Pori Urandai/ Puffed rice

Everyone  must be wondering why this post now right. 

You know what I made this pori urandai and coconut burfee for karthigai and was set to post it the next day and I downloaded all the pictures from  my camera to the lappy and then wisely wiped off all the pictures from my camera. Unfortunately it was destined for this post to be delayed and  what happened  was my lappy wouldn’t move a head at all  as it went blank – reason the whole charger point was not working. So all photos stuck there and no choice had to wait L. Just couple of days back I got my lappy repaired and retirieved my pictures from there J

Karthigai Deepam is a festival of lights celebrated in the Tamil month of Karthigai. All the houses will be decked up with rows and rows of lamps and it is a beautiful sight to see.

I have used the ordinary puffed rice  which is easily available in all supermarkets to make this recipe. 

Makes : 14  to 16 medium size balls

Ingredients:
Pori – 4 ¼  cup
Water  - ½ cup

Jaggery- 1 cup
Cardamom powder  & dry ginger powder - a generous pinch of both
Ghee - 1 tsp

Broccoli and Paneer Balls

This time when my daughter came back from Pune during her  holidays, she presented me with a beautiful cookbook by Tarla Dalal. Thanks to her and my hubby and to the Almighty goes without saying. My daughter and my hubby has been very encouraging, infact my hubby the moment I finish my cooking he would show the sign language asking me if I am done with my clicks and if he can try them. Love you guys.

Today I have picked a recipe from the cookbook of  Tarla Dalal. It’s a yummlicious starter sure to steal the hearts of the young and old alike. Not  complicated very simple all I did was a gave small twist to my way of liking. Actually the original recipe calls for Cheese stuffing since I don’t like cheese (sound funny right but me n hubby are like this) I have eliminated and added paneer instead.  I am sure if you have added cheese  and when you are ready to munch this starter, the cheese would have melted and it would ooze out I guess. So cheese lovers do stuff the cheese only and enjoy this J

The main ingredient is the broccoli, give me a bowl of broccoli  just tossed with salt and peper I will relish it, that much is the craze on this vegetable for me. It’s the just the other way my hubby does not like it and make him eat  this vegetable is hard time. He never knew it was broccoli and was thinking it was peas seeing the texture,  as I started making he would take one after the other and go. He loved it and his veridct was that a wonderful starter.

I did make some changes, like I added ginger and  white peperpowder as I wanted to retain the beauty of the green colour texture for the balls and also to keep it little spicy.

I was so lazy to make a mint chutney nor had any in my fridge to go with this. I  have to mention that  I felt it will be a good combi to have this with mint chutney. However tomato ketchup never lets you down though. 

Orange Eggless Cake

I had so much oranges in my fridge, was wondering to make, thought I will make some squash then realised that I had to make this as my hubby loves this and he insisted making this for him over the weekend. I made this with wheat flour and eliminated using APF. This super spongy cake goes well as tea time snack, You can reduce the sugar if you like, I felt 4 tbsp was needed, depending on your orange juice, if its sour then add more sugar, more or less of sugar wont  harm the texture of your cake.

As I bake the aroma of the orange was filled in the entire house and I love this smell.

  

Makes : 8 inch cake

Time taken : 45 minutes to bake

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cup  APF or wheat flour or use 50:50
½ can of  Condensed Milk
½  cup soft butter means room temperature
½ cup Orange juice  - use fresh juice
1 tsp Baking powder
½  tsp baking soda
½  tsp Orange Zest

4 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1 tsp Apple cider vinegar

Mooli Theplas

This is one of the  traditional breads of Gujarat and can be served hot or cold.  I have added fresh curds to make  the thepla dough softer and  yeild some soft theplas so that they remain soft even when they are cold and do not become chewy. I have used grated radish (mooli) along with its leaves for this recipe. You can make with any  other vegetables pParticularly, fenugreek (methi) theplas are extremely popular and they are absolutely loved by many.

Cooking Time: 25 mins.
Makes  8 or 9
Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
½ cup grated white radish
1/4 cup chopped radish  leaves *
½ cup curds
¼  tsp turmeric powder
1  ½  tsp chilli powder
2 tbsp oil
salt to tasteoil or ghee for smearing on the thepla

 

·         If you don’t get the radish leaves add some coriander instead of that

 

METHI MATAR

I love the combination of peas with fenugreek leaves. Goes very with any Indian bread.  Infact I made some mooli theplas and some chopped vegetable salad to with it and it was a fab dinner last evening.

