:00

Deciding everyday of what to cook for dinner is a very difficult task...............I was also under the same confusion when I suddenly decided to make chola bhatura for dinner y'day. My choley recipe is already in our blog : http://annaprashana.blogspot.com/2009/03/punjabi-chole.html

Hope you guys like preparing Bhatura my way :)

Ingredients:

½ cup of Potatoes (boiled & grated) OR 2 slices of white bread (remove corners)
½ cup of All-Purpose Flour (Maida)
Salt (to taste)

1/4 tsp baking soda

curd
1 tsp Cooking Oil
More Cooking Oil (for deep frying)

Method:

Combine the flour, potato (if you are using bread then just wet them and mash it and add to the flour), 1 ½ teaspoons of oil, baking soda, curd and salt and knead into a firm dough without using any water. Knead the dough very well until it is smooth. Cover with a wet muslin cloth and rest the dough for 10 to 20 minutes. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts and roll out into circles. Deep fry in hot oil until the bhaturas puff up and both sides are golden brown. Serve hot with the cholay, sliced onion and lemon wedges. "

Mozzarella Pillows - Pastry dough filled with reduced marinara, cheese, olives and seasonings

2009-08-28T15:18:00.003-05:00

Along with the Stuffed Sweet Baby Peppers, I decided to make a modified version of Mozzarella Pillows for S’s food day.

The original recipe from Food Network called for Prosciutto – a cured Italian meat; and store bought pie crusts. I decided to use Pepperidge Farm’s flaky pastry dough sheets and skipped the prosciutto. Instead, I added sliced black olives. Of course, I had to stir in some additional seasoning. Everything else remains the same as the original recipe.

The marinara sauce took a little longer to reduce, since the portions were bigger. Other than preparation time, this is a totally worthy recipe – a different turn from the usual potato-filled pastry puff that we make in India, which by the way, is one of our favourites. I often crave for spicy potato puffs.

Click here for the original recipe.

Stuffed Baby Peppers - Ricotta, Goat cheese with Sundried Tomatoes and Basil, Sweet Peas and Onions

2009-08-28T14:50:00.008-05:00

This month, S was taken by bitter surprise when his beloved mentor and our very good friend, should I say American-Godparent, announced his retirement. As is customary at S’s workplace, a food day apart from a formal luncheon party was held in our friend’s honour right after S’s own food-day for his upcoming birthday (Food days are typically those days when there’s tons of free, delicious food – homemade or store-bought ;) – those are the days S goes light to work)

Last year, for S’s food day, I had baked cinnamon chocolate muffins. This year, I decided to make something savoury. A few weeks back, when S and I were surfing the Food Network channel, he happened to like Giada’s Stuffed Baby Peppers while I found the Mozzarella Pillows inviting. So, I decided to make them both, with my own alterations. Italian recipes call for meat most of the times, most of which S and I do not eat – especially the Pancetta and Proscuitto which Giada De Laurentiis uses like Mustard or Cumin to Indian cooking.

I picked two bags of colourful sweet mini peppers from Sam’s Club and labouriously deseeded them. For the stuffing, I eyeballed some low-fat Ricotta cheese – I should say it was perfect, no leftover stuffing whatsoever. I mixed it with a small chunk of Goat cheese seasoned with sundried tomatoes and basil, chopped onions and thawed frozen peas. Then of course, there was Parmesan! I added some crushed red chili flakes, pepper, salt, and Italian seasoning as well.

Though these peppers look spicy, they were absolutely sweet and delicious! I’m not sure if the Pancetta would have made a huge difference to the taste – okay, I don’t know what Pancetta tastes like! This was really good, nonetheless.

Click here for the original recipe.

Vazhakai Varuval/ Raw Plaintain fritters

2009-08-26T10:18:00.005-05:00

I have always loved the vazhakai varuval my friend used to get in lunch during college. It tasted amazing and was definitely different from what my mom used to make at home. My mom used to make it like vazhakai chips....nice and crispy.............but the ones my friend's mom made were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and the masala was awesome. So after so many years I tried it at home with the flavours I vaguely remembered............and it came out real well.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

2 Raw Plaintains
1/2 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon garlic paste
salt to taste
oil to fry or to saute

Mehtod:

Peel and slice the plaintain into somewhat thick pieces. Boil them and see to it that they are only half cooked. Remove and drain the water. In another bowl mix all the other ingredients except the oil and add the plaintains. Mix them well and see that the plaintains are all well coated with the masala. Now heat some oil in a pan and fry/saute the plaintains. Turn them when one side is toasted well. Drain them on a paper towel to remove excess oil. Yummy plaintain fritters are ready to be eaten alongwith rice or just like that as a snack.

PS: You can also add roasted grated coconut to the masala mixture to give a diff texture and taste alltogether!

Fake Chicken Biryani – Totally Vegetarian!

2009-08-24T15:52:00.006-05:00

S’s very good friend from college lives in Chicago, and he and his wife make amazing non-vegetarian dishes. S used to ask Aunty (his friend’s mom) to make Chicken Biryani whenever he visited their house, which was pretty much every second weekend back in the 90’s – throughout his college days. Now, the couple makes amazing biryanis, but off late, we’ve all cut down / stopped eating NV food unless it’s absolutely necessary to survive.

Every family has its own distinct recipe for Biryani, and there is some difference in each household’s version. There’s no exaggeration or kidding when I say our friends’ biryani is just amazing, exactly like the kind you would get in Osmania or any such totally popular hotel in India – should I say even better? I noted down the recipe to their delicious, perfect biryani and decided to give it a try – my way.

Soya nuggets have a tendency to taste like chicken when cooked properly, and they are full of rich proteins. Chicken bouillon cubes are intense with chicken flavour – they are made from dehydrated chicken broth. So, technically, that’s just water in which chicken was cooked. These two ingredients totally make up for a great dish I’d like to call the ‘Fake Chicken Biryani’. The following recipe serves 4-6 adults, depending on their appetite!

This is what you’ll need to dish this up:

1. Nutrela Soya Nuggests - 1 cup – cooked according to instructions

2. Hard boiled eggs – 4-6 – optional

3. Onions – 1 and a half large ones – cut in very thin slices

4. Tomatoes – 4 campari tomatoes – chopped

5. Basmati Rice – washed and drained – 3 cups ( I didn’t use a measuring cup, I use the small cup that comes with the rice cooker – that’s about 3/4th of a measuring cup)

6. Freshly made ginger and garlic paste. The bottled ones do fine as well, but there’s a richer flavour from fresh pastes – 2 teaspoons each

7. 1 teaspoon Garam Masala; 2 teaspoons Coriander Powder; 1 teaspoon Red Chili Powder; Turmeric as needed

8. 10 small green chilis – slit. Make sure they are the small variety

9. A couple of sprigs of Mint Leaves, half a bunch of Coriander Leaves, one sprig of Curry Leaves – I store up on dried mint leaves, I used about a tablespoon of that.

10. 1 inch piece of Cinnamon, 3 pods of Cardamom, 3 Cloves, 1 Bayleaf, 1 Star Anise

11. 1 carrot – julienned; Half a green bell pepper – julienned.

12. Chicken Bouillon Cubes - 2

13. Save a few slices of onions soaked in vinegar for garnishing, some coriander leaves for garnishing

14. Oil and ghee

This is how you dish this up:

1. In a pressure cooker/handi, heat some oil and ghee. Fry the whole masalas, the curry leaves, mint leaves,coriander leaves and slit green chili.

2. Add the onions and fry them till they turn into a soft pulp. Add a pinch of salt to help cook the onions faster.

3. Add the coriander powder, garam masala and chili powder and continue frying well till the flavours blend and the rawness disappears.

4. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook them till they turn mushy and the entire masala clumps up as a nice paste.

5. Now add the cooked soya nuggets and the julienned vegetables, toss them till they’re coated with the masala. Finally toss in the boiled eggs after slitting them with a knife.

6. Add the chicken bouillon cubes to 4 cups of hot water and make sure they dissolve well.

7. Add the washed basmati rice followed by 1.5 cups of water for each cup of rice. Finally, remove half a cup of water. (I added 4 cups of water with the chicken bouillon cubes straight away instead of finally removing half a cup of water) Make sure the water quantity is correct, that is the key step to getting your biryani right. Basmati rice usually consumes 2 cups of water, but adding 1.5 per cup and finally removing half a cup yields in fluffy individual grains. The moisture from the masalas make up for the removed water. If you end up adding more water than required, you will get mashed up biryani and broken rice grains.

8. Adjust the seasonings by adding black pepper if you need more spice. Do not add chili powder. The flavour of the biryani lies in cooking the powders well, like in step 3. Therefore adding raw chili powder in the end changes the taste. If you need more spice, which is highly unlikely, make sure to add black pepper powder. Add salt as needed. Chicken bouillon cubes are salted, so make sure you add salt in the end, after adding the water.

9. Finally, add a tablespoon of lemon juice, cover and pressure cook for 20 minutes or until done.

10. Allow the Biryani to cool before tossing it into a serving dish. Do not use a serving spoon as that is a guaranteed step towards breaking the rice grains.

11. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and marinated onion slices.

12. Serve with raita, kurma, or any side dish of your taste.

Traditionally, our friends cook the chicken (boneless pieces) in water, and use that fresh broth to make a side dish with vegetables for the biryani. The cooked chicken is added in step 5, instead of the nuggets.

This is the best and most delicious biryani I’ve ever had – tastes totally like something you’d pay money for but is homemade. This version is totally vegetarian/eggetarian. Unless of course, you don't mind the harmless chicken bouillon cubes :D

Pasta with Lemon Cream Sauce, Asparagus and Peas

2009-08-24T13:50:00.006-05:00

I haven’t blogged in a real long time and I have my reasons for going under the radar. After a beautiful paper anniversary vacation, wisdom teeth extraction and a painfully long recovery, festive occasions and lot more, I’m back!
I did make a few dishes while in blog-absence, which I wanted to write about, clicked pictures too. Then I generally got busy with various things.

Last week, I had some leftover groceries that needed to be finished before expiry. S bought a carton of heavy cream for a cocktail party (yes, he is now into making cocktails and is pretty good at it too), there were some lemons that needed to be used up, some leftover vegetable broth, and there was a whole lot of asparagus. So, I surfed the Internet for a nice pasta recipe and what I found made me glad – Pasta with Lemon Cream Sauce, Asparagus and Peas . I have two Italian cookbooks that are pretty great, I never miss an episode of Giada at Home and Everyday Italian by Giada DeLaurentiis, two very good Italian cookery shows on Food Network. Yet I chose this recipe over the rest - Giada freaks out on Pancetta and that is something that will never find its way into my pantry. I undoubtedly chose this recipe because almost all of the ingredients required were the leftovers in my fridge I was waiting to finish quickly before expiry! And the dish was really good too.

I modified the recipe just a little bit here and there – I used normal spaghetti, a handful of peas, 2 garlic cloves minced, a heaping teaspoon of cornstarch, and finally some dried basil along with pepper. I also added extra virgin olive oil up front before the butter. This helps the butter and the oil from scorching, and also helps keep the garlic from burning. Plus, EVOO can only make Italian dishes better – what say?

We roasted some asparagus tossed in EVOO, black pepper, salt, crushed red chili flakes, and Cajun seasoning. We ate the pasta with garlic bread, oven roasted asparagus, and a wonderful goblet of fine Italian Riserva wine.

Of course, the one thing I picked from Giada was the Parmesan - it always gives the final kick to any Italian dish. I topped up our pasta with grated cheese ;)

Sweet and Salt Kozhakattai

2009-08-23T17:51:00.008-05:00

Ganesh Chaturthi has always been one of my favourite festivals..........."pullu" as I lovingly call Lord Ganesha, the pandals and fairs during this time in jamshedpur and offcourse the kozhakattais or modaks as we all know them. Although the poornam kozhakattai is a must for lord ganesha my mom used to make these amazing salt kozhakkatis which was my all time favourite..............so to keep this tradition going I make and offer both sweet and salt kozhakattais to my "Pullu".

Outer cover for both kozhakattais:

Rice flour - 1 cup
water - 1 cup
2 tsp sesame oil
a pinch of salt

Ingredients for sweet poornam:

grated coconut - 1 cup
powdered jaggery - 1 cup
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

Ingredients for salt stuffing:

broken urad dal - 1 cup
2 or 3 dry red chillies
few curry leaves
little turmeric powder and red chilly powder
salt to taste
aesofotida
mustard seeds for tempering

Method:

Heat water to boil.Pour 2 tsp sesame oil in it and add rice flour with constant
stirring so that it becomes thick. Cover it in a wet cloth and keep aside.Then take even sized balls of this and shape it into a flat round shapes for sweet kozhakattai and hollow hemispheres for the salt kozhakattais.

Inner stuffing(sweet Poornam): Heat the jaggery in a pan and once it melts add the coconut and cardamom powder and mix well.Stuff the poornam in the flat round base and try to bring all the edges together to make a pointed finish. Kozhakattais are made this way traditionally...........kozhakattais with mooku is the perfect one!Place these in a idly plate and steam in a pressure cooker or a large vessel until
fully cooked.

Inner stuffing (salt dal mixture) : Soak the urad dal for half hour. Drain the excess water and coarsly grind it by adding aesofotida, dry red chillies and salt. Steam this mixture and once done let it cool. Crumble the mixture and heat a pan with oil. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves and add the crumbled dal mixture. Add turmeric powder and chilly powder as needed. Make the hemisphere for the outer covering and close it by extending the covering flour.Place these in a plate and steam in a pressure cooker or a large vessel until fully cooked.

Onion Pakoda

2009-08-17T09:37:00.004-05:00

Rainy days and garama garam chai ke saath pakodey!!! That's the best combo when there are showers of rain and you cannot even imagine going out of your house. Yesterday eve although it wasn't raining here in New Jersey just felt like having pakodas. Hope you like it!

Ingredients:

1 big onion cut into thin slices
1 cup gram flour (besan)
1 tsp red chilly pwd
1 green chilly finely chopped
salt to taste
2 tbsp coriander leaves finely chopped
1 tsp water if required
Oil for frying

Method:

In a big bowl take onions and separate each layer. Add red chilly powder, green chilly, salt and keep aside for 5 min. Add coriander leaves and gram flour, mix. Mixture will be slightly sticky. There is no need to add water but if you see any dry flour, add only few drops of water. Heat oil in a kadai. Put little at a time. Do not try to make the pakodas round. Cook on a medium flame till they are crisp. Irregular shape makes the pakodas crispy. We had the pakodas with adkrak ki chai (ginger tea).

Mixed Vegetable soup

2009-08-17T09:36:00.003-05:00

My daughter was down with a cold a week ago...........and what's best to have during this time??? offcourse............hot soup to ease out your throat and also to sober your cold. This is a very simple version of a mixed vegetable soup. I try to use the veggies that are available in the pantry at that time. My daughter is usually very choosy abt food......but surprisingly she loved this soup, and as there are veggies in there I don't mind making it again for her :)

Ingredients: (Serves 3)

2 Big ripe tomatoes
1 onion
1 potato
1 carrot (peeled and diced)
salt acc to taste
pepper
1 tablespoon butter
fried bread pieces for garnish (I avoid frying of the bread pieces. Instead cut the bread into cubes and place them in a microwavable plate and mic high for 2 to 3 min. check every other min so that they dont burn. This way the bread pieces become crispy as needed for the soup and we avoid the usage of oil)

Method:

Pressure cook all the veggies. Once they are cooled down blend them together. Heat a pan and add the veggie puree and add the butter. Mix well and let it come to a boil. Add salt and pepper as needed. Serve in a bowl and top it with the bread pieces.

Zucchini Dal

2009-08-12T21:37:00.005-05:00

After moving to Edison made a few friends here. Priya is one such friend who taught me this wonderful recipe with Zucchini. This dal can be eaten with rotis or with rice. You can prepare this dal by using any lentil of your choice but the taste best comes out when you use toor dal.

Ingredients:

1 Zucchini (finely chopped)
1 onion (finely chopped)
2 green chillies
1/2 cup toor dal
few curry leaves
mustard seeds and chana dal for tempering
aesofotida
salt acc to taste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
oil

Method:

Pressure cook the dal with turmeric powder and keep aside. Meanwhile heat the pan with oil and let the mustard seeds and chana dal splutter. Add curry leaves, aesofotida and onion. Saute the onions for few minutes and add the zucchini. Cook the zucchini for some time till they are kind of half done. Add the mashed dal and salt. You can add little water and let it boil for few minutes. Once done serve it with rotis or rice.

Coconut Rice

2009-08-11T13:13:00.005-05:00

I really don't know who invented coconut rice but then I have tasted few diff versions of the same. Thai cooking also makes coconut rice and we in south India also prepare the same. I always felt that this is a very easy recipe and anyone can prepare this, until my cuz asked for this recipe. I was literally shocked of how someone wld not know to prepare coconut rice...............so anyways I thought it wld be good to pen down this recipe too!

