VADA – PAST TO PRESENT

Let us bring up the indispensable batter savoury fritters from South Indian gourmet table. Vada would serve as snacks, would be the side dish for South Indian meals and more suitable to palate for best South Indian breakfast along with dosa, Idli or Pongal. Vada holds star position in the menu cards and it is a profitable and customary item in South Indian restaurant. This South Indian favourite could be found as street food in South Indian localities in various countries.

Vada is known for its antiquity. Ancient literature says that the deep fried products got familiarized and popularized in 15th century, during the vijayanagar dynasty. So we belive that vada might have originated in 15th century. Over a period of time, vada got various ingredients and by its methods of cooking. The best example is the two centuries old paniyaram.

Readers of my blog may know best options to prepare delectable vadas. Anyhow, I am just reminding you the possibilities of preparing mouthwatering vadas at your homes.


Instructions


Whatever recipes you follow, grinding is a very important matter in vada preparation. If the grinding is proper, no need for any other substitution


Soak the urad dal (lentils) for about 20 - 30 minutes
Too much soaking of urad dal (lentils) in water would made the vada batter more elastic and sticky and also absorbs more oil while deep frying
Add minimum 50g of rice flour to a kg of medu vada batter. A tbsp of maida (refined flour) renders good golden colour
Maintain balanced heat or oil, too much heat may harden and destroy the colour of vada
Add water as needed while grinding the batter of medu vada. Grind till the batter become white and soft
It is better to add ginger paste in medu vada batter rather than chopped ginger
For paruppu vada, add 50kg of tuvar dal and urad dal along with a kg of bengal gram
Keep a little bengal gram from grinding. Add the same in the grinded mixture later to give a crunchy taste
Serve thick chutnies and sambhar, not a watery one
KEERAI VADA (Spinach Vada)
Ingredients
Bengal gram flour - a handful
Rice flour - a handful
Cornflour - a handful
Soda bi carbonate - a pinch
Salt to taste
Spinach Varieties - Minimum 03 varieties - 100g
Coriander leaves - a handful
Chopped Onion - 2 nos
Saunf- 1/2 tsp
Ginger & Garlic -1 tsp
Chopped greenchillies - 1 tbsp
Water
Method
Combine all the above ingredients. Sprinkle little water and mix well.
Make patties and deep fry it in moderate hot oil till it gets slight golden colour. Take out from oil now.
Reserve it for next 10 minutes. Deep fry the reserved vada again till it cook and renders good golden colour.
!!!!!!! Above instructions fetch you new ideas and regional recipe must be a new taste for your buds. You shall have in these rainy days. Enjoy the drizzle with puffy hot vadas.

CARROT HALWA

Very recently tasted a new yummy carrot halwa which is done by my chef friends. This carrot halwa is not like the usual one in taste. Different flavour, colour and style make this halwa unique and turn it into a heavenly taste. I have enjoyed this carrot halwa till the last spoon of my plate. This alone leads me to blog it now and may help you to transform the ordinary carrot halwa into a special one.

You may think what’s there in this carrot halwa, yes it is simple and ordinary one to prepare for any one. May be we will get many recipes by prowling internet but it’s hard for us to collect the best directions to prepare this gorgeous halwa.

Some prepares the little soggy carrot halwa or some shall do carrot halwa dry. After seeing the best carrot halwa you might feel it resembles just as a  grated carrot. But the blend of essential ingredients and caramelized carrot are only could give the tastiest and glossy product.

Points to be remember
1. Do not squeeze the juices of grated carrot which affects the nutrients, flavor and colour of the halwa.

2. Saute carrot in ghee to extract the flavour of halwa, but fry it till half done.

3. To tenderize the carrot add hot milk into the sautéed carrot, otherwise cold milk makes it hard.

4. Sugar should be added immediately after carrot halfway is done in ghee, this makes the sugar caramelize and coat it over the carrot and separate it.

5. Khoya (concentrated milk solids) must be added after the milk is absorbed by the carrot. Khoya helps to give texture and taste.

The instructions definetly will bring you an extraordinary tasty halwa and take you from the ordinary to a special one.

Let’s tantalize by the taste.

Note

You can use this instruction for any vegetable based halwa preparation – Carrot, Beetroot, Pumpkin

Appam | Appam Recipe | Making of Appam

Golden crispy dish with white fluffy inner –absolutely it is a gorgeous handsome delicacy "Appam". In India, appam used to be the favorite breakfast of keralities. But now the trend is changed. The taste of appam takes it across the world wherever Indians live. Countries like Sri lanka, Malaysia, serves beautiful varieties of ‘appams’ and it is a top notch favorite in the restaurant card.

