Sorakaya Garelu - Bottle gourd cutlets

I learnt this recipe from my dear friend Swathi...This's so easy to make and tastes so good...I made it for breakfast today...it took only 30min to prepare this from scratch..Here goes the recipe...

Ingredients:

Sorakaya/Lauki/Bottle gourd - 1 cup (grated)

Rice flour - 1 cup

Onion - 1 small (finely chopped)

Green chillies - 3 (finely chopped)

Grated ginger - 1 tsp

Chana dal - 1 tbsp (soak in hot boiling water for 5min)

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 cups (to deep fry)

Procedure:

1. Heat the oil in a deep bottomed frying pan.

2. While the oil gets heated up, prepare the mix.

3. Take a mixing bowl, add rice flour, grated lauki, onion,green chillies, ginger, chana dal and salt.

4. Mix well to make a thick dough. DO NOT add water. Lauki itself has lots of water in it.

5. Make 10 lemon sized balls with the dough.

6. Reduce the flame to medium, wet your palms with oil and press the dough to the shape of a small pattie.

7. Carefully slide the patties into the pan.

8. Fry all the patties in batches on medium until the color turns golden brown.

9. Drain the excess oil with a tissue paper.

10. Serve hot with any chutney, they taste good on their own too.

I guess we can add grated carrot too for extra nutrition.

Banana Pancakes

I wanted to make my favourite dish Banana Bread for JFI-Banana...But then my friend Srividya shared this recipe of Banana pancakes..this seemed to be easy, so I decided to try this for breakfast today.....so yummy...can be prepared in less than 20min...'ve made few alterations in the procedure....Thanks for the wonderful idea Vidya...

Here's the recipe,

Ingredients:

Bananas - 2 (ripe, mashed)
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Milk - 200ml
Baking powder - 1tsp
Butter - 2 tbsp (unsalted)
Honey - to serve with

Procedure:

1. Blend the milk, mashed Bananas, eggs into a smooth consistency.
2. Add the flour and baking powder and make a thin batter.
3. Grease a pan with butter and Heat.
4. Pour a ladle full of batter. Spead a little to make a circle of 8cm diameter.
5. Cook until the pancake turns brown on both sides (2min each side).
6. Serve hot with honey spread on top.


This is my entry for JFI-Banana, an event started by Indira of Mahanandi, hosted by Mandira of ahaar

Whole Wheat Bread Baking from Basics

I'm back on to my baking spree this weekend...I've come across the Monthly Blog Patrolling Event MBP organised by Coffee of The Spice Cafe...loved the concept..so decided to do some bread baking from a recipe of a co-blogger...I never made bread at home..So I wanted to start off with a very simple n basic recipe...

Prepared both rolls and a loaf from the dough...took almost 4hrs :o for the entire process...The baking time was only 15min, but the preparation took so long than I've expected...

I've adopted the recipe from Bakingbites. The Original recipe is here. Made some changes according to my taste preferences.

Here goes the recipe,

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour - 500gm

Yeast (active dry) - 4tsp

Brown Sugar - 1 tbsp

Salt - 2 tsp

Warm water - 2 cups (350ml)

Oil - 1 tbsp

Dried Basil - 2 tsp

Dried red chillie flakes - 1 tsp

I've skipped wheat bran and added dried basil and rec chillie flakes to the original version. I used oil for the manageability of the dough.

Procedure:

1. Divide the wheat flour into two equal portions. Set aside 1 tbsp flour for dusting.

2. Take one portion of the wheat flour in a bowl, add the yeast and warm water and stir well.

3. Cover the bowl and set aside for 1-2hrs until bubbles appear.

4. Now add the other portion of the flour, brown sugar, salt, dried basil and red chillie flakes to the mix and knead into a dough. Use oil and extra flour for manageability.

5. Knead the dough for 8-10min until soft into a ball shape and cover with a plastic wrap.

6. Leave it aside for 1-2hrs until the size doubles.

7. Divide the dough into two equal parts.

7. Make 5 equal sized rolls (flattened) from one portion of the dough and place them on a greased baking sheet.

8. Place the other portion of the dough in a greased loaf tin.

9. Cover both the rolls and loaf dough with a clean dishtowel and leave to rise for 45min.

10. Preheat the oven to 210F and place the baking tray and loaf tin inside the oven.

11. Bake for 15min or until the outer crust turns golden brown.

The outer crust was so crispy and the inner part was so soft. Tasted great with tomato pickle on the slices and the rolls served with Beans soup.

