Potato Stuffed chilli bhaji

There is some left over potato masala from the morning breakfast Masala Dosa. I got some banana pepper sitting in the fridge doing nothing. I thought to prepare stuffed mirchi bhaji with this masala aalo. See Chilli bhaji for the whole procedure.

Potato Masala and the banana peppers

Split the chilli and remove the seeds and blanch. Stuff each chilli with the potato masala and keep them ready.

Prepare the basin batter by adding salt,soda and water. Dip each chilli in the basin batter and deep fry.

Serve them hot.

Stuffed Chilli bhajis with Potato masala.

Chilli bhaji with potato masala

Kova Jamoon

Kova Jamoon

Ingredients:

For Jamoon

Ready made Jamoon mix – 1 cup
Water – ¼ cup

For Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Cardamom powder – 1 pinch (Optional)

For filling:
Palkova / Mava - 1/4 cup

Method:

Always prepare the syrup first or prepare both jamoon and syrup simultaneously. On one stove top prepare the sugar syrup. Whilst it is boiling, prepare the jamoon dough and keep it aside. On the second stove top heat the ghee in low flame. Whilst the ghee is getting hot prepare the jamoon balls. You should be quick enough to do all these things simultaneously. This is the time to prove our multi tasking talents.

For sugar syrup

Add 1 cup of sugar along with 1 cup of water and bring it to boil until it forms syrup like consistency. Add Cardamom powder (if using) at the end.

To prepare Jamoon dough

Add ¼ cup of water to 1 cup of ready made jamoon mix and make firm dough. Leave the dough for 5 to 10 minutes by covering. Divide the dough into small portions.

Dividing the dough into equal portions

Paala Kova

Roll each portion and make a pit in the middle and fill it with kova (Doodh peda) and cover it from all sides and roll into a perfect round using both palms and make sure no cracks are there which leads to leak the kova / Mava.

Jamoon dough with Kova filling

Jamoon filled with Kova

Fry the jamoon in ghee. I always prefer to fry the jamoon in ghee rather than any normal oil as we will miss the classic taste if we fry it in oil.

Fry the jamoon in medium to low heat so that they get cooked well without any lumps in the middle.

Jamoon at various stages

Jamoon with kova in the middle

Tip to get softer jamoons:

Roll the jamoon dough balls by gently pressing in between the palms with no cracks.

Always keep the sugar syrup lukewarm (Not too hot) through out the preparation. Remove the jamoon from ghee and drop them immediately into the warm syrup and give a shake in between, so that the balls will absorb the liquid from all sides.

Oats upma

Rolled oats, prepared by par boiling the oats and rolled them flat. So we don’t need to cook thoroughly like semolina or rice. Oat contains rich soluble fibre and is digested slowly and releases slowly the glucose in the intestines for absorption. So it is prescribed in diabetic diets to prevent and control diabetes.

Not only that,inclusion of oats in diet which contain high fine fibre assists in weight loss and control. Oats needs to chew properly and also brings about a feeling of fullness of stomach and also slows emptying of stomach contents.

Ingredients:

Rolled oats – 1 cup
Green chilli – 6-8
Onion Medium sized – 1
Potato medium cut into ½ inch cubes– 1
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Oil – 2 tbsp
Salt
Turmeric – 2 pinches
Lemon juice – 1 tsp (Optional)
Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp
Peanuts – 2 tbsp

Method:

Pour the rolled oats into a colander. Dissolve 1 tsp of salt into 2 cups of water and slowly pour over the oats and make sure that all the oats gets wet and keep it aside. As the oats tend to absorb more water and if they become more dry then sprinkle bit more water. By nature the oats are taste less. Doing this the oats will absorb the salt water and tastes better.

In the mean time chop the required veggies.
Cut the green chilli and onion length wise and potatoes into cubes.

Rolled oats, chopped onion, chilli and potato cubes

Heat a pan with oil. Once the oil is hot, add peanuts and roast until light brown. Add green chillies, onion, potato, mustard, salt and curry leaves one after the other and fry until the onions and potatoes are done. And turmeric and fry for a minute and finally add the oats. Stir for a minute and finally sprinkle the lemon juice and chopped coriander and serve immediately. It tastes good when it is warm.

Oats Upma

Mysore paak

 Mysore paak

I don’t know where from this name has come, but this is one of the mouth melting Indian sweet.

My mom is an expert in preparing this sweet. Though I didn’t conquer the art of making mysore paak, I managed to prepare it with good results in my first attempt itself. Mind you there is no compromise in adding ghee to this recipe.


Ingredients;

Fresh Gram Flour – 1 cup
Sugar – 1 ½ cup (You can increase it up to 2 cups as per your taste)
Ghee / Neyyi – 2 cups
Water – 1 cup

Basin / Gram flour, Sugar, Ghee

Method:

Sieve the gram flour to avoid any lumps
Keep a plate ready by applying ghee

Heat a non stick pan or any sturdy pan, add sugar and water and allow melting by stirring continuously.

