VEN PONGAL

Happy Pongal and Makara Sankranthi to everyone.

Image : source

This year we had a very simple celebration, made ven pongal and coconut chutney and offered payers.
We make pongal in two different style at home, venpongal, and the khara pongal. Ven pongal ( ven- means white in tamil), is served with sambar or chutney or both.
This year I am having major problems with my gadgets, first I lost my pics, now my SD card reader of my laptop broke, have to wait until I get a card reader. So can't upload any pictures. Just thought I would post the recipe so that I don't take any more long breaks......

What we need:
1 cup- Raw rice
1/4 cup moong dal
1 tspn black peppercorn
2 tspn cumin seeds
8-10 curry leaves
2 tablespoon ghee
salt to taste
6 cups of water

How I made it :
Heat a pressure cooker or a thick bottomed pan. Dry roast the moong dal. Wash the roasted moong dal along with the rice 3-4 times. In the same pan / pressure cooker, heat 1 tablespoon of ghee, when hot add peppercorns,cumin seeds, curry leaves and than add the washed rice and dal. Add water and salt to taste. Cook in pressure cooker for 2 whistles or in a open pan till the rice is well cooked. Rice should be mushy, it tastes better.

Once done add 1 tablespoon of ghee and mix well. Serve with chutney or sambar. It's ultimate comfort food.....

Rice and Coconut payasa/Pudding-Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali to every one

I hope you all are having a great time I really miss all the fun we had during diwali back in India. Had made big plans this year to make diwali sweets but unfortunately couldn't make anything. I thought, the least I could do to keep up my spirits was to post a sweet dish on my blog. I made this sweet dish during navrathri but never posted it. So here it goes for diwali.

This is one of the traditional dishes my mom makes often. I like this kheer (payasa in kannada) more than the semiya kheer, so mom often made this on my request. I thought it's too much work and never dared to make it. I was surprised that it was so simple to make. Mom makes it with rice, coconut and poppy seeds. I wanted to add some twist so I ground up some dry nuts instead of frying them and using for garnish.

This has poppy seeds in it so it aids you get better sleep, that's the reason I like it more :).

What you need:

1/4 cup White raw rice (you can use any variety)

1/2 cup grated coconut fresh / frozen  

2 table spoon brown sugar/ sugar/ jaggery

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

1 tablespoon ghee

5 almonds

5 whole cashewnuts

20 raisins

3 cardamom pods

How I made it:

Soak rice, almonds and cashews for 30 min in warm water.  Once well soaked grind it coursely along with coconut. Crush the poppy seeds seperately with little water. In a thick bottomed pot, add the ground rice and coconut mixture along with 1.5 cups of water. Add sugar and cook until it thickens and the raw taste is gone. Keep stirring it often or else it tends to thicken at the bottom. Add powdered cardamom. Garnish with raisins fried in ghee. You can make the thicknesss according to your liking.
Serve warm with ghee over it or serve it chilled.
I like to make it thick and eat it chilled.......just love all the flavors of poppy seed, coconut and cardamom, reminds me of home and mom ... :(

Tips:
You can use milk to get the right consistency.
You can also add brown and polson custard powder to it to get a different flavor

Rice Appam

This is a simple dosa variety. It doesn't contain urad dal like the traditional dosa. Instead of it, cooked rice is used. What I really like about it is, its crispy on one side and very soft on the other, so you get two different texture.

What You need:
2 cups long grain rice
1/2 cup cooked white rice
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
salt
Ghee/butter

How it's made:

Soak the raw rice, cooked rice and  fenugreek seeds in water for 3-4 hours. Grind to fine batter, Add salt and let it ferment overnight. In winter fermentation is a problem and it may take longer. 

Once well fermented heat a skillet or dosa pan, spread the batter like a traditional dosa. Cover it and let it cook on medium heat for few minutes, until the top layer is cooked and the bottom layer gets a nice golden color. Don't turn and cook  again. This has to be cooked on one side only. Spread ghee or butter and serve hot.

Shrimp Biryani

I normally make Biryani on Sunday's these days. Me and my little one like biryani unlike my hubby. But he has no choice now, if I make he has to eat, as we females dominate in the house these days :). I normally make fish or chicken biryani, but last week wanted to try out shrimp. So here is a my version of shrimp biryani. I normally make biryani with store bought biryani masala (makes it easier) but sometimes when I have time and patience like to try with whole spices.

What You need:
20 large sized raw shrimp
1 tablespoon ginger- garlic paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 large onion - finely sliced
2 green chillies- slit lengthwise
4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 star anise
1 cardamom pod
2 bay leaf
cilantro leaves
1/4 cup coconut milk
saffron strands ( optional)
3 cups of basmati rice
2 tablespoon oil
salt to taste

How it's Made:

Clean and devein the shrimps. Marinate it for atleast 30 minutes with ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, chilly powder, turmeric, chilly powder and garam masala.

