Coconut is my favorite fruit (@#$#$) ! I am glad to post something for Suganya’s wonderful event.
The cake takes the basic pound cake recipe from joyofbaking.com. I added the below:
Dessicated coconut – 1 cup
Milk – 1 cup
Nutmeg + Cinnamon powder – 1 tea spoon
And substituted the icing sugar with dameara sugar.
It was a perfect cake with a hint of crunchy coconut. Enjoyed every bit of it!
American sweet corn is available in every nook and corner in the city but supermarkets sell them in packs in raw form too. We are more familiar with the locally available yellow corn cobs which we would steam cook with little salt and savor. Even though Marina beach treats its visitors with grilled corn with chilli powder and lemon smeared on it, I am a fan of the steamed version.
Last week visiting a nearby vegetable shop I found these sweet corns and brought home two packs. After savoring steamed version of these delicious corns two of them were left. When Amma said she’s planning to soak lentils for making adai I said “Why not corn adai?”. Thus came this recipe and wow wow! It turned to be absolutely delicious, very crisp. The usual adai amma makes usually turn to be wonderful but the corn added a distinct taste and made the adai very crispy. The entire batch of batter was over for the dinner. As we had invited our friend who made a face that dinner is adai savored almost 6 numbers and was still looking for some more !
Ingredients :
Sweet corn kernels – 1 cup
Par boiled rice – 2 cups
Toor dal – 1/2 cup
Chana dal – 1 cup
Yellow moong dal – 1/4 cup
Onion (chopped ) – 1 cup
Grated fresh coconut – 1 cup
Red chillies – 5-6
Fennel – 1 tea spoon
Ginger grated – 1 T spoon
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Coriander leaves – 1/4 cup
Peanut oil for cooking
How to make it ?
Soak the rice, toor dal, chana dal, moong dal, corn kernels in water for 2 hours. Grind all the above with fennel seeds, grated ginger, chillies, grated coconut and required salt into a coarse batter (add little water just to make your mixie grind freely). In a thick bottomed vessel add 1 tea spoon of peanut oil and when hot add the chopped onion and curry leaves and cook till onions turn soft. Switch off the stove. Add the onions to the batter along with the coriander leaves and mix well. If the batter is very thick add little water. It should be in the below consistency.
Heat a tawa and coat it with oil. Mix the batter well and tae one laddle full and spread it on the tawa as much as possible. Since its very coarse it is not easily spreadable but keeping the flame low helps a bit. Smear some oil around the adai and cover and cook in low flame for 5 minutes. Take off the lid and flip the adai and cook in high flame for further 1 minute or till the adai is golden and crisp.
Served with Idli podi and and a coconut chutney its a simple delight.
This is my entry for “Eat healthy – Fiber rich” hosted by lovely Gromit.
This goes to dear SriValli’s Dosa Mela!
Don’t feel quirky on seeing the title. Actually its a curry made out of the whitish part of the watermelon. Last week when we were having tha last pieces of a whole red juicy watermelon, I was saying Amma about making dosa out of watermelon’s whitish part. She was amazed to know that it can be cooked and eaten and jumped up to the kitchen to try her own creation.
I helped her peel the skin and cut the shitish part into bite sized pieces. After that I was busy playing with the kids and within minutes she brought me before a piping hot plate of a wonderful looking curry and it was hard to believe that its from the watermelon.
It took less than 15 minutes to make this curry and leaving the reddish part upto 3-4 mm with the white flesh gave a subtle sweet touch to the curry which I loved it. Actually I ate them on its own but think it would be lovely when paired with roti. It more or less resembled ash gourd in taste.
Ingredients:
Watermelon (red part removed, skin peeled and the white flesh cut into bite sized chunks) – 1 cup
Salt – 1/4 tea spoon
Sambar powder / Chilli powder – 1/4 or 1/2 tea spoon
Peanut oil – 1/2 tea spoon
mustard seeds – 2 pinches
Urad dal – 1/2 tea spoon
Sprig of curry leaves
How to make it ?
