Gobi Manchurian

Gobi manchurian is one the indo chinese creations. They can be served as an appetizer (dry) or as an entree (with gravy). It is a dish which appears to be complex but is pretty simple to make but takes a little time.



Ingredients:

• One medium sized Cauliflower - Cut into florets
• Onions - 2 (finely chopped)
• Garlic - 4 cloves
• Green chillies - 3
• Small sprig of ginger
• Chilli sauce - 2 tbsp
  
• Tomato sauce - 3 or 4 tbsp
• Salt as per taste
• Corn flour - 1 cup
• Maida (all purpose flour) - 1 cup
• Spring onions
• Coriander leaves
• Soya sauce - 1 tbsp
• Water
• Oil for frying
  

Preparation:

• Mix the corn flour, maida, some salt and chilli powder with some water to prepare a paste which is neither too thick nor too thin.
• Heat some oil and add the onions and fry them till they are golden brown. Add the garlic, ginger, chillies and salt.
  
• Now add the tomato sauce, chilli sauce and soy sauce and saute for 3 - 4 minutes and remove from heat and keep aside. If you want some gravy add water to this and let it simmer for 2 minutes.
  
• Heat oil in a frying pan. Dip the florets in the flour paste prepared earlier and fry them in the oil till they are golden brown.
• Once all the florets are fried add them to the prepared gravy.
• Garnish with spring onions and coriander leaves.

This post is especially for my friend Tamizh who kept tempting me to try making the manchurian. Thanks to her I ventured out into this.

Gajar Halwa

Any special occasion calls for a sweet and what better sweet than gajar halwa (carrot halwa)?? It's wholesome since we get to mix the goodness of carrots and milk. Plus one can never go wrong with carrots. It is best when prepared with the Delhi carrots (the red ones) but we can manage with the regular ones too.




Ingredients:

• Grated Carrot - 4 cups
• Milk - 1 - 1 1/2 cups
• Sugar - 1 cup (or more per taste)
• Ghee - 2 tbsp
• Cashew, almonds, raisins - 1/2 cup
• Cardamom powder - 2 tsp

Preparation:

• Heat some ghee in a pan.
• Add the grated carrot and milk to it and boil it in medium flame. Stir it occasionally to prevent sticking.
• Allow it to cook till the milk evaporates.
• Heat some ghee and fry the dry fruits in it till they are golden brown.
• Add sugar, cardamom powder and the dry fruits to the carrot and milf mixture once the carrot appears to be cooked well.
• Cook for another 2 - 3 minutes and remove from flame.
• Tastes best when served hot. It can also be served cold.

Mooli Paratha

Mooli (raddish) paratha is one of the easiest items to make and is good for health too. The essence of the paratha lies in how much water you add. Raddish by itself gives out a lot of water so care must be taken while preparing the dough, else it will become too watery.


Ingredients:

• Wheat flour - 3 cups
• Mooli (raddish) - 2 medium sized
• Salt
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Yoghurt - 1 tbsp
• Water

Preparation:

• Grate the raddish. Add a tsp of salt and leave it aside for some time. This helps the raddish drain all the water.
• Add the flour, yoghurt, chilli powder and turmeric powder to the grated raddish and mix them to form the dough. Add some water if necessary.
• Divide the dough into small balls and flatten them out using some flour to avoid any stickiness.
• Heat a pan and cook the parathas on them till they are light brown on both sides. Smear a little butter while cooking the parathas.
• Serve hot.

Rava Ladoo

Rava ladoo is one sweet which does not allow you to stop with just one. It is also one of the easiest sweets to make. So whenever your sweet tongue starts craving just whip up these ladoos.

Ingredients:

• Rava - 4 cups
• Sugar - 4 cups (or how much sweetness you prefer)
• Broken Cashew - 1/2 - 1 cup
  
• Ghee - 2 cups
• Powdered Cardamom - 3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Heat a pan and dry roast the rava till it turns light brown. Remove from flame and once it cools a little take some quantities of the rava in a mixie and powder it finely.
• Powder the sugar till it is fine.
• Mix the powdered sugar and rava.
• Heat the ghee in a pan and fry the cashews and cardamom in it. Add everything to the mixed rava and sugar.
• While the ghee is still hot carefully mix and roll the the mixture into small balls.
• Eat a few while it is still lukewarm for that extra flavor.
  

