Flavours and Tastes

Jam and Fruit Tart

2011-12-31T00:05:00.001+01:00

We bid the year 2011 a good bye today....a year that had brought mixed fortunes for many of us. While we rejoiced on occasions of weddings and welcoming new lives, we also were saddened by loss of near and dear ones. Such memories that the year leaves behind will stay etched for a long time.
This year also brought eight 'dare to experiment' bloggers together in a group. In April, Madhuri put the idea forth and we were game....new themes and 'out of the usual' ideas were experimented in our kitchens and shared in posts on bases of monthly themes. We skipped November and Mridhubashini put forward a very colourful theme for the eighth round, which also will welcome the new season in 2012.
Colourful??? very...for she chose to give us all each a colour from the VIBGYOR and White so we cook a rainbow of dishes. Few of us decided that we might make three dishes and my last two posts were in line with the theme for I got to make RED.

I baked this simple fruit tart with a jam centre for the dessert...bidding farewell 2011 with a sweet that isn't all too sweet but just right to enjoy.

My jam was home made adapted from my very respectable author S.Meenakshi ammal and the tart base was an adaption from LG microwave oven cook book.

I chose to make one tart, more like a pie base and fill with the jam, then decorate with red plums. I did not have a good pie dish too, hence I baked in a normal round tin, folding the edges inwards in a plait. The plum slices sat exactly on those folds and covered all the bad patches :)

Recipe for the jam:

350 grams ripe yet firm tomatoes
200ml level cup sugar (you can reduce the sugar to 175 ml, if you want the jam less sweet)
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon (the recipe says cardamom, I preferred cinnamon)
1 tablespoon lime juice

Wash the tomatoes and drop them in hot water. Place the utensil on a high flame and cook for a good five minutes.
Drain the water, allow the tomatoes to cool and peel the skin off.
Blend the tomatoes in a puree. Wash the blender jar and add the little water to the puree.
Take the puree in a heavy bottom bowl. Keeping the fire medium, cook the tomato puree until it has thicken and falls off the spoon when dropped in thick chunks.
Add the sugar, cinnamon powder and the juice of lime.
The sugar will melt and later cook and thicken the syrup.
Cook until a thick jam is formed.
This can be stored in clean jars for about a week at moderate temperatures and in the refrigerator for a week longer. There are no preservatives in the recipe and the earlier it is consumed the better.

For the tart:
1 cup all purpose flour (240 ml level)/ 120 grams
60 grams cold, diced butter
2 tablespoons/ 30 grams castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Few drops vanilla essence
Few tablespoons ice cold water ( I needed 3 tablespoons)

For filling and decorating:
About 75 grams/ 1/4 cup tomato jam
2 red plums cut in 8 wedges

Pre heat the oven to 230 degrees Centigrade.
Sift the flour and baking powder and add the sugar to the sifted flour.
Take this in a bowl, add the vanilla essence and rub in the butter with nimble fingers. (you may choose to do it in the processor or use a dinner knife to cut in; I lost my cutting blade attached to the processor in one of the many moves, and for this small quantity the fingers were sufficient)
When the butter and flour are incorporated in a bread crumb texture, add ice cold water little at a time and form a slightly stiff dough, again handle the dough gently.
Place the ball of dough in the bowl and cover with a cling film. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes.
Roll the dough out in a 1/4" thick base, rolling gently between two sheets of baking paper or plastic.
Butter the pie plate or tin generously and dust with some flour.
Transfer the rolled out dough on to the plate.
Leaving about half an inch wide circumference spread the jam on the surface evenly.
Fold in the edges and seal the jam at the edges. The middle portion has to be left open.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
Allow to cool well and shift the tart to wire racks to cool completely.
Transfer to a serving dish and place sliced fruit wedges to decorate the tart.

Now hop on to the fabulous recipes my freespirit blogger mates Anupama, Deepti, Dhivya, Madhuri, Mridhubashini, Nagalakshmi and Siri have posted to complete the rainbow. Be warned that they are sure to bowl you over.

Filled and Grilled Red Peppers

2011-12-29T11:36:00.002+01:00

Having tempted you with a starter course let me add to my Free spirit bloggers' Rainbow/ VIBGYOR theme Red assigned to me by Mridhubashini, this rice dish for the main course.
We love bell peppers and will mostly have them stuffed. The stuffing varies as per mood on that particular day and the availability of ingredients. Sometimes I use up left overs to make some stuffing recipe and use that up. However, this time I must say that I cooked specially for the stuffing, taking care that the recipe also fell in line with my RED theme and used red colour peppers to grill.
The stuffing is rice cooked with spiced channa masala stewed using more tomatoes and carrots to bring out the red colour. I made this recipe for channa masala from my earlier post. That recipe does not list tomatoes. But I have used few tomatoes and 2 carrots to achieve the colour.

Ingredients:
For the channa rice:
1 cup Basmati rice
1/4 cup channa (white chick peas)
½ cup coriander leaves washed well and dried over a cloth
3 big red onions
4”piece of ginger
2 teaspoons redchilli powder
2 tablespoons any brand channa/chole masala powder
1 marble size ball of tamarind
2 large tomatoes
2 medium carrots
3 teaspoons powdered jaggery
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon cuminseeds
4 green chillis slit lengthwise
2 tablespoons ghee/oil

For the peppers:
(the above rice will be sufficient to fill 5 numbers large bell peppers)
5 red bell peppers
3 tablespoons yoghurt (I had cashew yoghurt and used that)
1 teaspoon kasuri methi
1/8th teaspoon carom seeds
1/2 teaspoon dry mint leaves
1 teaspoon green chilli paste
1 tablespoon coriander leaves
Salt to taste

Method:
Soak the chick peas overnight. Drain the water in the morning and pressure cook the peas until they are soft.
Wash the Basmati rice thoroughly and spread on a cloth for few minutes.
Heat two teaspoons ghee in a pan and roast the drained rice. Take care not to break the rice kernels. Transfer the rice to a cooking pan and add two cups of water to the same. Allow it to stand for about 20 minutes.
Next step is to marinade the peppers.
Wash the peppers and pat them dry.
Using a sharp knife, slice a slit on the top until a small portion is still holding in place with the lower part.
Carefully scoop the seeds and membrane out.
Grind rest of the ingredients listed under the peppers in a marinade paste.
Gently coat the insides of the peppers with the marinade and let them stand for about half an hour.
If the peppers do not stand still, slice the bottom evenly so that they do not fall.

While the peppers are marinating, the rice can be prepared.
Steam the carrots until tender. Drop the tomatoes in boiling water for about 20 seconds and drain. Allow to cool and peel the skin off.
Grind the chopped onions and ginger along with the coriander leaves and the small marble size tamarind.
Grind the tomatoes and carrots to a puree.
Heat a generous tablespoon of ghee in a heavy pan.
Add cumin seeds and the green chillis. Saute' and add the ginger onion paste. Cook over a low flame until the fat separates. Now add the tomato and carrot puree, salt, the rest of the spice powders, jaggery and the cooked peas. Boil and simmer until the gravy is very thick.
Place the rice bowl on heat and bring the water to a boil. Close with a lid and lower the flame.
When the rice is half cooked, add the channa masala and cook further until they blend well and the rice is soft yet grains can be separated.
Pre - heat the grill. I set my microwave to grill 1.
Gently fill the marinated peppers with the rice. Close the tops. I did not seal them, just flapped the top back in place.
Place them in a baking dish. I used my bread trays to stand the peppers in.
Grill for about 7 minutes. The peppers will be well roasted and the skin might start peeling and in some places they may also char a bit.
Remove from grill and transfer to serving dishes.
Serve hot decorated with salad leaves and favoured vegetables.

White and kidney beans falafels and spicy hot vandikkaran chutney

2011-12-27T09:50:00.004+01:00

There are times that you want to try something different from the usual fare and the dish is a hit with guests. Year after year, for navrathri, we make sundal recipes. I do that too; but at times I add something extra to make it more interesting, like making a chat style or adding some crisp to the regular sundals and such. However, this year while shopping for the legumes I chanced to add to my grocery the white haricot beans. They looked quite tempting and when I soaked for the sundal they soaked quickly too. I had, without thinking, soaked a bit too much that I had to reserve some for later use.
On the day I invited ladies from our compound, I decided to make use of the soaked beans. I soaked some red kidney beans/ rajma that day and made use of both beans in one dish - falafels. I made the very easy and hot 'vandikkaran chutney' variation using the locally grown fresh chillis and tomatoes. Both the falafels and chutney paired very well.
This time on the all eight of us, free spirit bloggers have made one round of dishing out various themes and for this month Mridhubashini chose a very colourful theme for the festival season. I have been asked to cook 'RED' dishes for the Rainbow. I opted to do one each of starters, main course and a dessert for the theme, as with other mates. Thus the three posts in succession will feature my "free spirit's rainbow red'.

Ingredients for Falafel:

1/2 cup white haricot beans
1/2 cup red kidney beans
1/4 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Salt to taste
Cooking oil for deep frying

For the Chutney:
5 medium red tomatoes
1 small marble size tamarind
6 medium size and very hot red chillis
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons oil
(the regular vandikkaran chutney is a smooth blend of just salt, tamarind and dry red chillis. I tweaked a bit as I had those fresh chillis and wanted to use them)

Method:
For falafels:
Wash the legumes clean and soak them in water for about 8 hours/ overnight.
Drain the water well and pulse to a coarse dough in the blender.
Add the red chilli powder, tumeric powder, cumin seeds and the salt.
Heat cooking oil in a pan and when the oil reaches optimum heat, make small balls of the dough, flatten slightly in your palms and slide them in the oil as many as would fit in.
Deep fry well on both the sides and remove the crisply fried falafels with a slotted ladle.
Place them on absorbent tissues before transferring to a serving dish.

For the chutney:
Wash and pat the chillis and tomatoes clean and dry.
Soak the tamarind in very little water, enough to soften it up for grinding.
Chop the chillis and tomatoes in very tiny pieces.
Heat oil in a pan and toss the chillis for a few minutes.
Remove from the pan and keep aside.
In the same pan toss the chopped tomatoes until they are cooked to a pulp.
Cool the tomatoes to room temperature.
Transfer the tomatoes, soaked tamarind, saute'ed chillis and salt to the jar of a blender. Grind to a very smooth paste adding sufficient water.
Once done transfer to a serving bowl. Clean the jar with a little quantity of water and extract the adhering paste. Add this to the chutney.
This chutney is not usually tempered or garnished. But if you feel like it you may do so too.

Serve the falafels accompanied with the chutney and enjoy!
Don't thhey both have a very lovely RED?

Breakfast stop spots for Black and White Wednesdays

2011-12-21T02:35:00.002+01:00

Some refreshing coffee and small bites at a nice, chic cafe in the Union Station, Kansas City, MO were all we needed after waking up at unearthly hours, to catch a train to St. Louis.

Having visited Lawrence, we decided to make the trip to St. Louis to visit a fellow blogger friend and her family. Needless to say, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time with them. With Sahana monopolising Raja's attention completely, Shoba had some time on her hands for me! We returned home, with lots of great memories and loads of photographs!! Thank you so much, Shoba, for having us over for a brilliant time, with you, Shrini, your mom and the two beautiful girls!

After term closed for Niki, we made a trip to Denver and Boulder. We had the opportunity to meet Namita and Manoj. With tasty Sadhya, an enriching conversation covering a wide gamut of topics, and their two adorable children, we had a blast of an evening at their home.

With a long trip to Boston, and NJ/NYC coming up over the next week, we are looking forward to meeting family and more friends!

The two pictures above are being sent to Susan's Black and White Wednesdays.

Parangikkai badam kheer

2011-12-05T09:01:00.000+01:00

Did I not tell you that my sister comes up with some fun ideas when it comes to food? She tries to add variety to everyday cooking and most times those dishes are simple to make and a small change here, an addition there makes it taste very different.
Just before Navrathri, a friend of mine left with me one whole small pumpkin before she left on a holiday. I knew that my husband is not very fond of the vegetable. Hence I saved it for an occasion to have guests, so I can finish the vegetable in one go. I planned to make a kootu; however, I was discussing my menu for a weekend lunch party with my sister and she thought I was making a long list that is going to fill my refrigerator with left overs. Both of us cut the list short enough to make the menu appear elaborate at the same time we could minimize work in the kitchen as well as left overs. That is when she suggested I make this kheer.
I was game for experiment though I warned my husband that I am trying this and he is free not to partake if he felt so.
I was in for a pleasant surprise for not just my guests, but my husband too liked it quite a lot. I had added enough almonds fearing that the taste of the vegetable will be overpowering. Surprisingly it did not; in fact, both had blended well and only upon my suggestion that people realized that it was not just badam kheer but had a vegetable base to the same.

Ingredients;
1 cup cubed pumpkin
1/4 cup ground almond powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 litre whole milk, boiled and cooled to room temperature

For garnish:
Few strands of saffron
Chopped cashews dry roasted
Chopped pistachios
Cardamom powder

Method:
Place pumpkin cubes in a bowl, add 100 millilitres milk and pressure cook until the pumpkin is well cooked.
Allow the pumpkin to cool.
Add some warm water or milk to the ground almonds.
Take both the cooked pumpkin and the soaked almond powder in the jar of the blender and puree to a very smooth liquid adding sufficient milk.
Transfer to a heavy bottom cooking utensil and top up with the rest of the milk.
Place on a very low heat and stirring continuously, allow to cook until the raw taste subsides.
Coating the rim of the utensil with a thin coat of ghee will prevent the boiling milk from spilling over. (a new tip I learnt from a guest who watched me boiling milk for coffee)
Add the sugar and cook until the sugar blends well and the kheer thickens a bit.
Allow to cool, refrigerate and serve chilled topped with the garnish of nuts, saffron and cardamom powder. You may also add almond essence if necessary.
If the kheer is very thick and a drinking consistency is desired, add sufficient milk.

There will be no unwanted hint or taste of raw vegetable and even without essence it will taste good.
I have made it the second time without almonds too. Then I left the puree a bit coarse too. It tasted good.
This is best enjoyed chilled.

Jeeraga rasam ready mix powder

2011-12-02T07:35:00.000+01:00

There are quite a few Indian dishes that can be made in preserves and stored. Lately the trend of ready to eat meals has caught up and I see so many varieties of food in small cartons stocked up in the local Indian store aisles. Though I might like to keep some of them handy for a lazy day, I am also apprehensive as they use lot more oil than we normally would and sometimes preservatives.

So when I have to travel and my husband has to cook for himself, I prepare a few stuff at home and he makes a quick meal using these almost ready to eat mixes. For want of time he prefers to keep these stuff to make his job easier.
Not only me, but my sister's mother-in-law who travels every alternate year to stay with her other son prepares much more stuff for my sister before she leaves. It is easy for my sister to manage home alongside her work with some stored quick meal options readily available.

The jeeraga rasam is a quick idea rasam as it does not need the dhal to be pressure cooked. Making the jeeraga rasam fresh at home? Follow this recipe. However, if you think you would like to store some powder and mix it in a quick rasam, try the following.

My aunt (sister's mother-in-law), powders only the dhal, chillis, salt , cumin and other condiments. Her powder requires to prepare the tamarind extract fresh. But I have taken it a step further. I have powdered the mix along with tamarind and hence it is just 'mix with water, bring it to a boil and add tempering and you are ready to serve' recipe.

Ingredients:
150 grams (1X 175 ml cup) thoor dhal
60 grams (2/3rds of the 175 ml cup) cumin seeds
10 to 12 dry red chillis (they weighed less than 5 grams)
2 tablespoons sea salt ( I use salt crystals; if you want to use table salt, adjust accordingly)
50 grams (1/2 of the 175 ml cup loosely packed) tamarind
2 teaspoons turmeric powder
2 teaspoons asafoetida powder

Dry roast the dhal until just about warm. transfer to a flat dish and allow to cool.
Dry roast red chillis until they are brittle and then add to the same the cumin seeds. Toss them around for about two minutes. Transfer to the same dish as the dhal.
Likewise, dry roast the asafoetida powder, salt and the turmeric powder just a little bit.
Clean the tamarind and tear it in pieces. If possible dry the tamrind in hot sun or dry roast gently on a low flame. This exercise is to ensure that the tamarind is dry enough and the powder is uniform without clogging in lumps and removing the moisture.
Take the dhal and condiments in the dry spice blender and pulse. Add to this the tamarind and grind to a fine to slightly coarse powder.
Cool and store in airtight containers.

To make the rasam, mix a 2 table spoons of this powder in two and half cup hot water.
Pour the mixed solution in a pan and bring to a boil, stirring off and on to avoid formation of lumps as the dhal cooks.

Switch the heat off soon as the rasam foams.
Heat a teaspoon ghee in a pan and add mustard seeds. When they crackle add the curry leaves and transfer the tempering to the prepared rasam.
Garnish with fresh chopped coriander leaves if you have them on hand.

This rasam will be rare in density and can be had as soup also.
Enjoy with steamed hot rice and any vegetable of choice.
This powder and some other ready mix powders have been stocked now in my pantry for my husband as he will fend for himself for about twenty days when he leaves ahead of me from our holiday in the US of America.
We will be leaving shortly and spend most part of December with my daughter.
See you all when I get back to routine in January 2012!

Spices for Black and White Wednesday

2011-11-30T05:27:00.005+01:00

"Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go".

Erma Bombeck

So would I, and these jars will have to go along.....Take a look at my jars.....

Susan's Black and White Wednesday -a culinary photo event runs the 21st week today and my spice jars are being sent to her.

Karuveppilai kuzhambu ready mix powder

2011-11-26T18:26:00.002+01:00

I usually make a few 'almost ready to eat' type of dishes for my husband whenever I travel. He finds it hard to eat out every meal. Earlier he may not have wanted to cook for himself, but lately he is happy to have rice with a simple rasam or upma and such. My refrigerator door will be filled with 'post it strips- instructions' for him. I partly cook some dishes and freeze in individual packs like stuffed parathas, roast the vermicelli, onions and microwave the vegetables and so on.

Likewise my mother and one of my aunts have lot more 'pack and carry to wherever you live' ideas for us. For instance, I find it hard to buy fresh curry leaves off the grocer sometimes. My mother's garden has an abundant supply that people in our street just walk in and take bunches for their needs.

Amma would pluck them, clean and dry in shade for me to pack with my other groceries. I store that in bottles and use them. Though this might not match the taste of fresh leaves' they are good enough. The Egyptians will store mint in a similar fashion. Hence my pantry stocks up such leaves too, and my deep freezer will always have a supply of few cut and boiled vegetables for emergencies.

When my daughter started her own cooking in the university, along with rasam powder, paruppu podi etc., my sister's mother-in-law prepared this kuzhambu podi also. It is so easy to make karuveppilai kuzhambu with this powder; just mix in warm water and bring to a boil with some oil added in the start of the process and the kuzhambu is ready to eat.

That recipe is what I am sharing here. The regular recipe for making karuveppilai kuzhambu with fresh curry leaves and spices can be read in an earlier post.

This makes about 200 ml powder which might last a while for you only need two teaspoons for one cup (200ml) of water which will boil and reduce to about 170ml kuzhambu.

Ingredients:
2 cups Fresh curry leaves
100 -120 grams Urad dhal
50 grams Thoor dhal
15 Dry red chillis
1 tablespoon Black pepper corns
2 teaspoons Cumin seeds
1 big lemon size ball of Tamarind
3 teaspoons Sea salt (if using table salt, adjust accordingly)
1 teaspoon Asafoetida powder
1 teaspoon Turmeric powder
1 tablespoon powdered Jaggery
2 teaspoons Oil

Method:
Dry roast separately the two dhals until golden in colour and an aroma wafts from the roasting.
In the hot pan add the salt and roast it until very warm. Tear the tamarind in small bits and toss it n the same pan with the salt for about 5-7 minutes.
Heat the oil and roast the red chillis, pepper and cumin.
Remove these and add to the roasted dhals and the other roasted ingredients.
On a low flame, toss the curry leaves until they wilt and become brittle.
Allow all the roasted ingredients to cool.
Transfer the ingredients, saving the curry leaves and the jaggery to the bowl of the spice grinder and pulse until they are coarsely powdered.
Add the curry leaves and grind further until a fine powder is achieved.
Finally mix the jaggery in this.
Cool well and store in clean glass jars.

To prepare kuzhambu:
In one cup of very warm water dissolve two teaspoons of the powder and mix well without lumps.
Heat 2 tablespoons of gingely oil in a pan. Add some mustard seeds and allow to crackle.

Pour the above mix and cook until the mixture boils and simmer for a further few minutes.
Serve with hot steamed rice, dosais or arisi upma kohukkattai and paruppu adai.

I made this now because I am on a longer holiday with my daughter and my husband gets back to work in order to accommodate his colleagues who are heading home for Christmas.

Little everyday rituals that live on - Black and White Wednesdays

2011-11-23T03:51:00.006+01:00

It is a fast changing world and rural India is no exception. My small town decades ago, is today a big city sporting tall buildings, colleges, departmental stores and shopping arcades. What used to be a vegetable market has now given way to the expanded bus station and has been shifted to a proper roofed market place to name a few.

But some small and nice things live on.....we still witness loads of everyday activities that happen. I get to see all my neighbours clean up their front yards and draw beautiful kolams; vegetable vendors and the bakery boy on his bicycle visit the neighbourhood religiously, and the paper boy on his cycle deftly tosses the dailies into the compound and so on.....

One more such scene is, in this age of HTST processed packet milk and UHT processed longlife carton milk, the milkman bringing fresh milk in his large cans. The only change in his case is that he has a motorcycle in the place of the bicycle.

See the women folk have a small gossip session just then :-)

This man has been supplying milk for many years in our locality and we can be assured that he will have some extra milk in those cans to supply you if there is an unexpected guest around tea time!

I love being there...more than just to be in the comfort of my parents' care...to be reminded of these fond memories!

Pleased to share these pictures in Susan's Black and White Wednesdays - culinary photo event.

Stuffed potato floats

2011-11-22T06:06:00.001+01:00

To say the least, this culinary experience of cooking and sharing recipes as made me more experimental and daring. Many times I fail to impress myself with an attempt and do not feel good about sharing, yet many other times, I feel it is all worth the experiment.
Isn't it true that if encouraged, one tries to do ordinary things extraordinarily? However limited my husband's choices were with vegetables, and I enjoyed most others too, he would add them to the shopping and will partake a miniscule spoonful of the end product. But I always combined such with his choicest potatoes and tomatoes that he was left with no option but to consume.
Then there was a phase that I cooked for friends who always had nice compliments that thrilled me and thus made me look for interesting things. Sharing recipes in my blog has taken it to newer dimensions. One such experiment is the recipe in this post.

I had tried making koftas with mashed potatoes and filling the core with different stuff, baked them and then stuffed the centres and some such dishes. Recently, I had some handsome looking potatoes that I scooped the centres out and filled with other stuff and floated them in a gravy. It was one dish that my guests were going for more helpings.

