Olan with pumpkin, ash gourd, lobiya and long bean.

A lovely Saturday evening.  I know my readers are waiting to learn and try out one more delicious Indian dish. So friends please try this dish and give me your feedback. 

Olan when it's done, tastes really good.

Soaked and cooked karamani (lobia)

It almost cooked.

Cook the chopped pumpkin in stoneware with few green chillies.

For olan we chop pumpkin (mathan) this way, sometimes with the skin when the pumpkin is very tender.

The pumpkins were very tender,it still have a long way to have matured seeds.

Home grown pumpkins

Olan made in clay pot

Olan

Ingredients

Ash gourd/elavan - 250 grms

yellowpumpkin/mathan - 250 grms

green chilly - 2

long bean(payar) - 10 nos or

perum payar/cow pea beans - 1/4 cup

coconut milk/cow's milk - 1 cup

coconut oil - 2 tsp

curry leaves a few

salt as required

Method 

Soak and pressure cook perum payar/cow pea for two whistles. 

Wash, peel and chop ash gourd and yellow pumpkin into thin pieces.

If you want you can add long bean instead of cow pea beans, cut long bean into 1 inch long. 

In kalchatti/clay pot pour hot water add all the vegetables,salt and green chilly cook till soft. Off the stove add cooked cow pea beans and coconut milk and pour 2 tsp of coconut oil add curry leaves. You can serve this as a side dish with sambhar. 

Note : I have made olan without perum payar.  As I had a handful of fresh payar from my terrace garden. You can either add soaked and cooked perum payar or fresh payar(long bean) I should thank my fb friend for pointing out this! See I have such wonderful people who really encourage me - feeling blessed

Yet another suggestion from my fb friend you can make olan without mathan. Yes try making olan without adding mathan. 

I always respect Grandmothers. They are the best when it comes to traditional cooking. Now you understand the little secrets fondly they share to younger generation! 

We at home sometimes even add a few jack fruit seeds(Yes cooked, peeled and smashed!) You can try adding cooked and peeled colocasia to olan, It will give a special texture to olan. I will try next time to add colocasia. 

chop elavan and mathan into thin slices.

Drumsticks, turkey berry(chundakkai) avarakkai (hyacinth beans) sambhar and olan. 

Rasam with different vegetables and ingredients

I am sharing with you different types of rasam that I make at home.There are many kinds of rasam tomato rasam, jeera and pepper rasam, garlic rasam, mysore rasam, lemon rasam, pineapple rasam. 

Drumsticks rasam, its spicy, peppery, tangy and colourful.

Drumsticks rasam recipe

Ripe tomato - 2
Drumsticks pieces a few
tamarind - a small gooseberry size
Tuvar dal - 1/4 cup
hing - a small piece
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
salt as required

For tadka
ghee - 1 tsp
mustard seed - 1/2 tsp
methi seeds - 1/2 tsp
red chilly - 1 broken

rasam powder - 2 tsp
coriander leaves - 1 tsp(chopped)

Method of Preparation

In pressure cooker cook tuvar dal add turmeric to it on bottom vessel and on top vessel keep tamarind, halved tomato, drumsticks pieces and a small piece of hing, Add just a glass of water for two whistles. Remove from cooker and check whether tuvar dal is well cooked, smash it using a ladle. Cool down tamarind, extract the pulp, the hing must be very well cooked in tamarind pulp.  Remove the tomato skin gently smash the tomato with fork, In an earthern pot add tamarind pulp and tomatoes, drumsticks pieces. Add tuvar dal and adjust salt. Allow it to boil now add rasam powder, let it froth now add chopped coriander leaves. Add beetroot cooked water, Off the stove. In a heated small pan add mustard seed, let it splutter add methi seeds and red chilly. Methi seeds will release a mild aroma. Pour the tadka on top of the rasam.

Drumsticks gives a lovely aroma to rasam.

Tomato Rasam

Ingredients

2 Ripe tomatoes
A small gooseberry sized tamarind
1/4 cup tuvar dal (cooked)
A small piece of heeng 
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder 
salt as required

2 teaspoon rasam powder 
1 tablespoon of coriander leaves (chopped)

For tadka
1teaspoon ghee 
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon methi seeds 
1 broken red chilli

Method 


*In pressure cooker cook tuvar dal add turmeric to it on bottom vessel and on top vessel keep tamarind, halved tomato and a small piece of heeng.

*Add just a glass of water for two whistles. Remove from cooker and check whether tuvar dal is well cooked, smash it using a ladle. 

