Shrikhand

Shrikhand is nothing but the sweetened yogurt, here I have added saffron for little flavoring.
This is perfect for summer and kids will love this creamy sweet treats.

Ingrediants:

·         Hung Curd - 1 cup

·         Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp or less

·         Sugar / Honey / Or both- 2 tbsp

·         Saffron - few strands

·         Milk - 1 tsp (for dissolving saffron)

·         Pistachios – few chopped for Garnishing

Method:

·         Put the saffron strands in the warm milk for 10 mins for it to get the flavour.

·         Hang the curd in a muslin cloth for 1/2 hr till the whey water is out.

·         Transfer the hung curd into a bowl, Add sugar/Honey, cardamom powder, saffron strands with milk and churn it for 1 minute with a hand blender.

·         Transfer it to serving bowl

·         Slice the badams and pista and Garnish it.

·         Refregirate and serve.

Note:

·         Shrikandh tastes good, if the curd is not sour

·         Adjust the sugar according to the sourness of the curd.

·         Different flavour Shrikandh can be done, Mango, Strawberry etc. Instead of saffron, add the fruit pulp.

·         Do not discard the whey water; it can be used for diluting butter milk or in gravies. Its protein and calcium rich.

Jevvarisi Vadam / Sago Papad

Javvarisi vadam / Sago Pappad. is the easiest vadam.  I highly recommend this for beginners.

Y means..

·         Zero preparation. Yes, u heard me right. You need not prepare anything ahead. Get set go.

·         It doesn’t require vadam nazhai  / Hand Machine.  So those who does not have vadam nazhai can attempt this vadam and get good results.

·         Another advantage is it doesn’t require much of continuos tough stirring that is involved in the other arisi mavu / rice flour vadam.

·         Knowing when the vadam mavu is cooked is much easier than the other varieties of vadam.

·         Easy to store. This wont be so brittle as the other varieties. So storing them is much easier.

The below ingredients makes about 80 medium sized vadam.

Ingredients:

·         Jevvarisi / Sabudhana / Tapioca Pearls – 3 cups. (About ½ kg. Mavu variety, the one which is white in color)

·         Water – 12 cups
·         Coconut Oil - 1 tbsp

·         Green chili – 12 ( Can be changed according to ur taste, this is medium spicy)

·         Salt to taste

·         Lemon Juice from a big lemon.

Method:

Wash the Jevvarisi well and drain the water. No soaking required. Because when you soak, you wont get the perfect pearly texture.

Heat a thick bottom vessel in high flame and pour the 12 cups of water. . (1:4 is the ratio for jevvarisi and water)

Add a tbsp of coconut oil. Let it boil well. 

Add the Jevvarisi to that and cook for about 25 minutes changing from medium and high now and then with occasional stirring. The stirring prevents from jevvarisi  sticking in the bottom.

While it is getting cooked, grind the green chilies and salt to a smooth paste.

Once the pearls looks little transparent, add the chili paste and mix well. Switch off the stove. You can add some water while grinding too.  No harm with extra water.

Let it cool down well for about 30 minutes. The mavu will get more thickness when it is cooled down. Squeeze the lime  and mix well. Check for salt and add if required.

Now with a help of small ladle pour it in a plastic sheet and spread evenly. Let it dry in a sun for the whole day and in the evening flip the sides and bring it inside home and spread it in the paper without much overlapping.  

Next day again keep it in the sun and let it dry completely without any moisture.

Store it in big containers in dry place.

Deep fry and serve when required.

We also make a tomato version of this.

Ingredients:

·         Jevvarisi / Sabudhana / Tapioca Pearls – 3 cups. (About ½ kg. Mavu variety, the one which is white in color)

·         Water – 12 cups
·         Coconut Oil - 1 tbsp

·         Red chili – 10 ( Can be changed according to ur taste, this is medium spicy)

·         Tomato – 6 (Well ripe, juicy ones. Not the ones used for salads and sandwiches)

·         Salt to taste

Method:

Wash the Jevvarisi well and drain the water.

Heat a thick bottom vessel in high flame and pour the 9 cups of water. . (1:3  is the ratio for jevvarisi and wate. It is different from the normal version as tomato juice will have water content.)

Add oil and let it boil well. 

Add the Jevvarisi to that and cook for about 25 minutes changing from medium and high now and then with occasional stirring. The stirring prevents from jevvarisi  sticking in the bottom.

While it is getting cooked, grind the tomatoes ,red chilies and salt to a smooth paste.

Once the pearls look transparent, add the tomato chili paste, mix well and switch off the stove.

Then follow the same procedure for drying it. See the high level protection.

Note:  

·         You can add color to these and make color vadams. But we don’t use much food colors at home, so make it plain.

·         In my mother’s place, we soak and grind the jevvarisi and make vadams. That will give more quantity, but the texture won’t be the same.  My Badma chithi (Mom’s sis) will make no soak version which I used to like so much during my child hood, so I prefer no soak method.

·         Check the weather forecast a day before itself. Make sure you do this on a sunny day. Suddenly when i was drying it, there was a drak cloud which scared me like hell.

