Vermicilli Pulao / Semia Pulao

I was unaware such a thing exist till last month when I heard it from one of my friend. Tried it. It came out great.

Ingredients :
Vermicilli - 1 cup
Salt - 1/2 spoon
Oil / Ghee
Onions
Beans
carrot
Peas
(The whole vegetables can be from 1/2 cup to 1 cup based on choice)
Milk -1/2

To temper :
Mustard
Urad Dal
Green chilli -1
Bay leaf -1
Cinnamon
Cardamom
Cloves
Khus Khus
Cashews

Fry the Vermicilli in dry tava for few minutes till the aroma comes /colour changes. Keep aside.
Add a spoon of oil in tava, temper the masala ingredients.
Fry onions, Add the cut vegetables, add 1/2 cup of water and keep them covered to cook in low flame.
Once cooked, add the 1/2 cup of milk, add salt, let it boil.
When the whole mixture is boiling hot, (you may choose to taste this water and add salt as required) add the vermicilli little by little parallely mixing them so as not to form any lumps.
Add a spoon of ghee.
Once boiled , Switch off and keep covered for sometime.

Vermicilli Upma / Semia Upma

Ingredients :
Vermicilli - 1 cup
Salt - 1/2 spoon
Oil / Ghee
Onions - 1 (Optional.)

To temper :
Mustard -1/4 spoon
Urad Dal - 1/2 spoon
Ginger
Green chilli - 1
Red chilli - 1
Cashew
Curry Leaves

Fry the Vermicilli in dry tava for few minutes till the aroma comes /color changes. Keep aside.
Add a spoon of oil in tava, temper the ingredients, fry onions, add 1 glass of water, add salt.
When the water is boiling hot, (you may choose to taste this water and add salt as required) add the vermicilli little by little parallely mixing them so as not to form any lumps.
Add a spoon of ghee (more ghee will increase the taste)
Once boiled , Switch off and keep covered for sometime.

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Here again, amount of water required can be estimated in one or two trials. Add 1:1 of water for the vermicilli. Keep some boiling water parallely and add them as required.
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Rava Upma

Hmmm yummy, comes handy when I am not in mood to spend time but need a yummy tiffin to eat :)

Ingredients :
Rava - 3/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 spoon
Oil / Ghee
Onions - 1 (Optional.)

To temper :
Mustard -1/4 spoon
Urad Dal - 1/2 spoon
Ginger
Green chilli - 2
Red chilli - 1
Cashew
Curry Leaves

Fry the rava in dry tava for few minutes till the aroma comes /colour changes. Keep aside.
Add a spoon of oil in tava, temper the ingredients, fry onions, add 2 glasses of water, add salt.
When the water is boiling hot, (you may choose to taste this water and add salt as required) add the fried rava little by little parallely mixing them so as not to form any lumps.
Add a spoon of ghee (more ghee will increase the taste)
Once boiled , Switch off and keep covered for sometime.

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The amount of water required for rava varies with each brand. It can be known in one or two trials.
Unfortunately the brand I grabbed from the Indian grocery is not so good. I need atleast 4-5 glasses of water for 1 cup of rava.

This could be made as Vegetable upma too. Add the vegetables like carrot/beans/cabbage.Add the cut vegetables after tempering, fry them a little, add water and let it boil. Once boiled, add the rava and proceed the same way.

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Tips for fried curries

No big deal about making a fry curry I know, still there are little things one can follow to make it better.

-Always use a WIDE pan. This helps spreading the vegetables into SINGLE LAYER and helps quick and nice frying.

-Dont keep sauteing the vegetables, leave them undisturbed and saute every 5 mins.

- Its not always possible to cut the vegetables evenly, there are chances few may bigger pieces and few smaller and the difference in shape makes the cooking un-even. While frying, always try to pull thin pieces towards the corners and the bigger pieces towards the centre of the tava where heat is more and fry them for some time. This way we avoid thin pieces getting over-burnt and bigger pieces getting cooked. This way you can add little oil towards center and no need to drizzle oil all over again and again.

-Add chilli powder towards the end and cook for few mins and switch off else you ll end up sneezing till the fry is done.

-Rather than adding chilli powder totally, add half sambar powder and half chilli powder. The spices in the sambar powder gives a good taste to the curries.

Sakkara Pongal / Sweet Pongal






Ingredients


Rice - 1 cup
Green Gram dal / Moon dal - 1/4 cup
Grated Jaggery - 2 Cups

Ghee
Cashews
Cardomom powder


Wash the rice and dal well and pressure cook it with extra water to become little mushy.
In a pan, heat 1 cup of water and add the grated jaggery.
When it boils well, add the rice-dal mixture into it and mix well. Kindle till the whole mixture becomes semi solid.
Fry cashwes in ghee and add
Switch off heat
Add cardomom powder

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Do not let the pongal solidify too much as anyway it will become so when it is cooled.
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Pongal

A 10 minutes tiffin . Man power 10 mins not the preparation time :)
Simple yet tasty tiffin.

