healthy recipe

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.

Rava idli with Oats/ Semolina idli with Oats:

June 10, 2018

I normally used to make plain Oats idli, earlier. It is our favourite breakfast item and I wanted to make a slight change while preparing and used my Rava idli making method with oats added in it and served with Potato Sagu as how I serve normal Rava idli. It tasted good and we started liking this method instead of making plain Rava idli. This is one more instant and handy recipe for me and works just fine even in kid’s lunch box as well. Addition of oats increases the nutritional value of the dish. So, whenever excess curd is there, this is one more recipe to indulge in that too without any grinding and prior planning.

I normally prepare the dry mixture the previous night and keep it ready to cut short my early morning job. It works very well. Dry mix consists of seasoning and roasting part.

How I make –

Ingredients:

Normal Rava / Semolina – 2 cups

Oats – 2 cups

Curds – 2 cups

Water – 3 cups

Eno fruit salt – 1 tea spoon

Salt

Coriander leaves – ¼ cup (chopped)

Seasoning:

Ghee or oil – 2 table spoons

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Urad dal – 1tea spoon

Chana dal – 1 tea spoon

Hing – ¼ tea spoon

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Cashew bits – 2 table spoons (optional)

Curry leaves – 2 springs (Shredded)

Method:

-Take one kadai, do seasoning part. Heat ghee, splutter mustard, then add urad and chana dal.

-When dals become red, add cashew, hing, cumin, curry leaves and fry for 1 minute.

-Add Rava and roast for a while (until it is grainy) and add oats and proceed the roasting process for some more time. (May be 2 minutes more).

– Add in chopped coriander and mix until it distributes evenly and wilts a little.

-Switch off the gas and leave this mixture to cool. (I usually prepare this much in the previous night and keep it ready)

-Next comes the batter preparation. Use room temperature mixture. Don’t use hot Rava mixture to make idli batter.

-Take one big bowl, pour in curd and water (here I normally take one cup of liquid to each cup of oats and 1 ½ cup of liquid to each cup of rawa) It is a very simple calculation 😊

-Add salt and Eno fruit salt (you can use cooking soda as well) beat a little to attain frothy texture.

-Add seasoned Rava and oats mixture to this and mix.

-Now comes the idli steaming part.

-Take one cooker, pour one cup of water at the base and heat.

-Rinse idli mould by using fresh water. (it is an alternate to greasing the mould)

-Pour ready batter to idli mould, keep it in a steamer and steam cook for 10 minutes.

-Remove, cool, de mould and serve with chutney or potato Sagu.

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.

Energy cake:

December 25, 2017

This energy filled cake has millets, oats, coconut flour. Usually after extracting coconut milk from the fresh coconut, the residue that remains will go into the trash. Coconut residue is very high in fibre. It is much healthier than wheat bran or oats bran. I usually collect this residue, after extracting the milk for any south Indian kheer, and use it in my baking as it is, by storing it under refrigeration for a couple of days.

This energy bar is a little softer than a normal crunchy bar. So, I named it as Energy cake. Shelf life is any where between 2 to 3 days at room temperature, Up to 10 days under refrigeration. If it was under refrigeration, please re-heat to get soft texture.

Ingredients:

Oats – 1 cup

Mix millet flour – 1 cup

Coconut residue – ¾ to 1 cup (You can use coconut flour or desiccated coconut as well)

Brown Sugar – ¾ cup

Butter – 100 grams

Honey – 2 table spoons

Milk – ¼ cup

Cooking soda – ½ tea spoon

Vanilla essence – 1 tea spoon

Choco chip and almond flakes – to garnish

Method:

-Pre-heat oven, line a baking tray.

-In one bowl, combine oats, 2 flours and mix thoroughly.

-Take one sauce pan, heat butter and sugar. When sugar melts, switch off.

-Add in honey, milk,vanilla and cooking soda and mix.

-Pour the frothy wet mixture over oat and flour mixture and fold the batter.

-Batter will be a little thick and heavy. Pour the mixture and spread evenly on a lined baking tray.

-Garnish with Choco chips and almond flakes and press a little.

