CARROT HALWA AND A STORM OF RECIPES

Wondering whats with the sudden storm of recipes from Iyengar's kitchen...well will be gone away for a while. So I am making up for all that time by posting more recipes today....so there...tata! About the Event round up....I will come with it soon too.....so do check out this space in a couple of days!

CARROT HALWA

Ingredients:

Carrots – 800 gms
Boiled Milk – close to ½ litre
Sugar – 1½ cups
Saffron – few
Cardamom powder – 1½ tspns
Cashews – 7-8 (cut in half and chopped and fried in little ghee till light brown in color)
Raisins – 7-8
Ghee – 2 tbl spns

Preparation:

1. Peel and Grate carrots.
2. Take ghee in a non-stick deep bottomed pan and fry the carrots till the raw smell goes.
3. Add milk and cook the carrots in milk and keep stirring it.
4. Once the carrots are cooked and after all the milk is absorbed, add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron, raisins, and cashews (previously fried in little ghee). Mix well and serve either hot or cold.

Best when served hot with a scoop of Vanilla Ice cream. The combination of hot halwa with the cold vanilla ice cream is just heavenly!!!!

UPDATE: This one is on its way to EC's SIMPLE INDIAN FOOD BLOG for the WYF: COLOR IN FOOD EVENT

BOTTLE GOURD (SOREKAYI / LOUKI) HALWA

BOTTLE GOURD (SOREKAYI / LOUKI) HALWA

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd – 1
Boiled Milk – 1½ cups
Sugar – 1 cup
Saffron – few
Cardamom powder – 1 tspn
Cashews – 7-8 (cut in half and chopped and fried in little ghee till light brown in color)
Raisins – 7-8
Ghee – 2 tbl spns

Preparation:

1. Peel the gourd and cut in half. Scoop out the seeds and grate the bottle gourd.
2. Take ghee in a non-stick deep bottomed pan and fry the bottle gourd till the raw smell goes.
3. Add milk and Cook the bottle gourd in milk and keep stirring it.
4. Once the bottle gourd is cooked and after all the milk is absorbed, add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron, raisins, and cashews (previously fried in little ghee). Mix well and serve either hot or cold.

UPDATE: This one too is on its way to EC's SIMPLE INDIAN FOOD BLOG for the WYF: COLOR IN FOOD EVENT

TWO OPTIONS WITH CORN (KOSAMBARI AND PALYA)

I. Corn Kosambari

Ingredients:

Fresh Corn – 1 cup
Coconut – 1 tbl spn grated
Coriander leaves – 2 tspns
Curry leaves – (3-4) chopped
Green chillies – (1-2) depending on your taste
Salt as required
Lemon - ½

For tempering:

Oil - ½ tspn
Asafetida – 1 pinch
Mustard – ½ tspn

Preparation:

1. Mix Corn with coconut, coriander leaves, curry leaves, green chillies, and salt.
2. Temper with oil, asafetida and mustard seeds and add it to the corn mixture. Squeeze juice of lemon and its done!


II. Corn Palya

Ingredients:

Fresh Corn – 1 cup
Coconut – 1 tbl spn grated
Coriander leaves – 2 tspns
Curry leaves – (3-4) chopped
Green chillies – (1-2) depending on your taste
Salt as required
Lemon - ½

For tempering:

Butter - ½ tspn
Asafetida – 1 pinch
Mustard – ½ tspn

1. Take butter in a non-stick pan; add mustard seeds, asafetida, curry leaves, green chillies, Corn, salt and coconut. Fry for a minute in the butter. Smells great and tastes great too.
2. Switch off the flame and can squeeze lemon.

UPDATE: This one is on its way to EC's SIMPLE INDIAN FOOD BLOG for the WYF: COLOR IN FOOD EVENT

PEAS AND CAPSICUM BHATH

Ingredients:

Rice – 1½ cups
Peas – 3/4th cup Boiled (frozen or fresh….I have used frozen here)
Potato – 1 or 2 (chopped in small pieces)
Capsicum – 2 (chopped in small pieces)
Coriander leaves - ½ cup (chopped)
Curry leaves – 1 strand (chopped)
Turmeric - ½ tspn
Green chillies – 2 to 3 (depending on your taste)
Coconut – 1 tbl spn Grated (optional)
Lemon - ½ to 1
Salt as required

For seasoning:

Oil – 2 tbl spns
Mustard – 1 tspn
Bengal gram – 1 tspn
Black gram – 1 tspn
Ground nuts – 2 spoons

Preparation:

1. Cook rice with just enough water so that it doesn’t stick and spread it on big pan to separate the grains.
2. While that gets cooled, take a non-stick pan and add the entire seasonings one after the other starting from oil to groundnuts.
3. Then add curry leaves, green chillies, turmeric, capsicum and potato. Fry in oil till the capsicum and the potato is cooked.
4. Add in peas, coconut, rice, salt and finally coriander leaves. Mix them all properly until the rice gets coated well in the seasonings and the salt is in proportion.
5. Switch off the flame and squeeze lemon juice and mix well again.

