Tag: traditional

Christmas Fruit cake:

December 21, 2016

The day before yesterday, my daughter V asked, ‘Amma, everywhere I can feel the Christmassy atmosphere, why haven’t you made anything?  Please make a plum cake.”

Immediately, daughter A said, “No need to do that grrrrrrrrrrr, It has raisins; I don’t like raisins in any baked goodies. Make Red velvet instead of plum cake.”

Finally, mamma came up with this win-win cake for both –

This cake has no booze or fruit juice, or raisins.

Ingredients:

Dry fruits to soak – 1/2 to 1 cup (dried cranberries, tutti-frutti)

For the Caramel:

Light brown sugar – ½ cup

Water – ¾ cup

Butter – 1 tsp

For the Cake:

All-purpose flour – 1 ½ cups ( you can take whole wheat flour + all-purpose flour as well)

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Baking soda – ¾ tsp

Dry ginger powder – ¼ tsp

Cinnamon powder – ¼ tsp

Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

Pinch of salt

Eggs – 2

Light brown sugar – ¾ cup

Melted Butter – ¾ cup

Fresh Orange rind – 1 to 2 tsp (grated)

Caramel – ½ cup

Dry Nuts – 1/4  cup (cashew and almonds)

Method:

-Make caramel in a thick-bottomed vessel. Heat sugar and butter until it melts; lower the heat, add water, mix nicely, boil, and add the dry fruits.

-Here, I took dried cranberries and tutti-frutti. Soak the dry fruits for 2 hrs.

-When you are ready to bake the cake, drain these soaked fruits, separate the caramel and fruits and keep them aside. This caramel can be used while mixing cake batter.

-The next step is the preparation of the cake batter –

-First, we will mix all the dry ingredients, from flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder, and salt, in one bowl and dry mix using a wire whisk.

-Drop all the dry fruits like soaked and drained dry fruits, chopped cashews and almonds

-Once again, mix the flour nicely and keep it aside. This is the dry ingredient mixture.

-The next step is- to preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

-Line the cake tin in which you want to bake. I have used a bread tin over here.

-Next, we should make a wet ingredient mixture. Break the eggs, beat them properly, and mix in butter, caramel, sugar, and grated Orange rind. Beat all these together until the sugar dissolves.

-Take one wooden spatula, fold it in the dry mixture, and make a uniform batter of wet and dry ingredients with a very light hand. Don’t overmix this.

-Now pour this ready batter into the lined cake tin, sprinkle some cashew and almond chunks, and bake this for 40 to 45 minutes or until done at  180* C. Enjoy this fruit cake this festive season!!!

Tomato Omelette /Dosa:

December 14, 2016

tomato-omlette

This time when we went to Sirsi, we stayed at Hotel Madhuvana. When I looked at their menu, I was very curious to taste this special omelette, and ordered the same .When I tasted it, it was this amazing blend of flavours, and not at all like the usual tomato omelette which I prepare. Everybody liked the taste. It was little sweet, tangy at the same time filled with flavour. Immediately, my curious mind, started to check the ingredients. I had asked my hubby to note it down, one by one while I was checking the ingredients .After coming back, I took that list and tried to imitate the same and succeeded. Here I am, sharing this super tasty Dosa recipe.

Ingredients:

  • Dosa rice- 3 cups
  • Fenugreek/methi seed -2 tsp.
  • Beaten rice/poha- 1 ½ cup
  • Coconut – 2 fists full (grated)
  • Jaggery -2 table sp.
  • Salt –to taste
  • Turmeric – ½ tsp.
  • Eno fruit salt or cooking soda – 1tsp (optional)
  • Cumin- 1tsp.
  • Grated ginger – 1 tsp.
  • Firm tomatoes – 2
  • Coriander leaves – 2tblsp.

Method:

-Wash and soak Dosa rice, beaten rice and methi for 2 to 3 hours.

-Grind this into a smooth paste by adding turmeric, salt, jaggery, coconut to an idly batter consistency (little thicker than normal Dosa).

-Pour this batter into one big vessel, add jeera and keep it aside for fermentation.

-If you are living in the cold climate, next day morning add 1 tsp. Eno fruit salt, mix nicely and keep it aside for 10 min.

-Now chop Tomatoes, coriander leaves and grated ginger.

tomato-omlette-batter

-Mix this into Dosa batter and start making Dosa by pouring one serving spoon of the batter on a hot iron or non-stick tawa, don’t spread much. You will see thousands of holes on the upper surface. Smear with butter or clarified butter. When it is cooked, flip and cook on another side too. Serve this spongy tomato omelette with coconut chutney. Here I have served this with coconut-ginger chutney.

