Happy Holi

Ma recipes wishes all the readers Happy Holi.

Mango in yogurt(South indian style)

Ingredients
1 small green Mango skinned and chopped
2 tbsp grated coconut
2 green chilies
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cups plain yogurt
salt to taste

Tempering
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 red chilies
1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
few curry leaves

Grind the mango,grated coconut,green chilies and cumin seeds to fine paste.
In a bowl, mix the yogurt,ground paste and salt to taste.
Heat a 2 tsp oil in small sauce pan add mustard seeds, when it splutters add red chilies and asafoetida powder.
Mix it with Mango-yogurt mixture and serve with any rice recipes.

Garlic Rasam

Ingredients:
15-20 Garlic cloves
lemon sized tamarind soaked in water and strain the juice.
salt to taste
few curry leaves
Oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 red chilies\
1 tsp jaggery

Paste
5 Red chilies
1/2 tsp peppercorns
2 tsp coriender seeds
1 tsp bengal gram
1 tsp cumin seeds
curry leaves

Heat a oil in pan and roast all the ingredients from paste expect cumin seeds and curry leaves. Cool it and grind to fine powder.
In a saucepan add 2-3 cups water with tamarind juice,salt to taste and little jaggery.
Meanwhile,In a small pan saute garlics with 2 tsp oil until golden brown.
Add to boiling tamarind juice with powder. Simmer until it's well blended.
Lastly temper it with mustard seeds and red chilies.

Taro Leaves Chutney

Taro is one rare vegaetable used in every country and all parts of the plant - stem, leaves roots are used in cooking. Taro leaves must thoroughly cooked as the leaves and stems contain crystals of calcium oxalate that react on the mouth, tongue and throat when not completely cooked.
In Mangalore the most popular dish made by taro leaves is Patrode

Ingredients:
5-6 Taro Leaves chopped
1 tbsp coriender seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
5 Red chilies
1/2 cup grated coconut
1/2 tsp asafoetida powder
small garlic size tamarind
Salt to taste
2 Garlic cloves chopped
Few curry leaves
1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Boil 1 cup water add taro leaves, tamarind and cook until the leaves are soft and let it cool.
Meanwhile, heat a pan and roast the coriender seeds, cumin seeds, red chilies until golden.
Grind the roasted coriender,cumin seeds, rechilies,coconu, salt to taste  and cooked taro leaves along with tamarind juice to paste.
Lastly, heat 2 tsp oil in a pan, add mustard seeds when it splutters add red chilies, curry leaves and garlic saute till garlic turn light golden brown. Mix it with the paste.

Homemade Vanilla Ice cream with Fruits and Nuts

Here in Seattle for last couple days we had a grogerous sunshine and thought let me try homemade vanilla ice cream. For dressing added some starwberries,pears,organes and nuts with chocolate syrup which looks similar to Mangalore Gadbag ice cream.

Ingredients:
2 cups half-and-half milk
5 large egg yolks
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Half and Half cream is a mixture of cream and whole milk.

In a small saucepan, over medium-high heat, bring the half-and-half and the vanilla bean to the boiling (the milk begins to foam up). Remove from heat, take out the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds from the bean with the back of a knife, and mix the seeds back into the half-and-half.

Meanwhile in a stainless steel bowl beat the egg yolks and sugar until fluffy.Gradually pour the scalding half-and-half into the whipped egg yolk mixture, keep whisking constantly so eggs yolks don't curdle. If any lumps do form, strain the mixture first before heating.
Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, cook until the custard thickens enough that it coats the back of a spoon.
Immediately remove the custard from the heat and continue to stir the custard for a few minutes so it does not overcook.Cover and let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate the custard until it is completely cold  preferably overnight.

Transfer the cold custard to the chilled container of your ice cream machine or blend it for a min and transfer the ice cream to a chilled container and store in the freezer for 24 hours.

Okra Sambar (Mangalore style)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups okra (cut to 1" inch long)
lemon size tamarind soaked and extract the juice
salt to taste
2 tsp Jaggery
1 tsp turmeric

Paste
1 tbsp coriender seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp bengal gram
1 tsp black gram
1 tsp raw white rice
5-6 Red chilies
few curry leaves
1/2 tsp asafioetida powder

Heat a pan and roast the ingredients listed above and grind by adding little water to fine paste.Keep aside
In a saucepan with medium heat add 2 cups of water, tamarind juice,turmeric, jaggery and salt to taste.
In a pan fry the okra until it turns light golden and add to the tamarind water and cook until the okra becomes soft. Now, add the paste and cook for 5 mins or till it is well blended.
Serve with white rice.

