Amaranth leaves curry (Thotakoora pullakura )

This is another variation of cooking greens. Instead of doing stir fry, we do cook the leaves along with tomato, onion, chili and tamarind. It will be tangy in taste and stays in between a curry and a side dish, means you can serve this either as the main dish or as a side dish along with any daal variety dishes. Adding peanuts will give you the crunchiness.

Ingredients:

Amaranthus leaves – 4 cups  or 2 small bunches
Tomato – 1 chopped into big chunks
Onion – 1 chopped into big chunks
Tamarind – ½ of the lemon size
Rock Salt
Soaked Ground nuts or fresh ground nuts – 2 tbsp
Oil

For thadka (Tampering):
Mustard seeds, Garlic flakes, curry leaves and Red chilli

Method:

 Boil the ground nuts with little water until they are semi soft (half boiled) using a pinch of salt. Drain and keep aside. Do not discard the water as we are going to use this to boil amaranthus leaves.

 Add 1 spoon oil to hot pan and fry onion and tomato together with a pinch of salt for a minute.

 Add washed amaranth leaves, tamarind, half boiled pea nuts, the left over water from boiling pea nuts (about 100 ml) and salt. Stir and close the lid for about 4 -5 minutes.

Stir occsionally and cook the contents until the amaranth leaves are soft. Do not over cook.

Remove from the fire and while it is still hot add rock salt and mash every thing using wooden pastel and keep it aside.

 For tampering, heat oil in a pan and add Mustard seeds, garlic cloves fry for a minute and then add curry leaves.

 Finally add the tampering to the curry / pullakoora

Children's day 2011

"Children Day" a sweet memory of every Indian's childhood. Children's day in India is celebrated on Pandit Nehru's birthday as a day of fun and frolic, a celebration of childhood.

These are the pictures taken at Nehru's centre in London on the occasion of children's day.

Bhaarat matha

Chaacha Nehru

A little Indira Gandhi 

Sardhar Vallabhai Patel

 Little Rama, Sita and hanuma

Anaarkali

Raani Rudrama devi 

 The great dancers

 I am so impressed to see India in UK

Pappulu allam chutney (Roasted chickpea with ginger)

This is an instant chutney with fewer ingredients. Roasted chikpea combined with ginger and green chili is a tasty combination that can be served with any Indian tiffins. Adding ginger will give the extra punch.

Ingredients:

Pappulu / putnalu (Roasted chick pea) – ½ cup

Green chilli – 4
Ginger – ½ inch
Salt

For Tampering:

Oil, Mustard, Cumin seeds, Urad dal, Curry leaves, Dry chilli

 Roasted chickpea, ginger and green chili

Method:

Grind roasted chickpea, green chillies, ginger and salt by adding water into paste like chutney consistency.

Heat a small pan 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.

Served with dosa

Pesara Idly / Moong Daal Idly

This is another variety of idly with green gram. As we are using the whole grains, this will be rich in B Vitamin. All my efforts are just not to prepare new recipes, but also do healthy meals for my family.

Pesara idly / Moongdaal idly with Sambar

Ingredients:
Whole Urad daal / Black gram – 1 cup

Rice Rava - 1 cup

Whole Green gram - 1 cup

Method:

Soak urad daal and green gram together for atleast 6 hours and grind them into into fine paste.

Add Rava and combine every thing without any lumps and allow to ferment for at least 8 hours.

When it is fully fermented , scoop the batter into idli moulds and steam for 15 – 20 minutes.

Serve them warm with your favourite chutney or sambar

Broccoli and Cauliflower Stir fry

A simple side dish for rotis. Can also be served as a snack for kids. Nice combination of two great vegetables, rich in nutrients.

A true visual feast for the vegetarians

 Ingredients:

1 cup – Cauliflower florets
1 tsp – lemon juice
½ tsp – crushed pepper
Salt
Butter – 1 tsp

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan and slip the florets into it. Stir them for a minute, sprinkle some salt and cover with lid. Allow them to cook by themselves with the steam. Still in between and cook them just until they become tender and yet retain the crunchiness.

Sprinkle the lemon juice and the pepper powder and remove from the fire.

