Chenna Chawal

Nourishing rice with chick peas. Easy to make and not so tough as it looks
Serves 6 – 8

Ingredients
Basmati rice ¾ cup uncooked
Cardamom 2
Cloves 2
Cinnamon 1
Bay leaf 1
Milk ¾ cup
Salt
Chick peas ½ cup
Ginger paste 1 tsp
Garlic paste 1 tsp
Chilli powder 1 tsp
Turmeric powder ½ tsp
Fresh yogurt ½ cup
Tomatoes ½ cup chopped
Potatoes 2 chopped
Carrot 1 chopped
Green chillies 4 chopped
Ghee/ Oil
Cilantro 2 tbsp chopped
Mint leaves 1 tbsp
Fried onions 1 tbsp
Milk with a dash of saffron 1/8 cup

Get Cooking!
For the rice
1. Soak the rice in water for 30 minutes. Drain.
2. Mix ¾ cup water and milk together.
3. Add the cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, about 2 ½ tsp salt and rice and cook until almost done.
For the gravy
1. Soak the chick peas overnight (or use the canned ones after draining and washing out the excess sodium ). Next day, boil with a little water. Drain.
2. Heat the ghee/oil, add the ginger and garlic pastes and fry for a while.
3. Add the chilli powder and the turmeric (in a little water) and fry for 1 minute.
4. Add the yogurt, tomatoes, potatoes, carrot and 3 chopped green chillies and stir for a while.
5. Add the chick peas and salt.

Get Baking!
1. To the cooked rice, add the coriander, mint, 1 chopped green chilli and fried onions. Mix it up carefully
2. Put one layer of rice in a big bowl and spread a layer of chick pea gravy on top
3. Make alternate layers of rice and gravy in this manner.
4. Finally, sprinkle the saffron milk on top, cover and bake in a hot oven at 200 degree C (400 degree F) for 20 minutes.
5. When baked, turn upside down in a serving dish and serve hot with raita.

Tips
You could add other veggies like green beans, peas, cauliflower. I reduced the number of green chillies and did not add the one to the rice before baking as it gets to be too spicy. Could reduce the amount of chilli powder too.

Enna Kathirikai

Ingredients

Eggplant/ baby brinjal (preferably all of the same size & small) – 350 g
Coriander seeds 3 tsp
Chenna dal 1½ tsp
Urad dal 1½ tsp
Whole red chillies 6
Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Coconut grated
Mustard seeds
Oil

Get Cooking!

1. Roast the dals, chillies and coriander seeds in a little oil till the dals turn red.
2. Roast the coconut grating till it turns red.
3. Grind the chillies, dals, coriander seeds with salt coarsely.
4. Add the roasted coconut grating and powder it.
5. Cut the stem off the brinjal.Slit the brinjal twice taking care not to cut it completely (it should kind of look like a flower)
6. Fill this with the powder that was ground.
7. In a kadai, heat 5 to 6 tsps of oil. Crackle mustard seeds in it.
8. Place the stuffed brinjal in it. Sprinkle some water if need be.
9. Close the kadai, and keep flipping the brinjals over often till they are cooked well.
10. Garnish with cilantro, serve with rice.

Tips
If the brinjals have a lot of seeds in them, instead of sprinkling water, sprinkle some tamarind water.
An alternative stuffing is using sambhar powder, salt, a little sugar, finely chopped onions.
I tried the above recipe by baking the brinjals at around 450 deg, after spraying the stuffed brinjals with cooking spray, till they were cooked well. Tasted pretty good

Stuffed Capsicum/ Bell peppers

Ingredients

Capsicum / bell peppers
Potatoes steamed, peeled, cut into small cubes
Black beans soaked, drained, steamed with a little salt (or you can use drained canned beans )
Onions chopped
Red chilli powder
Tomatoes
Turmeric powder ¼ tsp
Mustard seeds
Salt
Oil
Spring onions
Grated cheese

Get Baking!

1. In a pan, season the mustard seeds in a little oil.
2. Add chopped onions when the mustard seeds start to crackle. Fry them till they are a little golden brown.
3. Add the tomatoes. Fry this for a minute or two. Add the black beans.
4. Add the potatoes. Add the salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, a little water
5. Mix well; cook until it becomes a solid mass, stirring it now and then such that it does not burn!
6. Cut the top of the capsicum, scoop out the seeds.
7. Spray some oil to coat the capsicum.
8. Fill the capsicum with the potato-black beans curry. Top it with some chopped spring onions and grated cheese.
9. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees
10. Place the stuffed capsicums into the oven and bake till the capsicums are cooked.

Tips

The capsicums can be fried instead of baked too. Use your imagination for the stuffing. Instead of the potato stuffing, you could use paneer, cauliflower…whatever!!!