Curd (Yogurt) rice / Dadhojanam

Being an Andhrite, we end our meals with a dollop of curd that is usually mixed with rice. Today, I craved for this fruit flavored curd rice that tastes so yummy and delectable.

Yogurt seasoned with little spicy tempering and fruity flavor that seeps into the creamy yogurt is an absolute heart winner. A key aspect of curd rice has always been the freshly set soft and smooth home made yogurt.

I got some pomegranate and saved one for this recipe. The color looks so tempting and tastes wonderful as we bite into each seed.

Ingredients-

• 2cups cooked Rice
• 4 cups Curd (Yogurt)
• 1cup Milk
• 1 Whole pomogranate seeds
• 1 apple diced into small cubes (Optional)
• Grapes (optional)
• Pineapple (Optional)
• 1 tbsp Urad dal
• 1tbsp Chana dal
• 1 tsp whole peppercorns (Optional)
• ½ inch Ginger finley grated
• 10 Green chilies or to taste
• 4 Red chilies or to taste
• 10 Cashew nuts halved
• 2 tbsps oil
• hand full of Curry leaves
• Salt to taste

Curd rice with Pomogranate / Jewel rice

Directions-

Mash the cooked rice liberally to make it soft . Add curd (yogurt) in excess as rice tends to absorb it. Now, add milk to the curd rice (it stops the curd rice from turning sour), as it gives a more creamy flavor. Add salt to taste and set it aside.

Heat 2tbsp of oil in a Kadai and add mustard seeds once they pop up add urad dal , chana dal , pepper, green chilli pieces , red chillies , grated ginger and fry till all the ingredients are well fried.

Add cashews and fry till they are slightly brown.Add curry leaves and set a side.

To the curd (yougrt) rice, add all desired fruits. Now add the tempering and mix well. Serve it at room temp by itself or with lemon pickle.

Milk and Curd can be added more in quantity if desired

Pomogranate Curd rice served with raw onions

Boondi laddu

Hope every one had a safe and happy diwali.  We went to temple and they gave sparkles to all kids (both my elder and yonger got them). My elder son had so much fun with them, while my younger son is hesitent to touch them, my eldest took the pleasure of having all the sparkles. I made rangoli with color sand and decorated my house with lighting and enjoyed food with family and friends.  so, altogether we had a memorable day..

I made my all time favorite sweet Boondi laddoo. I remember my early days in US, when I used to crave for this laddo and I cannot find it anywhere. One fine day, my friend and I started to collect the recipe by calling so many friends and  relatives and all we hear is, no… we don’t know!! and ‘ohh..my..it is tough to make’..kind of words. Anyway, we got this recipe from my friend relative and from then we been doing it. Don’t be skeptic, all it needs is another person you can chit chat with, I called my neighbor to chit chat with me while doing this.

Ingredients-

• 3 cups Besan (Senagapindi / Gram flour)
• 3 cups sugar
• 4 cups water
• 1 tbsp cardamom
• 20 cashew nuts
• 15- 20 raisins
• Pinch of  edible camphor
• 2 tbsp Ghee (clarified butter)
• oil for deep frying

Boondi laddu

Directions-

1. Take besan (senagapindi) flour and add 2 cups of water to it. Make a thick paste (this will prevent lumps) to this thick paste, add 2 cups of water to make it to a dosa batter consistency
2. Another quick check is, pour 1 tbsp of batter onto the boondi ladle, the batter should drip immediately with out much effort.
3. Heat a heavy bottom vessel and prepare sugar syrup by adding 1 cup of water to 3 cups of sugar.
4. Let the sugar melt on low heat (since we are working with 3 cups of flour, by the time all the flour is done, our syrup will be ready. If you are working with less amount of flour, you can make this syrup ahead)
   Heat oil In a deep bottom pan. The oil should be hot enough. When you drop a small drop of batter in the oil, it should immediately bubble up. Note-The oil temperature is also an important aspect to make perfect boondi. If the temperature of the oil reduces the boondi will stick together. The boond’is should cook and come up separately.
5. Take the boondi ladle(perforated ladle) and pour a ladle of batter and make boondi. Fry them for ½ min and take them into a bowl. To see if the boondi is perfectly cooked for laddus, press one in between your finger. It should get squeezed in, instead of cracking and breaking into pieces.
6. Following the above step, make boondi with all the batter.
7. The consistency of syrup is the key point (this is the reason why many are reluctant to try this sweet), here are few ways you can identify the right consistency-

• Take a small bowl with 2 tbsp water. Add 3 drops of sugar syrup into the bowl of water, the sugar syrup should come together to form a soft ball.
• Take a wooden spoon and dip into sugar syrup (just dip it, to coat the spoon), raise the spoon to your eye level and pour the syrup, the last drop of the syrup should form a single string when dripping down.
• Take a wooden spoon and dip into sugar syrup (just dip it, to coat the spoon), carefully take the syrup between your thumb and index finger. Now, stretch it little and see if you can get a single string.

