Kaaya Varathathu/Banana Chips

Banana chips is an integral part of any sadhya/feast. Instead of the usual round chips, when it comes for festive spreads, the quartered chips are mostly preferred. This kind is not thin, will slightly thick too. All these years, being in Kerala, I have not bothered to make this at home. I get fresh chips at shops which are just a stone's throw away. Now that I am away from my native, I thought I should make some at home. Its not that I don't get it here. Husband has already got the quartered chips and the Sharakkaravaratti for the Onam Sadhya.  Frying the chips is not a big task. The variety of banana is important to get the right taste and crispness. Then Nendran variety, which is very popular in Kerala, is the preferred one. Unlike the other variety of bananas, the matured and not ripe ones has a slight pinkish color.

You need

• Raw banana - 4 nos
• Salt - 2 tspn
• Turmeric - a pinch
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Oil to deep fry.

Method
Remove the skin. The chips makers at Kerala removes the skin in such a way that its not scrapped but the whole peel comes out. They score along the thick line on the banana. With the pointed part of the knife, slightly lift the skin. That way, the entire skin will be removed and will leave no marks on the banana too. That calls for some practice. I tried that way and was partially successful. Don't discard the removed skin. Preserve it and make a tasty side dish. I made that the next day. Shall post that recipe later. Now on to the business making chips.

Take half cup of water in a bowl. Add turmeric and salt. Stir well so that the salt is dissolved. Heat oil in a kadai. Take the prepared banana and slice it directly to the hot oil. If you are not comfortable doing it directly over the hot oil, slice it on to a plate and drop them into the oil. After a minute of frying, sprinkle some salt water on to the frying chips. There will be a rise in the sizzling sound. It will not last for few seconds. Oil doesn't spill also. No need to get scared for this. This will help to give some nice color to the chips and a salty taste too. 

When the chips turn golden yellow and is crisp, drain on to a strainer. Repeat with the remaining bananas. Store it in air tight container. Enjoy fresh, home made chips.

Wishing all my readers a very happy ONAM.

Thattai - Savory crisp for Diwali

Thattai is a favorite at home. But its not often made since its time consuming. And when it comes to festivals, we are ready to go that extra mile and I decided thattai has to be made for this Diwali. Since my MIL is with me, she helped in patting the discs, which made it easier for me.  And when it comes to Diwali menu, the constant item is Ribbon Pakoda. And I usually go for 2 savouries and 3 sweets.  While at home town, the flour mill was nearby. All I had to do was to prepare the rice for pounding and my maid will get it done from the flour mill. Here I am to locate a flour mill. And I doubt if I will get rice flour with out traces of wheat flour in it since its the wheat that is pounded more here. So I did not want to take any risk and decided to make rice flour at home. And in order not to tax my mixer grinder more, I made thattai and pakoda on alternate days. Thattai should work fine with store bought flour too.

You need

• Rice flour - 4 cups
• Urad flour (Roasted and powdered) - 4 tblspn
• Butter/Ghee- 2 tblspn
• Chana dal, soaked - 2 tblspn
• White sesame seeds - 1 tspn
• Curry leaves few (I did not add)
• Hing
• Salt - 2 tpsn
• Red chilli powder - 2 1/2 tspn
• Water to make the dough
• Oil to deep fry

Method

Soak the chana dal for an hour or so. It will make it soft and crunchy on deep frying.

Mix all the ingredients in a wide bowl. See to that the butter/ghee added is mixed thoroughly with the flour. This will ensure crisp thattais. Add water little by little to make a soft, non sticky dough.

Take marble sized dough. Pat it into thin discs on a greased plastic sheet or cotton cloth. Don't make it too thin and it will break while you peel it off.  While patting, see to that the edges are not thicker than the inside.

Heat oil in a kadai. When it is moderately hot, slide the discs and deep fry till golden color. Drain, cool and store in air tight container.

While you make the discs, keep the dough covered with a damp cloth so as not to leave it dry.



With the above measurements, you will get between 45-50 thattais.
 
 
 

 

Uppu Cheedai and Vellai Cheedai ~ Janmashtami Special

The month of Aug-Sept (Chingam/Avani) months has the more number of festivals in Hindu calendar. The festivals come one after the other.  Its been only a week after the 10 day long festival of Onam and Avani avittam which was just the day after Onam. And y'day we celebrated the birth of Lord Krishna. Each festival has  special kind of food associated with it. I made Uppu cheedai, Vella cheedai and Neiyappam. For neiyappam, I followed a different method of preparing the batter, which I shall blog later. 

Uppu Cheedai (Savory deep fried rice balls)

You need

• Rice flour - 3 cups
• Roasted and powdered urad dal - 1/4 cup
• Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
• Cumin and Pepper cons, crushed - 2 tspn
• Salt to taste
• Hing dissolved in water
• Butter - 1 tblspn

Method
I always make fresh rice flour at home. Sieve the flour and then roast for few minutes till it is dry and should not change in color. Sieve again to remove the tiny lumps which forms on roasting. Take all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add water little by little to get a pliable dough. Double sieving is done to avoid the bursting of cheedais. Make small balls out of the dough and leave it on a soft cotton cloth.

