Category: Karnataka

Nendra Sippe Palya/Plantain peel dry curry:

April 17, 2018

Nendra is also known as Kerala Banana. Which is mainly used in chips, if it is raw and firm or Halwa making, when it is ripe and black.

When Chips is made, all the healthy, iron rich and fibre rich peel will be wasted, and it is some what a bi -product of chips making activity.

This palya is normally prepared on previous night of wedding celebrations in our region. Normally plantain chips are an integral part of any festivity meal and it is prepared well in advance, usually process starts from the previous afternoon and peels will be fresh and ready to be used in the previous night’s dinner menu.

It is a very tasty side dish with hot Rasam or as it is with hot rice topped with ghee.

Taste of this dish will be a mixture of sweet, hot and sour and only Raw Nendra banana peel can be used to make this palya.

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Ingredients:

Plantain Peel – of 8 to 10 Raw bananas

Tamarind water – ½ to 1 cup

Salt

Jaggery – 1 to 2 table spoons

Red chilli powder – 2 tea spoons

Fresh grated coconut- ¼ cup

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 2 table spoons

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Urad dal – 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Method:

-Make thin buttermilk water to immerse the chopping’s:-Take one vessel, put 1 spoon of curd or butter milk and add two cups of water.

-Soak one tea spoon of tamarind in a half to one cup of hot water and make tamarind water and keep.

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–Wash Plantain peel and keep aside.

-Chop plantain peel into thin strips and put it into thin buttermilk water.

-Take one tawa, add one table spoon of oil, splutter mustard, add urad dal, red chilli and fry until dal becomes red. Add one spring of curry leaves.

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-Pour tamarind water, salt, jaggery, red chilli powder and boil.

-Discard butter milk water and keep chopping’s ready for use.

-When it starts boiling, add drained plantain peel chopping’s.

-Close the lid and cook this in a simmer.

-Check for water in-between. If peel is not cooked add some more water.

-When chopping’s are soft and cooked, after water drains, add grated coconut, remaining 1 table spoon of oil and one spring curry leaf.

-Mix everything and cook for 2 to 3 minutes and then switch off.

-Serve with hot rice topped with ghee or as a side dish with rice and Rasam.

Bell fruit -Raw Mango- Mint juice:

April 13, 2018

Summer is the season, when we need lot of water to keep our body hydrated. The humble bell fruit is one such fruit, which we had in our front yard while I was a kid. It is the most underrated fruit when I was growing and other than eating, fruits used to be wasted on the ground after it fell from the tree.

 Almost all the household has one or the other watery fruit plant in our native. It has several names like wax apple, java apple, water apple, Syzygium, Jambi fruit or jambu nerale.

Last week when I tried this otherwise bland, watery fruit with Raw mango and mint in the form of juice, we liked the flavour and enjoyed it.

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Recipe goes like this-

Ingredients:

Bell fruits – 8 to 10

Raw mango – ¼ piece of one mango

Mint – 1to 2 strings

Sea Salt – ¼ teas poon

Sugar – as needed.

Water – 2 cups

Ice cubes – if needed

Method:

-Wash, make half, remove seed and clean the bell fruit.

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-Chop mango

-Take one juicer jar and put everything and churn until sugar dissolves.

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-Strain the juice, pour this into a serving glass, put couple of ice cubes and serve.

Capsicum Ennegayi:

April 2, 2018

Ennegayi is a North Karnataka style peanut-based curry. Flavoured with Niger seed powder, also known as Hucchellu or Gurellu in that region. Normally it is done by using tiny brinjals. As a “not so fond of brinjal” person, I have used Capsicum as it is a very good option for those who do not like brinjal and yet enjoy this side dish with any millet-based roti’s or with simple whole wheat pulka’s.

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Ingredients:

Capsicum/Bell pepper – 4- 5 (big)

Onions – 2

Gren chillies – 1 to 2 (optional)

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Tomato – 2 (small)

Oil – 2 table spoons

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Hing – ¼ tea spoon

Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon

Salt

Jaggery – a little

Roasted peanut powder – 3 to 4 table spoons

Roasted Hucchellu powder – 2 to 3 table spoons (Niger/Gurellu powder)

Curd – 2 table spoons

Coriander leaves- 2 table spoon (chopped)

Method:

-Wash capsicum, Chop it into bite size square pieces.

-If it is spicy, don’t add any green chillies while making, otherwise you can add one or two.

-If you are adding green chillies, slit and keep.

-Chop onions, tomatoes, coriander leaves.

-Take one cooker vessel, add oil. When it is hot, add cumin and hing.

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-Then comes onions, fry a little and add curry leaves, green chilli, turmeric.

-When onion becomes light brown, add chopped tomatoes, salt and jaggery.

-Fry until tomato becomes mushy.

