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Showing posts from February, 2011

Mutton Peralan / Mutton in dry gravy

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M utton peralan is a dry side dish. Peralan is a famous Kerala preparation, which can be made easily without any hard work.  This is best served hot with practically everything including rice, appam, puttu, idiappam etc. It stays fresh forever and seems to get tastier as you heat it each time. Ingredients: Mutton- ½ kg Onions (sliced)- 2nos Green chillies (slitted)- 4nos Ginger paste- 1tbsp Garlic paste- 1tbsp Curry leaves- few Red chilli powder- 2tsp Coriander powder- 1tsp Turmeric powder- ½ tsp Garam masala powder- 1tsp Salt- as per taste Oil- 2tbsp Water- ½ cup Method: Pour oil in pressure cooker and saute onions, green chillies, curry leaves, ginger and garlic paste well. Add the red chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder. Mix well in between otherwise the powders will stick to the bottom of the cooker. Add the cleaned and washed mutton pieces and salt. Stir fry for few minutes. Add water and close the cooker and pressure cook the mutton till done. Remove from fire. Wh

Dondakaya pachadi / Ivy gourd / Tindora chutney

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I vy gourd in any form, I love it.This chutney I tasted when I was in school. My friends used to bring this for lunch and we used to share our food. I loved this a lot and told my mom to make this the next day. My mom who only makes Kerala dishes didnt know what I was talking about (that was the first time she heard about that). She called her Andhra-ite friend and made this for my lunch. Now also whenever I feel a bit lazy I make this chutney, as this is very easy to make. I love this chutney a lot. Ingredients: Ivy gourd / Tindora- 250gms Tamarind- Small piece Onions- 1no Green chillies- 3nos Salt- to taste Oil- 1tbsp Method: Clean and cut tindora to small pieces. Heat oil in a pan. Add the cut tindora pieces, roughly chopped onions, chopped green chillies, tamarind and salt. Fry for some time till the tindora pieces become soft. Cool it and grind it coarsely. Enjoy this with hot rice and ghee.

Orange and ginger Juice

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Y ou might have noticed that till now I haven’t posted any juice recipes in my blog. That's because we usually don't make juice at home. We use the canned fruit crush to prepare the juice. This time I thought of trying some new juice recipes, just for my blog :-) I have bought lemon ginger concentrate several times and we all like it. So I thought of trying the same with slight modifications in house. Thats how I decided to make orange ginger combination and it tasted really good. But only thing we have to take care is that after squeezing the orange we must serve it immediately, otherwise the juice will become bitter. So its better to make it when you want it.   Ingredients: Oranges- 4nos Ginger ( grated )- 1tbsp Sugar- depends upon how sweet the orange is / you can add honey. Method: Grated ginger is mashed in a mortar and press with your fingers to extract juice. Keep it in a small bowl. Cut the orange into half, remove the seeds and squeeze it by hand. It is best to use an

Fish Cutlets

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T hese cutlets can be prepared easily and it is very delicious. This can be served as an appetizer or as a tea time snack. Fish, as you all know is rich in nutrition, and these cutlets can be used as a nutrition carrier for the kids. My mom used to make veg cutlets often, but once I insisted her to try making fish cutlets. She was not confident of how they will turn as she had never tried them before. I told her whatever she make we are there to eat, so she gave it a try and made small quantity of this cutlets. Result : we fought for it till the last cutlet was eaten. Usually I wont get time to make these dishes when my little one is around. So I made this when she slept in the afternoon one day and as usual she got up asking “Did you make samosa?” For her, Samosa is the only snack in the world and every snack is a Samosa :-) Ingredients: Fish (Seer / King fish) - ½ kg Onions ( chopped )- 2nos Garlic- 4-5cloves Green chillies ( chopped )- 3nos Ginger ( grated )- 1tbsp Coriander leaves

