Black channa salad

Here is a crunchy munchy healthy salad..which is very filling as a breakfast or for an evening snack. Just a bowl of it will definitely serve about 200 calories.

1 cup black Channa (Soak overnight, and pressure cook for 2-3 whistle with little salt)
1/2 cup finely chopped tomato
1/2 cup finely grated carrot
1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped cucumber
1 green chilli finely chopped (You could omit this and add ground black pepper for full flavor)
Salt to taste
2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method:
1. Drain the cooked channa to a big salad bowl.
2. Add carrot, cucumber, tomato, onion, cilantro, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Mix well and serve immediately.
3. If you let the salad soak for a longer time, they will leave water and this will make your salad soggy. So keep all veggies ready and mix them just before serving.

Thattai

My husband has been asking me to make some snacks for quite sometime.. If I don’t find something and make, I know the usual Lays chips will sneak in very soon.. So i took the plunge to try some thattais. And they came out very well, crispy and nice brown…

1 cup Rice flour
2 tablespoon whole urad dal flour (Just fry the whole urad dal w/o oil for few minutes, not burning them of course. Let them cool and grind them finely)
2 tablespoon red chilli powder
2 tablespoon kadalai paruppu (soak this in water for about 30 mins, and pat dry them)
1 tablespoon Coconut (Chop them into small strips and quickly just toast them to remove excess moisture)
Dash of hing (Soak hing in teaspoon of water)
Salt to taste (Soak salt in water)
2 teaspoon of butter (preferably unsalted)
Oil for frying

Salt / Hing might contain tiny stones or dirt, and while frying they might burst. So for any murukku / seedai / thattai etc, soak them in water and add them to the dough.

First mix all ingredients except salt and hing to crumble. Then add bit of hing water, and salt water. Start to knead the dough. Keep adding water little at a time and knead the dough. The dough consistency should be like a soft ball, but not sticky, and when you just make balls they should stick w/o falling apart. Then take a about a lemon sized ball. Grease your hand with oil, on a plastic sheet, flatten these balls to a thin pattie. Do not let them dry for a long time. Make about 10 thattais and fry them. The heat of oil is very important. If it’s too hot, thattai will be crisp outside but still soft and uncooked inside. When you drop them in, they should go deep down and immediately fry and float on top. This is the right temperature. Drop them, and reduce the heat, fry on both sides and take them on a tissue paper. And by the time next batch is ready, increase the heat. This will ensure they are crisp and cooked well.

Vazhakkai podimaas

This recipe I got to learn from my sister-in-law. It’s little different from the usual vazhakkai fry..This is simple and tastes well with sambar/rasam/vatha kozhambu.

1 Vazhakkai
2 Green chillies
1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Salt to taste
Urad dal, Mustard seeds, curry leaves, Split chick peas for tempering
1/2 cup shredded coconut
2 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Dash of hing powder
Chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method:
1. Cut the vazhakkai into halves (2 cylindrical) and boil them with little salt and water (Do no pressure cook). They should be boiled 3/4th and not mushy. Remove, peel and grate them (using the bigger size grate) and keep aside. (If you think the vazhakkai is cooked too much, add to cold water immediately from the stove to stop cooking)
2. Add oil to kadai, and once hot add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, add the urad dal, split chick pea and fry. Once the dal turn golden, add hing, green chillies, ginger, curry leaves and fry for a minute. Then add turmeric powder and mix them well.
3. Add the grated vazhakkai, shredded coconut and mix well. Check salt of seasoning.
4. Just before serving mix lemon juice and garnish with coriander leaves. (When you mix lemon juice when hot in kadai, this will bring a sour/bitter taste out of the juice)

Aaloo Palak

Palak paneer is my all time favorite. But since marriage, paneer is kind of untouchable. My husband eat tofu but never paneer. So, I modified my Palak paneer to Aaloo palak. Also, this recipe does not call to grind your spinach.. Again that’s another no-no for my hubby… Oh No!.. How much my taste palate has changed! You could use any variety of spinach, but they should not have a bitter flavor.