-Bake this in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for about 25 to 30 minutes or until done.

-Cool, cut into pieces and serve as a snack or a breakfast bar.

Sorekayi Kottige / Bottle gourd steam dumpling:

September 22, 2017

Sorekayi is nothing but humble bottle gourd, which we usually neglect to use in our daily diet, which incidentally has numerous health benefits. In our native, bottle gourd is mainly used to treat stomach illness or jaundice. It is believed that, it has the power (anti-inflammatory properties) to heal our Liver and intestine during the illness. Bottle gourd has close to 90% water content and is great on the stomach and light on digestion. Apart from this, bottle gourd juice is very good for weight watchers, diabetics and for a healthy heart too. We have so many traditional preparations of bottle gourd and all are very low in calories and tasty too.

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 2 cups

Bottle gourd – 1 or 2 (according to size)

Salt

Banana leaves or turmeric leaves – to wrap

Method:

-Wash Dosa rice and soak it for 3 hours.

-Grate bottle gourd by using big hole of a grater or chop it into very small chunks.

-Grind soaked rice into a fine paste with minimal amount of water and salt.

-Mix chopped or grated veggie and rice batter.

-If you are using turmeric leaves, wipe it and use as it is.

-If you are using banana leaves, take banana leaf, hold it over a gas flame (for wilting) then clean it with a wet cloth.

– If you are using turmeric leaves, use 2 leaves, place it in a “Plus” position, now pour one serving spoon of batter and fold the leaves like a packet.

-If you are using banana leaf, pour batter, fold side wise, then close the ends.

-Steam cook these ready packets in a water filled idly steamer for 30 minutes to 40 minutes in a medium heat.

– Serve this kottige with jaggery syrup with ghee / Honey, coconut chutney or sambar.

Banana/Plantain Stem Salad:

September 20, 2017

Traditionally we have used banana stem from ages and it is a super-rich vegetable and neglected by many. Our ancestors were very intelligent and included all the available nutritive vegetables from their surroundings. In our native, usually most of the people rely on agriculture for a livelihood and include all parts of banana plant in day to day cooking. When a bunch of bananas is harvested, the banana tree is cut away. Which is 80% water and 20% fibre.

Eating banana stem is very good for health as well as the kidney. It’s high fibre nature is known for its cleansing property of the digestive system. So, it is very good for diabetic or kidney stone patients.

It has layers of covers which should be peeled off and foot long pieces are made by retaining only a couple of outer layers as a protective layer for this vegetable and they are stored and kept aside for future use.

According to the requirement, before chopping this veggie, chop off required length of the stem, remove outer remaining sheath, until you find the very soft inner core.

Now comes the chopping part. Make thin slices, while slicing you will see the thread like fibre, which sticks to the knife and sometimes it will stick to the slices itself. If you find any thread like fibre either in sliced pieces or knife, remove it by hand.

After slicing the roundels, stack 5 to 6 roundels one over the other and chop as desired. I usually make square small pieces for this salad.

Ingredients:

Plantain stem – 10-inch long.

green chillies – 2 (if available use bird eye chillies)

Fresh Coconut – 2 table spoons

Salt

Lemon – ½

Coriander leaves – 1 table spoon (chopped)

Coconut Oil – 2 tsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Hing – 1 pinch

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

– Chop banana stem as described in description.

– Now, remove the remaining outer cover.

– Slice inner pith into roundels by removing thread like fibre.

– Stack all the roundels and chop as needed. I prefer small square pieces.

– Sprinkle salt and lemon juice and mix it thoroughly.

– Chop chillies.

– Do seasoning, heat oil, splutter mustard, add chopped chillies, hing and curry leaves.

– Add this seasoning over salad.

– Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and grated coconut.

– Goes very well with hot rice or curd rice.

Ili Kivi leaves Tambli:

September 10, 2017

Emilia sonchifolia, Cupid’s Shaving Brush, Lilac tassel flower is locally known as Ili Kivi in Kannada. Sasasruti in Sanskrit and it is one among the “Ten sacred flowers of Kerala state in India, collectively known as Dasapushpam. It has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of fever, sore throat, diarrhoea, eczema and as an antidote for snake bites.

