Curd Rice

Summers are almost reaching an end and we are eagerly awaiting the monsoons... Nevertheless I am posting a summer special here.

curd rice is generally part of everyday meal, where we just mix rice and curd and have with some pickles. But when curd rice is packed for lunch or travel/picnics, it is done little differently and here goes the recipe.



Ingredients:
Cooked Rice - 2 cups
Curd - 1 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Green chilly - 1 (finely chopped)
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece (finely chopped)
Salt - to taste

To temper:
mustard - 1 tsp
urad dal - 1 tsp
channa dal - 1 tsp
curry leaves - few
red chilly - 1
oil - 2 tsp

Method:

• Mash the cooked rice very well with the back of a flat ladle. 
• Add green chilly, salt, and milk and mix well. 
• Finally add the curd and mix well.
• Heat a pan with oil, add mustard seeds, when they crackle add the urad dal and channa dal and fry till brown. 
• Lastly add red chilly and curry leaves. Pour this over the curd rice and mix well.

Curd rice is ready!!! Serve this with nice spicy pickle and with some fried spicy vegetables.

Curry Leaves and Jeera Pulav

We had thunder showers and heavy rains for a couple of days giving a chilling effect to the summer here. Oh it was very soothing... Now I have a small garden at my home and after this showers most of the plants started growing like crazy... Curry leaves in particular. Now I have a big bunch of curry leaves to be exhausted...



The other day while browsing through arusuvai-kurippu, I found a recipe for pulav using curry leaves. There was no second thinking... I immediately tried it and the dish tasted wonderful... This is a very healthy recipe... I just made 1 or 2 changes to the original recipe like used ghee instead of oil and so on..

Ingredients:
Rice - 1 cup
Onions - 1
Curry leaves - 1/2 cup
urad dal - 1 tbsp
pepper - 1/2 tbsp
Jeera/Cumin - 1 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Garlic - 2 pods
Ghee - 2 tsp
salt - to taste



Method:

• Pressure cook rice with salt and enough water.
• Finely chop the onions and garlic.
• In a non stick pan, dry roast the urad dal until the urad dal turns slight pink in colour.
• Add pepper and curry leaves. Switch off the stove.
• Saute for about 5 minutes until the curry leaves shrink and turn slightly crisp.
• Cool and powder the roasted ingredients.
• Heat Ghee in a pan. Add cumin and fennel seeds. Let it sizzle.
• Add chopped onions and garlic. Fry until onions turn translucent.
• Add the curry leaves powder. Add little salt. Mix well. 
• Switch off stove. Add the cooked rice and mix well.

Curry leaves and Jeera Pulav is ready!!! I served this with raita, pickle and papad.

Flavoured Rice

One of my colleagues used to stay in a PG during her bachelor days. She was a workaholic and never used to bother about food. But her PG owner was a caring lady. The PG owner always used to insist one must not goto bed in an empty stomach. My colleague, when she stays late in office used to call up and inform her PG owner that she would not be available for dinner and that she would manage a bite in office. But she would be so engrossed in work that she will forget her dinner. When she went home late in the night and the PG lady finds out that she has not had any dinner, she would be furious. The lady would immediately prepare this flavoured rice in a matter of 15 minutes and serve with some pickle it seems. My colleague used to relish the rice. And she shared with me the recipe of this rice.

The name flavoured rice was given by my colleague and I would like to maintain it.

Believe me its too quick to make and goes with any spicy side dish. This would be a great lunchbox idea.

Ingredients:
Rice - 200 grams (1 cup)
fennel seeds - 2 grams
cloves - 2 nos
cinnamon - 1/2 inch stick
cardamom - 1
ghee - 1 tbsp
mint leaves - few
coriander leaves - few
garlic - 4 pods
ginger - a small piece
salt - to taste

Method:

• Wash the rice and keep aside.
• Grind the mint leaves, coriander leaves, ginger and garlic coarsely.
• In a pressure cooker, pour ghee.
• Add the cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and fennel seeds. Fry for about a minute.
• Add the ground paste and fry until the raw smell disappears.
• Add the rice and fry for about 2 minutes.
• Add 2.5 cups of water and the required amount of salt. Mix well.
• Pressure cook for about 2 whistles.

Flavoured rice is ready!!! I served this with egg curry, pickle and papads. We enjoyed this on a rainy night.