In a thick bottomed vessel heat the peanut oil. When hot add the mustard seeds. As the pop add the urad dal and fry till they turn golden. Add the curry leaves. Add the watermelon white chunks and the sambar powder and salt. Mix well and cook it covered in low flame for 7-8 minutes. Check if its cooked or cook for 2/3 more minutes. You don’t need to add water as the white flesh leaves more water on its own.
It was delicious and bit crunchy and little sweet. The tough part is to remove the green skin from the white flesh. Otherwise its a perfect curry!
How much I am in love with this fish ? mm…soooo much. In childhood days staying in Cuddalore usually fish is bought from the lady vendor who carries a sand prinkled vareities of fish in a aluminium basket covered with a wooden plate. Kamala that what the lady is named and my grandma is her favorite customer. She loves my grandma’s kulambu even though she has fish kulambu at home day in and day out. And my grandma would many times reserve a small bowl for her. And for that in return whenever she find these squid fish (its actually rare there) she would hid it in the bottom of her basket for us.
My grandma would make an elaborate cleaning sesison of this fish and she’ll carefully remove that small bag filled with a black liquid (which if broken and if the liquid spreads on the fish it would turn it bitter; thats what she used to tell me). Then its cut into inch sized pieces and would turn into a wonderful curry which when mixed with hot piping rice its heaven on earth.
I like prawns very much and somehow I felt the taste of this fish matched it. I became a big fan of it and would have had it almost 4-5 times during the Cuddalore days. But after that I would drool on the recipes people would post on the squid fish. How much I am happy when Amma got it for me last week ? I simply jumped in joy and Amma made this fabulous curry for lunch and I had it to my heart’s content as I don’t know how many more years should I wait to have another time. Here comes the recipe.
Ingredients:
Squid fish (cleaned and cut into 1 inch size) – 1 cup
Ginger garlic paste – 1 tea spoon
Salt – 1/4 tea spoon (or to taste)
Sambar podi (or 1:3 chillie:coriander powder) – 1 tea spoon
Garam masala podi – 1/4 tea spoon
Onion (medium sized chopped) – 1
Tomato (small chopped) – 1
Peanut oil – 1 T spoon
How to make it ?
In thck bottomed vessel heat the oil. Once hot add the ginger garlic paste and saute till they turn gold. Add the onions and cook till they turn soft. Add the tomatoes, sambar podi, salt and cook till tomatoes turn mushy. Now add the squid fish and mix well. Add 1/4 cup of water and cover and simmer. After 5 minutes check if the fish is cooked (the fish turns little rubbery when cooked) and add little more water if not. Once the fish is cooked open the vessel and saute till the entire curry becomes bit dry. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with piping hot rice.
On the series the “Pitha Dehis” come as the next number. You can classify tall, thin people mostly as pitha dominating constitution and the below features would help you for classifiying properly.
Pitha Dehis will have the following features and characters
This is an appeal on behalf of a group of food bloggers who are friends of Briana Brownlow @ Figs With Bri.
Bri was diagnosed with breast cancer two and half years ago. A mastectomy, chemotherapy and two years of relatively good health later, the cancer is back. It has metastasized to other parts of her body. At the age of 15, Bri lost her 41-year old mother to the disease. Now, she’s waging her own war against breast cancer. More about it here.
She is going through intensive chemo and other treatments and needs to focus single-mindedly on healing and finding what treatment works best for her. Her health insurance, unfortunately, does not cover holistic alternatives which she would like to try. Bri and her husband Marc have enough on their plates right now in addition to worrying about her medical bills.
The team organising the JUNE edition of CLICK at Jugalbandi has organised a fundraiser to help Bri and her family meet her out-of-pocket medical costs for ONE YEAR.
CLICK is a monthly theme-based photography contest hosted by Jugalbandi. This month’s theme is: YELLOW for Bri
Yellow is the colour of hope. Through the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.
The entries can be viewed HERE. The deadline for entries is June 30, 2008. The fundraiser will extend until July 15, 2008.
