Paala kova (Khoya / Doodh peda)

I still remember the great taste of paalakova made by the street vendors at the famous Y.V.street in kadapa. When I was a child when ever we go Y.V. street we don't enjoy the divine taste of this paalakova, given in banana leaf. It tasteseven  great when you lick it. That taste has inspired me to make paalakova for my kids. But most of it was eaten by my hubby dear (as he is crazy about paala kova).

Paala kova going straight into my hubby's mouth

I was thinking that this is the recipe done only by the great chefs (Mom & Athamma) only, but not. Any beginner can do this. Trust me.


Ingredients
2 litres of whole milk
¾th cup of sugar (You can add more if you like)

Cooking time : 3 hours



Preparation:

Gold top milk

In a Non- stick pan (This is the easy method and we can avoid the sticky sessions), bring the milk to a boil.
Keep the heat on medium high and boil/simmer the milk for about 2 hours, stirring in between.

                                                     After one hour milk looks like this

After 2 hours milk becomes like this

By the end of two and half hours, the milk reduces in volume, becomes quite thick and changes the form and colour. This will turns to cream / sandal wood colour

Beautiful sandalwood colour

Add sugar to the thickened milk. Continuously stirring on medium heat, cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. By the end of this time, the milk-sugar paste further thickens and the texture looks like rava upma . Remove the pan from the heat.

Paala koova (Koya)

I scooped the kova into paper cups and decorated with almonds.

Paala Kova with Almond

Vankaya Pappu (Daal with eggplant)

Daals are an integral part of South Indian cuisine. You can prepare simple daal by not adding any other ingredients except daal like Mudha pappu, or you can add various vegitables to enhance the taste. One variety among the daals is Vankaya pappu.

Ingredients

Toor Daal - 1 cup
Egg plants - 2 (Indian variety)
Tomato - 1 large cut into big chuncks
Onion - 1 small cut into big chunks
Green chilli - 5 - 7
Tamarind - 1/2 lemon size
Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Toor Dar, egg plant, tomato, onion, chilli, tamarind

Method:

Wash and soak Daal for about 30 min. Wash and cut the egg plants. Heat a deep pan or pressure cooker and add tsp of oil. When it is hot add egg plant pieces and fry for a minute to get rid of the raw taste and also it enhances the veggie taste. Gradually add onion, chilli, tomato, toor dal, and turmeric. Add 2 cups of water and drop the tamarind at the end so that it remains on top and pressure cook for 3 whistles. If you are not using the pressure cooker, do not add tamarind until the daal has cooked well.

Allow the pressure to go and mash the daal by adding salt while it is still warm.
For seasoning, heat a kadai (small pan) add 1 tblsp of oil and when it is hot add crushed garlic, red chillie, curry leaves, mustard seeds and cumin. Add the hot seasoning to the daal and mix.
Enjoy with hot rice.

Vankaya pappu with Annam (Rice)

Merapakaya bajji (Chilli fritters)

                                            

Mirapakaya bajji (Chilli bajji) 

My mom is an expert in making these mirapakaya bajji. They just melt in the mouth. Yummmmm. It is really an art to make these bajjis with green chillis, stuffed and dipped in the gram flour batter and deep fry them. Most important thing in making this recipe is preparing the right consitency of the batter.

This is one of the famous street food in South India especially Andhra Pradesh. To do this fritters always choose large chillies like anaheim variety with less heat scale (2-3) as they are easier to stuff when compared to the smaller ones and mild in taste. These bajjis are often served as accompaniment to a main meal in South India, but they are delicious as an appetizer too.

Ingredients:

Green chillies (large) with thick skin - 10
Gram Flour (Basin) - 1 cup
Rice Flour - 1/2 cup (Gives the extra crispiness)
Salt
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Oil to fry

For the filling
Roasted chickpea powder - 2 tblsp (You can also substitute this with basin flour)
Sesame seeds (Till seeds) - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds powder - 1 tsp
Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Gring all the dry ingredients and make into fine powder and add lemon juice with a dash of salt.

