Thotakura Fry

We took our Mom to the Indian Store and the very first thing she wanted to buy was Tomatoes, those round Beefsteak ones as she didn't like Roma and she thinks they don't go well with Indian Vegetables. And the next important thing in her list was leafy vegetables. We came across Amaranth leaves and she said she can make fry with that and we took it.

Now that Mom is here, she is making sure we are eating enough greens and she stressed so many times that we should eat greens atleast 4 times a week. We ate this curry as a side dish with Dal and for the night we tasted it with Chapatis and Pita Bread and it tasted great with any combination. I think I will continue making this as recipe as long this is available in the market.

Click here to print this recipe: Thotakura Fry (Amaranth Fry)

You need..

2 cups of Amaranth leaves, cut into small pieces
1 medium onion
2 small tomatoes
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
2 cloves of garlic, cut into big pieces
2 tsp red chilli powder
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
2 tbsp oil

1. Add oil to the pan and when it gets hot, add onions and garlic and fry them till light brown.
2. Add greens and cook them lightly.
3. Add tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt and cook until done (about 5-6 minutes).
   

Serve either with Rice alone, or as a side dish with Dal or eat with Chapatis.

Phool Makhani Masala

Many have asked me about Phool Makhana, and they are basically puffed lotus seeds. I will try to take a picture of Phool makhana and post to the site in a day or two. My roommate (Punjabi but from Hyd) used to make a variety of dishes using this. You can even make Kheer with these. It somehow stuck me at the last minute and I thought why not cook this for RCI-Punjab.

This preparation takes sometime but not like other masala curries.

You need..

2 cups of phool makhana

1 large onion, chopped

2 medium tomato, chopped

1 cup yogurt

1/4 cup poppy seeds/khus Khus, roasted

1/2 cup coconut

2 or 3 green chillies, sliced

2 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp garam masala

a pinch of turmeric

salt to taste

coriander leaves, chopped

oil for deep frying

3 tbsp oil for the gravy

1. Heat oil and deep fry Phool Makhana until light brown.


2. Heat 3 tsbp oil and fry onions until brown. Add ginger garlic paste, green chillies and fry for one more minute.


3. Add tomatoes, turmeric, red chilli powder and cook for 3-4 minutes.


4. In the mean while, blend poppy seeds and coconut for the gravy.


5. Add this gravy to the onion mixture and mix.


6. Lower the heat and add yogurt, garam masala and cook for 5-10 minutes. Or until you see oil floating on the sides and on the top.


7. Add phool makhana , salt and cook for 3-4 minuts. Garnish with cilantro at the end.
   

Serve with Pulao.

Evelyn's Favorite Pasta...tried at home

EVELYN'S FAVORITE PASTA Penne Tossed with Broccoli, Oven-Dried Tomato, Roasted Eggplant, Peppers, Artichoke, Kalamata Olives, Basil, Garlic, Pine Nuts and Parmesan Cheese

We went to Cheesecake Factory for the first time, couple of weeks ago. We were actually giving farewell to a friend of ours who was leaving to India for good. We decided to go to Thai first but one of our friends mentioned that they use Fish oil in cooking. And being complete vegetarians, this was alarming. I called up all the Thai restaurants I ate in and around RTP and everyone said the same thing “yes, we use fish oil, but if you don’t want it, please let us know”. It was our fault that we should have asked but who knew they would use that…so, we cancelled our plan to Thai and went to Cheesecake Factory instead. We thought there will be less number of vegetarian dishes or none and went with the idea of eating a salad.

We ordered Eggplant Burger, Cheese Quesadilla and this pasta. We loved them all and thought of going there again but it never worked out . So I made this at home by bringing all the necessary ingredients. The only difference was that they added roasted brinjal and I didn’t. But, still the taste was close. I omitted Artichoke, Kalamata Olives, Basil and Parmesan Cheese and instead of pine nuts, I added walnuts.

