Breakfast – Page 9

Sorekayi Kottige / Bottle gourd steam dumpling:

September 22, 2017

Sorekayi is nothing but humble bottle gourd, which we usually neglect to use in our daily diet, which incidentally has numerous health benefits. In our native, bottle gourd is mainly used to treat stomach illness or jaundice. It is believed that, it has the power (anti-inflammatory properties) to heal our Liver and intestine during the illness. Bottle gourd has close to 90% water content and is great on the stomach and light on digestion. Apart from this, bottle gourd juice is very good for weight watchers, diabetics and for a healthy heart too. We have so many traditional preparations of bottle gourd and all are very low in calories and tasty too.

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 2 cups

Bottle gourd – 1 or 2 (according to size)

Salt

Banana leaves or turmeric leaves – to wrap

Method:

-Wash Dosa rice and soak it for 3 hours.

-Grate bottle gourd by using big hole of a grater or chop it into very small chunks.

-Grind soaked rice into a fine paste with minimal amount of water and salt.

-Mix chopped or grated veggie and rice batter.

-If you are using turmeric leaves, wipe it and use as it is.

-If you are using banana leaves, take banana leaf, hold it over a gas flame (for wilting) then clean it with a wet cloth.

– If you are using turmeric leaves, use 2 leaves, place it in a “Plus” position, now pour one serving spoon of batter and fold the leaves like a packet.

-If you are using banana leaf, pour batter, fold side wise, then close the ends.

-Steam cook these ready packets in a water filled idly steamer for 30 minutes to 40 minutes in a medium heat.

– Serve this kottige with jaggery syrup with ghee / Honey, coconut chutney or sambar.

Onion Chutney with Coconut:

September 14, 2017

We normally refer to this as Neerulli Chutney in Mangalore. Here Neerulli is Onion.Coconut is an integral part of our cooking. This is how we prepare onion chutney traditionally in our households. It can be paired with anything and everything from our breakfast list.

Ingredient:

Grated Coconut – 1cup

Red chillies – 2 (Byadagi variety)

Salt – as required

Tamarind – ¼ tsp

Onion – ½ of medium size.

For seasoning-

Coconut oil – 1 tsp

Mustard – ½ tsp

Curry leaves – 1spring

Method:

-Roast the red chillies by putting 2 drops of oil.

-Chop onion

-Grind Coconut, roasted red chillies, tamarind, onion by adding required amount of water and salt into smooth paste.

– Empty out this paste to one small bowl.

-Do seasoning by heating oil, add mustard. When mustard starts to splutter, add curry leaves and pour this over the chutney.

Spring Onion Akki Rotti:

September 12, 2017

Akki Rotti is a traditional Breakfast item of Karnataka. Usually it is prepared either by adding chopped greens, grated veggies or only onion. Here I have added chopped spring onion greens as well as bulbs, which is mixed with rice flour to form a thick pliable dough to make super tasty gluten free flat bread. I have served it with coconut and onion chutney, which we traditionally prepare in a Mangalore house hold.

pic main

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 3 cups

Spring onion -1 bundle

Green chillies – 2

Salt

Fresh Coconut gratings – 2 table spoons

Water – to bind

Oil – to fry the rotti.

Method:

– Wash and clean the spring onion and green chillies.

– Chop green chillies, spring onion greens and bulbs finely.

– Take one wide steel bowl and mix in rice flour, chopped green chillies, spring onions, coconut gratings, salt.

– Make a pliable dough by adding sufficient water.

–Keep it aside for 5 to 10 minutes to absorb all the seasoning as well as to soak.

– When you want to make rotti, take one piece of banana leaf or butter paper.

– Take a little rotti dough in your moist hand, and start patting in a circular motion by dipping your hand in a water in-between.

– Sprinkle one teaspoon of oil over this patted rotti and keep it ready.

– Heat iron griddle and cook oil sprinkled rotti by putting upside down on it.

