Vegetable Shikampuri Kebabs

Few days ago, Aparna had shared in her Instagram feed a picture of few of her cookbooks. She had mentioned that Sheetal bhatt at Route to roots blog had initiated the idea of a virtual food enthusiasts group to cook dishes from our respective collection of cookbooks and share the pictures/ recipes where desired. 

Most of us like to buy cookbooks, but hardly use them regularly. We might cook a few recipes every once in a while and then slowly put the book away and let it gather dust. 

This virtual group will now bring those out and cook dishes twice a month, based on given themes. we would share the picture of the dish in our Instagram feeds with a hash tag 'thecookbookcollective'. We may share them across other social network media also. We might share some of those recipes in our blog also.
The theme for the first dish was 'Regional'. I chose to make Shikampuri Kebabs that are famous in Hyderabad Mughal cuisine. These are rich and delicious with a filling of tender meat or equivalent vegetarian mix. The name literally means 'filled in the middle' as in 'tummy full'.
During one of my stay at The Gateway Hotel, Bengaluru, I found the book titled 'Vegetarian Fare at the Taj' that has so many vegetarian dishes that are cooked in the kitchens of the Taj group hotels across India. The management were generous to let me have that book. 

I had this recipe from that book; this was shared by the executive chef of Taj Krishna, Hyderabad.

The same book has another recipe from the Taj  Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad that replaces potatoes with Elephant Yam and lentils.
I gave this recipe to my daughter as she had mostly all the ingredients with her. She decided to add lot of young beetroots and made a very pleasantly pink kebabs. 

 

I am giving approximate measures for the outer cover vegetables. I used potatoes, beans and carrots. Because ultimately all vegetables are going to get mashed, you can add any more different vegetables that will not taste off.

I used two large potatoes, boiled until soft and grated. The yield of potatoes was 2 loosely packed cups.

 

Vegetable Shikampuri Kebabs 

 

Ingredients: 

Makes 8 kebabs

For the outer cover:

2 cups boiled and grated potatoes

1 cup boiled carrots (cut in very tiny bits and heaped cupful of raw carrots)

1 cup boiled beans (same as carrots)

Just about enough bread crumbs to bind the vegetables in a dough like texture.

1&1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 blade of mace

3 green cardamoms

2 teaspoons caraway seeds/ ajwain

1 tablespoon chopped mint leaves

1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves

Salt to taste

Oil for shallow frying/ deep frying. (The book has a deep fried version, I used the airfryer by basting a little ghee all around each kebab before placing in the fryer.) (My daughter shallow fried the kebabs and said they tasted good)

 

For the filling

1/3 cup khoya (I boiled 500 millilitres of milk down to get this quantity)

1/2 cup crumbled paneer

1 &1/2 teaspoon oil

1 medium red onion sliced very finely

1 green chilli finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder

1 teaspoon chopped mint leaves

1 teaspoon chopped coriander leaves

A pinch of salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

Method:

 

Prepare the filling:

Heat oil in a pan.

Add the onions and green chillis. Saute until the onions are transparent.

Add the paneer and khoys and cook until they are soft and pink.

Add salt, sugar and white pepper powder. Toss to mix and turn the heat off.

Drop the chopped fresh leaves and mix.

Allow to cool and divide in 8 small portions rolled in balls.

If the quantity of the filling might feel more for 8 kebabs. You may store them and use in other dishes.

Prepare the vegetable kebabs:

Crush the mace, cardamom and caraway seeds to a fine powder. This is a very aromatic spice powder mix

Mash the carrots and beans ( other boiled vegetables if you are using ) to a pulp with only few bits left to show.

Add the grated potatoes, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, salt and prepared spice powder of cardamom, mace and caraway seeds.

Knead them together to a dough like mass. Add the bread crumbs and knead to a smooth dough. 

Take a small portion and roll and pat to a disc to test if the dough is not cracking. Add little more bread crumbs if needed.

Divide into 8 portions, roll them in smooth balls.

Use little oil or ghee to grease your palms and pat one dough ball in a discs, place one portion of filling, gather the ends and cover the filling with the vegetable dough.

Flatten it slightly to a round disc, like kebabs of uniform thickness of about 1 cm.

 

Repeat with the rest of vegetable dough and filling.

Heat oil in a pan and when hot place the kebabs as many will hold in the pan, not too close to each other.

Cook the kebabs well until crisp and golden all over. Remove from the pan. Transfer to a serving dish.

Repeat with all the kebabs.
While the book has a directions to deep fry the kebabs, I chose to do them in my airfryer and my daughter opted to shallow fry in a pan. Both turned out excellent. So how you want to have them cooked has these options.

 

For my airfryer version, I used a few drops of ghee over each kebab brushing it all over. I cooked them for 10 minutes at 180 degrees C and for a further 2 minutes after flipping them over.

Serve them hot with salad and green chutney or tomato sauce.
If you are planning to do them in more numbers, you may make ahead the kebabs, refrigerate them and fry them at your convenience. My daughter had made the quantity for 8 kebabs, but used only four on the first try. She refrigerated the uncooked kebabs and used them the next day.

Kalasida Avalakki

In general it would be easy for our friends to assume that I might have picked up traditional dishes from Managalore - Udupi cuisine having been married to a Mangalorean for 30+ years. Even more so because I have spent a good few years living with his parents. Sadly, that is not to be. On the contrary, they had adapted to living in Coimbatore and other than an occasional neer dosa and shavige, on special weekends, I had not known traditional fare in that household.
We were at our friends' place one evening when she had made this for tea and while serving mentioned that it may not be new to us and both my husband and myself would have had it many times. I did not even recognize the name of the dish, even when they gave other names by which people call it. Mangalore masala avalakki, avalakki oggarane, and so on....nope none of which I had heard of. My husband went on to discuss how it used to be a teatime snack in his office in Mangalore and I still drew a blank. However, it was one very tasty snack and I loved the crunch with so little oil added in the snack. My friend showed me how thin is paper avalakki and told me to find them in Bangalore where most stores stock them.
I bought some red paper poha online and brought it here. I messaged her to share the recipe. In a few minutes my phone notified me with her message and that very evening, as luck would have it, having all the ingredients I tried the recipe. We enjoyed it and I promised myself that I need to post the recipe here, for my repository.

