Vazhaipoo Roti

Here is another recipe with vazhaipoo (banana blossom) came out from my mom's cookbook. I purposely bought two blossoms this time for making Vazhaipoo Kootu and roti. This is little modified version of Akki Roti which tastes great along with banana blossoms. As it takes little extra time for preparation, its better to have this as a weekend breakfast. You can clean the flower and chop them one or two days in advance to make this work much easier. But don't forget to soak them in buttermilk and refrigerate it.

Clean the flower, rough chop it and soak it in buttermilk for atleast 30 minutes. For cleaning procedure, please click here.

All you need:

Rice flower - 2 cups
Banana blossom - 1 cup (rough chopped)
Onion - 1 (medium)
Curry leaves - few (finely chopped)
Chilli pwdr - 1 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Salt, Water as reqd.

Method:

1. Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl to make a soft dough.
2. Grease the tissue paper.
3. Take a handful of dough and spread on the tissue paper like chapathi by using your fingers or you can directly do it on tawa.
4. Grease the hot tawa and transfer the spread dough on it.
5. Cook for 1 minute and flip it to cook for 2 minutes.
6. Now flip again to cook for another minute.
7. Serve hot with spicy tomato / onion chutney.

Hot Puffed Poori's

One of the all-time satisfying breakfast. Whenever I think of Poori's, I will go and prepare immediately. During my childhood, whenever my mom makes poori's - we used to wait anxiously to eat, especially those hot puffed ones. I still remember, whenever my niece hesitate to eat we used to make Poori's, which she loves and never say "no" to it. To make it more nutritious, we add mashed apples/bananas along with flour for her.

I thought of posting this recipe as some of my friends always asked me the recipe for the puffed ones. There is some tricky part while making them. Here it goes...

All You Need:

Whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt, Warm water - As reqd.

Method:

Combine all the above ingredients to make a soft dough.

Tips for Puffed Poori's:

1. To make Poori's from the fresh dough (Dough should not be kept aside for more than 5 minutes).
2. Oil must be hot enough to make Poori's but it should not be smoking hot. Maintain the heat at med-high levels.
3. To check the hotness, drop a pinch of dough into the oil and it must rise to the surface of the oil immediately.
4. Take a small lemon sized dough and knead it with the help of rolling pin by applying even pressure all over the dough which helps to puff evenly.
5. The kneaded dough must be neither too thin nor too thick.
6. Drop the kneaded dough into the hot oil and press it slightly by using skimmer.
7. When it starts to puff, splash some hot oil over the surface of the puffed bread by using skimmer.
8. Turn it upside down to fry on the other side after 40-45 secs.
   
9. Fry the other side for less than a minute and take it out and dry it in a paper towel.
10. Serve hot with Aloo Besan curry / with your favorite side dish.

No more worries for making hot Puffed Poori's.

Akki Roti

Akki roti is nothing but roti made up of rice flour. Its a very tasty and great Karnataka dish. I have a strong liking for this dish from my childhood. There is no specific timing for making this dish. I prepare, whenever i want to eat it. I like all rice flour recipes say, Puttu, Kadubu, Akki Vada, Appam, Idiappam, etc. which have an excellent taste when prepared using fresh flour.

You can prepare Masala Akki roti by adding some veggies to it. But, I like the pure white akki roti with finely chopped green chillies and karipatha. It tastes great along with onion/red chutney.

All you need:

Rice flour - 1 cup
Red onion - 1 medium (finely chopped)
Green chillies - 3 (finely chopped)
Curry leaves - 3 (roughly chopped)
Jeera - 1/2 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Salt and Oil

Method:

Combine all the above ingredients except oil. Mix the flour thoroughly after adding salt. Now add water little by little and make a soft ball like a chapati dough. You can add a tbsp of oil while preparing the dough. Now, heat the tawa in a medium flame and grease it. Take a portion of dough (which must be bigger than the size of a lemon) and make a ball out of it.

Now, spread the dough directly on the tawa by touching water in your fingers and make sure, it is not too thin. Now add little oil over the edges and slightly increase the heat. Cook for 1 minute and flip it on the other side. It's done when you can see light brown spots on the roti.



If you are not comfortable in spreading the dough directly on the tawa, try spreading it on a grease paper or on a plastic sheet. Grease the sheet and then spread the dough by pressing using fingers touched in oil and then slowly transfer the roti onto the tawa. Be cautious, if tawa is too hot, it will burn the sheet.


For Red Chutney:

All you need:

Red onion - 4 (medium)
Tomato - 2 (medium)
Red Chillies - 4
Tamarind paste - 1/2 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tbsp
Urad dal - few
Curry leaves - few
Salt

Method:

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add red chillies and roughly chopped red onions. When they become translucent, add chopped tomatoes and fry till the tomatoes get mashed. Let them cool and grind it along with salt and tamarind. Now heat the tadka and add mustard seeds, urad dal and curry leaves. Transfer them into the red chutney. Serve Red/onion chutney along with hot akki rotis.



Note: Heat one tbsp of ghee and then add it to the flour which gives a nice and fresh aroma over the flour. Adjust the salt and chillies acc. to your taste. Akki roti tastes great when served hot.

Sago Dosa

A different kind of breakfast recipe for dosa lovers.These dosa's are very soft and tastes great when hot.Considerably less effort needed for making this dosa and absolutely no fermentation required.While making these dosa's,don't leave them in tawa too longer until it becomes crispy.Cook for a minute and flip it on the other side and serve hot.It will be more soft and spongy to eat.


