Mysore pa

This was totally unexpected. I got nice north Indian friends recently. One of them, Sutapa was very much interested in mysore pak. My mother in law is a sweet specialist. So I got the recipe from her, dropped tharun at his playschool and went to sutapa's place, She had kept the ingredients ready i.e
Besan(Gram flour) - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Oil - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 1/4 cup
Water - 1/2 cup


Method:
1.Add 1/2 cup of water to sugar in a thick bottomed pan and heat it.
2. Once the sugar dissolves fully in water, add the gram flour gradually while stirring continuously to avoid lumps.
3. Once all the flour is dissolved, add ghee while continuously stirring it.
4. Add oil also and keep stirring. For a while you might think its too much of oil and ghee. But once in a while its ok.
5. Stirring is the only difficult part of the method, so you can use both hands alternately. Since I did with my friend it was not too much of pain.
6. After it starts hardening and stirring becomes difficult and the whole paste separates out of the pan thoroughly, transfer the contents into a plate greased with butter/ghee.
7. Let it cool for 10 minutes and later cut it into diamonds.
8. Yummy mysore pa is ready. This is another sweet trial which turned successful the first time itself:))

Note: Preparation time is just half an hour.

Kozhukattai - Vinayaka chathurthi special!

From childhood, am very fond of kozhukattais. I like both uppu and vella kozhukattais. So, every vinayaka chathurthi, I helped my mom to make choppu(cups) for the kozhukattais. After marriage, continued to do the same part of work. For the first time I tried this whole process all alone, without any assistance since my mil was out of town. And I was very happy that it came out so well in the first trial. This one goes to the WYF Festive event of EC.
Ingredients:
Sweet Stuffing/Poornam
Jaggery - 1/2 cup
Grated coconut - 1 cup
Powdered Cardamom - 1/2 tsp

Spicy stuffing
Urad dal- 1 Cup
Red Chilli - 3-4 Chillis (to taste)
Salt to taste
Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves- 4-5

Kozhukattai
Raw Rice - 1 Cup
Water as required
Gingelly Oil - 2-3 tsp

Note: You can make the rice flour(made from wet rice, ready made powder from shop won't come out very soft) and the stuffing previous day before you make this. The method seems to be big, but when you do it with interest it will happen in no time.


Method for sweet stuffing:
1. Dissolve jaggery in a cup of water. Transfer the dissolved jaggery water to a griddle leaving behind the dirt.
2. Heat the griddle in low flame. Let the jaggery thicken. The consistency should be such that we should be able to make a small ball out of a drop and it should remain in shape when dropped in water.
3. In the above stage add grated coconut and cardamom powder and stir well for 5 min.
4. Before the poornam becomes too thick, remove the content and place it aside.

Method for the outer layer:
1. Soak raw rice for atleast 3 hours.
2. Spread it in a towel and let it dry.
3. Grind the rice in the mixer once its dry and sieve well to get a very fine flour.
4. Now heat some water in the pan and add a pinch of salt.
5. Add the fine flour gradually while stirring continuously in order to avoid any lumps. After adding some flour initially, wait for sometime for it to dissolve. Later add the rest of the flour gradually. This would avoid lumps better.
6. After you add all the flour, stir continuously for 5 min and let it cool.
7. Now use your hands to make it a big rice ball. Cover it with a cotton cloth and press well. You can feel the softness.

Kozhukattai Method:
(Rub oil onto the hands and do the following)
1. Make small balls from the big rice ball.
2. Make little cups from the balls evenly and stuff the poornam inside and close it well without any gap/holes.
3. Steam the kozhukattais in the pan for about 10 minutes.
4. Sweet/Vella kozhukattai is ready.

Uppu/ Spicy Kozhukattai method:
1. Soak urad dal for about 2 hrs.
2. Grind it coursely with salt, chillis, asafoetida n curry leaves.
3. Make balls and steam it.
4. Use this as another stuffing and make boat shaped kozhukattais.
5. Once again steam them for 10 minutes.
6. Spicy Kozhukattai is ready.

Kai Murukku

MEC - Protein rich foods roundup

First of all, Thanks to one and all who participated in the event. Here goes the dishes.

Priya was the first to come up with tasty and healthy oats halwa in microwave. I had always liked innovative dishes in oats as they are a rich source of fiber.


Lata from Flavours and Tastes with a very interesting dish, Pappadam canapes, I loved the way she has used sprouts with papads, do check it out.

Jayashree has presented Rajma pulao where she has mentioned canned rajma can be used while doing it in microwave.



Radhika from ticking palates has come up with yummy mattar panneer which is most of them's favorite I believe.




Srivalli rushed with a last minute entry but never the least, it is the traditional thirattu paal in microwave.




