Drumstick leaves stir-fry

Drumstrick leaves and drumstick in trees - Image from Cook Islands Biodiversity Database

Drumstick leaves (Moringa oleifera ) are full of essential disease-preventing nutrients, they contain:

• 7 times more Vitamin C than oranges to fight many illnesses including colds and flu
• 4 times more Vitamin A than carrots against eye disease, skin disease, heart ailments, diarrhoea
• 4 times more Calcium than milkto build strong bones and teeth
• 3 times more Potassium than bananas essential for the functioning of the brain and nerves
• nearly equal amount of Protein as in eggsbasic building blocks of all our body cells

Details of drumstick courtesy : Integrated Food Security Programme, Srilanka

Preparing drumstick leaves - Murungai-keerai in tamil, a stir-fry out of it is very easy. The only step that will take some time is to separate the leaves from its stalks. Wash two to three fistfulls of the separated leaves and drain. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a pan or kadai. Season the oil with a teaspoon of each - mustard, cumin, urad dal, channa dal, two chopped green chillies. After the mustard splutters, add the leaves. Add half a tsp of salt and half a cup water. Close and cook for 10 minutes in low simmer. Open and let it cook for another 10 minutes until all the water has evaporated. Add two tablespoons grated coconut. Serve with rice.


potatoes curry, stir-fried drumstick leaves & rice - For weekend herb blogging

Happy Pongal

Pongum mangalam endrum thanga Iniya Pongal Nalvazhthukkal !!

Wishing you a very very happy Pongal !!

Crispy Microwave Okra

I saw this recipe on Sun TV. I ever since wanted to try it out. Well whats not to love about it - its quick, easy, oil-free and most of all no need to cut the the ladies-finger!!!!

I used frozen okra for this, I am sure the end-result will be ever better by using fresh okra. Its so easy it does not have a recipe of its own. I thawed the frozen okra and scored a big vertical slit in each. Mixed some sambar powder and salt. Used a pastry brush to brush the mixture on the okra. Arranged on a plate, sprayed some oil and microwaved for 7 minutes. Depending on the microwave it might vary between 6 to 8 minutes. If you dont have sambar powder you can use mixture of chilli powder, coriander powder and little bit cumin powder.

The result is crispy spicy okra suitable as side-dish or starters -

Potato-paneer-peas curry

All North Indian dishes like aloo palak, dal makhani, sarson-ki-saag are very foreign to me. After hopping blog after blog of different cuisines I finally dwelled to try out my lighter and drier version of paneer-aloo-mutter. For this I made the paneer at home from 2% milk. Making paneer at home is a breeze.

1. Heat 2% milk until it bubbles

2. Squeeze 2 to 3 tbl of lemon juice and let the milk separate

3. drain all the liquid and collect the solids through a cheese cloth and hang it for 8 hours and cut into cubes

• 1. Saute a cup of paneer cubes in a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick pan
• 2. Remove the cubes, add another tablespoon of oil and add cumin
• 3. Saute cumin until aroma comes for a minute. Add two pods of garlic grated and half an inch of ginger root also grated.
• 4. Add finely chopped half a medium sized onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add two small potatoes chopped into half inch cubes
• 5. Make a puree of two tomatoes and add to the onion-potato mixture
• 6. Add a tsp of garam masala, two teaspoons of chilli powder. Add salt to taste. Close with lid and allow to cook for 15 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender
• 7. Add fistful of frozen peas , paneer cubes and continue to cook for a minute. Add finely chopped coriander/cilantro.

