Vegetable Masala Curry

This is a very tasty veg curry for chapathi..... I have got appreciation from the guests whenever i made this. :) This curry can be made with any vegetables, paneer etc... I always make this as a mixed veg curry with carrots, potatos, cauliflower,paneer etc.... And for the first time i made this with Brinjal and that also was good. I didn't add much water to cook brinjal as i like it to be sauted in oil than cooked water....

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion sliced
• 1 tomato pureed
• 2 tbs curd
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 tbs curry masala or 2tbs chicken masala powder            I used chicken masala powder :)
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp jeera
• 3 tbs oil
• 2-2.5 cup cubed vegetables (potato, carrot, beans, cauliflower, beans, paneer etc)
• 2 tbs coriander leaves

Procedure

• Saute onion in 1 tbs hot oil till golden brown and blend it wih curd in a blender.
• Heat oil, add jeera, turmeric powder, curry masala, and chilli powder and saute it till it gives out a nice roasted aroma...abt 20-20sec.
• Add onion and curd mix to it and saute for some more time for about 5-7 min.
• Add tomato puree and saute till the oil comes out on the sides of the kadai.
• Now, add vegetables and saute for some time and add about 1.5 cup of water to cook all the veg well.
• When the vegetables are cooked well, evaporate the remaining water to get the required consistency.
• When the curry is thick, add coconut milk and mix it well.
• Switch off the flame before the curry boils.
• Garnish the vegetale masala curry with coriander leaves.

Chemmeen Ularthiyadu / Prawns Roast

This recipe is adapted from Mrs K.M.Mathews' Flavours of Spice Coast. This is my family's favourite prawns dish!

 

 

Ingredients:

1. 300gm prawns
2. 1/2 cup shallots
3. 1 tsp chilli powder
4. 1 tsp coriander powder
5. 1/4 tsp pepper powder
6. 1 tbs chopper garlic
7. 1 tbs chopped ginger
8. 1 pinch turmeric powder
9. 2-3 tbs tamrind pulp(by soaking tamrind in water)
10. 1.5 cups onion sliced
11. 1 tbs ginger thinly sliced
12. few curry leaves
13. 2 tbs coconut oil
14. 1/4 tsp mustard
15. salt to taste

Method:

1. Grind 2-8 ingredients coarsly
2. Cook prawns with the mixture by adding 1 cup water,salt and tamrind to it.
3. Once the prawns is cooked, turn on high flame and switch it off once the prawns is dry.
4. Heat oil and splutter mustard, curry leaves and saute ginger and onion till onion becomes golden brown.
5. Add the cooked prawns to the above and fry for some more time, about 10 minutes till the onion mixtures coats the prawns very well.
6. Switch off the flame
7. You can garnish the prawns roast with curry leaves or ginger juliennes.

 This is a very tasty prawns ularthiyadu :)

Rava Kesari

Ingredients

• 1 cup nice rava
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 tbs ghee
• 1 cardamon
• few chashew nuts and raisins

Procedure

• Fry 1 cup rava in 2 tbs ghee.
• When the rava starts changing the color, add 1 cup water and 2 cups milk to itand stir it continuosly.
• Cook rava completely and make it thick by evaporating the rmaining liquid.
• Add cardamon, sugar and 2 tbs ghee to it.
• Stir it continuously to make it to the required consistencyand switch off the flame.
• Fry cashewnuts and raisins and add the same to kesari and mix well.

Kesari is ready to be served. It can be served warm or cold. We can add pineapple pieces the keasri when rava is half cooked. Once when i have tried with pineapple flavour tang to get that flavour. but i like the plain kesari rather than the one with pineapple flavour. Also, milk can be replaced by water. That is also tasty. To get that rich flavour, use milk:) Dooooooon't replace ghee with oil!!!

