Potato fry...

I was away from the blogging world yesterday. I thot i will stay away from it to finish off some long pending household chores.. Now you have guessed it right.. Yeah, I am a procrastinator..Besides, i was deeply engrossed in the book i was reading after a long reading hiatus. I was an avid reader long back. After that, maybe due to one reason or the other, i couldnt finish any single book i started reading and i was missing all the thrill, all the imaginery new worlds that opens up with reading. Thanks to Stephanie Meyers and her New-york times best seller "Twilight" for bringing them back to me. Maybe thats what i needed, a vampire romance novel. I finally finished a book after a long break. The novel has also been adapted to a movie. The next item in my to-do list is watch the movie and get hold of her second novel in the series "New Moon". Meanwhile i am waiting for the next novel i have ordered "Veil of Roses" by Laura Fitzgerald.

Coming to the recipe of the day, an easy to cook, less effort and tasty dish, Potato fry...

Ingredients You Need:
3 Medium size Potatoes
Red Chilli powder - 1 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tblspoon
Preparation:

• Peel the skin of the potatoes using a peeler and cut the potatoes into small cubes.
• In a wok, add the oil and heat.
• When the oil is hot enuf, put the potatoes and stir well so that all cubes get well coated with the oil.
• Now add the red chilly powder and salt and stir well.
• Once the potato cubes are well coated with the salt and chilly powder, u can close the wok with a lid and cook it covered on very low flame till the potatoes becomes tender and soft.
• No need to add any water. But you have to stir in between so that the potatoes wont get burned or stick to the bottom.

You can have it with rice. Rice, hot rasam and this potato fry is great combo!! I love it...

Aviyal - mixture of vegetables in exotic coconut sauce..!!

Aviyal is an inevitable part of Kerala cuisine.. One of the essentials in the Kerala Sadya/feast. It is a mixture of many vegetables lightly spiced with a special coconut gravy and flavoured in coconut oil and curry leaves. The vegetables commonly used are carrots, cucumber, raw banana, yam, drum sticks and ivy gourd.

In my recipe of avial here, i have used carrot, cucumber ,raw banana and ivy gourd.

Ingredients You need:

One Cucumber

Carrots - 2nos

Raw banana - 1no

ivy gourd - 8 nos

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

3 sprigs of curry leaves

Finely grated Coconut – 1 cup

Green chillies – 6

Cumin seeds – 1/4 teaspoon

Small onions - 4 nos

Coconut oil – 2 tbsp

Sour Curd or small piece of tamarind ( I normally use tamarind as the curd we get here is not that sour)

Salt - to taste

Preparation

• Put tamarind ball (small size) in some hot water for the juice.
• Cut all the vegetables into 1 inch length pieces.
• Put all the cut vegetables in a pan with the turmeric powder, chilly powder and salt and boil (Add enuf water to cook the veggies)
• To prepare the coconut mixture put grated coconut, chopped small onions, green chillies, a sprig of curry leaves and cumin seeds into a blender and grind it into a crushed form.
• When theveggies are almost cooked, the water will evaporated by then, add the extracted tamarind juice and boil for 2-3 minutes.
• Now add the crushed coconut mixture into the cooked veggies and allow the coconut flavor to blend in with the veggies. Cover it cooked till the water is evaporated and veggies are well cooked. Do a salt test.
• Finally add the coconut oil and the remaining curry leaves to the aviyal which brings in the real flavour of kerala cusine.

I am sending this Aviyal to WYF Side dish event

Cabbage stir fry with coconut...

Whats your favourite color.. When some one ask me this question, i am confused.. I cant pick one color as such.. But definitely yellow is one among them.. Yellow yellow dirty fellow is not at all dirty for me!!! Its the color of freshness and hope.

Today i am gonna post a yellow dish, Cabbage Stir fry with coconut....

Ingredients You need:
Half of one medium size cabbage
Finely grated Coconut - 1/2 cup or as needed
Green chillies - 4 nos
2 Cloves of garlic
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Red chillies - 2nos
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
a spring of curry leaves
Oil - 1 tblspoon
Salt to taste

Preparation:
Finely chop the cabbage, garlic and green chillies.

• Heat oil in a pan and splutter the mustard seeds
• Add the red chillies and curry leaves and wait for the curry leaves flavor to blend in.
• Next, add the chopped garlic, green chillies and saute. After a minute add the turmeric powder for a cool color.
• Add the cabbage, stir well and let it cook for sometime. Dont add water. Stir in between to make sure it wont stick to the bottom.
• Once the cabbage is almost cooked, add the grated coconut and stir well and cook till the coconut blend in with the cabbage.

Have a great weekend...

Angel hair pasta with Sausage sauce..