1. When the syrup is ready, add crushed cardamom powder and edible camphor ( nice aroma spreads all over your house). Cover the syrup with a lid so that it does not crystallize.
2. Heat ghee in a small pan and fry cashew nuts and raisins till golden brown.
3. Add boondi, cashews and raisins to the sugar syrup and mix them thoroughly. Let it cool little bit so that we can handle ( it should be atleast little warm, if it is too cold, it’s hard to make laddus).
4. Take handful of boondi’s and with our other hand press it hard. Now, make real tight fist so that the boondis can hold together. It surely needs practice don’t hesitate, do it and you’ll get it.

Enjoy these traditional home made boondi laddos.

Boondi laddu

Rava Laddu

Diwali reminds of crackers and sweets.  I remeber the days when i would go shopping with my dad to buy crackers for me and my brother. I count my sparkles 10 times or more to make sure, my brother has not taken them.  I love to go shopping with my dad, he used to talk about his work and he is extremely hilarious, i really miss those days.  When i go to India, i urge my dad to take me shopping with him.

Here is a sweet recipe for all my viewers.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fine Semolina aka  soojji (Bombai Rawa)
• 1 cup fine Sugar (if you have fine sugar like in US, don’t need to grind it. Other wise grind it)
• 1 cup Grated Fresh Coconut (frozen fresh shredded coconut also works good as long as it is thawed to room temp)
• 5 Cardamoms (open the pod and powder the seeds)
• small piece of Edible Camphor or Pachha Karpuram powdered (Optional)
• few Raisins
• few Cashew Nuts
• Ghee – 1tsp
• Milk For Binding Laddoos (I used ¼ cup)

Rava laddu ingredients (semolina / sooji, fresh shredded coconut, sugar, cardomom)

Ravva Laddoo

Directions-

1. Heat 1 tbsp of ghee in a pan and fry semolina on low flame with constant stirring or sauteing until you smell nice aroma from ravva. Take this into a wide dish.
2. Fry the grated coconut in the pan till dry.
3. In a wide dish, add fried semolina, fried grated coconut, sugar and mix them well.
4. Add powdered cardamom and camphor (optional) to the above mixture.
5. Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry raisins, when fried they puff up, Take care not to over fry which would spoil the taste. Remove the raisins and fry cashew nut pieces in the same ghee till golden brown.
6. Add the fried raisins and cashew nut pieces to the semolina mixture and mix well.
7. Add small quantity of milk to the mixture and mix (1 tbsp of milk at a time).
8. Take a fistful of the wet mixture and make laddoos. Add milk in small quantities only as and when required. Note- If you add the milk all at once, the mixture would become soggy and you can’t make laddoos. Go little at a time.
9. Arrange laddoos in a plate side by side to dry and enjoy these mouth watering laddoos.

Ravva Laddoo

Pumpkin pulusu

Haloween season has started and where ever I go, I see pumpkins all around. It is so festive to see all the orange pumpkins in different sizes (With all those bright colors around, I am already in a holiday mood). In US, during this Halloween month they make different dishes with pumpkin (pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin casseroles, etc) and decorate the houses with spooky, scary things. OCT’ 31st (official Halloween day), kids get to dress in different costumes ( last year my son was a superman, this year we are still debating, will let you know on what we decided)

When we say pumpkin (butter nut squash) to any south indian, all you hear from them is, either pumpkin fry or pumpkin pulusu. If I make pumpkin pulusu even my toddler can enjoy it, so,I headed to this butternut squash with a big knife (it has a tough skin) to give it hard whack!!

Pumpkin is loaded with an important antioxidant, beta-carotene.

