Tomato Chutney

Ingredients:

Tomato – 6
Green chili - 6
Roasted Urad Daal – 1 tbsp
Roasted Peanuts – 2 tbsp
Onion – 1
Salt
Oil – 2 tsp

For Tampering:
Red chili – 1
Curry leaves – Hand full
Mustard + Cumin – 1 tsp
Urad daal – ½ tsp

Method:

Roast Urad daal and peanuts separately

Heat a pan with 2 tsp of oil. Fry Onion, green chili, tomato until tomato becomes mushy and the raw smell goes.

Allow them to cool and grind the tomato mixture along with salt, urad daal and peanuts into smooth paste.

For seasoning, heat a pan with 1 tsp of oil. Add all the ingredients mentioned above for tampering and add it to the chutney.

Dosa Roll with Cabbage Carrot fry

Want to try some thing new and get away from routine. Tried Dosa rolls with cabbage fry.

Dosa roll with cabbage fry

Ingredients:

Dosa batter
Carrot cabbage fry

For cabbage fry

Cabbage – grated finely – 1 cup
Carrot – grated finely – ½ cup

Salt

Cumin powder – ½ tsp

Coriander powder – ½ tsp

Heat a pan with 1 tbsp of oil and add cabbage and carrot. Fry them for few minutes untill they just become transparent. Sprinkle cumin powder and corrinader powder and fry for another two minutes and turn off the heat.

Now heat the dosa pan and spread the dosa batter. When the dosa turns crispier, then add the cabbage fry and roll it.

Dosa with cabbage fry

I made dosa bit crispier, you can also make smooth dosas and roll with cabbage fry or any other vegitable filling.

Atukula prasadam / Rice flakes sweet

I have tasted this in a temple as prasadam. I liked the taste very much and got tempted to prepare this at home. Interesting thing is there is no need to cook this recipe. So easy to make.

Atukula Prasadam for Lord Krishna

Ingredients:

Rice flakes – 1 cup
Jaggery, grated – ½ cup
Fresh coconut, grated – ¼ cup
Cashews - 10

Rice Flakes, Coconut, Jaggery, Cashews

Method:

Soak cashews in water for 30 minutes.

Place the colander with rice flakes under running water and mix the rice flakes well, so that all of them will get wet. Immediately add the grated jaggery to the wet rice flakes. By doing this the jaggery gets melted slightly and get sucked into rice flakes and gives nice dark colour. Finally add the grated coconut and soaked cashews into the riceflakes.

Soya Granules with Green peas

Soya is called as vegetarians’ meat. Soya granules cooked along with green peas with added spices.

Soya granules curry with green peas

Ingredients:

Soya granules – 1 cup
Green peas – ½ cup
Onion – 1, chopped finely
Tomato – 2, chopped finely
Garam masala – 1 tsp
Coriander Powder – 1
Chilli Powder – 1 ½ tsp
Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp

Method:

Soya Granules

Soak the soya granules in hot water for 20 minutes. Squeeze the water and keep them aside.

               Soya granules Soaked in water                                     After 20 minutes squeezed out of water

Heat a deep pan with oil. Add chopped onion and sauté for a minute. Add ginger garlic paste and sauté until onion becomes translucent. Add chopped tomatoes and fry until they become mushy. Add the spices and fry for a minute or so. Add soya granules and green peas mix every thing, add ¼ cup of water and cover the lid until peas get cooked. Check in between for the moisture. Wait until all the water gets evaporated. At the end add chopped coriander and remove from fire.

 Chapathi / Roti with soyagranules curry

Alasanda vada / Bobbarlu / Blackeye Pea itters

 Alasanda vada / Blackeye pea fritters

These are the famous vadas prepared at Rayalaseema especially during Sankranthi festival. In  Raayalaseema they are usually served with chicken curry. They are eaten dunked in Chicken gravy. You can also eat them with vegetable gravy curries like potato kurma or Mushroom curry. You can also eat with rasam.

Ingredients:
Split black-eye peas - 2 cups
Green Chillies - 6-8
Onion - 1 large - Chopped into small pieces
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Salt
Corriander - Chopped
Oil - to deep fry

 Blach eye split peas

Soak 2 cups of black-eyed peas (Alasandalu) in water for overnight. They will get doubled after few hours, so choose a big vessel for soaking. In the morning, drain the water and pat the peas to get dry using a cotton cloth.

Grind the blackeye peas, ginger, and green chillies into coarse batter in a food processor or mixer without adding water. Remove the batter to a vessel and just before preparing the vadas add salt and onion pieces. If you add salt and onion in the begining itself, then the batter will become watery and absorbs more oil. The batter must be solid enough to hold the vada shape. You can use your hands or small cotton cloth or even plastic bag to make vadas. 

I normal prepare them using plastic bag. Take small amount of batter in a ball shape, put that ball on the plastic bag and flatten it lightly using your fingers and make a hole in the middle. Take into the hand and drop gently into hot oil from the side of kadai / pan.

In batches, deep fry them in hot oil, turning them until they are golden-brown on both sides. Takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes, each batch.

Serve them hot with  chicken curry or any veg curry.

Alasanda vada with chicken gravy

Senagapappu paayasam

 Senagapappu / Chana daal payasam

This is the delicious dessert prepared during festivals.  The main ingredents are chana daal and jaggery. Few people, they add the sago to the half cooked chana daal and cook both together. But some times, the sago might get overcooked or the chana daal is undercooked. So to avoid both, I cook them separately. Not only that I can give just the boiled sago along with sugar to my little ones to eat or to catch the transparent sago balls and have fun.

Ingredients:
Chana daal – 1 cup
Sago – 1 cup
Jaggery – 1 cup (NO substitute)
Cashew nuts
Raisins (optional)
Ghee - 2 tbsp

Jaggery, Chana daal / Senagapappu, Sago seeds

Method:

Wash and soak the chana daal for 30 minutes and pressure cook until 1 whistle or cook normally until it is just done and should be able to press in between the fingers.

Soak the sago for 5 minutes in 3 cups of water and cook them separately until they become transparent.

Now add the boiled sago to the chana daal and add grounded cardamom powder, gratted jaggery. Whilst the jaggery is melting down, heat a small sauce pan with 4 – 5 tbsp of ghee / neyyi and fry the cashews and raisins separately and add them along with the left over ghee to the chana daal mixture.

Stir every thing and serve warm or cold. Any sweets made up of jaggery will taste better when they are cool or at last at room temperature.

Note: Instead of frying the cashews and raisins in ghee, you can just add them directly to the boiled chana daal along with sago. They get soaked well and semi cooked.

Upma Dosa

This may sound bit funny… but trust me it is worth of trying. Not only that, we can make use of the leftovers in an efficient way.

I got left over upma from the morning breakfast which is not enough for the whole family. At the same time I had left over Dosa batter which is not sufficient either. So, I thought I can mix both and prepare Upma dosa. Yya,,,,, hoo… grand success.

Ingredients:

Upma – 1/2 cup
Dosa batter – 2 - 3 cups

Leftover upma and dosa batter

Method:
Mix upma with dosa batter absolutely with no lumps. Add bit of water if required. Take a ladle full of batter and spread on tava as normal dosa. This is not only tasty but also crispy.

Dosa for our Saturday dinner

 Upma Dosa with Coconut Chutney