Mysore Pak (in a jiffy)

Ingredients

Besan 1 cup
Maida 1 tsp
Ghee or clarified butter 1 cup
Sugar 2 cups
Milk 3 tbsp

Get Cooking!

1. Heat 1 cup ghee in microwave oven for 1 minute.
2. Add the besan and maida. Mix it in well and cook in the microwave oven for 1 more minute.
3. Add the sugar, milk . Mix them in and cook in the microwave oven for 1.5 mins
4. Stir well and cook in the microwave oven further for 1.5 mins..
5. Pour the mixture in to a greased plate.
6. Cut into pieces after a while into desired shapes.

Tips

I felt the amount of ghee was on the high side when I tried this recipe out for the first time, reduced the amount to ¾ , the mysore pak came out pretty well. If you feel the mysore pak is hard, more milk can be added while cooking it.

Mysore Pak

Makes 40-50 pieces

Ingredients

Besan 1.5 cups seived without lumps
Sugar 3 cups
Ghee or clarified butter 4 – 4.5 cups (about 800 – 900 gms)

Get Cooking!

1. Grease a plate and keep aside
2. Make a sugar syrup with the sugar and a little water in a heavy bottomed vessel. The final consistency should be such that if u lift the ladle and pour it, it appears like a single string (kambi paagu).
3. Pour in a ladle of ghee.
4. Put in the besan little by little stirring constantly with a flat ladle such that lumps are not formed.
5. Once the besan and the syrup combine well, add ghee little by little stirring constantly.
6. When the mixture gives out whitish bubbles with a nice smell, pour this onto the greased plate.
7. After a while, cut into pieces of desired shape.

Tips

Store after it cools down completely.

Ribbon Pakoda

A nice fried snack.

Ingredients

Besan 2 cups
Rice Flour 1 cup
Salt to taste (about 3 tsp)
Red chilli powder 3 tsp
Asafoetida
Butter/ Ghee
Oil for frying

Get Cooking!

1. Mix the above ingredients well.
2. Add a little water to make a thick pasty kind of mixture
3. Heat up the oil in a kadai for frying
4. Once the oil is warm, take the batter in sev maker with the ribbon pakoda plate (will have small slits which are parallel to each other)
5. Squeeze out the batter, swirling it around to spread it inside the oil.
6. Keep frying until the ribbon pakoda is cooked well flipping it often.

Tips

A ladle of hot oil can be used instead of the butter/ghee. Do not mix up all the flour together with water. Do so little by little, just the amount you can use in the sev maker. This way, the ribbon pakoda will not brown up and come out nicely golden brown each time.

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 😉

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 😉

Adai

Dosa variety

Ingredients

1 cup tuvar dal, chenna dal, urad dal
2 cups boiled rice or rice
Red chillies 5 or 6 or 6 green chillies
Ginger
Chopped curry leaves 1/4tsp
Asafoetida powder 1 tsp
Coconut grated (optional)
Salt to taste
Cilantro chopped
Oil for pan frying

Get Cooking!

1. Soak the dals & rice together for about 2 hours.
2. Drain and grind coarsely with the chillies, salt, cilantro, ginger, curry leaves, asafetida, coconut into a batter to make a dropping consistency.
3. Proceed to make like dosas—heat tawa or griddle, pour a little oil then some batter and spread out into a circle.
4. Make a small hole or a couple in the middle of the adai. Pour a little oil all around and a little bit in the holes. Cook on medium heat.
5. Once the bottom side is browned up (will come off clean once done), flip it over, cook until that is brown.
6. Serve with coconut chutney or milagai podi and sambhar.

Tips
Can enhance this by adding chopped onions to the batter. Some add peas or cubed, peeled potatoes in which case the adai will be thicker.
I once replaced the rice with cracked wheat, cut some tomatoes, onions and made the batter…the adai came out pretty good.
My mum asked me to soak the rice separately and the mix of dals separately and then grind them separately. This turns out real good too 😀 Easy to get the right consistency 😉

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!!!

Carrot Halwa (in a jiffy)

A mouth-watering dessert made of carrots, milk and sugar. Given below is the microwave recipe.

Serves 4 people

Ingredients

Milk ¼ cup
Carrots grated 1 cup
Sugar ½ cup
Khoa
Ghee (clarified butter) 1 tbsp

Get Cooking!

1. Microwave milk and the grated carrot on high for 4 minutes in a closed container
2. Add sugar, stir well, microwave on high for 5 minutes open
3. Add the crumbled khoa, mix and microwave for 2 or 3 minutes
4. When it becomes thick, add 1tbsp ghee, mix well, microwave for 2 minutes open
5. Allow 2 mins standing time.
6. Garnish with nuts after transferring to serving dish

Tips

If using cashew nuts, roast them and garnish. Almonds can be blanched and shredded. You could add raisins too. Green cardamom powder can be added.