Serve immediately.

Roasted Potato with herbs

Tried this combination during last week end and it was a good effort. Instead of using more oil, I have steamed the potato chunks in the microwave for about 2 minutes and then combined them with herbs grown at home and spices along with oil and roasted them.

 Roasted Potato with herbs

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 4 large chopped into big chunks

Mint leaves – hand full
Green chilli – 3
Parsley – hand full
Cumin – 1 tsp
Salt
Oil – 1 tsp

Home grown herbs, Mint and Parsely

Method:

Grind mint, parsley, green chilli along with salt and cumin.

Steam the potatoes either in microwave or in a pan. Take them into a wide container, add oil and the ground herb mixture and mix every thing thoroughly.

Line a baking tray and place the potato chunks and bake them, by turning in between until they become crispy out side.

Potato wedges mixed with herbs and ready to bake

A nice snack for the whole family

And ready to eat...

Paani / Spicy water for Paani poori

This is the spicy water flavoured with mint and curry leaves. A nice companion for golgappas.

This comes for about 100 paani pooris

Ingredients:
Coriander - 1 small bunch
Mint - 1 small bunch
Curry leaves - handfull
Green chilli - 5-6
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Kaala namak (Black salt) - 1/2 tsp
Salt as per taste
Tamarind - 2 lemons size

Coriander, Mint, Curry leaves, Green chilli, Cumin powder, Coriander Powder and Tamarind

Method:
Grind all the above ingredients except tamarind.
Soak the tamarind until soft and extract the juice. Mix the tamarind pulp along with 8-10 cups of water and add the ground mixture.

For the filling
2 cups of boiled chickpea
2 cups of mashed potato
1 cup of  finely chopped onion
1 tsp - Chat masala
1/2 tsp - chili powder (optional)
Salt as per taste
lemon juice extracted from 1 lemon

Mix all the above ingredients and keep it aside.

To make the paani poori, take each poori, make a whole by tapping it gently, fill it with the potato mixture and pour the paani into it.

Golgappas ready to serve with spicy paani

Golguppas / Poori for paani poori

This is another famous street food served in various forms like Paani poori, Dhahi poori, Chaat Poori, Bhel poori. Hmm I am great fan of Paani Poori.  But, after coming to UK, I didn’t find this for ages. One fine day I found this street food in front of an Asian store. But, a great disappointment as the paani (water) was so cold and so do the filling and didn’t give enough kick. I have strongly decided to learn this recipe.

After making few successful attempts, I am now confident to publish this recipe. There are few versions of making the dough like mixing the fine semolina with plain flour, or mixing the semolina with warm water etc., I feel making the dough with just semolina and few drops of lemon juice is suffice to make them crispier.

I have also followed another tip given by my Gujarathi friend is to make use of the roti maker to press the poori which simplifies the complex problem of rolling the tiny pooris into exactly same size and of same shape.

Golgappas

Ingredients:

Fine Semolina – ½ cup (makes about 50)

Lemon – ½

Salt

Oil to fry poori

Method:

Knead the semolina with water by adding salt and lemon juice and make a stiff dough. When the dough is made, add 1 tsp of oil and knead it again for another 4-5 minutes. Keep the dough wrapped up in cling film or even a freezer bag will do. Leave it for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Semolina dough

Heat a pan with oil for deep frying. 

In the mean time divide the dough into 50 equal size balls. Roll each ball into thin round disc. Repeat the same with other dough balls.

Pooris rolled into flat discs

Alternately, you can make a big flat disc, and using the cookie cutter cut it into small round discs.

Fry them in batches. 6-8 pooris at a time. You need to fry them under medium high flame for a while in order to get the crispiness. You can also use roti maker to press the golguppas. You need to turn on the roti maker, press 4 balls at a time by keeping them in 4 corners of the roti maker. By doing this, you will get the pooris in even shape with less effort. Not only that, the heat will remove the moisture which in turn makes the poori to absorb less oil.

Tip: If the poories turned soft, then bake them in oven for 10-15 minutes at Gas mark 3 or until they become crispier. Make sure to check them in between to avoid burning.

Gool.... Gupppppp