You need…

2 cups of veggies-broccoli, oven-dried tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, eggplant, all chopped
1 cup of penne pasta
4 or 5 tbsp olive oil
About 5 or 6 walnuts
2 or 3 garlic cloves.
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a pan, add cloves and fry them till light brown. Add a little pepper to it while cloves are frying.
2. Add all the veggies and stir fry them.
3. In the mean while, cook penne pasta till al-dente.
4. Drain pasta and add to the veggies and mix.
5. Add Italian seasoning, walnuts and salt and mix everything for 1-2 minutes and remove.
   

Serve hot.

Palak & Cottage Cheese Burji

Follow the same procedure as Cottage Cheese Burji but add Palak after adding onions.

Cottage Cheese Bhurji

Cottage Cheese has good amount of protein, so I am using that at least once in a day these days. I guess you will see more recipes of this in the coming days.

Instead of Paneer for the bhurji, I added Cottage Cheese to see how that tastes, this tasted similar but a little sour as I have used 2% fat. Next time I will try it with full fat, may be it will taste little sweeter. But overall result, I liked it, I ate this in the restaurants, they add fresh lime juice to it once it is done and without adding that I got the sour taste naturally.

You need…

1 cup of cottage cheese
1 medium, onion, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped into big chunks. *
2 green chillies, chopped
½ tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tbsp oil.
½ tsp garam masala (optional)
A pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
coriander for garnishing

1. Heat oil in a pan, add onions and fry for 2 minutes. Do not brown them, just cook them till tender.
2. Add ginger-garlic paste and fry for a minute.
3. Add tomato chunks, green chillies, and cook them till done for 1 or 2 minutes.
4. Add turmeric, salt, chilli powder, garam masala and mix.
5. Reduce flame and add cottage cheese, garam masala and let it cook for 3-4 minutes.
6. Garnish with coriander.
   

Serve hot with chapattis.

* Do not use juicy tomatoes as the curry will become soggy and mushy and if you want the gravy, the milk from the cottage cheese is just enough for that.

Kottu Paratha

Kottu Paratha comes from Trichi in Tamilnadu. We have a South Indian Restaurant, Tower India Restaurant at a walking distance from my place and they make such excellent South Indian food, basically that guy is from Madurai (Temple town) and he makes sure that we get authentic food. I went there millions of times and I still love going there. The best part about them is the food tastes completely home made, not much oily but very very tasty.

We ate Kottu Paratha at this place for the first time and kept eating every time we went there. My husband used to order this and I order Gunpowder Masala Dosa and their buffet is equally good with a variety of items.

I tried Kottu Paratha last year at home and it came out exactly the same way they make at the restaurant. Since then, I stopped ordering there and I make this at home whenever I make chapatis. I keep some 4-5 chapatis aside to make this next day for lunch.

You need...

4-5 medium sized chapatis, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 medium beefsteak tomato, chopped
2 red chillies
2 green chillies, chopped
1 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp rai
1 tsp garam masala
cilantro for garnishing
salt to taste
a pinch of turmeric

1. Heat oil in cooking pan, add cumin and rai and wait until they splutter.
2. Add red chillies, green chilies, onion and fry until brown.
3. Add tomatoes and keep mixing until tomotoes are cooked.
4. Add turmeric, salt and garam masala.
5. Add shredded chapati and mix again for 2-3 minutes until the masala is all coated to chapati pieces.
6. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with Raita.

I make variations whenever I make this recipe. I add some boiled Chana or Chole, sometimes I add Paneer and this time I added Govar/Gokarkaya/Cluster Beans. In case you plan to add beans, boil them and add them before adding tomatoes and fry them with onions for sometime.

Pesara Pappu

This lentil/dal is also known with other names like split yellow moong dal and green gram dal (when whole). It has soft and subtle taste when lightly roasted and cooked. This dish is a great time saver and I make this mostly when I have less time in hand to make a good meal. This is cooked in minutes and is easily digestible unlike toor dal. This one is loaded with good amount of nutrients and a good source of protein.

