Pazham Pradhaman - Vishu Special

Nendram pazham is one of my fav variety of banana. My mil buys that almost twice a week. My MIL born and brought up in Palakkad, so there will always a kerala touch in our menu. This is a perfect payasam for vishu.

Ingredients:

·         Nendram banana – 4 – ground into smooth paste

·         Jaggery – as much as the quantity of banana paste

·         Water – 2 cups

·         Semi thick Coconut milk – 1 cup

·         Ghee – 2 tbsp

·         Cashews – around 10 roughly chopped.
·         Cardamon powder - 1/4 tsp

Preparation:

Extract thick milk from half a coconut. You can also use store bought coconut milk, Or dilute store bought coconut milk with about 1 cup of water.

Roughly chop cashews and fry them in ghee till golden brown.

Cut nendram pazham into slices and grind it into smooth paste. Keep it aside

Method:

Measure same amount of jaggery as the banana paste.  1:1 ratio. You can also reduce a lil if you prefer a less sweeter version.

Heat a thick bottom vessel, add jaggery and a cup of water and let the jaggery melt completely in the water. There is no need to attain any string consistency, just melting should be fine. Switch off the stove and strain the impurities from the jaggery syrup if any.

Now in another vessel, add the banana paste and a cup of water and heat until the banana gets cooked well and attain a shiny consistency. For about 5 mins.

Add the jaggery syrup into the banana paste and let it cook for about 10 mins with occasional stirring till it starts boiling. 

Switch off the stove, add the coconut milk.

Add fried cashews.

Add cardamon powder. Mix well.

Payasam ready.

Serve it either hot or cold. 

Tamil New year Special

Tamil new year special dishes.. What are u planning?

                               Thinai Sakkarai Pongal                                Kalkandu Pongal   

  Caramel Payasam

Kavuni Arisi

Masal Vadai                                         Puliyogare

                       

       

Medhu Vadai

Cucumber Butter Milk

Summer is super-hot these days.  During week days I don’t even realize since I will be in office enjoying the AC all the time. Weekends are tiring. So to cool down myself I make a big jar of butter milk and keep it in dining table to quench my thirst.

For a change I added ground cucumber to the butter milk to enjoy a cooler version.

Ingredients:

·         Cucumber - 1 medium size

·         Butter milk – 4 cups

·         Water to dilute

·         Salt to taste

·         Chaat masala – 1 pinch.

Method:

Slice the cucumber and make it a smooth paste.

Mix the paste with butter milk, dilute with water.

Add salt and chaat masala, mix well.

Chill it and serve.

Note:

I made shrikhand on the same day, so I used the whey from shrikhand for diluting the butter milk. Do not waste the whey water, its highly nutritious.  

Jowar Roti / Chola Mavu Roti

I try to add millets in my daily food. I usually replace rice with millets. I mix millet flour with dosa / idli batter and use.  So this time included with wheat flour and made roti. Its not as soft as Normal wheat roti, but a healthy alternate.

Jowar is very recommended food for diabetic patients. Rich in fibre and protein. 

Ingredients:

·         Jowar Flour / Chola mavu / sorghum flour – 1 cup

·         Wheat flour – ½ cup

·         Salt as needed

·         Water as much as needed

·         Oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Add Jowar flour, wheat flour, salt in a wide bowl

Add hot water little by little and knead into soft dough.

Add oil and knead well again.

Cover it and let it rest for about half and hour.

Make it into small equal size balls and spread with help of rolling pin. The dough breaks easily, so roll it gently. Roll it by dusting it with dry wheat flour so that it doesn't stick in the rolling pin. I have heard that they don’t even use rolling pin for this, they use hands to spread it. But I haven't tried.

Heat a pan, cook the roti both the sides. I heated the roti a little till the moisure is gone and cooked in direct flame, that makes the work little easier.

Note:

It becomes very dry when not hot.

You can add some spices as well while kneading the dough, it improves the taste.

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.