Unni Appam

Unni appam is a very popular kerala dish. After seeing paniyaram in my blog, Meenakshi akka, a great friend of me and my family shared this recipe. Thanks to Meenakshi akka for her recipe. This snack is really very yummy and tempting to eat.

Preparation Time: 15 min

Cooking Time: 20 min
Serves: 25 count

Ingredients:

1. Rice Flour / கோதுமை மாவு - 1 cup
2. Wheat flour / அரிசி மாவு - ¼ cup
3. Jaggery / மண்ட வெல்லம் - 1¼ cup
4. Banana - 1
5. Cardamom seeds - 1
6. Ghee - as required

Procedure:

1.  Using a hammer or heavy weight, break the jaggery to pieces. Heat a small pan with jaggery and 1 cup of water. Stir slowly and keep in low flame. When jaggery gets completely mexed in water, switch off the stove and strain to remove dust. Set aside.

2.  In a mixing bowl add rice flour and wheat flour. Pour the syrup and mix to a idly batter consistency.

3.  Smash banana. Add banana, cardamom seed and batter in a blender and grind for 5 sec. Transfer to bowl

4.  Heat paniyaram pan with ghee. Pour a scoop of batter in each pit. When its starts turning golden brown turn to other side. Add more ghee if needed. Cook until its done.

5.  Lip-smacking paniyaram is ready to serve 

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Carrot Payasam - With Coconut Milk

Carrot is a excellent source of Vitamin A and it has number of health benefits improving vision, beautiful skin, anti-aging. It is always good to take carrot in different form everyday. Carrot payasam is a yummy dessert too.
Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking Time: 20 min
Serves: 2
Ingredients:

• Carrot - 2 medium sized
• Milk - 1 cup
• Coconut milk - ½ cup
• Sugar - ¼ cup and 2 tbsp
• Cashew nuts - few
• Dry grapes - few
• Almonds - few
• Ghee - ½ tbsp 

Procedure:

1.  Heat a medium sized pan, pour milk and bring it to boil. Add coconut milk and stir slowly. Reduce to medium flame and add sugar. Keep stirring slowly.

2.  Clean and peel the skin of carrot. Grate them and grind it into a smooth juice. You can use juice extractor too. Add carrot juice to boiling milk.

3.  Roast cashew nuts, almond, dry grapes in ghee and add to carrot payasam. Serve hot or chill.

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Badusha

Preparation Time: 10 min

Cooking Time: 30 min
Serves: 12 pieces

Ingredients:

1. Maida - 1 cup
2. Ghee - 3 tbsp
3. Baking soda - 1 pinch
4. Sugar - 1 tbsp

Syrup:

1. Sugar - ¼ cup
2. Water as required

Procedure:

1.   Take a large mixing bowl, add ghee and baking soda. In a mixie grind a tbsp of sugar into a fine powder. Add the sugar powder to ghee. Mix well.

2.  Add maida flour and blend them together. After mixing them thoroughly, add little water and make it to a chappathi like dough.

3.   Make small smooth balls and set aside. Heat oil in a kadai and fry them in low-medium flame.

4.  In a pan, add sugar and little water till sugar gets immersed. Heat the pan and makes a syrup. When you touch the syrup with fingers, it should be sticky.

5.   Dip the fried dough in the sugar syrup. Take out and set aside. Allow it to cool.

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Maida Cake

My mom use to prepare this maida cake for every Diwali. It will be soft in the middle and crispy in the corners. A yummy snack too. The dough itself will be very tasty to eat ;-)

Preparation Time: 10 min

Cooking Time: 50 min

Serves: 30 pieces

Ingredients:

1. Egg - 2
2. Maida - 1/2 kg
3. Sugar - 300gm
4. Butter - 50gm
5. Milk - 100ml
6. Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp

Procedure:

1. Take a large mixing bowl. Break and pour eggs. Whisk eggs for few min. Add sugar and keep stirring until sugar is completely dissolved.
   
2. Add butter, baking soda and milk. Stir slowly for 1 min.
   
3. Sieve maida and add them slowly to the mixing bowl. Make a chappathi like dough.
   
4. Roll the dough into a thick flat roll and cut them into diamond shape cakes using knife. Join the left over dough and roll them again to make diamond cakes. Take a diamond cake and cut one side of the cake using a small knife or blade.
   
5. Heat a kadai with oil to fry the cakes. Drop a small piece of dough into oil. It should rise immediately to the top. Reduce to medium flame. Drop the cakes into oil. Fry until it is golden brown and place in a tissue to remove excess oil.
   

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Omapodi - Diwali Snack

Preparation Time: 10 min

Cooking Time: 30 min

Ingredients:

1.     Gram / Besan Flour / கடலை மாவு - 2 cup

2.      Rice flour - 1 tbsp

3.      Salt to taste

Procedure:

1.  Sift gram flour and add it in a large mixing bowl. To this add rice flour and salt. Add water and make a sticky dough. Use little oil if it too sticky.

2.  Heat oil in a kadai. This time I bought a new electric kettle to make diwali snack. Our normal kadai will be good to fry. Use idyappam press to make big circles into the oil. The holes in my idyappam maker will be little big. If you wish you can use small hole idyappam press too.

