Eggplant Kuzhambu (Ennai Kathirikkai Kuzhambu)

This Kuzhambu is a variation of regular puzhi kuzhambu. The gravy is thicker than regular kuzhambu. No other type of eggplant other than Indian one will go well with this. The eggplants are slit from bottom, halfway towards top letting them hold the pieces together. Choose the smallest eggplant you can get. This is a chettinad specialty. Back in India, whenever we attend a function like marriage or 60th birthday they will either serve this kuzhambu or Pakoda kuzhambu for lunch. I love both of them so I would skip other dishes & wait for this kuzhumbu to be served. Now I guess I wouldn't wait like that. I found the recipe almost closer to original one. Here goes the recipe.......

Ingredients

Small Brinjals (Eggplant) – 6-7

Tamarind paste– 1/2 tspn

Coriander leaves
Garlic - 4

onion - 1/2 medium

Tomato - 1

Mustard,Urad dhal, Cumin seeds, asafoteida(hing), Curry leaves for seasoning

Salt – To taste

Oil

To Grind:

Dry chilli – 3-4 count

Whole pepper – 1/2 tspn

Fenugeek seeds – 1/4 tspn

Cumins seeds – 1/2 tspn

Dhania(Coriander seeds) – 1 spoon

Kasa kasa(Poppy seeds) - 1 tspn

Coconut – 3 piece

Chopped onions – 1/2 medium

Method

Roast all the ingredients given under grinding with little oil. Blend them into a fine paste when it gets cooled. Chop the onion,garlic & tomato & slit the eggplants according to instruction given in introduction. Heat 1-2 tbspn of oil preferably sesame oil in a pan & add the seasonings. Saute the onion,garlic & tomato along with some salt till tomato gets mushy. Add turmeric powder & the ground paste & keep it stirring till the oil separates. Now add the eggplants, saute it  till the eggplant turns colour a little bit. Finally add tamarind paste & some jaggery  along with some water. Let it boil till eggplants are cooked & the gravy thickens. It tastes better when the oil floats on the top. If not, add a tspn of oil at the end. Serve it with rice & poriyal.

Aloo Paratta

Ingredients

• For chappathi
• Wheat flour - 1 1/2 cups
• Oil - 2 tspn
• Salt - 1/2 tspn
• for stuffing
• Potato - 2 medium
• Cumin powder - 1/4 tspn
• Coriander powder - 1/4 tspn
• Chilli powder - 1/4 - 1/2 tspn
• Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tspn
• Dry methi leaves - 1/4 tspn
• Oil - 3-4 tspn for sauteing

health tip

You may replace regular wheat flour with whole wheat flour in this recipe. Whole wheat flour is rich in fiber & is good for health. Diet conscious people may want to reduce the number of potatoes used in this recipe.

aloo paratta

method

1. Make chappathi dough using ingredients given under chappathi. Usually the flour consumes 50 - 55 percent of water. So approximately 1 1/2 cups of water is used. I learned this from VahrehVah.com.Thanks to chef Sanjai. Make the dough into equal sized balls. Keep them covered while making the stuffing.
2. Boil the potatoes & remove the skin. Mash it as fine as possible. Even a small chunk will interrupt the process. It will pop out & make it harder to roll the chappathi further more.
   In a pan heat some oil. Add ginger garlic paste & other masala powders. Add the mashed potatoes & methi leaves & mix them all together. Let it cool.
3. When cooled divide them into equal sized balls. Almost same size as the chappathi dough balls.
4. Take a chappathi ball & roll it into a small circle just the right size to hold the stuffing. No need to roll it bigger. Making bigger circle will hold some space between the dough & stuffing, which leads to unevenly stuffed chappathi. Roll the chappathi ball starting from center towards outside leaving the center thicker than perimeter.
   
5. Now place a stuffing ball in the center where it is thicker & gather the chappathi together around the stuffing towards top as shown in the picture. More like a dumpling.
   
6. Make a heap by pulling the ends together & twist it. Remove the heap. Roll them in some dry flour & roll it into chappathi.
7. Cook it in a tawa turning each side every 2 minutes. It will puff up beautifully if the stuffing is evenly spread. Repeat the steps from 5 - 8 for all the chappathi balls.
8. Enjoy it with green chutney & tamarind chutney, or with ketchup. This recipe yields 10 parattas.

