One day in this month (March), I suddenly felt like exploring world cuisines at home. I don't quite know how I got the thought, but i wanted to randomly pick a world cuisine, read all i can about it, pick some famous dishes, and try out the recipes for you guys right from my kitchen. The idea was awesome and I was so excited! I picked Irish cuisine randomly to start with... I read a lot about their way of cooking, eating and ingredients. 

As soon as I say Irish, what are the things that come to your mind?
St. Patrick's day?
Irish coffee? Baileys? 
May be more... after researching a bit about Ireland, I came to know that its the birthplace of good music. Heard about Trinity college which certifies Music learners, thats in Ireland. Even folk music is famous, their landscapes, not to mention their beer & whiskey, etc. Their cuisine uses a lot of potato in their dishes after 16th century. It was the cheapest vegetable they could get in times of war and draught. It's a simple, hearty, seasonal and comfort cuisine. So let's have a look at some of their famous dishes, so next time you go to Ireland or a restaurant, you could give these a try.

Who doesn't love curd? Except me who doesn't like it much on the chats, especially the dahi puri. But I really love this one. This can be whipped up in 2 minutes and can be called as yogurt spaghetti pasta or thayir semiya. ;)

Ingredients:
Semiya/ vermicelli - 1 1/2 cups
Thick Curd - 1 cup
Milk - 2 tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Broken urad dal - 1 tsp
Cashews - 6
Curry leaves
Finely chopped onions - 1/4 cup (optional)
Finely chopped green chillies - 2
Chopped Coriander leaves
Oil
Salt

I remember whenever we head for North India trips... we go in search of local dhabas and have the stuffed parathas roadside. They are yummy apart from the fact that they are almost deep fried in oil while cooking. 
Nevertheless we simply love stuffed parathas made at home too with less oil/ghee. They are absolutely yummy with or without any side dish. Its quite easy to make too. I love aalu paratha and have tried it many times. This time I wanted to try something healthy and so picked up raddish and gobi. I know how your face turns when you hear raddish. It's smelly only when you grate it, once you cook it as i say.. there is absolutely no smell of raddish. People would never find what was the stuffing inside. 

This is my Husband's all time favorite Indo-Chinese dish, Vegetable Hakka Noodles!! Usually my MIL makes it with Maggi noodles, he loves it a lot.... but I made the same with Wheat/ Hakka Noodles to make it a bit more healthy. Apart from this I have added lot of crunchy veggies and olive oil -  A really healthy Noodles Recipe!!

Day by day I have started to feel the importance of our age old food habits and their medicinal benefits. We have totally forgotten about our grandmom's home remedies and we are heading to the Hospital everytime ending up having a big hole in our pockets!! Someday I would want to make a collection of these age old Indian Ayurveda and Vedic remedies to common ailments and even modern diseases. The ancient scripts which mention these remedies are not less than 1000 years old...!!!! They are the real jackpot we should aim for!!

So How many of us have heard about Navadhaniyam (Tamil word) or the Nine Cereals (Nava means Nine and Dhanya means grains)? It is mentioned in the ancient vedas, and is still used in India for all auspicious rituals. But we do not know the real importance of these cereals, it was supposed to be used as our staple food for leading a healthy life.

We are either having more rice or wheat in India now... South indians started having a lot of Wheat thinking it is better than having carbohydrates in Rice. But that's not true!! Wheat has gluten (Glue-like property) which is hard to digest. Another point Wheat will never suit South Indians... Having lots of wheat will create heat inside the body, which is only required to those who live in extremely cold places. And we have also started having a lot of Maida/flour nowadays in the form of Pizza, Paratha, Bread, etc. We have totally forgotten about the other healthy options!!

What are the Nine Differet Grains or Cereals?
Pigeon Peas (Toor dal/Thuvarai)
Wheat
Horse Gram (Kollu)
Green Gram (Moong Dal)
Paddy/Rice
White Beans (White rajma/Avarai kai)
Black Sesame (Til/Ellu)
Chickpeas (Channa/Konda kadalai)
Black gram (Urad dal/ Ulundu)

Auspicious Significance of the Nine Grains:
Each of these grains represents one of the nine planets, and hence they are used in performing Hindu rituals like Grahapravesham or House Warming Pooja, Navaratri Pooja, etc.

Suriyan (Sun) – Wheat
Chandiran (Moon) -  Paddy/Rice 
Chevvai (Mars) - Tuvarai (Toor)
Bhudhan (Mercury) - Greengram (Moong)
Guru (Jupitor) - Chickpeas (Channa) 
Sukiran (Venus) - White Beans (White Rajma or Motchai or Avarai seeds) 
Sani(Saturn) -  Black Sesame (Til)
Rahu – Black gram (Ulundu or Urad) 
Kethu – Horse gram (Kollu)

After coming to Bangalore, I got familiar with a lot of Karnataka special dishes like Akki rotti, chiroti, jowar roti, kara bath, chow chow bath, vangi bath.... etc. But I never dared to try the Karnataka staple food - Ragi Mudhe, nothing but big Ragi balls eaten with sambar here. Out of these Akki rotti is my hubby's favorite and he also likes to try his hand in making them at home with me :) Akki rotti is an Indian style rice flour pancake.. you can either make it plain or add grated vegetables to make it more crunchy and healthier.

Whenever we are bored of making normal dosas at home, I quickly mix up some batter for a different kind of dosa like this one. You can also think of making maida dosa or wheat dosa, where you dont need any pre-planning or grinding!! This comes handy when you run out of the normal dosa batter at home. Rava dosa is our favorite ina ny south indian hotel. It's crispy, lacy in texture, yellow colored in most of the hotels. So lets move onto the recipe for an instant and crispy rava dosa.

Recently I ve been addicted to Foodie programs on Fox traveller. After watching a lot of street food shows, I wanted to try something different at home. I decided to add lot of veggies to my meal and make it tasty too.
I made my own veg fajitas recipe and it turned out super tasty!! :)