Appam is another fermented pancake in south India like dosa and it is cooked in specially designed cook ware and needs bit of experience to acquire the original shape of the appam by waving the appam batter in the special cookware (made by cast iron). It is an art that needs some skill, though visibly quite easy but not in reality.

Appam is cooked by combined effect of heat and steam, by closing the appam ware with lid produce steam that makes appam fluffy and steamy soft. Because of its captivating look and being also liked by children’s, most vegetarians’ joints too include this dish in their menu. In Tamilnadu most of us like to eat Appam in the dinner time too.

Mutton curry, Vegetable stew, Coconut milk, Kadalai curry (channa curry) based on varutharacha masala are the best match for Appam.

Kallappam is a type of special appam in which toddy is added to ferment the batter. It gives good taste to appam and this is not cooked in specific appam ware hence it is poured over tawa and cooked as like ordinary pancake.

USEFUL GUIDELINES

Good appam have always slight sour and sweet taste and all bind heavenly with dippings in a curry.


Adding coconut water gives good taste to appam.

Soak rice for two hours in water, dry it well and after this coarse or grind it along with other ingredients.

Reserve the batter for six hours for fermentation.

Adding more urad dal destroys the colour and the original taste of appam and if it is more, it sticks to the cookware and makes into brown quickly.

Add salt and baking powder before cooking.

If appam is not coming out easily from the ware or it’s stuck to the ware, just rub the inner portion of the ware with onions or fry some eggs or do some tempering. Later you pour the batter and now the appam will not stick.

DIFFERENT BATTER STYLES

Preparation of appam batter varies to bring out the distinguished tastes. Each batter style differs in addition or substitution of ingredients in preparations. Some use yeast for fermenting the batter.

Raw rice – 1 kg, Coconut – 1 no, Boiled rice – 1 handful

Method
Soak rice in water and dry it well. Add grated coconut and boiled rice combine all ingredients and grind it in dosa batter consistently. Afterwards let it be kept for fermentation. It is the easiest household method when it often called as “Palappam”.

This is a style of batter preparation we would see across Tamilnadu, mixture of two different rice and urad dal.

Raw rice-1/4 kg , urad dal- 100g, fenugreek- 2tsp.

Method
Soak rice and urad dal and combine all ingredients, grind it like dosa batter. Ferment and use.

This is another style of using rice porridge in the batter to ferment.

Raw rice- 200g, Coconut milk- 250ml, Rice porridge- 50ml.

Method

Soak rice and dry it. Then powder it.
Sieve the rice and use the residue in the siever to prepare the porridge.
Now combine all ingredients. Prepare the batter as little thinner than dosa batter.

NOTE

Use the mix of coconut oil and ghee to elicit the good flavour

Add salt and soda salt at the end

Some use yeast in appam for fast fementation, but it gives hard flavour to appam. This is mostly preffered by industries.

Readers, I believe such an intro’s and bread and butter tips on appam may help household to dish out different styles of appam in their respective house to delight their family.

Happy hot and steamy appam day.

I shall appreciate your feedback.

To Curry

To Curry ….. again. Global foodies favourite talk is inexplicable in the Indian curries gallery here I take you into my much awaited TO CURRY blogging. Curry is a perfect blend of masala, spices and oil, literally say, it is a genuine seasoning.

Ancient scripts say black peppercorns (Karunkari) were used to spice up the dishes in sangam age, especially in meat preparations. So for that reason till now any spice preparation made out of vegetables (oh, see the word KaiKari in Tamil) and meats are called curry.

Tempering is the indicator of your efficiency and flavour of the tempering speaks whether you are the best cook. With any more addition or reduction of ingredients, it may be burned atlast the complete curry spoiled. After that whatever trick performed by you cannot get your desired taste in it. Therefore, be conscious of tempering curry, since it is the initial one which is going to produce the best of your curries.

It’s everybody wishes to bring out the curry in red colour, that means pure red fat shall be floating (Rogan) on the top… It makes its looks nice and breathes earthy flavour to the curry.

Ok, how to bring out the same?

After mixing thoroughly the masala and fundamental ingredients add a little water and make it to simmer for sometime which helps the oil in the masala leave and floats on the curry and it adds good colour too.

Once after have seen the name curry, everyone thinks that the dish may not be finished without curryleaves. But too much of it may sometimes arrest the flavour or real taste of the curry (my next post is on curryleaves, I shall brief you on that later). So add the curryleaves whenever it is required.

After adding the thickening agents do not allow to boil, keep the flame in simmer. Otherwise, the curry will disintegrate. Use a little gingelly oil with any other oil. It is but better to use ghee and dalda for mutton and beef.

Sometimes we are not satisfied with the seasoning and it may be our habit to put masalas again and again which spoils the taste and aroma and it may not properly bind with the ingredients and it may feature raw taste to the curry. By the way, in which stage is adding the masala into curry is very important. Keep the taste of your product (curry) in mind, use the essence wisely.

