Main course – Page 5

Mug Pasta or One Bowl Pasta:

March 24, 2018

When my daughter had a holiday in between her exams, she has demanded for this treat for an afternoon lunch. She was alone on that day and I prepared it only for her and she was happy with the result. Today, I made it once again for my twins and I wanted to share the recipe with all my readers.

If you have seen my earlier posts of pastas I normally add any flavours to the white sauce. One of my daughters doesn’t like the bland taste, and here I thought of using tomato to give a little tangy taste.

I have used cooked elbow macaroni pasta. You are free to use any kind of pastas.

My daughter wanted Broccoli, capsicum and onion as veggie filling.

Then comes, grated cheese. I have used mozzarella cheese.

Here I am going to give for 2 big cups (meal for 2 kids)

Ingredients:

Macaroon – 1 cup

Broccoli – ½ cup

Capsicum – 1

Onion – 1

Olive oil or butter – 2 tsp

Tomato – 2

Whole wheat flour – 2 tea spoons

Milk – ½ cup

Seasonings – of your choice

Garlic salt – as needed

Mozzarella cheese – as needed

Method:

-At first, cook tomato in a sauce pan by adding half a cup of water. Remove and cool.

-In the same saucepan, blanch broccoli in boiling water and drain. It will help to remove any pesticide traces.

-In the same sauce pan, add required amount of water, little oil, salt and boil. Add pasta and cook into al Dante. Drain and keep aside.

-Chop onion, capsicum.

-Take one tawa, add 1 tea spoon of butter, toss all the three veggies (onion, broccoli and capsicum) by adding garlic salt, pizza seasoning, red chilli flakes or any other seasoning of your choice.

-Now tossed vegetable is ready and kept aside.

-Now we will make a pasta sauce.

-Fry whole wheat flour with butter or olive oil.

-Take one blender, mix fried whole wheat, milk and cooked tomato with water in which it has cooked.

-Churn and make a paste.

-Cook this paste in a sauce pan by adding garlic salt, any seasoning. I have added crushed rosemary, jalapeno pepper and garlic salt seasoning.

-When it starts boiling and becomes shiny and thick, switch off the gas.

-Now comes the assembling part.

-Take 2 Big ceramic mugs, if it is not available, use any baking dish.

-At first, pour couple of spoons of the prepared pasta sauce. Add grated cheese according to your wish.

-Add half of cooked pasta as a layer. Then half of veggie mix. Over to this, pour half the quantity of pasta sauce.

-Once again repeat the action. Empty all the remaining pasta, then veggies, pasta sauce.

-It will reach till the rim. Take one thick kitchen towel and place the mug and tap a little.

-All the sauce will settle, sprinkle grated cheese on top.

-Bake these ready mugs in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 10 to 15 minutes or until cheese melts or becomes light brown.

-Serve with Love 😊

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.

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.

-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.

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.

-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.

-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.

Ribbet collage 2

-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.

Ribbet collage 3

-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.

Steamed rice with Hot and sour vegetables:

January 18, 2018

Hot and sour veggies with some steamed rice works perfect for a winter night dinner. It is light, filling at the same time, very nutritious and tasty as well. It doesn’t need any major preparation and I love making it on winter nights when we need a tongue tickling hearty dinner.

It is very simple, usually I use some chunks of veggies which is tossed with chunks of onion and simmered with one packet of hot and sour soup powder with sufficient water. Yes!! It is such a simple affair. While serving I usually take a couple of spoons of cooked rice as well.

This quantity suffices for a 4-member family.

How I make –

Ingredients:

Onion – 1 big

Green chilli – 1

Veggies – 1 bowl (veggie pieces in byte sizes)

Garlic salt or chopped fresh garlic – little

Oil – 1 table spoon

Hot and Sour Veg soup – 1 pack (Knorr Or Maggi brand)

Basil or Lemon grass – for an additional flavour (optional)

Method:

-Chop vegetables and onions into chunk size. Slit green chilli. If you are using garlic, chop that as well.

-I usually prefer French beans, carrot, broccoli or cauliflower, capsicum, cabbage or lettuce.

-Take one big wok, pour oil, when it is hot, if you are using garlic, add garlic, green chilli, onion and fry for a minute.

-If you want to use basil or lemon grass, add now.

-Add vegetable chunks and toss. If you are using garlic salt, add it now, otherwise you can also add plain salt.

-When veggies wilts, add one pack of soup powder and mix.

-Add 4 cups or more of water to adjust the consistency.

-Boil until gravy cooks up and becomes shiny.

-Serve with plain steamed or cooked rice.

