All would have tried cauliflower as a side dish in the way of gopi manchurian, gopi mutter, aloo gopi, and also gopi khuruma. This is my own fusion cauliflower masala. It came out well and we enjoyed with our family. It needs few simple ingredients, so everyone can try it at home when cauliflower is available at your kitchen.
Ingredients:
1. Onion - 2, thinly sliced
2. Tomato - 3, finely chopped
3. Cauliflower pieces - 2 cups ( cleaned in hot water)
4. Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
5. Red chilli powder - 2 tsp
6. Green peas - 1 tbs ( optional)
7. Salt - as required
To Grind:
1. freshly grated Coconut - 2 tbs
2. Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
3. Ginger - a small piece
4. Garlic - 4 cloves
Seasoning:
1. Jeera (cumin) - 1 tsp
2. Oil - for cooking
3. finely chopped coriander leaves - 1 tsp
Method:
1. Heat oil in a pan, add jeera for seasoning.
2. Once the jeera gets brown colour, add thinly sliced onions and finely chopped tomatoes.
3. Keep frying until the tomatoes gets well smashed.
4. Add salt, turmeric power, red chilli powder and give a stir for 1 more minute. Add a tsp of oil if it sticks to the pan.
5. Add 1 cup of water to the pan, add the cleaned cauliflower florets and close the pan with a lid. Allow to cook for a minimum of 5 minutes or until the cauliflower is well cooked absorbing all flavours.
6. In the meanwhile, grind coconut, coriander seeds, ginger and garlic in a blender to a fine paste adding required amount of water.
7. Add the grind paste to the gravy, stir well. Allow to cook for 3-4 more minutes or until the raw smell goes. This particular cauliflower masala tastes good if it is in semi -gravy consistency. So if you required the gravy to be thinner, you can add water at this stage and cook.
8. Once the masala is ready, transfer to a serving bowl. Sprinkle coriander leaves on top. Serve hot with roti, pulka, white rice or jeera rice.
This is very traditional recipe followed for generations. This tangy kolambu is a great combination for white rice, Just pappads are enough for this rice. No curries are required. Generally kolambu means, a tangy sambhar cooked without dhal.
Ingredients:
1. Peeled Small onions (shallots/ sambhar onions) - 1 cup
2. Peeled Garlic - 1/2 cup
3. Tomato - 4
4. Tamarind - Lemon size
5. Red chilli powder - 1 or 2 tsp
6. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
7. Salt - as required
Seasoning:
1. Oil - 1/4 cup
2. Mustard - 1 tsp
3. Urud dhal - tsp
4. Jeera - 1/4 tsp
5. Fenugreek / methi seeds - 1 tsp
6. Curry leaves - 2 twigs
7. Channa dhal - 1 tsp
8. Powdered hing - 1 tsp
Kara kolambu powder :
1. Dhaniya / Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
2. Pepper - 1 tsp
3. jeera - 1 tsp
4. Channa dhal - 1 tsp
5. Urud dhal - 1 tsp
6. Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp
( Dry roast all the above ingredients and grind it to a fine powder. You can also store it for a month.)
Method:
1. Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, urud dhal, jeera, fenugreek seeds , channa dhal and curry leaves to the oil. Once they all popped. Add Peeled small onions and garlic cloves to the oil and fry until they get golden brown.
2. Add the filtered tamarind juice extracted from the tamarind to the pan. Add turmeric powder, salt, red chilli powder and allow to boil for 3-4 minutes or until the raw smell of the tamarind goes.
3. Add 1 cup of water to the pan, when the water starts to boil add kara kolambu powder. Keep stirring to avoid forming lumps.
4. Add powdered hing on top of the gravy, give a stir. When the oil starts to seperate from the kolambu you can switch of the stove.