Chettinad Fish Curry

Its been a long time since I made Fish Kuzhambu. I am not a big fan of fish kuzhambu. I could eat chicken gravy but not the fish(y) one. My hubby was browsing the net to find a good  recipe & finally found it. We made chicken salna & chettinad fish. Out of which Chettinad fish turned out really well. I got to try some other recipe for Salna.  He got this Fish recipe from Samai.in. Thanks to Komala at Samai.in.

Ingredients

• Cat fish - 1 pound (Cut into big pieces)
• Mustard seeds and Urad dal - 1/2 tspn
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig
  
• Onion - 1 (small size) or 1/2 of a medium size onion
• Green Chili - 1
  
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tspn
  
• Tomato - 1
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tspn
• Tamarind - small gooseberry size
• Sugar - less than 1/4 tspn 
• Salt - to taste
• Oil - as required (Sesame oil is preferred)

To make Paste

• Coriander seeds - 1 ½ tspn
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn
• Fennel seeds - 1/4 tspn
• Peppercorn - 1/4 tspn
• Toor dal - 1/4 tspn
• Fenugreek seeds (Methi) - a pinch
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig
• Coconut - 1 tspn
• Dry red chillies - 2- 3 nos

Method

1. Roast all the ingredients given for paste in a teaspoon of oil till golden brown.Turn off the heat and let it cool. When completely cooled grind it into a very fine paste by adding little water.
2. Chop the onions, Tomatoes & green chillies. Wash & cut the fish to desired size.
3. Heat some oil in a pan & season it  with mustard & urad dhal. Add curry leaves, ginger garlic paste, onion, tomato & green chillies. Add some salt & saute till tomatoes get mushy.
4. Add turmeric powder & ground masala. Mix in a cup of water along with tamarind extract. Add sugar & let it boil for some time till the gravy thickens.
5. Finally add the fish & let it cook for another 10 minutes in medium heat.  

Kuzhi Paniyaram

 I am posting this recipe for APS Rice event hosted by Anitha. This is a Chettinad dish which is made in a special pan called Kuzhi paniyara chatti (pancake puff pan in U.S). It can either be made salt or sweet. It  goes through a process of fermentation, which gives the paniyaram it's spongy texture. This can be had as a breakfast or as a snack. The recipe I am going to post is salt paniyaram with a side dish of hot & tangy tomato chutney.

Ingredients for batter
Parboiled rice - 1 cup
Raw rice - 1 cup
Urad dhal - 1/4 cup
Aval(Poha) - 1 cup
Methi seeds - 1 tspn
Salt - 1 1/2- 2 tspn

Method
Soak the ingredients together for 3-4 hours. Grind them together into a fine batter by adding water from time to time. The consistency of the batter should not be too thick or too thin but should resemble that of pancake batter.Transfer the batter to a container & add salt. Mix them together with hand. Close the container with a lid and leave it in a warm place for fermentation. During cold weather its hard to ferment the batter. The batter needs 70-80 degrees to initiate the fermentation. Heat the oven to 100 degrees for 4 minutes & then turn it off. Wrap the container with a throw & keep the container in the oven. Leave it overnight.

Making the seasonings
Chopped small or medium onion - 1/4 cup
Finely chopped green chillies - 2
Mustard, urad dhal & curry leaves for seasoning.

Method

Heat some oil in a pan & season it with mustard, urad & curry leaves. Add the green chillies & onions along with little salt. Saute till the onions turns transluscent. Mix the sauteed things to the batter. Now the batter is all set to make paniyarams.

Making paniyaram 

Heat the pancake puff pan & add very little oil in each cups. When the oil in the cups get heated pour the seasoned batter into each cups.

Cover it with a lid. Check it from time to time to see if the top of the paniyaram is cooked. When the top is cooked, flip the paniyarms upside down to let it brown. Since its a non stick pan try to flip it using wooden skewer.

Serve this paniyaram with hot and tangy tomato chutney. This dish can be enjoyed as a finger food.

