JFI - Soya Palak

Yesterday I had some guests to my house. They were americans who love indian food. I always tell them that restaurant food is not what we cook at home. So to prove the point I invited them for dinner. I made chicken kurma, veggie biryani, soya palak and vermicelli payasam.

I actually wanted to make palak paneer but I forgot to make or buy paneer. So I thought I will substitute paneer with soya nuggets. I actually dont know the original recipe of palak paneer and searched. Found one on Mahanandi and one on letzcook. Mixed the two added my touches. The taste was awesome and my guests lovedd it.

The one thing I dont like about palak paneer is that the texture is like that of Chutney - all pureed. I wanted to maintain the texture of the soya palak.


JFI - Greens by Mahanandi

From the pantry

Soya nuggets
poppy seeds
roasted channa dal ( dhalia, udaichakadalai )
garam masala
chilli powder
cumin
broken cashews
oil
salt

From the fridge

Spinach
coconut
green chillies
tomato
onion
garlic
ginger

Make a paste of 1 tsp each of coconut, poppy seeds, roasted channa dal, a medium sized tomato, 1/2 inch ginger, 2 cloves garlic, 2 green chillies with a little bit of salt.

Finely chop half a medium sized onion. Heat a teaspoon oil in a pan and saute five handfuls of spinach. Remove to a plate when wilted. Wipe the pan with a paper towel and add tablespoon of oil. Add tsp of cumin, followed by onion and cashews.

Whip the cooled wilted spinach in a blender. Now add the spinach to the pan with onions and cashews. Add the ground paste. Add a teaspoon of chillipowder and a teaspoon of garam masala followed by the soya nuggets.

Close and cook till all spices are combined well. Around 10 to 15 minutes. Enjoy with chapathi or naan.

This dish is extremely nutritious with protein for soy, iron and minerals from Spinach - truly guilt-free. The cashews can also be ground to make the paste but I thought it gives great nutty texture when broken cashews are added.

Thakaali kuruma - Nostalgia Personified

Creating the Tamilcuisine index is one refreshing experience. Not only did I rediscover the variety in tamil cuisine but also been able to appreciate the varied cultures and the different ways of whipping up the same dish. Not to mention I discovered so many blogs that I did not know about.

Though I had visited Kay's blog earlier ( When she announced her pregnancy ) I somehow missed the wonderful recipes she had in store until I was searching her blog for some authentic recipes.

Kay is from Kongunaadu that is the downsouth around Raasipuram, Salem etc. More here from Wiki...

She had posted a thakaali kuruma recipe that I would have sworn was my mom's original recipe - till I read her blog. I have never seen that recipe in any restaurant neither in any cuisine I knew. I love love thakaali kuruma so much for a hearty breakfast with idli or dosai.

What amazes me is my amma has not stepped anywhere near kongunaadu, nor has any friends there, yet this kuruma is the exactly the same as Kay has blogged.

To recreate the recipe I bought small variety vine-ripe tomatoes for the farmers market. Rest was from her recipe word to word. I even managed to get a few saunf seeds on the keyboard of my laptop ( errr... I kept the laptop on my kitchen counter !!! )

The secret of this recipe is to downplay the quantities of the masaala. Just one clove, 2 green chillies, one tablespoon each of saunf, poppy seeds, roasted channadal and coconut. Everything in lesser quantities except the tomatoes ofcourse 4 indian-medium-sized vine ripe tomatoes.

I made a urgent call today morning to amma to let her know I recreated her magic.. Thanks to Kay !!

The Recipe from her site :
Ripe tomatoes - 4-5, finely chopped
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig, chopped
Wet Masala:
Garlic - 3 cloves
Ginger - 1 inch
Roasted channa dal/Pottu kadalai - 1 tbsp
Poppy seeds / khuskhus - 1 tsp
Coconut - 1 tbsp (dry/frozen is fine)
Cinnamon - 1 small piece
Clove - 1
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Green chillies - 2 (you can add more to make it more hot)

Make a fine paste of the wet masala ingedients using some water and a pinch of salt. Green chillies when ground to a paste sometimes, turn slightly bitter. The pinch of salt is added to the wet masala while grinding to prevent this.

Heat oil in a sauce pan and add the onions and curry leaves. Saute till the onions turn translucent. Add the tomatoes and sprinkle some salt to help the tomatoes cook faster. When the tomatoes are done, add the turmeric powder, ground masala and some more salt. Add about 2 cups of water and cover the sauce pan. simmer for about 15-20 mins. Garnish with some coriander leaves and serve hot with hot dosas or idlis.


For dinner, I had muttai dosa with the same kuruma. Awesome Awesome is all I can say !!



