Easy gravies for fast cooking – Coconut gravy

Morning times are busy times. Having to cook for the family, getting ready for work, getting your LOs ready for their school, packing 3-4 different lunch boxes whew!! Sometimes I wonder if we start our days so busy and packed, won’t we carry fatigue all through the day. Well let me not put too many thoughts in that calm seeking mind of yours.

But the fact is, in this ever demanding mornings your kids still expect you to create something magical for lunch boxes. After all you are super mom! I have some easy Indian gravies (sauce for main course dishes) which you can make over the weekend and use it for 2-3 days when stored in the fridge.

1) Coconut gravy

Can be used for a mixed vegetable dish. Or solo curry dishes. Will work for plantain, carrot, snake gourd, bottle gourd, drumsticks, brinjal (aubergine), cabbage, potatoe and many more.

Serves 4 when you add 1/2 KG vegetables into the gravy.
Take 1 whole coconut flesh, 5-6 green chillies, and 1/2 small cup jeera seeds (caraway seeds).
Blend them in a mixer until smooth paste.
Add water as and when required.

Adding salt is optional as you can also add salt while adding vegetables to the gravy.

To cook;
In your pan add 4-5 tsp oil.
Add tempering.
Add the gravy and cook for 5 minutes.
Add water to increase quantity.
Add steamed vegetable(s) and cook for 10 minutes.
Add salt to taste.

Your coconut gravy curry is ready. In the Indian state Kerala, similar gravy curry is extensively made. The dish is popularly known as Aviyal and is a huge favourite of not just Malayalis but many Indians.

Easy gravies for fast cooking – Onion tomato gravy

Onion tomato gravy is probably one of the most popular for most wet and main course dishes in India. It’s used in Rajma (Kidney beans) curry primarily but can be used with a host of other vegetables too.

This is very easy too and can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days and used more than twice.

Ingredients:

1) 3-4 onions chopped

2) 2-3 tomatoes chopped

3) 4-5 green chillies chopped

4) 1 TBS chopped ginger

5) 7-8 garlic cloves

6) 1 tsp Dhaniya(Cilantro, Coriander) powder

In your pan;

• Add 4-5 tsp oil and heat.
• Add ginger, garlic, green chillies to sautee for 2-3 minutes.
• Add Onion and saute for 3-4 minutes.
• Add tomatoes and saute for 3 minutes.
• Finally add Dhaniya powder, turn the flame off and leave it for 2 minutes.

Let the ingredients cool for sometime. Blend them in the mixer until smooth paste.

To cook:

• In the pan heat 4-5 tsp oil.
• Add the paste and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add 1. small cup water and let it simmer.
• Add any steamed vegetable and cook for 5 minutes before turning the flame off.

Most popular vegetables to add to this gravy are Brinjal, Potatoe, Ladies finger, Bottle gourd, and baby potatoes.

Pineapple Jam Smoothie

Hello there, here’s a little fun recipe, easy to make, seconds away smoothie.
Ingredients:

Quarter Pineapple – Chopped in small cubes

Mixed fruit jam (Or any of your personal flavor) – 2 tablespoons

Sugar – 1 tea spoon

Frozen/chilled yoghurt – 2.5 tablespoons

Milk cream – 2 teaspoon

Honey – According to taste or 1 tea spoon

Ice – Few cubes

Pineapple cream and mint to garnish

Add all the above ingredients excepting Pineapple cream and mint to the blender. Let it mix for 3-4 minutes. Check in between to see if Pineapple has pulped enough. Pour the juice into a glass. Add Pineapple squeeze to the top and place mint leaves to garnish.

This is really quick and comes out in a pale pink colour (because of the mix fruit jam) which is pretty to look at. To minimize the levels of sweetness you can do away with sugar and restrict Jam to one table spoon.

This also gives you the luxury to add other fruits like apple, pears or grapes. Try to avoid banana as banana has the tendency to dominate every other taste. If banana is a favourite you can replace the fruit and keep the other ingredients as it is.