This recipe is my entry to the MBP event hosted by Coffee

Oops..I forgot to post my favourite kitchen smell/odour..the list goes endless, but to name a few I love,

1. Tadka smell with ginger and curry leaves.

2. Home made ground poppy seed/coconut/coriander seeds masala for non-veg curries

3. Flavour of fresh made coffee every morning (Especially Nescafe..mmmmuuuuaaaaaahhhh)

Curried Chapathi for Breakfast

I had a couple of left over chapathis from last night's dinner. I did not feel like throwing them away. I found a breakfast recipe posted by a friend Srividya in one of the discussion forums on orkut. So I decided to prepare it for my breakfast today. I loved the recipe a lot, delicious when served hot...Thanks for the idea Srividya..

A very simple n quickie recipe...

Ingredients:

Leftover Chapathis - 2 (tear into 2 inch size pieces)

Onion - 1 chopped

Green chillies - 2 chopped

Tomato - 1 cut into chunks

Grated coconut - 2 tsp

Cumin - 1/2 tsp

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1/2 tsp - adjust

Garam Masala - 1/4th tsp

Oil - 4tsp

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a pan.

2. Add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds.

3. Then add the onions and green chillies. Saute for 3-4min

4. Add the tomatoes, salt and garam masala powder and 1 cup of water. Mix well

5. When the water starts to boil add the grated coconut and chapathi pieces. Mix well and cook for 2-3 min.

Serve Hot. Doesn't taste good when cold.

This is my entry to WBB event hosted by Nandita of Saffron Trail.

Protein Punch - Bean Burgers

I don't remember how I fell in love with North Indian recipes..But whenever we go to a restaurant, all others who accompany me 'll be looking at the South Indian dishes in the menu, but I always used to select some North Indian dish...Rajma (kidney beans) is one of my favourite ingredient...I used to make Rajma pulav during my stay in US...My roomies also loved Rajma so I used to cook it almost 2-3 times in a month...But after getting married I hardly cook Rajma...the reasons are obvious..My hubby has a bitter aversion towards any kind of beans/peas...Kidney beans, Chick peas (Gorbanzo beans), Butter beans, Lima beans...A big NO to all of them....

I purchased Rajma, Chick peas and Green peas last month...I somehow wanted to make him eat these...But the moment he observes me cooking any of these he'ld say that he's not hungry and he'll have just some curd rice...So I decided to cook them without his notice...Yesterday I came back home early and soaked all these together...This morning he was a lion as usual, while I made burgers out of these beans and served them for breakfast...He asked me what burgers are those, I replied him "Veggie Burgers"...He might have taken it fot granted that they were made out of potato/corn flour...the usual veggie burger stuff...He had a bite and then asked me what are these...I again repeated "Veggie Burgers, Veggie Burgers, Veggie Burgers"...He ate silently and after his breakfast asked me how I made them..I explained....He said he liked the taste, but that he cannot eat them very frequently (he thought I'ld use this trick every week now)and no more comments from his side...



I liked the taste a lot, no starchy ingredients, less oil, less fuss...We had them sandwiched with rotis and tomato sauce...They just look like normal veggie burgers, can be served within a burger bun as usual...




Ingredients:

Rajma (kidney beans) - 1 cup
Chick peas (Gorbanzo beans) - 1/2 cup
Green Peas - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1 large - sliced
Green Chillies - 5 - chopped
Coriander - 3 to strips - cleaned and cut
Salt - as per taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Corn flour - 1 tbsp
Oil - To pan fry the burgers

Procedure:

1. Soak the kidney beans, chick peas, green peas together over night.
2. Pressure cook with water and salt. Let them cool. Drain all the water.
3. Take the onion slices, green chillies and coriander, turmeric powder into a blender and make a paste.
4. Now add these drained beans,peas and blend together.
5. Add cornflour to this mixture to make a thick paste.
6. Heat a pan and take a spoon full of this paste and spread like a burger pattie.
7. Add few drops around the pattie and roast for about 3-5min on each side. You can cook 2-4 patties at a time depending on the size of the pan. Take care that it's cooked well inside too.

Serve them with burger buns, salad and ketch up/mayo....can be served with chapatis too..my preference (as I love chapatis a lotttttt)....

Dibba Rotti (Rice Flour Roti) - Akki Roti

I've been making these for the past one year, but never knew that the recipe is from Karnataka cuisine and was known as Akki Roti. I always called it as dibba rotti (sounds odd..isn't it?)...People tend to comment those who are little plumpy as Dibba Rottis...the reason being these Rottis are little thick....I've recently come across a wonderful blog of Padma where she posted her version of rice flour rotis. It was then I noticed that this recipe was from Karnataka...Thanks for sharing Padma..

My recipe is slightly different..By now, you might have got used to my way of using ingredients...I just tend to mix whatever I feel like and try my level best to avoid as many ingredients as possible from the original version according to my convinience...If it comes out tasty well and good...If not, lite theesko tendency....

