Beetroot Paruppu Usili/Beetroot-lentil crumbs stir fry

I have already blogged about the traditional beans usili here and I always stuck to using either beans or cabbage for paruppu usili. I am not very fond of beetroot due to its inherent sweetness , but Amma keeps reminding me to use it at least weekly once due to its high nutrition content. Over the past few months she has been asking me to use beetroot for this dish and I kept postponing it and wasn't very impressed about the idea - I was worried it might be a little sweet. So when she was in Mumbai , she made it for lunch one day and I must admit I was wrong, I enjoyed the dish thoroughly. It was an instant hit. The beetroot is grated finely and it gets blended well with the spiced lentil crumbs that the sweetness disappears and it tastes quite well.We added a carrot too along with beetroot :)

So Amma's target achieved - Giving me a  beetroot dish that I might be fond of. Ah, the things that Ammas' do for their kids however old they might be. :)

Beetroot Paruppu Usili

 
So follow the same recipe as the cabbage-beans-paruppu usili, but just use finely grated beetroot and grated carrot [1 Large beetroot + 1 carrot ] instead of the beans and cabbage.When you add the carrot and beetroot to the lentil crumbs in the kadai, saute well to make sure the rawness of the beetroot and carrot vanishes and they are cooked completely before switching off flame.

Serve with Rice and Rasam.


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Beetroot Lentil Clear Soup

Whenever I cook beetroot I am reminded of my mom , who used to try various methods to push this vegetable into our stomach. ;). Beetroot poriyal/masala dint work, due to its inherent sweet taste. I somehow never like the sweet-spice combination in any kind of dish. It has to be either completely sweet or completely spicy. So then came the beetroot soup that my mom created. The color of the soup would be so inviting, and it would be a clear soup mixed with lentils , and it would taste good.
So this became a regular almost every weekend. On Saturdays around 11.00 am, we take a glass of this soup as an appetizer. Some times, I also mix this with rice and have it as a meal with some potato chips on the side.

Beetroot lentil Soup

Ingredients

Serves - makes about 4 glasses
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy

Beetroot - 2 , cut into medium sized pieces
Onion  - 1 Chopped well,
Tomato -1  Large, chopped well
Green chilli - 3-4, slit lengthwise
Curry Leaves - 2 Sprig
Toor dal - 1/3 Cup
Turmeric - 1/2 tspn
Jeera - 1 tspn
Water - 3 cups.

Method

Take a pressure cooker and dump all the ingredients. Pressure cook for 15 minutes. Switch off flame. Let the cooker cool. Once its cooled down, boil the soup, add the required salt. Add pepper powder if needed to increase spice level. Boil for 3-4 more minutes.

Pour in a glass and serve with beetroot piece topped on it. :). It cant get more simple than this . ;)


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Yellow Dal Tadka

Dal Tadka is a standard and comforting accompaniment to most Indian flat breads - naan, roti, pulka , kulcha. It is also served with chawal [Rice]. A staple food for most North Indians.Quite simple to make, but there are so many different variations to this preparation :). I have tried preparing dal tadka in many different ways and some time back landed on one lip-smacking method and that recipe has been a keeper.

Dal Tadka

Ingredients

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy and flavorful

1. Toor Dal - 1/3 cup
2. Green chilli - 4, slit length-wise and cut in half
3. Jeera - 1 Tbsp
4. Tomato - 1 Large, chopped into small pieces
5. Turmeric - 1/2 Tsp
6. Water - 1.5 cups
7. Salt - as per taste

For Tempering

Mustard - 1 Tsp
Jeera - 1 Tsp
Kalonji/Nigella seeds - 1/2 Tsp [Must add, gives a nice flavor]
Dry Red chilli - 2
Oil - 1 Tbsp

Method

Add items 1-6 in a pressure cooker. Place the pressure cooker on flame and pressure cook for 15 minutes. Move the flame to low after the first whistle.Let the cooker cool off. Check for the desired consistency of the dal. If you want you can add more water and boil for a couple of minutes.Transfer the contents to a serving bowl. Add required salt and mix.