 

I looked up for more information on this dish and found that in the Udupi region it is called Bajil and mostly paired with sajjige as a filling breakfast during weddings and ceremonies. When I read out bajil, my husband said that he vaguely remembered that his father would mention it but he had never tasted the combination.
It is a quick and easy recipe to make. The sweet and spice flavours mingle so well that one cannot resist picking just about a spoon more and more. Keeping the recipe basic, one can find ideas to serve this dish.

Kalasida Avalakki
Recipe by my friend Ms. Lalitha Burde

Ingredients:
For 4 to 5 servings
2 cups Paper thin poha/ aval /beaten rice flakes
2 tablespoons roasted peanuts
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
 4-5 dry red chillis that are low - medium in spice level (Byadagi or Kashmiri chillis)
Salt to taste
Jaggery powder to taste
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 &1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 teaspoons urad dhal
Few curry leaves
2 - 3 tablespoons fresh grated coconut

Method:
Dry roast the coriander seeds, two of the dry red chillis, few of the curry leaves until aromatic. Crush coarsely and reserve.
heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, allow them to crackle.
Add the peanuts and toss around so they are roasted to a crunch.
Add to these the urad dhal and allow it to brown until they are golden.
Quickly add the rest of the red chillis (broken in small bits), curry leaves, turmeric, asafoetida and salt.
Add the crushed coriander mix.
Toss them for a couple of minutes more and switch off the heat.
Transfer this to a serving bowl and add the coconut and jaggery powder. Mix with your hand slightly crushing them so the flavours combine.
Put in the paper avalakki and sprinkle some water. Bring them all together so the spices coat the avalakki while not crushing hard. Adjust the water, salt and jaggery according to taste.
Serve this with hot tea.

This dish stays fresh for another day also at room temperature. If you find it too dry by then, Sprinkle some water and heat just a bit in a microwave.
A very delicious snack to go with tea is ready with just about ingredients from your pantry.
You may sprinkle mint chutney  and top with some sev or pretty much serve like bhel.

Battenberg Cake - No Eggs In the Cake

 I seem to have fallen into a pattern of neglecting this space and giving excuses for that. However, my husband and daughter do not agree and push me hard enough to post here once in a few months or so. They try hard to coax me to make an attempt to keep this going.
 My daughter, especially, goes that extra step to persuade me by sharing her cooking and baking. This is one such post that was 100% hers. She baked this cake a few days ago for their weekend snack and shared her photographs. They were so eye catching that I asked her to make a blog to be put up here.
 She said that when they moved to the new city and she was still getting her home in some order, she wanted to do something enough to break the boredom. While she was looking through recipes to bake, the Battenberg cake caught her fancy. Since they both like chocolate and the flavour of coffee, she alternated for the traditional bright colour layer with the brown checkers.
 Known by many names, like church or chapel window cake, chequerboard cake and domino cake, the Battenberg cake is said to have been named in honour of the marriage of Princess Victoria, grand daughter of Queen Victoria to prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884. However, there are some early examples of this that go by a variety of names. The Neapolitan roll, a similar cake contains more squares than four.
 The American version of the battenberg cake is the checkerboard cake that gets the name because while sliced it resembles the board of the game. a typical one alternates vanilla sponge and a chocolate cake and is covered with rich chocolate buttercream icing.
 My daughter made the cake as well as the marzipan without eggs. For the cake, she followed this recipe posted here sometime ago. she used the recipe for one cake but divided it in two half cakes to make the layers. She had used parchment to separate the cake batters and baked them in one cake tin. She said she was not able to take pictures of the process.
I found Traditional Battenberg in Mandi Mortimer's Blog very descriptive, with pictures of how to bake, layer and roll in the marzipan, the post is very helpful.

Battenberg Cake - No Eggs Recipe

The following is my daughter's mail that I have copied verbatim

This recipe is a twist on the traditional Battenberg cake, which is usually made with an almond white cake, and the pairing sponge is a pink one made with a couple of drops of red food color in the white cake batter. I didn't want to be using artificial food coloring, hence the dark chocolate cake. 

You can use any cake recipe you'd like - as long as you can get the size of the cakes right.

Ingredients: 

For the cakes:

All purpose flour - 200 grams.

Cocoa powder - 2 tablespoons. heaped

Sweetened condensed milk - 1 tin (13.6 oz)

Butter - 100 grams

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Baking soda - 1 teaspoon

Aerated soda - 150 ml (reserve an extra splash to slacken the chocolate batter if needed)

Almond extract - 1/2 teaspoon

For the marzipan:

Almond flour/meal - 2 cups

Granulated sugar - 1 cup

Icing sugar - 1 cup 

Splash of milk (approx. 1/8 cup) to bind

To assemble:

A jam of your preferred flavor 

Method: 

- To start, make the marzipan. Sift into a big bowl, the almond flour and icing sugar, to get rid of lumps. 

- Add the granulated sugar and mix well 

- Add the milk and knead till the dough comes together

(The marzipan may be quite sticky - if so, add a little more almond flour as you knead) 

- Store in an airtight container in the fridge until you are ready to use

Making the cakes: 

- Preheat the oven to 350F and grease an 8in square tin. Fold a long piece of parchment paper in half along its width, and form a pleat the same height as your tin, to partition your square tin into two equal rectangles. You will be able to bake both cakes side by side.

- In a big mixing bowl, beat together the condensed milk and the butter. 

