traditional recipe

Jackfruit kottige:

May 10, 2018

Halasina hannu is Jack fruit and Kottige is nothing but idly or kadubu,also known as Halasina Hannina kottige Or Gatti in local language. In which mixture is wrapped in pre-wilted banana leaves like pockets and steam cooked. Like bottle gourd kottige, which I have posted earlier, it is not a savoury kind, it is sweetish and bustling with jackfruit flavour which is enhanced even more with the usage of banana leaves wrap.

Jackfruit season is considered as a feast time in our region. Usage starts from tiny raw fruit form to ripened stage. You will find couple of curry recipes in my blog which I have posted earlier as well as Ripe jack fruit Dosa.

Now we will see how to make kottige, in our traditional method.

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 2 cups

Jackfruit – 2 cups (cleaned)

Fresh coconut gratings – 1 cup

Grated jaggery – ¼ to ½ cup (according to your taste)

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Salt

Method:

-Wash Dosa rice (white raw rice) and soak for 2 to 3 hours.

-If you are using banana leaves, wilt the leaves on gas flame, wipe with a wet cloth and keep it ready.

-If you are using idli mould, grease the moulds with little ghee and keep aside.

-Chop jack fruit, separate fruit pods, remove outer thin white fibres as well as inner seed and take only yellow fruit part.

-Mix grated coconut and jaggery as well as ghee and keep aside.

-Grind rice into fine paste by adding very little water and salt.

-Now take jack fruit little by little and whip a little to chop roughly by using same mixer jar in which rice batter is ground.

-Take one wide bowl, mix in ground batter, roughly whipped fruit pulp, coconut-jaggery mixture.

-Mix nicely, spread the wilted banana leaves and pour one spoon and fold it like a sealed pocket. (refer the below pictures)

-Assemble all these packets in a water filled idli steamer or Momo steamer and cook this for half an hour to 40 minutes in medium to slow heat.

-If you are using idli mould, pour required amount of batter and steam cook like an idli.

-Relish this jackfruit idli or kottige with ghee or coconut and ginger chutney.

-We usually steam cook this on the previous night and keep it ready for the next day’s breakfast. In this way, It will be easy in the morning as now you just have to prepare chutney and serve.

Gujje kadle gashi / Tender jackfruit and whole black chickpeas curry:

April 27, 2018

Tender jackfruit is an integral part of our traditional cooking. Till now I have shared a couple of recipes and today I am going to share one more tender jack recipe which is prepared by pairing it with protein rich black chickpea, which is also known as kala chana, black chana in India.

Tender jackfruit is a super food, which is high in vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers and at the same time, less in calories, salt and fats. Now a day, it is available in almost all parts of the globe as fresh or frozen.

This curry is double beneficial because of additional benefit by adding black chickpea. Which is also known as Bengal grams, Garbanzo beans or Kala chana which has darker skin and thick outer cover and has high roughage.

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Ingredients:

Tender jack or Gujje pieces – 1 bowl.

Black chick peas/chana – 1 cup

Salt

Jaggery – 1 tea spoon

Red chili powder – 1 tea spoon

Coconut oil – 1+2 tea spoon

Masala:

Grated Coconut – from half coconut

Coriander seeds – 1 tea spoon

Urad dal – 1 tea spoon

Methi – ¼ tea spoon

Hing – one pinch

Red chillies – 3 to 4

Tamarind – ½ tea spoon

Season:

Coconut oil – 1 tea spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1 (optional)

Curry leaves – 1 or 2 springs

Method:

-Wash and soak Black chana overnight. Drain the soaked water the next morning.

-Take one pressure cooker, cook chana by adding sufficient water. It requires around 4 to 5 whistles.

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-Add Tender jack pieces into cooked chana, if needed some water, salt, red chilli powder and jaggery and cook in an open fire, until jack pieces are soft.

-In the meantime, prepare masala:

-Take 1 tsp of coconut oil in a tawa, fry methi, add coriander, hing, urad dal, red chillies and fry until urad dal becomes red. Next add coconut and fry until it emits fragrance.

