Rice koyakattais...---A handy anytime snack.

Take 2teacups of rice flour,add salt and grated coconut. Boil some water ,.now add boiling water to the mixture,little by little till the flour is soft and malleable so you can make small sausages out of it.

Meanwhile boil some more water in a vessel.. Once the water starts boiling add 1 tsp coconut oil to it and drop the rice sausages in it.

After a few minutes the sausages will rise.

Check if cooked by poking them.

remove and drain in colander.

In coconut oil vagar - rye, urad dal, kadipatha, hing,and one red chilli.

cut each sausage into 3 pieces and drop them in the vagar.

Add salt if required.

Eat with coconut chutney.

Wind up with a cup of strong coffee...

Spicy, Tangy, RASAM..

On some rainy days or particularly windy days, a cup of hot rasam, never fails to pep you up. NEVER !...!.... !. Boil three tablespoons of toover dall, till quite mashed.

Soak four pieces of tamarind (imli) in a cup of water. When the pieces are soaked properly, squeeze out the pulp. Cut a big tomato into one inch cubes.

Slit one green chilli lengthways.

Half a teaspoon haldi (turmeric)

Salt to taste

One heaped teaspoon RASAM powder (either MTR, or Eastern, or 777 or any other good brand)

Now put into the tamarind pulp, all above items except boiled dall

Next add two glasses of water and boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

Then you add the boiled, mashed toover dal, and mix well.

Let this boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

Close gas

Add chopped kothmir ( hari daniya)

Add 2 tsps. sugar..

Vagar (splutter) in pure ghee, half tsp rye, pinch hing, and one red chilli.

WOW ! what an aroma,,

you can drink clear rasam, taken from the top of the vessel...without stirring...

you can add one tsp pure ghee, to the rice and enough rasam after mixing it well. mix with your finger tips, and crush two appalams . Mix with fingers and start eating.Make sure you have rice, with rasam, and a piece of appalam all eaten together.

A tall glass of chaas, or buttermilk will complete the meal. Ah! what satisfaction...

Happy eating rasam rice.

or

drink a cup of hot rasam.

Do let me know how you enjoyed it.

Bye till my next post...

Methi, Malai, Mattar;

One of the most fabulously tasty dishes I have ever made or eaten... and so very simple to make!..

The ingredients we will need are,

One and a half cups peas, fresh or frozen.

Two onions chopped

One cup methi leaves chopped.

25 grams Kajoo (cashew nuts) - grind dry.

One teaspoon maida.

Amul fresh cream.

Two teaspoons ginger, garlic and one green chilli paste.

In a kadai put 2 tablespoons oil. Fry onions, 2 teaspoons ginger,

garlic and 1 green chilli paste. Add cut methi and fry for one minute,

then add peas and kajoo powder.

Next add malai to get proper consistency.

Add one teaspoon salt , three teaspoons sugar and half teaspoon garam masala.

Mix well - and eat.

With rotis, parathas, rice or bread.

Wind up with a hot cup of coffee.....

Tell me how you enjoyed it.

Till my next post, enjoy eating.

The Popular Lasoon (garlic) Pickle.

I really don't know when I first made this pickle, or from whom I learnt making it. But this pickle was and is and has been associated with Pushpa Aunty, or Aajee,( my grand children call me that)

My eldest grandson Mehul phoned me about 4 months back, Aaje I need some of your garlic pickle urgently.. so I got down to work, first of all peeling the lasoon.

Ingredients: 1/4 kg. garlic nice big ones.

1 tsp haldi - turmeric powder.

1/2 tsp hing. ( asafoetida )3/4 teacup til oil (sesame )

2 table spoons dania powder ( coriander )

1/2 tablespoon red chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon methi seeds (fenugreek seeds)

2 teaspoons salt

Method: Heat oil, add hing and haldi, shut gas. Now add lasoon (garlic)and keep stirring till lasoon gets a glazed look.

When cool, add dania powder, red chilli powder, the methi seeds roughly

powdered and the salt.