– After 2 to 3 minutes, peel off banana leaf or butter paper.

–Sprinkle little oil over it and flip.

–Cook and serve hot with Onion and coconut chutney.

Note:

-Keep one bowl of water in a reachable distance to dip your hand in-between.

-While patting the rotti, dip your hand in a bowl of water which you have kept aside.

– wetting your hand will help to avoid the dough sticking to your fingers while patting.

Menthe Kodilu/ Methi Sambar:

August 25, 2017

This is one of our traditional recipes and if you like a little sweetish tangy taste, this is the perfect combo for kotte kadubu / idly or semige.

We don’t use onion or garlic on any auspicious day and this side dish is usually prepared on such days and we relish this as a side dish with kotte kadubu/ Moode.

Here menthe is fenugreek and kodilu stands for sambar in our language. This is a very simple coconut based little sweetish gravy and needs very less ingredient and tastes good.

pic main

Ingredient:

Fresh grated coconut – 1 big bowl.

Dried red chillies – 3 to 4

Methi / fenugreek seeds – ½ tsp

Turmeric – ½ tsp

Coconut oil – 1tsp

Tamarind – ½ tsp

Jaggery – 2 tbl spoon

Salt

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 tsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Curry leaves – 1 springs

Red chilli – 1

Method:

– Take 1 spoon of coconut oil in a small kadai, heat.

– When it is hot, drop methi and fry for a while.

– When it is light brown, add red chillies and fry until it swells.

– Add coconut gratings, turmeric and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.

collage 1

– Cool this mixture and grind this into smooth paste by adding sufficient water, salt, jaggery and tamarind.

– Now take that same kadai, in which we have fried chillies and coconut. Pour ground batter, adjust the consistency by adding water.

–Boil this for a while and check for a salt and jaggery. If needed adjust that as well.

–Do seasoning by heating oil, mustard, red chilli and curry leaves and pour this over boiled kodilu.

Moode/ Kotte kadubu:

August 25, 2017

Moode or kotte kadubu is a local delicacy of Coastal Karnataka. We especially prepare this on the eve of any festivities. Now a day It is an integral part of any weddings in our region.

Moode or kotte is leaf cup which we prepare either by using jack leaves, Kedige flower leaves (Kewda, Fragrant Screw Pine, Umbrella tree, Screw pine) or Plantain leaf. It is based on availability and accessibility to leaf.

It is basically normal idly batter which is poured in these cups, which is made by any one of these leaves and steam cooked in a water bath and served with chutney or any sambar.

I usually prepare this by bringing these leaf cups, from One of the many Mangalore stores, spread across Bangalore, during festival season. Sometimes I do prepare by lining a stainless-steel cup with small pieces of plantain leaves. This also works just fine like any other leaf cup.

Ingredients:

Idly Batter – Fermented

Tall steel glasses

Plantain leaves – as needed

Method:

– Hold plantain leaves on gas flame and wilt a little. It will help while folding or rolling the leaves.

–If you don’t wilt it, it will tear very easily.

–Take one wet cloth and wipe plantain leaves (you should move your hand from centre rib to edge as ridges moves in the leaves) and clean the leaves.

– Remove extra thick centre ribs (fibre) by holding your left palm to support over the leaf and pull the fibre by right hand.

-Cut this into small rectangle pieces.

– It is now ready to roll and place inside the steel glass.

–Keep idly steamer ready, when water starts boiling, pour the batter to the moulds.

–In these cups, usually 2 to 2 ½ serving spoons of batter will hold.

– If batter is more, cooking time should increase according to that.

–Keep it in a steamer, cook in a high fire for 10 minutes and when you feel the steam is uniformly distributed inside the steamer, reduce the flame and cook for 40 to 50 minutes in a very low flame.

–After it is done, switch off the gas, don’t open the lid and keep it for some more time.

–When you want to serve this, open the lid, remove the glass mould and pull the banana leaves out and serve with pouring little ghee and any side dish of your choice.