Ingredients-

• 1 small butter nut squash / Pumpkin diced (wash the pumpkin, cut it in the middle and remove the seeds, you can leave the skin on or you can cut the skin with the knife and cut the pumpkin into nice big cubes)
• 1 small onion chopped
• 4 Green chilies slit length wise.
• 1 lemon size Tamarind (microwave in 1/2 cup water for 30 sec)
• 1 tbsp of jaggery (adjust according to your taste)
• Dried Red chilies
• 1 spring of Curry leaves
• Hand full of Coriander leaves (finely chopped)
• Garlic cloves
• 1 tsp each of mustard seeds, Jeera/Cumin seeds Jaggery – 1 cup (grated/powdered)
• ¼ tsp Turmeric powder
• 1 tsp Chili powder
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp Oil

Directions-

1. In a pressure cooker, heat 1 tbsp of oil and add mustard seeds, when they crack, add cumin, garlic, dry red chilies, turmeric and curry leaves.
2. Add onions and green chilies and sauté those till the onions are transparent.
3. Add the pumpkin / butternut squash cubes and sauté them for a min. Add salt and chili powder, mix well and cover the pan with lid for a min.
4. In the mean time, extract the tamarind juice and set it aside.
5. Open the lid, mix all of them together, add the tamarind juice and 2 cups of water (adjust the water depending to how thick or thin you want your stew). mix well and close the lid with the whistle. Let it cook for 2 whistles.
6. Let all the pressure cools down. Open the lid, stir it once and adjust the taste.
7. Add powdered jaggery and bring to boil. Allow it to cook for about 2 mts with lid covered till the stew turns a little thick. Keep stirring in between.
8. Garnish with coriander and serve hot with rice and a dash of ghee. Tastes heavenly with mudda pappu and papads/vadiyalu.

This is also our family festive dish for sankranthi.

Pumpkin pulusu

Garellu

In my house, no festival is completed without garelu, pulihora and payasam. During the festive days, almost all the south Indian kitchens, back at home end up with more or less the same menu.

Ulli Garelu ( that’s how I love to call) are so crunchy and is packed with protein. we have so many protein based breakfast choices  like Idli, dosa, pesarattu, ragi dosa, sajja dosa, etc..

Ingredients-

• 1 cup whole urad dal (black gram dal, Minapappu)
• 2″ ginger chopped
• 6 green chillies chopped
• 1 big onion finely chopped
• 1 small bunch of coriander leaves chopped
• 1 big stalk of curry leaves (washed and chopped)
• 1 tbsp Cumin (Jeera) seeds
• salt to taste
• oil for deep frying

steps to make garelu / vada

Directions-

1. Soak whole urad dal in water (dal should soak completely in water) for 5-6 hours.
   Strain the water from the dal and grind the soaked dal to a paste in small batches sprinkling little water and salt (Dough for garelu should be very thick)
2. While grinding the dal, add ginger and green chillies to the grinder as well. (We don’t want our kids to accidentally bite a green chili or ginger)
3. After we grind all the dal to a smooth paste, add chopped onions, cumin seeds, curry leaves and coriander leaves to the batter and mix well.
4. Take a deep frying vessel and add enough oil for deep frying.
5. When the oil is hot(drop a piece of dough and the dough should immediately rise to the top), wet your hands with water and take a golf sized ball and flatten it into a vada on a wet paper towel or banana leaf or wax paper.
   Make a hole in the centre of the garelu so that it cooks evenly all over. (look at the above pics)
6. Slowly drop it into the hot oil carefully and fry it on both sides on medium heat to a golden brown color.
7. Serve hot with peanut or coconut chutney. This can go excellent with chicken curry or mutton curry as well.

Garellu with coconut chutney

Paramannam

Happy Dussera to all my viewers!!!!

According to Hindu tradition & spiritual customs Annam Payasam or Paramannam is a sweet dish which is prepared as an offering to God in almost every home in Andhra on most special occasions and festivals.

My mom cooks this paramannam every Saturday as nayvedyam to venkateswara swamy.

This is a traditional sweet, where the rice is cooked in milk and water and sweetened with jaggery and subtly flavored with cardamom.

Ingredients-

• 1 cup rice (Sona Masoori / Jasmine / any Long grain)
• 2 cups milk + 1 cups water
• 2 cups jaggery + 1/2 cup water
• ½ cup each – cashews and golden raisins
• ¼ cup – ghee
• 4 cardamom pods powdered

Directions-

1. In a pressure cooker, cook rice in milk and water to very tender for 4 whistles. (back home, usually, they cook in a milk and water in a big clay pot and will let the milk boil and overflow a little out of the pot which is considered as good and to this they add washed rice, I am cutting all this extra steps and making it a easy way)
2. In an another pot, melt jaggery in water and simmer to plain syrup stage.
3. Add cooked rice to jaggery syrup. Mix and cook on medium-low heat.
4. Meanwhile, in a small skillet, heat ghee on medium heat. First fry cashews and then golden raisins to light gold color. Add the whole thing – ghee along with fried cashews and golden raisins to the rice-jaggery mixture.
5. Simmer on medium-low heat stirring in-between, until the rice comes together ( when cooled, it becomes more hard)
6. Just before turning off the heat, stir in cardamom powder and mix thoroughly. Serve warm or cold.