1/2 cup washed and finely chopped spinach
2 garlic pods, finely chopped
1 inch ginger, finely chopped
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tomato
1/4 onion
2 teaspoon sambar powder (I mostly use sambar powder, as it has a good combination of chilli, turmeric, coriander, cumin)
2 medium-sized potatoes
2 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoon chopped coriander for garnish

Method:
1. Boil tomato with water, peel them and puree with onion, ginger and garlic. Set this aside.
2. Cut potatoes into medium-sized cubes, boil them with salt. Peel them and keep aside.
3. Add oil to the pan, once hot add the tomato puree mixture. Let this cook with oil on a medium heat until the raw smell vanishes. This takes about 5 mins. Keep stirring occasionally, and add water if it becomes too thick in between.
4. Add the chopped green chillies and stir for 1 min.
5. Add sambar powder, salt and stir them. Add some water and let this mixture cook well until you see oil separating on top, in about 5 mins.
6. Then add cooked spinach, potatoes, milk, some more water to thin and cook with closed lid for 5 mins, stirring occasionally.
7. Garnish with chopped coriander and server with Jeera rice or chapathi.

Lemon-Parsley-Pasta

I always used to wonder, if sauce for pasta is made only of tomatoes or the cheese..I was wondering how would my pasta taste with lemon, parsley, pepper and olive oil. Cos, these ingredients when mixed give a wonderful flavor. So there began my search for a recipe with some addition to these basic ingredients. I had some leftover of the lunch I had made for my hubby, but those were not enough and my hungry stomach was craving to eat something tangy. So this quick recipe really did the magic!

Spaghetti / Angel air / Fettuccine variety of pasta (Since they are super smooth, no twists and turns, that our sauce will coat evenly)
Juice of half a lemon
Zest from half a lemon
1 teaspoon of dried parsley, or if fresh use them finely chopped
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
2 teaspoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
Grated Parmesan cheese (I omitted this, and still it was super yummy)

Extra additions if you like them:
2 tablespoon of finely chopped tomatoes
Just a couple of cauliflower florets (Make them into small flower size, and partially cook them with little salt)

Method:
1. Boil the pasta with little salt until cooked.
2. Meanwhile mix the zest and chopped garlic.
3. Heat a pan and add olive oil. Once hot add the zest+garlic to this and keep stirring, avoiding burns. Idea is to bring out the flavor of this mixture.
4. Add cauliflower florets and coat them with this mixture, and cook for few minutes stirring. Add the pasta water if required to cook. Flowers should not be overcooked, but still crisp.
5. Add parsley, salt, pepper and mix well.
6. Drain the pasta, mix to this sauce, add chopped tomatoes, lemon juice and mix them well in hot pan.
7. Garnish with grated Parmesan cheese if required.

Ensure you do not add more oil. Oil should be enough just to coat the pasta with sauce.

This super simple recipe will be ready in just 15 mins, and the little bitterness from the cooked zest, tangy flavor of lemon with parsley and pepper… of heavenly. In fact I could not even wait to take a pic of this, and just ate them hot from the pan.

Just an update….Here is the pic finally!

Rava Idly

I have never tried making rava idly from that scratch at home. I always used to by MTR rava idly mix, and then make my idlies. But since I moved to Chicago, I could not find my MTR mix, and so wanted to try making them at home. I always knew it was a simple recipe but never gave a try. Only thing I missed was, pulicha thayir. I just used my plain curd, but it was not as flavorful had I used pulicha thayir. probably, next time I will use sour cream and see.

1 cup coarse rava (Don’t use fine bansi rava)
2 1/4 cups beaten curd (all the more better to use pulicha thayir)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup fresh green peas
1/4 cup grated carrots
1/4 cup finely chopped coriander
mustard seeds, urad dal, split chick pea (kadalai paruppu), curry leaves, hing powder for seasoning
2 chillies finely chopped
1 teaspoon of ginger finely chopped
Few cashews
3 tablespoon of oil

Method:
1. Add oil to pan and fry all the seasonings along with cashews.
2. Add chillies and ginger and fry them for a minute.
3. Now add rava and mix it nicely so that the seasonings coat well with rava and just fry for couple of minutes until you get the aroma. Ensure rava doesn’t get burnt.
4. Before adding curd, this dry mixture can be stored in an airtight container for about a week.
5. Now add curd, salt, baking powder to the dry mixture and blend well. The batter should be little thin, because once you leave it for about 30 mins, it would be completely absorbed nicely. Leave this for about 30-40 mins.
6. Just before making the idly, if the batter is too thick, add little water to make it thinner than usual idly batter. It might look it wont be firm, but making it thin, using good soda and pulicha thayir will make idlies very soft and fluffy.
7. Steam cook in idly pan and serve hot with chutney or sambhar.

