Tag: gluten free recipe

Ubbu Rotti : ( In a Traditional way)

December 24, 2018

Made Ubbu Rotti for today’s lunch, one of the most laborious and very tasty dishes of south canara region. It is a simple rice flat bread and made by soaking Red rice. This is an age old, gluten free and healthy flat bread.

Ubbu Rotti is made as well as served in different styles. Each household has their own method even though the basic ingredient is the same Red rice which is also known as boiled rice or Kerala Matta rice.

In our household we make the Rotti by soaking Red rice and Idli rice in hot water and ground to smooth batter with salt. The ready batter is then cooked on a low heat to make a dough. Then it is pressed into discs by keeping in-between the two plantation leaves. In our native, people use clay tawa to cook the roti. I normally use my Iron Roti tawa. After cooking on both the sides, normally in villages, we put it on “Kenda” (hot burning firewood) to puff up nicely. Here I normally use direct gas flame to do the same. It is low in calorie as well as very healthy and tasty.

While serving, some families prefer chutney and some Malabar spinach gravy. It depends on one’s family preference. In our household, my Mom used to serve Garlic or Onion chutney and Mom -in -law used to serve with Raw mango chutney.

I have mentioned that it is laborious at the beginning itself. You must be thinking by now, why? It is very simple and straight forward and sounds easy as well. I am telling you, it is one of the most difficult recipes to master! Because it needs a lot of patience and time. Roti cooks really slow and vanishes very fast as well 😉 Once you get a hold of it, you can make it very easily. So, if you attempt and practice you will get the hang of it and can make easily.

Ingredients:

Boiled rice – 1 cup

Idli rice – 1 cup

Salt

Coconut oil – to apply

Method:

-Wash rice and soak it for one to two hours by adding hot boiling water and close the lid.

-Grind into smooth batter by adding enough water.

-Cook the batter( I normally add 1 tsp of coconut oil to batter to enhance the taste)  until it forms a dough consistency.

-Take out and cool a little and start making the discs.

-Take small banana leaves, wash and keep it ready as well as a roti presser or two wooden planks to press.

-Take a big lemon size dough and knead a little and form a round shape.

-Take one banana leaf, place it on a roti presser. Place the dough roundel over it and close it with another leaf and press the presser. If you are using plank, do it exactly like this by using the plank.

-Heat the griddle, place the discs (including banana leaf) over the hot iron griddle. Cook in a medium heat.

-Flip the sides couple of times, when roti cooks, leaf will become loose and at that moment, remove the leaf and discard it.

-continue to cook the roti, until you see the light brown spots. Now it is the time to place it on the direct fire and do it. Some would puff, some would not or partially puff.

-That is it. Remove, apply some coconut oil and enjoy with Onion/garlic chutney or Raw mango chutney or Malabar spinach curry.

 

 

Steamed Modaka / Steamed Rice dumpling with Coconut Jaggery filling:

September 12, 2018

Ganesha Festival aka Vinayaka Chaturthi is the time, when we indulge in so many varieties of traditional delicacies- Genasale, patholi, Chakkuli or Chakli– to name a few. Two varieties of Modaka (steamed and deep fried) Panchakajjaya, Halittu (nothing but rice noodles), Guliyappa are the main things which we normally find in our region.

Ganesha has one more name as a “Modaka Priya” means, he loves to eat Modaka. Steamed medakas are also known as Ukkarisida Modaka / Ukdiche modak in India.

Which is ground rice batter, which is cooked until it reaches a ball form and kneaded and stuffed with a coconut jaggery filling and steam cooked.

Some people or in some region, people do use rice flour, instead of soaked and ground batter.

Now a days, people make various kinds of modak from, khoya, chocolate, dry fruits etc. But traditionally it is done in this way.

Procedure goes like this –

Ingredients:  

Dosa rice /white rice – 2 cups

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Grated Jaggery – ½ cup (to taste).

Ghee/ Clarified butter – 4 tsp.

Salt to taste

Modaka mould – (optional)

Method:

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

-Grind soaked rice into smooth paste by adding water and salt.

