Spicy Tomato Rasam without Dal

Ingredients:

Tomato- 3 big (cubed)
Tamarind- 1 small gooseberry size
Chilli powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Sambar powder- 1 teaspoon(I used store brought Eastern Powder)
Asafoetida powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Fenugreek Powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Coriander leaves- A small bunch

For Crushing: 

Ginger- 1 inch piece
Garlic- 10 big cloves
Peppercorns- 1/2 teaspoon

For tempering:

Vegetable oil- 2 tablespoon

Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon

Fenugreek seeds- 1/2 teaspoon

Curry leaves- 1 spring

dried chillies- 2

 

Preparation:

 

Soak tamarind in 1/2 cup of water and extract the juice. keep this aside.

 

Crush the ingredients under "crushing" using pestle and mortar and keep it aside.

 

Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan and splutter mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds followed by all other ingredients for Tempering. Add the crushed mix to this and stir until the ginger and garlic turns brown. Now add the chilli powder, coriander powder and sambar powder. Mix everything in very low flame and add tomato pieces to it. Stir continuously until the tomatoes starts to cook. Add tamarind juice to this mixture along with 2 cups of water. (Do a taste test and add more water if the rasam is too strong for you) Add fenugreek powder and asafoetida powder along with coriander leaves and allow everything to boil for 2 minutes. Switch off the flame and enjoy hot!!!!!

 

 

Potato Kootucurry with Soya chunks (Trivandrum style)

Potato and soya kootucurry is a substitute for Vadakootucurry which is a famous dish in Trivandrum. It gets served for wedding sadya,  onam sadya and even with dosa and appam for breakfast. Very easy to make yet yummy. So give it a try.

You can discard the soy chunks if you don't like the taste of it. It still tastes great.

Ingredients:

Potato- 2 small (cubed to medium sized pieces)
Onion- 2 small (cubed just like potatoes0
Soya chunks- 1/2 cup (soaked in water)
Chilli powder- 1tablespoon
Coriander powder- 1 tablespoon
Garam masala- 1 teaspoon
Thin coconut milk- 2 cups
Thick Coconut milk- 1/2 cup

For tempering:

Coconut oil/vegetable oil- 2 tablespoon
Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon
Curry leaves- 1 spring
Dried chillies- 2

Preparation:

Cook the cubed potatoes, onions and soya chunks in 2 glasses of thin coconut milk with enough salt .  Add chilli powder and coriander powder once the potato turns soft. Allow everything to boil very well until the raw smell of the chilli powder disappear.

Now add the thick coconut milk along with garam masala powder. Switch off the flame immediately and give everything a good stir.

 

Temper the oil using the usual method and pour it over the curry. Serve hot.

 

 

 

 

Inji Curry Trivandrum style

I am sharing the recipes I made for onam sadya. So today is a vegetarian day and of course many of them are Trivandrum style. (can't forget the roots). I promise I will come back with some tasty nonveg dishes in the near future.

Injicurry does takes a lot of time and you need a lot of patience to make this dish. But the end result is awesome.

Ingredients:

Inji/ Ginger- 250 gms (Thinly sliced to very thin pieces)
Tamarind- 1 big goosebury size
Chilli powder- 1 tablespoon
Coriander powder- 1 tablespoon
Fenugreek power- 1/4 teaspoon

For Tempering:

Vegetable oil/ coconut oil-  2 tablespoon
Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon
Curry leaves- 1 spring
Dried chillies- 3

Preparation:

Clean, peel skin, wash and thinly slice the ginger as seen in the pic.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan and stir-fry the ginger until it turns golden brown. Add oil in between if you find the ginger is getting stick to the pan. Alternatively you can deep fry the ginger but have to discard the oil afterwards. It does take a lot of time to get the ginger cooked. So be patient.

Soak the tamarind in 1/4 cup of water and extract the juice once after a while. Keep this aside.

Grind the ginger once it is cooked along with chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric juice. keep this aside.

Heat oil in pan and splutter mustard seeds followed by curry leaves and Dried chillies. Add the ground ginger mix to this and bring it to boil.

