Ridge Gourd Theeyal / Peechinga Theeyal

I remember once a colleague of mine tasted theeyal from my lunchbox and she was hooked. She was not a Malayalee and fell in love with the Theeyal. In her description, Pulikulambu went to school and university and graduated to become Theeyal.

Theeyal is a very tasty flavorful dish from Kerala. Theeyal I think would roughly translate it into ‘in fire’ or “brunt”. Though the dish is not hot, it is made with browning the coconut. Thus the name?

You can make theeyal with any type of vegetables, or you can even mix all vegetables. You can make it even with Shrimp. Making of theeyal has to be very specific, following the exact instructions to get the right taste.

I made Peeching Theeyal or Ridge gourd Theeyal. Growing up, I never even saw this vegetable among our vendors. I think Ridgegourd is not a preferred Kerala vegetable. But once I started cooking with them, I started to like them.

I scrape the sharp edges and take off the inside seeds if the seeds are thick.

Cut them into pieces, wash – 3 cups

1.5 cup grated coconut and 2 shallots fried to a light brown color. Keep aside.

Dry roast ½ cup coriander seeds, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, 1 tsp of whole black pepper for two minutes. Add 6 dry red chilies and roast them. Please make sure not to burn them. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds and roast them again for a few more seconds. Grind with coconut mixture and ½ tsp turmeric and salt adding only two tsp of water to a very smooth paste.

Tamarind paste – 2 tsp or 2 inch size tamarind in warm water, squeezed and strained.

Heat 1/4 cup oil, lightly fry the ridge gourd pieces and keep aside. Now in the same oil, splutter mustard seeds, saute whole red chilies two split into two, sauté 1 sprig of curry leaves and add the ground coconut paste. Add tamarind water and the ridge gourd piece and slow cook for ten minutes. Prepare this dish ahead and make sure it sits one or two hours before serving.

The flavor and taste is exquisite. Serve with rice or roti or even idli or dosa.

Green Mango Chammanthi - GBP

Wondering what a chammanthi is? Read this and RP's.

This time for GBP Summer 2007 Entry( my second entry), I don’t have anything to write for this post. Let the pictures speak.







3 Green Chilies, 2 Shallots, Salt, 1 cup Sour Green Mango slices peeled – Crush them first, then add 1 cup of coconut and crush them again. I use a wet grinder for making Chammanthi.

Note: If you are buying store bought mangoes in U.S, it might not be that sour, so add 1 tsp of vinegar to the mango slices to get the right sourness.

Jackfruit Seeds and Drumstick Leaves Thoran

A JFI Event started by our dear Indian Food Blog Queen Indira and the super cool ingredient choice by our cutest Bee – and you thought I would have only one entry?

Jackfruit Seeds are edible portions of the jackfruit. They have a nutty taste. I had some left over Jackfruit Seeds and some drumstick leaves. Jackfruit seeds which bee roasted are of ripe jackfruit. You roast only ripe jackfruit seeds. With the raw jackfruit, you don’t normally do that.

This is a simple delicious thoran. Acutally it tasted so good, I snacked on it than eating it with rice :)

Scrape jackfruit seeds, slice it into long pieces and cook them with salt and turmeric. – 1 cup

Crush ½ cup coconut, 1/3 cup shallots, 5 green chilies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 3 pods of garlic, salt and turmeric.

Mix this with the cooked jackfruit and add the washed and squeezed drumstick leaves.

Cover and cook in low flame until the drumstick leaves are cooked.

Serve with rice or roti.

Artichoke Thoran

What will Americans do to a foreign vegetable? They would add cheese slices on it and put in between two breads.
British? They would make it a tikka or fry it in batter and serve with chips.
A malayalee woman? Add some coconut shavings and make it a thoran.

That’s exactly what I do when I see all these alien looking vegetables like Asparagaus, Artichokes etc. I used to read in story books about asparagaus, artichokes etc and wanted to see these vegetables at least once. That time there was no Internet and now anyone in any corner of the world can easily see a picture of anything. Exciting isn’t it? A child sitting under a table (supposedly study time), reading a story book, munching a mango with some salt, wondering what this vegetable would look like that keeps on coming up on her story book pages, can now just click on the mouse and can get every information she needs.

She grows up, gets married, lands in a small town at an alien land, where the most familiar vegetable you get is a cabbage. Rest everything looks completely out of this world. With a deep sigh, with the memories of all those veggies she told her mama she hates while at home, floods in with a deep hurtful taste, she picks up one of these alien vegetables and make a thoran and voila…home…now seems a little more nearer.

