KUNUKKU (SPICY LENTIL FRITTERS)

Back home 2 weeks back after a short stay away from home, am completely relaxed now.  With back to back trips at short intervals, I was feeling homesick and my mind was wavering with restless thoughts.  Home is not just a place and it is a feeling which couldn't be described in words.  On the day of my return, mom prepared her specialty dish Kunukku for me.  It's a deep friend snack made with ground rice and lentil mixture along with redchillies and salt.  The preparation is same as that of Adai but the batter has to be ground in thicker texture.  You can vary the recipe by adding finely chopped mixed vegetables such as carrot/ cabbage or just add onions which enhances the flavor and taste.  I forgot to take  step by step picture as I was busy chit chatting with family. 

Ingredients:

Idly rice - 1 cup

Toor dhal - 4 tsp

Bengal gram - 4 tsp

Urad dhal - 2 tsp

Asafoetida powder - a pinch

Red chillies - 6

Salt - to taste

Onions - finely chipped (Optional)

Curry/coriander  leaves - finely chopped

Oil for deep frying

Preparation:

1. Soak rice and dhal separately for 3 hours and  grind to a slightly coarse paste adding salt, red chillies, and asafoetida powder.

2. Add finely chopped onions if needed, in a kadai, heat oil, drop in small spoons of batter and deep fry until golden brown. 

Tasty snack is ready to be served.  There is no side dish required for this dish and can be taken as a starter/appetizer.

MYSORE RASAM

While all the people at home are watching India-Pak Match, I am diving into blogging to enjoy my  "Me" time.   Already am down with Monday blues and sadly thinking about my handful of chores in my to-do list for the upcoming week.  The weekend was quite stressful as I accidentally fell yesterday while cleaning home and halfway through cooking.   Felt an excruciating pain at foot for the initial few minutes, later I managed the cooking and other house chores in slow motion but as the day progresses my entire ankle was hurting and swollen.  I was not able to walk and felt pain at every step.  DH applied all sorts of home treatment - applying oil, massaging, ointment, pain reliever spray and nothing worked out.  Finally, I was pushed to the stage of taking over-the-counter medication at night.  I slept uninterruptedly and when I woke up this morning, the pain had reduced.  I was able to walk though felt mild pain at every step.  Am getting better after the second dose of medication.

Due to the above incident, I kept the cooking on the lighter side yesterday and prepared only rasam.  For the benefit of my international friends who follows my blog, rasam is a thin soup made with tamarind and Indian spices.  It is eaten with rice and acts as a perfect appetizer.  There are many variations of rasam and I prepared Mysore Rasam yesterday.  It is a recipe from Karnataka Cuisine in which the Indian spices are roasted and ground with coconut.  The aromatic flavor fills the entire home when you prepare this rasam, stimulates your digestive system, and acts as a healthy traditional appetizer.  I do not remember exactly when I fell in love for this rasam, I would just drink it as a soup whenever I prepare this at home.

INGREDIENTS:

Tamarind water (extracted from tamarind pulp) - 2 cups

Cooked Toor dhal -  1/2 cup (small)

Tomatoes - 2

Salt - to taste

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Ghee - 1/2 tsp

To roast and grind:

Pepper - 1 tsp

Toor dhal - 1 tsp

Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Red chilly - 1

Coconut - 1 tsp

Jeera/Cumin - 1 tsp

To Temper:

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Red chilly - 1 or 1/2

Curry leaves - few

Preparation:

1. Soak tamarind pulp in warm water for some 10 minutes and extract the juice from it.  Keep aside.

2.  Cook Toor dhal in pressure cooker adding water and mash it well.

3.  In 1/2 tsp of oil, roast the items given under section "To roast and grind" except coconut and jeera.  Add the coconut at last part of roasting and switch off the flame.  At the time of grinding, add the jeera/cumin seeds and grind it to a smooth paste adding little water.

4.  In a vessel, add tomatoes and mash it by either squeezing them using a wooden spatula /fingers, or use a blender.  Add the extracted tamarind water to it.  Add the required salt and turmeric powder to it and keep in flame.

5.  Boil for 10 minutes until the raw smell of the tamarind goes off.  Gently add the ground paste and mix well.  After a minute, add the cooked and mashed toor dhal and mix well.

6. When it starts to froth up, switch of the flame and temper it with mustard seeds, red chilly, and curry leaves in a teaspoon of ghee.  

The aromatic rasam can be mixed with steamed rice or can be taken as such as a soup. 

Below picture is taken at another instance for a special lunch..

Gobi Manchurian

Jr. H was down with illness whole last week and that made me down emotionally.  All was well until last Saturday evening where he was noticed with sudden spike in temperature.  At first, I thought this could be a normal fever and gave him an initial dose of paracetamol but that didn't worked out.  I continued to observe him whole night and gave him cold compresses when his fever went over 103.  On Sunday, he complained of severe throat pain along with fever.  Last Sunday, DH had invited his friend's family for lunch and could not avoid it, so I was juggling between taking care of son and attending guests and cooking for them.  As his regular pediatrician was not available, we took him to another pediatrician who was nearby and she started him on antibiotics on Monday.  All of a sudden, the home was all quiet and not filled with his nonsense laughter and nagging, Jr. H was calm and sitting in one place, not eating anything, and looked very dull.  More than him, I was feeling ill to see him as such.  From Friday, he is better but due to the effects of antibiotics, he had severe stomach upset and not eating anything at all and I was very worried about it.  So yesterday, I prepared his favorite dish to tantalize his taste buds and make him eat something.

Quickly touching upon the recipe, Gobi is my all my time favorite vegetable from childhood and mom prepares as a curry mostly.  I learnt this recipe only after Jr. H started taking lunch to schools where he requested me to prepare this at home seeing his friends lunch boxes.

