Vegetable Stew

This recipe is from my friend's mom. Mini Aunty, this recipe has been on our list since the time Rahul took it from you over the phone! Representing it the way we cook, which may not really be Kerala style, but is absolutely mouth-watering!

Ingredients-

Veggies-2 cups in all- carrots, potato, peas, French beans, capsicum - all cubed

1 onion chopped

1 tomato chopped

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

Spices- crushed together- 1" cinnamon, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp peppercorns, 1 cardamom, 2 cloves

Curry leaves
Salt
Oil

coconut milk- 1/2 a cup

2 tsps almond/cashew / poppy seed paste to make the gravy thick, can also use thick coconut milk.

I use 1 tsp turmeric for color.

Directions-

Heat oil, add the spices, let them splutter. Add the onions, ginger garlic, curry leaves and saute. When the onions are translucent, add the veggies and salt. Mix well. Add coconut milk, bring to a boil, simmer and continue to cook covered till the veggies are soft and done. Add the almond/ cashew paste and continue to cook for a couple of mins. Turn off flame, Serve with rotis / appams.

Utthapam

The best thing about Utthapams is that they are easy to make and ready in no time. Inspite of all that, they are tasty just as is, or with ketchup or with spicy tomato chutney or sambar!

Veg utthapam recipe-

Ingredients-

4 cups of dosa batter -store bought (I don't have the patience to make my own batter and wait for it to sour.. uff)

salt to taste

1 tsp jeera

1 tsp chopped curry leaves

1 tsp chopped coriander

1 medium onion chopped finely

1 tsp fresh grated coconut

Some veggies- capsicum, carrots, any other veggies of your choice but chopped finely)

Directions-

Heat the tava / griddle. Mix all ingredients in the batter and spread spoonfuls of this batter on the tava. Do not spread very thin, drizzle a bit of oil around the edges. Let cook, flip and cook till done. Serve hot with accompaniments of your choice. It is ketchup for me :)

Litti and baingan bharta

Here's an old pic from Bhagalpur days that is making me drool.
Litti, baingan bharta and kheer :)

Methi Roti / Fenugreek flat bread

Ingredients-
2 cups wheat flour
2 bunches of fresh fenugreek leaves cleaned, chopped (I even use the stems, you can chop into small bits or use the food processor)
water for making dough

carom and nigella seeds - 1 tsp each
salt (i skipped this)
Oil for cooking / ghee / home-made white butter
Method-

In a mixing bowl, add methi leaves, flour, ajwain / carom and mangrela/ nigella. Add salt if you like.
Mix with enough water and make a dough.

Heat tava, roll out chapatis like you would. You can use a bit of oil to cook or use ghee on the chapatis after cooking them. They taste best with white home made butter!

Scrambled eggs and mushrooms

Just yesterday I made some, and I am rushing this recipe to the event at Relishing Food. This is a part of the series Herbs and Flowers in my Platter by PJ. 

My recipe-
2 eggs

1 medium onion chopped

1 tomato chopped

1 cup Mushrooms

Olive oil to cook
Salt - to taste
2 tbsps milk to whisk the eggs

Directions-

Whisk the eggs in a bowl with the milk and keep aside.

Heat oil, add the onions till they turn transparent. Add mushrooms and cook on high for 3-5 mins till they lose some water, begin to cook and soften. Keep tossing in between to let them cook evenly. 

(At this stage I added a bit of turmeric and some coriander powder to Indianise my dish, you can skip it or do it)

Add the tomatoes and salt and let them cook till done. Add the beaten eggs and cook them till they are done. 

You can add some pepper at this stage, mushrooms are heavenly with pepper. But I didn't because of Yashi. 

I served them with Sandwiches and that is another post I will do soon!

Chicken Stew- absolutely Mallu!

Can we ever stop drooling over Mallu food! No!!