 Sugar soaked in water

Bring the sugar mixture to boil until one string consistency.

Sugar at 1 string stage

When it is still boiling add the gram flour bit by bit until all the flour is finished and stir the sugar mixture continuously to avoid lumps and to allow the flour to get mixed well with sugar syrup

Basin flour added to the sugar syrup

When it is half done add 1 cup ghee by stirring continuously. Allow to cook the mixture for 1 or 2 minutes or until the ghee gets absorbed.

 Reduce the flame and add another cup of ghee and stir continuously (A good exercise for our arms) until the raw basin flour smell goes and nice aroma starts coming and the colour changes to nice golden yellow.

The end stage of mysore paak

Though the end bit looks like thick batter, pour the Mysore paak mixture into a buttered plate and allow it to cool.

Mysore paak mixture poured into the plate

When it is just luke warm, cut the mysoor paak into desired shapes. Allow it to cool completely before you store them in an air tight container.

Mysore paak, ready to melt in your mouth........

Plum Pickle

When I went to a farm, accidentally I found few raw Czar plums. Just by looking at the texture itself, I have decided to prepare plum pickle. But, just to double check, I gave a small piece of raw plum to my husband and asked him to taste it and tell me whether it is sour or not. The answer is YES.

As this is my experiment, I have decided to make small quantity. The plums are of 1 ½ inch size, more or less gooseberry size. I chose 10 plums. After removing the seed and cutting them into small pieces, the quantity came about 1 cup.

Note: It is always good to prepare the pickle powders at home. As it is difficult to prepare the small amounts, best thing is prepare them in medium or large amounts depending on the usage. Allow them to cool completely and preserve them in air tight bottles and store in refrigerator. This way we can save lot of time and effort and we can use them as and when required.

If you want to use raw powders always dry the ingredients thoroughly under hot sun or if you don't have sun pre heat oven,turn off and place the ingredients in the hot oven for few minutes. You don't need to fry the chilli. Just make sure the chillies or dry and grind them to fine powder or can use ready made pickle chilli powder.
Alternatively roast mustard / Fenugreek seeds seperately under low flame by constantly stirring until they change the colour and leaves nice aroma.

Ingredients:

Raw plums – 10

Mustard powder – 1 tsp

Salt – 1 1/2 tsp

Red Chilli Powder (Pickle chilli powder) – 1 tsp

Fenugreek powder – 1/2 tsp

Sesame oil – 3 tbsp

First prepare the pickle mixture first and then cut the plums.

Mix salt, chilli powder, fenugreek powder and mustard powder and keep it aside.

Raw Plums

De-seed the plums and chop them into small pieces. I cut each plum into 6 pieces.

Add the pickle mixture to plum pieces along with sesame oil.

Mix every thing gently and store it in a dry container.

You can use it from second day itself.

Sorgham /Jowar / Jonna Idly

As many of you know that idlies are integral part of South Indian cuisine and Rice is the main ingredient to prepare this. Most of us use the polished rice which has got no / less fibre in it. Not only that, rice has a tendency to increase the blood sugar levels very quickly which is not so good for diabetes. I thought to give a go using protein and fibre rich jowar instead of rice.

Benefits of Jowar:

Though the caloric value of rice is almost same as jowar, compared to rice, jowar is richer in protein. Jowar is enveloped with covering of bran that is rich in B complex vitamins, cellulose and a large quantity of Phytates. The excess of phytates interfere with the absorption of calcium and iron from other foods.

You can find more details here.

Jonna Idly

Ingredients:

Jowar – 3 cups

Urad daal / Black gram – 1 cup

Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp

Boiled Rice - Handfull (Optional)
Rice Rava - 1/2 cup

Method:

Soak jowar separately and urad daal + Fenugreek seeds + Boiled rice separately for atleast 6 hours.

Grind the Urad daal mixture into fine paste and jowar bit coarsely.

Add salt and combine both the batters 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.

Jowar idly ready to melt with hint of ghee

Cut Mirchi / Cut chilli fritters

This is a very famous Rayalaseema taste. The chilli bhajis are chopped into small pieces and fry them again until crispy and served with spicy powder, lemon and raw onion.

Cut Mirchi with onion and spicy powder

Unlike the stuffed chilli bhaji, for the cut mirchi recipe you can even choose thin chilli varieties as long as it is long enough.

Prepare the basin batter using salt and pinch of soda. Dip the chilli in the batter and deep fry them.

See Chilli bhaji for the full procedure.

Cut the bhaji into bite size.

Mirchi bhaji chopped into small pieces

Deep fry them until the chilli turns crispy.

Drain and serve them with chopped onion, Pappula podi (Roasted chickpea powder) and lemon juice sprinkled on top.
For spicy powder - Take handfull of roasted chickpea (Pappulu). Grind them along with salt and 1/2 tsp of Cumin / Jeera.