-Now keep thick bottomed kadai, pour the 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.

-When it is ready to handle, knead it further and form a smooth dough.

-Cover the dough with wet cloth, to retain moisture.

In the meantime, make sweet coconut-jaggery mixture. In a 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 Modaka by using mould-

-Grease the mould by using ghee.

-Take a lemon sized dough at a time, knead a little and use.

-Close the mould, apply the dough all around the mould, fill a tea spoon of coconut jaggery mixture by leaving very little place at the neck of the mould.

-Now take a tea spoon of dough and seal it. Now Stuffed Modaka is ready.

-Proceed until all the dough is over and arrange all these medakas in an idli steamer.

-Steam cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

 

If you are using Rice flour or Modaka flour:

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 2 cups

Water – 2 cups

Salt

Ghee – 1 tea spoon

Method:

-Boil water by adding salt, ghee in a thick bottomed pan.

-When water starts to boil, add rice flour and keep in a simmer for 5 minutes.

– Switch off the gas. After some time, knead the dough and follow the same procedure as above. 

-While kneading, if needed , sprinkle some hot water and proceed.

-Proceed until all the dough is over and arrange all these medakas in an idli steamer.

-Steam cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

Note:

-If you don’t have Modaka mould, take a lemon sized dough, make a 4” disc by using your thumb and fore finger of both hands.

-Keep this in your left palm, in a cup shape, put filling (smaller in size) and cover it. Arrange all these medakas in an idli steamer.

-Steam cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

Kendathadya/ Baked Cucumber-Rice cake:

July 1, 2018

Every adult has a nostalgic dish from their childhood. I have a “secret” love for this dish because of fond memories of my maternal Ajji (grandmother), who used to pamper me to the core and prepare many such dishes by using the fresh produce that she grew in her kitchen garden.

Kendathadya is a traditional recipe of our Coastal Karnataka region, a special baked dish made by putting “Kenda” (hot burning firewood) on top and at the bottom of the earthen pot or thick metal vessel. Creating an oven affects burning firewood at the top and bottom of the closed vessel containing the batter.

Here, Cucumber used is our heirloom (local) variety, known as Mullu southe, which is light in colour, watery, and flavourful. Soaked rice is mixed with grated Cucumber, jaggery syrup, and fresh coconut to make a flavorful cake with homemade ghee. 

In modern life, we don’t have access to traditional firewood chulha. So, I make this age-old recipe in my OTG and satisfy my craving year after year and relive my childhood while having it.

Ingredient:

Raw Rice/Dosa rice – 1 cup

Cooked rice – 1 serving spoon. ( Red boiled rice or white rice)

Well grown Cucumber – 2 cups (grated)

Coconut – ½ cup (fresh, grated)

Jaggery – ¾ cup (grated)

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Ghee –2 to 3 tbl spoons

Salt – as needed

Eno or Cooking soda – 1 tsp

Method:

-Wash and soak the rice for 3 to 4 hours.

-Make jaggery syrup by adding ¼ cup of water to the grated jaggery, boil until its raw smell goes away, strain the liquid and keep it ready.

-Peel the outer skin, make halves, remove the seeded inner core. Grate it. Mix salt and allow the Cucumber to release its water.

-Drain the water from the soaked rice and discard.

-Collect water from grated Cucumber by sieving it in a strainer and using it for grinding as needed.

-Grind drained rice into a slightly coarse paste by adding collected water from the Cucumber, cooked rice, grated coconut, jaggery syrup.

-At the last round, add grated Cucumber and whip once and remove. Add ghee, Eno fruit salt and give a nice whip. The batter should not be too runny or too thick.

-Pour this into greased, lined baking tin and bake this in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 40 to 50 minutes, and a knife comes out clean when you insert it into the baking cake.

-Serve Hot with a drop of ghee.

Note:

– Addition of Eno fruit salt is optional. If you wish for a softer and lighter cake, add Eno or cooking soda.