You need..

1 cup of split yellow pesara pappu, lightly roasted *
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tomato, chopped
1 tsp red chilli powder
3 green chillies
2 cups water
salt to taste
a pinch of turmeric
cilantro for garnishing

For seasoning:

1 or 2 tbsp oil
1 tsp jeera
½ tsp mustard/rai
2 or 3 red chillies crushed
or 3 garlic cloves whole (optional)
Few curry leaves

1. Add roasted dal, ginger garlic paste, a tsp of oil, turmeric, salt, green chillies, tomato, water and pressure cook everything until 1 or 2 whistles. Mash the dal with the back of the spoon if you want it soft or leave it if you want grainy.
2. For seasoning, heat a tbsp oil in a frying pan, add jeera, cumin, red chillies, garlic cloves, curry leaves and fry until they turn brown.
3. Add the seasoning to the dal and garnish with cilantro.

Serve with stuffed okra as a side dish, recipe coming next…
* Roast moong dal on a pan until light brown.

Info on Moong Dal:

Without skins

With their skins removed, mung beans are light yellow in color. They are made into mung bean paste by de-hulling, cooking, and pulverizing the beans to the consistency of a dry paste. The paste is sweetened and is similar in texture to red bean paste though the smell is slightly more bean-like. In several Asian countries, de-hulled mung beans and mung bean paste are made into ice creams or frozen ice pops and are very popular dessert items. In Taiwan, mung bean paste is a common filling for moon cakes.

Dehulled mung beans can also be used in a similar fashion as whole beans for the purpose of making sweet soups. Mung beans in some regional cuisines of India are stripped of their outer coats to make mung dal. In other regions of India such as Andhra Pradesh, a delicious vegetable preparation is made using fresh grated coconut, green chillies, mung and typical South Indian spices - asafoetida, turmeric, ginger, mustard seeds, urad lentil. Many Indians also eat mung beans the first thing in the morning as it provides high quality protein in a raw form that is rare in most Indian regional cuisines. They are widely consumed by Keralites along with kanji (rice gruel).

In India the mung beans are also consumed as a snack. The dried mung beans are soaked in water, then partly dried to a dry matter content of approx. 42% before and then deep-fried in hot oil. The frying time varies between 60 and 90 seconds. The fat content of this snack is around 20%. This snack is traditionally prepared at home and is now also available from industrial producers.

Source: Wikipedia

Fiesta Spaghetti

Tasty, wholesome and an exciting recipe to make. Added some green chillies and red chilli powder for the Indian taste buds. I imagined it one way but it was way different when done. The kitchen was filled with such fantastic smell, Ravi kept asking me to switch on the fan when the fan was already switched on. Especialy when you combine onion, garlic and black pepper, the taste buds start dancing for some exotic food. But, I had to omit pepper tonight for the sake of adding green chillies. And green chillies in fact made complete justice to the dish. This is loved so very much at home that I guess I would be making this again and again.

I found the recipe on the back of the whole wheat spaghetti packet but I changed the recipe to suit our taste buds.

Try this and you will love it for sure.

You need...

2 bowls of spaghetti
1 cup frozen zucchni and squash (fresh can be done, I had some in the freezer)
1 small onion, chopped
1 large beefsteak tomato (the one that oozes out more juice)
1 cup yellow and red peppers, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tsp italian seasoning or dried herbs
3 green chillies
parmesan cheese (optional)
salt to taste

1. Cook spaghetti according to the package directions.
2. Heat oil in a pan, saute onion, garlic and green chillies.
3. Add the veggies, zucchini, squash and peppers. Cook for 5 mins or until veggies are tender. Keep stirring in between to avoid burning.
4. Add tomatoes, chilli powder, salt and dried herbs. Cook for 2-3 mins stirring in between.
5. Add spaghetti and simmer uncovered for 5-10 mins.