Herbal Hair Oil :

December 10, 2016

Oil massage is very useful for the hair. It helps in preventing dandruff, hair fall and split ends. At least once in a week we should oil our hair and scalp to prevent it from all these problems.

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Traditional home made Herbal hair oil which we used to apply during our childhood contained so many rare ingredients like Bhringaraja, Bilvapatra etc. After marrying and settling in a bigger city, I had no access to these things and over the years I made some modifications to attain that goodness by mixing easily accessible ingredients from our surroundings.

This is how I prepare my yearly stock of very useful herbal hair oil.

Ingredients: Take some leaves from your surroundings like

-Brahmi (potted or any Mangalore store has it) you can use Brahmi powder as well.

-Rose leaves or Flowers.

-Curry leaves.

-Leaves of any variety of Jasmine.

-Tulsi leaves/Holy Basil

-Ixora flower bunch.

-Hibiscus flower and some leaves.

-Methi leaves or Stem or both combined.

-Little raw methi/Fenugreek seeds.

1- lemon.

-Coconut oil -1 liter.

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Method:

-wash all these materials (other than raw methi) very well.

-Take your mixer jar. At first take raw methi and powder. Then add leaves and chopped lemon (with skin) .Grind this with sufficient water. Now Herbal concentration is ready.

-Now take one thick bottomed vessel. Mix this ground mixture with one litre Coconut oil and boil nicely.

-it is exactly like ghee making, but will take much longer time. At first you will see a frothy texture, but slowly the bubbling will stop and the liquid will become transparent .At the bottom you will see a brown thick fibre like structure. Now switch off the gas and keep it for cooling.

When it comes to room temperature, sieve this and collect this fragrant herbal oil in a clean vessel and discard bottom fibrous part. After collecting this oil, store this in a dry airtight bottle. Use this at least once a week and enjoy.

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Munge Dosey/Coconut Sprout Dosa:

December 5, 2016

Come December, coconuts start sprouting and in our native, Agricultural background people will become so busy with seasonal activities. Usually December –January is the time frame to make coconut oil. First thing of the process starts by removing all the coconuts from the attic, where it was stored after each harvest.

Then comes, removing outer husk and inner fibre. Third job is breaking each and every coconut from the lot. This is the time; we find lots of sprouts, inside the coconut and these sprouts are so tasty to eat and spongy in texture.

Sprouted Coconuts or coconut sprouts are the edible spherical sponge-like cotyledons of germinating coconuts. They have a crunchy watery texture with a slight sweetness. They are eaten in coconut-growing countries either as is or as part of various dishes. We call it as munge, “sprout” which is a default name of coconut sprout and dosey which we prepare out of it is “Munge dosey”

People eat it as it is or make some delicacies. One of such item is Coconut sprout Dosa, which is very delicious and  it has a mild earthy  flavour. When I went last month to my native, my mom in law gave me some coconuts and one of the coconuts was sprouted and I felt so happy to see this sprout. First thing that came to my mind was this Dosa and I felt Nostalgic by thinking of my childhood.

Ingredients:

Dosa rice – 2cups

Coconuts sprout -1 ( if you have 2 sprouts, no need to add grated coconut)

Grated Coconut – ½ cup

Salt

Method:

–Wash and soak Dosa rice for 3 to 4 hours. Chop coconut sprout in to small chunks.

-Grind soaked rice with chopped pieces of 2 sprouts, or one sprout with grated coconut by adding little water and salt.

-Make smooth paste. This batter must be like our regular Dosa batter and there is no need for fermentation.

-You can make use of this batter straight away. Usually we prepare this batter in the morning itself.

-If you want to prepare this batter in the evening, to make the Dosa in the morning, you can store the batter in the refrigerator.

-To prepare Dosa, heat iron Dosa tawa. When it is hot, don’t apply any oil .

-You can pour one serving spoon of batter and make Dosa like our regular Dosa. Pour ½ tsp of ghee and Close the lid. Or make little thinner batter and pour like a Neer Dosa or rawa Dosa.

-When it shows little brownish spots here and there, flip the side, cook upper side and serve with Coconut and onion chutney or honey or liquid jaggery syrup with ghee.

Note: If you have more than one sprout, no need to add grated coconut while grinding. Instead of one sprout, use two.