Kothamalli Chadham

Next in picnic hampers is a rice based recipe. As I said I love to go on long drives and sometimes I pack some mixed rice for lunch or dinner. I do this mainly because it is easy to eat with a spoon and we don't have to think of washing our hands and so on. If it is rotis or some other snacks, then we have to use our hands and I would be very uncomfortable to use my hands without washing / cleaning them because most of the times I would be driving. 

This coriander rice or kothamalli chadham can also be packed for kids lunch boxes. Just add some fried cashews or fried groundnuts to make it more interesting. This is an easy no onion no garlic recipe. I often make this rice when there is a bunch of coriander leaves ready to go bad (rot). I usually make this rice with normal raw rice, but if made with basmati rice or jeera rice, then this might qualify for a rich pulao also!

Ingredients:

Raw rice – 1 cup

Coriander leaves – 1 bunch

Green chilli – 4

Thin coconut milk – 1 & 1/4 cup

Salt  - as needed 

To temper:

Ghee / Oil – 1 tbsp

Cardamom – 2

Cinnamon – 2 small pieces

Bay leaf - 1

Cumin seeds / Jeera – 1 tsp

Method:

• Cut off the root part of coriander leaves and wash it. Grind it with green chillies with little water to a smooth paste.. I used 4 small chillies, so if its big reduce to 3.
• Heat a small pressure cooker with ghee. Temper with the items given under “To temper” table in order.
• Add the ground coriander, chilli paste. Fry in medium flame until water evaporates. Add the thin coconut milk.
• Wash the rice and add to this. Add salt, mix well and boil until the rice is half done.
• Keep the flame in low and cook for 12-14 minutes. Or you can give 2 whistles in medium flame. Once the pressure releases by itself, open to fluff the rice.

Enjoy with raita ans fryums!!!

Notes:

You can add ginger garlic paste along with the coriander paste. Or grind 2 garlic and one small piece of ginger along with the coriander leaves.
You can skip coconut milk, but it gives rich flavour and taste to this simple recipe.

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Beef Cutlet

The second recipe for picnic hampers is beef cutlet. This is a little sinful snack fried in oil and made with meat and potatoes. But for people who like meat and fried items, this would be ideal for picnics. This crunchy and crispy meat treat is a specialty from kerala. It is a good finger food or starter or snack for Indian parties and festivals. In christian marriages in kerala, Appam or Bread and Stew with cutlets is a popular combination. 

Ingredients:

Beef - 250 grams

Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Oil - 1 tbsp

Big onion - 1

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Pepper powder - 1 tsp

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp

Potato (boiled) - 1

Garam masala powder - 1 tsp

Salt - to taste

Bread crumbs - to roll the cutlets

Egg white - 2 eggs

Oil - for deep frying

Method:

• Chop the beef into small pieces. Wash and clean well.
• Mix salt, turmeric powder, coriander powder, chilly powder with the cleaned beef and marinate it for 30 minutes.
• Cook the beef in pressure cooker for about 3 whistles or until they are softly cooked.
• Once cool, take only the beef pieces (without the water) and add them to a mixer. Just pulse the beef pieces. Be careful not to grind them.
• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick pan, add ginger and garlic paste. Saute for 1 minute.
• Add chopped onion saute until golden brown.
• Add pepper powder and garam masala powder. Saute for another 1 minute.
• Add the minced beef. Switch off the stove.
• Once cool, add the mashed potatoes. Check for salt and mix everything together and evenly. The beef mixture is ready.
• In  a plate spread the bread crumbs and keep it ready.
• Beat the egg whites and keep it ready.
• Take a small portion of cutlet mix in your palm; make a small flat round shape.
• Dip it into beaten egg white.
• When egg whites well coated, place it into bread crumbs and cover/roll well.keep aside.
• Do the processes until all cutlets mix complete.
• Heat oil in a frying pan. When it’s hot enough for frying, place the shaped cutlets one by one.

• Fry until crispy and golden. Remove from heat.
• Serve hot and crispy with some tomato sauce or pudina chutney!!

