Kulfi

 

I made this kulfi for my daughter’s third birthday party earlier this week and all of my friends and kids liked it.So here I am posting the recipe.I made about 60 such kulfi ’s using small paper cups and craft sticks.

Ingredients:

1 tin sweetened condensed milk

Heavy whipping cream 1.25 cups

(I measured whipping cream in empty condensed milk can)

1 tbsp MTR Badam feast powder

(alternately saffron,crushed elaichi and other preferred falorings can be added)

1/2 envelope gelatin dissolved in lukewarm water

(alternately ,fruit pectin or china grass can also be used)

crushed unsalted nuts as desired

Method:

Fold in condensed milk,whipping cream in a blender and mix just until combined.Add dissolved gelatin,badam feast powder or choice of flavor  and desired nuts.Just stir the mixture gently once and pour into paper cups.Insert a craft stic in the centre.Freeze for 4-5 hours or until it is set firm like icecream.To serve gently tear the paper cup from top and peel off to the bottom.

Enjoy creamy kulfi.

Quick Onion Chutney

My mother used to make this chutney very rarely back in my home. Rarely because not everyone in our house was fond of onions and she made it only for the excerptin the family i.e  me of course. I like this chutney better with the cooked onions .But,raw onion works and tastes equally good.This is very simple to make and can be a great spicy sandwich spread ,perfect for any indian bread or rice and can be made in no time.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion chopped in any size

1 flake of tamarind piece.Tomato can also be substituted.

If using tomato add 3 grape tomatoes or half of a medium sized tomato

salt to taste

1 tsp red chilly pickle

Method:

Cook chopped onion along with tamarind/tomato in a tsp oil.Let cool.Grind this with a tsp of red chilly pickle and season with popu

Stuffed Potato Bajji

To make these stuffed potato bajjis,baby potatoes are the best pick.

Ingredients:

10 baby potatoes

Oil for frying

1/4 cup besan

1 tablespoon rice flour

baking soda

For stuffing

2-3 dry chillies

1 garlic pod

1/4 cumin

Salt

Method

1. Make a coarse powder of all ingredients given under stuffing adding a pinch of salt.

2. Make a thin batter of pancake batter consistency,using besan or chick pea flour, rice flour,pinch of baking soda,and a pinch of red chilly powder is desired.

3. Pressure cook potatoes in lightly salted water if desired.

4. Adjust salt as there is salt already in the stuffing and the coating batter.

5. Peel and slit the potatoes either sides making sure both the slits are perpendicular to each other.carefully stuff with the prepared stuffing powder.dip the stuffed potato in the prepared batter for coating.

6. Deep fry till the potato looks golden on all sides.

7. Slice the potato into halves and drizzle some lemon juice and enjoy with chopped onions if desired.

Happy Varalakshmi Vratham

Hi all

August is month of festivals and every friday is very auspscious for all women in India.With many pujas and festivals coming after this.Lets start our season with varalakshmi puja.I wish all my fellow bloggers happy varalakshmi vratham.I pray varalakshmi to give all the happiness for everybody and bless us with wealth,happiness and prosperous year ahead.

Enjoy

Vegetable Biryani

Vegetable biryani has been my alltime favourite whether its for a get together or family time whatever it is, I prefer biryani because of the aroma it creates.Thanks to Sudha my cousin who shared her recipe.

Ingredients

Basmati Rice 5 rice cooker cups

Dry Masala

Bay leaves 5

Cloves 3

Elaichi 2

Shahjeera 1 spoon

Oil 5 tablespoon

Vegetables

Beans

Carrot

Peas

Potato

For Masala

Ginger 1 inch

Garlic 5 pods

Green chilli 7-8 depends on your spice levels

Mint 15-20 leaves

Coriander 3-4 sprigs

Cinnamon 1/2 inch

Cloves 3

Elaichi 2

Method
1.Grind wet masala into fine paste.
2.Heat oil in a wide vessel and add elaichi,bay leaves,cinnamon , cloves fry them and keep them aside.
3.In the same oil add masala paste and fry it until its golden brown
4.Add vegetables one by one , first add beans and potato as they need longer time to fry , slowly add rest of them and cook for 5mins until they change their color
5.Add pudina and curd and wait until they are fried.
6.Add rice and let it get coated with masala and oil mixing them properly and allow it cook for a min or two
7.transfer all these contents into rice cooker , add salt according to taste.Add bayleaves and rest of the fried masalas in the rice.
8. Fill the rice cooker with water in 1:2 ratio and cook

Moong Dal Laddu/Pesara Sunni

This is my sister’s recipe learnt from her motherinlaw.Its easy to make and also comes out good.

For this we need :

Moong dal 1 cup

Rice 2 teaspoons

Sugar 1 cup

Elaichi Powder a pinch

Ghee 1/2 cup

Roast moong dal and rice in a kadai on low heat until they turn golden brown.