Zomato – What I like about you and what you can do better!!

Ever since Zomato announced that it needed feedback to upgrade and was willing to give away an Ipad for the most constructive feedback, I’ve been so excited. To see what I like, I first browsed through your entire site, that’s exactly what you asked us to do!!

What I like most;

1) Featured User reviews: Ofcourse, this is the live wire of your site. People visit your site to read which restaurant is offering good food. Your user reviews are the most valuable asset of your site.

2) Your Blog section: I like your blog sections. You’ve tried to add a lot of useful information and your experiences which make the blog section a good read.

3) Newsletter CRUNCH: You keep your newsletter updated which is what I like. I read the Chefspeaks article and liked it. I always like to listen to great chefs and understand how they feel about flavours.

Here’s what I didn’t like;

Your open spat with your competitor. I understand you may have 100 issues with anyone. Just because you have the internet and because there are no rules to web journalism doesn’t mean you will wash your dirty linen in the open. Honestly why would your visitors care if someone is copying your listings. It’s your problem, deal with it and don’t make it my headache.

What you can add;

1) When a user wins the review contest, try and give the meal vouchers of the restaurant they wrote a review for. It’s a whole different delight. The restaurant will also be able to feature this customer and send you snaps of the visit. This will increase the number of people wanting to write reviews.

2) Add thumbprint pictures of the restaurants featuring in your website. Similarly let your users also be able to upload their pictures.

3) In your CRUNCH section introduce Chef’s favourite recipes sections. Make sure the Chef gives a rather simple recipe of what he likes. Your users should be tempted to try this at home and send you feedback with pictures preferably. Also add tips from the Chef.

4) Ask restaurant owners to list top 3 popular dishes from their menu. Ask them to provide MONTHLY DISH COUPON in your site giving a 10%-20% off on those dishes alone. When a customer visits their restaurant they should have the MONTHLY DISH COUPON printed or have the coupon name/number.

5) For similar starred restaurants compare prices and publish them on the site. Let the customers know what they are paying for.

6) If a user writes a bad review for a restaurant, contact restaurant owners and let them know. Coax them to understand the complaint and make changes accordingly. If a restaurant does listen to you and make changes, publish it as a success story and encourage visitors to visit the restaurant.

7) If you are not doing this already, pick up an orphanage for a social cause. Instead of commuting food to the orphanage, coax huge restaurant owners for a dinner or lunch in their restaurants for these kids at least once in every 6 months. Publish your cause for everyone to read.

I like your website, and feel you can do a great deal in helping improve restaurant conditions all over India. Most of them charge a bomb and let pests eat along with us at tables.

Susmita Vavilala

www.greatlivingtips.com  

Egg Dosa wrap for lunch boxes

For kid’s lunch boxes;

Make a salad of;

Salad mix for Egg Dosa wrap

1. Grated carrots.
2. Finely chopped capsicum(bell pepper, red or yellow preferably).
3. Finely chopped onions.
4. Small pieces of tomato.
5. Grated coconut.
6. Some kishmish (raisins).
7. Grated Beetroot. (Do not add this if your kid doesn’t like beetroot)
8. Add 2 TSPs of mayonaise and mix well.
9. Coriander leaves for garnishing.
10. Squeeze one lemon on top.
11. Take adequate portions and roll them into the egg dosa.(Recipe for egg dosa in the site)

Store some tomato sauce or pancake syrup in a small container.

Egg Dosa

This is such an easy thing to do, specially if you have or buy ready made batter. And I love doing this a lot!! I love Dosa and I love egg. So I love the combination!!! That's a lot of love :D
For 6-7 dosas:

Egg Dosa

1. In the dosa batter crack an egg open and beat it.
2. To make it more interesting; add finely chopped pieces of one large onion.
3. Add finely chopped pieces of 1 green chilly.
4. You can simply dump it all into the dosa batter. Mix well.
5. Start making your dosas on the non stick pan.
6. I like to eat egg dosas with maple or pancake syrup.
7. You can also try it with tomato sauce.