Ingredients: (serves for four people)
For floats:
6 medium to large, firm potatoes cut in halves

For the filling:
2 tablespoons almond meal
2 tablespoons raisins
2 green chillis chopped
1 large tomato chopped
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 teaspoons oil
Salt to taste

For the gravy:
1/3 cup moong dhal
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons sambhar powder or rasam powder
2 medium tomatoes
1 large red onion
5 cloves garlic
3 dry red chillis
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon oil
Salt to taste

Other ingredients:
cooking oil required to saute' the potatoes

Method:
Preparing the potato floats:
Wash the potatoes and scrub them very clean. You may peel the jackets prior to scooping or choose to steam them with the skin on and then peel.
Cut the potatoes in half in the middle.
Using a sharp knife, scoop out carefully a sizable chunk of potato from the centre of each half, leaving a slightly thick wall on the sides.
Slice a small portion of the bottom for stability.
Keep the scooped centres aside and steam the cup like potatoes until just about tender and the peel comes off. Steam separately the scoops and mash them well.
Keep these aside until required.

Preparing the filling:
Heat the oil in a pan, add all the ingredients for the filling and toss them for a while.
Add the mashed potato and blend the filling well.

Fill the dents in the potato floats with the prepared filling. Heat oil in the kuzhi paniyaaram pan/ Aebleskiver pan. Place gently the filled potatoes with the filling showing upwards and shallow fry them until they are roasted.
Since the filling has already been cooked well, there is no need to turn them over and roast.
Once the potatoes are roasted remove from the pan and place them on absorbent tissues.

For the gravy:
Roast the moong dhal a bit until aromatic. Pressure cook the moong dhal with turmeric powder until very soft and mash the same. I run it in the blender and made it to a soup-like consistency.
Chop the onion, tomatoes and the garlic.
Heat oil and add the dry red chillis, coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Add the chopped onions first and few minutes later the garlic. Cook them well.
Allow to cool and blend well in a mixer adding the sambhar powder, garam masala powder. Blend the chopped tomatoes separately.

Add this to the mashed dhal and salt and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat and allow to simmer and thicken to desired consistency.
Few minutes before removing from the stove, place the potatoes gently. Allow them to simmer in the gravy and absorb the flavours.
Switch the heat off and transfer the gravy to the serving dish. Add fresh coriander leaves for garnish. I had some grated carrots and fresh red chillis that I used also.

Serve hot with chappathis, naan , phulkas or rotis.

This dhal based curry is being sent to Priya's Cooking with seeds event currently running in her own blog with Moong beans.

Lachcha Parathas

2011-11-17T08:54:00.001+01:00

Chappathis and parathas, paired with some nice curry make a winning combination for dinner time.
Most regularly, I might make the normal phulkas or rotis and a simple dhal tadka, vegetable kurma or if craving for something rich malai kofta or such gravy dishes.
Naan and few other parathas are not regularly enjoyed but when I am in the mood for something out of the ordinary, I tend to cook any of those.
Lachcha parathas fall under one such list. For the reason that it needs a bit more patience than my usual, I try them rarely. Moreover, they can be very filling and mostly during night we tend to eat light. But if you really want to have a hearty meal you could try them. There is a fair amount of cooking process, but the result will surely please you.
I have adapted methods from two cookbooks, one of Tarla Dalal and the other from S.Meenakshi Ammal and combined the processes to make my recipe.

Ingredients: (makes 10 to 13 parathas)
2 cups (500ml) whole wheat flour
Salt to taste
Few spoons cooking oil

For spreading between the layers:
2 tablespoons clarified butter
3 tablespoons -1/4 cup very fine rice flour (pounded rice flour sieved through a muslin cloth)

Other ingredients:
Flour for dusting
Few spoons of cooking oil

Method:
Combine flour, salt and the cooking oil well. Add enough water and mix in a soft dough. Knead repeatedly to form a very pliable and elastic dough.
Smear few drops of oil on the surface and cover with a damp cloth.
Take the ghee in a fairly large plate. Rub the same with the inner palm providing heat through the process. The ghee will become creamy. Add the very fine rice flour, little at a time and bring them together in a very light cream-like paste.
Pinch out medium size balls off the dough.
Roll one of those balls as thin and as large as possible, dusting with flour very lightly.
Cut thus rolled dough in strips of an inch and a half in width.
On the surface generously spread the prepared ghee rice flour paste.
Arrange the strips one on top of the other with the paste spread face facing top.

Finally roll this in a tight ball. Keep aside.
Repeat this procedure with the rest of the dough.
Once the entire dough has been rolled, Take each at a time and keeping the layers at a slight angle, roll the ball in a medium circular disc, not pressing on the dough heavily.
Place the pan on the stove and when the optimum heat has been reached, transfer the rolled paratha on to the pan.
Cook this well smearing oil until well cooked on both sides.

Repeat the same for all the rolled balls.
Serve hot with any gravy of your choice.

Rolling stones of the wet grinder - Black and White Wednesday

2011-11-16T03:55:00.007+01:00

We are a household that does not eat light breakfast. My husband does not feel satisfied with a bowl of cereals or flakes. The lightest I might cook would be upma on many days. However, having a prepared batter to steam some idlis or spread nice crisp dosais is such a comfort, especially in my home.
For until my late teens, my mother did not insist on a wet grinder - a heavy duty appliance for tough grinding! She had a domestic help who did the grinding on the traditional mortor, we call attukkal or kallural. We were asked to lend a hand sometimes too. In fact, during holidays in our grand parents home, these were considered fun activities for girls and boys alike!
I too made do with my mixer grinder for many years. Finally when I had to entertain guests, grinding with the mixie was a task, that I decided to purchase a wet grinder and am happy that I did.
I put this to use quite often for all types of batter grinding and on one such day, I took some pictures of the process.....and sharing them through this post.
The pictures below show the soaked rice being processed to a batter for the sevai / shavige or string hoppers that was the picture of last week.

The picture below is a view from the top....the drum revolves in a clockwise motion, the stones each rotate on an axis and the ingredient that has been dropped in is crushed and ground to a batter. The hand on the side regulates the flow of the ingredients being ground.

Capturing motion was fun!

Half way through the process, some grains have been stuck to the face of the roller stone.

I had not expected to see grains of rice when the batter is almost ready.

Near end....a thick batter which will eventually be diluted with the water that will be used to clean the drum and the stones.

Small portions of batter flying off the roller stones and casting shadows in the batter and reflections on the inner walls of the drum go unnoticed unless you are taking pictures.

Sending these to Susan's Black and White Wednesdays - A weekly Culinary Photo Event.

Roasted tomato and bell peppers soup

2011-11-14T06:14:00.002+01:00

Once in a while, when I find that my mind is blank on dinner ideas and am exhausted dishing out some upma or another, I decide to make soup and have. Between me and my husband, I can live on soups and salads while he isn't a fan of either. Yet he has a few exceptions, though he may not admit that he quite likes them.
Few days ago, I craved for the comfort of a warm bowl of soup. I had earlier baked the potato bread and so I paired it with this soup, which I hoped was detox after all the deepavali bakshanam consumed.
The recipe was printed and handed to me by the chefs in The Gateway Hotel, sometime in July earlier this year. I had perfect large and firm yet ripe tomatoes and red bell peppers which are main ingredients in this recipe. However, as I proceeded with the soup, I strayed far beyond the printed leaflet on hand.
Recipe for russian potato bread is an earlier post in this site. Spread some garlic butter to the bread and enjoyed with the soup.

Ingredients:
1 large red bell peppers
1 large tomato
1/2 of one small size red onion chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 small sprig thyme (or use dry thyme about 1/2 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon butter
Water as required
Fresh cream just to finish

Method:
Wash the pepper and tomato. Pat them dry.
Carefully, roast the pepper on medium flame directly, turning on all sides until they are charred at the surface. Immediately, wrap this in a cling film. Allow to cool.
Similarly, using a mesh over the stove, place the tomato and roast the same lightly, just until warm. Or for better roasting, grill the same in an oven until short of getting charred. Just as with the pepper, cover the tomato also and leave it to cool.
Once both have cooled to room temperature, rub the cling film so that the charred outer skin of the vegetables fall off. Chop them both coarsely. Keep aside.
Melt butter in a heavy pan. Add the chopped onions and roast them well. Add the garlic and the thyme. Saute' and then add the chopped tomato and peppers.
Add enough water and bring to a boil. Reduce the flame and simmer for about five minutes.
Allow to cool and then puree in a blender.
Pass this though a sieve. Top this with cream to finish.
Serve hot with a basket of warm bread.

Badam Kheer - a vegan version

2011-11-11T05:20:00.006+01:00

Time and again, I set myself the task of reading the Sundara Kandam from the Valmiki Ramayana . There are a few set reading rituals as ordained by our elders viz. read all 68 chapters in one day, split them over two/three/five or nine days and so on. Recently, I did the reading and on the concluding day I desired to make some sweet and some urad dhal vadais for offering.
It so coincided that on that Saturday, I wanted to also try my hand on the 'one day vegan challenge' set by Harini.
Pondering upon the sweet dish that I might make without the use of any dairy and coconut (as I had already done an overdose of coconut usage for one day), I remembered the kadalai paruppu payasam in S. Meenakshi Ammal's Samaiththu paar volume two. That recipe uses milk and I was sure I can skip the milk and use almonds to compensate the lack of the same.
During the initial days of my working, the staff of our office preferred to party at a particular restaurant that was just a stone's throw from the office building. Mostly it was a Saturday lunch and invariably the featured sweet dish was a poor attempt at Badam Kheer, which we always detested having it there. We used to jokingly discuss the ingredients and preparation. On one such occasion one of the senior staff recognised that it had the flavour of gram flour. Then on we would joke that it was water added gramflour to which few drops of essence and food colour was added.
However, during the later years, I discovered that indeed you could make a faux badam kheer with grinding bengal gram and milk, add few drops of essence and it works!
Now I had the task of not using cow's milk on that day and I took a look at the recipe in the book.
The author had suggested that if you add a few almonds and grind it along with the channa dhal, it would taste as nearly as badam kheer which has a thin consistency, yet delicious in taste.
I set out to try the recipe substituting the cow's milk with almonds that were ground to a fine milk texture. The result was quite an amazingly rich kheer that had the real flavour of the almonds and the roasted gram. The consistency was that of a drinkable kheer, thicker than badam milk, but not quite thick as regular payasam/ kheer.
For the garnish, I dry roasted on a very low flame the chopped cashews and pistachios.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup split Bengal gram / channa dhal
1/4 cup (loosely packed) whole almonds
1/2 cup sugar (adjustable according to taste)

For garnish:
2 tablespoons chopped cashews and pistachios
1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
few strands of saffron

Cooking Procedure:
Soak the almonds in very hot water for a few minutes. When the water has come to room temperature, skin the almonds and discard the water and skin.
Soak them again in one cup of very warm water.
Meanwhile, heat a pan and add the channa dhal to it. On a moderate heat, toss the dhal until it roasts to a golden brown and gives away a strong aroma.
Soak the channa dhal in another bowl in one cup of water.
When both the almonds and the dhal have cooled, grind them separately adding the same water that you soaked them in. the pastes should be very smooth and of fine texture.
Take the ground channa dhal in a bowl. Mix some water to make a very thin liquid and place this on the stove.
Also in another bowl take the ground almond milk and bring that to a boil.
Stir both the liquids frequently to avoid them getting burnt. Simmer both until the raw taste is lost.
Then mix both the liquids in one of the bowls, stir in the sugar and cook until the sugar dissolves.
Then add the cardamom powder and the saffron strands. Allow the mixture to thicken a bit.
Without any fat, dry roast the chopped nuts until they are golden.
Cool the kheer well and serve with a garnish of the nuts.
This kheer tastes best served chilled.
You may opt to cook both the liquids together, or to grind both the soaked dhal and almonds together and proceed, if making a small quantity. That saves fuel and time.

If desired, you may also add few drops of almond essence that will enhance the flavour, though it is not necessary. The roasting of the dhal and the addition of cardamom are sufficient to make this kheer delicious.
For those who would cook with milk, reduce the quantity of water that you add to either paste; but you will have to cook them well until the raw taste is lost. Add boiled milk to the cooked mix and bring to a boil with the sugar.
You may also roast the garnish with ghee or any form of fat.
My earlier post on the regular Badam Kheer can be read in this page.

No 'moar'-kuzhambu and eating vegan through a day

2011-11-09T09:15:00.000+01:00

'What is there to change in a South Indian diet when most of it is nearly vegan' is what my husband commented as I discussed the idea of staying vegan through a day. I had to convince him to join in, you see. I listed out the dairy that we use on a regular basis and I could see that I might be losing his support.
Eventually, we agreed upon a menu, I suggested then that I will serve him black tea (for green tea would have put a full stop to the plans then and there). He chuckled thinking of the teas he might have at work, and agreed. To coax him enough, I made puri and kizhangu for breakfast and neer dosa for dinner! Having set that, I worked though the lunch where I had my trump card for him!
The one thing I had forgotten was the morning tea! Which household in our regions does not wake up to a steaming hot filter kapi or a blissful cup of chai? However, he was a good sport and had the black tea without fuss.
Thus a Saturday of cooking and eating vegan was otherwise novel. I had not thought it would be easy to forgo 'nei' and thick home set yoghurt even for a day!
I had earlier made the vegan cashew yoghurt from Harini's post and used in the Badami mixed vegetables recipe. The yoghurt had set so well and tasted very good that I used other ingredients to set yoghurt - peanuts once and coconut milk a few times.
The method I used was always the same; warm the coconut milk until moderately warm and drop about 15 chilli crowns in it and allow that to work. Initially, I had, without knowledge, used the second extract and found that the yoghurt was not as thick as I would like it to be.
With a few trials, I learnt that while the chilli crowns are indeed a good option, setting this with a bit of other vegan set yoghurt, for instance the cashew yoghurt, expedites the process. This yoghurt set in about five hours on warm days. I had planned to use this yoghurt and try the regular moarkuzhambu that uses a fair amount of churned yoghurt as key ingredient.
Having made up my mind on that, the lunch menu was also set : Vendaikkai vathakkal kari, vegan moarkuzhambhu, steamed rice and a kootu which uses a base of legumes (a recipe, I thought will help just in case my husband is not inspired to eat a vegan moarkuzhambu).

I have not posted the poori-kiazhangu until now; (I am making a mental note of that). Neither have I discussed vendaikkai vathakkal kari, other than from Aparna's recipe for a days' lunch. All of these will be posted in the near future.
However, today's star recipe is the 'Vegan moarkuzhambu'.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup/125ml preset coconut-milk yoghurt (recipe discussed below)
Salt to taste
1/4th teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4th teaspoon asafoetida powder
Suitable vegetable cuts of your choice (I used brinjals)

Grind the following to a paste:
1 teaspoon split bengal gram / channa dhal
1/2 teaspoon thuvar dhal
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon raw rice kernels
3 large green chillis
Soak these in a small amount of water for a few minutes and grind to a smooth paste.
I skipped the usual addition of fresh grated coconut as the yoghurt already has a fair portion of the same.

For garnish:
2 teaspoons coconut oil (or any cooking oil)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4th teaspoon cumin seeds
Few sprigs curry leaves
Chopped coriander leaves (if available)

Method:
Setting coconut milk yoghurt:
Take one cup of first extract coconut milk in a bowl. Warm this on a moderate flame until the milk is warm. Do not boil the milk.
Remove from the stove and drop about 15 numbers fresh chilli crowns in the same.
Set this in a warm place and leave undisturbed for about six to eight hours.
The coconut yoghurt will set. Remove the chilli crowns and discard.
You might notice that the thicker yoghurt like substance is floating over some watery mass below. But do not worry. Stir the same and you have your yoghurt ready.
You may use, if you have on hand, some vegan yoghurt to set this and not use chilli crowns.
However, expect that this yoghurt does not set as thick as dairy yoghurt; nor it has the rich creamy flavour of the cashew/ almond yoghurt. You might sense a slight tinge of coconut oil also, if your coconut has been very mature. But this blends well while cooking and adds to the flavours. You will be surprised that this has a nice slightly sweet taste while it also has enough tang that makes it suitable to use in such dishes.
I have used it in aviyal the following day and carried for a potluck. My guests did not find it different, until being told that it was vegan.

Use 1/2 cup of this yoghurt for the moarkuzhambu.

Method for the moarkuzhambu:
Cut the vegetables that you are using in the kuzhambu.
Take the vegetable and turmeric powder in a pan with water and cook the same.
Meanwhile prepare the paste as listed in the grinding.
Add about 100 ml water, asafoetida powder and salt to the paste.
When the vegetable has become tender, add the above and cook on a medium flame until the mixture thickens. Stir off and on to avoid forming lumps.

When the mixture has cooked well with all the raw tastes subsiding, add the coconut yoghurt.
Reduce the flame a bit and allow this to come to a boil. Reduce the heat to the lowest, simmer just for a few seconds and switch the stove off. Over heating will curdle the coconut milk.
Heat the oil for tempering in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Once they crackle, toss the curry leaves in the same and add this to the kuzhambu.
If you have fresh coriander leaves, wash them and add chopped leaves to the above.

We did not detect that it was a non-dairy kuzhambu at all. It was just as good as the usual yoghurt based recipe. In fact I had an unexpected guest who found it hard to believe. That success gave me confidence to prepare aviayal with the coconut yoghurt for about a dozen others. Needless to say that was largely welcome too!

Added to the vegan cooking, that day as I had completed one reading of the Sundara Kandam, I prepared a no milk badam kheer (recipe is my next post) and urad dhal vadas for the evening.
A night's dinner with neer dosa and thakkali-vengayam chutney made a whole day of keeping off non-vegan products.

Harini is hosting a giveaway through the 12th of November. She had set this challenge and I wanted to join in. Thus this post came by and a thoroughly intriguing day long vegan meal. There is an interesting guest post by Preethi and Srinivas of Krya -creating vegan awareness in Tongue Tickers. Please have a look and I am sure you will also want to try the challenge, like I did.

String Hoppers for Black and White Wednesdays

2011-11-09T05:00:00.002+01:00

We had an extended weekend with the Eid festival being celebrated on Monday. Our friends decided to have the deepavali parties during this period; thus our lunch and dinner menus and timings took their own pattern. This afternoon's lunch was string hoppers at home. String hoppers are sevai in tamilian homes or shavige as it is known in South Canara.

My husband willingly opted to press the prepared dough while I took pictures.
I am sharing one such picture here; can you see the steam rising from the just steamed and pressed rice balls as they fall in neat strings through the pores?

This picture goes to Susan's Black and White Wednesdays.

Black and white Wednesday - worked overtime

2011-11-02T13:53:00.006+01:00

Deepavali has just been celebrated; these were the over worked kitchen gadgets during the week before the festival.

Recipes made using the murukku press can be read in earlier posts.
Ribbon pakodas, Nylon ribbon, Jantikalu and Muththusarai are a few that have been made using this gadget.

This picture is for Susan's Black and White Wednesdays.

Mushroom pulav

2011-10-31T06:34:00.009+01:00

At home, my parents never forced us to eat anything if we refused to. Thus, the three of us grew up avoiding many vegetables, fruits and food as such without much ado. There were some that one of us might hate to eat while the rest of us were fond of. So such dishes were cooked and enjoyed by the ones who liked it; one's loss was someone's gain.
Even if my mother would have tried to force anything upon us, we stood our grounds and looked for our grandparents to support us. That is possibly the reason why my younger sister has lot many on the 'no, never to try' list! I had spent a few years with an uncle and his wife had seen to that I eat everything that was cooked and was acceptable for a child.
However, growing up in rural India in the 70s and 80s meant that we were not aware of the existence of many vegetables that are so easily available today. For instance, I came across broccoli and asparagus sometime in my late twenties. Even some of the regular vegetables were kept aside on specific days in our home and some vegetables had a 'no entry' limit.
I was introduced to mushrooms as fungi, for the wild mushrooms grew like everywhere in our back yard once the rains came down. And their health benefits were unheard of.
Then on my husband's first appointment with a shipping agency, he moved to Khor Fakkan in UAE. There the containers that carried food items were strictly subject to checking by the Ministry of Health.
As a representative of the line, my husband's job included that he facilitated such inspections.
The official and a dietician will randomly open some of the packs and take away samples for inspection before certifying them fit for consumption and clearing the consignment. Those randomly opened cartons were distributed to the dock workers by the consignee. Sometimes they might leave a pack or two with the line's office also. That way we have tasted some very good quality biscuits to some rancid crisps.
On one such occasion he was handed two tins of mushrooms. I had no clue as to how to cook them. Our neighbour, a doctor, suggested that they were acquired taste and since we were not seafood eaters, we might not like the taste. She offered to cook the same at her place and share the dish with us. Possibly, the apprehension stemmed from the mention of seafood and I did not truly like the taste.
Many years later, my sister cooked mushrooms in pulav and gravy and fed my daughter. She seemed to like them then. Thus, mushrooms gained their entry into my kitchen, but only for my daughter to eat. My husband would pick the tiny mushrooms out from his pizza wedges and I might swallow them without biting into those pieces.
I hope you have guessed where all this is leading to. Yes, our freespirit blogger pal Anupama suggested a theme for this month. She wanted us to make something that we have hated (still hate) and would avoid given the opportunity. Or, she said, if you were one of those who never refused something, try some ingredient that you have never used so far.
I am one who has more on the likes list than the counterpart. As a youngster, I avoided elephant yam, I never had even a sip of coffee until I went to work, even worse, as a youngster I would not drink anything if milk has been added to it in my presence. That was so long ago and a far away time. Today, I eat, drink, consume many things without sniffing at it.
Thinking hard and pondering on the theme, I had to decide on mushrooms only, for I had to give myself and my husband a chance to try them. I purchased a small can of sliced button mushrooms, called my sister to share the recipe, cooked it at home, conveniently on a day when I had a friend for lunch.

But, to be honest, I think I might include these once in a way for they seem to carry a 'HEALTH" label all over them.

Ingredients:
2 cups Basmati rice (brown rice or any long grain rice)
150 grams sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup coconut milk
1&1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1' piece cinnamon
5 units cloves
2 pieces maratta moggu
2 petals of star anise
1/2 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon green chilli paste
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1 teaspoon crushed dry mint leaves
1 teaspoon dry fenugreek leaves
2 medium onions
3 tomatoes
Salt to taste

For garnish:
1 tablespoon ginger juliennes saute'd in olive oil
1 small piece bay leaf
Few cashew nuts (fried) (optional)

Method:
Wash the basmati rice clean and spread on a cloth to drain excess moisture.
Slice half of one onion finely. The rest, chop coarsely as you may be grinding them.
Grind the coarsely chopped onions, dry mint and fenugreek leaves along with the garam masala powder to a fine paste.
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in the pressure cooker, add the drained rice and saute' for a few minutes.
Transfer the rice to another bowl and add a cup and a half of water to the same. Keep aside for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile cook the tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes, cool and puree them.
Heat again 1/2 teaspoon oil and fry the onion slices until soft and transparent. Keep aside.
Heat the rest of the oil in the pressure cooker. Add the cinnamon, cloves, maratta moggu and star anise. Then add the ginger paste and then the green chilli paste. In a few seconds add the fine ground onion paste and then the garlic paste. Cook them in the oil on a very low flame until the raw taste subsides.

