Mushroom With Peas

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ingredients

3 cups of fresh mushrooms (chopped into bite size pieces)
1 cup green peas
1 tablespoon Oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
pinch of asafoetida
2 medium tomatoes
2 to 3 green chillies
1 " piece ginger
2 Tablespoons grated coconut
1 teaspoon garam masala
Salt to taste
Method

1) Blend tomatoes, green chillies, coconut and ginger into paste and keep aside.

2) Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and once they crack add asafoetida and turmeric powder add tomato paste and cook until oil separates from the paste and then add salt, chopped mushrooms and peas

3) Cook for 10 mins by stirring in between and add garam masala at the end.

Serve hot with Roti/Chapati/Puri/White Rice

Spinach Dal (with Moong dal)

Ingredients:

* 1 cup moong dal
* 2 cup spinach chopped
* 1 teaspoon grated ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
* 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
* 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice (adjust to your taste)
* salt to taste

For seasoning

* 2 tablespoon ghee or clarified butter
* 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
* Pinch of asafetida
* 4 whole red chilies

Method:

1. Pressure Cook Dal with Spinach, ginger, turmeric, salt and 4 cups of water (Add more water to your consistency)
2. Add Lemon juice or garam masala
3. For seasoning, heat oil or ghee, add cumin seeds and once they crack add asafoetida and whole red chillies and pour over Dal and mix well

This can be served with Rice or Roti

Dhavanai Idly - Dosa

This Recipe adopted from here and came out great and healthy too since it has got Dhals equally. I also made the Dosa with the leftover Batter. Sorry for Poor picture quality.

Ingredients

Urad dal (Black gram) – ½ cup
Channa dal (Bengal gram)-½ cup
Toor dal(Red Gram) -½ cup
Raw rice -1½ cup
For tempering
Mustard seeds -1 tsp
Urad dal – 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Coconut ½ cup freshly grated
Ginger finely chopped.

Method
1) Total Dal quantity should be equal to Rice. Soak chana Dal&Toor Dal together and Urud Dal and Rice seperately for 2 hrs

2) Grind Chana Dal and toor Dal first, rice second and Urud Dal last and mix all of them with salt and ferment it overnight.

3) Heat oil in a pan splutter mustard seeds,urad dal,curry leaves, ginger and coconut . sauté it for few minutes and add to the batter. Grease any cup (I tried Glass and China) with Oil and fill with the batter and cook in steam until they are cooked (approximately 20 mins

I used Idly cooker and also pressure cooker without weight and both turned out good.

Take out the Idly with knife or spoon and serve hot with your favourite chutney/Sambar
Here is the Dosa I made with the left over batter

Pesarattu

Ingredients

1 cup pesalu (whole green moong dal)
1 Tablespoon rice
small ginger piece
2 green chillis
1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
salt to taste
oil
Method

1) Soak Dal and Rice overnight or atleast 8 hours and Grind to a smooth paste by adding, ginger, green chillies, cumin seeds and salt. Do not make it too thin but similar to Dosa or pancake batter.

2) Grease a flat pan with some oil, pour the batter and spread it to make round shape and cook both the side until it turns light brown

3) Serve hot with your favourite chutney


Variations

You can also add chopped onions fried in little oil until transparent to the batter before making pesarattu

Dal Makhani

Ingredients:

* 1/2 cup whole urad dal (black gram dal)
* 1/8 cup red Rajma (kidney beans)
* 1 teaspoon grated ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
* 1/2 teaspoon mango powder (Amchoor)
* 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
* 1/4 cup cream
* salt to taste
* 1 Tablespoon Oil or Ghee
* 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
* Pinch of asafoetida
* 3 to 4 whole red chilies

Method
1) Soak Urad Dal and Rajma overnight and pressure cook in 4 cups of water by adding ginger, turmeric powder and salt until Dal and rajma are soft and tender

2) Mash the dal and rajma slightly and again cook in medium heat for about 5 mins, add cream, garam masala, amchoor powder and cook in low heat for another 10 mins.

3) For tempering, heat ghee or oil, splutter cumin seeds, add asafoetida and red chillies and mix with the Dal.

Garnish with grated ginger and Serve hot with Roti/Chapathis/Puris

Chickpeas Soup

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Chickpeas soup is another tasty and healthy soup i made last night

Ingredients

1/2 cup chickpeas(soaked overnight and pressure cooked)
1 green chilli
small piece of ginger (1 teaspoon grated)
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1) Heat oil and throw in cumin powder and rest of the ingredients, fry for a min.