Mix well - bottle after 2 days.

Til and Kadipatha Chutney

A few months back a friend from Delhi had come home and I was chatting to her while making snacks ready for her.Suddenly she said you know a couple of days ago Yamini had come home and before going she left a couple of recipes on your computer. I had forgotten all about it. Yesterday I needed a chutney very badly and I had overused all the ones I have..so I looked back to see what recipes Yamini had left for me .

The first one was a Kadi, a dall and hello! ... here is a chutney...Til and Kadipatha Chutney. I immediately made it and we all tasted it with parathas and ghee .. it was out of this world...it was so novel I speechlessly put pinches into my mouth and started savouring it...

I have given the recipe exactly as Yamini had given to me..

Ingredients for the Kadipatha Til Chutney:

1 cup curry leaves

4 teaspoons til

1 inch piece of tamarind

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup desicated coconut

2 tea spoons oil

1 tablespoon khus khus

1 pinch hing

1/2 teaspoon mustard

Method:

• Vagar the mustard in oil.
• Add a pinch of hing
• Add the curry leaves and fry crisp.
• They will turn a darker shade of green.
• Add the til and poppyseeds ad mix.
• Fry till aromatic.
• Now add the desicated coconut, and brown it a bit.,,,
• but dont burn it.
• Put off gas and cool completely.
• Then powder in mixer with Tamarind. salt and sugar.

Serve with any type of Bhakri or rice and ghee.

This was a new chutney in the house, so everyone wanted to taste it. The verdict was clear when the chutney container was empty..!...

Well that was a sucess... Now on to my next post.....

Tasty Brinjal {egg plant } Pickle.

This particular brinjal pickle is a life saver, when it is raining and you are left with a packet of bread slices., and who wants to cook on a lovely rainy day..?

This versatile pickle serves in many ways... with parathas, mixed with cooked rice, and a fried papad for company, sandwiches with buttered slices..with a layer of brinjal pickle, so...oo...o...tasty and satisfying.

The method: 600 grms brinjal, cut into half inch slices...

1/2 bottle vinegar.

1/2 bottle til oil...sesame oil.

1 tea cup sugar.

one table spoon mustard powder.

one and half tea spoon jeera....cumin seed.

one tea spoon methi

three and half red chilli powder

one big whole garlic flakes ...cut into halves...length ways...

6 green chillies

ginger juliennes...one tablespoonful.

2 teaspoon haldi...turmeric

8 to 10 whole black pepper seed.

salt to taste....

10 to 15 leaves of kadi patha

. Take a heavy bottomed vessel, put all the above ingredients into it.

Cook on a slow fire till the ingredients all gel together. about half an hour, to 40 minutes.

Your pickle is ready. Cool and Bottle.

Mixed vegetable curry.

Have you listened to a mother and her children having a war of words about the vegetables to be eaten... How tasty they are, how nicely made in the new blue dish the children love., and there are peas....lots of them !...and best of all there are no chillies......and have you watched how critically the children listen to their mother. well.... now they have been convinced... a little. The children stop muttering and look at their mother sceptically...Maybe she is telling the truth...they should taste a little of the vegetable...maybe it would taste good... so.... .... ....it goes on.

Today , Pushpalata one of my students came with the news that she had a lovely mixed vegetable that her children loved...Of course I was all ears.

So here goes.......
Take half a cup of carrot jullienes, half a cup of beans jullienes,.half a cup of potatoes, half a cup of cauliflower small pieces and a half cup of peas..

In a Kadai put in 4/5 spoonfuls of oil vagar a half teaspoon of jeera, one onion chopped, fry for two
minutes, add paste of lasoon and adrak. (ginger garlic) 2 half inch pieces of a green chilly and hing....two pinches. Add the vegetables and salt and haldi.

Stir well and sprinkle one hand full of water.. and cover and cook.

When done eat with pulkas, or rotis

A carrot and cucumber salad would be interesting.

Come on children, eat your vegetables. Hmm they are tasty...
..