Chicken Balls / Chicken Kola Urundai

Preparation time: 15 min
Cooking time: 25 min
Serves: 2.

Ingredients:

1. Chicken - 250gm
2. Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
3. Salt to taste
4. Potato - 1 medium sized
5. Cashew nuts - 10 pieces
6. Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp
7. Chili powder - 1 tsp
8. Garam masala - 1 tsp
9. Coriander powder - 2 tsp

Procedure:

 

1.   Clean the chicken pieces and pressure cook for one whistle along with turmeric powder and salt. Chicken will be almost cooked.

2.   Mince the cooked chicken using hands. Easy way is to grind them for 3 sec. Do not grind them for more than 5 sec. Do not add water. It should be in form of shredded coconut.

3.   Cut a medium sized potato into two halves. Pressure cook it for 2 whistles or until it is completely cooked. Allow it to cool naturally and peel the skin of potato. Mash the potatoes into smooth paste.

4.   Take few cashew nuts in the blender and make into a paste by adding water. Added turmeric powder, chili powder, garam masala, coriander powder, cashew nut paste and salt

5.   Add the mashed potato to the chicken mixture and make it into a dough like form

6.   Take a spoon of corn flour and all purpose flour mixture and add water. This batter should be very thin. Coat chicken balls with very little of this batter. Coating chicken balls with batter helps to bind them. Potato itself will help in binding. So coating balls with batter is optional.

7.   Heat oil in a kadai. Fry chicken balls and serve.

Read More»

Keerai vadai / Spinach vadai

Preparation Time: 15 min
Cooking time: 15 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Onion- 1 medium sized - finely chopped
• Keerai/spinach- 100 gm
• Ajwin- 1 pinch
• Fennel seeds- 1 tsp
• Salt to taste

To grind:

• Channa dhal- 1 cup
• Hing/asafetida- 1 pinch
• Red chili- 2
• Garlic- 2-3 pieces

Preparation: 

• Soak channa dhal for 2 hrs

 

Procedure:

1. Grind soaked channa dhal with red chili, hing and garlic to make a coarse mixture. Few channa dhal should be whole. Donot grind them to smooth paste. To this add onion and spinach. Any variety of keerai can be added. I used baby spinach available here. You can chop them finely or grind keerai for few sec to get chopped form.                                                             
2. Add fennel seeds, ajwin, salt and mix them well. You should be able to make small balls and it should not break. If it breaks, take a portion of the mix in a blender and grind for few sec and mix it again.                                                                                        
3. Take a small ball and place it in the palm and tap gently to make it flat into vadai shape. It should not break.                                                   
4. Heat kadai with oil to fry. When oil is hot, put vadai one by one slowly into the oil. When one side is fried, turn to other side. Fry both the sides until it starts turning golden brown. Do not fry for longer time as vadai will lose its taste.                                                     
5. Strain the oil and place it on the paper towel or tissue to remove excess oil. Serve hot. A tasty evening snack is ready to serve.                                   

Read More»

Poorna Kolukattai

Preparation Time: 30 min
Cooking Time: 10 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Channa Dhal- 1/2 cup
• Jaggery- 1/2 cup
• Rice flour- 1 cup

Procedure:

1.  Pressure cook channa dhal for 3 whistles. Allow pressure to release. Dhal should be cooked well. Break jaggery into small pieces and add jaggery to the cooked channa dhal. Put it in a blender and grind it into paste. Do not add water as the jaggery once mixed will itself give out some water with the warmth of channa dhal.

2.   Heat a pan, add channa jaggery paste to it. Saute for few minutes in low flame. Keep stirring slowly until it reaches a firm consistency. It should neither be too hard nor too soft or watery. This is used as poornam or stuffing for making kolukattai.

3.   In a bowl, add rice flour and make it into a soft dough by adding hot water. Small flat circles are made from the dough.

4.  Place a spoon of poornam in the middle of rice flour circle and close the edges to make the desired shape.

5.  Repeat this to make all kolukaatai and cook in idly pan. Tasty poorna kolkattai is ready to serve.

Read More»

Mushroom Masala

Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking Time: 25 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

·         Mushroom- 150 gm

·         Onion - 1 medium sized- finely chopped

·         Tomato - 2 medium sized - finely chopped

·         Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp

·         Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

·         Chili powder - 1 tsp

·         Coriander powder - ½ tbsp

·         Salt to taste

·         Oil - 1 tbsp

Procedure:

1.   Clean the mushroom in running water and wipe using paper towels or soft cloth. Do not put mushroom in water as it absorbs more water. Cut them into quarters.

