Saturday, May 25, 2013

Thengaai dosai/neer dose/bajjari dose!

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Thengaai Dosai with Peerkkangai thogaiyal and Sutta Kaththrikkai thogaiyal!

This is a 'very easy to make' dosa.  We don't need much ingredients too.  When we have guests, we can prepare this dosa and keep it in a casserole and serve, unlike rava dosa, raagi dosa etc.  which would be good/tasty,  just right from the tava.  Only thing is, the side dish should be a bit strong/hot, since this dosa is not prepared from sour/fermented batter, it will be bland. Many of my relatives love this dosa.  Tastes a bit like 'aappam'.

Ingredients:

1. Raw Rice - 2 cups
2. Grated coconut - 2 tbsp.
3. Cooked raw rice/saadam - 2 tbsp.
4. Sugar - 1/4 tsp.
5. Salt - 1 tsp. or according to taste.
6. Hot, boiling water - 3 cups
7. Coconut oil - 2 tbsp.

METHOD:

Soak the rice for 4 hours at least.  You can soak at night and grind and make the dosa in the morning.  Or soak it in the morning and grind in a mixer and make the dosa in the evening or night.  It is better to grind and make dosa immediately.  You must add the coconut, cooked rice etc. and grind together.  Add salt and sugar.  Boil 3 cups of water and add to the rice batter.  The batter should be very thin.

Keep the non stick tava on the stove.  Heat should be medium.  Take the coconut oil in a cup.  Apply oil on the tava with an applicator, shown in the picture below or with the head/top of a brinjal.  You can hold the top and use it as a stem, dip it in oil and apply on the tava. Pour the watery batter, like you do for rava dosa, on the tava.  Close with a lid for half to one minute.  You will know how long to keep after one or two dosas. Lift the lid and take out the dosa.  Store them in a casserole.  Apply oil again and make the next dosa.  Dosas are ready!

You can eat the remaining dosa even after 4- 5 hours.  They will be tasty. Not much oil is used in this dosa.  Very easy to digest.


The batter should be watery.
Oil applicator in wood.  It is available in vessel shops. This way only very less oil can be used.
The dosa should be covered for half minute.  The dosa will not get roasted, but will be soft.
Non-stick tava is good for this dosa. The dosa will slide down into the casserole! The work will be over very fast!
Dosas are ready to eat!

You can have this dosa with any hot chutneys like Onion Chutney, sutta kaththrikkai thogaiyal (Burnt brinjal chutney), peerkkangai thogaiyal (Ridgegourd chutney) or anyother hot chutney.  Some like it with coconut milk (Coconut milk with jaggery).  Or More kuzhambu, vaththal kuzhambu etc.

Try this and tell me how it came out and whether you liked it.


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Beetroot Saasmi - An Udupi Dish!

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 This is a very 'easy to make' dish.  We use beetroot for making sweets, curry etc.  Here, we, people from Udupi, make a different dish, which can be had with rice, chapaathis etc.

Beetroot  (click on it to know the benefits of this vegetable)

Wikipedia has given a long list of benefits of beet root, mainly, it is good for the heart.

Ingredients:

1. Beet root - 1/2 Kg.
2. Coconut - Half or 1 and a half cup grated.
3. Rai/Kadugu/saasuve/mustard seeds - 1 and a 1/2 tsp. to 2 tsp.
4. Red chillies - 6 - 10 nos.
5. Rice flour - 2 tsp.
6. Normal curd, not sour curd - 1 to 1 and a 1/2 cups.
7. Salt - as per taste (First add 1 and a 1/2 tsp. and taste!)

Method:

First peel the vegetable and cut into small pieces.  Pressure cook with some water...I do it along with rice.  Otherwise you can cook it until it is soft. Take it out from the cooker and put it in a vessel.  Add some salt and keep it on the stove for 5 - 10 mts.


Beet root pressure cooked and salt added. Let it cook for 5 mts.

Ingredients for grinding.

Grind all the ingredients except curd, into a fine paste.  And add to the cooked beet root.  Mix well.  Then pour the curd in the mixer and just turn the knob for a second (we call it one 'drrr'!) and pour it into the beet root.  Let it foam. It should not boil.  If it boils,  it will turn watery.  Switch the flame off.  The dish is ready.



My children love this saasmi! Saasmi means mustard seeds in our language, Tulu! Mustard is full of Omega 3 fatty acid, wikipedia says so!

