indian recipes

In the previous post, we saw how to make modak, here let’s see how to make a fried variation of the popular modakam sweet dish. While the steamed modak is made with rice as the base variant, we use maida for the fried modak. Fried modak is called sukhiyan in Kerala. Ofcourse, each region might have their own slight variations to the dish, what I am dishing out here is how we make it at our home.

Ingredients to make fried modak or Sukhiyan:

• Maida – 150 gm
• Jaggery – 1 1/4 cup (shredded)
• Chana dal – 200 gm
• Dry ginger powder (for flavour)
• Cardamom – 5 or 6

How to make the filling for fried modak

The filling for the fried modak is very similar to what we make for modak.

Step 1: Soak the chana dal for 30 minutes

Step 2: Pressure cook the soaked channa dal and drain the excess water if any.

Step 3: Shred the jaggery.

Step 5: In a pan mix both the cooked channa dal and jaggery and heat it medium flame.Add dry ginger powder, elachi (cardamon).

The jaggery would melt and the contents thicken.

Step 6: Remove the thick filling from the stove. At this consistency, it would be easy to make dumplings

Step 7: Made round balls out of the filling as show in pic below. Keep the filling balls aside and now lets made the outer covering for the modak.

Making of fried modak (Sukiyan)

Step 8: Take maida in a pan

Step 9: Add water to maida and make a batter, dilute enough to dip the filling and fry it. If it is too diluted, it might not coat the filling ball properly.

Step 10: Add the filling balls into the batter.

Step 11: Deep fry in oil

And delicious fried modak or sukhiyan is ready to be served!

Theeyal literally means “burnt dish”, a kerala recipe which is typically made out of roasted coconut and other masala ingredients. Every community has their own recipes and there are many variants of Theeyal dishes that differs with the various ingredients used but the base ingredient of all theeyal remains the roasted coconut and tamarind paste that gives it the typical taste. Here is one theeyal recipe from our community kitchen which is made with Channa as the main ingredient, this also happens to be one of my favourite dish that I relish with main traditional dishes like  Aapam and Puttu.

Ingredients for Kondai kadalai theeyal

Kondai kadalai (Channa / chickpea)  – 1 cup

(you can use either black or white channa)

Coconut -  1/2 cup shredded

Coriander seed – 3 tea spoon

Red chilly – 10

Curry leaves – 12 – 15

Tamarind paste – as per taste

Cooking oil – 1/2 tea spoon

 Steps to make Kondai kadalai theeyal

Step 1:

For masala, we need coconut, coriander, red chilly and curry leaves.

 Step 2:

Add 1/2 teaspoon cooking oil in fry pan and throw in all the masala ingredients and roast it till coconut turns brown.

Getting roasted…

Step 3:

Add little water and make a fine paste out of the roasted masala in mixer grinder.

Step 4:

Pressure cook the already soaked channa. Add little salt while pressure cooking. Its better to soak the channa before hand for 4-5 hours in water for easy cooking.

Step 5:

Transfer the pressure cooked channa into a cooking pan. Add the masala paste.

Step 6:

Add tamarind paste as per taste and also add little water for the gravy. Taste the gravy and add salt as per your requirement.

Let it cook till the gravy thickens…

Step 7:

Kondai kadalai Theeyal is ready to be served.

Appam and kondai kadalai theeyal !

Kondai kadalai theeyal goes well with Aapam, Puttu, Idly and dosa.

Instead of Channa, you can also make mixed veg theeyal by replacing channa with mixed vegs like brinjal, bhindi, drumstick, yam, onion and green chilly. You can also throw in little channna optionally. Mixed veg theeyal tastes well with rice.

Chukku kaapi is a traditional herbal decoction brewed in southern Indian states of Kerala and Tamil nadu. It is quiet invigorating for health and makes a good daily beverage. It also acts as an excellent healthy, medicinal cup of brew especially when you are down with fever, cold or throat pain. Also it has a good digestive properties.

Ingredients:

Chukku (dry ginger) – 1 and half tea spoon

Black pepper corns – 10 – 15

Corriander seeds – 3 tea spoons

Jeera – 1/2 tea spoon

Karupatti / Black jaggery (palm jaggery) – 50 gm or as per taste

Steps to make chukku kappi

Step 1:

Keep all the ingredients handy.

If you are using whole dry ginger, crush it to powder or you can use readymade dry ginger powder.

 Step 2:

Coarsely grind all the ingredients in mixer grinder.

Step 3:

Take 2 cups of water and add the grounded ingredients and jaggery.

Step 4:

Boil it. Chukku kaapi is ready. While boiling check for sweetness and if needed add more jaggery. Switch off the stove and allow the brew to settle for a minute before serving.

Step 5:

Strain the chukku kappi and serve the brew!

If you like you can also add milk optionally but do make sure you don’t add hot milk into it as it might tend to curdle. Personally I prefer with milk!

In one our previous health article we read about Health Benefits of Pepper, So I decided why not have a pepper based recipe today.  When you are down with cough and cold, having “pepper rasam” is a popular home remedy and also relaxes and soothens you. Popularly known as ‘Milagu rasam’ in Tamil, even in regular days, makes a good gravy for piping hot rice! Let’s see how to make pepper rasam.

Ingredients to make pepper rasam:

Pepper (whole) – 1 tbsp

Red chilly – 1

Garlic – 10

Jeera – 1/2 tbsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch (optional, incase you don’t like the flavour)

Turmeric powder – little less than 1/4 tbsp

Tamarind – 1 small lemon size (as per your taste you can increase the quantity)

Cooking oil – 2 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tbsp

Curry leaves – 4-5

Salt – as per taste.

