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.
Since I'm basically from Chennai, I always love fishes and other seafood varieties. Even when I'm writing this, I'm drooling for my mother's fish curry and fish fry. But I never learnt to know the different types of fishes my mom cooks... I just Vanjaram (Sheer fish), Shankara (Red Snapper), Sura (Shark) and there ends my fish knowledge!! Same goes with different Greens available here!!
Usually my fish curry is pretty simple with small onions, garlic and tomato, in a tamarind base curry. Its simple and tasty, but I wanted to try something different. Make the curry a little thick and try to bring in the authentic Kerala taste with coconut and other spices. So I landed in this recipe of roasting and grinding spices with coconut to make this gravy. It's almost similar to my masala used for Chicken gravy if you have tried it. As you can see in the picture, I made it with our regular fish fry, which is always yummy :P Recipe coming next!! ![]() I'm Back to posting recipes after a long time. Infact back to actual cooking... ;) I ve been enjoying quite a long time, travelling, eating out all kind of cuisines in US. I even tried red lobsters, crab meat.... :) Now I'm busy trying to fit in my new job. After this trip, our food habits have also changed a bit. We like a lot of salads, fries, nuts, coke, granola bars, hazelnut latte from starbucks, lots of chicken, burgers, pizzas, cheese, mayo, ranch sauce.....!! Out pf all this junk, the good thing is that I'm inspired to try out different cuisines at home. So let's move on to today's recipe. When my husband landed back in India, I wanted to cook something he really loves for breakfast and he surely would have missed it in US. I decided to make hot Idlis with our famous Chettinad chicken curry. The specialty of Chettinadu curry is choosing the perfect quantity & roasting and grinding the masala items. But trust me it's easy and worth the time it takes to roast and grind (which is just 10 mins) 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) 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!! :) I usually try my mom's proven recipe for biriyani all these years. It's totally south indian and lip smacking recipe.. but I'm not talking about that one now. I would share that recipe on a another post. But this time I tried a different way to make chicken biriyani... and it ended as exactly I wanted it to be!! We love Andhra style biriyani served in Nagarjuna Hotel in Bangalore.... (not the Hyderabadi style). This is similar to south indian style, but more of green chillies. I tried a combination on my own to mimic the Nagarjuna Biriyani... and yayyyyyy I won it!! Sandy loved it to the core!! Now let's look into the recipe:
South Indian soups are very famous across India, be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian. It is usually not the creamy version but is a clear soup made with spices like pepper. Famous ones are Kozhi (Chicken) Soup, Aatukaal (Mutton leg) Soup, Drumstick soup, Cauliflower Soup, Beetroot soup and many other unique ones. Drinking these soups are believed to be a cure for common cold, cough and fever. Grandmothers make these traditional and authentic soups with all the love and freshly ground spices, for the kids. A cup of soup can be drunk before you start your afternoon meal or you can also have it with rice. Let's see Beetroot soup recipe today. ![]() Ingredients: Beetroot chopped finely - 1 Onion sliced lengthwise - 1 Tomato chopped - 1 Green Chilli slit lengthwise - 2 or 3 Pepper Corns - 1/2 tsp Split Urad dal - 1/4 tsp Fennel seeds - 1/4 tsp Moong Dal - 1 tsp Biriyani Spices like star anise - 1 Black Stone Flower - 1 Bay leaf - 1 Cinnamon stick - 1" Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp (optional) Oil - 1 tbsp Salt Chopped Coriander to garnish Method: 1. Heat oil in the cooker pan, put all the biriyani spices and roast them until aroma arises. 2. Add the pepper corns, fennel seeds and split urad dal. 3. Now add sliced onions and green chillies. Saute well until onions are transparent. 4. Add chopped tomatoes and beetroot. Also add 1 tsp of moong dal for added flavor and texture. 5. Add salt as required and let the veggies cook for 2 mins. 6. Add 1 1/2 cups of water and close the cooker. Cook for 2 whistles, don't overcook the veggies. 7. Open the cooker, add some pepper powder if required (Since beetroots may be over sweet). Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot. You can use the same recipe for Cauliflower or plain tomato soup. This hot soup tastes great for this cold weather and the monsoon season. Happy Cooking!! Rate this recipe below. |
About KaviKavi is a foodie and loves to cook something new everyday, else she would get bored. She takes inspiration from many food bloggers. Her tried and tested recepies are shared here to inspire you. Happy Cooking!! Archives
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