The target amount is 12,000 U.S. dollars. We appeal to our fellow bloggers and readers to help us achieve this. Bri deserves a chance to explore all options, even if her insurance company thinks otherwise.
There’s a raffle with exciting prizes on offer. After viewing the list, you may make your donation HERE or at the Chip-In button on any participating site.
Your donation can be made securely through credit card or Pay Pal and goes directly to Bri’s account.
This month’s photo contest also has some prizes. Details HERE.
You can support this campaign by donating to the fundraiser, by participating in CLICK: the photo event, and by publicising this campaign.
Have drooled on the pics so many days! Have laughed to my heart on reading her posts! Am a fan of her rantings too! But when I dropped her a mail asking for a recipe I came to knew how kind she is too. Cynthia the lovely lady behind the Tastes Like Home which is not only a wonderful blog to read around but had lots of excellent fool proof recipes.
The event hosted by lovely Zlamushka gave a chance to try out Cynthia’s lovely recipe. This time I was busy with so many things at home. Both work and home front is keeping me tied up and before my very eyes the last date for the event slipped away. But I for sure want to try this out atleast for the kindness she showed me to send the recipe.
Got up early in the morning (just to avoid “Again another bake ? And can’t sit for a while when you get some time for yourself ? Don’t keep the oven near the table, the kids are playing in the living room”) and started making this. I could not stop wondering on the time taken by the recipe. You have to believe me it took just 5 minutes to mix up the dough. Since I wanted to add some zing added a pinch of ajwain, a table spoon of chopped coriander leaves and few rings of green chillies. Tried piping the dough into wafers but my piping skills and waking up kids did not give me enough patience to do it properly made the dough into small patties and bakes them till golden brown. I did not grate the cheese peoperly but that too gave some lovely blisters on the patties. What to say ? When I took the first bite as soon as it cooled down I couls not believe that I can make wafers at home that too without an egg or a pinch of baking powder. Even though Appa commented “Have u made onion vadai (urad dal dumpling)” and insulted me to the core he too was fallen for the taste.
Cynthia you might feel down on the looks of the wafers, forgive me I am very bad at making decent looking bakes food but no compromise in the taste. Its a fool proof and very forgiving recipe. Thanks a lot for the wonderful keeper! I will post another picture of the piled up wafers tomorrow and till then please bear with me.
This is the only soup amma makes with any sea food. She makes it whenever we catch cold. Nowadays its all reserved for the kids. She says its so very good and nutritious for them. Its also too delicious and since does not have anything hot its given for babies that are above 1 year old. Even my fussiest kid would drink a bowl of this without a word.
This is one of the bounty she made for her dear grand children when we had the prawns curry. Its a simple yet fabulous soup.
Era soup / Prawn soup
Ingredients:
Fresh cleaned prawns – 1 handful
ginger garlic paste – 1/2 tea spoon
Vegetable broth or plain water – 2 cups
onion – 1/2 chopped
tomato – 1 small chopped
Peanut oil – 1 tea spoon
turmeric – 1 pinch
How to make it ?
In the thick bottomed vessel heat the oil and once hot add the ginger garlic paste. Saute till they turn golden and add the onions. Cook till the onions are soft. Add the prawns and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and required salt and the water / vegetable broth along with the turmeric. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Now simmer it for 10 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot.
Lately Amma is fascinated about this herb. We planted it in our home garden a month back and now its grown nicely with lots of fresh, plump looking leaves with that reddish tint. We rarely cook this at home as Amma says thats a great coolant for the body and the kids might catch cold.
This summer was tough time for both the elders and kids and we were away from non-vegetarian throughout this month. Last week Amma’s craving for sea-food cannot stop her more and thus she visited Chennai’s fish market near the beach and came back with loads of fresh fish vareties. So whole of this week I am here to post those goodies.
Amma knows that prawns create lots of heat in the body. But its hard to resist after seeing these. So she tweaked her usual recipe and added a handful of the chopped pasalai keerai. It not only turned to be delicious but the dreading stomach pain did not happen at all! And voila she’s fallen for this leaf and added handfuls in a Fish kulambu, Prawn soup (recipes upcoming 
) to nullify the heat thats been produced by the sea food.