Serve hot by sprinkling parmesan cheese on the top.

Tip: Sanjeev Kapoor says: add more salt while boiling pasta, otherwise no matter how much you add while cooking, pasta remains bland.

Masoor Dal Soup

Weather has been very unusual at this time of the year. There were scattered thunderstorms in the evening and rain all the night for the last two days. But, it was very hot all afternoon. Then we both craved to eat something hot, and something filling. I thought of making some soup to go with the bread that has been lying in the refrigerator from long.

I tried with Masoor Dal/Red gram this time and improvised it to make it better. I also added Cottage Cheese to this recipe to get that creamy and milky taste.

You need…

2 cups Masoor dal/Red gram dal
1 medium onion, chopped into big chunks
1 big tomato
½ cup cottage cheese
1 tsp chilli powder
½ tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
½ tsp black pepper powder
2 tbsp shredded coconut or coconut milk
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
coriander for garnishing

1. Put tomato and onion in a bowl, add some water and microwave it for 3 mins. Check in between as tomato splits all over the microwave if kept for a long time.
2. Boil the dal with enough water till al-dente. Don’t make them too soft.
3. Remove outer skin from tomato and blend onion, tomato and half of cooked dal.
4. Add the blended mixture to the dal and continue boiling.
5. Add spices like bay leaf, cumin, coriander, pepper, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt. Also add coconut at this point.
6. Finally add cottage cheese and boil for 5 mins or until you get the thickness you desire.
   

Remove bay leaf and serve hot. I served with whole wheat garlic bread. I made garlic spread while the soup was boiling. I also added a piece of garlic to the soup for some garlicky taste.

To make Garlic Spread:

Take an oven safe bowl, put garlic pods with butter or olive oil. Add some Italian seasoning or all dried herbs and keep the bowl covered tightly in the toaster oven for 5-10 mins. Crush the garlic and mix. Apply to the bread before serving.

PS: this is my own version of soup and you can improvise it the way you want.

Veggie Murmure Stirfry

All last week my food mainly consisted of carbs and fats with very less fruits and somedays with no fruits at all. I was badly in need of some nutritious vegetables and I came up with this one. Didn't want to add rice to it but added a cup of murmure (puffed rice) and this was quite crunchy and tasty. And a cup of orange juice with this bowl of vegetables made me full.

You need...

2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables (add as many veggies as you like)
1 cup murmure/puffed rice (put these in the colander, sprinkle some water and remove)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 roma tomato, chopped into big chunks
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tsp of lemon juice
salt to taste
sev and cilantro for garnishing

1. Heat oil in a pan. Fry onions for a minute.
2. Add veggies and stir fry for 3-4 mins.
3. Add tomato chunks and stiry fry for another minute.
4. Add tumeric, chilli powder, garam masala and mix.
5. Add murmure, salt and sugar and cook everything for 2 mins. Add some lemon juice to it and remove.
6. Sprinkle both sev and cilantro and serve hot.

Kaju Capsicum

These days my younger sister in India is cooking some special dishes everyday in the evening. And she in turn is sending me the recipes of those dishes that she tried. This is one of the her recipes that I tried and I must say it turned out excellent. It was like a feast for us on July 4th with both kaju capscicum and bagara annam.

You need...

3 capcicums/green peppers, cut into ribbon shapes
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup kaju/cashews
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp cumin
2 cups yogurt, beaten
1/2 cup coconut
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
4 tbsp oil
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
cilantro for garnishing

1. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and roast onions, tomatoes. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. Remove and blend 3/4th of this mixture along with half cup kaju/cashew.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in the same pan again and add cumin and fry for a minute.
3. Add capsicum and fry until it is cooked. Add the remaining 1/4th onion mixture. To reduce the time in cooking capcisum here, you can cook that in the microwave for 5 mins after chopping.
4. After capsicum is cooked, add the blended gravy, red chilli powder, turmeric, cumin and coriander powder, remaining half cup kaju/cashew and mix everything for a minute.
5. Add yogurt and cook for 10-15 mins under reduced flame. Keep mixing in between.
6. Add salt and cilantro at the end.

