Veg Manchuria

This is one of the Indo Chinese starter also a great party appetizer. You can have it as a starter or as a side dish for any roti varieties. Though it is bit hard job, it is worth of making.

For the veg balls
Grated vegetables of your choice – 2 cups ( I have used cabbage, cauliflower, carrots)
Chopped Spring onion – ½ cup
Chopped green chilli – 1 tbsp
Soya sauce – 1 tbsp
Salt
Ajinimotto – 1/8th tsp
Corn flour – 2 tbsp
Boiled rice – ½ cup
Chopped ginger (Finely) -1/2 tbsp

For the Manchurian sauce
Chilli flakes – 1 tbsp
Chopped green chilli – 1 tbsp
Corn flour – 1 tsp (heaped)
Chopped Spring onion – ½ cup
Onion – 1 (Sliced)
Capsicum – 1 small (Sliced)
Tomato ketchup – 1 tbsp
Soya sauce – 1 tbsp
Salt
Ajinimotto – 1/8th tsp
Chopped ginger (Finely) -1 tbsp

Method:
Steam the vegetables by adding 2 cups of water for about 5 minutes under medium flame. Allow them to cool and drain all the water. Store this water to prepare the sauce. Now to the drained vegetables add corn flour, salt, chopped chilli, ginger, ajinimoto, soya sauce, boiled rice and mix every thing with out any lumps.

 

Mixed vegetables with boiled rice, cornflour, chili, ginger, salt, soya sauce and spring onion

Take small amounts of the mixture and make round balls.

 Veg balls ready to fry

Deep fry the veg balls and keep them aside.

 

Fried veg balls

To prepare the sauce, add 2 tbsp of oil and add chopped ginger, green chilli and capsicum and fry for 1 minute. Now add onion slices, chopped spring onion, tomato ketchup, chilli flakes, soya sauce, salt, ajinimotto and fry for another minute or so. Pour the vegetable stock and mix every thing. Now add corn flour to ¼ cup of water, mix thoroughly and add to the sauce. Cook the sauce until it leaves the raw taste and slightly thickens.

 Manchuria sauce

Add the veg balls just before serving, to retain the crunchiness.

 Ready to serve

Bindi curry – Bendakaaya mudda koora

This is in between the gravy and dry variety. This can go well with either rice or roti.

Ingredients:
Okra – 250 gms
Onion – 1
Tomato - 1
Aamchur powder – ½ tsp
Coriander powder – ½ tsp
Chili powder – ½ to 1 tsp
Roaster peanuts – 1 tbsp
Grated dry coconut – 1 tbsp
Garlic – 2 cloves
Salt

Method:
Cut each bindi into 3-4 pieces.
Cut onion into big cubes. More or less the same size as bindi.
Grind 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut and 1 tbsp of roasted peanuts along with 2 garlic cloves.
Heat a wide pan with 2 tbsp of oil. When it is hot enough, add chana daal, cumin, red chilli and curry leaves. Now add onion and fry for a minute.
Add okra and fry for 2 minutes. Now add chopped tomato, stir and cover the pan with lid. Allow it to get cooked with the steam for about 5 minutes.
When the okra is half done, add salt, chilli powder, coriander powder, salt, aamchur powder add the ground coconut and peanut powder. Sprinkle some water, about 4-5 tbsp, stir every thing and cover it.
Cook the curry until okra is tender and the curry becomes thick.

 Bendakaya mudda koora with rice

Roasted Chickpea chutney with Coconut

A simple chutney with little effort. Unlike peanut chutney, you don't need to fry any thing. Just grind the ingredients and do the seasoning. You can also have it without any seasoning.

Roasted chickpea & coconut chutney

Ingredients:

Pappulu / putnalu (Roasted chick pea) – ½ cup
Fresh coconut chopped into thin strips – ½ cup
Green chilli – 6 - 8
Salt
Amchur powder – ¼ tsp. You can substitute this with tamarind also.

Roasted chickpea, fresh coconut and green chili

For Tampering:
1 tbsp of Oil, Mustard, Cumin seeds, Urad dal, Curry leaves, Dry chilli

Method:

Grind roasted chickpea, coconut, green chillies and salt by adding little water into paste, like chutney consistency and keep it aside.

Take a pan and heat it with oil. When it is hot enough add Red chilli then urad dal, when they change colour, add mustard, cumin and curry leaves. Saute for less than a minute and pour on to the top of chutney.

Chickpea & coconut Chutney with Jonna dosa

Rava Onion Dosa

This is an instant dosa, that can be done with out taking effort of soaking the rice and daal. Most importantly, no need to grind any thing (energy save).

Rava onion dosa

Ingredients:
1 cup rava (fine semolina)
1 cup rice flour
3 green chillies-chopped
1/2 inch finely grated ginger
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
pinch of asafoetida
3 onions-finely chopped
3 tsp cashew nuts-roasted & broken
oil

Method:

Mix the rice flour, rava, asafoetida, cumin and salt with water and mix every thing into thin batter like buttermilk consistency. Add cumin, green chili and pepper corns to the mixture.