The cheedais should dry a bit before it is deep fried to get crisp ones. Make sure you put the cheedais crowded in the oil which will aid in getting it fried well. Let the cheedais rest for few minutes, after being drained, to turn crisp.

Vella cheedai (Sweet version of  deep fried rice balls)

Sweet version of the cheedai. I love vella cheedai. But this is the first time I'm trying it at home. Every time I plan to try this for Krishna Jayanthi, but somehow could never do it. I always tell myself that I will try it some other time and it too did not happen. I hardly bother to make the festival specific dishes at some other time. Somehow they are always associated with the festivals and don't get done otherwise. Or it could be that, we have one festival after another coming up and we get busy to welcome the next and we leave behind the ones that passed by.

My amma's bhakashanam for the day is always murukku, cheedai and vella avil. My MIL makes  thenkuzhal, uppu cheedai and neiyappam. This year, I skipped thenkuzhal and made vella cheedai. I followed the recipe I had taken down from amma. I was happy that it came out well. Crisp outside with a soft inside. It was very easy to bite into and did not turn out to be a test of the tooth strength.

You need

• Rice flour roasted to light brown - 1 cup
• Roasted urad dal powder - 1 tblspn
• Jaggery shavings - 3/4 cup
• Water -1 cup
• Ghee- 1 tspn
• Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn
• Roasted sesame seeds - 1/2 tspn
• Oil to deep fry

Method

Rice flour is to be roasted till it turns light brown. Melt jaggery in 1 cup of water. Let the syrup simmer for few minutes and add the grated coconut. Slowly stir in the rice flour. Switch of the heat. Add urad dal powder, cardamom powder and sesame seeds. Mix well. Leave it to cool. Mix the dough with your hands. Make marble sized balls.

Heat oil in a kadai. When it is hot, lower the heat and deep fry the balls till there are light brown. The cheedais crack a little and will not have a smooth surface like jamuns. It should be fried on low heat so that inside gets cooked well. In case the cheedai gets split while frying add little roasted rice flour and mix well. Quantity of jaggery might have been a bit more.

Chegodilu /Ring Murkku for ICC

Srivalli challenged the bloggers with the chegodilu/ ring murkku as part of the Indian Cooking Challenge. I have tasted the ring murkku from TamilNadu. I haven't tried this nor do I have a recipe for the same. So when Srivalli announced the challenge, I was happy to try a new savory. My dad loves to help me in the kitchen expecially when making sweets/savories. Appa knows the paakam of sweeets very well. But he cannot make any dish on his own, that is another thing. His judgement will always be right with respect to paakam. Also he will help in deep frying the savories. This time, he helped me in making the rings.

Srivalli gave two recipes to choose from. I opted to try the first one. The preparation of the dough was new to me in a savory recipe. I have never cooked the flour for a savory dish. The mrukku came out very crisp and crunchy. I used 1 1/2 cups of fresh rice flour. 

Ingredients Needed:


Rice Flour - 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Split Yellow Moong dal /  Pasiparuppu - 1 1/2 - 2 tblsp

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

Sesame Seeds - 1 tsp

Chili powder - 1 tsp

Ghee or oil - 1 tblsp

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method to prepare:



Making the dough:



Soak moong dal in water for half hour to 1 hour.



In a deep bottom pan, boil water, then add salt, ghee and moong dal. Bring it to boil, simmer and slowly add the rice flour. Using a ladle, mix the flour with water by stirring it well. When the flour is mixed and done, turn off the heat immediately. Cover with lid and keep aside for 10 to 15 mins.


Once the dough is cool, add chilli powder, sesame seeds, cumin seeds and mix well. Knead till you get a smooth dough. Adjust the salt and spice depending on your preference. When using fresh flour, you will have to knead more to break the lumps. Though I kneaded well, I could find some after deep frying. But it didnot affect the texture since those lumps were very small and got fried well.



Frying the Chokodi:

Heat a pan with oil, enough to fry 3 -4 at time, if you conscious of not using too much oil. Simmer once it gets hot. The temperature should not be smoking hot.


Grease your fingers with oil and pinch out a small lemon size ball and roll between your palms to form a thick rope. Bring the two ends to together and press to form a rope. Ensure the ends are firmed pressed as not to give out during frying.


Continue with the rest of the dough until you are done with the entire batch. You can either cover it with a plate or a cloth to prevent the dough from getting dried.