Drop the mushrooms in and add the salt. Toss until the mushrooms acquire a coat of the masala and then add the coconut milk.
While on a medium flame allow the coconut milk to warm and then add the rice along with the water and the tomato puree. Add another cup of water to the ingredients that are cooking. If the rice has been aged, you may require some more water.
Bring the above ingredients to a boil and place the lid of the pressure cooker on.
Soon as it steams, place the cooker weight and when the first whistle comes on, reduce the flame to the lowest and allow an extra minute to cook.
Switch the stove off and allow the pressure inside to subside.
Open the lid and give the cooked pulav a toss to fluff the same.
Transfer to a serving dish and add the saute'd onion slices and the ginger juliennes.
Serve hot with a curry of choice. I served mine with Lauki Koftas stewed in a gravy of ground almonds, cashews and onions.

Please stop by other Freespirit bloggers to check what ingredients were not their fancies, yet they wanted to try their hands on.

I am pleased to send this to Kavi's Healthy Lunch event, which is part of Smita's Healthy Cooking Challenge.

Rawa badam burfi - Deepavali is around

2011-10-22T10:48:00.008+01:00

I am sure many kitchens are buzzing with activity at this instant, for we will be celebrating our most important festival this week. For those who also usher a new year in, my warm wishes for the same also.
Every year the festive season is reason to get nostalgic. I am washed over by the wave of childhood memories. I seem to be smiling to myself as I set about preparing sweets and savoury dishes to share and eat.
Those days, my mother will pull out all her big brass and stainless steel containers, wash and sun dry them to use them for storing sweetmeats and snacks. We have seen her and my grandmother work long hours preparing stuff that we will eagerly wait to consume. You shall enter the house well prepared for the assault of aromas from deep frying or fat being cooked with a sugary mass. Now while I make them, somehow the thrill is lost between staying in the kitchen around those smells and aromas and the work load. Yet there is no complaint about that. Year after year I look forward to doing stuff, over and over again.
This time my household gets active with making the list of what I shall make and whom I shall have to send across to. Then my husband will start his suggestions, sometimes so hefty that I may have to veto the idea at the budding stage. He will wonder if I can try something as exotic as soan papdi and kaju kathlis. I may give in to few of his whims while I might have my own list in mind.
Thus this year, his choice went with Bombay jalebis and gulab jamuns and I added this rawa-badam burfi which I thought will be easy for packing in boxes for friends. The usual thirattuppaal is the very first I would make and hence along with the same the khova for the gulab jamuns got done. The savoury will be deepavali mixture and the ribbon pakodas.

This sweet came to my mind when I purchased the durum wheat semolina which was very fine in texture. S.Meenakshi Ammal book has one rawa burfi recipe that adds coconut to the same. I tried replacing the coconut with the almonds. We loved the sweet and quickly, I had to note down the changes I made. What better would be, than to make a post soon after I have enjoyed the sweet?

Ingredients:
2 cups super fine semolina (I powdered this to a very fine texture)
1 cup (packed) ground almonds
3&1/2 cups sugar
1 &1/3 cup ghee (slightly lesser quantity of ghee will work too, my burfis were slightly on the fudge side)
2 teaspoons powdered cardamom

Method:
If you have ground almond feel free to use the same. Else, you may have to go about the procedure as what I did.
Soak some 40 numbers of almonds in very hot water for about 7 minutes. Skin them and spread the almonds on a cloth to allow them to dry. Change the cloth twice and allow them to dry well.
Coarsely pound them with a pestle and roast them on a low flame until the moisture is lost.
Transfer to the jar of a blender and pulse intermittently to achieve a powder that matches the semolina in texture.
Heat few teaspoons of the ghee in a heavy bottom pan. Add the almond powder and roast the same on a low flame until aromatic. Transfer the contents to a flat dish and allow to cool.
In the same heavy pan, add a generous quantity of ghee and roast the semolina until golden to slightly brown and very aromatic. If you can powder this (like it is done for rawa ladoos) also to a slightly fine powder, the texture of the burfi will be smooth.
If you like the crunch in your burfi, you may proceed with a fine textured semolina.
Transfer this also to the same plate as the almonds. Mix them well.
Prepare a cookie plate or stainless steel plate by greasing the same with a few teaspoons of ghee.
Dissolve the sugar in some water in a heavy pan. Make a syrup that can be drawn in a long thread when pulled between your thumb and forefinger.
If there are impurities in the sugar, add a small ladle full of milk and when the scum surfaces remove the same. If this procedure is not done, the colour of the final product may jump to an undesirable brown.

When the sugar syrup has been achieved, add the roasted almond-semolina mix dropping the same gently into the boiling syrup while stirring the same with your other hand.
Stir the contents well and avoid forming lumps, until the mix cooks well and gathers in a mass, that starts leaving the sides of the pan.
Add the rest of the ghee in small quantities at intervals and add the cardamom powder also.
Once the mass has been cooked well and leaves the sides with big white bubbles appear, transfer to the greased plate.
Tap the contents to spread evenly and smooth the surface with the back of the spatula or using a small portion of banana leaf.
Allow the mixture to cool and cut pieces in desired shapes - squares, rectangles or diamonds.
When completely cool lift the pieces off the plate and store.
Enjoy the same and share with your friends too.
Wishing you all a very happy deepavali. May there be end to all evils and peace reign upon.

Nei karaboondhi -a savoury treat for deepavali

2011-10-21T13:41:00.000+01:00

Most commonly made savoury treat during Deepavali is the deepavali mixture. Many crisp savoury items are made and mixed to create this mixture. That makes it quite voluminous in yield and often made purely because it is easy to distribute to friends and neighbours.
We were three girls having three (or more) choice crisps and our mother used to treat us to them. One of us liked omapodi while the other's choice was theankuzhal ( that reminds me to post both of those...for the love for sisters!) and mine would be the muththusarai. So come deepavali and amma makes all the three. Cooking all of these, she never attempted mixture and most times my father would order this with the local restaurant where the nei karaboondhi was famous. They used ghee to deep fry the boondhis and added just ghee roasted cashews, curryleaves and peanuts.
Even after I left home, initially on work and then marriage, the nei karaboondhi would be ordered to be sent fresh for us. This continued every holiday we went home so much that I brought back few kilos and to send to my husband's colleagues at work. One of his European friends would without fail remind me of the same when I travelled alone too.
This year I wanted to have it included in the dishes I made for deepavali. But having done with the mixture already, I pondered over the idea of using gram flour again. Then I chanced upon a small quantity of powdered flour mix that I had made the Manoharam boondhi with. That was such a welcome change. Since I had just about one cup of the flour mix, I went on to make the same. Lesser the flour the better, less work, less consumption and so on!
The measures given below are far more than to achieve 1 cup measure of flour, however, I shall share the same. You can reduce according to requirement.

Ingredients:
2 cups raw rice
1 cup split bengal gram
1 cup split green gram
1 small pich of soda bi carb
5 tablespoons cashew nuts broken
3 tablespoons fresh curry leaves
5 tablespoons roasted peanuts
Ghee for deep frying
Salt to taste
Powdered black pepper to taste

Method:
Dry grind the rice and dhals separately each to a very fine powder. Sieve them together a few rounds.
To the flour mix add the soda-bi-carb and sieve again.
Heat little of the ghee in a pan and separately roast the cashews, curry leaves and peanuts. Set them aside.
In a bowl mix the salt and pepper powder and set aside.
Heat about 250 grams of ghee in a pan.
Take one cup of flour and mix water to the same to make a lump free, smooth and slightly thin batter.
Making use of a boondhi ladle, drop the batter into the hot ghee. The batter will fall through the pores of the ladle and quickly form round balls that will come to the surface and float. Remove the same using a perforated ladle draining the ghee.
Transfer the boondhis to an absorbent kitchen towel.
When still warm sprinkle some of the salt and pepper mix to the boondhis.
Proceed to make the same with the rest of the flour mix.
Mixing the batter for one or just two batches ensures that the boondhis will form well and rounded.
Salt is not added to the batter which also helps the boondhis to absorb less oil and turn out crisp.
Once the entire quantity of flours have been used and the boondhis are done, add to the same the ready roasted nuts and curry leaves.
Indulge yourselves to the most flavoursome ghee fried treat.

Milagu vellam

2011-10-19T16:34:00.001+01:00

There are certain dishes that bring you back memories from a distant past or sometimes a recent past. When it rains quite heavily, I will be reminded of two very 'rain-day special' dishes, that our aunt (father's brother's wife) used to quickly make for us. One of them is 'moarkali', a gluey mass of pounded rice cooked in yoghurt and spiced. It is such a thoroughly enjoyable feeling to take small portions of the moarkali, while still very warm and try to swallow, still wanting to savor in your mouth.
The other dish is the milagu vellam. This has such a peppery warmth that will soothe you when the outside weather is dark and gloomy.
It was an everyday practice at our home that curd will be churned and butter extracted. For the afternoon lunch we would have thick set curds while with the night dinner only the fat-removed buttermilk was served with rice. There will be so much buttermilk that we can have a second helping to drink with salt and asafoetida added to the same.
So it was quite often that moar kuzhambu, rawa dosai and yoghurt based dishes were prepared at home. My mother made the milagu vellam once in a blue moon, so to me that was a luxury that Hema chitti had pampered us with. That was one of the recipes I copied from my mother's note book early when my cooking expedition had started. I would not wait for a rainy day to have it.

This recipe has another anecdote to go with it, which is more recent and importantly more relevant. It was the recipe that gave me a chance to start a conversation with Jayasree some two years ago. She has this recipe in her archives. I was reading most of her earlier posts and when I read this I found that her recipe was slightly different and she had not added any picture. I chanced to find her online and we discussed this. I suggested she add a picture and both of us made a pact that we would post our versions with the picture. It did not transpire to date and will never happen in her blog anymore.

My daughter has added her thoughts here. It goes to prove that regardless of the age, Jayasree had endeared herself to many of us.

"Isn't it amazing how, somebody that met you but twice, can have a profound impact on your life? Jayasree was one of those people in my life. I remember hearing so much about her from amma, and got to meet her for the first time at her home in Palakkad. She was so cheerful and full of smiles, that she brought out the chatter-box in me in no time at all. I have met her only once after that - this past august, at their home in Pune, during my summer break. I remember Jayasree telling amma that we did not get to spend enough time together.. how true she was.... it has indeed been far too short.

The life lessons I got from my interactions with this wonderful person are numerous. She taught me acceptance, in her cheerful love for everybody she met, she taught me optimism, in her ready smiles and her positive outlook.. and most importantly, I believe, she taught me simplicity.. in the way she drew joy and contentment from small everyday things.

This lovely woman is no more, but the hearts she has touched are numerous, and I count myself blessed to have gotten the chance to know her. Her memory will forever be with me, and her thoughts will always put a smile on my face. I pray that God give her family the strength to go through this difficult time and that she rest in peace."

Getting to the recipe now. This can be done with less than five ingredients that can be easily available in the pantry mostly and cooked in under 30 minutes. This dish combines well with hot steamed rice and any vegetable stirfry can be had as a side or even crisps work well.

You can eye-ball the measures usually. However, I give the list of ingredients, that can be adjusted according to individual taste.

Ingredients:
100 ml fat removed buttermilk (fresh or the previous day's will work well)
1 teaspoon gram flour/ besan
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt according to taste

Tempering:
1 teaspoon Ghee (preferred to oil)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Few fresh curry leaves

Method:
In a bowl add one cup of water to the turmeric powder and the pepper powder.
Place on a high flame and once the water boils, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for a good 12 to 15 minutes until the pepper blends and the volume of liquid is almost half.
Mix the gram flour to the buttermilk well free of lumps.
Pour this to the simmering pepper water. Stir continuously and bring it to a near boil stage.
Over boiling will curdle the mixture.
Switch the heat off, but do not remove the bowl from the stove top. Keep stirring for a further 5 minutes.
Remove from the stove top and stir again. You will have a moderately thin kuzhambu ready.
Remember that you have not added the salt until this stage?
Allow the milagu vellam to cool to room temperature. Stir in the salt and mix well. (Salt is added to the end to avoid any curdling, that results in milk proteins and water being separated.)
Heat the ghee in a pan and add the mustard seeds and the curry leaves for tempering. Add the crackled mustard seeds and roasted curry leaves to the milagu vellam.
When you have a few spoons of this, you will feel the warmth travelling through the throat and then food pipe. Pepper has medicinal properties, which probably is the reason to have it when the outside weather is prone to bring infections.

'Whom the Gods love, die young' - in memory of a dear friend

2011-10-18T01:30:00.000+01:00

The morning of the 12th of October dawned gloomily with heavily overcast skies in Lagos. I guess it was an omen of what was waiting in my mail box.
As is my routine, I bid my husband goodbye as he leaves for work, walk into my study and turn my computer on before proceeding for my walk and shower. This morning I do not know why, but I logged in to my Facebook account first.
Just then Aparna and then Harini messaged me informing the untimely death of a friend, a fellow blogger and a very special person Jayasree Satish.
To say that I was shocked would be the understatement of the year, for just a few days ago I had spoken to Jayasree and exchanged news about the navrathri celebrations. There was no indication of an ailment whatsoever that day.To comprehend the fact that she succumbed to pneumonia was (and still is) difficult for me.

Jayasree, for many who may know her, was a talented person. She managed work from home, tried as best as she could to follow traditions as ordained in the South Indian culture and was a very loving and caring individual.

I knew her through our mutual blogs initially. Then one fine morning we started chatting through social network sites, and with time the frequency increased and the topics varied ranging from our interests to families and beyond. The friendship developed irrespective of the differences in our age and the difference in time zones for we lived half way across the globe.

It was convenient that when on holiday, we travel by road to Udipi where my parents-in-law live, from our home in Coimbatore. We would chalk out the itinerary to include a detour in Palakkad, where at that time, she lived. We would just give her a call and drop by because it was not a long distance from Coimbatore to her home.

My husband fully recalls how animatedly she spoke even the very first time we met in person. She was full of smiles and news that the respective spouses had no choice but to leave us to ourselves.
It thrilled us to know that she was featured on television. The fact that they moved to a new city gave us an opportunity to visit them there.
When stuck with a recipe idea, I might call her to discuss; let her know if something worked to satisfaction and she might just do that. Even trivial matters were discussed, joked about and shared.

That lively girl no longer lives in this earth today. It is not just "Jayasree lived; Jayasree died", for she had touched many a heart, each of us knowing her in our own ways. The 'wall' on facebook is filled with tributes for the departed soul. I only wish that she had lived to see the love she deserved. Age has been no bar; the young and old alike want her back amidst us and are at a loss to comprehend the ways of The Almighty.

To honour the memory of her, I join my friends Aparna and Harini from the food blogging fraternity to request you to be part of 'TRIBUTE JAYASREE''
This was an idea we were pondering upon soon after we received news about her demise. At the very instant we were discussing the same, Niv Mani suggested that we honour her by cooking recipes that she shared with much love. We are thrilled that many of you share our sentiments.
So here is what we would do to give her back the love she spread.

Please try recipes from her website Experiments in Kailas Kitchen.
Take pictures of the dish you have replicated (without altering them).
Visit her page 'Kailas Kitchen' on facebook, post your picture there with the link to the original recipe.
You are welcome to try as many recipes as you can. If you have something to say about her (not the recipe), please feel free to add that too.
This is an appeal to all of whom who have known her, not restricting to a small group of food bloggers.
I am hoping that many of you will willingly do this to render our support to her family during these hard times and show her our love and appreciation.
I sign off wishing that I never do such a post again, for it has been painful to coin words; I hope everyone who reads outlive me.

Pachchai milagai chutney

2011-10-17T06:45:00.001+01:00

I think that I have repeated enough number of times that I hardly store pickles. On the other hand, I am very fond of chutneys, thogaiyals, thokkus etc. I keep small containers of such in my refrigerator.
Most times I keep the dry chutneys for fear of not consuming quickly; however, those like puli-inji, milagai gojju will stay so long as a fortnight.
I found this very interesting recipe written in amma's notebook. I did not recall that she ever made it for us though.
She had copied it as dictated to her by Semboli maami (Shenbagavalli, must have been the name, but I have always heard it the other way). This old lady was widowed quite young and in line with the tradition of the bygone era, she had shaven her head, given up jewellery and finer things; she made her living by undertaking cooking assignments for small functions and gatherings. She would go and assist anyone when there were guests and a huge menu was to be served or loads of bakshanams were to be made. Those were the days when you visit your grand parents during long vacations,and allow them to indulge you with food among other things.
She also helped out with chores like giving body massage and bath to the newborns and those who were delivered of those newborn babies. She lived about half a kilometre away from my maternal grandparents' home and used to walk the dark streets at dawn (three in the morning, is not dawn though) braving the street dogs that walk along side her.
My mother recalls her adhirasams, that used to be 9 inches in diameter and as thick as the pizzas of today, dripping ghee.
I had copied the recipe of this chutney sometime in May 2009 and never attempted to make it at home until very recently. Inviting guests for lunch during navrathri was the opportune time to try something fresh. I had the elumichchangai oorugai ready; so I opted to make this chutney.
What I did not expect was that my husband would find it lipsmacking good! That must say something: someone who has no inclination to try pickle type chutneys, fell for it!
This chutney keeps excellently well at room temperature for about 6 -8 weeks, is an added bonus.

Ingredients:

20 numbers long variety fresh green chillis
1 medium lime size ball of tamarind
2 tablespoons powdered jaggery
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1 tablespoon salt (adjust according to the spice level of the chillis)
3 tablespoons sesame seeds oil (or any cooking oil)

Method:
(amma's note book does not give exact measures or procedure. I had to work my way around and am detailing my method.)
Choose fresh green chillis. Wash them and pat them dry with a towel. Remove the crowns and slice the chillis.
Place a pan on the stove and dry roast the salt and asaofoetida powder. Keep aside.
Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in the same pan. Toss the chillis in the oil until they have turned a bit soft.
Remove the chillis from the heat and drop the tamarind torn in bits in the pan. Toss this in the pan so the tamarind gets soft.
Add little water to the jaggery, dissolve the same and strain out the impurities.
Bring this solution to a boil and allow it to boil a few minutes. Switch the heat off.
Place the chillis, tamarind and salt- asafoetida mix in the jar of the blender. Grind to a coarse past. Add very little water as possible, just as much that the tamarind gets blended.
Remove from the blender, use the jaggery solution to clean the jar and recover the adhering paste. Add the turmeric powder to the mix.
Heat the rest of the oil in the pan. Drop the mustard seeds in the hot oil. When they crackle, add the fenugreek seeds. Toss them until the fenugreek seeds are brown but not charred.
Reduce the heat and transfer the blended mix to the pan. Cook this on low heat for about 8-10 minutes.
Higher heat and over cooking will caramelise the jaggery. So do this carefully.

Switch the heat off. Allow the chutney to come to room temperature and then store in clean jars.
This can be eaten as an accompaniment for dosais, adais, rice and even chappatis.
As the added water content is very little, the chutney keeps well. Storing in the refrigerator is recommended, though it keeps even in room temperature.
Jaggery can be added if you like the hot and sweet taste. The above tastes quite spiced and hot.
I am happy to have tried a good recipe that suits our tastes and my guests liked it very much too.
If the chutney gets too dry for your liking, take the serving portion in a bowl and add warm water to that just before serving.
With the above measured ingredients, the yield was just sufficient to fill a 100 ml jar. We finished the same within a week.

Uraippu elumichchai oorugai - Indian Lime Pickle

2011-10-11T06:34:00.000+01:00

I hardly eat my curd rice with pickles. Not that I do not like pickles, but the fact is, when you cook for just two people, you invariably have some vegetables or the gravy remaining for another helping. In order to avoid left overs, I tend to eat my kuzhambu/ sambhar/ rasam vandal or the vegetable with the curd rice. I have never seen my husband to try having rice with pickles. So I do not put in any effort to make them or store them.
Having said that, one must be wondering if I pickled these limes just for a post. I made these to entertain guests who were invited for lunch during the navrathri festival. I did not want to buy a bottle of 'ready - to - use' pickle just for few guests. The limes I found with the vendor were very good that I purchased them to make some juice concentrate. When I visited a friend, she offered me to partake some sweet lime pickle that she had made at home. That was reason enough for me to make pickle at home.
I made them with just six medium size limes and after the navrathri lunch party, I have very small portion left, which I hope to be able to finish all by myself!
The recipe is basically what my mother makes at home. The one variation I opted for was to keep the salted pieces of lime in the sunlight for a few days, curing them before adding the spices and oil. Also I have used olive oil.

Ingredients:
6 medium to large Indian limes (choose those with a tender skin)
4 teaspoons red chilli powder (adjust according to the sourness of the limes and the heat required)
1 table spoon salt (again adjustable as with the sourness of the fruit)
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 cup gingely oil ( I have used olive oil in this recipe)

Method:
Wash the limes well. Pat them dry with a towel.
Cut each of the fruit in eight portions. Remove the seeds as many as possible.
Take the cut wedges in a clean and dry jar.
Dry roast the salt for a few minutes. Add this salt to the wedges in the jar. Toss the pieces in the salt. Cover the mouth of the jar with a clean cloth and leave the jar in a dry sunlit area.
Every morning just give the jar a shake to toss the limes within.
Though leaving in direct sunlight is desirable, owing to the dust and pollution, I opted to leave it on the window where the limes were getting good sunlight and thus heat.
In about five days, the limes would have cured well in the salt. The skin colour would have paled to a light brown and the pices will be soft to touch.
Add the chilli powder, turmeric powder and the asafoetida powder.
If using gingelly oil, heat the oil to almost smoking. Drop the mustard seeds and allow them to crackle. Switch the heat off and add the fenugreek seeds.
Allow the oil to cool to room temperature and pour it well over the pickled limes in the jar.
mix well and store.
I have used olive oil for two reasons. The primary being that the gingelly oil i get in this country is not so good and flavoursome as I might get in India. Secondly, reading so much on the goodness of olive oil made me want to try the same. I did not heat the olive oil beyond just about hot, because I read somewhere olive oil is best had without heating.

The usual procedure that my mother will follow is to drop whole limes in warm water and allow it to boil for a few minutes. This softens the limes. She would allow this to come to room temperature and cut the slices before adding the salt and other ingredients.

Usually the pickle matures within a week and is ready to use soon after. The shelf life is easily few months to a year, provided it is stored well and handled carefully.
This pickle, had with curd rice makes a very comforting combination. I recall the many times that my mother would have packed our lunch boxes with thick home set curds mixed with rice and a piece or two of this pickle to carry to school!
Nowadays, though I hardly have pickles, I feel at ease to store a small jar of one pickle in my refrigerator, for there may be a day when I am just plain lazy to cook something up and will want to have curd rice with a small wedge of pickle to go with it.

