Chettinadu Vegetable Soup

Mixed veg soup that can be made easily with the leftover veggies you have at hand. I make this often over the weekends and serve during the 11 am hunger pang time :). I make a no-green chilli version of this for Mithra and serve with dosa,soup, rice etc and she loves it. She will have soup for all her meals if possible :).

I am glad to be posting again and hoping to be regular.  The pictures are not going to be that top-class from now on as I dont think I can afford to spend that kind of time at the moment.  I still cook different varieties at home, its just that there is no energy or time to click good pictures, so its going to be easy clicking but more regular blogging from now on :)


Ingredients

Serves - 4
Prep Time - 20min
Cook time - 20min
Spice Level - Medium

Mixed vegetables - 1 cup, chopped into medium size pieces [I use cauliflower, beans, carrot, mushroom]
Onion - 1 small sized chopped well
Tomato - 1 chopped roughly
Green chill1 - 2 cut into half and slit
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Garlic cloves - 2-3
Water -  4 cups
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Pepper whole - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 Tsp
turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as per need


How do you do it

1. Heat ghee in a pressure cooker. Add pepper and cumin to roast.

2.  Add onions, curry leaves, garlic and green chilli and saute for a couple of minutes

3. Add all the vegetables and tomato pieces and saute for 3-4 minutes

4. Add little salt, turmeric and mix well.

5. Add 4 cups water and pressure cook for 10-15 minutes or for 3-4 whistles.

6. Once the pressure releases, let the soup simmer, season with required salt and pepper and serve warm

Makes a really yummy and delicious easy soup

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Mushroom Egg Fried Rice - the Indo-Chinese way

One of my top easy recipes to pack for a weekday lunch would be some Indo-Chinese based Rice variety. On days when I feel lazy or forget to get some prep work done for the next day lunch, this is what I would do, chop up some veggies like mushroom, bell-pepper, carrot, throw in some sauces, mix it with basmati rice, and there my lunch is ready in minutes. So this Egg-Mushroom Fried rice happened on a day when I had to finish up the packet of mushroom in my stock and a red bell-pepper. Immediately the image of white rice with mushroom, red bell-pepper, scrambled egg and some greens popped into my head and I started wondering how colorful it would look to capture this on a photo :). It does look pretty doesn't it? Trust me, it tastes great too! So lets learn how to make this simple yet tasty Mushroom-Egg Fried Rice.

Ingredients

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep Time - 15 Min
Cook time - 15 Min

Basmati Rice - 1 Cup
Eggs - 1
Mushroom - 10 button mushroom , sliced into medium sized pieces
Red Bell-pepper - 1/2 a piece,sliced thinly
Spring onion greens - 2 Tbsp
Onion [yellow/white] - 1 , sliced thinly
Ginger-garlic Paste - 1.5 Tsp
Green chilli - 1 , slit length-wise
Light Soy Sauce - 1 tsp
Green chilli sauce - 1 Tsp
Salt and pepper to season
Oil - 2 Tbsp

How do you do it.

1. Soak Basmati Rice in water for 15 min. Drain and cook with 2 Tsp salt and 1.5 cups of water. Once cooked, spread the rice on a plate and drizzle some oil on it, mix well and cool. The rice has to be cooled before mixing with the veggies for it to not get mashed up.

2. Meanwhile, heat a pan, drizzle some oil on it, break and egg into it. Add some salt and pepper on to it, scramble it well with a wooden spatula and cook until its done, about 2 minutes. Keep this scrambled egg aside.

3. Heat oil in a kadai, add the onions and saute well until they are cooked. Add the ginger-garlic paste and green chilli and saute for a couple of more minutes.

4. Add the chopped mushroom and bell pepper now and increase flame and cook until the veggies are half cooked and are crunchy.

5. Decrease flame now and add in the soy sauce and green chilli sauce and mix well. Also add a little salt, remember we have cooked the rice with salt already.

6. Add the rice now to the kadai, and mix well to combine everything . Saute on low flame for a minute or two, add some pepper powder, check for seasoning, add more salt if required and mix well.

7. Switch off flame now, add the spring onion greens and the scrambled eggs and give it a good mix with the rice.

Serve with any side dish of you choice or just with some tomato ketchup and chips.

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Easy Veg Patties

I looked around for a lot of recipes of veg kebabs/patties which did not use potatoes, but couldnt find anything to my statisfaction. So I started forming a recipe on my own and did not really plan on what ingredients or how I wanted to make it. The only restriction I had that was not to use more than one small potato due to the no carb diet that we are on currently. I used the veggies that I had with one potato to form the base and some rice flour as a binding agent, all cooked and sauteed with some spices and toasted on an iron griddle to make this veg kebab.

