Fresh Turmeric Pickle with Ginger and Lemon

 January is the season for fresh turmeric.  We once tasted fresh turmeric pickle in  Houston, America. It was very tasty. So every year in turmeric season I used to prepare this pickle. 

Ingredients for this pickle.

Fresh Turmeric 200 grams. Remove the skin and cut into pieaces

Ginger 100 grams. Remove the skin and cut into pieaces

one mango cut into pieaces

approximately 10 medium sized lemons. cut 5 lemons in to pieces and squeeze the juice from the other 5. You can add the skin of the squeezed lemon if you like it. It won't spoil the pickle's taste. 

Green chillies 10 to 15 numbers cut vertically

Peanuts one small cup. Wash in water and drain the water and keep aside.

Green peas if available or dry peas , green in colour half cup. wash and drain water and keeep aside.

salt to taste. Asafoetida one or two teaspoonful

Methi(fenugreek seeds)

Gingley oil one cup

Chilly powder one tablespoon

sugar 2 teaspoon

Fry mustard and methi seeds and grind it to a coarse powder. this powder one tablespoon for this pickle

Now heat a kadai and add gingley oil one tablespoon.Fry turmeric, ginger, and green chillies. set it aside. Add the mango pieces, lemon pieces and add already washed peanuts and green peas. 

Now add the fried turmeric, ginger and green chillies. mix them. Add salt, chilly powder, sugar, and the mustard/methi powder. Mix them all well.

Heat the kadai and pour the remaining gingley oil and heat it. Let it cool and add the oil to the pickle mixture and mix well. Keep it in a bowl and cover with a lid. Stir it daily in the morning. After four or five days the pickle will be ready to use. 

If you want it to use immediately then you can soak the lemon, mango, peanuts and green peas 4 days before you add the other ingredients. Be careful while adding salt in this method because you already have added salt in the mango/lemon/peanuts/peas. The other preparations are the same as it is said. 

If you like the taste of vinegar you can add white cooking vinegar 2 tablespoonful in the pickle and mix well. The pickle is ready to use. 

Tomato Dosai

 Normally we used to make tomato dosai by preparing the batter with soaked rice, dhal and coconut. Soak the rice and dhal together and grind it with red chillies, salt, hing , cut tomatoes and dessicated coconut. But recently I saw an you tube channel. It was totally new method. It is just as follows. Instead of adding raw tomatoes in this method we are going to fry it in oil with the masala ingredients. Here is the new method of tomato dosa.

Ingredients Tomatoes 4 to 5cut into pieces. 

A pinch of hing, One inch ginger without skin, 

Red chillies according to your taste. I put 3 red chillies and one green 

salt to taste, finely chopped coriander leaves and kadi paththa leaves 

The told to add one teaspoon black pepper and one teaspoon cumin seeds. Actually I don;t like the taste of these in the dosa. But they added it so I also added them as a trial.

oil for fry. and to cook dosa

one cup Uppuma rava

one cup Rice flour and one table spoon wheat flour or urad dhal flour for binding. 

finely chopped onions. I cook without onion but if you need you can add. It is according to your taste. 

In a kadai pour cooking oil one table spoon, and fry the chillies and ginger. Put it aside. Then fry the black pepper and jeeragam, (cumin seeds) Put it aside. Now add the finely cut tomatoes and fry till it becomes soft. Let all the ingredients cool for some time. Then put them in a jar and grind into a fine paste. 

Change the paste into a bowl. Now add one cup rava, one cup rice flour and wheat flour or urad dhal ka flour one table spoon. Add salt to taste. Mix them  in the paste and add required quantitiy of water till the batter is ready for preparing dosa. It should be watery like rava dosa batter. Now add finely chopped coriander leaves and kadi paththa leaves. Put it aside  for half an hour. You could add chopped onions also if needed. 

Now put a tawa and heat it. Pour one or two teaspoon oil and spread the oil with a cooking brush or papper towel.  Now take a ladle of batter and toss it like rava dosa on to the tawa. Pour one teaspoon of oil over the dosa and let it fry. Do not spread it like normal dosa with the base of the ladle. When it become crispy on one side turn it to the other side and pour some oil if needed. After it was crispy on both sides serve hot with coconut chutney or Pudina chutney.

