Ellu Sadam

My dear blogger friends - My blog has crossed 20,000 page views. Thanks to you all. Please keep visiting and sharing and motivating me to update more innovative recipes. Aaah what a wonderful note to start the year with!!! Well I have made a resolution to post atleast one recipe every week. Let me see how far I can keep up with this resolution.

Now over to today's recipe. As promised in Kaanum Pongal post here I am with the recipe for Ellu Sadam. I first found this post couple of months back in Palakkad Chamayal blog and had bookmarked it immediately. What better day than Kaanum Pongal to try this recipe.

Ingredients:

Rice – 1 cup (200 grams)

White Sesame Seeds – 2 heaped tbsp (30 grams)

Urad Dal – 1 tsp (10 grams)

Dried Red Chillies – 1 or 2

Scraped fresh coconut – 1 to 2 tbsp (optional)

For tempering:

Oil – 1 tbsp (gingelly oil preferred)

Mustard Seeds – ½ tsp

Peanuts – 2 tbsp

Curry Leaves – few sprigs

Method

• Cook the rice with little salt. Spread on a wide plate and separate the grains with a fork, sprinkle one spoon of oil. Allow to cool.
• Heat a pan, dry roast the sesame seeds in low flame till light brown in color. I used white sesame seeds. Black ones can also be used.
• Heat ½ tsp of oil and fry the urad dal and red chillies.
• Powder the sesame seeds. While grinding, do not run mixer for a long time. Give short pulses.
• Powder fried urad dal and chillies. Keep aside.
• Heat rest of the oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds and peanuts. Fry till peanuts are roasted. Then add the curry leaves.
• If adding coconut, add now and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.
• Add cooked rice, the powders and salt to taste. Mix well.

Yummy Ellu Sadam is ready to be served!!! Serve it with papad/vadams or roast potatoes. This would be a great lunch box idea!!!

Kaanum Pongal

The first festival in the new year is the Pongal. Initially we never used to celebrate Pongal. I got introduced to this festival in Tamil Nadu. Yeah in cities people basically make Venn Pongal and sakkarai pongal along with other niceties like vadai and enjoy the food. Also new clothes and crackers are the other attributes.

I have heard in villages it is awesome. Some day when I visit a village during Pongal time, I would be able to update the details. After pongal we celebrate the Kanu Pandigai (Kaanum Pongal). Kanu falls on the same day of Maatu Pongal. On this special Occasion, sisters in the family will pray for the welfare of their brothers. This is a special festival for ladies. And ladies serve various foods to crows. So crows have a feast on these days.

Like Adi perukku, on this day also various rice varieties are made. This year my addition is ellu sadam.

Here goes the recipe list:

Lemon Rice - http://endekushini.blogspot.fi/2013/02/lemon-rice.html

Thengai Sadam - http://endekushini.blogspot.fi/2013/02/thengai-sadam.html

Ellu Sadam - Recipe coming soon

Vadai - http://endekushini.blogspot.in/2012/12/medhu-vadai.html

Enjoy this Kanu with various rice varieties and papads/vadams!!!

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.