–Usually on festival days, we make coconut based sambar or chutney and totally avoid garlic and onion on any auspicious day.

–Our traditional side dish is called menthe kodilu and we relish these kadubu’s with menthe kodilu or sweetened cardamom flavoured coconut milk(kayi halu) and coconut chutney .

Idly/Idli Batter:

August 24, 2017

Idli is very basic, staple breakfast of south India. It is very healthy steam cooked rice and lentil cake which is very nutritious too. Each place has their own rice and lentil ratio or proportion and grinding technique also changes from region to region. In Mangalore, we soak rice and dal separately and grind very fine paste of urad dal and either we mix rice rawa or we are grinding the rice, we keep it a little coarse, hence this batter will be a little coarse. After fermenting the batter, the next day we proceed to make idlies by using either idly stand or idly cups. In our region, idly cups are regular and very common in every house hold and we use special type of idly steamer and invariably we use this for so many kinds of steam cooking.

Ingredients for idli batter:

Idly rice or Idly rawa – 2 cups

Urad/Black gram dal – 1 cup

Poha – 1 fist full

salt

Method:

-Wash and soak rice in one vessel. If you are using idli rawa, you can wash idly rawa and put very little water and keep aside.

-Wash Urad dal and poha in another vessel and soak for 3 to 4 hours.

-At first, drain excess water from urad dal and put this into wet grinder.

-Grind this into smooth paste by adding water in-between while grinding.

-When urad dal batter becomes fine and smooth, its consistency becomes almost double and colour of the batter looks milky white.

– When you think urad dal batter is ready, add soaked rice or rice rawa by draining its soaked water.

-You can use this water while grinding or adjusting the consistency of the batter or to wash wet grinder at first to remove the dough that is stuck on the stone.

-Grind this into small rawa consistency by adding salt and remove this ready batter into big vessel. If you are using rice rawa ,allow batter to mix for couple of minutes and then remove.

-I usually grind urad dal first, then mix in drained rice so that batter mixes uniformly and becomes light and airy.

– Batter consistency should be a little thick and when u hold and drop the batter it should not drop very easily and it should stick to the spoon.

-Close the lid and keep this batter for 8 to 10 hours or more (according to outside weather where you live) for fermentation.

-Next day morning fill idly steamer or pressure cooker with sufficient water, place the porous plate at the centre of the vessel and keep this on the fire.

-Mix fermented batter vigorously, if needed add water and adjust the consistency keep it ready.

-Rinse the idly moulds in fresh water once, it will act as a non-sticky layer between idly and mould.

-When water starts boiling, pour one spoon of batter into respective moulds and steam cook.

-If you are using cups, cook this in a steamer for 15 to 20 minutes. Cups holds more batter than idly stand.

-If you are using idly stand, 7 to 8 minutes of steam cooking is sufficient.

-When it is done, switch off the gas, open the lid and remove moulds outside.

-Once it is cool, remove idly and serve with chutney or sambar or with your choice of side dish.

NOTE:

-Use wet grinder to get awesome soft idlies.

– Use soaked and drained water from the dal or rice while grinding. It will enhance the taste.

-Always mix and pour the batter to the moulds, only after water starts boiling.

Instant Oats-Rava Idli:

August 15, 2017

This is how I prepare oats idli/idly at home. This recipe is so handy, healthy and a very good option to finish off our stock of sour curd. I usually roast rawa and oats the previous night and proceed directly to prepare in the morning, so that one can save time and it also gets enough time to cool down properly. I don’t use any seasoning and make it exactly like our regular normal idly and serve either with hing or onion and coconut chutney.

Ingredients:

Quick cooking oats – 1 ½ cup

Normal rava/semolina – 1 cup

Sour Curd – 2 cups

Water -1 cup

Eno fruit salt – 1tsp

Salt

Ghee /clarified butter – 1 table spoon

Method:

– Take one tawa and roast rava by adding ghee.