In a small pan, heat oil . Add mustard, let it splutter, add jeera , let it roast.Add the red chilli and let it turn a darker shade. Finally add kalonji and switch off flame. Pour this tempering over the dal.

Serve with rice/pulao or any Indian flat bread of your choice. As simple as that. :)



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Cabbage-Beans Parrupu Usili / Cabbage-beans-lentil crumbs stir fry

This is an absolutely yummy Iyer Aathu dish [Tam-Bram home]. A must in all their wedding lunch sessions.This preparation is a slightly tedious process, but worth it. :). Mom used to cook this quite often at home as it used to be one of my favorites.But she had her own name for this, and until some time back I always referred to this as "Vegetable Cola". Lol ;). This is traditionally made with beans, I added some grated cabbage too.

Cabbage-Beans Parrupu Usili

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy

Grated Cabbage 1/3 cup
Beans - Finely chopped , 1/2 cup , steamed/boiled
Curry leaves - 2 Sprig
Mustard - 1 Tspn
Jeera - 1 Tsp
Hing - 1/4 Tsp
Oil - 3 Tbsp

1.Toor dal - 1 cup
2.Jeera - 1 Tbspn
3.Dry Red chilli - 5
4.Fennel - 1/2 Tsp
5.Turmeric - 1/2 Tsp

Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 Tspn


Method

Soak ingredients 1-4 for about 30-45 minutes in 1.5 cups of water. Drain the water and grind along with ginger-garlic paste and turmeric to an almost fine paste with maybe 1-2 Tbsp water.Divide the paste into 4-5 equal portions and steam them in an idli cooker for 5 minutes. I have a microwave idli steamer set and i use that to steam these. If you have one of them, use it and microwave on high for 8 minutes.Once they firm up like idlis, transfer them to a plate and cut each into quarters and let it cool. Maybe 5-10 minutes. Once cooled, pulse them up in your food processor until they crumble completely into extremely tiny particles resembling bread crumbs. This will take a few seconds in your mixie jar, maximum 3 short pulses.Make sure the steamed dal, has no water content, else when you use the food processor to crumble them it will become a paste again.Now the dal crumbs are ready.

Heat oil in  a kadai. Add hing,mustard, jeera and curry leaves. Let it roast. Add in the dal crumbs , salt and stir well. Let it be on flame for 7-10 minutes, keep stirring now and then. Now add in the boiled beans and grated cabbage, mix well. Let this get cooked for another five minutes. You can add more salt if needed at this time. Stir again. Switch off flame.

This goes very well with steamed white rice and kara-kuzhambu. :)


Notes

1. Many recipes suggest crumbling the steamed dal by hand as much as possible and then put it directly in the kadai to further crumble in heat.This method doesn't work out very well, and getting the dal to crumble over heat is difficult and takes a lot of time. So crumble it completely using a food processor.

2. To steam the ground dal, use a microwave idli steamer if you have one, works out much easier and faster and the steamed dal turn out dry the way we want it. So it requires max 5 minutes to cool down before you crumble them using your mixer-grinder.



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Easy Chettinadu No-curry powder Sambar

You can prepare sambar for idli/dosai/idiyappams in 15 minutes . Really :). This is usually my comfort food - Idli +Chettinadu sambar. When I have been deprived of Indian food for long during vacations , and get back home, this is first thing I make. This sambar is extremely simple and soothing. A week without this combination is enough for me and S to start longing for it.Now on to the recipe.