5. Transfer to a serving bowl. This is great to have with plain white rice during this monsoon season.
This is one of my successful recipe to make my 4 year old daughter to have sweet potato. As everyone knows, sweet potato is a very old vegetable in use all over the world with lots and lots of health benefits like rich in vitamin A, anti-oxidant, antibactierial, antifungal, fiber rich, helps to regulate blood sugar levels etc.... Being from South India, I was served sweet potato just by steaming or boiling. I did the same for my daughter until she was 3 years. After 3 years I couldnt make my daughter to have sweet potato in the same way. At the same time I don't want her to take it in fried. So I thought the following pulav recipe will work good, it works. Hope you too will have a good experience with the following recipe. The reciepe of pulav is a regular one and its easy to do too in one pot.
Ingredients:
1. Sweet potato - 200 gms ( chopped into medium size chunks)
2. Fresh green peas - 1/2 cup
3. Onion - 1, medium size (thinly sliced)
4. Basmati / long grain rice - 3/4 cup
5. Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
6. Salt - 1 1/2 tsp or to taste
7. Oil or Butter or Ghee - 1 tbs for cooking
Seasoning:
1. Cloves - 1
2. Cinamon stick - 1 inch
3. Bay leaf - 1
4. Green chilli - 1, chopped or to taste
Method:
1. Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add cloves, cinamon stick, bay leaf, green chillies for seasoning.
2. Once they got fried, add sliced onions and fry to golden brown.
3. Add ginger garlic paste and keep frying for another 30 seconds.
4. Add chopped sweet potatos and fresh peas and fry for another 2 minutes.
5. Add 1 1/2 cups - 2 cups ( depends on the rice) of water.
6. Clean and wash the rice. Drain out all the water from the rice before adding. When the water starts to boil add the washed rice. Close the pressure cooker and put the weight. Allow to cook until it gives 2 whistles or 12 mintues. Switch off. Remove the lid, when the pressure is completely gone.
7. Transfer the cooked aromatic pulav to a serving bowl and serve hot with your favorite side dish.
note:
1. Its always better to soak the washed rice for a minimun of 10 minutes.Dont make sweet potatos to smaller chunks as it has the tendency of getting smashed easily.
2. If you are interested to know more nutritional value about sweet potatos, check out the following link. Its always good to hold the traditional foods in our daily life.
http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=64
Kootu means a semi liquid curry, cooked with lentils and vegetables. In south India, this is one of the dish served as a must in marriges. There are 3-4 types of kootu variations, commonly in use at south Indian kitchens. This is commonly cooked with water vegetables like, white pumkin, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, snake gourd, plaintain stem, plaintain flower and also with brinjal sometimes.
Ingredients:
1. Chopped white pumpkin - 2 cups
2. Channa dhal / split peas - 2 tbs
3. Regular refined oil / coconut oil - 2 tsp
4. Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
5. Hing powder - 1 tsp
To grind:
1. Coconut grated, freshly - 1 tbs
2. Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
3. Red chilli - 1
Seasoning:
1. Jeera - 1 tsp
2. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
3. Curry leaves - 4-5 leaves
4. Urud dhal - 1 tsp
Method:
1. Heat a pan on the stove with 2 tsp of oil. Add mustard seeds, jeera, urud dhal and curry leaves. Once they got popped, add 1 1/2 cups of water and allow to boil.
2. In the mean white, clean and wash the channa dhal. Add it to the boiling water. You can even soak channa dhal 1/2 hr before to reduce the cooking time.
3. Once the channa dhal is 3/4 cooked, add chopped white pumpkin to the boiling water. Make sure the pumpkin is chopped into bigger chunks. Because pumpkin cooks fast and gets smashed.
4. Add freshly grated coconut, coriander seeds, red chilli into the blender and grind it to a fine paste by adding few spoons of water.
5. Add the coconut mixture to the boiling pumpkin gravy and stir. Add salt, turmeric powder, hing powder and stir again. Keep stirring then and there, so that the spice gets absorbed by all the vegetable chunks.
6. Allow to cook, until the pumpkin and the dhal cooks to the right stage and the spices gets coated well with the vegetable. The consistency should be in semi liquid stage. If you want it to be thick, thats also fine. Keep strring in the stove, until it gets thick without sticking to the pan.