2) Cool and grind to a paste with some water. Strain the liquid to the same pan with a strainer and add more water if required and bring to boil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

server hot with croutons of your choice

Notes

Make sure the green chilli is very small and do not add more than one. We can add pepper to adjust the taste but if chilli is more we cannot do anything except throwing the soup. Even without chilli it will taste good. So think about your spice level and decide whether to add chilli or not

Chick Peas Masala

Friday, January 16, 2009

Nutrition benefits here

This goes good with bhaturas. Chole (white / black peas) give good flavor when soaked in tea water. Heat water and dip 2 tea bags for sometime and then use this water to soak the beans over night or upto 8 hrs

Ingredients

1 cup Chick peas (Garbanzo beans, Kala chana)
2 tea bags
1 tablespoon Oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 medium onion finely chopped
3 to 4 cloves of crushed garlic
2 medium tomatoes
2 to 3 green chillies
1 " piece ginger
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon dry mango powder
Salt to taste

Method

1) Boil 5 cups of water and put tea bags in for about 10 mins.

2) Wash Chick peas and soak in the above tea water for 7 to 8 hrs or overnight. The quantity will increase 2 to 3 times. Pressure cook the chickpeas and keep aside

3) Blend tomatoes, green chillies and ginger into paste and keep aside.

4) Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and once they crack add onions and stir-fry until they are transparent. Add the garlic and fry for couple of mins

5) Now add the tomato paste and cook unti oil seperates from the paste and add salt, garam masala, dry mango powder and chick peas and let it cook for 10mins on medium or low heat. Mix inbetween and mash the peas lighly while mixing.

Notes

1) You can avoid onions and garlic and use 1 tablespoon of besan (Bengal gram flour)

2) Add 1/2 cup of milk at the end and cook in low heat for 5 mins.

Idly Chilli Powder

This podi/powder is nutritious since it is made of lentils and we can store for around a month in any air tight container. This will taste good with any kind of Dosas but it is mainly used with Idly. It is very useful if you want to take parcel of Idly for any outing because it will not spoil so soon like chutney and no need to carry separately. Just mix the powder with some oil and do a coating to idly and pack aluminum foil.

We can also make Podi Dosa with this powder by spreading this while making dosa and tastes good without chutney too.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Chana Dal (Bengal gram Dal)
1/4 cup Urud Dal (Black gram Dal)
1/4 cup Sesame seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
5 to 6 whole red chillies
salt to taste

Method

1) Dry roast all the above ingredients starting with Chana Dal since it takes more time to roast. After 2 to 3 mins add urud Dal, coriander seeds and red chillies and roast until they turn light brown and at the end add sesame seeds. They just need a min or less to roast

2) Cool the ingredients and keep aside and grind them into powder once they are cooled. Do not grind too smooth but maintain the texture of the podi.

3) Mix with Oil/Ghee just before eating with Idly/Dosa

Notes

1) Do not grind while they are hot because it will form lumps and you cannot achieve the desired podi consistency.

2) You can also mix with Yogurt if you want to avoid Oil

Bitter Guard Pitlai

Monday, January 12, 2009

Here is another way of making bitter guard. The ingredients are almost similar to sambar but with the fresh ground spices instead of using readymade sambar powder. since we add Dal also in this it is perfectly healthy dish along with loads of medicinal benefits of Bitter guard.

Ingredients

2 cups of bitter guard chopped into thin round pieces
1 cup Toor Dal
3 whole dried red chillies
1 Tablespoon coriander seeds
1 Tablespoon urud dal
1 Tablespoon Chana dhal (Bengal Gram)
1 teaspoon black pepper corns (reduce if you want less spice)
2 Tablespoons grated coconut
2 Tablespoons thick tamarind paste or tamarind extracted from a big lemon sized tamarind pulp
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
pinch of asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
salt to taste

Method

1) Pressure cook Toor Dal until it is cooked and keep aside.

2) Dry roast redchillies, lentils (urud dal and chana dal). coriander seeds and black pepper until Dal turns light brown

3) Blend the above dry roasted ingredients with the tamarind paste and coconut into paste by adding 1/4 cup water and keep aside

4) Heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds add asafoetida and then add the chopped Bitter guard, turmeric powder. Stir fry for about 5 mins and now add the ground paste along with 2 cups of water and cook until bitter guard is cooked

5) Add the cooked Dal and adjust salt.

This goes well with Hot Rice.

Egg masala (With Indian spices)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ingredients

10 boiled eggs, remove skin and cut into half

3 cups onoins chopped
2 cups tomatoes chopped
1 cup coconut sliced/frozen grated coconut

spices

3 to 4 whole red chillies
1/2 teaspoon black pepper corns
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
pinch of asafoetida
1 Tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tespoon cumin seeds
4 to 5 cloves
2" stick cinnamon
2 to 3 green cardamoms
6 to 7 cloves of garlic (reduce the quantity if cloves are fat)
1/2 " piece ginger
salt to taste

chopped coriander leaves for garnish
Method

1) Heat 1 Tablespoon of oil(I use olive oil) and fry all the spices for few seconds then add onions and fry for 2 to 3 minutes. Add sliced tomatoes , coconut and salt and cook until tomatoes and onions are cooked and cool.