Tomato Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 3 tomatos
• 4-5 chicken pieces with bones
• 1 slice bread
• 3 tbs butter
• 3 tbs chopped onion
• 3 tbs chopped garlic
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 1 tbs chopped coriander leaves

Procedure

• Peel off the tomato skin by boiling it in water for few min and remove the seeds from them.
• Heat 2 tbs butter, and saute garlic and bread in it.
• Add chopped tomatos, chicken pieces and 2 cups of water to the same.
• Once the chicken and tomatos are cooked well, switch of the flame.
• Take out the chicken pieces and remove the bones and shred the rest into small pieces.
• Blend the tomato mixture in a blender to for smooth soup.
• Heat the remaining  butter and saute onion in it.
• Add the shreded chicken , salt, pepper and the soup into it.
• When the soup boils and slightly changes its color,switch off the flame.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Spicy Veg Pulav

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice.
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1 cup chopped vegetables(beans, carrot, cabbage etc)
• 1 tsp curry masala
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 slit green chilli
• 1 tbs chopped ginger
• 1 tbs chopped garlic
• 1/4 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp jeera
• 1 tbs oil
• 2 tbs chopped coriander leaves
• salt to taste

Procedure

• Heat oil in cooker.
• Splutter jeera and saute onion, green chilli, veg, ginger and garlic.
• Add masala powder, garam masala, turmeric powder,chilli powder and tomato.
• Once the tomato is fully cooked, add rice and fry for sometime.
• Add 2 cups water and salt to taste and cook everything together in the pressure cooker.
• When it cooked well garnish with coriander leaves.

Easy kozhukatta

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice flour 
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 tsp jeera 
• 1/2 onion finely chopped 
• 2tbs oil 
• 1tsp mustard
• 2 dry chilli
• few curry leaves
• few small onion sliced
• salt to taste  

Procedure

• Boil water(about 1 cup) with salt. 
• Mix rice flour, jeera, onion and coconut. 
• Add hot water to the above mix slowly making sure that no lumps are formed. 
• Consistency of dough should be enough to make balls with it.
• Make small balls with the dough and steam the balls for 10-15 minutes.
• Heat oil and splutter mustard in it.
• Add curry leaves, dry chilli, onion and coconut to it and saute for 2-3 min in low flame.
• Switch off the flame and mix the cooked rice balls well.

 

This is an easy breakfast recipe...
Tip: You can keep the balls ready in the fridge on the previous day itself and steam it on next day.

 

 

 

Simple Dal Curry

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked dal
• 1tbs ghee
• 1tsp jeera
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 1/2 chopped tomato
• 1 chopped green chilli
• 2tbs coriander leaves
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• salt to taste

Procedure

• Heat ghee in a kadai.
• Splutter jeera and saute onion and green chilli in ghee.
• When onion changes its color, add tomato and turmeric powder and saute til tomato is cooked.
• Add the cooked dal and let the curry boil for 1 min.
• Garnish the curry with coriander leaves.

Enjoy this simple curry with chapathi or plain rice.

Veg Fried Rice with red chilli sauce

Ingredients

• 1cup cooked rice
• 1 cup vegitables(carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower, cabbage etc) chopped
• 2 tbs oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• salt to taste
• 1 tbs shezwan sauce/ red chilli sauce
• 2tbs chopped coriander leaves.

Procedure

• Heat oil in a pan/wok
• Add chilli sauce and saute for 30 secs and add finely chopped garlic.
• Veg can be thinly chopped and added to the above and saute till they are cooked still crunchy.
• Add salt to taste and the cooked rice and mix well. Switch off the flame and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Red Chilli sauce

Ingredients

• 8-10 dry red chilli
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp brown sugar/white sugar
• 3 tbs seasame oil
• 2tbs chopped ginger

Procedure

• Cut dry red chillis into pieces and soak the same in 1/2 cup hot water.
• After 2-3hrs, take out the soaked chillis and grind it with ginger and sugar into paste.
• Heat oil and pour the hot oil over the paste. This can be stored in fridge for few days.

Since i didn't have brown sugar and seasame oil i used white sugar and canola oil for the above recipe. This sauce is too hot....

