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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.

Eggless tea cake from Ghee Residue:

March 9, 2018

When I prepare ghee at home, I use this super beneficial ghee residue in preparing roti dough /methi Parata or this very mild flavored cake. I have already posted one chocolate cake using pea protein in my earlier post. This time it is my all-time favorite Cinnamon or Cardamom flavored tea cake.

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Ingredients:

Ghee residue – 2-3tbl

Milk – 1 cup

Sugar – ¾ cup

Chiroti rawa/fine semolina – 1 cup

Cinnamon powder- ½ tsp.

Eno fruit salt -1tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp.

Slivered Almond – 2 table spoon (optional)

Method:

-Take vessel in which you prepare ghee. There will be 2-3 table spoon ghee residues.

-To this add milk, sugar and heat it until sugar dissolves. Switch off and cool.

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-In another bowl, dry mix semolina/rawa, cinnamon powder, salt.

-Mix both and keep it aside for five minutes, at this time rawa will absorb all the moisture.

-After 5 minutes, add Eno fruit salt, mix nicely and pour this mixture into a baking tin.

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-If you want to add slivered almond at the top to enhance its taste and nutritional value.

-Place this tin in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or till done, at 180 C.

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Note: you can replace rawa with Ragi (finger millet flour) and wheat flour. If you are using only flour, add 1 ½ cup, because it absorbs less moisture than the rawa.

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.

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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.

Pasta and Carrot Kheer:

February 23, 2018

My teenage daughter who loves to experiment in food as well as to try or taste new combinations gave an idea to mix her favourite pasta with carrot in payasam and here is the result. I want to dedicate this post to her.

I did follow any regular kheer recipe. To give an extra zing I added ghee fried Chironji and carrot.

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Recipe follows like this-

Ingredients:

Pasta – 1 small cup

Chironji – 2 table spoons

Carrot – 1 (grated)

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Milk – 1 litre pack

Sugar – As needed

Cardamom powder – ½ tea spoon

Method:

-First cook pasta. Boil water, put one tea spoon of oil and ½ tea spoon of salt in it.

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-Drop pasta and cook until Al Dente and drain, keep aside.

-Take one thick bottomed wok, add ghee.

-Fry Chironji, then carrot, until it changes colour.

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-Add milk and cook until milk becomes little thick and becomes little cream in colour or reduced to ¾ th.

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-Add sugar and boil. Now drop in drained pasta, garnish with cardamom, mix and adjust the consistency by boiling more or adding more milk if needed.

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-Serve hot and enjoy the treat with your loved ones.

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.

Plantain / Banana Flower Chutney:

February 10, 2018

We call Coconut tree as a Kalpavriksha. In my opinion Banana plant also should come under this category, because almost every part of the banana plant is used in some way or the other.

The leaves, flowers, fruits, stem, stem fibre etc. Nothing is wasted over here, and it is very useful in many ways.

The male banana flower is purple coloured, dome shaped, and can be seen hanging at the bottom of every fruit bunch. In banana plant, female flowers appear first and appear as a hand like structure in clusters. These female flowers will develop as the real fruit, which we normally eat, and male flowers will remain intact in layers of purplish outer bracts.

After fruit matures, we harvest the fruit and use the male flower that we see at the end of the fruit bunch in cooking. It is loaded with fibre, anti-oxidants, iron, potassium, calcium, vitamins and all other minerals. Flower is used mainly to treat constipation and anaemia in villages of our native in and around Mangalore.

This Chutney recipe is handed down to me by my amma (mother), and I used to relish this from my childhood. It is a perfect combination with hot rice, topped with fresh home-made ghee. We can feed this to small toddlers as well.

Ingredients:

Banana flower – 1

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Pepper – 1 tea spoon

Tamarind – ½ tea spoon

Salt

Water – 1 bowl

Curd – 1 serving spoon

Grated coconut – 1 cup

For Seasoning:

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Cumin – ½ teaspoon

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Wash banana flower from outside and remove outer purple bract (remove 2 layers) and discard.

-Now take one bowl of water with 1 serving spoon of curd and mix and keep it ready. (This water will avoid decolouration of the chopping’s)

-Start chopping banana flower from the tip (refer picture)

-Keep on adding chopped part to curd water.

-While chopping, whenever outer shell opens by itself, discard that and proceed chopping.

– After chopping is done, drain the curd water and collect the banana flower chopping’s.

-Take one vessel, add chopping’s, salt, pepper, cumin, tamarind, 1 cup water and cook.

-When it is done, remove from the fire and cool.

-Add coconut, required amount of water and grind the content.

-Now take one tawa, add ghee, cumin, curry leaves and pour the ground mixture and boil.

-This chutney will stay good for a couple of days under refrigeration and can be served either with hot rotis or with rice.

Balloon Vine Dosa:

February 6, 2018

Balloon vine is well known and widely used as medicinal herb. In Tamilnadu it is used mainly in treating joint pains. I was not aware of this super food until recently which was introduced to me by our beloved uncle Senguttuvan on our Facebook Foodie group. I am very lucky to experience the taste, because of my Foodie friend Ashwini, who came all the way to my home and dropped off the leaves and asked me to prepare the Dosa. 😊

It is a medicinal herb and botanical name is cardiospermum halicacabum (Family sapindaceae).

Balloon vine is also known as Heart seed, Heart-Pea, Love in a puff, winter cherry (English).

The plant got its name because of its Balloon like seed pods.

Some of the regional names are-

Indravalli – In Sanskrit

Agniballi, bekkinatoddinaballi, erumballi – In Kannada

Mudakathan keerai – In Tamil

Jyotishmati, katabhi – In Malayalam

Kapalphoti, khanphuti – In Hindi

It has numerous health benefits and is used in many ailments from Anaemia, diarrhoea, eczema, rheumatism in the form of tea, paste application, kozhambu or mixed with Dosa batter etc.

I tried this Dosa by grinding fresh batter by mixing the leaves in, and it was very tasty. It tastes like plain Dosa with green natural colour.

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Now we will see the procedure-

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 1 cup

Idly rice – 1 cup

Urad dal –¼ cup

Chana dal – one fist full.

Methi – 1 teaspoon.

Balloon vine greens – 2 cups

Cumin – 1 teaspoon

Red chilli – 1 (use Byadagi variety)

Salt

Method:

-Wash and soak Dosa rice, idli rice, methi and soak for 3 hours.

-Wash cleaned greens and keep them aside.

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-Grind soaked rice, greens, salt, cumin, and red chilli into a fine paste.

-Ferment the batter for 8 to 10 hours or overnight.

-Next day mix the batter, and adjust the consistency.

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-Heat Iron Dosa griddle, pour one serving spoon of batter, spread and cook on one side.

-Pour some ghee or oil and flip the side and cook.

-Serve the Dosa with any chutney of your choice.