Ghee Rice

Pasta or Fajita's tastes good and I have acquired a liking towards it...but rice has unparalled taste and I can eat it any time of the day...When I was around 5 years old...it seems I use to eat rice with dhal even at 6 in the morning (the sound of the whistle from the cooker was good enough for me...it seems I will bring the plate and ask my mom to serve it for me!!). It is a staple food for South Indians.

Instead of serving plain rice ....saffron rice, badam rice or ghee rice etc go well with curry.

This time I made ghee rice to go with the capsicum masala.

Basmathi rice - 1 1/2 cup

Green Chillies - 2

Black Pepper - 1 tsp

Zeera - 1 tsp

mustard - 1/2 tsp

Cashew - 10

Curry leaves

Salt

Cook the rice by adding ghee to it. It gives extra flavor to it. The rice should be cooked in such a way that it comes separated (and not mashy). You can split the rice by using a fork (and not to break them). I cook rice in microwave by adding 3 3/4th cups of water for 1 1/2 cups of rice.

Take ghee in a pan and add the mustard, green chillies, zeera, black pepper (it can be added even after powdering it..I will leave it to you), curry leaves and cashew. Add the rice and salt and toss it for some time.

Ghee rice is ready to be served with capsicum curry (the recipe for this is available in my blog) or any other curry of your choice.

(Note: It is always best to grind the pepper whenever we need it. It loses the medicinal value when it is powdered and kept for a long time and also the flavor.)

Capsicum masala

As promised I am posting another recipe with capsicum. The veggie I love experimenting with!!
This is originally made with brinjal and a famous dish from Andhra (not sure about the name of it)...but both my husband and myself do not like the "much loved brinjal"!! Hence tried the same with capsicum.

Ingredients -
Capsicum - 4 big ones
Onion - 1 big
Roasted Peanuts - 2 tsp (unsalted)
Cashew - 6 to 8 (full)
Red Chillies - 4 to 5
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Curry leaves

Take a spoon of oil and roast the red chillies and keep them aside. Now fry the onions till they turn brown. Grind the onions, red chillies, peanuts and cashews to a smooth paste.
(Note: If you do not have roasted unsalted peanuts. Roast the peanuts in microwave for 3 - 5 minutes based on the power of the microwave and grind it with the onions)
Take oil and butter in a pan after it gets heated. Add mustard seeds, Jeera, curry leaves, pinch of turmeric powder and capsicum. Fry the capsicum for a while and close the pan and cook it. When the capsicum is 3/4th cooked add the grounded paste, coriander powder and salt and bring it to a boil.

The yummy capsicum gravy is ready to be served.It goes well with roti but I love to have this with plain rice or ghee rice. I will be posting the recipe for ghee rice soon....

Capsicum (Bell Pepper ) Pulao

Red Pepper, Green Pepper, Yellow pepper...goes a song that my son used to love hearing this in his fav cbeebies when he was 6 months old. This used to be a nice song which the whole family enjoyed!!

I love this veggie and the dishes made with it. Capsicum brings an unique flavour to the food prepared with it...may it be in sambhar or in a curry. I first had a glance of the different color bell pepper in Food world but never bought it since it was so costly....was sold for Rs.30 (for one pepper).

After coming here I keep buying the colored bell peppers all the time..they look so colorful and cool. I love to try different recipes with this vegetable. In the coming days I will add more recipes made with bell pepper.

Now coming to the ingredients for making it:
Capsicum - half from each color diced (this can be made with any color!!) Basmati Rice - 1 Cup

Ingredients for making masala powder are
Channa dhal - 1 tsp, Zeera - 1 tsp, Dhaniya - 2 tsp and Red Chillies - 4

Seasoning
Curry leaves, Ground nuts, mustard - 1 tsp, urad dhal - 1 tsp

Take a tsp of oil in a pan and fry channa dhal, zeera, dhaniya and the red chillies. Cool it and powder this.

I generally follow the practise of cooking rice in the microwave since it does not tend to get too soft. Allow the rice to cool by spreading it on a plate.

Take oil in a pan and the items mentioned under seasoning. Add the diced capsicum and fry it until it is cooked. Add a pinch of turmeric powder. Add the rice and the salt. Do not stir it too much since the rice might start getting mashed. Add the masala powder and mix it well.
The capsicum rice is ready to be served. Chips/papads are more than enough to go with it.