-Switch off the gas for once and add roasted peanut powder, Niger seed (Hucchellu) powder, curd and mix everything.

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-Now mix in capsicum pieces and once again mix everything together, add one small cup of water.

-Now switch on the gas, close the cooker lid and cook until one whistle and switch off.

-When pressure relieves, open the lid, check for the salt and jaggery or any other seasoning.

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-Adjust, garnish with the chopped coriander leaves and serve with any kind of millet roti’s or with phulka’s.

 

 

Temple Style Vegetable Sambar:

March 17, 2018

Usually people ask me regarding recipe of sambar, which is served in Coastal Mangalore temples. In our coastal temples, prasadam is served in the form of afternoon lunch. It is a simple lunch, served on a plantain leaf. which usually includes palya, rice, Rasam, sambar, payasam and buttermilk. Speciality of this lunch is, taste of the Rasam or sambar will linger in your mouth even after some time.

Commonly used vegetable for this kind of sambar is Ash gourd, sweet pumpkin or Coloured cucumber. You can take any one of these above-mentioned veggies and make. Here freshly roasted and ground masala has been used and onion or garlic is a taboo ingredient in prasadam lunch.

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Here I have used home grown Sweet pumpkin –

Ingredients:

Sweet pumpkin – ½ kg (you can use coloured cucumber or Ash gourd as well)

Salt

Jaggery – 1 to 2 tea spoons (adjust according to your taste)

Red chilli powder – ½ tea spoon

Coriander seeds – 1 table spoon

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Methi – ¼ tea spoon

Hing – pea nut size (hard hing) or ½ tea spoon of powdered hing.

Urad dal – 1 tea spoon

Chana dal – 1 tea spoon

Red chillies – 3 to 4

Coconut – ½ cup

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Toor dal – ¼ cup

Turmeric – ½ tea spoon

Tamarind – ½ – 1 tea spoon

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Cook toor dal after washing and keep aside. (don’t use more dal)

-Remove central seed part. Chop veggies, as bigger chunks.

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– Cook chopped veggie by adding sufficient water, salt, jaggery, red chilli powder.

-In the meantime, roast masala for grinding.

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-Take one thick kadai, add 1 tea spoon of coconut oil, fry methi seeds until light brown.

-Add in coriander, cumin, Hing, Red chillies, urad and Chana dal and proceed frying until dal becomes light brown and red chillies puffs and roasts.

-Add in coconut, curry leaves and turmeric, proceed frying for 2 to 3 minutes or until you feel the aroma of coconut.

-Cool this mixture and grind into not so smooth paste by adding tamarind and sufficient water.

– Now mash cooked dal add dal and freshly ground masala to cooked veggie and boil.

-Check for salt, jaggery and adjust. When it boils add seasoning.

-Heat coconut oil, mustard, red chilli, when mustard splutters, and curry leaves and pour over the prepared(boiled) sambar.

-Serve with hot rice.

 

 

 

Neeru mavinakai Gojju/ Brined mango curd curry:

March 13, 2018

“Neeru Mavinakai” is what we call brined mango, which is basically a firm fully grown, matured but un-ripened mango which is preserved in salt water. We usually relish this in the rainy season or in the off season by preparing some of our traditional dishes. I have shared how to preserve mangoes in my earlier post.  Today I am going to share one of our favourite simple curd curry, which we used to relish even in our childhood days. It is a simple curd curry, seasoned with curd chillies (known as majige menasu), curry leaves and garnished with chopped onions to give the extra zing.

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Ingredients:

Preserved raw mangoes – 2

Curd – 1 cup

Coconut milk – 2 table spoons

Green chilli – 1 (chopped)

Onion – 1 (chopped)

For Seasoning;

Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Curd chillies – 1 to 2 (chopped)

Urad dal – 1 tea spoon

Hing – ¼ tea spoon

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Remove required number of mangoes from the brine water.

-Immerse these mangoes in fresh water for some time to reduce its salt content.

-Sometimes brined mangoes will be soft or hard. If it is soft, mash it and use.

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-If it is very hard, cook for a couple of whistles in a cooker by adding little water and try to mash or grate.

-What I had was very hard, and I used it by grating.

-After this is done, mix in curd and coconut milk.

-If you don’t have coconut milk, you can use maggi or some other brand of coconut milk powder as well. (addition of coconut milk will reduce the tartness)

-Mix in chopped onion, green chilli.

-Do seasoning, heat coconut oil, put in mustard. When mustard starts to splutter, add in urad dal, Hing, chopped curd chillies and fry until chillies turns out dark brown.

– Add curry leaves to this hot mixture and add the seasoning over Gojju.

-Traditionally we enjoy this Gojju either with Boiled rice ganji (gruel) or with curd rice as an accompaniment.