7. Transfer it to a serving bowl. Serve hot as a side dish or with white rice.
Coconut is said to be an antibiotic, where it is served in way of food in India. Coconut smells nice, tastes nice and have good cholesterol too. In South India, Kerala stands leading in usage of coconut. Our ancestors, added coconut in their daily life and lived happily without any diabetic, cholesterol and blood pressure. But today's doctor's advice is to avoid coconut to reduce diabetic level and cholesterol level. My search for this says, eating fresh and uncooked or less cooked coconut reproduce less fat. Here is the traditional coconut chutney recipe, enjoy without thinking about your blood content levels......... what ever be.
Ingredients:
1. Freshly grated coconut - 1/2 cup
2. Green chillies - 1 or 2
3. Salt - as required
4. Asfotedia - optional
5. Lemon juice - 1 tsp ( optional)
Seasoning:
1. Oil - as required
2. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
3. Urud dhal - 1 tsp
4. Jeera - 1/2 tsp
5. Curry leaves - 5-6 leaves
Method:
1. Add freshly grated coconut, green chillies and salt to the blender and grind to a fine paste with adding very less or required water.
2. Transfer to the serving bowl.
3. Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, jeera and urud dhal, finally the curry leaves. Once they got popped, pour on top of the chutney.
4. Serve with hot idly, dosa, uppuma, kichadi.
note: So many variations of coconut chutney are there in practice.
In India chutneys have so many variations, still so many new recipes are keep coming . The combination of the ingredients and the consistency makes the chutney perfect. Everyone is aware of the nutritional values of small onions(shallots, sambhar onions) and the garlic. Chutney is the yummy form of consuming these two ingredients. This is a spicy chutney you can serve with hot idly and dosa and goes well with this cool climate.
Ingredients:
1. Urud dhal - 1 1/2 tsp
2. Small onions - 7-8
3. Garlic cloves - 5
4. Red chillies - 3
5. Tamarind - a small piece according to taste
6. Salt - as required
7. Oil - 1 tbs
Seasoning:
1. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
2. Urud dhal - 1/2 tsp
3. Curry leaves - 4-5
4. Hing - a pinch
Method:
1. Heat a tsp oil in a pan, add red chillies and urud dhal. Fry until the urud dhal turns golden brown.
2. Peel small onions and garlic cloves.
3. Add fried urud dhal, red chillies, peeled small onions, garlic cloves, tamarind and salt to a blender. Grind it to a smooth, thick paste. Add water, only if it is required.
4. Transferred to a serving bowl.
5. Heat oil, for seasoning. Add mustard seeds, urud dhal, hing and curry leaves. Pour the seasoning on top of the chutney.
6. Serve it with hot idly and dosa.
This is a dry curry suitable for naan, roti and chappathi. Many people dislikes the smell of cabbage, which has so many nutritional values and we too have less recipes out of cabbage in practice. So I would like to share my recipe which came out successfully. In tamilnadu, we use to have kothu parotta ( parotta torn into pieces and mix with egg scramble). You can feel almost the same taste with this recipe too.
Ingredients:
1. Cabbage - thinly shredded ( 1 CUP)
2. Spring Onions - 1 bunch
3. Crushed ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp
4. Green chilli - 1 or 2 chopped
5. Soya sauce - 1 tsp
6. Sugar - 1 pinch
7. Salt - as required
8. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp or as required (optional)
9. Egg - 1
10. Oil - to cook
Method:
1. Clean and shred the cabbage into small and thinner.
2. Clean the spring onions and chop it roughly with the shallots.
3. Heat 1 tbs of oil in a pan. Add green chillies, crushed ginger garlic to the pan. For for few seconds.
4. Add the shredded cabbage and keep stirring for 4-5 mintes.
5. Add chopped spring onions to the cooked cabbage and keep stirring for 4 more minutes or until it get cooked soft.
6. Add the soya sauce, salt and sugar, keep stirring . Add red chilli powder, stir nicely until it blends well with all the items.
7. Once all gets cooked, broke and pour one egg on the centre and stir it well. Keep frying until the egg cooks well and the raw smell goes. If you want you can add 1 more tbs of oil to fry.
8. Transfer to a serving bowl, serve hot with roti and naan.
Variation - You can mix the cooked hakka or egg noodles to this mixture and have a variety dish.
