Cooking for the crowd - meme

Anthony started this meme. Thanks for tagging me Tony- Hmm when was the last time I cooked for a crowd. Ok When it comes to cooking even 4 is a crowd for me !!!

1. When did i cook for a crowd ?
Around 4 months back I cooked for Ravi's friend and classmate - He visited us with his pregnant wife and brother. That makes preparing lunch for 5 of us.. Did I not say 4 is a crowd for me ??

2. What did I cook ?
Since I was cooking for a pregnant friend I wanted to cook several items so that she could taste everything. I had known that she was in the puking phase of pregnancy and puked almost every 2 hours. They are vegetarians from punjab and my menu was totally keeping her in mind.

The menu :

• garelu - Deep fried fritters that are an andhra delicacy prepared out of batter of soaked split green gram. Made a coarse paste of gram, curry leaves, coriander, chillies, cumin. Crispy starters

• idly -Typical south indian must have trademark recipe.

• sambar - Another trademark recipe expected from a Tamil/Telugu dinner. Fill a cup with yummy sambar and allow your idlies to float, a little taste of hzeaven

• Soya chunks biriyani - Spicy, aromatic rice cooked with different spices and mint.

• Raita - A must-have accompaniment to any biriyani
  

• Potato peas kurma - A aromatic spicy curry sauce thickened with coconut paste

• Gobi fry - A simple fry of cauliflower with chillipowder and salt.
  

• Rasam - Tangy, hot soup with pepper, cumin, tomato, coriander, chillies, garlic
  

• Rasamalai -baked ricotta cheese balls soaked in flavoured condensed sweetened milk
  

Our guests loved our food, they stayed till tea - We had lots of fun chitchatting that day !!!

Would love to know what Priya, Gattina, Indira, Shaheen cook for their guests !!

Veggie a Week !!

"Do you go out of ideas to cook a veggie and you bought huge quantities ?"
"Is there a way of preparation ( of a veggie ) that your kid absolutely refuses to even touch ?"
"Do you waste excess curries because you are bored of eating the "same thing" ?"

Are you silently nodding your head ?? - Yay !!
Pooja of http://creativepooja.blogspot.com/ has come up with a novel idea of a veggie a week !!

I thought with yam - ( karanakizhangu, suran, kandhagadda ), kozhambu ( pulusu or sauce ) and fry are the only dishes possible..
Oh la la who knew we could pickle them ??..

She gives us a different way to cook the veggie each day of the week !! It started with Yam and this week it is spinach and fenugreek..

Isn't this a great idea ?? Lets look forward to the veggie of the week ! Possibly we will also stock our pantry as soon as she announces
her vegetable of the week and have some fun cooking together !!!

Thanks Pooja for the idea and keep it coming !!!

Sorakai sambar ( Dudhi, bottlegourd )

I have been going through the recipes posted in my blog and realized that I had not posted a sambar dish. The trademark of being a Tamil is sambar dish yet I did not have any. Whenever we Tamils see a veggie we make a sambar out of it. Telugus will make a pappu and keralites a thoran I would guess. I am not familiar with other cuisines :)

Sorakai and pumpkin are two classy watery veggies that soaks up all the flavour of sambar. These veggies literally burst into bundles of flavour when bitten - the taste is completely acquired.


Sorakai sambar, brinjal curry & mango pickle

Here goes my recipe for sambar

- cup of toor dal boiled and mashed
- 10 one inch pieces of sorakai peeled
- half an onion chopped
- 1 juicy vine riped tomato
- 1 lemon size tamarind pulp
- 1 teaspoon good sambar powder - I use the one sent by amma from home
- a fistful of coriander leaves
- 1/4th tsp turmeric
- salt to taste
- for tempering - one tsp each of oil, mustard, fenugreek, cumin, 4 to 5 curry leaves

Sorakai ( Sorakaya, Dudhi )- Right pressure-cooked dal

First
- Pressure cook the toor dal with twice the amount of water for 2 to 3 whistles.
- soak the tamarind

Next
- Heat the oil for tempering
- Meanwhile chop the onions, tomato
- Temper the oil with the ingredients for tempering. Add onion and saute for two minutes. Add the tomato and saute for another 2 minutes
- Meanwhile peel and chop the sorakai - Remove the middle spongy part of the sorakai while chopping. Add to the mixture above.
- Add a cup and half of water, sambar powder, turmeric, salt and allow to boil for 10 minutes

Then
- Add the mashed dal to the mixture and continue to boil for another 5 minutes
- Add the tamarind pulp and when it foams on the top add coriander leaves and switch off.
- Enjoy with rice.

Needless to say this sambar tastes extremely well when allowed to sit for a couple of hours.

Gramathu Virundu II - Sundakai Pakoda

I almost missed this weeks' Gramathu virundu. Syam of dhinamum ennai kavani sent me the video clipping of the segment. Syam cannot thank you enof !!! Ok now to the recipe.
What IS sundakai anyway ?? - Its a berry and details from Vineela's cuisine

"Sundakkai"s botanical name is "Solanum torvum" and "Turkey Berry" in English,"Bhankatiya, katai in "Hindi","Usthikaya" in Telugu and "Sundakkai" in Tamil.


