Aloo Bonda

Potato is always everyones favorite and its always taste great. A perfect circle with aloos(potato) inside is a very tempting dish. It is a perfect snack with a cup of tea or coffee in the evening.

Preparation Time: 5 min

Cooking Time: 25 min

Serves: 10 bonda

Ingredients: Batter: Kadalai maavu - 1 cup Salt to taste Soda uppu - 1 tsp Chili powder -  1 tsp Food color (optional) Stuffing: Potato - 2 medium sized or 1 big sized Onion - ½ cup - finely chopped Green chili - 2 Ginger - 1 tsp - finely chopped Lemon juice - 1 tbsp Oil - 1 tbsp Mustard - ½ tsp Urad dhal - 1 tsp Jeera - ½ tsp Curry leaf - 1 sprig Coriander leaf - ¼ cup finely chopped Turmeric powder - 1 pinch Salt to taste Procedure: 1.  Pressure cook potato and allow it to cool naturally. Peel the skin of potato and mash them. 2.  Heat a medium sized pan. Add oil and when it is hot, add mustard, jeera and allow it to sputter. Then add urad dhal and roast them. Add onion, ginger, green chili and saute them until onion turns soft. 3.  Then add turmeric powder. Mix the mashed potatoes, salt, curry leaf, coriander leaf. Finally add lemon juice and give a good stir. Transfer aloo masala to a bowl and allow it to cool. 4.  Meanwhile, In a mixing bowl, add all the ingredients in “batter” section. Sift the flour before adding to avoid lumps. Add water and make bonda batter in a idly batter consistency. 5.  Make lemon sized balls from the stuffing masala. Drop them into prepared batter. Coat it with the batter. 6.  Heat oil in a kadai. Drop the dipped masala balls into hot oil. Fry them until it is cooked. Delicious aloo bonda is ready for a chill evening..!!

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Onion Bonda

Winter is starting here...!! and its will be perfect evening with this hot onion bonda and a cup of tea or coffee.

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

 Ingredients:

• Kadalai Maavu - 1 cup
• Onion - 2 big sized - Cut lengthwise and one or two cut in middle
• Onion should be neither too long nor too short
• Red chili powder - 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil - to fry

Procedure:

1.  Take a large mixing bowl and add all the ingredients except oil. Mix them well and add water. Make it into a batter consistency. It should neither be too thin nor thick.

2.  Heat a kadai with oil to fry. Pour a scoop of batter in to hot oil.

3.  Keep in medium high flame and fry them until it turns brown. Fry until sound cease otherwise the center of bonda won’t get cooked properly.

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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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Soya Kola Urundai

I prepared soya kola urundai as appetizer for my first potluck and all my potluck friends and their kids too loved it. I tried for the first time and it was delicious.

Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking Time: 30 min
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• Meal maker or soya chunks- 200gm
• Small onion - 7 finely chopped
• Coriander- 1/4 cup finely chopped
• Curry leaf- 1/4 cup finely chopped
• Potato - 1- cooked and mashed
• Coriander powder - 2 tsp
• Garam masala - 1 tsp
• All purpose flour - 2 tbsp
• Corn flour - 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste

To powder:

• Potutu kadala or porikadalai - 2 tbsp

To grind:

• Green chili - 4
• Cashew nuts- 10
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
• Fennel seeds - 1/2 tbsp
• Cinnamon - small piece

Procedure:

1. Heat a pan or vessel with water and bring it to boil and add soya chunks. Keep in low flame for 10 min. Once it is cooked, squeeze soya chunks and rinse it twice with cold water. Drain water completely by squeezing them tightly.
2. Add the drained chunks to the mixer and grind for few minutes. Soya chunks become shredded. Transfer it to a large mixing bowl.
3. Grind pottukadalai into a fine powder and add them to shredded soya.
4. Then again grind the ingredients given in to grind into a smooth thick paste by adding little water. Add this paste to soya mix.
5. Pressure cook potato. Allow it to cool naturally and peel the skin. Mash it and add to soya mix.
6. Finely chop small onion, cilantro, curry leaf and add them to soya. Add coriander powder, garam masala and salt. Mix them all together.
7. In a small bowl make a thin batter of corn flour and all purpose flour. Make medium sized balls and Coat each balls with the batter and deep fry them.

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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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Kadalai Paruppu Sundal

Preparation Time: 5 min

Cooking Time: 15 min

Serves : 2

Ingredients:

·         Kadalai Paruppu / Split chana dhal - ½ cup

·         Oil - 2 tsp

·         Mustard - 1 tsp

·         Urad dhal - 1 tsp

·         Jeera - 1 tsp

·         Curry leaf - 1 sprig

·         Hing - 1 pinch

·         Red chili - 2 pieces

·         Coconut flakes - 2 tbsp

Preparation:

·         Soak kadalai paruppu for 2 hrs

Procedure:

1.  Pressure cook for 2 whistles. Remove excess water.

2.  Heat a pan with oil. Then add mustard, urad dhal, jeera, curry leaf, hing, red chili one by one and roast it well.

3.  Add cooked kadalai paruppu and salt. Finally add coconut flakes and give a good stir.

Serve hot...!! Sundal is ready to serve :-)

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Pacha Payaru / Paasi Payaru Sundal

A healthy and festival special dish. Paasi payaru sundal is served as neivedhiyam for Varalakshmi vratham, Navarathri, Vinayagar chathurthi and many other occasions.

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

Ingredients:

1. Pacha payaru - ½ cup
2. Oil - 1 tbsp
3. Mustard - 1 tsp
4. Urad dhal - 1 tsp
5. Jeera - 1 tsp
6. Curry leaf - 1 sprig
7. Hing - a pinch
8. Red chili - 2
9. Coconut flakes - 3 tbsp
10. Salt - to taste

Preparation:

-   Soak pacha payaru for atleast 5 hrs .

Procedure:

1.  Pressure cook pacha payaru for 2 whistles with little salt. Filter excess water and set aside.

2.  Heat a medium sized pan with oil, then add mustard, urad dhal, jeera and allow it to sputter, Followed by curry leaf, hing, red chili.

3.  To this add cooked pacha payaru, coconut flakes and give a good stir. Adjust salt and serve hot.

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