Bendekayi Hasi/Lady’s finger Raita

Coconut is an essential part of Havyak cooking. Cooking without coconut is of no chance, even though we have  been hearing of high cholestrol the term which is still  unknown for many. Even now go down to north canara there are few of them who ever think about it because literally they can never think of cooking their meal without coconut.  I myself how many times i think of not using coconut that much i am pulled towards its flavour. This is the first time i ever made it for the JFI entry . This is hosted by Ashwini from Food for thought.

 

Lady’s finger – 15

fresh grated coconut – 1/2 cup

curds – 1 cup

mustard seeds – 1 tsp

urad dhall – 1 tsp

a pinch of hing

green chillies – 1

red chillies – 2 broken

curry leaves – 1 sprig

Grind coconut green chillies into a fine paste. Heat oil in a kadai add 1/2 tsp mustard, hing, dry chillies when mustard splutter add the finely cut ladies finger. Stir fry the lady’s finger with required salt until cooked.  Alternatively it could also be placed in microwave on high for 5- 8 minutes. Add coconut paste after the lady’s finger is cooled. Add curd and mix well.  now prepared the takda of mustard, urad dhall, hing and curry leaves. Add the takda to hasi and close lid to retain flavor.  Serve pachadi with rice. Unfortunatley i did not have curry leaves so i have not added but it adds good flavour to the pachadi.

Tofu Khofta Curry

This one of my trials with tofu.  Since long time i wanted to try khofta curries. But due to the laborious process of frying then making the curry always thought it is more time consuming.  Well the curry turned out quite well but i should say some more spice would have made it more tasty. 

For Khofta

Tofu – 2 chunks

Potato – 1 boiled

onions – 1

green chillies – 2

garam masala – 1 tsp

coriander leaves – 2 tsp

besan Flour – 2 tbsp

salt to taste

For curry

Cashew nuts – 5-6

coconut – 1/4 cup

poppy seeds – 1 tsp

fennel seeds – 1 tsp

cloves – 3-4

cinnamon – 1 inch piece

tomatoes – 1

onions – 1 big

ginger- garlic paste – 2 tsp

chilli powder – 1 -2 tsp

garam masala – 1 tsp

coriander powder – 1/2 tsp

turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp

salt to taste

Khofta: mash Tofu, potatoes. Mix all the ingrediants for khota together to form a firm dough. IF the dough is very loose or watery add some more besan flour to hold the khofta together. Shape the dough into balls and deep fry.

For curry: Make a paste of cashew, coconut, poppy seeds,saunf, cloves and cinnamon with water. Cut tomatoes and onions finely.  Take oil in a heavy sauce pan. Add whole garam masala if required (optional). When the oil is hot enough fry onions until light pink. Add ginger garlic paste fry for some time to remove the raw smell. Add tomatoes and all the powders, chilli,coriander, turmeric, garam masala and salt. Let the tomatoes cook and leave some oil. now add the ground paste. Allow the paste to be cooked and let it boil, this paste can be mixed with some water to attain the required consistency for curry. The cashew paste will make it thick.  Add the khoftas to the curry . Garnish with coriander leaves.

 

Tofu Beensprout Fry

Tofu and bean sprout get along very well.  This was my very first vege that i had when we stayed as a paying guest. A little story behind how i learnt of tofu.  The very first time we landed in Singapore that is 10 years ago, yes it has been 10 years!!.  The owner’s wife was a vegetarian but i was very suspicious, as she told me today she will cook and i need not cook though i was reluctant to take it but finally agreed. I also was very new to the cooking world ever since from my school days to my engineering i hardly cooked any full meal. After she finished cooking she showed me tofu fry and told me i can eat this as this is pure vegetarian but i was harldy aware of what is tofu made of?? When i had a look i felt a sour smell with the bean sprout more looked like jelly kind at first look i thought it was some worm which is supposed to be vegetarian for these Singaporeans. The owner was very nice to me and explained how Tofu was extracted from soya and also had a look at the raw bean sprouts which looked so fresh wow i though to my self! The first time i had this dish i did not like the taste of it slowly i started to adapt it and now it is favourite food for my family. This is best when cooked fresh.

