Dosakaya Pachchadi

The Dosakaya I bought last time was a big one and so,I used only half of it to make pappu the other day . I used the other half another day to make dosakaya pachchadi. Making this pachchadi is very simple and it goes best with any kind of dal or curd rice.

Peel and finely chop dosakaya. Discard seeds.Add 1/4 tsp methi(fenugreek seeds) to popu ingredients and crush them on a cutting board. Add this crushed popu along with finely chopped green chilly and coriander to dosakaya pieces. Add salt ,pinch of turmericand 2 tsps lemon juice.

Dosakaya – Tomato Pappu( Yellow Cucumber Dal)

Dosakaya pappu,annam,potato fry

When we were in Phoenix and in Banglore,I was greatly missing this favorite pappu because I could hardly find these Dosakayalu or Yellow Cucumber.Now Iam lucky enough to find this favoured veggie in plenty in the Indian stores of Tampa.Dosakaya is a popular variety of cucumber grown in Andhra Pradesh, which is used in many culinary preparations ranging from curries to pickles. Usually, tamarind juice or pulp is used in preparing this pappu or dal to give a little bit of tanginess. Today as a variation I added a tomato as a substitute for tanginess.To prepare Dosakaya Pappu we needPressure cook dal till soft

Ingredients:

1 small Dosakaya or half of a big Dosakaya

1 tomato chopped

Toor dal 1 cup

popu

Method:

Peel,scoop out some seeds and chop dosakaya and tomato .In a pan add and toast popu,add doasakaya and tomato pieces. Add salt and turmeric and add about half cup of water or water enough to cook the veggies till soft. Once the veggies are cooked,add dal and mix.Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with hot rice and ghee.

Note: remember to check the taste of both dosakaya and seeds in it,cos sometimes both or sometimes seeds will be bitter. If only seeds are bitter discard seeds,wash peeled dosakaya and continue with the rest of the procedure.

Popu or Seasoning

Most of the Andhra recipes call for Popu or Seasoning to enhance the taste of the recipe or sometimes it becomes the basic ingredient. It is widely used to enhance the taste of many recipes like dals(pappus),sambar,pachchadis and popu becomes basic ingedients for many pickles too. Most of the time the ingredients are same .The basic Popu recipe I follow for most of my recipes is:
Ingredients:
1 tsp oil
2 dry red chillies(endu mirapakayalu)
1 tsp urad dal(minapappu)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds(avalu)
1/4 tsp cumin seeds(jeelakarra)
curry leaves 4/5
hing
Method:
To make the popu,heat oil and add all the ingredients and fry till mustard seeds splutter and dals are in light brown colour. Add hing and curry leaves at the end to retain the nice aroma for a longer time and now,add this to the required recipe

Senagapindi Pachchadi(Besan Chutney)

I always knew this pachchadi or chutney as bombay chutney in my house. My mom makes it very often as an accompanmnet to hot idlies for our morning breakfast. I came across very few people who knew this chutney . I make this chutney very often in my house whenever I make idlies.
Ingredinets:
1 onion finely chopped
1 tomato finely chopped
1 cup besan mixed with curd or butter milk
salt as required
chilly powder or finely chopped green chillies
For popu/seasoning
2 tsp oil
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp jeera
4-5 curry leaves
Method:
In a bowl,mix besan with salt,chilly powder or green chillies along with curd or buttermilk to form a thin consistent batter.Meanwhile,in a pan fry popu ingredients and add chopped onion and tomato and fry till soft and cooked. Now ,add curd – besan mixture and cook till raw smell of besan disappears.(add water if thin consistency like sambar is needed).Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with idlies.

Kottimeera Patoli

Everyone who is familiar with Andhra Cuisine and Tamil Cusine knows patoli or usli.Describing the dish briefly,it is medley of crumbly,crunchy vegetable – lentil combination . Today my recipe here is with a variation, unlike the regular chanadal and veggies. I came to know about this recipe from my mom when I visited her recently.This patoli is great in taste and easy to make. After tasting this kottimeera patoli made by mom that day I felt patoli goes great even with greens. After really very long time yesterday I made this dish and here Iam sharing the recipe and pictures with you all.

