Potato Sagu

Potatoes are all time favorites for most of us and a dish with potatoes can never go wrong....and even if by chance it messes up, it can still not taste bad:-) So much for my love of potatoes...the most versatile veggie that can be cooked easy and tasty! So, here is a recipe with the lovely dovely potatoes which is quick and easy to make and can go well with roti or dosa! Choice is yours!!!

Ingredients:

- 4 or 5 medium potatoes
- 1/2 cup fresh/frozen green peas
- 2 medium tomatoes
- 3/4 tsp red chilli powder
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt to taste
- Masala paste

For grinding masala paste:

- 1 onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 tbsp roasted gram (pottu kadalai / bhuna channa)
- 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1 tsp khus khus
- 1/2 inch cinnamon stick
- 2 cloves
- 2 green chilly (optional)

Prep time: 20 mins                                Cook time: 20 mins

Preparation:

- Boil the tomatoes until the skin breaks. Let it cool, peel the skin and then puree the tomatoes and set aside.

 - Pressure cook the potatoes along with the green peas. Drain the potatoes and peas of water and peel the skin off the potatoes on cooling and mash them.

- Grind all the ingredients given above under "masala paste" with 1/4 cup of water.

- In a broad pan/kadai, heat the oil. Add the fennel seeds and once it splutters, add the masala paste.

- To this, add the turmeric powder, chilly powder and salt and cook the paste until you don't get the raw smell of the masala.
- Once the masala is cooked, add the tomato puree, mashed potatoes and boiled peas and cook together for 3 to 4 minutes. Add salt if needed.

- If the gravy thickens after adding the potatoes, add little water to adjust the consistency of the gravy and bring it to a boil.

- Transfer on to a serving dish and garnish with fresh coriander leaves! Potato sagu is ready to eat with your favourite roti or dosa!

Capsicum-Peas Pulav

Come December and begins the season of Music, Dance, Drama in Chennai! Its that beautiful 2 months of the year from Dec to Jan when the city is abuzz with music concerts and dance performances all across the city halls. Some of the best talents in classical music & dance are noticed and come to the limelight every year. What an opportunity for young talented and aspiring artists from all across the globe! So glad to be a Chennai-ite for the sheer opportunities it presents in the field of music & art!

Ok, before you all think am writing a blog on Art of singing and dancing let me quickly u-turn to the Art of cooking:-) Well, come December...is not only the season for ears and eyes but also for the tummy with some of the winter veggies going cheap on the wallet and huge in the market. Time to stock up on green peas and all the bean variety that fill the market in abundance during these couple of months.

I have been dishing out a lot of peas recipes this month and want to share with you all the best of the lot so you too can relish along with me...the first of the lot is the hot and mildly spicy peas pulav which is light and delicious and so quick to make too:-) Try it and let me know your comments...

Ingredients:

- 1 cup basmati rice washed and soaked
- 1 cup fresh green pea (frozen is ok too)
- 1 cup thinly diced capsicum
- 1 medium onion thinly diced
- 1 tbsp of grated garlic and ginger
- 1 tbsp of ghee (clarified unsalted butte)
- 1 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
- 2 -3 green chilies slit across (adjust to taste)
- 2 cloves
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 inch cinnamon
- few cashes for seasoning (optional)
- salt to taste


Prep time: 15 mins                                    Cook time: 30 mins

Preparation:

- Wash and soak the basmati rice in water and set aside while you get the veggies ready.

- Dice the onions, capsicum and green chilies. Grate 1/2 inch of ginger and 3 cloves of garlic.

- Wash the green peas and keep all the veggies ready.

- In a pressure pan heat the ghee. Once ghee is hot, add the fennel seeds and as they splutter, add the bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves and cashews. 

- When the cashews turn lightly golden, add the green chilies, ginger garlic and saute, later, after about a minute add the onions and saute until it turns translucent.

