Happy Krishna Jayanthi (Belated) to one and all. Sri Krishna Jayanthi is celebrated to mark the birth of Lord Sri Krishna. Lord Sri Krishna was born on the 'Rohini' nakshatram (star) on Ashtami day. The actual day of celebration occurs on two different days as the star 'Rohini' and Ashtami doesn't fall on the same day. This year the Ashtami tithi fell on 21st August and the 'Rohini' nakshatram fell on 22nd August. As our family follow the Rohini nakshatram, we celebrated the jayanthi on 22nd. Palaharams are offered to lord krishna.This year I made Murukku, Uppu(salt) seedai, Vella(Jaggery) seedai, Suyum, Neyyappam, Pal Payasam, Aval(Beaten Rice) Jaggery Coconut mix (Sweet). Other things that was offered as naivedyam apart from the palaharam were Butter, Curd, Milk and some Fruits.

Recipes for all the Palaharams will be posted one by one. To begin with I'm posting the recipe for murukku with store brought rice flour and urad flour.

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Murukku

When I first came to this country I was so worried as to how will I ever make murukku as both V and T loves it.  I decided to try with the store brought rice flour and urad flour and adding all the other ingredients that my mom used. Bingo, it turned out to be good, from then on I have been following the same recipe..The recipe goes this way

Ingredients

• Rice Flour - 4 cups
• Urad (black gram split) Flour - 3/4 cup
• Sesame Seeds (Black) - 1 1/2 tsp.
• Omam (Ajwain, Carom Seeds) - 3/4 tsp.
• Butter(melted) - 1/2 cup
• Asafoetida -1/4 tsp.
• Salt - To Taste
• Oil for frying

Method

1. Mix the Rice flour, Urad flour evenly, then add the sesame seeds, ajwain, asafetida and mix again.
2. Add melted butter (makes the murukku soft) and salt and mix well , take care not to form any lumps.
3. Heat oil for frying , add 3 Tbsp. of hot oil into the flour. This makes the murukku crunchy. Make sure that oil is also spread evenly in the flour mixture..
4. Sprinkle water little by little to the flour and make a tight and stiff dough in batches.Don't mix all the flour at once as the murukku will take lot of oil into it when frying.
5. Take a small amount of dough and fill in the murukku mold. I’ve used the single star attachment to make this murukku.
6. Now there are two ways of making the murukku, one by pressing the mold  in a circular fashion into the hot oil or making the murukku outside on a foil or oil greased sheet and then deep frying it. I usually follow the first method as i have seen my mom and my mil doing it and I'm pretty comfortable with it.
7. Deep fry the murukku in medium flame till slightly brown as it becomes more darker when it cools down.

* Important Points to take a note of

1. Don't use more butter as the murukku will become very soft and will not retain its shape.
2. Adding ajwain helps in digestion.
3. Allow it to cool for few minutes before storing it in a air tight container.

Hi All, Yes I'm back..finally.. after a longgggggggg break decided to get back to blogging again. Life has been really busy with my princess growing up. Her School, Classes. Now I have found some time for myself to get back to my favorite thing (blogging). Without boring anymore, let me talk about my come back recipe. This is Boli in Tamil, Puran Poli in Hindi, Bobatlu in Telugu, Holige in Kannada. There are different ways of making this sweet bread, I have followed my mom's way.As kid we use to love to have this sweet bread, now I see that my princess loves it too..hmm. I think history repeats !! Ok without boring anymore here is the recipe for Boli/Sweet Chapati as my little one calls it.

Ingredient

Channa dal - 2 cup

Cardamom pods - 2 pods

Jaggery - 2cup

Sugar - 2 Tbsp.

Grated Coconut - 1/2 - 3/4 cup

Maida - 1 1/2 cup

Butter - 2 Tbsp.

Rice flour - 1 tsp.

Salt - pinch

Suji( rava) - 1 tsp.

Method

1) Soak channa dal for 4- 5 hrs. As this is will fasten the process of boiling the dal, else you can straight away boil the dal

2) Cook the dal till it is done(to know the consistency, the dal should retain its shape, but when pressed between the fingers it should get mashed) and drain all water when hot, and let it dry, if the moisture remains, then transfer the dal on the paper towel and allow it to stay for 10 minuets

3) Add Jagery, Coconut and Cardamom pods to channa dal and grind it in the wet grinder without adding water ( we can use the mixer but would be a tedious process). I also added 2 Tbsp. of Sugar as they say it enhances the sweet taste along with jaggery. If the mixture becomes watery, you can place the mixture in a pan and heat it on the medium heat on gas top till it becomes thick which will take about 10-13 minutes. Allow it to cool completely only then the stuffing can be made into small balls else it will stick to the hand.

4) Make a soft dough (consistency that of chapathi flour) with maida, suji, rice flour, melted butter and a pinch of salt.

5) Stuff the channa dal stuffing in the dough as shown; make sure that the stuffing is double the size of the outer dough.

6) My mom used to use plastic sheet to spread this bread, but I didn’t do that, instead I took a glass plate, greased it with oil and then spread the dough.

7) Cook on a hot griddle

Serve hot or cold with ghee.

Cant imagine how the time has gone..my princess has turned 3 ..she had a three day celebration of her birthday..i baked a cake for her, then there was a party at home and ofcourse she celebrated her birthday in school too..here are some of the pics of the cake i baked for her...

Punjabi food is rich in texture & taste.The food is usually thick, creamy and ghee or butter is used abundantly. The cuisine is so versatile that sometimes Indian food is associated with Punjabi cuisine.Im so happy that i could take part in the RCI event.