Besan Chutney

Besan Chutney (it is known popularly known as Bombay chutney)

Not sure, how on earth it got the name ...Bombay Chutney for it?? Was this discovered by them or popular dish that originated from there....if any one knows please let me know.

I never liked this Bombay chutney..this was made very often in my household. I always loved to have potato masala or chole with puri....wondered how people liked it.

I never tried it until my mom made this when she came for my delivery!! My husband loves this dish and hence asked Amma to make it for him when she was here. It is very simple and can be made in a jiffy.

Ingredients needed -
Besan (kadala mavu) - 1
CupTomatoes - 2
Green Chillies - 2
Mustard - 1 tsp
Channa Dhal - 1 tsp
Urad Dhal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Turmeric - for the color
Chilly powder - 1/2 tspSalt
Lemon Juice - 2 tsp




Mix water with besan (dosa consistency) and keep it aside. Make sure it does not form lumps while making this batter. Take oil in a pan and add curry leaves, mustard, urad dhal and channa dhal to it. Add the green chillies and tomatoes and fry it well. After this is cooked. Add the besan batter and cook it well (without forming lumps). Add the chilly powder and the salt.Garnish with cilantro. Add the lemon juice and mix well. This goes well with Pulkas, Puri etc.

(Note: This can be made by adding onions too. Add the onion (1 small) before adding the tomatoes. After the onions starts turning slightly brown you can add the tomatoes and follow the above process)

Radish Roti

I was so bored of eating aloo paratha/methi paratha…the usual stuff. Then I remembered I had some radish left over after making sambhar (radish) the previous day…who does not love mullagi (radish). I love any dish made with this vegetable because of the unique flavor from it. My cousin makes a kootu with radish and white pumpkin…must learn to make it from her and put it in myblog. This was my maiden attempt but it came soft and I was happy about it. Coming to the recipe for making this...

Radish – about 6 inches long
Green chillies – 2 small
Jeera

MTR Potato Sag Powder
Wheat Flour – 2 cups

Salt as per your taste

Grate the Radish. Take a tsp of oil and add zeera to it and let it splutter. Add the green chillies and radish and sauté for few minutes. Finally add the potato sag powder and turn off the gas (you may add it if you have this powder...I like the flavor of this while making aloo paratha hence added it to this too!!). Add this to the wheat flour and make the dough by adding salt. Keep it aside for an hour.
Make balls and roll out the rotis and cook it in the tava. These rotis come out very soft. These can be had “as is” with curd too.

Kesari

This simple desert is loved by one and all. This is a quintessential sweet in any wedding/birthdays/engagement etc. If we mention that I just got back from mappillai ayaipu (a function for welcoming the groom - the day before the wedding) to anyone …the typical question you hear is…sojji bajji saptiya (did u eat sojji and bajji)!!


I do not have a sweet tooth but this is still one of my favourites. I make this sweet all the time since preparaing time is less than half an hour. I do this mostly on pournami (New moon day).
Ingredients needed:
Rava – 1 Cup
Sugar – 1 ½ Cup
Water – 1 to 2 cups based on the texture of rava
Ghee – 1 Cup
Cardamom – 6
Raisins, Almonds and Cashew
Orange Food color
Saffron strands
Boil water and keep it aside.
Take a tsp of ghee and roast the cardamom. Cardamom smells good and gets easily powdered when roasted in ghee.
Take a tsp of ghee and roast the nuts and keep it aside. Heat a tsp of ghee and roast the rava till you get the smell. Turn off the stove and add water needed to cook the rava. If it is fine rava then less water is needed. Add the sugar and turn on the gas. Mix it well and start adding the ghee little by little.
Take the saffron strands and mix it well in milk. Add the saffron and cardamom to the kesari. Garnish it with cashew, almonds and raisins.
The yummy kesari is ready to be served.

Dal Makhani

It was one summer vacation during my college days...I visited my sister who was staying in Lucknow (she relocated to Delhi though).Lucknow reminds us of salwar suits right (especially Chikan work)..but it has nice architectural monuments, excellent chat varieties etc.
Not sure, when I will be able to make one more trip to Lucknow!!
My Jiju (brother-in-law) is an excellent cook and introduced me to variety of North Indian dishes. I loved to spend time learning to cook different dishes from him. That was the time I learnt the recipe for Dal Makhani too.