The plant requires well drained soil and grows in open fields. it is an annual herb with weak and erect stems. Leaves are ovate or obovate. The flowers are pinkish purple in colour and usually blooms around July to October. Herb contains Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, sodium and Potassium and some vitamins too. The herb is used as a folk medicine not only in India as well as China and some other parts of the world too.

collage 1

According to Ayurveda plant pacifies Kapha, vata and is effective in treating fever, tonsillitis; juice is a natural for eye diseases. It is also good in conditions like worm infections and allergy. Whole plant is crushed and the juice is extracted and is used to cure intestinal worms. The paste of the plant is useful for bleeding piles. A decoction of the plant is good in bringing down fever. The herb is useful in treating cough and bronchitis. Applying a paste on the thyroid region helps to cure the swelling in is sometimes used in cases of diabetes. (Details are from this website)

Whenever I come across this plant, I don’t hesitate to make use of it and usually prepare this Tambli for lunch.

Ingredients:

Ili Kivi leaves – from one plant

Cumin – ½ tsp

Black pepper – 4

Bird eye chilli – 2

Ghee – 1 tsp

Coconut – ½ cup

Salt

Butter milk – ½ cup

Seasoning: ghee – ½ Tsp, cumin – ½ tsp, curry leaves – 1 spring.

Method:

-Wash leaves, Chop.

-take 1 tsp of ghee in a small kadai. When it is hot, add cumin , pepper and bird eye chilli. If you don’t have bird eye chillies, instead you can use half green chilli and roast. Then add chopped leaves and fry until it wilts.

– Now take out all these fried items and cool.

collage 2

-Grind this into smooth paste by adding coconut, salt and little water.

-Put this into a vessel, add buttermilk, and adjust the consistency by adding little water if needed.

-Consistency should be like normal milk.

– Add seasoning by heating ghee, cumin and curry leaves.

– Enjoy this with hot rice.

Moode/ Kotte kadubu:

August 25, 2017

Moode or kotte kadubu is a local delicacy of Coastal Karnataka. We especially prepare this on the eve of any festivities. Now a day It is an integral part of any weddings in our region.

Moode or kotte is leaf cup which we prepare either by using jack leaves, Kedige flower leaves (Kewda, Fragrant Screw Pine, Umbrella tree, Screw pine) or Plantain leaf. It is based on availability and accessibility to leaf.

It is basically normal idly batter which is poured in these cups, which is made by any one of these leaves and steam cooked in a water bath and served with chutney or any sambar.

I usually prepare this by bringing these leaf cups, from One of the many Mangalore stores, spread across Bangalore, during festival season. Sometimes I do prepare by lining a stainless-steel cup with small pieces of plantain leaves. This also works just fine like any other leaf cup.

Ingredients:

Idly Batter – Fermented

Tall steel glasses

Plantain leaves – as needed

Method:

– Hold plantain leaves on gas flame and wilt a little. It will help while folding or rolling the leaves.

–If you don’t wilt it, it will tear very easily.

–Take one wet cloth and wipe plantain leaves (you should move your hand from centre rib to edge as ridges moves in the leaves) and clean the leaves.

– Remove extra thick centre ribs (fibre) by holding your left palm to support over the leaf and pull the fibre by right hand.

-Cut this into small rectangle pieces.

– It is now ready to roll and place inside the steel glass.

–Keep idly steamer ready, when water starts boiling, pour the batter to the moulds.

–In these cups, usually 2 to 2 ½ serving spoons of batter will hold.

– If batter is more, cooking time should increase according to that.

–Keep it in a steamer, cook in a high fire for 10 minutes and when you feel the steam is uniformly distributed inside the steamer, reduce the flame and cook for 40 to 50 minutes in a very low flame.

–After it is done, switch off the gas, don’t open the lid and keep it for some more time.

–When you want to serve this, open the lid, remove the glass mould and pull the banana leaves out and serve with pouring little ghee and any side dish of your choice.

–Usually on festival days, we make coconut based sambar or chutney and totally avoid garlic and onion on any auspicious day.