Two large patties served with some soup, made for a very filling dinner also leaving us feeling healthy at the same time. Its a quick one, so whenever you have a lot of veggies in small quantities, throw everything together to make this tawa veg pattie for an easy dinner, or stuff it up in between a 6 inch Italian bread with some sauces and salad veggies to have your sub of the day :)


Ingredients

Serves - Makes 4 large patties
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 20 min

Onion - 1 medium, chopped finely
Ginger Garlic [GG] paste - 1 Tsp
Mushroom - 4-5 pieces, cleaned and chopped finely
Potato - 1 medium, quartered and cooked and mashed well
Beans - 5-6, chopped finely
Beetroot - 1 , cut into medium pieces
Carrot - 1 Large , cut into thin roundels
Green chilli - 2 , cut finely
Masala/Curry powder - 1/2 Tsp
Coriander powder - 1 Tsp
Turmeric - 1/4 Tsp
Jeera - 1/2 Tsp
Hing - 1/4 tsp
Coriander leaves - 1 Tbsp , chopped well
Salt - as per need
Oil - 1 Tsp + as per need , to toast the patties
Rice Flour - 2 Tbsp
Corn Flour - 1 Tsp

How do you do it

1. First toss the carrots, beets, beans into a pressure cooker and cook with 1 cup of water for 3-4 whistles. Once cooled, remove the lid, drain and reserve the excess water and mash the veggies completely. Once mashed, take handful of these mashed veggies and the squeeze the water from them as much as possible [reserve this water] and keep aside. Use the water you get from the veggies for any other dish prep of yours - sambar, rasam or soup etc. Do not throw it away , its a nutritious vegetable stock.

2. Microwave the potato for 5 minutes in 1 cup water, drain the water, and mash the potatoes and keep aside.

3. Heat 1 tsp oil in a kadai. Add hing and jeera, let them roast and give a nice aroma. Add in the chopped onions and saute till translucent. Add the green chillies and GG paste and saute for a minutes. Add the mushrooms now and saute them till they let out water and get cooked and change color to a darker shade.

4. Now add the other veggies and spice powders - turmeric, curry powder, coriander powder, salt and mix well. Saute until you get a dry mixture without moisture. Add the mashed potatoes and mix well, cook for 2 more minutes. Switch off flame.

5. Transfer the mix to a bowl, and let it cool down a bit. Add the chopped coriander leaves, rice flour and corn flour to the mixture and combine well. Check for salt and seasoning , and make the required changes to suit your taste.

6. Divide this mix into 4 to 5 round balls and flatten them to form a round pattie shape of medium thickness.

7. Smear little oil on top of a heated iron griddle/tawa. Place a pattie on the tawa to toast. Apply oil on the sides of the pattie and toast both sides in low-medium flame for about 5 minutes until they are cooked well and you get the dark crispy spots on the outer layer. Be gentle while flipping the patties, make sure not to break them.

Serve this pattie with some salad and soup.

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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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Veg Cutlets

Most of my summer holidays during school time was spent in Salem with my cousins and grandparents.Taking the kovai express train from Chennai to Salem became a routine. The early morning busyness of Chennai central railway station smelling of fresh fish, ah how i used to crib about that smell, people pushing trolleys all over the place, my heart hoping I would get a window seat ;) - all those memories remain so fresh even now. The kovai express must be the most traveled route by far for me. I have exhausted that route so many times :).

You must be waiting for the connection between the kovai express and cutlets right? :P. One of the things i used to look forward to during these train journeys was the vegetable cutlets from their pantry. :). One of my all time favorite snack. I have wondered how these cutlets sold outside turned up so firm with a crunchy outer texture.Few of my cutlet making experiences went bad, and I gave up hopes until I recently landed on a winner recipe and I am going to share that with you now. I have used this method 3-4 times now, turns perfect each and every time. Though the process is time consuming, its worth every second :)

Veg Cutlets

Ingredients

Adapted from homecooksrecipe

Serves - Makes about 15-20 cutlets
Spice Level - Moderately Spicy
Prep Time - 2.5 hours
Cook time - 30 min

Potato - 3 medium sized , boiled and mashed completely
Beetroot - 1 small sized ,grated finely
Beans - 6 chopped finely
Carrot - 1 chopped finely
Green peas - fistful
Onion - 1 chopped finely

Oil - 1 tbsp
Saunf/ Fennel- 1 tsp
Jeera/Cumin - 1 Tsp
Hing/Asafoetida - a pinch
Green Chilli - 4 finely chopped
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Corn Flour - 1 tsp
Garam Masala - 1 tsp
Turmeric  - a pinch
Red Chilli/Curry powder - 1 Tsp
Coriander Leaves - 1 tbsp - finely chopped

Maida/All purpose flour - 1/4 cup mixed with water to form a thin paste to dip the cutlets in.
Brown Bread - 6 slices + 2 slices

salt - as per taste.

