Thiratupaal

Ingredients
Milk – lots of it (at least 1.5 to 2 litres)
Sugar/Jaggery

Get Cooking!
1. In a huge thick bottomed vessel (preferably non-stick ), pour in the milk. The size of the vessel should be such that it can contain twice the amount of milk taken such that the milk does not boil over and spill or splatter around.
2. On a low heat, boil the milk taken stirring occasionally to avoid browning.
3. When the milk mostly solidifies, add sugar/jaggery amounting to about ¾ths the amount of solidified milk in the vessel.Mix it in well.
4. Keep heating this stirring now and then till the mixture gets solidified and bubbles up.

Tips
Some add cardamom powder but I personally prefer just this as it tastes pretty yummy Typically a good dish to prepare in a slow cooker. A sweet that does not require much attention just the occasional stirring Just right for lazy bones like me

Thukda

Ingredients
Rava ½ cup
Salt to taste
Chilli powder ½ tsp
Asafoetida
Water
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Mix in the rava, chilli powder, salt and asafoetida. Sprinkle some water to just wet the sooji mixutre.
2. Set aside for a while (say 15 minutes)
3. If the mix is too dry, sprinkle more water while kneading to make a dough like that for puris.
4. Put this into a mixer and using the whip button; grind the dough to make it a little smooth.
5. Take a ball of the dough and roll out into a thin chapati. Roll a pizza cutter(or a serrated rolling cutter) and make small diamond/square pieces
6. Heat some oil in a kadai on a low heat.
7. When the oil is hot enough (a small ball of the dough should rise up when thrown into the oil), put in the cut pieces of the roti.
8. Deep fry the thukda till the bubbles subside; tossing them around to cook them till they are cooked and crispy.
9. Take them out and place on tissue to absorb the excess oil. Then store in an airtight container.

Tips
You could do this with maida where in, it is not necessary to run the batter in the mixer. Just replace rava with maida and make the dough like you would for puris.

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

Rice -Coconut Payasam

Ingredients

Rice 1 tbsp
Coconut ¼ grated finely
Sugar
Cashew nuts
Raisins
Cloves
Saffron
Milk
Cardamom powder
Ghee (clarified butter)

Get Cooking!

1. Soak the rice for about an hour or so.
2. Drain the rice of water. Grind the rice with the coconut to a smooth fine paste..
3. Mix this paste into some water and heat over a medium-low heat in a heavy bottomed vessel.
4. Keep stirring to avoid lumps till the solution becomes a bit transparent.
5. Add in the sugar and stir it in, heating till the raw smell of sugar disappears. Then switch the heat off.
6. Put a couple of strands of saffron in a tbsp or 2 of warm milk. Pour this into the payasam.
7. Ghee roast the cloves, raisins, cashew nuts. Add to the payasam.
8. Garnish with cardamom powder.

Tips
You could add some milk too

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.

Chakkara Pongal

Ingredients
Rice 1 cup
Moong Dal 1/4 cup
Milk
Jaggery 2 cups (can use more or less according to taste)
Cashew nuts
Raisins
Grated coconut (optional)
Nutmeg powder
Cardamom powder
Saffron
Green camphor (literal translation from tamil ) (optional)
Ghee

Get Cooking!
1. Dry roast the moong dal till it is lightly golden brown till you get a nice aroma.
2. Wash the rice and moong dal.
3. Pressure cook the rice-dal with (double the volume of the rice-dal mix or more) milk-water mix.
4. While the rice-dal gets cooked, dissolve the jaggery in a little water.
5. Once the rice-dal is cooked well, mash it well. Add a few spoons of ghee.
6. Mix in the dissolved jaggery.
7. Roast the cashew nuts, raisins, grated coconut in some ghee till the nuts are golden brown in colour. Add some nutmeg powder to this and then add all to the pongal.
8. Soak a couple strands of saffron and then add this to the pongal and mix.
9. Add some cardamom powder, green camphor and mix well.

Tips
The amount of milk in the milk-water ratio is upto you.

Noori Petti Payasam

Arachuvitta payasam in tamil

Ingredients
Rice 1 tsp
Moong dal
Coconut ½ grated finely
Sugar/ Jaggery
Milk
Cardamom powder
Cashew nuts

Get Cooking!
1. Dry roast the moong dal and soak it with the rice.
2. Grind this with the grated coconut to a fine paste.
3. Put this paste into a heavy bottomed vessel, stir on a low heat continuously.
4. Put in the sugar/ jaggery.
5. When it becomes a homogenous mixture, add in the boiled milk.
6. Stir well, allow to boil.
7. Garnish with cardamom powder and ghee-roasted cashew nuts.

Deepavali marundu

Generally given with savouries on Deepavali day. This aids in digestion, so can be given if suffering from indigestion too.

To make lehiyam to amount to a small coconut the following is the recipe.

Ingredients

Black pepper seeds 2 tsp
Cumin seeds 2 ½ tsp
Coriander seeds 2 ½ tsp
Oregano seeds ¼ cup (around 25 g)
Kandathippili (Thesavaram) 10 – 12 sticks
Dry ginger piece about the size of a quarter
Cardamom 2
Ghee ¼ cup
Jaggery about 100 g (about equal amount to the ground paste)

Get Cooking!

1. Grind all the herb ingredients coarsely.
2. Soak the above powder in water for about 10 – 15 minutes.
3. Grind the soaked herbs to a soft paste sprinkling the water in which it was soaked little by little.
4. Add about ½ cup water and mix up to get kozhambu consistency.
5. Pour the above into a heavy-bottomed vessel (like an uruli or stone vessel), cook on slow heat stirring such that it does not get burnt up.
6. Once this becomes thick after the water evaporates, put in the jaggery pieces and stir.
7. Add in the ghee little by little.
8. Take off the heat when it starts bubbling, and it becomes a nice mixture.

Tips

If you don’t have all the ingredients, do it with whatever you have. I always seem to not have kandathippili