Green Chutney

Yet another simple chutney made with ease is green chutney..with its pungent and powerful flavour its goes well with most of the Indian snacks/tiffins.

Ingredients:
1 bunch Coriander leaves - about 2 cups
1 cup Mint leaves
3-4 Green chilies
1/2 a Lemon juice
salt to taste
1/2 tsp sugar

Method:
Mix all the ingredients in a blender except lemon juice, with a little water and grind till smooth.
Serve in a bowl, add lemon juice and mix well.
Goes well with Bondas, Dholkas, Dosas etc..

Sambar - A South Indian Pride

A stew with Lentil and Vegies

Sambar is yet another south Indian delicacy. It is a wholesome meal when accompanied with rice or Indian rice crepes dosa. This is one stew made every other day in most of the households in South India. There are a few versions of making it..here is one of them.

Ingredients :
To pressure cook or boil:
1 cup - Toor Dhal/Tuvaram Paruppu/Kandi pappu
1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. red chilli powder
2-3 garlic pods
2 cups water
1 tsp oil

Vegies :
1 large tomato
2 drumsticks cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup each of chopped mixed vegetables, beans, carrot,radish, potato,
1 cup Shallots or pearl onions
2 brinjals cut length wise
1/2 cup bottle gourd cubed

Others :
1 lemon size ball of tamarind soaked in water and juice extracted
1 tbsp. jaggery or sugar
2 tbsp. sambar masala
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
salt to taste

For tempering:
1 tbsp. ghee
1/2 tsp. each cumin and mustard seeds
3 whole red chillies
2-3 flakes garlics slightly crushed
2 stalks curry leaves
1/2 onion
A pinch of asafoetida.
Procedure:
Put together the ingredients to pressure cook and cook for 15 minutes or till the dhal is fully cooked. When cool add salt and mash well and set aside.
Soak the tamarind in lukewarm water and extract pulp.
Add all the vegetables to the tamarind water along with salt and pressure cook till vegetables are fully cooked.
To this add the mashed dhal and mix well.
Add the jaggery and dissolve it.
Now add the sambar powder boil for another 2 minutes and then add coriander leaves.
In a separate vessel heat oil and add all the tempering ingredients fry and add the tempering to the boiling sambar.
Remove from heat and serve hot with rice accompanied with any veg/non-veg fry/vepudu/poriyal,varuval,appalam or have with dosa.

Potato Curry Masala

Potato is one the most eaten root vegetable all around the world..Not to mention the number of ways it can be cooked. South Indian households make curries, masalas, fries, gravies with potato or add it to any other vegetable or meats. In North India this is a staple side dish for lunch in many low and middle class families..

The recipe below with little variations can be accompanied for Dosas, poori, Bonda etc..



For Masala:
4-5 Medium size Potatoes
1 Tbsp Oil
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1 Tbp Channa dal
10- 12 Curry leaves
2 medium size Onions sliced length wise
4 -5 Green Chillies slit
1 inch Ginger piece cut into small pieces
2-3 Garlic pods - thinly sliced
Asafoetida - a few pinches
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Red chilly powder
Salt
Enough water
Coriander leaves

Method :
Wash Potatoes with skin on and cut into halves and pressure cook for 10 minutes little salt and enough water.
Check to see if the potatoes are fully cooked, and discard water and peel the skin and mash them into pieces.
Add little turmeric, little more salt and red chilly powder and mix well and keep them aside.
Heat the oil in a wok/pan, then allow the mustard seeds to splutter.
Now add Channa dal and wait till color changes slightly and add sliced garlic and fry.
Now add the onions, green chilies, curry leaves and ginger and fry till onions are cooked.
Add asafoetida and remaining turmeric and salt.
Now add the boiled, mashed potatoes and mix well.
Add a 1/2 to 1 cup of water depending on how thick or slimy you want the masala to be.
Finally add the coriander leaves and remove from heat.

For Masala Dosa a thicker Potato masala is used, for Poori the masala can be a little gravish , for bonda filling again a real thick version is used.

Masala Dosa - A Love Affair

Welcome 2010....bring some blessings with you..this is my husband's latest Skype Profile message. So true....We all need blessings of good health, wealth, prosperity, etc..all the more than the last decade, as we start yet an era of this new decade. most of all we need God's grace to go through each single day and live it with full diligence and dedication - remembering not to take anything for granted but to acknowledge God's provision and protection and giving HIM all the Praise and not ceasing from Praying. Wooow!!! being a pastor's wife at times I tend to preach too..

I was on a break for the last few weeks from my regular once a week post bloging..Christmas and the New year fever is down and life is busy catching up with work and other regular activities...not to forget food bloging in its pace. After two weeks I may take a longer break..as I have to be accupied with something more exciting and important coming up in my life..but will soon be back as I have lots of pictures in my drafts waiting to be published.