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut (I usually use the froxen grated coconut here in the US...as thats close to the fresh coconut) If you have freshly grated coconut that should be used for best results
1 cup rice
2 green chillies (choppped)
few curry leaves
fresh corriander leaves
mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal and aesofotida
peantus and cashews
salt
oil

Method:

Heat oil in pan. Add mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal, green chillies, curry leaves and aesofotida. Add coconut and stir for 2 min...do not burn the coconut. Once thats done add rice and salt. Mix well and serve with chopped corriander leaves and roasted cashews and peanuts.

Bisi Bela Huli Anna

2009-08-04T14:38:00.008-05:00

Although my cousin has put her version of Bisi Bela Bhath, Im uploading my version too. I make it by using moong daal as its very easy to digest and yet there is no compromise to taste whatsoever. In my method you can prepare the powder and store it for later purposes. Hence makes the process very easy :)

Ingredients for Bisi Bela Huli Anna powder:

6 red chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp methi(fenugreek) seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 tsp coriander seeds
4 cloves
2 pieces cinammon
2 tsp urad dal
1 tsp channa dal
1/2 tsp peppercorns
1/2 cup coconut gratings
Oil/ghee for roasting

Method:

Roast all the above ingredients one by one in a little oil or ghee and powder to a coarse powder in a coffee grinder. Store in a airtight container.

Ingredients for Bisi Bela Huli Anna Rice:

1/2 cup Moong Dal
1 cups rice
1/2 cup thick tamarind juice
5 tsp Bisi Bhele Huli Anna powder
2 cups chopped vegetables(carrots, green beans, potatoes,etc)
4 green chillies, chopped
3 tbsp ghee
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp cashewnuts, chopped
few curry leaves
1 tsp channa dal
1 tsp urad dal
Salt to taste

Method:

Wash the rice and toor dal together and cook under pressure with the chopped vegetables till completely done. Add the tamarind juice to the above rice/dal/vegetables and mix well. Mix in the bisi bhele huli anna powder. Set aside. Heat the ghee and add the mustard, green chillies, curry leaves, cashewnuts, urad dal and channa dal. When the seasoning is ready, add it to the rice mixture and add salt to taste. Serve it hot with the raita of your choice (I usually make the raw onion raita) and roated papad/ chips.

Kaddu ka Dalcha/Bottle Gourd with lentils

2009-07-24T09:46:00.003-05:00

This is a wonderful recipe from hyderabad. Kaddu or otherwise known as sorakai, doodhi, bottle gourd or lauki is prepared in a soup consistency with lentils. The authentic one is prepared with chana dal but you can also prepare it with other lentils. The hyderabadis prepare this by also adding meat into this. Being a veggie I know only the recipe by using the bottle gourd. This can be eaten with rotis or hot steamed rice.

Ingredients:

Chana dal/Split and skinned Chickpea - 3 cups

ginger garlic paste - 1 tablespoon

oil - 2 tbsp

Cumin seeds - 2 tsp

Cinnamon stick - 2 inch stick

Dried red chillies - 2

Curry leaves - 10

Tomato - 2 finely chopped

Chopped Cilantro - 1 tbsp

Red chilli powder - 2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Bottle gourd - 1 medium size cut diagonally into diamond shapes. You can use the seeds if you like it. Otherwise use them by cleaning the seeds.

Raw tamarind juice - 4 tbsp or to taste (optional)

Method:

Wash the dal in two or three water changes. Drain and keep aside. In a large saucepan, add the drained chana dal and surplus water. Add 2 tsp salt and let it boil until the dal is soft. Puree in a blender and pour it back back into the saucepan and keep aside. In a large frying pan at medium heat, pour oil, and as soon as it warms up, add the cumin seeds and cinnamon stick. Immediately add the dried red chillies and curry leaves followed by the ginger garlic paste. In a few seconds add the chopped tomatoes, chopped cilantro, red chilli powder, salt, turmeric and cover the lid for about a minute. Add the bottle gourd and mix well. Pour in about a cup of water and cover the lid. Let cook for about 10 minutes or until the bottle gourd is tender. To check, pierce a piece of bottle gourd with the tip of a sharp knife. Once the bottle gourd is tender, add this to the saucepan with the pureed dal and pour in water to dilute and achieve a thin soupy consistency. Add the tamarind juice and mix well. Taste for seasonings. Let it boil once, then simmer and let it cook for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

Punjabi Rajma/ Red Kidney Beans Gravy

2009-07-22T09:11:00.006-05:00

This very popular vegetarian dish of Punjab. Mostly Rajgma is eaten with boiled basmati rice, but you can have it with jeera pulav or even with naan and rotis. Being from the north, I used to love eating rajma chawal almost every other day...............and offcourse thanks to my neighbour who was a punjabi!! balle balle!!! The best part is that the rajma tastes even better when you have it the next day.............try it!

Ingredients:

For boiling kidney beans

One large or two medium onions (225-250 gm.), peeled
3-4 cloves or laung/lavang)
2-3 large cardamoms or badi illaichi
1 inch piece of cinnamon or dalchini
2 bay leaves or tej-patta
5-6 whole black peppers or kali mirch
1 tbs oil

For making Curry Gravy

3 tbs. cooking oil
1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds or jeera
2-4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 inch square piece of ginger, peeled
2 medium onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2-3 medium tomatoes (175-200 gm.), washed and chopped or 200 gm. tinned, peeled tomatoes
1 level tsp. turmeric or haldi
1 1/2 tsp. coriander powder or dhania
1 tsp. cumin powder
1/2 tsp. chill powder or lal mirch, adjust to taste
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp garam masala
2-3 cups water (adjust to your requirement)
A small bunch of coriander leaves

Method:

If using uncooked kidney beans, clean, wash & soak them overnight (or minimum 3 hours) in water. Place kidney beans, whole spices and 1 tbs. oil in a pressure cooker and cook under full pressure for about 15 minutes. If you do not have a pressure cooker, boil briskly, until tender. This may take upto 40 minutes-1 hour. Cool and open pressure cooker. If using tinned kidney beans, drain and rinse them. Tinned kidney beans can be a little sweet, hence the need to drain and rinse. Grind onions, ginger and garlic in a food processor, all together or chop finely. Measure all ground spices and keep aside in a bowl, keeping garam masala separate. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add cumin seeds and wait until they crackle/splutter. Add onions, garlic and ginger mix and fry until onions are nicely browned. Add turmeric, coriander powder, chilli powder and salt. Stir for 10-15 seconds (don't let the spices burn). Add tomatoes and fry until oil begins to separate. Add to kidney beans and stir for a minute or two. Add water, if required. The amount depends upon how thick you want the gravy to be. Let the beans boil briskly for a few minutes. You can cook under pressure for 1 minute instead. Taste and adjust salt, chilli etc. Crush a few kidney beans with a spatula, to give it a thicker, mushy looking gravy. Add garam masala, half the coriander leaves & mix. Turn heat off. Close the lid to allow the flavour to infuse. Place in serving bowl & garnish with the rest of coriander leaves. Serve it hot with rotis or boiled rice.

Vegetable Rice

2009-07-19T13:44:00.009-05:00

Vegetable rice is something that noone can resist. I remember pestering my mom everytime to cook vegetable rice for me. Each one of us have a unique way of preparing vegetable rice.......this method here is mostly prepared in South India. This is very close to the preparation of vegetable biryani but has the fried bread pieces that gives this dish a unique taste. Try it out for yourself and see!

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice - 1 cup (serves 2)
Water - 2 cups
1 Tomatoe - finely chopped
1 Onion - chopped lengthwise
Ginger Garlic Green chilly paste - 1 tbsp

1 cup of vegetable of your choice (peas, carrots, beans, cauliflower, potatoes)

Coriander leaves - chopped
Bread - small pieces - 1/2 cups
Cloves - 3

Whole pepper corns - 4

Cinnamon - small broken sticks - 2
Cardamom - 3-4 pods
Cashew and Raisins - as desired
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/4 tsp
Cumin seeds powder - 1/4 tsp
Red chilly powder- 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - acc to taste
Ghee or butter - 2 tbsp for rice, 1 tsp each for onions, dry fruits, and bread
Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

Heat 2 tbsp of ghee in a large pan, add the whole pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and after roasting a little, add the washed basmati rice and roast for a few minutes stirring slowly, and remove to another bowl. Cook the rice in the rice cooker by adding 2 cups of water and salt to taste. Heat another tsp of ghee in the pan and add one chopped onion to this and roast well until dark brown and keep aside. Similarly, roast the bread and cashews and raisins separately in a tsp of ghee and keep aside. Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a pan and saute the remaining chopped onion along with ginger garlic paste. Add tomatoes and once the tomatoes are done, add all the vegetables along with turmeric, coriander, cumin seeds powder, garam masala, and salt to taste, cook covered on low flame. Do not add water unless absolutely necessary (tomato and vegetables give out water which is sufficient). In the rice cooker, start layering the rice and vegetables and cashews, raisins, bread, onions as you would in a biriyani. First, add little water, then rice, then vegetables, then bread, then cashew and raisins, then onions, and repeat layers until all are added and leave in 'keep warm' mode so that all the flavours are absorbed by the rice. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve with the raita of choice.

Hotel Sambhar/ Lentils in tamarind gravy

2009-07-17T15:15:00.006-05:00

I have always wondered of how people make sambhar in the hotels. Few use coconut in it and other don't. This is another recipe contributed by Gayathri (she contributed the spinach rice recipe too). Until I prepared this sambhar and tried it out...............I had no idea that hotel sambhar uses moong dal to prepare this. This sambhar is fantastic and goes very well with dosas and idly. You can also use this sambhar for making sambhar vada or sambhar idly.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup toor dal
1/2 cup moong dal
small size tamarind soaked in hot water
1 onion chopped
2 big tomatoes chopped
1 tbsp sambhar powder
salt to taste
mustard seeds, curry leaves, dry red chillies and aesofotida for tempering
freshly chopped corriander leaves for garnish
oil

Method:

Pressure cook both the dals until soft. Meanwhile heat the pan with oil and fry the onions. Add tomatoes and cook them well. Add the sambhar powder followed by the tamarind juice. Keep adding the mashed dals and cooking it real well. Add salt according to taste and add little water if needed. This sambhar has to be slow cooked in order to get the perfect flavour. In a separate pan heat little oil/ ghee and add mustard seeds, curry leaves, dry red chillies and aesofotida. Temper the sambhar with this and also granish with chopped corriander leaves.

Spinach Rice/ Keerai Saadam

2009-07-16T22:01:00.007-05:00

Its been a very long time since we updated any recipes......apologies for that. Few weeks ago we visited our SIL's place in New Jersey. My SIL usually claims that she isn't that great a cook but then whatever little she knows....it comes out real well. She made this spinach rice which was so tasty and simple to make too. I've had spinach rice made by other people using onions and garlic......but then this is a perfect jain recipe. And kids will love this rice as they won't even get the taste of spinach but still there is enough spinach in it. This recipe is contributed by Gayathri my SIL's friend. Kudos Gayathri!!!

Ingredients:

1) 1 Bunch of fresh Spinach/Fresh Baby Spinach
2) 1 bunch of fresh corriander leaves
3) 3 green chillies
4) few peanuts or cashews
5) mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and aesofotida for tempering
6) 1 cup rice (cooked with 2 cups of water)
7) salt to taste
8) oil

Method:

Grind the corriander leaves and green chillies in a blender and keep aside. Heat oil in the pan and add the mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and aesofotida. Add the corriander paste kept aside. Fry it for few minutes and then add chopped spinach. Cook till the raw smell of spinach goes away. Add the cooked rice and salt and mix it well. Once done fry the peanuts/cashews in ghee and garnish the spinach rice.

I'm Kicking Myself Now

2009-06-27T09:57:00.002-05:00

All my pictures are missing, and I'm in a state of shock. That's when I realise I accidentally deleted the Blog pictures in my Picasa Web Album due to space constraints! Bah!

Apologies everyone. I don't think there's anyway I can retreat them. An evil spell on our cookery blog, huh.

Mambazha Pulisseri – Boiled ripe mango in a buttermilk-coconut-cumin gravy

2009-06-22T15:12:00.003-05:00

The name’s a give-away, ain’t it? Palakkad soul food – S’s birthright! This summer, S and I discovered that the smaller mangoes that we get here are a lot better than the red Mexican variety. A lot more expensive too! After sampling one fruit, S began craving the Mambazha Pulisseri – sort of a ‘More Kozhambu’.

If you’ve tasted this dish before, you’ll know why it’s delicious! The sour flavour comes not only from the buttermilk, but also the mango – only with a sweetish tinge that tastes wonderful! This dish goes well when served with rice, pappadams, thogayals and pachadis. I got this recipe from my Mum-in-law - simple, easy to cook, healthy and delicious!

Here’s what you’ll need to dish this up:

1. Ripe mangoes – 2-3

2. Grated coconut – half a shell

3. Cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon, Dry roasted red chili – 3-4

4. Thick buttermilk – 3 cups

5. Turmeric, Salt, Mustard seeds, Cumin seeds, Curry leaves, Coconut oil, One dry red chili

Here’s how you dish it up:

1. Skin the fruits and cut them up into bite size( a bit bigger) pieces.

2. Boil some water with enough salt and turmeric and when it starts heating up, toss in the mango pieces and boil for a few minutes.

3. Grind the coconut with cumin seeds and dry roasted red chili and add this paste to the boiled mangoes.

4. Cook it for a few minutes and add thick buttermilk. The buttermilk should be not too sour nor too bland, but of just the right stage. Let it heat up till it froths, but make sure not to boil it.

5. Temper with mustard, cumin and one whole red chili in a little coconut oil and add curry leaves.

The mangoes here do not match the Indian ones by any means or standard. This dish tastes way better in India, but just not bad out here.

Rava Upma

2009-06-17T14:47:00.010-05:00

Although upma is the easiest dish anyone can prepare...its also the most difficult to get the right consistency. Usually the upma I made before marriage used to end up into a chewy guey sitation....and many times Ive also made Upma without uppu (salt). After marriage my MIl taught me her version of Rava Upma....infact my husband used to call the "sponge upma". Infact I did not believe in the name he gave until I got to taste it mysel...indedd sponge upma....and it was so light. So here's the recipe for the Rava Upma/ Sponge Upma.

Ingredients:

1 cup Rava

2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon oil

few curry leaves

few mustard seeds, chana dal and 2 dry red chillies

1 green chilly (chopped)

1/4 " ginger (chopped)

corrainder leaves (chopped)

1 lemon (juice extracted)

1 teaspoon ghee

Method:

1. Heat a pain with oil.

2. Add the mustard seeds, chana dal, dry red chillies, green chillies, ginger and curry leaves.

3. Once they splutter add the 2 cups of water and salt. Bring it to boil.

4. Slowly add the rava and keep mixing.

5. Cover the Pan with a lid and keep stirring every 3 minutes.

6. Once they are done, add ghee and let it cool for few minutes.

7. Add the lemon juice and mix it well.

8. Garnish with fresh corriander leaves.

Note: The most important thing is the rava and water ratio. It has to be 1:2 ratio. So you can calculate accordingly. I made plain rava upma. You can follow the same procedure by adding veggies. The veggies will have to be sauted after step 2 and then go to step 3.

Pav Bhaji

2009-06-14T14:16:00.010-05:00

Pav Bhaji always reminds me of the streets of Mumbai and the road side thela walas. It is indeed a speciality of Mumbai and why should it not be....its an amazing snack. I always love to eat Pav bhaji and learnt to make it the exact way. My method included ginger and garlic but you can make without these two ingredients and still it will taste the same. Check out the ingredients and method of making this dish.

Ingredients:

8 Mumbai Pavs

1 Tomato (chopped)

1 Onion (chopped)

1 Bell Pepper/Capsicum (chopped)

1 Potato

1 cup other veggies (cauliflower, carrots, peas etc., chopped)

2 tsps Pav Bhaji Masala

1 tsp red chilly powder

¼ tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp ginger

2 cloves garlic (crushed) - Optional

½ lemon

corriander leaves (to garnish)

salt to taste

Oil

Method:

Set aside 1 chopped onion for garnishing. Cook mixed vegetables, potatoes and peas in a pressure cooker. Don't add too much water while cooking. After the vegetables are done, drain and mash them coarsely. Heat butter (or oil) in a pan and fry onion and ginger/garlic. When onions turn translucent, add bell peppers and tomatoes. Continue frying till it turns soft. Now add Pav Bhaji Masala, chili powder, turmeric powder, salt and fry for another couple of minutes. Now you can add the mashed vegetables. Turn up the heat and continue stirring till everything is well incorporated. Take off the stove when the bhaji is thick. Cut Pavs in half horizontally and lightly coat it with butter. Roast them on hot griddle just before serving. Garnish Bhaji with chopped coriander leaves, chopped onions and a thin wedge of lemon.

