Velluli murukku / Garlic Murukku

We have a store near my house where we used to buy different varieties of murukku and one of them was velluli murukku. Basically that store was run by a tamil family and after the store came into our locality people stopped making murukku or pindi vantalu at home.I remember for 250 gms its was 10 rupees, not sure how much it is now...it's been almost 3 years i had anything from that store.

Of all the murukkus i used to love this murukku and mom used to buy that for me. I took this recipe from my favourite book Kanta mani Vantalu. My kids too love to eat murukku. As now i am at home with kids as they are having Spring break i had some time today, so made these. These will last  for few days not to worry about what snacks to pack for school next week. Here is the recipe:-

Ingredients:-

Besan/Sangapindi 2 cups
Rice flour/Biyam pindi 1 cup
Seasame seeds 1 tbsp
Cummin powder 1 tsp
Hing a pinch
Ghee 4 tbsp
Oil for deep frying
Salt to taste

Garlic 3
Red chilly whole 4
Little water

Grind garlic and red chilly with water. Just make a coarse paste.

Method:-


Mix all the dry ingredients.

Add ghee, garlic and red chilly paste.

Add enough warm water and make a hard dough.

I used 3 eyed holes in the murukku maker.

Grease the murukku maker and fill it with the dough.

Heat oil. Press small batches on a plate like the below pic and slowly leave them in the hot oil.

Fry until the bubbles subsides and take them out on a tissue.

Once cool store them in a air tight container.

Maida Chips

Wishing you all a Happy Diwali and have a wonderful and safe diwali.

The quickest and easiest diwali sweet is maida chips or diamonds (which we kids used to call when my mom made them when we were kids)This is my mom recipes and it can done in a savories too.And this sweet calls for very few ingredients.Here goes the recipe :-

Ingredients:-

Maida/plain flour 1 1/2 cup
Ghee 1/4th cup
Sugar 1 cup
Oil for deep frying

Method:-

Make a hard dough with maida,ghee and water similar to puri dough.Let it rest for 1/2 an hour.

In the meanwhile take the sugar in a deep bowl and add water just till the sugar.Leave a side so that sugar dissolves in the water.

Make balls similar to cricket ball and roll out into a big round circle.Dusting on both the sides.

Make long cuts diagonal and vertical lines and the cut pieces should resembles diamond shape.(I have a spoon which can be seen in the picture which a small disc at one end.I always use that spoon to cut the diamond shapes.

Heat oil in a heavy bottom kadai and deep fry the cut diamonds in batches till golden colour.
In the meanwhile make sugar syrup.Let it cook till you get thick syrup.To check if it is done or not,take water in a small plate and add a spoon of the syrup to the water.With your fingers if you can make a ball then the syrup is ready.

Then slowly add the diamonds to the sugar syrup and mix and take them on a plate.Once they are warm try to separate each pieces.

More diwali sweets and savories below :-

Savories

Panasa thonalu 
Murukulu/Jantikalu
Ribbon Pakoda
Mathri
Chegodilu
Karapusa
Chakalu
Murukulu--2


Sweets :-

Gavvalu
Kadhu ki Kheer 
Kajjikaya/Gujjiyas
Bellam kommulu/sweet muruku

Kadu Ka Halwa and an entry to indusladies e-book

For the upcoming Diwali on October 26th, 2011, Indusladies is compiling an E-Book called “100 Yummy Diwali SweetRecipes”. We are collecting sweet/dessert recipes from various bloggers to be featured in this E-Book.

This E-book will be made available as a free download to our community's 1.3 Lakh+ members. In addition, they are also be making this E-Book available to our 9000+ Facebook fans and Twitter followers. It's LOTS and LOTS of exposure to those food blogs entering the E-Book!!

We believe this would be a nice way to get the word out about a wonderful blog to the entire membership of IndusLadies!!

Are you a Food Blogger? Or do you have friends who are Food Bloggers? Here's a great news for the Food Bloggers out there who have been blogging for alteast 1 year now...

Those bloggers interested in submitting a recipe for this E-Book...all you need to do is as follows:

1. Send a link from your blog for a sweet /dessert recipe. It should also include the picture of the sweet/dessert. Your recipe, food picture, recipe URL as well as the entire blog URL will get featured in the E-Book.

2. In return, we need you to do two things:

- Now make a blog post in your blog announcing the E-Book compilation by IndusLadies and the recipe you are sending for this E-Book. That way inviting your co-bloggers interested to send in their contribution by Oct 10th,2011.

