kadai bhindi

Preparation time : 30 mins
Serves : 5 to 6 approx

Ingredients :

Lady finger/ okra/ bhindi : 400grms
Onion :  2
Tomato : 2
Capsicum / Bell pepper( green and yellow color) : 1 each
Curry leaves : 8
Ginger garlic paste : 1 tsp
Green chili : 3
Crushed Coriander seeds : 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds : 1/2 tsp
Red chili powder : 1/2tsp
Coriander powder : 1 tsp
Cumin powder : 1 tsp
Garam masala powder : 1/4 tsp
Turmeric : pinch
Salt : to taste
Coriander leaves : few springs

Method :

Cut lady finger into 1/2 " pieces, deep fry them in oil till you can see a slight color change.
Take a pan, heat it , add oil, when hot, add cumin seeds, crushed coriander seeds.
Fry them for a few seconds.
Add chopped onions and a pinch of salt.
Add turmeric powder, ginger garlic paste, cook it such that raw flavor of ginger garlic paste goes.
Add sliced green chili, curry leaves, saute them for some time.
Add diced tomatoes, coriander powder, cumin powder, chili powder.
Mix them all, cook till tomatoes are almost done.
Add bell pepper and toss them a bit.
Add half of coriander leaves.
Add fried lady finger to it , mix it , cover and cook it for 5 mins in low flame.
Add some garam masal powder.
Cook it for some time.
Your dish is ready.
Garnish it with coriander leaves.
Serve it hot with rice or roti.
Enjoy your dish :)
Thank you , do post your comments !!!

Rajma masala

Rajam masala is a popular north Indian curry prepared with red kidney beans. This is one of the popular and common dishes from the Punjabi cuisine. Rajma masala is a spicy, aromatic and flavourful with thick delicious gravy. Rajma is the red kidney bean, a popular ingredient in the Mexican cooking.

This is generally consumed along with rice. This recipe is ideal for people who want to control cholesterol.

Even though, this dish is heavy, it tastes good and is nutritious as well. In addition, it is very easy to prepare, consumes less oil and can make a meal complete. This curry can be prepared with dried or canned red kidney beans. Rajma tastes delicious if it is cooked with little black gram.

Similar to other beans, red kidney beans is high in starch, protein and dietary fibre and is an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, molybdenum, thiamine, vitamin B6 and folic acid. Kidney beans are very nutritious. They are, however, harder to digest than other beans, which is why they are traditionally cooked with seasonings that help break them down, such as ginger. Use spices that are as fresh as possible - their health benefits, let alone their flavors, will be more potent that way.

Ingredients :

Rajma / Red kidney beans : 1 cup
Onion : 2
Tomato : 2
Cumin seeds : 1/2 tsp
Green chili : 2
Grama masala : 1tsp
Ginger garlic paste:1 tsp
Coriander powder : 1 1/2 tsp
Salt : to taste
Chili powder : to taste
Kasoori methi : 1tsp
Butter : 2 tbsp
Coriander leaves : few

Method :

Soak it in water for 2 hours, cook it in pressure cooker till done.
Take a pan, heat it, add some oil, when hot add cumin seeds.
Add finely chopped onions, fry it a bit.
Add garam masala powder, ginger garlic paste.
Add little water that you got after cooking rajma.
Add coriander powder, then add finely chopped tomatoes,and finely chopped green chili.
Add all water from rajma.
Put the lid on and cook it till everything cooks and they mashed up.
Add cooked rajma, salt, chili powder, kasoor methi powder.
Add butter, cover and cook for 15 mins.
Sprinkle little freshly chopped coriander leaves.
Serve it hot with rice or roti.
Enjoy your dish :)
Thank you, do post your comments !!!

Batura

This is my 150th post :)

Bhatura is a traditional North Indian Punjabi classic Indian bread. When fried in oil bhatura puffs and it is nice crispiness outside and soft inside that just melts in your mouth. This is served with chickpea curry popularly called as chole. At most of the restaurants this is known as CHOLE BHATURA. Chole bhatura makes a sumptuous meal and is filling.

A huge bhatura looks some what like puri but big in size. Many gets confused or do not know the difference between a poori and a bhatura. It is just simple, bhatura is made of all-purpose flour adding baking powder and yogurt to give a sweet and salty taste and is huge in size where as puri is made of whole wheat flour / atta and is small in size. Puri can be eaten with any Indian vegetable gravy dish but bhatura is mostly combined with / served with chole.

