Bhindi Do Pyaaza

Ingredients:

1. Bhindi/Okra - 400 grams
2. Onions - 3 medium sized
3. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp.
4. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp.
5. Dhania powder - 1 tsp.
6. Aamchur powder - 1/2 tsp.
7. Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp.
8. Jeera -  1/2 tsp.
9. Kalonji - 1/2 tsp.
10. Oil - 1 1/2 tbsp.
11. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. Cut the bhindi into 1 inch long pieces. You may also cut them into 2 inch long pieces and slit them vertically into 2 pieces each. Cut the onions length-wise.
2. Heat oil in a kadai and temper with jeera and kalonji seeds.
3. Add the onions and fry them till they turn light brown.
4. Add turmeric powder, chilli powder, dhania powder, jeera powder and amchur powder. Mix well.
5. Add bhindi and fry on medium-high flame for 10-15 minutes till the bhindi is cooked well. Keep stirring at regular intervals. The bhindi will not turn slimy due to the amchur powder.
6. Serve with rotis or rice.

Bajra Khichdi

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I am trying out alternative grains as food. As part of it, I tried Bajra Khichdi/Pongal.

Ingredients:

1. Bajra - 1 cup
2. Moong Dal - 1/2 cup
3. Bay leaf - 1
4. Jeera-Kalonji - 1 tsp
5. Pepper (coarsely crushed) - 1/2 tsp.
6. Ghee - 1 tbsp.
7. Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp.
8. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. Dry roast bajra and moong dal separately for a few minutes till they give out aroma, but do not brown them.
2. Coarsely grind (pulse) bajra in a mixie.
3. In a cooker, heat ghee, temper with jeera-kalonji. Add bay leaf, asafoetida.
4. Add in the bajra and moong dal and mix well. 
5. Add water (around 3 cups) and pepper&salt, stir well and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. In case you fear that the khichdi might get burnt if cooked directly, perform the above 2 steps in a kadai, transfer it to a vessel and pressure cook it.
6. Serve steaming hot with a piece of jaggery.

Note: Bajra uses less water than rice for cooking. Initially, calibrating the right amount of water was a little difficult, but I got a hang of it after 2-3 times. After cooking, the khichdi should be pasty. If there is more water floating on top after cooking, the dal might not be cooked fully. In that case, drain the excess water and pressure cook again for 2 whistles till the dal grains are homogeneously mixed with the khichdi. Add the drained water back and stir well and cook uncovered for a few minutes.

Pumpkin sabzi

Its the pumpkin season and my mil got a huge pumpkin plucked from the village fields. After cooking parts of it for 2-3 times, my mil gave me a little with a recipe to make sabzi out of it. My mom generally only makes Parangikkai kozhambu and sabzi was a new dimension for me.

After preparing, the sabzi is comparable to the aloo sabzi used as filling in masala dosas. Hence it can be used as a side dish for dosas, rice and chapati.

There are a few variations to this recipe too which I will be mentioning at the end.

Ingredients:

1. Yellow Pumpkin - 250 g.
2. Onion - 1 large (optional)
3. Mustard - 1/2 tsp.
4. Curry leaves - 10
5. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp. or as per taste
6. Dhania powder - 1 tsp.
7. Salt - as per taste 
8. Oil - 1 tbsp.

Procedure:

1. Scrape out the pumpkin seeds from the inside, but do not peel the pumpkin. The sabzi can be prepared with the peel. Chop the pumpkin into small sticks radially. The sticks can be 1/2 cm by 1/2 cm with the height equal to the thickness of the pumpkin pulp.
2. Chop the onion finely or into thin long slices, as you desire. You can omit the onion if you want.
3. In a kadai, heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add curry leaves. Add chopped onions and fry for 2-3 minutes. 
4. Add the chopped pumpkin, chilli powder, dhania powder and salt. This sabzi might taste better with a little extra chilli powder than we use for usual sabzis as it helps compensate for the slightly sweet taste of pumpkin. Mix well and cook covered on a low flame. Do not add water but keep stirring every 2 minutes. After around 10-15 minutes, the  sabzi will turn a little mushy. Switch off the flame.
5. Serve with rice or roti or dosa.

Variations:

1. Omit the red chilli powder and dhania powder. Instead chop around 4-5 green chillies length-wise and add it along with curry leaves and onions slit lengthwise in the beginning.
2. Before adding the pumkpin, add half a cup of hidkid avarekalu (dehusked hyacinth bean seeds) or green peas. Saute them and cook well before adding the pumpkin.

