Appam

Ingredients: Raw Rice - 2 cups Shredded coconut - handful Cooked rice - Handful Baking powder - 1/4 spoon sugar - 2-3 tspn Salt - as needed oil Appam Preparation: Soak the rice for 2 hours. Grind coconut and cooked rice together until smooth. To this add the rice and grind everything together. Add the salt and sugar and mix well. Let it ferment for few hours or overnight. Soak the scraped coconut in one and a half cups of warm water, grind and extract thick milk. Add the coconut milk to the fermented batter and dilute it to a thick creamy consistency. Mix in the baking powder and adjust salt. Make Appam in the appam griddle else make it like pancakes on regular tawa. Heat an appam tawa (small cast-iron kadai), brush with a little oil. Add one ladle of batter, tilt the kadai all round to spread the batter.  The edges should be thin and the excess batter should collect at the centre. Cover with a thick heavy lid and cook on medium heat for two to thee minutes.  Serve it with sweetened coconut milk, stew, kala chana curry or with any kurma.

Ragi Idli

Ingredients: Ragi grains - 2 cup (You can also use 1.5 cups of Ragi Flour or Raikon instead) Urad dal - 1/2 cup salt - 1 tsp oil - to grease the idli tray/ to make dosas Ragi Idli Preparation: Soak urad dal and ragi grains separately for minimum 3 hours or overnight. Grind the urad dal separately till it become fluffy.  Next grind the ragi seperately (if using ragi grains). Mix the urad dal batter and ragi batter together with required salt.           - If you are using ragi flour, grind the urad dal to a smooth batter and mix in the ragi flour to this. Add little water and mix to get a idli batter consistency. Whichever method you follow, let the batter ferment overnight or until it doubles in volume.          - If you are in a cold country, leave the batter in the oven with the light on to aid the fermentation process. After it ferments, you can make idlis immediately. You can also store the batter in the fridge for 3-4 days.    Serving Suggestion       - Serve this with any type of chutney or sambhar or any other gravy.

NEER DOSA

Ingredients Rice - 2 cups Grated Coconut - 1 cup (preferably tender coconut) Salt - to taste   Neer Dosa Preparation:  Wash and soak the rice for 2-3 hours.   Drain and grind it to a smooth paste along with grated coconut.   Pour water and thin out the dosa batter. The batter should be very very watery. Add required salt.  Heat a dosa pan on medium low heat. The tawa should not be very hot.  Pour a ladleful of batter in the tawa and rotate the tawa so that the batter spreads evenly into a very thin crepe. Drizzle few drops of oil, cover with a lid and cook on low flame for a minute or two.  Gently remove the dosa and fold it into a triangle.   This dosa remains very soft for a long time. So you can make this well ahead of time for parties, for guests or picnics.

Pesarattu 

Ingredients

For Batter
Green Gram (Split/ Whole) - 2 cups
Rice - 4 tblsp (optional)
Green chillies - 5-7 
Ginger - 2" piece
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
Oil - for making pesarattu
salt - as needed (app. 2 tblsp)
 
For Topping 
(you could use any of the following toppings, i prefer to use only onion toppings)
Onions - finely chopped
Green Chillies - finely chopped
Grated Coconut 
Chopped Cilantro

 

pesarattu preparation:

• Soak the green gram and rice for atleast 1 hour and drain the water. Longer soaking would be good.
•  Add this soaked lentil and rice to a mixie/blender along with the ginger piece and green chillies.
•  Add enough water and required salt and grind to a smooth paste.
•  Remove the batter and mix the cumin seeds with it.
•  Heat a griddle/ dosa pan. Check if it is hot enough by sprinkling few drops of water. The water will sizzle right away.
•  Pour a laddlefull of batter in the center and spread it into a nice round shape using the back of the spoon.
•  Sprinkle few chopped onions and few drops of oil on top.
•  After it turns golden brown at the bottom, flip it over.
•  After it gets cooked on both sides, remove from the griddle.
•  Serve piping hot with upma and chutney (peanut chutney or ginger chutney or coconut chutney).

VERMICELLI UPMA RECIPE

Ingredients:

2 cups Vermicelli

1 tsp Chana dal

1 tsp Urad dal

1/4 tsp Mustard seeds

2 tsp Cashewnuts

2 tsp Peanuts

1 Onions 

2 Green chillies

1/2 inch Ginger

1 Potatoes 

1/4 cup Peas

1 Carrots

1 Tomatoes

4 1/2 cups Water

3 tblsp Oil

2 tblsp Ghee

3 sprig Curry Leaves

Salt to taste

Vermicelli upma  preparation:

Ø       Chop the onions, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots into small cubes. Slit the green chilly lengthwise and grate the ginger. Keep them aside.