Sweet Pongal

Kobbari Lousu

Sweet Coconut balls called as ‘KOBBARI LOUSU / KOBBARI UNDALU’ is one of the several Andhra traditional home sweets. These laddoos are very soft and delicious. This sweet is very easy to put together  with few ingredients and  makes a very delicious dessert (which I should have after every meal).

I do this sweet during festive days as I have some left over fresh coconuts .

Grated Fresh Coconut

Ingredients-

• 1 cup of fresh grated Coconut (Can be substituted with defrosted frozen grated coconut)
• 1 cup of grated Jaggery (You can always adjust the sweetness as per your taste)
• 1/2  tsp cardamom (Elachi) powder

Directions-

1. Add grated coconut and jaggery into a heavy bottom vessel on medium heat.
2. In few minutes jaggery will start melting, let coconut cook well in the jaggery syrup. Stir continuously.
3. Add  cardamom powder and cook until the mixture comes close/thick (mixture will start to stick to the stirring spoon and leave the sides of the cooking dish)
4. let the mixture cool to a temperature that your hand can tolerate.
5. Grease your palms with ghee and roll the mixture into lemon sized balls.

Kobbari Undallu

Sunnundallu

This is another traditional Andhra sweet. Roasted urad dal is ground with sugar into sand like powder, mixed with pure ghee, and the mixture is shaped into round balls. This sweet is much beloved because of its unique taste and nutritional value. These are often prepared for special occasions like baby showers (srimantham), etc.

I made this as an evening snack to my kids. Instead of giving them processed snacks, I would prefer to make nutritional snacks that are easy to make.

When ever i find little time, I dry roast urad dal, make this Sunnundalu powder and store it in the freezer (not more than 6 months) so that I can make this sweet any time of the day. Back home we say, giving 1 ball of this sweet to kids, gives them good amount of protein needed for a day.

Ingredients-

• 2 cups Split urdd dal
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 3 cardamom (elachi)
• 1 cup Ghee

Sunnunda powder

Directions-

1. Dry roast the urad dal till nice aroma comes out, Let it cool.
2. Grind it to fine sand like texture and keep aside.
3. Powder the sugar and cardamom.
4. Mix all these powders and make laddus adding sufficient ghee.

Sunnundallu

Chintapandu Pulihora

Pulihora does not need any introduction for most of the  South Indians,  especially people from Andhra. It is called by different names  in different regions. Tamarind sourness dominates the rice and is neutralized just right enough with the fiery hotness of green chilies, the wholesome crunch of fried peanuts, cashews and the flavor full richness of curry leaves. The combination of all the ingredients makes Pulihora a sumptuous deal for the stomach.

Andhra, Pulihora finds its place as a main delicacy during all festive occasions. Especially in my home, Pulihora, sweet pongal, Garelu are staple festive foods. Pulihora is also offered as the ‘divine’ prasadam in many Hindu temples.

When making this dish please resist the temptation of using store bought mixes, this is truly enjoyed with the fresh squeezed tamarind pulp.

TIP-

• Cook rice with little bit of channa dal (around 2 tbsp) it gives very good flavor to the whole dish.
• Green chilies boiled together with the tamarind pulp gives a very nice flavor. One can enjoy biting into these tamarind boiled chilies and enjoy their hot and sour taste.
• This dish taste excellent after 4 to 6 hrs as the sourness of tamarind needs a bit of time to creep into the rice granules and delights the person to crave some more.

Ingredients-

• 2 cups of rice (cooked and cooled to room temp)
• Lemon sized tamarind (soak in a cup of hot water and extract pulp)
• 5 Red Chilies
• 3 tbsp oil
• 5 Green chilies slit length wise
• 2 Curry leaf stalks
• Salt to Taste
• 2 pinches asafetida
• 1 pinch of Fenugreek powder
• 1 tsp Mustard seeds
• 1 tsp Cumin seed
• 3 tbsp Groundnuts
• 2 tbsp cashews
• 1 tsp turmeric