Palak Paneer

Ingredients:

1. Palak - 1 bunch, cleaned and stems trimmed
2. Paneer/Tofu - 200 g
3. Onion - 1 large (cut into large pieces)
4. Tomato - 1large (cut into large pieces)
5. Garlic - 5-6 pods
6. Green chillies - 2 or 3
7. Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp.
8. Kasoori methi - 1 tsp. (optional)
9. Salt - to taste
10. Oil/ghee - 1 tbsp.
11. Fresh cream - 1 tbsp.

Procedure:

1. Cut the paneer/tofu into half inch cubes.
2. Cook palak, tomato and green chillies in a covered  thick bottomed vessel with minimum or no water for 3-5 mins till the leaves becomes soft and shrink. Do not burn. Allow to cool.
3. In a kadai, heat oil/ghee and fry the onions and garlic till the onion turns translucent.
4. Grind together the onions, garlic, green chillies, palak and tomato to a smooth puree.
5. Heat the same kadai (which contains the remaining oil/ghee after frying the onions),  pour in the puree, add salt, jeera powder, kasoori methi and bring to a boil. Add the paneer cubes and mix in well. cook for another 2 minutes. 
6. Switch off and garnish with fresh cream.

Kambu adai

Adai is a multi-dal dosa. Recently, I got the fancy to try out some unconventional cereals in my food (for their nutritive goodness) and bought some bajra/pearl millet/kambu. My mother who had never seen kambu herself, suggested that we should try kambu adai, by just replacing rice with kambu in the regular adai recipe. It turned out pretty good.

Ingredients:

1. Kambu/Bajra - 1 cup
2. Toor dal - 1/4 cup
3. Chana dal - 1/4 cup
4. Urad dal - 1/4 cup (or even less)
5. Moong dal - 1/4 cup
6. Asafoetida - 1/2 inch piece
7. Curry leaves - 10
8. Red chillies - 2 or 3 ( you can 2 green chillies and 1 red chilli also)
9. Salt - to taste
10. Oil (preferably coconut oil) - for making adai

Procedure:

1. Soak the kambu and all 4 dals in water for 2-3 hours. I sometimes reduce the amount of chana dal and increase toor and moong dal.
2. Grind them with asafoetida, chillies, curry leaves and salt to make a batter. Do not add water initially. Add water slowly and adjust the amount to achieve batter consistency. The batter will not be as smooth as dosa batter, will be coarse, yet will be ok to flow when poured from a ladle.
3. On a tawa, pour one ladle of the batter and spread like dosas. Roast on one side on high flame by pouring a tsp. of oil on the sides. After a minute, turn over and cook on the other side for around 30 seconds on low flame. Remove and serve hot as and when you prepare with a piece of jaggery, butter or with avial or red chutney.

Ven Pongal

Traditional South Indian breakfast, regular recipe.

Ingredients:

1. Rice - 3/4 cup
2. Moong dal - 1/2 cup
3. Ghee - 2 tbsp.
4. Jeera - 1 tsp.
5. Peppercorns - 1 tsp.
6. Cashewnuts ( broken) - 1 tsp.
7. Curry leaves - 10
8. Ginger - 1 inch piece

Procedure:

1. Roast rice and moong dal separately over medium flame. It is better to use new rice for pongal as it turns mushy on cooking (probably that is the reason the harvest festival is celebrated as Pongal and not as Biryani). Basmati and other long grain varieties are not suitable as they remain as separate grains upon cooking.
2. Cook the rice and dal together in a pressure cooker for 3-4 whistles either directly or in a container. Use around 4 cups of water. Mash this up lightly by stirring after it is cooked.
3. Crush jeera and pepper coarsely using a hand pestle. Chop ginger very finely.
4. In a kadai, heat ghee. Fry the cashewnuts in this lightly. Add crushed jeera, pepper, ginger and currry leaves. Pour this into the cooked rice and dal and stir well.
5. Serve piping hot with gotsu.

Bombay Chutney

My sister-in-law's mother-in-law had made this chutney as a side-dish for idlis when we visited them for the first time. I was in the kitchen with her while she made it and was nonchalantly listening to the method of preparation. As soon as I tasted it, I wished I had paid a little more attention that could have saved me the time I spent on the internet digging out its recipe. As usual, I created an amalgamated version of the many recipes I found and also aunty's recipe and came up with this.
I have no idea why it is called Bombay chutney, for that matter why chutney at all. Nevertheless it makes a quick and tasty side dish and makes for a good change.