Suggestion for adding essence

1. For beef and mutton you may increase the essence as per your taste buds, but add less turmeric powder. Use black peppercorns and curd which helps to enhance the scent.

2. Add less turmeric powder and spices for chicken curry.

3. Take care in tempering with fish curries. It is advisable to use ground redchilli paste for good authentic colour and taste.

4. To push in masala to the curry add some “Otty Masala” to pump up the taste. It is to simply sauté the shallots and chopped tomatoes and just grinds it in mixie. Use this ground mixture while preparing any curry at the time of tempering.

5. Put the sour kind ingredients ex: (tomatoes) only after the main ingredients are mixed well and cooked with masala to get better taste.

6. Extensively use the cumin powder in meat preparation; it is the only masala powder which easily penetrates to the fibers of meat.

All Purpose Masala Powder

Cardamom – 1 tbsp
Cloves – 1 tsp
Cinnamon – 3barks
Saunf (Fennel seeds) – 2 tbsp
Kalpasi – 1 tsp
Mace – 3nos
Nutmeg – 2nos

Dry fry the above ingredients. Powder it finely. Store it in airtight container and use whenever require.

To get the non-vegetarian taste in vegetarian curries use my above APM and also add a little for all curries to get the desired taste and flavour.

Are you ready to cooking up the best curry? Go ahead… Enjoy the taste. Soon I shall be back on Curryleaves vs Curry….

Note

Try the correct proportion of ingredients and do observation on your method to dish out a yummy curry.

Tagline

Good responses for my earlier post on “Secrets of Dosa Success” by your wave of posts were tagged into my blog success. Many requested to write something on curry, these request from my lovable readers urged me to post this new “To Curry”.

Secret of Dosas success

Dosas are the jewels of the South Indian culinary term. It is a perfect breakfast and dinner. It has necessary nutrients and easy to prepare at rushy morning hour. But preparing tastiest, crispy dosas are intrigue to commoners. Tracking some nuances in the preparation of dosa everyone can make crisp, tastiest, papery dosas at home itself as like preparing in hotels.

Dosas are very much liked by the elders and children, so households are happy to agree whatever the tips available on preparing dosas and try out the same. Thereafter dosas are offered to the god as oblation in lord Shiva and Vishnu temples. Dosa is a Sanskrit word says dosa = doh + sssh, in hindi “doh” means two, turning the dosa twicely and “sssh” indicates the sizzling sound while pouring the batter over hot plate.

Soaking time of the urad dal has to go minimum two hours and rice for three hours, grind them separately for better result. The measurement determines the best kind of dosas which keep the dosa fresh for a long time, painless to spread the batter over griddle and can take dosas easily from griddle.

Add 300g – 350g of Urad dhal to 11/2kg of dosa rice is the perfect ratio to get desired quality dosas. Some says adding fenugreek, boiled rice, mashed banana gives softness and crispiness but I suggest there is nothing against better than the correct ratio. Even though if you want more crispiness and softness you can mix 100g of maida to the above said dosa batter quantity. For faster fermentation add 25g yeast to 11/2kg of dosa rice batter, takes two hours for the fermentation. Ordinary fermentation goes upto six hours. If you don’t want the batter to ferment much cover the batter with banana leaves which prevents over fermentation.-

Valid Tips

1. Keep the tawa in normal heat, swab the tawa with onion to take out the dosa smoothly.

2. Always use mild accompaniments for dosas, spicy gravies screen the taste of dosas

3. Mix together gingelly oil, dalda, ghee to enhance the dosa flavour, crispiness and for good colour.

4. Slightly sprinkle little water over prepared dosa which preserve the freshness for longtime.

5. Chutnies like Mint and Coriander are the ideal option, lessly spiced mutton gravy, Chicken curry, Kola Pal Urundai are the good dips for dosas.

6. Some prefer tangy curries like Tamarind curry, Fish curry -actually tangy base curries mask the uniqueness of the dosas.

7. NV’s like meaty taste and to increase crispiness may add egg into the dosa batter.

8. For rawa dosa, blend rawa and dosa rice batter in equal proportion.

9. Grind smoothly for dosas, grind the urad dal for 20 minutes and rice for half an hour.

Dosa Recipe

Rocket Dosa

Rice – 1 Kg
Urad Dal – 100g
Maida (Refined Flour) – 100g
Egg – 2 nos (optional)
Salt – to taste

Coconut Chutney – as required

For Masala

Sliced Onion – 100g
Potato – 2nos
Slitted Green chillies – 2nos
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Sambhar Powder – 1tbsp
Oil – 3 tbsp

Ginger & Garlic Paste - 1tbsp
Urad dal – ½ tsp
Curryleaves and salt

Method

Prepare dosa batter with the first five items.
Prepare watery coconut chutney which is not tempered
Make thick masala by adding masala ingredients one by one
Spread the dosa batter gently over tawa and apply the chutney all over
Apply oil over the dosa. Keep the thick masala in the centre of the dosa
Fold the masala dosa into two. Serve hot with accompaniments.