- Now add the green peas and capsicum and salt to taste and saute for a couple of minutes.

- Drain the soaked basmati rice off the water and then, add to the veggies in the pressure pan and toss everything together for a couple of minutes.

- Now, add one and half cup water, close the pressure pan and cook on high for 7-8 minutes and on low flame for 2 mins and remove from heat.

- Allow steam to escape before releasing the pressure off the cooker.

- The measure of water is the same even if you are cooking in a rice cooker. Quick and tasty capsicum peas pulav is ready to serve:-)

Methi Veg mixed rice with Left over Rice!

Had not posted any recipe under the left over section for a long time. Though I try and make the best with the left overs...they are usually done too quickly to remember to be clicked for blog post. This too was one such recipe which I started clicking mid way through the making!

There was enough rice left over from lunch and I did not want to carry it over to the next day. Usually the best way to get this done with is to make a tasty...never can say no...'bagalabath' or curd rice with garnish. However, this time I tried a mixed veggie rice for a change and I turned out quite good.

Off to the making.....If you do not want to try with left over rice, you can use freshly cooked basmati rice too..

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked rice
1 cup methi leaves(fenugreek)
1 onion
1 medium potato
1 small carrot(shredded)
1 small capsicum
1 small tomato
6-8 long beans
3-4 green chillies
2-3 cashews
2 cloves
1 tsp fennel seeds(saunf)
1 piece cinnamon
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp ghee(clarified butter) or cooking oil
Salt to taste

Prep time: 10 mins                       Cook time: 15 mins

Preparation:

Cut the veggies into thin long slices. You can use any veggies of your choice.I like to shred the carrots as it addsa rich  colour to the food.
In a wide pan, heat the oil and add the bay leaf, fennel seeds, cloves,cinnamon and once they splutter add the green chillies and onion.

Saute for a couple of mins and add the other veggies, except methi, tomato and carrots.

Add salt to taste and when these veggies are well cooked, add the methi, tomato and carrots and give them a good toss for 3 to 4 mins.

Then, add the rice and mix with the veggies. Quick and easy methi veg rice is ready to serve with your favourite raitha or chips!

Note:
- If pre-cooked rice, heat it and loosen a bit before adding to the veggies. If you add cold rice..it will tend to get sticky.
- You can make this freshly cooked basmati rice too!

Mint-Coriander Green Pulav - with simple and easy flavours!

Hi Friends....its been a really long time since I have been away from blogosphere and must say I have been terribly missing it here but for want of time. As I have said many time before in my posts...I really

admire the bloggers who manage to blog regularly despite juggling between home, kids, work and all the

odd chores....wonder how they manage everything so beautifully...it speaks so much about all of your passion and commitment towards what you are doing....with such inspiring people around me and the motivation from my friends and well wishers am sure I will never want to stop blogging even if I am a little irregular at the moment....

After many months I walked into the kitchen with my camera and cutlery for this post. Listing below the steps to make this super simple and delicious mint/coriander pulav.

Ingredients:

- 2 cups of slit veggies ( beans, potato, carrot, capsicum, onion)

- 1 cup Basmati rice washed and soaked for 20 mins

- 1 pinch cup or 1/2 measuring cup Mint leaves

- 1 pinch cup or 1/2 measuring cup Coriander leaves

- 1 pinch cup or 1/2 measuring cup green peas
- 5-6 nos small onions
- 3 nos green chilly or to taste
- 1 inch ginger
- 2 cloves garlic

- 1 tsp saunf

- 1 tsp of mixed spices( ur choice)

- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tbsp clarified butter(ghee) or oil
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- few cashews(optional)
- Salt as desired

Prep time: 20 mins                               Cook time: 30 mins

Preparation:

- Wash and soak the basmati rice and set aside while you get the veggies and the masala ready.

- Cut the onion, capsicum, carrot, potato and beans into thin long slice.

- Sort and clean the mint and coriander leaves and wash them well to clean off any sediments.