Recipe for Artichoke Thoran.

How to clean?
First wash thoroughly in between the leaves and then cut off the stalk and two inches from the top.
Then pluck out all the outer leaves until you reach the leaf where it is half yellow and half green. The outer leaves are hard and chewy. For thoran, you need to take only the soft inside leavesCut it into two. Dip the cut portions in ½ tsp turmeric water since artichokes turn black immediately. Now take out the violet colored leaves and the small hairy portion which holds the violet leaves.
Dice it small (two artichokes prepared like this would yield 1 cup).
I had one cup of moong dal sprouts too. Blanch the sprouts.

Small onion – ¼ cup

Heat 1 tsp oil, splutter mustard seeds, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 1 whole red chili split into two, add diced onion and 1 crushed garlic, 3 green chilies, sauté until onion is translucent, add diced artichoke and the blanched sprouts, add salt and turmeric cover and cook in low flame. After 10 minutes, add ¼ cup of grated coconut and mix and cook for another 5 minutes.
Keep the fire in maximum and open cook for one or two minutes until dry.
Serve as a side dish for rice or roti.

Now don’t you want to know what it really tastes like? It tastes like banana flower. Yes! Ditto! Missing banana flower thoran? Make with artichokes!

Note: The leaves you pluck out from the artichoke can be put into sambar. It would be like drumstick sambar. You eat artichoke the same way you eat drumstick. The outer leaves you discard for a thoran are chewy. You just suck on it like you do for drumstick and discard the harder skin.

Coconut red chammanthi

Don’t call my chammanthi chutney please. Chutneys are not chammanthi. Chutney is watery version of a chammanthi. In Kerala, this red chammanthi is made in a stone ammikkallu. View a picture of ammikkallu from another blog.

I don’t know the English term for ammikkallu. It is a flat bed stone with a round rolling stone. You place the ingredients on the flat bed stone and with the rolling pin, you crush and grind the ingredients and a chammanthi made like that is bliss.

I have seen portable version of these heavy stone in India. One of these days when I can sneak one into my suitcase without my husband's knowledge, I will surely bring it here. But for now, I have to make it in a small wet grinder. I have Revel small wetgrinder and is perfect for small quantities like chammanthi.

At home, mom would prepare the chammanthi using the stone crusher and finally make it into a ball shape. Somehow, the ball shape of the chammanthi is etched into my mind, whenever I make it, I have to have it finally in ball shape.

This is eaten with rice. Rose matta rice kanji, roasted papad and red coconut chammanthi….mmmmm.

How to make it?
Fresh grated Coconut – 2 cups
Red Chili powder – 2 tsp
Fresh Tamarind without the seed – 1.5 square inch (Do not use the paste)
One small shallot
Salt

Coarse grind all this together without adding any water. The water content the coconut is more than enough. Do not grind it fine. Then it becomes a chutney like consistency. Make it into a ball shape (optional) :-)

Serve with rice. This usually goes with only rice.

JFI - Chakkapuzhukku (Mashed Raw Jackfruit)

I have been missing out on many JFI’s mainly due to laziness. But as soon as I saw this JFI ingredient by our cute Bee, I knew I couldn’t miss it. JFI-JackFruit. Whoa! Can anything be more Indian ingredient than that? Can any food blogger with turmeric tainted blood stay away from that?

I couldn’t! and guess what? My mom who doesn’t even know I blog, sends me packets and packets of fresh jackfruit through a friend just two weeks ago. This is what you call heavenly godly coincidence.

Then, what do I do? I being a true blue Malayalee think about all different kind of recipes for JFI to surprise everyone and end up with the good old Chakkaapuzhukku, a very Kerala dish. Aarggh...! I think I am cursed.

I don’t have to search the internet to write down these. Just need to jot down my memories. While growing up on plenty of jackfruits every season in Kerala, I grew upon two varieties. One is koozhchakka, a very fibrous variety, but not as tasty as the other one which is varikkachakka. Varikkachakka has a special variety known as thenvarikka which really tastes like honey. Varikkachakka fruit is very firm and you can eat as much as you want without getting a stomach ache.

1. jackfruit seed removed and halved
2. thin skin covering of the jackfruit seed
3. white strings on the whole fruit
4. whole fruit plucked from the thick skin
5. how the seed is attached to the whole fruit.

Usually you ripen the varikkachakka and eat is as a fruit. People prefer ripe varikkachakka as a fruit than the koozhchakka. Raw koozhachakka is prepared into curries etc. It is said that if you feast on too much koozhachakka, you get a stomach ache. I am not sure on this or whether the elders made us believe it.