Any blogger interested can send their entry to partners@indusladies.com by October 8th.

My entry to the e-book is Kadu ka halwa...

Kadu ka halwa is quite quick to make with very less ingredients.My kids and myself love this and when ever i lay hands of fresh kadu(sorakaya) i end up doing this.This recipe i adopted from punjabi recipes.

Ingredients:-

Kadu/Soorakaya/Bottle gourd (peeled,de-seeded and grated) 2 cups

Almonds/badam 8-10

Milk 1/2 cup

Ghee 1/4 cup

Sugar 1/2 cup (can be increased and decreased based on once taste buds)

Elachi 1 (powdered)

Method:-

Heat ghee in a non stick pan.Add the grated kadu and saute till kadu is partially cooked.

Now add milk and cook until kadu is tender,which may take around 5-7 minutes.

Add sugar and mix well.Let it cook on slow flame for about 4-5 minutes until the water evaporates.

Sprinkle grated almonds and serve hot.

Sunnudalu

Sunnudalu is a traditional Andhra sweet which is made during festivals and baby showers.It is very nutritious and involves very few ingredients.I usually make this for my daughters and everyday without fail i give them one in the evening.Its been a while i made them and i was told by mom and other relatives to make them for my daughter who was hospitalized for 3 days due to high temp and she lost 4 kgs of weight,as such she is thin and now she was become very weak.The good thing is now she is having her summer break from school so i can utilize this time to give her healthy food with enough rest at home.This laddu my mom made for her and here goes her recipe

Ingredients:-

Udad dal 1 cup

Rice 3 tbsp

Jaggery 1 cup

Ghee 1/4 cup

Method:-

Dry roast udad dal until light brown colour and remove from the pan as even after switching off the stove the hot pan still fries the dal and dal turns into dark brown colour (it doesn't taste good).Immediately after switching off the flame take the udad dal on a plate and spread it to cool.

In the same pan dry roast rice until light brown colour and add that to the udad dal.

Let both completely cool.

In a mixer grind both into powder not completely soft but a little coarse.

Grind the jaggery on a paper with a mortal (i don't grind jaggery in the mixie as it tends to leave water when grinded with the dal and rice.

Add the jaggery to the dal and rice powder.Now slowly add ghee and make round balls.The amount of powder to take in your palm depends on your palm size.

Let it dry for sometime before you store in a air tight container.

Chakalu

Ingredients:-

Rice flour 1 cup

Channa dal/senagapappu 2 tbsp (soaked overnight)

Curry leaves few

Salt to taste

Red chilly powder 1 tsp

Ghee/butter 1 tbsp

Oil for deep frying

Water warm to make the dough 1cup

Method:-

Drain water from the soaked channa dal.Pat dry them.

Take flour,salt,channadal,curry leaves and ghee in a big bowl.With warm water make a thick dough similar to puri dough.

Take a small lemon size dough and press it on a plastic sheet into a round 2''circle.

Make with the rest of the dough.

Heat oil and deep fry in batches until light golden colour.

Once cool store in a air tight container.

Panasa Thonalu with a twist

Panasa thonalu is a traditional sweet made in andhra during festivals.The dough is made into panasa thonalu (jackfruit) shape and dipped in the sugar syrup.But my granny used to make them hot rather than sweet.She used to add salt and chilly powder in place of sugar.

When ever she was at my place she used to make them for us with her weak hands (she was

70+ then).She is no more and we all forgot about this snack.One day suddenly i remembered this and made but i was not sure of the name.Then i checked with Rekha of plantain leaf and she in turn checked with her mom and told me the name.Thanks rekha....

Here goes my granny recipe with a twist...

Ingredients:-

Maida/All purpose flour/Plain flour 1 cup

Ghee 2 tbsp

Salt as per taste

Ajwain(vammu) 1 tsp

Red chilly powder 1 tsp

Oil for deep frying

Method:-

Take maida,ghee,salt,red chilly powder and ajwain.Add warm water and make a dough similar to puri dough.Let it rest for 1 hour.

Now take a lemon sized dough and make thin puri.

Then make vertical slits from end to other without cutting the edges of the puri.

Then slowly rotate the puri holding the edges.And slightly press the edges.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Take oil in deep bottom kadai and once the oil is hot,leave thonalu in batches and deep fry until light grown in colour.

