Varagu Pulao | Pulao with kodo millet

My ingredient for this week is Kodo millet (Tamil: Varagu; Malayalam: Koovaragu  Hindi: Kodra;  Telugu: Arikelu; Kannada: Harka). I have just started experimenting with millets. The only millet I use extensively in cooking is Ragi - Finger Millet. So wanted to try out with other millets. This time when we visited lal bagh for the Independence day special show - I saw an organic outlet selling millets. I got a kg of Kodo millet for Rs 100/-. Mind you it is very costly when compared to ragi as a millet.

I bought this at the right time. I was thinking of some special ingredient - which I haven't yet used in cooking to feature in one of the weeks of this mega marathon. So Kodo millet is the one... I read a lot of blogs to understand how this is cooked. Actually cooking millets is easy. Atleast from my experience kodo millet gets cooked really fast when compared to rice. 

I read the varagu pulao recipe in Rak's kitchen and took the idea from there. Since this was my first attempt with kodo millet, I wanted to make something interesting so that people at home don't reject it. After cooking, when I opened the cooker, the aroma was same as vegetable pulao and very inviting. Tastewise also there was absolutely no compromise. 

Ingredients:

Varagu/ Kodo millet - 1 cup

Water - 1 & 1/2 cups

Chopped Carrot, beans, green peas, mushrooms - 1 cup

Onion - 1

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp

Green chilli - 2

Mint leaves - few

Salt - As needed

To temper

Ghee/ oil - 3 tblsp

Cinnamon - 1 inch piece

Fennel seeds/ sombu- 1 tsp

Cardamom - 2

Cloves - 3

Bay leaf - 1

Method:

Wash the millet. Drain and keep it aside.

Heat a small pressure cooker with oil/ ghee. In medium flame, add cinnamon, fennel seeds, cardamom, cloves, bay leaf. Do not let fennel change its colour. Add onion and give it a stir. 

Add ginger garlic paste. Fry for a minute in medium flame. 

Add the chopped veggies, mint leaves. Fry in medium flame for about 2 mins. 

Add washed millet to it and mix well. Let it dry. Flame should always in medium.

Add water, salt and bring to boil. mix well and cook for a whistle in medium flame and then in low flame for another 3 minutes. 

Open the pressure cooker. Transfer the pulao to another big vessel and let it cool so that the whole thing doesn't become mushy.

Varagu Pulao is ready!! I Served it with boiled egg curry.

Notes:

Mint, fennel adds a nice flavor, so do not skip it. We can also garnish with coriander leaves.
Do not fry in high flame at any stage as it will change the colour of the pulao.
Also while cooking the millets, let the flame be low to ensure even cooking.

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Puttu payasam

Ending this week on a sweet note!! I tried payasam with the leftover puttu. My mom makes vella puttu which I haven't yet tried. This time I tried making payasam with milk and sugar. I really liked it. H said he will not give 100% marks as a payasam probably around 80%. His opinion was this could be served as a very good dessert in parties rather than a payasam in a sadhya. Anyways heres the recipe of puttu payasam.

Ingredients:

Cooked puttu - 1 cup

Milk - 1 litre

Coconut - 2 tbsp

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Cashewnuts / dry grapes - 2 tbsp

Method

• Boil the milk in a heavy bottomed vessel. 
• Once the milk boils, simmer the gas stove and add the cooked puttu. Add the grated coconut and mix well. Keep stirring for 5 minutes.
• Now add the sugar. Mix well and keep stirring. Continue this for another 10 minutes.
• Add the cardamom powder finally and mix well. Switch off the stove.
• In a kadai add the ghee. Once the ghee is hot, fry the cashewnuts and dry grapes until they turn brown. Pour this into the payasam.

Puttu payasam is ready!!

Notes:

• We can also add saffron to make the payasam more interesting.

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Thakkali Puttu

Thakkali puttu is enhancing the taste of puttu with tomatoes. I make this very easily with tomato thokku. I generally have a stock of thakkali thokku at home whenever the tomato prizes comes down like 10 rs a kg. Because having tomato thokku makes life easire. It can be used as a side dish for idli, dosa even chapathi and can be mixed with rice for a quick dinner. 

Since I foten mix rice with thakkali thokku and have it for quick dinner, I thought why not try the same with puttu. And the result was awesome. I have already posted thakkali thokku recipe here. So over to thakkali puttu recipe,

Ingredients:

Puttu - 1 cup

Thakkali thokku - 3 tbsp

Onion - 1 small

Green chilly - 1 small

ginger - 10 grams

Oil - 1 tbsp

Cloves - 2 nos

Coriander leaves - few

Method:

• Finely chop the onions, green chilly and ginger.
• In a kadai add oil. Add the cloves and fry for 30 secs.
• Add the chopped onions, green chilly and ginger. Fry until the onions turn translucent.
• Add the thakkali thokku and add 2 tbsp water. Mix well until the mixture boils.
• Simmer the gas stove. Add the left-over puttu and mix well.
• Heat it for another 2 minutes.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Thakkali puttu is ready!! Serve with some papad or fryums..

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 68

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