Adding spice to maggi!

When you are making more than 2 maggis with some vegetables chopped, the masala included in the packet is just not enough. The masala loses its punch and everyone is disappointed with the taste.

Here’s what I do when I make more amount of quantity with chopped veggies.

1. Add the chopped veggies to a pan with 3 tsp oil.
2. Sautee them until cooked.
3. Then I add 1tsp garam masala and 1 tsp coriander powder (dhaniya).
4. Let them fry for 1 minute.
5. Then add maggi masala (as many as the number of maggi you are cooking).
6. Let it fry for another minute before adding the required amount of water.

Try this and you will like the taste.

Typical south indian tempering/tiragamota/popu

All South Indian kitchens use tempering in their cooking. Most South Indian dishes including curry, pappu (dal), rasam, pacchadi (chutney), pickles, and many others have a dash of tempering as the first part of cooking.

A typical south Indian tempering consists of:

1. 2-3 tsp vegetable oil
2. avalu/mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
3. senaga pappu/yellow lentils – 1 tsp
4. minapappu/horsebean/urad dal – 1 tsp
5.  Endu merapakaya/dried red chilly – 2
6. sajeera/cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
7. Karivepaku – Curry leaves – 10-12 

1. Heat oil in pan.
2. Add mustard seeds.
3. Wait for them to crackle.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients one after the other.
5. Add curry leaves at the end.
6. Make sure they don’t burn. Always have low flame while tempering.

Simla Mirch/Capsicum/Bell pepper curry

Another of my favourite vegetable is capsicum aka bell pepper. I love all 3 colours of it. Pleasantly all 3 have a different and unique taste. The red one is a little sour, yellow one little sweet, and green needs to be blended in cooking for taste. This is a very easy recipe using all 3 colours. I love decorating my dining table with bell peppers. A bowl with all 3 colours in it makes the table look on fire!! smokinggggggggggggggggggg!

Well, I use olive oil for this dish. Thing about olive oil, even though it’s a late starter in India, it’s catching up real fast. If you are still unaware, olive oil is supposedly better than the regular vegetable oil we use. Not just health, olive oil brings a different flavour to the dish. Since it’s not so popular in India kitchens yet, if you have guests arriving, cook your regular dish in olive oil and you will notice an obvious difference in taste! No sweat :)

Serves 4-5 people.

Ingredients:

1. Olive oil: 5-6 tea spoons.
2. Tempering/tiragamota/popu
3. Finely chopped green chillies: 3-4
4. Finely chopped onions: 1 big
5. Finely chopped garlic cloves: 4-5
6. Finely sliced Capsicum (red, yellow and green): 2 each and deseeded.
7. Salt to taste
8. Everest/MDH sabzi or curry powder: 2 teaspoons (optional, this gives colour)
9. One small glass water

Preparation:

1. Add olive oil to the non stick pan.
2. Add tempering.
3. Add garlic and green chillies and fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add onion and fry for 3 minutes
5. Add curry powder and fry for another 2 minutes.
6. Add water.
7. Add the red and yellow capsicum slices and cook/saute for 5 minutes. (Red and yellow capsicum take longer to cook compared to green capsicum.)
8. Add green capsicum slices and cook until the dish is tender.
9. Garnish with coriander.

This curry is not about spice but about different flavours in one dish. It’s very easy to make,especially if you have guests, its a sure bet for an instant hit.

Improvisation: You may add cream for gravy and cook with more spices. You may add mushrooms. 

Susmita

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Beerakaya pottu pacchadi – Ridge gourd’s skin chutney

 

I love beerakaya or beerakaya pottu pacchadi. Plus this vegetable is one of the easiest to work with, needs almost no oil, and cooks fast. It’s skin is not a waste and is just as tasty too. You don’t have to buy ridge gourd just to peel the skin and make chutney out of it. Whenever you peel save the skin.