Easy Chettinadu No-curry powder Sambar

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Quite Spicy

1.  Toor Dal - 1/2 cup
2.  Tomatoes - 2 Large - chopped into medium sized pieces
3.  Potatoes - 2 Medium - chopped into medium sized pieces
4.  Brinjal -  1 Large - Chopped into 5 pieces6
5.  Green chilli - 6 slit lengthwise, chopped in half
6.  Onion - 1 Large - chopped well
7.  Curry Leaves - 1 Sprig
8.  Jeera - 1 Tspn
9.  Turmeric - 1/4 Tspn
10.  Water 2 cups

Salt - to taste
Thin Tamrind extract - 2Tbspn [optional]

To temper

Oil - 2 Tbspn
Mustard - 1 Tbsp
Urad Dal - 1 Tbspn
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig


Method

Take a pressure cooker and toss in all ingredients from 1-10. The water level must be around 1 inch above the vegetables/dal.Mix well. Pressure cook for 15-20 minutes, moving the flame from high to sim after the first whistle.Let the cooker cool off. Open the lid ,heat the cooker containing sambar ,add salt and tamarind extract [if using] and stir well with a ladle.Let the sambar boil.Add more water if needed and adjust consistency according to your needs.Some people like the sambar to be more loose. Also the dal will be mostly mashed well after 20 minutes of pressure cooking.

Meanwhile heat 2 Tbspn oil in a small pan. Add mustard , once it splutters add urad dal. Once the urad dal browns, add curry leaves and switch off flame. Add this tempering to the sambar and boil for 2 more minutes.Switch off flame and transfer to serving bowl.

This is the sambar we make for idli/dosai/pongal/idyappams/vadai.

Note

1. Tamarind extract is optional. Since i have added two large tomatoes, I haven't used tamarind extract. If you would like it to be more tangy, you may use it.



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Medhu vadai / Lentil Fritters

Wishing you all a very happy belated Tamil New year. So on to some festival food. :)
Medhu vadai or Ulundu vadai is a standard item in all South Indian breakfast specials. It is the absolute favorite of most Indians I have come across. I hardly know people who don't like vadai. If I am having breakfast in any restaurant in south India, this is sure to be one of my orders. In my household, this is sure to make an appearance in almost all special occasions . I made this a couple of days back for Tamil New year. :)

This is one of the special items that took me some time to get the hang of it. I still cannot say I have mastered it. :) . It needs practice to get the round shape with the hole , you should also know what consistency the batter has to be and a few other pain points.

Medhu Vadai

Ingredients

Makes roughly around 20 vadais

Urad dal - 1 cup
Raw Rice - 2 Tbspn
Toor Dal - 1 tbspn
Salt - as per taste

Onion - 1 Large finely chopped
Green chilli - 5 finely chopped
Curry leaves - 2 Sprigs , crushed well
Coriander leaves - 2 Tbspn , chopped well.

Oil - for deep frying - 2 cups

Method

Soak the urad dal, raw rice, toor dal in water for 45 minutes, water level must be well above the dal in the container. Drain excess water and grind it in your mixer with as little water as possible. This step is very important, add as much water as needed for your mixer blade to rotate well  without getting jammed. if you are able to grind without any water - great!. Max you can add maybe 2 -3 Tbspn of water.Grind till you get a smooth fluffy texture of the dal.

Transfer to a container. Add salt, and the chopped onions,green chilli,curry leaves and coriander leaves to it. Mix well.Now the dough is ready for the vadais.

Heat oil in the kadai to fry the vadais.Now take a polythene sheet and wipe it with water. Have a bowl of water by your side - jus to dip you hands to get rid of the dough in between frying and making the vadai shape.

Pinch a medium sized ball of the dough, and place it on the polythene sheet. With you index finger , make a hole in the center of the dough and get the shape as in the picture above.Once done transfer the dough from the polythene sheet [must retain the shape you have made and must not collapse] to your right hand and drop in hot oil.The oil must be moderately hot. Let the vadais fry for a couple of minutes in medium heat, then turn it over to get the other side done. Drain on absorbent paper.