Try this and I would be happy to read your comments!

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Adai - Dosa With Mixed Grains

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Adai - Dosa with mixed grains

Adai is a favourite tiffin in our house.  We can have it for breakfast or dinner.  It is quite a heavy food.  We can eat 2-4 adais at a time (adults 2 and children 3 to 4)! When we have got too many guests at home, we do this snack.  We can place two tavas on stove and finish off the work fast, unlike dosa which is not heavy, so people tend to eat more and it takes time! Adai is very nutritious with all the daals.  Normally, we use only the main daals like Channa or bengal gram, thuvar and urad daal but now I am adding flax seeds, kaaramani and kollu etc. which are very very nutritious and we won't use them in ordinary days.  Now, to the recipe:

Ingredients:
  1. Boiled rice - 1 and 1/2 cup
  2. Raw rice - 1 and 1/2 cup
  3. Brown Channa  (I don't use kabooli chana for this) - 3/4 cup
  4. Thuvar dhal - 1/2 cup
  5. Urad dhal (with skin is still better) - 1/4 cup
  6. Kaaraamani - 2 tbsp.
  7. Kollu - 2 tbs.
  8. Flax seeds - 2 tbsp.
  9. Coconut - 1/2 cup or some pieces as shown in the picture.
  10. Red Chillies - 1-12 nos.
  11. Green chillies - 2-4 nos.
  12. Ginger - 1" piece
  13. Capsicum piece - small one (optional)
  14. Hing/asofoetida - 1/2 tsp.
  15. Sugar - 1/2 tsp.
  16. Salt to taste
  17. Coriander, chopped - 1 bunch
  18. Chopped Curry leaves
  19. Chopped onion - 3 (medium sized)
  20. Oil - We use nallennai/gingelly/til oil.  Any other oil also will do.
Method:

Soak the daals and rice and other things as shown in the picture, separately for 3 hours. Wash them and then soak! You can use the same water for grinding.

Grind the rice items  in a mixer first.  It should be ground a little less coarsely (like fine rava batter).  Then grind the daal items coarsely.  Just grind for a short time.  If it becomes like a fine paste, the taste will differ.  Daal should be visible, though not fully.  Mix everything together with the salt, coriander, curry leaves, hing, salt, sugar etc.  Let the batter not be very watery.  You can leave it for a couple of hours and then make adai.

The left over batter can be used the next day or later.  If it becomes a bit sour, it tastes even better! We call it 'pulichcha adai' means 'sour adai'! I soak the rice and daal in the morning and make adai at night.  Or soak at night (just the two rice and Channa daal separately, soak the rest of the daals, add with Channa in the morning and grind. Add coconut, red chillies etc.with the rice and grind).

Apply some oil on the hot tava and spread the batter on that.  Let the flame be medium.  Since the batter is not thin like dosa batter, but with lot of daals, it takes time to get cooked.  I make a couple of holes in the adai as in the picture and add more oil (one or two tsp. to make it crisp).  Turn it after a few minutes (let it be a bit brown in colour) and leave it for a couple of minutes again.  Adai is ready to eat.

Instead of coriander leaves, you can add murungai ilai (Drumstick leaves) which is very good for health or paalak/spinach leaves.

A highly nutritional food item is ready!


Kollu/Horse gram Flax seeds Kaaramani/cow peas/lobia
Ulundu/Urad daal/black gram Thuvaram paruppu/Thuvar daal/Toor daal Kondai kadalai/Brown Channa







Daal and rice, soaked separately! Add the chillies and other things while grinding rice. The batter should not be very watery! Spread the batter on the tava after applying oil!

You can eat the adai with vellam/gud/jaggery, butter (which will be very tasty!),  chutney (coconut, onion, coriander or tomato) or chutney powder. I like to eat it with orange marmalade too!


P.S.: While making any dosa, apply oil on the tava and make a small dosa.  First dosa will not be very good.   Without applying oil, make the next dosa and pour oil after a minute.  Dosa will be crisp.  We use gingelly oil/sesame oil mostly for dosa and idly since this oil is very good for health.  You may not like the taste in the beginning, but you will get used to it later, like we do with olive oil! I didn't like the smell in the beginning!

I have highlighted the captions in grains.  If you click on them, you will know the nutritional value of them.  You can click on the picture to have a clearer view. 

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