There are two things I like aboout the new house. One, we can cook chicken here. Our earlier landlord was a true-blue Iyengar. Aiyyo! And second, if there is "hip and happening" in namma Bengaluru, it is Koramangala. Sajjad Bhai, a local meat shop owner delivers your stuff home at no extra cost. Yay! I planned for days, and one day, I set out to make chicken stew.
My recipe-
Powder / crush the following spices-
1 tsp peppercorns
2 cloves
1 cardamom
1 tsp fennel seeds
1" long cinnamon stick

Other stuff needed-
1/2 kg washed and cleaned chicken with bone
Cut up some veggies too-
1/2 a cup of carrots chopped
1 medium potato cubed
1 tomato
1 onion
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 cup thin coconut milk
water as needed
Salt
oil to cook
curry leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric (I like my chicken colored, you can skip)

Directions-
In a deep pan, heat oil, add the crushed spices. Let them splutter. Add onion, ginger garlic, curry leaves and saute. Don't let the onions turn brown. Now add the rest of the veggies, chicken, thin coconut milk, bring to boil. At this point, I transferred all the contents into my rice cooker with a bit of water and cooked the chicken alternating between warm and cook (these are the 2 options my rice cooker has). Cook for about 15-20 mins till the chicken is done. I added 2 tsps of almond and poppy seed paste for making a thick gravy. I served with hot rotis.

I added 1 tsp of ghee later for added effect. It must have been good, because Niket and I finished the whole thing in 15 mins flat.

Also check Veg stew.

Purple cabbage with spring onions stir fry

A long time back I got an email from Torview, check out her blog for some awesome recipes!. It mentioned an event with the color purple. It haunted me for a few days.. What could I make that's purple? I didn't think beets would give the right color, and brinjals were out of question, because Niket is allergic to them. I went to Namdhari's and saw purple cabbage selling for Rs 2 per kg, and I got mine for 80 paise! (Someday I will tell my daughter that!) I got some fresh spring onions too. And this dish was a pleasure to cook (in minutes) and tasty to eat- Food Palette, here comes my dish for the event.

Ingredients
Purple cabbage, chopped- 2 cups

Spring onions chopped - 1 cup

Olive oil for cooking (can use any oil)

Salt to taste

1 chopped tomato

I added a pinch of turmeric, for its antiseptic properties. You can skip it altogether)

Directions-

Wash and clean the spring onions and the cabbage. I usually wash them before chopping. 

Heat oil in a wok, add the chopped veggies, add salt and turmeric. Cook covered for 5-10 mins till they are done and the cabbage retains its crunch.

Can garnish with grated coconut or cilantro. I hate both, and I just used some lemon juice.

Serve with rice- dal or as a side dish to any meal.

baked chicken experiment

I made baked chicken with onions and purple cabbage, but couldn't take a pic. Served it with scented rice and it tasted very good, less oily and less spicy and looked like a perfect meal for the weekend. I could have sent it to the purple event hosted by Torview, but when I mentioned this to Niket, he said, "stop living for the internet!"

Anyhow, let me see when I could take a few pics before we hungry guts devour whatever I cook!

Khichdi in the rice cooker

After we have shifted to the new place, I have been increasingly using the rice cooker. I am making my morning breakfast in it, which is usually dalia / cracked wheat porridge. Will post a pic as soon as I am able to click one!
Sometime back, I even made rice kheer in it. The good thing about cooking in the rice cooker is you can plug it in and forget about it,and your food stll doesn't burn :)

Here's a pic of the khichdi :)

I didn't temper it, I just added ghee ka jalawan (Dadhi) to it for a taste of ghee! (The black thing) Dadhi is usually eaten with a lots of sugar when it's still hot, but what the heck, we are now so grown up and we need to take care of our health too. Huh!

Eggless mango bread

Inspired from Delhi Belle's Eggless Mango bread, my recipe is a bit different-

Ingredients-

1.5 cups Whole wheat flour

1/2 cup rice flour

2 tbsps sugar

2 1/2 cups fresh mango pulp coarsely done (I used Sindhuri mangoes available around this time in Blr)
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp baking powder
0.8 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
2 tbsp flax meal
1 cardamom powdered (I was in half a mind to skip it, because I totally hate them, but it added a lovely twist to the taste!)

(I added 1 very very ripe mashed banana too)

Directions-

Sift the WW flour, rice flour, baking powder, soda, salt together. Keep aside. 

In a bowl, mix together- Oil, Pulp, flax meal, sugar and cardamom powder.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients, combine well. 

Bake in a greased loaf dish, for around 40 mins at 180 deg or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Mine turned out denser than Delhi Belle's because I used WW Flour, but the aroma of this bread baking in my oven was matchless! And so was the taste!!