Apple cinnamon muffins

2011-10-04T13:18:00.007+01:00

My last post was just the one of the recipes for the Free spirit bloggers' 'Cafe Casa' theme, that Deepti chose for us. She had wanted us to make a snack that you would love to go with the drink, that is usually on the menu too. Again it was Niki's choice and I had an outline recipe to work around the same. Also I wanted to work substituting eggs. With few trials using milk and yoghurt as substitutes for the eggs that had been added, I finally had a recipe that yielded soft, slightly sweet and flavoursome muffins.
I had read and re-read many muffin recipes that were free of eggs; thanks to many baking expert bloggers, I found some recipes that I can easily work with. Ever since,I have been making muffins and cupcakes grabbing every opportunity that arose.

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:
1 cup All purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered quick cooking oats (replace with all purpose flour if desired or wheat flour)
100 grams sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup soft brown sugar
1 cup cored and chopped apple pieces
1/2 cup skimmed milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 & 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon powdered cinnamon (I added 1/2 teaspoon more, as I love the flavour)

To sprinkle on top:
Mix 1 tablespoon white granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon

Method:
Sieve together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
Take the flours in a bowl and add the chopped apples to the same.
Toss the apples in the flour so that the flour coats the apples well. Add the powdered cinnamon.
Whisk together in another bowl, the sugar, condensed milk, milk and oil to blend well. Add the vanilla extract to the same.
Pre - heat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade.
Line the muffin tray with the paper cups or slightly grease the moulds. (I greased them as I did not have the cups at that point)
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix. Pour the liquid mix into the well and gently fold the flour in. Use gentle strokes to mix. Even if the flour remains as such in small streaks, you may overlook that. It takes care of itself while baking.
Over mixing will result in the muffins turning out tough.
Pour the batter in the muffin tray to fill 2/3 rds level in each indention.
Bake the same for 25 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
Remove the tray from the oven. When the muffins are still warm, sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top.
Cool on wire racks and store.
Serve them slightly warmed with a favourite coffee drink. I paired these with my iced caramel machiatto.

Try the other delicious combos from my free spirit mates, Anu, Deepti, Dhivya, Madhuri, Mridhubashini, Nagalakshmi and Siri. You are assured of being treated royally to some coffee/ tea treats and eats to go with those!

Iced Caramel Machiatto

2011-09-30T11:45:00.001+01:00

This month the free spirit bloggers take on something that every coffee lover would want to have. Deepti put us on this Cafe trail, suggesting that we try to clone one coffee shop drink as best as we could.
Well, I am not a coffee person...tea is what I would opt, given the preference. Hence, my coffee making skills are limited (for I do not want to use 'pathetic'). I started having coffee once in a while after I started working; my manager then was so addicted that he would order coffee for all his staff if he were in the mood for one!
The entire side of my father's family are coffee drinkers, to put it light! In the early years of her marriage my mother has had the privilege of her father-in-law making the morning coffee for her! They kept cows and hence he would prepare the filter just when the cowherd would milk the cow. It was that fresh!

My father, would even feed an infant few drops of coffee, and having gotten in that habit for just a little under a year, my daughter has taken after him. She can relish anything that is related to coffee!
Thus when Deepti gave us this challange, I naturally asked Niki to taste, click and ask for the recipe from wherever possible, that I can make at home!

Here's the recipe she gave me:
Source: Pulse Coffee Shop
(this coffee shop is a KU dining services brand)

Iced Caramel Machiatto

Made in a 16 oz cup:

Ingredients:

2 shots of espresso (figure out how much you put into a normal cup of coffee and scale according to the size of the cup you are using... basically just depends on how strong you want the coffee.. the caramel makes it very sweet, so do not make the coffee too light!)

2 "pumps" of vanilla syrup (1oz)

2 "pumps" of caramel syrup (1oz)

milk (boiled, and then chilled)

ice cubes

Method:

Put expresso and flavouring syrups into cup. Fill about halfway with milk. Mix them a bit so that the syrups don't sit at the base.

Add ice till the cup is about 3/4ths full. (do not add the ice before the milk, because ice will shock the plain espresso and make it bitter)

Top up the glass with milk the rest of the way.

Top up with whipped cream, and drizzle caramel on top. (for the drizzle, you will need caramel sauce, not syrup)
I used Pure ground coffee powder that I buy from an estate in Saklespur, India to make the decoction.
Now, I made sugar syrup and added vanilla for the vanilla syrup.
Just when I was wondering if I shall buy caramel sauce (Hershley's sells a bit pricey here), Deepti's post on home made caramel sauce was up and I rejoiced! I could make the caramel sauce at home too!
I bought the whipping cream to top the drink...and I had something that looked very nearly the same as what my daughter sent! I can not compare the taste though, I may admit that even I liked it.

I served this with home made eggless apple cinnamon muffins. (recipe coming up soon)
Few (read many) trials to get the near coffee shop effect has turned me into a coffee taster - tester.

Now head on to other Free Spirit Bloggers' exclusive home coffee-shop and enjoy a total coffee experience!

Beetroot potato palya - when a man takes charge of the kitchen

2011-09-23T07:29:00.005+01:00

I have not done guest posts yet. Though I have been meaning to ask people in the family to share their signature recipes here, the opportunity has not come up. So now I am thrilled that I have an unexpected guest post to share.
If I were to list the good years of my adult life, I may start my list with the three+ years we lived in Johor, for the sole reason that we made some lasting friendships. Now most of us are no longer living in the same country, but it has never felt that we have parted.

I have borrowed a part of a quote I came across recently:

" Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in this world, we all know that when tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends"

Author unkown.
This puts it in a nutshell, so to say.

Coming to today's post, I am proud and happy to share a seemingly simple palya. Yet it is super delicious when your dad / brother/ friend / husband dishes it out for you, don't you think?
Not that any of my friends did not help out in the kitchen when needed, but it was not a norm that they will spring you a surprise meal.
So when Santosh shared a photo link on facebook, I was impressed. He had made this beetroot and potato palya and a sambhar with rice for himself and his daughter. I wanted him to share the recipe, though we were joking about it through the comments thread. As we chatted, the idea of making his recipe in a post developed.
I downloaded the pictures and tweeted his daughter to send me the recipe. She mailed me and the text below is a cut and paste of her mail.
I did not get beets here recently to try and make the same in my kitchen. However, I tried the same with carrots and potatoes. It tastes great, to say the least.

Recipe:

- wash and chop potatoes (3 medium sized) & beetroot (2 medium sized) into small cubes

- cook it in the microwave (autocook) (for those who want to cook on stove top, cook them until tender)

- pour a little oil into a flat bottom pan,
add mustard seeds,
1 chopped onion,
1-2 sliced green chili,
pinch of hing,
salt to taste

- fry until golden brown

- add one spoon garam masala powder

- mix cooked potatoes and beetroot

- add a little water and cook till done

- garnish with coriander, serve!

Simple, don't you think? If I were to write this post up I would not have made it in easy steps as this. That is the difference.
I think, men make simple and no fuss dishes, what do you say? It is time we put our feet up and let them do some work :)

I scheduled this post as part of my wishes to Santosh on his birthday! Happy birthday!!!!!!

Chola Fali - A gujarathi snack

2011-09-20T06:50:00.001+01:00

Last year it was around Deepavali we moved to this country. We moved in to the empty apartment that very evening, purchased frugally and set up the house. Two days into Lagos, it was Deepavali. I had to be content with a simple home pooja and offering fruits. However, friends who live in the building invited us over to join in their celebrations and we had a good time.

One of my neighbours is a young mother who hails from Gujarat. She had prepared many typical Gujrati farsan and we were treated to. The chola fali is one that I liked very much and had requested her to teach me making the same. The opportune time did not come by until errr....yesterday, yes, a year later :(

I would be not doing justice if I did not introduce her to my readers. Did I mention 'young mother'? oh yes, I did! Rekha Adodra is a great cook who has trained her Nigerian maid to make perfect, thin crisp Khkaras among many other indian dishes, an artist who paints as a hobby and undertakes assignments too.

She paints pots and gifts them to friends - I have two of them adorning my home now!

All these, while she takes her three year old toddler to play school, gives in to the little girl's fancies and plays with her among many more regular duties as a parent.

Having said that, I shall also tell you how randomly we chose to make these chola falis. I asked her to be taught some traditional fare that she makes at home for trying and sharing in my blog.
She said I can walk in any time and we can have fun cooking up anything I decide to. She usually has stock of necessary ingredients. Thus yesterday evening about 5 PM I walk up to her apartment and we decide on Ghathiyas...as we chat up I say that we make kara sev and tell her that it has gram flour as base and spiced with carom seeds. She said then the recipe is similar and we shall try it some other time.

Then I asked her if she can teach me the same savoury treat I had at her place last year and that decided what I will learn...and oh yes, learn it, I did! And what is use of knowledge if not shared?
That is the purpose of the post!

Simple ingredients, some time on hand and loads of patience with the dough gives you this excellent snack which can be as versatile as you can make it. Today's recipe is basic enough for people not familiar with this.

It tastes like the pappadoms that we deep fry. Spiced with black salt and paprika, it keeps you picking at those strips one after the other. It takes all of your will power to stop snacking.

She used store purchased Mathia flour, a readily made mix of Urad dhal powder and Moong dhal powder. However, people who do not find it in your area can powder the dhals and mix them.

Ingredients:
2 cups gram flour
2 cups mathia flour (alternately, mix 1 cup each of powdered urad dhal and powdered moong dhal)
2 tablespoons ghee
1/8th of a teaspoon bi-carbonate of soda (cooking soda)
Salt as required (dry roast the salt until warm prior to adding to the flours. Do remember to add lesser salt than required as you will be sprinkling black salt mix on top)
4 tablespoons oil for pounding the dough and to grease the surface on which you will roll the dough.

Oil for deep frying

For sprinkling on top:

3 teaspoons red chilli powder
3 teaspoons black salt

Method of preparation:

Sieve together the flours and soda-bi-carb, to mix well.
Heat the pan in which you will deep fry the chola falis. When the pan is warm, drop the salt in it and toss for a few minutes. When the salt has been roasted, add it to the flour mix.
Add the ghee to the flour. Mix well.
Add very little water and make a stiff dough. The dough should be so stiff that you may feel it crack.
Rest the dough for a few minutes.
Clean a portion of the kitchen floor / counter top (or better if you have a granite mortar/ aattukkal, ammi kal).
Divide the dough in smaller portions. Using a pestle, beat the dough down on the clean surface adding few drops oil every now and then. Repeat the fold / beat/ grease/ fold operation until the dough feels light and elastic and acquires a lighter shade.
Repeat with the entire portion of the dough.
Keep this dough covered while you pinch out small balls off it and roll out thin discs.
No flour is used for dusting the surface. You will have to grease the surface with very little oil and roll as thinly as possible. (My friend rolled out so thin that the dough looked transparent.)
Keep the rolled discs also covered to avoid drying by exposure to air.

Keep the oil for deep frying on.
Cut out strips off the dough.
Meanwhile, mix the black salt and red chilli powder in a bowl and keep ready.
Deep fry the strips, few at a time in hot oil.
They have to puff well. Fry them until they are crisp.
Remove from the oil with a slotted ladle and transfer to a dish.

Check for the crispness and sprinkle the chilli-salt mix on top immediately while the falis are warm.
Serve them as a snack and enjoy!

Notes:
They dough has to be prepared very stiff.

Beating it down well ensures that the falis puff well.
Also rolling them very thin makes them perfectly enjoyable. Thick strips will become soggy.

Caution should be exercised while adding oil also during the process of beating the dough don and rolling. Do not be tempted to add more oil. The end result will be oil dripping falis.

The roasting of salt in the same pan aids a small addition of salt to the oil, which ensures that the deep fried stuff does not become oily.

Serve them as such, serve them as chaat, serve them with dips and your party is on fire from the starters :)

I will soon be making them and adding my own twist...stay tuned!

Milagai podi for idli and dosai

2011-09-13T10:40:00.000+01:00

Although I mostly make chutneys and sambhar to go with idli or dosai, as with every South Indian household, I store this idli milagai podi also. It comes handy whenever I am saving the coconut or onions for something else. Also helps when you want to pack the tiffin box, quickly on days that you lazed just about a few minutes longer in the morning.
Usually, my mother gets such items ready for me to carry. Considering that I cannot hope to get the same quality stuff as I might in "Cheenan kadai" (our long serving grocer in Namakkal, though they have developed and expanded to a grand super market/ departmental store, to my parents the name holds), amma sees to that she packs us home made stuff. This has been her routine, even when I lived in other countries. Off late, she adds to the list what my daughter might carry with her.

During this recent visit though I did not carry such powders. I had in my pantry, dry red chillis stocked in plenty. So, I had powdered my own podi this morning. (and am sneezing heavily as I type this post out.) (there is more roasting and pounding happening, later today.)

Idli/ dosai milagai podi is a blend of chillis, lentils, salt and powdered sesame seeds that is consumed as an accompaniment with idlis and dosais. The powder is usually mixed with some gingely oil and had with the above. When idlis are packed for picnics or travel, they are smothered heavily with the podi + oil mix, thus the flavours blend in the dish itself.

The list of ingredients is short and the procedure very simple.(...only the bout of sneezing and tingling sensation in your nose lasts for a few hours.)

Ingredients:
(All measures are with 200 ml cup)

Dry red chillis 1 and 1/2 cup (300 ml)
Castor oil 3 drops
Split Bengal gram / Channa dhal 3/8ths cup (75 ml)
Split black gram / Urad dhal 3/8ths cup (75 ml)
White sesame seeds 1/8th cup (25 ml)
Asafoetida powder 1/4th teaspoon
Salt to taste (Around 2 heaped teaspoons sea salt crystals will be sufficient. Adjustable as per the heat of the chillis)

Method of preparation:
Rub the castor oil over the red chillis to coat very lightly.
Heat a pan and on very slow fire roast the chillis until they puff, without burning.
Transfer to a flat plate and allow to cool.
In the same pan, dry roast separately the dhals until they are warm to touch and golden.
Keep aside in a different bowl or plate.
Drop the salt in the pan and heat it a bit. When it is warm add the asafoetida powder and toss for a few seconds.
Transfer these to the plate with the chillis.
Finally roast the sesame seeds in the same pan until they pop. This may happen quickly as the pan is already hot. Switch the fire off and keep the sesame seeds in the pan.
Transfer the chillis, salt and asafoetida to the jar of the spice blender.
Pulse until the chillis have been coarsely powdered.
Add to this the dhals. Pulse further until the dhals have been pounded.
Add the warm sesame seeds and pulse intermittently for a few minutes. Do not over run the mixer after adding the sesame seeds.
Transfer the blended powder to a dish and allow to cool.
The ellu milagai podi is ready for use.
Once cool, transfer to an airtight container and store.

If you have plenty of sunshine where you live or when making in larger quantities, the chillis and dhals can be sun dried until very warm to touch and pounded.

Adding few drops of castor oil aids shelf life. Also helps to tone down the heat of the chillis while roasting.

This powder keeps well for a few months. However, the spice level drops as days go by and having added sesame seeds, it is advisable not to keep long.
Enjoy the powder with soft idlis or crisp dosais.

Potato and aubergine gratin with greens

2011-09-07T09:49:00.001+01:00

Don't we all feel the temptation to recreate a dish that you much enjoyed eating in a restaurant, at home? No matter how delusive the list of ingredients and the procedure is, we try hard to match the taste and texture, don't we?
I opt to try something new on the menu when we dine out while my husband would tread safe grounds with familiar dishes. Once I have tried eating, the obvious next attempt is making the dish at home. I have a list of dishes that I would love to cook restaurant style at home.
I found that my fellow free spirit bloggers share such a passion too. Siri suggested this theme for August. The response was immediate and each of us were hoping to recreate many dishes. Then we narrowed the choices to 'main course' and decided that any dish falling in other categories will have to be tried sometime later.

During my visit to Bangalore, this time, I had tasted this "greens, aubergine and potato gratin" at the Gateway All Day restaurant. I requested the chef for the recipe and he, Mr. Dilbar, printed the recipe out for me. The recipe is vegetarian but the list shows egg yolks in it. When I asked them about that, I was told that they cook without eggs for vegetarians and that eggs were just a binding ingredient. And the original recipe calls for different cheese while in the menu they had listed parmesan and cheddar cheese. The recipe is a great chunk portion of vegetables baked with cheese toppings and is served as a main course along with a small portion of garlic bread.

Now that I am back home and falling into routine, I included the necessary vegetables and the cheese in the list of groceries. Having a printed recipe on hand helps. I will not be making wild guesses though I will most certainly stray from the procedure here and there. I have done just that; made shortcuts where I could and skipped frying, opted to steam and such. Nonetheless, the dish turned out closest to the one I had eaten.

Ingredients: (for 3 servings)
300 grams small potatoes
100 grams broccoli
100 grams eggplant
100 grams tomatoes
100 grams spinach
30 grams - 1 medium onion chopped
5 garlic cloves crushed
1 small stalk celery chopped
30 ml olive oil
150 ml low fat milk
1 teaspoon corn flour
50 grams of shredded sharp cheddar cheese

50 grams grated parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

For serving:
3 numbers garlic bread

Procedure:

Clean all the vegetables well.
Peel and slice the potatoes in round discs. Similarly, slice the tomatoes and eggplant in discs. place the eggplants in water until required.
Keep aside few of the tomato slices.
Cut broccoli in small florets. Stem and wash the spinach. Chop the spinach in small strips.
Steam the potato discs just until soft.
Blanch the greens and broccoli for two minutes, not allowing them to get too soft.Add some salt and pepper individually to these vegetables.
Marinate the eggplant discs with salt, pepper and some oil. Saute in a pan until they are grilled.
Heat the oil in a pan. Drop the chopped celery and the onions. Toss for two minutes and add the crushed garlic. Saute for about five minutes and add to this the broccoli and spinach. toss them to be coated well with the oil.
Add the tomatoes and eggplant. Adjust the seasoning. Cook very lightly for two minutes.

Pre heat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit/ 190 degrees Celsius. (moderately hot oven, gas mark 5).
Beat together the milk, corn flour and a teaspoon of the cheddar cheese.
Add some salt and pepper to this also.
In a baking dish arrange the potatoes in a layer. Top this with a small portion of the milk mixture.
Spread the vegetables over this in a layer.
Top this with the grated parmesan cheese.
Repeat the same order for another layer or two more as desired.
The above is done in a ring mould. I have used a normal baking dish and spread the layers.
On the top most part spread the uncooked tomatoes and cover with the parmesan cheese.
Bake for at 375 Degrees F for 5 to 7 minutes until slightly brown on top.
If you are baking using a ring mould, transfer the baked contents to a serving plate and remove the mould. Spoon in few tablespoons of tomato couli and serve hot.
I have baked in a baking dish and hence served from the dish. I did not make the tomato couli to garnish.
Serve this hot with garlic bread.

This is a very easy dish to make and all the vegetables can be filling.
My other free spirit mates have all cooked quite exotic dishes that may interest you. Indulge yourselves reading posts by Anu, Deepti, Dhivya, Madhuri, Mridhu, Nags and Siri.
Look out for more spirited posts in the following months.

Godhumai Halwa for Indian cooking challenge

2011-08-15T02:12:00.001+01:00

Members are trying the traditional wheat halwa this time for the Indian Cooking Challenge. Srivalli had given us four recipes that work well and we were given a choice to use any of these, while having a free hand at altering the proportions of sugar and ghee according to our taste.

The recipes that we were given can be enjoyed clicking on the links below:

Kamakshi Diamond shares her mother's wheat halwa

Sowmya gives us a pictoral of her grandmother making the popular Tirunelveli halwa

Srivalli had tried Latha's godhumai halwa for deepavali and shared her recipe here

Finally, my recipe of Tirunelveli Halwa adapted from the iruttukkadai recipe from this link.

Earlier, I had made the halwa which had a loose texture, that cannot be cut in pieces. So I wanted to try making the pieces.
I adapted Latha's recipe as that was the closest to how my grandmother makes viz. boiling the wheat milk and sugar mass together thus reducing it to the final consistency. This is also in concurrence with the iruttukkadai recipe. I was very used to first boiling the sugar to a syrup and then cooking the wheat milk in the syrup until desired consistency was achieved. So I opted to go this way this time on.

However, I found that the ghee in Latha's recipe less for my halwa, possibly because I have always had it with lot of ghee. Also I increased the sugar as suggested by her to get the pieces.
I was able to cut them in pieces and we enjoyed the halwa.

I have not written the recipe out as I am embarking on my holiday and have loads to do before I go.
All the four given recipes work well. Try which may suit you and enjoy the very delectable sweet.

Kiwi fruit juice

2011-08-08T07:56:00.001+01:00

Approaching middle age, I am trying to look up nutrition and benefits of foods that we eat. Although I include lot of fruits (as many as vegetables), there were certain fruits, I had not tried. Kiwi was one such fruit that I would almost pick up from the counter and drop back. Since they were always imported into the countries that I have lived, they came with a heavy price tag, for fruits. That may have been the primary reason and the fact that the seeds were crunchy and left an after taste was another put off. Thus, I might slice just one fruit in a fruit salad or add as topping to some custard.
When my blood sugar levels read high with a deranged liver last year, I studiously looked up low sugar, low GI foods to keep my sugar levels in control. Thus I read few articles on the kiwi fruit. Two such can be read in these links here and here. Now, health concern beats the reluctance hands down and I do not mind at all paying the cost for these.
However, I will eat the fruit as such, but it is a task to get my husband have them. So I blend them in juices and get him to drink those.
Last week, for some prayer offerings, I purchased six kiwi fruits and blended few of them in juice.

Skin three kiwi fruits. Blend them in a juicer with sufficient water. Add sugar to taste.
For added taste, squeeze the juice of one medium or two small limes. Adjust the sugar accordingly.

Serve chilled with a few thin slices of the fruit topped in the juice.
I do not strain the seeds after blending. But if you really do not like them, you may do so.

Apple and strawberry crumble with barley flour

2011-07-31T02:20:00.003+01:00

This month I wanted the free spirit bloggers to bring to the rest of you dessert recipes with some not so commonly used ingredients. I cannot say unusual ingredients, but some that are not commonly used. The rest of the FSBs have very interesting ingredients while I took an easier challenge - Barley / barley flour as key ingredient with fruits as favourable ingredients.
When my parents visited us in Johor, my then neighbour and good friend, SewLee had invited us for tea. She knew well that my parents do not eat eggs. So she baked eggless cakes, cookies and some vegetarian savoury treats for us. Her daughter had made apple crumble for us then. I recalled that and asked Sew to mail me the recipe. I was grateful that she sent me this and her apple pie recipe too.
Apple crumble with normal flour is very easy to bake and quick too. I just replaced the plain flour with barley flour. I had to make some adjustments with the flour measurements, otherwise I followed my friend's recipe for the rest. And I added strawberries too.
There were some ideas I picked up browsing the internet. I have copied the texts from the website I have linked to the same. These were pointers that helped. I have also tried the pie crust with a combination of powdered pearl barley and brown rice, which I will share at a later date. (I am leaving for India for a month's holiday, and hence my posts will not be regular.)