Let it cool and store in a air tight container.

Murukulu

This muruku too i did for sankranthi.This recipe is given by my neighbor.Myself and my sister did them at my sister's place.

Ingredients:-

Rice flour 3 cups

Udat dal flour 1/3 rd cup

Salt to taste

Seasame/nuvulu seeds 1 tbsp

Ajwain/Caraway/vamu seeds 1 tbsp

Butter 3 tbsp

Warm water to make dough

Red chilly powder 1 tbsp

Oil for deep frying

Method:-

With all the above ingredients except oil,make hard dough using the warm water.

Take the star design attachment of the muruku maker and apply oil and fix it into the maker.

Grease the inside part of the muruku maker.Take small amount of the dough and close the muruku maker.

Take a big plate or a plastic paper and rub little oil on that.Now press the muruku maker and form small spirals.

Heat oil until piping hot and slowly leave muruku in small batches.

Fry until light brown colour.

Once all are done,let it cool and store in a air tight container.

Gavvalu

Gavalu (shell) is a famous sweet which is made during the festivals.I made this for sankranthi.Gavalu can be sweet and hot.I have done both but i prefer sweet than hot.

The ingredients are very few but to make this you need gavalu chaka ie a wood piece which has small horizontal slits.And the dough is made into small marble size balls and rubbed on the slits and they form a shape similar to shells which in telugu called gavalu.

This is the shape of gavalu chakka (wood piece)

What is needed to make gavalu :-

Plain flour/maida 2 cups

Samolina/suji/bombay rava 1/4th cup

Milk 1/2 cup

Ghee 4 tbsp (optional)

Jaggery 1 cup grated

Elachi 1

Oil for deep frying

How to make gavvalu :-

Make a soft dough with maida,rava,milk and ghee.Let is rest for 1/2 an hour.

Apply little oil to the mould (gavvalu chakka)

Make small marble size balls and rub each ball on the mould.You will get shell shape.Do with entire dough.

Heat oil and add gavvalu in batches and fry till golden colour.Take them on a kitchen tissue.

In a thick bottom pot take jaggery and add water till the jaggery immerse in the water.

Let it cook till you get thick syrup.To check if it is done or not,take water in a small plate and add a spoon of the syrup to the water.With your fingers if you can make a ball then the syrup is ready.Add elachi powder to it.

Now add the fried gavvalu and mix well and spread them in a big plate.If you

found gavalu are attached to each other,slowly try to detach them and spread them.

Let it come to room temp and store in a air tight box.

Now the recipe for salted gavvalu

Maida 2 cups

Semolina/suji/bombay rava 1/4 cup

Carway seeds/Ajwain 1 tbsp

Red chilly powder 1 tbsp

Salt as per taste

Method:-

Same as sweet gavvalu but with this there is no need of adding jaggery.

Diwali wishes and Paramannam (rice pudding)

WE WISH YOU

A

VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY, PROSPEROUS, VIBRANT & COLOURFUL

DIWALI.............

MAY ALL YOUR WISHES BE COME TRUE....

Paramannam or rice payasam is the most common prasadam in andhra.In my house mom used to make this for every festival as this is the most favourite dessert.Paramannam can be done with both sugar and jaggery but i prefer jaggery.This sweet can be eaten both warm or cold.

Ingredients:-

Raw Rice washed and drained 2 cups
Grated jaggery 1/2 cup
Milk 1 liter
Green cardamom 2 (crushed)
Fried cashewnuts and raisins for garnish
1 tbsp ghee(clarified butter)for frying cashewnuts and raisins

Method:-

Soak rice for 1 hour.

Drain water from the rice after one hour and add milk.

Cook till the rice is soft and if needed add little water or milk.

Mean while fry cashewnuts and raisins in the ghee.

Once the rice is cooked and is soft switch off the stove and add grated jaggery,cashewnuts and raisins.

Mix throughly and cover it until served.

PS:-After adding jaggery don't cook payasam,if cooked it will split.

The prasadams i made today.

My laxmi poja.

Bellam Kommulu (sweet muruku) -- Diwali special

Ingredients:-

Channa flour (chanaga pindi) 1 kg
Rice flour 1 cup
Jaggery (bellam) 500 gms
Elachi 2 (powdered)
Ghee 250 gms
Oil for deep frying



Method:-

Mix channa flour and rice flour thoroughly.Warm ghee and add it to the channa flour.Make a soft dough by adding little water.
Now slowly add water and knead a dough which is little more softer than the puri dough.