 

 

Coloured Cucumber Seeds Rasam:

March 4, 2018

Coloured or Mangalore cucumber has fleshy interior centre part, which has jelly like watery fleshy part with edible seeds. Which are rich minerals and rich in nutrition. Traditionally we call this Rasam as Sauthe kai beeja da saaru. Literal translation of this is, sauthe kai beeja means cucumber seed, saaru is Rasam, which is watery in texture and consumed as an appetizer or with hot rice during summer season to maintain our body temperature.

Before using the core, check the fleshy part for bitterness. If it has bitterness, discard and don’t use in cooking. If you find core part to be flavourful or without bitterness, go ahead and use it in your cooking to enrich your body, like our elders did.

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How to make this traditional goodness –

Ingredients:

Fleshy seeded part – of one coloured cucumber

Coriander seeds – 1 table spoon

Cumin seeds – 1 tea spoon

Hing – peanut size

Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tea spoon

Red chillies – 4 t0 5

Turmeric – ½ tea spoon

Coconut – ½ cup (grated)

Tamarind – ½ to 1 tea spoon

Coconut oil – 1 tea spoon

Salt – as needed

Jaggery – ½ tea spoon (optional)

For Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 tea spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Collect seed coated flesh part of one coloured cucumber.

-Cook this in a small cooker for one whistle (cooking will help in extracting the pulp) and cool.

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-Grind cooked pulp by adding one cup of water and tamarind and collect the liquid by sieving.

-Grind the roughage one more time, by adding one more cup of water and sieve once more.

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-Discard the remaining roughage if any.

-Now prepare masala by heating oil. Add fenugreek at first.

-When it becomes light brown, add coriander, cumin, hing, red chillies and fry until fenugreek becomes dark and coriander becomes light brown.

-Add coconut, turmeric and fry for two minutes or until you get nice aroma.

-Cool this roasted masala and grind into smooth paste by adding sufficient water.

-Add the masala to extracted cucumber seed water.

-Adjust the consistency, add salt, jaggery and boil the Rasam.

-Add seasoning, heat oil, add mustard, red chilli.

-When mustard starts spluttering, add curry leaves and add the seasoning to boiled Rasam and close the lid.

-Serve this as an appetiser or with hot rice with a couple of papads.

 

 

 

Mangalore Cucumber curry:

February 27, 2018

Traditionally we call this Sauthe kai Huli menasina Kodilu/Koddel. The literal translation of this is, Sauthe kai means sambar cucumber, Huli is tamarind, menasu is chilli, koddel is sambar or curry. It is sambar cucumber or coloured cucumber curry with a raw masala of fresh coconut flavoured with non-roasted masala.

Here we only use fresh coconut, Byadagi red chillies, tamarind as the main ingredient, and after boiling, seasoned with curry leaves, roasted garlic by using coconut oil.

To get an authentic taste, one should use coconut oil and freshly grated coconut for this curry.

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Now we will see the recipe part.

Ingredients:

Coloured cucumber – 1

Salt

Red chilli powder – 1 teaspoon

Fresh coconut – 1 bowl

Red Byadagi chillies – 2 to 3

Tamarind – gooseberry size

Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon

For seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 tablespoon

Mustard – 1 teaspoon

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Garlic – 10 cloves (crushed)

Method:

-Wash Mangalore/Coloured/sambar cucumber.

Chop off two ends, slice into four pieces, remove the inner core (seed part), and chop into bite-sized pieces.

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-Check now for the taste. If it is bitter, soak the pieces in plain water for 5 minutes.

-Discard the water and proceed. If cucumber tastes good, there is no need to soak in water, and you can directly proceed with cooking.

-Cook these pieces in a sufficient amount of water. Add salt and red chilli powder as well.

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-In the meantime, grind masala by putting coconut, tamarind, red chillies and turmeric.

-When cucumber cooks well, add ground masala, adjust the consistency and boil.

-When the mixture boils nicely, switch off the gas.

-Prepare seasoning, heat oil, splutter mustard, add garlic, red chilli, curry leaves.

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-When garlic becomes deep brown, add the seasoning over boiled gravy.

-Keep this closed for a while before serving to absorb all the flavours.

-Serve with hot rice.

One more variation of this curry is by adding –Turkey berry.

To know about the Turkey berry, you can click the link HERE.  

The method is straightforward. Crush those washed turkey berries/ Kudane, put them in water, rinse them a couple of times, and remove the seeds as much as possible; in this way, the tartness of the berries vanishes. Keep as it is and follow the above procedure to make Cucumber curry.

-When cucumber cooks partially, add those washed and cleaned berries and cook further. Then, add freshly ground masala and curry by following the above description.

Note:

To maintain authentic taste,

-use fresh coconut, Coconut oil.

-Retain the outer skin of garlic and crush.

-Inner core or seed is used in a couple of recipes.

-One is Chutney, and the other one is Rasam. I will update ASAP.