Ingredients:

1. Besan/Gram flour - 1/4 cup dissolved in a cup of water without lumps.
2. Onions - 1 large or 2 small thinly sliced
3. Oil - 1 tbsp
4. Mustard - 1/2 tsp.
5. Green chillies - 2 slit length-wise
6. Chana dal - 1 tsp.
7. Curry leaves - 5-6 chopped
8. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
9. Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp.
10. Cinnamon powder (optional) - 1/4 tsp.
11. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. In a kadai, heat oil and temper with mustard seeds, chana dal and curry leaves. 
2. Add green chilies and ginger-garlic paste and saute well.
3. Add onions and fry till they are tender and turn golden brown.
4. Add turmeric powder, cinnamon powder and salt.
5. Add the besan solution to this and cook while stirring continuously on medium/high flame for 5-10 minutes till the raw smell of besan is gone. Add water as required while stirring to adjust the consistency. The thickness should be like aloo sagu.
6. Serve with idlis/rava idlis/dosas/pooris.

Paneer Butter Masala

Sometimes, it is easy to replicate a dish by just tasting it in a restaurant. Sometimes even with the recipe, it is difficult to replicate it. Paneer Butter Masala is a dish which even restaurants fail to prepare properly. A little compromise in the procedure gets magnified as flaws in the taste. Recently I came across a perfect recipe on the internet which even beat hi-fi chefs' recipes. I followed it and it turned out perfect - the best PBM we have ever had in our life - a masterpiece. Presenting it with pride:

Ingredients:

1. Paneer - 200 grams chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
2. Tomatoes - 2 large or 3 medium-sized.
3. Onion - 2 medium-sized - chopped into big pieces.
4. Ginger - 1 inch cube
5. Garlic - 4-5 pods
6. Cashewnuts - 10-12
7. Green chilly - 1 small, slit lengthwise
8. Bay leaf - 1
9. Fresh cream - 50g (Amul fresh cream is a good choice)
10. Butter - 75g
11. Oil - 1 tbsp.
12. Milk - 1 tbsp.
13. Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp.
14. Dhania powder - 1 tsp.
15. Jeera powder - 1/4 tsp.
16. Clove-cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp.
17. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
18. Kesari powder (orange colour) - 1/8 tsp.
19. Kasoori methi - 1/2 tsp.
20. Salt - as per taste.
21. Sugar - 1 pinch

Procedure:

1. Grind together onions, ginger and garlic to a fine paste.
2. Blanch and peel the tomatoes and puree them. ( I pureed the tomatoes directly without peeling)
3. Soak cashewnuts in milk for 10 minutes and grind them together finely.
4. In a pan, heat 50 grams of butter and 1 tbsp. oil. Add the slit green chilli, bay leaf and onion paste. Fry properly on medium flame while continuously stirring for 6-8  minutes till the raw smell of onions is gone and the paste forms a single blob as you stir and it leaves the sides of the pan like halwa. Do not hurry to the next step until this is done.
5. To this add the tomato puree and keep stirring on medium flame or high flame for 12- 15 minutes again till the paste leaves the sides of the pan as a single blob and the oil separates out. It is very important to stir the paste till it leaves the sides of the pan like halwa. The secret of PBM lies in this step.
6. Add all the dry masala to this - red chilli powder, dhania powder, jeera powder, clove-cinnamon powder, turmeric powder, salt and sugar. Add a little water ( around 100 ml.) and stir well and bring to a boil. 
7. Switch off the flame, add kasoori methi, kesari powder dissolved in 1 tbsp. of water, cashew paste, fresh cream and paneer pieces. Stir well.
8. Heat again on medium flame till it comes to a boil. Switch off and garnish with the remaining butter which will melt upon adding to the gravy.
9. Serve with rotis.

Brown Sugar Cookies

The butter cookies recipe which I posted earlier (one of my earliest posts in this blog) is a recipe which I follow exactly. But there are times when you do not have all the ingredients and you try to make something worthwhile using the ingredients you have. This is one such experimental recipe. I must confess that the measurements here are just approximate. There was a little brown sugar leftover from the blondies, so used them up.  Also there was no butter available, so used ghee instead. Again, I didn't want to use too much ghee, so I used a little milk for binding the dough together.

Ingredients:

1. Flour - Atta or Maida - 1 cup ( 200 ml)
2. Brown sugar - 1/3 cup ( More brown sugar will make the cookies gooey)
3. Powdered sugar - 1/3 cup
4. Ghee/melted butter - 1/3 cup
5. Milk - 2-3 tsp.
6. Baking soda - 1/4 tsp.
7. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp.