*Cool down tamarind, extract the pulp, the heeng must be very well cooked in tamarind pulp.  

*Remove the tomato skin gently smash the tomato with fork.

*In an earthern pot add tamarind pulp and tomatoes. Add tuvar dal and adjust salt. 

*Allow it to boil now add rasam powder, let it froth now add chopped coriander leaves.

* Off the stove. 

*In a heated small pan add mustard seeds, let it splutter add methi seeds and red chilli. 

*Methi seeds will release a mild aroma. Pour the tadka on top of the rasam. 

If you wish you can use eeya chombu for cooking rasam. I prefer pressure cooking and earthern pot as it saves time and is very fast. 


Variation

Milagu jeerakam rasam 

Millaku(black pepper) Jeera rasam - fry jeera, black pepper, coriander, hing, curry leaves, mustard and red chilly.crush it to powder. In tamarind pulp add two cups of water and add pepper jeera powder, turmeric powder and salt. Bring to boil. Add curry leaves, Use same tadka as tomato rasam. When you have cold and cough this rasam taste great and soothing to your throat. 

Add garlic in tadka if you want to make garlic rasam. 

Lemon rasam

Take two cups of water add turmeric, green chilly and a piece of ginger, Allow it to boil Off the stove add lemon juice adjust salt add curry leaves. For tadka use ghee and mustard(let it splutter) jeera and red chilly.Pour on top of lemon rasam. This rasam can be consumed as a soup for chilly winter evening.

Pineapple rasam - Chop a small piece of pineapple into very tiny pieces or use a mixer to coarsely grind. Add two cups of water and cook pineapple in water, Add turmeric, salt green chilly. Once pineapple is soft and tender add tadka to it. Taste great as a soup.

Drumsticks tomatoes rasam for the busy day.

The busy day rasam in progress. The day when I have very little time in hand, I try this rasam.  A few drumsticks, tomatoes and little imli, add water and turmeric powder, pressure cook and take the drumsticks out squeeze it, peel the tomatoes, extract pulp from the imli. Put it back in the pressure cooker, add more water, a little rasam powder, heeng and salt. A quick tadka, chopped coriander leaves and it's done.

Cabbage thoran

Cabbage a very tasty vegetable. I make cabbage thoran, cabbage kootu, aloo, cabbage and mutter curry for roti. Cabbage is used as an ingredient for salad. 

Cabbage thoran

Ingredients

Cabbage - 1

green chilly - 2

grated coconut - 2 tbsp

curry leaves - a few (optional)

salt as required

For frying

oil - 2 tsp

mustard seed - 1/2 tsp

urad dal - 1/2 tsp

red chilly - 1 broken

Method of Preparation

Remove the outer leaves about 2 to 3 from cabbage. Chop into very small pieces.

In mixer coarsely grind coconut and green chilly. Keep aside.

In a heated kadai pour oil add mustard seeds, allow it to splutter add urad dal and red chilly. Now add chopped cabbage turmeric powder and salt mix well. Allow the cabbage to cook in high flame, make sure you stir it now and then, Once the cabbage is cooked well add coarsely crushed coconut and green chilly.  Add curry leaves (optional). Serve hot with your favorite sambhar or Rasam. 

I will soon share with my readers few masalas we all make at home. Sambhar powder, rasam powder and chutney powder(Molaga podi) - for idly and dosa.

Aloo Paratha for breakfast

Our all time favorite Paratha. A simple breakfast with Aloo Paratha, butter and pickle. Yum, Do you know we make parthas out of many vegetables. Paratha are roti with some stuffing inside. Yes you have to add ghee for cooking parathas. 

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Aloo Paratha


For making dough
Atta/wheat flour - 2 cups
water - as required for kneading


Make fresh atta for making parathas. In a large bowl add atta and keep adding little by little water and knead a soft dough. Keep aside.

For the filling

Potato - 4
green chilly - 2
ginger - a piece
onion - 1
salt as required
oil - 2 tsp
jeera - 1/2 tsp


Ghee for frying parathas

Method of Preparation

Pressure cook aloo for 3 whistles, peel off potato and smash. Finely chop onion, green chilly and ginger.  In a pan pour oil add jeera and saute onion, green chilly and ginger. Now add smashed potato and turmeric powder. Mix extremely well, Gently smash the potatos so that no lumps are left. Add coriander leaves. Keep aside. if you wish you can divide and  make small even sized balls out of this masala. 