 Rava onion dosa mixture

Heat a flat pan (tawa) and grease it with a spoon of oil. Sprinkle the onion and cashews.

 Sprinkled onion and cashews on the hot tawa

Now sprinkle the rava mixture until the batter covers the whole tava.

Dot the edges with little oil and cook until golden brown.

Using a spatula carefully fold the dosa and remove from the pan. Serve hot with chutneys or sambhar.

 Rava onion dosa with sambar, tomato chutney and coconut chutney.

Chiyali

This is made up of with left over idlys. Can be served as it is with out any chutney as this itself good enough containing chilli, salt, lemon and coriander flavours. This is a nice alternative tiffin for those who don't like idlys.

Ingredients:

Idly – 8

Peanuts – 1 tbsp

Onion – 1 Chopped into small pieces

Green chilli – 2

Curry leaves – 1 string

Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp

Lemon juice – 2 tsp

Mustard + Cumin – ½ tsp

Turmeric – ¼ tsp

Salt

Oil – 1 tbsp

 

Method :

Cut each idly into 8 pieces or bite size. Heat a pan with oil. When it is hot enough add Mustard+Cumin. When they start spluttering, add curry leaves and chopped onion. Fry the onion until they slightly become tender. Now add the idly pieces, turmeric and salt. Toss every thing and cover it with lid for less than one minute, so that the idly pieces absorb the flavours.  Remove the lid, toss again and turn off the heat. Drizzle the lemon juice and sprinkle the chopped coriander. Toss again and serve immediately.

Cold idly turned into hot & spicy chiyali

Mango chutney / Maamidi kaaya thokku pachadi

This is like an instant pickle but with little salt and oil. Can go as a nice companion with rice. This will taste more delicious when pounded in a hand mortar rather than in electric grinders.

Mango chutney

Ingredients:
2 medium raw mangoes
Roasted Chili - 4-5 or Chili powder - 2 tsp

Salt as per taste

For seasoning -
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Garlic - 3 - 4 cloves
Dry chili - 1 or 2
Curry leaves - 1 string

Green mangoes

Chop the mango and grind the mango pieces coarsely with salt and chili. For seasoning, heat a pan with oil. Add mustard, curry leaves, chili and garlic one after the other. Add the seasoning to the mango mixture. This can be preserved upto 3 days with out keeping it in the fridge. This will taste more from second day onwards.

This is also a nice companion for any daal recipe

నోరూరించే మామిడికాయ పచ్చడన్నం

Pressure Cooked Carrot Halwa

This is another version of carrot halwa with out adding sugar. Don't be surpised, I have added the natural sweetner -Dates. These natural products contain Calcium, sulphur, iron, potassium, manganese, copper and magnesium which are advantageous for health. Dates are even rich in several vitamins and minerals. Health benefits of dates are uncountable, as this fruit is affluent in natural fibres. It is said that consumption of one date daily is necessary for a balanced and healthy diet. Dates help in fighting constipation, intestinal disorders, weight gain, heart problems, diarrhoea and abdominal Cancer.

This sweet doesn't require much butter / ghee as we are pressure cooking this sweet. A healthy sweet that can be taken by diabetic patients as well.

Carrot halwa with dates

Ingredients:

Grated Carrot – 2 cups
2 tsp - butter
Milk – 1 cup
Dates (deseed & chopped) – 1 cup
Cashews – 2 tbsp
Grated almonds and Pistachios – 1 tbsp

Wash and grate the carrots finely. Heat a pressure pan with 2 tsp of butter or ghee. When it is warm enough, add the grated carrots to a pressure cooker. Stir once and add 1 cup of milk and cover it with lid. Cook for 1 whistle, and allow the pressure to go and remove the lid from the cooker.

Carrot before and after cooking

Add chopped dates, reduce the flame and cook for few more minutes until the dates becom soft and excess moisture gets evaporated.

 Chopped dates added to the carrot mixture

Remove from the flame. Sprinkle with grated cashew nuts, almonds and pistachios. Carrot Halwa is ready to serve.

Carrot halwa

Note: You can substitute dates with jaggery or sugar as per your choice.

Summer nature

In lovely summer, I have captured few memories of nature.

Lemon soda

The thought of this drink itself makes my mouth watery. On a hot summer day, thought to have this drink. A bit better that the other fizzy drinks which are loaded with sugars. This drink is reminding me my childhood days, when we used to drink this lemon soda near old bus stand. So simple to prepare.

Ingredients:
Soda water - 1 ltr (store bought)
Cumin powder freshly ground at home - 1 tsp
Lemon juice extracted from 2 large lemons
Salt

Method:
In each glass (serves for 4) take 1/4 tsp of cumin powder and about 1 tbsp of lemon juice, salt and then pour the soda into the glass, give a good stir and enjoy

Maza maza .......