Bisibela Bath

2009-06-09T16:12:00.004-05:00

S and I host potluck parties now and then, and it’s surprising how most of the times I end up making Bisibelebath. This is a fancy, dressed up version of sambar rice with all the additional spices that go right into making it an all-time favourite. I follow Mum’s recipe and it is always a big hit – vanishes without a trace. And even if there are leftovers, you’ll realise how delicious this tastes the next day.

Traditionally, this is a rather bland dish but S and I prefer it a little bumped up with spice and that’s how I always make it. After all, you’re devouring it with raita! I’m so used to making this dish in large quantities that the following portions serve 10 or more.

Here’s what you’ll need to dish up this killer:

1. Mixed vegetables – shallots, drumsticks, potatoes, capsicum, carrot, big onions, tomatoes, beans, green peas, etc.

2. Whole Masalas – 1 tsp Fennel seeds, 2 Cloves, 1 inch piece Cinnamon, 1 Bay Leaf, 2 Cardamoms, 1 tsp Cumin, 1 Star Anise, 1 tsp Cous Cous, 1 Marati Mokku, Dhania, 5 Dry Red Chili

3. 2 tsp Chana Dal, ½ tsp Urad Dal, ½ tsp Fenugreek seeds

4. 1 inch piece of ginger, 5-6 cloves of garlic, lemon sized ball of tamarind, half a coconut - grated.

5. 2 and ½ teaspoons sambar powder

6. 2 cups cooked rice

7. Toor Dhal – 2 cups, pressure cooked

8. Ghee, Peanuts, Cashew nuts, Curry leaves, Cilantro

Here’s how you dish this up:

1. Pressure cook the rice and toor dal separately. This dish consumes a bit more of toor dal than regular sambar does. The rice must be nicely cooked, almost mashed up like we do for Pongal.

2. Peel the shallots and cut all the vegetables (except onions and tomatoes) into bite sized chunks.

3. Cook the vegetables in tamarind water with salt, sambar powder, turmeric.

4. Meanwhile, sauté the big onions (1 big and 1 small sized), garlic, ginger, tomatoes (3 small sized ones) whole masalas, red chili, the chana and urad dal, fenugreek seeds, one after the other till it turns aromatic. Grind this together along with coconut.

5. Meanwhile, when the raw odour from the tamarind disappears and the vegetables are cooked, add the mashed toor dal and the ground masala paste. At this stage, the gravy begins thickening, so if needed, add water to prevent scorching and continue cooking. You won’t need extra water if you’ve already added enough with the tamarind.

6. When the gravy boils well and gives a nice fragrance, add a couple of spoons of ghee. Temper with curry leaves, mustard, jeera, and cashews and peanuts.

7. Lower the heat, and gradually begin adding the cooked rice. The gravy will not take in too much rice. This dish has a tendency to thicken in time, so make sure you stop adding rice when the consistency is right.

8. Drizzle some ghee finally. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with Kara Bhoondi and raita.

Bisibelebath is probably the most tedious dish I’ve cooked in large quantities - what with all the peeling and chopping. But the end result is always motivation enough to make it another time. Lip smacking delicious!

Note: If you want the dish to be bland, you can bring down the chilis to 3. At a later stage, if you want to make it spicy, you may sauté some chili powder in ghee and add it to the gravy.

Tangra Masala – New York

2009-06-03T15:13:00.007-05:00

After a hectic week in April, we were done with the move. S and I have now settled into our newer, cozy apartment. Within a week after the move, I visited my cousin big sister at New York, who also writes in this blog. (Yes, that’s when she made and we ate the Doka Dal, Raw Banana Crispies, and several other goodies including the Ribbon Pakoda and Cocktail Samosas with paneer and spinach).

V, A and I had a great time that week, but we did miss S a lot. He couldn’t take a week off work and it wasn’t even a long weekend then. V, A and I went to an Indo-Chinese restaurant on one of those days there – Tangra Masala. It was so much like old times when A and V were newly married and they used to take me out to dinner one a many times in Chennai … we all enjoy Indo-Chinese.

Tangra Masala took us all by surprise – it was totally worth the visit, and I missed S while the Chop Suey arrived at our table. It’s one of his favourites. The menu was pretty huge as our appetites were, and we ordered Mango Lassis, Hot and Sour Vegetable Soup, Chinese Chop Suey, Paneer Manchurian and Tangra Masala Fried Rice. The portions were huge as well – took us by utter surprise. The Paneer Manchurian was accompanied by a rice bowl which none of us could start, leave alone finish. But to be honest, if you have a monster's appetite, you might think otherwise. Considering our combined hunger factor, this was large indeed.

The Hot and Sour Soup was delicious with tofu and vegetables – A found it totally relaxing after a stressful day at work. We emptied our bowls within minutes.

I was skeptical about the Chop Suey after encountering a rather softened version at Chicago, but this was crispy and exactly the way it is served in India. Also, this was the first time I was having lotus shoots - yum.

The Tangra Masala Fried Rice was the restaurant’s special Schezwan Rice of sorts, except with a little bit of Indian spices added. I couldn't tell much of a difference though. We opted for the mild spice version and guess what, Akshara enjoyed it as well!

The Paneer Manchurian was slightly excessively soy flavoured – good nonetheless. That was the only dish left over that we decided to take away.
We surely would have loved to order dessert, but three adults gorging on all that food left us with no room to even think of the highly raved about Rasmalai that the restaurant serves.

Verdict: We enjoyed the food at Tangra, and if I ever get the chance to revisit this restaurant, I’d gladly do so just to try the other dishes in their enormous menu. Price wise - let's ask A, it was his treat ;)

Tomato Rice/ Thakkali Sadam

2009-05-29T12:49:00.011-05:00

This might be the nth time you would have come accross a blog with tomato rice recipe...........and why not? This is the pride of any South Indian cuisine apart from tamarind rice,lemon rice, coconut rice and so on. The days when you have no energy cooking dal chawal, sambhar, rasam............you can make this in a jiffy. This is a dish with very few ingredients that will definitely be in store in your pantry.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice

2 big ripe tomatoes

1 onion

2 green chillies

1/4" piece ginger

1/4 teaspoon red chilly powder

1/4 teaspoon kitchen king masala

mustard seeds, jeera seeds, curry leaves for tempering

corriander leaves for garnish

salt acc to taste

oil

Method:

Pressure cook the rice with 2 cups water. In a pan heat oil and let the mustard seeds, jeera seeds and curry leaves splutter. Add ginger and onions. Saute them and add the chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook nicely. Add the spices and cook till the raw smell goes away. Add the rice and salt and cook for 5 mintues. Garnish with freshly chopped corriander leaves and serve with raita and chips.

Veggie Fettuccine in Alfredo sauce

2009-05-27T13:54:00.003-05:00

My husband and I are vegetarians so we end up eating salads or fries whenever we go out. One odd day we decided we should check out TGI Fridays. We went there without a clue whether we would get anything vegetarian over there. To our surprise they
had Fettuccine in Alfredo sauce which is usually served with shrimp. They made it veggie for us. And Man............you should try that out there atleast once................it was amazing! Obviously you cannot always afford to eat out at TGI Friday's so I made my version of the same dish. My version is defintely healthier as I have avoided the use of fresh cream and cheese that usually goes into making the Alfredo sauce. Mark my words...............my version did come very close to the
one we ate at TGIF.....yippeeeeeeee!!!! We ended up having the Veggie Fettuccine Pasta with fresh green salad in italian salad dressing.

Ingredients:
Fettuccine Pasta
1 cup Veggies of your choice (Broccoli, red and green bell peppers, baby corn, onion)
3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
3 tablespoons parmasean cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon corn starch (dissolved in water)
oregano and chilli flakes acc to taste
freshly chopped parsley
salt
olive oil

Method:
Heat water in a large skillet. Once the water boils add the pasta and broccoli with little salt. Once the pasta is cooked drain it and add a teaspoon of oil so that they don't stick to one another. You can use the pasta and broccoli stock for making the sauce. In a pan heat oil and add chopped garlic, onions, bell peppers and baby corn. Saute them and keep them aside. Heat the pain again and add butter. Add paramsean cheese along with milk. In 2 mintues add the pasta and broccoli stock to it. Add oregano and chilly flakes and cook for few minutes. Pour the corn starch dossolved in water. Once you feel the sauce is according to the thickness you want - add the sauted veggies along with the pasta and broccoli. Mix them well and add salt. Add chopped parsley to it and serve hot.

Poori Masala - South Indian Style

2009-05-19T21:29:00.009-05:00

Poori is my daughter's all time favourite. In South India we make the potato masala a little differently. It is very simple to make and this masala can be used to make masala dosas as well.

Ingredients:

5 Big potatoes (boiled and coarsly mashed)
1 big onion
1/4" piece ginger
2 green chillies
few curry leaves
fresh corriander leaves
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
Hing/ Aesofotida
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds, chana dal, jeera seeds
1 cup water
oil

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds, chana dal, jeera seeds, ginger, chopped green chilies, curry leaves and hing. Add chopped onions and fry them till they become tender. Add the potatoes and turmeric powder. Add water and let it boil. Add salt as required and the chopped corriander. Remove the pan from the flame. After 5 minutes add lemon juice and mix well. Serve it along with Hot poories.

Doka Dal

2009-05-16T10:04:00.004-05:00

Spending most of my childhood days in Jamshedpur, I got to eat Bengali, Bihari and Orriya cuisine. My Paternal Grandmom used to make this orriya gravy dish to be eaten with rice and it was amazing. Just with what I remember, I am giving you guys this wonderful recipe.

Ingredients:

Doka:
1 cup Besan / Gram Flour
1/2 teaspoon red chilly powder
salt acc to taste

Dal:
2 Big ripe tomatoes
1 onion
1 green chilly
1/2" ginger
2 garlic cloves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon jeera
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
salt acc to taste

Method:
Doka:
Mix all the ingredients with water forming a paste. Take a pan and heat little oil. Pour the paste and stir it allowing it to form into a dough. Once done place it on a plate and flatten it and cut into pieces. Heat some more oil in a pan and fry the pieces and keep them aside.

Dal:
Fry the ginger, garlic and onions in a pan and puree them along with the rest of the ingredients. Heat oil in a pan and cook the puree. Add salt. Once the raw smell is gone put in the doka pieces and let it cook for 2 more minutes. Garnish with fresh cut corriander leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.

Raw Banana crispies/ Kacha Kela fry

2009-05-15T08:50:00.009-05:00

Here I go again with yet another Bengali recipe. I so can't get over the Bengali cuisine and variety...just that I only stick with the Vegetarian side :) This particular dish has been one of my dad's all time favourite. We are used to making Vazhakai curry, Pittalai, or just toasting them with spices. This one is very simple to make and gives a very unique taste. You can also make this dish by using only potatoes instead of the raw banana.

Ingredients:
1 Big Raw Banana

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 teaspoons slit urad dal

1/4 teaspoon methi seeds

1 dry red chilli

few curry leaves

Hing/ Aesofotida

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

red chilly powder if needed

salt acc to taste

oil for frying

Method:
Soak the mustard seeds, methi seeds, urad dal, dry red chilly for 1/2 to 1 hour. Meanwhile cut the Raw Banana into small cubes and let them sit in cold water so that they do not turn black. Grind the soaked items along with curry leaves, hing, red chilli powder. See to it that you drain the water before grinding. Drain water from the raw banana and add the paste to it. Add salt and mix it well. Heat oil in a skillet and once hot......fry the raw banana mixture in it. Let it turn nice and crispy. Drain it in a paper towel. You can just eat them as a snack or serve with rice and dal or rasam.

East meets West - Veggie Burger

2009-05-12T22:24:00.006-05:00

I always wanted to create a burger of my choice and ended up making one yesterday. I named it east meets west burger as it has both Indian taste as well as american stuffs. Hope you all enjoy making them at home as I did :)

Ingredients for Tamarind chutney:
200 gms tamarind (remove seeds)

100 gms dates (pitted)

150 gms jaggery

2 cups water

1 tsp fennel

1 tsp cumin seeds (roast and grind coarsely)

1 tsp salt

Red chilli powder as per taste

Method (Tamarind chutney):
Put the tamarind, dates, jaggery and water in a saucepan and cook on a medium flame till the dates and tamarind are soft.

Turn off flame and allow the mixture to cool.

Use a food processor or hand blender to blend mixture together into a smooth sauce.

Put sauce back into the saucepan and onto a medium flame and add remaining spice ingredients.

Bring the sauce to a boil and turn off.

Allow to cool, then chill and serve.

Ingredients for Burger: (serves 2)
4 Burger Buns

2 big potatoes

1/2 cup cut beans and carrots

4-5 mushrooms

1 red onion

1 tomato (sliced)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon red chilly powder

1/4 teaspoon chat masala

1/4 teaspoon kicthen king masala

salt acc to taste

Method (Burger):

Boil the potatoes along with the chopped beans and carrots. Mash them together and add salt, red chilly powder, and the masalas. Make them into tikkies and dip in bread crumbs and fry or saute them to prepare the veggie cutlets. In a pan, heat little oil and saute the mushrooms by adding very little red chilly powder and salt. keep them aside. In a pan heat oil, put sugar and once the sugar turns brown in colour add the cut onions (cut them into rings). Usually caramalising of onions is a whole different process. I prefer to do it this way as it is less time consuming and gives the best taste to the onions.

Plating the Burger:
Apply butter if desired on both halves of the Buger bun. Place the mushrooms on the base and place the veggie cutlet on top. Spread the tamarind chutney on the cutlet and over that place the sliced tomato. Caramelised onions go next. If you want it
to be little spicy you can spread some spicy green chutney also. Cover the burger and serve with potato chips or fries.

Dhania Thepla/ Corriander Thepla

2009-04-24T07:50:00.008-05:00

I am a great fan of Gujrati cuisine and apart from dhoklas, khandvis, kadi ad so on there is yet another fav of mine - "Theplas". This is one amazing version of rotis which can be made for long distance travel as they dont go bad at all. There is lot of spice involved too so you can just have them just like that even without a side dish. Escpecially kids will love it......just roll the theplas and hand it over.............and see the magic happen :)

Ingredients:

1 cup atta (I use swad durum wheat atta)

1 tablespoon besan

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon red chilly powder

2 tablespoons curd/ sour curd

1/2 teaspoon white till/ sesame seeds

3 garlic cloves (finely chopped ) - OPTIONAL

1/2 teaspoon dhania powder

1/2 teaspoon jeera powder

1/2 teaspoon jeera seeds

hing/ aesofotida acc to taste

salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon sugar

freshly chopped corriander leaves ( You can use Methi leaves or even do without adding anything and making just plain theplas)

1 tablespoon oil

Method:
Mix all the above mentioned ingredients and make it into a dough. Cover the vessel with a cloth and keep aside for half hour. Divide the dough into egal parts and roll them. Heat them in a tava by putting little oil on both the sides. Let the theplas cool off and then put them in a container with lid or wrap them in a foil.

Chepenkezhangu Roast – Pan fried colocasia

2009-04-23T09:39:00.008-05:00

When we were kids, Dad used to take us along to the farmer’s markets to pick vegetables. Invariably, every time I went with him, I used to pester him to buy ‘Chepenkezhangu’. This habit continued into adulthood – only this time, I picked them up myself most of the times. This root vegetable looks hideous but tastes heavenly, and this is an evergreen popular dish in our entire family, extended family, friends, etc, so much so that my cousin and I would stand next to my mom in the kitchen and steal a bite just as she was finishing the dish and allowing it to crisp up; snack on it before our lunch; and then snack on it a few hours after lunch.

The Americans call this Tarrow Root, and it’s easily three times bigger than the average Indian colocasia. Mum-in-law makes Sambar with these, and a different curry that’s mushy. Mum, however, always made the pan-roasted crispy curry that was a favourite. This recipe easily eliminates the deep frying process. With just a sprinkle of oil and a few sprays now and then, you’ve got yourself delicious Chepenkezhangu Roast.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. Colocasia – 1 dozen

2. Sambar Powder, Chili Powder – 1 1/2 and 1 teaspoon each, respectively

3. Turmeric, Salt, Curry Leaves, Oil, Hing, Channa Dal, Urad Dal, Pam Spray

4. A damn good, wide nonstick pan - larger the better. Each single piece gets cooked well unlike when they're piled up in a smaller pan.

Here’s how you roast it up:

1. Pressure cook the colocasia with a drop of oil for 6-7 whistles. If it is not too hard, cook for 4-5 whistles. The oil helps you peel them easily.

