Eggless Cake

Ingredients
Flour- 2 cups
Butter/ Ghee -1¼ cups
Sweetened condensed milk- 1 tin
Water -1 cup
Vanilla essence- ½ tsp
Salt -1 pinch
Baking powder -¾ tsp
Chopped nuts- 1 cup

Get Baking!
1. Beat butter till fluffy.
2. Mix in the condensed milk, water, creamed butter, chopped nuts in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from fire and cool.
3. Sift the baking powder, flour and salt together. Add to the cake mixture and beat well.
4. Add vanilla essence; pour into a greased and well lined 8″ cake pan.
5. Bake at 150 deg C for 1½ hours.

Vegetable Cheese Cutlet

It is a good dish for a snack.

Ingredients
Grated vegetables - 1/2 cup
Grated cheese - 2 tsp
Black pepper powder - 1 pinch
Cornflour - 2 tsp
Cilantro - 1 tsp
Potato (steamed, peeled & mashed) - 1/2 cup
Bread crumbs
Maida
Salt
Butter - 1 tbsp
Ginger-garlic paste - 1tsp
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Cook the grated vegetables with a little salt & mash.
2. Heat the butter on a medium-low heat, add the ginger-garlic paste and roast till the raw smell disappears.
3. Mix in the vegetables, potato, cornflour, black pepper powder, chopped cilantro and salt
4. Once this becomes homogenous, add in the grated cheese. Switch the heat off.
5. Cool and knead this and make into cutlets.
6. Make a watery batter of maida. Dip the cutlets into this.
7. Then roll them on the bread crumbs.
8. Fry the cutlets and serve with ketchup

Tips
Paneer can replace cheese. One can use wheat flour instead of cornflour and maida.

Bisibelabath powder

This is variation the previous post

Ingredients
“Varali” turmeric - 7-8
Red chillies - 2 cups
Coriander seeds - 1 cup
Peanuts - 1 cup
Chenna Dal - ¾ cup
Urad dal - ½ cup
Dry tamarind - ½ cup
Fenugreek seeds - 1 cup
Dry curry leaves - a little
Sesame seeds - 2 tbsp
Dry coconut grating - 1 cup

Get Grinding!
1. Sun dry the peanuts and powder them with the curry leaves.
2. Dry roast the sesame seeds really well and powder.
3. Sun dry all other ingredients. Powder all
4. Mix all the powders together.

Get Cooking!
1. Take a mix of oil and ghee in a cooker, add the vegetables, the bisibelabath powder and roast.
2. Add rice-tuvar dal, salt, water (1 rice-dal:4 water)
3. Pressure cook this well.

Tips
You could use turmeric powder instead of the whole turmeric suggested.
One could avoid the tamarind and make the powder otherwise and follow the recipe for bisibelabath given earlier using this powder too

Cracked Wheat Dosa

This is a variation to the cracked wheat dosa previously posted

Ingredients
Cracked wheat - 1 cup
Urad dal - ¼ cup
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Pearl onions - 5
Green chillies - 2
Salt to taste
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the cracked wheat and the urad dal separately.
2. Grind the urad dal like one does for idli
3. Mix in the onions, jeera, green chillies, , curry leaves, cracked wheat and grind to a thick batter.
4. Mix both the batters. Add salt and forment for about a couple of hours or 3.
5. Add in water to bring the batter to dosa batter consistency.
6. Pour the batter onto a pre-heated tawa and spread it around to make a dosa.
7. Cook till it turns lightly brown on both sides adding a few drops of oil if needed. (generally not required if cooking on a non-stick tava)

Panchapandavar Vadai

Ingredients
Chenna dal 1 cup
Urad dal 1 cup
Tuvar Dal 1cup
Moong Dal 1 cup
Black eyed peas (Karamani) 1 cup
Onions finely chopped - 1 cup
Grated coconut 1/2 cup
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
Chillies
Salt
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Grind the dals to a coarse powder (rava types)
2. When required, soak this rava for about an hour. Strain away excess water.
3. Mix in the other ingredients except oil and make into a vadai batter like that in aama vadai
4. Fry the vadais up and serve.

Kollu Podi

It is said that adding horse gram once a week in our daily diet is good for health, especially those on a diet
Ingredients
Horse gram 1/4 kg
Red Chillies 5
Black pepper seeds 10 grams
Dried curry leaves 50 grams
Salt to taste

Get Cooking!
1. Clean the horse gram and sun dry it for about 3 days.
2. Dry roast red chillies, black pepper seeds, curry leaves one by one and keep aside.
3. Grind all the ingredients to a powder.
4. Serve with rice.

Tips
For those who like garlic, take about 100 mg of garlic juice, mix it with the horsegram and then sun dry the mix for about 3 days.

Kothsu

Ingredients
Brinjal/ Sorakkai cut into small cubes 1 part
Onions finely chopped 2 parts
Moong dal 1 part
Tamarind extract (say from a ball of size of “nellikai”/ marble)
Sambar Powder
Slit green chillies
Salt
Mustard seeds
Curry leaves
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Boil the moong dal in the tamarind water.
2. Add the vegetables, onions, chillies, sambar powder, salt and boil well.
3. Season with mustard seeds and curry leaves.
4. Serve with idlies or spicy pongal.

Batata chakli

Ingredients
Rice flour
Potatoes
Chilli powder
Salt
Ajwain
Asafoetida
Turmeric powder
Cumin powder
Ghee
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Grate the potatoes and puree it in a mixer.
2. Mix rice flour, turmeric powder, chilli powder, cumin powder, ajwain, a little asafoetida, salt, raw pureed potatoes and about half cup of ghee.
3. Knead into a nice dough. Keep it aside for 20 - 30 minutes.
4. Put it into the greased press and fry out the chaklis till they are golden brown

Manju Cake

Ingredients
Poppy seeds 5 parts
Sugar 5 parts
Ghee 2 parts
Cardamom powder
Kesari powder (optional)
Milk (preferably cow’s milk)
Cashew nuts 2 parts

Get Cooking!
1. Clean the poppy seeds of impurities and soak it in sufficient amount of milk for 3 hours.
2. Drain the excess milk and grind it to a soft paste almost like butter.
3. Add cardamom powder, cashew nuts, kesari powder to the paste.
4. Take ghee in a heavy bottomed vessel on low heat, add the paste, sugar and mix in well.
5. Keep stirring on a low heat till the mix becomes homogenous and thick.
6. Pour this onto a greased plate and cool it down
7. Cut them into desired shapes and serve.

Jeeraga Rasam

Just another way to make jeeraga rasam

Ingredients
Tuvar Dal
Red chillies
Cumin seeds
Tomatoes
Tamarind extract
Salt
Turmeric powder
Mustard seeds
Oil

Get Cooking!
1. Soak the tuvar dal.
2. Grind the soaked dal, red chillies, cumin seeds and tomatoes.
3. Boil the tamarind extract, salt, turmeric powder.
4. Add the ground paste and boil this.
5. Add in more water and let it boil over.
6. Season with mustard seeds.

Tips
Do not add asafetida or black pepper seeds.