Puttu – A Keralite’s Ecstatic Breakfast

Puttu  is a South Indian and Sri Lankan breakfast dish of steamed cylinders (or coconut shells) of ground rice layered with coconut. It is popular in the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as in areas of Sri Lanka, where it is also known as pittu. Puttu is served with side dishes such as chickpea curry or banana. Apart from this, our traditional way of serving puttu includes steamed green gram and fried papads.

You could use either the readymade puttu powder (available in all supermarkets) or you can make the powder at home as below.

Ingredients

* 2 cups of raw rice
* 1 cup of grated coconut
* salt to taste

Method:

Soak the rice for 2- 3 hours and drain the water. Spread the rice in a paper and allow it to dry for 3-4 minutes see that it is a little wet and not fully dry. Grind the dried raw rice to a fine powder in a mixie.

Fry the rice flour in a pan, stir it continuously until you get the aroma of the rice, remove the flour, bring down to cool. Mix salt in water and sprinke water little by little to the rice flour and mix it throughly. The rice flour should be wet enough, keep stirring it with your fingers as it should remain in a powdered form and do not mould it in to a dough.

If you are using a puttu maker, then add 1 ½ cup of water in the puttu pot and bring it to boil. Now take the cylindrical vessel and add a handful of coconut, then 3- 4 handfuls of rice flour, repeat it until you fill the puttu vessel. Now fit the cylilndrical vessel on the pot. Steam cook it for 4-5 minutes.

Remove the cylinder, use a spatula to push out the puttu to a plate. Serve as desired

Note:I have used a coconut shell type puttu maker and i steamed it on top of a pressure cooker without putting on the whistle for 10 mts.

Idli – A South Indian Savory Cake

Idly is a famous south Indian delicacy and served at breakfast, evening tiffin or even for dinner. It’s a routine breakfast at most of the houses in Chennai. When saying about the place Chennai, The fresh smell of filtered coffee, the yummy dosai, vadai – idli, the beach are the ones which bring in great memories to all of us…Being in Chennai for many years, I would certify Ratna Cafe to be the best for their idli sambar; The aroma of their sambar would draw anyone to their restaurant.

Idli is served at functions also for breakfast along with Sambar, variety of chutneys, Vada and a sweet. So it has become an integral part of tamilian’s lifestyle.

It’s a very healthy dish as it is only steamed and also cos of it’s ingredients being rice and lentils (good source of carbs and proteins). Idlis are mostly served in pairs with chutney, sambar or other accompaniments. Mixtures of crushed dry spices such as milaigai podi are the preferred condiment for idlis eaten on the go.

For people who have never cooked idlis before may always be looking for some recipes,here is one…

Ingredients:

• Par boiled rice – 3 cups(heaped)
• Urad dal (black gram) – 1 cup (heaped)
• fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
• salt – 1 tsp

Idli with Sambar

Method:

Soak rice and black gram dal(fenugreek seeds should be soaked along with dal) seperately in water for minimum 4 hours. Grind rice to fine batter consistency and then the dal to smooth paste until its frothy. Remove from grinder and keep in a large container overnight( space is required for rising). Next morning mix the batter well along with salt and pour in greased idly plates and steam for 7-8 minutes in idly cooker or steamer on medium flame. Allow to cool, remove the idlis using a spoon dipped in cold water. Serve along with sambar and chutney.

Shall post the step by step pics soon for better understanding.

Check out what my fellow bloggers (who has joined blogging marathon) are doing….Priya Suresh, Jay, Priya Srinivasan, Monika, PJ, Valli and Reva

Homemade Donuts – Just a piece of cake!

This Quick and Easy Doughnuts Recipe does not need much of the physical work associated with traditional doughnuts. However, they still taste great and maintain that quality fresh doughnut experience! There are two major kinds of donuts, those that are leavened, or raised with yeast, and those that are leavened with baking powder or baking soda. I have provided the easier version here. 

At times, fresh homemade Donuts make a great breakfast and it could soon tell by the aromas spreading through the house (while making them) that the morning is going to be special…. 

The below method is similar to a classic cake recipe but with a slightly thicker dough. I add an extra egg yolk for a little more richness. Leavened with baking powder and a little baking soda, these doughnuts don’t need time to rise. Simply roll them out and cut them up. Use a doughnut cutter, or go with a couple of biscuit cutters or empty cans. Then fry. 

The crisp, brittle crust of each golden-brown doughnut would give way to a warm and tender interior, delicately flavored and comfortingly fragrant. 

 

Ingredients 

• Flour    -    2 cups
• Sugar    -    1/2 cup
• Salt    -    1 teaspoon
• Baking powder    -    1 tablespoon
• Cinnamon    -    1/4 teaspoon
• Nutmeg    -    1/8 teaspoon
• Melted butter    -    2 tablespoons
• Milk    -    1/2 cup
• Egg-beaten    -    1
• Oil for frying
• Powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar mixture     -    Optional

Method 

Either flour clean kitchen counter or bread board for kneading doughnuts. Prepare a shallow bowl or plate with an inch of flour.
Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk and egg. With floured hands, lightly knead the smooth dough. Turn onto area prepared with flour. Pat dough into 1/4 inch thickness. 

