Spinach (Keerai) kunukku!

It is a cold rainy season here and gets dark very soon. This is a heavenly afternoon snack for that kind of a weather made with the remainder of adai maavu(batter)!

Spinach mentioned here can be murungai keerai or methi keerai or the spinach as said and sold in other countries throughout the world!

Ingredients:

Spinach(keerai) - 50gms of leaves

Adai batter - just enough to make 4  to 5 adais.

Salt - a pinch

Sooji rava - 1 handful

Water- if necessary

Oil - 100ml to deep fry

Procedure:

1.) Cut spinach leaves  and mix with adai batter

2.) Add a pinch of salt and sooji rava to it and mix well.

3.) Heat oil in a small stir fry pan.

4.) Make the kunukku maavu to small balls(roughly) and deep fry

5.) Spinach kunukku is ready to serve.

This kunukku can have variations like having carrot, beetroot, cabbage together or seperate, to it other than spinach! It tastes equally great and will be ready in some fleeting minutes!

 

Oats halwa!

This post is a long time coming! I tried this tasty halwa a year back and wanted to post it for the past month , but forgot totally about it!

Ingredients:

White Oats - 1 cup

Sugar - 3/4th of a cup

Elaichi powder- 1/2 tsp

Cashews - 10 whole ones

Food color - as  you wish

Milk - 2 1/2 cups

Water - 100 ml

Ghee (Clarified butter) -  200gms

Procedure:

1.) Take a tsp of ghee in a medium heated stir fry pan.

2.)  Add oats to it and roast it till the raw smell of oats dies away.

3.)  Cool it and grind to a nice powder

4.) Add milk to a pan and bring to a boil, add this powder and stir well for a minute, until it becomes a thick paste.

5.)  Add sugar to the stir fry pan and add water just to immerse it and make a sugar syrup with oily consistency. This takes approximately about 2-3 minutes after the syrup starts to boil in medium heat.

6.) Add the oats milk paste and keep mixing. Add ghee in parts in equal inervals until it becomes an halwa.

7.) Add your choice of food colour, elaichi powder and cashews roasted in ghee as garnish and serve.

This is a very nutritious halwa, rich in fibre and protein!

Tidbits -1

This is first of the forthcoming series of useful tips, ideas for saving kitchen disasters which we face almost daily, shortcuts that doesn't spoil the taste, but saves much needed time and energy etc., etc., all in one!

Do you make poricha kootu or payatham paruppu kootu and run to the mixie every day to grind the ingredients needed for it? Not needed anymore! Buy some dessicated coconut powder or flakes, mix some jeera, dry red chillies, grind it and store it in an air-tight container. You can take 2 teaspoons of it everyday you make kootu and mix it with water and then use it! No difference in taste at all!!! This powder will last until 3 -4 weeks. If you grind approx 3 weeks worth, then this reduces your morning tension and for ppl in India, the power cut tensions too!!!

Raw mango halwa!

I will tell you a full-on captivating story now. My mother-in-law is here with us. My hubby V had asked her to make mango thokku, which is his only and favourite oorugai/pickle item! When we went for grocery shopping last weekend, we selected a raw mango which was quiet big weighing nearly 3 pounds. We paid a lil over $5 for that mango thinking of the resulting tongue tickling taste of 'mango thokku'. When my m-i-l peeled the skin for making thokku, she noticed a pale orangish yellow colour. The mango was not ripe though! It was very stiff and tasted to find it very sweet. She told me about what happened and we both decided to try out halwa as a $5 note danced in our memory! And the rest is history.......

Ingredients:

Raw mango pulp- 1 1/4 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee (clarified butter) - 2 tbsp
Cashews - 5 nos
Cardamom powder - 1 pinch
Water

Procedure:

Take sugar in a deep fry pan and add water till it is immersed
Make the mixture boil vigourously for 5 mins in medium heat. Take a bit of the mixture between your fore-finger and thumb, move those fingers apart from each other, the mixture should come like a string between the 2 fingers (we used to call this as 'kambi padham')
Add the mango pulp and stir well and let it thicken. Keep stirring.
Take 1 tbsp of ghee and roast cashews until golden brown in it
Add 1 tbsp of ghee in the thickening mixture and continue to stir.
The mixture will not stick to the pan after a minute or so.
Mix cashews and add cardamom powder.
Raw mango halwa is ready to serve!