Preparation time : 2 hours : 10 mins

Serves : 2 to 3

Makes : 11 or 12

Ingredients :

Maida / All purpose flour : 2 cups

Sooji / Semolina : 1/4 cup

Baking powder : 1/4 tsp

Sugar : 1 tsp

Salt : to taste / 1 tsp

Butter milk : 3/4 cup

Milk : 1/4 cup (if needed)

Method :

Take a bowl, add all purpose flour, semolina, baking powder, sugar , and salt.
(Adding semolina is a tip, that makes your bhatura to stay puff for some time, your bhatura don't go flat soon if you add sooji :) )

Mix them once.

Add butter milk, mix it good.

Make a dough similar to poori dough.

If your dough is too thick, use little milk to make your dough.

It should be a tight dough.

Knead it once, sprinkle some oil on top.

Cover it and let it rest for at least 2 hours.

After resting, take the dough, divide it into small lemon size balls.

Roll it evenly , not too thin or not too thick.

Deep fry it hot oil.

Serve it hot with chole curry .

Chana Batura is gernerally served with fresh cut onions, green chili, and half cut lemon .

Enjoy your dish :)

Thank you, do post your comments !!!

Tomato Potato Curry

This is one of the very very easiest curry, yet tastes really awesome, this is one of my favourite curry.

You can even call this curry as bachelor's curry.

My brother(younger big brother) will prepare this curry too good, he prepares this curry in the room and we used to enjoy the dish , nice sweet memories :) 

Preparation time : 15 mins
Serves : 2

Ingredients :

Tomato : 2
Potato : 2
Mustard seeds : 1/4 tsp
Urad dal : 1/4 tsp
Jeera / cumin seeds : 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves : few
Coriander leaves : few
Chili powder : to taste
Salt : to taste

Method :

Boil potatoes, peel the skin and make them into pieces.
Take a pan, heat it, add a tsp of oil.
Add mustard seeds, urad dal, jeera, and curry leaves.
Wait till mustard seeds crackle.
Add chopped tomatoes.
Cover and cook them till they are soft.
Take the lid off, add potato pieces.
Add salt and chili powder.
Mix it well, and let it cook for 2 mins.
Check for taste, and if you want little bit gravy consistency you can add some water and can mash some potato pieces.
Serve this curry hot with chapati or roti.
Enjoy the yummy yummy curry :)
Thank you, do post your comments !!!

Rice dosa / Rice vutappam

This dosa is prepared with left over rice.

This is a smooth , white and nice dosa ........

Preparation time : 2 hours + 10 mins
Serves : 2

Ingredients :

Raw rice : 1 cup
Cooked left over rice : 1 cup
Salt : to taste

Method :

Soak raw rice for 2 hours.

Drain out the water from soaked rice.
Grind both the rice's together to form a nice smooth batter like masala dosa batter.
Take it into a bowl, add salt to taste.
Make dosa's like masala dosa's.
Serve it with any chutney you like.

You can even make vutappam with the same batter.
Add cumin seeds, chopped coriander and chopped green chili to the batter.
Add 2 ladles of batter in center of the pan, top it with chopped onions, chopped tomato, if you want you can even add shredded carrot.
Sprinkle little chili powder.
Cover it and cook it.
Once done turn it , cook it a bit.
Your vutappam is ready to be served ....

Enjoy your dish :)
Thank you , do post your comments !!!

Okra jaipuri

Preparation time : 20 mins
Serves : 2

Ingredients :

Okra/ lady finger/ bhendi / benda kaaya : 1/4 kg (or) 250 grms
Gram flour / besan : 1 cup approx.
Cumin seeds : 1tsp
Amchoor powder : 1 tsp
Vinegar : 1 tbsp (optional)
Salt : to taste
Chili powder : to taste
Cashew nuts : 10

Method :

Cut okra / Bhendi / Lady finger in thin slices.

Add cashew nuts, amchoor powder, salt, chili powder, cashew nuts and venegar , mix it good.
Adding salt and vinegar will bring out little moisture.
Let it sit for 2 mins.
Sprinkle flour, i.e may be less than a cup, let it sit for 2 mins.
Toss them, not mix them.
Drop it in hot oil and deep fry them till they are golden brown in color.
Fry them in batches.
Serve it hot.
Enjoy your dish :)
Thank you, do post your comments !!!

Salad - 1

Last week we went to our friends place, we prepared this salad there.

It tasted so good, we four ate this and completed the salad in no time.

Preparation time : 10 mins

Serves : 4

Ingredients :

Boiled eggs : 2

Boiled chick peas : one cup

Cherry tomato : 10 to 15 

Capsicum : 2 

Ripened Avocado : 1

Lettuce leaves : 4

Lemon juice : 1 tsp

Cesar dressing : 2 tbsp

Olive oil : 1/2 tsp (optional)

White pepper : 1 tsp

Salt : to taste 

Method :

Take a bowl.

