Curd Rice or Yogurt rice

Curd rice / Dadojanam / Perugannam / Thair Sadam ~ Indian recipe

Dear Friends,

Curd rice with lemon pickle or avakaya or with any pickle… mmm… yummy J

With this dish also I remember train journeys when we prefer to take such food during our childhood.

And I won’t like curd smell when I am very young and my mom use to make this and when the flavor of hing dominates I use to eat curd rice. I won’t like plan curd rice.

Ingredients:

Raw Rice                                           – 1 Cup (Sona masori)

Water                                                – 3 Cups for cooking rice and ½ cup while mixing

Curd or Yogurt                                    – 1 Cup

Oil (sunflower/groundnut)                    – ½ Table spoons 

Mustard seeds                                    – ¼ teaspoon or less

Cumin seeds          / Jeera                   – ¼ teaspoon or less

Channa dal / Bengal gram                    – ½ teaspoon

Urad dal / Split Black gram                   – ½ teaspoon

Green chilies                                       – 2 (finely chopped)

Red chili                                              – 1

Curry leaves                                       – 10 leaves (Nearly)

Carrot       (Grated or finely chopped)  – 2 Table spoons (Optional)

Grated ginger                                      – ½ teaspoon

Asafetida or Hing                                 – Pinch (Nearly 1/8^th teaspoon)

Salt                                                    – To taste (½ teaspoon)

Chopped Coriander leaves                   – ½ Table spoon

Grapes                                               – ¼ cup (Optional)

(Any fruits of your choice like pomegranate, apple or banana or mango pieces)

Cashew nuts                                       – ½ Table spoon or more (Optional)

Raisins                                                – ½ Table spoon (Optional)

Milk                                                    – ¼ Cup (Boiled and brought to room temperature)

Procedure:

1. First wash the rice with water twice. Then add the water and you can cook the rice in pressure cooker or rice cooker or by any other source of cooking rice. The amount of water varies for different rice. I used sona masori rice so water will be 1:3 in ratio i.e. one portion of rice with three portions of water. If you use basmati rice then the ratio will be 1:2 i.e. one portion of rice with two portions of water. You can increase the water quantity as curd rice will be good if rice is quite mashie.

2. Once rice is cooked allow it to cool to room temperature. So, that it will be easy for you to mix. Transfer the rice into a big plate or wide mouthed vessel or pan. Add curd and salt and mix the rice. “Do not add curd or yogurt while the rice is hot.”

3. Now in a fry pan add oil, once oil is heated add mustard seeds. When mustard seeds popped up add Jeera, Bengal gram seeds, urad dal seeds stir it for a while when urad dal slightly changes its color switch off the stove or put it in complete low flame. Now add cashew nuts, chopped green chilies, split red chili, curry leaves, grated ginger, hing and grated carrot and mix it. Allow it to cool a bit.

4. Add the above tampering to the rice. Mix it using hand or fork or spoon. Add milk and water if necessary.

Finally Add chopped coriander and fruits and dry fruits if you wish.

Dish is ready to be served.

If you are taking curd rice for journeys in India add more milk than curd. Add ½ cup curd and one cup milk and do not add water and salt. You can add just before eating.

When there is excess rice and we can mix curd with it and next day just you can just give tampering and get a feeling of eating fresh rice.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this recipe. 

Lemon rice

Lemon rice / Nimakaya pulihora ~ Indian hot dish

Dear Friends,

Hope every one enjoyed the Diwali celebrations and had a joyous and safe festival time. Now I am posting simple dish which most of us will make for any Festival with little variations.

This dish especially while making first time most of us will be worried about the quantity of lemon juice and salt. Also the rice should be cooked with less amount of water, so the rice will not be mashed up while mixing. If you are know the process of cooking rice then it is very easy.

I also remember train journeys when we prefer to take such food during our childhood.

Elders generally will prefer to prepare lemon rice with left over rice of before day.