I love these akki rotis (no more addressing them as dibba rottis...akki rotis sounds good) for they are very easy to make and doesn't need any prior soaking, grinding, fermenting bla bla bla stuff. Here goes the recipe,

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 2 cups

Onions - 1 - Finely chopped

Green chillies - 4 - Finely chopped

Chana dal - 1 table spoon (soak in hot water and drain)

Cumin - 1 tsp

Salt - as per taste

Warm water to mix

Oil to roast

Procedure:

1. Mix all the above ingredients except water. Pour warm water gradually and mix to a thick batter consistency.

2. Take a Tava (dosa pan) and grease the surface with oil. Pour a ladle full of the above batter and spread using your hand into a circular shape (you cannot spread it like normal dosa batter because of its different texture and consistency).

3. Now swtich on the stove and add 1/2 tsp oil around the edges of the roti.

4. Cover the pan with a lid (atleast the portion of the pan with roti). Cook for 2-4min.

5. Turn to the other side carefully and cook for another 2min (No need to close with the lid now).

6. Make sure the roti is roasted well on both the sides and remove from the pan.

7. Run cold water on the bottom of the pan to let it cool and repeat the procedure for remaining rotis.

Serve with any chutney. We eat with peanut chutney/coconut-roasted chickpeas chutney.

Nethi-Karam Dosa - Ghee dosa with Onion chutney and fried lentil-spice powder

Dosa with erra kaaram and pappula podi combo drizzled with Ghee is one of my favourite breakfast items...In our hometown there's a hotel called Venkatramana Vilas which is well known for its Nethi dosa...yummy yummy..hot n spicy melts in your mouth...there are many versions of kaaram dosa..this's one among them...

1. Make dosa batter (Soak 3:1 ratio of rice and urad dal over night, grind to a thick batter consistency adding little water in a blender, add required salt and a pinch of baking soda, keep it aside for 3hrs)

2. Errakaram - Blend one onion, 2 garlic flakes, 4 dried red chillies with salt and water (very little) to a smooth paste

3. Pappula Podi - Grind a cup of fried gram (putnala pappu/ dalia)with 3 garlic flakes, 5 red chillies, 1/2 tea spoon cumin seeds and salt to a smooth powder in a mill.

Final Procedure

Heat a pan and rub with a half-cut onion.

Take a spoon full of dosa batter (1) and pour in the centre using a ladle. Rotate the back end of the ladle and spread the batter to a circular shape of 10-15cm diameter.

Add few drops of ghee around the ends of the dosa. After 20 sec turn to the other side. Let it cook for 5 sec and turn back again.

Now take a 1/2 tea spoon full of erra karam (2) and spread on the Dosa

Spread a 1/2 tea spoon full of pappula podi (3) over the dosa

Add few drops of Ghee onto the top, fold the dosa and take it off from the pan.

Delicious when served hot.

Coco-Jag-wheat pancakes - Theepi atlu

I made wheat dosa with Jaggery and coconut last weekend. I dunno how to name it....It tasted good and was a very quick n easy recipe.

Ingredients:

Wheat flour - 1 cup

Jaggery - 1-2 table spoons (grated) - adjust according to your taste

Coconut - 1 table spoon (grated)

Cardamon Pods - 2 (make fine powder frm the seeds)

Water

Oil - 1 tea spoon

Method:

Apart from the oil, mix all the above ingredients to a batter consistency. Heat Pan and pour one ladle full of batter on the pan. Spread it to 10-15cm diameter on the pan with the back of ladle. Add few drops of oil to the ends of the pancake/dosa. Once it gets heated turn over and heat the other side too. Serve warm.

Tripple Dhamaka with Sweetcorn

It's my turn now...I chose sweetcorn for today's cooking...I made a paste with sweetcorn, ginger, garlic and green chillies and made 3 different kinds of recipes...

Ingredients for the paste:

Sweetcorn - 750gm

Ginger - 3/4th inch piece

Garlic - 4 pods

Salt - 1 tea spoon

Green chillies - 3-4

Method:

Take all the above ingredients in a blender and grind it to a smooth paste. Do not add water. The paste looks like this.

Recipe 1 : Sweetcorn cutlets - Mokkajonna chitti garelu

Take a plastic sheet, wet your hands with little oil and make small lemon sized balls with the above paste and shape them into small cutlets. Heat Oil in a wok and when the oil is hot enough, turn to low flame and fry these cutlets until golden brown. Place on a tissue paper so that the excess oil gets absorbed. Serve hot with tomato sauce.

Recipe 2: Sweetcorn-onion fritters - Mokkajonna Ulli Pakodi

Slice one onion length-wise and mix the onion pieces in the above sweetcorn paste. Once the onion pieces are well coated with the paste fry them on medium flame in the oil. Serve hot with tea as a snack.