Cut boiled each boiled egg into 16 pieces.

Wash lettuce leaves and cut them in the size of egg piece.

Cut avocado, Take out the seed, scoop the avocado out, cut it into pieces.

Cut capsicum also in the size of egg piece.

Cut each cherry tomato in half.

Mix all these in a bowl together with chickpeas.

Drizzle lemon juice and olive oil, mix it once.

Add Cesar dressing, pepper powder, and salt.

Mix it good.

Serve it, and enjoy your dish :)
Thank you , do post your comments !!!

Basic sponge cake without butter

When i prepared this for first time, it came out really good and then on i prefer making this cake, because it is butter less and tastes excellent.

This is one of the basic cakes..... I used vanilla extract to get nice vanilla flavoured cake, you can use different one if you wish.....

This cake is really light, delicious and yummy......

Preparation time : 40 mins
Serves : 6 / makes 20 pieces approx.,

Ingredients :

All purpose flour / Maida : 1 cup
Sugar : 1 cup
Eggs : 6
Baking powder : 1/2 tsp
Vanilla extract : 1 tsp
Salt : 1/4 tsp
Butter : 2 tbsp (Completely optional)

Method :

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius or 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Separate egg whites and egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites using normal whisk (or) beat them with electric whisk (or even) beat them with mixer grinder till the whites turn fluffy and stand.
(If you are whisking by hand it will take 20 mins, but if you are using electric whisk it will take only 5 mins)
Keep this aside.

Whisk egg yolks, till they lightly change in pale yellow colour. Add sugar, 2 tbsp of butter i.e. optional, and vanilla essence, whisk it once again.
Keep this aside.

Take a sieve add flour, baking powder and salt to it, sieve it into a bowl.
Now take the egg yolk / egg yellow mixture and fold it into the egg white mixture slowly.
(Do not mix it, just do cut and fold method; if you mix it at this stage all the bubbles and all the fluffiness from the egg whites will go off and you will not get a cake that is soft and porous )

Once you did that, add in the flour in batches, even now you should use cut and fold method.
Once it it done, keep it aside.

Take a baking tray, lightly grease it with butter, sprinkle some flour.

Tap it up side down to take out any excess flour.

Pour the cake mixture into this.
Tap it once.

Put it in the middle rack of the oven for 20 to 25 mins or till when you insert a tooth pick or knife it should come out clean.

Take it out from the oven, when done.
Let it cool down completely.

Separate it out from the baking tray.

Cut it into pieces.
If you want you can sprinkle little powdered sugar / icing sugar on top.

Serve it and enjoy the delicious cake :)
Thank you, do post your comments !!!

Chama dumpa fry

This is one of my favourite curry, and i love it.

Prepare this once and enjoy the awesome taste of this dish.

Usually when i prepare this curry, i will start with say suppose some 10 taro roots, by the end i will get only the curry of 4 or 5 taro roots ..... as i will eat them at each stage :)

So i usually buy the double quantity of taro root , if i am cooking it.

Chama dumpalu are starcy tropical tubers, rich in carbohydrates.  

This is called as  ചേമ്പ് കിഴങ്ങ് chembu-kizhangu in kerala, sivapan-kizhangu/ Seppankilangu in TamilNadu.

chama gadda/ chaama dumpa in Telugu,Taro root in English, it is also called as Arbi and can be cooked in many ways.

Serves : 2
Preparation time : 30 mins

Ingredients :

Taro root / Chema dumpa : 2 large
Chili powder : to taste
Salt : to taste
Oil : 3 tsp

Method:

Cook chema dumpa for 1 or 2 whistles, peel the skin off and cut them into pieces.
While you are taking the skin it may be gooey like lady finger, but the final stage of the curry will be really good.
(Some kind of taro root will cook so fast and they become mushy, so you need to keep an eye)
Take a wide open pan , Heat it, Add 2tsp of oil to it.
( If you want you can add seasoning, but i personally like this dish with out seasoning)
When oil is hot add cooked, cut taro root pieces.
Keep the flame in medium, spread them across the pan.
After 5 mins add salt and mix them once.
If you mix too much they will become mushy.
Cook it for 10 mins.
Now you can add chili powder.
Increase flame to high add remaining 1 tsp of oil and cook it for 5 more mins -- this step is to get the crispy coating for the taro root.
Serve this with hot rice.
Enjoy your dish :)