Ingredients:

Raw Rice                                 – 1 Cup (Sona masori)

Water                                      – 2 Cups

Oil (sunflower/groundnut)         – 3 or 4 Table spoons 

Mustard seeds                          – ½ teaspoon

Channa dal / Bengal gram          – 1 teaspoon

Urad dal / Split Black gram         – 1 teaspoon

Ground nuts                              – 1 Table spoon or more

Cashew nuts                             – 1 Table spoon or more (Optional)

Green chilies                             – 3 or 4

Red chili                                    – 1 or 2

Curry leaves                             – 10 leaves (Nearly)

Grated Carrot                           – 2 Table spoons (Optional)

Turmeric Powder                       – 1 teaspoon

Asafetida or Hing                       – Pinch (Nearly 1/8^th teaspoon)

Salt                                          – To taste

Chopped Coriander leaves         – 1 Table spoon

Lemon juice                              – 2 Table spoons or more (Nearly two medium sized lemons)

The quantity of juice will vary based on your taste for sourness.

Procedure:

1. First wash the rice with water twice. Then add the water and you can cook the rice in pressure cooker or rice cooker or by any other source of cooking rice. The amount of water varies for different rice. I used sona masori rice so water will be 1:2 in ratio i.e. one portion of rice with two portions of water. If you use basmati rice then the ratio will be 1:1+½ i.e. one portion of rice with one and a half portion of water.

2. Once rice is cooked allow it to cool to room temperature. So, that it will be easy for you to mix. Transfer the rice into a big plate or wide mouthed vessel or pan.

3. Squeeze the lemon juice and add salt to it. Add this juice to the rice and mix it once. Keep little plain rice aside, this will be useful after mixing, if you feel little more oil is remaining or quantity of lemon juice or salt is more, then you can mix this rice.

4. Now in a fry pan add oil, once oil is heated add mustard seeds. When mustard seeds popped up add Bengal gram seeds, urad dal seeds stir it for a while when urad dal slightly changes its color add ground nut seeds (You can use either normal ground nuts or roasted ground nuts). Switch off the stove or put it in complete low flame. Now add cashew nuts, green chilies, split red chilies, curry leaves, turmeric, hing and grated carrot and mix it.

5. Add the above tampering and chopped coriander to the rice. Mix it gently using hand or fork or spoon.

Dish is ready to be served.

You can also use Ivy gourd (Little gourd / Tindora / Dondakaya), Carrots, Beans vegetables in lemon rice. Just steam boil the vegetables. Drain the water and finally add into your tampering or tadka and cook it for 1 minutes in low flame. You can also add grated ginger of ¼ teaspoon if you like.

Adding roasted ground nuts with out husk will be good. Avoid cashew nuts and vegetables if you want to take it for journeys. This rice will be good for the whole day.

You can also use Lime instead of Lemon.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this recipe. 

Capsicum Curry / Fry

Capsicum Curry / Fry ~ Indian Side dish

Dear Friends,

Capsicum we find this in different colors red, green, yellow, white and orange. Curry with this mixed color capsicum looks good. This is a semi fry dish which you can eat with either rice or chapatti.

Ingredients:

Capsicum                                 – 250 Grams (Nearly three medium sized)

Onions                                     – 100 Grams (Nearly two medium sized)

Turmeric Powder                      – ½ TeaSpoon (Optional)

Oil (sunflower/vegetable)          – 3 Table spoons

Channa dal / Bengal gram         – 1 teaspoon

Urad dal / Split Black gram        – 1 teaspoon

Curry leaves                             – 10 leaves (Nearly)

Garlic clove                              – 1 or 2 (Optional – for tampering)

Salt                                          – To taste

Chopped Coriander leaves        – 2 Table spoon

Ground nut powder                  – 2 or 3 Table spoons

Procedure:

1. Cut capsicum into small pieces, remove the seeds (as shown in above picture). Cut the onions also to small pieces.

2. Take a fry pan and put oil into it. Once pan and oil are heated put chann dal, urad dal and stir it. Once the dal changes its color to golden brown put curry leaves and chopped garlic.

2. Now add onions into the pan and put little salt and turmeric powder. Just fry it for a minute, (because again it will be cooked with capsicum) and put capsicum pieces also. Cover it with a lid and allow it to cook till 10 minutes.