2. Peel the colocasia, chop them and toss in the sambar powder, chili powder, a little salt, turmeric. Toss such that there’s an even coating over all pieces.

3. In a large wide skillet, heat some oil, allow mustard seeds to splutter and fry curry leaves and dals.

4. Add the colocasia, sprinkle salt as needed, spray some oil. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

5. Toss them, spray oil as needed and cook open till they turn as crispy as you would want them to be. When the dish is done, don't cover the pan immediately, until the dish cools down, else you'll have steam and sogginess due to the latent heat.

S is carrying forward the tradition that we grew up following – snacking on Chepenkezhangu, stealing a bite every time he’s in the kitchen… This goes well with any South Indian dish, but to truly honour this wonderful curry, it’d have to be eaten by itself. A lot of times, people end up making gooey, mashed up lumps of Chepenkezhangu, though they would have wanted them to turn out crisp. You will have to pressure cook them the right way - roughly till they're 70 percent done. This is a sure shot way of getting crisp, singled out pieces and with minimal oil as opposed to deep frying. Thanks Mum, for passing on this idea to everyone at home!

Steamed Eggplants / Brinjals

2009-04-21T13:55:00.007-05:00

Posting from Rums:
After my cousin's post on Baingan Bhaja, eggplants have featured in no other way in our kitchen. S and I both love that Bengali dish so much so that every time go vegetable shopping, we intentionally pick a luscious, delicious looking deep purple eggplant just to make that dish.

When S was on the phone with my cousin the other day, he jokingly teased her that she was the reason we were eating no other form of big eggplant. Yet again, I had bought one during our last visit to Walmart and this time, I decided to ask my cousin for a different recipe. This one also belongs to the Bengali cuisine, but this time, it is a little closer to a recipe from homeland - mustard, coconut, green chili paste - needless to say, Palakkad style vendekkai pachadi!

We're in the process of moving to a new apartment in the next few days, so having done away with most crucial groceries, I replaced the green chili with dry red chilis. The dish has turned out delicious. The next time though, I would reduce the quantity of water as my version has turned out a little gravyish - no regrets whatsoever - it's still delicious. I steamed the dish in a pressure cooker. In my opinion, you really don't need to add as much as 1 cup of water because any vegetable steams in minimal water when pressure cooked. S and I are going to gorge on this steamed eggplant with dhaal and rice - slurp!

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh desiccated coconut
1 1/2 tablespoon cleaned and soaked mustard seeds
6-8 small eggplant or 1 medium sized brinjal
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
2-3 green chilies
2 tablespoons oil
salt to taste

Method:
Cut the eggplant in 1 inch cubes and soak them in salt water for 1/2 hour.

Grind the coconut, mustard seeds and green chilies together into a fine paste.

When the paste is ready, take the eggplant out of the salt water.

In a deep aluminum bowl, mix the eggplant, the coconut mustard paste, the oil, salt, turmeric powder, and 1 cup of water.

Cover and steam in a pressure cooker for 1/2 an hour or until the eggplant is cooked properly.

You can also bake it in the oven at 350 degree for 45 minutes.

This dish shouldn't be very dry, it should saucy. To garnish this dish, heat a little mustard oil (optional) or any regular oil that you use and some mustard seed and green chillies. Also top it with corriander leaves. You can serve this dish with rice.

1 Min 1 Person Eggless Cake

2009-04-20T09:21:00.010-05:00

My MIL also watches a lot of cooking shows on TV, just like me :). She has become a fan of some show in South India where they show easy to do recipes. Just when I was wondering that I should also bake like others do, my MIL gave me this wonderful recipe. This is the easiest cake that i've ever tried and tasty too. Do try this and you can add your own variations to it. I made it without using coco powder.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon Maida/ All purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon coco powder

Vanilla essence - 1/4 teaspoon

1 teaspoon sugar ( You can add a little more if you need)

1 teaspoon oil

1 tablespoon milk

chocolate chips

Method:
Sieve the maida, baking powder and coco powder. Add choc chips, oil, sugar and milk and make it into batter. Apply very little oil in the micrwavable cup that you are using. Pour the batter into the cup and microwave for a 1 min. Insert a toothpick and if it is little sticky, microwave for only 5 more seconds. Standing time for this cake is 5 minutes. The cake will easily come out of the cup and you can top it with some whipped cream and icecream. You can also just dig into the cup as I did yesterday.

Pista Roll/ Burfi

2009-04-17T12:06:00.005-05:00

I am usually very bad with sweets, infact never tried my luck that much in this area. A loves sweets so I ended up trying Pista Rolls for the first time. To my surprise it came out very well, so here's the recipe for you guys.

Ingredients:
Pista nuts 100 gms

Sugar ½ cup

Butter 25 gms

Method:
Soak the pistachios in warm water for 2 hours. Drain and peel the skin and grind them in fine paste by adding little milk. Keep aside. Dissolve sugar in ¼ cup water and prepare syrup one string consistency. Now add butter and pista paste. Cook it on medium flame stirring continuously. Cool it.

Preparing the roll:

Make the pista roll and divide into two equal parts and shape each portion into a cylindrical roll of 100 cm. Roll our each portion with the help of greased rolling pin on a butter sheet. Place one portion of Pista rolls on one sheet and roll it tightly. Cut into 2” length rolls. Dip the edge on pista powder. You can roll into silver paper for decoration.

For making Burfis you can just pour the Pista mixture into a greased pan and cut them into desired shape once it is cooled.

Kashmiri Dum Aloo - Baby potatoes cooked in spices and gravy

2009-04-16T15:06:00.008-05:00

Potatoes – aren’t these strangely the only vegetable no kid has ever hated? Having found ourselves tired of the Idaho, Golden Russell and other American potatoes, S and I promptly picked a dozen baby (not too tiny in the Indian parlance) potatoes from our local Indian Grocery Store. These potatoes are truly considered normal sized in India, and the baby potatoes are gooseberry sized, which I haven’t seen out here.

There was no thinking, it had to be Kashmiri Dum Aloo – fresh, delicious looking little Indian potatoes. My cousin shared her sister-in-law’s recipe for Dum Aloo quite a while back, which was not the traditional version. The traditional version, slightly modified with garlic, onions and tomatoes, took me not too long.

Here’s what I needed:

1. 12 baby potatoes – microwaved for 15 minutes, or until baked well but not too tender. Peeled, and pricked with a fork

2. 4 campari tomatoes

3. 2 white onions

4. 4 cloves of garlic

5. 2 green chilis

6. 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

7. 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

8. 1 ½ teaspoon fennel seeds

9. Bayleaf, 4 cloves, 3 cardamoms, 1 piece of cinnamon, 1 star anise, 4 black pepper corns, ¼ spoon dry ginger powder, ¼ spoon poppy seeds, 1 spoon Kashmiri Mirchi powder, 1 spoon Garam Masala

10. ½ cup milk and 4 tablespoons of thick yoghurt.

11. Oil, Salt, Chopped coriander leaves, cumin seeds, turmeric powder

Here’s how I dished it up:

1. Grind together 1 large onion chopped into chunks, along with the garlic, tomatoes and green chilis.

2. Grind together the coriander seeds, fennel and cumin seeds, along with the whole masalas and dry powders.

3. Chop the other onion finely, set aside

4. In a deep pan, heat a little oil and shallow fry the baked potatoes till they turn golden brown and crisp on the outside. Set aside to drain on paper towels.

5. In the same oil, allow some cumin seeds to splutter, add in the chopped onions and fry till well cooked.

6. Add the tomato-onion-chili-garlic paste followed by turmeric powder, continue frying.

7. Mix some water into the ground masala powder, add this to the cooking gravy, cover and cook till the oil parts.

8. Add the milk and quickly stir so it doesn’t curdle in heat. Now, add the thick yoghurt and continue stirring.

9. Sprinkle salt as needed, check the taste and adjust the consistency with water if the gravy is too thick.

10. Toss in the fried potatoes and cook for 5 more minutes till the flavours blend in. Sprinkle some garam masala all over finally and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

This isn't traditional, definitely not "Dum" aloo per se, but this sure is damn delicious nonetheless. This goes well with naans, rotis, jeera pulao, fried rice… Well, we’ve got the side dish going, now we have to decide what the main dish is going to be!

Mysore Rasam – South Indian Soup with Spices and Coconut

2009-04-09T12:31:00.007-05:00

It’s been quite a long time. Spring has been evasive, cheating on us. Winter has been sneaking in. Things have been hectic. I haven’t blogged in a while! I went through a phase of I-hate-the-kitchen-and-won’t-cook-a-thing, just like a writer’s block if you should say in simpler terms. After a somewhat long hiatus, I made a Sambar-Rasam-Curry dinner for the two of us yesterday! We had Capsicum Sambar, Mysore Rasam, and Potato Curry – not to mention the omnipresent Thayir Sadam with MorMolagai – a proper full course meal after ages.

The Mysore Rasam has not been a regular feature at home, and I decided to give it a try for the first time. It tastes fresher than the normal rasams owing to the fact that the powder is freshly ground and added towards the end. This way, the flavours last longer. The shelf life of this rasam is however shorter than usual due to the coconut. Some people just knock off the coconut and cook a varied version. Honestly, the coconut just adds consistency to the powder and floats atop the rasam, it makes no compromise to the wonderful taste that this rasam imparts.

Here’s what I needed:

1. Dry red chili – 3, or less if you can’t take too much spice

2. Dhaniya seeds – 1 teaspoon

3. Chana dal – 1 teaspoon

4. Cumin seeds – 1 ½ teaspoon

5. Coconut – 1 tablespoon (optional, but this is what makes this Rasam special)

6. Rasam powder – 1 ½ teaspoon

7. Tamarind – small lime sized ball

8. Toor Dal – ¼ cup, cooked and mashed well, mixed with plenty of water

9. 3 small tomatoes – Campari variety, mashed coarsely

10. Green chili – 2, chopped finely

11. Curry leaves, Mustard seeds, Jeera seeds, Hing, Turmeric, Oil, Coriander leave, Salt

Here’s how I dished it up:

1. Pressure cook the toor dal. Mash well and add plenty of water. Keep aside.

2. In a deep vessel, heat some oil and allow the mustard seeds and jeera to splutter. Add the green chilis and curry leaves and sauté well.

3. Add the mashed tomatoes and cook them till they turn to a soft pulp. Campari tomatoes have a naturally sweetish tangy taste that makes the rasam exceptionally flavourful.

4. Add the tamarind water followed by 2 cups water. Mix in the Rasam Powder and turmeric with salt. Cover and let this mixture cook well till the raw tamarind smell vanishes.

5. Meanwhile, in a small kadai, roast the dhaniya, chana dal, red chili, coconut and finally 1 teaspoon of the jeera in a little bit of oil and grind together with ½ teaspoon of remaining fresh jeera. Set this aside.

6. When the raw smell vanishes from the boiling mixture, add the toor dal mixed in water and bring it to a light boil.

7. Finally, add the hing and ground powder, mix well, top up with chopped coriander leaves and set aside. Serve with rice and pappads, or enjoy it like you would relish a soup.

Pani Puri

2009-04-06T15:54:00.011-05:00

Being so far away from your country makes you crave for so many things. One such thing is the amazing golgappas/pani puri/phuchkas...........whicever way you call it. Its just the most amazing roadside snack. There has always been a variety of ways the stuffing and pani is prepared. But I always prefer the Kolkata chat method. So here's how I make them:

Ingredients

To make puri:

1 cup Semolina (Rava / Suji)
3 tblsp Fine Wheat Flour (Maida)
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
Oil to deep fry

To make pani:

1/2 cup Tamarind (Imli) Pulp
2 cups Water
2 tblsp roasted Cumin Seed (Jeera) Powder
2 tblsp un-roasted Cumin Seed (Jeera)
Coriander Leaves
3 Green Chilly (Hari Mirch)
2 tblsp Mint Leaves (Pudina Leaves) Chutney - Optional
1 tblsp Black Salt (kala namak )
normal salt - optional

To make the stuffing:

1 cup vatana peas
1 big potato
1 onion
1 green chilly
red chilly powder
jeera powder
salt
corriander leaves

Method

To make pani:

Measure all ingredients.
Adjust spices and tangyness to taste.
Strain through a wire strainer to remove any rough bits.

To make puri:

Mix sooji, maida, baking soda, salt and enough water to knead a soft dough.
Stand covered with wet cloth for 15-20 minutes.
Make small sized balls.
With the help of some dry maida or sooji, roll into thin rounds.
Heat oil in a pan and deep fry puris till very light brown and crisp.
Drain in a paper towel for a while to dry out the oil.
Store in an airtight container when cool.

To make the stuffing:

Soak the vatana overnight and then pressure cook them till they become soft. Boil the potatoes along with the vatana peas.
chop the onions, green chilly and corriander leaves and mix them with the mashed vatana and potato.
add the dry spices and the stuffing is ready.

Serving:

Break each puri and fill it with the stuffing. Dip them into the Pani and have the most amazing thing in the world take a ride in your mouth.

Cabbage Vada / Cabbage Fritters

2009-03-30T16:40:00.006-05:00

Cabbage is one vegetable that makes me go crazy. I like cabbage but cannot have it for like 2 times in a week :) My husband ended up buying 2 this week. He went on saying make kootu or cabbage curry and so on and so forth. But then what else can you make in so that 2 cabbages can be consumed. I ended up making cabbage kootu and cabbage curry with 1 whole cabbage as per A's wish. Then suddenly came up with the idea of cabbage Vada.........I mean atleast people will eat the vadas and the purpose of using cabbage will also be done...

Ingredients:
1/2 Cabbage - chopped

1/2 cup chana dal

1/2 cup toor dal

1/4 cup urad dal

2 dry red chillies

1/2 inch ginger

Aesofotida

salt

oil for frying

1 onion chopped (optional)

Method:

Soak the dals and the dry red chilly in water for 2 hours. Grind the soaked dals with chopped cabbage, aesofotida, ginger and salt. Remember not to drain the water from the dal and grind as cabbage will leave out water. Just in case the mixture becomes little watery try and add some rice flour to it. Add onions to the mixture. Heat oil in a pan. Take a tablespoon measurement of the mixture and flatten it with your hands and deep fry them in the oil. Serve them hot with some chutney or tomato sauce. I ended up serving A these cabbage vada's with lemon rice. He did not even realise that there was cabbage in the Vada :)

Eggplant Rolls in Marinara Sauce

2009-03-26T12:27:00.007-05:00

S and I love Italian food and our pantry is always stocked with pasta. Sometime back, we made lasagna and were left with plenty of ricotta cheese. S’s recent liking of eggplant made me want to take advantage of the situation. I didn’t want to batter dip the eggplant and fry them up, so I picked the cue from Show Me The Curry and tried this simpler version of Eggplant Marinara with a little additions of my own. We ate them up with cheese topped garlic bread.

Here’s what I needed:

1. Eggplants – 2, sliced lengthwise

2. Ricotta cheese (light/fat free) – 1 heaping dinner tablespoon per slice

3. Fresh Jalapeno Pepper – 2 chopped finely

4. Garlic Salt, Italian Seasoning, Dried Basil

5. Fresh Chopped Parsley

6. Grated Parmesan and Mozzarella Cheese (Skimmed)

7. Salt, Fresh ground pepper, Pam Oil Spray

8. Marinara sauce/Pasta sauce/Pizza sauce – I used Marinara sauce with Parmesan Romano and Roasted Garlic

Here’s how I rolled them up:

1. In a small bowl, mix in the ricotta cheese, chopped pepper, garlic salt and Italian seasonings, basil, and fresh parsley.

2. Ideally, it is advised to generously salt the eggplant slices and weigh them down in a heavy colander till the eggplant sweats out. Then they are rinsed so the salt is removed and patted dry. I skipped this step due to time constraints and luckily, my eggplants didn’t consume way too much oil while grilling.

3. Grill the eggplant slices with some till they are well cooked and browned.

4. Place a generous tablespoon full of ricotta filling in the wide end of an eggplant slice and roll it up.

5. Arrange the rolls in an oven-proof baking dish and spoon over Marinara sauce.

6. Top up with shredded parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

7. Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degree F till the cheese melts.

8. Top up with Italian seasonings and chopped parsley.

9. Serve with garlic bread or pasta salads.

Though this ain’t the actual Eggplant Parmesan/Marinara, it tastes just as great and makes you feel better because you’ve totally skipped the deep-frying and flour bit. And as always, the lion's share went to S :)

Bhindi Masala – Stuffed okra cooked in thick gravy and spices

2009-03-24T13:47:00.008-05:00

Okra, Vendekkai, Lady Finger –doesn’t matter what you call it, it will always be a top vegetable in our score card. We usually make the traditional Vendekkai Curry, Vendekkai Sambar, Vendekkai Vatha Kuzhambu, Iru Puli Kuzhambu or Vendekkai Pachadi.I was asking Mum to suggest some new Okra recipe and she reminded me of this stuffed dish I used to make in India every now and then which was a favourite at home.