Ingredients:
Sago - 1 cup
Rice - 1 1/2 cups
Ginger - 1"piece
Green chillies - 3
Onion - 1/2 (medium)
Buttermilk - 1/4 cup
Curry leaves - few
Salt and oil

Method:
1. Soak sago and rice separately in water for about 1 hour.
2. Then grind sago, rice, green chillies and ginger along with buttermilk in food processor.
3. Chop the onion and fry them with little oil.
4. Now add the onion, curry leaves and salt to the batter.
5. Add little water and bring it into dosa batter consistency.
6. Spread on the tawa ,leave for a minute and flip it on the other side.
7. Dosa are ready to serve.
8. Serve hot with any sambar / chutney.

Papaya Dosa

Usually,ripe fruit of papaya is eaten raw or cooked.For a change, I have tried a different recipe with the fruit papaya and it turns out good . And Iam happy to share it with my blog friends.....

This fruit dosa which is packed up with vitamin C along with the benefits of ragi combination really worked well. Who have tried curries and sabji with papaya so far,for them ....it's a different recipe to be tried out.


Ingredients:

Ragi Flour - 1 1/2 cups
Rice Flour - 1/2 cup
Papaya chunks - 1 cup
Shredded Coconut - 4 tbsp
Green chillies - 3
Ginger -1" piece
Salt to taste

Method:

1.Grind coconut, ginger, green chillies and papaya chunks in the food processor
2. Then add ragi flour and rice flour into the processor and give one more round to mix well.
3. Add salt and little water and bring it to a dosa batter consistency.
4. Heat the tawa and spread the batter on it (as a thick layered dosa).
5.Pour oil on it sides and flip it to cook on other side.
6.Serve hot along with spicy dal powder / tomato chutney.

Note: It tastes good when it is hot.

Sago Upma

Everyone makes sago upma in various ways.Its nice to try out different varieties with sago pearls.Its size and shape tends us to eat it.I learnt this recipe from my mom.This is a good snack too.Here the recipe goes....

Ingredients:

Sago - 1 cup

Moong dal - 3/4 cup

Green chillies - 5(if hot)

Onion - 1 small size

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tbsp

Urad dal - 1/2 tbsp

Jeera - 1/2 tbsp

Shredded coconut - 1 tbsp(fresh)

Lemon juice - 1/2 tbsp

few curry leaves

coriander leaves

salt

Method:

1. Soak the sago in water for just 5 to 8 minutes and then drain the water and keep aside for about about 2 hours.

2. Boil the moong dal in a separate vessel until it gets half boiled.

3. Pressure cooker is not preferred as dal will get mashed.Only half boil is needed.

4. Now, in a pan, heat the oil and put mustard seeds,Jeera then urad dal and when it turns red slit the green chillies into half and put into the pan.

5. Add curry leaves and finely chopped onion and fry till it becomes translucent.

6. Add the moong dal(after draining the water) and just stir it for 1 minute and make sure dal does not get mashed.

7. Finally add the drained sago pearls into it and sprinkle salt, shredded coconut,lime juice and corainder leaves .

8. Then stir gently twice and put off the fire. serve hot with chutney / pickle /sambar.

(Note: After adding sago , you should not stir much as it will become sticky)

Ragi Idli

Ragi also known as Indian millet is an popular grain in south India for its nutritious health benefits and a must diet for all ages. The biological benefits of ragi are pretty much the same as those of oats and barley. It provides carbo-hydrates including dietary fiber, B- vitamins ,iron, magnesium,selenium etc .

Ragi provide a feeling of fullness with fewer calories. And it is found to be very good diet for diabetic patients and helps in reducing bad blood cholesterol (LDL) lowering risk of heart disease and for proper bowel function. And especially the folate in whole grains helps to prevent neural tube birth defects during fetal development and during pregnancy.

Ragi porridge is very famous in olden days which is one of the secret of our ancestors healthy regime. B'coz of its health benefits , it becomes weekly diet of our family. This is one of the traditional recipe from my mother.

Ingredients:

Ragi flour - 3 cups

Urad dal/White lentil - 1 cup

Beaten Rice - 1 handful

salt

Method:

1. Soak the urad dal and poha in water for about 4 to 5 hours.

2. Then grind it well by adding little water every time, until you get paste like consistency.

3. Take a large bowl and pour the ragi flour and make it into a paste using water .

4. Then add urad dal paste and salt and mix it well.

5. Then keep the batter in microwave oven and just heat it for 1 minute.

6. As winter has started, you will be finding little difficulty in fermenting the batter. So for that just heat (mild heating) the batter for 1 minute in oven and close and keep in the same warm surroundings in the oven.

7. Prepare this batter in evening and allow it to ferment overnight.

8. Next morning, grease the idli plates and pour the batter into it and steam it for about 20 minutes.

9. you can enjoy these hot and tasty ragi idlis along with Chutney powder/with any chutney.

(Note: You can even make dosas with this batter).

Okra Dosa

Everybody likes Okra. So far u have tried sambar, sabji, gojju etc. in it. Now, let's try this new colourful okra dosa. This green dosa is evergreen dosa in my mom’s kitchen. It's more like an green adai and soft like an omelet.

Ingredients:

Okra - 8

Raw rice - 2 cups

ginger - 1 inch piece

Onion - 1 (medium)

Jeera - 1/2 tbsp

Green chillies - 5

Curry leaves - few

Coriander leaves - few

salt

Method:

1. Soak the rice in water for about one and half hours. Then wash (drain the water)and cut the okra into pieces.

2. Grind the rice along with okra, ginger, green chillies and salt. If u want more hot, u can increase the amount of chillies.

3. Grind it until u get dosa batter consistency.

4. Then finely chop the onion,chillies and coriander leaves and add it to the batter along with curry leaves and jeera.

5. Keep it aside for 10 minutes.

6. Then make delicious green coloured okra dosa in your pan.

7. And serve hot with coconut chutney.