 

Red chillies, green chilly and ginger

Hing, Pepper and cumin seeds

Tomatoes

Fried masala ingredients

Traditional arai puli kuzambu!

 

Arai Puli kuzhambu. arai means half. So it means half tamarind kuzambu. Haahaahaa. But it is not like that. The tamarind juice should be watery. And the ingredients are different.  You cannot use all the vegetables for this kuzambu. Only particular vegetables like small yam, elephant yam, brinjal, sweet potato, pumpkin. Anyone of these. Cut the vegetable into pieces of an inch. If it is yam then cook it before making kuzambu. Cut them and put aside.

Ingredients: Tamarind one small lemon size, soaked in water and extract juice.

Salt to taste, sambar powder 2 two spoons, jaggery if needed,  I did not add jaggery

Other ingredients for tempering: Gingley oil one and half tablespoon

Mustard seeds, one teaspoon, urad dhal, chana dhal, thur dhal each one teaspoon,

Hing one small bit or one full teaspoon of hing powder, methi seeds optional

Turmeric powder half teaspoon, 

Soaked whole chana black and mochai each one teaspoon,

Coconut cut into pieces one table spoon,

2 Red chillies, acording to your taste

Curry leaves.

In the heated oil fry one papad(urad dhal) and put aside. Then if you have Kuzambu karuvadam deep fry them also and put aside with the fried papad.

Now take a thick bottom pan and put it in the stove. Pour the gingley oil. After the oil heated add the hing powder or solid hing bit. Then put the mustard seed, all the three dhals, and methi seeds(optional). If you did not soak the whole black chana and mochai in water then wash them and put them now in the oil along with the other ingredients. Let it crack. Add curry leaves. Put the coconut pieces and fry them till it become light brown.Add the cut vegetables and after frying them add the turmeric powder and sambar powder. Fry them for a minute and add tamarind juice. If you do not want to fry the sambar powder no problem. Add the tamarind water after adding turmeric powder and add the sambar powder now. It won't make any difference. Add salt to taste. The tamarind juice should be watery. Let it boil till the raw smell goes. After ten minutes the kuzambu will begin to thicken. Now if you like it add Jaggery. It is not necessary. Put off the stove and smash the fried papad into small pieces and add them in the kuzambu along with the kuzambu karuvadaam. If the kuzambu karuvadam or papad are not available then no problem. Just put off the stove and serve the kuzambu hot with rice or arisi uppumaa or pongal

Traditional Cooking! Fried Cumin & Pepper rasam!

This is another type of pepper rasam, but we are going to fry the ingredients for rasam. No boiled thur dhal is required. For Four members you can require the following ingredients.

Tamarind lemon size, soaked and squeeze the syrup. 2 cups.

Salt as required,

Turmeric powder 1/2 teaspoon, Hing powder 1/2 teaspoon or hing solid half inch piece, tomato one medium size.

For frying gingeley oil 2 teaspoons, Red chillies 2, Black pepper 2 teaspoons, thur dhal 2 to 3 teaspoons. hing if needed. Fry them till golden brown, let it cool and grind into a fine paste with cumin seeds. No need to fry the cumin seeds. If required add curry leaves also during frying.

For tempering Ghee 2 teaspoons, mustard seeds one teaspoon, curry leaves, one red chillie.

Boil the tomato syrup adding salt, turmeric powder, tomatoes and hing. Boil it till the raw smell goes off. Add the grinded rasam masala with water added. Add more water according the rasam consistency.  Let it boil for 2 minutes. Heat a pan and add the ghee. Add mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chillie. Add some hing powder if needed. Pour the tempering to the rasam. Serve hot.

Traditional Cooking ! Pepper Rasam

Hi Friends, Now we are going to see the recipe of the pepper rasam. It is very easy to prepare. You can enjoy the taste of the hot pepper rasam in this cold weather.