So while grocery shopping, I picked some fresh, slim and tall okra – not as great as the Indian variety, but slightly close (the American cousins of Vendekkai are short, stout and hard mostly – they do not form a perfect star when cut). I picked them up, about 30 pieces, with the only intention of making stuffed bhindi masala.

This is a dish that goes real well with Rotis and Rice, and for people like me it’s perfect even to snack on without accompaniments. With a microwave oven, this dish gets downright easy to prepare. I used to make a slightly different version at home in India which was stuffed and cooked till they turned crispy. Either ways, the stuffing is precooked. This method is slightly adapted from the Podi Idicha Kathirikai and Bhagara Baingan recipes.

Here’s what I needed:

For the base dish –

1. Okra - About 30 fresh pieces, ends trimmed and partially slit lengthwise

2. Onion – 1 medium sized, sliced finely

3. Tomatoes – 2, chopped finely

4. Garlic – 4 cloves, minced

5. Green Chili – 5 small ones, minced

6. Dhana Jeera powder – 1 teaspoon

7. Curry Leaves, Jeera, Hing, Oil, Pam oil spray

For the stuffing –

1. Peanuts – ½ cup

2. Cous Cous – 1 teaspoon

3. Dhaniya – 1 tablespoon

4. Jeera – 1 teaspoon

5. Chana Dal – 1 teaspoon

6. Dry Red Chili – 5-6

7. Turmeric – a pinch

8. Garam Masala – ½ teaspoon

9. Kitchen King Masala – ½ teaspoon

10.Amchur Powder – 1 teaspoon

11.Salt – as needed

Here’s how I stuffed them up:

1. Dry roast the peanuts, cous cous, dhaniya, jeera, chana dal and red chili. When they turn aromatic and slightly tan, turn off the heat. Allow them to cool.

2. Grind these ingredients to a fine powder with some salt. Mix in the Garam Masala, Kitchen King, Turmeric, and Amchur powders. You could use whole masalas while roasting and grind them with the other ingredients. This is an easier alternative and prevents chunky remains from cinnamon sticks and yields the same flavour.

3. Wash and pat dry the okra with a paper towel. As is the case with all okra dishes, removing the surface water is crucial to prevent stickiness while cooking.

4. Trim the ends, slit them lengthwise. If they’re too long, cut them into halves. Stuff the okras with about a quarter spoon of the powder, or as needed. Hold on to any remaining powder.

5. Arrange them in a microwave safe plate. Spray some Pam oil on the stuffed okra. Microwave them till they are cooked soft. I sometimes microwave them till they turn crispy like when deep-fried.

6. In a large pan, heat some oil. Allow the jeera to splutter, add in the curry leaves. Saute the garlic and minced green chili. Fry the onions till they turn brown. Add the tomatoes followed by dhana jeera powder and a pinch of salt and turmeric. Add the remaining stuffing powder. Cook till the tomatoes mash into a smooth pulp.

7. Now stir in the pre-cooked okra and allow the flavours to blend
Serve with rice or rotis.

This serves 4, but if you really love Okra and go for multiple helpings, it serves just two! S was so tempted to have rotis but we ended up gorging this dish as a prelude to some delicious tomato rice made with fresh Roma and Campari tomatoes.

Palak Paneer/ Cottage cheese in Spinach Gravy

2009-03-24T08:31:00.007-05:00

I had my SIL giving me a surprise visit this weekend. It was a great weekend where we spent time only cooking and eating. I ended up making Palak Paneer with rotis. Hope you like this version of Palak Paneer.

Ingredients:

1) Organic Baby Spinach - a bunch/ 1/2 box - chopped

2) 1 big Onion - chopped

3) 2 Big ripe Tomatoes - chopped

4) 2 cloves of garlic - chopped

5) 1/2 inch ginger - chopped

6) 500 gms panner/ cottage cheese

7) 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

8) 1/4 teaspoon kitchen king masala

9) 1/4 teaspoon sugar

10) salt to taste

11) oil

12) 2 green chillies - chopped

Method:

Heat oil in the pan and add chopped garlic, ginger and green chillies. Add onions and fry them. Add chopped spinach and tomatoes and saute them well. Add sugar in order to retain the green colour of spinach. Also add turmeric powder and kitchen king masala. Once all the raw smeel goes remove and cool it. Blend them by adding water if needed.

Cut the paneer in cubes and fry them in little oil so that they get the brown colour. Otherwise you can just cut them and soak in hot water so that they remain soft.

Heat the Pan and add the spinach puree to it. Add more water if needed. Add salt and let it cook for sometime. Add the paneer and let it asorb the gravy. Remove from the stove top and garnish with paneer shavings. Serve with rotis or Vegetable Rice.

Mooli Paratha/ Radish Paratha

2009-03-19T14:07:00.011-05:00

It was raining today and suddenly felt like having mooli parathas. Still remember those school days............mom's lovely dishes....gosh I miss her now. Just wish she was here in the US and I could take some time out of the kitchen and eat whatever she makes.

Ingredients:
1 cup of daikon or white radish, peeled and grated
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tbsp coriander/cilantro leaves, finely chopped
2 cups chappati flour (I use Swad atta)
salt to taste
Oil to fry

Method:
1) Mix the grated radish, grated ginger, chopped green chillies, chopped cilantro and salt.

2) Leave to marinate for 30 mins to 1 hour. Keep the container tightly closed

3) Take handfuls of this mixture and sqeeze well to remove the juice just before you are going to make the parathas.

4) Add this juice as and if required to the chappati flour. Add 1 tbsp oil and mix to make a soft dough.

5) Knead well and let it rest for 30 mins to 1 hour.

6) Roll out small balls of the dough.

7) Fill with 1 tbsp of the filling. (Start out with a small amount and once you are comfortable with the process, you can gradually increase the amount of filling.)

8) Roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Dust liberally with more flour as you are rolling.

9) Gently pat off the excess flour and roast on a hot griddle.

10) Fry one side for 1 minute and then turn over and brush with a little oil.

11) When the second side is done and golden brown, flip and brush with a little oil on that side too.

12) Serve hot with pickles or cool and freeze to eat them later. You can freeze them for atleast a week long.

Punjabi Chole

2009-03-11T16:16:00.005-05:00

It has been a little while since I posted any recipe here. Unfair on my part but was busy enjoying with family and friends for the past 2 weeks. While spending my week at my friends place, it was fun time cooking for her craving palate. She is pregnant and wanted to have chole but the punjabi style. So here's the recipe for you guys too.

Ingredients:

1) Canned Chic Peas or Kabuli Chana soaked overnight

2) 2 Big tomatoes - diced

3) 1 Big Onion - finely chopped

4) 2 tea bags

5) Chole Masala / Garam Masala

6) Jeera seeds and mustard seeds

7) corriander leaves for garnish

8) oil and salt acc to taste

Method:

Pressure cook the soaked chic peas if not using the canned ones. Put the tea bags along with the chic peas while you pressure cook in order to get the flavour to the chic peas. In case you are using the canned chic peas, use the tea water while adding water.

Heat the pan with oil. Let the mustard and jeera seeds splutter. Saute the onions and then add the tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook properly and then add the chole masala/garam masala. Keep 2 tablespoons of boiled chic peas separately and add the rest to the pan. Mash the chic peas and keep separately. Add water to the pan. If you are using tea water then add that too and let it cook by keeping the pan covered. Add salt and the mashed chic peas to the pan. Once it reaches your consistency stop and garnish with freshly chopped corriander leaves.

By following the same proceedure you can make dry chole and also use for chat items.

Salads – Not really a cow’s diet

2009-03-11T13:20:00.006-05:00

There is no love sincerer than the love of food – George Bernard Shaw

Several months back, I was zipping through channels as always and came across an advertisement on TV about Progresso Soups – this is how their voice script goes – ‘Nobody likes to diet, so why eat like you’re on one’. The visual, somewhat banal and outrageous, shows a woman passing over her salad bowl to a rabbit!

And then these people find faults with their kids’ eating habits, voice their concerns about their children not eating broccoli or liking greens – how ironic. Kids eat what we feed them and grasp from observing the way we eat, don’t they?

You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car - Harvey Diamond

Au contraire, as much as the meat-loving population is high out here, salads are strangely a common and popular feature in course-meals. Weight watchers and animal lovers, you can be sure of finding some of the best vegetarian salads and salad-friendly ingredients out here.

There is no single recipe for tossing up a salad. Some people like it with ranch, some with vinaigrette, some with mayonnaise, and some with a simple mix of seasonings and olive oil and a drizzle of lemon juice. Kraft Foods make it easier with a wide choice of salad dressings too. It’s all out there, but the choice is ours to make. I’ve tried Kraft’s Low-fat Ranch, Balsamic Vinaigrette and Greek Dressing with Feta and Parmesan Cheese.

One of the key ingredients of any green salad is lettuce apart from arugula and baby spinach. Now, S has trouble with lettuce! As much as he would love to devour these negative-calorie greens, S’s digestive system doesn’t seem to quite agree. He promises that he chews them finely to pulp before swallowing, but his intestinal tract seems to stitch them back together … weird. S’s friend from work sent home a big and beautiful bunch of home-grown organic lettuce – he enjoyed it till the next morning. This seemed to be the case with any kind of lettuce – there is never any discomfort or pain, no illness… nothing! I always kid with him that he has not enough calories to digest lettuce. Recently, romaine salads have been a regular feature and S’s system seems have to gotten accustomed to it.

I would any day prefer a bowl of fresh green salads over junk food – I guess it’s a birth trait – Mum thrived on greens and salads throughout her second pregnancy, moi of course, due to anemic conditions. It’s surprising that I don’t have green blood. I had some leftover ricotta and parmesan from last week’s Lasagna, so I decided to toss up a salad.

Here’s what I used –

Fresh Vegetables – You can use just about anything that fancies your interest and palate. I also used one cup of whole wheat penne pasta. Some people prefer pomegranate seeds, sliced strawberries, and mandarin oranges too, for their special tangy and sweet tinge. I sometimes throw in olives too.

1. 1 and half a bunch of romaine lettuce – torn to shreds

2. Red radishes – halved and sliced

3. Carrots – 3 numbers, finely julienned

4. Yellow bell pepper – julienned

5. Tomatoes – 2 – coarsely chopped – I usually use halved cherry tomatoes, but I ran out of them

6. Celery – 4 sticks finely chopped (from the box)

7. Fresh red chili – 2 numbers, finelly chopped

8. Uncooked pasta – 1 cup – Ideally, elbows go well with salads, but I had to manage with whole wheat Barilla Penne.

Seasonings –
1. 3 tablespoons shredded mozzarella cheese

2. 3 tablespoons shredded parmesan cheese

3. Italian Seasoning, Dried Basil, Lemon Herbs, Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper, Chili Vinegar

4. Extra virgin olive oil

5. Ricotta cheese mixed well with salt and garlic powder

6. 2 teaspoons fresh heavy cream (Mexican variety)

This was our evening snack and a box in reserve is in the refrigerator, for S’s lunch tomorrow. This is sumptuous and very filling too and there goes in your daily dose of raw fruit/vegetable and fiber. I’m hoping his system completely accepts lettuce someday. The human body is said to use up more calories in digesting such foods, and hence the term negative-calorie foods.

Apart from incorporating Spinach in our weekly diet, S and I make sure to eat some form of raw veggies – mostly, salads. Our salads don’t always have tinges of cheese. Sometimes, it’s just plain lemon juice drizzled over seasonings and a dash of olive oil. You could also do it the Indian way, with Chunky Chat masalas and Garam masalas… Yum! If you decide to use ranches and cheeses, make sure they’re all low fat or fat-free, and promise yourself to burn those calories off the next day.

While we’re on that note of following an eco-friendly and green diet, here’s a gut-wrenching video on animal slaughter that I’d like to share with all of you. I’m sure some of you have already seen this, but if you haven’t, beware. This was shared with me by a college friend and it really moved S and me to shreds. We aren’t preaching anything out here, but if this video moves you as much as it did us, that’s a score. Click here for the video. When you have the power to choose and the power to save a life-form, why don’t you make use of it?

Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends - George Bernard Shaw

Podi Idicha Kathirikai – Stuffed baby eggplant curry

2009-03-09T12:02:00.007-05:00

Eggplants stuffed with spice – sounds like a traditional Andhra recipe, ain’t it? There are plenty of stuffed eggplant recipes starting from Andhra cuisine to Marathi. This Podi Idicha Kathirikai, however, is a lighter, easier and Tamil Iyer version of stuffed and shallow fried eggplants. It literally translates to ‘Eggplants stuffed with powdered spices’.

On our usual weekend vegetable shopping spree, S and I came across pretty purple tiny eggplants. Of course, from whatever was left of the whole lot, we picked 13 tiny brinjals that looked okay despite being leftovers. I’m assuming the stock was so fresh that everyone just filled up their baskets by the time we reached the store. We were happy with those tiny ok-looking baby eggplants nonetheless, and we knew they were going to make us gastronomically happier.

Mum had cooked this at home some months back and she made a casual mention to me about it back then – yes, she forgot to blog about it. Something made me want to try this dish out since she told me about it and the sight of comparatively tiny brinjals made me succumb to temptation.

This is simpler than the heavily spiced and flavoured gravy based dishes that most other cuisines offer, the list of ingredients should be proof enough.

Here’s what you’ll needed –

1. Baby eggplants – 10-15, stems chopped off and slit across

2. Dhaniya - 1 tablespoon

3. Channa dal - 1 tablespoon

4. Dry red chilis - 7-8

5. Desiccated coconut / Grated coconut – 2 tablespoons

6. Oil to shallow fry, turmeric powder, salt

7. Channa dal, split urad dal, mustard seeds to temper

Here’s how you dish it up –

1. Wash the eggplants and remove just the stem. Cut them across with slits making sure to hold the base intact.

2. Sprinkle some salt within and let it rest aside. Make sure you don’t overly salt the brinjals. This is usually a prep-step in recipes that involve frying or significantly larger than the usual amount of oil. Eggplants have a tendency to absorb oil and this step helps prevent oily, soggy dishes. However, many believe that this can be ignored while cooking tender baby eggplants. You can decide to ignore this step if you choose to, unless you’re cooking bigger, tougher and mature eggplants.

3. Meanwhile, in a few drops of oil, roast the red chili, chana dal, dhaniya and coconut.

4. When the mixture is cool enough, grind it along with salt and a pinch of turmeric powder.

5. Stuff the slit eggplants with this powder and sprinkle any remaining powder over them.

6. In the same Kadai, heat enough oil to shallow fry the eggplants. Allow some mustard seeds to crackle and then toss in a pinch of channa dal and split urad dal. When the dals turn aromatic and lightly tanned, toss in the brinjals. After about 5 minutes including tossing the brinjals in the wok, reduce the heat to low (sim) and continue slow cooking.

7. If you find the need to drizzle oil, you could use the PAM cooking spray, or any similar oil spray that adds just very little oil.

8. Toss and turn the brinjals every now and then, making sure they are all evenly cooked.

9. When they turn soft and mushy under the pressure of a fork, remove from the stove.

10. Serve hot as an accompaniment with rice. We gorged it down with rice and Pearl Onion Sambar (Chinna Vengayam Arachu Vitta Sambar).

Every time I cook any kind of eggplant into any form, I prefer handing the lion’s share to S. Yes, I love eggplants, I always have, but this poor guy has taken a recent liking to the vegetable and has missed out on delectable eggplant dishes all these years. I’m glad S loved the Podi Idicha Kathirikai curry. If you love brinjals as much as we do, then this recipe serves just two.

Egg Kozhambu - Poached Eggs in Coconut Milk Gravy

2009-02-26T16:28:00.008-06:00

Last week, we were forced to finish some of the perishable groceries at home before stepping into the new week for which we had a different diet planned. There were exactly three eggs left which needed to be done with. S is very fond of eggs. However, eggs are a strong taboo at my marital home. S used to tell stories about how he had to sneak in eggs without Pa's knowledge. Ma was always supportive though.

Mum, on the other hand, raised my brother and me on a wonderful egg regime. Invariably, we used to have different kinds of omelets and egg dishes for breakfast with a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice – and this was almost every single day when we were kids. When S and I were courting, he would pester Mum to make egg dishes. Remembering this, she sent across a Mallika Badrinath recipe book which contains 100 egg recipes along with plenty of other goodies.

Tired of the usual egg recipes that featured in our kitchen, I wanted to try something out of this recipe book. Mrs. Mallika Badrinath describes this recipe as Egg Kozhambu, but to us, it turned out more like a Thai Egg Curry, or like a Malabar egg dish. So, I am going to whole-heartedly classify this under Malabar cuisine and call it Malabar Egg Kozhambu.