Baked goods such as cakes, cookies, pie crust, pancakes, quick breads, and muffins that use baking powder and baking soda as leaveners do not depend on gluten and yeast for rising and structure. Soft flours with less gluten, such as cake flour and whole-wheat pastry flour, and flours with little or no gluten, such as rye, barley, and oat flour, work well in these baked goods. Bread flour, with its higher gluten content, causes cakes, cookies, pie crust, pancakes, quick breads, and muffins to be less tender.

Source: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-questions2.htm

As white flour alternative:

½ cup barley flour + ¼ cup brown rice flour + ½ TBL arrowroot powder Barley – pearled barley has the outer layer removed. Barley flour makes excellent pie crusts and cookies and mixes well with brown rice flour.

Source: http://www.lifestyleforhealth.com/white-flour-alternatives.html

Now to the recipe:
Ingredients:
5 apples Cored and sliced
10 strawberries pitted
1 tsp cinnamon,
1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar,
125 grams (1/2 cup heaped) butter
1 cup barley flour
1 tablespoon all purpose flour

Cook together, apples, cinnamon powder and the sugar until well combined.
It is also okay that you do not cook the apples until soft. Just cook them to absorb the sweet of the sugar and the flavours of the cinnamon. I microwave cooked them for about 5 minutes. The apples were holding the crunch even then.
Mix flour and brown sugar. Cut butter into the mixture. Gradually work on this mixture with tips of fingers or with a fork.The mix will be of the texture of bread crumbs that are sticking well together.
After a while they may be slightly gathered and well incorporated.
Pre heat the oven to 230 degrees C.
Spread the cooked apples on a greased pan and pour the flour mixture over it.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

The final product will not be something that you can slice as a cake . It will be crumbly, which is why the name.
Serve as warm dessert with some fruits.

You are about to read some great treats in Anu 's, Deep 's, Dhivi 's, Mads', Mridhu 's, Nags' and Siri 's blogs. Stay tuned. I bet my last penny that they are bringing in mind blowing dessert recipes.

Mini Samosas

2011-07-22T08:49:00.001+01:00

It seems like aeons ago; I had watched my college bakery make samosas from scratch and that was a clear memory I held for many years. As part of our curriculum, we had to register ourselves in the National Cadet Corps or with the National Service Scheme. Obviously, owing to the early hour calls and camp schedules, most of us opted out of the NCC. Thus, we were happily spending Saturday afternoons, under the supervision of two professors, in a small village that our school had adopted, doing nothing big to help them but cleaning up the elementary school and teaching few basic hygiene to the children.

Every now and then, we would carry stuff for the kids there. It was a great feeling to watch a shy smile cross over or to watch a wide toothy grin in acknowledgement. On one such occasion, I was assigned to collect mini samosas from the college-run-bakery and carry it to the village school.
I waited in the stuffy hot kitchen, watching the cooks make them,without actually paying any attention. Irrespective of the fact that I did not watch carefully, I could recall every detail of the activity, that is even today!

My mother makes samosas just by rolling out small size puris, placing the filling and folding the outer dough in two and then deep frying the same. I was also doing the same, until one day when I was making them, my niece suggested that I roll the dough in a big disc and cut strips and fold the dough over the filling. Surprisingly, this process was faster than rolling small samosas individually.
However, now I have discovered Mrs. Mallika Badrinath's book; her recipe in procedure matches the one I watched way back in the bakery. The only change to the recipe is that I use, like my mother, semolina in the place of all purpose flour to make the dough. That is by habit and no particular reason. My mother is one of those few people who dislike potatoes, so she makes fillings with other vegetables. I make them with even more interesting fillings, depending on the mood and availability of ingredients. The filling shared here is just basic.

Ingredients:
For the outer dough pastry:
1 cup very fine semolina (I use Durum wheat semolina) (you may use all purpose flour/chiroti rawa)
2 tablespoons oil
Salt as required
1/4 cup of ice cold water (you may not require this full quantity, depending on the quality of the semolina)
1/8th teaspoon soda-bi-carbonate

For the filling:
2 large potatoes
2 carrots
10 french beans
1/4 cup shelled green peas
1 large onion chopped finely
Salt as required
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon roasted cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon dry mango powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon anardhana seeds (optional)
2 tablespoons oil

For spreading in between the sheets of rolled dough:
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
5 teaspoons oil

Few teaspoons all purpose flour for dusting and rolling
Oil for deep frying

(you can add any more vegetables, crumbled paneer,sprouts and many more)

Procedure:
The filling:
Chop onion finely. Wash, peel and cube the potatoes and carrots. String the french beans.
Steam cook the vegetables until soft to mash coarsely and bind. Add the salt and mix well.
Heat the 2 tablespoons oil in a pan. Add the onions and saute' them.
Add all the powders listed and finally add the cooked vegetables. Toss them in the pan for a few minutes so the flavours blend.
The filling is ready. You can make this ahead and refrigerate for some time (few hours).

For the outer layers:
Mix the soda-bi carb and salt to the semolina. Rub the oil in the mix and incorporate well.
Gradually add ice cold water and mix the ingredients to a firm dough. Mix for many minutes to make the dough elastic.
Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth to avoid the drying of the surface. Rest the dough for at least half an hour.

This next step is what my mother would do to make the dough very elastic:
She would place the dough in the grinding stone and pound it well with a pestle, turning it over repeatedly.
I choose to drop moderate sized pieces of the dough in my mixer and pulse a few minutes.

If you are making fairly large quantities, use the kneading hooks in your electric mixer or the dough attachment in the processor.
This surely aids to better elasticity of the dough than kneading with hands.
Once done, roll the dough back to a cylinder and pinch out big lemon size portions.
Roll these into thin flat discs dusting minimal flour as possible.
Place them aside, covered with the damp cloth.
Once you have rolled out four or five such discs, take one at a time on the board.
Take the oil and flour listed under 'for spreading.....dough'.
Spray some oil and spread it over the surface of the rolled dough. Sprinkle some flour over the greased dough disc.
Place the next rolled disc on top of this and repeat the spraying of oil and sprinkling of the flour.
Repeat this procedure for all the four or five rolled out discs.
If you have more dough, the same procedure as above has to be followed until all dough is used up.
Keep these prepared discs also covered in the damp cloth until you are ready for the next step.
Place a flat pan / tawa on the stove. When the pan is hot, lift the whole of the 4-5 rolled-and-prepared discs and place them on the hot griddle.
Allow half a minute for the under-most side to cook.
Flip the whole, so the side that was top facing thus far, is placed on the heated surface directly.
Now, the already part-cooked side is the top most at this point, gently peel it off and place it on the board.
Repeat this turning-cooking-and-peeling off procedure until all the four or five have been cooked partly on one side.
Try to place the uncooked side facing upwards when you take them back to the board.
Cut these discs in 1and 1/2 inch (1&1/2") wide strips.
Now place a small quantity of the filling on one edge of the strip. Roll this over so as to cover the filling on two sides. Again roll another fold to cover the open part. Roll repeatedly until the end of the strip. Thus you would have rolled them in a triangular shape, in few layers, covering the vegetable filling well with the dough.
Rub some water on the edge of the strip and paste it well to seal it.

The procedure looks cumbersome and intimidating to read, but it is very easy to actually do it. I hope the picture above is helpful in conveying the idea. The steps marked from 1 to 14 show this process.

Repeat the same process with all the dough / strips.

Heat the oil for deep frying in a heavy pan. When the oil is hot and ready, drop the samosas gently in the oil as many as would fit. Deep fry until well done on all sides.
Serve them hot with green chutney and ketchup.

You can prepare them ahead until the stage where you roll the samosas and freeze them.
Once rolled, covered and sealed in the edges, place them on trays, slightly apart and cover with a cling wrap. Freeze them in the freezer.

Whenever, you are ready to use them, remove just as many as you might require, and thaw just until the oil is hot and ready. In such a case, be prepared for some spluttering of the oil as freezer cold samosas touch the near smoking hot oil.
This is very helpful when making them in bulk for parties.

There is no way that you can have exact strips and exact filling. Try to make the filling somewhat extra, and any left over is always easy to reuse.

Samosas are truly a treat, be it a party or just an evening snack. Once you have made samosas try making samosa chaat and be sure it is another addictive dish.

Aloo Mutter in microwave

2011-07-20T06:11:00.000+01:00

Potatoes cooked in any form will be consumed without complaint by my dear husband. Adding masala and onions only makes him happier. Only I find it mundane, to grind the same masala for the base and hence try to make a different base for the gravy once in a while. This recipe is result of one such experiment.
One evening, after I announced that I will make aloo mutter for chappathis, the gas cylinder let me down. I do have one electric option in the hob, which was convenient to make the chappathis. So I was left with no option but to microwave cook my aloo mutter masala. I had decided on a brown onion paste and was almost dropping the idea, when he suggested trying to saute' the onion also in the microwave. Instead, I slit the onion at four points, drizzled the oil and cover cooked in the microwave. Thus the paste was not very brown in colour but the effect of browning was achieved.
Having accomplished this, making the dish in the microwave was very easy and that is what I wish to share.

Preparation time: under 15 minutes
Cooking time: under 30 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

5 medium to large potatoes
1/2 cup shelled peas (or frozen peas)
2 medium onions
2 medium tomatoes (or ready to use tomato paste)
2 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoons red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 fresh green chillis (I had very red ones and used them)
2" piece ginger
1 teaspoon kasuri methi (dry fenugreek leaves)
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon olive oil or any cooking oil to drizzle over the onions
Salt as required

Method:

Wash and cube the potatoes in medium to large cubes. (You may choose to peel them prior to cooking. I usually cook them and then remove skin.) Place them in a bowl of water until ready to cook.
Peel the onions. Remove the top and bottom edges. Make a cross like slit until 3/4ths deep.
Drizzle the 1 teaspoon oil inside the slit and on the surface of the onion. Place it in a microwave safe bowl. Cook on 100% power without covering for 4 minutes. Check at the end of 2 minutes and if the onion has shrunk and shriveled, reduce the power to 80% and continue to cook.
Remove and slice the onions.
In the jar of your blender, take the cut onions, red chilli powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder. Blend to a smooth paste.
Make a small cut in the tomatoes and place it in a microwave safe bowl. Sprinkle few drops of water. Cover with a lid and cook on 100% power for 2 minutes. Allow a standing tome of about 30 seconds.
The tomato might have cracked open and sometimes splattered over the wall of the bowl.
Remove all the contents to the jar of the blender and coarsely pulp the tomatoes. Again you can save this time and effort if using ready-made tomato paste.
Chop the chillis and slice the ginger finely.
Add two teaspoons of water to the potatoes, in a microwave safe bowl and cook, covered on 100% power for 5 minutes. Check if they are soft and the peel comes off. Otherwise cook for a further minute. If the potatoes are slightly old and soft to begin with, reduce the cooking time.
Remove potatoes from the bowl and cook the green peas in the same bowl. If using frozen peas, skip this step.
Cook peas covered with a cling wrap punching small holes in the wrap for 2 minutes on 100% power.
In another bowl (or if the above bowl is big and cleaned, use the same) take the olive oil and heat on 100% power for 1 minute. Add the cumin seeds, ginger strips and chillis. Heat this again on 100% power for another minute.
Add the potatoes, salt, turmeric powder, the crushed tomatoes and onion paste. Add 1/3 cup of water and cook without lid, for 4 minutes on 80% power.
Add the kasuri methi and the green peas and cook again for 2 minutes on 80% power.
If the gravy is not thick as desired, allow to boil for a few more minutes at 60% power.

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves, some sliced onions and a hint of lemon juice, if desired.
Serve hot with chappathis.

Srivalli's Microwave Easy Cooking event is being hosted by Sin-a-mon themed Potato Feast, to which I am sending this recipe.
And I would gladly share it with Radhika of Tickling Palates who says 'Let's Cook - Subzi's for Rotis'

Potato nests with channa chaat

2011-07-18T15:09:00.000+01:00

This is something my husband made yesterday, a rainy Sunday evening. Earlier during the week I had watched a chaat special episode on Khana Kazana. As I was watching, I was on the phone with my husband during his lunch break and told him how appetising the chaats were. We wanted to try something for the weekend evening.
I had boiled some chickpeas, made the sweet and mint green chutneys. While I was about to boil the potatoes, we thought of deep frying potato strips and adding them to the dish, just like sev or bhoondhi.
Then I mentioned that I had read somewhere that we can press the potatoes between two steel tea / juice strainers and deep fry them. Just release them and you will have crisps baskets made of potatoes. I wonder why I thought of it, however, we decided that we shall give it a try.
I did not have two strainers that will fit one into another, but had this ladle (that I had purchased thinking it would be good for boondhis, which evidently was not) with slotted eyelets! We thought of using that and another ladle to press the potatoes in. He even bent the handle to almost 90 degrees to its original position, to aid the immersion of the slotted cup well in the oil.
I grated the potatoes in big, slightly thick strips into a bowl of water, thinking that squeezing out the water and frying them will be good. Alas, it was not to be so. Then a quick reference to Mallika Badrinath's recipe and Sanjeev Kapoor's website helped, though one said drop the strips in water and the other said not to! Then my husband went by his instinct. He drained the water and we spread the potatoes on a cloth for a few minutes. Mixed the salt and for binding I sprinkled very finely powdered sago (I had it from my sago murukku experiment). You can use corn flour or rice flour as you choose.
Getting all this assembled, my husband said he would do the rest while I will take care of the filling. Making the filling wasn't much, considering the fact that I had made the sweet chutney and thick mint green chutney ahead. The chick peas was also boiled and ready. All I needed was to chop onions and coriander.

I was more than happy to watch and take pictures while he made the potatoes in perfectly done crisps, gently released them from the slotted ladle with a spoon on the absorbent tissues.
Thus a very welcome chaat dish was made at home and we enjoyed, eating it warm and had hot masala chai watching the rain.
Later, I had to share the picture on facebook when Vijitha suggested that we can make a low oil version using the paniyaaram (appam)pan. I am yet to try that version. I had to share this tip for those who are wanting to attempt.
You may get as innovative as you choose with the fillings. Mine is a simple one, though I like the Chaatwale channa recipe I made earlier!

Ingredients:
(for potato nests)
5 medium potatoes
Salt to taste
3 teaspoons cornflour (or any flour that will aid some binding, I have used powdered sago)
Oil for deep frying

Gadgets useful:
Two immediate sizes stainless steel tea strainers/ or fruit juice strainers.

(for the filling)
1/2 cup chick peas (soaked, pressure cooked and salted)
2 tablespoons Kajoor-imli ki chutney
2 tablespoons Spicy mint chutney (read recipe in Pani puri / Golgappas green chutney)
1 small onion sliced finely
1 tomato chopped
A generous amount of chopped coriander leaves.

Method:
(For the filling)
Cook the chick peas well and add the salt.
Mix all ingredients listed for filling.
Keep ready.

Method to make potato nests:
Wash and peel the potatoes.
Use the large eyelet side of the grater and grate the potatoes in fairly broad strips. Tale them in a bowl of water.
Rinse well and drain the water.
Spread the potatoes on a dry cloth and cover in a fold.
Meanwhile keep oil for deep frying ready.
Take the potato strips, which are very slightly damp in a plate or bowl. Add some salt and the flour. Mix well.
When the oil is hot, Spread lightly the potatoes, in a layer in the bigger of the strainers.
Place the smaller fitting strainer on the potatoes. This will press them inside the big strainer in the shape of a cup. If it is not fitting well, you may just remove this strainer and try to make with the bottom one alone.
Gently immerse this whole in the hot oil. Hold them in the oil until the potatoes are fried.
Remove from the oil and gently release the cups on to absorbent tissues.

Repeat the entire process to use up all the potato strips.
Keep the prepared potato nests ready until time to serve.
Serve these filling some of the chick peas filling and garnish if you wish.
Ours were not deep to ne called cups or baskets and they looked more like the picture of the nest I had found in my parents' garden. So my husband called them potato nests.

I am sending these and my microwave potato cups recipe to Vatsala's LGSS_Potato event.

Banana Chips

2011-07-18T06:05:00.004+01:00

Years ago, during my working days in Coimbatore, we had to walk past a pushcart chips shop, every morning to work and evening back. The man used coconut oil to deep fry the chips and the heady aroma of the oil will hit you few yards ahead. Though he sold potato, tapioca and sweet potato chips too, the banana chips were something else all together. Fresh from the pan to bamboo basket and then packed in a paper bag, made the chips a real treat. Later, many shops have come up selling these. With the development, the push cart shop has gone and has been replaced by a famous outlet.
Now, I get good raw bananas that are suitable for making crisps and make them at home. The deft and ease with which the man used to make them can never be achieved by me, but the attempt is worth. These days we enjoy safe home made crisps once in a while.
With about half a dozen large raw bananas and oil to deep fry those, you have crisps that keep for a few days, given the fact that you can resist them.

Wash and wipe the bananas. Peel them just lightly so there is a thin layer of the peel intact. Keep them immersed in cold water.
Place the oil in a pan and put it heat.
When the oil is almost smoking, hold the chips slicer above the oil and quickly slice the banana, dropping the slices in the oil.
However, beware of the steam that will assault as soon as the slices hit the oil. If you are not comfortable, slice the bananas on a flat dish and then drop the slices in the oil.
Allow the slices to fry well, tossing them in oil.
Remove, drain the excess oil and sprinkle generous amount of salt.
Cool and transfer to air tight containers.

I have tried making the sweet chips also. For these, I make a very thin sugar syrup, slice the bananas on a flat dish and toss them in the syrup before deep frying. The addition of the sugar gives the chips a deeper colour, not yellow any longer but crossed over to the brown side.

Notes: The shop man kept a bowl of water in which he had dissolved salt and turmeric powder.
He would sprinkle this water at intervals while the chips was being deep fried.
This way, there would not be a coating of salt on the crisps. I have never tried that, all because I am wary of the heat and wasting the oil.

Punjabi Special Mango pickle for Indian Cooking Challenge

2011-07-15T04:17:00.001+01:00

This month's Indian Cooking Challenge brings you a very easy to make, tongue tickling mango pickle from Punjab. Simran had asked her mother for the recipe and shared it with Srivalli. Thus, the members were challenged to try this.
This was one of the few recipes those were not very challenging. People who are fond of pickles will love this one.
My husband never eats pickles and I am not also very fond of them, save a few exceptions. So I reduced the ingredients far too low to show a decent picture to post here. Srivalli gave the ingredients with 5 kilo mangoes and proportioned the same to 500 grams. I reduced that even further and made so much that will last me only a few servings. And now I am wondering what to do about the bottle of mustard oil and the packet of nigella seeds, new additions in the pantry!
Here, in Nigeria, we get mangoes almost all year around. They are big in size and cannot categorise them as either sour or sweet. Those are called salad mangoes and can be added to salads for the crunch and the sweet - sour taste. The other variety is a rich fibrous fruit, very small in size. In all varieties the skin is very thick.
I have tried the manga thokku, South Indian style mango pickle and now this with the salad mangoes.
The pickle might have been very nice if the mangoes were sour. Also never having tried mustard oil, to get used to that was a challenge for me!

Ingredients:
500 grams mangoes
50 milli litres mustard oil

Spices to be added:
70 grams salt (this was slightly more for me. Possibly if you are keeping the pickle for many days, the salt acts as preservative)
10 grams fenugreek seeds
5 grams nigella seeds
10 grams fennel Seeds
5 grams whole black pepper corns
10 grams turmeric powder

Method:
Wash the mangoes and wipe them dry. Cut the mangoes in slightly large cubes. Spread them on a flat big dish and dry in the sun for 2 - 3 hours. If you cannot sun dry the same, dry them under an electric fan.
Use a ceramic jar or a glass jar to store the pickle. Metals and plastics can be reactive.
Clean the jar and wipe very dry. You can put the jar also in the sunlight for a few hours.
In a large pot mix all the spices and oil.
Toss the mango pieces well to coat them with the oil and spice mix.
More oil may be added if the mangoes are not well immersed in the oil. The oil preserves them. Hence, keep the level of oil slightly above the mango pieces.
Transfer the whole to the pickle jar. Leave the jar in sunlight for one day.
Then for the first fortnight, shake the jar with the contents in to toss them all over.
The pickle will be ready by the end of the fortnight.

Though there is no mandatory curing period, and you can pop pieces in your mouth even on the first day, the flavours will blend well over the period of these 15 days.
If handled carefully, the pickle stays well over a year too.
Adding some sodium benzoate (NaC₆H₅CO_{2 /}E 211 preservative) to the spice mix will ensure longer shelf life.
The fenugreek and nigella seeds are absolutely critical for the unique flavour.
You may also note that the spices are added whole and raw. There is no chilli powder or any such heat. The heat comes from the whole black pepper, when you bite in to it.
I made the pickle soon after I saw Srivalli's mail, not because the mango season might fade, but we were in for heavy monsoon showers and would rarely see the sun out. Now I have exhausted the pickle and am glad to have tried this.

Rajasthani Gatte Ki Kadi

2011-07-13T06:55:00.004+01:00

When we bought the microwave oven for my mother, I borrowed the cook book that came with the oven. I have tried few recipes from the book. Now, my sister wants to use the book and it is only fair I send the book to her! Thus, before parting with the book, I decided to try a few other dishes.
I have never had this kadi even in restaurants or elsewhere that I could have tasted Rajasthani food. So this was a choice dish to try and journalise.
I have tried the stove top also and found that stove top cooking can be done in a jiffy. I shall write out both stove top and microwave modes of cooking this kadi in this post. You may choose to make it as desired.

Recipe adapted from LG microwave oven cookbook Tastes of India by Mrs. Geeta Narang.

Ingredients:
(for gattas)
3/4 cup gram flour
2 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper powder
1/4 teaspoon oregano seeds
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 cup yoghurt
Salt to taste

(for kadi):
2 cups sour yoghurt whisked
1 tablespoon gram flour
Few curry leaves
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 pinch of asafoetida
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
2-3 dry red chillis
1 teaspoon oil
Salt to taste
Fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Microwave method:
Serves 4 people; Preparation time: less than 5 minutes; Cooking time: under 20 minutes

Mix all the ingredients for gattas and knead to firm dough adding little water if required.
Divide this dough into 6-8 equal portions and roll each portion to a 4" long cylindrical roll. You may need to grease your palms with some oil while preparing these.
Take two cups of water in a microwave safe bowl. Drop the prepared rolls in the water.
Place this in the microwave and steam at 100% power for 6 minutes.
Drain the excess water and cut the steamed gattas in smaller pieces. Keep aside.
While the gattas are being steamed, beat the yoghurt, gram flour, salt, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and asafoetida together.
In a microwave safe bowl, heat the oil on 100% power for 1 minute. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and red chillis. Heat these on 100% power for 2 minutes.
Pour the whisked yoghurt mix in and stir well.
Cook this on 100% power, without lid on for 5 minutes.
Drop the steamed gattas in the above. Place a lid and cook on 80% power for 3 minutes.
Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot with rice.

