Chettinadu Mandi

This is a signature Chettinadu side dish and always takes an important place in our Vazhai-elai saapadu [banana-leaf lunch]. I am huge fan of this side dish and so is S. I could get away without making anything else for lunch when we have mandi. Curd rice, mandi and appalam is an awesome combination for a very satisfying lunch.

You would be surprised at what forms the base of this dish. Mandi/Arisi Mandi is the water collected when you wash idli rice. You could collect this water while making idli batter or dosai batter and refrigerate it for later use. This arisi mandi water is what makes the dish very tasty and quite unique. I would highly recommend you to try this dish , its a guaranteed hit. :-)

Mandi

Ingredients

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy
Prep Time - 20 min
Cook time - 15 min

Arisi Mandi - 3 cups
Shallots/sambar onion - 15 , peeled and chopped lengthwise.
Garlic - 15 , peeled , don't chop it.
Green chilli - 4, slit lengthwise and cut in half
Potato - 1, chopped into medium sized pieces
Radish - 1 , sliced into thin pieces
Beans - 5 , cut into medium sized pieces
Drumstick - 1 , cut into medium sized pieces
Ladies finger - 5, cut into medium sized pieces
Tamarind - size of a small lemon, extract juice from this and keep aside.
Oil - 2 Tbsp
Mustard - 1 Tsp
Fennel - 1 Tsp
Curry Leaves - 2 sprigs

When you make idli batter or dosai batter, before soaking idli rice, wash 3 cups of this rice once very lightly and drain. Add 3 cups water to this rice and soak for 10 minutes. Now what you need to do is dip your hand into the bowl and wash the rice well so you get a foggy water. Try to wash as much as possible to get a thick arisi mandi. Now collect this water and refrigerate and use while making mandi. This water would stay good for about 2 days.

Its not necessary to use all the above veggies, you could use 3-4 from the list. Other vegetables like mochai, avarkai , keerai can be included. No English veggies like carrot/cauliflower/cabbage etc should be used.

How do you do it

Firstly mix bhindi/ladies finger with 1 tsp oil , 1/4 tsp salt and microwave on high for 4-5 minutes. Keep aside. This is to make sure the bhindi gets cooked easily without being slimy later.

Take 1 cup of Arisi Mandi and mix with the tamarind juice and keep aside.

Heat oil in a kadai. Add mustard, let it splutter. Add fennel,curry leaves now. Then add in the onions, garlic. Saute for a couple of minutes. Add green chilli , saute till onions are translucent.Add in the bhindi now and make sure they are cooked well , it should not be gooey. Now add in all the other veggies except for potato and saute for 2 minutes. Add the 2 cups of arisi mandi now. When the mandi starts to boil, add in the potato pieces too. When the potatoes are half cooked, add the tamarind water mixed with mandi , salt and cook on medium-low flame until all veggies are cooked well. Let the curry boil at the end for about 2-3 more minutes before switching off flame. The consistency of the mandi is such that its neither too thick nor too watery. So if its too thick, add water , boil for few more minutes, if its too watery, continue simmering until curry thickens.

Serve with curd rice and appalam. 

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Vengaya-Poondu Kuzhambu/Onion-garlic Kuzhambu

Many a times I get bored with the dal based sambar and long for kara kuzhambu. Especially when I make some poriyal/paruppu usili or dal based sides I long for this one. So here is the recipe of a spicy vengayam-poondu [Onion-garlic] Kara Kuzhambu. I made some modifications to my basic chettinadu kara kuzhambu recipe and it turned out very yum. :)


Vengaya Poondu Kara Kuzhambu

Ingredients

Serves - 3
Spice Level - quite spicy

Small onion/shallots/sambar onion - 15
Garlic cloves - 15
Tomato - 1 chopped into small pieces
Tamarind - 1 big lemon sized ball
Curry leaves - 2 sprig
Mustard seeds - 1 Tspn
Sambar/Kuzhmabu powder - 3 Tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tspn
Salt - as per taste.
Fenugreek - 1 tspn
Jeera - 1 tspn
Hing - 1/2 Tspn
Oil - 4 tbspn

To roast and grind

Oil - 1 tspn
Cumin/Jeera - 1 Tspn
Coriander seeds - 1 Tbspn
Dry Red chilli - 3
Khus Khus - 1 Tspn
Coconut grated - 2 Tbspn


Method


Firstly heat a kadai with 1 tsp oil and roast the ingredients in the same order as given under "To roast and grind". Cool it and blend with little water to a fine paste and keep aside.