Roasted chickpea, cumin seeds and Till see

Method:

Make a neat slit down one side of each chilli keeping the stem intact and remove the seeds. Stuff the chillies with the above mentioned filling as shown

Stuffed green chilli

Combine the gram flour and rice flour with salt and baking soda and add enough water to make into batter which is much similar to cake or dosa batter

Bajji Batter

Now first dip each green chilli into batter fully, slide the side opposite of slit side onto edge of vessel, so that side of green chilli has no batter covering it and will be in direct contact with the hot oil.

                               Fry them till golden

 

Mirapakaya bajji (chilli fritters)

Ghee / Clarified butter (Neyyi)

Ghee is a Sanskrit word for a clarified butter used primarily in Indian cuisine. Because the preparation of ghee involves heat, it has a distinctive toasted nutty flavour. Unlike other butter-based products, ghee can be stored without refrigeration for months. As long as ghee is stored in air-tight containers, it does not spoil easily.

The butter available in stores consists of 80% butterfat, 18% water and 2 % protein solids. When the butter is cooked, the water it contains will boil off and the protein solids separate from the butterfat.

Unsalted butter makes the best ghee. It is easy to make at home and it is much more economical. Unlike butter ghee does not require refrigeration. So you can even prepare this in large batches depending on the consumption, especially in the families with kids. One thing is for sure that no cooking oil can match ghee for its pleasant taste and ease of digestion.

Method:

Cut the unsalted butter into large chunks and melt it over a moderate heat in a heavy bottomed pan and cook slowly.

Unsalted Butter

Stir occasionally until the butter melts completely to ensure that it does not brown. Bring the melted butter to boil. Slowly the butter becomes frothy.

At this point reduce the heat to very low. Do not stir further and simmer until the solids have settled on the bottom. Just before removing from the fire, drop a piece of beetle leaf which spreads the nice aroma. You can also substitute beetle leaf with few fenugreek seeds. I have used fenugreek seeds (Methi seeds / Menthulu).

Turn off the heat and filter the ghee into a clean dry container and allow it cool completely without closing the lid.

Fresh Ghee

Solids at the bottom

Solids looks like this

No need to throw the sediments. You can mix this with atta flour while making rotis.

Enjoy the delightful, slightly nutty flavoured ghee which is perfect to prepare Indian sweets. Not only that you can add this to spicy chutneys.

Solidified ghee

Chicken fry with curry leaves

                                                       Chicken fry with Curry leaves

This is one of my son's favourate chicken recipe as it has got mild flavours.

Ingredients:

Chicken - boneless - 250 gms
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tblsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
yougurt - 1 tblsp
Curry leaves - fist full
Oil - 2 tblsp
Salt

Method:

Marinate the chicken pieces with ginger garlic paste, turmeric, chilli powder and yougurt for about 1 hour

Marinated chicken

Heat oil in a pan and when it is hot enough, add fist full of curry leaves. Allow the curry leaves to splitter for 1 minute or so and then add the marinated chicken to it.

Stir the chicken for a minute and cover the pan with lid for 5 minutes.

Remove the lid, add salt and allow the water to evoparate completely and fry until the chicken turns into golden colour.

Raja Rani Puppets

Raja Rani enjoying the early morning sun rays

Cheesy Bullets

 

Bullet chilli filled with Cheese

This is a fiery hot chilli recipe. Those who suffers from acidity please keep away from this variety as Bullet chilli are one of the hottest chilli variety and use any other mild varieties like banana pepper or any other variety with dense skin and are good for stuffing.

Ingredients:

Bullet Chilli - 10

Grated cheese - 2 tblsp

Salt - 1 pinch

Amchur Powder - 1/2 tsp (Dry Mango powder)

Method:

Select few nice fleshy chilli and make a slit lenght wise with out disturbing the stem and deseed.

In a bowl mix grated cheese with salt and amchur and stuff the chilli

 

            Grated cheese with salt and amchur (Dry Mango powder)

                        Chilli stuffed with cheese mixture

Now spread the chillies in a baking tray and drizzle few drops of oil and bake for approximately 10 minutes or until the cheese turns into golden colour.

You can serve this with roti or curd rice.