The ingredients for 4 people
Tamarind lemon size. soaked in water and squeez the juice of it. Nearly 2 glass

salt as required, turmeric powder 1/4 teaspoon,
Hing powder 1/2 teaspoon, tomato medium size one finely chopped.

Pepper seeds 2 teaspoons and Cumin Seeds 2 teaspoons. grind it in a mixie jar and put it aside.

For tempering: Ghee 2 teaspoons, Mustard seeds, Curry leaves and one red chillie.

Some people are adding garlic to this rasam. But we are going to prepare it without garlic only.

Normally I used to make rasam in Tin vessel only. But some are not accustomed to it. Take a vessel/heavy bottom and pour the tamarind juice, add salt as required, turmeric powder and hing powder. Let it boil till the raw taste of tamarind goes away. Add the finely chopped tomatoes also. Boil it till the tomatoes become soften. Add the required water to the rasam. Heat a pan and add the 2 teaspoon ghee. After the ghee boiled add mustard seeds, hing powder if required, curry leaves and red chillie. Now add the powdered pepper and cumin  masala to the boiling rasam in the stove and pour the tempering items into the rasam. Switch off the stove and serve the rasam piping hot. Will add photos afterwards.

Hi Friends, After a looooooooong time! :)

Hi All,

Due to my illhealth cannot continue writing this blog posts. My laziness also a prime cause for this. Now I am going to give you a very simple recipe. A simple breakfast for you. Simple and easy making. Bread Uppuma.

Many of us used to eat bread toast, bread sandwich and many other recipes by using bread. Here is one such recipe. Bread Uppuma. For this you have to toast the bread slices first.  Toasting prevents the chunk of bread from turning into mushy. And for this you have to choose brown bread also even though we can prepare it from white bread or from pav bread.

For four persons you can need the followiing ingredients.

Bread slices  6 to 8 (brown bread is preferred)

onion big finely chopped
2 tomatoes finely chopped
salt as needed

For tempering
green chillies 2 to 4 according to your taste
cashewnuts  10 to 12 numbers or peanuts one table spoon according to your taste
cooking oil 2 tablespoons
Mustard seeds, urad dhal, chana dhal, Hing powder, curry leaves, ginger grated or finely chopped
Turmeric powder 1/2 teaspoon
chilli powder 1/2 teaspoon or according to your taste
sugar one teaspoon
water one cup
coriander leaves finely chopped

Toast the bread in a toaster and cut them into small pieces. I took 4 slices only.

bread pieces waiting for the kadai

Onion, green chillies, ginger, curry leaves and tomato. I took only one tomato.

Here I put the ingredients for tempering in the kadai. Mustard seeds, urad dhal, chana dhal, peanuts, curry leaves

onion and sugar added. Saute them till the onion turned golden brown and added tomatoes also. After adding tomatoes I have added turmeric powder, chillie powder and hing powder. Saute them till the tomotoes turn soft.  Let the raw smell of the chillie powder goes off and add the one cup water now. Let it boil for 2 minutes. Add salt as required.

cook the mixture till it becomes thick.

Now add the bread crumbs and finely chopped coriander leaves. Mix it well with the mixture.

The bread crumbs should not be broken. Now your bread uppuma is ready to eat. Add one lemon juice if needed and serve hot. 

How to make sambar with sambar powder

Hi All! welcome! Now we are going to see the sambar preparation with sambar powder. No. No. No powder prepared in large scale. Just for one or two days. Instant powder. This is only traditional method. In olden days there was no flour mill. So people used to make all powders by hand grinding only. Now-a-days the hand grinding machines are out of date.

    

This is for dry grinding in those days.


 

This two are used for wet and dry grindings.




This first one used to grind soaked grains.  The second one used to clean and powder the grains. Now a days we are using mixie and its jars only. So we are going to prepare sambar powder in a mixie jar.