And finally comes my cheese veggie packets

Cheese veggie packets

This goes to my MEC event, Protein rich foods. I have used lot of vegetables, cheese with minimal oil making it more healthy.
Here goes the things I needed to prepare this:
1. Mixed Vegetables - You may prefer to buy buy frozen chopped vegetables or choose the vegetables n chop them into small pieces. You may use carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower and corn.
2. Cheese - 2 Slices
3. Coriander leaves (finely chopped)
4. Red Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
5. Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp
6. Garam Masala powder - 1/4 tsp
7. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
8. Salt to taste
9. Lemon juice - 1/4 tsp
10. Oil - 2 tsp
11. Spring roll pastry sheets/ Hand made dough( Use all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp il, salt and water and knead well & let it stay for 1 hr, Make square sheets of them once you start preparing this)


Method:
1. Add little oil in the glass bowl, add coriander leaves and cumin seeds and heat them in Microwave high for 1-2 min. You will notice the colour change of cumin seeds n smell the fragrance of coriander leaves. Transfer them to a bowl.
2. Boil the chopped vegetables in a microwave oven or glass bowl with water enough to wet the vegetables and heat in Microwave high for 8-10 min with little salt.
3. Drain the water from the boiled vegetables. You may add pepper n salt to the water and drink it considering its nutritional value.
4. Add the vegetables to the bowl(where u transferred fried cilantro n cumin seeds) and add the powders 4,6,7,8.
5. Sprinkle lemon juice and mix well. This is our stuffing.
6. Grate the cheese or cut it into small pieces.
6. Rub oil thoroughly over the spring roll sheets one by one and add our stuffing onto it, add some cheese and fold into packets and microwave for 1 min. You can cook 3 or 4 per min(differs from one microwave to other).
7. Look for the brownish color change n serve them with Tomato ketchup/chilli sauce.

An event to enrich proteins in our diet - Protein-Rich foods

Nowadays we are all aware of cooking healthy food. Eating a little high protein food at each meal helps reduce the appetite plus the body uses energy to convert protein to carbohydrates. So Come on folks, let your imagination fly and come out with tasty, innovative protein rich recipes which would pamper our taste buds.

Ok here you go with the rules of our event!

1. Cook any dish rich in proteins(you can use nuts, grains, legumes, meal maker & dairy products such as milk and cheese) and post on your blog with a link back to this announcement and Srivalli's MEC post.

2. The entry can be any course of the meal and any meal of the day, I request you people to stick to pure vegetarian recipes(No eggs also please). You can send in multiple entries but all posted on your blog from now on till July 31st.

3. Since its a Microwave easy cooking event, please make sure the entire cooking needs to be done in the microwave and linking your post to Srivalli's MEC is mandatory. You can of course use food processor & other electronics for grinding stuffs, but no stove top please.

4. Recipes submitted to other events relevant to this theme are also welcome.

5. I would also appreciate if you can include the logo along with your recipe.

6. Once your dish is ready, you can send in your entries to rohirums@gmail.com with the following details:
Subject: MEC: Protein Rich Foods
Blogger name
Post URL
Recipe name
Picture

7. Recipes from archives can be accepted Only if they are updated as current posts.

8. Non-bloggers can also mail your recipes with the picture to rohirums@gmail.com.

I hope you will all be thrilled to make some delicious foods rich in taste and health. Awaiting your entries!

I thank Srivalli for giving me this opportunity.
Cheers:)
Ramya

Rasamalai

This is my all time favorite sweet. In fact, I should say its my family sweet.. Everytime we go for any get together we dont even go for a second thought and order this sweet. Everyone likes it. So I have tried it for pajaaka's event.

Cooking time : 45 min
Makes 6-8 balls

Ingredients:
For Malai:
Milk - 1/2 litre (For best results use full cream milk)
Lemon juice - 3 tablespoons
Sugar - 1 cup
Milk powder / plain flour - 1-2 tablespoons
Water - 2 cups

For flavoured Milk:
Milk - 1/2 litre
Sugar - 1/2 cup or as required
Cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
Saffron - 1/4 tsp (soaked in warm water/milk)
Sliced Nuts for garnishing (Almonds, Cashew, Pistachios, etc)



Method:
For Malai:
1. Take a thick bottomed pan and boil the milk well.
2. Reduce the flame, add lemon juice slowly, stirring the milk continously.
3. As the curdling process begins, continue stirring.
4. When all the milk turns curd and water separates out, immediately add ice cubes to stop the curdling process further(this is an important step to avoid hardening of malai).
5. Use a clean muslin/cotton cloth to extract the solid parts. This is called paneer or cottage cheese.
6. Run cold water thoroughly from outside in order to avoid the lemon's smell in the dish.
7. Drain the water fully and knead it to make a smooth dough. If needed, sprinkle milk powder or plain flour to get a smoother consistency.
8. Make them into small balls and flatten them with your palm and keep them aside.
9. Heat sugar and water in 1:2 ratio and allow it to boil.
10. As it starts boiling, reduce the flame and add the flattened cakes one by one slowly.
11. Let it cook for 10-15 minutes. Once the balls puff up and start floating on the surface indicating it is cooked, you can take them out and keep them aside.

For flavoured milk:
1. Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Stir it continuously until the volume reduces to half and becomes thick.
3. Add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron water/milk and stir well, until sugar dissolves (5-10 minutes).

Put off the flame let it cool for sumtime and add the cheese balls one by one.
Garnish it with nuts and allow it to cool completely.
Refrigerate and serve chilled.