Directions-

1. Soak the tamarind in hot water and extract the juice free of all the pulp and seeds.( we need to do this step couple times to make sure, all the juice in the tamarind is extracted).
2. Shift the tamarind juice to a cooking vessel, add 2 red chillies, 3 tbsp of oil, a stalk of curry leaves, a pinch of asoeftida, a pinch of turmeric, a pinch of fenugreek powder (optional),  little salt and put it to boil until the tamarind becomes a thick consistent paste,  all the water evaporates and it separates some oil. This can be stored in a refrigerator if you keep it in a moist-free and tightly closed container for a few days or nearly a month.
3. Cook rice separately and spread it out in a wide bowl/dish to cool.
4. Mix the rice evenly with one tbsp of oil, salt to taste and turmeric. Take care not to mash the rice grains. You can use a spoon here but I do not mind using my hand (world’s best tool) to mix thoroughly without having to mash the rice grains.
5. Mix the rice with the tamarind paste (from step 2) without having to mash the rice grains. Keep aside.
6. Heat the remaining oil in a pan and fry the groundnuts (peanuts), cashews drain them and add to the rice.
7. In a small pan, add 3 tbsp oil and add mustard seeds, when they start to crack, add cumin seeds, curry leaves any left over green chilies and asafetida.
8. Add this tempering to the rice and mix it gentle and thoroughly.
9. Best tasted when served after 4-6 hrs. The sourness of tamarind needs a bit of time to creep into the rice granules and delights the person to crave some more.

This can be a great lunch box item too.

Tamarind Pulihora

';p[Vegetable Pulav

P-U-L-A-V. This very simple 5 letter word brings up images of a dish that is rich and exotic, packed with aromatic spices and yummy tasty vegetables. When I was growing up, Pulav was my Mom’s specialty. She used to make it every week end with chicken curry as my whole family loves it. My Grand mother who is 70 loves to have this food atleast once a week till to this day.

I am trying to keep my mom tradition of making this dish every week in my house as my whole family loves it too. I always cook Pulav during lunch time and I double the quanity, so that we can have it in dinner time ( it tastes even better after 4 hrs).

Pulav is one in which we cook all vegetables & rice together. Biryani is where we layer vegetables & rice one over the other & cook. Pulav is simple & easy than our rich Biryani.

It is made very simple yet unexpectedly tasty and I bet people will always go with a second or third serving. It tastes even more with chicken curry or lamb curry or vegetable kurma or even a simple raita.

These traditional exotic dishes can be done very easily and healthy yet with mouth watering flavor. All the trick lies in choosing the vegetables in the right order ( some veggies cook fast some cook slow).

TIP- I usually have frozen mixed vegetables or frozen peas handy. I always have carrots and potatoes at my home. These vegetables are very handy to have in the freezer or refrigerator. Try to use fresh ginger garlic paste (hand grater is always nice to have) in this recipe, it makes a huge difference.

Traditionally this dish is made with basmati rice (choose the basmati kind that has nice aroma just by itself) But you can also try with regular rice which has little less flavors.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients-

• 4 Cups Basmati rice washed and soaked for 10 min
• ½ Cup Frozen green peas
• 2 Carrots chopped lengthwise to 2 inch pieces
• 2 potatoes diced
• 1 medium onion chopped lengthwise
• 10 green chilies or adjust according to taste
• 2 tbsp’s fresh ginger garlic paste
• 2 cinnamon sticks (each of 1 inch length)
• 4 cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• ½ tsp Shahjeera / kala jeera
• 2 javathri (Optional)
• 1 star anise
• 10 cashew nuts
• ¼ Cup Mint (Pudhina)
• ¼ Cup finely
• chopped cilantro (Coriander) leaves

Directions-

1. Heat 4 tbsps of oil in a kadai. Add the whole garam masala(Cinnamon stick, Cloves, Bay leaves, Shahjeera, javathri, star anise and cashew nuts).
2. Add onions, green chilies and sauté them till onion is transparent. Add little salt to the onions which will help it to cook faster
3. Add ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw flavor leaves and a nice aroma fills the kitchen. Add carrots, potatoes and sauté them for a min. Add other vegetables to it and mix well.
4. Add coriander and mint leaves, mix them all together.
5. Add the above vegetable mixture to rice cooker. Add rice and add 4 cups water, 2 cups milk (I usually use 1: 1and 1/2 ratio for basmati rice and water but I want to replace little water with milk to get rich and creamy taste)
6. Check the taste and adjust it accordingly.
7. Turn on the rice cooker. While the rice is cooking, sit in a couch and increase your appetite by enjoying the aroma of the pulav.

Let the rice cool off to room temp and serve it with raita or vegetable pulav or paneer butter masala or  my family favorite  chicken curry.

Note- For more buttery or creamy flavor you can add 1 cup heavy cream at step 5, instead of 2 cups milk and put 5 cups of water to boil the rice. I once, made this rice with heavy cream for a pot lock  at my work and all my colleagues loved it so much.

Veggie Pulav with chicken curry