RCI_Karnataka with ತೆಳೆವು/Neer dose, ಮನೊಹರ/manohara and maddur vade

My origin is from north kanara or uttara kannada with RCI for karnataka thought of sharing some glimpses of this part of karnataka.  Though I spent most of my childhood and education near Bangalore my moms native sagar(my moms place), sirsi where my Doddamma, my In-laws stay and mathikoppa near Ekkeri, vardahalli where my another aunt stays are very close to my heart and would love to visit during our summer vacation. The main cultivation wise near my native they grow paddy, betelnut, coconut, cashew nut. I think not many have tasted the fruit of cashew. So every year my aunts family who have their own plantation are busy in the process of picking betelnuts drying them and selling them eventually during the season. I am not much aware of the technics but me my sis and cousins would stroll round the village to have fun plucking the fresh fruits, veges and of course used to drink lots of tender coconut water. Only wish I had the pictures so that I could post them along. If we happen to peek in their lifestyle is so different and really very amazing though they have to go along quite a tough path. They all are so healthy even at this age cross my fingers but the fact is the nature and type of living makes a lot of difference.

The chief language of the district is Kannada, with minorities of Konkani, Marathi, and Tulu speakers. The population is predominantly Hindu, comprising of many communities like Havyaka, Nadavas, Gowda Saraswat brahmins, Vokkaligas, Sherugars, Namdharis and Vanis.

The Havyakas are united by their unique language. They speak a dialect of Kannada known as Havyaka Kannada. It is similar to mainstream Kannada but draws more words from ancient Kannada. However, most mainstream Kannada speakers find it difficult to understand Havyaka Kannada. The Havyaka dialect is supposed to be quite old. Its origins, like many other things in India, are shrouded in mystery. Notably certain Havigannada(Havyaka Kannada) speakers , more so in Uttara kannada, use neutral gender in place of feminine gender while addressing females. But Havyaks in certain part of Karnataka, like Kundapur, Thirthahalli, Kodagu do not speak Havigannada.

One of the most ancient Madukeshwara temple in Banavasi. If any friends/guests would visit the first one which my Dodappa would ask lets take them to Banavasi.The annual December cultural festival, Kadambothsav, is a huge gathering, organized by the state government, and featuring folk dancers, drama troupes, classical musicians, art exhibitions, while drawing together performers, artists, and writers from all of south IndiaBanavasi has long been a cultural centre, especially the Yakshagana art form. Today local artisans craft and sell the classical folk art Yakshagana masks here. Read more about Banavasi here

source:Wikipedia

JOG Falls

If you happen to go karanataka don’t miss the jog falls which is located near Sagar in Shimoga dist. This year the falls were breathtaking. These are  some of the photos sent by my friend. The best time would be in mansoon to visit these falls.River Sharavati falls  from the height of around 253 mts  and splits itself into four major falls called as Raja, Rani, Rocket and Roarer. Whenever i visited it would be dry never had been able to visit at the right time. Trekking up and down is really fun i made it only once during summer.

 

Coming to the dishes

Morning breakfast normally we are lovers of dosa, like uddina dose(urad dhall dosa thick ones), Bele dose(thin dhall dosa), Banana dosa(balehannu doddana), halasina hannu(jackfruit) dose, mogekai dose(cucumber dosa even made sweet and plain), Neer dosa(tellevu), uppitu/upuma, avallaki/poha various kinds. Plain iddilis are quite rare. We have sweet kadabu, chappe(plain) kadabu different kinds of steamed dumplings, rotis(phulkas)of wheat, jowar and rice, chapatis and thalipeetu of jowar, rice, wheat, ragi or mixed too.

Neer dose/Thellevu

All you need

par boiled  Rice - 1 cup
raw rice - 1 cup
fresh grated coconut - 1 cup

Method:

• Soak rice the previous night in water

• Next morning grind the rice and coconut to a fine paste

• The mixture should be thin like butter milk like we do for rava dose

• Heat the tava wait until it is hot

• Pour the batter like for rava dosa, the batter will spread itself and make sure to pour other sides just like rava dosa

• Once it has cooked just remove and serve immediately. Do not over turn the dosa

• The texture will be thin and spongy. Serve hot along with spicy chutney

Beluli chutney

All you need: 2 pods of garlic, 1 tsp jeera, 1 tsp urad dhall, 2 -dry chillies, 1/2 cup grated coconut, tamarind and salt as per taste.