- Grind the small onions, ginger, garlic, green chilly and the mint-coriander leaves into a paste adding a couple of tbsp of water as necessary.

- If you like the spices to be biet size you can add them directly or if you do not like to chew on the masala, you could grind them with the masala paste.

- Heat the oil in a pan, add the bay leaf, saunf and the cashews. Later add the onions and saute for 2 mins.

- Now add the ground paste and the green peas and saute until the paste is dry of all the water and comes together with the oil.

- To this add the slit veggies and little salt and mix everything together and saute for 2 - 3 mins. Set this aside.

- In the same pan, heat the ghee, drain the rice of water and add to the pan. Saute the rice for a couple of minutes and add the veggies to it and mix everything together.

- Now, add this into a pressure cooker or a rice cooker.

- Add 1 and 1/2 cups or 1 and 3/4 cup water just so you have a little extra water for the veggies to cook.

- Add salt as desired and pressure cook for 8 minutes on high and 2 minutes on low flame.

- Allow the steam to escape and serve hot with onion raitha for the side!

Nartham-pazham Rasam / Lemon Rasam

Amidst my crazy work schedule, I should say I am managing pretty well! Have been taking a lot of weekend breaks to nearby cities from Chennai and managing to get the much needed unwinding time:-) Ofcourse that keeps me off my blog though. Have been waiting to upload some recipes for quite sometime but for want of time they had been left to hybernate. I am beginning to write this recipe in the hope of publishing one this week. Have chosen a simple yet very tasty rasam (South Indian soup) which can be eaten with rice or taken as a soup too...choice is yours.....

Rasam has a special place in most South Indian cuisines and makes for the lightest part of any meal. Among Tambrahms (Tamil Brahmins) there is a practice of making rasam in "eeya chombu" a vessel made of Tin and its alloys. The rasam made in this vessel has a different taste to the one made in an ordinary steel vessel. For more information about this vessel and its composition read the article(link) published in The Hindu recently http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/article3001718.ece

Though, one needs to bear in mind a few things before setting out to use this vessel. This has a melting point of 200 deg C. So, for some reason if you plan to be away from the kitchen while letting your rasam come to a boil, be sure there is enough liquid in the vessel and the flame is on low. Otherwise, you have a very strong chance of melting the vessel down:-) I can say this because I learnt to use this vessel the melting way....lol! But if you still manage to melt the vessel...don't worry...collect the melted and remaining portion of the vessel and go to your nearby Bazaar. Any vessel merchant would gladly buy the melted vessel and be willing to give you a new one in exchange! Its an expensive metal and fetches value any which way:-)

OK, now off to the recipe....

Ingredients:

- 1 jaathi naartham-pazham(used in this recipe) or 1 lemon
- 1 tsp whole black pepper
- 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp sambhar powder(optional)
- 1/8 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 green chilly
- 1 small tomato
- 3 cups water
- 1/4 cup boiled toor dhal
- Salt to taste

Temper and Garnish:

- 1 tsp ghee (clarified butter)
- 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
- few curry leaves
- freshly chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Prep time: 5 mins                       Cook time: 20 mins

Preparation:

- In the "eeya chombu", add 2 cups water, slit green chilly, sambhar powder, salt, turmeric, cut tomato and boil all on low flame for 7 to 10 minutes until the tomatoes cook and you loose the raw smell of the sambhar powder .

- Now, mash the boiled dhal with 1 cup of water and add it to the boiling solution on the stove top. To this add the powdered cumin seeds and black pepper.

- Now bring this whole solution to a boil until you see the corners frothing. After adding the dhal, the rasam should not boil too much. It should be switched off the moment it comes together frothing from the corners.

- After switching off the heat, add the nartham pazham juice or lemon juice. If you add while on heat, the rasam will turn bitter. So, add only after removing from heat.