Here’s what you’ll need –

1. Eggs – 6 (I was left with 3 and managed with that)

2. Red Chilies – 5 numbers

3. Coconut – 1 small whole coconut. This is to make extract coconut milk. I used the coconut milk powder dissolved in water instead. (4 tablespoons mixed with 2 cups water)

4. Grated coconut / Desiccated coconut powder – 1 tablespoon (optional)

5. Dhania (Coriander seeds) – 1 tablespoon

6. Jeera (Cumin seeds) – 1 teaspoon

7. Salt – as needed

8. Small onions (Shallots) – 15 numbers

9. Big onions – 2 medium sized ones or 1 big one – chopped finely

10.Turmeric powder – as needed

11.Coriander leaves – for garnishing

Here’s how you dish this up –

1. In very little oil, sauté the chopped shallots, red chilies, dhania and jeera. Allow this to cool down a bit.

2. Grind this along with the grated coconut / coconut powder and mix it with the dissolved coconut milk.

3. In a kadai, heat some oil and temper some cumin seeds. Fry the chopped onions till they turn translucent.

4. Add the coconut milk and masala mixture, salt and turmeric. If the gravy is too thick, add water as needed. This usually is not the case with dissolved coconut milk, so I avoided this step.

5. Allow this gravy to boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat to the lowest possible. Break the eggs one by one into the gravy, next to each other and allow them to set, undisturbed. Since I had just three eggs, I decided to let them poach half way, and then broke them up so they spread all over the gravy.

6. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with rice.

Variations –

1. Tomato paste can be added to this gravy. However, that could subtle down the exotic coconut milk flavour.

2. You can prepare this dish with boiled eggs or chopped omelets too.

This dish turned out to be lip-smacking. We decided to share a bowl with our neighbor downstairs. Make sure you do not substitute shallots for big onions. Shallots add a unique and wonderful flavour to any dish they are a part of. In fact, replacing bigger onions with shallots is a better idea when the recipe involves onion pastes, grinded onion, etc. Sadly, in the US, shallots are $3 or more a bag – that is about 20-30 shallots, and they aren’t even half as amazing as their Indian cousins.

It is easy to find a multitude of egg recipes online, but they aren’t all traditional Indian recipes that cater to our taste buds. Thank you, Mrs. Mallika Badrinath, for this recipe. And thank you Mum for sending this book across to me.

Veggie Tacos

2009-02-26T13:56:00.007-06:00

If you are in the US and like to travel,you will definitely end up eating at Taco Bell. You can get few veggie dishes there. My SIL had come over once and taught me the easiest way to make them at home. Basically its the ingredients that need to be bought and you can make as many as you can at home and enjoy eating them.

Ingredients:

1 Can Refried Beans

1 Can Mild Green Chillies

1 Can Pickled Jalepenos

Tomato Salsa

Sour Cream

mozarella cheese

1 Bunch of Romanian Lettuce

1 onion

1 tomato

1 box of tacos

Method:

In a pan heat little oil and fry the cut onions and tomatoes. Add the refried beans and cook for sometime. Just before serving heat the tacos in the microwave for few seconds to make it crispy. Place the refried beans first followed by the rest of the toppings. At the end top it with sour cream and serve.

Signature Room at the 95th – Valentine’s Day Dinner @ Downtown Chicago

2009-02-23T14:48:00.009-06:00

S and I decided to go to Chicago for Valentine’s Day and dine at the lavish Signature Room at the 95th for this was our first Valentine’s Day together. Last year, S had already travelled to the US while I was in India prepping up for our upcoming wedding.

It is not always that we dine at expensive restaurants, of course, only if you count out the few times we went out with friends who are high up in the career ladder and always prefer eating at expensive gourmet restaurants. And of course, the special night when S proposed to me. So, we decided to save our special, cozy, romantic, lavish, darn-expensive, gourmet dinner for Valentine’s Day.

When we called and made reservations, the courteous woman told us that we could ‘choose’ between a special prix fixe menu or go with the regular – of course, the prix fixe was priced at an enormous $95 per person! Obviously, we decided to stuff ourselves up at Cheesecake Factory downstairs, and then move on to the 95th level. You know how they serve ‘gourmet’ on your plates – lots of decorations, too little food. But by the time we reached John Hancock Building, it was already time for our reservation so we decided to take the plunge.

We were terribly disappointed when they told us they couldn’t offer a table with a view. We had specifically mentioned that we would need a corner table with a downtown view, and the supposedly courteous lady ‘lied’ that it would be taken care of. We hesitantly took the centre row table – bummer number 1.

When the waiter brought us our menu, we realized it was the prix fixe! When we asked for the regular menu, he said it was a Valentine’s special menu and we did not have a choice – what a liar that woman was – bummer number 2.

So we decided, what the hell, we’re paying $95 per person for a table with a view, hell yeah, a view of couples falling all over each other and making out. S was tempted to leave, but we decided to play along and give it a try.

This was the special Valentine’s Menu –

$95 per person plus tax and gratuity.
(Choose one item from each course)
Appetizer
Grilled Prosciutto & Mozzarella
(toasted sourdough; tomato marmalade)
Seared Sea Scallops
(white bean hummus; balsamic teriyaki)
Spiced Gnocchi
(roasted winter squash; chestnut fondant)

Soup or Salad
Mixed Greens Salad
(market vegetables; sherry vinaigrette)
Lobster Bisque
(jumbo lump crab; chervil crème frâiche)

Main Course
Petite Filet of Beef
(Yukon gold potato puree, glazed carrots; red wine reduction)
Sauteéd Scottish Salmon
(fingerling potatoes, roasted onions; whole grain mustard butter)
Roasted Natural Chicken
(organic grits, triple cream brie cheese, chanterelle mushrooms; sherry)
Winter Pasta
(broccoli, cauliflower, crispy shallots; cheddar & brown butter sauce)

Dessert Selection
Carrot Cake
(raisin puree)
White & Chocolate Mousse Cake
(raspberry sauce)
Key Lime Tart
(poached strawberries; lime coulis)

Gourmet Coffee and Tea Selections

And of course, this came with a glass of champagne – yes, just one flute. So for the first course, S and I ordered the Spiced Gnocchi and the Seared Sea Scallops – the Gnocchi was just okay. Dressy and all pretty looking, but it didn’t taste half as heavenly as Maggiano’s Gnocchi. The Seared Sea Scallops was good indeed – but of course, as any traditional gourmet appetizer, they were both just a 3 piece serving.

For the second course, S and I obviously had no choice – I was going green (have been doing so since the start of the year) and S despises sea food. So we both ended up with the Market Salad – definitely not something you can’t toss up at home. Nothing exquisite. Just a very very basic salad with no exotic cheeses on the side, nothing but salt and pepper that we had to ground ourselves. What a disappointment!

For the third course, S ordered the Roasted Natural Chicken, and I went for the Winter Pasta. By this time, we were pretty much expecting the worst. But we were taken by utter surprise – the Winter Pasta was delicious. Perhaps owing to the fact that S and I had our taste buds killed with the first two courses, we were taken by sweet surprise with the main course, who knows! I had to save some of the Winter Pasta for S, he wasn’t quite happy with his chicken. And by this time, we were pretty stuffed up. That sure was something we hardly expected from a gourmet, up class, pricy, hyped restaurant that serves teeny tiny portions.

We were pretty confused about the fourth course. We had just finished gobbling up some delicious Carrot Cake the previous week (home-made), so that was ruled out. I had my mind made up on the White & Chocolate Mousse Cake, so S decided to order the Key Lime Tart. When the waiter brought our desserts, my Mousse Cake was right alright, but he accidentally brought the Carrot Cake for S. So we returned it and repeated our order. And just as the waiter vanished away from our vicinity, S decided to change his mind looking at my Mousse Cake! So when he finally came back with the Key Lime Tart, we apologized profusely and asked for another Mousse Cake. I sincerely hope the chef hadn’t spat on S’s dessert. The dessert was heavenly. It completely overpowered the first and second courses.

We knew if we gobbled up this gourmet stuff, we’d have to leave the restaurant in no time. The room was full, there were people waiting for tables – people with reservations! So the waiters were pretty quick in their service. But we weren’t going to go away that easy considering the bill that we were dreading. So we enjoyed our food in nibbles, with small sips of champagne and plenty of pictures in between and a lot of chit-chatting and looking around. And despite all that, we still lasted just about 2 hours.

Would we revisit Signature Room at the 95th? Only if someone else foots the bill. Only for the dessert. Only for the Winter Pasta, if it is featured in the regular menu. Then again, we would rather visit Maggiano's any day for fine Italian.

Ribbon Pakoda - Savoury

2009-02-22T21:51:00.004-06:00

A's boss is crazy about Indian cuisine. He gets to taste whatever I make for A for lunch and evening snack. I remember making thengoyal few months ago and his boss just gobbled the entire packet. He calls them as worms :) smooth, spikey and flat worms. So on popular demand I made Ribbon Pakodas ....the so called flat worms!

Ingredients:

2 cups Rice Flour

1 cup Besan/Gram Flour

2 tsp red chilli powder

1 teaspoon white sesame seeds

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon oil

salt

oil for frying

Method:

Mix the rice flour, besan, chilli powder, salt and sesame seeds. Add the butter and mix all the ingredients together. Add water and get it to a dough consistency. Add oil and mix well. Separate them into oval balls. Use the ribbon maker or Achchu and fry them in the oil. Drain the excess oil by placing on a kitchen tissue paper and store in an air tight container.

Cocktail Samosas - Perfect Snack

2009-02-21T21:15:00.015-06:00

We had some friends come over this weekend and they insisted they would just have tea. So I thought I would make the perfect snack considering the cold weather....cocktail samosas. These are very easy to make and no big time skills required. Cocktail samosas are usually small in size. You can use the same method to make bigger samosas like the ones you get in any chaat shop. I made them with a simple potato and onion stuffing. You can use your imagination wild.....by adding spinach, peas, carrots, beans, jalepenos or just make with paneer.

Ingredients:
For Samosas -
1 1/2 Cup Maida/All purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kalonji/ kala jeera
salt
oil

For Filling -
3 Big potatoes (boiled and mashed)
1 Onion (chopped)
jeera seeds
corriander seeds
dry red chillies
green chillies (chopped)
corriander leaves (chopped)
garam masala powder
salt

Method:
Dry roast the jeera, corriander seeds and dry red chillies. Grind them once done. Mix all the filling ingredients together. {If you want you can saute all the ingredients}

Make a dough out of the ingredients mentioned for the samosas. Make small rounds and flatten them using little oil. Because we are using Maida for the samosas, oil will help us in rolling them better. Cut it into two halves. Fold them to make it like a pocket. Fill it with the potato filling. And close the corners by pressing them nicely. Prepare all the samosas and keep them aside.

Deep Fry them just when your guests arrive so that you can serve them piping hot.

Irupuli Kuzhambu – A debut dish in our home

2009-02-20T14:46:00.005-06:00

Dad lived and worked in Mumbai for a while before hitting the Gulf, and this was before his wedding. During those bachelor days, his local guardian in Mumbai was his ‘Chitti’ (Grandmum’s younger sister). However, Saraswathi Chitti was just a couple of years older than Dad! Yeah, mothers and daughters went into labour at the same time, back in those days. So, Dad and Chitti literally grew up together, went to school together, and were pretty much like cousins.

Chitti later got married into a family that enjoyed and relished food, and her husband was a connoisseur of good food. Dad used to stay at their home in Santa Cruz, and that is where he was introduced to the Iru Puli Kuzhambu through Chitti (She’s actually Chitti Paati to me, lol). Mum never made this dish and I had never heard of it until she mentioned it recently in passing. I was taken by surprise – if it was Dad’s favourite, why didn’t she ever make it! Perhaps it wasn’t a favourite amongst the others at home…

So Mum and I decided to ask Chitti’s son to mail us the recipe (He’s supposedly my uncle, but more like a cousin to me. The tradition continues, huh). Cousin B mailed the recipe, and I was dying to try it out. ‘Iru Puli’ literally translates to two kinds of sourness. This comes from the tamarind juice and the buttermilk. I just made a small modification to Chitti’s recipe, well you guessed it, I bumped up the spice!

Here’s what I needed:

1. Tamarind – lemon sized ball

2. Butter milk – 1 cup (I might have used a little bit more)

3. Coconut – ½ moodi according to Chitti’s recipe – I used some grated frozen coconut and dry coconut powder

4. Okra – a handful

5. Dry red chilis - I used 6. The chilis in the US aren’t as spicy as the Indian variety, so I invariably end up using more of them

6. Sambar powder – 1 and half a tablespoon

7. Fenugreek seeds – ½ teaspoon

8. Curry leaves, Mustard seeds, Oil, Hing, Turmeric, Split urad dal, Channa dal, Jeera, Salt

Here’s how I dished it up:

1. Extract the juice from the tamarind. Cook the chopped okra in the tamarind juice, with turmeric, sambar powder and a pinch of salt.

2. Meanwhile, in very little oil, fry the red chilis and the fenugreek in that order. Make sure you just sauté the fenugreek towards the end. Frying it excessively can make it turn bitter. Grind this along with the coconut into a smooth paste.

3. When the raw odour vanishes from the tamarind juice, add the ground coconut-chili-fenugreek paste and continue cooking till it boils.

4. Now add the buttermilk, give it a final stir, and switch off the stove and set aside. Cooking buttermilk in high heat for a long time can cause it to separate and thin out the gravy.

5. Temper with fried mustard, curry leaves, urad and channa dals, and hing. I usually do the tempering upfront.

When S tasted the Irupuli Kuzhambu, he was instantly reminded of some dish Ma-in-law makes – I have to find out from her. This is a watery delicious dish. Since there is no ‘Paruppu’, you could add a spoon of rice flour/corn starch dissolved in water to thicken the gravy to an appropriate consistency. This tastes like a wonderful mix between Vatha Kuzhambu and More Kuzhambu. Tamarind and Buttermilk both yield different types of sourness, and a marriage between the two just tastes heavenly! The fenugreek cuts down the tamarind’s sourness by an iota, adding the right amount of ‘Thuvarpu’. And the Sambar Powder makes a world of a difference to the dish. Simply put, if you love Vathal Kuzhambu and More Kuzhambu, there’s no way you can’t love this dish! On the whole, this Kuzhambu is going to feature in our kitchen more often in the future, thanks to Saraswathi Chitti.

Note: No other vegetable other than Okra goes well in this dish. If you can’t get hold of Okra, you can try this without any vegetable. You can temper this dish with coconut oil, like you would do to any dish with a coconut base. That could enhance the flavour. I, however, used regular canola oil.

Thanks Cousin B and Saraswathi Chitti. We would love to try more such recipes from you.

Chocolate Mocha Cake

2009-02-18T15:01:00.003-06:00

Here's another cake recipe from my SIL. The cake is little on the bitter side (more for coffee lovers than chocolate lovers) but the frosting is OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD!! and so easy too. The recipe is as seen on hulu.com and the link is... http://www.hulu.com/watch/53039/healthy-appetite-with-ellie-krieger-chocolate-mocha-cake

Hope you guys enjoy baking this cake.

Hot Wok – Indo-Chinese, Schaumburg, IL

2009-02-18T11:53:00.006-06:00

After a tiring Sunday at the Chicago Auto Show 2009, we decided to eat at any restaurant on the way back home. S and I are always open to trying new restaurants, whatever it may be. Our friends were craving for some Indo-Chinese food at their favourite restaurant near their home. So, we decided that we were going to Hot Wok.

We had had Ven Pongal for breakfast that morning, and lunch was a couple of slices of Pizza at the Auto Show Venue, along with some Pepsi. We were famished by the end of the day, owing to all the drooling, walking around, standing…

When we got to Hot Wok, S was marveled that we had finally hit an Indo-Chinese restaurant. To him, the only thing on the menu that glowed with a halo and stood out blurring out everything else was the Chop Suey. S always loved the Chop Suey (American and Chinese) that was served in Indo-Chinese restaurants in India. Without batting an eyelid, he decided he was going to order the Schezwan Chinese Chop Suey as his main course.

Our friends decided to share a Sweet Corn Chicken Soup – made completely the Indo-Chinese way. We were instantly reminded of Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant in India. Excepting Mainland China, most Chinese restaurants in Chennai are Indo-Chinese. S and I shared the Vegetable Tom Yum Soup. This was nothing like the Tom Yum you get in Cascade. I had to touch up my soup with Chili Vinegar and some Schezwan Sauce.