Method: fry garlic, jeera, urad dhall chillies in 1 tsp of oil. Grind with all the other ingrediants. No tadka is required.

Avallaki Manohara

This sweet is normally made with fried boondi too. I just loved this sweet very first time i had at my mothe in laws place and was totally flat at it. But as i queried my mother in law she told we could as well make with poha. So this was a great way for me to skip the making of boondis.So here i go

 

All you need
Thick poha - 1 cup
jaggery - 1 cup
grated coconut - 1/4 cup
seseme seeds - 1 big tbsp

Method:

• Deep fry Avallaki(poha) in oil keep aside

• Dry roast seseme seeds until fragrant

• In a saucepan take jaggery add 2-3 tbsp water, grated coconut and let it boil until 2 thread consistency

• now turn off fire, add fried poha mix well add the seseme seeds and give a nice stir taking care not to break the poha

• Wait for 15 minute to cool it will seperate out like sweet boondis but a little crispy. This can be stored for a week.

• At my native they prepare with the natural jaggery ( neer bella/joni bella) color will be dark brown will write about this in my next post

Maddur vade

This has been blogged at various bloggers but I could not resist so I had make some maduravada vade maddur vade

All you need
Maida - 1/4 cup
Chiroti Rava/ fine semolina - 1 cup
Rice flour - 1/4 cup
coriander leaves - 1/2 cup
curry leaves - 1/2 cup
green chillies - 5-6
onions - 2 big
salt to taste

Method:

• cut chillies, onions. coriander leaves, curry leaves finely

• Mix all the three flours well with salt

• heat 1 tbsp of oil and add to the flour

• Add the chillies, onions, coriander leaves and curry leaves to the flour

• Add water and mix until to get a dough of consistency for vadas

• Pat on your palm or a plastic/waxed paper to a round circle and deep fry vadas in oil serve hot.

note: This is dough can be made a little stiff like for puris. Roll them to small puris, deep fry and can be stored like crunchy snack. Goes very well along with hot tea/coffee.

This goes for RCI Karnataka hosted by our dear blogger Asha from Foodieshope which is orginated from Lakshmi of VeggeCuisine

Thanks Sandeepa, Bharathi  and Tee for the inspiring awards.

ವರಲಕ್ಷ್ಮೀ ಹಬ್ಬ/Varalakshmi festival

 This post had to be posted long ago took so long to appear. It was busy month visiting my friends houses in the evenings and sweets and sweets and kara with all the yummy frieds crisp vadas. Basically every other day we ended up with lot of yummy food.

Here comes my lakshmi pooje. Usually it is celebrated on the 2nd friday of shravana. This year I celebrated on the 3rd friday due to time constraint. I had decided to take photos at each step but failed to get everything in time. The previous day I make ready with the cleaning the pooja room and get ready with all the items. My day started at 5 in the morning. By the time I started my son is wide awake thinking his mum is gonna leave him to work asking her to come to bed and pat him with the cosy cosy look …. oh no so i carry him on my waist try to make him sleep he is not happy try various ways this went on until 6.45. Well finally got him to wake up and start with the day with oil bath and sent him for an hour to play now got time. Just rushed and prepared kadale haigreeva, kesari and kadale usuli. Made ready to fry Ammanavra Vade. By then gang is back is back amma i am here. Washed him up sit for the pooja along with him.