3. Now check whether the capsicum become soft. As, there will be some water inside capsicum and also when we cover with the lid the steam is formed and with that also there will be water quantity and it will be cooked nicely. Once you notice that the capsicum pieces became soft then take away the lid and let it cook for another 5 or 10 minutes until you notice the water is evaporated to some extent. Mix it upside down often.

3. Add little salt, remember that in ground nut powder already is there and check the taste. Finally add ground nut powder and chopped coriander.

Dish is ready to be served. 

Here you can you can use any curry powder instead of ground nut powder. But, I prefer ground nut powder as it gives perfect taste for this dish, also if the ground nut powder is coarse then broken grounds will come and it taste so good. Ground nut powder I have posted in my blog already (http://ammayikitchen.blogspot.com/2011/10/groundnut-powder-or-verusenagapappu.html). As, there are spices and salt in ground nut powder always add less salt while cooking. Also if needed add red chilly powder or chopped green chilies if you like more spicy.

I used two red capsicum and one green capsicum. Red capsicum will taste little sweet. So, I always recommend green capsicum. You can make this with out onions also. If you notice there are no onions in the picture. 

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this recipe.

Thank you!

Cabbage Kuttu or Cabbage with Moong Dal

Cabbage Kuttu or Cabbage with Moong Dal ~ Indian Dal

Dear Friends,

This kuttu when served with papads will taste good. You can eat this with rice or chapatti or roti.

Ingredients:

Moong dal / Green gram           – 100 Grams

Water                                       – 500ml nearly

Cabbage                                   – 200 grams

Salt                                          – To taste

Turmeric Powder                       – 1 Spoon

Chopped Coriander leaves         – 2 Table spoon

Lemon Juice                              – 2 Table spoons (Optional)

Channa dal / Bengal gram          – 20 Grams (Soak it for at least 2 hours) (Optional)

Tampering Ingredients:

Ghee / Oil                        – 2 Table spoons (You can use oil+ghee also)

Mustard seeds                 – 1 tspoon

Cumin or Jeera Seeds      – 1 tspoon

Curry leaves                    – 10 leaves (Nearly)

Dry Red Chili                    – 1 or 2

Asafetida                         – Pinch (Nearly 1/8^th t-spoon)

Spice Mix:

Green Chilies                            – 3 to 5 (Based on how much spice you eat)

Cumin or Jeera Seeds               – 1 tspoon

Coconut (Pieces or Grated)       – 50 to 100 Grams

Procedure:

1. Take Green chilies, cumin seeds and coconut pieces into a mixer grinder or blender and grind it adding very little water (1/4^th cup).

2. Take any deeper vessel or big non stick 20cm saucepans, put the moong dal and wash it. Then add water, soaked channa dal (optional) and turmeric powder to this. Boil it in a medium flame. Stir it often as moong dal while boiling will form like foam and it will over flow out of the vessel. Also avoid closing the vessel with lid until half of the water is evapourated as the liquid over flows.

2. Cut the Cabbage into pieces. Add this Cabbage pieces and Salt to dal while it was half boiled. If you notice the dal is split to half. If you feel water is less you can add little water.

3. Once the dal was totally cooked and Cabbage pieces become soft, add cocnut mixed masala. Take off the vessel from flame.

4. Now you can do tampering in a small pan. Take small pan, put ghee/oil into it and heat it until ghee melts and heated. Now add mustard seeds, once they popped up. Turn off the flame and add cumin seeds, red chili, curry leaves and hing.

5. Add this tampering to the cabbage moon dal kuttu. After 5 mins add lemon juice squeezed out of half portion of lemon/lime. If you don’t like lemon flavor you can avoid this.

6. Add chopped coriander leaves to the dal finally.

Here you can feel why we can’t use pressure cooker to cook the dal!

Simple, Moong dal will always tastes good when it is cooked with out pressure cooker. If we use pressure cooker the dal is over boiled some times.

Some types of moong dal will not be cooked easily with out pressure cooker, in that case if there is no choice you can use.

If you don’t like lemon juice you can add either tamarind juice or amchur powder. If you don’t want sourness then add nothing.

