Kootu

Kootu is a basic TamBrahm dish made with lentils and vegetables.
It contains almost no oil (except for the seasoning), the lentils provide protein and the vegetables provide vitamins, minerals and fiber. All in all, it is one of the healthiest side-dishes to vote for.
It can be eaten as a side dish for chapatti, or eaten with rasam rice. You can even mix it directly with rice and eat it. With the versatility it offers, and the variety of vegetables that can be used in it, we can consider making this almost every alternate day.

The most common vegetables used for kootu are ridge-gourd, chow-chow, cabbage, bottle-gourd, ash-gourd, green leaves ( palak or dhante or any other keerai).

Ingredients:

1. Vegetable of your choice (chopped into 1/2 inch pieces) - 3 cups
2. Moong dal - 1 cup
3. Green chillies - 3 or 4
4. Jeera - 1 tsp.
5. Coconut - 1/4th cup.
6. Oil - 1-2 tsp.
7. Mustard - 1 tsp.
8. Red chilly - 1
9. Urad dal - 1 tsp.
10. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. Wash the chopped vegetables and moong dal and cook them together in a pressure cooker, with enough water to cover them. Cook for 2-3 whistles until the dal is soft enough to be mashed.
2. In a mixie, grind together the green chillies, jeera and coconut, with a little water to make a paste.
3. Add this to the cooked vegetable and dal and stir well. Turn on the flame and bring to boil.
4. Add salt as needed.
5. In a skillet, add oil, temper with mustard seeds, red chilly and urad dal, till the urad dal turns slightly brown.
6. Add this to the kootu and turn off the flame.

Fruitcake

Fruitcakes are my favourite among cakes and my whole purpose of learning to bake is to make fruitcakes and savour them.
I modified my previous cake recipe for banana cake a little and ended up with this delicacy that can be a great tea-time snack.


Ingredients:

1. Maida - 1 cup (125 ml)
2. Oil - 3/4 cup (around 90 ml)
3. Sugar - 1 cup (125 ml or 125 grams)
4. Eggs - 3
5. Pineapple essence - 1 tsp.
6. Baking powder - 1/2 to 3/4 tsp.
7. Tutti Fruiti (Red and green)- 50-75 grams
8. Extra flour and oil for greasing and dusting.

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Grease and dust a cake mould (I used olive oil and maida)
3. Sieve the flour and sift it together with baking powder.
4. Take the tutti fruiti in a small bowl, add a little extra flour and toss it to dust the tutti fruiti completely. This is to make sure that the tutti fruiti pieces don't sink to the bottom of the cake while baking.
5. In a mixie, powder the sugar, then add oil to this powdered sugar in the mixie and cream them together to form a runny paste.
6. Add the eggs, one at a time and quickly whisk each time for a few seconds to make sure he eggs are beaten well.
7. Add the pineapple essence and blend it again.
8. Now add the flour to this mixture little by little and fold in using a ladle. You can blend it in the mixie too, but the air trapped into the batter that way will be less.
9. Add the tutti fruiti to this mixture and fold in gently.
10. Pour this batter into the cake mould and bake for around 35-45 minutes, till a knife inserted comes out clean and the crust is slightly browned. (I baked for 45 minutes)
11. Cool it for around half an hour, cut it into slices and store in a container.

Top view

Bottom view

Cross section

Banana Cake

This is the quickest and simplest cake recipe ever. Just blend and bake.

Ingredients:

1. Sugar - 1 cup ( 125 ml )
2. Maida - 1 cup (125 ml)
3. Cooking Oil - 1 cup (125 ml)
4. Baking powder - 3/4 - 1 tsp.
5. Eggs - 2
6. Vanilla essence - 1/2 - 3/4 tsp.
7. Banana - 1 large ripe

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Sift together the flour and baking powder.
3. In a mixie, grind the sugar to a powder.
4. Add oil to the powdered sugar in the mixie and blend it till a creamy paste is formed.
5. To the mixie, add the eggs one at a time and whisk. Run the mixie in pulse mode for a few seconds at a time.
6. Add the vanilla essence and banana chunks and blend till a smooth paste is formed.
7. Now, either add the flour little by little to the mixie and quickly blend it by running the mixie or by folding the flour with a ladle.
8. Only if the batter is too thick and does not flow when you ladle it, add very minimal warm milk and whisk again. I didn't have to do this step.
9. Grease and dust a cake tin and pour out the batter into the tin to form a layer of one inch or slightly more. Leave space for the cake to double in size.
10. Bake at 180 degrees C for 25 mins. Check if the cake is done using a knife or fork. Bake for an additional 10 minutes if not done. I baked for 35 minutes.

The cake would be dense, yet soft, not very spongy. The colour would be light brown, like whole wheat bread. This was a Valentine's Day special cake. Hence the heart shape.
Recipe courtesy: Yogita Pimpalkar. The original recipe had 3 eggs, but I didn't want an eggy flavour, so cut down an egg.

I felt that the cake had a little more oil than required. I am going to try this with slightly less oil next time. Also this had a milder flavor of banana. I would like to add another banana to this and try it out.
Please try this out and let me know any variations that worked better for you.