Coming to the love affair "Masala Dosa"..I call it so because
'Masala Dosa" has incredible childhood memories of visiting restaurants with family and enjoying a breakfast or a dinner. In those days families were more used to home cooking. So going to a restaurant was a definte treat. And mostly we would visit restaurants to have tiffins. Though there are a variety of tiffins available, no trip to restaurant is complete without ordering the king of tiffins 'Masala Dosa'. Somehow we South Indians just love the smell and taste of this Masala Dosa. The name Masala Dosa comes from stuffing the plain dosa or accompaning it with a blissful Potato Masala. A typical Malasa Dosa thali consists of a thin dosa stuffed potato curry, sambar and an array of chutneys like coconut, coriander, mint, ginger, onion etc..

The taste of Masala Dosa with potato curry, sambar and coconut chutney that I had in my childhood is still fresh and the longing to have similar one in this part of the world is still unfullfilled. As years passed by the authentic taste also is diminishing. Often in our households(back home) we make dosa and have it with chutney, sometimes we are blessed to have sambar too. Very rarely we have the combo of three, Potato curry, sambar and chutney. So Masala Dosa had become a restraurant fair for me.

Mostly the Dosa recipe is the regular mix of Urad Dhal and Rice in 1 : 2 or 1: 3 or 1 : 4 of depending on whether you want the dosa to be soft or crispy or paper thin crispy. The urge to get a restraurant style Masala dosa made me try a different recipe for Dosa this time. More over, couple of months back I saw a Masala Dosa post in Usha Nandini's blog which really duplicated the restraurant style Paper Masala Dosa, by adding Rice flour, Maida and channa dhall to the regular Urad Dhall mixture. I was excited when my dosas turned out to be Saravana Bhavan and Udipi style.

Recipe for Dosa:
Ingredients :1 1/2 cup Rice flour
1/2 Cup Maida
3/4 cup Urad Dhal
1/4 cup Channa Dhall
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/4 tsp Bi-Carbonate
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp Sugar
Enough oil to fry the Dosas
Method :Soak Channa and urad dal + fenu greek seeds separately in water 3-4 hrs.
Grind them together into very fine smooth paste adding enough water.
In a steel bowl ideal for fermenting the batter, add rice flour, maida, soda, sugar and enough water to make a smooth batter with any lumps.
To this batter add both dal pastes and enough salt to form dosa consistency batter.
Let the dosa batter ferment and raise overnight.
Once the Dosa batter is fermented and its time to make dosas, mix thoroughly to level the raised batter and add more salt and water if required to obtain the consistency which is right to get thin dosa(if preferred)
Heat a non-stick pan or tawa on high, spread oil to cover the whole pan.
When the pan really hot, pour a ladle full of dosa batter on it and spread with the bottom of ladle in spiral motion to form a circular and thin dosa.
When the bottom side of dosa gets golden brown, turn on other side for few more seconds.
In restraurants they usyally do not turn the dosa on the other side. The thick hot wide tawa they use helps in cooking the upper side of the dosa too, so once the bottom is golden brown they add a laddle of spicy Potato masala in the centre and roll the dosa to serve it with hot sambar and chutney.
Will publish receipes for Potato Masala, Sambar, and green chutney as a seperate posts coming up.

Happy cooking & blogging to all my blog friends in 2010 !!!

Cheers
Rina

Mutton Curry with Coconut Gravy

Christmas is here and it brings all the memories of childhood, where we enjoyed carols, home decorations, Christmas tree, greeting cards, new clothes, Church worship, family reunions, friends visiting, baking cakes, or making pastries, sweets and savories, purchasing cartons of fruits, distributing goodies to neighbours, friend, relations, etc.. and not to mention the scrumptious feast on the big day..The usual menu in our joint family was Pilaf or biriyani, variety of chicken curries and variety of veggie curries. In my Aunt's place it was always Pilaf/Biriyani with Spicy Mutton gravy and brinjal chutney. No doubt Mutton is the most favourite meat for most Non-Vegetarians back home.

Here is one version of the most loved mutton curry.

Ingredients :
2 lb Mutton cut into bite size
2 Tbsp Oil
3 - 4 Onions over medium size)
4 -5 Green chillies slit
2 Tbsp - Ginger garlic paste
2 Tomatoes (large) or 1 cup Tomato puree
2 tsp Red chilly powder - 2 ½ tsp.
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
1 Tbsp five spice garam masala power
2 Tbsp poppy seeds (soaked in enough water and ground into a smooth paste)
1/2 cup Coconut paste/puree (add little water to the grated coconut and make a puree)
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves (finely chopped)

For the Five Spice powder :
Put together a handful (around 50 gms)of the following spices and grind into a coarse powder and store in a air tight container.
Fennel seeds
Cardamon
Cinnamon
Cloves
Star Anise
Method:
In a pressure cooker, allow oil to become hot and add onions, green chillies and saute' till onions are fully cooked and mushy.
Add ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell is gone.
Add the mutton pieces along with turmeric, chilly powder, and salt and mix thoroughly till all the mutton pieces are well coated.
Add half of the garam masala powder and mix again.
Add cut tomatoes or puree and close the cooker lid for 2 mints without the whistle inserted.
This will create pressure inside to inject the mutton pieces with masala and also in the process the water from the mutton gets released.
Remove lid and add cup of water or a little more, mix and again close the lid, this time with the whistle and cook for 25 -30 minutes on a medium low heat.
After the time is done, release pressure, remove lid and check to see if mutton is almost done.
Now add the poppy seed paste, coconut paste and remaining garam masala and cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until the mutton is soft.
Add coriander leaves and remove form heat.
Serve hot with any seasoned rice, or roti.

