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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Mini Carrot Dosa

It is always a challenge for moms to feed a healthy diet for their naughty kids. Making the dishes colorful tempts kids to eat. Mixing veggies in every possible ways is good for health, this mini carrot dosa is one such way..!!!

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

Ingredients:

1. Dosa Batter - 1 cup
2. Carrot - 2 medium sized

Procedure:

 

1.  Clean the carrot and grate them. Heat dosa pan and grease it with little oil. When the pan is hot, pour dosa batter using a tablespoon. Make small othappam. Sprinkle carrot over the mini dosa.

2.  When one side of the mini dosa turns brown, turn it to other side and spray oil. Transfer mini dosa to plate.

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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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Palak Paratha / Spinach Chappathi

Here is the green healthy paratha / chappathi for kids. ;-) The taste will be so yummy that kids who do not eat spinach properly as side dish would love these green paratha. Give a try and leave your comments..!! :-)

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

Ingredients:

·         Chappathi flour - 3 cup

·         Thick Curd - 1 tbsp

To saute:

1.      Spinach - 200gm

2.      Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

3.      Chili powder - 1 tsp

4.      Garlic - 2 or 3

5.      Coriander powder - 3 tsp

6.      Cumin powder - 1 tsp

7.      Salt to taste

Procedure:

 

1.   Clean spinach/ palak with fresh water and set aside.

2.   Heat a medium sized pan. Add fresh spinach and all other ingredients given in “To saute”. Keep in medium flame for 3 min. Spinach will shrink and become soft. Allow it to cool.

3.   Once it cools down, transfer it to a mixer. Add curd and grind into smooth paste.

4.   Take chappathi flour in a mixing bowl and add spinach paste and make it into dough. Adjust salt. Add little water if required. I did not add water as the water content in the spinach paste was sufficient.

5.   Make balls from the dough of required size and roll it into paratha.

6.   Heat a small flat pan. Cook one side of the paratha and roll-over to the other side. Take it off the pan once both sides are cooked.

Serve hot with raita

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Spicy Tofu Curry

Preparation Time: 20 min
Cooking Time: 30 min
Serves: 3

Ingredients:

Tofu - 200 gm

Tomato - 4 or 5 big sized

Onion - 2 medium sized

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Cardamom - 2 pieces

Cinnamon - ¼ inch

Cloves - 4 pieces

Coriander - to garnish

To marinate:

Ginger garlic paste - ½ tbsp

Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

Chili powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 3 tsp

Cumin powder - 1 tsp

Garam masala - 1 tsp

Curd - 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

Procedure:

1.  Wrap tofu with kitchen towel and keep it aside for 30 min. Drain water from it completely. Cut them into cubes or desired size and shape. Pat with kitchen tissue or soft towel and drain water. In a large mixing bowl and mix all the ingredients given in “ to marinate” section and allow it to rest for 20 min.

2.  Heat a flat pan and add 1 tbsp of butter. Roast tofu on both sides until its golden brown. Repeat it in batches.

3.  Heat a medium sized pan with oil. Add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and roast for few sec. As nice aroma comes out, add onion and saute for 2-3 min. Onion becomes soft and translucent.

4.  Then add ginger garlic paste. Saute til it raw smell leaves. Add turmeric powder and chili powder. Mix well. Add fried tofu and stir.

5.  Grind tomato into a smooth paste. Add tomato to the pan. You can use tomato puree as well. Add salt.

6.  Add 1 cup of water and adjust salt. Close the lid and keep in low flame for 20 min. Or till the gravy gets thickened to desired consistency and oil gets separated.

This yummy gravy tastes great with appam, egg appam, chappathi, egg chappathi etc..

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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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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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