- Add the almond extract 

- Sift together the flour, baking powder and the baking soda 

- Add the flour mixture and soda alternatively to the beaten butter and condensed milk, beating well after each addition 

- Separate the mixture into two equal parts - use a weighing scale to do this accurately, so that your cakes are even when baked 

- Fill one half of your prepared tin with the white cake mix 

- To the remaining half, fold in the cocoa powder. If your mixture feels a bit stiff, add a little splash of the remaining soda to slacken (you could also add a tbsp. or two of espresso instead, if you'd like - dissolve instant coffee in hot water and add it once it is cool)

- Fill the second half of your tin with the chocolate mixture 

- Bake the cakes for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean 

- Cool the cake slightly in the tin, and transfer on to a wire rack to cool completely 

To assemble the Battenberg:

- Trim the cakes, and stack them one on top of the other. 

- Using a serrated knife, slice the cakes along their lengths into batons. Depending on the size of your tin, each cake can be sliced into 2 or 3 pieces 

- Line up the batons, alternating the colors to form a checkerboard, and stick them together with a slathering of the jam 

- To roll out the marzipan, sprinkle your work surface generously with icing sugar, and roll into an approximate rectangle. It needs to be wide enough to cover the length of the cake, and long enough to wrap completely around. 

- To ensure the outside of the marzipan is clean and free of icing sugar, once rolled, I flipped it over so the sugar dusted side is on the inside of the cake 

- Place the cake in the center, and slather on more jam, to help the marzipan to stick 

- Bring the marzipan up from both ends, to meet at the top of the cake, and join the ends. 

- Trim off any overhangs, and flip the cake so that the seam is at the bottom. 

- And you have a beautiful checkered cake with a mildly sweet marzipan icing.

- The cake is best stored in the fridge, and will keep well for about a week in an airtight container.

Enjoy the cake with your favourite cup of tea.

Macarons

It has been over a year that I posted last. The year 2016 was a busy year with moving from Lome to  home and again back to Qatar. The whole year went past in a buzz around my head. I began to relax so much that it became habit.
My daughter kept pushing me to keep this space active so much so that she even sent pictures of what she had cooked and further on recipes. she would write it up and tell me all it takes to copy from mail and hit the publish button. I just did not.
She is now visiting us in Doha and has finally succeeded in her mission to get me started back.
From my earlier posts readers may have understood that I do not use eggs in my cooking. I have relished cakes and such, only I am not happy to try handling eggs. I am certain to be a failure with baking with eggs.
This post is my daughter's success in baking macarons, pictures and the recipe below are hers.
She had tried the recipe from the link given here, stopping short at not making sandwich macarons.

Macarons:

Yields: approx. 35 shells (slightly bigger than the original resipe) or about 17 sandwiches

Ingredients:

• Icing sugar - 150g (5½oz)
• Ground almonds - 75g (2¾oz)
• Egg whites - 2 large
• pinch of salt
• Caster sugar - 35g (1¼oz)
• Cardamom powder - a hefty pinch
• pink, green, yellow or lilac food colouring paste (optional)

Method:

•  Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F and line two solid baking-sheets with non-stick baking-parchment.
• Sift together the almond powder, cardamom powder and icing sugar into a bowl.
• Place the egg whites in the metal bowl of a stand mixer (or a large metal mixing bowl, if using a hand mixer) and whisk on high speed till soft peaks are formed.
• Add the caster sugar, a teaspoon at a time, whisking well after each addition. Continue whisking until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
• Fold in the sifted dry ingredients, using a large metal spoon, taking care to not deflate the meringue. Fold till everything is just combined - do not overmix.
• Fit a piping bag with a 1cm (½in) plain nozzle. Stick the parchment down on the corners using a little bit of the meringue to prevent it from rolling up or flapping around. Pipe 5cm (2in) discs on to the baking-parchment.
• Dampen the tip of your finger and gently flatten the top of any macarons that are peaky, then give the tray a sharp tap on the work surface to knock out air bubbles. 
• Allow the meringues to rest for about half an hour, then bake in the preheated oven for about 9 to 10 minutes.  
• Cool the macarons on a wire rack. Once completely cool, these can be filled with buttercream, ganache or jam, and sandwiched.

Some notes that she shared with me on her mail:

Make sure, when separating the eggs, to not get any of the yolk in with the whites, as the fat messes up the meringue pretty badly. With the egg whites, I beat them with my hand mixer itself.. make sure to use a steel bowl, not a plastic one - plastic tends to have a film that inhibits the development of the meringue. The same with the folding in process... use a metal spoon, and fold gently, so as to not break up the air we built into the egg whites.
Before the addition of sugar, the egg whites are whipped to soft peak stage. It is a bit hard to tell, because the peaks are tiny. But, when the egg whites begin to look like a fluffy floating cloud, start adding the sugar.. and when it is finally done, you should be able to pick up a big dollop on the metal spoon, flip it upside down and not have it fall back down into the bowl. At this stage, you can fold in the sifted almond powder and icing sugar.. definitely sift this mixture, my icing sugar had little limps in it and the sifting really helped to make the mix less grainy.

Masal Vadai

Festivals and food go hand in hand in any culture. Our household is no different. I cook dishes that are specific for the festival and often cooked fare includes a payasam and a vadai. While certain dishes are made as offering on specific occasions, payasam and vadai are made almost on every occasion. In many households feast is synonymous to a variety of dishes that without fail will include the two. I make the softer textures ulundu vadai/medhu vadai and the paruppu vadai which is otherwise known as aama vadai in Southern India.
Many restaurants include the medhu vadai in their breakfast menu along side fluffy idlies, the paruppu vadai is most likely a snack. Most eateries, even pushcart ones, on the roadside might serve the paruppu vadai with addends like onions and fennel seeds which then becomes masala vadai. Onions are avoided on festivals in food; thus, masal vadai is an occasional snack that is consumed as is without any need for accompaniments like chutneys or sauces.
I use the split yellow  peas, known as pattani paruppu in Tamil for this along with the usual channa dhal/ bengal gram when I can find this dhal. These peas have a slight bitter taste and are harder in texture. It gives an extra crunch to the vadai. The crunch and the taste of deep fried onions and extra spices makes this a popular snack.
I stumbled upon this dhal quite accidentally. Few years ago, I found it in the store and mistaking it for another dhal, picked a pack up, only to find it would not cook to desired softness and the taste was a put off. To use up the purchase, I looked up cookbooks and found that they yield a good texture to vadais. I do not find it very often here, when I did, I picked up a packet, promising my husband that he will have masal vadai.