3. Check whether the oil is hot by dropping a small dough piece. It should rise to the surface of oil immediately. Maavu will be little hard to press. You can also press on the reverse of karandi and then drop it into oil. Fry them until the sound is seized.

4.  Transfer then to a tissue or oil strainer to remove excess oil. Slightly break them to make omapodi. Do not break them too small. It will so crispy and will break by itself.

                Crispy plain sev / omapodi is ready for snack..!! Happy Diwali to all..!!!

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Murukku Twists

Murukku is a crispy south Indian snack. Murukku is a everyday snack as well as a festival special especially on Diwali..

Preparation Time: 15 min
Cooking Time: 30 min
Serves: 50 - 60 pieces

Ingredients:

1. Boiled Ponni Rice - 4 cup
2. Urad dhal - 1 cup
3. Butter - 3 tbsp
4. Jeera - 3 tsp
5. Sesame - 3 tsp
6. Chili powder - to taste
7. Salt to taste

Preparation: 

*  Soak boiled ponni rice for 2 hrs

Procedure:

 

1.  Clean the soaked rice and dry them on a clean cotton cloth for 10 min. Then grind them in batches using a mixer.

2.  Sieve the powdered rice. Grind the coarse left over rice again and sieve them again. Repeat until a fine rice flour is obtained. Slightly roast them to remove moisture. If it forms lumps because of moisture, sieve it again to get a very fine dry rice flour.

3.  Then heat a pan and dry roast urad dhal as it starts turning golden brown. Allow it to cool down and grind it to a fine powder. Sieve them to get a fine urad dhal flour.

4.  In a large mixing bowl mix rice flour, urad dhal flour and rest of the ingredients. Mix them well. Add water and make it into a smooth dough. Using a murukku press, roll the dough into murukku. I used star shape press.

5.  Heat oil in a kadai. Fry the murukku. As the sound of murukku ceases, it is the perfect time to take out the  murukku. Place it on a tissue to remove excess oil.

                                                   Crispy muruku is ready for the snack..!!!

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Bread Payasam

Starting my diwali recipes in my blog with a simple and easy sweet. Bread payasam is really yummy and ready in minutes. 

Preparation Time: 5 min

Cooking Time: 20 min

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Bread - 2 slices
• Milk - 3 cup
• Sugar - equal to bread powder
• Ghee - 2 tbsp
• Cashew nuts - as required
• Cardamom - 1

Procedure:

1.  Heat a small pan and roast bread slices by adding ghee. Once its roasted, make it into pieces. Grind and make it into a powder.

2.  In a medium sized pan, add 1 cup of milk and bring it to boil. Measure the quantity of bread powder and take equal quantity of sugar. Add bread powder and sugar to the boiling milk and keep in low flame.

 3.  As the kheer gets thickened add milk little-by-little and mix. Keep doing this until adding the entire milk. Adding more milk enhances the flavor. Add one cardamom .

 4.  Roast cashew nuts in ghee in a pan and add them to kheer. Stir well.

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Ksheerannam - Andhra Style

Ksheerannam is a rice pudding or rice dessert. It is usually made as neivedhiyam during navarathri in Andhra regions. It takes a long time to cook but still its a very tasty dessert.

 
Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking Time: 50 - 60 min
Serves: 3

Ingredients:

1. Raw rice - ½ cup
2. Milk - 5 cup
3. Sugar - ¼ cup
4. Ghee - 2 tbsp
5. Cashew nuts - 10 pieces
6. Almonds - 5 pieces - cut into pieces
7. Dry grapes - 10 pieces

Preparation:

   -  Soak rice for 10 min

Procedure:

1.   Clean the soaked rice and set aside. Heat a medium sized pan preferably non-stick pan, add 2 cups of milk and bring it to boil.

2.   Reduce the flame and add rice. Keep stirring slowly and continuously as rice gets cooked. If you do not stir it gets stick to the bottom of pan.  As rice gets cooked, add milk when it gets thickened.

3.   Rice should be cooked well and mushy. Do not stop stirring. When the rice gets mushy, add sugar and give a good stir.

4.   In meanwhile heat a small pan, add ghee and roast cashew nuts, almonds, dry grapes. As nice aroma comes out, add it to the kheer. 

5.   Mix it well and serve hot or cold.

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Thatta Payir / Karamani Sundal

Preparation Time: 5 min

Cooking Time: 20 min

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Thatta payir / Karamani
• Coriander powder - 1 pinch

To temper:

• Oil - 2 tsp
• Mustard - 1 pinch
• Urad dhal - 1 pinch
• Jeera - 1 pinch
• Curry leaf - 1 sprig
• Hing - 1 pinch
• Red chili - 2 piece

Preparation:

 - Soak thatta payir for 8 hrs or overnight

Procedure:

1.   Clean the soaked thatta payir and presurre cook with little salt for 3 whistles. After one whistle, keep it in simmer flame for next 2 whistle or 3 min. Then allow it to cool naturally. Filter excess water and set aside.

2.   Heat a medium sized pan with oil. Add all the ingredients to temper and roast for 1 min.

3.   To this add cooked thatta payir. Adjust salt and coriander powder. Adding coriander powder is optional. I added this to give little spicy flavor. Finally coconut flakes and give a good stir.

Serve hot...!!! It looks so great...!!

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