 

Tofu – 3 huge chunks

Bean spourts – 2 cups

onions – 1

green chillies – 1

cloves – 2

cinnamon – 2 pieces

Fennel seeds – 1 tsp

turmeric

sambhar powder – 1 tsp

salt to taste

coriander leaves

garlic – 2 pods

Cut Tofu into small chunks like how we do for paneer. Heat oil in a pan, add fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon fry for a few minutes add curry leaves. Add green chillies onion fry until onoins are light brown. Add garlic fry for a few secs until slight brown. Add tofu and fry it on high fire until brown layer formed on each of them. Add bean sprouts, turmeric powder, sambhar powder salt and continue frying until bean sprouts change color.

BeetRoot Gojju/Chutney

This sweet and sour Gojju goes very well with rice.  This will be liked by most who also love a sweet taste in curry. We  have jaggery is most of our cooking but this chutney has a natural taste of vegetable so there goes the recipe

 

 

Beetroot – 1 grated

grated coconut – 1/2 cup

red chillies – 4

coriander seeds – 1 tsp

jeera seeds – 1/2 tsp

garlic – 3 pods

salt to taste

tamarind

Cook grated beetroot in cooker with little salt. Dry roast coriander seeds, jeera and chillies. Mix cooked beetroot,coconut, dry roasted spices with tamarind and grind to a think paste. Cut garlic to finely, heat oil for takda add garlic and fry until brown and add to the Beet paste. Beetroot Gojju is ready to serve.

 

Badnekayi Mullgai Palya/Bagara Baingan

This is one of the famous Eggplant Curry served with jowar Roti in north karnataka.  There are different ways of cooking this dish with different masala.  This is one masala which is liked by my family. Whenever we visit India, we try to eat atleast once at the kamats Yatri nivas where they serve hot jawar roti with baingan masala which is well known as Bakri oota.

Masala

peanuts – 1 cup

seseme seeds – 1/2 cup

grated coconut – 1/2 cup

red chilli – 8-10

coriander seeds – 2 tsp

jeera – 1 tsp

hing – a pinch

jaggery to taste

salt to taste

cloves – 4

cinamon – 1 inch stick

tamarind -  lemon sized ball

Fry all the above and grind to a thick paste

onions – 1 big

sambhar onions/madras onions - a bunch full

small brinjals – 10 numbers

2 sprig of curry leaves

coriander leaves

Slit the Brinjals into plus by keeping the bottom together.  Put one spoon of masala to the each slit.  Heat oil in a pressure pan. Add mustard seeds hing, add curry leaves once the seeds splutter. Fry cut onions until light brown, add sambhar onions and brinjals. Add all the remaining masalas on top.  Make sure there is some liquid for the steam to form in order to cook the brinjals.  This is a little tricky, allow the mixture to boil and close the pressure pans top. Cook for 1 whistle and sim the fire for 5 minutes.   Take of fire let the pressure cool for 10 minutes, Serve with phulkas or rice.

7 cup Burfi

 

This is one of the easiest type of near to mysore paak sweet, with less ghee. At first whenever my mom used to tell 7 cup sweet i used to think it was made of 7 different types of flour. This burfi is made of mainly gram flour, which has a unique flavour like mysore paak. This sweet turned out quite sweet of my liking so have used 2.5 cups sugar instead of 3 cups. Next time i will use 2 cups is right as 2.5 also was quite sweet. By right i should call this 6 cup burfi  :)

 

gram flour – 1 cup

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Milk – 1 cup

sugar – 2.5 cups

Ghee – 1 cup

 

Take a heavy bottom vessel. Keep a plate greased with ghee ready. Fry gram flour with 2 tsp of ghee to remove any raw smell of flour. Meanwhile heat milk and add sugar so that it helps to speed up the process. Now mix ghee to the fried gram flour, add coconut, milk and sugar mixture and mix it thoroughly. Heat the mixture in low flame until the mixture leaves the sides of the vessel. This took for me around 30 minutes. Pour the mixture to the greased plate and cut into desired shapes.

Pudina Pulav

 

I just love the fresh fragrance of pudina leaves. Since pudina leaves is best used fresh. It was a weekend and my daughter always around the kitchen asking Amma what special today??. First my thought was of preparing bisibhelebhath then after seeing the pudina leaves i changed to prepare pudina pulav.