Masal Vadai

Ingredients:
Makes 20 vadais
1 cup Split yellow peas/ pattani paruppu/ muttar dhal
1 cup Bengal gram/ kadalai paruppu/ channa dhal
2 large onions sliced fine
10 -12 dry red chillies
6 green chillies
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
A fistful curry leaves chopped
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Method:
Wash both the lentils separately until clean. Soak them separately for an hour.
While they are soaking, chop the onions and the fresh leaves.
Once the lentils are soaked enough, drain the water completely.
Grind them along with chillies and salt to a coarse, dough like consistency adding as little water as possible. The resultant dough should be such that you are able to gather in a ball and flatten without being runny.

To the dough add the onions, chopped leaves and fennel seeds. Mix well.
Divide the dough in small portions.
Heat oil in a heavy pan.
When the oil has attained optimum heat, slightly wet your palms and roll one portion of dough in a slightly thick circular disc and slide it in the oil.
Flatten some more, as many as the pan can fry without crowding them.
Deep fry initially until half done. Remove from the oil with a slotted ladle and work on the rest of the dough.
Once all of the dough has been used up and are partly done, drop the vadais back in the oil in batches and fry further until they are crisp on the outside. The double frying gives it the desired crispness.

Enjoy them as snack along with tea and coffee. You may opt to serve with a chutney though it is not required. .

Kunukku - Version 2

I had earlier shared two versions of  kunukku, or anything for the lack of another name. One was the adaimaavu kunukku made with extra left over adai batter. The other was my aunt's recipe with a powdered mix which can be made and stored to make kunukkus when required.
In my mother's notebook, she had two different versions of this easily favourite snack; my aunt had given her this second version with a soaked and ground batter also. This, unlike the powdered version gives a bit softer kunukku, more like a bonda or quite close to the adai maavu kunukku in texture.
The weather here has been unpredictable and most days are dull and grey. It rains once in a while bringing a torrent. On one such evening we planned to have this snack. I made the mint chutney and there was tomato hot and sweet sauce on hand. It is an unbeatable combination, especially on a rainy day when one craves for bajjis and bondas.

Kunukku with Soaked and Ground Batter

Ingredients:
Serves 4 (about 40 kunukkus)
2 cups parboiled/ idli rice
1/2 cup thuvar dhal/ split pigeon peas
1/4 cup +1/8 cup channa dhal/ Bengal gram
2 tablespoons grated fresh coconut
4-5 green chillis
2" piece ginger minced
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
Few sprigs curry leaves
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
1 medium onion chopped finely (optional)

Method:
Wash the rice and dhals each separately,until clean, in a few changes of water.
Soak the rice for two hours and the dhals for an hour.
Drain the water and grind all of the soaked ingredients with chillis and coconut to a coarse batter thar is thick, neither stiff not runny.
To the batter, add the minced ginger, asafoetida powder and the salt. Mix them well.
Chop the curry leaves finely and add to the batter. If you are using onions, add them too to the batter.
Keep the batter aside for about three hours.
Heat the oil for frying in a deep rounded pan.
When the oil is hot, drop small portions of the batter using a ladle or by hand. Put in as many as the oil will hold, with space for the kunukkus to fry on all sides.

Once done well, remove from the oil with a slotted ladle to drain the oil. Transfer to absorbent paper towels.
Serve hot with any chutney of your choice. The mint chutney is a great combination when the weather outside is dull.

Porikullu - Protein Packed Healthy Snack

I was home, in India, for a short vacation during March. I happened to be around to attend a family celebration. Meanwhile, it was a good opportunity to catch up with cousins and needless to mention it was a great vacation. The family celebrated the occasion of a child to be born later this May. In India special celebrations are observed during pregnancy. We hold the 'valaikaappu' and 'seemantham' for the mother-to-be around her last trimester, the South Indian custom like Baby shower. This means lot of good food and snacks. Each of us who attend such festivities get to carry back sweets and savoury snacks too.
One of the dishes made is the Porikullu or the varuththa payaru which is soaked, drained and dry roasted legumes and few additional nuts. This is a power packed snack that the mother can consume to combat her cravings. It is rich in fibre, vitamins and protein which is good for the mother and child. Because making it is a long drawn process, we do not make it like an everyday snack. Getting to make and eat them occasionally has its own thrill, isn't it?
Each household has a unique combination and some dry roast, some of us sun dry for days and some people fry in some oil. There is no measures nor ingredients to adhere to. We just add few legumes, nuts and spice and salt. While I make it with legumes, you may find recipes that sprout the legumes and do the porikollu. Adding puffed beaten rice and bits of dry coconuts will tone the heat down.