Paramanna/ Pindi payasam:

January 13, 2018

Pindi payasam is nothing but our traditional rice kheer without adding any milk or coconut milk, which is usually offered to god as a Naivedyam and served as a prasadam at any pooja. It is considered as a favourite of goddess Devi. When I look back and think, Pandan leaves were widely used in our region(Mangalore) as well. One can make this payasam even without adding Pandan leaves.

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Pandan leaves are known as gandhasaale ele in our Mangalore region.
Gandhasaale rice is a traditional, flavoured and scented rice variety of Karnataka and Kerala, cultivated in small pockets. Gandhasaale rice is the best rice for meals, Pulav, payasam and other eatables. The Gandhasaale rice is known especially for its rich aroma. It is also called Kerala’s basmati.
In our native, to get aroma of “gandhasaale” in ordinary rice, my grand mom used to put these leaves in, while cooking the rice. Pandan (Scientific Name: Pandanus, also known as screw pine or palm pine) is a herbaceous tropical plant that grows in Southeast-Asia. In Chinese, it is known as ‘fragrant plant’ because of its unique, sweet aroma. The cultivated plant features upright bright green leaves, and it’s the leaves that are used for cooking up many Thai and Southeast-Asian dishes. Pandan is also made into a paste that is used in cakes and desserts, much the way we use vanilla flavouring in the Western cuisine. However, in addition to flavour, Pandan paste also instil foods with a bright green colour. Some Thai and Malayan desserts which I have tasted are Pandan baked cake, Pandan jelly and Pandan sticky rice in Malaysia. Personally, I dint like it much because of its overpowering fragrance and felt that, like my ajji (grand mom), one should use one or 2 leaves to get that perfect blend.

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Ingredients:

White rice – 1 cup (I have used small grain rice)

Grated jaggery – 1 cup

Ghee – 2to 3 table spoons

Coconut – 2 table spoons (grated)

Cardamom powder – 1 tea spoon

Pandan leaves – 2

Cashew bits – as needed

Method:

-Wash rice, Pandan leaves. Soak rice for 10 minutes.

-Boil 2 to 3 cups of water, add rice, Pandan leaves and cook until it is done.

Ribbet collage 1

-After cooking, remove Pandan leaves.

-In the meantime, take one cup of water, boil, add jaggery and melt.

-Sieve this solution and remove all the impurities.

-Add this solution to cooked rice and boil.

-When the mixture becomes thick, add ghee and mix nicely.

Ribbet collage 2

-Lastly add coconut, cardamom powder and give a stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until it becomes like a creamy mass.

-Roast cashew bits in a little ghee and garnish.

-If you want to offer this to god, do that and then serve. Other wise serve hot and enjoy this delicacy.

Fresh Chick Peas Pulav:

January 9, 2018

Fresh chick peas are green in colour and known as Cholia / Hara Chana. They are fresh young Garbanzo beans which are usually sold as a small bundle of plants with roots intact. These are found only in winter months here in Bangalore. People usually enjoy eating this as a fresh bean by shelling its outer green pod. Chickpeas are high in dietary fibre, mineral, vitamins, proteins.

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These pods are tiny compared to green peas pods. Usually one pod will contain only one garbanzo bean, rarely we find two beans as well. Not more than that.

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One pot meal is a super cool idea to consume these fresh beans, which I have paired with a cucumber chutney, which I will post next.

Here we will see how I made this Pulav –

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Ingredients:

Small grain rice – 3 cups (we call this as Jeera samba rice)

Onions – 2

Green chillies – 3 to 4

Ginger garlic paste – 1 table spoon

Fresh chick peas /green Chana – 1 small cup

French beans – 8 to 10 (chopped)

Pudina leaves – 2 tblsp (chopped)

Coriander leaves – 2 tblsp ( chopped)

Salt

Lemon – ½

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Oil – 2 table spoons

Shahi jeera – 1 tea spoon

Bay leaves – 2 small

Cloves – 4

Cinnamon – 1” piece

Mace – 1

Cardamom – 2

Method:

-Wash rice, drain and keep aside.

-Slice onion, green chillies.

-Take one cooker, heat oil, put all the masalas from Shahi jeera to cardamom.

Ribbet collage 2

-Fry onion, green chillies till it is light brown.

-Add ginger garlic paste and toss. Add chopped beans, fresh chick peas and fry for a while.

-Add salt, drained rice, chopped coriander, pudina and fry for 2 minutes. Add 5 ½ cups of water (rice 1: 1 ½ cups of water + 1cup for veggie)

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-When water starts to boil, check for salt, add lemon juice and I table spoon of ghee. Close the cooker lid.

– Cook until one whistle, then simmer for 2 minutes. Switch off the gas.

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-When steam relieves mix the rice and serve with Hot cucumber chutney.

Note:

-I usually use 1 ½ cups of water for 1 cup of small grain rice.

-Here additional 1 cup of water is to cook fresh bean.

-Instead of Chana one can use fresh green peas as well.

