Podi Idly

Ingredients:

Ghee / Butter - 1 tsp + 1 tsp
Idly - 3
Big Onion - 1
Idly podi - 3 or 4 tsp's
finely hopped corriander leaves - 2 tsp's (optional)

Method of Preparation:


Heat a dosa tava. add 1 tsp ghee. place the idy in the centre and roast the idly in slow flame for about a minute till you get a light golden crust on the base of idly. likewise flip the idly and roast the other side too. Remove the roasted idly to a plate.


Add 1 tsp of ghee to the tava in slow flame, add finely chopped onions and saute it till it turns translucent.


In slow flame, add in the idly milagaai podi and mix well with the onions. add corriander leaves and mix. This should all get done less than a minute. else the podi and corriander leaves will get browned.


Switch off the flame and spread the onion podi mix over the idly on one side or either side.

This stuffed puri is a famous north indian break-fast. Bedmi puri is between kachori and puri, as the stuffing is made with urad dal. I eyed on this puri from tarla dalal's cookbook. even i made it once long back, me and hubby liked these puri's a lot! Who would say no to a healthy puri like this? when i tried out these puri's last saturday, i clicked pictures of these lovely puri's to share with you all.
 

                                                             Stuffed Urad dal puri

Ingredients:

To fry the puri - 1 and 1/4 cup sunflower oil

For the dough:

Wheat flour - 1 and 1/4 cup
Nigella seeds / karunjeeragam / kalonji  - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Water - 1 cup (approx. to knead)
Oil - 1/2 tsp

For the stuffing:

Urad dal  / Split black gram - 1/2 cup
Oil - 1 tsp

Dry roast and ground the following into a corase powder: (spice mix)

Corriander seeds - 1 tsp
Dry red chilli - 2
Pepper - 5
Saunf / sombu - 1 tsp
Cumin - 1 tsp

Method:

Soak the split black gram / urad dal / udacha ulundhu with skin in water for about 4 hours.

To prepare the dough, take wheat flour in a large bowl, add salt and nigella seeda and mix with the flour. keep sprinkling little water and knead them all together into a pilable dough. add 1/2 tsp oil towards the end of kneading and knead well. the dough should be little tight than we knead for  chapathi/phulka. Divide the dough into 8-9 balls. keep aside.

Dry roast the corriander seeds, dry red chilli, pepper, saunf and cumin. grind the roasted one's into a coarse powder.

Drain the soaked dal completely without water and grind them coarsely in your mixer. sprinkle little water if needed. add salt to taste and grind the dal coarser.

Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan, add the coarsely ground urad dal and the spice mix and mix well. mix them in medium flame for about a minute. the urad dal tends to stick to the pan, anyways make sure the mix is dry and well mixed with the spice mix. remove from flame and let it cool. once cooled divide the urad dal mix into small ball's that has to be stuffed.


Now roll the wheat dough into a thick 3'inch diameter round and place the urad dal stuffing in centre and fold all the edges of the dough to cover the urad dal stuffing. dust it with little flour and roll them lightly into a medium shaped puri. similarly do the stuffing and roll the other puri's.


Heat 1 and 1/4 cup of oil in deep pan and fry the rolled out stuffed puri's. fry till they reach golden brown in colour. fry the both sides of the puri. serve the puri hot with aloo sabzi or with curd and pickle.


Notes:

I used skinned split urad dal. as skinned dal is good, you can also use it. you can also try it in whole urad dal de-skinned.

Make sure the urad dal is grinded coarsely with little water, only then the stuffing will be intact when rolling the puri.

 

First i hate to name this has Appam. we call it as ஆப்பம்(aappam), in english it may be read / means burp. so without heart i call it appam now! My great grand mom used to make appam with coconut toddy (kallu) for us. the flavor and taste of those appam is just unbeatable. forget the drowsiness after eating appam. and just for the drowsiness, we kids won't be fed appam on school days!! 

How to eat the appam is, sprinkle 2 or 3 tsp's of sugar in the centre of the appam and pour coconut milk/ just plain milk, let the appam soak for few seconds and eat! It will be a divine break-fast!

appam served with veg stew and milk 

Ingredients:

• Raw rice - 2 cup's (400gms)
• Par boiled rice / Idly rice - 2 cup's (400 gms)
• Urad dal - 1/2 cup (50 gms)
• Fenugreek - 1/4 tsp
• Luke warm water - 1/4 cup
• Active dry yeast - 1 tsp
• Sugar - 1 tsp
• Rock salt / kal uppu - 1 tsp

After fermentation, its time to add yeast and let it ferment for the second time. so prepare for this second fermentation, ahead of 2 hrs of preparing appam. In a small mixing bowl, mix yeast, sugar, rock salt in Luke warm water and stir well with a spoon so that the yeast get's dissolved. close the mixing bowl with a plate and let it rest for about 10-15 minutes. this is to prove the yeast for its activeness. once the yeast mixture turns frothy, add it to the fermented appam batter and stir well. Now let the appam batter ferment for the second time for about 1 and half hrs to 2 hrs. once the batter ferments. its ready to make appam.
                  this pic is taken after first fermentation. it actually ferments more after adding yeast!