The main orders were Chicken Singapore Fried Rice, Vegetable Singapore Fried Rice, Chinese Chicken Chop Suey and Kung Pao Paneer! Yes, the last one was my order, and man we all loved it. Nothing except the Chop Suey was a disappointment, and of course, you might want to add the nice waiter’s bad breath. We are used to the crunchy, fried noodles served separately. We usually add the sauce fresh, so there is a crunchy finish. This was soggy! Well, that's the Indo-Chinese that we are used to. I had to help S finish it so he could devour the Kung Pao Paneer and Singapore Fried Rices.

There is a Hot Wok here in Bloomington, but it is a completely Chinese joint. Would I visit Hot Wok Village in Schaumburg again? Yes, just for the Kung Pao Paneer – it was the best!

Vishnu Foods – Schaumburg, Illinois

2009-02-17T17:26:00.008-06:00

The weekend that went by was probably the most we had eaten out. S and I had been to Chicago to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We reached our friends’ home on Friday night and ended up gorging on some Barnaby’s Pizza.

On Valentine’s Day, we had planned to dine at the Signature Room at Hancock – no, not a double date. So we went out with our friends to an opening lunch buffet at Vishnu Foods.

Priced at $7.99 per guest, this was probably the best cost-effective Indian food S and I had eaten ever. The spread was stupendous and the food tasted good too!

We had to wait 30 minutes for a table - that was how crowded it was. It looked like Schaumburg’s entire Indian population was there that noon. Finally when we went for the food, we didn’t know where to begin. Run by a Telugu NRI, the spread had an Andhra tinge to it, and that made me happy… ‘More Spice, More Happy’(Pretty much like how the saying goes with Saki in Japanese joints).

I knew the sweets were getting over too quickly, so I served some hot jalebis for the four of us, upfront (good decision). I started off with the plain rice, Medu Vadai, and Dal Palak (delicious), with some Aloo Fry and Baghare Baingan. In another plate, common to the table, we gathered some Mirchi Bajjis, Vegetable Bajjis and Papads. S thought my versions of Baghare Baingan and Bisibela Bath were way better.

In a nut shell, we ate most of what was served (I was being an eggetarian) – Rasam, Sambar, Aviyal, Cabbage Curry, Beans Curry, Aloo Fry, Medu Vadai, Masala Vadai, Baghara Baingan, Bisibela Bath, Ven Pongal (it was yellow), Mirchi Bajjis, Capsicum Bajjis, Papads, Chutneys, Idlies, Chappatis, Pickles, Curd Rice, Delicious Raita, Egg Biryani, Shrimp Biryani, Lamb Biryani, Chicken Biryani, Vegetable Biryani, Chicken 65, Paneer Tikka Masala, Chicken Samosa, Double Ka Meetha, Mango Kulfi, Kheer, Jalebis… whew… I’m sure I’ve missed something!

For $7.99, this sure was worth every single cent. Too bad we had stuffed ourselves up with Pongal in the morning, so couldn’t do justice to the buffet.

If we had the choice to visit Vishnu Food’s lunch buffet again, we sure would, again and again.

Rasam Podi - Home-made and Iyer style

2009-02-16T11:06:00.004-06:00

Rasam is the quintessential soup of South India. Traditional ‘Iyer athu’ Rasams are delectable, owing to the special powder that is ground and stored at home. However, Mum always used her Sambar Powder to make Rasams, and trust me, those are incredibly heavenly too, the extra ingredients being just the Channa Dal and Fenugreek. Some households use the Sambar Powder for cooking Rasams.

Mum-in-law, however, uses a Rasam Powder. Mum-in-law always cooks the ‘Arachu vita sambar’ which requires freshly ground Sambar Podi along with coconut. So, there’s no traditional Sambar Powder that she uses. And she prefers using this Rasam Powder which is also awesome. Strangely, both the mothers make similar Rasams with different powders!

Here’s mum-in-law’s amazing Rasam Powder recipe. She makes batches with extra spice just for me, what a darling! I still sometimes need to add a green chili or some red chili powder or black pepper corns, but largely, it works without anything extra. And topping it off with the fresh ground jeera powder as mentioned in our previous post on Rasam Tips just makes it out of the world. As it is mum-in-law’s recipe fills the house with the wonderful aroma of jeeragam. Jeeragam is the only ingredient that makes a world of a difference in Rasams.

1. Dry red chillies - 100 gms

2. Coriander seeds (Dhania) - 100 gms

3. Cumin seeds (Jeeragam) - 75 gms

4. Toor dal (Thuvaram paruppu) - 50 gms

5. Black pepper (Milagu) - 50 gms

6. Curry leaves (Karuvepla) - one handful

Dry roast each ingredient separately, one after the other, till they turn aromatic. Grind together and store.

Grinding it at home usually yields a coarse textured powder, unlike the powders you get from a professional mill. Sadly, we don’t have that luxury here in the US. We are close to finishing our first stock of Rasam Powder. S and I love Rasam, and as much as I was tempted to use the Sambar Powder to make Rasam, I was afraid that was getting over quickly too! So mum just sent me 15.3 kilos of goodies, including replenished stock of Rasam, Sambar and Chili Powders! This should keep me going for the next year.

Coconut Burfi – Indian dessert

2009-02-13T11:03:00.006-06:00

A friend’s daughter celebrated her 7th birthday last week. Well, I don’t think the celebrations went as planned. The poor kid suffered a step throat, so they postponed the party to this weekend. Sadly, S and I are off to Chi-Town this weekend to celebrate Valentine’s Day at John Hancock Signature Room, and we are going to miss little K’s party.

So S and I decided to drop by at their place before driving out tonight, give her a gift (she is a voracious and mature reader for her age) and hand over some home-made Coconut Burfis.

This used to be my favourite sweet when I was that age. Strangely, we never got to eating it too often when we grew up. And in my case, it was always favourable to me because my brother hated sweets. Even to this day, the only sweet dish he would gorge on is the Jalebi or Jangri – and perhaps a bite or two of other exquisite ones. So I always had the King’s share.

Traditionally this dish is made really sweet, but I modified the coconut proportion because not everyone out here digs sugar as much as we do in India. If you prefer your burfis to be sweeter, you ought to use just three quarter cups of coconut powder. We hope our friends like this and enjoy this. Here’s what we needed.

1. 1 tin condensed milk (Carnations, sweetened)

2. 1 and 3/4th cups of desiccated coconut

3. 2 tablespoons ghee or butter

4. 1 teaspoon cardamom powder

5. Slivered almonds for decoration

In a non-stick pan, add the butter and roast the coconut (you could dry roast it too, but with the ghee or butter smeared on the pan, the flavours blend together into a wonderful aroma; and it doesn’t scorch to the pan; and the final product has a nice consistency). Make sure you don’t brown the coconut powder, you just need to roast them a bit till the flavours emerge.

Add the entire tin of condensed milk, begin stirring quickly making sure the entire mixture is beaten well. Do not stop for a second, you might scorch the mixture.

Add in the cardamom powder and continue stirring till the entire mixture clings together in a lump and the coconut-condensed milk mixture leaves the sides of the pan.

Turn the heat off, transfer the thickened mixture to a slightly deep dish, smeared with butter or ghee. You need to do this for ease of removal, at a later stage.

Allow this plate to cool down, and then transfer to the refrigerator. This step is not optional. However much your Burfi looks tempting when it’s hot, you are not going to be able to cut them into pieces at this stage. So, sample as much as you want and then push it straight into the fridge.

After a couple of hours, remove it, cut it into pieces, size and shape of your choice, and press down a slice or two of slivered almonds on each piece. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

I cut them into tiny bite size squares, and the yield was about 40 pieces. If you cut them into bigger pieces, it will probably measure up to 20 or 30 pieces. If you reduce the coconut quantity, I would assume the pieces would considerably reduce too.

Orissa Thali

2009-02-13T08:48:00.005-06:00

Today I was so bored with cooking South Indian food that I thought I would make something different. I suprised A with a proper Orissa Thali with only the sweet missing. Any Orissa Thali would contain rice payash ( Rice Payasam). I did not have time for that so just made the rest. My Thali consisted of Phulkas instead of Puri, Cauliflower sabzi, Chana Dal and Pulav. I will be giving the recipe for the last three as you all know how to make phulkas :)

Phoolgobi tarkari/Cauliflower sabzi:

Ingredients-

1 Big Cauliflower cut into florets
1 Big Tomato
1 Onion
1 Green chilli (slit it)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon chat masala
salt
sugar
oil
kalonji (Kala Jeera)

Method-

Saute the florets in very little oil to remove the raw caulifower smell. By doing this it also adds flavour to the dish. Now In the same pan heat oil and add the kalonji with little sugar. Add the green chilly and onions and fry them. Add tomatoes followed by the masalas mentioned above. Add the fried florets with salt and cook this by covering it with a lid. Keep checking and stirring. Once the florets have become soft you can remove it from the flame.

If you want a little gravy to it then add 1/2 cup water and cook for some more time.

Chana Dal:

Ingredients-

1/2 cup chana dal (soak it for 2 hrs)
fresh coconut cut into small pieces (I use the shredded coconut in the US)
1 Green chilly
5 cloves
1 cinamon stick
1 tej patta(bay leaf)
sugar
salt
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
oil
kalonji

Method-

Pressure cook the dal with the cloves, cinamon stick and coconut. The dal has to be very soft so i pressure cook for 5 whistles. Heat a pan with oil and add kalonji and tej patta. Add the green chilly, turmeric powder plus sugar. Smash the dal and add to the pan. Add salt and water if you need. Let it come to a boil and stop cooking.

Pulav:

Ingredients-

1 cup Basmati Rice
5 cloves
3 whole cardamoms
2 cinamon sticks
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
salt
sugar
1 teaspoon ghee

Method-

Wash the rice and dry them. Heat the pan with ghee. Add the cloves, cardamoms, cinamon sticks, bay leaf and rice. Saute them and add the turmeric powder and the salt. Add 2 cups water and pressure cook, use rice coooker or cook directly on the flame. Once the rice is cooked sprinkle sugar and mix well. The Pulav is ready for eating.

Thakkali Oorgai - Tomato Pickle

2009-02-12T10:54:00.005-06:00

Another Oorugai(pickle)Recipe

This time I am posting a recipe for Tomato Pickle. Generally, pickles are loaded with salt and oil, and that can be the main reason why many people choose to stay away from them. I am one of them, as I need to stay away for health reasons. So I always modify and improvise some food items so that I can enjoy them with out feeling guilty. This tomato pickle is not the usual conventional type of oorugai but will be very tasty as a side dish for curd rice.

To make this you will need good ripe red tomatoes. I used about 20 medium sized tomatoes in this recipe and the rest of the measurements are for this quantity of tomatoes.

Ingredients:

Red ripe tomatoes: 20(medium size)

Chilli powder: 5 teaspoons

Salt: 2 teaspoons(you can check the taste later and add a little more if needed)

Gingelly oil: 3 to 4 teaspoons

Mustard seeds: 1 teaspoon

Fenugreek(Vendayam): 1 teaspoon

Method:

Wash the tomatoes and cut them in to quartets and blend them nicely in a mixer.
Pour the ground tomato puree in to a kadai(our conventional kadai or wok is best suited to cook these recipes)

Keep it on the stove in medium and cook the puree till it boils well and just stir it now and then.

When the liquid part almost evaporates completely it will turn into a thick paste like consistency. At this stage add the salt and stir.

In a small kadai (sizzler types) heat the oil and add mustard seeds, when they crackle, add the vendayam and then the chilli powder and swiftly saute it in the hot oil and immediately remove it from the stove. Add this to the cooked tomato paste.
Mix throughly and cook for a few more min.

Switch off once the consistency is reached (please check the photo for that).

Transfer to a container when it cools down a bit and add 2 spoons of raw gingelly oil(unheated oil).

Now delicious tomato pickle is ready to serve. This can be eaten with curd rice, chappatties, idli, dosa and even bread.

A few notes:
Since we dont use too much of salt or oil in this, the shelf life can not be expected as in conventional pickles. It can stay fresh if kept in the fridge for few weeks. But since the ingredients needed are available throughout the year everywhere, I guess there is no need to make this in large quantities and store anyway.

The reason why I boil the puree plain first is because it will be easy to cook that way, if we do the tadka first add chilli powder and then add the puree and cook (as usually done by many in my home too)the puree will start splashing all over when it is getting done and it will be too difficult to stir and you cant leave it open while cooking (otherwise it will be a messy job to clean the kitchen). So by trial and error I found out this method which seems very convenient and easy too. As variations you can add some garlic to the puree while cooking.

Pudina Podi/Ground Mint powder

2009-02-12T10:51:00.007-06:00

A is not a big fan of Pudina but he would always end up buying a bunch or two so that I can make for him Pudina podi to eat with rice. Since he was asking me to make it for a long time I ended up making it yesterday. I usually don't like the podi to be too strong with only pudina flavour so I also add corriander leaves and curry leaves. If you wish you can use the same method to make only the Pudina/Corriander/ Curry Powder alone.

Ingredients:

1 cup Chanadal
1 cup Urad dal
1cup Coriander seeds
1cup Cumin seeds
3 bundles Pudina leaves
1/2 Bundle Corriander leaves
1 cup curry leaves
Red chillies - To taste
Salt according to taste
Tamarind lemon size
Turmeric powder - 1tsp
Aesofotida
Oil - 2tsp

Method:

1.Clean and wash Pudina, corriander and curry leaves. Wrap in a cloth and let it dry in shadow (but not in the Sun) for two day. Here in the US i dry it in a kitchen towel separately for 3 days.

2.Fry both dals in 2 spoons of oil separately until they turn in brown

3.Now add coriander seeds and after a while cumin seeds

4.Fry until you get a nice aroma

5.Fry red chilly to make them crisp and remove from flame

6.Also fry tamarind (Don't use paste). Add turmeric and aesofotida powder.

7.Add dried Pudina, corriander and curry leaves and stir till you feel they are kind of crisp

8.Grind to powder, add salt in the end and grind for one more minute

9.Store and eat with rice and ghee

Fresh Raspberry Linzertorte - Contributed by Aarti and Vivek

2009-02-11T08:33:00.006-06:00

My Sister in law loves to bake and loves to explore new recipes. This time it was my Brother in law who tried his hand on baking and guess what he baked this lovely Fresh Raspberry Linzertorte for her birthday. It Looks yummy and easy as well.

Dough:

1.5 cups Bleached all-purpose flour
1 cup Blanched almonds (ground)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking powder
12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Finishing:

1/3 cup raspberry preserves
2 baskets raspberries (substitute with strawberries or a mix of both)
1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

One 9-inch springform or 2-inch deep layer pan buttered and lined with a disk of parchment of wax paper.

Makes 1 9-inch cake, about 8 servings

1. Pre-heat the over at 350F.

2. To make the dough, mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Rub in the butter finely by hand. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and yolk together with the lemon zest and vanilla extract and stir into the dough with a fork- the dough will be very soft.

3. Spread two thirds of the dough evenly in the pan. Place the remaining dough in a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tube and pipe a border of dots around the edge. (Or, place the remaining dough into a ziploc bag, cut a small hole on one corner and squeeze out dots or a continuous line as a border on the surface of the spread dough).

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cake is well colored and firm but not dry. Cool in the pan, unmould and slide or invert onto a platter.

5. To finish, spread the preserves on top of the cooled cake, avoiding the dots/border. Arrange the raspberries on the preserves (I like making a circle on the outer edge with raspberries and filling up the middle with sliced strawberries). Decorate the edge with almonds (optional) and dust lightly with confectioner's sugar.

Serving: Can be served with whipped cream.

Storage: Can be stored at room temperature for sevral hours. The cake base may be refrigerated for sevral days or frozen for months.

Hint: Avoid having the butter too soft or overmixing and melting it - or the baked cake will have a tough rather than a tender texture.

Vaazhaipoo Vadai - Plaintain Flower Dumplings

2009-02-11T08:04:00.010-06:00

Hi folks, its been some time since I wrote here. Rums has been asking me for a long time now to give the Vazhaipoo Vadai recipe here.
When we say "vadai" everyone thinks about the deep fried snack only, but this Vaazhaipoo Vadai which is a specialty recipe at my in-law's family is not of the deep fried variety. This recipe has been handed down to us through my husband's grand mother who lived 99 years till she breathed her last a couple of years back.

As we all know, Vaazhaipoo is very good for health especially because of its mild bitter taste(tuvarpu as they say in tamil which has a detoxing effect) but due to its tuvarpu taste not many will relish it if it is cooked normally as porial etc. So usually they make it as paruppu usili. But all my inlaws make it as vadai.

To make this you will need -

2/3rd measure of thoor dal

1/3 measure of channa dal

one tspoon rice

7 or 8 red chillies

one vaazhaipoo

few spoons of oil

salt to taste

This is how you make it -

Soak the dals and rice together for 2 to 3 hours.

