Jeera Pulao & Punjabi Aloo Amritsari

Blogging has given me the boon of getting introduced to a lot of like minded friends from different parts of the world :)

One such sweetest buddy blogger is Sharmilee of Sharmis passion :) We got to know each other a year back and since then the friendship has grown to an extent that we even talk on phone for hours :) I was even more happy when I met her a couple of months back. Blogging has brought me a friend for life time :) awww sorry sorry too many friends for life time infact :)

Sharmilee is a very talented cook who manages to have minimum of 30 posts on draft on any day :P Now food bloggers would know how passionate she is towards cooking and blogging!! She is awesome at photography as well and we keep sharing our ideas all the time :)

This recipe that she posted a week back tempted me too much that I instantly cooked it up and all of us at home loved the combi a lot. All credits and thanks to her for the recipe :)

Ingredients for Jeera Pulao:

Basmathi rice - 1 cup
Jeera(Cumin seeds) - 2 tsp
Cloves - 2
Cinnamon - 1/2 inch piece
Bay leaf - 1
Curry leaves - few
Green chillies - 2
Onion - 1 large
Ghee - 1 tblsp
Oil - 1 tblsp
Salt - for taste
Water - 2 1/2 cups

Method for Jeera pulao:

Wash and soak rice for 15 mins. Chop onions finely.

Take a pressure pan and add oil and ghee. Drop in the cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf and cumin seeds. Saute for just one minute. Now add the curry leaves and split chillies and fry for a minute again. Add chopped onion and saute until it turns golden brown in color.

Drain the rice and add it to the pan. Mix it well with the other ingredients. Now add water and salt to it. Mix well and taste a tsp of this water to check on salt levels. Close the pan and pressure cook for just two whistles on medium flame.

Jeera pulao is ready.

Serve it hot with Punjabi Aloo Amritsari or any gravy of your choice :)

Ingredients for Punjabi Aloo Amritsari:

Potato - 5

Curd - 1/2 cup

Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

To make paste:

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp

Besan - 2 tbsp
Ajwain seeds(omam) -1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

To grind:
Onion - 1
Green chillies - 1
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
Cashews - 5

Method for Punjabi Aloo Amritsari:

Cook potatoes and dice them into small cubes.

Make a paste of besan, salt, ginger garlic paste and ajwain by adding just a little water. Coat this mixture on the potatoes and allow it to marinade for half an hour.

Now take some oil in a pan and shallow fry the marinated potatoes until crisp and golden brown. Keep this aside.

Grind roughly chopped onion, green chilly, ginger garlic paste and cashews together by adding little water into a smooth paste.

Take two tsps of oil in a pan and add the above ground paste. Fry till raw smell leaves. Add a pinch of turmeric powder, garam masala powder, chilly powder, coriander powder and salt to it and mix well. Allow it to boil for two mins and simmer the stove. Add the curd and mix well. Finally drop in the fried potatoes to it and mix well.

Serve the creamy aloo amristari with jeera rice and enjoy eating :)

You can make this as an accompaniment with ghee rice or even roti, chapathi etc :)

Written by: Nithya
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Raw Mango Pickle / Maangai Thokku

Summer is the right season for raw mangoes as well as ripe mangoes. Missing to eat or cook them could be a sin ;)

You wouldn't believe if I say one entire rack of my fridge is filled with bottles and bottles of pickles!! All of us at home have our own choice of pickle and are damn fond of them. We prove to be a typical South Indian when we enjoy creamy curd rice with pickle :)

My choice of pickle would always be a sweet and sour one. I don't prefer them extremely spicy. So this thokku is one of my kind. Sweet, sour and hot just upto a level that makes you drool and not smoke your ears ;)

Ingredients:

Raw mango paste - 1 cup
Jaggery - 10 tsp
Chilly powder - 6 tsp
Asafoetida - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds (Jeeragam) - 1 tsp
Fenugreek (Vendhayam) - 1 tsp
Salt - 5 tsp
Mustard
Curry leaves
Sesame Oil - 5 tblsp

Method:

Remove the skin of the raw mango and chop it roughly. Grind the chopped raw mango into a semi smooth paste and keep it aside.

Dry roast the fenugreek seeds and cumin seeds for few mins and powder them once they cool down.

