Oats- Rava tabilabilla

Variation to the tabilabilla.

Ingredients

Rava ½ cup
Oats ½ cup
Tuvar dal 1 tbsp
Chenna dal 1 tbsp
Urad dal ½ tbsp
Jeera about 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Red chillies
Green chillies
Ginger
Mustard seeds
Asafoetida
Oil

Get Cooking!

1. Soak the tuvar dal, chenna dal and urad dal for a while. Grind to a coarse paste with the jeera and keep aside.
2. Dry roast the rava. Mix it in with the oats
3. Saute some mustard seeds, the chillies in some oil. Add the ginger.
4. Pour in 2 cups of water. Let it boil.
5. When it boils, add the dals paste while stirring. Add salt.
6. Then add the oats-rava slowly taking care that no lumps are formed.
7. Keep stirring, till the oats-rava is cooked.
8. Let this cool down a bit.
9. Make small patties with the oats-rava-dal mix that has been cooked.
10. Heat a tawa, place the tabalabilla on the tawa, cook them on both sides, pouring a little oil around them, flipping them now and then
12. Once both sides are golden brown, take them off the tawa. Repeat this with the rest of the mix.
11. Serve with chutney, sambhar.

Mysore Bonda

Ingredients
Urad Dal ½ cup
Chenna Dal 1-2 tsp
Salt to taste
Green Chillies
Black pepper seeds
Coconut cut into thin small slices
Ginger
Curry leaves
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the two dals separately. Drain the excess water.
2. Grind the salt, green chillies, ginger, urad dal to a smooth batter using no water as much as possible. If need be, sprinkle water.
3. Mix in the curry leaves, soaked & drained chenna dal & the black pepper seeds.
4.Heat oil in a wok on medium heat.
5.Wet your palms, roll the batter into a ball (say the size of a small golf ball) and drop into the oil.
6. Flip the bondas so they are uniformly cooked. Take them out when they are golden brown.
7. Place on tissue to drain the excess oil.
8. Serve with ketchup , chutney and /or sambhar.

Tips
To get the right consistency of the batter, put a drop of it in a bowl containing water; if it floats, then it is the right consistency else it has to be ground a little more.

Cutlet

Ingredients

Potatoes  boiled, peeled & mashed
Chick peas/Chenna   soaked,boiled, drained & mashed (or use the canned ones: drain, rinse & mash well)
Tomatoes  finely chopped
Beans finely chopped
Onions finely chopped
Peas
Carrots grated
Cahew nuts
Peanuts
Salt
Chilli powder
Garam masala /Chat masala
Cilanto chopped
Wheat flour
Oats flour (grind oats in a mixer)
Bread crumbs
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Nuke the onions, beans, tomatoes, peas in the microwave separately.
2. Mix in all the ingredients except oil & bread crumbs to make a thick mix. Add as little or no water as possible.
3. Make into patties.
4. Roll the patties to cover them completely with bread crumbs.
4. Shallow fry/ grill (some even deep fry) the patties.

Tips
I had no bread nor bread crumbs. So, I rolled the patties in dry roasted rava and used a kuzhipaniyaram kadai to get the cutlets done. They came out nice and crisp on the outside and soft in the inside You could add grated cheese to make the patty too. The ingredients one adds to make the patty is left to imagination and availability. Potatoes, chenna add bulk. The flours help bind everything. I remember having cutlets that had raisins in them too.

Vadai Pachadi

Ingredients
Vadai Batter
Yogurt
Mustard seeds
Urad dal
Oil
Curry leaves
Asafoetida
Salt to taste

Get Cooking!
1. Heat some oil in a kadai on low flame.
2. Drop small globules (say a teaspoonful) of vadai batter into the oil carefully.
3. Beat some yogurt with a wee bit of salt; add the globular vadais into the yogurt.
4. Season it with mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and asafoetida.

Tips
You could grind some grated coconut with green chillies,ginger. Add this to the yogurt and mix it up.

Vadai

Ingredients
Urad dal
Salt
Green chillies
Curry leaves
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the urad dal well (say about 45 mins to an hour). Drain the excess water by placing it in a colander.
2. Grind this dal with salt, green chillies. Try not adding water at all; if you have to, sprinkle ice cold water. The batter must become smooth and not watery.
3. Add the curry leaves. Mix well.
4. Heat some oil in a kadai on a low heat.
5. Wet your palms, place some batter on them; flatten it out, make a hole with your finger. Put it into the oil carefully.
6. Add enough vadais depending on the quantity of oil taken.
7. When the vadais are half done, take them out and set aside. Do the next set.
8. Now, take the set that has been kept aside; deep fry till they turn golden brown. This is to make them nice & crispy.
9. Do this to the entire ground batter.