Porikullu

Ingredients:
1 cup green gram whole
1 -2 cups black chickpeas
1 cup red chori beans
1/2 cup peanuts peeled
1/4 cup roasted gram
1/2 cup dry coconut slices
1/2 cup  beaten rice
2 tablespoons red chilli powder
Salt to taste
Curry leaves
1 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

Method:
Wash each of the beans separately and soak them in water overnight. Next day, drain the water and in a change of water soak again for another six hours.
Drain the water and spread them on a cloth and allow them to dry in the sun. Keep it in the sun for two days bringing them in by night, still on the cloth and kept separately.
Wash the curry leaves, spread them on a cloth, cover with another light cloth and leave it in the sun. they will dry to a shrivel during the time the legumes are drying in the sun.
Heat a heavy rounded bottom pan, an iron wok will be ideal. Once the pan is rally hot, reduce the heat to medium.
Dry roast, in small quantities, a few fistfuls at a time, each of the dry legumes. Repeat with all of them.
Transfer to a flat and large dish.
Moisten the powders and salt with few teaspoons of water.
Gently turn the roasted legumes in the mixture so as to coat them with the mixed spices.
Spread them back on the dish and place this in the sun for a day from morning to evening.
Bring the dish in and keep it spread overnight.
Next morning if there is moisture in the mixture, take it back to the sun and dry them until they are dry.
Roast the peanuts as you may find in this post. Add them to the above porikullu.
Slightly toss the roasted gram in the heat of the pan. Transfer them to the dish.
In the same heavy pan, roast the beaten rice until it puffs (you may use store bought puffed beaten rice, aval pori). Do this in small quantities at a time and do not allow the rice to brown. Transfer these to the porikullu.
Add the sliced, dry coconuts to the mix.

Porikullu is ready to store and snack on. Store in an airtight container and it keeps well for even three months as there is no oil.
The legumes will be crunchy to munch and feel hollow unlike their hard texture that is characteristic of legumes.
The guilt factor is the salt and spice alone, otherwise it is one of the best snacks to consume in small handfuls.

Susan, The Well seasoned Cook 's ever popular My Legume Love Affair is now managed by Lisa since February 2013. This current edition MLLA #82 is being hosted by Briciole. The above tasty nutty snack is being sent there.

Kambu Porimaavu - Light snack with Pearl Millet

Kambu, the pearl millet is another widely cultivated around my hometown. It has many nutritional properties and is known to be a body coolant. Thus, just before the annual exams, with the advent of summer in March and April, many of my classmates in school would pack their tiffin with 'Kambanchoru' / cooked pearl millet with curd and raw shallots. They sometimes brought an extra serving of a thinner sambhar like gravy to have. As the millet by itself is rich in protein, the sambhar would be very light and not with usual quantity of dhal.
Any millet was welcome at home and the solam and kambu were very often used. This porimaavu is what my mother made very often for the evening snack when we get back from school. the protein rich millet and the iron rich unrefined sugar were recommended to her by my grandmother and Velamma Aaya, her maid. Velamma would pick and clean the millet and even grind it in the traditional mortor.Those were days when my mother saved her 'mixie' for more important tasks, these did not warrant use of an electric device while willingly someone could do with the traditional one.

This recipe is as such very simple and with just three ingredients. The taste is really good and makes a very healthy snack for all ages. There was a time that we used to reluctantly consume as this was frequently made; now i go looking for the millet and make this just for a kick of nostalgia. I also make the kambanchoru and kammankoozh that are popular in Tamil Nadu; they are refreshing coolants when the mercury soars to new highs.

Kambu Porimaavu

Makes about 10 medium size fist held balls, depending on the size you hold.

Ingredients:
2 cups Kambu/ Bajra/ Pearl Millet
1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered jaggery or unrefined sugar
1/3 cup melted ghee

Method:
Pick the millet clean. Sprinkle little water and rub with the hands to remove the impurities and husk. Spread on a sheet and dry it in the sun for a few hours.
Heat a heavy pan and drop the dried millet. Toss in the pan over medium-high heat until the millet crackles. Do not over roast the millet.
Allow this to cool a bit and pulse it in a mixer grinder or a traditional mortor until you have a coarse powder.

Transfer the powder to a flat largish plate. Add the jaggery powder and mix them thoroughly.
Add ghee in small increments and mix well. Stop adding ghee further when the mixture comes together and you are able to hold them in your fist to roll in a rugby like shape.
Make small such balls and serve.

Patties with Paneer Burji Filling

I had no set plans when I made an extra serving of the paneer burji. I would have made a pulav or something just so I can dish out some 'one-pot-meal' idea. So it just waited a day long in my refrigerator to be consumed. My husband's working hours are so long that there is a long interval between his regular meals, breakfast - lunch - dinner. This gets him hungry for some snack when he returns from work. just tea and some biscuits are not his choice. He looks for something home cooked as snack with his steaming hot cup of masala chai.
Having reached what is labelled typical middle age, we are monitoring every component of health to avoid complications and issues in the coming years. Keeping that in mind, I prepare something light and most times what I decide is healthy, whether or not it goes well with him. It is alright to indulge once in a while is it not? So I decided to make patties. The plan was to make ragada patties and I had soaked the peas and made other preparations too. Then I was reminded of the burji and the idea of a filling into the mashed potatoes struck. These patties were very welcome, who does not like potatoes?

Paneer Burji Patties
Makes two large patties or four small patties

Ingredients:
3-4 large potatoes ( I had smaller sized in my veggies basket and used 7 of them)
1/2 cup prepared Paneer Burji
Salt and red chilli powder for the potato cover
1 - 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Oil for shallow frying

Method:
Steam the potatoes and remove the peel.
Mash them very well.
Add the salt and red chilli powder and mix.
Cook this mashed potato in a heavy bottomed pan, on a low flame until it is almost dry. The moisture will break the patties while shallow frying.
Divide the potato mash into two portions for large patties, if you want to use them in sandwiches or four smaller portions if you want it as a filling in your wrap; four portions will be ideal for a snack too.
Flatten the potato mash portion in your palms, keep a portion of the paneer burji in the centre.
Cover the potato well over the filling. and place on a lightly oiled plastic sheet. Flatten into a 3'' diameter circular disc (or smaller with the four portions).
Make a thick paste with the all purpose flour and water.
Spread the bread crumbs on a shallow dish.
Cover the flattened patty with the paste to coat all over the surface.
Turn the patty in the bread crumbs coating it with a slightly thick layer of bread crumbs.
Heat a heavy pan or iron griddle. When it is hot, pour a teaspoon or two of oil; place the patty on the oil and drizzle more oil.