Cooking time: 20 min

Serves: 3 

Ingredients

Onion – 1 medium

Fresh fenugreek leaves chopped – 1 cup *

Green peas – I have used the frozen, thawed

Yoghurt - ¼ cup

Cumin seed - ½ tsp

Coriander seeds – ½ tsp

Coriander powder – ¼ tsp

Red chilli powder – ¼ tsp or to your level of spice

Garam masala – a generous pinch

Cooking oil – 1 tbsp

Coriander leaves – for garnish

Fresh Cream - 1 tbsp (Optional )

·         Added some salt and keep for 15 minutes, after that squeeze and added the leaves. This way the fenugreek leaves wont be bitter.

Raw Papaya Salad

Recently my neighbour Rekha gave me few  raw papayas or Ommakaya or Kappalanga  many names they are known by. She had got them from her home (India) from her garden. They were so fresh and looking very crunchy. I made some  poriyal/thoran and  I made this salad. This has been a very favorite sald in my family, very simple and easy to make and you will for sure relish this.

Coming to the health benefits of raw papaya which is good to cure digestive disorders occurred by intestinal worms  and packed with nutritional values, used as meat tenderizing agent, medicinal values and so on and the list goes never ending…..

However this salad has to be served chilled and  its so crunchy and a bite of the peanut here and there tastes really good. If you are a garlic lover, then finely fry the garlic to brown and top it.

You may  add  soya sauce or  fish sauce to the dressing then  this will be like a thai salad.

Pachadi with Aamla or Nellikkai or Indian Gooseberry

The taste of Indian gooseberry is sour, bitter and  quite fibrous. One cannot eat many Aamla’s at a time but this way in this pachadi you can ensure  the intake of some, you wont even know that its Aamla in this dish. The ginger  and asafotida with methi enhances the flavour of this dish. Very simple  and very healthy and perfect to go with a bowl of steemed rice.

The Aamla fruit contains more than 80% of water. It also has protein, carbohydrate, fibre, minerals and vitamins and rich source of Vitamin C.  Studies says 100 Gms of Aamla contains - 700 mg Vitamin C. They say if Aamla is dried in the shade then much of the vitamin C is retained. To get the maximum out of Aamla it should be taken raw with very little salt.  

Even today I love to have this with salt and chillie powder mix, however they say you are not supposed to drink water after eating Aamla. But I love to have a sip of water because   a kind of nice sweetness  you get. Also we used to break the seed and find another tiny seed in the inner layer of the seed  – it was real fun to munch that. Aamla, mangoes, Guava, tamirind ……oooof takes me to my childhood days and stories associated with these are too many and are never ending. Love my childhood days.  

I always like to make this a bit spicy and goes very well with steamed rice, papad fried in oil or even the one roasted on fire  is a must and some nice side dish like potato fry or nice mizhukuparati. Infact I served this for lunch with rice, papad and beeetroot kutu.

Less spoken about this wonder fruit on the health benefits as its endless.  Let me move on...

Ragi Puttu

Red finger millet is my favorite, I had so much of the flour in my shelves  and thought of making something and I landed up with this. You can use a mold  to make this otherwise even steam this in a cloth. You can get to buy the store bought ragi puttu powder and make this too. I have tried using the fresh flour hence roasting is needed.

Basically  you don’t need a curry to have this puttu as it goes very well with bananan or you may add some sugar and enjoy this. Just ensure you add in enough of fresh coconut whilst making.

Mullu Murukku

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 2 cups

Moong dal powder - ¼ cup

Urud dal powder - ½  cup

Asofetida – a geneous pinch

Salt to taste

Black  or white sesame seeds  - 1 tsp

Red chili powder – 1 tsp  (optional)

Butter - 4 tbsp

Biryani with stuffed eggplant

Biryani for non vegetarians only is it.........who says  make this and see all the vegetarians will fall in love with this rice. Since we are passing through the phase of being a vegetarian for short while, I thought of using my chicken biryani recipe. All I did was gave a twist with eggplant.  Infact  the baingan lovers will go mad over this dish as its filled with the aroma of the spices, coconut and ofcourse the flavour of the basmati rice with mint and coriander leaves.

I made this recently for a gathlering, when they opened they said you have planted something as  only the stems were visible and out of their curiosity they pulled out to see the surprise it was many of their favorites baingan. Believe me it just got over and was not sufficient for the hungry tummies.

Tell me how you like this recipe.

Serves : 6 – 8 light eaters                                                                                  

Ingredients:

Basmati rice – 2 cups                                     
Salt to your taste
8 pieces of  medium sized young eggplants, slit into 4 with stems*
6 tbsp oil or ghee
Water - 4 cups
Juice of a lime
*  infact drop them into salted water

For Masala
Coconut, fresh  - ½  cup
Coriander leaves – ¾ cup
Mint leaves – ¼ cup
8  green chilies – Please keep your spice level
Ginger  paste – 1 tbsp
Garlic paste – 2 tbsp 
Curd – 1 tbsp       
Salt about 1 tsp
Turmeric - a generous pinch