Mango Icecream  

Ingredients:

1 banganapalli mango

2 cups full cream milk

6 tsp sugar(adjust according to sweetness of mango)

4 tsp cornflour

Method:

1. Boil the milk. Now switch of the stove.
2. Dissolve the cornflour in little water with out any lumps and slowly add it to the milk and keep stirring.
3. Add sugar to the milk. Now keep this mixture in a medium flame and keep on stirring till it coats the back of a spoon.
4. Allow the mix to cool completely.
5. In the mean time, peel the mango, chop it into small pieces and make mango puree.
6. After the milk mixture is cooled completely, add the mango puree to it and mix well. Now freeze this in shallow trays in the freezer.
7. After 4-5 hours, break the frozen icecream with a spoon into pieces and beat it in the mixie till it is smooth and creamy. Refreeze it for 1-2 hours. After 2 hours, scoop and serve. Yummy homemade mango icecream is ready. If you want you can beat it again and refreeze which will improve the smoothness, but I found that one time was sufficient.

Verkadalai Chutney/Kadalai Chutney

Ingredients:

1/2 cup roasted peanuts

3-4 red chillies

a big marble size tamarind

6 flakes of garlic

salt to taste

1 tsp oil

For tempering:

1/2 tsp mustard

1/2 tsp urad dhal

a sprig og curry leaves

1 tsp oil

Method:

1. Soak the tamarind in little bit of water.
2. Roast the red chillies in 1 tsp of oil.
3. Grind together the chillies, peanuts, tamarind, garlic and salt.
4. This chutney is quiet thick, so dilute with water if necessary.
5. Tempering is done with mustard seeds, urad dhal and curry leaves.

Vazhaikkai Puttu / Podimas

Ingredients:

1 big sized raw banana

1 medium sized onion chopped finely

1 green chilly chopped finely

1 tsp mustard

1 tsp urad dhal

2 tsp oil

salt to taste

2 tsp shredded coconut to garnish

Method:

1. Cut the raw banana two halves.
2. In a big pan add the raw bananas and add water till it immerses.
3. Allow it to cook for 5-7 minutes. Check with a knife whether its completely cooked.(Knife will pass through easily once cooked).
4. Now cool the raw banana. Peel it and grate in a big size grater.
5. Heat oil in a pan.
6. Add mustard and urad dhal and after it splutters add the green chilly and onion and saute.
7. Add the grated raw banana and required salt and mix well.
8. Garnish with shredded coconut and serve.

Varagu Arisi Dosai/Kodo millet dosai

Ingredients:

4 cups varagu arisi/kodo millet

1 cup urad dhal

1/2 tsp fengreek seeds

salt to taste

Method:

1. Clean and soak varagu arisi for an hour or two.
2. Soak urad dhal separately with fenugreek seeds.
3. Grind the dhal and rice separately .
4. Mix them together with the required salt and allow it to ferment for 8 hours or overnight.
5. Make soft idlies or crispy dosa. Serve with chutney of your choice.

For more info on milletes, check out…

http://millets.wordpress.com

http://www.innovateus.net/health/what-millet

My mom has regularly used ragi/finger millet from my childhood days. My MIL also uses ragi along with other millets like kambu/Bajra and Jowar/ Vellai Cholam. But I also wanted to try out the other millets. So when I went to Virudhunagar last month I got 1 kg of kudhiraivaali arisi and varagu arisi each. They both looked kind of similar to each other, small pale white grains similar in size to ragi. I have read that these grains can be cooked similar to rice and served with kuzhambu or rasam. Alternatively they can be ground to a batter and made dosa. I tried making kudhiraivali saadham and varagu dosai. Both turned out very good. Both these grains cooked very fast…like 5-7 minutes in pressure cooker.

Now to the recipe….

Kudhiraivaali Arisi Saadham/Barnyard Millet Rice

Ingredients:

1 cup kudhiraivaali rice

2 cups water

Method:

1. Clean the rice.
2. Cook it in a open pan or pressure cooker for 5-7 minutes. I added 2 cups water which yielded softly cooked rice. If you want the grains separate, you can reduce the quantity of water.
3. Serve with curry of your choice. I served this with poruthanni and kothamalli thuvaiyal. I found that this was more filling to my tummy than the regular rice. I have planned to buy more and try other recipes with this.

DATES POLI

Ingredients :

1 cup Maida/Refined flour

A pinch of turmeric powder

1 tablespoon oil ( I used gingelly oil )

Water to knead the dough

For the filling:

10 no dates chopped finely

Method:

1. Knead the flour into a loose dough with liberal amount of oil.
2. Let the dough lie for atleast 4 hours. I actually made the dough the previous night.
3. Now divide the dough into 6 equal portions.
4. With some dusting flour roll each ball into thin rotis, keep a spoon full of chopped dates in the centre, fold  and roll again.
5. Heat the tawa and cook the poli with ghee.

Sending this recipe to Serve it – Blended series by Krithi of Krithi’s Kitchen & Denny of Oh taste and see.

Ellu Thuvaiyal

Ingredients:

50 mg black/brown sesame seeds

3-5 red chillies (adjust according to taste)

A big marble sizetamarind

½ tsp oil

Salt as required

Method:

1. Wash sesame seeds in water to remove any impurities and strain in a tea-strainer. Let all the water drain.
2. In a pan dry roast the sesame seeds till they crackle.
3. Roast the red chillies separately with ½ tsp oil.
4. Grind together roasted red chillies, sesame, tamarind and salt into chutney.
5. Serve hot with ulundham paruppu saadham along with a spoon of gingelly oil.