Notes:

You can alternately buy and use minced beef. Directly add these to the sauted onions and cook in low heat. Do not add water. The water from the minced beef would be enough for cooking.

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Uzhundhu Kozhukattai

This week for the Blogging Marathon I have selected Picnic hampers. I love to go on one-day picnics. Who doesn't love right? That too I love to go on a long drive, park the car somewhere and have packed snacks or packed lunches... yummmm. And of course we do this often. Travelling to our hometown has become one such picnic hobby for me.

The first recipe I would like to present as a picnic hamper is these uzhundhu kozhakkattai. These are steamed rice dumplings which have urad dal as the filling. Very healthy snack item since these are steamed and urad dal gives a lot of strength. So all the more ideal for picnic. Yeah these kozhukkattais are usually made during vinayaka or ganesh chathurthi in southern India.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

Urad dal - 1/2 cup

Green chillies - 4

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Salt - as needed

Mustard - 1 tsp

Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp

Oil - 1 tsp

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

For the outer covering:

Idiyappam flour - 1 cup

Water - 1 &1/3 cup,or as needed

Sesame oil - 1 tsp

Salt - to taste

Method:

• Boil water with oil and salt. Take the flour in a broad vessel. Add the boiling water little by little and mix with the help of a ladle.
• Let it cool for about 5 min, it may be warm, still knead with your hands to make a smooth dough.The consistency should be like our chapatti dough...non sticky. Keep covered till you use to prevent drying. Make equal size balls out of it.
• Soak the urad dal for an hour. In a mixer, grind green chilies with salt and half the asafoetida and lastly add well drained urad dal and run the mixer only twice or thrice (Use juice/inch option) to a coarse consistency. Take care that Urad dal should not be ground smooth.
• In a greased idly plate, steam this mixture in idly pot for 5-8 minutes. Cool down and crumble it.
• In a broad pan/kadai, heat the oil and season with mustard, asafoetida and curry leaves. Then add the steamed mixture and fry in medium flame till the mixture becomes dry..(3 min)
• Lastly add grated coconut and fry for a minute.This mixture should be fluffy.. 
• Take each rice flour ball. Flatten it into a small round shape. 
• Place 1 spoon of filling in the centre. Fold the dough and seal it. You can make any shape as you like.
• Steam the kozhukkatais in a idli cooker for about 10 minutes until the rice flour dough is well cooked and looks shiny.

Notes:

• Adding coconut is optional, but it enhances the taste very well
• Keep the dough always closed and try to finish making the kozhukattais as soon as possible as keeping for long time may lead to cracking/dry kozhukattais
• Grease your hands generously with oil each time you make kozhukattai, to get it smooth.

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Layered Banana Custard

Another sweet for the mother's day special is the layered banana custard. Since we always have a stock of bananas at home, I keep trying to find out some sweets or alternate recipes to finish off the bananas. I am not sure if this recipe is my own invention or if I found this out in any blog. Anyways I have been making this recipe often now.

I guess this recipe can be made with other fruits also. I usually make this recipe in batches of 6 to 10 cups and refrigerate it. It stays good for about a week. This will be an ideal dessert for parties also and easy to make. Do try it out.



Ingredients:

Banana - 10
Honey - 3 tbsp
Custard powder - 50 grams
Milk - 500 ml
Sugar - 30 grams
Vanilla essence - 2 tbsp
Condensed Milk - 50 ml
Grated Coconut -  5 tbsp
Dry fruits - 5 tbsp

Method:

• Chop the bananas finely. Soak them in honey and keep it aside.
• Mix the custard powder, sugar and milk. Stir well such that the sugar and custard powder is dissolved. Add the vanilla essence also.
• Boil the milk mixture until it thickens and forms a nice custard.
• Takes glass bowls. First add a layer of the prepared custard.
• Next layer add the soaked bananas.
• Next layer add a spoon of condensed milk.
• Top it up with grated coconut and dry fruits.

Rich banana custard is ready!! Refrigerate and serve chilled!!

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Rasgulla

The second sweet recipe for this weeks marathon is rasgulla - the spongy white balls famous from our very own Kolkatta. Of course this one is also favourite with my mother.