 Step 1:

Grind all ingredients,  except tamarind coarsely as show in pic.

Step 2:

Mix well the tamarind in 2 cups of water and strain it. Add salt to it.

Step 3:

Add 2 tbsp oil in cooking pan and saute mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Step 4:

Add the coarsely grounded ingredients into the fry pan and stir in low flame for 1 minute.

Step 5:

Add the tamarind water and if needed add required quantity of salt. In medium flame, allow it to boil but don’t let it boil too much.

That’s it! Pepper rasam is ready to be served…

Pala pazham paniyaram (in Tamil language) or Chakka pazha paniyaram as known in Malayalam language is a traditional, regional delicacy made from ripened jack fruit.  Let’s see how this dish is made in our step by step visual method.

Ingredients:

• Jackfruit (ripe) – 25-30 pieces
• Jaggery (shredded) – 1 and 1/2 cups
• Rice flour – 1 cup
• Coconut (shredded)
• Sugar

Step 1: Take ripened jack fruit pieces, clean them and cut into pieces.

Step 2: Shred the Jaggery.

Step 3: Grind together both the Jack fruit pieces and the shredded jaggery into fine paste.

Step 4: Mix rice flour  into the jack fruit – jaggery paste and set aside for 10 minutes into idly batter consistency. Check the taste, if you need more sweet, add shredded jaggery and mix well. Do note, we will be adding sugar also in the later stage.

Step 5: Mix the ingredients together into a fine batter. Paniyaram batter is ready.

Step 6: Clean plantain leaves and cut into pieces like in picture below.

Step 7: Flatten the batter onto the leaves like show below.

Step 8: Spread shredded coconut over the flattened batter.

Step 9: Sprinkle sugar  as per your taste.

Step 10: Fold the leaf.

Step 11: Now, you have to steam the preparation. In the picture, I have used a traditional idly cooker for steaming purpose.

Step 12: Jack fruit paniyaram getting steam cooked.

Step 13: Once you are assured it is cooked properly, remove them from the container.

Pala pazha paniyaram (in Tamil)  or chakka pazha panniyaram ( in malayalam) or your Jack fruit paniyaram is ready to serve and eat!

Enjoy this wonderful delicious traditional snack!

Come mango season, this is yet another mango recipe that I indulge on.  Try it and enjoy your lunch!  It is easy to cook and simply mango-licious!

Ingredients to make Mambazha kozhambu:

• Sweet ripened mango – 1 (big)
• Grated coconut – 1/2 cup
• Garlic – 2 pods (optional)
• Jeera – 1/4 tbsp
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 tbsp
• Chilly powder – as per taste
• Salt – as per taste
• Curry leaves – 5 -6
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tbsp

So now let’s see how to make Mambazha Kozhambu recipe

Step 1:

Cut the mangoes into small/medium size pieces. Grate the coconut and keep other ingredients handy.

Step 2:

Grind the grated coconut, Jeera, turmeric powder, red chilly powder together into a smooth paste adding little water.

Step 3:

In a pan add half cup of water and cook mango for 1-2 minutes to make it slightly tender.

Step 4:

Add the  paste into the cooking mangoes. Mix well.  Cover with lid and cook it in low flame for 2-3 minutes. If required, add extra salt and chilly powder as per your taste.

Step 5:

Once cooked, remove it from flame. Saute mustard seeds and curry leaves in few tbsp of cooking oil and add to the cooked gravy for seasoning.

Delicious Mambazha Kozhambu is ready. Its best had with piping hot rice.

Enjoy the dish and savour the mango season!

There are very few mushroom recipe that goes well with South Indian main dishes like Idly, Dosa, Idiyappam, Aapam etc. Mushroom in coconut milk gravy is one recipe that makes an wonderful accompaniement to the above mentioned main dishes. And yes, it also goes well with roti,jeera rice,biryani,pulao,ghee rice etc.

Ingredients:

• Button Mushroom – 400 gm
• Onion – 2 (big)
• Coconut milk – 2 cups (depends on its thickness)
• Ginger – garlic paste – 1 table spoon
• Garam masala – 1 tbsp
• Coriander powder – 1 tbsp
• Jeera – 1 tbsp
• Mustard seeds – 1 tbsp
• Turmeric powder
• Red chilly powder (as per taste)
• Green chilly – 2
• Curry leaves – 7-8
• Coriander leaves
• Salt – as per your taste
• Tomatoes (optional) – 2

Step 1:

Cut the mushroom into pieces and keep aside.

Tip: Before using mushroom, sprinkle little turmeric powder, coat them well on mushroom and keep aside for few minutes. If the mushroom turn blue, discard them since they are not fit for eating and might be poisonous.

Step 2:

In a frying pan, add little oil and saute mustard seeds, curry leaves.

Then, add the chopped onions, followed by ginger-garlic paste and green chillies.

Stir fry till the onion turn golden yellow.

Then add  rest of the ingredients except mushroom and coriander leaves. Fry for 2-3 minutes.

Step 3:

Add the stir fried ingredients into a pressure cooker.

Add the chopped mushroom and salt (as per taste, note we have added little salt during frying process also) and mix well.

Add little water.

Switch off the gas when the first whistle comes from the cooker.

Step 4:

Transfer the content back into kadai.

Step 5:

Add the coconut milk into the ingredients.

Let it simmer for 2-3 minutes and switch off the stove.

Step 6:

Mushroom in coconut milk gravy is ready to serve.

The dish goes well with variety of main dishes like Idli, Dosa, Roti, Jeera rice, Ghee rice, Biryani etc. My favourite being with Idli.