Omapodi ~ Crunchy Savory

Who doesn't like the crunchy, melt-in-the-mouth Omapodi. With just two main ingredients and a spice, you can't imagine how tasty this can turn out to be. Once you taste it, you can't stop munching them until you finish it off. During Diwali, this used to be one of the savories apart from the all-time favorite Pakoda. And invariably, its Omapodi dabba which gets emptied first. Its very easy to make. If you attempt to make in small measures, be warned that it will disappear before you finish making the last batch. I made with 2 cups of rice flour and must have got around 15 nos and believe me it was finished in a day. Two of our friends also helped us to some extent in that regard. Now to the recipe.

You will need

Rice flour - 1 cup (Fresh/Store bought)
Besan/Kadalamavu - 1 cup
Ajwain/Omam - 1 tblspn
Butter - 2 tblspn
Salt to taste
Water to make the dough
Oil to deep fry

If you are using store bought rice flour, you can increase the besan by 1/4 cup to get soft omapodis.

Soak ajwain in warm water for half an hour. Grind it into a paste. Add little water and strain the paste to discard the tiny ajwain. Keep the strained water aside. Measure rice flour and besan into a bowl. Add salt, butter and the omam water. Mix well. Add more water to make a soft,tight dough.

Heat oil in a kadai. When it is hot, with a murukku press and use the omapodi Achu ( one with small holes that is used to make Idiyappam too), press the dough into the oil. Start from the outer portion of the circle and move to the centre, while pressing the dough. Since it is thin, it gets fried faster. Turn them after half a minute. When the sizzling of oil around the omapodi is less, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on an absorbent paper. Cool and store in airtight container. It will stay crisp for weeks together, if at all it lasts that long.

The plate of crunchy Omapodis is on it way to EC's WYF:Fried Snacks event.

Thenkuzhal and Manoharam ~ 2-in-1 Crunchies

Thenkuzhal is a savory crunchy where as Manoharam are sweet crunchies. Both the dishes use the same basic ingredients and are deep fried in oil. Rice flour is the major ingredient. Traditionally, raw rice is soaked in water for half an hour. Its then drained, shadow dried and powdered. Shop bought rice flour can also be used, though you have to compromise a bit on the texture. I usually prepare the rice flour from scratch. But this time I followed a different method, told by my friend,S. She gets the raw rice and roasted urad dal, powdered together at the flour mill. The bonus is that the flour mix will stay good for many days. So with the mix ready at hand, you can enjoy thenkuzhal whenever you want. For the flour mix Raw rice (Pacharisi) - 8 cups Urad dal - 1 cup Clean the rice of any dust. Don't wash with water. Dry roast urad dal till it turns pink. Powder the rice and roasted dal together. To make thenkuzhal Butter Crushed pepper and cumin seeds Salt Hing Water to prepare the dough Oil to fry If you are using the hing bar, take a piece of the bar and soak in warm water for 10 minutes. Use the water to prepare the dough. Instead, hing powder can also be used. Prepare dough in batches instead of mixing the full quantity of the flour. Else it will drink too much of oil when fried. Take 4 cups of the flour. Add 2 tablespoon of butter, salt, 1 tspn of coarsely crushed cumin and pepper, hing water. Make sure the coarse pepper is not big enough to block the openings in the mould. Mix well. Finally add water to make a soft dough. For preparing thenkuzhal, you need the press which has three or more holes in it. Heat oil in a kadai. When hot, take a ball sized dough and press it directly in the oil. Start making the formation from outside to inside. After a minute, slowly turn it over and fry till it is light brown. The size can depend on the size of your kadai. Allow it to cool and store it in airtight containers. Manoharam The initial preparation is similar to thenkuzhal, except that the spices and hing is not added. Salt is also added very minimally. Take the flour mix, add butter and very little salt. Make a soft dough using water. Prepare the thenkuzal out of the dough. Break them into one inch long pieces. These pieces are to be coated in jaggery syrup. For one measure of thenkuzhal pieces, use 1/2 cup of jaggery. If you want to be very sweet, you can use 3/4 cup of jaggery too. For jaggery syrup Jaggery - 1/2 cup Water- 1/4 cup Bite sized coconut pieces (optional) Cardamom powder. Melt jaggery in water. Strain to remove any impurities. Heat the syrup in a wide mouthed kadai. Add coconut pieces. Make a thick syrup. To test, add a drop of syrup in a glass of water. If it can be rolled and is firm, the syrup has reached the consistency. Switch off the stove. Add cardamom powder. Stir in the broken thenkuzhal to the syrup. Mix with a ladle so that all the pieces are well coated with jaggery, taking care not break the pieces further on mixing. At the same time, you need to be quick with the mixing, since jaggery will solidify on cooling. Before that it has to coat all the pieces. If the syrup does not reach the right consistency, thenkuzhal will turn soggy. It should remain crisp even after adding to the syrup. Enjoy the salt and sweet, melt in the mouth, crunchies. I am sending these crunchies to Cooking for Kids:Rice event , guest hosted by Trupti, started by Sharmi.