Mix little water, if the batter is too thick. heat a appa kadaai, i use my non-stick appam pan. smear the pan with a drop of oil. with a sliced onion, just spread the oil on sides of the pan(repeat this when preparing each and every appam). Pour 2 heaped ladle full of appam batter in the center of the appa kadaai / pan and swirl the kadaai / pan, this makes the batter spreading towards the sides of the pan. close the pan with its lid. let the appam get cooked in high flame for just a minute.

if you want the centre of the appam to be thick(like in the above pics) and the sides thinner, you should add another ladle of batter, this makes the excess batter get into the center. but you have to put the flame in medium and close the appam pan. it may take more than a minute for the appam to get cooked. you can test, by touching the center of the appam. if it sticks, its not cooked! then wait for some more time.

The left over appam batter can be put back in fridge, actually it ferments again and that gives still good appam 's in the next batch. do not forget to finish up the batter in 2 day's. its not like our idly batter, which keeps good for 5-7 day's.

Notes:

If you want to prepare appam without yeast, just let the appam batter ferment for about 16 hours. take half a cup of water, add 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp rock salt and 1/4 tsp of cooking soda and mix well. now add the mixed water to the fermented batter and mix well. let the batter rest for 30 minutes before you start making appam.

You can also add Instant yeast and add it to the batter, without proving the yeast. if using coconut toddy, add 1 cup of toddy, for this recipe.

Me and hubby love pesarattu. whenever we eat out at a andhra hotel, we order this. I love to prepare pesarattu on weekends as it involves less job and extra credits goes for this healthy break-fast. when you have little of last batch of the dosa batter, mix it along with pesarattu batter. that yields good dosa's.

I just love to eat these pesarattu without any side-dishes. the onions and green chilli on every bite will simply be good. Pesarattu is normally served with upma. It can also be served with simple coconut chutney and sambhar. 

• Whole moong dal - 1 cup / 200gms (soaked in water overnight or 3 - 4 hrs)
• Green chilli - 2
• Cumin - 2 tsp
• Ginger - 1' inch size

for topping:

• Onion - 1 finely chopped or 10 small onions finely chopped.
• Green chilli - 1 finely chopped

Method:

Wash and soak the whole moong dal in water for about 3 - 4 hrs or overnight. if soaked for overnight, it may also sprout and that makes the pesarattu more nutritious.

Grind the soaked moong dal along with green chilies, ginger, cumin, 1/4 cup of water & salt to taste into a smooth and fine batter.

Now the batter is ready to make pesarattu. yes you need not ferment! Heat a dosa tawa, take a ladle full of batter and make dosa's. if you prefer thin make thin dosa's.

Drizzle oil on sides, if you prefer toppings, add the finely chopped small onions and green chilli over the dosa and wait for a minute and flip the dosa, to let the other side of the dosa to get cooked. after half a minute remove the dosa to serve.

          Serve plain or with coconut chutney or sambhar.

Notes:

1. As mentioned, you can mix this pesarattu batter along with left over dosa batter and make dosa's.
2. If serving pesarattu for kids, make sure to reduce one green chilli, it will reduce spice.

Notes:

I tell you all an idea, if you have left over idly from morning breakfast, prepare more amount of gravy, so that you can use it for this tandoori idly for evening snack and also use up the gravy to prepare aloo masala or pea’s masala or paneer masala for dinner. just add 2 tsp of fresh cream to the gravy at end. it’s done. no one will spot the difference ;)

Also do not use the sour idly batter and make sour idly. this will not work with sour idly. idly should be so soft and fresh.

 serves : 4 
 soaking time : 4 hrs.
fermentation time : overnight   
preparation time: 10 mins.
this batter can be used to make idli and dosai.
recipe given is to grind using wet grinder, you can reduce the quantity into half, if you want to grind using mixie


Ingredients: 

• Par boiled rice - 1 cup
• Raw rice - 1 cup
• Urad dal - 1/2 cup
• Maravalli kizhangu - 1 big one(peeled and grated) / 2 cup's

Method:

1. Soak the par boiled rice and raw rice together in water for about 3-4 hrs. soak the urad dal in water for about one hour.

2. Peel the outer skin of maravalli / tapioca and wash it thoroughly. then grate with the help of grater or chop them into small pieces.