Tomato chutney

Ingredients

• Chopped Onion - 2 cups
• Chopped Tomato -2 cups
• Red chillies - 4
• Tamarind paste - 1/4 tspn
• Jaggery - 1/4 tspn
• Sesame oil - 7 tspn
• Asafoetida (aka Hing, Perungayam), curry leaves, mustard and urad dal for seasoning
• Salt to taste or 1/2 tspn approx

Method

1. Saute onion, tomato and red chillies with sesame oil until onions become soft. Let it cool for few minutes.
2. Grind the above mix to a fine paste.
3. Heat oil in a pan and add the seasoning mix & let it splutter.
4. Mix the ground paste along with tamarind, jaggery and salt & continue heating for few more minutes till the oil separates.
5. You may add or remove a chilli to make the recipe little bit hotter or mild.  

Hummus

Hummus is a middle-eastern dip made with chickpeas. There are so many varieties of hummus like roasted garlic hummus, roasted red pepper hummus, cilantro hummus...etc. The main ingredient in all of them is chickpeas. It can be used as dip for pitas or as a spread for falafal. It is mixed with a paste called Tahini which is nothing but a sesame paste. You can either buy it from grocery store or make it at home. You can find it at Indian stores, Middle-eastern store or at Walmart. I found it easier to make it at home, so I am giving you the homemade recipe too.
Tahini
White sesame seeds - 1/2 cup
Olive oil or vegetable oil - 1/8 cup or half of quarter cup

Method
Dry roast the sesame seeds till it turns golden colour.

Let it cool. Grind it in a blender with the oil. This will be like a thick sauce. This can be stored in fridge for three months. This is what you get from grocery store. Thick consistency is needed for making hummus. To make it thinner add some water & continue blending. This thin sauce is used to drizzle over falafal sandwich. Shelf life of thin sauce is shorter because of added water. It can be stored for 3 days in  refrigerator.

Hummus 
Cooked chickpeas - 1 cup
Tahini -1/2 cup
Roasted garlic - 3 cloves
Lemon - 3/4
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Method
Place the chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice,seasonings & some water in a blender.

Process until smooth, adding little more water if necessary. Transfer the contents into a shallow bowl. Mix some olive if you like. This can be stored in a fridge for one week. While serving as a dip garnish it with some paprika, black olives & parsley.

Vendakkai(Okra) Mandi

Mandi is a tangy and spicy stew of vegetables. Traditionally, Mandis are made using water used for washing rice. This water is called arisi (rice) mandi (remnants) and is not normally discarded. Husk of the rice contains an essential  vitamin called Thiamine (Vitamin b1). Washing the rice with water will wash out this vitamin. Hence, it is common practice to not discard the water but reuse it for making Mandis. However, not many reuse washed rice water because nobody knows what chemicals were used to treat that rice. Therefore, the Mandi recipe that I am going to share with you will use a teaspoon of rice flour instead of the washed rice water to get that same authentic Mandi taste. This dish can be kept for more than a day since it uses lots of tamarind. This dish goes very well with yogurt rice.

Ingredients
Okra(Vendakkai) - 1 pound or 1/2 kg
Medium Potato - 1
Motchai (Val lilva beans)  - 1 handful(optional)
Small  onion(preferable) - 7 or medium sized onion - 1
Garlic - 7 pod
Green chillies - 6
Tamarind paste - 1/2 - 3/4 tspn
Rice flour - 1 tspn
Mustard & urad dhal for seasoning

Method
Soak the motchai overnight & cook it  with a teaspoon of salt. Cut the okra & potatoes into cubes. Remove the skin from onion & garlic & cut it into small cubes. Slit the green chillies lengthwise. Heat some oil in a pan & season it with mustard and urad dhal. Saute the onions, garlic & green chillies. Drain them and keep it aside. In the same oil add the okra & saute it till the sticky substance goes off. In the meantime microwave or boil the potatoes till tender. When the okra turns dry ( not mushy anymore) add the sauteed onion mix, potatoes, cooked motchai along with tamarind paste & rice flour mixed with some water. Let it boil till the veggies takes up the flavor & taste. Taste the mandi & adjust the salt & spice. If you want it little more hotter, fry some red chillies & add it to the mandi. This dish is usually in tangy side. So adjust the tamarind as per taste.

Variation:
There is no set rule to make the mandi with just okra. Any veggies can be added. Some of the most commonly used veggies are plantain, mango, eggplant, drumstick & beans like black eyed bean& chick peas.