Procedure:

1. Sieve together flour and baking soda.
2. In a bowl mix the flour,  brown sugar, powdered sugar, ghee, vanilla essence and mix well.
3. The dough will be coarse and will not bind together. Add very little milk, just enough to bind together the flour. The dough should not be pasty and should not stick to fingers when rolled. If it is pasty, add a little more flour and knead.
4. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees C.
5. Make small balls (like for chapatis) out of the dough and flatten them lightly like patties (around 1&1/2 inch diameter).
6. Place them on a baking tray with space for expansion (cookies can double in diameter and flatten out a little) and bake for 12-15 minutes at 200 degrees C. till the edges turn brown.
7. Cool the cookies in open air. Once they cool, they will become crisp (unless of course the amount of brown sugar is high, in which case they can be enjoyed as gooey cookies).

This measurement made around 25 cookies and took 3 batches of baking.

Lauki ki sabzi

Lauki or bottle-gourd is a tasteless vegetable. Infamous for being one of the most boring vegetables with a lot of household jokes being cracked about it ( remember the Cadbury's Dairy Milk ad??) , it is predominantly made in the northern parts of India as a side-dish for rotis. But being tasteless renders it as a versatile vegetable which assumes the taste of the masala it is cooked in.
It has never been made by my mother or mother-in-law all these years, but it recently made its entry into our kitchen after my delivery. It is considered helpful for lactation and hence the other name dhoodi.
Like the fate of all gourd vegetables, lauki made its way into becoming kootus all these days, when the tongue demanded a change in taste. I rummaged through the net to find a simple recipe using this vegetable, and here it is.

Ingredients:

1. Lauki/Soraikai - 250 g ( chopped into 1/2 inch cubes)
2. Onion - 1 large ( chopped finely)
3. Tomato - 1 large ( chopped finely)
4. Oil - 1 tbsp.
5. Ghee - 1 tsp. 
6. Jeera - 1/2 tsp.
7. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
8. Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp.
9. Dhania powder - 1 tsp.
10. Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp.
11. Asafoetida powder - 1/4 tsp.
12. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. In a cooker, heat oil + ghee and temper with jeera seeds.
2. Add all the masala ( jeera, turmeric, dhania, chilli, hing) powders to this and fry lightly.
3. Add chopped onions and fry till they turn golden brown.
4. Add chopped tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are tender.
5. Add chopped lauki and mix well with the onion-tomato masala.
6. Add little water ( around 1/2 cup; not too much since lauki leaves water) and salt and pressure cook for 3 whistles.
7. Open the cooker and mix well. If there is excess water, cook without lid till desired consistency is reached.
8. Serve with rotis.

Matar Paneer

Ingredients:

1. Fresh shelled peas - 200 g.
2. Paneer ( diced into 1/2 inch cubes) - 200 g
3. Tomatoes - 2-3 large (pureed)
4. Onions - 1 large ( very finely chopped)
5. Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp.
6. Jeera - 1/2 tsp.
7. Bay leaf - 1
8. Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp.
9. Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp.
10. Dhania powder - 1 tsp.
11. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
12. Clove-cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp.
13. Salt - to taste
14. Fresh cream - 1 tbsp.
15. Oil - 6 tsp.
16. Ghee - 2 tsp.
17. Finely chopped coriander leaves - 2 tsp.

Procedure:

1. In a kadai, heat oil + ghee. Ghee is for flavoring. You can use ghee alone instead of oil if you want a richer flavor.
2. Temper with jeera seeds. Add bay leaf, ginger-garlic paste and clove-cinnamon powder and fry gently for a few seconds.
3. Add chopped onions and saute till they become translucent.
4. Add the peas and saute on low flame till they are tender. The peas should get cooked in oil. 
5. Add the tomato puree to this. Add chilli powder, dhania powder, jeera powder, turmeric powder, salt. Keep boiling till the raw smell of tomato is gone.
6. Add the paneer pieces to this gravy and cook for a few more minutes so that the paneer pieces absorb the masala. Add a little water if necessary while cooking.
7. Add fresh cream, mix well and remove from flame when the gravy is of the right consistency.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rotis.