Now getting to the ingredients for making it -
Black Urad Dhal (whole dehusked) - 1 Cup
Rajma - 3/4th cup
Milk – 1 - 2 Cups (as needed)
Green chillies - 3
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Butter - 2 tbs
Garam Masala - 1 tsp
Zeera powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1 small size
Tomatoes - 2

Soak the black urad dhal and rajma together for at least 8 hrs. Pressure cook the black urad dhal and rajma with enough water along with Chopped green chillies and ginger. This gives a good taste to it.

Take butter (as the name suggests...you cannot ignore this...any dish made with a dash of butter tastes awesome!!) and oil in a pan and add zeera to it and let it splutter. Add a pinch of turmeric, cut onions and fry it till it starts turning slightly brown. Now add the chopped tomatoes and fry it till it is nicely cooked. Add the cooked dhal and add all the masala powder to it.

Add the milk and let it boil for some time.

It can be served with phulka, roti or naan.

Pav Bhaji

I went shopping and was looking at the list of things that I needed for the week. I read bread from the list and went to pick one from the shelf...and suddenly my attention got diverted to the next shelf...my son was pulling the pav buns from the shelf. He likes sandwiches but never given pav bhaji for him. Hence, I planned to make it for him.
This dish reminds me of the good old days….(back to yester years) my college days!! Our College canteen was famous for the Chat items. It used to be so good that even people from outside of our college used to come and have it here.
Our Class was situated right in front of the canteen and the smell from the canteen used to always linger in our class room!! The smell itself was enough to kindle our taste buds and we will be waiting for the classes to end (we were never allowed to go to canteen during college hours…prohibited!!) to enjoy the Chat items.
I make this dish at home for my cousins, nieces and nephews. It became a big hit in our household.
Pav Buns Potatoes – 6
Carrots Peas – 1/2 cup
Beans – 10
Capsicum – 1
Tomatoes -2
Amchur powder – ½ tsp
Coriander Powder – ½ tsp
Jeera Powder – ½ tsp
Garam Masala – 1 tsp
Green chillies – 3
Ginger – 1 tsp (cut into small pieces)
Red Chilly Powder – 1 tsp (use less if the chilly powder is hot)
Onions – 1 medium size
Lemon
Pressure cook all the vegetables except Capsicum and Tomatoes with little turmeric. Take oil and butter in a pan. Add Jeera, Onions, Green Chillies and Ginger. Fry till the onion starts turning slightly brown in color. Now add the cut tomatoes and fry it well (adding water as and when needed).
After the pressure gets released –mash the vegetables with the masher and add it. Add all the masala powder and let it boil for some more time. If the gravy is becoming too hard add water to it. Garnish it with Cilantro.
Spread butter in the tava and toast the pav buns. Serve it with finely cut onions and small lemon pieces. It tastes yummy when the gravy is complimented with onions and lemon juice.

Pumpkin Vendaya Kuyambhu

This was one of my favorite dishes when I was pregnant. I got this recipe from my perima and made it all the time.
Unlike the general Vendaya Kuyambu where we use sambhar powder…this is slightly different. This recipe is used mainly with yellow pumpkin (squash)…you may try it out with sweet potato too.

Things needed for making this –
Yellow Pumpkin – 8 to 10 pieces (cut as big cubes)
Mustard – 1 tsp
Urad Dhal – 1 tsp
Channa Dhal – 1 tsp
Tamarind – a Lemon size
Curry leaves
Asafetida – a pinch
For Grinding – 4 Red Chillies, ½ tsp Methi and 3 tsp Toor Dhal
Take a tsp of oil and fry the ingredients that are needed for grinding and keep it aside. After it cool grind it into a fine powder. Take 3 tsp of Oil and add mustard, Urad, Channa Dhal, Curry leaves and the pumpkin. Fry it for some time. Add the tamarind water and let it boil.
When the tamarind water starts getting thicker add the masala powder. The Pumpkin Vendaya Kuyambhu is ready to be served. It goes well with rice. Enjoy!!