Aviyal - Mixed Vegetables in a Coconut and Yoghurt gravy

Credit: Kairali Sisters' e-book pg.20 These precautions you must follow in preparing Aviyal: 1. All vegetables are cut only lengthwise (2inch by 1/2inch) 2. Do not overcook or you'll end up in a soup. 3. The following vegetables are never used: · Beetroot - as it discolours the entire Aviyal as red · Tomato, Cabbage and Ladies Finger(Okra) makes Aviyal watery · Sweet Potato, Radish, Turnip, Cauliflower & Mushroom are best avoided ·...

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Koottu curry - Chick peas and mixed vegetables

The Kairali sisters' e-book contains two types of koottu curry - one spicy version and the other sweet version. I actually liked ingredients from both and kind of combined it into my own version. I loved it the way it turned out. I intended to add chena(yam) into this as per the recipe, but I realized that I ran out of it by using it in the other dishes. So I replaced it with Chembu(taro) and it still tasted divine! Ingredients: · 1 cup Black...

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Chena Vanpayar Erissery - Cow peas and Elephant Yam in a spiced coconut gravy

Credit: Edible Garden Note: You can also make another version with Pumpkin instead of Elephant yam which is also quite popular. Ingredients: 3 cups cubed elephant yam / chena 1 cup cow peas / vanpayar - preferable soaked for at least 2-4 hours Salt to taste Grate together: 1/2 cup grated coconut (frozen will work but not dessicated) 1 tsp minced fresh garlic 1/4 tsp pepper powder A large pinch of turmeric powder 1/4 tsp chilli powder For...

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Kaalan - Plantain and Elephant Yam in a spiced Coconut-Yoghurt sauce

Credit: Pazham Pappadam Payasam e-book pg.33  Prep. Time: 55 mins. Ingredients: Yam ¼ cup, cut to chunks Plantain 1 small, Skin peeled off and cut to diagonal chunks Yoghurt 4 cups Turmeric powder ½ tsp Black Pepper powder 1 ½ tsp Green Chilly 2 nos Cumin seeds ¼ tsp Grated Coconut 1 cup Fenugreek powder a pinch, roasted Salt as needed Curry leaves Mustard seeds ½ tsp Dry red chilly 2 nos Oil 1 tbsp Ghee 1 tsp Method: 1. Heat a wide...

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Puli Inji / Injicurry - Ginger Jaggery sauce

I simply love this curry coz its sweet and spicy and gives a lovely kick to any boring bland dinner. If I have rice with just moru, pappadam and puli inji, I'll be happy. I also recently learned that its a good side with Chicken biryani. As the main ingredient of this dish is ginger, it helps with digestion of a heavy meal such as Onasadya or Biryani. I'll post a better picture the next time I prepare it. Credit: Mishmash Ingredients: 1 cup...

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Parippu Curry / Kerala style dal

Credit: Sankeerthanam  Ingredients: 1/2 cup daal 1/2 tsp turmeric powder  2 green chilies To Grind:  1/2 to 3/4 cup grated coconut 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/4 tsp turmeric powder  To Temper:  1/4 tsp cumin seeds 1/8 tsp fennel seeds 1 dry red chilli 1 tsp mustard seeds 1 tbs ghee (clarified butter) 2 to 3 shallots, chopped few curry leaves Method: Pressure cook daal up to 2 whistles adding turmeric powder,...

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My First Onasadya

I had intended to post this immediately after Onam. But I guess its better late than never. I was super-excited to prepare my first Onasadya. So I called up my sis over and we had a fun day purchasing veggies at the supermarket, cutting, chopping, grinding, cooking and finally serving it to Bee who waited patiently for the sadya to be prepared. Apart from the items displayed in the photo above, I also had moru kachiyathu and two types of payasams....

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Fresh start

So I've been away from my blog for way too long. And it filled me with guilt coz I've enjoyed it so much. Also I've been cooking quite a lot, taking pictures and have not bothered to post any of them. Its just that there was so much going on in my life, that I was sort of banned from blogging until I finished all that work. First came Onam, and I prepared my first ever Onasadya!! And it just made me feel so proud that I was able to make so many dishes in one day like a cook-off or a race. And I was surprised that most of the recipes were quite...

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Indian Penne: A Twist of the Twist of Taste

Two fusion foods in one day? I must be goin bonkers!! I think its because of watching this new show on Fox History & Traveller channel, called The Twist of Taste by Vineet Bhatia. This guy is totally twisting Indian foods into more gourmet-like fine-dining platters. So I googled him and found this article. I learned that he's the only chef apart from Gordon Ramsay to receive Michelin stars in two separate countries. So he seems to be a pretty...

