Maavinkai Anna ( Mango Mustard in Rice)

 

Mango rice,  much more fragrant and flavorful recipe. The sourness of the raw mango and the ground mustard  makes this dish really outstanding.  Nice to carry for lunch box and picnics, simple and easy to make.

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 cups (Sona masoori or regular rice do not make this  with basmathi)

Make a paste with the following :

Green raw (unripe)  mango - 1 big or 2 small cut into chunks without skin **
Coconut grated – ½  cup
Mustard seeds - ½  tsp
Turmeric – ¼  tsp
Small piece of jaggery
Asafetida - a pinch
Dry red chillies - 5 or 6  use to your spice level*

** The mango used in the dish is not the count depends on the sourness so add accordingly

* I have used two kind of red chillies. One is the BYADGI variety which is rich in color and mild in spice. The other variety is the GUNTUR which is very spicy.  I suggest you mix both the varieties otherwise the regular kind will do. This is done only to get the colour of the red chilli.

 

Bisibelebath

Yet another yummy dish from Karnataka……..Bisibelebath.  I just love it. I have tried many recipes to get the perfect bisibelebath and I love it this way. Infact I stopped using  any store bought mix for that matter.  The taste of the fresh powder made at home bring out intense flavor of the spices and tastes divine.  Very simple and not a big task in making this dish.

Ingredients

Toor Dal  1 cup
Rice ½   cup (Sona Masoori or regular kind but  do not use basmathi)
Mixed cubed vegetables – 2  cups (( Beans, Carrots, Potato,  Onion, ground nuts, peas)
Desiccated  or Dry Copra -  1/4 cup  (I used desiccated)

Mango Lassi

 

Mango Mango….whats going on with me….as I mentioned  in my earlier post that I am just using mango to its best this season. This is one of the most popular and old classic cold yogurt drink loved by one and all.

The best mango to makt  Lassi is with Alphanso the Indian mango with its lovely fragrance, texture and sweet thick flesh just apt for this lassi. Yogurt adds  tang and you may add the sugar to your taste.

Ingredients

Serves 4

3 mangoes or 2 cups fresh mango chunks (Alphonso)

1 cup chilled yoghurt

½ cup chilled milk

Sugar as per your  taste

For garnish

Diced mangoes and slivered pistachios

Puttu & Green Kadala Curry

Puttu….. is a very popular South Indian  breakfast at Kerala. I have used here the matta rice flour (boiled rice) and fresh coconut. One  need  to have a puttu maker to get the cylindrical and round shapes. You can make with rice flour, ragi, wheat, multi grains with many variations in the stuffing and choice are unlimited.

No Bake Mango Cheese Cake

Eggless No Bake cheese cake with  yogurt and cottage cheese.

Ingredients:

For the Mango Glaze:

½  cup, peeled, chopped and pureed
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lime juice

For Crust:

1 ½  cups  digestive biscuits  crushed or even you can use some chocolate flavored biscuit  

 ½ cup  salted butter  

Banoffee Pie Recipe

Adapted from  swapnascuisine.com

Banoffee Pie, an English dessert  it is one of the quick and easiest desserts to make. The delicious blend of rich caramel, banana and fresh cream is simply mind blowing. I made this recently for a  party and it was amazing. Infact we loved this combination so much  and I am sure you all will love this desert as much as I did J 

It looks as though its very diffcult to make but I tell you no its very simple a bit of time consuming thats all. 

Dulce de Leche  - 1 can (400gm) (refer to my recipe below)Bananas-4nos, large
Whipped Cream-1  1/2 cups
Ginger  biscuits I used / Marie biscuit-200gms
Butter-100gms                                                                                                                                                     ¼ tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
Grated chocolate or Cocoa powder to decorate

Method:

·         To make Dulce the Leche (pronounced dulchay the laychay) recipe below

·         Mix melted butter and powdered biscuit. Line a pie dish with this mixture and keep it in the fridge for some time. (For a crunchy biscuit base you can bake this for 10 minutes at 160oC. 