Ingredients for preparing sambar powder. For 4 persons



Fried the ingredients

2 or 3 Red chillies,
Dhania 2 tables spoons
chana dhal 2 teaspoons
Methi fenugreek seeds half teaspoon
Hing one small piece or you can use Hing powder directly.
Cooking oil for frying the ingredients.



powdered ingredients

First put the asafoetida and remove it. Place it aside. Then put red chillies and roast it. Do not burn it. It will spoil the taste of sambar. Then add dhania and fry till it comes golden brown,Then add chana dhal, and methi seeds. Turn off the stove and let the ingredients to cool. After 10 minutes make it a nice powder. Keep it aside.



Tamarind soaked in water. I took a lemon size tamarind. Drum stick for sambar

Now for sambar:  Tamarind Juice  not much thick or strong. 2 cups



This is the correct consistency of the tamarind juice extracted.

vegetables for sambar. You can put drumstick, egg plant, pearl onion, radish, white gourd, yellow gourd,  etc. Some may put cauliflower and potato also. It is upto your taste. Here I took drumstick which was available with me.

Any vegetable of your choice for sambar, mixed also will go.

salt to taste, turmeric powder one teaspoon. You can add it  while boiling Arhar dhal.



cooked arhar dhal

Arhar dhal cooked softly one cup. you can add turmeric powder and hing while cooking arhar dhal.


Arhar dhal or Thur dhal for sambar one cup I took

For tempering cooking oil,
Mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, one red chilly, one green chilly, curry leaves, finely chopped coriander leaves.




frying the vegetable. you can fry pearl onion also.



vegetable cooking in the stove


Now take a kadai or heavy bottom pan. Add one teaspoon oil and fry the drum stick. Then add some water and let it cook for 5 minutes. After that add the tamarind juice, reuired salt and boil till the smell of tamarind gone. Now add the already cooked dhal with the sambar powder prepared. Boil it for another 5 minures. Watch the consistency. It should not very thin or very thick.  Now put another kaday in the stove and add cooking oil. Add mustard seeds, and fenugreek seeds, Let it crack and add red chilly and green chilly simultaneously and add curry leaves. Pour them in the sambar and garnish with coriander leaves.

sambar boiling                                                        boiled and completely cooked and tempered sambar





Now your sambar is ready to eat with hot rice or idli or dosa or adai! Enjoy!

Hi All!

Hi All,

Be ready for new posts. I am going to give you all about traditional cooking. Will come and meet you all very soon. 

Thavalai Vadai

Hi All,How are you? Today we are going to cook a traditional item. It is famous in southern parts of Tamilnadu especially in Madurai and Thirunelveli. In olden days, say some 40,50 years ago, the newly weded couple were welcomed with this Thavalai vadai and wheat Halva, prepared by the MIL of the bridegroom. It was a tradition to welcome the bridegroom with thavalai vadai! My mother often cooked this item for evening tiffin, especially on Sundays. The thavalai vadai, vellai appam and kara vadai are Madurai's famous snack items. Now we are going to see how to prepare Thavalai vadai!

Ingredients: with this you can cook for 4 to 6 people.

Parboiled rice  One Cup
Raw rice           One cup
Thur Dhal       1/2 cup
Bengal gram   1/2 cup
Urad dhal        1/4 cup
Red chillies     3,4 numbers according to your taste
green chillies for grinding 2 and one green chilly to be cut into small pieces. Remove the seeds from the chillies.
ginger one inch piece cut into small pieces
Asafoetida  powder one full teaspoon or a piece of solid soaked in water
Salt to your taste
coconut pieces chopped finely into small pieces two table spoons
Cooking Oil for frying
Mung dhal 1/4 cup clean it and soak it before grinding started

Tempering
Coconut oil 2 teaspoons
Mustard seeds,
Splitted urad dhal each one teaspoon
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves chopped finely



Clean and soak the rice separately. Clean the dhals and soak them also separately. Soak urad dhal separately. Soak them for 3, 4 hours. If you want it in evening then soak them 9.00AM in the morning and grind them at 2-00 PM. So you can make Thavalai vadai about 3-00PM or 3-30 PM.