Extract thick tamarind juice out of the tamarind piece, add 2.5 cups of water to the extract. Add 3 Tbsp of sambar/Kuzhambu powder to the tamarind-water mix and dissolve well and keep aside.

Now heat a pan with 4 Tbsp oil. Add hing, mustard - let it roast. Add cumin seeds, fenugreek and let it roast. Add curry leaves, shallots and garlic and saute well till the shallots and garlic are cooked well. The raw smell of the garlic has to vanish and shallots must turn pink.Now add the chopped tomatoes, a pinch of salt and turmeric powder and let the tomatoes get cooked well.Once the tomatoes are mashed well, add the tamarind-water-powder solution to the kadai , add remaining salt, the ground paste and mix well. Add more salt/kuzhambu powder if needed at this stage. Close the kadai with a lid, move flame to low and let it boil in low heat. Once the kuzhmabu thickens, or is reduced to 1/3rd of initial quantity , or when the oil starts floating on top, remove from flame. This will take 15-20 minutes.Be patient.

Serve with hot steamed rice and some poriyal of your choice. A very satisfying lunch indeed. :)



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Pongal Kara Kuzhambu

I usually call this preparation of my mom's as "Pongal Kuzhambu" and this tops my list of favorites. This is made during the time of Thai Pongal (Tamil festival of harvest) and it tastes so divine. The specialty of this dish is the variety of vegetables used and hence tastes much better than your normal kara kuzhambu.No "English vegetables" must be used for this Kuzhambu.

Pongal Kuzhmabu

Ingredients

Note: We normally use all of these vegetables listed below. But you could still try it with any 5-6 vegetables from the below list [discounting potato] and I promise you it will taste brilliant. A strict no to veggies like beetroot/cabbage/cauliflower/carrots/peas etc.

Serves - 4
Spice level - Medium

Shallots - 15 peeled, and each shallot cut into 2
Garlic cloves - 10
Tomato - 1 large chopped
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
Drumstick - 2 cut into 10 pieces
Potato - 1 cut into medium sized pieces
Mochai [Field beans] - 1/2 cup
Karamani [Yard Long beans]- 5 chopped
beans - 5 chopped
Pumpkin - 4-5 medium sized pieces
Radish - 1 medium- cut into pieces
Avarkai [Flat beans] - 5 cut into pieces
Tamarind - size of a large lemon, extract thick juice from it.

Mustard - 1 Tbspn
Fenugreek -1 Tspn
Jeera - 1 Tbspn
Urad dal - 1 Tspn
Salt - to taste
Sambar/Kuzhambu powder - 4 Tbspn
Coriander powder - 1 Tbspn
Oil - 6 Tbspn


Method

Firstly, extract thick tamarind juice and mix 1.5 cups of water to it. Add the kuzhambu powder and coriander powder to it and make sure they dissolve well and keep aside.

Take a pressure cooker vessel and heat about 6 Tbspn of oil.Add mustard, and when it crackles, add in the fenugreek seeds, cumin , urad dal, and curry leaves and let them roast.Add shallots ,garlic cloves and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add in the tomato pieces and saute till it becomes soft and lets out juice.Now throw in all the vegetables and mix well with the onion-tomato mix.Add in the tamarind extract mixture prepared before.Mix well. Now add another 2 cups of water and salt. Make sure the water level in the cooker is well above the vegetables. Now close the cooker with its lid and pressure cook for 15 minutes. Cook at high flame until the first whistle and then sim the stove and cook for remaining time.After the cooker cools, open the lid, let the kuzhambu boil for another 15-20 minutes until it thickens.Add more salt/water/kuzhambu powder if needed and boil again to get desired consistency and switch off flame.

Serve hot with rice and appalam.


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Vendakai Pachadi/ Ladies Finger Lentil Curry

I am always reminded of my bachelorette days in bangalore with my two wingies from university- Nivi and Soumi when i make Vendaikai Pachadi . They were quite fond of this preparation of mine, and this post is dedicated to the two of them and to our lovely Indira Nagar days in Bangalore :)

Vendaikai Pachadi

Ingredients

Shallots - 10 chopped
Green chilli - 2-3 , slit length wise and cut in half
Ladies Finger - 1 cup chopped
Toor Dal - 1/4 cup , pressure cooked with a pinch of turmeric, dal must be slightly mashable.
Tamrind extract - 4-5 Tbspn
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Jeera - 1 tspn
Mustard - 1 tspn
Hing - a pinch.
Salt - as per taste
Oil - 2tsp + 4tbspn
water - 1 cup

Method

For most of us who cook bhindi, the first thing that probabaly comes to mind is the gooey-ness of it and the time it takes for the bhindi to cook for that gooey thing to disappear. So here is a method that is faster and easier to cook bhindi properly if you have a micowave oven.