Sambhar

Sambhar… This dish has various authentic taste to it..Every household in South India has their own version of preparing sambar.. The one I tried to put down here, is something which goes very good with Idly/Dosa or just plain cooked rice. This is not the typical arachu vitta sambar, but something closer to the ones you are served in hotel with your idlies/dosas. And this recipe has very little amount of tamarind and predominantly uses tomatoes to enhance the flavour.

1/2 cup Toor dal
1/2 cup moong dal
Dash of turmeric powder
2 tablespoons of Sambar podi (I had my mom’s made sambar podi and another saaru podi, this is used by the kannadigas. This saaru podi is bright red in colour because of the variety of red chilli which they use in Karnataka. So I used 1 spoon of my sambar podi and 1 spoon of saaru podi). If you need it more spicy you could add another spoon as well. No harm
1 medium-sized ripe tomato
2 small sambar onion
Assortment of vegetables (Carrot, beans, Murungakkai, Onions) cut into medium size
About 1/4 cup of tamarind paste (This should be almost thin and not very thick paste)
Urad dal, mustard seeds, Hing powder, 2 dry red chillies, 2-3 curry leaves for seasoning
2 teaspoon of vegetable oil
Salt to taste
bunch of coriander leaves for final garnish

Method:
1. Grind tomato, sambar powder, sambar onion (chinna vengayam) into a nice paste.
2. Pressure cook both toor dal and moong dal together with little turmeric powder and all the vegetables except onion.
3. Add oil to your pan and fry the seasonings. Add onions to this and fry until they are soft and tender.
4. Remove the dal mix from pressure cooker. Separate the veggies from the dal and mash dal well. Add the veggies first to the pan and give a quick stir and then add dal and just stir.
5. Now add the grind paste, tamarind water, salt and about 1/2 cup of water and let this simmer for about 10-15mins until you see yellow bubbles forming. Now add freshly chopped coriander leaves and serve.

This sambhar is way different from the normal one done at our homes and taste similar to the ones served in hotel, and that’s what I like about this…Happy eating

Stir fry veggies

I have never tried to even cook something close to Chinese… But my husband always says, the stir fried veggies at his office with rice is just too good and easy to cook. So I started my journey towards Asia, to find out various methods of this recipe, and ended up creating my version. It simple easy, yummy and healthy food.

1/2 cup cauliflower florets, medium-sized
1/2 cup firmly packed tofu, cubed (Given an option I would always prefer Paneer to Tofu..)
1/2 cup mixed variety of bell peppers, cut them length wise halved (Green, Red, Yellow They taste so crisp and juicy when fresh. Esp the yellow peppers are so sweet and crunchy you could eat them just like that)
1/2 cup carrots, cut them length wise medium-sized, about 2 inches in length
1/2 cut Green beans, length wise cut and halved
1/2 cup Red onions, chopped of size same as other veggies
2 not so hot green chillies, cut length wise (Do not finely chop)
3 garlic pods, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, finely chopped

For sauce
1 spoon of corn starch
1/2 cup vegetable broth or water
3 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of black pepper powder
2 tablespoon of hot and sweet tomato sauce (Any variety that is tangy and spicy)
Pinch of Sugar
Pinch of salt (Use as per individual buds)

To marinade Cauliflower and Tofu
Pinch of cornstarch
2 tablespoon of soy sauce
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil

For Rice
1/2 cup basmati rice
1 tablespoon of salted butter
1 cup water

Method:
1. First marinade cauliflower and Tofu in separate dishes with the marinade and leave for about 30 mins.
2. After 30 mins, add just 1/4 cup oil in pan, and shallow fry tofu and cauliflower until light crisp. Take them out on a paper towel and leave aside.
3. Wash basmati rice and soak in warm water for 30 mins.