Most jackfruit trees need special care while growing to make it varikka. Even if you buy varikka varieties to plant, it might end up as a koozha, since I remember my dad telling, the trees offshoot should be trimmed early or something like that.

Cutting jackfruit is a very tedious process. It is full of oozy sap that will stick to anything in contact. In most Kerala homes, there is an open verandah at the backside near to the kitchen, where all these kind of work is done. My mom or grandmom would sit down on the floor, with one leg folded upwards. They then hold the chakka with the left hand and with the right foot and would cut it into pieces with a hoom hoom noise as the knife goes down. We all sit round waiting it to be cut and distributed to savor it. I remember this process when I hear someone crib about cutting pineapple. I would think, wait until you cut a jackfruit.

While handling whole jackfruit, one needs special care to avoid the sap from sticking to your clothes etc. So you need to be very careful while cutting it. If you eat it directly, your hand also will be coated with a light film of sap. To wash it off, you first apply coconut oil and then wipe it clean with a cloth and then wash it off. There is a superstition that if you wash it off directly without oil, next year the tree won’t bear any fruits. I think this is a technique to remind everyone that without applying coconut oil to your hands first, you cannot actually get it cleaned thoroughly.

Even eating jackfruit is an art. My mom would cut the whole jackfruit into small portions with the skin on. We kids would then pluck off the fruit from the hard skin, take out the white strings attached to each fruit, bite into it and cut open into two. Then we take off the seed and a thin skin which covers the seeds and eat the fruit. Seeds, the white string covering, the thin cover of the seeds should not be eaten. Seeds can be eaten cooked.

Chakkapuzhukku Recipe

This dish is made with raw koozha jackfruit.

Half the jackfruit like 1 and cut each fruit into two inch pieces. – 3 cups

Cook covered with little salt and turmeric powder and ½ cup of water. When cooked, crush 1 cup of coconut, with ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, 5 green chilies and one sprig of curry leaves. Add the mixture crushed to this dish, mix well and cook covered for 5 more minutes and mash the cooked jackfruit lightly.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil, sauté two whole red chilies broken and add to the dish.This is served as a main dish usually with chicken or some meat curry.

My picture doesn’t show it completely mashed, since I didn’t know how the picture would turn out, but you would need to mash it little more, maybe for 5 more minutes to get the right consistency of a puzhukku. Puzhukku in Malayalam refers to boiled and mashed.

This post is also for my dear Revathi who had so many questions about jackfruit.

See 1. KappaPuzhukku
2. Jackfruit Erisseri

Vaazhakkoombu Thoran or Banana Flower Fry

There are a lot of blog posts by fellow bloggers for this banana flower side dish. But is there one with a banana flower plucked from your own banana plant? :-)

Well, this is my first entry of the GBP Summer 2007, hosted by dear Deepz at LetzCook.

A banana flower side dish from my garden. Vaazhakkoombu thoran. Vaazhakkoombu is Malayalam for banana flower.

Remember this Odissi dancer? It has grown and become a big banana plant. I had some honey from the same.

When the bananas start to mature, you can break off the flower from the banana bunch(?).

Banana flowers are without a doubt extremely nutritious with all that fiber content. It is a very tasty dish when prepared properly. The main thing one need to take care is the outer violet or res skin. Do not include that. It will taste bitter. Peel the skin until you reach the crème colored inside.

Cut of the stalk or the end-portion, dice them very small. If you have only one banana flower the amount will be very less when you cook it. So, I add whole moong beans.

Banana Flower diced and immediately immersed in water with a little turmeric. This keeps the color intact or the diced pieces will turn black. – 2 cups
Cooked whole mong beans (Cook this in a pressure cooker) – 1 cup
Shallots – ½ cup
Green chilies slit – 4
Garlic with skin crushed – 2 pod

Heat 3 tsp oil, add ½ tsp mustard seeds. When they splutter, add one whole red chili, add 1 sprig of curry leaves, and add the garlic. When garlic turns slight brown, add shallots and sauté them until translucent.

Add banana flower, add ½ tsp turmeric powder, enough salt, mix and cook covered in low flame for 5 minutes. Add moong beans and ½ cup coconut and cook covered for another ten minutes.

Cook in high heat for tow or three minutes uncovered to dry the dish.

Serve with roti or rice.

Okay, how are your plants doing? Are they all getting ready to enter GBP 2007?

Sour Ginger / PuliInji

I had lot of plans for Winter GBP including carrots, cabbage etc. But since I got sick, everything flopped. But hope there are some entries for those veggies this coming GBP round-up.

