Thagathe Soppina Vada/Cassia Tora Fritters:

Thagathe soppu is nothing but Cassia Tora or Senna Tora in English. It mainly grows as a weed in open grounds or road side in Rainy season. It is a very useful plant and mostly ignored by all. Leaves of this plant are not only used as a medicine; its seeds are also used widely in Ayurveda.

In our coastal belt, we do prepare lots of delicacies from its young leaves and this vade or fritters is one among them. These fritters are served as a snack or as a starter for lunch/dinner. This monsoon delicacy is also called dangar in Konkani. 

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – ¾ cup

Toor dal – 2 tablespoons

Dried red chillies – 5 – 8 ( Byadagi)

Salt

Hing – generous pinch

Tamarind – ½ tsp

Coconut – ½ cup

Chopped greens – 1 to 2 cups ( as needed)

Chopped onion – 1

Method:

– Wash and Soak rice and dal for 3 hours.

-Roast red chillies, chop onions , Clean the leaves, remove stalks, wash thoroughly ,chop the leaves and keep it ready.

– At first grind coconut, hing, salt, red chillies in to paste.

– To this, add soaked rice and dal mix, grind this into a small rava consistency by adding very little water.

– Remove from the mixer grinder, add chopped leaves , onion and mix thoroughly. 

-Heat oil in a small kadai. When it is hot, take bite size of batter and pat a little in your palm and deep fry.
-Serve this as a side dish with Dal – Rice or Rasam and rice.
 

Note: If you don’t have access to Cassia Tora leaves, instead you can use chopped Moringa or Methi or fenugreek leaves as well.

 

Akki Happala/Rice Papad:

This is a very light and tasty papad, which is relatively very easy and there is no need to keep it under the sun to dry as it dries under the fan or partial sun at balcony or wherever.

Previously I used to struggle to make this by keeping my tiny 3 steel plates in idly steamer to cook but this year, when I visited Chennai; I bought one papad stand, which is known there as an Elai Vadam Stand and its plates are known as Elai Vada plates. This is my most treasured asset and I wanted to own it from so long. If you don’t have this stand and still want to make this, you can use your thatte idly stand or simply you can keep any small plates or banana leaves and still you can make.

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I usually use Dosa Rice for this and for seasoning; I add chopped green chillies, cumin and salt. You can add any seasoning of your choice.

Ingredient:

Dosa rice – 2 cups

Salt

Cumin – 2 tsp

Green chillies – 4 to 6

Method:

-Soak Dosa rice in the afternoon.

-Around night, grind this into smooth batter by adding salt and little water. Batter should be like Dosa batter. Add Cumin and Keep aside for overnight fermentation.

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-The next morning, when you are ready to prepare papad, dry grind green chillies in small mixer jar and add this to ready fermented batter.

-Adjust the consistency by adding extra water. Batter should be a little thinner than regular Dosa batter.

-Check for salt and adjust that as well.

-Now keep idly steamer on gas stove with little water at the bottom.

-Apply little oil to steel Elai vada plates. In this stand 6 plates will be there. I recommend you to buy extra set of 6 plates with this stand, so that process will finish off in a jiffy.

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– Now pour a little batter on each plate and spread the batter. Place them in the stand and steam cook this only for 2 minutes.

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-At this time, take out the other set of Elai vada plates and apply some oil and spread the batter.

-There is no need to apply oil every time, only once at the beginning is more than enough.

-Now remove adai stand from the steamer, remove those leaves from the stand and replace with the new set and keep it inside the steamer for 2 minutes.

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-Now remove all those cooked papad’s from the leaves by using other leaf’s edge and slightly lift that and peel off.

-Transfer these peeled papad’s over clean cloth and sun-dry wherever you want. If you have access to sun light, dry under the sun (very partial sunlight is required). If you don’t have access to sunlight, you can dry it indoors, but it will take an extra day  or two.

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-Dry for 3 days and store it in a tight container.

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Fry this whenever you want and Enjoy as it is or with Rice- Rasam/dhal.

 

Mix Vegetable Cutlet:

Exam time and kids were craving for Mangalore style cutlets, like the ones you get in Pabba’s ice cream parlour in Mangalore. My daughter asked me to prepare that same chutney as well. Finally tried my hand in this combo and succeeded. Everyone at home liked and asked me to blog about this yummy snack from Mangalore.