Kesar Badam Kulfi

We are experiencing a peak summer already in Chennai and not sure how worse it will be during May.

Summer Holidays for my daughter, so I stock some popsicles in the freezer so that she relishes them in the boring afternoon watching Ninja Hatori. Ding Ding.

This is a 2 in 1 recipe. You can use the recipe for both Basundi and Kulfi

Ingredients:

·         Milk – 1.5 liters

·        Condensed Milk –I used half tin of 200 ml - amul mithai mate, I dint measure it accurately. You can add as much as thickness you would need.

·        Kesar / Saffron strands – 10

·        Badam Milk Mix – 2 tbsp (Optional). This badam milk mix was lying unused in my fridge near the expiry, so used to improve the thickness.

·        Nuts  - a fistful  - Roughly chopped - (Pistachios,  Cashews, Almonds)

Method:

Take a thick bottom, nonstick pan and boil the milk. Take 2 tbsp of milk in small cup and soak the saffron strands.

Let the milk Boil well, for about 30 mins changing the flame between medium and low, low and medium with occasional stirring.

Add the condensed milk and keep boiling and stirring till the milk reduce to the half the volume. It takes about 1.5 hours.

I used toned milk, you may get the result in 1 hr if you use full cream milk.

The longer we boil, the creamier the result will be.

Now add the Badam Milk mix, this is the short cut for getting a thicker consistency.  You can skip this step if you don’t have the stock or you can also add milk powder.

Add the nuts

Add the Kesar milk along with kesar we soaked and stir for about 5 mins and switch off the stove and take enough rest.

Let it cool completely.

You can either serve it as Basundi by chilling it. Or deep freeze in molds and serve as Kulfis.

I prepared this in the evening and I was tired, so excuse the poor quality Basundi picture.

Note:

- There is no need for sugar as condensed milk has sugar content already.

Sri Rama Navami

Srirama navami is Lord Ram’s bday. It is celebrated grand both in my home town and my husband’s.  But after coming to Chennai everything have become so dull. There is no celebration spirit. But I don’t want to give up, I want my daughter to see and enjoy, like enjoyed my childhood. So I make sure I do all the routines my mom did.

 Its good to fast on this day and eat these vrat foods.

·         Panakam (Spiced diluted jaggery syrup)

·         Neer more (Spiced butter milk)

·         kosumbari ( carrot salad with soaked moong dal)

Panakam:

Ingredients :

·         Jaggery – ¼ cup

·         Water – 3 cups

·         Dried ginger powder / Chukku podi – ¼ tsp

·         Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp
·         Lemon Juice - 1 tsp

Method :

Heat kadai, add jaggery and water. Mix well. Let the jaggery melt. Switch off the stove. This step is purely to remove the dirt from jaggery if any. Strain the mixture.

Add dried ginger powder and cardamom powder and lemon juice. Now panakam is ready for neivedyam.

Neer More:

Ingredients :

·         Butter Milk – 3 cups (Or u can dilute curd with water and blend well)

·         Salt to taste

·         Asofitida – ¼ tsp

·         Curry leaves and coriander leaves finely chopped as much as needed

·         Ginger – 1 inch small piece

·         Green chili – 1

Method:

Grind ginger and Green chili into fine paste.

Mix salt, Asofitida, chopped leaves, ginger chili paste to the butter milk well.

Kosumbari:

Ingredients :

·         Carrot – 2

·         Moong dal – 1/2 cup

·         Cooking oil – 1 tsp

·         Mustard seeds – 1 tsp.

·         Green chili – 1 (Chopped finely)

·         Curry leaves – Few

·         Grated coconut – 2 tbsp

·         Salt to taste

·         Asofetida / Hing – ¼ tsp
·         Lemon Juice - 1 tbsp

Method:

Wash and soak Moong dal for an half an hour in warm water. Drain well.

Grate the carrots and keep it aside.

Heat a kadai, add oil , once heated, add mustard seeds and let it crackle.

Add curry leaves, chopped green chilies and grated coconut and mix it well.

Add salt and hing. Switch off the stove .Add the Moong dal and mix well. Squeeze lime .

Finally add the carrot and give a stir.

Cut Mango Pickle / Manga Oorugai

This is the easiest and yummiest pickle one can ever make.  No waiting time, it can be consumed just after the preparation, it tastes best when fresh. Only disadvantage of this is the shelf life, it holds up good only for 4-5 days.

Very simple ingredients and can be prepared in jiffy.

Ingredients:

·         Raw Mango – 1 (Preferably Kili mookku Manga variety)

·         Gingely Oil – 2 tbsp

·         Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

·         Chili Powder – 1 tsp (Can be altered according to the taste)

·         Asofitida / Hing / perungayam powder – ¼ tsp

·         Salt to taste

Method :

Chop the Raw mango into small pieces,  shown below and transfer into a bowl. Discard the seed.

Add salt and chili powder.

Heat gingely oil in a kadai, once heated, add the mustard seeds. Let it crackle. Add hing and switch off the stove. Now transfer this seasoning to the mango bowl. Mix everything well and transfer to a dry bottle. Refrigerate.

The pickle tastes best with curd rice.

Shelf life is 4 to 5 days when refrigerated.