Cut donut shapes from rolled dough

 

Dip either doughnut cutter or two biscuit cutters (one 1-inch and one 3 or 4-inch) in flour. Use to cut-out doughnuts. If you dont have cookie cutter, use a glass or a sauce lid in two sizes. 

Ready to be fried

 

Carefully drop doughnuts into hot oil, only a few at a time. Fry, turning once, for about 3 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on prepared paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon-sugar mixture or dip in chocolate glaze and top with sprinkles. You may decorate or alter your final donuts either with vanilla glaze, chocolate glaze, sprinkles, nuts as per your taste buds needs. 

 

Chocolate Glaze 

 

In a bowl mix:
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons of Hershey Cocoa
3 Tablespoons of  milk.
Put a slightly warm donuts face down in the chocolate glaze, turn slightly and remove. Perfect! 

Now, just savor every bite of the donuts, licking the rich chocolate glaze from your fingers…hmmm…yummy right??

Donut recipe using Yeast

Ingredients:

•  1/2 cup Milk
• 2 tbsp Condensed Milk
• 2 tsp Dry Yeast
• 2 tsp Sugar
• Warm water as required
• 250 gms Flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp Butter, melted
• a pinch of Salt
• Oil to deep fry
• Powdered sugar – to coat
• Cinnamon powder – to coat
• Melted chocoloate -  to coat (optional)

Method:
1. Put the milk in a pan, stir in the condensed milk and warm gently.
2.. Mix the yeast with the sugar and warm water to make a paste, cover for 20 minutes or until it begins to froth.
3. Mix the prepared yeast with two tbsp of the flour and enough warm milk to make a soft dough, allow the flour to ferment for 1 hour.
4. Put the remaining flour in a bowl, add the egg, butter, salt and the remaining milk and mix.
5. Add the fermented flour to the dough, knead well, then cover the dough with a piece of polythene and allow it to rise for 30 minutes.
6. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/4″ and cut it into rings with a doughnut cutter.
7. Heat the oil in a wok, deep fry the doughnuts, drain and roll them in powdered sugar and cinnamon or dip in melted chocolate.

Channa Batura

Channa Batura, A tasty dish from punjab (North India) is a favorite dish for most of the Indians all over the world.  The great combination of Channa (Chickpea masala) and Batura (poori) makes it an excellent eating experience.

For Batura

• All Purpose Four (maida) 2 cups
• Plain Yogurt 2 1/2 tbsp
• Salt to taste
• A pinch of baking soda
• Sugar 1 tsp
• Oil for deep frying

Make dough with the above ingredients (Can add water to make the dough). Allow it to ferment for few hrs. In winter, you may have to make the dough with lukewarm water. Shape into round bolls and roll it. Deep fry in oil.

For Channa Masala

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chickpeas
• salt
• 2 onions
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 tbsp minced ginger and garlic
• 1 tsp chilly powder
• salt
• a pinch of black salt
• 1/2 tsp dry mango powder
• 5 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds

To roast and powder:

• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 1 tbsp pomegranate seeds
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 1 clove
• 2 peppercorns
• 2 cardamoms
• 1 tsp cumin seeds

Method:

• Wash the chickpeas thoroughly and soak it overnight in a big casserole of water.
• Remove and pressure cook in enough water(maybe double the quantity of chickpeas) and some salt until 3 whistles. Strain and keep aside.
• Take 3 tbsp of the cooked chick peas and mash them to make a rough paste.
• Chop the onions and the tomatoes very finely.
• Grate the ginger and garlic.
• Dry roast the whole spices and powder them.
• Heat oil in a vessel, splutter the cumin seeds and add the onions, fry until slightly brown.
• Reduce the flame to medium and add the grated ginger and garlic and fry until the raw smell disappears. Add the chilly powder,mango powder and the salts followed by the roasted powdered masalas and stir-fry. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry until well mashed.
• Add the chickpeas and the pasted chickpeas mixture; Add some water and correct the salt if necessary.
• Cook closed for another 15 minutes. You may like to garnish with some julienned ginger or with some coriander leaves/shallots/some fresh tomatoes or maybe a green chilly! Enjoy!

This is my entry for

Aloo Paratha

Extremely popular with North Indians, these are best eaten with chilled yoghurt and your favourite pickle…They are very filling. Paratha stuffed with Aloo is the easiest of stuffed parathas. Chapathi dough stuffed with spiced mashed potates and cooked on a hot tawa with butter or ghee and served with yogurt makes an excellent breakfast or brunch or dinner.

