Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Kuzha Puttu | Kerala Puttu

Kuzha puttu,one of my favorite since childhood.As our native is "Tirunelveli",our cooking have lot of kerala cuisine influence. We use lot of coconuts and also puttu,appam,idiyappam are our regular breakfast menu atleast twice in a week .We usually used to have puttu with sugar & ghee/banana . But after tasting it from few kerala restaurant, i used to like the puttu & kadala curry combination now ,but nothing beats sugar & ghee combo.

In my earlier days of primary schooling, we stayed in Villupuram, so on summer holidays, we went  to Tirunelveli. In those days, lot of islamic ladies in the street next to our grandma house made appam , puttu & idiyappam in their house and sold it.
My grandma used to take us(me,my brother & cousins) to their house at early morning itself. We used to  carry vessels for puttu & appam and tumbler for coconut milk. Lot of people were waiting before us, so we had to wait for our turn to get it and once reached home, we all had it together and it was delicious. I miss those days, it makes me nostalgic. Ok.Enough with my "blah blah", will check recipe now.

Kuzha Puttu

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 15 minsServes : 1 or 2 
Recipe Category: Breakfast | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients 
Rice flour - 1 cup.
Water - 1/2 cup (approx)
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Coconut - 1/2 cup
Procedure
Take the rice flour in the bowl , add salt and mix it well, Then sprinkle water and mix it, it looks like crumbled bread.
The flour should be hold the shape when you press it with your fist  and again it should be crumble when you crumble it with your fingers . That's the right way to check the consistency of the flour.Now take the Puttu Kuzhal(Puttu maker). Add the small plate with hole(it comes with puttu maker itself) in to it. Now add the flour into the maker and then coconut . Usually i add about 2 fistful of flour and 2 tbsp of coconut in between.Repeat this, until it reaches the top, close with the lid.Now heat the water in the pressure pan with lid , and place this puttu maker instead of weight. Steam it for 5 mins in medium flame. Once cooked, you can see the steam coming out of the holes in the top of the puttu maker.
Switch off the flame. Now using the stick that comes from puttu maker to  press the puttu slowly. It will come out cleanly.
Tasty Kuzha puttu is ready. Serve with with Kadala curry or sugar with drizzle of ghee(My favorite) or sugar with banana whichever way you like.
Notes:
  • To get the perfectly shaped puttu, the amount of water , we used is very important. For me it takes around 1/2 cup of 1 cup of flour.
  • If the amount of water is less, then the puttu will not hold the shape and also it's very dry.
  • Remove the lumps , while mixing the flour.
  • You can increase/decrease the amount of coconut according to your preference.
  • Once you washed the puttu maker, remove the water inside the puttu maker with tissue paper, before adding flour. It helps to avoid the flour sticks to the maker, so that you will get perfectly shaped puttu.
  • Once you mix the flour with water, immediately steam it, if you make large quantity, do it in batch. It will avoid the flour to become dry.
  • If you dont have puttu maker, steam it in idly pot.
  • I used store bought flour, if you are using fresh home made flour,it doesnt require this much water.


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Friday, March 27, 2015

Bread Sandwich | Bread Masala | Iyengar Bakery Style Sandwich

Iyengar Bakery Style Sandwich, a delicious and easy to make sandwich with spicy carrot masala. It's one of the common sandwiches that you can find in bakeries around mid morning all across Tamilnadu. 

This sandwich is so easy to make without any sauce or cheese, but still it tastes so good and wanting you to eat more & more ! The mild sweetness from the carrot, flavor from the bell pepper/capsicum and the Indian spices, all these make this sandwich simply scrumptious ! 

First time, I tasted  this sandwich in one of the  "Iyengar bakeries" at hosur when we lived there. One day, after shopping , we went there to buy some snacks(like coconut milk murukku),  at that time we noticed this sandwich in the tray, so we thought of giving it a try and it tasted so  wonderful with bursts of flavours.

From that day onwards , I wanted to try this  sandwich on my own. Last week, I finally tried it and it came out super tasty as expected. In the bakery, they serve only open sandwiches, but when I make, depending on the mood, I prefer open or close sandwiches.

Now it's been our morning breakfast for years! (update 2022)




Iyengar Bakery Sandwich

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 15 minsServes :
Recipe Category: Sandwich | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Carrot Sandwich,Iyengar Bakery Style Sandwich,Bread Masala Iyengar Bakery Style Sandwich, a delicious and easy to make sandwich with spicy carrot masala.


Ingredients

Bread Slice - 7 nos
Carrot - 2(medium)
Capsicum - 1/2 of small size
Onion - 1 small
Tomato - 1 medium
Green chili - 1 small(optional)
Turmeric - pinch
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste(little more 1/4 tsp)
Coriander leaves - few
Oil - 1/2 tsp
Ghee - to toast(1/2 tsp approx)

It makes 3 closed & 1 open sandwich.





Procedure

Cut the onions, tomato, capsicum & green chilli into small pieces. Grate the carrot and keep aside.Heat the oil in the pan , add onion & green chilli and saute it till translucent.
Then add the tomatoes into it along with spice (turmeric & chilli powder) & salt . Saute it till the  tomatoes became mushy.
Now add carrot and saute  till the carrots are soft & raw smell of carrot leaves. No need to add water, the water from carrot & tomatoes is enough to cook the carrot.Then add capsicum, mix it well and let it in low flame for 2-3 mins.
Finally add the coriander leaves and switch off the flame. Take the carrot mixture in the spoon and spread it on one side of the bread and close it with another bread.
Heat the tava and grease it with ghee and place the bread on tava and toast it ,till the bottom became brown and the apply ghee slightly on top side and flip it and cook on other side too. Press the bread with the laddle, so that the bread stick to the masala well.
Remove it on the plate , once both side turns slightly brown. Cut into diagonals and then serve.
For open sandwich,.fill the mixture on one side of the bread and put it on greased tava and cook it till the bottom turns brown and remove it on plate and apply ghee slightly on the top . Cut into diagonals and serve.
Tasty Bread sandwich is ready .Slight sweetness from the carrot, tanginess from the tomatoes and all spices ,make this sandwich a very tasty one as i said earlier. 