2) Once the ingredients are cooled, grind them into paste and keep aside

3) Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a pan, add the ground mix, boiled eggs and 1 cup of water. Adjust the salt and water. Garnish with coriander leaves.

This goes well with hot rice.

Lentil Curry with Fresh Fenugreek Leaves

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Ingredients

1 cup washed Fresh Fenugreek Leaves(methi, Menthaku).
1 cup toor dal (red gram Dal, kandi pappu)
4 to 5 whole dry red chillis
1 medium sized Tomato chopped

1 tsp oil
2 to 3 garlic cloves crushed
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds(jeera)
curry leaves (optional)
pinch of asafoetida (optional)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 medium sized onion chopped
1 tsp coriander powder
salt to taste
chopped coriander leaves for garnish
Method

1) Pressure Cook together Toor Dal, Fenugreek Leaves, dry red chillies and tomatoes in 2 cups of water. You can keep the Toor Dal in water for 30 mins or more so that it will cook sooner. You need to cook for 3 to 4 whistles so that Dal will get cooked nicely. Once done remove and mash all the ingredients with laddle and keep aside.

2) Heat 1 tsp Oil in a pan splutter mustard seeds, add cumin seeds, crushed garlic, asafoetida and turmeric powder and fry for 30 seconds.

3) Now add chopped onions and fry until they turn light brown or transparent. Add curry leaves and coriander powder and add this to the mashed & cooked ingredients in step 1.

This tastes good with Hot rice, I like to eat this with sangati which becomes a complete nutritious meal. I am going to post a recipe to make sangati now :-)

Chana Dal- Yogurt Chutney

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

This is another lowfat/healthy chutney which goes great with Dosa/Idly varieties. It is very quick to make

Ingredients:

* 1/4 cup chana dal
* 1/2 teaspoon oil (preferably olive oil)
* pinch of asafoetida
* 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
* 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
* 3 to 4 dried red chilies (adjust to taste)
* 1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (menthulu)
* 1/2 cup yogurt
* salt to taste (1/2 teaspoon)

Method

1) Dry roast chana dal until it turns to light brown
2) Heat oil and fry red chillies until they turn light brown, add asafetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and fenugreek seeds and stir-fry until seeds crack. Make sure to fry spices at medium heat so that they will not get burnt.
3) Blend chana dal and spices to a powder (not too smooth but to maintain the texture of the podi/chutney powder) and mix with whipped yogurt.


Notes

1) The powder before mixing with yogurt can be stored for couple of months in air-tight container and yogurt can be added just before serving
2) This powder can also be mixed with oil/ghee instead of yogurt

Cabbage with moong Dal (split)

Monday, December 29, 2008

Ingredients

2 to 3 cups of chopped cabbage
1/4th cup moong Dal
1/2 cup chopped tomato

2 to 3 green chillies
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 to 4 black peppers
2 Tablespoon grated coconut

1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
pinch of asafoetida (optional)
1 teaspoon split urud Dal
curry leaves (optional)

Method

1) Wash the Moong Dal in water and pressure cook along with cabbage and tomatoes in a cup of water

2) blend cumin seeds, black pepper, green chillies and coconut into paste by adding some water

3) Mix this paste to the cooked ingredients, add salt and cook until

4) Heat oil, splutter mustard seeds and Urud dal, add asafoetida and curry leaves and add to the above mixture


This goes well with rice or chapathi (Roti) and very easy to make and healthy. You can use squash or spinach instead of cabbage.

Beerakaya Pappu (Ridge gourd with Lentils/Toor Dal)

Ingredients

1 ridge gourd (2 to 3 cups) / Beerakaya (chopped by peeling the edges)
1 cup Toor Dal
1 medium sized tomato chopped
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
pinch of asafoetida
3 to 4 green chillies
2 to 3 cloves crushed garlic (optional)
1/2 cup onion chopped
curry leaves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
salt to taste
Method

1) Wash the Toor Dal nicely and soak in 3 cups of water for 20 to 30mins and pressure cook along with the Ridge gourd and tomato

2) Heat oil, add mustad, cumin seeds. Once they crack, add asafotida, green chillies, garlic, curry leaves, turmeric powder fry for 30 seconds and then add onions and fry until onions turn brown and add coriander powder.

3) Mash the cooked ingredients lightly and add them to the above mix and adjust salt to taste.