Add fenugreek powder at this stage and mix everything very well.

You can keep the injicurry refrigerated in a glass bottle for more than a month.

Goes very well with kanji!!!!!

Beetroot Pachadi Kerala (Trivandrum)Style

Another easy sadya recipe. I love this dish for the wonderful colour and aroma.
OK. no more katti.  Let us go straight to the recipe!!!

Ingredients:

Beetroot- 2 nos (deskinned and finely grated or cubed)
Thick Curd/ Natural Yogurt- 1/2 cup

For Grinding:

Coconut- 1/2 cup
Chilli powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Garlic- 1 small clove
Jeera/Cumin seeds- 1/4 teaspoon
Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon

For Tempering:

Vegetable oil/coconut oil- 1teaspoon
Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon
Curry leaves- 1 spring
Dried chillies- 2or 3

Preparation:

 

Cook the grated beetroot with some water and salt and grind it very well using the small jar of the mixer grinder. Keep this mix aside.

Grind all the ingredients under "For Grinding" in the mixer grinder.

Mix together the ground beetroot and ground coconut mix in a heavy bottom pan and allow this to boil in a low flame until till the coconut cooks well. Switch off the flame and add yogurt once the beetroot mix is cool.

Heat oil in a cheenachatti (Frying pan) and splutter mustard seeds. Add curry leaves and dried chillies after the mustard and pour this mix over the beetroot.
Your beetroot pachadi is ready to serve.

My 4 year old was feeling abandoned by mum since I was concentrating on taking pictures of my dishes ignoring him who was trying pose for my camera. So I decided to take a picture of his little hands as you could see above.

Kadumanga Trivandrum style/ Raw mango pickle

We had a wonderful onam here in UK with some of our family friends. The sadya was amazing and the atmosphere too!!!!!

In this post I am going to share a very simple sadya dish hails from Trivandrum the South most part of Kerala. I tried to recreate the original recipe from my mum.

Ingredients:

Raw mango- 5 nos (cut to small cubes)
Green chillies- 3 no(thinly sliced)
Gingerly oil or vegetable oil- 250gms
Chili Powder- 3 tablespoon
Turmeric powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Fenugreek Powder- 1 teaspoon
Asafoetida Powder-  1/2 teaspoon
Mustard seeds- 1 teaspoon (to crush)
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon (to splutter)

Preparation:

Add salt to the cut mango and green chilli and keep them overnight.
On the following day crush mustard seeds in a pestle and mortar and keep it aside. Mix together the chilli power and turmeric powder and add the crushed mustard to it. Add 1/4 cup of boiled water to make the chilli paste to a running consistency.
Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan and splutter mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the chilli turmeric mix and let it boil on a low flame. Simmer until the gravy turns thick. Switch off the flame and add fenugreek powder and asafoetida powder. Add the mango pieces when the gravy is still hot and mix everything very well. Transfer to a dry glass jar and keep refrigerated.

Pacha Cheera thoran/ Green Amaranth stir fry

See!!!! How lucky I am to get this fresh leaves here in UK? There are lot of good thinks about Globalisation. Do you agree??

 

 



Ingredients:

Pacha cheera- 1 bunch(Washed and drained and thinly sliced)
Onion- 1 big (Thinly sliced)
Green chillies- 2 medium sized

For Grinding:

Coconut (Shredded)- 1/2 cup
Garlic- 1 clove
Jeera- 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Chilli powder- 1 teaspoon

For Tempering:

Oil- 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds- 1/2 teaspoon
Dried red chillies- 2 nos

Preparation

Grind all the ingredients under "For Grinding" on the pulse mode of the mixer grinder without water for few seconds. Alternatively you can use the pestle and mortar for grinding. Keep this mix aside.
Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and wait for them to splutter. Add dried chillies, onion and the green leaves successively. Mix everything very well and add the grinded coconut above the top. Do not mix coconut at this stage. Close the pan and allow it to stand for couple of minutes. By this the coconut mixture will get cooked by the steam produced by the leaves. Open the lid and mix everything very well.  Stir-fry until everything cooks very well.