Take a pan and add 5 tblsp of oil. Crackle mustard and curry leaves. Add the ground raw mango paste to it and fry for ten mins or until the raw smell goes.

Now add chilly powder, salt and asafoetida and mix well. Let this cook for few more minutes. Once it gets well cooked and the oil separates, add the cumin fenugreek powder to it and mix thoroughly.

Transferred to a sterlized bottle once it comes to room temperature.

Refrigerate and use for max of three months.

Serve it with curd rice, dosa, idly, adai or even with snacks like kai murikku and thattai :)

Enjoy making the tangy raw mango thokku :)

Tips:

You can grate the mangoes using a grater instead of grinding.

This pickle is suppose to be sweet and sour, but reduce the jaggery to get a sour pickle if you like it that way.

Note:

Once you transfer the pickle to the bottle, there should be a layer of oil on top covering the pickle completely. This is a mandatory step to keep the pickle fresh always.

The oil coating prevents it from fungal formation. This thumb rule applies for most of the pickles.

Written by: Nithya
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Grape Squash / Grape Juice Syrup

The number of juice recipes on my blog shows up how hot it is at Chennai. My intake has been 75% of liquid food and 25% of solid food. I hardly feel like eating anything and just don't like to feed on hot stuff at all :(

Moreover spending long hours in the kitchen is like burning one alive(that sounds a little harsh though :P). But yes!! it has been extremely exhausting to do anything at all when the heat reaches upto 40°C at day. Hence you can quite expect such chill and refreshing juices from my blog :)

Its so good to have a mom who holds a BSc Home science degree. She knows how to make squashes and is an expert at it too :) This time I took up her recipe book and tried it all by myself to make our family favorite grape squash. It came out so well that my mom was praising me for my effort :) :)

Ingredients:

Grape extract - 1 ltr
Sugar - 2 kgs
Citric acid - 2 tsp
Tonovin (Grape essence) - 4 tsp
Water - 1 ltr
Sodium Benzoate - 1 tsp

Method:

To make grape extract:

Choose well ripen black grapes.

Remove stems and wash them thoroughly.

Take the grapes in a large vessel and add one cup of water(from the 1 ltr water) to it and boil it until the fruits get cooked. While its boiling, keep crushing the grapes with a masher until it is thoroughly juicy. Strain the extract and collect the juice.

Measure the juice now and proceed with proportioning the other ingredients accordingly.

Method to make squash:

Take the sugar, citric acid and water in a pan and heat it until the sugar dissolves and it bubbles up.

Allow this sugar syrup to come to room temperature and then mix up the above made grape extract to it. Now add the Tonovin to it and mix well.

Take a tsp of warm water and dissolve the Sodium Benzoate(preservative) in it. Add it to the squash and mix it up.

Now pour the squash into a sterilized bottle and store in refrigerator :)

To serve, fill 1/3 of serving glass with the grape squash and remaining by water. Mix up well and serve chill topped with ice cubes. :)

Tips:

Black grapes with seeds or Paneer grapes are apt and cost effective for making this squash.

To get a pulpy texture to your grape juice, use a large holed sieve to strain the grape extract. We do this since we like our juice to have a puply sediment :)

The method of making other fruit squashes are the same.

Hence I have put down the measurements of ingredients for various fruits :)

The measurements would yield 2 ltrs of each fruit squash.

Enjoy making them :)

Fruit extract	Sugar	Water	Citric acid	Preservative	Color&Essence
Mango extract - 1 ltr	1.5 kgs	1 ltr	2 tsp	Pottasium Meta bisulphite (KMS)– ½ tsp	-
Orange extract – 1 ltr	1.75 kgs	1 ltr	1 tsp	Pottasium Meta bisulphite (KMS)– ½ tsp	Food color(orange) – ¼ tsp Orange essence – 2 tsp
Lemon extract– 1 ltr	2.5 kgs	1 ltr	-	-	-
Pineapple extract– 1 ltr	1.75kgs	1 ltr	-	Pottasium Meta bisulphite (KMS)– ½ tsp	Food color(yellow) – ¼ tsp Pineapple essence – 2 tsp

Written by: Nithya
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Apple Tea

Scorching sun is burning us alive already. Crossing my fingers for few summer showers to cool down the earth :(

Until god hears my request, we need to keep ourselves hydrated with some cold shakes and drinks.