You can also tomato and add green chilies instead of chili powder.

You can try the same dish with cucumber, ridge gourd, bottle gourd, snake gourd etc.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this recipe.

Thank you!

Cucumber with Moong Dal, Keerakaya Pesara Pappu

Cucumber with Moong Dal,  Keerakaya Pesara Pappu ~ Indian Dal

Dear Friends,

Cucumbers generally we eat as salads and make raitha. If I see cucumber, I remember summer in India, when we go out we see lot of sellers selling pieces of cucumber adding salt and chili powder.

This cucumber is good coolant, we all know that. This dal with cucumber and moong dal is very easy and simple to make. Many will feel that flavour of cucumber is raw and wont taste good. But here we give tampering with ghee and finally add lemon juice which gives a different aroma and I hope every one will like this.

This is my first dish which I made when I was young and started cooking. J

Ingredients:

Moong dal                                 – 100 Grams

Water                                       – 500ml nearly

Cucumber                                 – 200 grams (One small cucumber)

Red Chili Powder                        – 1 Spoon (Based on your taste)

Salt                                           – To taste

Turmeric Powder                       – 1 Spoon

Chopped Corriander leaves        – 1 Table spoon

Lemon Juice                              – 3 Table spoons (Optional)

Tampering Ingredients:

Ghee                               – 2 Table spoons (You can use oil+ghee also)

Mustard seeds                 – 1/2 tspoon

Cumin or Jeera Seeds      – 1/2 tspoon

Curry leaves                    – 10 leaves (Nearly)

Dry Red Chili                    – 1 or 2

Asafetida                         – Pinch (Nearly 1/8^th t-spoon)

Procedure:

1. Take any deeper vessel, put the moong dal and wash it. Then add water of two portions to the washed dal (if moong dal is one cup then more than 2 cups of water you can add). Add turmeric powder to this. Boil it in a medium flame. Stir it often as moong dal while boiling will form like foam and it will over flow out of the vessel. Also avoid closing the vessel with lid as the liquid over flows.

2. Wash Cucumber and peel it off. Cut the cucumber into small cubes. Remove the seeds if they are not tender. Other wise you can use the seeds also. Add this cucumber pieces and Salt to dal while it was half boiled. If you see you can notice the dal will be split to half. If you feel water is less you can add little water. Remember some liquid will come out of cucumber also.

3. Once the dal was totally cooked and cucumber pieces become soft, add red chili powder. Take off the vessel from flame.

4. Now you can do tampering in a small pan. Take small pan, put ghee into it  and heat it until ghee melts and heated. Now add mustard seeds, once they popped up. Turn off the flame and add cumin seeds, red chili, curry leaves and hing.

5. Add this tampering to the cucumber moon dal. After 5 mins add lemon juice squeezed out of half portion of lemon/lime. If you don’t like lemon flavor you can avoid this. With ghee and hing you already have good flavor.

6. Add chopped coriander leaves to the dal finally.

Here you can feel why we can’t use pressure cooker to cook the dal!

Simple, Moong dal will always tastes good when it is cooked with out pressure cooker. If we use pressure cooker the dal is over boiled some times.

Some types of moong dal will not be cooked easily with out pressure cooker, in that case if there is no choice you can use.

If you don’t like lemon juice you can add either tamarind juice or amchur powder. If you don’t want sourness then add nothing.

You can also tomato and add green chilies instead of chili powder.


The same procedure you can follow using ridge gourd or spinach leaves or Black Nightshade/ sunberry leaves (Manathakkali keerai in tamil and Kachakku in telugu) instead of cucumber.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this recipe.

Your suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Thank you.

Roasted Channa Dal/Dariya Powder, Putnalapappu Podi

Roasted Channa Dal/Dariya Powder, Putnalapappu Podi ~ Indian Spice Powder

 

Dear Friends,

This Roasted Channa Dal podi is delicious with rice+ghee/oil. Also we can use as curry powder in any fry recipes. This absorbs excess oil in the fries.