Cook on a medium flame, until the bottom side has browned and is crisp. Turn the patty over and cook the other side until golden brown. Drizzle more oil so it fries well on all sides. Take care not to turn it repeatedly as it may break the patty.
Serve the patty as a snack with some tomato sauce or coriander chutney.

Adai - A Basic Version and Kunukku with Left Over Batter

"You do not have a recipe for adai", my daughter told me over a skype chat. "I have, and here is the link", I said in my defense and sent her the link to paruppu adai. "Oh, but this is such a fancy one, I do not know most of those ingredients besides their name, isn't there a simple version, a normal adai?" Now, that was an eye-opener. I used to think it was not of much interest to read something so regular. But, did I even forget that the very idea of writing this blog initially, was to aid her to make her meals with ease and hassle free.
I make adai, as many of us do. I have thrown in ingredients on a whim, I have added every vegetable that would work in the mix and also specially ground extra batter to make the favourite snacks with left over batter. Recently, I even achieved making the ready to make powdered mix for my husband. Yet, I did not think, it was good enough to write a post. I think, now.
Adai is such a versatile dish that it can absorb any grain, millet and legumes you fancy and still turn out good. The simplest version is with rice and fewer legumes, spiced with chillis and if you like it, ginger and made in a thick crepe. Often a blob of butter and a spoon of powdered jaggery will suffice as accompaniments for this. Pair it with avial, you have eaten a heavy meal.
I like them thick and the batter patted by hand on the iron skillet, gingelly oil/ ghee smeared a little generously and cooked until golden on one side and just about turning golden on the other side after flipping. My husband likes his with the watered down batter made into crepes that are not so crisp. Thus the adai can be custom made to suit your preferences.

Adai

Makes 15 thick adais (or fewer adais and a left over batter for kunukku)
Ingredients:
1&1/2 cup idli rice
1/3 cup urad dhal
1/3 cup thuvar dhal
1/3 cup channa dhal
5 dry red chillis
3 fresh green chillis
1 and 1/2 inches piece ginger (optional)
Salt as required
Oil for cooking the crepes

Method:
Wash and rise well the rice and lentils clean. Soak them together in some water for about four hours.
Grind the soaked mix along with the chillis to a coarse and slightly thick batter. Add the salt and mix well.
You may adjust the water to get the desired consistency. If you plan to keep the batter for kunukku later, it is advisable to have a thick batter that has a dropping consistency. Keep aside the required quantity for the kunukku and adjust water to the rest of the batter.
Adai can be made soon after not waiting for the batter to ferment though personally I prefer that a wait for a few hours gives soft adais.
When ready to cook, place a heavy griddle/ skillet on fire. When the skillet is hot, scoop out a handful of batter and drop it on the skillet, pat it out in a thick circular crepe with your hand or spread using a ladle.
Smear a generous amount of oil around the adai. Also make small perforations in few spots using the sharp edge of the flipper and add some oil there. Cook the adai on a medium flame until the bottom side is golden. Flip to the other side and cook for a few minutes.

Serve hot with jaggery and butter or with a vegetable stew like avial.

Kunukku with left over batter:

Serves 2 people sumptuously for an evening snack.
Ingredients:
1 cup left over adai batter
2 tablespoons dry and coarsely ground rice (ground to semolina consistency)
Two sprigs curry leaves
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
1/3 cups chopped shallots or red onions (optional)
Oil for deep frying

To serve with:
Coriander and mint chutney/ coconut chutney
Tomato sauce

Method:
Add the rice powder to the adai batter and mix. Adjust the rice powder to make a dough that can be held with the hand and dropped in the oil.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the above.
Heat oil in a pan and when the oil is hot, take a chunk of batter, pinch out small portions and drop them gently in the oil.
Deep fry in small batches until they are fried until golden and done. Remove them from the oil with a slotted ladle, draining as much oil possible.
Transfer to a dish lined with kitchen tissues to drain anymore excess oil.
Repeat until entire batter is done.
Serve with any chutney and sauce.

Note:
Ideally for kunukku, a mix of raw rice and idli rice soaked and ground with the dhals in a 2:1 (rice:dhal) ratio works well.
I keep some stored Kunukku mix in my pantry to make kunukku for an occasional evening snack. Today's kunukku is a softer version of the earlier crisp snack.

Vazhai Poo Vadai - Banana Blossom Fritters

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the lone banana tree in the far end of the house showed signs of bearing fruits. We have been here for 18 months, and the tree was just there adorning the garden, nothing much. The gardener has never tended to the plant and I have also not been very caring, other than slicing off leaves whenever I needed.
The Heavens above have been kinder to these and the plant is being forgiving of my neglect. Soon as I spotted the tiny leaf that sprouted, which will eventually shield the blossom and later fruits, I took a little more care of the plant. With so much neglect, I am grateful that there will be about twenty fruits on final count. Meanwhile, the blossom had started to drop a few layers indicating that it is ready for use and these will not become fruits. I do not know what variety of banana this would be nor did I know if the blossom will be good enough to cook. I removed it from the tree and it was a fresh and nice one. So I acted upon it quickly chopping the blossom.

There were many layers within that I have had to reserve half of it for later use. With the fresh first half I made these vadais. I had read two different recipes in two cookery books I have; however, when I did cook them, I followed neither of them; this one is a recipe that I mixed and matched ingredients from the lists in both, added some others on a hunch, and the resultant vadais turned out quite nicely. They were more kebabs/ cutlets textured, slightly crisp on the outside and a softer inside.