-Without Eno, it turns out to be a firm and dense cake. I sometimes don’t add Eno and enjoy my dense cake to relive my memories of Ajji.

Eggless Coconut Flour Choco chip cookies:

March 21, 2018

In my last post I have discussed regarding homemade coconut flour. Previously I did try one recipe from coconut residue (without drying and making flour), but this is my first trial or recipe after making the flour, and I am really exited and happy.

One thing we must keep in our minds while using coconut flour is, don’t under estimate its absorption power by seeing its light and airy texture. It absorbs moisture like a sponge. What I learnt from this experience is, it needs almost equal amount of moisture content as flour volume.

Here I have taken flax gel as an egg replacer, mainly because of its gel like texture. Coconut flour doesn’t have any holding capacity, so thought of using flax gel.

In this experiment I have taken half cup of coconut flour and it did absorb the liquid, swell and gave me 9 cookies . More than everything, this was interesting!! Chocolate Chip Coconut Flour Cookie. This was a little experiment, and the results were not bad at all! I got the big thumbs up from my twins 😀

DSC_4745main_Fotor

Let us see the procedure-

Ingredients:

Coconut flour – ½ cup

Flax gel – ½ cup

Ghee or Oil – 1 table spoon

Choco chip – ¼ cup

Organic Natural brown sugar – ½ cup (you can use normal sugar as well)

Sea salt – ½ tea spoon

Vanilla – 1 tea spoon

Method:

– How to make flax gel: Take 2 tsp of flax seed, make powder. Put this powder in thick bottomed small pan, add one cup of water and boil until it is thick, slimy and reduced to almost half.

-Pre heat oven at 170 °C. Line the baking tray with the butter paper.

-Take one glass bowl, put flour, sugar, salt crystals, ghee, flax gel, vanilla and mix. Dough will be little wet. Mix in Choco chip and mix once more.

Ribbet collage 1

-Scoop out the mix by using ice cream scooper and arrange in a lined baking tray.

-Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Ribbet collage 2

-Don’t touch while removing, it will be very soft. Remove the tray and cool as it is.

-After cooling, it will harden a bit. After it cools down completely, store it in an air tight container.

– These cookies are slightly crunchier at outer circle, soft and chewy at the centre.

– It becomes a little more harder and firm the next day .

 

Seasoned Neer Dosa / Thellavu Oggarane:

November 2, 2017

Neer Dosa batter usually finished off as a fresh batter. We traditionally don’t keep Neer Dosa batter to ferment. We finish off all the batter by preparing dosas and keep. My family likes the seasoned sweet version of this at evenings as after school or office snack. That is the reason why I make it a point to soak more rice and prepare more dosas in the morning and keep them. Now we will see how I make this-

pic 1

Ingredients;

Left over dosas – 8

Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Urad dal – 1 tea spoon

Dried Red chilli -1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Salt – ¼ tea spoon

Coconut – ½ cup (grated)

Jaggery – grated (as needed)

Method:

-Break Neer Dosa into pieces by using hand.

Ribbet collage 1

-Prepare mixture of grated jaggery and coconut and keep aside.

-Heat one tawa, add oil, splutter mustard, fry urad dal, red chilli and add curry leaves.

Ribbet collage 2

-Add pieces of Dosa, sprinkle salt and add coconut jaggery mixture.

-Heat until it all mixes and then switch off the gas and serve as a snack.

Thai Clay Pot Rice with Vegetables:

September 15, 2017

This recipe is my entry for BetterButter Contest in collaboration with SPRIG.

SPRIG is a brand that scours the world to get the finest gourmet ingredients into kitchens of people who love to experiment in their kitchen.

It was basically an introduction to SPRIG’s range of unique spice blends, to be used in our dishes covering cuisines from Europe to the Middle east to Asia.

To participate, at first there were four choices of spice blends and they made us select one spice blend from the lot and asked us to create a dish and recipe.

I chose Malacca: Oriental spice Blend.

