Oats Dosa - A healthy alternative.

Things required:

3 cups - plain oats (I used Quaker oats)
1/2 cup - wheat flour
1/2 cup - all purpose flour
2 or 3 - teaspoons Jeera or Cumin seeds
1 or 2 - teaspoons Crushed black pepper.
1/2 cup - Butter milk or curd
Salt to taste


Preparation:

1) Soak oats for around 1 hour until it gets soft.
2) Grind all ingredients listed above along with the soaked oats in a blender.
3) Make into a nice batter, not too thick or loose. Consistency like a dosa batter.
4) Pour batter in hot greased tava and make the dosas.
5) Have it with your favorite chutney or dosai molagai podi. Enjoy!



Variations: Add finely chopped onions and green chillis to make like uthappam. :)

Tip: Do not try to make the first dosa thin. Once the first dosa is made, you can make thin crispy dosas thereafter.

Idli

Idlies are the most favorite of all the south indian tiffins. Steaming hot idlies any day any time !

Ingredients
1. Idli Rice - 4 cups
2. Whole white ural dhal - 1 cup and a little
3. Fenugreek seeds - 1 tbsp

Steps:
1. wash and soak Idli rice in hot water for 1 hour
2. wash and soak the ural dhal with fenugreek for 45 minutes in hot water
3. Grind the urad dhal without water in mixie or grinder. In grinder it comes much more fluffier and softer than in the mixie. In mixie it takes a longer time, in my grinder it takes about 15 mts. You should not add water while grinding this one.
4. After this is done, remove the ural dhal mavu from the grinder and empty it in a container.
5. Add the rice and grind it, you can add a little bit of water to this.
6. After the rice is ground, add the urad dhal mavu and add salt. 1 spoon for 1 cup of rice and grind together. I do this as I am lazy to mix the salt, outside as it takes quite a bit of effort.
7. Put the entire mixture in a container . The container should only be 75% full. The rest of the space is for the maavu to pongify.
8. Keep the container in the oven. It takes about 8 - 10 hrs to pongify.
9. After the maavu pongifies the top portion can be used for idli and the bottom portion for dosais.
10 . Save the maavu in fridge for future use

Variations:
For folks, who dont have a grinder, instead of using rice, use rice rava. You need not soak rice rava for an hour and all. Just for 10-15 minutes and take it out and mix it with the urad maavu.

For making idlies:
Take the top maavu, add a little water, not too much. grease the idli plates.
Pour the maavu and steam and enjoy the idlies.

For me the joy of eating idlies is worth all the effort !!!

Upma Kozhakkattai

First post in 2009 !!! Yippee... After months of hibernation, I have started to gain enthusiasm in cooking again. Arisi upma is one of my favorite tiffins, upma kozhakkatai is just another form of arisi upma that I love. The traditional way of preparation starts with soaking the rice, drying the rice on a cloth, grinding the rice into coarse powder..... okay thanks to the Indian stores for coarse ready made idli rava, the preparation time is reduced !. Sorry for the bad picture, I was too eager to eat the dish and didnt concentrate on the quality of the photograph !

Ingredients
1. Coarse Rice rava 1 cup
2. Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
3. Bengal gram dal - 1tbsp
4. Red chillies - 3-4
5. Curry leaves
6. Asafoetida
7. Little bit of pepper powder freshly ground (optional)
8. oil - 2 tbsp
9. mustard seeds- 1/2 tbsp
10. split urad dhal- 1tbsp
11. Water in the ratio of 1: 1.5

1. Take oil in kadai, add mustard seeds when it splutters add the urad dhal chenna dhal, when they are roasted add curry leaves, dried red chillies, asafoetida.
2. Add water and salt and let it boil
3. Add Grated coconut and the coarse rice rava. Mix it well so that it does not form lumps. Different rice ravas may require different amounts of water, microwave a cup of hotwater and keep it ready. Incase you feel that all the water is absorbed and the mixture is getting dry you can add the same. Cook on medium heat, keep it closed for a couple of minutes.
4. When the mixture is cooked , let it cool for a while
5. Make balls and keep it on a idli plate and steam cook the same
6. When the kozhakkatais are done they will have a glassy finish.

Steaming hot kozhakattais are ready !
Enjoy with a dash of ghee on the kozhakkatai and a side of chutney , pachidi or sambhar. I had left over vengaya sambhar and had the kozhakkatais with that.

Optionally you can also soak 1/5 cup of toor dal and coarsely grind it and add it to the rava mixture and cook.

Trifle Pudding

This was my first attempt at Trifle Pudding. Looked & tasted yummy. I remember it from Dibba times. Amma's a fantastic cook. She used to invite 2 dozen people and cook all day and churn out these unbelievably tasty dishes. Trifle was one of them. We had a potluck today and I'd decide to give this fav dessert of mine a shot. Its fairly simple and cannot really go wrong. Holiday season = 5 extra pounds already. I better hit the gym before I gain back all those fat cells I'd struggled to lose.