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Pizza Parotta - My Twist of Taste

These days I see a lot of emphasis on fusion food. I was never really into it as I prefer trying to get the authentic tastes. But I sometimes wonder how someone would even think of fusing this and that together. Some are interesting, some not, some even pure genius! So how did I venture into this area of fusion food? As they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. I was working at home coz I was not feeling too well, and did not have much...

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Penne Yummyolio

I just didn't know what to name this pasta dish. Its yet another penne pasta dish I made with different ingredients available wth me at that time. It was a weekend when I blackmailed my sister into coming over because I was cooking something yummy. So thought of naming it that way. Ingredients: Penne Pasta: 250gms Olive Oil: 3 tbsp. Salsa: 100ml Garlic: 2 cloves Onion - 1 medium Cherry Tomatoes: 10 Capsicum: 1 (yellow or red) Baby...

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Penne Pasta with shrimp and chicken sausage

So I was lazing around on Saturday when I was supposed to finish some work. Wasted lots of time watching tv and at around 10.30pm, I started to get the hunger pangs coz the last time I ate something was in the morning. There's so much of chaos outside my house, lots of kids running and shouting about, huge family get togethers happening on a Saturday night. Ignoring the ruckus outside I decided to fix something really fast, and walk...

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Gaajar ka Halwa - Carrot Halwa

I've been making sweets to give away to friends and had repeated the coconut burfi recipe twice over the past 2 weeks. I wanted to try something different this time and chose gaajar ka halwa as I had bought a kilo of carrots last weekend and thought it was a good idea to use em up. I went through a lot of recipe videos such as Vahchef, Showmethecurry and Sanjeev Kapoor or another one on Sanjeev Kapoor's site. All have different approaches...

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Banana Custard

Simple dessert, takes hardly 10 minutes to make it and really no effort at all. All you gotta do is prepare the custard, put in the vanilla essence, banana slices and garnish with chopped nuts! How easier can it get. You could add more fruits of your choice, like apples, pears, grapes, oranges, peaches, even those canned pineapple slices will go well with it. I would have loved to use a canned fruit cocktail but did not find it at...

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BBC - Bailey's Banana Colada

This is a Pina Colada with a twist! If you want to make a virgin one, just omit the alcoholic ingredients. Ingredients: Banana robusta - 1 Bailey's Irish Cream - 30 ml (I used the new hazelnut flavour, but you can also use the original version or the caramel one) White Rum - 30 ml Pineapple Juice - 60 ml Coconut Cream/Milk - 60 ml Amaretto - 10 ml (optional) Crushed Ice Method: Blend all ingredients in a blender...

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Bhindi Masala - North Indian style Okra stir fry

I was working at home again and I had to cook up something really fast for lunch. There was a packet of ladyfingers and I've already mentioned in my previous post that I'm not really a fan of this vegetable. But I didn't want it to go to waste and I was bored with the ularthiyathu recipe and wanted to change it a bit. So I searched and found another blog called Whatz Cooking. Not so fancy but the bhindi masala looked good and different. Ingredients: 250...

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Chicken Tikka Masala

I've been in love with kababs since the time I remember. Its quite a pity that I don't have a mircowave oven/grill with me in my kitchen (no space in the tiny kitchen and I havent saved up for it either). But I couldn't stay away from kababs for too long, so I decided to pan fry them instead. This recipe is mostly from Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe but I've made a couple of changes here and there. The original recipe does not call for...

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Jeera Rice - Cumin Rice

I have already posted a jeera rice recipe before along with the Shahi Paneer. But this time I tried Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe and added a few extra ingredients from the old recipe as well. Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe involves cooking the rice along with the jeera and allowing the water to reduce completely at exactly the same time the rice is cooked. So the quantity of rice and water is important. The previous recipe involves cooking rice separately...

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Midnight Masala Art

An image painstakingly created by me using Adobe Photoshop. As luck may have it, I did not have to work at all today as the servers were down. So I got ample time to doodle and its been quite a while since I've been itching to do some artwork. Today was my lucky day and what satisfaction!! It involved a bit of image searching on google to get a cute cityscape at night with a happy moon, and another image of a lady happily cooking a healthy meal in...

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Chemmeen Vada - Minced Shrimp Fritters

Credit: Mishmash Ingredients: 250 gms small shrimp peeled, deveined and washed thoroughly. 4-5 small red pearl onions/shallots 3/4 tbsp finely chopped ginger 7-9 fresh green chillies A small sprig of curry leaves coarsely chopped 1/4 tsp turmeric powder Salt to taste Oil for deep frying Method: Using a small jar of the food processor or blender, make a coarse paste of the small onions, green chillies, ginger and curry leaves. To this, add...

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Coconut Burfi

I love watching food on television. Its just comfort. You don't have anything interesting to watch, put on some channel that has food as its topic. I think you invariably end up learning a lot of techniques, methods, ingredients, variety of cuisines, even photography/videography tips. The history channel used to be a terribly boring channel for me, as I hated history in school. I guess they realized that history aint that appealing a topic to the...