 

Fresh mint leaves – 1 cup

Fresh grated coconut – 1/2 cup

Green chillies – 2-3

Saunf – 2 tsp

Ginger – 2 tsp

pepper corns – 1 tsp

cloves – 5-6

cinnanmon – 2 small sticks

saunf powder – tsp

Chilli powder – 1 tsp

turmeric powder – 1 tsp

Thin sliced onions – 1/2 cup

Tomato – 1

salt to taste

Carrot/beans/cabbage or cauliflower/peas/potato (vege of your choice)

 

Method: Take 2 cups of basmati rice wash it and keep aside for half an hour.Make a wet paste of Pudina, ginger, chillies, saunf and coconut in a mixer grinder. Add 2tbsp of oil/ghee in a pressure pan. Fry the rice for a few minutes until the rice has a nice aroma. Remove the rice and add some more ghee/oil  now add cinnamon sticks, cloves, peppercorns and fry for a minute or two. Add onions fry until light brown in color. Add chilli powder, turmeric powder, saunf powder, and tomatoes fry for a few more minutes until the tomato is cooked. At this point you could add a little water to cook the tomatoes at the same time powder does not stick to the bottom. Add vege fry for a minute , add the wet masala and water. Let the water come to boil now add the rice and check the salt. Pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Serve hot with any raita of choice.

Masala Dosa

 

I always missed the good masala Dosa from Bangalore’s Janata hotel to Vidhyarthibhavan.  This recipe i followed exactly from ourkarnataka.  The dosa turned out crisp, the only thing i found is since i followed the first recipe it asks for adding rice flour the next day.  After i added the rice flour the batter started to thicken so may be i should add it the previous day after grinding the dhals and rice. 

The dosa batter must be thin will need to add more oil/ghee to add more taste

Masala for Dosa

 

You can find the recipe here at ourKarnataka

Masala Biscuit

Some butter was left over after baking muffins. I decided to try baking my ever favourite masala biscuit from childhood.  The biscuits were very soft and melting. Though i could have added some more flour to make the texture a little better. I did not have enough green chillies so i changed the masala using red chilli powder and garam masala.

1 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup butter

ginger paste – 1 tsp

sugar powder – 2 tbsp

jeera – 2 tsp

curry leaves – 1 sprig

coriander leaves – 2 tsp

chilli powder – 2 tsp

garam masala – 1/2 tsp

baking powder – 1 tsp

salt to taste

 

Method: Mix butter, salt, sugar, ginger paste, chilli powder, curry leaves, jeera and coriander leaves until well mixed. Sieve together flour with baking powder. Mix the butter mixer and flour. The mixer should not be kneaded much. Make sure it is well blend. Preheat oven to 200C. Place the biscuits on the baking tray, press a few seseme seeds on each of the cookie. Bake the biscuits for 10 – 12 minutes. Check the biscuits if it is lifting from the base and slight change color at the base then it is done. Remove from oven at this stage and let it rest for 10 minutes as the biscuits still are cooking even after removal from the oven. Good treat with aftrenoon tea. A different variation with green chillies can be obtained instead of chilli powder and garam masala.

 

 

Banana Raisin Muffins

Being an vegetarian i always had an interest to baking. But by eggless baking skills for a past few months always flopped.  I had baked eggless cakes few years ago which was good but should say not a good as these muffins. Thanks to inspire my baking skills by the ever good bloggers around. This recipe is picked from Saffron Hut. I also tried Saffron Trails banana with honey and nut muffins also turned out fabulous though i did not reserve a picture at that time. I thought it is time i pen this down before i forget how to make them. My kids just loved it and was a hit among the neightbourhood kids too.

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

unsalted butter – 1/3 cup

4 ripe bananas

3/4 cup sugar ( a little more than 1/2 cup is good enough)

Baking powder – 2 tsp

Baking soda – 1 tsp

Cinamon powder – 1 tsp

Raisins – 2 tbsp

a pinch of salt

 

Mix sugar and butter until creamy. In a seperate bowl sieve together Flour, baking powder and baking soda. Mash the bananas well. Add the mashed bananas, cinnamon powder, salt to the Butter and sugar mixture. Run the electric mixer until everything is mixed well. Add the flour to the liquid banana and butter mix. Mix just to blend well do not beat. Add raisins or nuts of your choice and mix. Preheat oven to 230C. Place the muffin mix in a muffin tray or paper trays. I could not place all muffins in the muffin tray so i used the paper trays which made my muffins out of shape . Add a few raisins on top and bake for 20-25 mins or until the muffins are cooked well. Let it rest for 10 mins .Delicious muffins are ready to serve.