Drumstick curry with milk

I love drumsticks especially in sambhar. Last time when i bought them my mom-in-law suggested we make curry with them and i realized i never made curry with drumsticks. To my surprise my husband was a very big fan of drumstick curry, so we had a very happy ending with this recipe.

Ingredients:

Drumsticks - 4
Onions - 4-5
green chillies -2 (optional)
curry leaves - 1 stem (optional)
1/2 tsp cumin and mustard seeds .
milk - 1 cup
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
chilli powder - 1/2 tbsp
coriander powder - 1/2 tbsp
garam masala powder - 1 tsp



Step 1: Peel and cut drumsticks into 1-2 inch pieces. Cut onions as finely as possible.

Step 2: Add oil to cooking pot, once it is hot add cumin and mustard seeds. Add curry leaves, cut green chillies and onions. Fry until onion start to turn light brown.


Step 3: Add drunmsticks and cook until drumsticks are cooked. When you press a drumstick with ladle, it should open, that's the way to check if drumstick s are cooked.

Step 3: Add turmeric powder,chilli powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder. Cook for couple of minutes.
Step 4: Wait, we are not done yet. Add cup of milk and cook for another 2 minutes.


Ready!!! Tastes awesome with rice.

Dosa Series: simple pesarattu

I am planning to have a series for Dosa recipes. For those who are hearing this term for the first time, it is a very famous south Indian breakfast dish. It is comparable to a crepe.

Ingredients
2 cups split green gram
1/4 cup rice
1/2 onion
1 chilly
small ginger ginger piece
salt for taste

Usually Dosa is served with chutney. but you can eat this Dosa without chutney.

Step1: Soak green gram along with rice in water for 5-6 hours. Usually i soak them overnight and make Dosa for breakfast.



Step2: Grind green gram along with onion,chilly, ginger and salt. Add enough water to make it into a think batter.

Tip1: Always add water in small quantities while grinding. This way the batter is smooth and you can be sure that you did not add too much water. Consistency of the batter is very important to make Dosa.




Step3: Take a wide pan and slightly grease it with oil. Take 1/2 cup of batter and spread it evenly over the pan with back of a round ladle. This is the most tricky part, i have failed many times. Don't get disappointing, i have many tips to help you.

Tip2: Always keep the pan in medium to low flame while spreading the batter otherwise the batter might not spread easily. Increase the flame once the batter is properly spread.



Step4: Turn the Dosa carefully and cook on the other side for a minute.


Yummy Dosa is ready. I find Dosa very tasty and healthy. It is prefect for breakfast.

vicky's simple veg salad

I regularly watch Vicky Ratnani 'Gourmet Central' on NDTV Good Times and this recipe is from his show. I selected this recipe as it is super easy and super healthy.

Ingredients:

Vegetables: You can use any salad veggies you like, In this recipe i used yellow squash, carrots, beans, broccoli, Chinese cabbage

Butter, Olive oil, Basil, salt & pepper


Step1: Chop all veggies to desired shapes and sizes.


Step2: Blanch vegetables. Which is basically add veggies to boiling water and let them cook for couple of minutes and take them out and immediately immerse in ice or ice water. I like the color of blanched vegetables and also they are crunchy to eat.



Step3: Take a pan, add 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Fry blanched vegetables for a minute. add salt and pepper as per taste. Add chopped basil.



Tada!

my favorite mushroom curry

I cook this dish only when there are visitors at home. Some people in India don't eat mushroom and my dear husband is one of them. So guests are good excuse for me to prepare this dish.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, cleaned and chopped properly.
Oil, curry leaves (optional), coriander powder, chilli powder, gram masala powder, ginger garlic paste, turmaric powder, salt

I purposefully did not give the measurements for ingredients in this recipe. I want you to go with your instincts and use ingredients as per your taste.

Tasting the dish while cooking is very important and will guide you in using ingredients.

Everyone is unique and so is their taste. Why to follow others taste measurements when you can prepare according to yours eh!



Step1: Fry onions along with curry leave in oil until they start to brown. Add ginger garlic paste and turmaric powder and fry for a minute.

Step2: Add mushrooms and cook until they leave water and become soft. Add chopped tomotos and cook for another 2 minutes.


Step3: add chilli powder, coriander powder, garm masala, salt and cook for 2 minutes. Taste and add ingredients as per your taste.

Mushroom curry is ready.

unique potato salad

I saw baby potatoes in the store while shopping for groceries and i got reminded of a wonderful potato salad i had in a restaurant. I bought them and searched for the recipe. I was confused what to try from numerous recipes on net. Finally i took plunge at this recipe.

I was stopped in the first step itself. I did not have mustard sauce and that means i have to wait another day to buy it and try out this recipe. But as always i was not ready to wait another day. So i tried my hand making quick alternative for mustard sauce.

Ingredients:

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
mayonnaise - 2 tbsp
onion - 1 cut into small pieces (Spring onion will be even better)
baby potatoes - 250 grams ( boiled, peeled and cut into half)
coriander leaves
salt for taste



Step 1: Using hand mortar and pestle coarsely grind the mustard. Add Olive oil and mustard to it and mix properly.



Step 2: Add cut onions to the mustard sauce. Mix it with potatoes. Sprinkle a bit of finely chopped coriander leave and salt.






Easy right? My mom-in-law liked it and my son loved it.