Varalakshmi pooja is given in various websites. This custom I follow as given in the book Varakshmi pooje book. Pooja starts with kalsha stapane,ganapati pooje, chanting strotras on lakshmi and finally naivedyam. For naivedyam panchgajaya, panchamruta, kadale maddi/haigreeva, usuli and amman vade is considered auspicious and most liked by lakshmi. The kalasha is decorated stapane made on a bed of rice. This year I failed to buy banana leaves on which the plate of rice is placed.  My son was a playfull and let me continue with the pooja. At last when I bought the items for naivedyam one by one vada and usuli started to dissapear  who else our little krishna Anku was all the while eyeing it and gulped as it was placed  In the evening i had invited my friends around my place and was really tiring day. For the evening I prepared vangibhath, rava iddilis and ginger-coriander chutney, rave kesari bhath and fried vadas so was like a full day work. It so happened i expected guests even before planned I could not take a photo too :0.

Haigreeva/kaddale maddi

All you need
channa dhall - 1 cup
toor dhall - 2 tbsp
jaggery - 1.5 to 2 cups
cashew/almonds/raisins - handfull
cardomom powder - 1 tsp

Method

• Wash channa dhall and toor dhall pressure cook until soft but still in shape
• Mean while in another bowl mix jaggery with 1/4 cup water boil until jaggery dissolves strain to remove any impurities
• Return the jaggery mixture to heat again until slightly sticky mix in dhall mixture and let it simmer until all liquid evaporates
• Fry cashew/almonds/raisins in Ghee until golden brown and add to the dhall mixture
• mix in cardamon powder add a tbsp of ghee and mix.

Ammavara vade( most recommended to try)

This is one of most flavoured urad vada and only vadas made during lakshmi festives with a hole  at my home. my son ate the maximum vadas and in no time I started to feel whether it would be enough for my friends coming over. Luckily it was just nice since some of my friends were not able to make it too This is my entry for RCI hosted by one ofmy favorite blogger Asha from foodieshope!

All you need
urad dhall - 1 cup
chiroti rava/semolina - 1.5 to 2 cups
rice flour - 1/4 cup
coconut grated - 1/2 cup
dry chilles - 4-5
coriander seeds - 1 tbsp
jeera seeds - 1 tsp
Methi seeds - 1 tsp
mustard seeds - 1 tsp
tamarind paste - 1 tsp
jaggery - 1 tbsp
curry leaves - cut finely
ajwain - 1 tbsp

Method:

• soak urad dhall in water for 1 hour
• grind coconut and masala like chillies, coriander,jeera,methi, mustard to a fine powder
• Grind  urad dhall along with the fine powder, tamarind salt and jaggery to a fine paste using minumum water
• Mix rice flour and Rava to the urad dhall paste . i did not measure rava i added as much to make the paste thick like for vadas
• mix ajwain and curry leaves (very important) to the paste
• Deep fry the vadas until golden brown. make sure you make it slightly thick with a hole in the centre else the taste will be raw and will not fry well.

Oatmeal Nankatai/Cookies

 Oatmeal has made its way to most of our kitchens with the different health benefits it provides. Though I have been buying oats for long time still I could not possibly make it a very likable to my kids. One way I discovered from Nandita’s post to cook oats the Indian way which worked well and liking possibility changed from 15% to 75% … so this was a good sign. Getting a liking to eat oats is not quite easy as for us as it has a very stale taste and after cooking makes it a little sticky. Few years ago when my hubby asked me to take it to office and use as a health drink I could never get used to the taste of the instant cereals. After travelling overseas a few times I realised everywhere I went I found Oatmeal porridge to be very comfort food and started liking it similar to having rice porridge on the breakfast table. I am still discovering different ways of cooking it to include in our day to day life.  These cookies are one such snack loved by my kids.

Coming to the recipe this is a very simple nankatai which I substituted half oats and whole wheat flour.

All you need:
1/2 cup butter/ghee/magarine
quick cooking oats 1/2 cup
whole wheat flour 1/2 cup
Semolina/suji rava 2 tbsp
sugar powder 1 cup ( used twice than normal)
cardamom powder - 1 tsp
baking powder - 1 tsp
milk few drops to bind
salt to taste

Method: Cream sugar and butter until fluffy. Mix dry ingredients in a seperate bowl. Add dry ingredients to the sugar butter mixture.Combine well until you have a texture to form into lemon sized balls flatten it. If the mixture is too dry add few drops of milk. Do not add too much milk as it will turn to cake texture rather than a nankatai. Bake for 10-15 min at 200 C. The cookies were tasty and crisp outter edges. You can bake for few more minutes for more crisper cookies. You can add choclate chips/raisins/nuts/desicatted coconut to make it more delicious.

