Cabbage carrot Thoran

Well, I generally don't mix vegetables to make thorans with a few exceptions like cabbage + peas or carrots + beans. But this time towards the weekend my fridge was almost empty with a few carrots and half a cabbage leftover. So I made a thoran mixing both and it turned out to be simply super. This was a great combo with vengaya sambar (onion sambar).

Ingredients:

Cabbage - 250 grams

Carrots - 250 grams

Coconut - 25 grams

Mustard - 1 teaspoon

Jeera - 1 teaspoon

Dry Red Chillies - 2 nos

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Garlic cloves - 2 nos

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Salt - to taste

curry leaves - few

Method:

• Cut the cabbage lengthwise and grate the carrots.
• Add coconut, jeera, red chilli, garlic into a mixer and grind into a coarse paste without adding any water (just pulse a little). 
• In a pan, add oil. Add the mustard seeds. Let it sputter. Add the curry leaves and after a few seconds, add the chopped cabbage and carrots. 
• Sprinkle a handfull of water and cook till it is almost done. 
• Add the ground coconut mix, salt and turmeric powder. 
• Cook till the raw smell of garlic and coconut is gone.

Cabbage + Carrot thoran is ready!!!! Serve with rice and a gravy of your choice. This goes well with sambar.

Note: We can also add one finely chopped onion to this thoran. I didn't add since I didn't have them.

Karnataka Tamarind Rice

I got this recipe from one of my friends who is in Bangalore. Karnataka Tamarind Rice is a slight variation from the normal and traditional tamarind rice. The main difference is the powder we prepare and also the grated coconut. We can serve karnataka tamarind rice with any fried vegetable or papads.

Ingredients:
Tamarind - 1 lemon size
Cooked Rice - 1 Cup
Salt - To Taste
Grated Coconut - 2 tablespoon
Hing - a small pinch
Turmeric - 1/4 teaspoon

Ingredients For Seasoning:
Mustard Seeds - 1 teaspoon
Channa dal - 1 teaspoon
Urad dal - 1 teaspoon
Peanuts - 1 teaspoon
Red Chillies - 2
Curry Leaves - Few
Oil - 1 teaspoon

Ingredients For Grinding:
Red Chillies - 6-7
Fenugreek Seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Oil - 1 teaspoon

Method:

• Soak tamarind in water and extract thick tamarind juice and keep it aside
• Heat oil in a pan, add red chillies and fenugreek and fry it till it turns golden brown and add this to mixer and grind it to a nice powder
• Heat remaining oil in pan, add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds starts to sputter, add dals and peanuts and fry it till the dals and peanuts turn to golden brown color
• Add broken red chillies and curry leaves and mix well
• Now add the tamarind extract and add salt, hing and turmeric and mix well. Allow the tamarind juice to boil till the raw smell goes of
• Add the ground powder and mix well and keep in medium flame for another 5 minutes
• When the tamarind gravy starts to thicken, add grated coconut and mix well and keep in low flame for another 2 minutes and remove from flame
• Mix the rice nicely using a wooden spatula. Gently mix it so that the rice doesn't get smashed

Serve the yummy and spicy tamarind rice with appalam or any papad!!!

Unniappam

Today finally I succeeded in making unniappam. This was my third attempt and I am so happy. This is my favourite sweet. My mom makes delicious unniappams. Ok in my mom and dad's place this sweet is called neiappam. But I got to know that in most parts of Kerala this sweet is called unniappam and there is another sweet in the name of neiappam which I haven't tried yet.



In my first attempt the appams were very hard and in my second attempt the appams were sticking to the appa chatti. Chatti in malayalam means pan. Appa chatti is a heavy bottomed pan which has small rounds within like that of egg tray. In Tamil Nadu side this is also known as paniyaram chatti. We need to pour the batter in these rounds to get small sweet appams. "Unni" in malayalam means small. Hence the name unniappam.

Karthigai is approaching and Unniappams are a part of the sweets made on this day. So celebrate this Karthigai with these yummy appams.