PEPPER RASAM / MALAGA RASAM / MENASINA SAARU

Malagu Rasam (I will also call this Pepper Soup)

Ingredients to make the Pepper rasam powder:

Black gram (Uddin bele) - 1 cup
Coriander seeds (Dhania seeds) - ½ cup
Dry coconut (Kobri) – 3/4th cup
Black Peppercorns (Menasu) - 1 tbl spn
Cumin seeds (Jeerage) – 2 tspn
Curry leaves (karbevu) - 30 leaves

It’s very simple. Just fry them all without oil and grind them to powder.

Ingredients to make rasam:

Red gram (tur dhal/togari bele) – ½ cup
Pepper rasam powder – 1-2 tspns (depending on your taste)
Coriander leaves – 2 tspns
Salt to taste

Preparing Rasam:

1. Pressure cook the red gram.
2. In a vessel, boil water with the pepper rasam powder, salt and the red gram. Boil for about 10 mins and garnish with coriander leaves.
3. If preparing for kids take care not to add too much of the pepper powder as it might be too spicy for them.
4. Also can temper with little oil/ghee and cumin seeds.
5. Serve the rasam with ½ tspn of ghee and soft white rice.
6. Also can be served like a soup on a chilly day. (For soup reduce the amount of red gram and mash it well before boiling)

This rasam helps cure cold and cough. On a rainy day it’s fantastic to start a meal with a soup like this.

Sending this post to Sheetal's Kitchen for SWC-KARNATAKA

POTATO SAAGU !

Potato Saagu

Ingredients:

Potatoes – Medium sized (4-5)
Onion - 1 big
Tomatoes – 2 to 3
Curry leaves – 1 strand
Coriander leaves - ½ cup
Cumin seeds -½ tspn
Mustard - ½ tspn
Asafetida – pinch
Garam masala – 1tspn
Turmeric powder - ½ tspn
Red chilli powder – 1 tspn or more according to your taste
Gram flour (besan) – 1 tspn mixed with water
Oil – 1 tbl spn

Preparation:

1. Pressure cook potatoes with salt and water; peel and mash them.
2. Take oil in a pan; add mustard, cumin seeds, asafetida, curry leaves, onion and fry till the onions turn transparent.
3. Add tomatoes, turmeric powder, garam masala powder and red chilli powder. Fry till the oil separates.
4. Add the mashed potatoes, salt, and little water. Boil this for 5-6 mins and add the gram flour mixed with water. This helps in binding the saagu.
5. Finally check for salt and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

This Saagu goes best with Rave Idli (Semolina Idli) and Coconut or Raw chutney. You can also serve it along with Dose and Chapathi too!

This one is heading to Srivalli's Curry mela!

TAMBITTU (RICE FLOUR BALLS MIXED WITH JAGGERY AND COCONUT)

This is a sweet offering that we prepare on the start of “Ashada Shukruvara” (Ashada means “A month in the calendar which is July” and Shukruvara means “Friday”). This month is totally dedicated to offering our prayers to Goddess Lakshmi and that’s the reason no marriages, or any other function is done during this month. 3rd Friday of the month is celebrated as the birthday of Goddess Lakshmi which is called Thiruvadipuram.

Any festival I celebrate reminds me of my grandmother who would celebrate it in a big way. She expected all the members of her family, children and grandchildren to be there at her place first thing in the morning and spend the rest of the day offering prayers and having a sumptuous lunch prepared by her! I truly miss those days with her. I am sure she will be proud of all her children and grandchildren who have kept her traditions intact and pass it on to the gen next!…..

A very simple one to make…but very tasty!

Rice flour - as required
Grated Jaggery - ½ cup
Cardamom – 3
Coconut – 3 tbl spns
Ghee – 1 tspn
1 tspn Cream of milk

First mix grated jaggery, cream, cardamom, ghee and coconut with your hands. Then add rice flour to it slowly and keep mixing it. The bowl in which you mix these ingredients should come clean. Till then keep adding the rice flour.

On this day, we divide the tambittu in to two portions as shown in the picture. One of them is slightly flattened to accommodate two cotton wicks dipped in ghee for lighting the lamp and performing aarti to the goddess.