The dessert is known as Rosogolla or Roshogolla in Bengali and Rasagola in Odia. Rasgulla is derived from the words ras ("juice") and gulla ("ball").Other names for the dish include Roshgulla (Sylheti), Rasagulla, Rossogolla, Roshogolla, Rasagola, Rasagolla, and Rasbhari or Rasbari (source: wikipedia)

The spongy white rasgulla is believed to have been introduced in present-day West Bengal in 1868 by a Kolkata-based confectioner named Nobin Chandra Das. Das started making rasgulla by processing the mixture of chhena and semolina in boiling sugar syrup in contrast to the mixture sans semolina in the original rasgulla in his sweet shop located at Sutanuti (present-day Baghbazar). His descendants claim that his recipe was an original, but according to another theory, he modified the traditional Odisha rasgulla recipe to produce this less perishable variant.

I am not a big fan of rasgullas but everyone at home likes it. I just read some blogs and tried it out. The result was awesome… 

Ingredients

Milk (full cream) - 1 Litre

Lemon juice - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 2 cups

Water - 3 &1/2 cups

Elachi powder- 1 pinch

Ice cubes - 12 

Nuts (optional) - For garnish

Method:

• Heat the milk,when it start to boil,simmer the flame, add the lemon juice slowly as you stir.
• Switch off the flame once the whey water clearly separates.
• Add  the Ice cubes and mix well. 
• Take a metal strainer,lined with a cheese cloth/muslin cloth (I used my dupatta). Pour the curdled milk in it.
• Wash it well in the running water under the tap to remove the lemon smell and sourness.
• Let the water drain and hang this chenna for 30 minutes.  I just slightly squeezed the excess water.
• After 1/2 hour,take out the chenna in a bowl.I will be now more like a crumble look wise.
• Now knead this for 7-10 minutes gently to make it like a soft and smooth dough.
• Make smooth equal sized small balls. I made some 20 balls.
• Take sugar,cardamom powder and water in a pressure cooker and boil it.
• After the sugar gets dissolved completely and the syrup boils, add the balls made carefully one by one.
• Cover the pressure cooker and cook it till you get one whistle in medium flame. After a whistle, keep for another 5 minutes in low flame.
• Put off the flame and let the pressure gets released by itself,then open the lid to see the rasgullas – by now it would have doubled in size. If you think the sugar syrup is too thin and not sweet enough, boil again in low flame until you get desired thickness of the syrup.

Note: 

• ice cubes are added to stop the curdling at that instant. It prevents the chenna to become hard and helps for soft texture.
• The kneading part is very important,knead smooth and soft with patience.
• Do not squeeze the water manually forcefully, you can do little gently but not more.
• Do not cook in high flame in pressure cooker. It will break the rasgullas.

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Kumbhil Appam

This blogging marathon I am starting with some sweets to celebrate Mother's Day!! I don't think a particular day is needed to celebrate Mother or for that reason any other relation. You need to keep expressing your love for others in every deed that you do. Simple na.. But thinking deeply a mother's relation is different in the sense it is the first relation a human makes as soon as they are out in this world. All the rest of the relations including the father is made through the mother. Ah so much of philosophy .... doesn't feel like me. Over to today's recipe

Today I am posting a traditional Kerala sweet made with jaggery, rice flour and jackfruit. My mom is a huge fan of Jackfruit, so this sweet is definitely her favorite and a little of diabetes-friendly too since this is made of jaggery. 

The name 'Kumbil Appam' of this dish is because of the shape of the Appam. Kumbu meant for the 'cone' shape of this appam. This Kumbilappam is totally flavoured by the wrap used in this appam vazhana Ila/ Therali Ila/ Indian Bay leaf. The strong smell of the leaves enter into the appam while steaming and gives a amazing flavour to this dish. I found this tree standing tall in the land we bought recently. It is easy to make this dish in a jiffy if you have appam podi/ roasted rice flour at your home. One can keep this appam for 2 days if you prepare with fresh coconut. If you planned to used it more than that roast the coconut and use it for 5-6 days.

