Kerala non-veg thali with kothavarakka mezhukkupuratti | Lunch Menu

This week for the blogging marathon I ended up presenting all 3 thalis from kerala. Yes the third one is also from kerala. Nadan oon kind of meaning native lunch is generally served with a fish curry and fish fry or some other non-veg fry item and ofcourse with a couple of vegetarian dishes. You can get the below shown meal for 50-70 rupees in small kerala restaurants served in banana leaves.

Items in the above menu

Chor (rice) - typical red rice is served

Mambazha Pulissery

Idi chakka thoran

Moru kaachiyadhu -  or plain buttermilk

Naranga Achar

Meen curry or meen molagittadhu

Beef ulathiyadhu

Kothavarakka mezhukkupuratti - recipe below

Kothavarakka Mezhukkupuratti - Kothavarakka is known as cluster beans in English. This is a very tasty vegetable. I have only tried stir fries, thoran and paruppu usili with this. Never used in gravy. Mezhukkupuratti is a term used when lot of onions are used in a stir fry. And the vegetable along with onions are stir fried in lot of oil. Coconut oil is the best for this.

Ingredients:

Kothavarakka  (Cluster beans) - 250 grams

Onions - 200 grams

Green chillies - 3 nos

Curry leaves - few

Oil - 5 tsp

Mustard - 1 tsp

Salt - to taste

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Method:

• Chop finely onions and cluster beans. Slit the green chillies.
• In a kadai (preferable a cast iron), add oil. Once the oil turns hot add mustard and curry leaves.Once the mustard splutters, add green chillies.
• Add the chopped onions and fry for 2 minutes till the onions turn translucent.
• Now add the chopped cluster beans, add the salt and turmeric powder. Add little water.
• Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
• Once the cluster beans are cooked, keep stirring for another 2-3 minutes, until the onions turn nice mushy.
• Kothavarakka mezhukkupuratti is ready!!

 Enjoy with rice and a curry of your choice.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#74

Malabar Biriyani thali with chammandhi | Lunch Menu

This week for my second thali, I am presenting my favourite - a biriyani thali that is served in the malabar way. I guess normally biriyanis are served just with raita. But in malabar area the biriyanis are served with challas (raita), pappadam (fried) and biriyani chammandhi or pickle.

Biriyani chammandhi is a special one. This chammandhi is very spicy and very tangy. It doesn't go bad since it made raw - no water is added. Also, this chammandhi is said to be very good for digestion. So all the way a very good accompaniment for biriyanis.

I have posted many biriyani recipes in my blog. You can make any one of them for this thali. The speciality of malabar biriyanis are that they are made with jeeraga samba rice and a whole lot of spices grown in kerala like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, mace etc..

Egg biriyani

Beef-biriyani. 

Malabar chicken biriyani

The raita is termed as challas or sarlas in kerala. Red onions certainly impart a lovely color to this salad making it vibrant and interesting. For this onion salad recipe, you’ll need to slice them as thin as possible. Soaking them in salt makes them soft and extra delicious. Don’t forget to rinse the onions to remove extra salt. Otherwise the final dish will become very salty. If you like extra spice kick, adding a couple of chopped green chilies will be a great idea. Add curd or add little vinegar and serve. 

Biriyani Chammandhi

Ingredients:

Coconut (grated) - 1 cup

Lemon juice - 2 teaspoons

Green chillies - 5

Shallots - 3

Ginger - 10 grams

Salt - to taste

Coriander leaves - few

Mint leaves - few

Method:

• Peel the ginger and shallots.
• Put all the ingredients along with salt in a mixer and grind coarsely.
• In between open the mixer and mix all the ingredients with a spatula and pulse the mixer 2-3 times so that the chutney is ground evenly. Do not add water

Enjoy your weekends with this sumptuous home-made biriyani thali.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#74

Simple kerala-iyer thali | Lunch Menu

I am back!!! After a long sabbatical break.

I am again starting with the blogging marathon. In 2 days time I decided to join this month's marathon. This week I will be posting some interesting thalis. Pardon the photos - I am picking up these thalis from my backlog.

The first one I am starting with a simple home made kerala iyer menu. In olden days kerala-iyers used to have a detailed lunch by around 10:00 - 11:00 in the morning. This was the practise until some 3-4 decades back. But now with increased office goers and a life-style change, kerala-iyers have also changed their food style. Earlier the lunch used to be a very elaborate one with 2-3 curries and 2-3 side dishes but now with lifestyle change and a variety of diseases looming around, the number of dishes in a lunch menu have also come down.

Today I am presenting a typical lunch menu which is served in kerala-iyer households.

Menu:

Rice
Moru koottan - similar to mambazha pulissery
Mathan Erissery
Vazhakkai fry
Vazhaipoo vadai
Karuvadaam
Kadugu Manga oorgai
Buttermilk / curd

Typically a kerala-iyer menu would have a 3-course meal. First one with a koottan, second one with rasam and the third one with curd / buttermilk as gravy. But I have seen that generally with moru -koottan as the gravy, rasam is not served. I forgot to add buttermilk/curd in the above menu.

Method:

• Grate coconut and cut the vegetables - mathan (pumpkin), vazhakkai (plantain) and chembu (taro root) for the moru koottan. Also finely chop the vazhaipoo.
• Soak the dal (kadala paruppu) for making the vada.
• Cook rice in pressure cooker.
• Boil the chembu with little water, salt and turmeric powder. Cook until the chembu is cooked and soft.
• Boil the mathan pieces with very little water, salt and turmeric powder.
• Grind coconut with red chilly and cumin seeds without adding water. add this to the cooked mathan pieces. and mix well. Cook for another 2 minutes.
• Grind coconut with green chillies and curd.  Add this to the cooked chembu. Add sufficient water according to thickness and boil the gravy.
• In a kadai, add little oil. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Once the mustard splutters pour this to the mathan erissery.
• Add 1 teaspoon of oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and one red chilly. Once the mustard splutters pour this to the moru-koottan.
• Add 3 teaspoons of oil to the kadai, add mustard seeds. Once the mustard splutters add the vazhakkai pieces. Let them cook until soft. Then add salt, turmeric powder, very little sambar powder and red chilly powder. Mix well and fry the vazhakkai pieces.
• Grind the dal for vada (without adding water). Add the cut vazhaipoo, curry leaves, chopped green chillies, salt. Mix well.
• In a kadai, add enough oil for frying. First fry the karuvadams. Then fry the vada patties.

Serve the menu with pickle and curd/buttermilk.

Notes:

You can serve papads instead of karuvadams.

This menu took me around 2 hours to prepare.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#74