Badam Halwa

Ingredients
Almonds
Milk
Sugar
Saffron
Ghee

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the almonds in warm water for a while. Peel the skin off. Grind them to a smooth paste with milk or water (obviously milk makes it more yummy, I use fat free milk and make the paste)
2. Soak a couple of saffron stems in a few tsps of milk.
3. Take sugar almost equaling the amount of paste that you get. Make a one-thread consistency sugar syrup in a heavy-bottomed vessel.
4. Add in the paste and keep stirring avoid lumps. Add in the saffron-milk. Keep stirring
6. As the mixture thickens, add ghee little by little stirring constantly.
7. Once it becomes a uniform mixture and starts leaving the sides of the vessel, transfer to a bowl or plate.

Tips
As the almonds have inherent fat, you need very little ghee. So, take care while adding the ghee. You could soak some cashews alongwith the almonds and make a cashew-almond paste. You could also roast a few cashews and add to the halwa while adding the ghee. This would give a few crunches while eating the halwa. You could also add some cardamom powder and/or “green” camphor. Some people recommend adding some poppy seeds that have been soaked in milk alongwith the almonds to make the paste (about 75 gm poppy seeds for 125 gms almonds) with milk. Some add some maida to make it thick, pour onto a greased plate and cut them into shapes to make badam cake.

Thattai

A yummy snack

Ingredients
Rice flour 2 cups
Urad Dal flour ¼ cup
Sesame seeds
Curry leaves
Chenna dal
Salt
Red Chilli powder
Asafoetida
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Mix in the rice flour and urad dal flour.
2. Soak the chenna dal in some warm water for a while till it gets soft and drain away the water
3. Add the salt, red chilli powder, asafoetida, sesame seeds, soaked chenna dal, curry leaves to the flour.
4. Pour in some water little by little to the flour to make the dough such that it is not too water nor too powdery.
5. To make the thattai, grease a banana leaf (or an aluminium foil / thick plastic sheet). Take some dough and flatten it out into circles on the sheet/ leaf. Take care while taking them off to fry them
6. Heat oil in a wok. If you put in a pinch of dough in, it should float back to the surface. This means that the oil is ready for frying the thattai.
7. Put in the thattai carefully into the oil. Fry them flipping them such that they are golden brown on either side on medium heat.
8. Take the fried thattai out and place on a tissue paper to drain out the excess oil.

Tips
You could add a little butter/hot oil while making the dough. You could also add some pepper powder which will increase the spice level in the thattai

Dal Palak

This is one of the many ways you can make dal palak. One of the recipes without absolute measurements for the ingredients.

Ingredients
Spinach chopped
Split yellow peas
Tomatoes chopped
Onions chopped
Garlic sliced
Salt
Oil
Green chillies slit
Red chilli powder
Cumin powder
Turmeric powder

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the yellow split peas in some water for about 20 minutes
2. Heat a little oil in a saucepan, add the sliced garlic pieces, toss around.
3. Add the onions, fry them till they are lightly golden brown.
4. Add in the green chillies & chopped tomatoes, toss around for a while.
5. Put in the soaked yellow split peas. Cook for a while before adding in the chopped spinach.
6. Add the salt, very little red chilli powder, a pinch or two of turmeric powder and some cumin powder.
7. Keep cooking till the peas are cooked stirring occasionally to avoid burning of the dal palak.

Paruppu Urundai Kuzhambu

Makes 2 cups of kuzhambu with about 8 balls

Ingredients
Tuvar dal 1 cup
Salt 1 ¼ tsp
Red chillies 8
Asafoetida
Oil 4 tsp
Mustard seeds
Green chillies 2 finely chopped
Onions chopped (optional)
Coconut ¼ hemisphere grated
Curry leaves
Cilantro leaves finely chopped

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the dal in some warm water and drain the water.
2. Grind this coarsely with red chillies, salt, asafoetida and very little water.
3. Heat up about 4 tsp oil, add mustard seeds, chopped curry leaves, green chillies and onions (if using them) . Toss it around and then add the ground dal with the grated coconut, chopped cilantro.
4. Keep stirring and tossing until the colour changes and gets cooked. Switch heat off
5. Make kuzhambu like vathakuzhambu without the vathal and about 3 cups tamarind water.
6. Make balls and add to boiling kuzhambu.
7. Boil for a while and serve with rice.

Tips
Don’t crowd the kuzhambu with all the balls. Add them one or in twos. If you want the kuzhambu to be thicker, you could powder up a ball and add to it. I generally add the green chillies, curry leaves and coconut while grinding the dal. These balls can be added to mor kuzhambu or even rasam in which case do not add the onions. You could add some rice flour and mix it in to the roasted dal batter before making the balls which would help avoid the breaking up of the balls in the kuzhambu. Some people add even fennel seeds before grinding the dal (I don’t! )

Vathakuzhambu

Makes 2 cups
Ingredients

Tamarind pulp got from tamarind about the size of a lime
Salt 1 ½ tsp
Sambar Powder 2 ½ tsp
Mustard seeds ½ tsp
Fenugreek seeds ½ tsp
Tuvar Dal 1 tsp
Red chillies 2 (broken into halves each)
Asafoetida
Curry leaves
Vatral/vathal ( eg.., manathakkali, sundakkai, thumidikai, kathirikai…)
Oil 4 -5 tsp
Rice flour 1 tsp

Get Cooking!

1. In a stone vessel or a heavy bottomed vessel, take some oil and add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, red chillies, tuvar dal and asafoetida.
2. Add the curry leaves and the vatral and roast it a little.
3. Once they get roasted, add the powder and roast till it is red.
4. Add the tamarind water (made by dissolving the pulp in about 2½ cups water) and the salt. Let boil.
5. Once it boils down to 2 cups quantity, dissolve the rice flour in some water and add that in.
6. Let it boil well and then switch off the heat.