Ingredients
(Serves two)

Rice - 3/4 cup
Green Gram dal (Moong Dal) - 1/4 cup
Cumin -2 spoons
Pepper - 2 spoons (1 spoon full pepper, 1 spoon - coarsely crushed pepper)
Salt
Ghee(optional) - 2 spoons
Cashews (optional)

Wash the rice and dal well.
Add 2 spoons of cumin 1 spoon of pepper and cook the mixture just as u cook rice.
But make sure you add extra water so that pongal comes out little mushy.
Once cooked, immediately add salt and mash the whole pongal well. It mashes well when its hot.
Fry the crushed pepper and cashews in a spoon of ghee and add it to hot pongal.

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Based on choice, you can add more of Moong dal and lessen the quantity of rice. Like 1/2 : 1/2
Ghee added more will enhance the taste.
If not whole pepper, use pepper powder. But whole pepper will not be very hot so can be more.
If pepper powder is used, add less initially, check taste and add later if
required.
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Adai

Adai used to be a rare delicacy at home and hence special too. We had a drumstick tree at our home so mom always makes yummy drumstick leaves adai.

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 Cup
Tur dal - 1 heaped Tbsp
Bengal Gram Dal /Channa Dal - 1 heaped Tbsp
Urad Dal - 1/2 heaped Tbsp
(Roughly the 1 cup of rice should equal 1 cup of dal's put together. Urad dal should be less.
Channa dal could be added more if extra crispiness is required)
Hing - 1/2 sp
Ginger (Optional)
Red chilli - 10-12
Salt (per taste)
Green chilli (Optional) - 2
Onions / drumstick leaves (optional)

Take the Rice and Dal's in a vessel, wash well and soak them at least for one hour.
Add the red chillis, ginger, hing and grind them together to a coarse thick batter.
Add salt, chopped onions / drumstick leaves to the batter.
Heat the tava well, pour 1 full laddle of batter on to the hot tava, level them like dosa and make a small hole in the centre. Once finely boiled, turn on to other side and boil.



Rasmalai



Rasmalai is basically the Ras + Malai. Ras is the liquid and malai is the round patties that we soak inside the ras.
For malai, refer the recipe for rasagulla. Make the rasagulla and instead of making them as round balls, press the balls slightly and pat it round (like pedas) and pressure them in the sugar water. Once done, squeeze the malai gently to dry out excess sugar water and set this aside.



Ingredients - For Ras

Milk - 3 cups
Sugar - 2-3 spoons
Cashew/Pistas/Almonds
Saffron powder
Cardomom powder

- Boil the milk in a hard bottomed pan. Boil it well till the quiantity becomes 1/4th of the original milk content.
Add 2-3 spoons of sugar,
Slip the malai's into the boiling milk and let it boil along with the milk for about 10 minutes to obsorb the milk.
Switch off the heat.
Add saffron powder, cardomom powder and decorate it with cashews , pistas , almonds.

Rasagulla - A simple Recipe



This pic is actually the one I took while I made Patties for Rasmalai, but the process is same for Rasagulla too, but that will be a beautiful round shape :)

Ingredients:
Milk - 4 cups
Sugar - 2 cups (can be more per taste)
Lime Juice - 2 spoons

Boil the milk on a medium flame.

Add 2 spoons of lime juice mixed in a spoon of water and pour this
little by little into the boiling milk. Keep kindling the milk.Once the lime is poured, milk will start breaking and will become greenish liquid.
(Add more lime if only the milk is not broken still )
Switch off the heat immediately.

Use a muslin cloth/ filter / any thin cloth to filter off this malai part of the milk.

Sprinkle / splash some cold water on the malai to stop the Milk-breaking process completely.

Let the malai to dry up fully in the muslin cloth/filter for about 30 mins. It should become fully dry without any liquid.

Meantime, In a pressure pan, heat 4 cups of water adding 2 cups of sugar into it. Let the sugar boil completely.

Knead the malai very finely using your hand. Make few balls out of this malai.

Add the malai balls into the boiling sugar water and keep it for one whistle (if you are using a normal pan, you can keep for about 15-20 mins).