Serve hot with either Rice or Chapathi.

Imam Bayildi/Fainted

This is my version of the dish (and not the authentic one). I have seen various different versions of preparing this dish and I picked up few points from each and made this. And I LOVED it so much that I ate that whole brinjal/eggplant piece at one go. Ravi couldn't eat so he took half for the lunch today. After eating this I felt that I should make this often, atleast twice a month.

The changes that I made to this dish are: I added all types of peppers (had in the refrigerator) and instead of only garlic, I added ginger-garlic paste (as I ran out of garlic pods) and then I added bread crumbs at the end and didn't put chilli flakes. Adding bread crumbs made a huge difference and made the dish much more delicious. And I didn't throw the core part, I made bhaingan bartha with it, but could not take pictures of that.

Here is the story why this name was given to this dish (copied from Asha at Foodie's hope)

TURKISH IMAM BAYILDI (The Imam Fainted!): "There are many stories about the origin of the name of this dish. One of them we heard while visiting Ankara, Turkey's capital. A long time ago a Turkish Imam (a muslim clergy man ), known for his love of good food, surprised his friends by announcing his engagement to the young daughter of a wealthy olive-oil merchant. The friends did not know about her ability to cook. But they presumed part of her dowry would include olive oil. They were right. For her father gave the groom twelve jars, each one large enough to hold a person, of the precious oil. After her marriage the bride proved to be an excellent cook and each day prepared a special dish for her epicurean husband. One of them, eggplant cooked in olive oil, became his favorite. And he ordered that his wife prepare it each night for dinner. This she did for twelve consecutive days. On the thirteenth, however, the dish was missing from the meal. Queried about its absence, the bride replied, "Dear husband, I do not have any more olive oil. You will have to purchase some more for me." The lmam was so shocked that he fainted. And since that day, according to the story, his favorite dish has been known as Imam Bayildi, The Imam Fainted!"

You need...

One large eggplant, cut into half and scoop out seeds from the center
1 large red onion, chopped
½ green, yellow and red peppers, chopped (optional-but tastes good when added)
1 or 2 roma tomatoes, chopped in rounds or into small pieces, I wanted to decorate it with tomatoes, so used round ones.
1-2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
½ cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp cumin
a pinch of cinnamon,
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
½ cup oil
cilantro, chopped for garnishing
1-1/2 cup water
salt to taste

1. Heat oil, add onions, peppers and stir fry for 2 mins.
2. Add ginger garlic paste and cook for another minute.
3. Add tomatoes and fry for another minute.
4. Add cumin, cinnamon and salt and remove.
5. To the same pan, add tbsp oil and bread crumbs with ½ tbsp ginger garlic paste and remove after a minute.
6. To arrange, fill the whole cooked mixture from step 4 into those two eggplant slices (by removing tomatoes-can be used for decoration on the top). Add bread crumb mixture on the top, arrange tomatoes and add cilantro all over.
7. Finally drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.
8. Arrange these two pieces in oven proof dish. Add water from the sides and cover it tightly and bake at 375 for 30-40 mins.

Very healthy meal and next time I will try to reduce the oil a bit.

Recipe source: From Asha of Foodie'sHope

Simple Soya Wonder

A very very simple dish that I thought of cooking since morning. There is nothing in the refrigerator except for tomatoes and little cilantro. No curry leaves, no green chillies, didn't know what to cook and no ginger garlic paste that I cherish the most. Then I remembered my mom's curry that she fixes in 10 min when she has to cook in a hurry without any vegetables, Onion and Tomato curry and I just added soya chunks to it. I have to go to Indian store tonight as they bring fresh ones today to stock up my fridge.

Cooking time is less than 10 mins and that makes it a wonder!

You'll need....

