Vattayapam

O kutta, do u remember the vattayapam I made for ur 3rd birthday. u just loved it ad so did all the guests… remember one guest took all the leftover vatayapams home. This is the recipe. This one is for u &for my little gal too.

Ingredients:
Raw rice: 2 cups
Coconut grated: 2 cups
Yeast: 1 tsp
Cardamom powder: 4 tsp
Sugar: 1 cup
Rava: 6 tsp (or 2 cups cooked rice)
Raisins

Method:
Soak the raw rice in water for 3 hours.
Mix the yeast with a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of luke warm water.
Boil the rava with 2 cups of water to make it a paste. (easier option is to use cooked rice)
Now grind the soaked rice with coconut.
Add the rava paste(or cooked rice) and the fermented yeast to it and blend it to a smooth paste.
Pour this mixture to a big vessel and add the sugar, a little bit of salt, cardamom and mix well. Keep aside for 6 hours. When the mixture ferments, add the raisins and steam cook in a pressure cooker without the weight or steam cook in an idly cooker.
Serve it with a smile. Any 1 who eats this will love u for this.

Note: If you place the raisins on top and cook, it will sink into the batter as it cooks..so what I do is, when the vattayappam is half done, I take off the lid and place the raisins...so that it remains on top like in the picture.

Chinese chicken gravy

This is another tasty recipe from mamma’s kitchen for my Chinese food freak O boy. We had called a few people for supper on ur 2nd birthday. So I made this with fried rice. I had tried out this recipe 2 days before ur birthday& dada told me it was excellent. oh yeah, every1 loved it!!!

Chicken boneless: half kg
Garlic 4-5 chopped
Onion: 2 chopped
Greechilly: 2
Soya sauce: 2 tsp
Tomato sauce: 5 tsp
Vinegar: 1 tsp
Corflour: 3 tsp
Spring onion
Egg: 1

Method:
Marinate the chicken in salt, egg &corn flour. Deep-fry it in oil till golden brown. Keep aside. Heat oil. Add garlic, onions, green chilly and sauté till onions turn brown. Add salt, sugar and vinegar. Mix properly. Add soya sauce and tomato sauce with half a cup of water. Just when the sauce starts to boil, add fried chicken and spring onions. This goes well with Noodles and fried rice.

Pepper chicken

This recipe is almost like the mushroom pepper fry… but definitely tastier coz of the chicken … I feel this is better as the main dish Coz if u make this as starters, it will e too heavy…

Ingredients:
Chicken: half kilo
Onions: 6
Ginger: 1 inch
Garlic: 5
Garam masala: 1 tsp
Pepper powder: 6 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Salt

Method:
Heat oil. Sauté the chopped onions, ginger and garlic till golden. Add chicken pieces, garam masala, pepper powder and coriander powder. Mix properly. Close lid and cook. Keep stirring in between. Poke a toothpick to see if it is cooked. Serve hot with chapattis.

mushroom pepper fry

hey nunu gal, this is one tasty yet very easy recipe, your dada loves it. and iam sure u gonna love it too. do u know how mamma came up with this recipe. one day (this happened b4 u were born), mamma and puthrichechy had lunch at The Delhi restuarant. puthrichechy ordered mushroom pepper fry and wow!!! it was yummy. that was the first time ever i had this dish. on the way back, i bought mushrooms and started experimenting and lo!! it tasted the same!! eureka!!!

ingredients:
mushroom:1 packet
onions: 5 big diced
garlic: 5-6 chopped fine
green chillies: 3 nos
curry leaves
pepper: as needed
salt

method:
in a kadai heat oil, fry the onions. when it is translucent, add the garlic and curry leaves, stir for some more time. now add the mushrooms and salt and keep stirring for some more time till the mushroom is properly cooked. make sure u keep the flame low. now add the pepper (mamma doesnt know the quantity- i keep tasting to see if the pepper is enuff) okay to make it easier for u- lets say add 2 teaspoons and see if it tastes good... okay??? thats it!!!! very very tasty mushroom ready!!!!

Tasty Egg Roast

oyen kutta, i dont know if u remember... but when u were very very small.. like when u were 2 years old... u hated egg... once i made pancakes and u said it was stinking of egg.... u somehow used to detect egg in any egg based recipe. one day i made phulkas for breakfast and since there was no vegetable to make a curry, i boiled 3 eggs and came up with a recipe... (different from the usual egg curry we make at home... u know the traditional one) the one i came up with is easy and tasty too... and from that day onwards u started eating egg.... u started with boiled eggs... then u graduated to bulls eye, scrambled eggs.... well GOOD!!!

INGREDIENTS:
eggs: 3 nos
onions: 3 diced
turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp
chilly powder :1 tbsp
coriander powder: 2 tbsp
vinegar: 1 tbsp
coconut milk: half cup
curry leaves.

method:
Boil the egg and make gashes on it. Shallow fry th eggs and keep aside. Saute the onion and when it is light brown, add curry leaves and all the masalas. Stir for a minute and then add the vinegar and eggs. Add half a cup of thick coconut milk and roast it.. ur favourite egg roast is ready.