·         Open the cooled can of  Dulce de Leche and spread this over the layer of biscuit.

·         Peel and thinly slice the bananas, and arrange in a layer over the toffee.

·         Whip the cream until thick and stiff and spread over the bananas.

·         Finally, decorate with grated chocolate or dust the cocoa powder or cinnamon powder on top using a sieve.

How I assembled in a dish and as well as in a glass 

 

Vartha Aracha Chicken Curry

One of the most common dish from Kerala. This curry goes well with Indian roti’s/breads/appam/idiappam etc. You may keep the consistency of the gravy as you like.

Ingredients

Chicken – 500gms washed and cleaned

To make the onion masala (Fry this with little oil and keep it aside)

Big Onions – 1 big size 

Green chillies – 2nos

Garlic  - 5 – 6 pcs

Ginger  – 1 inch

Coriander leaves – about 2 strings

Paneer Butter Masala

I have seen many of them love  paneer in any form, infact at my place my daughter loves it. Me n my hubby take only the gravy part and enjoy this dish as we make it for her sake.

One more quick and simple dish, infact there are so many versions of making this dish. However this is how I like to make my PBM J

Ingredients

Paneer – 250 gms

Peas – 3 tbsp

Cumin whole – 1/4tsp

Sugar – 1 tbsp

Tomato sauce – 2 tbsp

Big Onions – 1 big size 

Cashew – 4 nos.

Red chilli powder -  as per your taste

Coriander whole – 1 tsp

Garlic  whole – 3 pcs

Garam masala – ½ tsp

Ginger  paste –  ½ tsp

Tomatoes – 1 big size

Salt – to taste

Oil/butter  – about 2 tbsp

Red food colour – very little just to get the colour

Kasturi methi – 1/4tsp

Coriander  chopped for garnish

Cream – 2 tbsp

Pani puri chat with mango salsa

I don’t think no one hates to have chat. Today with a  small twist with Mexican & Indian here  I go ahead with a mango salsa with  pani puris. You can get these puris from any chat shop. You can even make it at home. This time I have used the puris & sev from the chat shop as I did not have much time to make this. You can use this as a starter too.

Ingredients

Pani puris small one -  1 small packet   OR   Maide ki Papadi  OR even nice salt crackers

Salsa  

Ripe mango – finely chopped – 1 No.

Red capsicum   - 1 very small

Tomatoes – remove the seeds and finely chopped – 2 small

Onion – 1 no. small

Whole dry chilli crushed – upto your spice level

Lemon juice – ½ tsp

Salt to taste

Jalapenos – 2 nos. finely chopped

Fresh coriander leaves  - 2 tbsp to mix

For garnish :

Fresh coriander leaves  2 tbsp for garnish

Sev – ¼ cup for garnish

Chow Chow Bath

(A sweet and spicy dish made out of semolina originated from Karnataka)

Infact the moment we say its upma for breakfast, everyone makes a sulky face to eat this.

This is one of the best dish that you should try to have it when you get an opportunity to visit  Bengaluru for breakfast, that too have it from the small darshini (these are small snack bars).  Many of us will know this sweet version it  is called as kesari bath and the spicy version as the vegetable upma J. Just a twist in the name from that region.

Vegetable Upma

A spicy dish made out of semolina

Semolina  – 1 cup **

Mustard – ¼ tsp

Channa dal – 1 tsp

Green chilli -  your spice level

Big Onions – 1 big size 

Garam masala – whole  masala of clove and cinamon

Tomatoes – 1 small size

Turmeric  - a pinch

Mixed vegetables – fine chopped carrots, peas, potatoes, beans

Salt – to taste

Ginger – 1 inch

Oil/butter  – about 2 tbsp

Coriander and curry leave – 2 strings each

** Fry well the rawa almost light brown – this is very important step to get the upma soft

LAMINGTON

Yet another cake for the chocolate lovers. Vanilla sponge, coated with chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. Its an amazing combination. Very simple and not a big task to make this cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

All purpose flour-2cup
Baking Soda-1/2 tsp
Powdered Sugar-7 tbsp
Milk-1  1/4 cup
Eggs-2 nos.
Baking powder-2 tsp full
Salt-1/4 tsp
Unsalted butter-125 g
Powdered Sugar-7 tbsp
Milk-1  1/4 cup
Vanilla extract-1 tsp

Vegetable Noodles – desi style with Indo mie

My favourite Chineseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee J. 