Make the atta also into even sized balls. Take one and roll it using rolling pin to a small puri sized roti, now stuff it with aloo balls. Make sure to cover the edges and make a small potli (money bag) Roll the parathas using little atta powder into a medium sized parathas. Make three to four parathas and keep the roti tawa on the stove. Adjust the heat. When its hot place one paratha at a time and cook both sides using a tsp of ghee. The roasted parathas will look like the photo attached! 

Enjoy you parathas with curd, butter and pickle. A tasty and nutritious breakfast. 

Indian Spices- List of Indian spices

I was just going through my blog. I was pleasantly surprised to see there are readers from many countries. I was wondering do my readers understand all the ingredients that I am discussing? So to give you an insight about Indian spices and common names given to many of the ingredients, I will come up with a glossary. Yes I need time will do some market research and come back with photographs and interesting information. 

May be I will come back with some more interesting recipes too!! Keep guessing my dear friends. You truly inspire me.

Few of my kitchen spices. Yet to go for market research!

 

Mustard seed/Rai/Kaduku this is used for giving that special taste to curries and gravies. Mustard is added to mango pickle - avakkai. In North India in many regions mustard oil is used for cooking. 

 

Red chilly used for tadka, used as chilly powder and the main ingredients in making pickle.

Jeera also used for tadka, we use jeera powder in many recipes.

   

Dhaniya/coriander seed used as whole and as powder. Dhaniya leaves are used to garnish and to make dhaniya chutney.

 

Methi seed used in pickles and for tadka, some time we use methi in making sambhar masala, rasam masala and few other powders. Methis leaves are used to make methi parathas, and we dry methis leaves and use as kasuri methi. Very useful plant indeed.

Turmeric powder is an essential ingredient in Indian cooking. Its an antibiotic. Turmeric root is used to make pickle! I have tasted very yummy turmeric pickle. Its a Gujarati pickle. will share the recipe sometime.




 

Asafoetida/hing powder and bar. This adds a delicate flavour to curries and gravies. We use very less quantity as its very strong.

Cinnamon is used as stick as well as powder. Cinnamon has many medicinal value. Have a pinch of cinnamon powder in a 1 tsp of honey on empty stomach in the morning. 

For more detailed description and names used in different language please refer Wikipedia.

Wikipedia did help me with the description and photographs. Thank God I tought to myself. It will be of great help to my friends world over to get a glimpse of Indian spices.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_spices

Lauki(Bottle gourd) and Aloo(potato) gravy

Good afternnoon friends.  Today I feel like sharing one more simple recipe. Lauki and aloo gravy. Lauki is a very nutritious vegetable. In India its juice is used to reduce/manage body weight.  

I had some interesting interaction with my friends in my fb post. When I asked my friends the name of vegetables many had problems in identifying one small vegetable! It resemble kundru (kovakka) but its called parwal  or padwal in hindi. I make lauki/parwal aloo curry. The recipe is same except for I change the vegetable.  This one is for you my friends who wanted to try and taste parwal curry!

Lauki (bottle gourd) and aloo curry


Ingredients

lauki - 1 medium size
aloo - 2 medium
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
onion - 2 medium
tomato - 1 big
green chilly - 2
ginger - a small piece
salt as required

For Dry roast

Dhaniya(coriander)seed - 1 1/2 tsp
jeera - 2 tsp
red chilly - 2
clove - 1

For frying

sunflower oil/ghee - 2 tsp
cinnamon stick - a small piece


Method of Preparation

Wash, peel and cut into cubes lauki and aloo, Keep aside.

Peel onion and chop  into big pieces. Cut tomato into big pieces. Chop green chilly and ginger. In a mixer add dry roast ingredients, onion,tomato, green chilly and ginger. Make a coarse paste. 

In a heated pressure pan pour oil/ghee add cinnamon stick. Allow it to release aroma. Now add onion tomato paste. Allow the paste to release ghee/oil. Now add aloo(potato)  lauki, turmeric powder, salt and mix well. Coat potato and lauki with the masala. Allow the vegetables to cook in its masala for a while. Now add 2 cups of water and cook in pressure cooker for 2 whistles. Off the stove open the cooker and remove the gravy in serving bowl. Add chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with roti. 

Note : Lauki (dudhi) is known as Surakkai in tamil. One of my fb friend just reminded me the more medicinal value of this wonder vegetable. The following link has good information. 

http://www.medindia.net/patients/lifestyleandwellness/nutritional-guard-bottle-gourd.htm

variation: Instead of lauki you can use parwal. Parwal do have very thick skin! So either you can use a knife to scrape the skin or use a peeler to peel the skin. Cut parwal into four pieces. I will post the picture the day I make aloo and parwal curry. Yes I have posted the picture today.