This spice blend is a symphony of fragrant herbs and spices, inspired by the orient. It captures the rustic richness of South East Asian curries, with a twist. Flavourful chilies make for a delightful fusion, best enjoyed when sprinkled into curries, sauces, salad and stir fries. This versatile ingredient can be used as rub, marinade, glaze, paste, crumb, sprinkle or dressing!

We relish Thai food, lemon grass flavour, one pot meals. Being a Mangalorean, we love our dose of coconut milk too. So, I tried my hand in creating Thai flavoured rice, using clay pot. The dish turned into a super tasty, mildly flavoured one pot meal.

pic main 2

 

Ingredients:

Rice – 2 cups (small grain rice/ Jeera samba variety)

Vegetables – 1 bowl

Tofu – 100 grams

Onion – 1 medium

Ginger – ½ inch

Thai chillies – 3

Lemon grass – 4 sticks

SPRIG MALACCA spice blend – 2 table spoons

Thick Coconut milk – I tetra pack or 200 ML

Water – 3 ½ cups

Salt – as required

Oil – 2 table spoons (any refined oil)

Sesame oil – 1 table spoon.

Clay pot – for cooking

Method:

– Wash rice and drain the water and keep aside.

– Chop vegetables according to your choice.

pic 1

– I have used Broccoli, cabbage, three colours of capsicum and baby corn.

– Chop onion, slice chillies, sliver ginger and keep aside.

– Make 3-inch pieces of lemon grass, make a bunch and tie it with a small piece of cord.

-Take a clay pot and smear it with Sesame oil.

– Sesame oil will act as a non-sticky coat for clay utensil while cooking for long.

collage 1

-Now take oil for seasoning. When it is hot, add onion, chillies, ginger, lemon grass and fry until onion is glossy.

-Add all the vegetables and fry for a while.

-Now add tofu, Malacca spice, salt and mix everything thoroughly.

collage 2

– Next proceed with addition of drained rice and fry for 2 minutes.

-Add coconut milk, water.

collage 3

-Cook the mixture by closing the lid, in a very low flame for 20 to 30 minutes or until done by mixing twice in between.

-Serve hot by discarding lemon grass sticks. (Used to enhance flavour, since they can’t be swallowed)

pic main 1

NOTE:

  • If Thai chillies are not available, one can use any variety of chilli.
  • I have used bird eye chilli.
  • If sesame oil is not there, one can use refined oil to smear the clay pot.

Gluten free Masala Cookies:

September 9, 2017

This masala cookie is low in sugar and perfect as a snack for toddlers or elders. This recipe works out with any permutation combination of flours. I have worked with the addition of Amaranth flour with banana flour. As well as the Combination of whole wheat flour, oats flour and banana flour as well. Every time, it gives crunchy outside, soft inside cookies, and if you are feeding diabetic people, it is a healthier option when compared to packaged biscuits. 

pic main

Ingredient:

Amaranth flour /Rajgira Atta – 1 cup ( you can use 1/2 cup of whole wheat + 1/2 cup of oats flour as well) 

Plantain/Raw banana flour – ½ cup

Butter – 100 grams

Salt – 1tea spoon

Baking powder – ¼ teaspoon

Baking soda – ¼ teaspoon

spice blend –1 to  2 tablespoons (a blend of spices like cinnamon, pepper, ginger or as per the choice ) 

Desiccated coconut – 2 tablespoons

Sugar – 3 tablespoons

Curd –2 tablespoons

Method:

  • Pre-heat oven at 170-degree C.
  • Take one bowl, mix all the dry ingredients such as flours, salt, baking soda and powder, spice blend dry mix/sieve a couple of times and keep it ready.
  • Cream butter, sugar and curd (2 tbl spoons) by using a food processor or hand. Add dry flour, desiccated coconut and make a firm dough.

  • Line the cookie tray with butter paper.
  • Drop the dough into the cookie tray using a table spoon to shape and get the uniform cookies.
  • Mark X at the top of the cookie to get a design by using the tip of the knife.
  • Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 15 – 20 minutes. Pull out and cool.
  • Store this in an airtight container. This measurement yields around 18 -20 cookies.