Celebration with Mango cookies on Mother’s day

At last the weekend comes when my daughter’s first term exams have finished. A great relief for us parents and happy relaxing weekend for kids. Nidhi was very optimistic to help me on this special day, had promised her she could come and help me in the kitchen. Of course i wanted some easy way for her to help me  baking was the only way i found other then making sandwiches.  So what to bake?? thought cookie or cake or pizza?? then we thought why not try some mango cookies  you know why right i need something for a event and a sweet to celebrate too! So we googled for some recipe there i found one at cooks.com. I have modified a little according to our taste. This would be my entry for AFAM hosted by Deepa from RecipesNMore .

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderfull Mom’s who have made a difference to the wonderfull ways of brightening our lives.

Memories of my mom always live with me, my Aunts, my Grandma and of all My mother in law have been wonderfull mothers to me. Thanks and love to all of them .

 

All you need: 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar,1 egg,1 tsp baking soda,1 cup mango puree, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence,2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, 1/2 cup almonds coarse powder, 1/2 cup dessicated coconut, sa;t.

method: Mix dry ingredients together

sieve dry ingredients and keep aside

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat egg, add mango puree, vanilla essence and mix

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture along with almonds and desicatted coconut

Drop the cookies on a greased butter paper and bake for 15mins until done. Nidhi was little fussy for dropping the cookies as she wanted shaped cookies made using the mould presser.I could not use it because of the nuts which would of course get stucked which made her little off. After the first round was baked she felt the cookies are not bad ma its indeed delicious lent a hand  to arrrange them  for the next bake :). This yields around 50 cookies for measure of 250gms of flour. The cookies were very crisp and delicious the flavour of cloves and cinnamon with mangoes were excellent.  Basically i have left only around 10 cookies.

note: I felt it was a bit  sweet for me and  i have used granulated sugar. May be the the mixture could hold more flour. i was not sure whether these should be made into a dough like for nan katai or like butter biscuits i maintained the dough to be semi solid state.  Next time i will try eggless version.

ಪತ್ರೊಡೆ/Pathrode(patra)

P for Patra/Patrode 

Patra/patrode can be made in different variations as some were already listed in JFI greens too. Eating colocasia leaves  sometimes you may land up with itchy tongue.I am not sure what causes the itchyness but there is way out soaking these leaves in tamarind leaves removes these itchy feeling. The leaves i get here are small leaves and easy to handle and no intchyness. Back in my hometown,  we grow these leaves in our backyard is very handy to use in case we are short of veges. We make chutney, tokku or we can call it masial(tamil) with garlic tempering. The chutney is similar to preparing of Beetroot gojju which i have posted it and you can find it here. This goes to Nupur’s A-Z of Indian Vegetables

All you need:

colocasia leaves -10

Masala

grated coconut - 1/2 cup
soak channa dhall - 1 cup for 2-3 hrs,
rice flour -2 tbsp
coriander seeds  1tbsp
jeera seeds - 1 tsp
ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp(optional)
dry chillies - 10
cinamon- 1 inch
cloves - 5
Black cardamom big - 1
seseme seeds - 1 tbsp
nutmeg - 2 flakes
salt, jaggery, tamarind paste as required

Tempering

mustard seeds - 1 tsp
seseme seeds - 1 tsp
hing - 1/4 tsp
curry leaves - 1 sprig
onions -1 (optional)

method:

• Make a  slightly coarse paste of the masala and keep aside
• Wash the leaves remove stems and thick viens from the leaves without breaking the leaves, dry the leaves
• Keep a large leaf on the base upside down spread the paste as spreading for sanwiches
• Take another leaf place it over the paste applied leaf, continue for around 3-4 leaves with applying paste after each leaf
• Now roll the leaf carefully like a swiss roll applying paste in between as needed but make the circumference small to get a nice roll
• Steam the rolls in pressure cooker for 2 whistles. let it cool
• Cut the rolls into circular rounds