Do not refrigerate it. Best way is to wrap it tightly with a newspaper and put it in a corner in the kitchen. Add more to it whenever you peel the skin. This recipe will give you measures for 4-5 beerakaya skin. You can make instant pacchadi with the skin of 1 beerakaya also.

Ingredients:

1. Beerakaya pottu: skin of 4-5 ridge gourds
2. Green chillies: 7
3. Tomatoes: 3
4. Salt to taste
5. Garlic: 3-4 cloves
6. Ginger: 1 teaspoon full of pieces
7. Lemon rind: 1/2 tea spoon (optional)
8. Lemon juice: 1 table spoon (optional)

Preparation:

1. Heat 3-4 tea spoons of oil in the pan.
2. Fry ginger and garlic pieces for a minute.
3. Add beerakaya pottu and fry for 5 minutes.
4. Toss all the other ingredients barring lemon juice into the pan and cover with lid.
5. In medium flame let the ingredients cook for 10 – 15 minutes.
6. Cool all for a while.
7. Once cool transfer the ingredients into the blender.
8. Blend until you get a smooth consistency. Add little water for moisture and easy blending.
9. Add lemon juice in the end and mix with a spoon.

Your pacchadi is ready.

Susmita

Baby potatoes with spring onions

Baby vegetables and baby green leaves are my absolute favourite. Their taste is truly unbeatable. It carries a sense of sweetness which is simply delectable. When I cook I mostly prefer using my desired or liked ingredients. Excepting a couple of vegetables, I've grown to like most of them which gives me a wide range to choose from.

This recipe uses baby potatoes, spring onions and some herbs. Commonly used western herbs, like rosemary and thyme, are now easily available in big or hyper markets. If you don't get them it's alright, there's nothing like our good old pudina(mint) and kothimeera(coriander) :D

I've twisted this recipe for Indian kitchens. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1) Herbs - Rosemary, thyme, pudina and kothimeera (all in tiny cup each quantity)
2) Olive oil - 3-4 tea spoons (you can go up to 6 if you please)
3) Butter - 1 tea spoon
4) Baby Potatoes - 1 KG
P.S. Skin or not to skin potatoes is left to your discretion. If you give them a good wash you can leave the skin on.
5) Salt to taste
6) Tempering - left to your discretion.
7) White pepper - 2 good pinches. Same amount for black pepper if you have no white pepper at home.
8) Spring Onions - Bunch of 8 cut in small pieces.

Preparation - very easy :)

1. In a small bowl add olive oil, all herbs, salt, pepper, and butter and mix them together well.
2. In your pressure cooker throw in the baby potatoes and the mix.
3. Keep your cooker in low flame (sim) and let one whistle go. P.S: if you fear that the potatoes will burn, place the ingredients in a steel bowl, add some water in it. Add water in the cooker and place the steel vessel in it for cooking.
4. Meanwhile stir fry your spring onions in 2-3 tsp of olive oil and keep them aside.
5. Once the whistle comes off stir fry the potatoes in a non stick pan and turn the flame off.
6. Add the spring onions.
7. Add more salt if necessary.
8. Shift the dish into a bowl.

You are ready to serve. Do not add the regular spices to the dish. You will only corrupt it. I bet that you will love this dish.

You usually stir fry for Chinese dishes. For stir fry olive oil is the best. Here's how you stir fry:

1. In the pan heat olive oil (5-6 tsp).
2. Keeping the flame high add the ingredient.
3. Fry for 2-3 minutes and remove into a bowl.
4. Use the method to stir fry anything.

Bloopers

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

This happened when I was in college. One evening my mom asked me to turn the stove off as the pressure cooker was on it's 3rd whistle. I entered the kitchen to follow her instructions. All I remember next was hot piping rice on my hands, and a big bang noise while I performed the Macaulay Culkin's priceless expression!