Ingredients:

• Wheat Flour
• 5 to 6 medium sized potatoes
• 2tbsp fresh coriander leaves (finely chopped)
• 4 to 5 green chillies (finely chopped)
• 4 to 5 flakes of garlic (crushed)
• 1-inch piece of ginger (crushed)
• 1tsp cumin seeds, juice of one lemon
• 1/2 cop oil,ghee or butter

Method:

• Knead a semi-soft dough with wheat flour,sufficient water and salt to taste.
• Boil the potatoes and mash them when still hot.
• Add finely chopped coriander leaves,green chillies,crushen garlic and ginger,cumin seeds,lime juice and salt to taste.
• Mix well.Divide the potato mixture into equal rounds.
• Similarly do the sames with the dough.Roll out the portion of the dough into a small chapati,spread a tsp of oil evenly on the rolled out chapati,place a portion of the potato mixture in the centre of the chapati.
• Gather the edges to make a round flat peda. Lightly dust the surface with flour and roll out the peda into six-inch parathas.
• On a hot griddle roast both sides of the paratha till they turn a shade of golden.
• Grease with ghee,oil or butter.
• Serve hot with plain curds,slices of onions and tomatoes,green chillies,lemon wedges,green mint chutney and mango pickle.

Crispy Paniyaram – A typical chettinad dish

The paniyaram is a south indian dish made by steaming idli/dosa batter along with some spices/lentils. A special vessel with 7 holes in it called paniyaram chatti is used to prepare this. This can be had for breakfast or as an evening snack.

It can be made either as sweet or savory. One evening i wanted to make some filling snack for the kids after their school and hardly any ingredients were available and suddenly i realized the left over idly batter in the fridge, my first thought came to quickly convert it to this kuzhi paniyaram . Kuzhi basically means a depth and since this is made in the tava that has little depths, the name came to be Kuzhi Paniyaram.

Ingredients
Idli Batter – As required
Onions(big) – 2 nos (chopped)
Green chillies – 4 nos or less
Ginger – 1 big piece
Asafoetida(Kayam) powder – A pinch
Mustard seeds
Dry red chillies- 4 nos
Bengal gram(Kadalaparippu) – 1 tbsp
Split black gram(Uzhunnuparippu) – 1 tsp
Raw rice – 2 tbsp
Curry leaves
Oil
Salt – As reqd

Preparation Method

1)Soak raw rice for about half an hour and grind it with ginger and green chillies.

2)Pour mixture into idli batter.

3)Heat oil in a pan or a kadai.

4)Splutter mustard seeds followed by black gram and Bengal gram and slighty fry.

5)Add the red chillies, onions and curry leaves, a pinch of asafoetida powder and fry till golden brown.

6)Add salt as per taste.

7)When the onions look nice and crispy brown, take it off fire and add the mixture in to the batter and mix all the ingredients well.

8)Heat oil in the Paniyaram pan and pour the batter in each depth.

9)Slowly pour the prepared paniyaram batter but take care that it contains itself inside the depths

10)When one side is done, turn over the paniyarams to the other side using the help of a spoon or  a knife.

9)Hot Crispy Paniyarams will be ready in no time. Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Orotti

Orotti falls under our traditional recipes. It’s a variety of thick roti made using rice flour and grated coconut. Its famous in Kerala too. Orotti is almost similar to Pathiri which is a famous dish in northern part of kerala. Orotti is a filling dish for breakfast /dinner.

Ideal combination for Oratti is spicy mutton / beef / curry but it also goes well with mutta curry and paruppu. Applying freshly prepared coconut milk on Oratti before eating enhances its taste.

Ingredients :-

Rice Flour (Powdered) (Roasted puttu powder from market can be used) – 2 cups
Grated coconut – 3/4 cup
Water – 3 cups
Ghee or Oil – for greasing the pan.

Method:-

Boil water in a pan, adding required amount of salt into it. Add the coconut to the water while boiled. Once boiled, Switch off the stove and immediately put the rice flour in the boiled water slowly, stirring in between, until it is ready to make into smooth dough. Allow it to cool for a while. When it is half cooled, knead it with your hands into smooth dough. Make the dough into 4-5 equal sized balls.

Waiting to add rice powder to the boiling water

When little cooled mix the batter with hands dipped in cold water

On Griddle

Heat the griddle and apply little oil onto it. Take a ball and shape it into a roti on a roti presser and transfer it into a greased griddle. Cook for about 1 minute on high heat, and then simmer it for 3-4 minutes. Now turn the roti, and cook the other side the same way.

Onion Uttappam

Ingredients

• 1 cup Dosa Batter
• 2 - tomatoes
• 4 - onions
• 5 - green chilies
• a handful of coriander leaves
• salt to taste

Method:

• Finely chop the onions lengthwise and mix them with the chopped green chilies, tomatoes, coriander leaves and salt to taste.
• Heat a non stick tava.
• Sprinkle some water and wipe it with a cloth.
• Set the flame on simmer.
• Put a small spoonful of the dosa batter on the tava and spread a little.
• Evenly distribute some of the finely chopped onion and tomato chilies mixture.
• Once the uttappam is done on one side, flip over.
• When the uttappam is almost done, apply a little butter on it and turn again.
• Serve hot with coconut chutney and sambar.