Karuppatti Mittai

This is one of my favorites . I would Iove to see them arranged as rings at the shops. This sweet is very famous in south most part of tamilnadu. Whenever we go to my dad’s native place, we would pack a bunch of this brown colored Mittai.  I just love its juicy texture. I was searching  for its recipe and finally when I talked to my dad regarding  this sweet, He had given me some steps in making this one. I just followed the same and made them very perfect like the store bought ones.

Ingredients

• Karuppati/Palm Jaggery  - 300 grams
• Sugar – 100 grams
• Rice flour – 2 tbsp ( optional to adjust the batter consistency)
• Rice  - 1 cup
• Urad dhal – ¼ cup
• Cardamom – 2
• Sukku/ Dry ginger – bite sized
• Oil -  to deep fry

Cooking Steps

• Soak rice and urad dhal together in a large bowl for 3 hours at least.
• Grind it to a smooth paste and set aside.
• Add rice flour to this ground paste to adjust the consistency

• Powder the palm jaggery and sukku and cardamom seperately and mix them together.
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• To make the jaggery syrup, In a wide bowl add sugar and powdered palm jiggery and fill the water to cover this mixture.
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• Bring  it  to boil to get the single string consistency and switch off the stove.
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• Strain the impurities and set aside.  Keep the syrup little warm till the end of the process.

• Now take a wide bottomed frying pan and add oil upto ¾ inch.
• Place the batter in a squeeze bottle and slowly make a chain of rounds like the one shown here

• Deep fry on both the sides and drain the excess oil.
• Now put this fried mittai in the sweet syrup for 2 mins and remove the mittai from syrup and keep them in air tight container.

 My 2 cents

• you can use replace sugar with jaggery also. I just observed adding sugar makes the right consistency.
• Do not avoid sukku and cardamom. This will give a nice flavour and taste.
• Add the rice flour only to adjust consistency. If you add more rice flour, then the mittai will become dark easily.

Medhu Vadai Recipe

Medhuvada with ghee pongal is in my first list when i order any food at hotels. We used to prepare this medhu vada at home for every special occasion. I learnt this recipe from my mother-in-law. For my first pongal at my in-laws home, my co-sister and my MIL prepared this and I had a chance to prepare few by that time. Whenever I prepare batter for Idli, I will reserve few urad dhal batter and tried this out. This is how i tried to prepare medhu vada. When I plan to prepare with less oil, I will pour the batter in paniyaram kuli and make this one. I will post the same little later.

Ingredients

• Urad dhal - 1 cup
• Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
• Onion - 10 (shallots)
• Ginger - 1 inch sized
• Green chilli - 2
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Curry leaves - few
• Coriander leaves - few

Cooking steps

• Soak urad dhal for 1 hour atleast.

• cut onion, ginger and green chilli into small size.

• Grind to a coarse paste.
• Add fennel seeds, onion, green chilli, ginger, salt, curry leaves and coriander leavaes.
• To maintain the consistency adjust 2 tbsp of rice powder and mix well and keep the batter fluffy.

• In a frying pan, add enough oil and let the oil to be hot.
• Take a laddle, turn it back and grease with little oil.
• Take a lemon sized batter and put it on greased laddle and press it gently to form a circle shaped.
• Place a hole in the middle and Now the batter is ready to be a medhu vada.

 

• Bring the batter to your right hand and slowly place it in oil.
• Fry till it becomes golden brown.
• Flip to the other side and fry till golden brown.

• Drain excess oil and serve with chutney

My 2 cents

• You can add red chilli to substitute green chilli.
• Adding rice flour is purely optional. I just added to maintain the batter consistency.
• You can directly make the shapes using your hand itself. I used both the hands for frying and so i used a laddle.

Kolukkattai

Kolukkattai is an authentic dish made of rice flour. This is easy to make and that tastes awesome. We used to prepare this kolukkatai for any poojas at home. Traditional and tasty. Here is the recipe

Ingredients

• Rice flour - 2 cups
• Roasted/Fried gram - 1/4 cup
• Coconut - 1/4 cup (shredded)
• Cardamom - 4
• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Water - as required
  
  

Cooking steps

• In a bowl, mix rice, salt together and slowly add water and prepare a non-sticky dough. Add oil at the last stage and make the dough ready.

• Make lemon sized balls with the dough.

• Grind fried gram, coconut and cardamom together and make it a coarse mixture.

• Take a dough ball and keep it in banana leaf or a simple polythene bag.
• Press the dough slowly using your fingers to make a circle of the dough.

• Keep the puran in one side of the dough and fold the dough to form the shape as shown in the pic.