 

Nuggekai/Drumsticks Curry:

February 19, 2018

Drumsticks are loaded with essential minerals and nutrients. It is very tasty and highly nutritious, it is a must have ingredient in mixed south Indian sambar. One can enjoy only drumstick in this special curry, which I learnt from my dearest aunty.

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Ingredients:

Drumsticks -5 to 6

Onion -1

Garlic cloves – 10 to 12

Coriander leaves – 1 table sp. (chopped)

Poppy seeds – 1 tsp. (you can replace this with roasted gram as well)

Red chilli powder – 1 ½ tsp.

Turmeric – ½ tsp.

Coconut – 1 cup

Oil – 1 table sp.

For Seasoning: oil- 1 tbsps., chopped onion -1, chopped tomato -2 and curry leaves.

Coriander leaves for garnishing.

Method:

– Chop drumsticks in to 2 to 3-inch pieces, while chopping remove outer thick skin as much as possible. (It is purely optional)

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-Cook chopped drumstick pieces with sufficient water and salt.

-Now take one tawa, put 1 table spoon of oil and fry poppy seeds, when it is light brown, add chopped onion, crushed garlic, and fry till onion becomes translucent.

-Now add chopped coriander leaves, red chilly powder, little turmeric and grated coconut and fry till you get nice aroma and then switch off and let it cool.     

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-when it cools down, make fine paste by adding sufficient water and keep aside.

– In that same tawa, add oil. When it is hot, add curry leaves, chopped onion and fry.

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-When it is done add chopped tomato and fry until it is mushy.

-Now add ground masala, cooked drumstick with water and boil nicely.

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-Garnish with chopped coriander.

Pumpkin Flower Tawa fry:

February 16, 2018

Pumpkin flower is bright yellow coloured, which is loaded with essential nutrients, minerals and used in a different cuisine around the world and considered as a rare delicacy in a gourmet cuisine as well. 

Pumpkin plant bears male as well as female flowers separately. Usually Male flowers appears initially, and female flower is a rarity. These flowers last only for a day and wither by the evening. That is the reason why we see only Male flower in cooking. It has a main role in pollination and after that it will wither, and female flower will grow as a Pumpkin. If you have a doubt in distinguishing between male and female flowers, male has only a long stalk and the female has a round green, big swollen structure(ovary) at the base of the petals.

Pumpkin flowers are used either in a raw, tossed, pan fried, cooked forms in various recipes and it is found occasionally in salads, soups or batter fried. Here I am showing Mangalore style tawa fry in which pumpkin flower will be coated with seasoned fine semolina and tawa roasted by drizzling some coconut oil to give coastal touch.

If you have Pumpkin, squash or Zucchini plant in your garden, collect all the male flowers and make this and enjoy your meal. You can collect the fresh flowers every day and store it in an air tight box for 3 to 4 days and utilise in your cooking.

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This is how I make-

Ingredients:

Pumpkin flowers – 5 to 6

Fine semolina – 1 small cup (chiroti rawa)

Salt

Hing – ¼ tea spoon

Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon

Red chilli powder – 1 tea spoon

Coconut oil – as needed

Method:

-Wash flower, give one fine slit at the bottom of the flower and cut open.

-Remove stamen.

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-Dry mix all seasoning items from rawa, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and hing.

-Take each flower and coat with the seasoning, by rolling.

-Heat iron tawa/ griddle, place all these coated flowers.

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-Roast these by using sufficient coconut oil on both the sides.

-Serve these with hot rice and Rasam or dhal.

 

 

Carrot Halwa (South Indian Style):

February 13, 2018

Carrot Halwa or Gajar ka halwa is a very popular Indian dessert. This halwa is everyone’s favorite in my place. They love it hot directly from the stove top as it is or with vanilla ice-cream.

It is a south Indian style preparation, which we follow in our homes. i.e. Without khoya/milk solids and it is cooked in whole milk.

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Now we will see my style of preparation,

Ingredients:

Red Delhi carrot – 1 kg

Regular carrot – ½ kg

Milk – ½ litre

Sugar – ¾  to  1 cup (according to your taste)

Ghee – ¼ cup  

Roasted Slivered almonds – 1  to2 tablespoon

Roasted cashew bits – 1 to 2 tablespoon

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp.

Method:

-Wash and peel the outer skin and grate the carrots.

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-Take one thick bottomed pan, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee and fry grated carrots for 10 min, till it completely wilts.

-now add milk, cook until milk evaporates and carrot cooks.

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-now add sugar (here we must check for required sweetness, we usually prefer a little less sweet), and mix nicely by adding the remaining ghee until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.

-now garnish this with cardamom powder, roasted slivered almonds and 1 tablespoon ghee. Mix this nicely.

Serve hot as it is or with vanilla ice cream and enjoy your winter treat.