Ingredients:

Coriander(cilantro) leaves finely chopped 1 cup or as desired
Half medium sized onion chopped
Besan(chick pea flour) about 1 cup or as required
salt as required
chilly powder as required
For Seasoning/Tadka
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp jeera
2 dry red chillies
hing
4/5 curry leaves

Method:
In a bowl,mix chopped cilantro,finely chopped onion,red chilly powder,salt to form a thick batter sprinkling water in between. In a wide pan,heat 1 tbsp oil and add and toast seasoning ingredients. Now add the cilantro – besan batter and stir it fine so that it is evenly mixed with tadka ingredients. Add little more oil if needed and cover for 2 mins. after 2 mins stir the batter again and keep stirring continously untill you get a crumbly crunchy besan mixture. Serve hot with rice or munch it as a snack as it is. Nice smell of kottimeera/cilantro is appetizing and it is yummy. My mom makes this without onion.

Vankaya Pachchadi(eggplant roasted and mashed along with spices)

Iam very happy that Sangeetha has chosen the king of vegetables Mr.Eggplant, to be part of our JFI event this month. Click on the picture to know more about the event

As I already blogged some of the popular recipes of eggplant in my kitchen,its now time for me to dig for the less popular ones in my kitchen. This Vankaya Pachchadi is one of my favourite recipes and the first one I would ask my mom to make it whenever I go home. The reason I don’t make it often in my house is my husband doesn’t like it very much. So,I just feel lazy to cook foodstuff that only I have to eat. This pachchadi is easy to make and delicious to enjoy with hot rice and ghee.

Large Eggplant in picture1

Roasted Eggplant in picture2

Ingredients:
1 big eggplant
2 dry red chillies
2 small green chillies
tamarind
salt
For tadka
1 tsp chana dal
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp jeera
turmeric(optional)
hing
2 stp oil

Method:
First pick firm and soft clean large eggplant . Wash and wipe dry eggplant and apply oil all over the brinjal and roast it by keeping it directly on stove(medium flame). Keep turning in between to ensure that that the brinjal is charred and soft so that it is cooked on all sides.Take from stove and let it cool. Peel the skin using water.Now ,in a tadka pan,fry dry red chillies in oil and take them out.In the remaining oil add all the tadka ingredients and fry till mustard seeds splutter and dals are golden brown. In a chopper or mixer,add the roasted and peeled brinjal along with fried red chillies and tamarind and chop till soft.Take this into a bowl and add fried tadka ingredients,finely chopped green chillies and garnish with coriander.
note:do not add water while grinding the brinjal and watch when u grind to avoid making it into a paste.tamrind can also be replaced by tomato or lime juice.If you r using a tomoto cook it in oil till soft to avoid raw smell of tomato.

Vegetable Curry Puffs

I made this snack for my daughter’s playgroup last week (for all the mommies). All my friends liked them and some of them requested me the recipe of the curry I made that day. So,here I am blogging it for them.I used Pepperidge Farm ready to bake puff pastry sheets.Thawed them according to the package instruction and cut each sheet into 4/5 pieces and stuffed with curry and baked them at 400F.The recipe for the curry I made is given below

Ingredients:

3 medium sized poataoes

1 small beet root

1 small cauliflower floret

1/2 tsp grated ginger

1 cup green peas

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp each of dhaniya powder,red chilly powder,garam masala powder

salt according to taste

1 tsp jeera/cumin seeds

curry leaves

Method:

In a wide skillet,add oil. Let it heat and add jeera.When the color begins to change add curry leaves and grated beet root. Saute it for a minute till it looses the raw smell and now add the grated cauliflower and ginger.Saute for a minute and add the boiled potaoes chopped into pieces.Add all the masalas and salt and saute for 2 mins. once the curry is completely cooled it is ready to use in pastry sheets.