In the mean time separate the vaazhaippo stocks and clean them by plucking out that hard stick like part one by one( we call this in tamil as kallan, kallan means thief in tamil , since this stick like thing is hidden inside and you need to probe it out I guess they gave the name "kallan") Once this is done, cut the stocks in to small pieces and to keep them from turning black due to oxidization by air, put them in water to which few spoons of buttermilk is added and keep them aside.

Grind the soaked dal with red chillies and a spoon of salt to a coarse paste. Make sure that you dont add water unnecessarily. If it is soaked well and drained completely it can be ground with out water or just a few spoons of water. Transfer it to a basin and sqeeze out the water from the vaazhaippo cuttings and add them to the ground paste, add little turmeric powder, little hing powder, few sprigs of curry leaves cut finely and mix well.

Smear oil in the cavities of the idli mould and take portions of the mixed dal veggie mixture and shape it like a vadai and keep them in the idli mould. Steam them in a pressure cooker for about 5 to 7 minutes. It will become hard and cooked well by this time (you can check if its done by pricking a tooth pick). Remove them when it has cooled down a bit.

Now place a non stick sauce pan on the stove add few spoons of oil and season with some mustard seeds, when it crackles place the steamed vadais on the pan and just let them saute on a slow fire. Once one side is nicely browned then turn it to the other side add few spoons of oil and cook again. Your crispy non oily Vaazhaipoo Vadais are ready to serve.

Aloo Parathas – A popular Indian flat bread

2009-02-11T00:23:00.004-06:00

As a kid, I never enjoyed Rotis. This was overlooking the fact that Mum made the softest, puffiest and most delectable phulkas. Even today I prefer rice or anything else over Rotis, but I just grew accustomed to Chappatis and began consuming them more frequently than before. Thus, a fancy version of Rotis with stuffing is always more appealing to my mind and palate. Stuffings like Aloo (potato), Mooli (radish), Methi (Fenugreek leaves), etc.

The Aloo Paratha is probably the most commonly made and relished kind of Paratha. I remember this cozy little eatery in Chennai, near the Stella Maris College in Cathedral’s Road, called Shirdi Quick Bites. This little store serves the best Parathas I’ve ever eaten, yes, better than the best. Each Paratha takes about 15 minutes to get ready and is delivered with thick yoghurt, a choice of sabzi or channa, and pickle. Each Paratha is about 12 inches or more in diameter – pretty impossible to roll that size out at home – and you can imagine all the stuffing in there! Heaven! Shirdi Bites serves any and every kind of Paratha, including a mixed stuffing Paratha, Paneer Paratha, Cheese Paratha… *drool*… and the basic Paratha starts off at Rs.20 a plate.

Making soft Rotis and Parathas in the US isn’t as easy as it is in India, unless one lives in an apartment with gas cooking ranges. Unfortunately, our apartment provides electric cooking ranges and unless you’ve tried cooking Rotis in such a stove, you will have no idea what I’m talking about. I almost went into depression when I got here and realized that suddenly, the soft Rotis I was used to making in India ended up hard and rubbery in the US. This is due to various factors – the electric burner, the dough consistency, the brand of flour… but I never had to do all this research in India where making soft puffy phulkas was never an issue.

My cousins who are lucky to have gas burners don’t have an issue. So I had to find a way out. Luckily, the Indian stores here sell Annapoorna, Ashirwaad and Sujatha, the best brands of whole wheat atta in the US. Prior to purchasing Ashirwaad, I tried Lakshmi Brand and Golden Temple – both of which ended up in the dust bin. Finally, a friend told me that Sujatha was indeed Pillsbury marketed in a different name – it came from the same General Mills. So now, it’s either Ashirwaad or Sujatha. The other master blaster pointer is to knead the dough the previous night and refrigerate it. This way, you can make phulkas in an electric stove, with a wired griddle and tava.

Tonight, S and I decided to have Aloo Parathas for dinner after a long time. Although we would have both loved it to be as big as the Shirdi Bites Parathas, I did what I could at home, and that’s that!

Here’s what we used –

1. Ashirwaad whole wheat atta – kneaded the previous night, refrigerated, and brought to room temperature before making the Parathas

2. Potatoes for the stuffing

3. Garam Masala, Salt, Kitchen King, Chili Powder, Coriander Leaves, Turmeric, Dry Ginger Powder, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder (Instead of the dry powders, you can use fresh ginger, garlic and green chillis, finely chopped. I used the powders instead to avoid unpleasant chunks in the middle of a big bite - plus, S can't enjoy his Paratha with a chilli or ginger piece)

4. Oil Spray / Butter / Ghee

Here’s how we rolled them up –

1. Divide the atta into medium sized balls

2. Pressure cook the potatoes and mash them up with all the dry powder ingredients, coriander leaves and a dollop of ghee or butter

3. Divide the mashed potato mixture into balls

4. Roll out a chappati with the dough ball, place the potato ball in the centre and wrap it up

5. Roll this out into a Paratha, try going as wide as you can without breaking the paratha.

6. In a hot tava, place the Paratha and spray some oil. Alternatively, you could smear some ghee or butter. Cook it on both sides, flipping from time to time, in medium to low heat, ensuring that the entire Paratha is cooked inside out.

7. Serve with yoghurt, raita, pickle or any side dish that makes you go bonkers.

In India, my mum-in-law usually mashes up the hot potatoes with the wheat flour, and kneads that into a dough-like consistency, adding all the powder ingredients. This is far more easier way of making Aloo Parathas. But you won’t find a layered potato stuffing inside, the potato is blended with the dough. However, there is no compromise on the flavour and it looks good in its own way – and it’s perhaps the easiest way of making Parathas. Sadly, this trick doesn’t work here in the US as it is essential to let the dough rest overnight in the refrigerator to get soft Parathas. Thus, kneading the mashed potatoes with the atta is impossible. But, once you’ve got the atta right, there’s no looking back.

Tonight’s dinner, served with Bhoondi Raita and Bedekar’s Mango Pickle! S and I would like to dedicate this post to Srini, our dear friend. We worked together in Rage, he still works there. I was in the process of revamping the blog and had some trouble with the drop-down codes. Srini worked on the entire thing and set it right for me. Thank you Srini, this post is specially for you, and hey, its your birthday!

Dhokla - Perfect Gujrati Snack

2009-02-09T23:48:00.011-06:00

For a very long time I used to order Dhokla's whenever I got a chance to go to a Chat corner. I had tried my very best to make dhokla at home but could never get it the way my Gujju frnds get it nor what I ate from the chat shops. Then finally I found this recipe in Tarla Dalal's website for making instant dhokla. The Recipe was simple and indeed instant. Infact during all my previous attempts to make dhokla, I was told to make the batter and leave for 5 hours or more. I have tried this recipe myself and added few ingredients to cater to my taste. Beleive me, you can make this tasty snack in just half hour.

Ingredients (Serves 3)

2 cup Besan (gram flour)
2 cup Water
4 tbsp Lemon juice
3 tbsp Oil
2 tsp Eno Fruit salt
1 tsp Mustard seeds
2 tbsp Sugar (plus 2tsp for batter)
1/3 tsp Red chili powder
4 Green Chillies
Curry leaves
Salt
Corriander leaves
Fresh grated coconut

Method

Mix together besan, salt, 2 tbsp oil, 2 tbsp lemonjuice, red chili powder, 4 green chillies crushed, sugar and water 1 cup or little less than that. The batter should not be loose, if so add little besan...should be kind of like idli batter
Heat up the pressure cooker with some water to steam the Dhokla.
Grease a vessel (You can use the cooker vessel). Now add Eno and mix well and pour this mixture right away in the greased vessel.
Steam it for 20 minutes. To check if its done, insert a toothpick or knife and if it comes out clean its done
For tarka, heat remaining oil, add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Mix together remaining 1 cup water, sugar and lemon juice and pour into the tarka. Boil it.
Take out the dhokla and cut into your choice of size and shape.
Pour the tarka mixture over it.
Garnish with corriander leaves and fresh grated coconut. Serve the fluffiest Dhokla with corriander chutney and tamarind chutney.

Sweet Potato Vatha Kuzhambu – Mum’s special

2009-02-07T11:43:00.007-06:00

‘Vathal’ in Tamil refers to sun-dried food – ‘vathal vadams, sundakkai vathal, manathakkali vathal’. If one were to traditionally translate ‘Vatha Kuzhambu’, it would mean a Kuzhambu with either ‘Sundakkai’ (Turkey Berry), ‘Manathangalikka’ (Black Nightshade) or similar sun-dried herbs. These herbs possess medicinal properties that detoxify one’s system. The Black Nightshade is especially consumed by women who have delivered a baby, and by people with stomach disorders. These herbs have a bitter taste and aren’t very popular amongst people. Unfortunately, I haven’t found these sun-dried herbs in the US so far, at least not at the place where I live.

Mum makes all sorts of Vatha Kuzhambu – With Shallots and Black Nightshades/Turkey Berry – the shallots’ flavour camouflages the Black Nightshade’s / Turkey Berry’s bitterness; with Murungakkai (Drumsticks); with Vengayam (Purple onions); with Vendekkai (Okra, Lady Finger); with Poondu (Garlic); with Urulaikezhangu (Potato); and also with Sarkaraivallikezhangu (Sweet Potato).

The last option is not quite common – I don’t think many households cook a spicy tangy kozhambu with sweet potato. However, this dish is unique in its flavour and amazingly delectable, simply because the sweet potato eases down the spice and blends with the kuzhambu so well. This used to be a popular dish amongst friends too – it was always a hit at the lunch table at work. I dished this up for S several times and this was yesterday’s dinner. However, the American Sweet Potato is not as tasty as the Indian version.

Traditionally, our Vatha Kuzhambu does not contain Paruppu (Cooked toor dal), so it is usually accompanied with a side-dish that contains lentils – yes, the Paruppu Usli. My Paruppu Usli is slightly different from the recipe published in this blog by my teammate. I used Toor and Channa Dal in a 3:1 measure, and grinded the soaked Dals coarsely, without water. If you add water, it takes longer to steam. With just a couple of sprays of oil from a can, this method yields crispy Usli. Covering the pan and cooking it in medium heat crumbles the dals finely and makes it crisp. Traditionally, this is made with Cluster Beans (Kothavarangai). That is a bit more bitter than beans, but delicious.

Here’s what you need for the Vatha Kuzhambu –

1. Sweet Potatoes

2. Sambar Powder – 3 spoons

3. Chilli Powder – 1 spoon, not heaped

4. Tamarind - Lime sized ball extracted with water

5. Channa Dal, Mustards, Curry Leaves, Hing, Turmeric Powder, Fenugreek Seeds, Salt

6. Corn Starch/Rice Flour - Optional

7. A small piece of jaggery/A pinch of sugar - Optional

Here’s how you dish it up –

1. Heat the oil in a deep vessel, allow the mustard seeds to splutter. Follow in the curry leaves, channa dal, and lastly, the fenugreek seeds

2. Add the tamarind juice and turmeric.

3. Add the sweet potatoes, sambar powder, chilli powder and salt.

4. Cover and cook in a medium flame till the raw tamarind odour disappears and the powders are cooked and blended. Allow it to come to a rolling boil. Sometimes, mum adds a pinch of sugar or a piece of jaggery. This helps all the flavours blend well and does not make the dish sweet. This is an optional step and can be avoided.

5. Since this Kuzhambu contains no cooked toor dal, the consistency will be watery. Traditionally to thicken this, a spoon of rice flour dissolved in water is added. I used a spoon of corn starch dissolved in water, since the purpose is the same. The corn starch we get here does not produce a glossy texture, unlike in India. So, if you are cooking this in India, you ought to use rice flour.

6. Give the mixture a good mix after adding the thickening agent and sprinkle some hing.

7. Your Vatha Kuzhambu is ready to serve with rice, sutta appalams, paruppu usli and yogurt.

This is a dish that doesn’t get spoilt easily, even in Indian weather conditions, simply because you don’t add cooked dal. It can be refrigerated and used for up to 4 -5 days. Mum-in-law's Vatha Kuzhambu is different, I presume the spices are grinded fresh, and so the consistency is different. S says she also adds cooked toor dal at times. Iyengar Vatha Kuzhambus are also different. However, this is the recipe I have grown up on - my soul food.

Stir Fried Vegetables with Cottage Cheese – Chinese style

2009-02-06T13:42:00.010-06:00

S and I were in a dilemma about what to cook for dinner. I had been in the kitchen all afternoon baking, cooling and frosting the carrot cake. We wanted to cook something quick so we could watch a DVD. When that is the situation, nothing better than Chinese or Italian to the rescue. We had just had pasta, so we decided it was going to be stir-fried vegetables. Sometimes S and I eat just that, but tonight he wanted it with something more filling. So I used up the rest of the cottage cheese and made Paneer Fried Rice, with just that and Shah Jeera. Quite different from the recipe published before. I didn't cook it the Chinese way - this tastes like the Paneer Fried Rice you get in Eden, a popular Chennai restaurant chain.

Here’s what we needed –

1. Carrots – diagonally sliced

2. 1 red hot pepper and 1 green chilli

3. Green bell pepper

4. Onion – finely sliced

5. Cabbage – shredded

6. Radish – Sliced finely

7. French cut green beans

8. Cottage cheese – cut in chunks

9. Garlic – finely chopped

10.Tomato sauce, Chings Red Chilli Sauce, All-purpose stir fry sauce, Soya sauce, Schezwan Sauce, Ajinomoto, Salt, Sesame oil, Sesame seeds, Chilli Vinegar

You can use any vegetable of your choice. Bok Choy would be perfect for Chinese stir-fries.

Here’s how we dished it up –

1. In a pan, heat some sesame oil. Add the sesame seeds and let them roast a bit.

2. Fry the garlic, red and green chillis and then sauté the cottage cheese lightly with a bit of salt. Traditionally, Tofu is served as a meat replacement. We settled for Cottage Cheese.

3. Add the carrots and let them cook. They take a little longer to soften than the other vegetables. Having said that, S and I love our Chinese food to be properly Chinese – slightly crunchy and not well cooked.

4. Toss in all the other veggies except the cabbage. Add salt and continue stirring

5. Add all the sauces and vinegar – just dashes and dabbles. I didn’t use an exact measurement.

6. Add the cabbage, sprinkle ajinomoto, continue stirring. Check and adjust seasonings as required.

Sesame oil and seeds are crucial, but if you want to skip them, you can go ahead and do so.

S was raving about the stir-fry. I’ve made it before, but this time he found it way better. I guess it’s the sauce blend. He gobbled it up last night, only after saving some for today’s lunch!

Cabbage Curry with Peas and Coconut – Crunchy and delicious

2009-02-06T12:57:00.010-06:00

I know a lot of people who just hate cabbage. They make up excuses for ignoring a cabbage dish. Some find its fragrance repulsive. I’m glad S isn’t one of them, neither is anyone in our family! The cabbage curry is not a difficult one to dish up. It is probably the easiest to cook and is so delicious and goes well with any South Indian main course. Some people end up making it so soggy it gets mashed up. Mum always made the perfect cabbage curry. Perfect is just the right word. It was always well cooked but crunchy to bite. I don’t like a soggy shapeless cabbage – I’m sure no one does.

What matters is the water – yes, you might think you have to use less of it, but our family’s tip – don’t use it at all! Unless you have a rigid cabbage which needs some pre-cooking, you can completely avoid pre-cooking the cabbage in water if you want the perfect cabbage curry. Like all leafy vegetables, cabbage will wilt in water and in heat, and if you choose to use water, you will drain the nutrients away with it. The inner core of the cabbage is what is hard, its exterior is leafy, so it WILL get mushy if you cook it in water. The inner core is not hard to bite, and will cook easily without water. If you are still skeptical, then you can just sprinkle some water on the cabbage in stead of using lots of it.

All you need and have to do is –

1. Shredded cabbage

2. Green peas (optional)

3. Coconut – Compulsory!

4. Red Chillis

5. Mustard seeds, Salt, Hing, Curry Leaves, Split Urad Dal, Channa Dal

6. Turmeric is optional. I love my cabbage curry in shades of green and white. The peas stays fresh green, the coconut stays white, and the cabbage stays a very light greenish white.

In a pan, heat very little oil. Allow the mustard seeds to splutter, and then fry the curry leaves and red chillis followed by the dals. Directly add the shredded cabbage, sprinkle some salt, and make sure the heat is low to medium. Cover the pan, and let it cook. When the cabbage is done, you’ll notice it hasn’t wilted, gotten soggy or mashed up. And you’ll also notice it has cooked well. You have basically allowed it to cook in its own steam! Add the green peas, coconut and hing. Give it a stir and wait for the peas to soften. And that’s it!

Crunchy, quick to make, and delicious. Goes well with Rasam or Sambar rice. I love to eat it just like that too! You can also make this with Moong dal instead of the peas. All you do is boil the moong dal in water and add it to the cooking cabbage. Everything else stays the same.