You can serve it with ketchup and any juice of your choice. We had it with Nannari sarbath.
Notes:
  • I have used white bread here, you can use brown bread too. 
  • This sandwich doesn't need any accompaniment, if you want , you can have it with tomato ketchup.
  • When i tasted in bakery, i got the ghee flavor, so i used ghee to toast. But you can use butter too.
  • You can add more or less of the capsicum as per your like.
  • Capsicum should be crunchy, so don't cook it for long time after capsicum is added.
Now it' time to dig in
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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Varagu Adai | Kodo Millet Adai with Drumstick leaves

Varagu Adai, a healthy breakfast / dinner recipe made from kodo millet, lentils and Indian spices. In recent times, cooking with millet is famous everywhere like tv shows, cook books and in the blog world too.
In general, I'm not too comfortable in including any new millet in my diet as soon as I hear about it or just because it went viral in the online world. Hence I'm a little late for the millet party. 

For a while now, I have been including all kinds of millet in our diet little by little. Instead of replacing rice with millet for our lunch, I like to add them in dosa batter or  adai. And this varagu adai is my recent favorite. 

Millet Vs Rice 

Compared to rice, millets have a good amount of fibre, protein and amino acid. Therefore including millets in your diet adds more benefit to your overall health. 

Other millets 

Millets like samai(little millet) and kuthiraivali(barnyard) can also be used in this recipe in the place of kodo millet. I have tried with all these three millet and it tastes good without much difference in taste. 

Drumstick leaves

I have tried this adai with and without drumstick leaves. Adding drumstick leaves definitely gives nice flavor to the adai. But it's totally optional. In recent times, I have made them mostly without drumstick leaves because it's really hard to source here. 

Ok, now let's check out on how to make these delicious 

Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist or dietician, all my knowledge about the food/grains are acquired through reading or watching videos from the experts in the field. 


Millet Adai/Varagu Adai

Preparation Time : 2 hrs | Cooking Time : 20 minsServes :
Recipe Category: Adai | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Millet Adai, Varagu Adai, Adai with drumstick leaves, Varagu Adai, a healthy breakfast / dinner recipe made from kodo millet, lentils and Indian spices.
Ingredients
Varagu/Kodo Millet Rice - 1/2 cup
Toor Dal - 1/2 cup.
Channa Dal - 1/2 cup.
Urad Dal - 1/2 cup.
Red chili - 5 no
Cumin seed - 1 tsp
Fennel seed - 1/2 tsp
Ginger - 1/2 inch pieces
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida - 1/8 tsp
Drumstick leaves - 1/2 cup loosely packed
Salt - to taste
Mustard & split urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Onion -1(finely chopped)
Curry leaves - few
Procedure
First put all the dal and varagu rice in a bowl and wash it well. Then soak it in water along with chili,cumin and fennel for 1 1/2 - 2 hrs.


Once it's soaked well.Grind it in the wet grinder/mixie along with ginger into fine paste and remove it in a bowl and keep aside.


Heat the pan with 1 tbsp of oil and  add mustard ,split urad dal,curry leaves & onions,saute it with pinch of salt until onions becomes translucent.


Add this onion into batter along with turmeric,salt & asafoetida and mix well.Finally wash the drumstick leaves and add it into the batter. Add water and adjust the consistency of the batter. 

Heat the tava ,grease the tava and pour the ladle full of batter and spread like dosa(keep it in low flame,so that you can able to spread,after spreading the batter increase the flame)and cook it for 2-3 mins,then flip it and  cook on other sides.Once it becomes golden brown on both sides,remove it.
Healthy Varagu Adai Dosai is ready. Serve it  with coconut chutney/ Sugar or even with jaggery.
Notes:
  • Drumsticks leaves is optional, but adding that gives great flavor to this adai.
  • You can make this adai as thick or thin as per your liking.
  • Try to finish the batter within two days. After that, it wont taste good.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Home made Khoya/Mawa/Kova



As i already mentioned in my Gulab Jamun post, i made the khoya/Mawa/kova at home for making gulab jamun.For making khoya, you need lot of patience. It takes little more than 1 hr.

If any recipe calls for more times, usually i keep my laptop in kitchen counter(away from heat) and start watching my favorite shows. It will help to do things easily , but in this recipe, you have to keep the eye on the mixture for last 15 mins.




Ingredients 

Milk - 1 liter

Procedure

In a wide ,non sticky pan, add the milk and heat it, Once it comes to boil, put the flame in low and stir it every 5 mins.


It totally took 1 hr to reach the final stage after the milk comes to boil . For first 45 mins , stir the mixture at regular intervals of 5 mins and removes the sides and add it back to the milk.

For the last 15 mins you have to stir it continuously, otherwise the bottom will get burnt and the whole mixture get waste.

Even i got pain in my shoulder for continuous stirring. But all this worth, when you made the fresh khoya at home.

The color of the mixture starts to change and turns into pale yellow at the end.

Once it leaves  the sides , remove it from flame and transfer into bowl and allow to cool down.


After 2 hrs, the khoya get firm and you can use it for any sweets like gulab jamun. See how the texture changes after 1 hr.

Note:
  • Highly recommended to use non stick pan.
  • Before making any sweets, knead the khoya well.
  • You can even refrigerate it and bring it to normal temperature before making any sweets. 


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Breakfast

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