Stove top:
Knead the dough for the gattas. Grease your palms well and the steaming flat dish with little oil.
Roll the dough in long cylindrical shapes and steam in a steamer for 7 minutes.
Note that if any protein tends to become tough if over cooked. Hence, steam just until the gattas are cooked.
Allow them to cool and cut them in small pieces.
Meanwhile, beat the yoghurt and gram flour well. add 1/4 cup of water to this.
Add to the youghurt mix, salt, asafoetida, turmeric powder and red chilli powder.
Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard, cumin and fennel seeds. Allow the mustards to splutter.
Add the dry red chillis and saute for a minute.
Pour the yoghurt mix in the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for a few minutes until the raw taste of the gram flour subsides.
Add the steamed gatta pieces. Cook for a further 5 minutes, adding little water if the kadi seems very thick. Cook until the gattas soak and absorb the flavours.
Remove from the stove and transfer to the serving bowl.
Garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve with hot rice!

Godhumai Pradhaman

2011-07-12T12:04:00.008+01:00

Payasam is the simplest sweet dessert often made in any hindu household to celebrate special occasions. Today was my daughter's birthday, according to the Hindu calender. I made this godhumai pradhaman just so we have celebrated. With her away from home, we did not have a reason for a big celebration.
I have read the recipes Jayasree (godhumai pradhaman) and Madhuri (godhi pradhaman) shared in their respective spaces on earlier occasions and formed the idea. I chose to use up whole wheat kernels in my pantry and it was one of the very delicious, creamy dessert treats I have ever made. It is hard not to share the recipe.
Just with three key ingredients and a cooking time of little over 45 minutes, you can treat yourself to a lip smacking delicacy. I added powdered dry ginger (sukku podi) for the flavour.

Ingredients: (measures are 200 ml cup, in this recipe)

1/3 cup whole wheat berries
3/4 cup powdered jaggery
1 cup freshly squeezed thick coconut milk / store bought ready made coconut milk
1 teaspoon powdered dry ginger
1 teaspoon powdered green cardamom
(though you may cut some coconut pieces, roast them well in 1 teaspoon ghee and add to the pradhaman for garnish, I have not done so, simply because I did not have enough coconut)

Method:
Pick and clean the whole wheat berries and remove impurities such as some husk and stones, if any.
Rinse in water a few times. Soak the wheat berries in hot water for about 20 minutes.
Dissolve the jaggery in one cup of warm water, strain the impurities and keep aside.
Pressure cook the soaked wheat kernels until soft but still chewy. It took 5 whistles in my pressure cooker, say about 17 minutes.
Once cooked, drain the excess water, allow to cool and pulse in a mixer to a coarse texture. This grinding can be skipped if you like the whole berries as such.
While the wheat is being cooked, take the dissolved jaggery in a heavy bottomed pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 - 12 minutes until the raw flavour subsides.
When both are ready, add the wheat berries to the jaggery syrup. Cook for few minutes until well blended.
Pour the coconut milk and simmer on the lowest of the heat for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the stove, add the cardamom and dried ginger powders and serve. Hot, cold or at room temperature, it tastes divine all the same.

Whole wheat adai dosai

2011-07-11T10:30:00.004+01:00

Few days ago, Viji who writes Vcuisine blog had shared a recipe for the appams using whole wheat kernels. The appams were very soft and porous and I had book marked the recipe.
I had whole wheat kernels on hand and wanted to use those up. I was curious as to how the whole wheat will alter the texture. I thought that would be glutinous owing to the wheat. She clarified that and also mailed in detail as to how long she soaked the wheat and such.
I tried them soon after and found that we liked them very much. That evening, I had some of the batter left over.That quantity would not suffice to make enough numbers of appams and so I used it to make dosais. The dosais were very soft too. Since we like such dosais as much as the crisp ones, I decided to give the whole wheat a try in other recipes such as adai.
I had powdered pearl barley for some other dish. The excess of that powder had to be used up too.
So I ventured to make adai with whole wheat, barley and legumes. I have some sorghum also in the pantry to be cleared, so that goes into this adai as well. With barley, wheat and sorghum (vellai sOlam), I did not add any rice. It is purely optional to use barley and sorghum. You may add rice with the whole wheat and not add any of these. Also if you have fresh coconut, adding that would enhance the taste.
The adai was as good as the ones we make with soaking and grinding rice, as soft and very delectable.

Ingredients:
1/3rd cup whole wheat kernels ( I used samba godhumai)
1/4 cup (powdered) pearl barley flour
1/4 cup sorghum cereal
1/4 cup split urad dhal
1/4 cup moong dhal
1/4 cup channa dhal
1/4 cup thuvar dhal
5 dry red chillis
Salt as required
few teaspoons oil for cooking the adai

Method:
Place all of the four dhals in a bowl. Wash well and add some water to soak them.
Take the whole wheat kernels and the sorghum in a bowl. Wash to remove impurities and soak them in some water.
After few hours of soaking, grind the wheat and sorghum in a blender. Half way through, add the soaked dhals and red chillis. Grind all of these together to a coarse batter.
Transfer from the blender to a bowl. Mix the powdered pearl barley and salt to the batter.
The batter can be used up to make pan cakes soon after. However, you can allow the batter to ferment also, like how I prefer to do.

Place the flat pan, griddle or tawa on the stove. When the pan is hot, give the batter a stir and pour out a generous amount of batter on the pan. Spread lightly to a 1/4 inch thick, 6 inch wide, circular pan cake. Spoon some oil over and around the circumference of the adai.
Allow to cook well and flip to the other side. Cook this side also well and remove from the pan.
Serve these hot with any chutney of choice.
Eating this with jaggery and a blob of butter is the best way to indulge.

Siri's Healing foods event is being hosted by Simona of Briciole, the theme of the month being Whole grains. These are sent to the same.

Rawa Dosai

2011-07-04T06:43:00.006+01:00

Rawa dosai and rawa idli were few of the regulars while we were at school and college. Later, I do not remember having tried making these on my own for years. There were two valid reasons for that. Firstly,the rawa idli mix from MTR was a boon and secondly, I was not confident about my rawa dosai spreading skills! For a person who learnt to make the neer dosai with ease, this was still 'approach with caution' zone.
Later, when made in the non-stick tawa I could make these near perfect dosais. And guess what, my husband's suggestion would often be these for a light dinner!
My mother used to powder the rawa also and measure out as she would the rice flour. There is no fixed proportion for the buttermilk / whisked yoghurt in the recipe. I am assuming that the yoghurt provides some sourness to the taste and hence we use yoghurt, though I have never tried eliminating yoghurt all together.
I tend to add some roasted cashews, a fair quantity of cumin seeds and coarsely broken peppercorns just to enhance the taste. I ensure that the pepper corns are broken enough that we are not able to pick them and discard them while eating. Also a lot of coriander leaves go in, just because I love them.

Ingredients:
1 cup semolina (if possible powder somewhat finely; it is purely optional)
1 cup finely powdered rice (store bought rice flour works well)
1/4 cup (or even less will do) thin yoghurt
Salt to taste
Oil/ ghee for sprinkling
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 fist full chopped coriander leaves
Few curry leaves chopped
1 tablespoon broken cashew nuts
1& 1/2 inch piece of ginger chopped
2-3 green chillis chopped
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 teaspoons oil for roasting the condiments

Method:
Mix the semolina, rice flour and salt with the yoghurt. Add sufficient water to mix these in a pouring batter.
Heat the 2 teaspoons oil in a pan. Add the mustard and cumin seeds and allow them to crackle.
Add to this the pepper corns, cashews and green chillis. Saute' for a few seconds. Toss in the chopped ginger and the curry leaves. Switch the heat off and transfer the contents of the pan to the prepared batter.
Add the chopped coriander leaves to the batter.
Leave the batter to rest for sometime. I leave it for two hours to even longer.

The flours will absorb the water and the batter will thicken. Water is added at regular intervals while the dosais are being prepared to keep the batter in thin pouring consistency.
When you are ready to prepare the dosais, keep a utensil full of water by the side to be added to the batter, in small quantities as and when required.
Heat the dosa tawa.
The solid contents in the batter would often settle at the bottom, leaving a rare watery liquid on the surface. Mix the batter well each time before to transfer a ladle full of contents on the hot tawa.
When the tawa is warm enough, give a brisk stir of the batter, and pour a ladle full on the hot tawa in a fanning motion. You will not be able to pour and spread in circles like the rice - urad dosa batter. This has to be swiftly tossed on the hot surface. you can add some more batter to fill the big holes that may have formed while spreading. However, keep the dosai as thinly spread as possible.
Sprinkle some oil and allow the dosai to cook. Once you are able to lift it off the pan, it ensures that the under side has been cooked. Flip the dosai and cook the other side.
When both sides have been cooked well, remove the dosai from the tawa and transfer on to serving plates.

Repeat the process again for the rest of the batter, ensuring that the batter is always in a medium to rare and pouring consistency.
Serve hot with any chutney of your choice and sambhar.
It is optional that you can add chopped and slightly saute'ed onions to the batter. Or you may make the potato masal and fold it in the middle of the dosai, call it rawa masala dosai.
This is quite simple to make and with practice you can make perfectly thin, nicely roasted, restaurant style rawa dosais.

Microwave Potato Cups

2011-06-30T15:13:00.003+01:00

This is one quick and easy microwave recipe that I tried when we had few friends for lunch.
These and some nachos with a perfect dip were relished as starters.
Lavanya is hosting this month's Microwave Easy Cooking Event with party starters.
This will be my entry to the event.

Ingredients:
10 medium potatoes
2 carrots grated
1/4 cup frozen green peas
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons Garam masala powder
1 teaspoon chaat masala powder
1 block cream cheese (I used puck brand white cheese)
1 teaspoon oil

For marinating the potatoes:
2" ginger
2 green chillis
4 tablespoons lemon juice
salt to taste

Method:
Place the grated carrots and the frozen green peas in a microwave proof bowl.
Cover and cook on 100% power for 3 minutes. Allow a standing time of 1 minute.
Add the salt and garam masala powder.
Heat the oil in a microwave bowl for 1 minute on 100% power.
Add the carrot and peas and cook on 60% powder for 2 minutes. Remove and keep aside.
Use firm and fairly large potatoes.
Wash potatoes and cut in two halves.
You may peel them before or like I did, peel after cooking them.
Using a sharp knife, scoop a good portion of the potatoes out from the centre, making a deep dent to resemble cups.
Take 1 cup of water in a microwave proof bowl. Place the potato cups in the water.
Place the bowl in the microwave, without any lid. Cook on 100% power for 4 minutes.
Remove from microwave and drain the water. The potatoes may feel very slightly tender.
Return them to the same bowl and cook on 60% power with the lid on for a further 3 minutes.
Now it will be easy to remove the peel.
Grind the ginger and green chillis adding the lemon juice to a paste. Mix the salt.
Apply it over the cooked potatoes and on the inside too.
Place these cups in a flat dish and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
When you intend to serve, tale them out of the fridge, fill the hallows with some cream cheese.
Top with the grated carrot and peas mix. Sprinkle the chaat masala on the top and garnish with fresh coriander leaves.
Serve as starters.

Xacuti with home made vegetarian 'mutton'

2011-06-30T04:43:00.007+01:00

The free spirit mates, having tried egg substitutions in baking and bringing you party starter ideas earlier, bring you jaw dropping dishes that are deceptively non-vegetarian in looks and may be as nearly in taste, this month, though most of us would not know, how close!
It was Dhivya's brainwave that we recreate classic non-vegetarian recipes, making them totally vegetarian or better vegan, if possible. Her conditions were that we make them look as close as possibly non vegetarian, but we were not allowed to use store bought mock meats and such stuff.

Few days prior to that, I had watched on Khana Kazana show, Sanjeev Kapoor cooking the famous Xacuti with chicken. That was a 'Goa special' episode and this dish, captured my attention with the long, complex list of spices used. I was curious to try a vegetarian counterpart using all of those spices listed there.

Later few of my friends on Facebook were discussing another Goan dish, where one of them wanted to know if she can make it vegetarian. The reply was, obviously yes! They suggested the vegetables that can be used too. Also there was a cottage cheese option for the dish, which makes the taste closest to chicken dishes.

Now all this got me into working on the Xacuti. There is also a vegetarian mutton kurma listed under Mangalore dishes in the Preett cookbook. The recipe to make a mutton look-alike was given there. Also there was a comment that vegetarians usually take it for a mutton dish. These gave me sufficient pointers to cook my Vegetarian Mutton Xacuti and I am here sharing the recipe.
Do not be discouraged with the long list of ingredients. The final product is way too good to be intimidated.
The Xacuti gravy recipe has been adapted from Sanj eev Kapoor's website. You may find the recipe here, just a click away.
The vegetarian mutton has been adapted from Preett way to cook - 101 recipes from India and elsewhere. That calls for deep frying the pieces which I have opted to shallow fry. Also I have used whole wheat flour while they suggest all purpose flour.
Hence I discuss the recipe in two parts, one making the veg mutton and then the gravy.
Have this with hot steamed rice or opt to have with rotis, it makes a lip smacking side dish!

Preparation time: about 5 hours
Cooking time : about 2 hours

Ingredients:
For the vegetarian mutton:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/8th teaspoon sodium-bi-carbonate (cooking soda)
1/4 teaspoon olive oil (for vegan version or ghee for vegetarian)
2 teaspoons oil for shallow frying

How to prepare the vegetarian mutton:
Add salt, soda-bi-carb, olive oil, chilli powder to the flour. Knead to a slightly loose and soft dough adding sufficient water. I use vegetable stock to knead the dough. You may also use whey from making paneer if available.
Keep this in a bowl covered with a damp cloth for 4 to 5 hours.
Make cylindrical rolls of the dough and steam them for about 15 minutes.
Remove, allow them to cool and cut in small size cubes.

Heat oil in a pan and shallow fry these cubes until they are golden. Mine appear red from the stock I have used and the chilli powder.
Keep them reserve until the gravy is ready.
This yields roughly 220 grams of the pieces. (I rounded the spices to 250 grams equivalent)

For the gravy:
(the list was for 1 kilogram of mutton. I have reduced to proportion.)
250 grams of vegetarian mutton pieces
1/2" piece ginger
3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh grated coconut
2 green cardamoms
1/2" stick cinnamon
2 cloves
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 small petal of the star aniseed
2/3 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon carom seeds
1/4 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 thin blade of mace
1/4 teaspoon cooking poppy seeds
1/8th teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/8th teaspoon mustard seeds
4 black peppercorns
2 dry red chillis
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 medium onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
1/2 tablespoon tamarind pulp
Salt as required

For garnish:
1/2 tablespoon Fresh grated coconut
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves

Grind the ginger, garlic and green chilli with the juice of lime to a paste. Apply this to the prepared mutton pieces and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Roast the coconut to a nice golden brown and aromatic with 1 teaspoon of the olive oil.
Dry roast all the spices on a low fire. If you are cooking for a bigger quantity, dry roast each of these separately. I had very little and hence chose to do it in the same pan, taking care to drop the heavier ones first and adding gradually the rest.
Cool the spices and grind along with coconut and turmeric powder to a very smooth paste. Wash the jar of the blender and retrieve the adhering paste too.
Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan. Add the onions and saute' until they are pink.
Add the prepared pieces. Saute' until the oil separates.
Add the ground masala and on a low fire cook this well until any raw taste subsides. You may not have to do this long as you have already roasted the spices.
Sprinkle water to the cooking mass to avoid burning.
Add the tomatoes and cook until they turn to a pulp.
Add the tamarind pulp and sufficient water. Bring to a boil and then allow to simmer for about 10 to 12 minutes until the pieces absorb the flavours.

Remove from the heat. Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with some fresh grated coconut and coriander leaves.

Serve hot with steamed rice. Traditionally, this is served with rice in Goa. However, it does taste good with rotis, naan and phulkas too.
When we discussed this, Deepti googled to find that Xacuti has been derived from Sa-go-thi which is the name for mutton as used by the Marathas. As read on wiki it is known as chacuti in Portuguese too.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this recipe. Now head over to my fellow free spirits' pages to check what they have brought for you. Be warned that you are in for tremendous ideas.

Bombay Jalebi

2011-06-27T13:53:00.001+01:00

Whether I shall bake a cake or just have a payasam and a quiet day...was the contemplation I had three days ago. Being my husband's Hindu calendar birthday (the star of his birth - date), I wanted to do something extra. Thus the above contemplation. Then all of a sudden he suggested how would it be to make jalebis! I would do with the GITS ready mix pack, I thought. Then as I was looking up for something else, I came across this recipe in Samaiththu paar book. That tempted me to make it with the ingredients from my pantry, not from a box of ready to make!
I would love to try the jangiri too, but I have to wait to bring a good quality urad dhal from home for that.
Jalebis are different from jangiris in all senses but for the frying and the soaking in sugar syrup.
Traditionally, according to the book and another book, they are done with the aid of the coconut shells to drop the batter in the fat for frying. I had to use the modern aid of a plastic sauce bottle fitted with a nozzle in the lid that came with the Gits pack that I purchased long time ago.
Also, the jangiris are best done soon as you grind the dhal to a batter, while the jalebis are made with a batter fermented overnight in yoghurt.
Now, without further rattling, I shall share the recipe.
I made a dozen jalebis with the recipe I have shared below. In fact, you should get a bit more pieces for this quantity. I was using up more batter for each and hence the numbers were less.

Ingredients:
200ml/3/4 cups (tightly packed and heaped) All purpose flour
350 grams/1&1/2 cup (level) sugar
1 tablespoon raw urad dhal powder (or soak 2 tablespoons urad dhal and grind to a smooth paste)
2 teaspoons rice flour
125ml/ quarter of a cup +1 tablespoon yoghurt (this can be replaced by 4 tablespoons cooking oil)
1 pinch of salt
1 tiny pinch of yellow food colour
Oil/ghee for deep frying
Few strands of saffron
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
2 drops of rose essence (optional)

Method:
Mix the salt, food colour, all purpose flour and the yoghurt/oil. Add sufficient water and mix to a medium thick batter. The consistency of dosa batter is optimum.
Close with a lid and leave it overnight.
Next day, prepare the sugar syrup by measuring equal volume of water as the sugar and dissolving the sugar and boiling for about 8 to 10 minutes.
The sugar syrup will be of a very thin string consistency, slightly thicker than that for gulab jamuns.
If held between the forefinger and the thumb, the syrup will feel sticky and if the fingers are pulled apart the thin string will form and break quickly. That is the correct consistency.
Add the essence, saffron and the cardamom powder to the syrup.
Now add the powdered urad dhal (or the paste if you chose to soak and grind) and the rice flour to the batter and mix well.
Fill the plastic sauce bottle with the batter. You may use a thick plastic bag with a small slit in the sharp corner like a cone to press the batter into the fat.
It is best to use a heavy bottomed slightly shallow pan (I use the non stick skillet) to deep fry the jalebis. Deep pans do not work well. The frying jalebis may clog towards the centre in such a pan.
Heat the ghee or oil in the pan. Once it is hot but not smoking, reduce the heat to medium.
Now holding the batter filled press above the oil, gently press the batter out through the nozzle in to the fat. Turn your arms in a circular motion thrice while pressing the batter to form circular shapes. Then run it across over the circles and end it there. Press two or three more as much as the pan will hold.
Allow them to fry for a few minutes, turn them over in the oil to cook on the other side. Remove from the oil with a slotted ladle and gently slide them in the warm syrup.

Allow these to soak in the syrup and absorb the syrup a little bit.
Meanwhile you can proceed with the next batch to be pressed into the oil.
Transfer the jalebis that have been soaking in the syrup to another plate, and leave the fresh batch in the syrup to soak.
As the syrup cools, it might thicken a bit and not soak the jalebis. Return the syrup to the stove and simmer on a low heat until the consistency is achieved. This will not happen when you are making small quantities as this recipe. However, when you intend to make a larger batch, this tip may come handy.
Proceed until all of the batter is used up.
These will absorb enough syrup and the texture will be juicy. Hence you will not have much of the syrup remaining and wasted. The oil though will be left over a bit.
The procedure may seem very difficult and the pressing and turning simultaneously needs a bit of practice. But the jalebis are sure to be a thoroughly enjoyable treat.
On a high note this post happens to be my 250th as the numbers show. It has been a thoroughly enjoyable culinary journey which has been made possible by readers and friends though the blog.
Thank you one and all for making it a beautiful and learning experience thus far and hope to continue in the same manner.
Thank you once again.

Badami mixed vegetables with vegan yoghurt

2011-06-25T07:25:00.001+01:00

As I write this post, I am reflecting on how much my cooking has transformed since I started sharing recipes here, in my blog. It is not a big bang evolution as such, but I have started to consciously cook somewhat healthy and good - to - eat dishes. Earlier also, I was inspired by cookery shows on televisions and recipes featured in cookbooks. But reading a blog and trying dishes has given me more confidence that a recipe shared will work.
Just about few days ago, two friends Jayashree and Vidhya messaged me of having tried and liked recipes I had shared. That was very humbling and a wonderful feeling. Both of you made my day!
The recipe here today is what I watched on television on a Sunday morning and very inspired that I tried it out as soon as the show went off air. This was few months ago, and as you guessed right, it was Sanjeev Kapoor making onion and garlic free dishes. I had all the ingredients on hand that morning and made this for lunch.
Later, Harini the Sunshine mom shared the home-made vegan cashew yoghurt, which influenced me to try it. I set the yoghurt following her recipe and I had a rich and very wonderful yoghurt. To eat it with simple rice would have been a treat, but considering the cost of cashews, I dared not.
I used it in dishes where yoghurt was called for. They turned out richer with the cashew nuts.
I have marinated my potatoes in this yoghurt, cooked some rich gravies and most awesome biriyani with cashew, almond and peanut yoghurt in these past few months.
The other day, I made this gravy dish cutting out the yoghurt and the cashew paste called for in the recipe.
Thanks to two talented chefs, I have a vegan, no onions, no garlic side dish that works wonderful with my whole wheat naans.
Recipe source:
Partly adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor's Khana Kazana. Find the recipe here .
Sunshinemom's vegan cashew yoghurt from her blog Tongue Ticklers.

Ingredients and method to set cashew yoghurt:
25 pieces whole good quality cashew nuts
3/4 cup warm water
10 fresh chilli crowns

Soak the cashew nuts in very hot water for about 20 minutes.
Drain and grind to a smooth paste adding about 2 tablespoons of water gradually.
Transfer this to a ceramic bowl. Add the rest of the warm water to the paste and mix well.
Wash the chillis and pat them dry. Remove the crowns and drop them in the prepared cashew milk.
Cover and allow the yoghurt to set for few hours.
Remove the chilli crowns and the yoghurt is ready for use.