Ø       In a kadai, dry roast the vermicelli stirring constantly till light brown and a sweet aroma is released. Roasting of vermicelli ensures that the vermicelli does not become a mushy pulp on boiling. All the strands are separate.

Ø       Heat the oil and add chana dal, urad dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. When they start to crackle, add peanuts and cashewnuts. Fry till they turn golden brown.

Ø       Add chopped potatoes, carrots and fry for 4-5 minutes.

Ø       Then add chillies,ginger ,onions, peas and tomatoes.

Ø       Cook until they are done. Sprinkle some water if the vegetables start to stick.

Ø       After that add salt and 41/2 cups of water, cover with a lid and let it boil .

Ø       When the water comes to boil add vermecelli and simultaneously stir ( so that no lumps are formed).

Ø       Cover the upma with a lid for 5-6 minutes and then add 2tbsp of ghee and stir well.

Ø       Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Vegetable Uthappam Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cup rice (chawal)

1 cup split black gram lentil (dhuli urad ki dal) 

3 onion (pyaj) 

2 tomato (tamatar) 

a piece ginger (adrak) 

2 green chilly (hari mirch) 

1 tsp coriander leaves (dhania patti) 

1 cup cabbage (patta gobi) 

1 capsicum (shimla mirch) 

2 carrot (gajar) 

1 1/2 tsp salt (namak) 

1/2 tsp red chilly powder (lal mirch) 

oil for cooking

Vegetable uttapam preparation:

Ø       Soak rice and dal separately for about 6 hours.

Ø       Then grind them separately.

Ø       Mix them in a container and add salt.

Ø       Cover and leave for fermentation for 12 hours.

Ø       Finely chop adrak, pyaj, shimla mirch, hari mirch, tomato and dhania.

Ø       Grate carrot and patta gobi.

Ø       Mix all these vegetables in the batter.

Ø       Mix lal mirch in chawal batter.

Ø       Heat a non stick pan/tawa and spread 1 tbsp batter on it.

Ø       Cook at low flame and grease it on the corners and turn it to cook the other side.

Ø       Serve it hot.

Ø       If the batter sticks on a tawa, add little salt to the oil and grease the corners so that uttapam will not stick on tawa.

Ø      Cook it at low flame to make it tastier.

VADA RECIPE

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Urad Daal

1/2 cup Moong Daal

1 Onion finely chopped

1 tsp Ginger

1-2 Green Chilies finely chopped 

Salt to taste 

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

Vada preparation :

Ø       Pick, wash and soak daals for 3-4 hours.

Ø       Grind them coarsely in a blender.

Ø       Now add onions,ginger, green chilies salt and baking powder and mix well and set aside for 5 minutes.

Ø       Heat oil in a pan or kadhai and deep fry a spoonful of batter till golden

Ø      Serve with chutney as a breakfast or sambhar or rasam as a meal.

UPMA RECIPE

Ingredients:

1 cup Rava / Sooji (Semolina) 

25 gms fried Cashew Nuts (optional)

1 inch Ginger chopped 

1 chopped Onion

3 Green Chillies slit sideways

1 Potato chopped

1 Capsicum chopped

1 Carrot chopped

1/4 cup Green Peas frozen or fresh 

1 tsp Mustard Seeds

1 tsp Urad Daal

1 tsp Channa Daal

Salt to taste

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

Chili powder to taste (optional)

2 tblsp Oil

Few curry leaves

Finely chopped corianderleaves

1 tblsp Ghee 

Lemon juice to taste

Upma  Preparation:

Ø       Sift rava through a muslin / cheese cloth or very fine sieve.

Ø       Heat 1tbsp. pure ghee / unsalted butter and fry rava ,on a moderate heat, stiring constantly to light brown color and set aside.

Ø       Now heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and allow them to splatter.

Ø       Add the daals : channa & urad & curry leaves to it and fry till they turn red.

Ø       Add onion, ginger and green chilies. Sauté for 2-3 minutes.

Ø       Add all the vegetables, turmeric & chili powder, and salt to taste.

Ø       Now add 3 cups of water and cover the pan and allow it simmer on low heat until the vegetables are done.

Ø       Add the fried rava to it stirring constantly till it becomes little thick.

Ø       Take off from the heat and lemon juice if desired.

Ø      Serve hot garnished with cashews and coriander.