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-Cool the mixture, add tamarind and grind into little rough paste by adding water.

-Add the ground masala into cooked veggie mixture, boil.

-Add seasoning, heat coconut oil, splutter mustard, add red chilli (optional), curry leaves into oil and pour the mixture over boiled curry.

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-After adding the seasoning, add 2 tsp of raw coconut oil and keep it covered until u serve. This is to get an authentic taste.

Nendra Balekai Chips / Kerala plantain chips:

April 14, 2018

A person who can resist chips, let alone not like them, is unheard of.

Nendra is a variety of banana, which is very popular in Kerala and our coastal region. We usually use this in various snack preparations. Raw banana chips are very popular in South India and it’s usually served as a savoury side dish in a traditional meal or just as munchies. This is very addictive and has a distinct flavour due to usage of coconut oil for frying.

I got this raw banana from my cousin brother’s farm and prepared these chips after ages. All thanks to them.

Now we will proceed towards the recipe-

Ingredients:

Green Nendra Banana – 10

Salt – 1 tbl sp

Water – 1 small cup

Coconut oil – To deep fry.

Chips slicer – to slice

Method:

Apply some oil to your hand. To some extent it will protect your hand from blackening.

Take fresh, green plantain, wash properly. Take one small sharp knife, remove top and bottom part and give slits on outer skin at regular intervals (may be 4 to 5) from top to bottom.

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Now slowly insert your thumb at the slit and open the outer skin.

Don’t throw away this skin; you can make very tasty palya/Subzi out of this.

Immerse these peeled bananas in a bowl of water.

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Take one small bowl of water and mix salt and keep aside.it is your salted water, which is used while frying chips.

Now you can keep coconut oil for heating. When it is very hot, start making chips. To test the hotness of oil, drop one small piece of plantain, if it pops up immediately, it is ready.

Take out plantain from water, pat dry and start slicing directly to the hot oil by using slicer.

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Use one or two plantains at a time.

Keep flame at medium. When the slices of plantain cook, the bubbling sound of the oil becomes faint. Now you can add 1 tbl spoon of salted water, and you will hear lot of bubbles and bubbling sound. When the sound reduces, the chips are ready to be removed from the oil.

Remove the chips from the oil and keep them on a tissue-laid plate.

After cooling store, it in an air tight container and proceed with the remaining plantain.

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.

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.

Gujje palya/ Tender jackfruit Subzi:

February 3, 2018

Gujje is nothing but tender jackfruit. We Mangalore people start using Gujje from its very tender form. This particular recipe is for very tender means even before its formation of eyes (seed) and known as “Guddhi palya” as it is prepared after crushing. We will see how to prepare this in a traditional way.

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Ingredient:

Tender jackfruit – 1

Mustard- 1 tsp.

Black gram dal – 1 tsp.

Red chilli – 1 (for seasoning)

Curry leaves – 4 springs

Coconut oil – 4 tsp.

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp.

Turmeric – ½ tsp.

Tamarind – ½ tsp.

Salt and jaggery – for taste.

Grated coconut – 3 tbl sp.

Methi seeds – ½ tsp(roasted)

Red chilli – 2 to 3 (roasted)

Method:

Remove outer thorny skin and centre core. Cut the inner pith into one-inch cubes. Immerse in water for 10 minutes. Drain and keep aside.
Take one thick-bottomed kadai or pressure cooker. I usually prefer one whistle a pressure cooker. This method fastens the procedure.
Put chopped jack pieces, salt, tamarind, jaggery, red chilli powder, turmeric. Now add a cup of water and cook until one whistle.

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When it becomes cool, remove the cooker lid.
Mash the cooked jack a little so that all the segments of the jack pieces will open, and it will help to enhance the taste and structure of the palya.
Dry grind coconut, roasted methi and red chilli into rough powder and add.