In a glass bowl, toss the chopped bhindi,add  2 tspn of oil, 1 tspn salt  mix well, and heat it for 5 mins. Take it out at half-time, stir it and return to microwave for the remaining time. Doing this step, makes the bhindi dry, and when you proceed with the actual curry recipe, the bhindi cooks much faster and you dont see that gooey-ness. Try this,and you will always stick to this method for almost all bhindi featuring dishes.

Take a pan and heat some oil. Add hing, then mustard, let it splutter, add jeera - let it roast. Add the shallots, green chilli, curry leaves,give it a stir for a minute and throw in the microwaved bhindi. Saute it till the bhindi gets cooked well [slightly crispy and zero gooey-ness]. If you have used the microwave method to fry the bhindi, this step will maybe take only 5-7 minutes. Otherwise, if you are adding fresh bhindi , this could go on for 15-20 minutes. Please be patient.After this add in the tamrind extract, 1/2 cup water, salt and let the bhindi boil in the tamrind mix for 2-3 minutes. Now add the cooked dal, stir well. Boil the pachadi in low flame for 4-5 minutes and switch off flame.

We had this along with rice, kara-kuzhambu and carrot-thayir pachadi , the recipes of which will follow soon. :)

Notes

1. If you dont fry the bhindi in the microwave , and add fresh bhindi to the pan, it will take 15-20 minutes for the bhindi to get slightly crisp and for zero - gooey-ness. Add a tbspn of curd, and a tspn of sugar at this step to speeden the process. I used to do this initially before i came to know of the microwave method.

2.While adding tamrind extract tbspn by tbspn, make sure to taste in between, so that it doesnt get too tangy. The way i prepare tamrind extract is more diluted than how it is generally prepared. So adjust the quantity of tamarind extract as per your taste.

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Kathirkai Kosmali/Brinjal-Potato stew

Kathirkai kosumali is a very authentic chettinadu dish which best goes as a side dish for idli/idiyappam or dosai's. Its a regular in the breakfast served in our weddings. This is one of my favourite and somehow i dont make it as often as i would like to. I always make this when i have brinjals in excess and need to finish them off.

The dish doesnt look very appealing due to brinjal's color. But looks are definitely deceptive in this case. :)

Kathirkai Kosmali/Brinjal-Potato stew

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Medium

Brinjals - 4 medium sized , each cut into half
Potato - 2 medium sized, peeled and each cut into half
Onion - 1 large , chopped finely
Tomato - 1 medium sized , chopped
Green chilli - 3 slit lengthwise
Garlic cloves - 3 chopped
Thin Tamarind extract - 4-5 Tbspn

Mustard - 1 tspn
Urad dal - 1 tspn
Jeera - 1 tspn
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Hing - a pinch
Oil - 2 Tspn
Salt - as per taste

water - 3 cups


Method

First , pressure cook the brinjals and potatoes together well with 1-1.5 cup water. Now pick the brinjals and potatoes from the cooker and transfer them to a plate. You should be able to easily peel the outer layer of the brinjals. Thow away the peel/outer layer. Mash the brinjals and potatoes with a ladle.No need to mash the potatoes completely, its good to leave a few potato pieces here and there unmashed [Like in the picture above]. Keep this aside.Save the water remaining in the pressure cooker to add into the curry.

Heat oil in a kadai. Add hing, add mustard , let it crackle, add urad dal, jeera,let them roast, add curry leaves. Now throw in the onions, green chillis and garlic coves. Saute till onions are translucent. Now throw in the tomatoes and add little salt. Stir well , close the kadai with the lid. Stir ocassionally,and saute tomatoes till they are soft and let out the juice.Now add in the mashed brinjal-potato mixture mix well, add 2 cups of water,along with the water in which the brinjals and potatoes were cooked. Add more salt and let it boil for a minute or so. Now add the tamrind extract.Let the stew boil in low flame for 5 minutes. switch off stove.

Serve hot with idli/idayappam/dosai. :)

Notes

1. Add more water if you prefer loose curry

2. While adding tamrind extract tbspn by tbspn, make sure to taste in between, so that it doesnt get too tangy. The way i prepare tamrind extract is more diluted than how it is generally prepared. So adjust the quantity of tamarind extract as per your taste.

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