Makhana/Puffed Lotus Seeds Pakodas

As like most of the food bloggers,my pantry is always filled with many spices,masala powders and many more stuffs which i usually cook with them. Honestly blogging taught me so many new ingredients even my sister was shocked whenever i'll call her to ask this and that from India, yep everyday you will learn so many things from this virtual world. After going through few posts at my fellow blogger's space, i was tempted and asked my sister to send me a packet of puffed lotus seeds aka makhana unfortunately i dont have any idea to cook with them as my family didnt like the laddoos i prepared with them finally i have to pull my limit to make some foods. One among those foods is this pakodas, as usual to feed my family i simply cooked with other ingredients and these pakodas are a big hit at home.

This week am running my first week of the famous 3days of blogging marathon and the theme for this week is pick an ingredient and make three dishes, Srivalli listed out few categories to cook for this three days and i chosed a starter,a gravy and a dessert.Since i want to finish those puffed lotus seeds, i chosed to cook with them. For the first day as i have to cook a starter i cooked this puffed seeds along with grated potatoes as pakodas, trust me even if your family dont like this seeds they will just keep on munching these pakodas, they are simply addictive.None will find out the addition of this puffed lotus seeds aka makhana in this pakodas until you reveal the secret ingredient, stay tuned to know wat i cooked for the next two days with this puffed lotus seeds.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#26.

25nos Puffed lotus seeds/Foxnuts/Makhana
1/2cup Grated potato
1no Onion (big & chopped)
1/4cup Rice flour
1/2cup Besan/Gram flour
2tbsp Corn flour
1tsp Fennel seeds (crushed)
1tsp Red chilly powder
Few curry leaves
Salt
Oil for deep frying

Cut or chop the puffed lotus seeds as small pieces.

Take the grated potato,chopped onions,lotus seed pieces,rice flour,besan flour,cornflour,crushed fennel seeds,red chilly powder, curry leaves and salt.

Mix well, meanwhile heat the oil for deepfrying, once the oil is hot, take 2tablespoon of hot oil and add the already prepared flour mixture.

Springle generously the water and turn everything as thick batter.

Make small balls from the pakoda batter and drop gently to the hot oil.

Fry then until they turns golden brown,drain the excess of oil with a paper towel.

Serve hot with your favourite sauce.

Valentine's Day Recipe Event Roundup & The Winner of E-gift Voucher

I never thought that Valentine's Day Recipe event will be this much successful, thanks to each and everyone for making this event this much hit. My heartiest thanks to all for their supports and for their entries. I have say a special thanks to few of the fellow bloggers for sending their entries without any fail and seriously i have no words to thank them all.

I got 360 entries from my fellow blogger buddies and an entry from a non blogger, obviously i asked random.org to help me for selecting the winners. Here we go the roundup as well to know the winner's name. Congrats to the winners and thanks again to everyone for their wonderful contribution.

The winners are:

Faiza Kader of En Iniya Illam wins Rs 1000 worth e-gift voucher.. Congrats Faiza..

                   Asiya Akka of Samaithu Asathalam wins Rs 500 worth e-gift voucher, Congrats akka

                    Manjula Bharath of Desi Fiesta & Nabanita Das of Esho-Bosho- Aahare wins Rs250 worth e-gift voucher each.Congrats gals.

Winners do send you mail address to Priyasuresh09@gmail.com, so that i'll send you your e-gift vouchers..Thanks again to everyone.

Chickpea/Channa Dal Halwa~~SNC Challenge

First day of every month, i know most of us will check our mails just to know wat we guys have to cook for a fantabulous SNC challenge. I was super thrilled to check my mails this morning and i was surprised to see two beautiful dishes, for the Southern team Kirti challenged us with a droolworthy and irresistible channadal halwa while Swasthi challenged the opposite Northern team with flavourful Hyderabadi dum briyani.

I can talk for hours about this beautiful event started by Divya Pramil of You Too Can Cook. The motto of this event is to exchange an Indian recipe between two teams. One team is Southern team (bloggers  born and brought in South India) and the another one team is Northern team (food bloggers born and brought in North India). Every first of a month, a blogger from each team will challenge a recipe from their origin and the opposite team have to cook the recipe challenged by the other team.

I have tasted this channadal halwa long back at one of my friend's potluck party and i still remember the taste of this smooth and droolworthy halwa. Am damn sure you cant stop urself just with few spoons of this halwa. Thanks Kriti, we just love it and am just enjoying this halwa loaded with beautiful flavours.Sending to my own event Cooking with Seeds-Dals.

1cup Channadal

3/4cup Ghee

3/4cup Sugar

2+1/2cups Milk

1/2tsp Cardamom powder

Few Almonds and melon seeds

Wash and soak the dal atleast for 3-4hours.

Pressure cook the dal with a cup of water upto 3 hisses, remove the excess of water and let it cool.

Mash gently the cooked dal to make a bit coase paste.

Heat ghee in a heavy bottom pan, add the mashed dal and fry on medium flame until the raw smell of the dal goes off and a nice aroma comes out.

Add the milk and cook in high flame and cook again.

Finally add the cardamom powder,sugar along with chopped almonds,melon seeds and cook again for few more minutes.

Serve hot in a small bowl or spread this halwa in a greased plate and slice it you desire.

Announcing Cooking With Seeds-Dals

I cant imagine my pantry without dals, usually we never failed to cook or have dals atleast once a day. One of the important ingredient of Indian cooking is dals. We cook variety of dals and obviously dals are consider as seeds. For this month's Cooking with seeds event its going to Dals, even a simple tempered dal to a creamy dal makhani goes prefectly under this theme.

Dal have many nutritional value especially proteins, vegetarians consumes atleast a day a dish prepared with dal for proteins.Dals are rich in vitamin B, thiamine and folic acid also several minerals especially the iron and zinc The word dal derives from Sanskrit and its means split, nowadays dal is cooked and eaten with rice as well as along with Indian breads.If you are cooking anything with dals,dont forget to send me, so that many peoples around the world may learn to cook dals.

Wat you need to do:

1)Cook or create dishes with dals as anything(vegetarian, vegan or non-vegetarian are accepted)..

2)Many entries per person are allowed..

3)Link back ur entry to this announcement..

4)I'll accept the old entries, if they are linked with this page..

5)Using logo will be appreciated..

6)Once you are done with your dal recipe, dont forget to link it back to the linky tool attached below.

Please take care to send all ur entries before 31st March 2013.