Easy Diwali Sweet and Snack

Happy Diwali to all. As I was wondering few days back what sweet to do on Diwali day, my mom told me that she made Coconut Burfi last week and the recipe seemed simple. Usually my mom is the one who does all the sweets and so I have zero clue on how to do it. But strangely I tried it out and it came extremely well. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients -
1. Shredded coconut - 1 cup
2. Sugar - 1 and 1/2 cups
3. Water - 3/4 cup
4. Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Method -
1. In a non-stick saucepan add the sugar and water and let it boil for 15 min. Keep the flame in medium.
2. Then add the shredded coconut, cardamom powder and start stirring. It took me half hour to get the right consistency in medium flame.
3. After that grease a plate with little ghee and transfer this into the plate. Allow it to cool down.
4. Make cubes and enjoy :-))

Now that our mouth is filled with sweet it is customary in Tamil tradition to make some snack/savory for Diwali and my favorite is Mullu Thenkozhal.

Ingredients -
1. Rice flour - 2 cups
2. Urad dhaal - 3 tbsp
3. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
4. Butter - 1/4 cup
5. Hing - for flavor
6. Salt - to taste
7. Oil - for frying

Tools required -
1. Thenkozhal press

Method -
1. Dry roast the Urad dhaal in a sauté pan and grind it into a fine powder.
2. Mix the rice flour, Urad dhaal powder, hing, salt, cumin seeds and butter.
3. Add water to the mixture and make it into a nice dough.
4. Check if the oil is ready for frying. You can take a little dough and put in the oil. The oil is ready if the dough raises immediately.
5. Put a handful of dough in the thenkuzhal press and press it into the oil.
6. Fry for few min until it reached a golden brown color and then strain it.

Hope you have a nice and enjoyable Diwali :-))

Saturday Night Special Dinner - Not so difficult to do!!!

It has been quite sometime since I tried a special recipe.So here I go. Tonight special is yummy veggie fried rice/pulao (name doesn't matter)!!! I enjoyed it soo much that I wanted to share it.

1. Soak 1 and 1/2 cups basmathi rice for 10 minutes. Strain it. Add 2 and 3/4 cups water and cook in microwave for 17 minutes. Take it out, allow to cool.

2. Cut beans, carrots, red pepper, green pepper into small pieces or as per convenience. Mix peas and corn pellets along with the other veggies. Add water, little bit salt, garam masala powder and microwave for 12 minutes. Strain it.

3. Cut onions into small pieces. Add oil in a cooking vessel, add Jeera (cumin seeds) for tadka. Add the onions and fry them.

4. Add garam masala, salt and turmeric powder. Add the boiled vegetables and mix well. Allow it to cook for five minutes for the flavor to set into the veggies.

5. To the above, add the cooked rice, mix well and allow it to cook for five more minutes. Add chopped coriander leaves finally and mix well.

Dinner is now ready to be served :-)) Make onion raita to go with it. Just had both and we loved it.

Manakkum Morkuzhambu

Being married into an Iyengar family it is inevitable that I come across the Morkuzhambu parupusili combo. I was never a gr8 fan of Morkuzhambu :-) but the more I had it and the more I seemed to love it. After I started cooking, I thought let me try and do the Morkuzhambu and see how it comes. I made it first for our wedding anniversary last year and it came out quite well. Next thought was why not try parupusili as well and viola I was able to do both with gr8 taste!! There are different variations and ways in which you could do Morkuzhambu but the one I have mastered for now is as below -

Ingredients -
1. Thick Curd/Yogurt - 1 cup
2. Water - 1 and 1/2 cups (For those who like it watery feel free to add more water)
3. LadiesFinger/ Okra - 10 pieces (Other veggies like pumpkin, chow chow, Eggplant/Kathrikaai can also be used for thaan)
4. Curry Leaves
5. Mustard Seeds
6. Oil - 1 tbsp
7. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp 
8. Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
8. Salt to taste

To Grind - Soak in very little water for 5 to 10 min
1. Thoor Dhal - 2 tsp (thuvaram paruppu)
2. Chana Dhal - 2 tsp (kadalai paruppu)
3. Coriander Seeds - 2 tsp (dhania/kothamalli varai)
4. Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
5. Red Chili - 3
6. Green chili - 1
7. Little bit of ginger for taste and digestion

Method -
1. Add water to the curd and make it into Mor which is the base for our kuzhambu, based on the consistency you want to have. Add the turmeric powder to the Mor
2. Fry the Okra until they shrink and become dark drown in color.
3. Grind the soaked thoor dhal, chana dhal, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, red, chili, green chili and ginger into a fine paste.
4. In a small saucepan add a little oil, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Once the mustard seeds start popping, add the Mor, fried Okra, salt and the paste and Mix well.
5. Take it off from the stove once it starts to boil. Delicious Mor Kuzhambu is now ready to be served.

Now coming to the Beans Parupusli which goes very well with the Vendekaai Morkuzhambu :-)

Ingredients -
1. Chopped Beans - 2 cups (Other veggies like green pepper/capsicum, vaazhaipu, kothavaranga can also be used)
2. Oil - 1 tbsp
3. Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
4. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
5. Salt to taste

To Grind -
1. Thoor Dhal - 3/4 cup (Soak in luke warm water for an hour)
2. Red Chili - 8

Method -
1. Boil the beans in water containing salt and turmeric powder in stove or microwave.
2. Grind the Thoor dhal and Red chili with salt.
3. Place the ground paste in idli plates and steam it in cooker for 20 minutes.
4. Wait for the steamed dhal to cool down them crumple it into as many small pieces as possible.
5. In a sautepan/kadai heat the oil and add the mustard seeds. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the crumpled dhal and beans and fry for 5 minutes.
6. Hot parupusili is now ready to be served.

