Kadamba Poriyal

Kadamba poriyal is a combo of beans, carrot and cabbage poriyal. In southern Tamil Nadu, we call this poriyal as Kadamba poriyal. Its such an easy and less time consuming dish. In Tirunelveli, this poriyal is done in almost all marriages and functions. Lets see how to make this simple dish.

Ingredients:

Carrot - 2 medium sized.
Beans - 10 to 12 in numbers.
Cabbage - Less than quarter of a medium sized whole cabbage
Grated Coconut - 3 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Red Chilli - 1
Small Onion - 1 peeled
Mustard, Jeera, Chopped onions - few for seasoning

Preparation Time: 20 mins

Servings - 3 persons

Method:

Clean and cut the veggies into small pieces.

In a flat base pan, add very little oil, Once heated, add mustard, jeera. When they splutter, add onions and saute until they become brown. Now add the veggies together and add 1/4 glass of water.

In mixer, grind together coconut, jeera, red chilli and small onion into a coarse powder.

Sprinkle the coconut powder on top of the veggies. Adjust salt and cover the pan with lid.
In another 10 mins, the veggies will cook fully. Add curry leaves and then switch off the flame.

Kadamba poriyal is now ready.

Suraikkai Koottu

Suraikkai / Bottle gourd is such a good cooling agent, it can be taken often during this hot summer. It helps in weight loss also. We can prepare a variety of dishes with Bottle gourd. Today lets see a simple kootu with suraikkai.

Ingredients:

Suraikkai - 1 medium sized
Moong Dal - 1/4th of the cut quantity of bottle gourd
Green chilli - 2
Grated Coconut - 3 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Small Onion - 1 peeled
Garlic - 1 peeled, minced, for seasoning
Onion - finely chopped, for seasoning
Curry leaves - few for seasoning
Mustard, jeera - few for seasoning
Corriander leaves - few for garnish
Curry leaves - few for garnish

Preparation Time: 20 mins

Method:

Cut the bottle gourd into small pieces after peeling the skin. Wash moong dal and boil both in a pressure cooker. Let it whistle twice.

Now grind together coconut, chilli, small onion, jeera into a fine paste.

Once the bottle gourd and dal are cooked well, heat oil in a pan. Add few mustard seeds and jeera. Once they splutter, add finely chopped garlic and onion. When they turn brown in color, add the cooked suraikkai and dal to the pan. Now add the coconut paste and adjust salt. Let it boil for 5 mins. At this time, the raw smell of jeera will be gone, Add few corriander leaves and curry leaves. Switch off the flame.

Simple Suraikkai kootu is now ready. It goes very well with Kaara kulambu and rasam.

Baked Mushroom

Mushroom is fully loaded with antioxidants and health beneficial nutrients. Lets see how to make baked mushrooms. Its very time consuming too. It can be taken as a healthy evening snack.

Ingredients:

Portabella Mushrooms - 1 or 2
Pepper powder - 3 to 4 tsp
Salt - As needed
Olive oil - To toss
Lemon - 1/2

Preparation time: 15 mins

Method:

Clean and cut the mushrooms in linear size.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Now add pepper powder, salt, olive oil and squeeze lemon to the mushrooms. Mix it well and put it in the oven.

In 5 to 7 mins, turn the mushrooms upside down to cook the other side of mushrooms too.  Switch off the oven in 5 mins. 

Baked mushrooms are now ready.

Toor Dal Rice / Thuvaram Paruppu Rice

Toor Dal Rice is one of the rich protein food. Simple and healthy vegetarian dish. Lets see the recipe.

Ingredients:

Rice Preparation:
Toor Dal - 1 cup
Rice - 1 1/2 cup
Tamarind - 1 lemon sized ball
Red chilli - 6 count
Small Onion - 1 count
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Asafoetida - a generous pinch
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Seasoning:
Mustard - few
Onion - finely chopped
Curry leaves - few

Preparation Time: 30 mins

Method:

Soak tamarind in water for atleast 30 mins. Clean dal and par boil for 15 mins.Add asafoetida along with dal. While boiling, take care not to add excess water. Just add enough water for dal to boil. Once dal is boiled half way, add rice with required amount of water for rice only.

In the mean time, grind together chilli, cumin seeds and onion into a fine paste. Squeeze the soaked tamarind and prepare water which should be little thick. Make tamarind water for one cup only.

Add the ground mix and tamarind water to rice and dal. Add salt and grated coconut. Add the seasoning items into cooker and close the lid. After 3 whistles switch off the flame.