I only have one entry for this Winter round-up. Mandira of Ahar is hosting this year's Winter GBP. Deadline is on April 10 2007.

Last year we had a wonderful GBP round-up with 41 entries. It was fantastic! (I lost my old post with around 40 plus comments on my old blog when Blogger beta died on me. Could recover only the post but not those valuable comments) :(

Inji is Malayalam for Ginger. If you know how to type Ginger, you will be bombarded with lot of information.

An old article from Indian Express caught my attention,

Excerpt:Cochin ginger , still considered the finest of ginger varieties by exporters .

Cochin ginger is second only to the legendary Jamaican ginger for its suitability for drying. While most of the ginger available in India now is suited only to be used as vegetable, low fiber content has made the Cochin ginger an all-time favorite with exporters.

Even though Ginger is from China, Ginger cultivated in Kerala has an exclusive flavor, due to the uniqueness in soil. It is smaller in size, has less fiber and has less water content than the commonly found variety. Potency of Kerala ginger is double fold than the other varieties.I had planted some ginger in a pot six months ago. The leaves die when ginger is mature.

As usual, there are many methods to make Sour Ginger or Puli Inji. I have heard Kerala Brahmins don’t add coriander seeds to this dish. My version has coriander seeds. This method of preparation is from Trichur or towards Northern Kerala. If you move towards the South, they add coconut pieces to this dish and preparation is slightly different. However this is the best way of preparation for longer shelf life.

Ginger scraped and cleaned cut into 2 inch pieces crushed into thin fiber like pieces. Crushed is the word here, Do not use a food processor and make a paste please. – 1 cup.

Whole coriander seeds – 3 tsp, Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp, Chili powder or red dry whole chilies – 1 tsp, Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp. Roast everything in 1 tsp gingelly oil for one minute. If chili powder is used, add it towards the end and take off from fire immediately.
Grind to a watery paste with tamarind water (3 inch tamarind piece soaked in 1 cup of warm water and strained).

Shallow fry ginger in coconut oil until light brown. Strain the oil. In a non-reactive cooking pot, add fried ginger and the tamarind paste, salt and 2 cups of water and let it boil in high flame. Do not close with lid. Remove from fire when the dish thickens and add 2 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavors.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil (can use the strained oil from frying ginger), splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, saute 1 sprig of curry leaves, ¼ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the dish. Serve with rice.Sour Ginger prepared this way stores well for one month in your refrigerator and a whole week outside. This is served like a pickle or condiment. It is said, this is equivalent to 101 curries. The taste is so unique and delicious; if you ever taste it once; a slight memory of this dish creates floods in your mouth. I can confidently challenge anyone to come up with a dish in ginger better than this.

If you have never tasted this simple yet World’s best recipe on ginger, do try.

Plantain Pulisseri

I can safely say most part of authentic Kerala cuisine is curd based. We love our pulisseris. We make it in a hundred different ways with a hundred different ingredients. Ah-ha! I know, if you are in U.S, you are thinking of something called yogurt. Nope, Nah! Yogurt is not curd. Phlueeze.

How to make Curd? Read Dhanya or Indira. I make mine in full throttle whole milk.

Where to get the real Indian curd active culture? If you have a Hindu temple in your state, mostly their kitchen will have it. Beg, borrow, steal!

Or, next time bring it from India if you will reach home in 24 hours. Mix a little bit of active culture with milk and throw it into your suitcase, it would turn curd by the time you reach U.S if you don’t have any lengthy stopovers.

You cannot make this dish with yogurt. You have to have curd, the real sour curd.Pulisseri in Malayalam means ‘sour dish’.

Two Raw Plantains – Wash thoroughly but do not take off the skin. Just scrape out the protruding rims on the skin. The skin gives it a very unique taste. Cut them into 2 inch pieces. Cook them thoroughly with a little salt and ¼ tsp turmeric powder in water. Cook until done.

Grind together 1 cup coconut, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies into a fine paste. Add to the cooked plantains. When it boils, lower the flame and cook for another ten minutes. With lowered flame, add 4 cups of beaten curd to this and keep on stirring until the curd is just warm to touch. Do not boil it.

Take off immediately from heat.

Heat 1 tsp coconut oil, splutter ½ tsp mustard seeds, 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 2 red chili split, ½ tsp fenugreek seeds in that order. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Cabbage Thoran

What is in a simple cabbage thoran? It is the simplest thing anyone can do. Why blog about it then?