Now lets start with veggies.
1. Take a wok or a heavy bottom pan and heat it until you see the smoke on inside the pan. Add the remaining oil if any left from frying the tofu+ 1/4 of remaining oil.
2. Dissolve corn starch in 1/4 cup vegetable broth, with some chilli powder and keep aside.
3. Once the oil is hot enough, add the ginger garlic. You should literally see them sizzle immediately.
4. Add soy sauce to this and fry quickly. Then add all the vegetables and just stir them.
5. As the veggies start to cook, add the fried tofu/cauliflower and stir.
6. Add little salt, sugar, red pepper flakes, black pepper powder, corn starch mixture, tomato sauce and give a quick stir.
7. Add rest of the vegetable stock and keep frying on medium to high flame. If you need it more tender then add little more water and cook with closed lid. Else just keep stirring on high flame until the veggies are cooked but still crisp.

Rice:
1. Strain the rice.
2. Melt butter in a pan. Add the rice and just fry them for a minute.
3. Add water and cook rice with closed lid for about 15-20 mins until rice is done. Rice when cooked should be long grain and separate.

Serve rice and veggies together.

Alfredo Sauce

This is the most yummiest cheesy sauce, I would always love to have for pasta. Though, my husband always prefers the tomato sauce, hmmm still this is my favourite This is such a simple easy quick sauce to make, provided you are not on DIET or strictly restricting yourself from dipping into cheese or having a quick watch on your calorie.

1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup softened cream cheese brought to room temperature
1/2 cup grated room temperature mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated room temperature parmesan cheese
1/2 cup heavy whipped cream
Milk to thin the sauce (only if required)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of white pepper (optional)

Method:
1. In a heavy bottom pan, melt the butter.
2. To this add the cream cheese and use your wire whisk to whisk quickly to blend butter and cream cheese.
3. Then add the grated mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese and whisk them nicely to a smooth consistency.
4. Once the cheese melts, add the cream, chopped parsley, (white pepper+salt, as per taste buds) and whisk continuously until the sauce thickens and is smooth.
5. Pour this over cooked pasta.

You cooked also pre-cook all your veggies with salt, and have your sauce poured over pasta+veggies. This is my custom+altered recipe for Alfredo sauce… So definitely might not be authentic enough, but tastes just yummy.

White sauce

Eden, Chennai. This place is always my favorite for their baked vegetables/their corn Au gratin / paneer Au gratin. I used to think they are made of just cheese and loads of cheese that I never took efforts to make it at home. But later realized cheese was actually optional. Great, so wanted to try this out with my own version.
So I had some left over mushrooms in my fridge which had to be used else would reach the bin soon. So I decided to make Mushroom Au-gratin. And believe me, it just came out so perfect and yummy. (Portions mentioned for 1 person)

1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tablespoon salted butter
Pinch of salt, White pepper powder, nutmeg powder (optional)
1/2 cup milk

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
1. Add butter to the pan and once starts to melt, add the flour and stir fry quickly. Flour will start to blend with butter and become a nice ball of dough. Don’t let this get burnt.
2. Remove from heat and let it cool for few minutes. Then add milk and use a wire whisk to beat this mixture to remove all lumps.
3. Meanwhile, cut the mushrooms, and cook with little salt and water. Just 2 minutes in a high power microwave is enough. Remove, strain the water and place it in a greased baking pan.
4. To the cooled sauce, add a pinch of salt (per taste), white pepper powder, and other seasonings and get back to heat. Simmer on low flame whisking continuously. This mixture will start to thicken in minutes. So keep an eye.
5. The sauce should not be too thick or too thin. Pour the sauce over the layered mushroom and bake in the oven for about 15 mins.
6. If required, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and cook for another 5 mins until cheese melts and becomes brown on top.

You could substitute mushroom to any of your favorite veggies. Just ensure, they are just half-cooked with little salt, and strained off water. Also, using just less water and steam cooking helps veggies retain their nutrients so that one need not strain off the cooked water.