Heat a kadai with oil enough to deep fry. Once the oil is hot enough, simmer to low flame.



Take the big holes Muruku Aachu, wash and wipe it clean. Then divide the dough into equal balls.
Fill the Muruku maker with the dough. You can either press it directly in the oil or press over a paper or plate and gently slide it down into the hot oil.


Press muruku in the hot oil.Let it cook for 1 min and turn it.Once the bubbles in the oil reduces,then the muruku is done,mostly it will be in light brown colour.Remove it from the hot oil and press muruku with the left over dough.



In a another big vessel take jaggery,elachi and little water.Boil until thick,to check whether the syrup is done or not,take a small plate with little water,add the a tsp syrup and when touched with finger if it forms a ball than the syrup is done.Keep it down on the floor.

Break the muruku into small pcs and add it to the syrup.Don't mix it with spoon or ladle,just hold the bowl with cloth on both the sides and turn the vessel so that all the muruku is coated with the jaggery syrup.Remove and let it cool.Store in a air tight container.It taste best after one day.



This muruku i made it for the first time and it tasted quite well.But one major disaster was averted.Usually i press the muruku directly into the hot oil.Some how my instinct told me not to do, so i pressed few on a plate and transferred them into the hot oil.After finishing two batches when i tried to press another one on the plate the muruku press spring and the handle came off with much pressure that the top lid of the muruku pressing machine came off,had it been on the hot oil i would have got burn injuries and my baby was also present in the kitchen.Later i didn't had courage to make anything with the left dough.So i want to tell my readers/friends to be careful in using muruku pressing machine.The below picture says everything.
.

Have a wonderful and SAFE Diwali.

Perugu Garalu (Dahi Vada)

Ingredients:-

Udad dal 500 gms
Curd (thick) 1 liter
Green chillies 2
Salt as per taste
Oil for deep frying

Seasoning:-

Udad dal 1/2 tsp
Rai 1/4 tsp
Red chilly dry 2
Curry leaves few
Oil 2 tbsp

Method:-

Soak udad dal for 3-4 hours.

Blend yogurt for few minutes.Add salt and mix well.

Heat oil add all the seasonings and when they splutter add it to the yogurt.Keep aside.

Grind udad dal into thick paste without adding water.

Wet a plastic sheet with little water and take a lemon sized balls and flatten it on the sheet and make a hole in the center so that vada cooks evenly.

Slowly drop the vada in the oil and cook till golden colour on both sides.

Take it out and immediately dip it in a bowl of water and transfer it to the yogurt mixture. Let the vada soak in yogurt for atleast half hour.

PS:-By dipping the vadas in the water will keep vada soft in the yogurt or else vada will become thick after dipping in the yogurt.

Kajjikaya/Gujjiyas

Kajjikayalu is famous andhra sweet which is made for dusheera or diwali.The main ingredients for the stuffing are the sooji/semolina/bombay rava,sugar,dry coconut and deep fried.I made this for dusheera and made few changes like adding dry dates and roasted chickpeas instead of poppy seeds to the filling.

Ingredients:-

Maida 500gms

Bombay rava/semolina 500 gms

Salt 1/2 tsp

Milk 1 cup

For filling:-

Bombay rava/semolina 500 gms

Nuvullu/Sesame 200 gms

Poppy seeds 100 gms (as i don't get khus khus here i used putnalu pappu/roasted chickpeas)

Dry coconut 1 (finely grated)

Dry fruits (cashewnuts,raisins or any dry fruit of your choice)

Dry dates 10 (finely chopped)

Elachi 5

Oil for deep frying

Method:-

Dry roast rava,sesame and poppy seeds separately.As i have used putnalu,i crushed it.

Mix all the fillings and keep aside.

Mix maida,rava and salt thoroughly.Add milk and make a dough similar to puri dough but not too soft.Keep aside for half an hour.

Roll each ball into thin puri with rolling pin.

Spread 1 tablespoon of the filling on the each puri and apply little water on the edges of the puri and fold it to half.Press the edges firmly.If you have the mould than it is very easy to make this.

Heat enough oil for deep frying and drop kajjikayalu slowly into the oil one at time and can fry 3-4 at one go.Turn them carefully on to the other side and fry till light brown in colour.

Deep fry on medium heat.