There might be one new wife out there, a new student out there missing home and mama terribly, frantically looking and searching and thinking what to do with this whole cabbage he or she just bought it from the shop. She/he would have tasted the cabbage thoran umpteen times, but never thought of cooking it until now. These simple recipes, as simple as they might seem, always are a help to the new little chefs out there.

I always encourage people to blog about these simple dishes which we normally don’t get in restaurants and it doesn’t matter if there is a hundred posts about the same cabbage. That’s what blogs are all about. No matter how many homes you visit or no matter how many times you eat the same food, each time, each home makes it a little different. To me, food blogs are a celebration of that to be precise.

That’s why food blogging is so much fun. You create, you serve the food at home and then you share the experience with your virtual friends. Sharing is the most beautiful thing in this World. Take off two or three leaves off the cabbage and wash thoroughly. Cut a portion of it without the stalk in the middle. The hard stalk in the middle and the base of the cabbage should be discarded.

I have never been able to replicate my moms cabbage dicing. She makes small cuts like tak tak tak and then dices it very thin. I have never been able to do that, so I cut off a seven inch large piece and then dice it small like I do with onions.

For 4 cups of diced cabbage,
Heat 2 tsp oil, splutter 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, sauté 1 red chili split, 1 sprig of curry leaves, add 3 tsp of whole urad dal until light brown and add ½ cup diced onion and sauté well until the onion is translucent.

Add ¼ tsp turmeric powder and add the diced cabbage and lower the heat to minimum. Add salt and mix well and cover tightly and cook for 10 minutes.

Coarse grind 3 pods of garlic and ½ cup of grated coconut, 4 green chilies and ½ tsp cumin seeds. Keep this mixture in the middle of the cabbage and then cover the mixture with the cabbage.

Cook closed for another 10 minutes in low flame. Mix well and sauté until dry.Serve with rice or roti.

Kovakka Thoran

Kovakka, Tindora, Ivy gourd – This vegetable has many names, but the fact remains is that it doesn’t taste as good as the other vegetables. Yes, Yes, I am on an honesty trip here.

Kovakka is malayalam for Ivy gourd.

First of all, ivy gourd when cut has a light film of sap (?) which makes it a little bitter/tough to munch on, fresh. Even if you bombard it with all your spices your hands can get, kovakka doesn’t absorb the flavors and would still taste a little bland.

But why eat it then? It is so good for you, there are even claims it is good for diabetes patients. It is a good source of beta carotene as well. In Thailand, this vegetable is promoted to grow in homes to control the vitamin A deficiency.Ivy gourd is termed an invasive weed in U.S. One of our friends tried to sneak in the plant from India and the customs got him. So he acted as if he doesn’t understand English when the U.S customs officer questioned about the plant.

Customs officer being an Indian himself, told him straight to his face, “Until now, I heard you speaking good English to your wife Sir, how soon you got amnesia?” hehehehe

So, there you are, don’t sneak in the plant to U.S territory. :-) . Don’t ask me, whether I have it, then you would have to explain and define the word “is” (Courtesy: President Clinton).

Anyway, one friend gave me this wonderful recipe which will make any kovakka-haters swoon over it.

Wash the kovakka thoroughly in running water, cut off both the tips. Make two lengthwise cuts and then cut the kovakka into half making it eight pieces.

For 3 cups of cut kovakka,

Crush together, kudampuli or tamarind (1 inch size), ½ cup coconut, 6 shallots diced, 3 garlic pods diced, 4 green chilies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, ½ tsp turmeric powder and enough salt. Don’t grind it, just crush them in a pestle.

Mix this with the kovakka and add ¼ cup of water and keep in medium flame. When it is half cooked, add 2 cups of cooked small shrimps, mix it and cook again in low flame.

You can completely avoid the shrimp part if you are vegetarian, but non-vegans out there, the shrimp makes it too good :-)

When the mixture is dry, heat 2 tsp pf coconut oil, splutter ½ tsp of mustard seeds and add to this.Serve with rice.

Radish mezhukkupuratti

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Red Red Radish – But what’ that nasty odor when you cook it?
Yeah, there is no doubt radish a very healthy vegetable, but I somehow cannot stand the pungent odor. So, I peel them completely, turn them into white little balls and make mezhukkupuratti with them. I know I am losing some of its nutrients, but I would rather pop a vitamin pill than eat it and say eeewww ;-)Mezhukkupuratti is Malayalam for plain sautéed vegetables.

Peel the radish, dice them small – 3 cups
Onion diced – 1 cup

Heat 2 tsp oil, splutter ½ tsp mustard seeds, sauté 1 sprig of curry leaves and add the diced onion and sauté them until translucent.