Lid hits the roof

The pressure cooker's lid went off and hit the roof, fortunately landing right in front of me. With it, it took some cooked rice flying high which unfortunately didn't miss me. I stayed away from entering the kitchen for a good 15 days, though mom was not amused.

Easy and tough tips

1. Cooking Pasta
Do you find it difficult to cook pasta without them sticking together?
Well, there's really no quick tip for this. Here's how you should always cook pasta to keep them separate.

Pasta in a colander set

1. Take a large vessel. In India kitchens our big pressure cookers are good.
2. Let the water boil.
3. Add pasta, and stir frequently for the first few minutes to make sure they don't stick.
4. Add good amount of salt. Salt will help you keep pasta separate.
5. People think adding oil does the trick, but this ain't rice so adding oil simply doesn't matter.
6. Keep stirring intermittently and check if the pasta is cooked.
7. Once cooked, dip the pasta into a colander set. (See the picture to know what a colander set is.)
8. Continue with your recipe.

If you are going to follow your recipe later.

1. Transfer pasta into a large vessel.
2. Cool it under cold water.
3. Add olive oil and toss the pasta.
4. Right before you want to continue with your recipe reheat pasta in boiling water for 2 minutes.

Pancakes - Banana and Vanilla/Strawberry essence

Pancakes and waffles are my absolute favourite. I wish I could devour them everyday for breakfast. Apart from Dosa, it is only pancakes and waffles that can never bore me. Never ever. Making pancakes is very very easy. You do not have to complicate the procedure at all. Introduce it in our Indian kitchen once in a while, see your family members appreciate variety.

Well I did see how to make a pancake before I attempted to make one, but improvised on it to make it simpler. Ingredients are easily available in local super markets. Infact if you make cakes or ice creams regularly you will have most of these ingredients in your kitchen.

Ingredients:

Thick Pancakes

1. Maida (all purpose flour): 2 cups
2. Corn flour: 1 cup
3. Icing Sugar: 1/2 cup (If you don't have icing sugar, blend sugar for a few seconds in your mixer, viola icing sugar is ready!!)
4. Eggs: 2
5. Banana: 1 mashed
6. Vanilla or Strawberry essence: 2 tea spoons (If you have any strawberry crush or grape crush you can use that instead of essence.)
7. MUST: MAPLE or PANCAKE syrup (easily available in local super markets or marts). People say that you can use honey as a supplement....naaaaaaaaaah. Don't. Use only maple or pancake syrup.

Preparation:

Thin Pancakes

1. Beat eggs.
2. Add maida, corn flour and icing sugar to the egg beat and mix slowly.
3. Add mashed banana and essence or crush and mix well.
4. Check the consistency and add water if it needs to be thicker.
5. Butter the pan a little bit. Avoid this step if you do not wish to butter or if the pan is non stick.
6. Depending on the size of the pan you can bake 2-4 pancakes at one time.
7. Do not turn over the pancake repeatedly. Let one side bake well before you turn it over.
8. Once done, take them all into a plate.

Serving:

Before eating top your pancake with whipped cream, sliced fruits, chocolate syrup, and maple syrup. Or use only maple syrup. You can never go wrong with a pancake. Because all you need to do is get the dough right, like for dosa or idli. Experiment with toppings as much as you want. Especially if you have kids. Make funny faces out of toppings. You can also use gems or poppins. Well let your imagination go wild.

Let me know if you have questions.

Susmita

Kobbari pacchadi - Coconut chutney

I love kobbari (coconut) pacchadi (chutney). Especially when Mom makes it. There's something about coconut that melts my heart. Kobbari is a common ingredient found in South Indian homes. South Indians use coconut in most of their dishes. There are many sweets which are made out of coconut as the base. Coconuts are also offered to God and its water is a favourite drink especially during summers.