The balls would have doubled its size and would have obsorbed the sweetness well.
Switch off the heat, Rasagullas ready :)

Carrot Halwa / Ghajjar Halwa


I love Carrot Halwa, because its one of the sweets that requires less ghee and also the preparation time is much much quicker.Tastes awesome :)


Ingredients:

Carrot - 2 Cups
Milk - 1 cups (Can be more or less too, basically milk enough to boil the carrot will do)
Sugar - 3/4 (can be more per taste)
Ghee - 2 Sp
Cashew nuts / Raisins / Almonds
Cardomom powder - 1/2 spoon

- In a wide tava, add 2 spoons of ghee and fry the Cashews / Almonds/ Raisins.Set aside.
- Add the finely grated carrots and fry for few minutes.
- Add the milk and boil the mixture till the milk evaporates.
- In about 15- 20 minutes the milk will be evaporated completely and the carrot will be nicely boiled.
- Add the sugar and mix well for few minutes.
- Switch off and remove when the solid consistency is reached.
- Add cardamom powder and mix well. (To get the best taste of cardamom, always add it towards the end).
-Add fried cashews/Raisins.



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Use the grater which grates carrot into bigger pieces. This way, the halwa comes too good.
Look at mine :) Mine was a thin grater and hence the carrot gets mashed up in the boiling process.

Can use Khoa or condensed milk for enhanced taste. Some say even Soy Milk will enhance the taste. I haven't tried it yet.

Can do the same with Beetroot too. Per my opinion, beetroot will taste much good.
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Idli

Idli Batter (Using Mixie )

Ingredients :

Idly Rice - 3 Cups
Urad Dal - 1 Cup
Methi - 1 Spoon
Poha - 1 Cup
Salt - Add per taste



-Wash well and Soak the Rice,Methi,Poha in 4 cup water and let it set for a minimum of 4-6 hours.

-Wash well and Soak and Urad dal with just enough water for 1 hour. Drain it and let it set
for 1 hour. Grind the Urad dal adding water little by little.
(OR) - Wash well and soak the Urad dal with just enough water and keep it in fridge. After one hour, grind it to paste adding very water little by little.
{You should be able to cut the urad into two, with your nails/fingers. That is a good soaked stage}

-Grind Rice , add Methi, poha and grind to paste.
(can use the soaked water if rice is washed well before)
-Mix them in a vessel.
-Add salt.
-Beat the dough well, using hand (using hand helps in fermentation).
-Let it ferment for atleast 12 - 16 hrs in a warm place.
-Use eversilver vessel which is best for fermenting. Non-stick or porcelein will not be good for fermenting.
-Once fermented, the dough would have fluffied up well. Mix well till bottom and pour in idli plates and steam for 10-12 mins.
-Once its switched off, set it for 5 mins and take out idlis using wet spoon.
-Serve hot with chutneys.

Mysore Rasam

Ingredients:-
Tamarind - 1 lemon sized
Tur Dal - 2 Tbsp
Hing
Salt
Mustard
Curry leaves - few

Fry in little oil and grind to paste:
(Do not fry cumin, grind it raw with other fried ingredients)
Red Chilli - 3
Tur dal - 1 sp
Gram Dal - 1/2 sp
Cumin - 1/4 sp  
Dhaniya - 1/2 sp
Pepper - 1/4 sp

Pressure Cook the Tur dal.
Extract pulp of tamarind adding about 1 cup water. Boil it adding hing for about 6-8 mins.
Add the ground paste,salt to it and boil further for couple of minutes.
Add the cooked tur dal and boil for further few minutes.
Temper with mustard and curry leaves.

Pulihara - Another Andhra delicacy

Recipe learnt from Husband. An Andhra delicacy :)
Once you have cooked rice ready, this dish could be made in 10 mins flat.



Ingredients :

Rice - 1 cup
Tamarind - 1 big lemon sized

Oil
Mustard - 1 sp
Gram Dal/Channa Dal - 1 heaped sp
Turmeric - 1 heaped sp
Hing - 1 sp,
Red Chilli - 6
Salt
Groundnuts - 1Tbsp
Cashews - 1 Tbsp
Curry Leaves - 1 String

Cook the rice grainy.
Make thick pulp out of tamarind.
In little oil, fry mustard, once it splutters add gram dal,cashews, Groundnuts and fry for a minute or till brown.
Finally add red chillis,turmeric,hing,curry leaves and saute for few seconds
Add tamarind pulp,simmer, once it comes to a boil switch off.
Add this to rice, add salt and pour few spoons of oil and mix thoroughly.
Now enjoy !

--This tastes best when it sets for few hours.
--We love adding lot of turmeric that makes it more yellow, one can reduce the turmeric if its not prefered.



Simple Greens

This could be made with any type of Greens. I made it with Spinach today.

Ingredients :
Greens - 1 Bunch
Salt
Red chilli - 3
Hing.
Mustard

Wash well. Chop fine and pressure cook the green for one whistle or till cooked.
Remove. Mash it well while it is hot.
Add salt and bring to boil in a saucepan.
Switch off.
Temper mustard, hing, red chilli and add.