Paruppu Usili

Paruppu usili is one of my favourite dishes. It allows us to experiment with various vegetables and we can have it alone with rice or serve it along with sambar, more kuzhambu, vetha kuzhambu or rasam. We can use beans, cabbage, capsicum or vaazhapoo to make this.


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup toor dal
• 2 tsps channa dal
• 3 green chillies
• 4 red chillies
• 2 cups of vegetable (beans/cluster beans/capsicum/cabbage/capsicum/vaazhapoo)
• 2 tbsp oil
• Mustard seeds
• Salt to taste
• Mustard seeds

Preparation:

• Wash & soak the dals for about 1 hour.
• Drain the water completely and grind the dal with 1-2 green chilli and red chilli and some salt. Don't add any water while grinding the dal.
  
• Take the ground paste and either steam it for some time or fry it in some oil till golden brown. Crumble the paste into small pieces.
  
• Steam the vegetable.
• Heat some oil in a kadai. Add mustard seeds. Once they sputter add some jeera and asafoetida.
• If you had steamed the dal then add the crumbled usili and saute till golden brown. Then add the vegetable. Add the necessary amount of salt. Saute for another 3 - 4 minutes.
  
• If the usili had been fried instead of steamed then add the usili and add the vegetable also. Add the necessary amount of salt. Saute for 3 - 4 minutes.
• Serve hot.
  

Ragda Patties

Yesterday we completed 6 months of marriage and what better way to celebrate it than to make something delicious? After a long thought I decided to make Ragda Patties. This is a very famous snack item which is a meal by itself. It is not very difficult to make and is very tasty and enjoyable.

Ingredients:

• For Patties:

• Potatoes - 4 or 5 medium sized
• Bread - 2 or 3 slices
  
• Green chillies - 2
  
• Garlic - 1 clove
  
• Ginger - small sprig
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
  
• Salt - to taste
• Oil for shallow frying
  

• For Ragda:

• Vatana or chick peas - 1 cup
• Potato (boiled) - 1 small
• Onion - 1
• Ginger - small sprig
• Green chillies - 2
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Jaggery - 2 tsp
• Garam masala - 1 tsp
  
• Salt - to taste

Preparation:

• Ragda:

• Soak the dal for 4 hours.
• Drain the dal and steam it in cooker till well cooked.
• Heat some oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. Once it sputters add jeera and onions and saute till golden brown.
• Then add all the other ingredients and finally the channa/vatana. Mash a few channa to make a thick gravy. Add sufficient quantity of water. Allow it to simmer for some time.

• Patties:

• Boil the potatoes well.
• Soak the bread slices in water and squeeze out the extra water.
  
• Add the bread, grated chillies, garlic, ginger, chilli powder and salt to the boiled potatoes and knead it into dough.
• Roll the dough into smaller portions and flatten them.
• Shallow fry the patties till they are golden brown and crisp.

• To serve: Place the patties. Top it with the ragda and add tamarind chutney, cilantro chutney, onions and cilantro.

Aviyal

I had previously posted the recipe for making adai. I had also mentioned that aviyal is a very good side dish for adai. It is also one of the easiest dishes to prepare and it goes well with rice as well.

Aviyal is essentially a mixture of various steamed vegetables along with a little coconut. The vegetables can be chosen as per their availability. Generally the following vegetables can be used - Potato, french beans, carrots, peas, drumstick, pumpkin, avaraikka, raw plantain, snake gourd and chow chow. The more the variety of vegetables, the better the taste.

Ingredients:

• Mixed vegetables from the list specified above - 5 - 6 cups
• Curd (lightly sour) - 1/2 cup
• Grated coconut - 1 1/2 cups
• Green chillies - 4
• Curry leaves
• Oil
• Salt

Preparation:

• Cut all the vegetables to small cubes and steam them with some salt. Care should be taken to not overcook the vegetables.
  
• Grind the chillies and coconut with some curd.
• Heat some oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. Once they sputter add the steamed vegetables, coconut mixture and the curd. Heat for about 4 - 5 minutes.
• Turn off the flame and add curry leaves.
• Serve with hot rice or adai.