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
10-15 soya chunks (wash them in water and cook in microwave for a minute)
1/4 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1/4 tbsp garam masala
salt to taste
1 cup water
cilantro for garnishing

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onions. Just fry them lightly, very light brown.
2. Add tomato and cook for 2 or 3 minutes.
3. Add boiled soya chunks, turmeric, chilly powder, salt and mix.
4. Add water and simmer for 5 mins.

Garnish with coriander and serve hot with hot rice.

Capsicum Masala Curry

Just the way we make Stuffed Brinjal, we make this in the same style except we add yogurt to this dish...This goes very well with Bagara Rice or any Pulao or Vegetable Biryani. But, I always liked this with those small capsicums found in India because they are so thin and have fresh taste in them. I don't like the ones found here, but something is better than nothing.

My friend Nandy came back from India and we asked him to come over for dinner. He said he wanted to come by 6.30 pm and I had just 45 mins to make these two dishes. so I quickly made these two dishes for our dinner. My friend like Capsicum Masala very much and kept on praising.

You'll need...

3 capsicums/shimla mirch/green bell peppers, chop each one vertically into 4 or 5 pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 small tomato, chopped
4 tbsp oil or more
1/2 cup each mint and coriander, chopped
1 cup yogurt, beaten
salt to taste
1/4 tbsp turmeric
water

For Masala:
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup each of Sesame Seeds, poppy seeds, coriander seeds
1 tbsp jeera

1. Heat oil and fry peppers until light brown. Remove and keep them aside.
2. Fry onions until brown in the same oil and add tomatoes and fry them for 2 mins. Next add green chillies, turmeric and mix.
3. Roast the masala items and blend them with salt and water. Add the masala paste to the above onion mixture and add desired amount of water to get the consistency you want. (Remember if gets thick after cooling down). Keep mixing as it tends to stick to the bottom.
4. Add mint, coriander, yogurt (beat well with little water) and add to the curry and cook for about 10 mins.
5. Add capcisums and salt and cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove and serve hot.

It tastes better the next day, so if you are expecting guests next day, you can make it one day before and store in the refrigerator and reheat it just before serving.

Birayaka Menthem (Turai and Methi)

This is one of my favorite all time comfort foods. I love to eat this anytime of the day and on any day. I used to ask my mom to make this when I got sick in my childhood. I felt that eating this would make me energetic again. Somehow, I like all the curries made with Birakaya. I don’t know if this curry is an Andhra recipe but it is Hyderabadi for sure.

This tastes delicious when cooked with fresh ridge gourd. And it goes very well with both chapathis and rice. I ate this two times in a day already. For breakfast I ate with chapathi and for lunch with rice. You see how much I love this, but I regret that it was not made by my Mom, and that would have been much tastier. I grow Methi at home 2 or 3 days before I plan to cook this curry. Fresh methi makes a huge difference (we cook with small methi and not the big one-I never tried with the big one).

To make this you’ll need…

1 medium birakaya/ turai/ ridge gourd, skin removed and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup water
½ cup methi
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
¼ tbsp turmeric
¼ tbsp garam masala
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a cooking pan and add onions and cook until they turn brown.
2. Add birakaya and cook for 2 mins.
3. Add tomato and methi, mix everything and cover the dish.
4. Cook until the birakaya is cooked well. Keep mixing in between.
5. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, ginger garlic paste and cook for a minute.
6. Add water and cover it. Simmer it for 5 mins.
7. Add salt at the end and remove.
   

Serve hot either with chapatis or hot rice.

Palak Soup

I never made Palak Soup before and many of my friends suggested that I make one and enjoy the taste of it. I searched for a while on the net and since there were too many recipes, I had hard time picking up the best one that suited to my taste buds. I got this one from Bawarchi and we felt as if we were eating curry in the beginning, it tasted very close to Palak Paneer and there was some left for the next day. And just like any other soup, this was good the second day. I modified the recipe a bit according to my taste. I guess the best part of this soup was adding corn. As the palak tastes bland, corn gave us that extra spicy taste since I roasted it in ginger garlic paste; this made a huge difference to the entire dish.