Many varieties, types, tastes of dosas are available, after reading this posting you will be master in dosa preparation. Today our dosa’s and Idlis make great waves in foreign countries; this made the symbol for South Indian food across the world. Another one note, few Tamil scholars says may be the word dosa is derived from the Tamil word Osai. Ok anyhow now you are in the temper of try out.

Have a good dosa at your plate.

Murukku – A Sentimental Snack …..

Murukku is a common snack preferred by all ages in all seasons and it being as a gifted bite in South India. Murukku adorned all festive seasons in Tamilnadu and it is a sentimental savoury of here. Some use their hands to prepare the Murukku, which one called Suthu (twisted) Murukku. (Twist the dough around the pebble). Murukkus are available in many varieties and name...... manapparai murukku, achu murukku, kaara murukku and more…

The mixing of ingredients is one of the prime factors in all cooking, Use 500g raw rice flour to 100g urad dal, recent day’s good quality readymade Murukku flours are available in different brand names.

You would know the preparation of this unique savoury but I just reveal you my experienced instructions to prepare the tastiest Murukku.

Instructions

A tsp of soda bi carbonate gives natural taste, colour and flavour to the Murukku. As more, the soda and fresh oil together incorporates new taste to it.

In one word crispiness alone makes the murukku tastier, to get crisp form add little dalda (vanaspati) into the dough mixture, assure you for the better texture and crispiness. Adding the correct quantity of urad dal also gives the crispiness. Crispiness longer the shelf life.

Fry the murukku in well heated oil as much possible use the fresh oil. you include masalas (redchilli powder) and colour for the spicy murukku.

Drain the murukku well and store it in air tight container

Just try my quantity

Branded murukku flour – 500g
Urad dal – 100g
Vanaspati – 50g
Jeera seeds – 1/2 tsp
Black sesame seeds – a little
Saunf – a little
Basil – a little
Salt – as required and water

Use the above basic murukku quantity to prepare the variety of murukku at your home. (karukku murukku) Hearing the biting sound … continue… hey because of karukku murukku noise it so called murukku.... ????? ssssssss hhaha...

Happy eating and cooking…

Making of Best Crispy Vadas

Vadai – that name is very common, familiar one in the far and wide of Tamilnadu. It’s a custom of accommodate the houses on all the auspicious days.

Venpongal, sambhar, chutnies and Vadai are the god blessing breakfast in Tamilnadu, the best breakfast not end up with the vadai here. Go anywhere on the Tamilnadu roadside, your eyes never missed this nicely stacked Vadais in the tea stall.

Tea and Vadai are the good friends in combination. Throughout the India, one can taste vadai in different taste, texture also that prepare with different ingredients.

Paruppu Vadai called Aamma Vadai, Urundai Vadai and mouthwatering, melting Ulunthuvadai called Methu vadai. Different recipes, tips are airing for the making of vadai; I am very splendid to give my following best simple ideas of making a secret of best vadas,

Soaking time of dal shouldn’t go above 20minutes at any cost. If you soak it for long time, the vadai will not raise. Sprinkle little water at the time of grinding the mixture for Methuvada, the consistency should be like halwa, wouldn’t stick it in your hand and very soft.

You got the medu vada mixture in right consistency, there is no need of adding soda salt and Rice flour and if you like you can add little rice flour for crispiness. Don’t add water while grinding for paruppu vadai, it ooze out the water at the time of grinding how much it absorbed during the time of soaking. You can grind it little coarsely. This mixture is lack of consistency you can add little Bengal gram to correct the stability.

Keep away little quantity of Bengal gram dal after soak it out, add that later to the grinded mixture, it gives better texture and taste to the Aamaa Vadai. To make Urundai vadai use the same tips as like paruppu vadai, but no need to keep the Bengal gram, especially you can grind the mixture finely for this preparation. Give much attention on the temperature of the hot oil.

Asafoetida, Greenchillies, Coriander leaves, Curryleaves, Jeera, Bellari Onion, Peppercorns, Saunf are the common ingredients using for each vadais, that adds nourishing and special taste.

I am guarantee that’s the best and shortest tips for making a great vadai, follow that go ahead with your new tasty vadai attempt.

“Hats off for the South Indian vadas…..” anyone heard about the Sutta vadai, its available in our resto…..