• Make the remaining dough like this and keep them in the idli cooker and close the lid of idli cooker.

• Cook them till the steam comes out of the idli cooker.
• Open the lid of the idli cooker and transfer the kolukkattai to a bowl and serve hot.

My 2 cents

• you can add sesame while preparing puran.
• you can add milk to rice flour to get a white kolukkattai.
• you can add paruppu puran also.

Egg curry

Egg curry is the easiest one to prepare. I used to prepare this on sundays when i do not prefer to have any non veg. There is no much work to prepare this one. Here is the simple recipe

Ingredients

• Onion - 1 (medium sized)
• Tomato - 1 (medium sized)
• Garlic - 3 cloves
• Tamarind juice - 1/2 cup
• Eggs - 2
• Oil - 2 tsp
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon stick - 1 small
• Curry leaves - Few to temper

Cooking steps

• Cut onions and mince garlic using hand pestle and mortar. 

• Grind tomato to a fine paste in a mixer.

• Parboil and de-shell the eggs.
• Prick holes using fork or cut lengthwise to 1/3 portion of the egg.(This is to make the eggs to absorb the curry). 

• In a frying pan, add oil, Add fennel seeds, cinnamon sticks, curry leaves and minced garlic. 

• When the fried aroma of garlic starts to appear, add onions and fry till the onions turn transparent.

• Add the ground tomato paste, and fry it till the raw smell completely leaves out.

• Add tamarind juice, chilli powder and salt and mix well.

• Cook this mixer until the oil seperates out from the curry. 
• Add eggs and garnish with coriander leaves and switch off the stove. Let the eggs absorb the curry for 10 mins and serve.

My 2 cents

• For more gravy, you can add ground coconut. Adjust the quantity of tamarind juice if you add ground coconut to maintain the tangy taste.

Dhal Curry (Dal Tadka)

Dhal curry is the easiest one to prepare on busy days. I love to have this at anytime of a day with appalam or vadagam. Generally people will prepare dhal using Toor dhal only. I just added a tbsp of moong dhal and bengal gram to make this dhal curry. This can go well with roti and plain rice.

Ingredients

• Toor dhal - 1/2 cup
• Moong dhal - 1 tbsp
• Bengal gram - 1 tbsp
• Onion - 1 (small)
• Tomato - 1 (small)
• Hing - 1/8 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 1 tsp (to temper)
• Ghee - 1 tsp (optional)
• Mustard seeds - Few to temper
• Curry leaves - Few to temper
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Coriander leaves - Few to garnish
• Kasoori methi - 1/2 tsp (dried)

Cooking steps

• Cut onion, tomato and garlic and keep aside
• Bring together the dhals and rinse twice and keep aside.

•  In a pressure cooker, add oil and let it be hot.
• Add mustard seeds and curry leaves to sputter.

• Add Onion and fry till onions become transparent.
• Add tomato and saute a little.

• Add Dhal to this and give a quick stir.
• Now add 2 cups of water and add turmeric powder, cumin seeds, hing and garlic.

• Close the lid of the pressure cooker and cook for 3 whistles.
• Let the cooker leave the pressure completely and open the lid of the pressure cooker. 

• Add ghee and use paruppu mathu or a laddle to mash the dhal well.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and methi leaves.

My 2 cents

• you can use toor dhal alone. I just experienced a good taste when i combined these dhals together in dhal tadka.
• Adding methi leaves give a great aroma and also that tastes like the dhal that we have at hotels.

Carrot Cabbage Egg Fry

This is one of the sidedishes that i prefer having with karakulambu. This is the easiest one to make during busy days and this can very well go with plain rice too. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• Cabbage - 1/2 cup (Finely chopped)
• Carrot - 1/4 cup (Finely chopped)
• Onion - 1 (Medium sized)
• Green chilli - 2
• Egg - 1
• Curry leaves - Few to temper
• Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp to temper
• Oil - 2 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp

Cooking steps

• Cut onion and green chilli and add it with cabbage and carrot and keep aside.

• Break and keep the egg in a small bowl and mix well and keep aside.

• In a preheated frying pan, add oil and wait till its hot.
• Add mustard seeds and curry leaves to temper.
• Add the vegetable mixer and Stir well. Add salt to it and mix well.

• Keep the lid of the pan closed and cook till its 3/4th done.

• Add egg at this stage and mix well and saute till the vegetables are cooked completely.

 

• Garnish with coriander leaves and switch off the stove.

My 2 cents

• Egg and cabbage will be enough to make this fry. If you want to make this fry more colourful, you can add differnent coloured vegetables. (carrot, french beans etc.)