Toor Dal rice is now ready. It goes well with papad.

Mushroom Pepper Fry

Mushroom is one of the most yummy dishes and one of its kind. Lets see how to make mushroom pepper fry.

Ingredients:

Mushroom - 300 gm
Large Onion - 1, finely chopped
Ginger - 1" peice, finely chopped
Garlic - 5 to 6 cloves, finely chopped
Pepper powder - 2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Corriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Salt - As needed
Corriander leaves, curry leaves - few, finely chopped.

Preparation time: 20 mins

Method:

Clean the mushrooms and drain the water in it if any. Cut the mushrooms into medium pieces.

Chopped onions and cut mushrooms ratio could be 1: 1 1/2.

In a heavy bottom pan, heat oil. Add 3 to 4 tbsp of oil and saute ginger and garlic for few minutes.
Now add finely chopped onions to it. Add turmeric powder and salt.

Once onions are transparent in oil, add pepper powder, chilli powder, corriander powder, cumin powder and saute.

 Then add mushrooms to it. Mix the mushrooms with the already prepared dry masala. Close the pan.

No need of adding water as mushroom leaves more water when heated. Stir the contents once or twice so that masala flavor gets added in the mushroom. When the mushrooms are cooked, add corriander leaves and curry leaves.

Switch off the flame. Mushroom pepper fry is now ready.

Masala Kuzhi Paniyaram

Often we get confused what to do with left over idli / dosa batter. Here is a better way to use the batter in a different and tasty manner. We can prepare masala kuzhi paniyaram with our dosa batter itself.

Lets see how to prepare this.

Ingredients:

Idli batter - 1 cup
Large Onion -  half, chopped
Green Chilli - 3, finely chopped
Asafoetida - a large pinch
Curry leaves - very few, finely chopped
Corriander leaves - very few, finely chopped

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together and set aside for 10 minutes. In the mean time, heat the paniyaram pan in stove in medium flame.

Grease the pan with 1 tsp oil in each mould of the pan. Once oil is heated, pour the batter into each moulds and sprinkle one more tsp of oil over the batter. Close the pan with a lid. Reduce the flame to low.

After 5 minutes, turn the other side with skewer. Take care that the paniyaram is not broken. Allow to cook on other side for 3 minutes. Sprinkle some more oil if you need. Flip both sides for few seconds and remove the paniyaram from pan.

Masala Kuzhi Paniyaram is now ready.  It goes very well with Kaara Chutney or coconut chutney.

Simple Prawn Briyani

This was a quick and easy briyani than I expected.It just took less time to prepare this whole dish. Lets see this easy recipe.

Ingredients: 

Prawns - 500 gm , cleaned and deveined
Rice - 2 cups

For Briyani Masala:

Cloves  -  2 tsp

Cardamom -  2 tsp

Bay Leaves - 3

Poppy seeds - 2 tsp

Fennel seeds- 2 tsp

Cinnamon - 1 stick

Onion - 1 large

Tomato - 1 large

Green Chilli - 4 to 5
Ginger garlic paste -  1 tsp

Pudina Leaves - handful, finely chopped

Corriander leaves - handful, finely chopped

Corriander powder - 2 to 3 tsp

Chilli powder - 3 tsp

Curd - 3 tsp

Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Method:

In case of basmati rice, soak rice in water for 20 minutes and parboil rice in a separate pan. In case of normal rice, cook the rice almost completely but make sure each grain of rice is separate. While boiling rice, add 1 tsp of cloves, cardamom, bay leaf, poppy seeds, fennel seeds and cinnamon stick to the rice. Rice also gets these flavors well. Adjust salt accordingly.

In the mean time, heat oil in a pan. Once oil is heated, add 1 tsp of cloves, cardamom, poppy seeds, fennel, cinnamon, bay leaf to the pan. After they splutter, add onions. Saute onions until golden brown. Now add ginger garlic paste. Once the raw smell of the paste goes off, add pudina, corriander leaves, tomato and saute them until the tomato melts in oil. Add corriander powder and chilli powder. After few minutes of saute, add curd. Adjust salt accordingly.

Now add the cleaned prawns to masala. Let them cook for 15 minutes in low flame with closed lid. Dont add water to the masala since prawns will release water while cooking.

By this time, rice will be ready to be added to masala. Take parboiled basmati or boiled normal rice from the pan. Make sure to take out most water from rice if any. Spread rice in such a way that rice covers the whole masala evenly. Close the lid and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, switch off the flame and gently mix the rice with masala. Take care not to break the rice. Prawn briyani is now ready.