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Now check for the seasoning and cook until any remaining water is dried and the masala cooks and coats well.
Garnish with curry leaves, two tsp. Take raw coconut oil, keep it closed, and cook for a while so the coconut and curry leaves’ flavours will spread to give a very authentic “homely” flavour.
Season it by heating coconut oil and adding mustard. When it splits, add Urad dal, red chilli and curry leaves and pour over the ready palya/sabzi.
This palya will taste great with ghee and hot rice or as a side dish with Rasam rice.

Hitikida avarekalu/ Deskinned Hyacinth bean curry:

December 9, 2017

Avarekai has many names like Lablab or Hyacinth bean.

Avarekai is an integral part of every household of native Bangalore or Mysore region during every winter. People wait for its arrival. Winter special lima bean is called “Sogadavare” and it has double the aroma of what we get normally throughout the year.

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Initially I used to struggle with avarekai recipes and never used to get that authentic touch. Now over the years, I have mastered this authentic, tasty curry and my family started liking it and we do enjoy our share of this traditional curry with soft dosas.

If you are using fresh beans, it is a little time-consuming process. During the season we even get the deskinned ones. If you have frozen beans, curry making is an easy task.

At first, we will see the procedure of de skinning –

-At first take a fresh bean pod, remove outer thick green skin and separate the light yellowish green bean. Collect all the shelled beans, soak it in water for 3 to 4 hours.

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Now starts your time consuming real exercise. Dip your hand in water, remove soaked beans and start deskinning by keeping the bean in between your thumb finger and fore finger and press a little, you will see the transparent outer skin would flip and inner bean will come out. Continue the exercise until it is done and collect deskinned “Hitikida bele” and proceed to make very tasty curry.

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Now we will see the procedure of “Hitikida bele saaru” /Curry

Ingredient-

Deskinned Avarekai – 1 big bowl

Onion – 1 for seasoning

Oil – 3 table spoons

Ghee – 2 tea spoons

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Green chillies – 4 (3 for grinding + 1 for seasoning)

Garlic – 8 cloves (4 for grinding + 4 for seasoning)

Coconut – 2 cups

Tamarind – marble size

Coriander seeds – 2 tea spoons

Cumin – ½ tea spoon

Cinnamon – ½ inch

Clove – 2

Ginger – ½ inch piece

Coriander leaves – ½ cup

Method:

-Cook avarekai with required amount of water and salt. You can opt for a cooker or an open vessel. Slow coking gives a better result for this curry.

– Next is the masala preparation. Fry Coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cloves. When coriander becomes light brown, add garlic, ginger, green chillies, coriander leaves,tamarind and coconut and fry until it emits a nice aroma.

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-Switch off the gas, cool the content and grind this in to a smooth paste by adding required amount of water.

-Now do the seasoning, heat oil, splutter mustard, curry leaves, garlic, green chilli, chopped onion and fry until onion becomes light brown.

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-Add ground masala paste and fry for a couple of minutes. Add cooked avarekai and add enough water.

-At this time, consistency of the curry should be a little watery, as cooking proceeds and after some resting time, it becomes thick and becomes perfect.

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-Boil this mixture until you see a thin creamy layer at the top.

-Switch off and pour 2 tea spoons of ghee, give one mix and close the lid. Rest this for some time, and serve with dosas, chapati’s or plain rice or jeera rice.

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Note:

-I usually prepare this curry in the night, and re heat and serve with dosas in the morning.

-In this way, it absorbs all the flavours and sets properly.

Akki Rotti Payasa /Rice flat bread kheer:

December 6, 2017

Happiness is when one of your readers messages you regarding this recipe, which he used to relish in his childhood and attempted a couple of times without any success. He wanted to know the exact recipe for the same, with proper measurements. When he explained about this payasam, I was clueless and thought it must be his grand mom’s own creation to fulfil the needs of her big family by making it easier. He patiently explained the process about how his grand mom used to prepare it and What amazed me was, as a small child, he has seen and observed how his grand mom does etc. After listening to his explanation, it was like a dream to me. I couldn’t resist, and wanted to try it out As soon as possible. The next day was my wedding anniversary and I grabbed the opportunity and started my experiment. It indeed was a treat and I was super duper happy with the result. Here is the recipe and I am dedicating it to that great soul from whom this recipe came to light and my reader who has shared his childhood nostalgic memories with me by explaining it patiently.