Serve hot with chutney/sambar. Idly sambar and vadai is the perfect Tamil breakfast. Nothing can beat this classic trio. :)

Notes

1. If you are not able to shape the dough as said , and it collapses, you might have used excess water while grinding. The dough needs to be tight for vadais to hold the shape.If you run into this, dont worry, just drop them like bondas, it will still taste good. :). The first time I attempted vadais, thats what I did. ;). As a remedy, you can try freezing the batter for a couple of hours and then try to shape it [This works, i have tried this]. Another fix might be to powder 2 tbspn of aval [poha/flattened rice] and mix it along with the dough, freeze it for 2 hours and try again. [My Paati's suggestion]

2. If your vadais are absorbing too much oil, again the reason is , you may have used excess water while grinding. Adding a couple of tbspn of rice flour might help in this case. I have already added raw rice to the ingredient list due to this.

3. So the key point is to make sure to use as little water as possible while grinding.

 
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Pesarattu/Lentil crepe

This is not exactly the recipe of Pesarattu or Adai, something in between :-). This recipe is my mom's and I have adapted it from there. So "Adai paadhi, pesaratuu paadhi, rendum serndha kalavai naan" [for those who can understand Tamil ;)]. And i must say its one of  the easiest and fastest dish to create.

Pesarattu/Lentil crepe

Ingredients

Serves - Makes about 15 Pesarattu
Spice Level - Moderate

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Green Gram Dal - 3/4 cup
Yellow Moong dal - 1/2 cup

1. Green chilli - 4
2. jeera - 2 Tspn
3. Saunf - 1 Tspn
4. Ginger-Garlic Paste - 2 Tspn
5. Turmeric - 1/2 Tspn
6. Tomato - 2 medium sized
7. Coriander Leaves - a handful
8. Curry leaves - handful

Onion - 1 Large, chopped finely.
Corn Flour - 2 Tbspn
Salt - 2 Tbspn [as per need]


Method

Wash and soak the raw rice and green gram and yello moong dal in 3 cups of water for about 1.5-2 hours.Drain the water and use the same for grinding. Grind the soaked rice and dal along with ingredients 1-8 .It needs to be ground to a smooth dosa-like consistency batter.Transfer the batter to a bowl.

Now mix the corn-flour with 4 Tbpn water to make a smooth paste.Add this paste along with chopped onions and salt to the batter and mix well.

Heat a dosa pan. Take a ladle full of batter, spread like dosa. Sprinkle oil on the sides and top of the pesarattu.Once it turns brown below, flip it to get the other side done. Remove from dosa tava. Serve hot with Milagai chutney or coconut chutney.


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Beetroot Vadai

This is one of  the deep fried snack which is probably healthy as beetroot can be sold in this way for sure :).You can sneak in other veggies like snake gourd,cabbage,or anything remaining that you might want to finish. And it goes without saying that any shallow/deep fried snack is always a hit :). Now off to the recipe.

Beetroot Vadai

Ingredients

Serves - Makes around 25 vadais
Spice Level - Quite Spicy

Beetroot - 2 medium, grated.
Toor dal - 1/2 cup
Channa dal - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1 big, finely chopped
Dry Red chilli - 7
Curry Leaves - 3 sprig
Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 Tspn
Hing - a pinch
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as per taste
Cumin - 1 Tspn
Saunf - 1 Tspn
Oil for shallow frying.


Method

Soak toor dal, channa dal,red chilli, jeera and saunf in 1 cup of water for 20 minutes. Drain the water and grind it to a paste.It shouldn't be too coarse or either too smooth,somewhere midway. Use only 4-5 Tbspn of water while grinding. Using too much water will result in the vadais absorbing too much oil.It is fine if a few pieces of dal are not fully ground.Now add the grated beetroot, chopped onion, hing, curry leaves,turmeric and salt with this paste and mix well.

Heat about 1/2 to 1 cup oil in a kadai. Once the oil is quite hot, move the flame to sim. Pinch small lemon sized balls of the mix, flatten them on your palm and drop in oil.Fry it for two minutes on low flame and move the flame to medium.Fry until both sides are done well.