So I had a lot of coconut at home. Well, typically after a festival most homes end up having a stock of coconut. If you notice, the couple of weeks post a festival always sees a rush of coconut based curries, chutneys, rasams, and sweets.

I had never made kobbari pacchadi before. But have seen it being made since my childhood. So I told myself, it can't be anymore difficult that making pudina (mint leaves) or beerakaya (ridge gourd) pacchadi.

Here is the most common recipe for kobbari pacchadi which will serve 4:
Ingredients:

Kobbari Pacchadi

1. Coconut: 2
2. Green chillies: 4-5 (more if you like it hot)
3. Salt to taste
4. Tomato: 3 regular size
5. Turmeric: 2-3 pinches (this adds yellow colour to the pacchadi)
6. Tempering at the end

Preparation:

1. Add 2-3 tea spoons of oil to you non stick pan.
2. Add green chillies and tomato into the pan and cover.
3. Let it cook for 5-10 minutes.
4. Remove from stove and cool.
5. In your blender add the cooled chillies, tomatoes, pieces of coconut, and salt to taste.
6. Add some water and blend for a few minutes.
7. Blend at all levels for a few seconds each.
8. Remove the cover of the blender and add turmeric.
9. Blend once again repeating steps 5 and 6.
10. Add more salt if needed.
11. Add tempering to the pacchadi and take it into a bowl.

Your typical telugu style kobbari pacchadi is ready. This will hardly take you 15 minutes.

Susmita

Pudina Kothimeera pacchadi (chutney)

Trust the telugus to make a pacchadi out of anything. A leaf, vegetable and even a root!! What is traditionally called the rotu pacchadi is a favourite of all, young and old. Some famous pacchadlu are pudina kothimeera pacchadi, beerakaya pacchadi, carrot cabbage pacchadi .. well the list goes on. Like I said hand us an eatable and we'll make a pacchadi out of it.

Pudina kothimeera is not just a favourite of the masses but also extremely easy to make. Traditional preparation of this pacchadi requires only 4 ingredients.
1) Pudina/mint leaves - 4-5 bunches
2)Kothimeera/coriander leaves - 3-4 bunches or less if you want pudina to dominate
3)7-8 green chillies cut into small pieces. Mostly depending on your taste buds, more or less

Pudina/Mint leaves

4)1 teaspoon chintapandu (tamarind) , you can even use the same amount of tamarind paste if you have it ready.
5)Salt to taste

Tempering (tiragamota/popu) is left to your discretion. Most pacchadis tend to enhance their taste when tempering is added in the end. I sometimes ignore it.


Prepation:
1)In your non stick pan add 2-3 tea spoons of oil.
2)Once hot add pudina, kothimeera, tamarind, and green chillies to the pan.
3)Add salt and cover to let it cook in its own steam on low flame.
4)After about 10 min either move the ingredients into a plate and let them cool, preferably under the fan, or take the pan itself to cool under the fan.
5)Once cool, grind them in the blender. 2 rounds of grinding is usually enough.
6)Add little water if you feel the pacchadi requires moistness.
6)Depending on hotness, add more chillies. If you feel you've overdone the chillies, add a tea spoon of sugar or a small piece of bellam (jaggery) and blend once more.

Your pacchadi is ready.
Sometimes I get adventurous and add onion, tomato, ginger, garlic along with the above ingredients. I like that taste too. You can try that if you want a change from usual. But remember pudina+kothimeera's taste should not be dominated. That's the whole idea :D

Susmita

Every critic wants a dish

Have you been subjected to constant criticism of the dishes you make? It can be anything. Something as simple as dal to a complicated home ground spices dish. I mean, what is it with some people?? Why do they feel they have the authority to comment on anything you make?

Well I've had to go through this experience of having every dish of mine commented on by someone. One day I lost it and said "make your own dish". The comments died instantly. It's not exactly what I intended for, but I wasn't complaining anymore :D

I once made semiya payasam and was told that it wasn't payasam at all because there's no saggu biyyam (sabu daana) in it. Only later did the person say that it tasted good. If someone is going to be highly critical,   they better have a degree like a doctor, I say.