There are two ways to serve

• Prepare the tempering using mustard seeds, seseme seeds, hing, and curry leaves to the circular rolls and serve

or

• Cut the rolls into strips , heat oil add the above tempering add and fry sliced onions until translucent
• Add the cut strips and fry until it turns slightly golden brown color and serve hot

I prefer the second method and love it, hence serve the same way.

note: You can skip soaking by using gram flour also would have the same result.

Freeze these rolls  in zip lock bags would be handy snack on a rainy day.

ಸಬ್ಬಕ್ಕಿ ವಡೆ/Dill Sabudana Vada

It was quite long since we had some fried snacks. Last weekend it was breezy and raining heavily , the wheather was so tempting to have some hot crispy snacks. Sabudana vada it has been many years since i prepared this crispy snack so thought the day is fine for it and started off.

 Ingrediants:

Sabudana soaked - 1 cup for 2-3 hrs, potatoes boiled  mashed - 2, peanuts -1/2 cup coarsely powdered, dill leaves - 1/2 cup cut finely,salt, chillies and ginger cut finely, chilli powder(optional), lemon juice (1-2 tsp), cumin seeds - 1 tsp, oil for frying

 Take a collader and strain all water from sabudana, mix all ingrediants without any water except oil.

Shape into medium sized patties, for some patties i did add some onions to see the how it turns but onions charred by the time sabudana fries as onions take less time to get fried .

Deep fry the patties until golden brown color. We liked the hard and crisp version rather than the soft version so fried for longer time

ಜೋಳದ ಚಕ್ಕುಲಿ/Jowar Murukku

Murukku who does not like those crunchy melting murukku, these are one of the Indian savouries which should say is quite famous around the world. This time i try to use jowar flour to make these murukku. They were very crispy and melting as found in those bakeries. But I guess I could have reduced the dalda as it was very flimsy to  shift from plate to kadai.

 

 

All you need

jowar flour - 3 cups

maida - 1 cup

chilli powder - 2 to 3 tsp

salt and hing to taste

sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

jeera - 1 tbsp

1/4 cup dalda/ghee/butter

• Sieve the flours together, mix in chilli powder, jeera, seseme, hing  and salt

• heat dalda and add to the flours

• Add little by little water knead in the doung until a firm dough is formed.

• Heat oil in a kadai, drizzle oil in the murukku mould to make easier to work while pressing

• Take a small portion of the dough insert into the mould and press on a plate to make cylindrical circles

• deep fry the cylindrical circles slowly in medium flame until golden brown.

 

Avalakki Vogarne / Poha Takda

Avalakki/Poha is one common breakfast prepared in any kannada household. There are a lot of varieties of avalakki vogarne varying from gojju avalakki, sihi avalakki, southekayi avalakki( cucumber avalaki) the list goes on ….This is simple avalaki prepared usually for evening Tea.

Bekaguva Samagrigalu hege

2 handfull of poha - best thin poha

coriander seeds crushed - 1 tsp

onion 1 cut finely

jeera crushed - 1tsp

mustard - 1 tsp

hing - a pinch

red chilli - 3-4

groundnuts - 1 tbsp

grated coconut- 1/2 cup

coriander leaves - 2 tsp

turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

salt and sugar to taste

Take oil for takda , add groundnuts fry until light brown now add mustard seeds, coriander/cumin crushed, chillies cut into pieces. fry for a minute now add hing, turmeric and remove from fire and pour into a bowl. To this add sugar, salt and coconut and mix well crushing the chillies. Once it is mixed well combine the poha, onions and garnish with coriander leaves. Serve immediately.

note: This dish is prepared with thin poha, so poha must not be washed as it will get mushy. The moisture in coconut and oions is enough to soak the poha.  If using medium poha then sprinkle water as needed.

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.