Vennai Puttu – Rice flour jaggery pudding for JFI – Rice

The moment I saw the annoucement for JFI for August is Rice(JFI- Rice is hosted by dear Sharmi of Neivedyam this month, a brainchild of Indira of Mahanandi!), This dish came to my mind. But work front kept me busy and somehow I could manage it to prepare it in the last moment. I don’t know why it got this name, might be because of its silky texture but it neither contains vennai (butter) nor it resembeles the Kerala puttu
This is a sweet dish. The simplest of the ingredients add grace to it. This is a common dessert prepared in northern-coastal Tamilnadu. I did not add any other rich contents like cashew / badam for decorating as I thought any such addition would spoil it’s simplicity. And here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup par boiled rice – soaked over night and ground to a smooth paste with little water. (It should be in the consistent  of idli batter)
1/2 cup powdered Jaggery
1 pod of cardomom powdered
a pinch of salt
2 table spoons boiled chana dal
2 tables spoons shredded fresh coconut
Ghee for greasing

How to make it?
Boil the jaggery with 1 cup of water till it starts foaming. Stop at this stage and strain the liquid. (If ou want the dish sweeter add more jaggery at this point). Boil 2 and 1/2 cups of water with the pinch of salt in a heavy bottomed pan. Once it starts boiling add the rice batter slowly by constantly stirring to make sure no lumps are formed. Throughout the process this stirring should not be stopped so better get one more hand for helping you Once the rice paste gets almost cooked add the jaggery liquid and keep stirring. Add the chana dal after 3 minutes. Keep stirring! Add the cardomom powder. Keep stirring! Now the entire mass will come together leaving the pan. Switch of the stove and add the shredded coconut and do a final stir. Grease a tray with ghee and pour this mixture.

 Let it cool and cut into to slices. Serve them with a dash of ghee!

This is my entry for JFI- Rice

Weekend baking…

I baked a Swedish cake, coconut bread, an apple pie and crunchy chocolate bars last weekend. My dig camera is up and running now and hencemanaged to take a few pics.

I took the pic of “Sister kaka” before it went into the oven and after that my camera was down. By the time it started working they got over. So bear with these pics. This is a swedish cake and Dagmar had given this name as its a smaller version of a bigger cake. I baked it for my loving sister and she liked it very much when I served it warm and fresh. The original recipe calls for strawberry sugar which I cannot get in Chennai. I mixed oridinary sugar with a pinch of green food color and the looks were not that bad but I missed the gorgeous looks of the strawberry sugar for sure! This recipe is from A Cat in the Kitchen

And the apple pie is an absolutely wonderful recipe. Julia of A Slice of Cherry Pie fame’s recipe is totally fool proof. Thanks Julia, I have never thought I could bake an apple pie on my own!

 

The Chocolate crunch bars are again a great snack and so easy. This is our dear Nic’s recipe again!

 

 Then comes the coconut bread! This was almost like a coconut cake but less sweet. I made a simple topup and it turned to be absolutely delicious. This is my father’s idea of eating a slice of bread which I applied to this slice of coconut bread. Apply a a generous layer of butter on the slice. Sprinkle “Glucose” generously on it. The chill feel of glucose melting with the butter turns out to be an excellent icing. My father’s innovation in early 60’s during his bachelor days is our family’s favorite now! Here are the coconut bread slices !

30 minute meal…

I missed JFI Chilly and was not regular in my posts recently. So I hurriedly made this 30 minute meal to get into Summer Express cooking .

A quick sambhar, a jiffy rasam and the simplest ever egg curry with a cup of curds. Thats all my meal consists of.

