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.)

Curd rice (hotel style)

Everyone loves curd rice. Curd has milk proteins and the essential bacterias to protect the human stomach affecting from bad bacterias.  When we started the solid food for my kid, we just started with curd at his 6 months. He loves curd in any form. Generally we make curd rice using curd, rice and a little milk only. When I was discussing with my friends during lunch, one of my friends suggested me to add butter. I tried it by adding butter and few things to temper and added to curd rice to make this hotel style curd rice. Here is the recipe

Ingredients

• Cooked rice - 1 cup
• Curd - 1 cup
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Butter(melted) - 1 tbsp
• Carrot (grated) - 1 tbsp
• Cashews - 4 to 5
• Mustard seeds - Few to temper
• Curry leaves - Few to temper
• Hing - a pinch
• Green chilli - 1 (optional)
• Ginger - 1 Bite sized chopped finely

Cooking steps

• In a wide bowl, Add a cup of cooked rice (keep the rice little warm). 
• Add butter first and mix well with the rice. 
• Add curd to the rice and mix well to become mushy.
• The curd will become dry after sometime. So add the milk to the rice to maintain the creamy texture of curd rice. Keep this mixture aside.

• In a frying pan, Add a tsp of oil. 
• Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds to sputter. 
• Add curry leaves, ginger, coriander leaves, cashews, green chilli, carrot, hing to the oil and fry for a minute.

• Add this mixture to the curd rice and mix well. 

• Garnish with coriander leaves and nuts.

My 2 cents

• You can add any nuts and fruits of your choice
• Adjust the salt for the curd rice.

Peas curry (creamy)

Peas curry is my favourite and this can go well with roti, paratha and also with plain rice. Peas is one of the healthiest foods. Its high in protein. My mom makes the one which is made of ground coconut paste. I just added curd and cashews to replace the coconut in her recipe. Here is the recipe

Ingredients

• Green Peas - 1/2 cup
• Onion - 1 (medium)
• Tomato - 1 (medium)
• Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
• Cashews - 8 to 10
• Cinnamon - 1 small stick
• Cardamom - 1
• Curd - 2 tbsp
• Kasoori methi(dried) - 1 tbsp
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Star anise - 1
• Oil - 3 tsp

Cooking steps

• Soak the peas for 6-7 hours or overnight and pressure cook it for 3 whistles. Drain water from peas and keep aside.
• 

• Slice onion and tomato and keep aside

• In a small bowl add cashews and mix with curd. Soak this mixture for 10 mins and grind it in mixer to a smooth paste.

• In a preheated tawa, add a tsp of oil and fry onions till its transparent. Add ginger garlic paste and tomatoes and  and fry till it turns mushy.Let the mixture cool down and grind it to a fine paste.

• In the same tawa, add Butter first and let it melt completely and add cardomom, cinnamon sticks and star anise to temper. 
• Add little onions and fry (This step is optional. I just added it to have the fried crunchy onion aroma in the final curry).

• Add the ground onion tomato paste and add them to the fried onions.

• Once the raw smell leaves out completely from the curry, simmer the stove and add the ground cashew paste to it and mix well.

• Add salt, garam masala and chilli powder to it and mix well and cook it.

• Add green peas and saute it and cook the curry till its done completely.

• Switch off the stove once its done completely and add kasoori methi to garnish.

My 2 cents

• Use a fresh curd to grind the cashews. 
• You can substitute milk for curd to get creamy sweet taste.
• I used the dry peas. you can use fresh peas or frozen peas also.
• Adding dried methi gives a great flavour.
• You can puree the tomato and directly add it to the fried onions. I just wanted to have more gravy so i ground the onions and tomato mixture.