Potato-Peas-cauliflower Kurma

This vegetable kurma is a great side dish for chapathis or Kerala coin parathas. It is a coconut based white gravy flavored with mild spices.Its a quick one if you have grated coconut ready in your pantry.

Aloo-Mattar Kurma

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Moderate

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
Badams/Almonds - 6
Jeera - 2 Tspn
Saunf - 1 Tspn
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1 Tbspn
Green chilli - 4
cloves - 2
Onion - 1 finely chopped
Tomato - 1 Finely chopped
1 cup of chopped mix veggies, - I used potato,peas and cauliflower.
Oil - 2 Tbspn
Jeera - 1 Tspn
Salt -  as per taste
Turmeric - 1/4 Tspn


Method

First grind the first 7 ingredients with 1/2 cup water to a fine paste. Keep aside. Boil the chopped veggies till its half-cooked. Keep aside.

Heat oil in a kadai. Add jeera and let it roast. Add in the chopped onions and saute it till translucent. Add chopped tomatoes salt and turmeric. Cook till the tomatoes are soft and juicy. Now add in the ground paste , and saute for a couple of minutes. Add about 1 cup water and let it simmer in low heat for about five minutes.Now throw in the half-cooked veggies and let them cook through in the gravy. Add more salt if needed. Also add in water if needed to get desired consistency.Switch off flame. Serve with hot chapathis :). Simple NO?



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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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