Courtesy: My m-i-l.

Sarvam 'kollu'(horse-gram) mayam!

I think this post would define what this blog is all about! Its just not about recipes, but about everything that is concerned with food.

This post is the one which I wrote for sending it to a popular tamil magazine, but didn't for no-reason at all! I think it is destined to have its place here, after all!

Here goes the translation of my article. But I have baptised this post with the same name I had given to the article 2.5 years ago....

"Horse-gram?, to cook?" "Is it not the one that is fed for horses?" These are the common questions that arise from people when they read the topic!

My mom used to make awesome 'kollu rasam' from where my inspiration for 'kollu' started. Kollu or horse-gram, as it is called in English, is a lentil which has near-magical properties.

"What makes horse-gram so special? It is after all a lentil!"

Before giving the answer straight-away, I have to explain certain things here. The food we consume gets digested to release energy for our bodily day-today activities. The unspent energy and the fat we consume gets stored as fat or lipid molecules in the tissues of our body. These 'fatty' tissues are called as adipose tissues. It doesn't stop there! The excess fat starts to clog the arteries and veins that supply and take away blood to/from the heart, starts forming inner and outer lining of all the internal organs thus hampering their functions, in serious cases causing organ failures! The fat molecules are very difficult to disintegrate. Thats why too much fat consumption is an absolute no-no! Overweight or obese individuals are required to work their socks out to reduce their plump, because of the above mentioned reason. When doing work-outs, the lipids stored in the tissues start to disintegrate/break-down for the release of energy for physical activity, thus reducing the weight.

Okay, let me answer the question now!

Yes, horse-gram is a lentil. The thing that sets horse-gram apart from the others is, its thick jacket, which it wears proudly, boasting off its uniqueness. The jacket is so thick that it does not get cooked unless it is soaked for atleast 8-10 hrs, or through the night. When it is consumed, the thick jacket is the toughest to break-down. It just fights back as a brave warrior would, bringing down the fat molecules, stored in the adipose tissues along with it!

"Am I hearing it correctly? Will mere consumption of horse gram reduce weight then?"

Er.... Well! Yes.. but gradually, over a period of time. It acts as a catalyst in the weight loss, when combined with physical exercise. It not only aids in reducing weight, it breaks down the villainous lipids in the body.

The other thing about horse-gram is, it is highly rich in protein and iron. The high protein content, makes it very nutritious to eat for people who maintain normal weight too.

"Oh!.... then I have to make a sacrifice and tie my wagging tongue for sometime to do this!"

Nah!.... I bet you will experience no or little or enhanced difference in taste. Your tongue can wag even stronger!

So having given a green signal to horse-gram, let us ignite the fuel of our creativity here and list out the various recipes that can be made using horse-gram. The below mentioned ideas are just starters! Other recipes are always welcome!

1.) When making 'milagai podi ' (some call it gun powder!!! :)) Dunno for what reasons though!),for dosas and idlis, replace the full measure of chana dal or kadalai paruppu with half the measure of chana dhal (kadalai paruppu) and half the measure of kollu.

2.) When making the batter for adai, add a handful of soaked kollu (8-10 hrs soaking mandatory) with other lentils and grind. Adai will have a better and improved flavour, crispiness and taste! What more do you want?

3.) Instead of adding thoor dhal /thuvaram paruppu for rasam, soaked kollu can be used to make it an awesome 'kollu rasam'.

4.) Do you have a habit of eating sprouts for breakfast in the morning? Add a handful of soaked horse gram to it!

5.) Dhal fry and yummy! Made for each other! Add a handful of soaked horse-gram to the mixture of dhals and then cook it in the same way! People will ask for your new recipe of dhal fry!

6.) When making paruppu podi too, a proportion of kollu can be added to it!

In the above mentioned ideas, wherever I have said 'soaked' it means soaked for 8-10 hours!

I think this article will be an inspiration for us to cook much healthily and lead a better life!

Happy cooking!

Karthik kari!

We know that there are different ways to cook vazhakkai. I am going to add one more recipe to it. This was given by my friend who is in NJ and hence the name! Karthik avargal perumidha padalaam. I have fulfilled the promise made to him. Here goes the recipe!