You need…

2 cups of palak
1 onion, medium, chopped into 4 big pieces
2 tomatoes
1 cup sweet corn, I used Frozen
2 or 3 green chillies
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic pod
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp red chilli powder
Salt to taste

1. Boil chopped green chillies, onions and whole tomatoes until tender. Remove the skin of the tomatoes.
2. On the side, boil palak until tender.
3. Heat oil in a pan; add crushed garlic (I think you guys know the aroma that comes with the combination of EVOO and Garlic).
4. Add corn and cook for 3 minutes. Add ginger garlic paste and cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Blend palak, green chillies, onions, tomatoes and pour in the corn mixture.
6. Add red chilli powder and salt and bring to a boil.
7. Add milk at the end and cook for 5 mins.

Serve hot with any kind of bread. We had it with freshly made garlic bread.

Birakaya Pappu

This is one kind of dal/pappu that Andhra guys die for. And the taste and the process of making this differs from region to region. This is the kind of recipe that my mom makes and I made this on the weekend.

When I got sick in my childhood, I used to think of eating this curry to get back that depleted energy. I love this so much in any way. We make dal(we use either tool dal, or moong dal), stuffed birakaya, or cook with methi or milk and make some snacks during summer.

I usually cook a lot of toor dal together and use little everyday to make a variety of dals for the next two or three days.

I made this recipe with toor dal this time. Eat this by adding little ghee and you would realise how heavenly the taste is.



You need...

1 birakaya (peeled and chopped)
1 Tomato (chopped)
few red chillies
few curry leaves
1 tbsp each of jeera, mustard
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 cups cooked toor dal
a pinch of turmeric
1/2 tbsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp oil
salt to taste

1. Heat the oil in a pan and fry jeera, mustard until you hear the popping sound. Add red chillies and curry leaves and cook for a minute.
2. Add birayaka and cook until soft.
3. Add tomatoes and ginger garlic paste and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add turmeric, red chilli powder and salt and mix them all.
5. Add the cooked toor dal and stir for a minute. Reduce heat and cook for another 3 mins.

Serve hot with rice and ghee, it tastes great.

Easy Tomato Rice

Finally! I am sending my first entry to JFI (an online food blogging event started by Indira of Mahanandi). This month, it is hosted by RP of My workshop.

This time the topic is Tomatoes. We need to submit any recipe made with tomatoes as the main ingredient and send the recipe along with pictures to RP, she in turn posts all the recipes sent to her on her blog.

I wanted to make Masala Tomato Curry for this event but due to my hectic schedule all last week and also the weekend, I didn't have enough time to make that curry. So, I chose to make Easy Tomato Rice instead and sending over the entry in the last minute. I hope my recipe will be entered into this event.

I bought a big box of Tomatoes from the farmer's market last week and I am using those to make this dish.


You need...

2 tomatoes (cut into small pieces)
1 onion2 cups cooked rice (preferably basmati rice)
2 green chillies, cut into small pieces
2 dried red chillies
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 bay leaf
3 cardammoms powdered
3 cloves
2 Tbsp cashews, optional
2 Tbsp oil
1 tbsp shah jeera (optional)
a pinch of cinnamon
few mint leaves, chopped
few curry leaves
few coriander leaves, chopped
salt to taste

1. Add oil in the pan and heat it. Add onions and shah jeera and fry until the onions turn brown.
2. Add ginger garlic paste, green chillies, dried red chillies, mint leaves, curry leaves and mix.
3. Add bay leaf, cinnamom, cardammom powder, cloves, cashews, and mix again and cook all of them for 2 mins.
4. Add tomatoes and keep mixing until the tomatoes are cooked.
5. Add a pinch of turmeric and salt.
6. Finally add rice and mix them all together.
7. Garnish with coriander and serve hot with Raita.