Sweet potato Halwa (SaKaravellikazhngu)

My favorite sweet, only for main reason that it had pretty less sweet content. I am not a sweet tooth person at all. its also very easy to make.

Ingredient:

Sweet potato 1
Sugar 3 spoons
butter (melted will also work) as needed
Dried grapes to garnish

Cardamom for flavoring (3)

Prep: 30 mins

Cooking time: 30 mins

Servings: 4

Method:

Pressure cook sweet potato in milk or water with a pinch of salt. (Salt is added to make the Halwa not very sweet). Once the pressure is released, peal the skin off SweetPotato and smash it such that a smooth paste is formed. 

Take a shallow flat bottomed vessel, and add sweet potato to it. Cook it until the water in it is vaporized (this is the longest process, takes about 15-20 mins). Now stir in 5 teaspoon of milk to it and cook for 5 mins.

Finally add butter and sugar (as per taste) and stir until the butter is completely melted and sugar is completely dissolved. Keep stirring until a nice aroma rises. (This takes about 5 mins)

Melt one spoon of butter or ghee, and once it is hot add dried grapes and cardamom, add it to halwa. (this is just for tempering or garnishing) 

The sweet potato halwa is ready for serving (best served when hot)!

Always the keep the heat very very very low and keep stirring often as halwas are liable to burn.

Enjoy ur hot yummy halwa

ThenKuzhal Murukku

One of my fav snack and very easy to make. 


Ingredients:
1 cup of rice flour
2 spoons of udad flour
2 spoons of besan flour
salt as needed
a pinch of asafoetida
a spoon of butter
water to kneed
oil for frying


Prep Time: 10-15 minutes. But if u making it from scratch like making the rice flour atleast a day.


Cooking time: 20 minutes
Servings: 2


Method:
Sift all the flours together using sieve to get a fine smooth dough. Add salt as per taste and asafoetida, butter and kneed the flour in to nice dough of chapathi/pizza dough consistency. Heat oil and test the oil by adding small bit of the dough, if it raises immediately. Use the thenkuzhal maker to different shapes of thenkuzhal and add it to oil. Fry until golden hue appears. 


Serve yummy thenkuzhal as snack with tea or with pudina chutney!!

Mutter Paneer

Recently when I was staring at my fridge and wondering what to make that it is not the same routine cooking, my eyes landed on the long forgotten Paneer. As i was trying to decide what to make with paneer (due to serious lack of veggies, we havenot gone vegetable shopping in a while), I noticed that I had some frozen mutter (peas) lying in my freezer. Result was this wonderful yummy side dish.


Ingredients:
Peas (Mutter) - 2 cups
Paneer (cottage cheese cut in to cubes) - 1 cup
Onion (big one)- 1 
Tomato - 3
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 3 spoons
Jeera (cumin seeds) as needed
Garam Masala, Salt, Aamchur, Kichten King Vegetable Masala, red chilli powder, (haldi) Turmeric powder as per taste and needed.


Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20-25 minutes
Servings: 5


Method: 
To salted water,add Paneer. Boil water until Paneer is soft to touch, then drain the excess water using a strainer.Leave the Paneer in teh strainer so that any remaining water will dribble out.


Add oil to a thick bottomed vessel and heat it. Add Jeera, to it and wait until it splutters. Then add, cut onion and ginger-garlic paste and saute until the onion turn translucent and the raw smell of ginger-garlic paste is gone. Now add the masalas, turmeric & chilli powder and saute for 10 secs. Add Peas to this mix and saute/cook in low flame until peas becomes soft to touch. Now add paneer, aamchur and salt. Stir and cook for 10 minutes at very low flame, then remove it from heat.


Garnish it with coriander to add aroma!


Serve with hot chappathis or naans!!

Tying Madisaar - Iyer style

I am going to go out of the usual recipe in this posting. I had a tough time finding a good site that detailed instructions regarding tying madisaar (Iyer style). So I thought of adding one post for that in this site


How to tie madisar Iyer style::

1) Grab and make a bundle on one end of the nine yards and keep it near the spinal cord and soothify the sari once around the body. (keep ur legs as aprat as possible in this step to give space for movement)
2) Bring the sari end in front of you, then grab a small portion and tie a knot just right off your navel.
3) Take the rest of the sari and pass it inbetween the legs and insert/tuck little bit at the back
4) And then soothify the sari in left hand direction once and then throw it over the right shoulder for pallu :)
madisar done..!! :D

Kasi Halwa

Paserattu and Allum chutney

Paserattu:

It is very easy to make paserattu and it makes a very healthy tiffin or breakfast.

Ingredients:

(Sprouted) Green gram/moong dal - 3cups
Green chili - 6-8
Salt to taste

Prep:
Soak green gram/ moong dal overnight or until sprout.

Procedure:

Grind the soaked moong dal along with green chili and salt in to fine batter in a grinder or blender. Add enough water to bring it in to a thick consistency.

Now take one ladle of the batter and spread it on a heated tava/gridle just like dosa/crepe. Make sure to make it not very thin or thick. After a min turn the paserattu over to cook the other side. After 30s remove and serve it with chutney.


Allum Chutney:

Allum chutney is sweet and sour ginger chutney. It goes very well with the moong based paserattu.

Ingredients:
Ginger - 2 inches
Tamarind
Jaggery
Curry leaves - 5-6
Salt to taste

Procedure:


Cut ginger in to small pieces and saute it with 1ts of channa dal, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, a pinch of asafoetida, tamarind in 2ts of heated oil in a pan. Once the raw smell of the tamarind and ginger is gone, remove the pan from heat and let it cool.

Once cold add a little amount of jaggery to the mixture and grind it in to fine paste in a blender. Then boil this paste in a thick bottomed pan. Add salt to taste. Your allum chutney is ready.


Hope u enjoy this recipe!!

Morkootu

 

Morkootu, is my hubby's fav. It is very easy and really tasty.

Ingredients:
Channa Dal - 1 cup
Toor Dal - 1 cup
Rice - a handful
Green Chili - 5-6
Coconut - 1/2 cup
White Pumpkin
Salt to taste
Curd/Buttermilk - 2 cups

Prep Time:
Soak dal and rice for 1-2 hours

Recipe:
Grind soaked dal, rice and green chilies with shredded coconut in to a nice paste in a blender.

Cut pumpkin in to small pieces and then saute it in a kadai until pumpkin is cooked (should be soft and water). Now add the dal paste to the well cooked pumpkin and boil for 5-10 mins. Then add curd to the mixture and keep stirring. (Make sure that the curd does not start thinning/separating). Heat only for about 2-3 mins. Then remove from stove. Add salt to taste.

Temper it with mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red chili (1 or 2) and curry leaves.

Your yummy Morkootu is ready. Morkootu and beans Paruppu usuli form a great combo. Hope u enjoy this recipe.