I want to contribute this idli - muttaidosai - kuruma combo to RCI-Tamil Cusines' event hosted by LakshmiK

Paasi paruppu Payasam

• From the pantry :
  - Moong dal ( also called Payatham paruppu, split green gram, paasi paruppu, Pesara pappu )
  - Jaggery
  - Cashews
  - Cardamom
  - Ghee
  
• 
  From the fridge :
  - Milk
  - Coconut (optional)
  

1. Heat a vessel and add a cup of paasi paruppu. Roast on medium heat until you smell the dal. Probably 4 to 5 mins

2. Then cool and wash the dal. Its just my way of doing it. This step is optional.

3. Add 4 cups of water and cook the dal. You can alternatively pressure cook with 2 cups of water, but I find the texture of the dal much better this way. This step will take around 20 mins. Extra water does no harm here.

4. Heat a skillet add 3 tablespoons of ghee ( come on ! Its a festival day ) and fry handful of cashews until golden brown.

5. In another vessel heat a cup of water to three fourth cup of jaggery. Heat till the jaggery dissolves. Strain through a cheese cloth. Jaggery will have impurities like sand. This step is to strain those impurities

6. Add the jaggery water to the boiling dal and continue to simmer for another 3 minutes.

7. Make a powder of 4 cardamom pods and add to the simmering mixture ( or use the mortar and pestle). Back home it will be the pods between the newspaper and quite a few good whacks with the mathhu, the dal masher.

8. Optionally you can add two tablespoons of grated coconut at this time.

9. Add a cup of warm milk and the fried cashews along with the ghee. Serve cold or warm.

Yummy yumm !!

New Tamil Recipes Index

A while ago I saw Shaheen's blog about a new recipes index of all kerala recipes. It is not trying to cook something and taking pictures instead collect all these recipes in one single place so anyone can go to one single place to check out for a recipe instead of going to google search.

I thought it was great idea and immediately I wanted to create a similar index for Tamil recipes. I asked Shaheen if I could copy the idea. She kindly agreed. I started out the template and asked a few tamil bloggers for help. Prema Sundar chipped in and we started working on the template and searching for recipes - thus Essence of Tamilcuisine took shape.

Its for you that we created it. Its a one-point to know about the versatile Kootu, Sambar and umpteen different Poriyals - All well blogged and documented by our friend in the blogosphere.

Spread the word and link it. Let it be well-utilized !!! Dont forget to let us know how it looks and whether you like it or not!!!

ps. I am looking for a vazhai ilai lunch ( food served on banana leaf ) as a logo for our index site. Ideas and pictures welcome. Ofcourse you get due credits !!

Update : Thanks guys for your enthusiastic logo suggestions.. We have a handful of vazhaiilais now.

Iniyia Puthandu Nalvazhthukkal - Happy New Year !

Kariveppilai powder ( Curry Leaves Powder )

When I saw Indiras' lovely lovely picture of the curry leaf twig, I was just gazing at that picture for a while - the quality of the picture was tooo good. Just then did it occur to me that curry leaf is an often forgotten ingredient but nevertheless filled with micro-nutrients.

Curry leaves are among the richest sources of micronutrients, antioxidants and carotene. They are also used to increase the appetite of convalescents. Curry leaf mixed with limejuice is a folk remedy for morning sickness. ( Source : The Hindu )

We had a couple of curryleaf trees at home in India. Sometimes we have to trim off the tree, because the tree will start to bend because of the weight of the leaves. Then we will give away the leaves for free to all our neighbours and sell-off the remaining huge sackfuls.

Here in USA the matters are upside down. You have to shell out quite a bit to take a couple twigs of not-so-fresh leaves.

One of the have-to-haves when coming back from India is curry leaves powder or Kariveppilai powder. It is one of the best way to store the leaves for a long time - a spicy roasted blend of curry leaves, dry red chillies, peppercorns, urad dal, channa dal & salt.

Roast one cup of curry leaves until slightly crispy. Set aside. Roast 2 dry red chillies, 2 tablespoon of peppercorns until the chillies change color. Set aside. Now roast two tablespoon of urad dal and two tablespoon of channa dal until color changes and you smell the aroma. All the roasting is without any oil.

Cool all the ingredients. Add salt and make a powder using the coffee grinder.

Just a teaspoon full of this powder over hot rice and a dab of ghee is one fulfilling starting course in a typical Tamil Lunch.

Kariveppilai podi saadam ( Curryleaf powder rice) - For

Lakshmi's RCI-Tamil Cuisine ,

Nupurs' K-for Indian Vegetables,

Indira's JFI-Greens