Garlic Chutney Powder/Garlic Idli Podi/Poondu Podi

Spice powders have a long shelf life if they are stored properly in a dry and clean jar. Every month, i prepare couple of spice powders myself at home as i dont like to buy spice powders from stores. Idly podis,rasam podi,kootu podi and sambar podi have their important place in my cooking. Obviously every first sunday of the month, i dont forget to prepare small batch of all these spice powders. Nothing can beat this freshly grounded spice powders and homemade is always the best. I have already blog about many interesting Idly podis/chutney powders but still i have few more to post and one among those flavourful idly podis is this super aromatic Garlic loaded idly podi. This podi tastes absolutely fabulous when served along with hot steaming idlis or crispy dosas. Trust me, one can happily have two more idlies/dosas if you serve those South Indian breakfast dishes along with this idly podi.

Spicy Watermelon Seeds Rice

So many Cookery Tv shows do exists in my mother tongue 'Tamil', obviously i dont have that much to follow each and every cookery shows. Whenever time permits, i check those shows and try to recreate few dishes if they sounds different from the usual one in my kitchen. Recently i saw a famous cookery show in one of the regional tv and got hooked to a rice dish where the host of this show used pumpkin seeds to make this quick rice. Since i dont have pumpkin seeds, i tried the same rice dish with watermelon seeds which i bought during my last India trip. Pumpkin or melon seeds, am sure this easy breezy rice which definitely tickle your tastebuds and you can pack them very well for your lunch.

Hawaij/Yemeni Spice Mix ~~ Yemeni Cuisine

As like 'Q, W and X', the alphabet 'Y' dont have that much option when its comes to a Country name starting with alphabets and obviously i sticked with Yemeni Cuisine as am running a whole month of blogging marathon with Around the World in 30days as theme..Its wonderful to know that this cuisine is influenced very much by Indians as well, obviously most of the Indian spices are used in this cuisine.

Yemen has 2 major regions: North and South Yemen, which used to be different states until the end of the 20th century. The traditions and the cultural habits are similar in the 2 regions of Yemen and the cuisine seems to be unique and general. Because it is mostly a rural country, the agriculture occupies the wide territories, filled with Wheat, coffee and the local qat.The most traditional dish is the saltah. Saltah is a soup like stew where vegetables and meat are removed from the cooking liquid and served separately. The soup is then served with a sauce made from ground fenugreek called Helbah. It is served with lunch and is considered the national dish of Yemen. *

The most important feature of the Yemeni cuisine is the fact that it is very spicy and the hot taste is the most frequent one. There is a wide range of such sauces and dressings, used to spice up the meat or the salads. Since cereals are grown in the country, Yemen people also make their own traditional bread, called the mellawach, which is served with a spicy hot sauce that contains many spices, called the zahaug. Zahaug (zahaug is salsa in which we call it in the west) is also put on grilled meat, besides the hilbeh (hilbah is another name for saltah), fenugreek or coriander paste. The Yemen cuisine includes Lebanese and Indian aliments and spices and also the Arabic general rules, Egyptian and Persian tastes, in a unique combination and authentic cuisine. Yemeni cuisine is extremely popular among the Arab States of the Persian Gulf