Tips
You could add some ginger/ red chillies while grinding the batter. You could also add chopped onions. Make some rasam and place the vadais in the rasam to make rasa vadais or in sambhar to make sambhar vadais

Adai Appam

Ingredients

Adai Batter

Get Cooking!

1. Pour a drop of oil in ur kuzhipaniyaram kadai (appakadai!?). Pour in the adai batter.

2. Cook for a few minutes till it turns golden brown on a low-medium heat.

Tips

All tips given for adai batter can be followed

Dakshini Crisps

Serves 4

Ingredients

Bread Slices 4
Potato 1
Rava 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Onion ½ finely chopped
Tomato ½ deseeded & finely chopped
Curry leaves 2 tbsp finely chopped
Mustard seeds ½ tsp

Get Cooking!

1. Wash the potato, cook, peel and mash well.
2. To the potato, add onion, tomato, curry leaves, salt, pepper. Mix well.
3. Add the rava and mix lightly.
4. Spread the potato mixture on the bread slices, keeping the edges neat.
5. Sprinkle some mustard seeds over the potato mixture, pressing down gently.
6. Keep the bread in the grill and cook for about 15 minutes or till the bottom of the slice gets crisp.
7. Cut the toast into smaller pieces in the shape desired.
8. Serve with tomato ketchup or mustard sauce.

Tip(s)
You could use chilli powder/curry powder/ chat masala instead of pepper.
You could cook the potato in the microwave oven placing it in a plastic bag, microwave for 3 minutes. Peel and mash.
Grated carrots, paneer, cheese, small cubes of capsicum -top with any like this..let imagination run

Khandvi

This is a Gujarati dish.  A friend of mine calls this with a very unappetising but kinda apt name “toilet paper rolls”

Ingredients
Besan ¾ cup
Yogurt ¾ cup
Green chilli- ginger paste 1 tsp
Turmeric powder ¼ tsp
Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Mustard seeds 1 tsp
White sesame seeds 1tsp
Red chillies 2
Curry leaves
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Whisk the yogurt with a cup of water.
2. Add the besan, green chilli-ginger paste, a pinch of asafoetida, salt and turmeric powder. Mix well to get a smooth consistency without lumps.
3. Transfer this to a kadai, cook this on a low heat sitrring constantly to avoid lumps. Cook till the batter becomes a little thick.
4. On a non-stick griddle (tava), pour out the batter and spread the batter out like one spreads icing on a cake. Make the layer thin.
5. Cook this on a low flame till the batter changes colour and obtains a kind of transparent look (which means the besan is cooked.)
6. Cool it. Cut into thin strips and roll the cooked batter up like a toilet roll
7. Make this with all the batter.
8. Season this with the mustard seeds, sesame seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida and red chillies.

Tip(s)
Garnish with grated coconut, chopped cilantro and squeeze some lime juice.

Butternut squash soup

Ingredients
Butternut squash 1 medium sized, peeled & chopped
Onion 1 cup chopped
Carrots 1 cup chopped
Vegetable stock
Cream
Oil (preferably olive oil) 3 tbsp
Honey 3 tbsp
Ginger 2 tsp grated
Turmeric
Nutmeg powder
Salt
Pepper

Get Cooking!
1. Sauté the squash, onions & carrots in oil on medium heat for about 5 minutes
2. Add the stock, ginger, honey, turmeric, nutmeg. Simmer till the squash is tender, about 20-30 minutes on medium heat.
3. Blend all this till smooth, return to heat.
4. Add cream, salt, pepper to taste.
5. Simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes.

Javarisi Kichidi

Nutritious, delicious and very easy to prepare!Serves 4

Ingredients
Javarasi 1 cup
Roasted peanuts ½ cup crushed
Medium size potatoes 2 peeled and cut into cubes
Cumin seeds ½ tsp
Green chillies 2 slit
Oil 2 tbsp or less
Salt to taste

Get Cooking!
1. Wash the sago. Drain and keep aside for about 2 hours. Sprinkle a little water to moisten the sago now and then if necessary.
2. In a glass bowl, combine the oil, cumin seeds, green chillies and potatoes. Cover and microwave on HIGH for 2 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
3. Add the soaked sago, peanuts and salt and mix well. Cover and microwave on HIGH for 2 minutes.
4. Serve hot with green chutney or curds.