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Now we will see how I proceeded with the recipe-

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 1 small cup

Salt

Jaggery – 4 small cubes

One fresh coconut – to extract milk

Cardamom powder – 1 tea spoon.

Banana leaves – 2 pieces

Ghee – 1 tea spoon

Cashew pieces – 2 table spoons

Method:

-Wash and soak Dosa rice for 2 hours.

-Grind the rice into smooth paste with sufficient water (use soaked water itself) and salt.

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-Batter should be of spreadable consistency (little thinner than regular Dosa batter)

-Next is a coconut milk extraction:

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-Take fresh gratings, put one cup of water and grind into smooth paste and extract milk through sieve. This milk is a thick milk and is used at the end. Hence, it should be kept aside separately.

-Now once again take roughage of the coconut, put one more cup of water and grind, sieve the paste and it is our second extraction of milk.

-Repeat the process and take out a third extraction as well and if you are using the roughage of the coconut in any other purpose, you can store it in a freezer for future use.

– Take one wide thick bottomed vessel, Pour diluted, very thin milk (3 rd. extraction) and jaggery. Boil nicely.

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-Now pour second extraction of milk (thin milk) and boil further.

-Now start preparing Rotti, take one clean banana leaf, spread a ladle of rice batter and spread as thin as possible and flip this leaf over boiling jaggery solution.

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-Within 2 minutes, it will be ready to remove. Now start pulling your banana leaf by peeling it slowly.

-After peeling, if at all some cooked Rotti part remains, take one flat ladle and remove and put it in the boiling jaggery solution.

-Repeat the procedure, until batter finishes. I did it 4 times.

-Now boil this further for 3 to 4 minutes and mix it in-between by using very light hand.

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-It is the time to use thick first extract of the coconut milk.

-When it starts boiling, remove from the flame. Add cardamom powder and ghee fried cashews and serve hot.

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Note:

We liked this dessert as a Hot option.
When it cools down, at room temperature it tastes good.
Under refrigeration, if Rotti pieces becomes slightly hard, one can relish after re heating.

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-

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.

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-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.

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-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.

Shankarpali/Diamond biscuits:

October 14, 2017

Shankarpali is a traditional Maharashtrian, deep-fried snack. It was introduced to us by our neighbour aunty. It is a very light, flaky, melt-in-the-mouth, a small, irresistible cookie that is deep-fried and not baked. It has a good shelf life, and one can enjoy it even after Diwali.

Traditionally, Shankarpali is made by using All-purpose flour. Here, I have used Whole wheat flour and oat flour and did not feel any change other than the colour of the final product.

If you want to use All-purpose flour, follow this recipe, replace the flour, and proceed.

Ingredients:

Milk – 1 cup

Ghee – ½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup ( I have used Brown sugar)

Salt – 1 tsp

Cooking Soda – ¼ tsp

Flour – 3 ½ to 4 cups (as required) ( All-purpose flour OR Whole Wheat and Oat Flour)

Oil – to deep fry.

Method:

-Take one bowl or food processor, beat milk, ghee and sugar until frothy.

-In another bowl, take 2 cups of whole wheat flour and ½ cup of oats flour, salt, cooking soda and dry mix everything.

-Add the mixed flour to the liquid ( beaten milk and sugar), add some more whole wheat flour and make a soft, pliable dough by adding whole wheat flour little by little.

– Cover this bowl and keep it aside for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Keep the oil on a low flame to deep frying.

-Take a small portion of the dough, roll it into a thick ¼ inch circle, like a Roti. Remove the outer curved portion and make a square. ( it is optional to get only square pieces)

-Take a pizza cutter or any other zigzag cutter and cut this flattened disc. Now deep fry it on a low flame.

-When it becomes light brown, take it out and spread it on a tissue paper laid plate.

-When it is cool, store this in an airtight container.

NOTE: Keep the gas flame to a simmer and maintain the temperature of the oil. If oil is overheated, the shankarpali would turn into deep brown/ half-done and charred.