– When rawa becomes white, sandy in texture, add oats and proceed frying it for 2 to 3 minutes and switch off the gas.

– Cool this properly. (I usually do this the previous night)

– Mix curds, water, required amount of salt (around 1 tsp) and Eno.

– Add roasted rawa and oats mixture. Consistency should be like regular idly batter.

– Set cooker for steam cooking, by adding 1 to 2 cups of water and keep it on a fire.

– Rinse idly moulds or stand with clean water (This will help as a non-sticky coating)

– Pour 1 serving spoon of a ready batter, steam cook for 8 to 10 minutes.

– Serve with any chutney of your choice.

Patholi / Sweet rice dumpling, steamed in turmeric leaves:

July 27, 2017

Patholi is an offering which we make on the day of “Nagara Panchami”, or the snake festival in our house hold. Monsoon is the season in which we get lot of greens in abundance. Maybe that is the reason this dish is made in turmeric leaves.

Patholi is coconut and jaggery filled steamed kadubu or steamed rice cake, usually folded and steam cooked in turmeric leaves. Turmeric leaf gives beautiful aroma and good taste and this pleasantly aromatic dish is favoured by everyone in our family.

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Ingredients:

Dosa rice /white rice – 2 cups

Grated coconut – 1 ½ cup

Grated Jaggery – ½ cup (to taste).

Ghee/ Clarified butter – 4 tsp.

Salt to taste

Turmeric leaves – 8 to 10

Method:

– Wash rice and soak it for 2 to 3 hours.

– Wash turmeric leaves and keep it aside.

collage 1

– Grind this soaked rice in to smooth paste by adding ½ cup of coconut, water and salt and little jaggery.

– Now keep thick bottomed kadai, pour this ground batter and add some water to make thin consistency. Now add 2 tsp of ghee and start heating this mixture by continuous stirring. When it becomes little thick and forms a mass, switch off the gas and keep it aside to cool to handle it further.

patholi 1

– In the meantime, make sweet coconut-jaggery mixture. In thick bottomed vessel add jaggery and ½ cup of water and heat. If you find some impurities in jaggery syrup, sieve this liquid and heat further and add fresh grated coconut and cook until it is sticky and forms mass. Add remaining ghee to this and mix. Now stuffing is ready.

– Method to make Patholi:

– Take little water in a bowl to dip your hand in between, while applying rice batter over turmeric leaf.

– Now take lemon sized rice batter ball, apply as thin as possible by using your hand by dipping your hand in bowl of water in between.

collage 2

– After applying ,spread coconut –jaggery mixture to half of every leaf in which batter is spread (please refer pictures)

– Now fold this in to half and keep this in a idly steamer and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until done.

patholi 3

– Serve with ghee.

Marakesavu Pathrode:

July 25, 2017

Pathrode, name itself will make any Mangalorean drool. That too if it is marakesavu leaf, fun is even more. Marakesavu is non-itchy, seasonal colocasia leaves. It is one more classic monsoon special from Mangalore. Pathrode is usually served with coconut oil either plain or pan fried by slicing.

Marakesavu is commonly known as hitchhiker elephant ear and botanical name of this leaf is Remusatia vivipara. Leaf is large, oval, leathery textured, glossy on both the sides. Foliage disappears in winter and emerges after the first rain during monsoon. Grows widely on big tree trunks or in-between the stones, mainly emerges from the moss bed. The name itself suggests about its habitat. Here, “Mara” is Tree and “Kesavu” is colocasia.

We will see the Procedure-

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 3 cups

Fresh Coconut – 1 ½ cup

Dried red chillies – 12 (Roasted)

Hing – ¼ teaspoon

Salt

Jaggery – 1 table spoon

Tamarind – 1 table spoon (if normal colocasia use little more)

Marakesavu – 3 bundles

Coconut oil – for serving

Method:

– Wash the leaves, remove stem and trim.

– Wash and soak rice for 3 hours.

– Fry red chillies by putting very little oil.