Aloo Mutter is one of the famous dish from punjab.The recipes of this is as follows and ofcourse i have add my own way to cook it fast by pressure cooking it. But actual recipe calls for slow cooking ..

Ingredients:

Potatoes(medium sized) - 2 cubed

GreenPeas-1/2 cup Oil - 4 Tbsp

Purees

Onion (medium) - 1 1/2(chopped roughly)

Tomatoes- 2 (Pureed)

Ginger,Garlic paste - 1 tsp

Spices

Whole dry red chilli - 1(broken to half)

Cloves- 2

Bay leaves - 2

Cinnamon stick- 1"

Badi Elachi - 1 (crushed)

Coarsly ground coriander seeds -1/2 tsp (not in form of the coriander powder)

Masala powders

Garam masala - a pinch

Kashmiri Chili Powder - 1 1/2 tsp

Amachur Powder - 1 tsp

Kitchen King masala - 1 tsp

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp


Other Ingrediants

Salt - to taste

Water- 1 cup

Creame - 2 Tbsp( i used half & half milk instead of creame)

Chopped Coriander leaves



Method:

1) Heat 1Tbsp of oil in a kadai and fry the onions till brown.Cool it and make a puree of it.

2) Heat remaining oil in a pressure pan. Add all the spices to it and allow it to fry till a good fragance arise.

3) Add ginger garlic paste and saute for sometime.Then add the pureed onion to it and fry till it turns slight brown in color.

4) Add the tomatoe puree and fry for sometime.Add all the masala powders and saute till it leaves oil.

5) Now add peas and potatoe cubes and fry well.

6) Stir in creame

7) Add enough water,salt and Pressure cook it for 3-4 whistles.

Garnish it with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or roti or naan.

This is my contribution to the RCI punjab Hosted by Richa of 'As dear as Salt'.

The recipe for limabeans gravy, i learnt from my friend's mom,when i was in Bangalore. My friend was from the udipi side of karnataka, and we use to love the food made at her place..This is one of them which used to be very common during summer..I remembered this recipe only When vinodh asked me for mochai paruppu gravy.The recipe for this is as follows


Ingredients:

Tuvar Dal - 1/2 cup
Lima Beans(Mochai Paruppu) - 1 1/2 cups
Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Grated coconut-1/4 cup(I have used frozen one)
Red chillies(Badige[I Hope i have spelled it right]) - 5 [these red chillies are very mild and gives a dark red colour to the dish]
Cinnamon - 1/2 " piece
Bengal Gram - 1/4 tsp
Tamarind paste - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Jaggery - 1 tsp (Optional)
Salt - To Taste

For seasoning
Oil - 1Tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 2-3 springs
Hing - a pinch

Method:-

1) Dry Roast Coriander seeds,Bengal Gram,jeera,cinnamon till it releases good aroma and keep it aside.In the same pan dry fry red chillies and then dry fry coconut.Allow all the ingrediants to cool and make a paste with a little water.

2) Pressure Cook toor dal and lima beans along with turmeric for about 3 whistles.

3) After releasing the pressure,add the grinded paste along with the jaggery,salt and tamarind past to the cooked tuvar dal, lima beans and allow it to come to boil.Take it of the gastop.

4) Now season the gravy with mustard seeds,curry leaves and hing in a Tablespoon of oil.

This gravy goes very well with rice.

INSTANT MANGO PICKLE


Ingredients:-

Raw Mango - 1
Kashmiri chilli powder - 1 tsp
Hing - 1/4 tsp
Salt - To taste

For Seasoning:-
Oil- 1 Tbsp
Mustard - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 -3

Method:-


1) Slice the mango's to small pieces


2) Mix salt,hing and red chilli powder to the mango's and keep it aside.


3) Heat oil add the mustard seeds and curry leaves allow it to crackle.


4) Add this mixture to the mangos and mix well.

This pickle stays good for 3-4 days,if we dont use the wet spoons..

Hello everybody, I'm really sorry for keeping quite for sometime. Life has become so hectic after taniya started her Nursery school. And my laptop didn't co-operate with me, it crashed. And then on one fine evening of October vinodh gave me a surprise tickets for our long pending vacation to India. I once again apologies to all of you there..Thank you so much for all those lovely comments and e-mails. I'm actually not back completely as we r going on our vacation only from the 12 of Dec and i will be back during the third week of January..I will get into full action from the Feb '07.Thank you all for those lovely comments and concern.Before i leave i thought of sharing a long pending recipe with all my friend out here.This is a traditional recipe from my mom and is a regular part of our Sunday meals. Here goes the recipe for it..




Ingredients:-

Chicken- 1.25 lb
Onion-1(Medium sized, roughly chopped)
Finely chopped onion- 1 Tsp
Garlic-7 to 8 flakes
Tomato - 1,
Coconut-3 Tbsp
Cinnamon stick -1(of 1")
Saunf(fennel seeds)-1/2 tsp
Clove-2
Turmeric powder-1/4 tsp
Chillipowder-2tsp,
Dhaniya powder-1 tsp(Optional)
Oil - 2tbsp
Salt - to taste

Method:-

Fry the onion and the garlic in 1 tbsp of oil & Allow it to cool

Grind all the ingredients except the chicken along with the fried onions and garlic to a smooth paste..

Heat the remaining 1tbsp of oil in a kadai . Add a pinch of saunf and a tsp of finely chopped onions.

To this add the cleaned and cut chicken and fry for few minutes till the chicken turns white.

Then add the grounded masala along with required amount of water and salt, allow it to thicken.
Finally garnish it with the curry leaves

The same method can be used to prepare Potato Kurma ..