I tasted a bottled drink called "tion" a couple of months back and loved the apple flavoring of tea. Since then I wanted to try replicating it at home and today was the right day to do it since I was gasping for some chilled drink after getting back home from shopping.

Formulated a recipe on mind and quickly mixed them all up to get a super delicious apple flavored tea :)

Its unbelievably tasty that my dad who hates tea cherished this drink and said "Wow" :)

Ingredients:

Apple juice - 1/2 cup
Tea powder - 2 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Water - 1/4 cup
Honey - 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder - a pinch (Optional)

Method:

Add tea powder, cinnamon powder and sugar to quarter cup of water and boil on medium flame for two mins.

Keep it aside to cool for a while and strain it to get decoction.

Mix in apple juice with tea decoction. Stir in some honey for extra sweetness.

Garnish with apple slices and serve chilled with loads of ice cubes.

Enjoy the apple flavored tea :)

Tips:

You can make apple juice at home by grinding fresh apples and straining them thoroughly using a cloth.

The addition of honey makes it extra tasty.

Adding cinnamon is absolutely optional and I dint do it since I wanted the apple flavor to dominate.

Note:

The proportion of apple juice and tea is totally upto your taste.

For me the proportion of 70% - apple juice and 30% tea was awesome and loved the apple domination in the drink :)

Enjoy the healthy and tasty apple tea :)

Written by: Nithya
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Parotta / Indian Layered Bread - Stepwise Pictures

Parotta is one of the most interesting dish not just to eat but to make as well :)

I have loads of memories of admiring the road side parotta stalls. The parotta master(that is how the chef is called locally :P) does it so tactfully and with ease. He literally flies the dough in the air to expand it rather than rolling on the workspace and its such a treat to watch them do that :) The end result of such magic would be a super flaky and layered parotta.

Parotta has been my favorite since childhood. I remember making them all by myself when I was doing my ninth class ;) and have become almost an expert in making them ever since ;)

Parotta can be made in various methods and I have seen lot of people following harder methods and calling it difficult to make as well. So just thought of posting the method that I follow which isn't as hard as we think!!

Come on.. give it a try :) I'm sure you would love it too :)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 4 cups
Bread - 5 slices
Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 2 tsp
Cooking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - for taste
Water - adequate for making dough

Method to make dough:

Crumble the bread and add it to the milk. Mix it well with your hands till it becomes into a paste.

Take the maida, salt, cooking soda and sugar in a bowl. Add the bread and milk mixture to it and mix well. Add adequate water to it and make dough. Kneed the dough for fifteen minutes. Make a huge ball and apply few drops of cooking oil on top and leave it aside in a bowl for atleast for two hours.

Method to make Parotta:

1. Set your work surface ready. Pinch large lemon sized balls from the dough and roll into balls. Spread a cup of maida on a paper. Keep half a cup of cooking oil ready.
   
2. Roll the ball of dough into a circle of 3mm thickness.
3. Roll until it is pretty big or until it is as big as your work space.

4. Brush one tsp of oil on the rolled dough.
   
5. Now fold like a fan or saree pleats from one end to another.
   
6. Hold the ends with your hands firmly.
   

7. Lift it and tap it on the stone.
   
8. Now pull it slightly while tapping until it becomes a bit longer.
   
9. Roll from one end to another.

10. Seal the end by pressing it on top.
11. Dust the work space and the rolled ball with some flour.
12. Roll it again into a slightly thicker circle. Keep in mind not to press it too hard while rolling which will merge the layers.
    

13. Roast the Parotta on a skillet adding few drops of oil on both the sides. Keep the flame on midium and roast until you get golden brown spots all over.
    
14. Stack two or three parottas together and beat them well with two hands on the sides to make them flaky.

Soft and yummy parotts are ready to eat.

Serve them hot with subzi of your choice. I served it with channa masala.

This quantity would make approximately 25 parottas.

Enjoy making :) Happy eating :)

Tips:

Use fresh bread for making the dough. The yeast in the bread will make help in making the parottas soft.

Beating the roasted parottas is a very essential step to make it flaky and expose the layers.

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here.