Some times my mom adds a little bit of tamarind extract instead of curd, that tastes good too..Infact I like Puli aviyal way better than Thayir aviyal Aviyal is very simple to make, now over to the recipe…

Posting this recipe for The keralakitchen event conducted by Geetha of Sunmoonandpotatoes and started originally by Rose of The Kerala Kitchen.

Aviyal 

Ingredients :

1 raw banana

1 drumstick

3-4 brinjals

1 medium sized carrot

10 no beans

1 potato

A small piece of yam

½ cup green peas

A small piece of ash gourd

2-3 tbsp curd/2 tbsp tamarind juice

¼ tsp turmeric powder

Salt to taste

To grind:

2/3 cup shredded coconut

2-3 green chillies

1tsp jeera

2-3 shallots

To temper:

3 tsp coconut oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp urad dhal

Few curry leaves

Method:

1. Wash, peel and cut all the vegetables lengthwise. You need not use all the vegetables, Raw banana, drumstick, brinjal,carrot are must..others you can vary according to choice.
2. Grind all ingredients under ‘to grind’ to a coarse paste.
3. Cook vegetables in a pan with water, turmeric and salt till they are firm. Alternatively you can pressure cook the vegetables for 2 whistles.
4. Now add the curd/tamarind juice and the ground paste. Let it simmer in a low flame for 5-7minutes.
5. Do the tempering in coconut oil with mustard, urad dhal and curry leaves.
6. Aviyal can be served with sambhar, rasam,vathal kuzhambu along with steamed rice. Aviyal can also be served with adai. And aviyal is the best accompaniment for ulundham paruppu saadham.

P.S.

1. Tempering with coconut oil adds a special flavour to aviyal.
2. As a side dish for ulundham paruppu saadham, aviyal is made in a little thinner consistency.

Linking this recipe to South Indian Cooking- Event #1 conducted by  Anu’s Healthy Kitchen.

Ulundham Paruppu Saadham

Ingredients:

4 cups boiled rice

1 to 1 ½ cup split black urad dhal

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

10 -15 no garlic flakes

1 cup shredded coconut

Salt- a little less than required

Method :

1. Wash and clean urad dhal and rice separately.
2. In a pan dry roast the urad dhal and fenugreek till you get a nice aroma. Keep aside.
3. Now roast the shredded coconut separately.
4. Put rice, roasted coconut, roasted urad dhal and fenugreek, garlic flakes, salt everything together along with triple the quantity of water( 15 cups) and pressure cook till the rice is well cooked. Alternatively the rice can be cooked in the traditional method of cooking in a big open pan.
5. Taste ulundham paruppu saadham with ellu thuvaiyal, aviyal/vendakkai pachadi and appalam.

So for I have made only one cake – Eggless chocolate cake – that too in pressure cooker since I don’t own an oven. It is a good recipe and comes out successfully everytime. I was eager to try out some other cake recipe in pressure cooker.

As I was  going through Priya Sriram’s  page Bon appetite, this cake caught my eye. I loved the topping but my family didn’t want a chocolate cake again. So I selected another eggless cake from Priya, who had tried it from Anushruti’s blog Divinetaste. Both were baking recipes, but I tried them in my pressure cooker.

The cake turned out soft and flavourful, with the walnuts adding to the taste. But the walnut layer was not crispy as in the original recipe, which is probably due to steaming instead of baking, but it was tasty nevertheless. I never had idea that custard powder could be used in a cake. Thank  you Priya and Anushruti. This recipe is sure a keeper.

I am sending this recipe as an entry to ‘Lets cook’ kids special at tickling palates and also ”Kid’s Delight – Evening Snacks/Tiffin” event at ‘cooks joy’ originally started by Valli of Spiceyour life.

Eggless Golden Cake With Walnut Topping – Made In Pressure Cooker

Ingredients:

For the cake batter:

1 cup milk

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ cup refined flour

½ cup custard powder ( vanilla flavor )

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup refined oil

For the walnut topping:

½ cup sugar

50 g vanaspati

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup refined flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ cup milk

4 tbsp walnuts – chopped and roasted

Method:

For the cake:

1. A 7 inch cake pan is recommended for this recipe.
2. First heat the milk and dissolve the sugar in it. Allow it to cool to room temperature.
3. To this add custard powder and vanilla essence and mix well.
4. To this add the refined oil and beat well.
5. Sift together  flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add this to the milk and whisk with a spoon .

For the topping:

1. Beat sugar and vanaspathi till you get a fluffy mix.
2. Add vanilla essence and mix well.
3. Sift together baking powder and flour. Add to sugar + vanaspathi mix and beat well.
4. Add milk little by little till a sticky dough consistency is reached.

The steaming method for this cake is same as that I have described for my chocolate cake.

• Pour the cake batter into the greased pan and steam in pressure cooker without weight.
•  After  10 minutes open the lid. Spread the topping mix on the cake and sprinkle the walnuts.
• Continue steaming till the cake is done (30-35 minutes).
• Enjoy your cake with evening tea or anytime snack.