Sending this Mutton curry dish to EFM-Mutton Seriesevent hosted by Srilekha of Srishkitchen.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my viewers, readers, friends and family!!!!!

Ghee Coconut Rice

As we experienced a long-overdue dose of winter-like weather with blowing snow, ice, rain, pellets, heavy snowfall, whiteouts - you name it - we've had a bit of everything. The wintery weather calls for some variety rice instead of a bland version to put some flavour and spice into the dull and dark days of freezing rain with light snow.

Ghee Rice is famous in south India mostly in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka states and northern parts of AP. A typical ghee rice is made with jeeraga samba rice(jeera rice) which has a unique flavour by itself which gets enhanced by addition of ghee and other ingredients..

In Tamil Nadu, they mix both ghee and coconut and make an extremely flavourful rice called Coconut Rice which is truly magical..Mostly basmati rice is used here. Very simple to make, yet packed with richness this Coconut Ghee rice is a great combo with any Vegetarian or Non Vegetarian curried gravies.

Hot Ghee is tempered with cashew nuts, curry leaves, thinly sliced green chillies, onions and grated coconut. To this cooked basmati rice is added and seasoned with salt. Perfect to enjoy with a creamy veggie, chicken or mutton gravy.

Ingredients:
4 cups cooked Basmati rice(add a little salt while cooking the rice)
3 Tbsp Ghee
1/2 cup crated coconut
1/4 Cashews and raisins
2 sprigs Curry leaves
1 large onions thinly sliced
3-4 green chillies slit into four and seeds removed
Salt to taste
Finely chopped coriander leaves if desired.

Method:
Cook basmati rice with just little salt and keep aside
Heat ghee in a wok/kadai/deep pan, add cashew and raisins and allow raisins to pop up and cashew turn little brown.
Remove cashew and raisins from ghee and transfer into a small bowl.
Allow curry leaves to sizzle in the same hot ghee and then add green chillies, onions and fry till onions are mild brown.
Add grated coconut and fry till coconut slightly turns color and changes smell.
Now add cooked basamati rice, salt, cashew and raisins and mix till all the rice is well coated with ghee, tempering and coconut.
Check to see for enough salt
Add coriander leaves if using and remove from heat.
Serve warm with Curried gravies.

Sending this rice to EFM-Variety Rice Series event hosted by Sriskitchen.

Tandoori Finger Fish w/ Basa Fish Fillets

AKA Fish Pakoda

And finally 'Toronto' got its first heavy snow this week, after a record break of snow free November after 162 years. With festive season going in full zoom and the stage set for a perfect winter wonderland, its time to enjoy hot spicy finger food like Basa Tandoori finger fish/Pakoda.

The first time I got to taste this finger fish was from a Indian/Pakistani takeout 2 years ago. I and hubby were completely taken by the taste of it. Moreover my husband is a huge seafood fan. Again no misconceptions here..our seafood menu is very selective and confined only to cooked fish, shrimp/prawn and occasionally crabs. So fish being the main Seafood that we look forward to enjoy..I use to takeout this finger fish whenever I visited this takeout place and also found out from them that they were using Basa fish fillets to make this Tandoori fish pakoda. Then one day I was happy to find raw Basa fish fillet in the Asian grocery store's frozen food section. I took no time to grab one packet of that frozen Basa fish and the thought occured to me "why don't I try the Restaurant style Finger fish at home". I have this habit of trying out restaurant food at home. So I reproduced the takeout/restaurant style at home and it didn't disappoint me. Ever since I started making this at home instead of takeout. Though I made this finger fish a few times, never got a chance to click it. This time since I made and parcelled it to one of my my friend who is expecting, I tried to present it the same way as they do in the take out and clicked the same.

This fish fry makes a good starter dish and is apt to accompany the finger food trays.

So here is my recipe for Tandoori Basa Finger Fish :
Ingredients :
Two Basa fish fillets, cut into thin long strips about a finger length.
Oil for frying.
Marination:
Corn flour/Channa flour - 2 Tbsp
ginger/garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilly powder - 1tsp
Fish Masala - 2 tsp (I use Shan Fish masala)
Lemon pepper - 1/2 tsp
Tandoori Masala - 1 tsp
Salt to taste.
Garnish :
Onion rings
Lemon wedges
Coriander leaves chopped

Method :
In a mixing bowl add all the marination items with enough water to make a paste.
Marinated the fish strips with the above marination for 1 - 3 hrs
Now either deep fry or pan fry the fish pieces with enough oil.
Garnish with onion rings, cilantro and a dash of lime.