Ingredients:

Roasted Channa Dal        – 100 Grams

Dry Red Chilies                – 8 (Based on how much spice you need u can Increase or decrease)

Cumin or Jeera Seeds      – 1 Table spoon

Garlic Cloves                   – 2 to 4 (Optional)

Grated Dry Coconut / Coconut Powder – 25 Grams

Salt                                 – 1 tspoons nearly (according to your taste)

You can use Asafetia or Hing if you are not using garlic

Asafetida                         – Pinch (Nearly 1/8^th t-spoon)

Procedure:

1. In a Pan dry roast channa dal, jeera and redchillies evenly for about 2 minutes in a medium flame. Allow it to cool to room temperature. (This is not needed if you have freshly opened packs of the ingredients.)

2. Peel of the outer layer of the Garlic cloves.

3. Put all the ingredients (Roasted channa dal, garlic, Red chilies, Cumin seeds, dry coconut powder and salt) into a mixie grinder or blender and grind it to a coarse powder.



Podi is ready. You can serve it with hot rice and ghee.

Store it in an Air tight container. It will good before one month, if you add garlic. If garlic is not added, it will be good for nearly three months.

This is very simple to make. You can also use this mix as instant chutney for idli, dosa, upma etc by adding little water, a spoon full of lemon juice and finally add tampering to the chutney.

For tampering you need 1 spoon of oil. After oil was heated in a pan add mustard, urad dal, channa dal, curry leaves, dry red chilli and pinch of hing.

If you dont have dry red chilies you can add 2 or 3 table spoons of red chili powder. It gives good color to the podi.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this spicy recipe.

You suggestions and comments are most welcome. Thank you.

Groundnut Powder Or Verusenagapappu Podi

Groundnut Powder, Verusenagapappu Podi ~Indian Spice Powder

Dear Friends,

This groundnut podi is delicious with rice+ghee/oil. Also we can use as curry powder in any fry recipes.

Ingredients:

Groundnuts                     – 200 Grams

Dry Red Chilies                 – 10 (Based on how much spice you need u can Increase or decrease)

Cumin or Jeera Seeds      – 1 Table spoon

Garlic Cloves                    – 4 (Optional)

Grated Dry Coconut / Coconut Powder – 25 Grams

Salt                                 – 2 tspoons nearly (according to your taste)

Procedure:

1. In a Pan dry roast groundnuts evenly for about 10 minutes in a medium flame. Allow it to cool to room temperature. Now take some ground nuts to hand and rub them with your palms to remove the husk and blow off the husk. If you don’t want to remove the outer layer you can use the groundnuts as it is.  

2. Peel of the outer layer of the Garlic cloves.

3. Put groundnuts, garlic, Red chilies, Cumin seeds, dry coconut powder and salt into a mixie grinder or blender and grind it to a coarse powder (Powder should not be too smooth).

You can serve it with hot rice and ghee.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this spicy recipe.

Pesara Payasam or Moong dal kheer

Pesarapappu Payasam/Kheer with Moongdhal ~Indian Sweets

Dear Friends,

On the occasion of Vijayadhasami I made pesarapappu payasam J

Ingredients:

Moong Dal                       – 100 Grams

Water                              – 3 Cups or 600 ml

Jagerry (Grated)              – 150 Grams (Basing on the sweetness you can increase or decrease according to your taste)

Cardamom or Elachi         – 4 to 6

Milk                                  – 1 or 1 ½ Cup or 250 ml

Ghee                                – 1 or 2 Table spoon (Nearly)

Cashew nuts                     – 20 Grams

Raisins                              – 20 Grams

Procedure:

1. Add Ghee in a fry pan with medium flame, after ghee melted, add cashew nut and raisins. Stir the dry fruits continuously till raisins pop up like balloon remove the pan from the stove.

3. In a sauce pan, pour two cups of water and add washed moong dal, once the moong dal is cooked turn of the flame.

OR

Wash the moong dal and put it in a pressure cooker for 3 whistles.

4. Now add grated jagerry and cardamom powder to the moong dhal. Then add boiled milk (hot or cold)

5. Finally add roasted dry fruits.



You can serve it hot or cold.

Hope you will make and enjoy eating this yummy recipe.