Bell Pepper with Gram Flour Stir fry/Jhunka

Jhunka is a Maharastrian and North karnataka's recipes. It is very easy and quick recipe and taste very delicious with indian bread-chapathis. It can be prepared with any veggies and I used bellpepper to make it bit hot.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup gram flour
1 green Bellpepper chopped
1 red Bellpepper chopped
1 big onion chopped
salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chili powder
pinch of asafetida
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp sugar
oil

Heat a oil in a pan add gram flour roast until it turns light golden brown color and keep aside.
Now, In a medium saucepan heat oil add mustard seeds& asafetida.When mustard seeds slputters add onions saute until it turns light brown.
Add bellpeppers,turmeric powder and sugar.Cook uncovered until the bellpeppers becomes soft.Lastly,
add the roasted gram flour and red chili powder mix well and cook for 2-3 mins and take off from heat.
Serve with hot chaptathis or rotis.

Kachipuram Idlis

Kanchipuram Idli's are traditional tamilnadu recipe and perfect for winters with a flavour of peppercorn-ginger-cumin. I made a slight variation by adding mix of idli rice and rosematta rice (Red parboiled rice) to get the light reddish color. Another recipe from the below book Dakshin.
Kanchipuram Idli:

Ingredients:
1 cup Black gram (urad dal)
2 cups Idli rice white.
1 cup rosematta rice
1/2 tsp asafoetida powder
1 tsp peppercorn crashed
1 1/2 ginger grated
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
few curry leaves
Oil

Soak the black gram and rice separately for 5 hours. Wash and grind black gram to fine paste and rice with little coarsely by adding little water.The batter should be thick.
Mix the batter with asafoetida powder, crashed peppercorns, grated ginger,cumin seeds and salt to tasteby hand. Allow to frement for 10 hours or until the batter turn sour.
Just before making idlis, heat a pna add oil and saute curry leaves add it to batter and mix well.
Grease the idli plates with little oil and pour the batter. In pressure cooker, steam it for 15 mins.
Serve with below coconut chuteny recipe.

Coconut Chutney:
5 tbsp grated coconut
2 tbsp roasted channa dal
2 green chilies
small piece of tamarind (a pinch)
salt to taste
cliantro 4-5 leaves
Grind all the above ingredients to fine paste by adding little water.
Temper : Heat oil in a small pan add 1tsp mustard seeds,1 tsp urad dal and 1 red chili add to chutney.

This and That Fruits - Kiwi and Pistachios

     Soft and Fibours Vs Hard and Mauvish

Have a good weekend!

Mustard seeds rice with Onion-tomato in yogurt

I recently bought the Cookbook "Dakshin" Vegetarian cuisine from south by Chandra Padmanabhan. A authentic south Indian recipes rasam, kuzhambu,kootu,rice dishes with colorful and appealing photographs added in our little library.The book is well written with easy to follow and incredibly delicious taste. I would recommend this book for all those south indian recipe lovers.Here is one of the recipe I tried out.

Ingredients:
2 cup sona masoori rice
3 tbsp peanuts
salt to taste
 Paste
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1/2 cup grated coconut
6 red chilies
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp asafoetida
a small lemon size tamarind pulp
water to grind
 Tempering
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 1/2 tsp black gram dal
1 1/2  tsp bengal gram dal
2 red chilies
curry leaves

Cook rice and keep aside
Paste: blend all the ingedients to fine paste
Heat 6-7 tsp of oil in a pan add mustard seeds, when it splutter add black gram dal, bengal gram dal, red chilies and curry leaves peanuts. saute it for 2 mins. Now add the ground paste. saute unitl the raw smell disappears. Lastly, add the cooked rice and salt to taste. mix well.