Rava Rotti & Magai Pachchadi

Every saturday evening,it is a ” Tiffin Time ” in my house. We usually have a tiffin for our saturday night dinner. So Iam constantly on a search for new tiffins that are more like dinner ,easy to make and with very little or no oil. Today,I found one interesting recipe,rava rotti , for my need from Latha’s blog – Masalamagic. It was very easy and great tasting too with very little oil(just to smear on the pan in between). I could not pat the rotti on the pan comfortably,may be because this is the first time Iam trying this kind of rotti. So,I opted to make the batter a little more thin in consistency and scopped out with laddle onto the pan. That was easy !!..

I had this rotti with our altime favourite ,magai perugu pachchadi. I must tell all of you ,that this pachchadi Iam talking about is just so easy to make and very tasty. There is a avid crazy fan club of this pachchadi in my family .My sister and my husband like this pachchadi very much. There is big list of the fan club members.
For the rotti,I just mixed the batter approximately without any measurements. I used 2 medium sized onions finely chopped ,2 green chillies chopped,1/2 tsp jeera crushed and 1/4 tsp red chilly powder and just as much rava needed to make a thick batter. I mixed everything using water to make batter (thicker than dosa batter ) and once the dosa tawa is heated, scooped out a laddle onto the hot tawa and spreaded it .Smear oil if needed .Roasted both sides and delicious rava rotti is ready.
for the magai pachchadi,I have the magai pickle my mom sent to me.
Take a table spoon of magai pickle and grind along with one onion and 3-4 green chillies and mix this paste with atble spoon of curd.That’s it.Enjoy with anything from any tiffin to any rice . This just melts away with anything.

Butter Cookies

My daughter,who is a picky eater is one reason for me to get more into baking these days. I prefer giving home made cookies to readymade cookies, sometimes when I can spare time and make some for my toddler .This gives me a chance to add and blend ingredients according to her taste and choice so that she will eat something and ultimately gives me some satisfaction . These butter cookies recipe is one such I tried for my daughter.These cookies are blended with butter and plz adapt the recipe according to your taste,all those calorie conscious people. My recipe here is primarily made with my daughter in mind who is 19 months old now. This is a great recipe for all those people like me ,who look for cookies with no eggs
Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour/maida
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ghee
about 1/2 cup butter approximately

Method:
Sieve all purpose flour along with baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add sugar.Mix them and add two table spoons ghee.mix with your fingers.The dough ,now looks crumbly. Knead the dough adding butter little by little just enoguh to make the dough like chapati dough.

Now line a cookie sheet and make this cookie dough into lemon sized balls.Arrange them on cookie sheet with atleast one inch aprt from each cookie on all side,so that there is enough space for the cookie to expand. Heat the oven to 350F degrees and place the cookie sheet carefully in the centre of the oven. Bake them for 15 minutes or till golden brown.

Gobi Paratha(Indian Bread with cauliflower stuffing)

I usually go for veggie parathas for my weekend or any other day as brunch as they are a heavy meal by itself. I keep trying with different vegetables and other combinations. My family’s most favourite ones are usually potato,cauliflower,onion-jalapeno and paneer. These are the ones my daughter and husband likes. This gobi paratha is an all time hit in my kitchen.

Ingredients:

1 cup grated cauliflower
1/2 onion chopped very finely
2 green chillies
1 tsp ajwain
2 cups wheat flour

Method:

First take the wheat flour in a bowl and add salt.Knead it into a firm dough using water. Cover with a wet tissue paper or wet cloth and keep it aside for 15 mins. Meanwhile,prepare the cauliflower stuffing.
Mix grated cauliflower,finely chopped onion,green chillies crushed ajwain and salt. Leave aside for 5 mins so that it leaves water. After 5 mins squueze off the water from with mixture.

Now,knead the dough again divide the dough into lemon sized balls and take each ball press it flat and roll out a bit using a rolling pin ,stuff with the mixture,cover from all sides and roll out with a rolling pin like a chapati duting with flour in between.

Heat tava.Smear oil if desired and roast the paratha on both side for 2 mins each or till brown spots appear on both sides.