Getting prepared to make Chinese  takes lot of time  as It involves  chopping and crushing stuffs etc. Once you start making you can just finish it  very quickly. You can find so many variety of noodles in the market like Maggi, Indo mie and so on. I use these two in particular. I love to use  Indo mie better for this recipe or else go for maggi curry flavor. Its very rare you can find someone who say that they don’t like noodles L.

Lets go ahead with a  very basic  and simple recipe for now.

Ingredients

Indo mie  noodles – 2pack                                                                                                               Vegetables  cut lengthwise very think (carrot, capsicum, cabbage) if you have  sprouts  ok otherwise leave      Garlic crushed – ½ tsp                                                                                                                              Soya sauce – 2 tbsp                                                                                                                            Seasoning stuffs from the packet – use everything they have given                                                           Oil/butter – 2 tbsp – your choice                                                                                                             Onion – 1 big sliced                                                                                                                                     White pepper powder – optional – this is upto to  your spice level

Ari Unda

Ari unda  - originated from malabar 

This is  a very  popular sweet from Malabar which is  mainly prepared in any house for small occasions or as  tea time snack.  This is one favorite sweet that my hubby loves to have it any time of the day J

Ingredients

1 cup par boiled rice (white/red)  I used the red rice                                                                                      ½ cup powdered jaggery                                                                                                                             ½ cup fresh grate coconut                                                                                                               Cardamom – 3nos finely powdered

Lasagna with Meat

(For the vegetarians you can add up carrots, cabbage, capsicum, spinach and make this)

Lasagna, Lasagna is what I hear from my daughter often as she loves it. Its been sometime in my mind to make this dish, something or the other never got an opportunity. Finally  I made it for last nights dinner. Very filling and yummy, infact I felt it was  high on calories once in a while its okay to  have such heavy stuffs.

I have to introduce you guys to one more member of my family he is "Kooky" he such an adorable parakeet. He is all the time on my shoulder when I am at kitchen. He loves cooked pasta, macroni and loves dosa. Whilst making the Lasagna I gave him a piece look how he is enjoying that J

Achappam

During the festive time especially Onam and Vishu the only two grand  festivals we celebrate. My mom used to make these in big quantity as we had such lovely neighbours that we had to send  this along with the other goodies to their houses.  Believe me the tray would be full of home made goodies. Festivals are so colourful in India and I have enjoyed each and every festival. Sharing and receiving the goodies for the festival was the main thing  for us as a child, each house had their own specialty and would look forward to get the goodies from our neighbours for their respective festivals.  

Mom would prepare the batter and  handover the process of making these achappams to me. No choice had to help her as she had many other things catch up with. This is one snack which needs enough of  your patience to sit and complete the task of making these achappams.

Vanilla Cup Cake with coco butter frosting

As the year begins the tension of exam starts especially when you have children who are appearing for the boards.  We were just waiting for the exams to get over. Then start with the next waiting i.e. results. We were eagerly waiting for my daughter (Sanjna)  grade 12 results this year. I have this wonderful opportunity to bake these lovely cup cakes  as  give aways  for the celebration. The reason being my daughter has got 85%.  I am sure everyone will want to see my princess right J

Infact this cup cake recipe was sent to me by my neice (Mrs Sindu Pandalai, The cup cake factory). She bakes yummy  cup cakes.  Thank you so much Sindu J. I baked few batches to get  60 cup cakes and now left out with 5m more, I baked  vanilla with choco frosting and chocolate cup cake with cream cheese frosting. BTW  my hands are not good on the frosting skills. Will have to learn that skill as its really interesting.