Vazhai Poo Vadai:
The following recipe yields 12 vadais 

Ingredients:
1 cup chopped banana blossom *(cleaning and chopping tips given below)
1/4 cup roasted gram (pottukadalai/ porikadalai)
2 tablespoons channa dhal

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1/3 cup fresh and grated coconut
1 medium red onion chopped finely
1"piece ginger chopped
4 numbers fresh green chillis chopped finely
3 dry red chillis
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 sprigs curry leaves
A small bunch of fresh coriander leaves
Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method:
Preparing the banana blossom: *(Cleaning and chopping)
The pink violet banana blssom is actually not a flower by itself. It contains many layers of neat rows of small yellow flowers. Each row is protectively covered by petals that change in colour from a deep pink to tender yellow as it gets closer to the core. 
This vegetable tends to have an astringent taste inclining towards bitterness, yet very delicious when cooked.
You might apply oil on your fingers and the knife, use a paper to protect your board unless you are prepared to work hard removing the black and sticky stain that the vegetable will leave behind.
Keep a bowl with water that has some curd / yoghurt mixed to it to drop the chopped vegetable in. The yoghurt prevents discolouring of the cut mass.
Remove first three to four layers of petals and the mature flowers on the top and discard.

The following inner layers hold many tiny flowers. Remove them gently and give a gentle brush on the top to open them up. You will spot the stamen in there. Pull it out from each of the flower. These may cause your end product to become bitter if left within.

Once the stamen has been removed, chop the remaining flowers and drop them in the bowl of water.
As you work deeper into the flower, the colour turns pale and yellow, the stamen is not as hard, still present. Remove them as many as you can. leaving a few of these inner most are okay as they do not taste bitter.
Keep the chopped blossom well immersed in water - yoghurt solution. They oxidize pretty quickly when exposed.
Once done with the chopping, rinse them thoroughly,in few changes of water. Place them in a cooking bowl with little water and turmeric powder, Steam until the vegetable is just about done. Drain the water and keep aside.
Meanwhile wash the channa dhal well and soak in water for about 30 minutes.
Reserve half of the chopped onions and green chillis to add to the batter later.

Take the soaked dhal, red chillis and roasted gram in the jar of the mixer-grinder and pulse to a coarse paste. Add to this, the steamed vegetable, ginger, coconut, the other half of onions, and green chillis.
Grind all of them together just until combined. Use water only if absolutely necessary. The resultant batter shall be rather stiff than soggy.
Transfer from the grinder jar to a bowl. Mix the onions, green chillis that you reserved earlier, salt, asafoetida, fennel seeds, chopped curry leaves and, chopped coriander leaves. Mix well whisking with your hand. The batter now will be thick enough to hold by hand and roll in a soft ball that can be flattened. It is alright if cracks appear as you flatten. Gently press the batter around the cracks and smooth them out.
Keep the oil for frying on the stove.
When the oil is hot, bring the heat to medium high and slide two or three of the flattened vadais in the oil.
Deep fry tossing them around in the oil until well done all over. Remove from the oil using a slotted ladle onto kitchen tissues to drain residual oil.

Serve paired with sauce or any preferred chutney. Though they are best eaten hot, they taste good consumed few hours later also. The kebab texture is more recognised when eaten later.
I personally like the vegetable cooked as paruppu usli combined with lentils, but these were surely a very welcome change to be consumed warm on a dull and wet with rain day.

Ragada Patties

The first time I had ragada was in a small restaurant in a mall. I liked it so much that I generously offered my husband the pattice that was served with it. He loves potatoes and I did not mind sharing it to him for the ragada was a fulfilling meal by itself. That was many years ago and I would opt for this from the menu wherever there was a chaat option.
I realised it was not very difficult to make them when I watched some cookery show and tried at home. Quickly I was altering and playing with the ingredients to suit my taste and mood. Potatoes are such vegetable that even plain shallow fried ones taste good. The filling inside the patties and the ragada takes it to another level.

When I checked these were listed even as breakfast recipes, which I am not sure about, But they are sure a meal that can be very satisfying. I have sometimes filled with cheese,  shredded and boiled vegetables and even left over upma. However, today's recipe is with a simple pattice with a sprout bean filling and the ragada.

Ingredients:
For Patties: (4 large patties)
2 large potatoes
2 tablespoons sprouted green gram
1 green chilli chopped very fine
A pinch of dry mango powder
Salt to taste
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Oil for shallow frying

For the Ragada:
1/2 cup dried white peas
2 toamtoes
2 red onions
1 tablespoon thick tamarind pulp
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon green chilli paste
1/2 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder
Salt to taste
For tempering:

1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 sprigs fresh curry leaves

For serving:
Khajoor imli ki chutney
Mint chutney
1 onion chopped
Lemon rinds

Method:
Patties:
Boil the potatoes and peel the skin. Mash them well free of lumps.
Add the salt and the dry mango powder. Mix well.
Cook this in a non stick pan on very low heat until quite dry.
Remove from the pan and transfer to a flat dish. Allow to cool.
In the pan toss the green gram sprouts, green chillis and some salt.
Pinch out four large balls of the mashed potato.
Pat one portion flat in your palm and shape in a shallow cup. Place some of the filling inside and roll to cover the filling well.
Flatten this in a thick disc.

Repeat the process with the  other three portions of the potato.
Press them lightly in the bread crumbs.
Heat a flat non stick pan. Place the patties well apart and fry in little oil until both sides have browned well.
Remove from the pan and place them on kitchen tissues to remove excess oil.

For the ragada:
Soak the yellow peas overnight. Wash in few changes of water and pressure cook until they are soft.
Chop the onions very fine.
Puree the tomatoes and add the tamarind pulp to it.
Heat the oil in a pan.
Add the onions and sauté them until translucent. Add the chilli paste and ginger paste and cook till they blend.

Pour the tomato puree and tamarind pulp. Add some water and cook until the raw taste subsides.
Add to the cooking liquid the peas, salt and cumin powder.
Cook until the gravy thickens slightly. It is usually on a rare gravy.
Remove from the stove.
Temper with cumin seeds crackled in oil and the curry leaves.

To serve:
Place the patties in a serving plate. Pour the ragada over it to almost immerse the pattice.
Top with the khajur imli chutney and the mint chutney (recipe below) and if you have on hand some sev.