Note: Chillis have to be fresh for them to attract bacteria from the air.
I placed the bowl inside my oven after having baked something. That supplied warmth for the yoghurt to set. The yoghurt set in about 6 hours.
This quantity gives about 200ml yoghurt.

Ingredients:
2 medium carrots cut in medium size cubes
10 french beans cut fine
1/4 cup shelled peas
10 cauliflower florets cut medium
(Any other vegetable that is suitable to be cooked in a yoghurt based gravy will work fine)
2 medium tomatoes blanched and pureed
2 green chillis chopped fine
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons peanuts roasted and powdered
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 teaspoons Kashmiri red chilli powder
2 teaspoons garam masala powder
1/3 cup cashew yoghurt
Salt as required
2 tablespoons freshly chopped coriander leaves

Method:
Place all the vegetables in a microwave steamer and steam for 5 minutes on maximum power.
Add the turmeric powder and salt to the steamed vegetables.
Heat oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds. Allow them to crackle. Drop the chopped green chillis in.
Add the steamed vegetables and saute' for a few minutes.
Whisk the roasted peanut powder to the cashew yoghurt.
To the vegetables in the cooking pan add the coriander powder, garam masala powder and the red chilli powder.
Pour the pureed tomatoes and allow to cook further.
Finally add the cashew yoghurt, reduce the heat to the lowest and simmer the gravy for about 5 minutes, adding some more water. Stir continuously to avoid burning.
Remove from the stove. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with fresh coriander leaves.
Serve hot with naan, rotis or phulkas.

The addition of cashew nuts gives the dish a very creamy texture. You may choose to reduce the quantity of yoghurt used to have a slightly dry, less of gravy dish. I have made it more gravy based as we like it thus.
I shall share other recipes where I have used such non-milk based yoghurt dishes. Depending on the nuts you use, the taste differs. The peanut yoghurt gives you a whiff of peanut oil while the almonds are very rich as are the cashews. I have not tried the soy yoghurt so far. I guess that soy yoghurt would make a very protein rich base for gravies.
Hope you enjoy the dish!

Mini savoury toast

2011-06-20T14:56:00.012+01:00

Sometime ago, I purchased one mini loaf tin. This bakes four mini loaves.
I tried Dhivya's white dinner rolls recipe from Chef in you.
I used herbs from my garden and made the savoury version in mini loaves.
They were perfect as such, though my husband liked them with a potato masala sandwiched in the loaf.
Later, I toasted the slices an made pretty shapes off a cheese block and enjoyed that too.
This recipe has been a wee bit altered as I was making them savoury. The recipe makes 8 mini loaves.

Ingredients:
3 cups of All purpose flour
2 & 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 &1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar (I reduced the sugar and added some more salt in this)
1 teaspoon salt
4 green chillis
10 oregano leaves
15-20 mint leaves
1 teaspoon oil

Method:
Add butter to the milk and warm it to a moderate heat until the butter melts in the milk.
Take the yeast in a bowl, sprinkle the sugar and a small amount of the flour. Add the luke warm water to it.
Cover and let it stand for about 15 minutes to become frothy.
Pulse the herbs in a mixer. Add this to the flour.
Add salt and the proven yeast to the milk.
On the kitchen counter or on a big bowl, take the flour and make a well in the middle.
Pour the milk , butter and yeast mixture in this well. Gently incorporate the flour in.
Knead the dough well. It will feel sticky, but as you knead the dough will gather well in a very elastic texture.
Knead well for about 15 minutes. The dough will feel just short of sticky.
Grease a bowl with 1 teaspoon oil and place the dough in the bowl, cover and allow it to double. This may take about two hours.
Transfer the dough to the counter and knead again dusting the floor of the counter/ board occasionally.
Then roll in a small rectangle and divide in eight parts. Place them in the mini loaf tins, cover with a damp cloth. Allow this to rise again.
Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade.
Using a tooth pick, punch tiny holes on the surface of the dough, just until the tip of the pin.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on racks.
Your mini loaves are ready.

When completely cool, slice them.

Using a cookie cutter, cut out shapes off a block of cheese and place them on toasted bread slices.

Idli sandwich

2011-06-17T10:43:00.011+01:00

There are days that I am bored with my cooking. Repeating the same dishes often gets mundane and I look to give them a twist just to make something appetizing. This was one such experiment I made for my breakfast. This morning as I was planning the day's breakfast and lunch, I decided that I would make just enough idlis for packing my husband's snack box and plan my breakfast later.
I steamed my idlis in small individual cups and made myself the sandwich idlis with some raw and some steamed vegetables filled in it.
You can use your own innovative ideas for the filling. I have used regular coconut chutney for spreading and the vegetables. Had I planned ahead, I could have added some sprouts and crumbled paneer to the vegetables and some interesting chutney. Nonetheless, this sandwich was delicious enough that I chose to share.
Ideally the idli batter that is a day old in the fridge works well. The fresh batter usually gives super soft idlis that may crumble when you cut in the cross section. Hence I use the batter on the third day after grinding for such experiments.

Ingredients: (makes two medium sandwiches/ serves one person)
3 big ladles full idli batter
Few drops of oil to grease the cups

For the filling:
1 tablespoon chutney of your choice (I have used coconut chutney)
2 tablespoons of freshly grated carrots
1 tablespoon steamed green peas coarsely mashed
1 tablespoon thinly sliced green bell pepper strips steamed
5 slices of tomato
salt to taste
2 teaspoons ghee for grilling

Method:
Grease two small bowls with oil.
Pour the idli batter into these until half filled.
Steam these in a steamer for about 7 minutes.
As the idlis are being steamed, prepare the filling. Mix slat to the vegetables and keep them ready.
Remove the cups from the steamer and allow to cool. Remove the steamed idlis from the cups.
Allow the idlis to cool completely. Using a sharp knife, slice the idlis in two sections.

Heat the ghee for grilling in a pan. place the idli sections and allow to be grilled or toasted for a few minutes. This step is entirely optional. You can avoid the ghee/oil and just enjoy plain sandwich idlis too.
If you are grilling, just do thus for one side of each section.
Spread a little quantity of chutney on one side of each slice.
Layer two of the sections with the vegetable filling.
Place the other two sections on top of the above.
Garnish with sliced tomato and coriander leaves and serve.

You may choose to make the colourful idlis and sandwich them as prepared above to just make it more interesting for kids.

Srivalli is hosting a Sandwich Mela where these idli sandwiches are being sent to her to be shared.

Bangalore Iyengar Bakery Style Khara Biscuits

2011-06-15T01:35:00.007+01:00

Having heard from many of my friends about these biscuits, it was time the members of the Indian Cooking Challenge tried these at our homes. Srivalli asked Champa to share the recipe for us and we were pleased to have found a very work-able recipe which I am about to share in this post. You may find the recipe shared by Champa in her blog Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen.

The recipe is quite simple and I wondered at the fact that it does not use any baking powder or bi-carbonate of soda. The biscuits turned out crisp and totally addictive. As I was baking in my microwave oven in the convection mode, I needed to increase the baking time by a few minutes. The preparation time also is not much, so you can actually bake them if you have a sudden craving for some spicy snack along with your tea in about 45 minutes time including the baking and cleaning up too.

Ingredients:
250 grams All purpose flour (2 cups loosely spooned)
4 teaspoons sugar
80 grams butter softened at room temperature (1/3 cup)
1 teaspoon salt
6 green chillis chopped finely (adjust according to heat required)
2 -3 tablespoons fresh coriander leaves chopped
2 -3 table spoons yoghurt (2 tablespoons to start with and increase if necessary)
1/2 teaspoon carom seeds (ajwain/omam)

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees Centigrade/325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line your baking trays with grease proof paper or parchment. Or you may use an aluminium foil that has been lightly greased with butter.
Sieve the all purpose flour and salt together. Whisk that a bit to incorporate some air.
In a larger bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until light and creamy.
Add to this, 2 tablespoons of yoghurt and cream further. Add the chopped chillis, carom seeds and the coriander leaves.
Now add the flour mix and with your hands gather the flour and creamed mixture. Handle the dough gently.
If it feels very dry add the extra 1 tablespoon yoghurt. The quality of the all purpose flour plays a role in the recipe so, depending on that you may require this extra yoghurt.
The dough will at no point be a wet dough. It has to be stiff and very lightly crumbly.
Roll the dough on a board and cut cookie shapes.
Place the shaped dough on the lined tray and bake for 18 to 20 minutes.
Take them out once and reposition the cookies the down side facing up and continue baking.
Once done, cool completely and store in airtight jars.
Soon after the cookies are out of the oven, they tend to be soft. They acquire the crisp upon cooling.
These stay well at room temperature for four days and up to a week if refrigerated.

These make a great combination to have with tea, especially on a grey day when the skies are threatening to drench you.
I have halved the recipe and baked 10 biscuits, so there was no question of them staying for longer than that very day I baked....oh yes, I kept some over for the next day!

Thengai Podi

2011-06-14T11:20:00.006+01:00

Most summer holidays through my school years, were spent at our maternal grand parents' home in Gobichettipalayam. As was the case then in many Tambram families, it was lunch at 10 AM in that household too. Breakfast was unheard of. But the children were always fed left over rice at around 8 AM. They used to cook extra rice in the night and keep it over for us to eat with curd. Being summer curd rice was mandatory. To go with the curd rice there would be pickles and milagai gojju or thengai podi.
As my grandfather would perform an elaborate pooja every morning, whatever was cooked that day was kept for neivedhyam (offering). Hence we were not allowed to partake any of the food being freshly cooked just then. We would eat that for our mid day meal, a full course with vegetables, sambhar and rasam and all.
We were of course, allowed to snack in between on a whole mango or some fresh nungu or some fruit. Biscuits and candies were strictly not to be had.
We would grudgingly eat the meal in the morning because, we always equated that to leftovers. Little did we know that it was meant to be. The many pickles that will be available might be lime, vadu maanga, maagani kizhangu, dry narthangai etc. giving you plenty to choose from. The thengai podi can be had with plain rice drizzled with some oil or as a side for any rice dish too. I favoured this podi to oorgai. The same is true even to date.

Ingredients:
1 &1/2 cup freshly grated coconut (Ensure that the coconut is ripe)
10-12 dry red chillis
1 table spoon channa dhal
1 tablespoon urad dhal
1 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1 small marble size tamarind
2 teaspoons oil
2 heaped teaspoons sea salt (adjust as required)

Method:
A ripe coconut will be best to prepare this. It ensures shelf life of about a week to 9 days at room temperature.
Scrape the coconut and obtain evenly grated coconut.

Traditional coconut scraper

Heat the oil in a pan and roast the two dhals separately until golden brown.
Remove them from the pan and roast the red chillis, tamarind and the salt.
Next on a low fire, roast the coconut scrapes until they are evenly light brown and aromatic.
Allow all of the above to cool.
Transfer the roasted dhals, spices and the asafoetida powder to the jar of a spice grinder.
Pulse for a few seconds and add the coconut to the jar. Grind to a coarse but combined powder.
Remove from the jar, allow to come to room temperature and transfer to clean, airtight storing jars.
Enjoy with rice.

Thakkali vengayam chutney - Tomatoes and onions chutney

2011-06-12T09:03:00.005+01:00

I have been wanting to write this recipe for quite a while now. Though I often make an elaborate sambhar and chutney combination to go with idlis and dosais, the tomato onion chutney is the best loved one. Given a choice, my husband would opt to have the thakkali vengaya chutney.
The other day, when I was chatting online with Madhuri, she was making her post on the chutney and urged me to post mine also. I put it in drafts and had forgotten about it all together amidst the house shifting and such.
Today, when I was planning to schedule a post for a later date I found this in my drafts and hence, I am sharing here.
You can actually get very versatile with this chutney. There is no set number of tomatoes or onions that have to go into it and such. What I have given can be used as a base to build on. I drop a few spoons of urad dhal and channa dhal sometimes and other times add some fresh coriander leaves or mint as I work on it in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
3 medium tomatoes
1 large/ 2 medium onions
4 dry red chillis
1 tablespoon urad dhal
1 tablespoon channa dhal
A thumb nail size tamarind
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoons oil

For the tempering:
Use 1/2 teaspoon oil from the above and 1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Method:
Chop the onions and the tomatoes.
Heat oil in a pan retaining 1/2 teaspoon for tempering.
Add the chopped onions and saute them until they are slightly done. Add the red chillis and channa dhal and allow it to roast until golden. Add the urad dhal and roast it also to a golden colour.
Add the salt, turmeric powder, and the tamarind while on a low flame.
Finally add the chopped tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes cook in a soft pulp.
Cool this mixture and grind to a paste in a blender.
Heat the reserved oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds. Allow them to splutter and add this to the chutney.

The consistency can be adjusted to your preference. I usually grind it to a smooth paste a habit that my husband cannot shake off. A slightly coarse textured chutney goes well with dosais and the smoother paste like chutney can be had with idlis.

Channa Masala - version 2 from an old cookbook

2011-06-11T09:14:00.000+01:00

I have this cookbook from my mother-in-law. I do not even remember when the brand Preet Pressure cookers existed. My mother in law had one pressure cooker which, for a long time, I assumed, was the later model of Prestige 12 litres cooker. All I recall is a very sturdy saucepan that she was very fond of and used to tell me that she has been having that ever since they moved to their own house in Ciombatore which means since the year 1967. (She had been using it until my last visit to her home.)

Years ago, when I stayed with them until I secured a transfer in my job, I chanced upon this book inside one of the table cupboards in my husband's room. The book is titled "The Preet way to cook" 101 recipes from India and elsewhere. It is an instruction manual combined with a cookbook, and with my sister-in-law's name labelled in it. I asked to have it and she had no objections in giving the same to me.
It does have recipes from all over India, some vegetarian and some non vegetarian. I have tried few of those vegetarian recipes. This one is a simple version of the Punjabi chole. I made it for dinner last night and thought that I shall share the same. Though I have not followed the recipe to the letter, I can safely say that this recipe has been adapted from that book.

I have altered the recipe to suit my taste and availability of the masala ingredients in my pantry. Also I have made it for just two people.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Kabuli Channa (garbanzo beans)
2 small onions
2 large tomatoes
1 small piece of ginger
4 pods of garlic
1/2 teaspoon pomegranate seeds
2 teaspoons garam masala powder
2 teaspoons red chilli powder (1 teaspoon chilli powder and 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon crushed jaggery (optional)
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons oil

For tempering and garnish:
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 large green chilli
Few sliced onions
Few sliced tomatoes

Method:
Wash and soak the chick peas overnight.
Drain the water and add 1/4 cup of fresh water to the chick peas.
Pressure cook the chick peas until very soft.
Remove from the cooked peas about 1 and 1/2 tablespoon and keep aside.
Add salt to the rest of the chick peas. Retain the cooked water also.
Chop the onions, peel the garlic and ginger.
Drop the tomatoes in warm water and peel the skin gently.
Grind the onions, pomegranate seeds, garlic and ginger to a paste adding to them the chilli powders and the turmeric powder. Grind this to a smooth paste adding little water only. Transfer to a bowl.
In the same blender jar, puree the tomatoes. add this puree to the cooked channa.
Take the reserved chick peas and blend to a smooth paste.
Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the cumin seeds and the slit green chillis.
After a few minutes, add the blended masala paste. Cook this on a low fire until the raw taste is lost and the oil begins to separate. Now add the tomato paste and the chick peas. Add the garam masala.
Allow to simmer for at least 15 minutes to infuse the taste to the cooked chick peas.
Finally add the jaggery and chick peas paste to the simmering gravy. Allow this gravy to thicken.
When done, remove from the heat and add the garnish to the channa masala.
Serve hot with rotis, phulkas and such.

Vaazhaikkai Podimas

2011-06-10T10:22:00.005+01:00

Vaazhaikkai podimas is a variation of the usual plantain dry curry.
This preparation is just as simple as we cook the regular vaazhaikkai kari, yet an interesting change to the usual.
I usually prepare a normal stir fry or the crunchy roasted vaazhaikkai kari. Once in a while, though, it is good to alter course, isn't it?
The recipe given here serves two people.

Ingredients:
2 medium raw bananas
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons oil

To be dry roasted and powdered coarsely:
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons channa dhal
2 or 3 dry red chillis
3 teaspoons freshly grated coconut
Just about little salt to add to the powder

For tempering:
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Few curry leaves

Method:

Cut a little off the edges of the bananas. Retain the skin and cut the bananas in two. Depending on the size of the banana, sometimes I boil it as a whole.
Drop the four pieces in hot water and cook them just until the peel can be easily peeled off.
Take care not to cook the banana until very soft.
Peel the skin off and with a vegetable grater, grate the bananas.
Heat the 2 teaspoons oil in a pan, add the turmeric powder, asafoetida powder and the salt along with the grated banana.
Sprinkle water off and on and cook the bananas until just about soft. Remove from the pan and keep aside. When it is cool fluff the cooked vegetable with tips of your fingers or a fork so the grated pieces are separate.
In another pan dry roast the ingredients listed for powdering. Allow to cool a bit and powder coarsely.
Once the powder is ready, heat the oil for tempering and add the mustard seeds. Allow them to crackle.
Add the curry leaves and toss for a minute before adding the cooked banana and the spice powder.
Toss them together for a few minutes and remove from the heat.
Serve with rice and sambhar or rasam as a side for the rice.

I am sending this to Krithi's Kitchen who is hosting Siri's Healing Foods event with Bananas this month.

Maanga Pulisseri

2011-06-09T17:14:00.005+01:00

One of the Kerala gravy recipes that I had wanted to try for sometime now was the manga pulisseri.
I had it in a friend's place while in Bahrain. I had not noted the recipe then.
Last year another friend who travels to Ghana during her school holidays, mentioned this recipe to me. I remember trying out soon after.
I had been wanting to write it in the blog, but kept putting it off so much that I had almost forgotten the recipe.
When I found my Bahrain friend online, I was reminded of the pulisseri recipe and asked her to give me the same. As we chatted, she wrote the recipe for me.
I copied it to my notepad and this very morning tried it.
As I started off with this post, we had heavy thunderstorms and my internet was down.
However, I thought I can compose and post it later in the blog.
I have cut and pasted the recipe from our conversation. Just the ingredients part I have had to make a write up. The method, which appears below is verbatim of our conversation.

Ingredients:
1 small raw mango (the semi sweet and sour variety works best)
2 green chillis
1 dry red chilli
1 tablespoon scraped coconut
1/4 cup yoghurt
A generous pinch of turmeric powder
Salt to taste

For tempering:
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
few curry leaves
1 dry red chilli

For Garnishing:
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves

Method:

M:Cook the mangoes with haldi and salt.
Grind 2 green chillis, one dry redchilli along with scraped coconut.
Once mango is cooked add yoghurt and mix continuously. Meanwhile, add the coconut paste.
When small bubbles appear in the boiling mixture,the pulisseri is ready.
Me: what is tadka for this? normal kadugu, karuveppila?
M: Temper with mustard, redchilli bit of methi seeds !!!!
If the mango is sweet ..after tadka you can add bit of methi powder for flavour.

This is how you prepare the pulisseri.

I recall the other friend asking me to dry roast some fenugreek seeds and the given 1 dry red chilli and grind with the coconut and green chillis.
She also mentioned that if the yoghurt is not sour enough, it will curdle in a mass and water separated. So in order to keep the binding, add a little quantity of gram flour to the yoghurt.

Living in a tropical country, I had set the yoghurt and left it on the counter allowing it to get a bit sour than my usual requirement. Hence I did not add any flour to the yoghurt.
Serve this with steamed hot rice. It tasted very good combined with coconut rice.

Baked and filled khakhra cups

2011-05-31T05:00:00.002+01:00

The theme chosen for the Free Spirit Bloggers this month is "Savoury party starters"! I know, that all of you are very interested now, to check out mine as well as the rest of the team members' sites for super cool ideas.
Suggestions from baked to pan fried, simple to complex cooking were coming forth in torrents. Mini samosas, baked potatoes, bite size burgers and many more were discussed. I had wanted to go with kababs, but never initiated any move in that direction. Then one morning, I decided, I will do canapes. My papadam canapes have been often repeated snacks at home and I wanted to try something similar.
Why not mini khakhras and make canapes then? I decided and quickly set out with the preparations to mix the dough and such.
Just then, while chatting, Madhuri said that she had been to a product launch and they had served something bite size with cheese and stuff. I had a flash of brainwave then, to make the khakhras in cup shapes and fill, instead of the usual canapes.
A small change in the plan....result: wonderful cup shapes khakhras!

I was very happy about the final product and now started wondering about the fillings.
Again it was Niki who put in many ideas and so did my husband. And I was surprising myself with the different ideas I could think of (which is rare, I shall confess).

Having raved so much, I think it is time to switch to the recipe.
It was also decided that we post something that we can make ahead of the actual party day, it shall be something that we can serve a good number of guests and we can show just a few in pictures while the recipe will be multiples of the servings shown in the picture.

I have made them using my muffin tray, while I feel that if I had baked them in mini muffin moulds, that would have been a great idea. Just the right size for starters and you can have much more for the same quantity of prepared dough.
However, feel free not to bake in muffin moulds but roll and cut in desired shapes before baking, and make canapes. Or roll them as with usual khakhras and cook on stove top too.
You may use your own filling ideas which incidentally, can be innumerable. For kids' parties you may make them sweet, cheesy and much more. Serve a dip in these cups with finger cuts of salad veggies and later eat the cup too!

I have made with four different fillings here.

Ingredients for Khakhra cups:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
(or use 2 cups whole wheat flour)
2 table spoons Kasuri methi
2 table spoons caraway seeds (ajwain/omam)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon cooking oil
Water to knead the dough to soft yet stiff consistency
Oil to grease the muffin tray

Method:
Sift the flours and the salt together. Add the kasuri methi and the ajwain and mix well. Rub the oil in.
Gradually add sufficient water and knead well to form a slightly stiff but pliable dough.
Cover the dough and rest it for about 20 minutes. Knead again and pinch out very tiny marble size balls of the dough. (Alternately, pinch out enough dough to roll into big rounds and then cut out small circles that can fit in the muffin trays.)
Grease the moulds of the muffin tray and keep ready.
Roll the pinched out marbles into very thin circular discs, taking care not to tear them. Dust some flour to achieve the thin discs.
Pre heat the oven to 200 Degrees Centigrade.
Fill the muffin moulds in the tray with the rolled discs to form cup shapes. They need not be perfectly fitting or evenly filled too.
Bake at 200 degrees Centigrade for just 6 minutes.
Proceed with the rest of the dough. Keep the dough covered with a damp cloth so it does not dry.
The khakhras have to be made crisp. You may prick the surface with the edge of a safety pin or tooth pick and bake them.
Remove from the oven and spread them on place mats or trays to cool.
Store them in airtight containers.
Khakhras usually keep fresh for long many days. So, when you are planning these for a party you may prepare them much ahead and store them.