Recipe 3: Sweetcorn Roti - Mokkajonna chapathi

Mix the above paste with one tablespoon wheat flour and make the dough. Make lemon sized balls out of this dough and using a rolling pin, make the rotis. Heat the pan. Coat these rotis with few drops of oil and cook them on the pan until brown spots appear. These rotis have a subtle sweet taste because of the sweetcorn. They can be served on their own or accompained by any curry.

Here ends my sweetcorn saga...My next dhamaka ingredient would be green peas..hehehehe...I'll come up with those recipes in a few weeks time...

Chapathi with Aloo/Potato Curry

This's my fav dish. Aloo curry with rotis..I can live on this alone for ages. As I already mentioned, I'm Mrs Lazy Bones...I try to cut down the effort to prepare any recipe and this's not an exception.

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 3 (cleaned, peeled and cut into small cubes)

Onions - 2 (sliced into pieces)

Green chilli - 5 (sliced into small pieces)

Salt

Turmeric - 2 pinches

Oil - 2 large tea spoons

Water - 3 small cups

For Popu/tampering- Cumin seeds, Mustard seeds, Urad dal , Chana dal - 1 tea spoon each ; curry leaves - 5 and Garlic cloves - 2

Method:

Put a pressure cooker on the hob, heat the oil and do the popu/tampering. Once the popu is done add green chilli pieces and Onions and saute them for 2 min. Add the turmeric powder and then the potato cubes. Add water and mix sufficient amout of salt. Close the pressure cooker and cook it for until 3 whistles. Let it cool. Open the lid, mix well and Serve hot with Rotis or Puris.

Rava Dosa

This is my instant breakfast recipe....I generally dont prefer to skip my breakfast. Suman often does it during weekdays, which I don't want him to do...I cannot eat bread,cereals for more than once in a week. So I normally store dosa or idli batter in the fridge, which I prepare during the weekends and make dosas or idlis everyday for our breakfast. I've to start for my work place at around 8.30AM, So I'll have ample time during the morning to prepare breakfast.

But at times I feel very lazy to prepare these batters before. So whenever I feel like having a full fledged Indian breakfast and if I dont have any dosa/idli batter I prepare this Rava Dosa. It's very simple and easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

Semolina (Souji) - 2 cups

Curd - 2 table spoons

Ginger/Green chilli paste - 1 small tea spoon

Salt

Water

Method:

Dry roast souji rava in a hot skillet. Take it in a bowl and mix the curd, ginger/green chilli paste and salt. Add water and mix well into a batter of loose consistency. It should be slightly watery when compared to normal Dosa batter. Heat the Dosa pan and put few drops of oil and rub with half-cut onion with its flat surface on the Pan. Take a spoon full of batter and pour it onto the pan into a dosa shape of 10-15 inch diameter. We shouldn't rub this batter from the centre as we do it for a normal dosa. Add a few drops of oil around the dosa and turn it over after a min. Remove it from the pan once the dosa is done.

This tastes good with sambar or peanut/coconut chutney. But I generally prepare this whilst 'm very busy and hence 'll eat it with Coconut-chilli powder (kobbari karam) prepared beforehand with a drop of ghee.

Rava Pongal

I'm not a great cook, not even a moderate cook...'m just a beginner...Some recipes of mine turn out to be very delicious, while some turn out to be disasters. I generally look for a recipe over the net and make some changes to that, so as to minimise the work and sometimes I succeed, and today luckily my Rava pongal came out to be very good.

For a traditional Rava pongal, moong dal is boiled in a pressure cooker seperately, but that adds another vessel for me to clean....kikiki...I can be called as LAZY BONES when it comes to cooking. So I made a lil change to the recipe.

Ingredients:

Moong dal - 1/2 Cup (wash and soak in hot water for 20min) - I've done this becoz I didn't pressure cook the moong dal.

Semolina - 1 cup

Peppercorns (Miriyalu) - 1 tea spoon

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tea spoon

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tea spoon

Red chilli - 2 (tear into pieces)

Cashews - 10

Ghee - 1 small table spoon

Salt - as per taste

Water - 3 and half cups

Method:

In a pressure cooker take Ghee and heat it. Add mustard seeds, Cumin, Peppercorns, red chillie pieces. When the tadka is done add cashew nuts and roast for a while. Then drain the soaked moong dal and add it to the cooker. Roast it for 2-3 min and now add semolina and mix well and roast for 2min. Add 3 and half cups of water and salt. Mix well and close the lid. Pressure cook it for 3 whistles. Let it cool and mix well. Enjoy it hot by itself or with Coconut chutney or sambar.

Since I didn't pressure cook the moong dal seperately, dal was seperate and appeared to be more appealing, I didn't have curry leaves at home. Also I was reluctant to add ginger pieces. I think adding curry leaves and ginger pieces to the tadka would have been even better. I also feel like replacing the red chilli with a green chilli. 'll try it next time.