– Grind soaked rice, coconut, tamarind, jaggery, salt, roasted red chillies into smooth paste by adding sufficient water.

– Batter consistency should be like Dosa batter.

– Now, we are ready to make Pathrode.

– Take biggest leaf from the lot, place upper glossy part downwards and apply ground batter on back side of the leaf. (pc:step 1)

– After applying on the first leaf, keep second one (slightly smaller than the first one)

– Proceed with the application. After applying on second leaf, keep the third leaf then fourth one and proceed.(pc: step 2&3)

– Now lift sideways, and fold. Make it like a mat. Apply some batter on these folds as well.

– Roll from the tip and proceed until the end and apply some batter on outer shell and keep this in a water filled idly steamer.

– Cook this for 45 minutes to one hour, depending on the quantity of the content inside the vessel, in a low fire.

– Serve fresh with coconut oil by slicing these cooked rolls or apply coconut oil and fry these in an iron tawa on both the sides and enjoy as it is for breakfast or with lunch or dinner.

NOTE:

-Tamarind is a key ingredient while making Pathrode.

– If it is Mara Kesavu, it is non-itchy and quantity of the tamarind doesn’t matter.

– If you are using normal colocasia leaves, tamarind plays a very crucial part, in removing the itchiness of the leaves. Use little more quantity than normal.

– You can prepare this same recipe by using big spinach leaves as well.

Instant Paddu:

July 8, 2017

This Recipe happened by fluke and I felt it was a very good option for kid’s tiffin boxes and basically my daughters loved it and they were asking me to include this as a regular item. So, I was thinking of sharing it with you all, lovely readers.

Last week when I made some biryani for kids and hubby’s tiffin box, no one was interested to carry a raita with them and I was left with one big bowl of onion and tomato raita. I wanted to utilise that sweetish raita in some way and thought of preparing rawa Paddu.

I took an inspiration from rawa idly mix and proceeded like that. Instead of adding only Rawa, I included millet idly rawa too and believe me, it was so tasty and the kids were saying “it was oozing with flavour and no side dish or chutney was needed” for this.

Now we will see, how I proceeded –

Ingredients:

Normal Rawa – 1 cup

Millet rawa- 1 cup

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tsp

Urad dal- 1 tsp

Cumin- ½ tsp

Hing- ¼ tsp

Curry leaves – 1 or 2 springs(chopped)

Eno fruit salt – 1 Tsp

Curd – 2 cups

Chopped onion -1

Chopped tomato – 1

Chopped coriander – little

Salt

Sugar

Method:

-Make seasoning by taking ghee in one pan, when it is hot, add mustard. After mustard splutters, add urad dal, cumin, hing, chopped curry leaves and fry for a minute.

-Add plain rawa and millet rawa fry until it becomes grainy in texture.

-Remove from the flame and cool the mixture into room temperature.

– Before preparing batter, take the curds, chopped onions, tomato, coriander leaves, salt and sugar mix nicely by adding Eno fruit salt.

– Now add seasoned, cooled rawa mix and give a stir. Mixture should be little watery kind at this point. Keep aside for 5 to 10 minutes so that batter will become thick now due to soaking of all the moisture by rawa.

-If batter is too thick you can add little more curds and adjust the consistency. It should be like idly batter and consistency should be little thick.

-Keep Appam or Paddu tawa, when it is hot keep it in a simmer, pour ½ tsp of ghee to every hole and pour the required amount of ready batter.

-Close the lid, cook for a while. Then flip and cook other side as well and then serve either as it is or with any chutney.

Note:

-Here I have used little millet idly rawa, you can use any millet rawa as well.

-If you don’t have access to millet rawa, you can use only rawa too.

– Here I have used Uppittu rawa/plain semolina/Bombay rawa.

-I did seasoning part on previous night and kept it aside for cooling. So that, morning it will be easy to mix and proceed to make Paddu.

-You can make this rawa mix and store it for a future use.