Add the diced radish, add salt, add ½ tsp turmeric powder and add 2 tsp red chili powder.

Mix well, add ¼ cup water, cover and cook in low flame. Cook dry.

Making mezhukkupuratti with red chili is a Trichur regional specialty. South of Trichur green chilies are added to the dish.Serve with rice or roti.

Moong Bean Thoran

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What is a food blog (mainly listing Kerala food) without a moong bean thoran?
Or in other words, I don’t know why I didn’t yet blog about the cherupayar thoran from Kerala.

Now I always write it as Moong, but actually it is spelled Mung Beans. ‘Mung’ is derived from Hindi word ‘mung’ says Wikipedia. That would also mean we can be sure it originated in India. Mung bean is cultivated in most places in South Asia and is very much a part of the cuisine in South Asia.

Ayurveda is very partial to mung beans.

Excerpt:
Of the most usable pulses, moong is one that has been described as the best for day-to-day use. Acharya Charaka has written that in both the green and yellow forms, it is astringent and sweet in taste, dry, light and cold in potency and has pungent post-digestive effect. It alleviates the vitiated kapha and pitta and is recommended to be served as soup during illness and convalescence. Due to its easily digestible properties moong dal is a dish of choice for people suffering from weak digestion, diarrhoea and dysentery and for those who are bed-ridden due to any prolonged illness. Sprouting makes the mung bean very nutritious adding Vitamin C to its list of nutrients. But be careful of buying the sprouted beans from shops. The link says, Commercial Mung Beans are grown with chemicals and gasses in huge 500 gallon machines. I have always wondered about that!

Whole Mung bean - 2 cups pressure cooked with 1 cup water for 15 minutes. It is ideal that the bean should retain its shape, so don’t cook it to death. (Yeah, I have done that many a times)

Heat ¼ cup oil; splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 split red chili, 1 sprig of curry leaves. Crush 4 pods of garlic with skin, ½ tsp cumin seeds, and 5 green chilies and add to this. Roast the garlic until brown. Then add 6 shallots diced and sauté. Add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder.

Add the cooked mung bean to this and ½ cup of coconut, enough salt and mix well. Cover and cook until dry.Serve with rice.

Easy Tomato Rasam

I hated rasam. I tasted rasam for the first time when I went to Tamil Nadu one time and I just couldn’t understand what this dark water curry was? We ordered a thali and there it was in a small steel tumbler, some kind of brownish water. I poured it on the rice thinking it was some kind of sambar and I thought the hotel people were fooling us by giving colored water as curry.

I hated that water! First of all, I didn’t know I had to mix it only after the meal as a final lap. And it tastes delicious if you mix it with a little buttermilk. It is even better if you just drink it. All these rasam tricks, I had no clue.

Later, I took some liking to it when I knew about all those tricks.

But, how do you prepare it?

Dal water, Rasam powder, yada...yada...yada.

Oh! I am not going to take so much trouble to make a curry which is not even a curry.

So I never made rasam.

Wait, that is not the end of story. I was visiting a friend of mine in Dallas. She had unexpected guests and she made something quickly for dinner and what did she make? Rasam! No rasam powder, no dal water, nothing. But it tasted soooo good, better than any rasam I had ever had.Here is that recipe. All those rasam aficionados don’t be shocked at this version. Try it and you will love it.

5 ripe tomatoes cut into 4
2 tsp whole peppercorns
½ tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
½ tsp red chili powder
6 cloves of garlic
3inch tamarind soaked in warm water for some time, squeezed and strained to get the tamarind liquid.
1 tsp sambar powder – optional

Blend all this in a mixer adding ½ cup water.

Heat 1 tsp oil, splutter mustard seeds, pour this mixture and when it starts to boil, simmer for 5 minutes. That’s it. Tomato Rasam is ready! Easy as a breeze isn’t it?A must for any rasam, I have understood is fresh coriander leaves. Garnish with coriander leaves and have it with rice.

Snake gourd barges

I think it is a very Indian tradition to have a cup of chai(tea) and a snack before sunset. Especially you reach home famished from work or school and evening snack is a must.

Usually at home, we open a chips packet for evening snack. I feel a little guilty about it and I am always in search of quick healthy snacks.

I am fascinated by snake gourd and I do think, if there is a vegetable on earth perfect for stuffing, it is this, it is this, it is this! The round and lengthy shape surely screams, “Stuff me!”

If there is a stuffing that never fails, it is potato, potato, potato!