Neipathiri with puttu podi

Ingredients

• 1 cup puttu podi ( coarsly ground rice flour)
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1 tsp jeera
• 1/2 onion finely chopped
• 2tbs oil
• salt to taste.
• oil to fry

Procedure

• Boil water(about 1 cup) with salt.
• Mix rice flour, jeera, onion and coconut.
• Add hot water to the above mix slowly making sure that no lumps are formed.
• Consistency of dough should be enough to make balls with it.( same as for kozhukatta)
• Keep it for some time and if it is dry then add some more water.
• Make small balls out of it and roll it into small round shapes with oil so it doesn't stick to the palm/roller.
• Fry it in high heat to get brown color on both sides. If the dough is good, the pathri will puff like puri.

Serve hot neipathiri's with chicken curry.

Vanilla cake

Vanilla Cake with butter-pineapple icing:)

This is a simple cake for those who are new to cooking.

This was the fourth time i was trying to make a cake. The first 2 times the cake didn't rise at all.... Then i saw a cake recipe in Asian Food Channel(afc) which is the only interesting channel i have here in Singapore other than asianet..:( It was a pumpkin cake recipe. Also, I have the habbit of making my own changes in any recipe... But i didn't want to take a risk with my cake experiment for the 3rd time. So i sticked to the recipe fully. And the cake came out well. Then i understood the problem with my first 2 cakes was the blending and whisking of egg. But the taste of the cake became sour after 2 days...:( and i think it was because of the pumpkin..
Anyway i tried it again on a weekend so that i can get my husband's muscle power to do the whisking part..:)And this time,it came out well and we had our first successful cake for next 3-4 days.
According to my husband, his whisking did the magic :)

Ingredients

For Cake :

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2tbs oil
• 2 eggs
• A pinch of baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 2 tbs warm milk
• 1tsp vanilla essence

For Icing:

• 1/2 cup icing sugar/powdered sugar with 1 tbs corn flour
• 1/2 cup butter(room temperature)
• 2tbs pineapple jam

Procedure

For cake:

• Beat egg yolks and add powdered sugar little by little till the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches a creamy consistency.
• Sieve flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder thrice.
• Add vanilla essence to the butter mixture and add flour mixture and milk alternativily making sure that no lumps are formed.
• Whisk egg whites to form peaks and fold in the same to the rest.
• Keep a buttered cake tin ready so that the batter can be poured into it as soon as we fold in the egg whites.
• Heat a pressure cooker, and place any plate/ bowl in the cooker above which the cake tin can be placed.
• Close the cooker lid and don't the weight on it.
• Allow18-20 min for the cake to be fully cooked. and switch of the flame.
• After reaching room temperature, the cake can be moved to other plate.

For Icing:

• 
  
  Beat butter and add powdered sugar mixture along with the jam till the sugar is fully dissolved.
• 
  
  When it reaches the icing consistency evenly apply it on the cake with knife/spatula.

Tip:It can decorated with shredded chocolate or chocolate sauce as above pic.

Refreshing Papaya Lemon Mint Cooler

Too tired after office work????? Have this refreshing cooler...

Ingredients

• 1 bowl skin peeled papaya cubes(About half a papaya)


• half a lemon


• 6-8 min leaves


• 2 tsp sugar


• 1.5 cup water


• 6-8 ice cubes

Procedure

• Blend all ingredients well, except ice cubes, in a blender.


• For the last round of blending add ice cubes and have it with that crushed ice..:)

Note: Depending on your taste you can increase/decrease the qty of papaya.

Sweet Pongal or Payasam???

Stir it some more time and let that bananas disappear...

Being born and bought up in kerala, i have never had sweet pongal before. After marriage, when i made payasam, with rice and jaggery without coconut milk,( thick payasam which we get from temple as prasad) my husband told me that is Sweet Pongal. When I searched for sweet pongal recipe in other blogs, i could find that sweet pongal has green gram or moong dal and milk in it...Anyway here is my version of sweet pongal with banana.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rice (podi ari/ parboiled ponni rice)
• Jaggery to taste.( I used about 200gms)
• 1/4 tsp cardamon powder
• 2 tbs ghee
• 2 tbs chopped cashew nut
• 2 tbs raisins
• 2 banana(njaalipoovan is the best)

Procedure

• Cook the rice well.
• Add crushed/melted jaggery to it.(You can add chunks also)
• Once the jaggery is melted, add chopped banana to it.
• Stir well to make it thick.
• Add cardamon powder and 1 tbs ghee to it and continue stirring. The banana pieces will be completely blended with the rest. Make sure that the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the vessel.
• Heat rest of the ghee and lightly fry cashews and raisins.
• When the rice mixture reaches its required consistency, switch off the flame and add the fried cashews and raisins to it. Sweet pongal/payasam is ready!!!