Then again you have the kinds who will not utter a word and will leave you scratching your head not knowing the outcome of your hard work. And those who will please you even if your dog won't smell it.

Have you had any distasteful experiences with criticism of your dishes? Let me know.

Susmita

Names of spices in 3 south Indian languages

Spices in english, telugu, tamil and kannada

Chintapandu gujju/Tamarind paste

Take half a cup tamarind and add a cup water.
Leave it on the stove for 2 minutes to boil.
Squeeze paste out, or use your coffee filter and with a spoon force the paste down into a glass.
You can use the remaining tamarind pulp and add water and repeat the above process for more paste.

Tamarind paste/pulp

Chintapandu Pulihora (tamarind rice)

My recipes are not for seasoned cooks. My recipes are only for first time/new cooks who are experimenting and are nervous if they can get the dish right.

Chintapandu pulihora is a very easy dish and it also happens to be one of my favourites. Use non stick pans and electric cooker for healthy cooking and finery of rice. If you don't have an electric cooker no qualms. After all traditionally our mothers have cooked in cookers.

To serve 6-7 persons:

Ingredients:

1) 2-2.5 cups of rice

2) ground nuts - less than a handful

3) cashew nuts - however you like. I usually take 10 and split them into 2

4) tiragamota/popu/tempering

5) pasupu - haldi - a tea spoon

6) chintapandu gujju/pulusu - tamarind paste - a generous amount if you like a sour taste, else around half a cup or little less.

Preparation method:

1) Cook rice.

2) In a non stick pan fry ground nuts and cashew nuts. Store them aside.

3) Take a bowl of water and add tamarind to bring it to a boil. Cool it and separate the juice.

4) If you need more juice use the same tamarind, add more water to the bowl and repeat the above step.

5) Add 2 tea spoons oil to the frying pan (you can add more if you please, I go easy with oil) and do the tempering/tiragamota/popu. Be a little generous with tempering as you are serving 6-7 persons.

6) Finally add the tempering, ground nuts, cashew nuts, turmeric powder and salt to taste to the rice.
7) Mix well.


Even though it's not a practice in traditional Indian kitchens, I like to taste what I make intermittently to know I'm going to right. If you are not orthodox about this practice, do the same. To increase sourness add more tamarind paste. 
P.S. Make the tamarind paste at home, try not to buy it from the market. I've noticed that home made tamarind paste surely tastes different and better. You won't believe how easy it is to make the tamarind paste. And hardly takes time. Maybe I'll add a blog on how to make tamarind paste :D

Vinayaka chaviti - intilo vantalu

I want to mark 1st September 2011 as a day that matured me as a chef who could cook for a small gathering all by herself(mark my words, totally by myself) and who did a proud job of it.

We invited my brother in law, who invited 2 other friends for lunch at our home. Even though as a couple 2010 was Srikanth's and mine first chaviti, I didn't cook as I was still pregnant with Skaandini.

This year while 9 month old Skaandini crawled her way into every door, chair, and table we realised what the word DIFFICULT meant. Btw she looked a complete darling in her cream and red jari blouse and lehanga.

Woke up at 7:00 AM, while Srikanth was busy preparing for the puja, I decided to make the menu ready for the luncheon.

Menu:

White Rice

Tomato pappu (dal)

Aviyal

Pulihora (tamarind)

Semiya Payasam

Vegetable fingers

Pudina kothimeera pacchadi (chutney)

Appadalu, vadiyalu and gold fingers

Couple of them thought pulihora can do with more salt, over all they seemed all happy, delighted and said couldn't carry themselves at all. I was happy watching these well fed men burp!!! I wouldn't have ever said this otherwise.

Tell me of you first such experience. However good or bad you thought you did!!

Susmita