This quantity will give you about 72 cups in the normal muffin size. With the mini moulds you may have plenty more.

The most interesting part was the filling. I thought really hard to make some attractive and delectable ones which can also be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated, allowing you respite from this chore and enough time to concentrate on the other dishes.

Hummus was one filling I used with the olives to top it. Just before serving, place a spoonful of hummus in the cup and top it with pitted olives.

My daughter suggested Pico de Gallo, when I was going for Salsa. In this case, I assembled the rest of the ingredients and refrigerated them. Only the tomatoes were added on the actual day.
I have used the recipe from Dhivya's Chef in you where she has a very valuable tip for this. Check that out!

Again Niki's suggestion was the crumbled feta cheese and peppers filling, in which I replaced the feta cheese with paneer.

The recipe for Paneer and peppers crumble:

250 grams paneer crumbled
2 large red bell peppers deseeded and cut in tiny cubes
2 large green bell peppers deseeded and cut in tiny cubes
5 green chillis slit, seeds removed and chopped very fine
1 medium onion sliced very fine
Juice from 2 lemons
2 teaspoons oil
Salt to taste
If desired some chat masala/ roasted and ground cumin
Olive oil to drizzle

Before cutting the bell peppers, chop the top off, scoop the seeds out and stand them in boiling water for just a minute. Remove from the water and cut them in uniform cubes.
Heat oil in a pan and add the green chillis, toss for a minute and add the onions. Saute for a few minutes and then add the cubed peppers and salt. Mix them thoroughly, and just before removing from the heat, add the crumbled paneer.
Take it off the stove and blend the lemon juice in it.
While assembling this in the khakhra cups, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle the chat masala.
This is a colourful and delicious filling.

The next filling is spiced hung yoghurt with a cherry tomato topping garnished with small quantity of dukkah.

1 litre home set yoghurt
Salt to taste
A fist full of mint leaves
1 teaspoon roasted and powdered caraway seeds
Cherry tomatoes
Dukkah as required

Transfer the yoghurt on a cheese cloth. Tie it up and hang in a hook with a bowl below it for several hours.
When the whey in the yoghurt has drained into the bowl, remove the solid content from the cheese cloth.
Transfer this hung yoghurt on a large flat dish.
Run the mint leaves and salt in a mixer to a coarse texture.
Add the mint, caraway seeds powder and dukkah to the yoghurt and incorporate the spices in the yoghurt.

This filling can be refrigerated for a four days.
While assembling, drop a spoonful of the spiced yoghurt into the khakhra cups. Place a cherry tomato on the yoghurt and sprinkle some dukkah on the top.

One more topping was the spicy corn. I store some frozen corn in the freezer and boil it to have as snack. Also there I grind a coarse paste of ginger, green chilli and garlic and add to the corn. Toss them and salt until they blend and eat it for a spicy snack.
That can be used as filling for the cups too.

Hope you enjoyed my party starter. Just use your resources and imagination to bring about more fillings or toppings, in case you are making canapes.

Do not just stop here, head over to Anu's, Deepti's, Dhivya's, Mads', Mridhu's, Nags' and Siri's spaces to check what they may indulge you with, when you are invited to party with them.

Vendaikkai mandi in microwave

2011-05-28T06:36:00.003+01:00

Chettinad cooking is one of the unique South Indian cuisines. Most dishes are hot, pungent and spicy with generous amounts of spices added to the ingredients. Most often the spices are freshly ground. Garlic and onion are integral part of many dishes.
Most dishes are usually eaten with cooked rice. Vendaikkai mandi is one such gravy dish that complements and compliments steamed rice.
Mandi is the starch rich water that is obtained while rinsing the rice to cleanse the rice prior to cooking. The vendaikkai (okra/ladies' fingers) is cooked in this starch water along with spices and onions in a tamrind based gravy. The 'arisi mandi' makes this dish tasting unique and delectable.
You may need quite an amount of this arisi mandi. Hence you may choose to prepare this dish on days that you soak rice for idlis or dosais, when you will be soaking about two or more cups of rice.

Ingredients:
10-12 numbers okras
15 shallots peeled and sliced in strips (keep aside about 5 whole for tempering)
12 pods garlic peeled and chopped
4 green chillis slit lengthwise (reduce if you cannot take the heat)
1 large tomato
1 big gooseberry size tamarind
1 large cup 'arisi mandi' (see below how to prepare arisi mandi)
1 tablespoon oil
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt as required

For tempering:
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
few fresh curry leaves
5 shallots that were kept aside in the list of ingredients

How to prepare arisi mandi:
Take 2 cups of rice in a bowl. Rinse lightly once in running water. Drain and add a cup of water to the rice.
Using your fingers give the rice a thorough rinse with this water, pressing hard to extract the starch. Transfer the starch rich water to another bowl. Repeat once again with about 1/2 a cup of fresh water. Add this to the earlier extract.
This is arisi mandi. This will be later added to the gravy while cooking.

Method:
Wash and pat the okras dry. Cut them in 1" long pieces.
Soak the tamarind in a little amount of the arisi mandi. Extract the pulp and keep aside.
Chop the tomato and keep aside.
Place oil in a microwave proof bowl. Add the mustard seeds and fennel seeds. Heat on 100% power for 2 minutes without lid on. Allow the mustard seeds to crackle.
Add the whole and sliced shallots, garlic, green chillis, turmeric powder and curry leaves. Cook again on 100% power for 1 minute until the shallots are shining.
Now add the okra pieces. Toss them in the oil well and add the tamarind pulp. cover and cook on 80% microwave for 4 minutes. It is alright if this may result in the okras being cooked slightly dry.
Add the salt, tomatoes and the arisi mandi. Cook covered on 80% power for 6 minutes. By this time the tomatoes would have cooked in a pulp and the gravy would have thickened slightly.
This gravy has to be medium thick. If it is watery, return to microwave on 100% power for a further minute.
Serve hot with steamed rice.
Usually mochchai kottai, which is tamil name for field beans and potatoes can be added to this mandi.
Typically in Nagaraththar homes manga vaththal (sun dried raw mango pieces) will be available through the year. They soak some of those mango pieces and reduce the quantity of tamarind for variety.
Adding tomatoes is not a must though it adds colour and body to the mandi.
Okras are very rich in calcium, about 40 grams stirfry has a good amount of calcium in it. Thus, this microwave cooked mandi is being sent to Srivalli's Microwave Easy Cooking Event being hosted by Lakshmi of Kitchen Chronicles asking for Calcium Rich dishes.

Minty lemon barley

2011-05-27T06:04:00.005+01:00

With summer in most of the tropics, we are often found to reach for some chilled drink to quench our thirst. During our younger days, our mother used to make barley water that will enable free flow of urine, which, because of perspiration might be less.
Children, with all holiday activities, do not drink the required quantity of water even when they thirst for. The result is severe pain in the lower abdomen and irritation while you force yourself to urinate. The best remedy to this is barley water and hibiscus gulkhand. I remember that my grand mother had always in store somewhat large Horlicks bottles with shoe flower dropped in honey. We were given to eat them whenever we complained of abdominal irritation.
Compelling us to drink plain barley did not work and so often they had to disguise it in juices. We were given Sathgudi orange juice or a lemonade made with barley water. Nowadays, I consciously drink barley water. Many times though, I add lemon juice or buttermilk and to spice it up, a bit of salt or cumin powder and such.
My homegrown mints are often used in my day to day cooking. Mint is cooling to the body and can be used in many ways. I made lemonade with barley and dropped some crushed mint leaves in it. They added a nice flavour to the drink.
I have skipped the granulated white sugar and added 'sugar free'. It is your choice as to how you want to sweeten the drink. Sometimes I have this salted with a hint of black salt skipping the sugar entirely. You can add honey also.

Ingredients:
4 teaspoons barley
1200 ml water
1 teaspoon crushed cumin seeds
Juice from 4 large limes
Sugar as required to taste
Few fresh mint leaves

Method:
Wash barley and clean it.
Take the barley with the water in a large pan. Keep on high heat and bring to a boil.
Add the crushed cumin seeds and simmer on the lowest heat for at least 30 minutes to reduce the cooking liquid.
Remove from the stove and strain the liquid. Allow to cool.
Extract juice from 4 large limes/lemons.
When the barley water is completely cool, add the juice and the sugar. Mix well until sugar dissolves.
Crush the mint leaves between your palms and drop them in the juice. Let them float in the juice.
When serving, strain the mint out and serve.
This is not just a summer thirst quencher but a very effective remedy also.
This lemonade is being sent to Siri's Healing foods event, currently hosted at Pritya with Sukham Coolers.

Hummus - a nutritious dip

2011-05-24T14:36:00.001+01:00

Hummus is one simple, easy to make at home delicious dip. It can be served as an appetizer dip with breads. In Egypt, it is served with pita bread and typically, you may cut the bread open and fill the hummus inside and partake the same.
It is a creamy mixture of soaked and cooked Garbanzo beans (chick peas) ground along with thahini and olive oil, seasoned with generous amounts of garlic and juice of lime.
According to Egyptians, it is an ancient recipe that dates centuries back.
The recipe I am sharing here today is one of the simple recipes known. The recipe is diabetic friendly, iron rich, dietary fibre rich and is vegan diet too.
Usually the canned peas are pureed along with thahini (recipe given under). I have however, soaked chickpeas and cooked it until soft to use in this recipe. You may remove the skin of the chick peas to obtain a smooth texture. I have not done so and hence the texture is slightly coarse, but does not compromise the taste.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chick peas, cleaned and soaked overnight
1 and 1/2 tablespoon thahini paste (check recipe below)
2 or 3 tablespoons lemon juice (you may increase if you like the sour taste)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 whole garlic (about 8 healthy cloves of garlic)
1 teaspoon ground pepper (entirely optional)

Thahini recipe:
1/4 cup sesame seeds evenly roasted until aromatic
2 tablespoons olive oil or sesame seeds oil
Salt to taste
1/3 cup lukewarm water

Run the sesame seeds and the salt in a spice mixer adding gradually the oil. When it blends, add the tepid water also gradually and grind until a smooth paste is obtained.

This is the basic thahini recipe.
You may dilute this and make thahini sauce. This paste keeps well for many days. It can be used in many ways as an ingredient in main recipes.

Method for preparing hummus:
Drain the water from the chick peas. Add fresh water to the chickpeas and pressure cook until it is soft and breaks when pressed between fingers.
Drain the chickpeas from the cooked water and reserve the water for later use while grinding.
Allow the chick peas to cool. If you desire to remove the skin, peel it off gently. (I recommend you retain the skin, for it has sufficient dietary fibre.)
Place the chick peas in the jar of a blender. Add the garlic, thahini, pepper and salt. blend at a medium speed initially. Add the oil and the lemon juice while blending them.
Gradually add required quantity of the reserved water and blend further until a creamy mixture is obtained.
Remove from the blender and transfer to storing jars. Add more oil and store for a few weeks too.
This keeps well for a few days while refrigerated.
serve as a dip with breads, crisps and such. Or you may serve with vegetable salad as a topping too. Add some cooked chickpeas to the hummus and serve.
Some variations are that you can grind without pepper, add chilli peppers and so on. However, adding chilli peppers will reduce shelf life.

Rawa Idli

2011-05-22T09:37:00.001+01:00

There are days that I wake up in the morning with no idea of what I shall cook for the day's breakfast. Then as I sit having my morning tea, I think of something and go about it. This weekend morning was one such. Though the recipe is nothing novel, I thought I shall share here, just because I started with some karabath (Udupi restaurant lable for rawa upma) in mind and as I was roasting the rawa, I altered course and made rawa idli. This is just to let you know that preparing rawa idli is such a simple task!
The vegetable vendor who delivers vegetables home twice a week can sometimes be very insistent that I relent without my knowledge. Thus I end up having to store some vegetables in the freezer.
An acquaintance in Egypt used to buy vegetables in bulk when they are in season and clean, cut and boil them for a few minutes, drain, cool and store them in her deep freezer for few days. Though I do not do something that elaborate, I too store them in my freezer and consume within a fortnight.
It is not only useful when you have unexpected guests or in a hurry to cook a meal. It also eases my morning chores to pack breakfast for my husband early in the morning to have a few chopped carrots and beans in the freezer.
Contrary to what I have in one of the cookbooks, you do not necessarily have to use sour curds to make rawa idlis. Normal yoghurt is sufficient and if desired you can add ENO, which also mostly I do not, but I have read in many blogs that it works with excellent results.

Ingredients: (Makes 8 rawa idlis)
100 ml semolina
60 ml to 80 ml yoghurt (slightly sour will work best, though not compulsory)
Salt to taste
3 tablespoons finely cut vegetables (carrots and beans, green peas)
3 green chillis chopped
1"piece ginger chopped
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon channa dhal
Few fresh curry leaves
1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 tablespoon broken cashew nuts (optional)
1 generous spoonful of ghee/ cooking oil (I use ghee)
1 teaspoon oil for tempering
few drops of oil for greasing the idli moulds

Method:
Steam the cut vegetables if you desire that they should be soft.
In a heavy pan, heat the ghee and add the semolina. Roast evenly until aromatic. Keep aside.
Add salt to the yoghurt and mix well. Drop the vegetables in the yoghurt.
Heat oil in the same pan and add the mustard seeds. Allow them to crackle. Add the channa dhal, cashews and green chillis. Toss until they roast to a golden colour. Add the curry leaves and switch off the heat.
Add the tempering to the yoghurt mix along with the coriander leaves.
Grease the idli moulds with oil. Place the steamer with sufficient water on the stove.
Just then add the roasted semolina to the yoghurt mix and stir well. Allow this to stand until the water in the steamer is starting to boil.
If the semolina has become thicker than the consistency of normal idli batter (thick, yet pouring consistency), add some water or yoghurt to the batter.
Quickly fill the prepared moulds and place it in the steamer as the water will be rolling hot now.
Cover the steamer with the lid. Reduce the heat to moderate when the steam gushes out of the steamer vent. Cook thus for 7 minutes.
Switch off the heat and remove the idli plates from the steamer. Allow to cool a bit before recovering the cooked idlis.
Transfer to a serving dish and serve hot with a chutney of choice.

Some points to note:
If you feel the yoghurt will not be sour enough to fluff the idlis, add to the mix a little amount of ENO just before pouring the batter in the moulds, mix thoroughly and then fill the moulds. This way you get soft, porous and well risen idlis.
Do not add the semolina much ahead to the yoghurt. The semolina will soak and the idlis will not be porous. You can allow about five minutes for the semolina mix to stand.
**** (Please read Jayashree's comment below. I had not tried leaving the batter to sit until now. She has pointed out that it can be done also.)

Allow the mould to cool well before removing the idlis.
The quantity of yoghurt/ water depends on the quality of the semolina. You can add to the batter just before filling the moulds according to the consistency.

Dukkah - A blend of spices

2011-05-20T14:12:00.009+01:00

Just about the other day, I chanced to talk to one of my husband's colleagues from his Egypt office. I called to wish her on Mothers' Day; she has been more than a colleague then and a good friend ever after. She asked me how I liked the West of Africa and spoke about other things like whether I am able to procure all Indian groceries unlike my Egypt years when I carried stuff from India and saved them until my next visit.

As we were speaking I told her about the blog and I said I was so wanting to write a few Egypt recipes that are vegetarian. She gave me a list of few that I could try at home and thus I have this post today! A very simple one and very handy to have.

Dukkah is a mix of coarsely blended nuts and spices. It is a great mix that you can enjoy with bread. You will have to dip the bread in olive oil, just about to coat it and then plunge it into the dukkah to coat it with the spiced powder as much as you like and as much heat your tastebuds can tolerate.

Each household uses their own proportion of nuts and variants too. But mainly hazel nuts and sesame seeds, coriander seeds and pepper corns are used. You can vary the ingredients and quantities and have your very own special spice powder. This is as much variety can get with as the South Indian molagai podai for idlis and dosais.

Ingredients:
1 cup of mixed nuts ( I have used hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios)
1/3 cup of sesame seeds
1/6th of a cup coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 and 1/2 tablespoon black pepper corns
Sea salt to taste

Method:
Before mixing the nuts, roast each gently on slow fire.
If you get slivered almonds just roast them and add as such. I have used whole almonds and was not easy to remove the skin. Hence my powder is a bit red in colour from the skin and also I pulsed a wee bit longer than required that my nuts were crushed well. (They are usually just about broken to a bit coarse, not very fine.) Nonetheless, the powder tastes great.
Do not over roast the pistachios as they get oily. They need to just get a bit of warmth from the fire.
Roast the sesame seeds without allowing them to brown, but until they pop.
Similarly roast the coriander seeds, cumin and the pepper.
Since I use sea salt and usually roast it before adding to any of the powders I intend to keep long, I would roast that too.
Allow this to cool and pulse everything together in a mixer jar or a spice blender until coarsely pounded.
Cool and store in airtight containers.
This has a shelf life for about three months at the least.

As I said it make a great dip with olive oil and freshly baked bread.
However, I mixed it in hot steamed rice like I would any other podi and added sesame oil to it.
You can easily have most ingredients in any household. Add or reduce other nuts and such will only make it all the more interesting. Flax seeds for instance, will be great and so will be the addition of garlic.
Try your own recipe and enjoy!

Pudina rice with brown rice

2011-05-18T10:30:00.008+01:00

Having read in many blogs the benefits of brown rice, I could not resist picking a pack when I found it in the local super market. I have to tell you here, that the country where I live in, such stuff are rare to find. Many a things I would take for granted in my grocer or upmarket stores in India, cannot be found here. So I just picked a pack of brown basmati rice the other day when I spotted just three of the 1 kilo packs in all! Apparently, the super market was putting it up as feelers to see the response.

I have repeatedly proclaimed that I am a mint and ginger freak. Naturally, my first trial with the brown rice was pudina rice with a touch of ginger in it.
The brown rice cooks a while longer than the normal basmati rice, needs more water to cook and will be a bit gathered as opposed to the soft yet separate grains. The yield is almost the same, but it can fill you up quickly too.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown basmati rice
1and 1/2 -1and 2/3 cups water (I used vegetable stock for cooking the rice)
1 medium onion sliced finely
1/4 cup green peas
1/4 teaspoon salt
A pinch of turmeric powder
1 table spoon ghee or cooking oil

For the mint sauce:
1/2 cup mint leaves, washed and cleaned
3 red chillis
2" piece ginger chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 heaped table spoon Urad dhal
1 and 1/2 teaspoon oil
A medium marble size Tamarind-pulp extracted or replace with 1 tablespoon yoghurt
Salt to taste

For garnish:
About 1 tablespoon finely sliced ginger roasted in ghee/oil

Method:
Mint sauce:
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the red chillis and ginger. Saute until the chillis acquire a shine.
Add the garlic and the urad dhal. Toss for a few minutes, just until the urad dhal is golden.
Add the mint leaves. They will wilt soon. Remove from the stove top. Allow to cool.
Blend in a mixer the above with the tamarind or yoghurt and the salt.
Wash the jar and add the water to the paste.
Rice:
Wash the Basmati rice thoroughly well.
Soak in 1 cup of water for about 45 minutes.
Drain the water and spread on a cloth for a few minutes.
Heat oil in a non stick big vessel. Add the sliced onions, salt and turmeric powder. Saute until the onions are pink.
Put the drained rice in and saute for a few minutes.
Add the stock or water. Bring to a boil, add the peas, reduce the fire and cover the vessel with a lid.
Stir once in a while and when half way done, add the mint sauce. Replace the cover and cook until the rice is soft to press. Depending on the age of the rice, you may require to add some water.
Place a heavy tawa on the stove and keep this vessel on the tawa. Keep the heat at the lowest.
Continue to cook for 8 minutes.
Switch the heat off and add the ginger slices for garnish.
Serve hot with a tomato or carrot raita.
I have not tried to cook in the pressure cooker as I cannot judge the time or the number of whistles to allow. If you do in the pressure cooker, you may skip the last part of placing on a tawa and cooking.

Pudachi wadis for Indian Cooking challenge

2011-05-15T06:44:00.002+01:00

Pudachi wadis or Kothumbir wadis as they are known in Maharashtra, are the Indian equivalent of spring rolls that are stuffed with spiced fresh coriander. Srivalli, had found the recipe in Archana's Tried and Tested Recipes blog and shared it for this May's Indian Cooking Challenge.

I had not tasted this so far. Having read the recipe I knew I would like this one. The one hurdle I faced was that, being summer, getting greens here is a rarity. The green grocers sell it packed in plastic and when you open the pack, half of the leaves are already bad.

However, I found them in my local supermarket and picked around five packets of fresh coriander just to make these. I was happy that I did, as the final result was truly delicious.

Khaugiri also has a post on these wadis, that her mother-in-law's recipe of the famous Nagpur wadis.

Ingredients:

Dough for the rolls:
1 cup gram flour
1 cup wheat flour
Salt to taste
1/2 - 2/3 teaspoon chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
3 tablespoons of hot oil

For the filling:

2 cups of coriander leaves finely chopped
2 tablespoon coconut grated
1 tablespoon cooking poppy seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 medium onion sliced finely
salt to taste
1 teaspoon ginger and green chilli paste
3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 1/2 teaspoon lime juice
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon oil

Paste mixture to spread on the dough before filling:

2 teaspoons oil
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
2 teaspoon tamarind paste

Other ingredient:

Oil for deep frying

Method:

The covering dough :

Mix together the flours, salt, chilli powder turmeric powder and hot oil. Add just about sufficient water and knead into a stiff but pliable dough. Keep aside covered.

Coriander stuffing:

In a pan, roast the coconut until lightly brown. Similarly roast the sesame seeds until they pop. Then roast the poppy seeds (if using). Cool and make a coarse paste.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add the sliced onions and saute until they are soft. Then add the ginger -green chilli paste and saute a further minute before adding the chopped garlic in the pan.
Remove this mix from the stove and allow it to cool a bit.
Add the chopped coriander leaves, the powder of the roasted ingredients, salt, chilli powder, sugar and the lime juice. Mix them well.

Mix all the ingredients listed under paste for spreading.

Pinch out small size balls of dough.
Roll them out to the size of slightly big puris, about 3 or 4 inches diameter.
Apply a littlt of the paste on the surface leaving a small area around the perimeter.
Place a generous portion of the filling at the middle, in a long cylindrical shape.
Fold the edges in to cover the filling and seal the edges well so that the filling does not spill out while frying in oil.
Repeat until all the dough and filling are done with.
Heat the oil in a pan.
While the oil is heating, place a big and flat pan on heat. Place the rolled wadis on the tawa and cook them very lightly on both sides.
Deep fry these rolls in the oil.
When fried well, remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and place on absorbent paper.
Serve warm with green chutney or tomato ketchup.
I had made a few pop in the mouth size rolls of these which were thoroughly enjoyed by us!