3. Now first grind the urad dal with 1/2 cup of water sprinkled in between while grinding, just as we grind for idli/dosa's. after 30 minutes, add the soaked rice and grind finely. sprinkle water in between. finally add the grated maravalli kizhangu and let it grind into a smooth paste. together it will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour for grinding in your wet grinder.

4. Let the batter ferment for about 6 hrs. dilute the batter with salt required for making dosa, add salt to the batter and mix well.

5. Now make thin dosa's  and serve with varamilagai chutney.

serves : 2 
preparation & 
cooking time : less than 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• Onion - 1
• Tomato - 1
• urad dal - 1 tsp
• channa dal - 1 tsp
• mustard - 1 tsp
• grated coconut - 2 tbsp
• Dry red chillies - 3
• Oil - 1 tsp

Method:

1. Heat a tsp of oil in a pan, add  mustard and let it splutter, add urad dal, channa dal and roast till it turns golden in colour.

2. Then add onions and saute till it turns translucent. then add tomatoes and saute till it turns mashy. add salt to taste and finally mix the grated coconut and remove from flame.

3. Cool them all and grind into smooth chutney with little water.

This is one of our favourite chutney's. I learned the recipe from aval vikatan. I also clubbed Bharathy's recipe with aval vikatan and got the recipe of this yummy Onion Thokku.

This Recipe Yields about 1 cup.

good enough for 4 adults.

Small Onion's - 1 cup / 15 nos.

Big Red Onion - 1

Tamarind - 1 small lemon size

Turmeric Powder - a pinch

Chilli Powder - 3 tsp's

Oil - 3 tbsp's

 Mustard - 1 tsp

 Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

 Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp

                                            

1. Dry roast Mustard, cumin and asafoetida and powder it coarsely.

2. Peel the small onions and Big onion.

3. Soak Tamarind in 1/4 cup of warm water for about 10 minutes and squeeze the pulp. discard the pulp and use the thick tamarind juice.

4. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan, add small onions and roast them, then add big onions and roast the onions. add salt so that the onions cook fast. once the onions are almost cooked, remove from flame and cool them.

5. Grind the onions with just 1 or 2 tsp's of water into a coarse form.

6. Heat the Remaining oil in a Pan, add coarsely grounded small onion's and saute it in oil. add salt to taste, Chilli Powder and the Grounded powder. Give a mix.

7. Add the Thick Tamarind Juice to the pan and mix well. reduce the flame to medium and keep mixing the chutney for 5 minutes in medium flame, till the chutney gets thicker and leaves oil on its sides.

8. Remove the chutney to a clean sterlised bottle. you can store this upto a week in fridge.

Serve this Onion Thokku with Idli, Dosa's.

Veg Clear Soup Recipe

Prep Time: 05 mins 
Ingredients:


Barley - 100gms
Moong Dal / Pasi Paruppu - 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Water - 2 cup's (220 ml)
Onion - 1
Green Chilli - 2
Carrot - 1/2
Tomato - 1
Capsicum - 1/2
Corriander leaves to garnish
Oil - 1 tsp
Jeeragam - 1/2 tsp


Method:

I didn't soak barley, but you can also soak the barley overnight, drain it and try, just like sabudana(sago).

Heat Oil in a Pressure Cooker, add cumin, green chilly and saute them. Now add Sliced Onion and saute it along.

Add chopped Tomato to the onions and mix. also add finely chopped capsicum and carrot and saute well.

Now add Moong Dal, a pinch of turmeric powder, and the Barley to the Pressure cooker and mix well.
Add 2 cups of water and stir.  Add Salt to taste. Then Pressure Cook up to 4 or 5 whistles and remove from fire.

Serve warm, garnish with Coriander leaves.


Notes:

Thakkali Gosthu Recipe

Prep Time: 05 mins 
Ingredients:



Onion - 1 (chopped)
Tomatoes - 2 (big one's)
Green Chilli - 1 (slitted)
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Corriander Leaves - 2 tbsp's chopped
Oil - 2 tbsp
Mustard - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder - a pinch
Red Chilli Powder - 1/2 tsp
Water - 1/2 cup



Method:

Chop the Onion and Tomatoes.

Heat a Pan, add oil and heat it. add mustard and let it crack. add curry leaves & green chilli and saute them.

Add chopped onion and saute it along. also add chopped tomatoes and saute it, till they turn mushy.

Now Add Turmeric powder, Chilli Powder, salt to taste and 1/2 cup water and give a mix.

Let the mix boil for 2 minutes and switch off the flame.

Garnish with some corriander leaves.

Serve Hot for Idli's.

The First Oats Breakfast Recipe is - Oats with Moong Dal and Green Peas

This tasted much like a Keerai Paruppu Sadham. I even gave this to my Son with Ghee. This is a very healthy one pot meal. If you are wondering, about availability of drumstick leaves, go for Spinach or some fenugreek leaves.


Now Tell Me Which Version You Like and what other versions can be made??