How to make it

1. Firstly boil the potatoes, drain the water used to cook the potatoes in if remaining, mash the potatoes completely and refrigerate for 1 hour minimum.

2. Toast the 6 brown bread slices to a dark brown shade and crumble them in your food processor / mixer to get bread crumbs

3. Make the maida paste and keep aside.

4. Boil all the vegetables to a mash-able extent - beetroot,carrot,beans,peas. Once boiled, drain the excess water and take the veggies. Make balls of these boiled veggies and squeeze out all the liquid from these veggies as much as possible. This step is very important as the water content needs to be as little as possible for the cutlets to shape up fine.

5. Heat oil in a kadai. Add hing, jeera and saunf - let them roast. Add in the chopped onions, green chilli,Ginger-garlic paste and saute till the onions are done. Add the turmeric powder, garam masala and coriander powder, chilli powder and saute well. Add the boiled veggies now and saute until you get a dry mixture with no moisture content.

5. Add mashed potato, coriander leaves and mix well with the veggies. Saute for a couple of minutes and switch of flame and let this cutlet mixture cool.

6. Dip the 2 bread slices in water, squeeze the water out of the bread and add bread pulp to the cutlet mixture. Add the corn flour and salt too now and mix well.

7.Pinch a lemon sized ball from the mixture and flatten into a round shape using your fingers.

8. Dip the cutlet first in maida mix quickly and and then in bread crumb mixture. The cutlet should be wrapped well with the bread crumbs as it forms the outer texture. Maida paste here acts as a bonding agent between the cutlet and bread crumb.

9. Do this for all cutlets, arrange on a plate , wrap with a cling film and refrigerate for minimum 30 minutes.You can store even overnight and thaw it for 30 minutes before frying.Before frying ,bring the cutlets to room temperature by keeping them out for 10 minutes.

10. Heat 1/4 cup of oil in a pan and deep fry the cutlets, till they turn into golden brown color in medium flame.

11. Remove the Cutlets on tissue paper, serve with tomato ketchup. Makes an awesome pair with a cup of steaming chai :)



PS: Join my Facebook page FoodOverIP to get updates about upcoming posts and share your feedback.


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Vegetable Clear soup

Its a gloomy and dreamy season here in Mumbai :). Showers everyday all throughout the day.So how about some hot soup for the romantic soul? ;)

Vegetable Clear Soup

Ingredients

Recipe source - Adapted from Tarla Dalal vegetable soup

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Not Spicy but flavorful
Prep Time - 10 minutes
Cook time - 15 minutes

Spring onions bulbs [white parts] - 3, sliced thinly
Spring onion green part - 1 Tbspn chopped well
carrot - 1 Finely chopped
Cauliflower - 3 florets finely chopped
Beans - 4 Finely Chopped
Cabbage - 2 Tbsp finely chopped
Salt - as per taste
Pepper - to season
Pizza Hut Italian Seasoning/Dry herb Italian seasoning - 1 packet/1Tbsp
Corn-flour - 2 Tspn mix with 2 Tbsp water and made into a paste.
Water - 4 cups
Olive oil - 1 Tbsp

How I made it

Heat olive oil in a kadai. Add the spring onions white part. Saute for a couple of  minute.Add all the finely chopped veggies except spring onion green part. Saute for 3 minutes.Add 4 cups of water and bring to boil.Simmer flame and let the veggies get half cooked in the water. Once the veggies are half cooked, add in salt , pepper , pizza hit Italian seasoning and the corn-flour paste and spring onion green part. Boil for 3 more minutes.Switch off flame.

Enjoy this hot vegetable clear soup sitting in your balcony drowning in the beauty of the monsoon showers. :)


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Vegetable Pulao

Vegetable pulao is a quick and simple stir fry of veggies which is then pressure cooked along with rice. As simple as that. If you like very simple flavors without too much drama in them , this is for you. I am not a big fan of vegetable pulao, but S likes this very much. Also a quick lunch box preparation menu.