Green chutney:
Take a fist full of mint leaves and equal quantity of fresh coriander leaves in the jar of a mixer.
Add juice of 1 Indian lime, salt and 2 green chillis.
Blend well adding some water to a thick chutney.
The very popular My Legume Love Affair, a brainchild of Susan The Well Seasoned Cook is now being hosted in Lisa's Kitchen and the current Edition 56 is also hosted by Lisa. I am sending this dish for the same.

Polla Vadai

When I was copying the recipes from my mother's notebook, I noted that she had labelled Polla vadai, but had not added the recipe below the same. That kept me intrigued and I would look up blogs for the recipe. Later for the Navrathri that year, Jayasree posted her recipe and  I commented on her post.Then during a chat with her, I mentioned this and she sent me a long  Palakkad Iyer chat thread where people had shared few variations for the recipe. I particularly noted one where someone said,  'adhu pollanum' meaning that it shall have to puff in oil. But somehow the opportunity to make them and post never came by.
So, as I set myself of making different vadais for my Thai Vellikizhamai neivedhyam, this was one I made.
I also found a video on You tube with a title Paripoyee polla vadai - that is how the parippu ari polla vadai has come to be known.
The recipes made do with just rice and tur dhal, or had more dhals added to the grinding batter. I read them all, but finally followed  dear J's recipe. We loved them, though I feel that I should have fried them a little longer so they stayed crisp. They were fine the first day, but when I stored and tried on the second they had lost some of the crisp feel. I am sure it is easy to rectify.
I am repeating Jayasree's recipe here and have added pictures for demo.

Ingredients:
1 & 1/2 cups rice flour (I have used home pounded raw rice powder)
1/4 cup channa dhal
1/4 cup thoor dhal
1 tablespoon urad dhal
3 dry red chillis
!/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder (she mentioned just a few shakes of the bottle)
2 stalks of curry leaves
Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method:
With repeated changes of water, wash the dhals and then soak them together for an hour.
Drain as much water possible and grind them to a coarse paste along with the red chillis, asafoetida powder, salt and the curry leaves. Try not to add water while grinding. It will be easy to grind soaked dhals without water.
Mix the above paste with the rice flour and knead in a dough. The dough shall have to be slightly stiff.
Pinch out small portions, size of Indian gooseberries.
Use a banana leaf or a thick plastic sheet as base to pat the dough. Lightly apply oil on the surface. Pat the ball of dough as thin circular disc, without tearing. repeat and have a few ready.

Meanwhile, keep the oil for heating. When the oil is nearly smoking hot, peel off the patted disc. Slide them gently into the oil, few at a time. I tried frying one at a time as I needed to check if they puffed well.
Deep fry until both sides are well done. Remove from the oil with a slotted ladle and transfer to a dish lined with a kitchen tissue.
It is best served stove to table as I read in some thread. But I had it few hours later and they were crisp.
These make a nice snack for any lazy evening.

Kunukku

 I was copying recipes from my mother's notebook that had many recipes shared by my aunts and my mother's friends. She had copied recipes that I thought I knew well, only to realise that she had an altogether different recipe listed under that title. Kunukku was one such. There were, in fact,  two recipes for that. Normally, this was a snack you made with left over adai batter with addends. I had my aunt's famous recipe that people used to request her to make for them.
One of the recipes required that the ingredients were made first in a dry powder and then mixed with others when you desired. The other was a wet grinding version. An opportunity to try one recipe arose when my husband invited a friend and his wife for dinner.
These days I have limited my menu and narrowed to the taste and options of the guest. There is no harm in inquiring beforehand and plan accordingly. We have become quite conscious about what we eat and so would my guests. So I limited the menu to fewer dishes, but needed to make something that was new to them. Thus I decided to try the kunukku recipe, which was new to me too.

 

I made the powder ahead with some extra portions for later use.So it was not time consuming when you have to devote time to other stuff, which included weekend shopping.
Even if you have to make the powder, it does not take very long provided the quantity is about one cup.

Ingredients:
1 cup raw rice ( I bring some ponni rice from India, any short grain raw rice should work fine)
1/8 cup thuvar dhal
1/2 of a small size coconut scraped (about 1/4  cup shreds)
4-5 fresh green chilli peppers ( adjust according to heat of chillis and your taste)
2" piece ginger
2 sprigs of curry leaves
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Method:
Pulse the thuvar dhal in the blender and achieve a coarse powder that of semolina consistency.
Add the rice and powder to the same consistency. The powder shall be short of fine, that when turned between fingers you feel the grainy texture.
This powder can be made and stored for months also.
To make kunukku, the listed quantity of rice and dhal when pounded will give approximately 3/4ths of the cup of flour. The rest of the ingredients suffice this quantity.
Grind the coconut, chillis, curry leaves and ginger to a smooth paste adding just enough water.
Mix the flour, salt, asafoetida powder and the paste and enough water to make a slightly stiff dough. You shall be able to hold the dough in a shape but if you apply more pressure the ball shall crumble.
Though a little loose dough will not harm, the texture of the kunukku will change for sure. Extra water will result in a soft kunukku while less water dough will give you crisp ones.
Mix the dough well, and pinch out small portions. roll them out in not-so-perfect spherical shapes.
Heat oil and deep fry the shaped kunukkus until well fried.
You may add 2 teaspoons each of channa dhal and urad dhal to the ingredients while powdering.
Adding chopped onions to the dough will enhance taste and so will adding coriander leaves.
If you are adding onions, chop them and add the salt to the onions. Crush the salt and the onions for a few minutes with your fingers. the onions will ooze moisture. Then add the rest of the ingredients.  That way you can control the water that you add.

Serve the kunukku with coconut chutney or tomato sauce.
It is not mandatory to shape the kunukkus in perfect shapes. You may choose to pinch the dough out directly in the hot oil like you would for pakodas. Either way they taste good.