So, I thought of making potato-laden snake gourd barges.

Choose a young snake gourd, cut of both tips, scrape lightly, wash and clean.Cut into equal portions of 6 or more inches. Cut open into two parts and remove the seeds from the middle. Brush outside and inside with a mixture of 1 tsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp chili powder and 1 tsp salt.
For 10 barges,
Dice potato into small pieces – 1 cup
Onion – ½ cup
Olive oil – 1 table spoon
Balsamic vinegar – 2 tsp
Chili Powder – 3 tsp
Salt – as needed.

Mix everything and stuff the barges.

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake on the top rack for twenty minutes or until done.Serve with cream or sauce.

Olan

I have been really busy this whole week, and have been eating only rice and pickle. So, couldn’t post which I wanted to very badly.

Now, when a friend gave me the recipe of Olan (a must dish in Onam Sadya), I thought she was kidding. How can an exquisite dish have a recipe so simple? I had never tasted Olan before and have never even seen it during my childhood years. Only later when I moved out of home, I got introduced to this wonderful dish.

It is a simple recipe yet so royal, which reminds me of the traditional Kerala Kasavu Sarees. Plain cream colored sarees with a small zari border, they look so simple yet when you wear it, it looks royal. Somehow Olan reminds of this.

You can make Olan using Ash gourd, young green Pumpkin.

I am not sure one can make it using young green Papaya. Anyway I tried it and it tastes the same as you cook it with Ashgourd. I normally make it with Ashgroud, but this time I made it with young papaya.

Papaya needs to be peeled, the seeds removed and cleaned, then cut into small pieces.
Papaya – 4 cups.
Red moong beans – 1 cup (pressure cooked, should not lose its shape)

Now, cook papaya with 6 green chilies split, 1 sprig of curry leaves, and ½ tsp of cumin powder in 2 cups of water. Simmer and let the water evaporate completely.

When done and the papaya turns soft, add 2 cups of fresh coconut milk and the cooked red moong beans. Cook for another 5 or 6 minutes with open lid. Olan shoud not be watery.

Take from stove and add 2 tsp of coconut oil and mix. (Yes, if you ask me coconut oil is a must.) That’s it.
Serve with rice. The Royal Olan is ready!

Now, for some updates. We all know about Yahoo India stealing contents from individual blogs. Concerned parties send an email to Yahoo (U.S) office and those emails were forwarded to Yahoo India. No reply yet! But the funny thing is those contents were removed from the site silently. That means they are sure they committed the violation.

However, I do think they ought to put an apology on Yahoo site. A silent removal is not accepted. Since, the main thing is we all cannot always go behind each and every person and it is a big headache. This time, Yahoo has done it and if they put an apology it will be a lesson to future violators.

What you can do? Please do send emails from your company address, especially if you have a good company name like Microsoft, Intel, Google etc. For this matter to be taken urgently and to get noticed since your company email id gives the complaints validity.

Please do send emails to Mary Osako (mosako@yahoo-inc.com), Linda Du (lindadu@yahoo-inc.com). You can get more email address from here


Thank you again all for the support.

Ginger Candy and Injithair

It has been a couple of blog years since I took part in JFI. I know I know they have been missing my entry :-). RP reminded me of JFI and this time the ingredient is JFI-Ginger. How can a ginger girl from ‘Ginger and Mango’ not take part in that?

So, I thought of all complicated dishes and ended up on this very complicated dish called Injithair in South Kerala. This I have seen only served during Onam festival sadya.

Grate some ginger 1 cup, 3 green chilies, crush them together, add 1 cup of curd.
That’s it. Injithair is ready.

Then I remembered how long back Sarah wanted the recipe for injimuttai or ginger candy. This candy is sold especially in bus stops by small vendors, for this can alleviate the nausea and discomfort during the bus journeys. This was the only candy that passed the test of parents and you could eat them lot.
I didn’t get the recipe for injimuttai. I searched for ginger candy and ended up with lot of recipes. I am unable to remember whether the ginger candy we used to eat was made from whole ginger or ginger juice? Anyway I made with ginger pieces. Boil 1 cup of diced ginger pieces in water for 15 minutes and strain. This makes the ginger pieces softer.

For 1 cup of ginger, add ½ cup of sugar and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil and then simmer until the sugary water evaporates completely. Make sure ginger pieces do not start to stick to the pan. Take off from heat, arrange the ginger pieces on a wax paper and dry them. (I used brown sugar and the candy resembled garnet)
I am not sure whether the ginger candy or the nostalgia tasted great.