No words to praise her idea and there were lotsa hugs from me and my sis to her over this weekend!
Era pasalai keerai varuval – Prawns with Amaranth leaves
Ingredients:
Cleaned fresh Prawns – 1 cup
Fresh Amaranth leaves – 5 -6 (chopped)
Onion – 1 medium sized (chopped)
Tomato – 1 small (chopped)
Ginger + garlic paste – 1 teaspoon
Sambar podi – 1.5 tea spoon (if using Chill powder mix 1 part of chilli powder with 2 parts of coriander powder)
Turmeric – 1 pinch
Salt – 1/2 tea spoon or as per taste
Peanut oil – 1 T spoon
How to make it?
In the thick bottomed wide skillet heat the peanut oil and once hot add the ginger garlic paste. Saute for half-a-minute and then add the onions. Saute till they turn soft and add tomatoes. Add the sambar podi / chilli powder, turmeric and salt and cover and cook till the tomatoes or mushy (takes 2-3 minutes). Now add the cleaned prawns and saute for a minute. Add the chopped amaranth leaves and mix well. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Open the lid and simmer and cook till the oil separates. Serve with piping hot rice.
The leaves were not prmoninent but they tasted wonderfully. I did not get the slightest ray of stomach ache which I would if eating prawns in hot summer! Had forgotten to take a snap of the final dish. Would update the post later once we make it again. I think next week
Being new to middle-eastern cooking and when Siri announced this AWED I wanted to try my hand in it. As my seet tooth lead me I religiously browsed through the dessert link which she has linked in her post.
The recipe name actually drawn myself to it. And when I searched the google for some pics one picture really inspired me to make it.
I made them today. Since the stuffing can be any nut I settled down with some cucumber seeds (thats what I could find in the pantry this morning) mixed them with little brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.
The only but significant change I did to this recipe is deep frying in peanut oil instead of baking the nests as my recent oven baking wiht pastry dough is not that much successful. It tasted like stuffed badhusha but more delicious as the crunchy seeds added a zing to the dish. I know its a keeper for sure.
Bird’s nest (adapted from here)
SYRUP
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
NUT FILLING
½ cup cucumber seeds
2 Tbs damerara sugar
1 pinch cinnamon
PASTRIES
4 sheets fillo pastry (I made my own pastry)
1/4 cup melted, unsalted butter
Golden Raisins – 15 fried in a teaspoon of ghee
Combine sugar and water in a heavy saucepan. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil, add lemon rind and juice. Boil for 15 minutes without stirring. Cool and strain into a bowl. Chill.
Mix the cucumber seeds and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the confectioner’s sugar to the nuts in the large bowl.
Roll out the pastry dough thinly and cut to make 4 rectangles.
Pull one rectangle and spread it out on a wooden pastry board or marble countertop as thin as possible. Lightly brush the sheet with melted butter and fold it in half lengthwise. Brush the folded pastry with butter again and sprinkle 1 Tbl of the nut filling about 3/4 of an inch near the folded edge. Roll the pastry over the filling and continue rolling to within 1½ inches of the other edge.
Lift the rolled pastry up with the flap hanging towards you and shape it into a ring that curls away from you. Tuck the loose edges of pastry under in the center of th ring to form a nest. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all fillo pastry sheets have been used.
Heat peanut oil for deep frying and once its hot fry the nests till golden brown and take them out and drain in paper towels.
Pour half of the chilled sugar and lemon mixure over the hot pastries. Let cool, then sprinkle some of the fried raisins in the center of each pastry. Place pastries on a serving platter and put the reserved sugar and lemon syrup in a bowl with a spoon for individuals to add later if they choose.
Serve and Enjoy! They turned to be really delicious. It did not take up much oil and hence frying is a good alternative. They tasted like stuffed badhusha. I think if we roll them on toasted vermicelli before frying we could create an exact bird’s nest effect!
This is my entry for AWED Middle eastern cuisine hoste by lovely Siri.