Mutta Theeyal / Egg in roasted coconut curry

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T here are so many varieties of theeyal s made in kerala. Theeyal is a gravy made with roasted coconut and spices. This tastes heavenly, though a bit high in oil content. I made this theeyal with egg which is a preferred dish among us. Theeyal can be prepared with shallots, brinjal, bitter gourd, ladies finger, prawns and so on. There are different versions made in different parts of Kerala. In this recipe, the egg is split, but not stirred till it is cooked.This is an excellent combination with hot rice. Here is how I prepared this dish. Ingredients: Eggs- 4nos Coconut (grated) - 1cup Kashmiri chilli powder- 2tbsp Coriander powder- 2tbsp Turmeric powder- 1tsp Fennel seeds- 1tsp Onions- 1no Green chillies- 2nos curry leaves- few Mustard seeds- 1tsp Oil- 1tbsp Salt- as per taste Method: Roast the coconut along with fennel seeds and when it is brown in colour add the chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder. Stir well till the raw smell disappears. Cool the above coconut mixtu

Chocos Cookie Biscuits

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I ts Valentines day and I decided to bake some cookies to bring in the V-day. I wanted to try my own version of baking and ended up with these yummy cookie biscuits. I am happy that it was an instant hit in my house. Valentines day is time to be passionate about chocolates and so I decided to make this choco based cookies. I shaped the cookies with my newly bought cookie cutter and was able to get some cute shapes as well. This is the first “V” Day since I started this blog and I thought of celebrating it with a new recipe :-) So, here you go ... Heart shaped cookies before baking Ingredients: All purpose flour / Maida- 150gms Butter- 50gms Milkmaid- ½ can Kellogg's Chocos- 1cup (crushed coarsely) Baking Powder- a pinch Cocoa powder- 1tbsp Drinking Chocolate powder- 2tbsp Method: Sift all purpose flour , baking powder, cocoa powder and drinking chocolate powder in a bowl. Pour melted butter and milkmaid in a bowl and mix it with a hand blender smoothly till fluffy. Add the crushed

Chili con Carne / Chili Pepper with Meat

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C hili con Carne is a traditional meal of Latin America, with red beans and small pieces of meat. I have made it in Indian style as we wont get most of the ingredients in India. I learnt this recipe from my bro who is a perfect cook in these type of dishes. He made this dish one day when we were at his house and it was during hot summer afternoon, the dish was really spicy that my husband was sweating all along while eating this. But the taste was yummy. This time I thought of preparing this recipe as I never made it and it came out perfect. But this time I made it less spicy for my Husband :-) Ingredients: Pasta(Spagetti)-  500gms Minced Mutton / Kheema- 250gms Kidney beans / Rajma- 1cup Green chillies- 3-4nos (as per your spice level) Tomatoes- 3nos Potatoes- 1nos Carrot- 1nos Green peas- 1cup Cumin powder- 1tsp Salt- as per taste Onions- 1no Ginger- 1tbsp Garlic- 1tbsp Coriander powder- 1tbsp Red chilly powder- 2tbsp Turmeric powder- 1tsp Garam masala powder- 2tsp Olive oil- 1tbsp

Unnakaya / Stuffed Ripe plantain fritters

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U nnakaya is a spindle shaped sweet snack made of ripe plantain. It is originated from Malabar region of Kerala. I have heard a lot about this sweet but never tasted it because mom doesn’t make it . I saw this in a TV show and thought of making this dish. I was not sure whether this will turn good, then also I tried it and the shape came out pretty well and it tasted yummy. This is also called as kai porichathu, kai ada, unnakai and so on. The main ingredient of this is semi ripe plantain which is steamed and mashed and then stuffed with coconut,nuts, raisins and sugar which is rolled in the shape of spindle and deep fried in oil. In different regions the stuffing will differ like adding scrambled eggs, sugar and nuts. This is often made during the time of Ramadan as one of the snacks for breaking the fast. The name unnakaya owes to the shape, the shape of cotton pod which in Malayalam is called unnakaya. Ingredients: Semi ripe bananas- 2nos Coconut (grated) - 1cup Poppy seeds / khus