Kadala Curry or black channa dal curry

Everybody makes channa dal and then my aunt makes channa dal…

Usually in Kerala households, black channa is made with ground fried coconut or coconut milk. Kerala has a special liking for black channa, but even then I don’t think our coconut version of channa dal curry or kadala curry is impressive.
Though this big secret of non-impressive kadala curry has been hushed up by many mothers and grandmothers, the rebel that I am had to come out with the truth one day.
“Actually, you know, err…I am not really found of our Kerala style kadala curry. Channa and coconut do not blend together and all the curries I have tasted of channa, the adamant black channa refuses to get infused with the delicate coconut”

There was absolute silence as I blurted this out during an unofficial family gathering and then my lovely aunt, held my hand, looked into my confused eyes and told me…
”I know what you are saying. I have been there. Come, I will teach you the secrets of this harsh World…err…sorry I got carried away…I will show you how to make proper kadala curry”

She then taught me how to make the best kadala curry I have tasted and how to ditch the coconut.

Black channa dal – 2 cups washed and soaked for more than 12 hours.

Pressure cook 1/2 cup onion, 2 tsp of chili powder, 1 tsp of garam masala powder, ¼ cup garlic crushed, 1 tsp ginger diced, 3 green chilies and ¼ cup tomato diced with the soaked black channa adding enough salt and 1/4 tsp turmeric powder and add ½ cup water. Pressure cook well. Black channa needs a lot of time to get cooked.

Heat oil, splutter mustard seeds, sauté 1 spring curry leaf. To this add a little salt and a pinch of turmeric. Then add the cooked channa mixture. Now is the trick. Add ¼ cup of ordinary tomato sauce, mix well in the curry and then let it simmer for 5 minutes.Serve it with rice, roti, or puttu.

Pumpkin with Red Moong Beans

Guess which food blogger has never cooked with something good and delicious like pumpkin?

Clue: We all love her to death…This post is for her. When you correctly guess I will keep a link :)

Excerpt from the link: The bright orange flesh of pumpkin is loaded with beta-carotene. This vitamin is an important antioxidant that helps us fight free radicals.This is called Erisseri in some places which I think is not right :-).

As spicyana corrected me once, Erisseri gets it name from erikkuka, which is the last process of erisseri where coconut is fried and added. This dish is not prepared like that.Pumpkin diced into 2 inch pieces – 3 cups, Red Moong Beans – 1 cup (soaked over night and cooked or cooked in a pressure cooker without soaking) Grind 1 cup grated coconut with ¼ tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp red chili powder, 6 garlic pods, ½ tsp cumin seeds. Grind to a fine paste.

Cook the pumpkin covered in little water and when half cooked, mash them lightly and add cooked red moong beans and the ground paste along with 2 cups of water. Cook in medium heat uncovered.When it is cooked, heat 1 tsp of oil, splutter ¼ tsp mustard seeds, sauté 2 sprigs of curry leaves and sauté 2 dried red chili split into two.You will love this! Serve with rice or roti.

Bittergourd Theeyal

Tired attending the parade?
Let me make you some rice and theeyal? :-)

I think every Malayalee has a slightly different way of preparing theeyal. It is a very Kerala type dish.Theeyal can be made with so many different vegetables and ulli theeyal (shallots) is the most delicious one.I make it usually with bitter gourd. As we all know bitter gourd is so good for you and when prepared as theeyal, its bitterness doesn’t bother you.Bittergourd deseeded - 2 diced into bite sized pieces about 3 cupsCoconut - 1 cup.
Shallots diced – ¼ cup, Curry leaves – a sprig, Coriander seeds(or powder) – 2 tsp, Chili powder – 2 tsp

Heat ¼ tsp coconut oil and fry the coconut and shallots(shallots is very important) until light brown in color. I actually don’t fry them in oil. I don't like too much oil so I dry roast them. Sauté curry leaves also for one minute.

Add coriander seeds to this, sauté well. Add chili powder and ¼ tsp turmeric powder and take off from fire. Grind to a smooth paste.

Soak a 1 inch square sized tamarind in warm water.Heat 1 tsp coconut oil. Splutter mustard seeds and 1 sprig of curry leaves. Sauté 1 tsp of diced shallots and add bitter gourd to this. Fry the bitter gourd until it the skin light brownish. Add the strained tamarind water to this and the ground paste.

When the curry thickens, remove from fire. Set it aside for 15 minutes. Theeyal stays good the next day without refrigeration.Serve with rice or dosa, idli, appam etc.

See Priya's Theeyal