Sundakai ( Turkey berry ) - Courtesy Forest & Kim Starr (USGS)



Sundried Sundakai ( Turkey berry ) - Courtesy Vineela's Cooking

The most common way of using this berry is to soak it in buttermilk and sundrying. Its then fried in oil. Frying makes it very crispy. This makes it a very tasty compliment to curd rice. Another classic recipe is sundakai vatha kozhambu - a tangy fiery sauce with plenty of pearl onions and garlic along with the dried sundakai. The honey like consistency of this sour, hot and bitter kozhambu ( sauce ) is to die for.

Tastewise the fresh berry will be bitter in taste much like bittergourd and is said to be good for the stomach. It is claimed to remove the worms in stomach and helps in clearing stomach ulcers. Here in US we dont get fresh sundakai but dried form is available.

This recipe calls for fresh sundakai. Paravai paati says that kids will not eat fresh sundakai as they are bitter, so serving them as crispy pakoras is a good way to disguise them.

This weeks recipe and ingredient are classic reasons for registering gramathu virundu - to rediscover forgotten ingredients. If any of you has access to fresh sundakai and are trying out this recipe dont forget to take a picture - and send me a link !!

Here goes her demo

Ingredients

besan - 500 gms
fresh sundakai - 250 gms slightly crushed
two tbs - saunf coarsely powdered
asafoetida - a pinch
chilli powder - 1 tsp
turmeric - half tsp
ginger garlic paste - two tsp
finely chopped pearl onions - 4
coriander finely chopped - 2 tbs
curry leaves finely chopped - 2 tbs
salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients with little water to the consistency of chappathi dough - drop spoonfulls in hot oil and remove the pakoras when golden brown onto a paper towel to drain excess oil. Serve with hot tea/coffee on a cold rainy day !!

Help !!

Dear Tamil blog-buddies !!
I missed this week's episode of Sunday Samayal. Did any of you see it and remember this weeks' Grammathu virundu ?. If yes, can you mail me the recipe at revathicsm@yahoo.com or as a comment to this post. I will include due credits. Thank you very much !

Grammathu Virundu - Feast from the villages

Villages, the backbone of India, are the rural parts of India where the age old traditions and practices are still in vogue. Sun TV the regional sattelite channel broadcasts a weekend food program called " Sunday Samayal ". This program has a series called Grammathu Virundhu - roughly translates as " Feast from the village " hosted by Paravai Muniamma.


Paravai Muniamma demonstrating - Courtesy suntv

She presents recipes that are from the olden days - truly nutritious and healthy without much hungama. I thought it would be good to present her recipes on my blog. This would be a nice place to collect all the village recipes - some with forgotten ingredients like ragi, millet, etc. In times where we do not even have access to mothers recipes, I think getting access to a grandmother's recipe from villages is worth treasuring. I might not try out all these recipes but thought I will try to capture them in my blog. If any of you try out these dishes please let me know, I will create a link.

Today the recipe presented was "Verkadalai vadai - Peanut fritters". Here is her recipe. She does not give the quantity of any of the ingredients. I will try to interpret what I have seen.


Ingredients :

- small onions ( pearl onions ) - 5, 6
- all purpose flour - 3 tablespoon
- rice flour - 3/4 cup
- roasted, powdered peanuts - 1/2 to 3/4th cup
- curry leaves 4
- coriander leaves - 2 tsps
- green chillies - 3
- salt
- oil for deep frying

Procedure :

- Mix all ingredients except oil.
- Heat oil
- Add a tbs of oil to the mixture of ingredients. Mix well. Add some water until the consistency of dough. ( dont add water to the hot oil mixture it will splutter )
- Flatten balls of dough and deep fry.

Paruppu Rasam - Dal Rasam

rice with dalrasam, potato fry, coriander chutney

The weather today in Fremont is just like Ooty - cold but not chilly, drizzling and very cozy. I remember the wonderful class trip we had from college to Ooty. We had a very adventurous and spectacular time ! All the nice fights, early morning ooty tea - I became so nostalgic !!! Sigh!

I prepared a simple meal today rasam, potato and coriander chutney. Rasam suits best for any cold weather. The rasam is not like the way my mother prepares it. My amma does not put dal in the rasam and I find it taking altogether a new level when dal is added. The tanginess of the rasam reduces by the addition of dal.

This is how I did it -

• Boil handful of washed toor dal - Tuvaram paruppu, Kandi pappu in a vessel

• In another vessel take lime size tamarind, one ripe tomato and squeeze well. Strain and keep aside.
  

• Whack 2 garlic pods and add to the tamarind-tomato extract.

• Heat a tsp of gingelly oil season with mustard, 2 dried red chillies, cumin and curry leaves.

• Add the tamarind-tomato extract, boiled toor dal with the water

• Add a tsp of rasam powder ( or pepper jeera powder )

• When the rasam foams add cilantro/coriander.

Salad Stir-fry

With no mood to cook elaborate food, I just thought of finishing the day with a salad. I went to the nearest salad bar from work, and grabbed whatever I thought I felt like. An hour of train journey after that changed my mind to eat salad. So I made a stir-fry with all the veggies - Added a dash of soya sauce, ketchup and oyster sauce. Yummy stir-fried veggies with left-over rice !!!