Walnut Blondie

My baking dreams started right from my school days and I should say that all my past experiments with baking have been disastrous! That was a time when we did not have an oven at home and tried to bake cakes in the cooker, or even in the sandwich toaster. Moreover we did not have supermarkets that sold baking ingredients like today, so we would substitute ingredients with readily available stuff. And the biggest limitation was that we tried to do all the baking without egg. Eggless cakes are possible, but we need to substitute egg with skill, not just milkmaid or sprite.
I'm not a regular baker or a good baker or an intuitive baker, but I hope to master the art in due course of time. For the past couple of trials, I have been baking cakes with eggs, and they turn out quite good, although not perfect. Since I do not the understand the chemistry of baking, I do not experiment with the recipes, but follow someone's tried and tested recipe to the T. That works out best when you want to avoid disasters.
I baked a walnut blondie for G's birthday yesterday. A blondie is a brownie without chocolate or so I understand. I'm not a chocolate fan and hence was impressed with the blondie concept. G does not have any preferences when it comes to cakes, so I let myself reign over the choice. Moreover, a blondie/brownie is a safe choice, because the consistency of the core can turn out any way and still meet expectations. If it is fluffy, good. If it is dense and cakey, good. If it is fudgy, better. If it is gooey and chewy, even better. What makes the difference is the ratio of flour to sugar to butter to egg.
With the following measurements, mine turned out dark brown and fudgy inside and a thin layer of light brown crust on the outside.

Ingredients:

1. Maida - 1 cup ( cup here measures 200ml)
2. Brown sugar - 1 cup
3. Baking soda - 1/8 tsp.
4. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp.
5. Egg - 1
6. Butter - 75 g
7. Chopped walnuts - 1/4 cup
8. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp.

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
2. Sift maida, baking powder and baking soda together thrice. 
3. Mix in the chopped walnuts with the flour.
4. In a bowl , melt butter and stir in the brown sugar. Add the egg and vanilla essence to this and beat well. 
5. Add the flour to this little by little and stir in gently.The resultant batter will be much thicker than usual cake batter and will not flow at all, but it will be more moist and sticky than cookie dough.
6. Grease and dust the baking pan ( preferably a square one so that it is easy to cute the slices; i used a heart shaped one because G wanted it for his birthday) and scoop out the cake batter into it to form a one-inch or slightly  thicker layer.
7. Bake for around 30 - 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. It is possible that the inside is still mushy after 35 minutes. That is because of he brown sugar and not a problem as long as it does not stick to the knife.  
8. Cool the cake for around half an hour.The cake will rise to double its height while baking, but will flatten as you cool. It will be dense and not fluffy 

I wish I had got some vanilla ice-cream  and maple syrup to go with this, but had to serve it plain and simple. It tasted good though.

Haalu Saaru

This dish is typically made for bananthis (nursing mothers). My mil made it for me a couple of times after my baby and I tried out the recipe today. Its remarkably simple to make and extremely healthy. It is made even in non-bananthi houses and liked by a lot of people. A large majority though (including my husband) hate the dish, but again, it is an acquired taste. I don't have any qualms about the taste and don't mind it once a week if my baby is gonna get a little more milk.

Ingredients:

1. Flat beans - 250-300 grams
2. Peppercorns - 15-20 (crushed finely). Use less if you do not like pepper spice.
3. Garlic pods - 12-15 (crushed finely)
4. Rice flour - 1 heaped tsp. dissolved in 1/2 cup of water.
5. Boiled milk - 150 ml.
6. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. Wash and cut the flat beans into 1 inch pieces. Cook in a pressure cooker with salt and minimal water.
2. In a thick bottomed pan, heat the dissolved rice flour, garlic and pepper, keep stirring and boil till it becomes a thick paste. Add a little more water if required. The consistency should be like sweet corn soup.
3. Add the cooked vegetables and continue boiling for 3-4 minutes.
4. Add milk and bring to a boil. 
5. Serve hot with plain rice or ragi mudde.

Poondu (Garlic) Rasam

Ingredients:

1. Garlic pods ( crushed ) - 10-12
2. Tomatoes (finely chopped) - 1
3. Tamarind pulp - 1 cup
4. Rasam powder - 1 tsp.
5. Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp.
6. Mustard - 1/4 tsp.
7. Curry leaves (chopped) - 5-6
8. Coriander leaves ( finely chopped) - 1/2 tbsp.
9. Jeera & pepper powder - 1 tsp. (optional, in case rasam powder needs enhancement)
10. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
11. Salt - to taste
12. Ghee - 1 tbsp.

Procedure:

1. In a thick bottomed vessel, heat ghee. Season with mustard seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves and turmeric powder.
2. Add garlic and cook till the raw smell of garlic is gone.
3. Add chopped tomatoes and cook till tomatoes are tender.
4. Add the tamarind pulp, rasam powder and salt. Add the jeera-pepper powder.
5. Boil for 3-5 minutes on medium flame till the raw smell of tamarind is gone.
6. Switch off and garnish with coriander leaves.