Vegetable Pulao

Ingredients

 Serves - 2
 Spice Level - Mild
 
Fresh/Frozen peas - 1/2 cup
Carrot - 2 chopped well
Potato - 1 large, chopped into small pieces
Cauliflower - 5 large florets, chopped into small pieces
Green chilli - 4, slit lengthwise
Ginger-garlic [GG] paste 1 Tbsp
Onion - 1 Large , chopped finely
Bay leaf - 1
cloves - 2
Cinnamon - 1 inch stick - 1
Oil - 2 Tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Basmati rice - 1.5 cups soaked in water for 10 minutes and drained.
Water - 2.25 cups


Method

Heat a kadai with oil. Add bay-leaf, cloves , cinnamon. Let it roast. Add onions, GG paste,and green chilli. Saute till the onions are done.Add the veggies now and saute well. After 2-3 minutes,add salt and stir. Continues sauteing until the veggies are half done. Now add in the rice and stir for a minute or two.Switch off flame.

Empty the rice and veggies into the pressure cooker. Add 2.25 cups of water. Add enough salt into the cooker vessel and mix well. You should be able to taste the salt a  tiny bit more than the normal salt taste needed. That is the right amount.

Pressure cook for 12-15 minutes. Serve with a nice roasted eggplant/potato curry and raitha. :)


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Vegetable Fried Rice

Vegetable fried Rice is somewhere near the top of the list when it comes to S favorite food.I have tried this a couple of times before, but wasn't able to nail the flavor and color exactly.We wanted the flavor to be mild, the rice to retain its white color. Yesterday's try was a winner. :)


Vegetable Fried Rice

Ingredients


Serves - 2
Spice Level - Mild [Keep it that way please ! ;)]

Cabbage - 1/3 cup, sliced thinly
Carrot - 1 Medium, Julienne cut
Green Capsicum - 1/2, sliced thinly lengthwise
Beans - 15 , sliced thinly.
Spring Onion white part - 3 bulbs, sliced thinly
Spring onion greens - 3 Tbspn, chopped finely , to garnish
Garlic cloves - 5 , finely chopped
Basmati Rice - 1.5 cups

Soya Sauce [Preferably Light soy if you have] - 1 Tspn
Green Chilli Sauce - 3 Tspn
Salt - as per taste [2-3 Tspn approxm]
Olive oil - 4 Tbspn

White Pepper powder - 1 Tspn [optional]

Method

Firstly, cook the rice in 2.25 cups of water for 15 minutes. Once the rice is done, spread the rice on a large plate/bowl and cool it completely. It needs to be cooled, so when you add rice to the veggie mix in the wok and saute it, the rice will not get mashed.

Heat a deep wok with olive oil.Add the spring onion white parts and garlic. Saute for 2 minutes. Add all the vegetables -cabbage,capsicum,carrot,beans and 2 tspn salt.Increase the flame to high.Saute for 3 minutes on high flame. Switch the flame to medium now. Add soya sauce, green chilli sauce and saute till the veggies are half cooked [slightly crunchy]. Now sim the flame and add the cooked rice into the wok and add one more Tsp of salt. Mix the rice with the veggies well to incorporate all the flavor into the rice. Be careful not to mash up the rice when you do this.Once the rice is well mixed, taste to see if there is enough salt. Add more salt and mix if necessary.You can add 1tsp of white pepper powder at this point if needed and mix well with rice. Saute the rice for 2 more minutes and switch off fame.Add 2 Tbsp of spring onion greens and mix well.

Transfer rice to a serving bowl .Sprinkle 1 Tbsp of spring onion greens on top. We had this rice with paneer masala curry and a glass of cold Pepsi. We absolutely loved it. :)

Notes

1.Once the rice is cooked, within 5 minutes , remove it from the bowl, and spread on a large plate.If you leave the rice to cool in the cooker vessel, the rice will clamp up, and you will have difficulty in getting to separate the rice while adding to the wok.

2.While trying to mix the rice with veggies, you may switch off flame,take a few extra minutes to ensure the rice is mixed well, and then saute on high flame later.

3.If you are using dark soy sauce, be cautious. Dark soy has a strong flavor and color and can spoil the appearance of the dish. Hence use anywhere between 1/2 tsp to 1 tspn dark soy for 1.5 cups of rice, adjust according to flavor/color.


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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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