–Our traditional side dish is called menthe kodilu and we relish these kadubu’s with menthe kodilu or sweetened cardamom flavoured coconut milk(kayi halu) and coconut chutney .

Patholi / Sweet rice dumpling, steamed in turmeric leaves:

July 27, 2017

Patholi is an offering which we make on the day of “Nagara Panchami”, or the snake festival in our house hold. Monsoon is the season in which we get lot of greens in abundance. Maybe that is the reason this dish is made in turmeric leaves.

Patholi is coconut and jaggery filled steamed kadubu or steamed rice cake, usually folded and steam cooked in turmeric leaves. Turmeric leaf gives beautiful aroma and good taste and this pleasantly aromatic dish is favoured by everyone in our family.

pic main 2

Ingredients:

Dosa rice /white rice – 2 cups

Grated coconut – 1 ½ cup

Grated Jaggery – ½ cup (to taste).

Ghee/ Clarified butter – 4 tsp.

Salt to taste

Turmeric leaves – 8 to 10

Method:

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

– Wash turmeric leaves and keep it aside.

collage 1

– Grind this soaked rice in to smooth paste by adding ½ cup of coconut, water and salt and little jaggery.

– Now keep thick bottomed kadai, pour this 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 to handle it further.

patholi 1

– In the meantime, make sweet coconut-jaggery mixture. In 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 Patholi:

– Take little water in a bowl to dip your hand in between, while applying rice batter over turmeric leaf.

– Now take lemon sized rice batter ball, apply as thin as possible by using your hand by dipping your hand in bowl of water in between.

collage 2

– After applying ,spread coconut –jaggery mixture to half of every leaf in which batter is spread (please refer pictures)

– Now fold this in to half and keep this in a idly steamer and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until done.

patholi 3

– Serve with ghee.

Plantain stem and Moringa Rasam:

July 16, 2017

Where to start about the benefits of these two super foods? From my childhood, we used to relish banana stem and its flower in various dishes. Every part of banana plant is useful, be it its leaves, flower, stem, its outer fibre or fruit. No wastage of any part. Usually after the harvest of Banana fruit bunch, we should remove that plant and should allow its baby plant to grow and fruit. Usually after the harvest, banana plant is chopped off, outer fibre is peeled off and it is dried under the sun and used as a thread in tying Jasmine flowers. Inner core or pith is divided into 3 parts. Top most part, which is very slender and less fibrous will be used in raw salads. Middle portion is little more fibrous and used in cooking and making Dosa’s. Bottom part, which is more fibrous, mature and hard to chew will be used in juices, soups or Rasam’s.

Plantain stem is one of the best, natural high fibre vegetable. It also maintains fluid balance in our body and acts as a coolant, especially in Summer season.

Moringa or Drumstick leaves are considered as a “Power food” for its nutritionally rich nature.

Here I have combined these two ingredients and made Rasam and trust me it is very tasty and can be used as an appetizer shot as well.

Ingredients:

Plantain stem – 6- 8 inches long

Drumstick leaves – 1 cup

Tomatoes – 2

Tamarind – ½ tsp

Garlic – 8 cloves

Cumin – 1 tsp

Green chillies – 2 to 3

Salt

Jaggery – 1tsp

Coriander leaves – 1 table sp.

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 2 tsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Cumin – ½ tsp

Hing – one pinch

Red chilli-1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

– Slice plantain stem into discs, remove thread like fibre while slicing.

– Chop the roundels into thin slices.

– Wash drumstick leaves, here you can use as it is, with its sticks intact. No need to remove intact stalks of these tiny leaves.

– Cook plantain stem pieces, drumstick leaves, chopped tomatoes, green chilli, tamarind in a pressure cooker for one whistle. Cool this mixture, grind and sieve. Discard the fibrous part.

– Dry grind garlic and cumin. Add this to collected solution, add salt, jaggery and boil for a while.

– Garnish with coriander leaves and do the seasoning.

– Heat coconut oil, add mustard, when it starts to splutter, add broken red chilli, cumin and curry leaves.

– Serve this as an appetizer shot before food or as a Rasam with hot rice.

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