Here you go:

Ingredients:

Sponge/Pound Cake - 1

Whipped mixed fruit jam - 4 tbsp

Sugar Syrup/Orange Squash - 2 Tbsp

Bananas - 3

Apples - 2

Seedless Grapes - 100 gms

Lemon Juice - 1 Tbsp

Fresh Cream - 250 gms

Powdered Sugar - 3 tbsp

For Custard:

Milk - 1/2 Cups

Vanilla Custard Powder - 1 Sachet

Sugar - 1 Tbsp

For Jelly:

Cherry or Strawberry flavored

Jelly Packet - 1

Water - 1 1/2 Cups

Sugar - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Take a glass dish of 3 inches deep.

2. Cut cake in to thin slices and arrange a thin layer inside the dish.

3. Sprinkle little syrup or squash or milk to moisten the cake.

4. Apply jam evenly on top of the cake.

5. Cut apples and bananas in to thin slices, apply little lemon juice to prevent discoloring and arrange half of the pieces on top of the jam layer.

6. Mix custard with half a cup of cold milk.

7. Heat rest of the milk with sugar till dissolved.

8. When it starts boiling, pour dissolved custard and keep stirring in medium flame till thick custard is formed. Remove from fire.

9. Keep stirring to prevent skin formation.

10. Pour half of that on top of the fruit layer.

11. Repeat the layers once again on top, first cake, jam, fruits and then custard.

12. Keep it in the fridge to set.

13. Decorate with grapes, whipped cream using piping bag.

Variations:

• tinned fruits (drained) instead of the fresh fruits.
• Used the syrup from the tinned fruits to soak the cake instead of orange squash/milk.
• Used Vanilla Pudding Pie/Filling instead of the custard
• Set the Jelly separately and cut it into diamonds and used it at the top of the layers (Remember: Jelly takes about 4 hours to set)
• Used cherries to decorate the pudding after spraying dollops of whipped cream over the jelly. I did this at the end just before serving.

Jalapeno corn soup

On a rainy friday, wanted to have some soup. Was staring at my fridge for a while and came up with this concoction and this turned out to be good.

Ingredients:

Frozen corn - 1.5 cups
Vegetable stock - 2 cups
Fresh Jalapenos - 2 (You may also substitute with green chillies , I guess!)
Tomato - 1

Optional:
Chilli sauce
Soy sauce
Bread fried in olive oil

Method:
1. Microwave corn for a couple of minutes
2. In a blender add frozen corn, tomato and chopped jalapenos and blend well. The husk of corn stays little bit, you may either filter it or leave it like that for fiber :-).
3. Microwave the blended mixture for 5 mts
4. Add the vegetable stock and microwave for another 5 mts, stirring inbetween
5. Add one spoon of chilli sauce , soy sauce and salt and stir well

Garnish with bread fried in olive oil and finely chopped jalapenos. If you like it a little tangy you may also add a little bit of lime juice. Enjoy steaming hot soup with freshly ground pepper !!.

Ulundu Paruppu Sadham

I got this recipe from my best buddy Deepthi's, mother. When we were in hostel during our undergrad, her mom used to prepare this and bring it whenever she comes to visit Deepthi. The entire wing would crowd in our room. We all used to savor this dish and scrape the container till the last bit.

Ingredients
Sadham :
1 cup rice
1/3 urad dhal (black whole)
salt + little grated coconut
little bit of vendayam

Chutney:
red chilli - 2
coriander seeds- 2 tbsp
Tamrind,
grated coconut

Method:
1. Wash rice and black whole urad well. Add enough quantity of water. And some grated coconut, vendayam and pressure cook the same.
2. When it is cooked add salt and mix well
3. For chutney, dry roast red chilli, corriander seeds. Add coconut and a little bit of tamarind paste, salt and grind together.

Her mom used to tell us that the dish is to be eaten by mixing the chutney well with the rice and not by having the chutney as a side dish. ( Nalla pesanju sapdanum, chutney chumma thottu sapda koodadu !).

Orange peel gothsu

Ingredients:

1. Orange peel (- from 1 small orange , fleshier the better) or Narthangai salted and dried
2. Tamarind paste
3. Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp
4. Rice 1 tbsp
Seasoning:
Mustard seeds, curry leaves, Gingely oil (preferable not must)

Method:
I will start the recipe with orange peel as it is readily available

1. Collect those orange peels and wash them well
2. cut the orange peel into small 1cm square
3. Put puli paste + 1 cup of water . Add the orange peel and boil everything together well. Add salt and chilli powder . If you are making this with salted narthangai , do not add salt.
4. Dry roast rice and sesame seeds, add 1 red chilli and grind it into a coarse powder
5. Add this to the boiling mixture and keep it in a low flame till everything comes together
6. Season with mustard seeds, curry leaves

This tastes yummy with idli, dosa, ven pongal etc. You may also mix it with rice and eat. This recipe is spicy and has a nice tangy,sour and bitter taste combined together.