 

Naadan Kilimeen / Threadfin Bream curry

I brought this temptingly beautiful fish on my last visit to East Ham.

 

Those who never heard of East Ham: East Ham is a small town in London resembles the streets in India indeed is a small India.  You wont be able to find much English people there. There is lots of South Indian restaurants in East ham who serves amazing south Indian food and are much cheaper than any other city as there is lot of competition  among this restaurants.

 

      This fish come in packet of 700gms cut,  descaled and cleaned make the job easy for me.

 

 

Ingredients:-

Kili meen- 700gms

Green Chillies- 3 (cut lengthwise)

Tomatoes- 1 big

Curry leaves- 1 spring

Oil- 2 tablespoon

For Grinding

Kashmiri Chilli Powder- 2 tablespoon (If you are using normal chilli powder reduce the amount according to your tolerance level)

Coriander Powder- 1 tablespoon

Fenugreek powder- 1/2 teaspoon

Turmeric powder- 1/2 teaspoon

Grated Coconut- 1/2 a cup

Shallots- 2

Garlic- 1 clove

Tamarind- small ball (almost the size of an Indian gooseberry)

 

Preparation:

Dry roast chilli powder and coriander powder in a non-stick pan. Keep the flame very low so that the power don't get burned. Switch off the flame when the powder starts to change colour and remove the pan from the flame ASAP. Grind this with the other ingredients listed under grinding into a smooth paste. 

 

Heat oil in the manchatti and add the grinded paste to it and sauté very well until the oil start to separate. Add fish along with the green chillies and tomatoes and add enough water and salt and cook on a medium flame for about 15 minutes or until the gravy thickens.  Add curry leaves halfway through.

Cabbage Thoran/ poriyal

Ingredients:

Cabbage - 1 cup (finely grated or chopped)
Onion- 1 big chopped
Green chillies- 3 nos finely chopped
Ginger chooped- 1/2 teaspoon
Oil- 2 teaspoon
Mustard- 1 teaspoon
Dry chilies- 2 or 3
Curry leaves- 1 spring

For Grinding

Coconut - 1/2 cup
Shallots- 1
Jeera- 1/2 teaspoon
Garlic- 1 clove

Preparation

Put all ingredients for grinding in the mixer grinder on the pulse mode for 2 secs. Keep this aside. Heat oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds and then add curry leaves and dry chillies. Add cabbage, onion, greenchillies and ginger to the tempered oil and mix everything very well and keep on a low flame. Place the grinded coconut mixture over the cabbage and close the pan with the lid. This is to allow the coconut mix to get cooked in the steam. Open the lid after 5 minutes and mix everything very well. Stir continuously until the cabbage stats to turn brown in colour. Switch the flame off and enjoy with kuttari choru!!!!

Cucumber Pachadi

Ingredients:

Cucumber / Marrow/ Vellarikka - 1 small cup and (remove skin  and cut to small square pieces)
Grated Cocunut- 1/2 cup
Green chillies- 2 small or I big
Jeera- 1/2 teaspoon
Mustard - 1 teaspoon
Shallots- 1
Plain Yogurt- 1/2 cup

For Tempering

Coconut oil- 1 teaspoon
Dry Chillies- 2 nos
Curry leaves- 1 spring

 

Preparation

Cook the cucumber in a heavey bottom pan with some water until it become soft. Put the ingredients for grinding into the mixer grinder and grind into a fine paste. Add this to the cooked cucumber along with salt.  Switch off the flame when the mixture starts to boil. Add yogurt when the mixture cools a bit and give a good stir.

Heat oil in a small frying  pan and add mustard seeds. Wait for the mustard to pope and add the dry chillies and curry leaves. Switch off flame and add this to the prepared cucumber.

Cucumber pachadi is ready to serve!!!!

TIPS: I don't grind mustard seeds with the coconut in the mixer grinder.  I just grind them with pestle and mortar and then add to the grinded coconut.