Linking this to nivedhan's WTML who is guest hosting for gayathris

Egg Curry

I have already posted a recipe of Muttai Curry. This is a slightly different version. I got to know that in hotels, they generally don't add tomatoes to the egg curry. Instead little coconut or coconut milk is added. So tried this version and it tuned out to be yummy. I served this with flavoured rice... Recipe will be shared soon..

Ingredients:

Onions - 200 grams
Eggs - 3
cocnut - 25 grams
Garlic - 10 grams
Ginger - 5 grams
Chilly powder - 10 grams
Coriander powder - 10 grams
Garam Masala powder - 5 grams
Coriander leaves - little
Pudina leaves - little
Oil - 20 grams
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Spices:
Fennel seeds - 2 grams
cloves - 4 nos

Method:

• Full boil the eggs. Remove the shell and keep it aside.
• Finely chop the onions, ginger and garlic.
• Grind the coconut with little warm water and extract the coconut milk
• In a kadai, pour oil. Add the ingredients listed under spices. Fry for about a minute.
• Add the finely chopped onions. Fry until the onions turn brown colour.
• Add the ginger and garlic. Saute until the raw smell disappaears.
• Add salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder and coriander powder.
• Once the raw smell of the powders disappear pour the coconut milk.
• Mix well and heat until the gravy thickens.Once the gravy starts boiling, switch off the stove
• Add the boiled eggs. You can either add them as a whole or cut into 2 pieces and add.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and mint leaves.

Egg curry is ready!! Serve this with appam, idiappam, chapathi or some mildly flavoured rice.

Thakkali Thokku / Tomato Pickle

A few days back I had mentioned that we got around 20 kgs of tomatoes and had promised a recipe on "Thakkali Thokku". So here it is... I was just waiting for the tomatoes to ripen on their own. Nice red colour tomatoes are the best for this recipe. This would be a very good side dish for Idli, dosa, appam, adai, chapathis and even curd rice. I like to just mix rice with thakkali thokku and have it with nice vadams or papads.

The best thing about this recipe is neither my mom nor my MIL makes this. I somehow caught hold of this dish from my friends and am a huge fan of it. H likes to have this with idli/dosa. So for few days down the line my breakfast preparation time would decrease since I need not have to worry about side dishes.

The ingredients are very few and the preparation time is also very less about 10-15 minutes. But the cooking time would be more because we need to boil down the tomato puree until they become a thick paste. Of course this depends on the quantity. More the quantity, more the cooking time. This pickle stays in fridge for about 3 months and if kept outside stays fresh for about 5-6 days. Always use a clean and dry spoon to serve the pickle.



Ingredients:
Tomatoes - 6 kgs
Chilly powder - 250 grams
Hing / asafoetida - 25 grams
fenugreek seeds - 25 grams
Gingelly oil - 200 ml
mustard - 25 grams
Salt - to taste



Method:

• Wash and clean the tomatoes.
• Make a juice of all the tomatoes and keep it aside.
• Heat a heavy bottomed, wide mouthed pan or a uruli.
• Dry roast the fenugreek seeds. Powder and keep aside.
• Pour the oil in the pan. Using gingelly oil gives a longer life span for this thokku. We can also use other oils.
• Add mustard. Once mustard splutters, pour the tomato juice. 
• Now our job is to keep stirring until the juice gets reduced to a thick paste.
• If we use a non stick pan probably its enough to stir every 5 minutes or so. 
• It took me almost an hour to complete this task.
• Now add salt, powdered fenugreek, chilly powder and hing.
• Mix well and let it cook for another 10 minutes.
• Switch off the stove. Let it cool and store in an airtight container.

Delicious Thakkali Thokku is ready!!!

Nendram Pazham Nurukku / Ripe Plantains in Jaggery Syrup

We had been to a relatives house some time back in Kerala and they served us a fantastic breakfast. The breakfast was fantastic because we gave them just 1.5 hours notice :-). Well the list was idli, medhu vadai or ulundu vadai, coconut chutney, coriander chutney, sambar and the sweet was this nendram pazham nurukku. That was the first time I tasted this sweet and immediately became a fan of it. I immediately noted down the recipe and got to know that it hardly takes 10 minutes to prepare it. Isn't that WOW!!



I have been introduced to nendram pazham in my childhood days but way back then I used to hate this.  Offlate I have been introduced to a variety of recipes using this plantain and I have started liking almost all of them like unnakaya, pazham porichadhu etc... Malayali's make yummy recipes out of Nendram pazham and I would say one of the simplest and tasty recipe is given below.