I had some pasta left in my grocery shelf. I had actually bought it as a substitute for vermicelli for making payasam/kheer. Yesterday i decided to put it to its actual use. To go with that i made a sauce of my own with some of the left overs. The sauce and the pasta can be made in a jiffy and is an ideal option for dinner especially if you are tired after a busy day..

Ingredients You Need:
Angel hair pasta
1 Medium size Onion
Half of a green Capsicum
2 Cups of Spaghetti sauce
One Sausage link
2 Cloves of Garlic
Pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Oil - 1 tblspoon

Preparation

• Finely chop the garlic, onion, capsicum and keep side. Cut the sausage into small circles.
• Boil water in a pan and cook pasta in it. Add a little bit of oil as well.

For the sauce:

• Heat Oil in a wok.
• Put the finely chopped garlic and saute for a minute
• Add the finely chopped onion and capsicum to it and saute well.
• Now Add the sausage pieces to it and fry well.
• After 2-3 minutes pour the spaghetti sauce into this and stir well.
• Add pepper and salt according to your taste.
• Cover and cook it for some time and your yummy sauce is ready to serve.

Different tryouts:

• In the same recipe instead of the sausage, you can add boneless chicken breast pieces.
• To make the dish more healthy you can add chopped carrots, beans and other veggies to the sauce.

Celery Payar Thoran..(Celery Green gram stir fry with coconut)

Green gram or cherupayar thoran is one dish i make almost every week. This time i decided to add celery also to my cheru payar thoran..

Celery is one another thing which i like to eat raw.. The habit started with the friday eatouts for which Buffalo wings were always our starters and celery came as the accompaniment with the buffalo hot sauce.... So last week i tried out celery-payar combination and as expected it was a great combination..

Ingredients you need:
Celery - 4 sticks
Green gram(Cherupayar) - 1/2 cup
1 Medium Onion
2 cloves of Garlic
Ginger - A small piece
Green chillies - 6 no
Grated coconut - 3/4 cup
Red chillies 2 nos
A sprig of curry leaves
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds/Jeera - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder -1/4 teaspoon
Oil - 1 tbsp

Preparation

Wash the cherupayar and pressure cook it. Finely chop the celery, onion, ginger, garlic and green chillies and keep aside.

• Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds,cumin seeds and allow them to splutter.
• Add red chillies and cury leaves when they splutter and saute well.
• Add garlic, ginger, chopped onions, green chillies and turmeric powder and fry till the onions are soft.
• Add the celery and stir well to mix everything
• Add the cooked cherupayar and grated coconut into it.
• Stir well and add the garam masala to it
• Add salt to taste.
• Cook it covered, until everything is evenly cooked.

Moru Curry..

It is an easy to prepare curry made with buttermilk. Its one of my fav dish which goes well with rice and some non-veg like beef or chicken..

Things You need:

Butter Milk

2 Small onions

1 Small piece of ginger(1 teaspoon)

2 cloves Garlic (1 teaspoon)

A sprig of curry leaves

Fenugreek pwder - 1/4 teaspoon

turmeric powder - a pinch

cumin seeds/jeera - 1/4 teaspoon

mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Salt - to taste

Oil

Preparation:

• Heat a wok. Pour a tblspoon oil into it.
• Once oil is hot, put the mustard seeds, jeera and fenugreek and saute for 2-3 minutes.
• Add the remaining ingredients onions, ginger, garlic and saute well. Add a pinch of turmeric powder as well.
• Now switch off the flame and add the beaten yoghurt/buttermilk to the sauted mixture and blend it.
• The last step is to heat the curry on low flame. Keep on stirring the curry. Dont allow it to boil or the curry may curdle..

Fish Cutlet

Yesterday i made fish cutlets for the first time and to my surprise it turned out really well. So I thot of sharing the recipe with you. It didnt take much time to prepare as i used the canned tuna for this.

Things You need:
Canned tuna(i used the chicken of the sea brand) - 1
Medium sized Onion - 1
Medium sized potato - 1
Small piece of ginger
Green chillies - 3-4
A sprig of curry leaves
Pepper pwder - 1/2 teaspoon
Garam masala - 1 teaspoon
Salt - to taste
Egg - 1
Bread crumbs
Oil

Preparation:
1. Boil the canned tuna in water with little salt added for some 5 mts. Remove the excess water and pat it dry with a tissue. Shred the pieces and keep

2. Boil the potatoes and allow them to cool. Mash it into a paste.

3. Meantime, in a wok add some oil and fry onion, green chillies and ginger. Once it is sauted add the pepper power and garam masala and saute well. Now add the shreded fish peices and mix well. Add salt as per the taste. Allow this mix to cool now.

4. Once the mix is cooled and ready, mix it with the mashed potatoes.

5. Now make balls of desired shape, dip it in the egg, roll on the bread crumbs and fry it in the oil.