Kitchen garden delights - Radish

If you are looking for a vegetable to grow in your kitchen garden and you, like me, are the sort of person who is impatient to see the results, what do you start with? We were on our regular visit to Madiwala market for vegetable shopping when we saw the well-known face of the lady selling seeds and seedlings. I asked her which was the fastest growing vegetable she had, and she immediately fished out a packet of radish seeds.


We bought the seeds packet for Rs.10 and planted 6 of them in a pot. I made sure the soil was loose without any hard rocks which might hamper the roots from growing or disfigure the roots. 4 out of the 6 seeds germinated within 3-4 days of planting.


Every day in the next one month brought with it a noticeable growth in the foliage of the radish plants. And soon we could see the white root below the leaves at surface of the soil. After around 5-6 weeks of planting, we could see the root emerging up from the soil and pushing itself outwards to see the sunlight. Judging by the circumference of the root, we decided to wait for a few more days, By the 8th week, we decided it was time to harvest the radish.


Harvesting radish doesn't necessarily require a shovel or a knife. We just loosened the soil around the root and pulled it by hand.


The leaves became Radish Leaves Chutney and the radishes were used for Arachchu Vitta Sambhar by amma.

Not a recipe this time - Its about my garden

To have a garden in our balcony was a very old decision by me and G. We have had plants in pots right from the day we moved into our apartment and over the years, we have seen plants grow, flourish and die, some due to neglect and some because their season ended. Though none of our original plants are with us any more, we have continuously replenished our garden with new plants every season.
Each plant brings a lot of memories to mind and reminds us of how we have grown too. I have gone through seasons when I have struggled with a particular plant, only to sow it again the next season to see it grow effortlessly. Sometimes the plants that flourished the first time, failed to do so in subsequent trials.
In the next few blog entries, I intend to write about my plants and the story behind them. Although it seems like a misfit in a blog page dedicated for recipes, I was lazy to start a new blog page for gardening and hence clubbing it here.
For ease of filtering I will tag all these entries with the label "gardening".
So here starts my green saga.....

Paneer Corn Capsicum

Ingredients:

1. Paneer - 100g cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2. Capsicum - 1 medium sized, cut into 1/2 inch squares
3. Sweet corn - boiled and separated from cob, 1/2 cup
4. Onion - 1 chopped finely
5. Tomato - 1 chopped finely
6. Panch Poron - 1 tsp. or 1/4 tsp Saunf, 1/4 tsp. Jeera, 1/4 tsp. Kalonji, 1/4 tsp. Methi.
7. Oil - 1 tbsp.
8. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
9. Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp.
10. Dhania powder - 3/4 tsp.
11. Jeera powder - 1/4 tsp.
12. Salt - to taste

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a kadai. When oil is hot, temper with Panch Poron or the mixed spices.
2. Add onions and fry till they turn light golden.
3. Add capsicum and sauté till they are half cooked.
4. Now add the tomatoes. Sauté for 2-3 minutes. cover the lid and let cook on a low flame for 5 - 10 mins. Open the lid and check once or twice in between. Tomato leaves water for its cooking. In case the water evaporates and the curry gets stuck to the pan or burns, add 1/4 cup of water, stir well and continue cooking on low flame with lid covered.
5. When the tomatoes are completely cooked ( when you cannot make out the individual pieces) and the capsicum is tender, add in the corn and paneer cubes.
6. Add the powdered spices - turmeric powder, chilli powder, dhania powder and jeera powder. Add salt.
7. Paneer and corn take some time to absorb the spices and salt. So keep covered and continue to cook on low flame for 5 more minutes, stirring in between, adding very little water if required.
8. When all the water is evaporated and the curry looks somewhat homogeneous and dry, switch off the flame.
9. Serve with chapatis.

Togari Kaalu Saaru

Togari Kaalu is the fresh whole form of Tuvar Dal, also known as Pigeon Peas. It is quite common to find it in the markets during the winter months. They can be shelled and stored in the fridge for a week.
The grams are greenish with red spots on them.
This saaru is made from the pigeon peas and the recipe source is my m-i-l.
The saaru can be mixed with rice and eaten and it  also serves as a side-dish for chapati and dosas.

Ingredients:

1. Togari Kaalu - 2 cups
2. Onions - 3
3. Garlic - 8-10 pods
4. Peppercorns - 1 tsp.
5. Tomato - 1 large or 2 small
6. Grated coconut - 3-4 tsp.
7. Coriander leaves - 4-5 sprigs
8. Curry leaves - 1 sprig
9. Sambhar powder - 1 tsp.
10. Oil - 6 tsp.
11. Mustard - 1/2 tsp.
12. Rock salt - 1 tsp.

Procedure:

1. Boil the pigeon peas with a little more than enough water to submerge them, in a pressure cooker with salt added, for 3-4 whistles.
2. Chop the onions length-wise.
3. In a mixie, puree together tomatoes, pepper, garlic, coconut, coriander and curry leaves till it forms a smooth paste.
4. In a kadai, heat oil and add mustard seeds.
5. When the mustard seeds splutter, add the chopped onions and fry well for around 5 mins.
6. Add the boiled peas with the water, the ground masala  paste and sambhar powder.
7. Stir well and boil for around ten mins till the gravy thickens and the raw smell of tomato is gone.
8. Switch off the flame when the desired consistency is reached.
9. Serve with chapatis or rice.