Server hot with green chutney as a snack with masala chai. Nothing can beat this kind of snack. :)

Notes

1.While frying make sure,both the insides and outsides of the vadai are done well. If the oil is too hot, the outsides will brown faster,but it will still be undercooked inside.On the other hand if the flame is too low, the vadai will absorb too much oil.So take care while frying.


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Urad Dal Halwa /Aadikool

Aadikool or Urad dal halwa is a famous chettinadu sweet dish usually had after morning breakfast. Its a 10 minutes dessert if you have all the ingredients. Really!! :).

Urad Dal Halwa

Ingredients

Urad dal flour - 1 cup
Broken Jaggery - 1/2 cup
Water - 1 cup
Oil - 1/2 cup

Note: To make the urad dal flour, you need to dry roast the urad dal till brown , cool it and grind it in a mixer jar to a smooth powder.


Method

Firstly boil a cup of water in a pan, and add in the jaggery pieces. Let the water boil in low flame, till all of the jaggery dissolves. Then switch off flame and keep aside the jaggery syrup.

Heat a pan with 1/2 cup oil. Add in the urad dal powder, mix well with the oil. There must be enough oil for all the flour to soak in. If its less, you will end up with a lot of lumps in the halwa which we don't want.After a minute, add in the jaggery syrup, and mix well with the flour. Switch off flame when you get a consistency which is not as thick as a halwa and not too loose either, it needs to be mid way as it tends to thicken later.

And thats it you are done. :)

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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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Anjappar Hotel Keerai Masiyal

I try to make sure that Keerai masiyal is once a week appreance in my kitchen.Picking the leaves is the most boring job when it comes to keerai and i am instantly reminded of my paati, who used to ask us to help her with this. She always ended up complaining i dont notice the leaves which has the holes in them and discard them, eventually she will let me go and she will do it herself ;).

I once had vegetarian meals in anjappar and they served  keerai masiyal, which i liked so much, that i had more than 3-4 servings. I wanted to replicate it and this is what i had done. Until then i was making keerai in a much more simpler way with less ingredients , the way my mom makes ,which is also tasty.

But once we made this version , we loved it and this recpie is a keeper. Also this recipe has made S like keerai too, who never used to like spinach in any form before.
So if you dont like keerai, try this - it might end up becoming one of your favourite! :)

Keerai Masiyal

Ingredients

Spinach - 2 bunches [picked/washed/chopped]
moong dal - 1/3 cup [Pressure cooked well with a pinch of turmeric]
Green chill - 2 small, slit length-wise
Tomato - 1 finely chopped
Onion - 1 Finely chopped
Garlic cloves - 5 chopped finely
2 cups water

Cumin - 1 tspn
Mustard - 1 tspn
Hing - a pinch
Oil - 2 tspn
Salt - as per taste

Method

Heat a kadai with oil. Add hing ,mustard - let it crackle, add jeera - let it roast. Now throw in the onions , green chilli, and garlic. Saute till the onions are translucent.Add the chopped tomatoes, little salt, cover the kadai, and stir ocassionally till the tomato becomes soft and let out juice.Now add in the spinach leaves and saute them, add in 1 cup water, stir well and close the kadai with a  lid, and let them get cooked well.This should take about 15-20 minutes. After the spinach is cooked well, add in cooked moong dal - dal should be of mashable consistency, add 1/2 cup of water, salt and stir well. Let this boil for another 5 minutes. switch off stove.

Server hot with rice-ghee and Urulaikilangu [potato] masala. That's one satisfying and healthy meal. :)

Notes

1. Never pressure cook spinach, as it will loose all its nutrients. Always cook them in the kadai along with other ingredients in which ever way you make them.

2. Be careful while picking the leaves from the spinach bunch, and make sure to discard the ones which have holes in them.

3. Wash the spinach leaves well with water 2-3 times as it contains a lot of mud particles and dirt.

4. I have tried this preparation with 3 kinds of spinach - palak/methi and paruppu keerai  and its worked well for me. If you try out with any other and comes out good, please do let me know. :)

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