Step 1: Cook rice ( as required) and 1 cup of Toor dal with 4 cups of water (excess water will be used for rasam)  together using separators in a pressure cooker. (To cook toor dal refer here). (10 mins)

Step 2. While the rice and dal is getting cooked in the pressure cooker cut veggies and make all prep work for this sambar. If still the cooker is not ready to take out rice and dal, go to Step 3 and come back here again Follow the recipe for sambar as here. The sambar will be ready! (7 minutes)

 

Step 3. Once cutting veggies are done heat a kadai / wok and add 1 tablespoon of peanut oil. Fry two cloves of crushed garlic until brown with a spoon of sambar podi ( do this in low flame as the sambar podi will immediately tend to burn) . Within 5 seconds the raw smell of sambar podi will dissappear. Break two eggs and add the whites and yolk to this. Add salt (1/4 tea spoon will be fine or as per your taste) and keep stirring until you get a reddish mass. It won’t look good but I bet it tastes very nice and its simplicity adds more grace to it. (5 minutes)

Step 4: In a blender take 2 tomatoes (medium sized), 1 Indian vareity red chilly, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1 inch tamarind,  1 sprig of curry leaves, a pinch of asfoeatida, 2 cloves of garlic, required salt and blend to a coarse paste. To this add 2 cups of dal water (taken from the cooked toor dal) and add enough water to adjust the taste if needed. Heat a wok with a teaspoon of peanut oil and add mustard seeds (1/4 teaspoon). Once they start spluttering add 2 pinches of asfoetida and wait for 5 seconds. Add the rasam mix to it and switch off the stove when the first bubble appears on the surface. Garnish with coriander leaves and immediately cover the vessel. (6 minutes)

 

Those left over two minutes can be used to set up the table / clean up the messy kitchen

A simple yet satisfying meal is ready !

Birthday baking…

Today is my dear brother’s b’day! He is the person to encourage me with all my baking experiments by eating them all as soon as he could So I baked him some coconut cookies (Courtesy Nic of www.bakingbites.com) and A great black forest cake from our dear Nupur’s recipe. Its is so easy as I never thought I can make one at home! Thanks a lot dear!

Even though the cake was not looking so good it tasted very good. I did not have the cherry brandy and thus skipped it. Did not even substituted with the sugar syrup as at home they do not like wet cakes. Since I did not have a 8×8 pan I baked it in a bigger pan. This made the cake a thinner one so I did not try slicing it. Simply spreaded the filling on top and showered it with chocolate shavings. Everybody enjoyed it and yesterday night I started baking by 11.45 and I finished it by 1 PM. Thats quite fast is n’t it

And for the cookies I topped them with some chocolate shavings too for a change and it tasted good. The photos are not so attractive I have to improve upon but the cake and cookies are over by now !

Killi pota sambar – A sambar without sambar podi

Its a long while I posted any recipes in my blog. The work front is taking up most of my time and the rest was eaten by my kids Atlast I am posting a simple recipe (will be posting a series of them regularly) thats easy to make and will soon turn to be a comfort food. This sambar is named so becase its not-so-hot as the split red chillies alone are added to make it so. Since the splitting is called as “killi podaradhu” in tamil this should have got its name! From my experince this is a “kids favorite” as everyday morning I make this to feed my elder one with idlis.
And now coming to the recipe…
Ingredients:
Toor dal – 1/2 cup
A medium lemon sized ball of tamarind soaked in 1 cup of water
Red chillies – split into 2 to three pieces each – 2 nos.
Asafoetida – 1 pinch
Turmeric powder – 1 pinch
Onions (sliced thinly) – 1 Big Onion
Tomato (chopped) – 2
Garlic – 1 pod
Peanut oil – 2 teaspoon
Mustard seeds – 1/4 teaspoon
Curry leaves – 1 sprig

How to make it?
Cook toor dal with 4 cups of water, asafoetida, garlic and turmeric until mushy. Squeeze the tamarind and get the extract (it would be around 1 cup). Add it to the cooked dal. Heat a wide skillet and pour the peanut oil. Once hot, add the mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the split chillies. Once the mustard seeds splutter add the onions and saute in high flame just for about 10 secs. The onions should still be crisp. Add the chopped tomatoes and saute further for 10-15 seconds. Add the toor dal + tamarind mix. Add required salt. Boil for another 5-7 minutes till the raw smell of tamarind goes off. Switch off the stove and enjoy with hot idlis or with rice. A spicy pickle will go well with this sambar and rice. This is our all time comfort food.