Leave them aside until they are at around room temperature and grind them into powder.

Grind sugar separately into powder along with elaichi pods if you do not have elaichi powder.

Meanwhile we can heat ghee until its transparent and liquid in consistency on low heat.

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and add ghee slowly checking if it is enough to make round balls.Leave them aside for few minutes for the ghee to settle down.

We can use urad dal also instead of moong dal with the same proportions.

My Cousin’s Mixed Vegetable Curry

Its been a long break from blogging for me.For some time,it was because of some problems with our laptop and then because of my long vacation .I am in my hometown Vizag now having a nice time with family and hope to resume blogging from first week of august.Meanwhile,my cousin ,Sudha,who is an excellent cook is interested in contributing some of her recipes.

Mixed vegetable curry in my cousin Sudha’s words,

Ingredients :
Potatoes 4-5

Tomatoes 2

Peas & Carrots 1 cup

Onion 1

Green Mirchi 5

Coriander 2-3 strands for garnishing

Mint Few leaves

Curry leaves 1 strand

Coriander powder 1tsp

Mirchi powder 1 tsp

Turmeric 1/2 tsp

Salt To taste

Mustard seeds 1tsp

Cumin seeds 1/2tsp

Procedure:
Add oil to frying pan and then add mustard and cumin seeds for seasoning. After the mustard seeds splutter add finely chopped onions to it and fry them until the onions turn slightly brown. Then add coriander powder, turmeric,tomatoes and fry for 1 minute. Then add all the veggies of your choice potatoes,peas,carrots etc and also add cut green mirchi, few mint leaves , curry leaves and salt to taste. Add water to the curry and cook it until all the veggies are done. Put some chopped coriander for garnishing. Your mixed veg curry is ready to eat with white rice, chapathi or pulao.

bell pepper curry

Everybody loves mirch bajji in Andhra with a little variations based on the districts.I have my own version of bell pepper in a bajji like flavour.For this I used light green peppers in the grocery store not the regular peppers.This makes the curry more tasty as the skin is not that thick like the regular peppers and curry doesn’t become live a gravy.

To prepare this we need 2 light green peppers which are long and cut into pieces

1 tablespoon ajwain seeds

chilli powder

salt

oil

turmeric

1.5 teaspoons chick pea flour

Procedure:

Add oil in a kadai and add ajwain seeds and wait for them to splutter.Then add these peppers along with salt and turmeric powder.cover with a lid and dont stir too much ,you might end up having a paste like curry.After it cooks add chilli powder and a little chick pea flour/besan to it and let it cook for sometime.This can be served with chapathi or rice when hot and enjoy the flavour of mirchi bajji.

Alternatively you can try adding roasted sesame seeds and jeera powder as well to create a different flavour.

Chutney Podi

Chutney Podi/Idly podi can be used with any tiffin.Usually I use it with idly or dosa because it is loaded with lentils and very good protein food for my kid.She loves it with ghee.recipe is as given below

Urad dal 1cup

fenugreek 1teaspoon

Red Chilli 1 cup

Channa Dal 1cup

Fried gram just a few 1 spoon

Dry roast all ingredients until they turn a little brown and grind all of these into a fine grind powder.Serve it with ghee and enjoy

Pesara avakaya

It’s been a while since I posted any recipes in blog these days. One of the reasons was because I was busy with my sister for the past few days with the entire sister talk, going around,taking care of kids, with little cooking and of course some was shopping too. I met my sister atleast after two and half years as both of us were not in the same country for all these days.So, there was so much for us to talk, laugh, share, fight and enjoy all the fun. I am very lucky to have such a nice sister. We are only two sisters and with no boys in the house we don’t know how it would have been if we had a brother.But, may be I strongly feel we wouldn’t have had that intimacy and fun as we sisters had.

Today I’ll be sharing some recipes which my sister made. About my recipe here , I feel my mom makes the best Andhra pickles on this earth. One of her all time famous pickles is this pesara avakaya.All these years being in US, I missed my moms pickles. But after my sister came to visit me, she brought back those good old days by replicating the pickle exactly with my mom’s taste. To our surprise it was the first time even she made this pickle. I will say, any pickle lover should taste this pesara avakaya.It is just so heavenly that you cannot stop eating it until the pickle is over. This has been our family favorite for many years.

As making this pickle is very easy, we make this in very small quantities each time we make so that it has that fresh taste every time.

To make this pickle

1 raw mango chopped into bite size pieces
2 cups moong dal powder (My mom usually sun dries for a day or two. But as we could not dry them in sun ,we dry roasted the dal and powdered it.)
1 cup red chilli powder
¾ cup salt
1 tsp mustard powder

Method:

Mix all these ingredients with little oil and keep it covered for a day. After a day, season it by frying a table spoon of mustard seems.2-3 dry red chilies broken into small pieces and hing to taste in a table spoon of hot oil.