Tips

If adding some kind of beans vathal, you could add this after adding the tamarind water. If using brinjal vathal then add it at the beginning. You could fry some moongwadi or karuvadam and add that also. I sometimes put in cut tomatoes with the vathal and reduce the amount of tamarind. You could chop onions and roast them after the seasoning before adding the tamarind water.

Karadai – Uppu Adai

Made as an offering on “karadaiyam nombu”

Ingredients

Rice Flour (made as in step 1) 2 cups
Water 4 cups
Coconut ½ of half coconut split to small thin pieces
Ginger finely chopped
Green chillies 6-8 finely chopped
Cowpeas ¼ cup
Asafoetida
Curry leaves
Mustard seeds 1 tsp
Urad dal 2 tsp (optional)
Salt 1 ½ tsp
Oil

Get Cooking!

1. Soak, wash, drain the rice, and grind to a powder which is not so coarse and not too fine.
2. Roast the cowpeas, steam them.
3. Sauté mustard seeds, urad dal, ginger, green chillies in say 5 to 6 tsp oil.
4. Add in the water, salt, coconut pieces, asafoetida, cut curry leaves and bring to a boil.
5. Add the steamed cowpeas, then stir in the rice flour taking care not to form lumps till it becomes like dough.
6. Take this off the heat, knead the dough.
7. Make patties around ½ “thick, make a whole in the centre like that in a dough nut.
8. Steam these patties. Once cooked, they appear glossy.

Tips

Quantity of water to be used is according to the quality of the rice. Depending on that, water should be 1 ½ to 2 times the quantity of rice. If you don’t have cowpeas, you could add tuvar dal. You could use the rice flour u get in a grocery store, just roast it well before. The coconut could be grated and used for this.

Karadai – Vella Adai

Made as an offering on “karadaiyam nombu”

Ingredients

Rice flour (made as in step 1) roasted 4 cups
Cowpeas more than ½ cup upto ¾ cup (prefer the red variety)
Coconut 1 half slit to small thin pieces
Jaggery 4 cups
Cardamom powder from say 10-12 pieces

Get Cooking!

1. Soak, wash, drain the rice, and grind to a powder which is not so coarse and not too fine.
2. Slightly roast the cowpeas. Steam and drain the excess water.
3. Take 10 cups of water, add the jaggery and dissolve it. Boil this.
4. When it boils well, add the rice flour little by little while stirring to avoid lumps.
5. When it gets to the point where it is half- cooked and becomes like dough add the cardamom powder, coconut slices, steamed cowpeas. Mix well. Switch the heat off.
6. Make circular patties of the batter which is about ¼ “thick. Make a whole in the middle like that in a donut.
7. Steam these patties. Once cooked, they look glossy.

Tips
Quantity of water to be used is according to the quality of the rice. Depending on that, water should be 2 to 2 ½ the quantity of rice. If you don’t have cowpeas, you could use tuvar dal.You could use the rice flour u get in a grocery store, just roast it well before.

Vazhakkai Podimas

Yet another yummy raw banana curry

Ingredients
Raw banana
Turmeric Powder
Mustard seeds
Urad dal
Chenna dal (optional)
Green chillies chopped well
Asafoetida
Ginger chopped well
Curry leaves
Salt
Oil
Lemon juice (optional)

Get Cooking!
1. Cut the ends of the raw banana, chop it into halves. Boil these pieces in some water with turmeric powder.
2. Cool that down, peel and grate the raw banana.
3. Sauté the mustard seeds, urad dal, chenna dal, green chillies, ginger, asafoetida and curry leaves.
4. Switch the stove off, add the grated banana, salt and mix carefully.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice and mix it in carefully.

Vegetable Rice

This is one of the many ways you could prepare vegetable rice.

Ingredients

Vegetables like carrots, beans, potatoes – peeled, cut into 2″ long pieces
Peas
Onions
Tomatoes
Salt
Rice
Cardamom
Cloves
Cinnamon
Poppy seeds
Green chillies
Ginger-garlic paste.
Oil

Get Cooking!

1. Soak the poppy seeds in warm water for a while.
2. Grind the poppy seeds with green chillies, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and set the masala aside.
3.Wash the rice and set aside in a colander for half hour to drain the water.
4. Sauté the onions in some oil.
5. When it becomes golden brown, add some ginger-garlic paste. Cook for a while.
6. Add the cut vegetables and sauté.
7. Then add the rice and toss it around.
8. Add the ground masala.
9. Pour in enough water to cook the rice. Add a couple of cut tomatoes, salt. mix in well.
10. Open cook till the rice is done, stirring occasionally to reduce browning up of the rice or cook in an electric cooker, stirring occasionally. Pressure cooking the rice makes it too mushy.

Tips

Instead of adding the cardamom, cinnamon and cloves to the ground masala, you could sauté it before and the add the onions.

Vazhakkai Podi

This is one delicious curry and you don’t use that much of oil

Ingredients

Raw Banana
Red chillies
Urad dal
Asafoetida
Salt
Oil

Get Cooking!

1. Grill the raw banana over a high flame. Peel and grate it.
2. In a few drops of oil, roast the red chillies, urad dal and asafoetida.
3. Grind this to a coarse powder.
4. Add this powder to the grated banana. Add salt and mix well.

Tips

Some people like to steam the raw banana,peel and grate…but I prefer grilling it as the taste according to me is way better than the steamed version. You could add a little chenna dal, black pepper seeds , roast them with chillies, urad dal and make the powder too.