In a pan heat oil and fry the sliced onions until they turn brown. Add bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, black pepper, star anise and fry till you get a nice aroma ( about 2 minutes). Add the marinated shrimp and mix well and cook for few minutes. Add coconut milk and water if required and cook until the shrimps are done and you get a thick gravy.

Wash and cook basmati rice with salt and one bay leaf, until almost done.

To assemble the biryani I used a loaf tray. (You can layer in any pan and cook on stovetop). Put a layer of rice and than a layer of the shrimp masala, sprinkle some chopped cilantro and put another layer of rice. Cover it with foil and place it in oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Once done, remove from oven and invert the pan onto a serving tray. I baked it for two reasons, One wanted to try a nice presentation, and secondly my oven was already turned on for baking something else, so used it. Normally I just layer it in a pan and cook for 10 minutes on the stove.  

I soaked few strands of saffron in warm milk (about 1 tablespoon) and just poured it over the rice. Garnish and serve hot.

While I was trying to get a better background to take the picture, my little one tried to taste the biryani and she scooped out chunks out of it, I tried to manage to put it back together (every thing in the back is gone) and take the picture below. She thinks its fun to play with food while I try to take pictures, and than she poses with a big smile for the shot :).

Khara Pongal

While we were in school, sundays would be a  busy day. Mom had to manage us and watch her favourite serials (Ramayan, Mahabharath)  and so for quite some years the standard breakfast on sunday was Pongal. I suppose it was easy to make for mom and pongal  would keep our stomach full  for quite sometime. I love the version she makes, it's probably mysore style, it's hot and spicy unlike the tamil venpongal ( I may post that version later). She ground the masala for it. I often make this at home for dinner.

What you need:
1 1/2 cups of rice
1/2 cup moong dal
curry leaves
2 tablespoon ghee
cashews to garnish  (optional)

To grind:
2  tablespoon of cumin
2 teaspoon black pepper
2 green chillies
1/4 cup  coconut
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
few strands of coriander (cilantro) leaves

How it's Made :
Grind the ingredients listed to a course paste. Heat pressure cooker and dry roast the moong dal,until it turns golden brown and gives off a nice aroma. Take it off and wash it along with rice and keep it aside. Heat ghee  in the same cooker, add curry leaves and the ground paste, fry it for a minute. Add the washed rice and moong dal, and mix the ingredients well. Add salt and 4 cups of water. Close the lid and cook like usual white rice. Once done stir the rice. Garnish with cashews fried in ghee and some freshly grated coconut and cilantro. Serve hot with coconut chutney.
If you don't have pressure cooker fry all the ingredients in pan, add rice and transfer it to rice cooker.

Tips- use raw rice, basmati rice doesn't taste that good.
        

Capsicum Rice

On of my friend's mom who is from andra, had got this really tasty capsicum rice to a lunch party. While we were leaving she packed some rice for us to take home. I devoured off every single grain in the box. I wanted to try it but didn't know the recipe and never got a chance to ask her. I tried to figure out the ingredients from the rice she had made and ended up with this version. I like making this with different colored capsicum, but this time I only had green ones at home. 

What you need :

3cups Cooked rice
2 cups capsicums cut lengthwise in thin strips
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon urad daal
2 tablespoon chana daal
Curry leaves – few
Oil – 2tsp
Salt to taste

Masala powder:
1 to 2 Red chillies  (depending on the heat)
1 teaspoon Coriander seeds
1 teaspoon Cumin seeds 
1 teaspoon Urad dal
1″Cinnamon stick
2 tablespoon dry grated coconut

How it's made:
Dry roast all the ingredients listed under the masala powder and grind to a course powder.
In a pan heat oil , add mustard seeds, urad and chana daal. Once they turn slightly brown add curry leaves and capsicum pieces. Cook for a few minutes till the capsicum loses it rawness but still crunchy.(Do not over cook the capsicum). To this add the ground powder, salt and mix well. Serve hot with  raita.

Vegetable Stuffed Rice Fritters

I was back from work early and hungry. Checked my refrigerator out and had some rice leftover and very little subzi from previous day. Pulled it out and remembered this recipe that I had come across in Sanjeev Kapoor's website few months back.  So quickly made this, to curb my hunger till dinner was cooked. I modified it according to the ingredients I had on hand.

What I used:

1 cup cooked rice

Cauliflower, potatoes and peas subzi

2 tablespoon Onions finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon Pepper powder

1/2 teaspoon jeera powder

cilantro leaves finely chopped

Bread crumbs

salt to taste

Oil to fry

How I made it :

Mash the rice in a bowl and add onions, pepper and jeera powder, cilantro and salt and mix well.  Wet you palms with water. Take a portion of the rice dough and flatten in your palm, place the vegetable in the center and roll back the rice dough over the vegetables, shape it and roll it in bread crumbs. Deep fry in oil and serve hot with tomato ketchup.

If the rice is less add some mashed bread to it to increase the quantity.