2.   Heat a medium sized pan with oil, add onion and sauté until it becomes soft. To this add ginger garlic paste and sauté for a min or till its raw smell leaves.

3.   Now add tomatoes and sauté until it becomes mushy.  Then add turmeric powder, chili powder, coriander powder and salt.

4.   Add the cut mushrooms and mix well. Allow it to cook for 5 min or till the mushroom becomes soft.

5.   Garnish with cilantros and serve hot with chappathi, phulka, naan.

Read More»

Mushroom Manchurian

Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking time: 20 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

>      Mushroom - 150 gm

Batter:

1.       All purpose flour/maida - 1 cup

2.      Corn flour - 1/2 cup

3.      Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

4.      Chili powder - 1 tsp

5.      Pepper powder - 1 tsp

6.      Salt to taste

Manchurian - dry:

1.       Onion - 1 medium sized - finely chopped

2.      Chopped ginger  - 1 tsp

3.      Chopped garlic - 1 tsp

4.      Hot & sweet tomato sauce - 3 tbsp

5.      Chili sauce - 2 tsp

6.      Soya sauce - 1 pinch

7.      Pepper - 1 pinch

8.     Salt to taste

9.      Oil- 1 tbsp

Procedure:

1.   In a medium size mixing bowl, put all the ingredients given under "batter" section and add water to make dosa batter like consistency. It should be neither too thick nor too thin. 

2.  Clean the mushrooms in running water and dry them using paper towel. Don't put the mushrooms in water as it absorbs more water. Dip them in the batter prepared.

3.   Heat a kadai with oil. fry the mushroom dipped in batter until it turns golden brown and set aside.

4.   Heat a pan with oil. You can use the same oil used for frying by removing excess oil. Add onion and ginger garlic paste, saute them for 2 min.

5.   Then add hot chili sauce, soya sauce and pinch of salt. Saute for 1 min and add the fried mushrooms. Mix them well till it is coated well. Garnish with cilantro or spring onion and serve hot.

Read More»

Chicken Varuval (Fry)

Chicken varuval is an authentic chettinad dish. Its tastier than regular chicken 65 dry recipe. Its one of the all time favorite food among people of Madurai and South Tamilnadu.

Preparation Time: 10 min

Cooking time: 15 min

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

To marinate:

• Chicken - boneless pieces - Cleaned and cut into pieces - 300 gm
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
• Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
• Red chili powder  - 1 tsp
• Coriander powder - ½ tbsp
• Pepper powder - 1 tsp
• Curd - 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

 
To fry:

• Oil - as required

 
Procedure:

1. Take the clean and cut chicken pieces in a mixing bowl. Add all the ingredients in “to marinate” section and mix them well. Let it marinate for 20 min.
   
2. Heat oil in a kadai. Fry the marinated chicken pieces and place it in the tissue to dry extra oil.
   
3. Garnish with cilantro, sprinkle lemon juice over it and serve with onion rings
   
    

Read More»

American Chopsuey

American chopsuey is a dish that i had in restaurants. I still remember the first day I had this American chopsuey. My sister bought me and i liked that very much. Today i thought of preparing this for my dinner and i never expected that it would taste so great and look very much like that i have in restaurants. I did not take the step photos but still want to post my final output and the recipe. The preparation was really easy and taste was awesome.

Preparation time: 5 min
Cooking time: 20 min
Serves : 2

Ingredients:

• Noodles - 2 pack 
• Egg (optional) - Half-boiled
• Oil - to fry

For preparing sauce:

• Onion -1 medium sized- finely chopped
• Carrot -2 or 3 - finely chopped
• Tomato paste or tomato puree - 1 medium sized
• Salt to taste
• Pepper powder - 1 pinch
• Soya sauce - 1 pinch
• hot chili sauce - 3 tbsp
• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Noodles masala - 2 pack

Procedure:

1. Take a medium sized pan and boil water. As it boils, break the noodles into four quarters and add to the boiling water. Reduce the flame and cook for 3 min or until the noodles is completely cooked. I used maggi noodles.
2. When noodles is cooked, filter the excess water. Then wash with cold water and keep aside.
3. Heat a flat pan and add oil to fry the noodles. When the oil is hot, add cooked noodles little by little and spread them evenly so that it gets fried uniformly. Fry them until it becomes crispy and starts turning golden brown.
4. As it becomes crispy, place it on paper towel to remove excess oil. Then arrange it on a plate.
5. In meanwhile, heat a pan with little oil or you can use the same oil used for frying by removing the excess oil.
6. Add onion and carrot. Saute them for a min. then add tomato puree. If you do not have tomato puree, you can also grind one ripe tomato in a mixer to get tomato paste. Let it cook for 2 min in medium flame.
7. Then add hot tomato chili sauce, soya sauce, salt, noodles masala, pepper powder and mix them well. As this gravy gets thickened, switch off the stove.
8. Spread the gravy over the fried noodles. Place a half- boiled egg over the top and serve. Adding egg is optional. Vegetarians can eat without adding egg.

Read More»

Poori Masala / Potato Masala

The famous poori masala is everyone's favorite hotel recipe. It is a great tasty combination. Poori masala or potato masala is easy to prepare in minutes. Every sunday begins with poori and potato masala.

Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking Time: 15 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Potato - 3 
• Onion -  2 medium sized - cut lengthwise 
•  Green chili - 1

To temper:

• Oil 
•  Mustard 
• Urad dhal 
• Cumin seed 
• Split channa dhal 
• Curry Leaf

Procedure:

1.   Heat a pan with oil, add all item given in "to temper" section and fry until it turns golden brown.

2.   Add onion and green chili, saute until it becomes soft and translucent. Then add turmeric powder and salt.

3.   Cut potato into two halves and pressure cook for 3 whistles. Then peel the skin of potato and cut into cubes.

4.   Add the potatoes and one cup of water. Adjust salt. Bring it to boil and close the lid for 2 min.

Read More»

Rasgulla

Rasgulla is the most famous Indian sweet. I am very crazy for this rasgulla and everyone used to buy me Haldirams Rasgulla. So i thought of making it in my home. Wow..!! it is really super and I enjoyed eating those white balls floating in syrup.

Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking Time: 15 min
Serves: 25 balls

Ingredients:

• Milk - 1 ltr
• Lemon juice - diluted - 100 ml

For syrup:

• Water
• Sugar

Both in equal proportion. I used a 200 ml cup to measure and took 2 cups of each to prepare the syrup.

Procedure:

1.   Heat a pan and add milk. Bring milk to boil. Here they sell as whole milk, fat free milk, 1% etc..I used whole milk that is available here. Add the diluted lemon juice and stir to mix it uniformly. Leave to rest for 2 min as it curdles.

2.   Filter it using a white cotton cloth and drain the water completely. You can also allow it to drain overnight. Once the water is drained completely, place it on the kitchen table or bowl and press it with hands as we do for making dough. Make medium sized balls.

4.   Heat the pressure cooker with water, add balls into it. Initially balls will be at the bottom and all will rise slowly to the top.

5.   Cook for 3 whistles and allow it to cool naturally. Open the lid and take out the rasgulla balls. Strain excess water from it.

6.   Prepare sugar syrup by adding equal proportions of water and sugar. Add rasgulla balls to those syrup. Allow the rasgulla balls to soak in sugar syrup for at-least 6 hours.

     These Rasgullas should absorb the sugar syrup to get the sponge like softness and taste. You can also refrigerate and serve.

Read More»

Poorna Pidi kolukattai

Ganesh Chathurthi celebration always starts with kolukattai. All types of kolukattai are tasty and looks tempting. I prepared poorna kolukattai with coconut and sugar.

Preparation time: 15 min
Cooking time: 10 min
Serves: 15 nos

Ingredients:

• Rice flour - 3 cups
• Warm Water

Poornam:

• Ghee - 1 tbsp
• Cardamom - 1
• Coconut flakes - 2 cup

Procedure:

1.    Heat a pan and add ghee. When in melts add cardamom. As flavor comes out, add coconut flakes.

2.   Add sugar and saute as it turns golden brown. This is the poornam. Change to a bowl and keep aside.

3.   Take a medium sized bowl, add rice flour and make it into a dough by adding warm water.

4.   Take small balls and make it flat using fingers. keep a scoop of poornam inside and close it with fingers.

5.   Repeat this and make all kolukattai. Place in idly pan and cook for 10 min.

Read More»