Mor kuzhambu and parupusili combination is one of those superb delights for the tongue and pretty good from the health part as well as u don't use tamarind as the base. So Relish and Enjoy!!!

Jammunu oru jamun!

This sunday we had lots of fun. We invited our friends over for a patio party (funky work for having our evening tea on our deck). Now I had already planned for masala vada but I thought why not add a little sweet touch to it. Last week I had got MTR Gulab Jamun mix in the hopes that I would try them out sometime. Well why not for the party.It was my first time making jamuns so was so tensed that it should be alright. Guess what they came out really YUMMY :-) my hubby is not a sweet-lover and he had three big jamuns. I was so happy.

The recipe is pretty simple as its written in the back of the MTR packet. Still it takes sometime to make. So anyone thinking what sweet to make on a sunday afternoon try this out for fun.

Simple and Easy

Last friday evening I had a completely joyful mood to cook. So thought would do something easy and different. I looked into my freezer and saw that I had few cups of corn pellets and peas left. Aha!! An idea. Why not try different sabzi instead of the standard aaloo stuff. This is what I did


1. I took a kadai and pour 3 tsp olive oil (Here I use that. Any other usual oil can be used). Added some cumin seeds (Jeeragam), waited for it to start frying.
2. Then I added finely chopped onions (aroung 1 cup) and chopped green chillies (2). Along with it added some ginger-garlic paste, 1 tbsp garam masala powder, 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp chilli powder, a pinch of hing (perungayam) and salt to taste.
3. Once they are fried nicely, I added aroung 3 tbsp of tomato puree and mixed them well. Then along with all this added around 1 cup peas and 1 cup corn pellets.
4. I added a big glass of water and allowed it to boil the vegetables. Finally added few coriander leaves and here is what I got.........

Saboodhana Vadas - A Sensational hit

Anyone who has been to the Mahalakshmi temple in Mumbai would have noticed that there is a shop in the praharam that serves hot Saboodhana vada. I just love it. It is so crispy and yummy that it steals your heart right away. I am sorry that I am telling about the vada instead of Goddess Lakshmi but this is my cooking blog right ;-)). So for a long time making these vadas have been a unrealized dream for me. Guess what today it finally came true and they came out really well that I had almost six of them. My hubby is a saapaattu priyar (loves to eat) so he rejoiced it just as much even though he does not like jevvarusi (Saboodhana).

Here goes the recipe that I tried out. You can make around 14 vadas with this recipe. Its all experimental but with proven results (See attached photo). You can make them within 30 min max apart from the time required to soak the Saboodhana. So if you are really thinking about what to do about an evening snack, add this to your list.

Ingredients –  (Makes 14 vadas)

• Saboodhana – ¾ cup (I used 1 cup and felt it was a bit too much)
• Raw Potato – 2 medium-sized
• Onion – 1 medium – sized
• Green chillies – 3
• Coriander leaves – Chopped
• Curry Leaves – Chopped
• Rice Flour – ¼ cup
• Red Chilly powder – 2 tsp (I used 1 tsp was a bit less spicy)
• Garam Masala powder – 1 tsp
• Hing/Asaphortida powder (Perungaya powder) – a pinch for aroma
• Cinnamon Powder – a pinch for aroma
• Salt to taste
• Oil (Canola/Vegetable/Corn/Refined)

Preparation –

1. Soak the saboodhana in water for 3-4 hrs. Once it becomes soft, drain all the water and keep it aside. Alternatly you can add hot water and soak for about one and half hour.
2. Peel the potatoes and grate them nicely. Remove any moisture that is present. Alternately you can boil the potatoes and mash them as well. Grating is much simpler.
3. Finely chop the onions and green chillies.
4. Now mix the saboodhana, grated potatoes, chopped onions, chillies, coriander and curry leaves. Add the red chilly powder, garam masala powder, hing powder, cinnamon powder and salt and mix well. Ginger-garlic paste can also be added if desired.
5. Based on the mixture add rice flour to absorb the excess moisture that is present.
6. Mix well and make small patties (like cutlets)
7. Place the oil in the stove in medium flame for about 3 to 4 min until it has reached the proper temperature for frying.
8. Place the patties one by one into the oil so that they don’t stick to each other. Make sure not to drop them into the oil because the oil will splatter causing burns. Fry them till you can see the onions turning to a shade or light brown or the patties gaining a golden brown color.
9. Serve hot with tomoto ketup

So finally today I am really happy and proud of my vadas that I am looking forward to more in future.

A Journey Begins

There is a saying that goes "The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach". As a Engineering graduate who went to college from home and four years of experience as an IT Professional I learn quite a bit of things but there was something that was missed out. :-)) I never stepped into the kitchen. My mom is a home maker so she takes care of everything in her kitchen and my dad takes over if she is caught up due to something. Then I got married and what do your know even then I did not have a necessity to get into the kitchen to cook. I just cut veggies or helped with grinding or things like that. The order in the kitchen would be like -

1. My hubby's paatti
2. My Mother-in-law / Father-in-law
3. My hubby
4. Myself

As you can see it would be really a rare occasion that I get to cook. But now for the past four months I have started on my cooking expedition as My husband and me are currently in Atlanta and I am a home maker for now.

I used to know the default recipes of the kitchen like Sambar, Rasam, Vathakozhambu and kaai but trying to master the specialities one by one.