Happy experimenting :)

Yummy Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Like everyone else i love macaroni cheese. But i am stopped by the kinds of cheese to be used in the recipe.
But today i thought this should not stop me, let me try with pizza cheese. It came out very well and this recipe earned its place in our regulars.

Ingredients:
1 cup Macaroni
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 cup cheddar (I used pizza cheese)
salt as per taste



Step 1: Boil Macaroni as per instructions and keep aside.

Step 2: Take a pan, add butter. Once butter melts, add flour and mix until it bubbles. Then add milk little by little while mixing properly. Cook until this becomes think and smooth.

Step 3: Switch off the stove . Add pepper powder and 1 cup cheese and mix. Add macaroni and mix properly. Add salt as per taste.


Step 4: Butter
Step 5: Bake at 180 C for 20 minutes or until you see cheese turning little brown.


Slurp!!!

mouthwatering fish fry

Fish is one of my favorite foods. My husband does not eat fish.
So, i mostly prefer to make something simple and quick with fish.

Below is my standard recipe. This recipe can be used for any kind of fish, here i have used pomfret.

Ingredients:

Fish
chilli powder
salt
turmeric
ginger garlic paste
coriander powder
gram masala powder
lemon juice
oil
coriander leavers



In the ingredients sections, i did not give the measurements purposefully. Because for this recipe all ingredients are as per the taste. Chilli powder and salt needs little attention, if you add more then fish fry is ruined.


Step1: rub the ingredients properly to fish and let it rest for half hour.


Step2: In a shallow pan, fry the fish in oil for 3-4 minutes . You don't need too much oil as we are not doing deep fry.


Step2: Turn the fish carefully and fry on the other side for another 2 minutes.


Once fish is done properly, taken them out of oil, sprinkle coriander leaves. Enjoy :)

yum idiyappam

I went to wayanad, kerala on one of office trips and i was introduced to idiyappam there.

I don't know if its the place, company or hunger, i loved idiyappam and i think i had around 10 of those.
From then on it was on my mind to make idiyappams

I have been asking all my kerala friends for recipe.

I shopped for equipment in many places, but finally fell in love with the presser my mother-in-law had.
She bought it just after her marriage it seems. It was looking so cute. She happily gave it to me.






Equipment:

Presser to make noodles
Idly plates n cooker

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 2 cups
Salt - as per taste
boiling water
grated coconut - 1/2 cup
oil

Step 1: Add salt to the rice flour. pour boiling water into the flour little by little and mix. Prepare dough with consistency to make chapati.


Step 2: Grease the presser with oil. Take a handful of dough, make it into a ball and put it into the presser.


Step 3: Grease idly molds with oil. Press the dough into the mold. and sprinkle grated coconut.



Step 4: cook the idiyappam in idly cooker for 10 minutes. Take them out.


These will taste great with chicken stew or coconut milk and sugar combination.

Enjoy :)

unique dried cucumber seeds podi

When my grand mom visited me last month, she bought cucumber seeds and i was like "cucumber seeds???"

my dad had cucumber plants in the farm and like in olden days she dried the seeds from the excess cucumbers she had.

Usually cucumber seeds are not used in curries. scrape out the seeds and pour them onto a plate and keep it under sun.
If its summer, it will take half day for them to get dried in India :)
Other wise keep them daily under the sun for 2-3 days.
I am sure you can find them in some indian spice stores.

I am not a big fan of podi's, but this one tasted very different and yummy.

Ingredients

dried cucumber seeds - half cup
red chillies - 3 (as per your taste)
garlic pods - 3
Jeera - 1 tbs
tamarind - 1 strip, 1/2 lemon size (I am always confused how to give the measurement for tamarind, any ideas?)
salt - as per taste


Step1: roast cucumber seeds along with on low flame until seeds start to change color. It is easy to burn them, so make sure you roast them on low-medium flame

Step 2: roast red chillies for couple of minutes separately.



Step 3: grind all roasted stuff with salt.


Step 4: add garlic pods and tamarind and grind

Yummy podi is ready


Tastes great with rice along with ghee. You can also have with with idli or dosa.

Store it in an air tight jar and it will stay for over a month.

Happy cooking :)

flower (cauliflower) pakoda

My husband and me are like north and south poles when it comes to taste in food.
Whatever he likes i dislike and what ever i like, he does not even touch.

Its a good thing as it gives us a chance to taste dishes otherwise we would not have.
It is like a challenge for me to cook dishes, present in a way that he does not know what vegetable it is and impress him.

One such successful experiment is cauliflower pakoda. He loves pakoda but he hates cauliflower.
so i thought why not combine these and see how it will turn out.

Ingredients:
Cauliflower - 1
onion - 1(medium size)
chillies - 2
curry leaves - 10
salt - 1 tsp (as per taste)
chilli powder - 1 tsp (as per taste)
coriander powder - 1 tsp
gram flour - 1 cup
rice flour - 2 tbsp


Step1: cut cauliflower into small pieces as shown in pic. Add cut onion,cut chillies, chopped curry leaves, salt, coriander powder, turmeric, chilli powder to cauliflower pieces.


Step2: Add gram flour and rice flour and mix all of them well with little water.

Tip: When doing any pakoda, add as little water as possible for the flour to coat the vegetables completely. The pakoda will be crispy if you add little water, otherwise they will be soggy.



Step 3: Deep fry until golden brown. Crispy flower pakoda are ready.


Enjoy masala tea with these pakodas and spend great evening with your loved ones.