Tip: Immediately transfer the contents on to banana leaves to get that special taste and aroma...

Besan Ladoo

This is one of my favourite Ladoo which is not very common at Calicut. When I was working at Trivandrum, I used to buy this whenever I could, but never thought that i would be making it one day... This is a very tasty ladoo and if you have lil patience you can also make it at home..:)

After all homemade dishes have its special taste..
Ingredients

• 1 cup besan powder
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup ghee
• 1/4 cup chopped badam
• 1/4 cup raisin
• 1 powdered cardamon

Procedure

• Roast Besan powder in ghee on slow fire till besan powder slightly changes its color.
• Stir it well while roasting to make sure there are no chunks formed and besan is not browned.
• To this add the rest of the ingredients and stir it well on slow fire.
• Make sure that sugar is not burned.
• After mixing it very well switch off the flame and stir it for few more min so that the mixture won't get burned due to the hot kadai.
• Keep it for some time so that the mixture is not too hot to be touched.
• Using the palm make small balls with the mixture. Don't wait till the mixture to be completely coll for doing this.

I didn't use badam and raisins as i didn't have them at home when i made it. Still it tastes the same as the "Maa Ladoo" we get at Arul Jyothi, Trivandrum...:)

Tomato Rice

Ingredients

 

• 1 cup rice
• 1 sliced onion
• 2 and 1/2 tomato
• 1 tsp chopped ginger
• 1 tsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbs chopped coriander leaves
• 1/4 tsp jeera
• 1stp ghee
• 2tbs oil
• 1/4tsp mustard
• 1 and 3/4cups of water
• salt to taste

Procedure

• Blend one chopped tomato and 1tbs corriander leaves with 1 cup of water.
• Fry rice with ghee till it changes to white color. Don't wait till rice gets brown tint.
• Cook the rice by adding the blended tomato-corriander, salt and 3/4 cup water to it.
• In a frying pan or kadai heat oil and splutter mustard and jeera in it.
• Add ginger, garlic and onion and saute them well.
• When the onion is transparent, add turmeric powder,chilli powder and chopped tomato to it.
• Add cooked rice to the same when tomato is fully cooked and switch off the heat.
• Add the chopped coriander leaves to it.

Tasty Tiffin for your kids is ready....:)

Spicy Brinjal Dal Curry

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized brinjal


• 1/2 cup toovar dal


• 1 medium sized onion


• 1 tomato


• 1 tbs chopped ginger


• 1 tbs chopped garlic


• 1 tsp jeera


• 1 tsp chilli powder


• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder


• 2 tsp coriander powder


• 2 tbs oil


• 2 tbs coriander leaves chopped


• 1 cardamon


• 2 cloves


• a pinch of cinnamon powder


• 1 cup chicken stock/1/2 chicken cube/small chicken pieces


• salt to taste

Procedure

• Cook dal very well


• In a kadai heat the oil and add jeera to it.


• Add chopped onion,sliced brinjal, ginger and garlic and saute them well till brinjal turns to transparent color.


• Add turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, cinnamon,clove and cardamon and saute for few more minutes.


• Add chopped tomato and saute for 2 more minutes and add chicken stock / cube/ chicken pieces.


• If chicken cubes is being added, add 1 cup of water also.


• Add salt to taste.


• Once the chicken pieces are cooked well and everything is blended properly, add cooked dal to the same and boil for some more time.


• When the curry reaches the required consistency, add the chopped coriander leaves and take off the kadai from heat.

Note: If chicken cubes are being added, check the salt before adding as the cubes are already salty.

Spicy brinjal dal curry is ready to be served with chapathi, ghee rice or biriyani.:)