Gobi Manchurian is nothing but fried Cauliflower florets are tossed with sauces and pepper powder and goes well with fried rice or just as a starter.

Ingredients:

Cauliflower (cut in big florets) - 1 medium size

Spring onion

Capsicum - 1

Garlic pods - few

Soya sauce - 2 tsp

Red chilly/Paprica sauce - 3 tsp

Pepper powder - 2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Oil - As needed

For the batter

Corn flour - 1 cup

All purpose flour - 3/4 cup

a pinch of cooking soda

Salt - to taste

Preparing the Gobi florets:

Boil water with salt and put the florets in salt water for 10 minutes.  Drain the water and pat dry the florets.

Making the batter and frying the florets

1. Mix Corn flour, All purpose flour, a pinch of cooking soda, and salt. Add little water and prepare the batter.

2. Heat oil in heavy bottomed pan, dip the florets in batter, and deep fry in hot oil.  Keep aside.

Making the Manjurian with sauces:

In a pan, add oil, when it is hot add the white part of spring oil, finely chopped garlic pods, and later thin sliced capsicum.  Add salt and when translucent, add the pepper powder, soya sauce, chilly sauce, mix well.  Later add the fried florets and mix evenly.

Gobi Manchurian is ready to be served.  This can be taken as an appetizer or as a side dish for fried rice. We had with vegetable fried rice.

MINI MASALA VADAI (TEA KADAI STYLE) - LENTIL FRITTERS

One specialty about India is we can find lot of roadside tea stalls where they would serve hot tea and some spicy snacks; especially when I have travelled to hill stations like Ooty, Kodaikanal, etc i have felt that roadside shops serves the best tea than several star-rated restaurants.  The aroma produced by masala vadais fills in air and would make your salivary glands work all at a time.  To me, even thinking about that would make me go hungry.

Ingredients:

Channal dhal - 3/4 cup

Toor dhal - 1/4 cup

Urad dhal - 4 tsp

Onion - 2-3

Red chillies - 6

Green chillies - 3

Curry leaves - few

Salt - As needed

Asafoetida powder - a pinch

Oil - As needed

Preparation:

1. Wash and soak all the dhal together for an hour (Toor dhal, Channa dhal and urad dhal).

2. Drain the water separately and take a 2 tsp of soaked dhal in a bowl.

3.  Grind the remaining dhal along with red chillies, salt, and asafoetida powder.  The ground mixture should be on coarse texture.  Add this to the bowl.

                    

 

4.  Add finely chopped onions, green chillies, and curry leaves.  Mix well.

                  

5. Take a lemon-sized batter on the center of your left palm  and press with right palm.  This would flatten the sides of the batter and the center would be little thicker.

                  

6. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel, gently drop it in hot oil and add few more vadais to the hot oil.  The flame should be on the low or low to medium side.

7.  When the color changes and flip and cook on the other side.  

8. Flip on both sides until it turns golden brown and crispy.

AUTHENTIC IYENGAR THAYIR VADAI - INDIAN LENTIL DONUT DIPPED IN PLAIN YOGURT SAUCE

Ahh, it's quite difficult to name a traditional dish relating to an International cuisine :-).  I have quite a few nonIndian friends who gives private comments to my every post asking about Indian cuisine.  I am equally excited and thrilled to narrate about the ingredients and methodology about Indian cooking and I would love to do that.  Vadai is a deep fried donut-shaped snack prepared from a soaked and ground white lentil (ural dhal).   They are crispier on outside and soft on inside.  This can be used as a snack or as a side dish for the main course.  

I hail from a traditional South Indian Brahmin family and thayir vadai is one of the mandatory item served in the plate on any ceremony among my household.   There are zillion different methods to make these vadas but I am going to share the authentic way of preparing thayir vadai which is followed among my family household.

Ingredients:

Urad dhal (white lentil) - 1.5 cup

Green chillies - 3

Curd (plain yogurt) - 2 cups

Salt - To taste

To grind:

Coconut - 4 tsp

Ginger - 1/2 inch piece

Green chillies - 2 or 3

To temper:

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Curry leaves -few

Asafoetida powder - 1/4 tsp

To garnish:

Bhoondi - As needed 

Coriander leaves 

Preparation:

1.  Soak urad dhal for 1 hour and grind smoothly with green chillies and salt in the food processor.  This is the careful step in getting softer vadas.  The batter should be in the texture of butter.  If you grind the batter in grinder, you would get a butter-like texture and large volume.  For elaborate steps on making soft vadas, refer the following link - medhu-vada

 

2.  Keep a bowl of water in a vessel.  Wet your hands and take the medium ball sized batter and place it on a plastic sheet.  Pat the batter slightly and make a hole in the center.

3. In a heavy bottomed pan, heat oil.  Once the oil is hot, drop the vada carefully and keep the flame in medium.  Add 2-3 more vadas to the oil.

 

4. Flip it over after 2-3 minutes and fry it until golden brown.  Do it for the rest of the remaining batter.

 

 

5. Meanwhile, grind coconut, green chillies, ginger together. 

6. Whisk the curd/plain yogurt in a hand beater and add salt and ground mixture to it.  Temper it with mustard seeds, curry leaves, and asofoetida.

 

7.  Immerse the fried vadas to the curd mixture.  

 

8. Garnish with boondi (I used Haldiram boondi mixture which I got from store) and coriander leaves.  You can also add grated carrots but as the guests were waiting at the dining table, I didn't do it.

Note:

The softness of the vadas entirely depends on how well the batter is ground.  So it is important to give attention during grinding the batter to a butter like texture.