Ingredients:

Chakka Varatti/ Jack fruit Preserve - 1/2 cup

Jaggery- 1/2 cup

Water- 1/4 cup

Coconut- 1/2 cup

Roasted Rice flour/ Appam Podi- 1 cup

Cumin seeds/ Jeera, crushed- 1/4 teaspoon

Dried ginger/ chukku, powdered- 1/2 teaspoon

Cardamom- 1/4 teaspoon

Vazhana Ila/ Edana Ila/ Indian Bay leaves- 7-8

Method:

• Take Jaggery in a pan and add quarter cup of water and heat it and make syrupy consistency. (string consistency- If you drop the syrup from spoon last drop has to form string. If you touch the syrup in between fingers it should form a string)
• In a bowl take chakka varatti and add the warm syrup over the chakka varatti and mix well to combine without any lumps.
• Powder the jeera and cardamom seeds. Roast the coconut till light golden colour. (To avoid spoilage. If you are consuming on the same day rosting is not necessary).
• In another bowl add the rice flour, jeera and cardamom powder, dried ginger/ chukku powder and roasted coconut and mix evenly.
• Now add a tablespoon at a time rice flour mixture to the chakka varatti jaggery mixture and mix well.
• Likewise add the whole lot. Finally the mixture should not stick to your hands if you touch with fingers. If it is sticky add a tablespoon or two of roasted rice flour and mix well.
• Wash the Bay leaves and wipe them. Make a cone shape out of the leaves and pin it using coconut picks (Eerkil) or tooth picks.
• Fill the cones with chakka mixture till top.
• Heat water inside Idli steamer and allow to boil. Keep the Idli base plate and spread the filled cones.
• Close with the lid and steam for about 15 minutes. Cooking time varies depends on the sizes of the cones.

Serve hot!! Enjoy kumbil appam when it is pouring outside !!

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26 days of baking around the world

Though this is the second time I am participating in a marathon for baking, I enjoyed this a lot more and also learned from this marathon a lot more. Now I am confident of baking breads and buns. Next I should try cakes I guess.

This marathon the following were the specialities

• Did different varieties of breads, buns and cookies.
• Tried recipes from 20 different places.
• Tried shaping breads for the first time like snail, petals etc.
• Used a lot of new spices like the zaatar spice mix, oregano spice mix, till/sesame seeds in breads etc
• found many new varieties of stuffed bread which would be a good choice for picnics.

When this marathon started I was ready with only 3 posts. But somehow I had the courage and confidence to go ahead with the marathon since I had the list of recipes ready. I actually learned efficient time management and effective planning by doing this mega marathon. I planned my breakfast mostly around these recipes and the evening snacks also. For the last few recipes I missed buying few essential ingredients since they were not available near my place of stay. But that didn't affect the final product much. Overall I am very much satisfied with my performance in this mega marathon. The only flaw is I haven't commented on the posts of my fellow bloggers.

I should have suggested Valli to have some detox diet or something similar for the next month after devouring all these butter filled goodies..

A for Aghi Gesgoudz from Armenia

B for Bell Pepper and Paneer stuffed Lattice Bread from Britain

C for Crown Cookies from Lebanon

D for Dates Cookies from India

E for Eggless Japanese Sesame Cookies from Japan

F for Fougasse from France

G for Ghorayebah from Egypt

H for Herbed Butterflaps from Guyana

I for Irish Soda Bread Buns from Ireland

J for Julekake from Norway

K for Khaliat Al Nahal from Middle East

L for Lion House Rolls from Salt lake City

M for Manakish - Zaatar from Lebanon

N for Nazook from Armenia

O for Onion Bialys from Poland

P for Pide from Turkey

Q for Qlecha from Iraq

R for Rose Tea Cake from Finland

S for Sekerpare from Turkey

 

T for Twisted Snail Buns from Macedonia
 

U for Uovo Al Pomodoro from Italy

V for Vanilias Kifli from Hungary

W for Whole wheat Paav Buns from India

X for X-Cookies from Sicily

Y for Yangpabbang from Korea 

Z for Zaatar - Pull apart Bread from Middle East

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