Mushroom masala fry

This one is dedicated to my husband. Last night I was really lazy to cook anything. When I looked at the time, it was 8:30 pm. All the more reason for me to take a home delivery menu card, coz I hate getting into the kitchen after 7 pm. It runs in the family I think coz back home we have dinner by 7 pm. But my husband will never touch food before 9:30pm. And he likes it straight from the pan to his plate. Okay… back to where I started… anyways, I had to cook… no excuses… well, my very sweet neighbour, Indu had bought me a packet of mushrooms. Ha, now what do I do with it… see what I did!!!
And oh!!!!!! My husband just loved it!!!!!!! He said it was too good!! If he says that, it surely is!!!

Ingredients:
Mushroom: 1 packet
Onions: 2-3 chopped fine
Garlic- 4 chopped fine
Ginger: 1 inch chopped fine
Greenchilles: 2 chopped fine
Tomatoes: 2 chopped fine
Turmeric powder: a pinch
Chilly powder: 1 teaspoon
Pepper powder: 2 tea spoons
salt

Method:
Chop the mushrooms and mix it with all the other ingredients except tomatoes and salt. Keep it aside for 10 minutes (that’s the time I took to knead the dough for chapattis)
Now heat oil in a kadai (atleast 3 tablespoons ) . Splutter mustard, curry leaves and then add the mushroom mixture and fry on a low flame for sometime. See if the mushroom is cooked. When it is almost done, add the tomatoes and salt and keep stirring till the tomatoes are cooked well. Garnish it with coriander leaves and serve.

Lime pickle

This is for my little nunu… I don’t know if you will grow up to like pickle… but ur grand mom and great grand mom used to make so much of pickles and store it for a year. Every1 in my side of ur family loves it. I used to take it to hostel too. Now, I have also started making pickles and storing them. This is one of my favourite recipes for lime pickle. I got this 2 years back after making 5 STD calls… phew!!! Okay, I will tell u what happened… sofy mummy once came to stay with ammachy and she had a bottle of lime pickle that tasted simply out of the world. I asked her for the recipe and she said her sister’s mother- in- law gave it to her. So I took her sister’s number from her but I never got her through for one whole year…it was some other house and someone else taking the call all the time. Finally I did some permutation and combinations with the number and finally one fine day I got her sister. She promised she would get the recipe from her mother in law. And later I got it from her and believe me; the smell of the pickle is enough to have a plate full of rice.

Ingredients:
Lime: 25 nos
Kanthari: 100 gms
Garlic: 50 gms
Ginger: 50 gms
Curry leaves: a bunch
Asafetida: 3 tablespoon
Fenugreek: 2 teaspoons

Method:
Add a little turmeric to a pot of water and boil the lime in it. When the lemons start to break, drain the water and when it cools, cut each lime into 4 pieces. Fry the kantahri, garlic and ginger separately and keep aside. Heat oil in a kadai, splutter mustard, and add 100 Gms chilly powder. Mix it properly with the oil for about half a minute. Now add the fried ginger, garlic, kanthari, asafoetida and fenugreek. Mix it properly and then add the lime pieces and salt. Mamma doesn’t know how much salt to put. I keep tasting to see if it is enough. If it is not, I keep on adding till am satisfied… Now add a cup of vinegar. Mix properly and boil. Tasty lime pickle for u!!!

Spinach-Lentils curry

Oyen, I really don’t feel like blogging… actually if I get a pillow now, I will sleep off… but I have to do this for u…. especially after seeing u eating the spinach dal curry for lunch. I really felt happy coz when I was ur age I hated both dal and spinach…actually only recently have I started eating spinach and this tastes wow!!!!!!!!!

Ingredients:
Palak- 1 bunch
Dal - 1 cup
Green chillies_ 3 nos
Garlic- 3
Ginger: 1/2 inch
Tomatoes:2 nos
Onion: 1 chopped fine
Mustard, oil, dried red chilly

Method:Chop the palak, sprinkle it with half a tea spoon of turmeric powder and pressure cook it with dal, greenchillies, tomatoes and garlic. In a kadai, heat oil and splutter mustard. Add the onions, ginger, dried redy chilly and when the onions turn translucent, add the cooked dal- spinach mix. Add salt. Garnish with coriander leaves.

liver fry

rohan, this is for u... i know one day u will come to love liver just like ur dada.... so when u grow up and go away from home, this will help you as it is very easy and tasty too... b4 that i have to tell u one thing... i used to hate liver... but dada loves it... so one day i thought i will cook up something... coz i knew since it is liver, he will eat it even if the recipe is not all that good.... so i started with liver and kept on adding to it, whatever i could.... and believe me, the end result was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now i love liver... and u will too....

ingredients:
Liver: 1 kg
onion: 5 big sliced
garlic: 1 pod
ginger i inch
green chillies: 2 nos
pepper powder 2 tablspoons
Tomatoes: 2 big
curry leaves: as needed
coriander leaves
method:
wash the liver and drain it in a colander. heat oil in a kadai. fry the liver in it for about 5 minutes on a low flame. add the onion and keep on frying. when it becomes light brown, add garlic, ginger , curry leaves and greenchillies and stir for 2 minutes. now close it with a lid... let it cook for sometime, say about 3-4 minutes... keep stirring in between. now take off the lid and add the tomatoes, pepper powder and salt. if the oil is not enough add a liitle more of oil and keep stirring. when the tomatoes are cooked well, it means it is done. now enjoy ur meal.