Quarter cup cream can also be stirred in to get the restaurant taste. Since the paneer cubes will not be as hard as the wholemilk paneer I added them towards the end.

curdled paneer ready to be strained

Coconut Rice ( Thengai saadam )

Coconut is so much an integral part of cooking at my mom's place. With 7 coconut trees, not a single day passed without coconut in our food. Kurma, poriyal, kozhambu all had coconut in it. With the surplus coconut we would make coconut oil and my dad always insisted that Dosais have to be drizzled wtih coconut oil. There area a number of dishes made with coconut that I absolutely love

• * coconut milk ( thengai paal ) - the ultimate combo with aapam
• * aviyal ( a to-die for blend of veggies in coconut milk
• * amma's mutton kurma ( mutton stew with coconut milk )
• * thengai paal saadam - rice cooked in coconut milk and spices
• * Illaneer ( water from the tender coconut )
• * Coconut Chutneys
• * Coconut barfi

Coconut rice ( Thengai saadam ) - JFI- Coconut

So obviously selecting a recipe for JFI was not easy. I chose coconut rice for JFI because it was the fall back recipe that my amma always did when she was short of ideas for the lunch box. I love this recipe for its simplicity too. Its ideal recipe to whip up quickly.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a kadai or wok. Season with a teaspoon each of cumin, uraddal, channa dal, mustard and curry leaves. Once the mustard pops, add finely chopped 8 pearl onions ( or 1 medium sized onion ). Allow the onions to become soft and translucent. Saute for about 8 to 10 minutes. Add a cup of shredded coconut and continue to saute for 5 minutes. Switch off the stove and add two teaspoon of freshly ground black/white pepper. Add a cup to cup and half of cooked/cooled rice to the mixture. Enjoy with mint chutney.

Prawn curry & fish

I love my non-veg dishes that my mom used to make for me when I was back home. Sundays never passed without some non-veggie item, sometimes more than one. Seafood was my alltime favourite. Mostly because we got it fresh as we used to be close to the coast. But as luck might have it, Ravi is not a big fan of sea food. So I almost dont cook sea food, solely because it is time consuming and who has the time to cook just for me !!!!

Whenever I feel I miss non-veg food, I blog-hop to Shaheen's site for her non-veg collection. Her food literally makes me drool. During this holiday season I had so much time and I dragged Ravi to the Chinese market to buy prawns and fish. I bought half a pound of prawns ( that was just 10 prawns exactly ) and one pomfret which was the size of my palm.

I did no fancy thing with the prawn curry. Simple and yummy just as my amma would do it. This curry was special to me in several ways. It was the first time I cooked prawn curry after two years !! I used the iron kadai that my amma used every single day until I flicked it from her!!! It was truly a treat to me, just for me after a longgg time during this holiday season..


The most important thing was the memory associated with this prawn curry. As soon as the curry is made, amma would remove the curry to a bowl, leaving a couple of prawns and a tad bit of curry in the kadai. Then she would add some cooked rice to the kadai, scrape and mix with all the curry that is sticking to the kadai, make round balls of it and give us each mouthfuls the tasty prawn curry rice. It would be just soooo delicious.

Cooking with her kadai, I did the same. I could not wait to take better pictures. Between taking pics and popping the curry balls, I chose the later he he he !


Prawn curry in Ammas' Kadai
Ingredients

• 1 inch piece of ginger grated
• 3 cloves of garlic grated
• 1 medium sized onion chopped
• 2 vine-ripe tomatoes
• 10 prawns deshelled, deveined
• fistful cilantro finely chopped
• for seasoning - 2 tbl oil, half tsp each of mustard and cumin
• 2 tsp sambar powder ( or 1 tsp chillipowder and 1 tsp dhaniya powder)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• salt to taste

Prawn curry urundai

• Heat oil in a kadai/pan. Season the oil with the seasoning ingredients
• Add grated ginger and garlic.
• Wait for a minute and add onions and fry until soft or for 5 minutes
• Add chopped tomatoes continue to saute for 5 minutes
• Add prawns, turmeric, sambar powder.
• Add half a cup of water if needed.
• Close and let it cook for 10 to 15 minutes
• Open and continue to cook until all the water is absorbed.
• Add chopped cilantro for garnish and enjoy over hot rice.

Fish curry