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Ingredients:

Potato – 3

Beans – 10

Carrot -1

Beetroot – 1 small

Green peas – ½ cup

Onion – 1 big

Green chillies -5 to 6

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Garlic – 5 to 6

Salt

Garam masala – 2 to 3 tsp (according to taste)

Bread slices – 2 to 3 (whole wheat is fine)

Coriander leaves – 2 table spoon (chopped)

Seasoning: Oil – 2 table Spoon, Mustard – 1 tsp, urad dal – ½ tsp, chana dal -1/2 tsp.

Slurry :– All purpose flour – 1 table spoon and little water

Bread crumbs- to coat

Oil –for deep fry the cutlet

Method:

  • Wash all the veggies, chop beans, carrot and beetroot into bits.
  • Make potato into 4 pieces and cook all these in pressure cooker with sufficient water by adding frozen green peas as well.

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  • Cook this for one whistle and switch off the gas.
  • When pressure relieves, open the lid, drain the water and keep the veggies aside.
  • When it becomes cool peel the potato skin and mash.
  • Chop onions, garlic, chillies and curry leaves.

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  • Take one kadai; add seasoning ingredients one by one from oil, when it is hot add mustard, then urad and chana dal.
  • When dal becomes red, add chopped curry leaves, garlic, chillies and onions and fry until onion becomes little brown.

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  • Now add cooked veggie, mashed potato, Garam masala, salt, powdered bread slices and mix nicely until it becomes like a mass.
  • Add chopped coriander leaves and mix nicely. Check for salt and adjust.
  • Now take one cookie cutter, fill the mix to give a shape or make round patty and arrange them in a plate and refrigerate for one hour OR you can keep this in a freezer for 10 minutes while preparing other patties and can proceed.(It will help the patty to firm up a bit)
  • Make maida (all-purpose flour) slurry to dip these patties. It should be little thinner than Dosa batter.

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  • Remove patties from the fridge and dip one by one in the  slurry and roll this in a bread crumbs and this is now ready to deep fry.
  • Heat oil in a kadai, when it is hot, drop these patties one by one and fry until it is brown. Remove from the oil, drain the excess oil and serve this with a mint – coconut chutney and tomato sauce.

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Note:

-You can use whole wheat bread as well.

-You can use the drained water in making curries, Rasam’s or soups.

– If you are using dried peas, please soak it and cook separately in cooker.

– I use Nayak’s brand Garam masala to give authentic taste and is available at all Mangalore stores in Bangalore.

 

Green Peapod Pakoda or Pakora:

What do you do with nutritionally rich Peapods after removal of green peas? Usually people throw them away and it is less commonly consumed. Last year, my sister introduced me to snap pea Crispi’s. I liked the taste and wanted to include this treasure house of nutrition in our diet. I tried using them with our regular Indian pea pod a couple of times, and failed to achieve the result. While chewing, the fibre used to hinder us from enjoying the dish, after a couple of failed attempts, I came across This Site in which she has mentioned how exactly we should peel the pod, after removing the peas. Once again, I tried with very little quantity and succeeded. Everyone in my family liked it and asked me to share this recipe. It was so tasty and peapod’s natural sweetness and flavour was the highlight of this pakoda.

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Recipe in detail –

Ingredients:

Peapods – as required

Oil for deep fry

For batter:

Bengal gram flour /Besan – 1 cup

Salt

Green chilli – 1

Red chilli powder-  ½ tsp

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Chopped Coriander leaves – 1 tsp

Cooking soda –  a pinch

Method:

-Separate fresh and green peels (pods) while opening, to collect green peas.

-After this, peel off the inner membrane (which will not cook and it is fibrous too)

-How to remove inner membrane: take one of the ends, fold in and pinch inwards and slide your thumb beneath and remove the glossy membrane and separate. If membrane breaks in-between, try from the other side.

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-Discard inner membrane and use outer green cover to make pakodas.

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-Wash these peels and drain, keep aside.

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-Prepare pakoda batter by putting Besan, salt, chopped green chillies, curry leaves, coriander leaves, cooking soda and water; batter should be like Dosa batter consistency.

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-Now heat the oil in a kadai and when it is hot, drop pea pods one by one after dipping into the batter.

pic-4-Fry in a medium heat and when it is done, remove these into a tissue laid serving plate.

-Enjoy these pakodas with hot cup of tea or coffee.