Ingredients:

Nendram Pazham (ripe) - 2 (big ones)
Grated jaggery - 20 grams (3 tbsp)
Ghee - 5 grams (1 tbsp)
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Method:

• Remove the banana skin and slice the banana into smaller pieces.
• Microwave the banana pieces for about 3 minutes. Check if the banana is cooked well.
• Alternatively, heat a pan with one cup of water. Add the sliced bananas and allow them to cook in the simmer for about 5 mins. 
• Now in a pan add the cooked banana pieces and the grated jaggery. Sprinkle a handful of water and mix well. Keep the flame in simmer.
• In 2-3 minutes the jaggery will be dissolved and get mixed with the banana pieces.
• Add a teaspoon of ghee and the cardamom powder.
• Mix well and serve. 

Nendram Pazham Nurukku is ready!!! The beauty of this sweet is that it is delicious both hot or cold.

Linking this to nivedhanams walk-through-memory-lane who is guest hosting for gayathris

Chakka Varatti / Jackfruit Jam

I was waiting for my 125th post to write about this sweet. Chakka varatti is a summer special sweet very popular in kerala and H's favourite. My mom too loves this sweet but I have never seen her making it though probably because we didn't have the luxury of getting many jackfruits. My mom used to buy this and make chakka payasam which we all used to love. Hmmm, this reminds me, I need to post the recipe of chakka payasam also soon....

This is the first time I am trying my hands on it. We always used to get it from my MIL and stock it in refrigerator. Actually I have never seen her making it. She always used to prepare ahead of our landing... And H loves to have this with anything and everything, chapathi, puttu, appam, bread. He really uses this like a jam and for that reason likes this to be a little watery than the exact chakka varatti. The usual chakka varatti looks like halwa. Please see Palakkad cooking also to check on another chakka varatti recipe.

So before starting I got the recipe and tips from my MIL, but believe me this is a laborious and time consuming task. First the fruits need to be pulled out and de seeded  Then it is cooked until the fruits are soft and mushy. This is then pureed and later cooked with jaggery, stirring every now and then. The whole process can easily take upto 5 hours. But the time depends on the quantity we are making. If we are preparing in lesser quantity, it will take lesser time. But I can assure you of a really YUMMY and delicious jam.

Ingredients:
Ripe Jackfruit bulbs - 100
Powdered Jaggery - 1.5 cups
Ghee - 5 tbsp
Cloves - 6
cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Method:

• Boil the Jackfruit bulbs. I pressure cooked it for one whistle. 
• After boiling, we will find plenty of water that has oozed out of the jackfruit. Heat the mixture at high flame so that most of the water content is evaporated. Now beat in a mixie to make a nice puree.
• I got 1.5 kgs of puree from around 100 bulbs for which I took 350 grams of powdered jaggery. The jaggery I used is of the dark brown colour, little different from the normal yellowish colour jaggery. This is a lot more sweeter than the normal jaggery and we felt 350 grams of jaggery was little high for 1.5 kgs of puree. So please adjust your jaggery according to your taste.
• Heat a heavy bottomed Kadai or Uruli, add the jaggery. Dissolve the jaggery in about 1 cup of water. 
• Strain and remove the impurities. Wash the kadai and pour back the jaggery syrup into the kadai.
• Let it boil on medium heat till one string consistency.
• Then add the pureed jackfruit and cook on medium heat, stirring once in a while to avoid burning. DO NOT cook on high flame.
• Once we have added the jackfruit puree, the mixture will start boiling and spluttering a lot. This is where I hurt my hands. It seems in olden days people used to tie some cloth around both their hands so as not to get hurt. I would suggest wearing gloves.
• Once all the moisture is absorbed and the mixture starts thickening add the ghee little at a time or whenever you feel the mixture sticking to the bottom. Also add the cloves and the cardamom powder. 
• Keep stirring and cooking till the mixture leaves the sides of the kadai. To reach this stage it took me almost 2 hours for the 1.5 kgs of jackfruit puree.
• Remove from flame and let it cool naturally. Transfer into clean containers and keep dry.
• This can be refrigerated upto one year. I have made it little watery (jam-like) consistency. It can actually thicken a bit more.

Yummy Chakka Varatti is ready!!!