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Kothavarangai Poriyal - Cluster beans stir-fry

I'm not exactly familiar with cluster beans mostly because it wasnt cooked in my home. Don't know about its use in kerala but it seems to be a regular side dish in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. I bought these last weekend for a change in variety of beans as I only bought french beans. Apparently I liked this particular dish whenever I ordered meals in the popular Andhra restaurant Nandhini. I decided to give this recipe a try at home and it was...

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Kesari Bath - An Indian Semolina Dessert

I was working from home today. Now as good as that may sound, it actually sucks coz you still gotta work when other entertaining stuff just stares at you and mocks at you! Ok, I give in to the TV and leave it on, mostly mute since I have to be on conference calls. Today's call was a disaster! The neighbour's dog decided to practice its barking skills at the same moment I had to take the call. Since I bought this new Nokia phone (I'm used to Sony...

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Chicken Parmesan and Spaghetti

I bought a chunk of the original Parmigiano-Reggiano from Spar about a month back. I've used it while making different Italian dinners but have been wanting to try the Chicken Parmesan, and I decided to try it out when my sis came to visit me on a weekend. Oh, it was super tasty! I'm thinking of repeating it again for dinner tonight. Parmigiano-Reggiano is the original Parmesan cheese from Italy. Its a bit grainy and salty to taste, so be careful...

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Chicken Spring Rolls

These are an all-time favourite starter for me. I dream of these lovely juicy crispy rolls that we used to order from the famous Gulf Royal Chinese Restaurant in Riyadh. The chicken spring rolls with that sweet and light tomato sauce was something to die for!! So I've been having this craving for quite some while now, and I've been disappointed by all the spring rolls I've had from India so far.. maybe I have not been trying them at the right...

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Coconut Chutney - for Dosas or Idlis

A must have with dosas! Credit: http://www.tarladalal.com/Coconut-Chutney-(idlis-and-Dosas)-1653r Ingredients: 1 cup grated coconut 2 small green chillies , chopped 1 tsp grated ginger (adrak) 1 tbsp roasted chana dal (daria) salt to taste For The Tempering 1/2 tsp mustard seeds ( rai / sarson)1/2 tsp urad dal 1 red chilli , broken into pieces 2 to 3 curry leaves (kadi patta) 1 tsp oil Method: 1.Put the coconut, green chillies, ginger,...

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Pancit bihon - a Filipino treat

Whenever my mom used to take me and my sister to a farewell party thrown by her colleagues at the hospital, one of the main dishes that was sure to be there was Pancit. We used to love it and take a second helping. Later when she realized that we liked it, she used to cook it for us at home at times after getting the recipe from one of her filipino colleagues. Ingredients: All ingredients to be used as per required quantity. 1. Rice Sticks/noodles...

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Vegetable Uppumavu/Upma - Salt Mango Tree ;-)

I'm not exactly a fan of this preparation as I find this dish absolutely boring! Proabably because when my mom used to make it, it was a very dry form without the vegetables - but with chunks of ginger, chillies and curry leaves which i had to keep picking at and still pieces would get in my mouth and irritate me. So it was quite unpleasant. And then the one with the vegetables, the soft and moist one used to be served in my hostel, which I liked...

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Buffalo sausage rolls

Made these for dinner on a lazy Sunday. You might think its junkfood, but I have packed it with lots of veggie nutrition. :) Ingredients: Buffalo skinless sausages - 1 per roll Samoli/Sausage bread - 1 per roll European cucumber - 1 sliced Carrot - 1 grated Tomato - 1 sliced Remia Garlic sauce/Salsa Ali Oli - as required American yellow mustard - as required On the side: Any fried/baked potato chips of your choice: French fries/wedges/criscuts/crispies/chips Sauce...

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Carrot/Orange Juice

Ingredients: Carrots - as required Oranges or Orange Juice (I used Minute Maid) Method: Use food processor/juicer to prepare carrot juice. Mix equal amount of orange juice to it. No need of adding sugar especially if using packaged orange juice like minute maid. Serve on a hot day and feel refreshe...

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Chettinad Vazhakkai Kara Poriyal - Plantain stir fry

Credit: http://chettinadthruminu.blogspot.com/2010/12/chettinad-vazhakkai-kara-poriyal.html Ingredients: Raw Banana - 1 Turmerric Powder - 1 pinch Salt to taste Tamarind - 1 Tbsp Oil - 1 Tbsp Mustard - 1/4 tsp Urad Dal - 1/4 tsp Red Chillies - 3, broken Curry Leaves - 1 sprig Coconut - 2 Tbsp, grated Method: Soak tamarind in 1/2 cup water and extract pulp. Boil raw banana with salt, turmerric powder and tamarind extract....

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