Fresh Pigeon pea and Methi Pulav:

December 28, 2017

Winter is that time of the year, where you can relish all the fresh produce from the bean family. One such bean is Thogari kayi/Fresh Tuvar/Pigeon peas. These are beautiful green pearls with maroon spots all over them and we can make so many varieties of dishes from them. This rice dish is a very easy, one pot meal which has the goodness of Tuvar dal, methi leaves with coconut flavour which will enhance the flavour of the dish to another level.

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Recipe goes like this-

Ingredients:

Rice – 3 cups

Onion – 2

Fresh Pigeon peas – 1 cup

Fresh methi leaves – 1 small bundle

Veggies of your choice – 1 cup (French beans, carrot)

Ghee /oil – 2 to 3 table spoons

Bay leaves -2

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Mace – 1

Marathi moggu – 2

To grind: Little coriander leaves, Cinnamon one stick,3 to 4 green chillies and 1-inch ginger.

Coconut milk – 1 cup

Lemon – ½

Salt

Method:

-At first take a fresh Tuvar bean pod, remove outer thick green skin and separate the green bean with the beautiful red spots. Collect all the shelled beans.

Ribbet collage 1

-Wash rice and soak for 10 minutes, drain and keep aside.

-Chop onions, methi leaves and vegetables of your choice.

-Grind a paste of coriander leaves, cinnamon, green chillies and ginger by adding little water and keep.

-Take one cooker, add oil and ghee or only ghee. Drop whole masalas like bay leaves, cumin and mace.

Ribbet collage 2

-Fry onions until brown and add methi leaves, fresh tuvar, chopped veggies and fry until it wilts.

-Add salt, ground masala and fry for 2 minutes and add drained rice and fry for a minute.

Ribbet collage 3

-Add coconut milk and 5 cups of water, juice of half lemon, boil, close the lid and cook until one whistle and 2 minutes into simmer.

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-Serve with any kind of raita.

Pineapple Menaskai/ Gojju:

December 12, 2017

Menaskai/Menaskayi is one of our coastal specialities, which is a hot, sweet and sour, sesame flavoured coconut-based curry. Normally made with bitter or tangy things like Bitter gourd, raw mango, wild mango or pineapple. We even prepare by mixing Bitter gourd and raw mango as well. It is a common dish in any of our elaborate menus for festivities, usually served on a plantain leaf, like poojas or weddings. This same curry is prepared in a little different way in other parts of Karnataka and known as “Gojju”.

Here, the main trick is-balancing of all the flavours.

If you are preparing with sour vegetable or fruit, there is no need to add additional tamarind. For example, if you are preparing raw mango or mixture of bitter gourd and raw mango Menaskai, there is no need to add tamarind. If you are using pineapple, tamarind should be added.

Here I have used pineapple and the procedure goes like this-

Ingredients:

Pineapple – 1/2 (chopped into bits)

Raw mango – 1/4 (chopped into bits)

Tamarind – gooseberry size (if the mango is not available)

Jaggery – as needed

Salt

Green chillies – 2 (slit)

For masala:

Fresh Coconut gratings – 1 to 1 ½ cups

Methi seeds – 1/4 tsp

Urad dal – 2 teaspoons

Sesame seeds – 2 teaspoons (U can use black or white)

Dried red chillies – 8 – 10 (we use Byadagi variety)

Coconut oil – 2 to 3 teaspoons (1 for roasting + 1 for seasoning + 1 tsp to garnish)

Mustard – 1 tsp

Dried red chilli -1

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Method:

-Clean pineapple by removing the outer skin, chop into bite-size pieces.

Ribbet collage 1

-Cook pineapple pieces and mango pieces or tamarind with little water, turmeric, salt, jaggery, green chillies and curry leaves.

-Dry roast sesame seeds. Now fry all the masalas for grinding. First heat 1 tsp of oil, put methi(fenugreek) seeds. When it is light brown, add all the other ingredients like urad dal, red chillies and fry until urad dal is light brown. Now it is the time to put coconut and fry further for 2 minutes or until you smell the nice aroma.

-Cool the mixture, grind into a paste by adding sesame seeds and sufficient water as well.

-Add this paste to the cooked pineapple, check for salt and jaggery. Adjust the consistency by adding water and boil nicely in a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

-After boiling, add 1 tsp of raw coconut oil as well as the seasoning with coconut oil, mustard, red chilli and curry leaves. Close the lid and leave it to soak all the masalas for half an hour.

-Serve with hot rice.

Note:

-After boiling, the gravy should be a little thicker than normal sambar.

-Taste should be sweet, sour, hot. So adjust the addition of jaggery accordingly.

– We usually relish this dish the next day of preparation, usually with Neer Dosa or chapati/Roti. 😊

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