Ingredients:
Vazhaikkai (plantain) - 2 nos small, diced
Black Pepper - 1 tsp
Jeeragam(Cumin seeds) -2 tsp

Curry leaves(adhamba namma ooru karuveppillai! Adhukku dhan galeejaa ippadi oru peru!) -2 clusters

Mustard seeds(kadugu) -1/2 tsp

Urad dhal(whole)-1 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Oil( Vegetable or olive or Sunflower your choice!) - 15 ml

Preparation:

Pour water in a shallow pan and add diced vazhakkai .

Make it come to a boil and simmer it for 15-18 mins. Add salt after the 10th minute.

Meanwhile to make Pepper and jeera powder with curry leaves :

Curry leaves -1 cluster

Pepper and cumin seeds as mentioned above.

Dry roast pepper and cumin seeds for 5 mins in medium heat till both of them start splitting. Add curry leaves to it and switch off the stove. Keep roasting it in the heat of the pan. Curry leaves will split too.

Grind them all together to make a nice powder.

Tip: You can grind this in larger quantities, store them and use it as a ready made powder.

Drain excess water from vazhakkai.

Add oil to a medium heated stir fry pan and leave it to become hot.

Add mustard seeds and wait to split

Add Urad dhal and curry leaves and stir till Urad dhal becomes golden brown.

Add turmeric powder (This is the only change I made to his recipe.. He asked me to add it just before adding the pepper powder.)

Add boiled vazhakkai and mix them all so that the colour of the turmeric powder is spread evenly.

Add the pepper jeera powder and keep mixing till it spreads evenly.

Leave it in medium heat for about 5-7 mins. Mix occassionally

Karthik kari is ready!

Pickling jalapenos!

I bet most of your tongues would be salivating thinking of tongue-tickling taste of nachos after looking at this topic.

The easiest method of pickling them which I do normally is by the below mentioned procedure
Ingredients:
1 cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups distilled white vinegar(5%)
2 tsp salt
20 Green jalapenos

Procedure:
Mix the lemon juice and distilled white vinegar and add salt to it
Dissolve salt in the mixture by stirring it. The marinade is ready!
Cut the jalapenos into smaller rings of 3-4mm thick each
Soak jalapenos in this marinade until you use!
Keep the marinade as long as you have the reminder of jalapenos.
Store in refrigerator.

This can be used for nachos, sandwiches to give it a tangy and hot flavour. This can also be used for making roti veggie rolls etc., etc.,

Adai aaga maariya paruppu usili!

This is a small story. This happened when I was 'deep' into the first year of my marriage! My mother-in-law was not there with us at that time. She is the one who cooks for when we comfortably leave to our repective offices. We call her 'Annapoorni' as she never used to crib and makes everything ready and hot-hot before we leave for the office.


I was trying my hand in the kitchen department during her absence. I wanted to make beans paruppu usili and soaked kadalai paruppu(Chana dal) and Thuvaram paruppu (thoor dal) for 20 mins. I ground both with ginger, red chillies, karuvepilai(curry leaves), after soaking and in a hurry mixed a little excess water by mistake. Instead of being a thick crumble it was like a paste! One moment I thought of it to be a sheer waste of material and felt very bad. Then an idea struck like a lightning! I had some arisi maavu (rice flour) at home. I mixed some rice floor along with water and salt to the paruppu (dhal) paste to make it like a batter of adai and left it till we returned back from the office( I made beans kari instead for us!). I made adai in that batter and everyone liked it!

Vella appam with a twist!

I had been to lunch on the day of 'avaniyavattam' to our friends R and S's place. Maami oda kai varisai idhu! She and S jointly displayed a long list of delicious looking dishes, semiya payasam, vendaikkai more kozhambu, vaazhaikkai kari, rasam, lemon rice ( which also has another twist to it!), vadai, vella appam etc., etc.,

The subject of interest here is vella appam which smelled and tasted delicious. S mentioned that maami has added strawberries to the vella appam maavu and has deep fried it. Usually vella appam does not generate excitement in me as it tastes a bit bitter when the proportion of vellam is not correct. But this appam tasted great and smelled wonderful! A nice change to the traditional dish! Novice cooks who are aspiring to make vella appams can find my recipes in the later posts.