Onion- Tomato in Yogurt:
1 Small chopped Onion
1 Chopped tomato
2 green chilies
cilantro for granishing
1 1/2 cup mix of buttermilk and yogurt
 Tempering
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 red chillies
few curry leaves

In a bowl mix the onion, tomato, green chilies and yogurt. add salt to taste and temper it.
Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Spicy cookies - Khara biscuits

Ingredients:
1 cup All purpose flour
1/2 cup melted Butter
1/4 tsp Sugar
Salt to taste
5 Green chilies
2 tbsp Curry leaves chopped
2 tbsp Yogurt
1 tsp Ajwain seeds
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tbsp dried Mint leaves
1 tsp Cumin powder

Method:
Preheat oven at 350 F.
Sieve the all purpose flour, baking powder and sugar. In a Medium bowl, mix the melted butter, green chilies, mint leaves, cumin powder, ajwain seeds, curry leaves, yogurt.
Slowly add the all purpose flour mixture till everything mix together. Knead the dough to a smooth ball. Roll out dough till it’s a ¼ of an inch thick. Use the biscuit cutter to cut the dough and repeat the same with remaining dough. Place it on the baking plate and bake for about 15-20 mins till it turns light golden brown on edges.

Zucchini Bread

Nowadays, my hands are on baking. Baking is altogether a new experience for me, the smell makes so appetizing.
whenever I shop for groceries get confused with Zucchini and cucumber unless I see the name. But, you can't replace one with the other. Zucchini is rough, dry and little bitter.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup walnuts(toasted and chopped)
1 cup grated raw zucchini (1-2 zucchini)
1/2 cup peeled and grated raw apple
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the loaf with canola oil and keep aside.
Grate the zucchini with medium size, and then peel and grate the apple.
In a Medium bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In the Large bowl beat the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract until well blended for about 2 min. Beat in the grated zucchini and apple. Add the flour mixture, beat until combined. Then fold in the nuts. Transfer the batter into the greased loaf and bake until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 to 60 minutes. Place the bread on wire rack to cool down.

Fried Okra in yogurt/ Okra raita

I always wonder why in India it's called as Ladies finger. Anyways, I like this veggie,when it is cooked in ground coconut,roasted coriender-cumin seeds, red chilies.It's an south kendra recipe(south of mangalore).I will post this dish soon on Ma recipes.
Here is the simple and quick recipe made out of Okra.

Ingredients:
1 lb Okra thinly sliced
1 big Red Onion thinly sliced
1 cup yogurt
1 tsp garam masala
1 1/2 tsp red chili powder
salt to taste
Cilantro for garnishing

Heat a saucepan add 4-5 tsp oil and fry the Okra until soft and light golden brown and let it cool before adding to below mixture.
In a bowl, mix sliced onions, yogurt, garam masala, red chilies and salt. lastly, add fried okra to mixture and garnish with chopped cliantro.
It goes well with any rice items and Parathas.

Happy Valentine's Day - Colors of Love

Here Ma recipes wishing you all Happy Valentine's Day.

Colors of Love!

Love can be red, like the intense heat of a passionate kiss
.....the color of sweetness
.....the color of strawberries
Love can be blue, like the comfort we take in a pair of denim jeans
.....the color of strength
.....the color of perfect skies
Love can be yellow, bright and warm like the morning sun
.....like the sounds of laughters of children on the merry-go-round
.....like the sounds of fun from the boys flying kites in the open
fields
Love can be green, peaceful and serene I can hear your heart beats
.....it is the feeling of a loving hand that touch a grieving heart
.....it is the whispering of trusting words to a distressing soul
Love can be orange, the loudness of it can drive you up a wall
.....it can drive you to sing like nobody is listening
.....it can drive you to dance like nobody is watching
Love can be purple, the courage we need to love bravely and unselfishly
.....the moment I first kiss you i know that i am not afraid to risk involvement .....the day the declaration of your love for me was made known to the world

Contributed By Arun Kumar.

Photos taken @ Tulip Fest-2008,Seattle ,Washington .

Banana Walnut Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup  walnuts toasted and coarsely chopped
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (113 grams) Canola oil/ Melted Unsalted butter.
3 ripe large bananas,mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Grease the Bread loaf with oil and flour and keep aside.
In a small pan toast the walnuts until it gets little warm. Let cool and then chop coarsely.
In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. keep aside.
In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick. (Do not over mix the batter it may yield tough,hard,rubbery bread.) Transfer batter into prepared pan.

Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Flat round Idlis

The Idlis are already made an entry on Ma recipes. The ingredients are same but this time I have used the regular Idli plates.
How to make -  http://marecipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/idli-steamed-rice-cakes.html

This and That Fruits

Break from cutting board,knife and heat. Here is some creative matching stuff from my kitchen.
Oranges and Apricots

                                       Young and Fresh Vs Old and Wrinkly but Unite in color

Pomegranate Juice

Here comes the fruit Pomegranate. It is a mild astringent and used to treat most of the stomach problems. It is used in skin whitening too.

Ingredients:
2  pomegranates
3 tbsp Sugar
1 cup ice cubes

Cut each pomegranate into 2 pieces, and remove the seeds and wash it.
Blend the pomegranate seeds in a juicer and filter out the unnecessary parts.
Stir in Sugar
cool in the fridge for 1 hour or serve chill with ice cubes.

Coconut Rice

Ingredients:
2 cups Cooked rice
2 cups grated coconut
Salt to taste
Oil
Tempering:
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Urad Dal
1/2 tsp Channa Dal
Small inch Cinnanon
2 Cardamom
3-4 Cloves
4-5 Peppercorns
3-4 Red chilies
2 green chilies
6-7 Curry leaves
5-6 Cashewnuts

Heat a pan add mustard seeds,when it splutters add urad dal, channa dal, cashewnuts,whole masala(cinnamon,cardamom,cloves,peppercorns) red chilies, green chilies slit, curry leaves.
When the Chasewnuts turns light golden brown add grated coconut and saute it till aroma comes.
Now, add salt and rice mix well.

Banana Flower/Blossom Stir fry

Banana Flower is used in most of Asian countries. It has a nice purplish crimson colored and rich in vitamin A and C, high in fiber.

Ingredients:
1 Banana flower
Small Lemon size Tamarind soaked in water and extract the juice or 1-1/2tsp Thick Tamarind paste.
Salt to taste
1-1/2 tsp Jaggery
5-6 tsp Grated coconut
4-5 Red chilies
1 tsp Turmeric Powder

Remove the outer bracts of  Banana flower and wash it. Then take out all the fiber which are in around the florets.Keep the inner fibers(which are white in color) and chopped it.

Take a mix bowl full of water add 1/4 cup of sour buttermilk and soak the chopped banana flower in it for 30mins. 
Meanwhile,Grind coconut and red chilies without adding water. It should be dry and keep aside.
Heat a pan with 4 tsp oil, add mustrad seeds when it sluptters, add  black lentils slipt,red chilies and curry leaves. Now, add Banana flowers saute it for a min, add tumeric powder, tamarind juice and salt and mix well. add water if required, cover the pan lid and cook till the flower is soft. (may take 20-25mins).
Once the water is full drained and flowers are soft, add ground coconut and red chilies saute it for a min and tranfer it to serving bowl.

Badanekai Ennegayi/Brinjal Stuff curry

Ennegayi
Ingredients:
5-6 Small bringals (Purple)
1 Onion
2 Tomatoes
Small Lemon size tamarind
Salt to taste

For Stuffing/ masala:
2 tsp Coriander seeds
1 tsp Cumin seeds
1 tsp Channa Dal
5-6 peppercorns
1"inch of cinnamon
2 Cardamoms
1 tsp Sesame seeds
2 tsp peanuts
5-6 red chilies
5-6 tsp dry grated coconut
Roast all the ingredients and grind without adding water and keep aside

Heat a pan and fry the onions and grind the Onions and tomatoes. Make the cross cuts on bringals and dont cut the stem/tail.Stuff it with griound masala also keep some masala to add for gravy.
Now,Heat a pan with oil add mustards seeds when it sluptters add ground onions and tomatoes saute it, add turmeric powder, tamarind paste, salt to taste and stuff brinjals and mix well, cover and leave it till the brinjals are well cooked.
Finally, garnish with cilantro

Akki Roti:
Ingredients:
Rice flour – 2 cups
Water – 3 cups
Salt to taste
2 tsp Oil

Boil the 3 cups of water with oil and salt to taste.Add 2 tsp of rice flour to the water mix well .Now, reduce the flame and add remaining flour and mix well using wooden ladle breaking any lumps. Switch off the stove Let it cool and Knead well into one single dumpling.
Take out a handful of dough and make it into ball and using dry flour roll it using rolling pin.
Heat the griddle. Place the rolled dough on griddle. Keep it on high flame. cook the rotis until brown spots appears. Then turn it on the other side cook until done.