- Heat ghee and temper the mustard seeds and curry leaves until they splutter and add on top of the rasam. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

- Tasty and fresh rasam is ready to be served with rice or taken as a hot soup!

Foot note:

- If you are not using sambhar powder, you could add more pepper or one more green chilly for extra spice.

Jeera Rice / Cumin Rice

Continuing the healthy food series, here is the recipe for Jeera(Cumin) rice. This is such a simple and wholesome meal in itself when eaten with a side of Dhal and pappad. Last week happened to be a bad tummy week for many at home. So, decided to make some simple food this weekend to help everyone jump back to routine. This is so healthy that your tummy will thank you enough for re-hauling it:-)

Ingredients:

- 1 1/2 cups basmati rice
- 1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
- 2 tsp jeera (cumin seeds)
- 1 tsp black pepper (whole)
- 1 or 2 dry red chillies
- 4 to 5 cashews (optional)
- 2 sprigs curry leaves
- salt to taste





Prep time: 15 mins                       Cook time: 20 mins

Preparation:

- Wash and soak the basmati rice in water for 15 minutes.

- In a pressure pan, heat the ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add jeera, black pepper, red chillies, cashews and curry leaves and saute for half a minute.

- Now, drain the basmati rice of excess water and add to the pressure pan. Mix the rice well with the ghee and other spices and saute for a couple of minutes.
- Add 2 and 1/4 cup of water and salt to your taste and pressure cook the rice.

- Allow steam to escape completely before opening the pan.

- Serve hot jeera rice with your favourite dhal or any side of your choice:-)!

Foot note:

- The proportion of water for basmati rice is 1 cup rice is to 1 1/2 cups water.
- I usually pressure cook for 3 whistles. But you can cook as you would normally do for any pulav or biriyani.

Sending the recipe to"Herbs & Spices" event at Erivum Puliyum hosted by Julie

Paneer Mutter Masala

I started off  making Paneer Butter Masala and it eventually also turned out into Paneer Mutter Masala as I added some peas to the dish! You can take the below recipe as either one of them or a blend of both. All in all it turned out to be delicious and we had to scrape the bowl for more. I had always wondered how the dishes in the restaurants get that rich colour and flavour and to my surprise this dish turned out exactly the way it is presented in the restaurants!

Ingredients:

- 200 gms cubed paneer
- 2 medium tomatoes pureed
- 1 onion chopped finely
- 1 tbsp green peas
- 1 tbsp fresh cream (preferable)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp chopped ginger
- 1 tsp chopped garlic
- 2 green chillies slit
- 1 cup milk
- Salt as required

Masala:

- 2 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp tomato sauce
- 1 tsp red chilly powder
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1/8 tsp turmeric powder

Source: Sharmis Passions

Prep time: 15 minutes              Cook time: 30 mins

Preparation:

- Heat 1 tbsp butter in a flat pan and shallow fry the paneer cubes. Drain the panner on a paper towel.

- In the same pan, add 1/2 tbsp of butter and fry the ginger, garlic, green chillies and onions and fry for 2 minutes. Later add the green peas and fry for a couple of minutes.

- Now add the tomato puree or store bought tomato paste, tomato sauce and fry for a further 2 to 3 minutes.

- Meanwhile mix all the ingredients given under "Masala" above with 1/2 cup of milk. Add this milk to the pan slowly to prevent the milk from curdling.

- Bring the mix to a boil and if it is thick add 1/2 cup of water and allow to boil for 7 to 10 minutes on medium flame.
- Now, when the gravy thickens add the rest of the milk slowly and add salt as needed. Let this come to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes.

- Now, add the paneer and let the paneer cook in the gravy for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add the remaining 1/2 tbsp butter and coriander leaves for garnish.

- Serve hot with Jeera rice or Roti!

Foot note:

- If you are using cream, make the dish in 1tbsp of butter and use 1/2 cup milk for mixing the masala. Replace the other 1/2 cup of milk with the cream.