After soaking for 3 or 4 hours filter the extra water from the rice. Put Red chillies+green chillies+salt +asafoetida in a mixie jar. Grind them into pieces. After that add the rice and grind it coursely. Now add the dhals after removing excess water. Grind it till the dhals are coarsely grinded. Remove the batter and change to a bowl and keep it aside. The batter should not be so thick or so thin. Now remove the excess water from the soaked urad dhal and grind it in the same jar. Grind the dhal till the bubbles come out. Then remove the batter from the mixie jar and add the batter to the already grinded rice+dhal batter.



Now heat a kadai in a stove and pour 2 teaspoons of coconut oil. Add mustard seeds, urad dhal, finely chopped green chilly and ginger and curry leaves. Remove them from the heat and pour into the batter. Now add the already soaked Mung dhal after removing the water. Before adding it drain it for 5 minutes. Add finely chopped coriander leaves.  Mix them all very well with a spatula. Keep it for 5 to 10 minutes. The batter should be in dropping consistency.



Now heat a kadai and pour the required amount of cooking oil to deep fry the thavalai vadai! When the oil started to hot bring down the flame in to medium heat and drop the thavalai vadai batter with the help of a scoop spoon.   Any medium sized spoon will be helpful. Deep fry it till it is golden brown. Enjoy your thavalai vadai with coconut chutney.

Mango Rice!

Hi all!  This is mango season and I come up with a recipe from raw mango! This is very simple. You can prepare this like lemon rice also. But in this recipe I am going to give you some new taste. Now prepare the ingredients for the Mango rice. This is for 4 people.

One Raw mango Peel the skin and grate the mango using a box grater. Keep it aside.





   

For grinding

2 or 3 green chillies ( you can add or reduce according to your taste.)

Ginger one inch piece

grated coconut two table spoons

Jeeragam /cumin seeds one teaspoon



For tempering

Gingley oil (it is good to use gingley oil for this. If not available use any edible oil)

Mustard seeds one teaspoon

Urad dhal one teaspoon

chana dhal one teaspoon

Peanuts  one tablespoon full

hing (use elaborately if powder) if it is hard then take a pepper size

Turmeric powder

Red chilly 2 nos.

Kadi paththa (curry leaves)

cooked rice 2 cups



 Now grind the green chillies, ginger, cumin seeds with the grated coconut. Keep it aside.



Heat a kadai and pour the oil. When the oil begins to become hot add mustard seeds, and urad dhal, chana dhal one by one. Let them get brown. Add the peanuts also. Make sure the heat is in medium. Roast the peanuts till they become light brown. Add red chillies and curry leaves. Now add the grinde paste and stir well.  While stirring add turmeric powder and hing powder. If the hing is solid add it in the beginning before adding mustard seeds. Now gently stir the paste for 30 seconds. Now add the grated mango and salt. Fry it for atleast two minutes till the oil comes out. The mango will be well cooked and tender.


Just keep some quantity of mango paste aside.

Now remove the kadai from the stove and add the cooked rice and stir gently.  Mix it till  rice get yellow in colour. Put it in the stove and cook for another one minute. Turn off the stove.



I prepared Kadi (without cooking) for the side dish of this mango rice. To prepare Kadi instantly you can fry 2 red chillie, hing one small piece, thur dhal one teaspoon, chana dhal one teaspoon, dhania seeds 2 teaspoons, curry leaves, coconut grated two teaspoons.

Fry all the ingredients in  cooking oil . Let it cool. In the meantime take one cup of curd and gently churn it and make sure there is no lumps. Add turmeric powder and salt. Now grind the fried ingredients into a smooth paste and mix well with the curd already prepared. Temper with mustard   methi and curry leaves. Do not heat it in the stove. You can take it as it is. This will match with any thuvaiyal rice, lemon rice, podi rice also.  In tamil we used to call this as "pachchai morkuzampu" that means without heating the gravy. If you do not have coconut then you can prepare it without coconut also. Just fry the chillies and dhals with hing and curry leaves and grind it to a smooth paste and mix well with the curd. After tempering it is ready to eat.