Ingredients:

Raw Rice – 1 cup
Powdered Jaggery – 1 cup
Coconut – ¼ cup, cut into small pieces (optional)
Green Cardamom/Elaichi – 4 to 5
Blach till seeds - 1 teaspoon
Oil/ghee for frying



Method:

• Wash and soak the rice in water for 3-4 hours. 
• Grind the rice by adding as little water as possible. The batter should be very soft and thick.
• Now slowly add the powdered jaggery and keep grinding. Transfer into a bowl.
• Keep this batter aside for a hour or two.
• In a small kadai heat 1 spoon of ghee. Fry the till seeds and coconut and add this to the batter. Add the cardamom powder and Mix well. The batter should be of pouring consistency, not too tight or too runny. Add water if necessary.
• Heat a paniyaaram pan / appa chatti, fill 3/4 of each groove with a mixture of oil and ghee. Let the oil get heated.
• Now pour small ladleful of batter into each of grooves, flip over after a minute. Let this cook on low heat till a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• I had a bronze appa chatti so it was enough for me to have it in low heat. For others medium heat should suffice.
• Insert the skewer into each of the appams and transfer them onto a paper towel.

Yummy UNNIAPPAMS are ready!!!




Lessons I learnt:

• Try your best to grind jaggery and rice. The first 2 times I made a paste of jaggery and mixed it with rice flour/ rice batter which didn't work out.
• The consistency of the batter is very important to get soft appams. The batter should be of dosai batter consistency. Adjust consistency by adding water. If it is very tight, the appams will be very hard. If it is loose the appams will drink oil.
• The appams should not stick to the pan. After pouring the batter after about 2-3 minutes, the appams should leave the edge of the pan and start rotating in the oil.
• The appams generally become more soft after 2-3 hours.
• We can also add a banana in this batter but my mom never adds. So I just followed her steps.

 

Thakkali Rasam

For a quick lunch, rasam would be the main contributor. Rice, rasam and potato fry make a good combo. Rasam, can be made in so many differences. For an amateur, I used try different rasams and they all used to taste the same. But with time I have learned to make Rasam that has distinct taste.This one is my favourite.

Ingredients 

Tomato - 2
Rasam Powder - 2 tsp
Tamarind - the size of a lemon
Toor Dal water - 1/2 cup (or 1/8 cup of dal cooked in water)
Hing - a little
Ghee - 2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves - few
Jeera - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves - a little
Salt - to taste

Method 

• Soak the tamarind in warm water for about 10 minutes. Make a thick pulp out of this tamarind.
• Heat a pan, add the tamarind pulp and add tomatoes. 
• When tomatoes are cooked, add rasam powder, hing and salt. 
• After it is boils for a few minutes, add the dal water. 
• Usually if you are making rasam and sambar, the water of the dal is used in Rasam and dal part in sambar. 
• Otherwise you can just cook a little dal and whisk it into a clear water and add. 
• When it froths up, switch off. 
• In a small pan, add ghee. Add mustard. 
• When it sputters, add jeera and curry leaves.  Add this to the rasam. 
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Hot and steaming Tomato rasam is ready!!

Paal Payasam

I never realized my blog is one year old!!!!! What a bad mother.... Time runs pretty fast... It seems like just few days back I wrote my first recipe.. Phew...its hard to accept that more than 365 days have gone from there. Well anyways a belated birthday wishes to my blog :-)

My mom usually makes payasams on our birthday! And for my birthday it is always paal payasam since thats my favourite. There is a Krishna temple in Kerala in a place called Ambalapuzha. There they give paal payasam as the prasadam. That paal payasam tastes awesome, just out of the world. That temple has lot of cows and it is said that the paal payasam is made in the temple itself with the milk from the cows. If you get a chance do visit this temple atleast for the sake of paal payasam.

So celebrating my blog's birthday too with paal payasam. This is a very easy to make sweet dish with very few ingredients.

Ingredients:
Milk - One litre
Rice - 50 grams (just 2 fistful)
Sugar - 300 grams
butter - 15 grams



Method:

• Wash rice thoroughly in water, 2 to 3 times. Drain the water completely. 
• Now pour 1 liter milk to this. Do not add any water. 
• Now, place this in a pressure cooker close it and place the whistle. 
• The payasam should cook on low flame from the beginning for about 30 to 45 mins. Turn off heat. After the cooker cools down, remove the vessel from the cooker, you will  find that the milk has turned a nice pink color. 
• Now add the sugar (Adjust sweetness according to taste) and keep stirring for about 10 to 15 mins on low heat.
• In the end add the butter and mix well.
• Paal Payasam is ready. Traditionally no garnishing is done. If required cashews and raisins can be added. Serve this Payasam hot or cold. 
• We can also use broken rice to make this payasam.