Adai - without coconut :)

Last week I wanted to eat adai and I checked Aval Vikatan's 30 adai recipes. Coconut seemed to be the main ingredient and I had no coconut at home. I decided to buy coconut over the weekend. Today when I was at the Indian stores, I suddenly got an idea to avoid coconut for the next 2 weeks. So I ended up in square one thinking about adai, with no coconut at home :(
I then remembered the Madurai style adai that my Athai prepared when she visited us last year. She did that without coconut :)
I immediately called her and got the recipe. It did come out well. The best part was that it took less than 5 minutes to grind in the grinder - very easy and healthy with lot of proteins. Here's for the record....

Ingredients:
Boiled rice - 1 cup
Urad dal - 1/4 cup
Toor dal - 1/2 cup
Channa dal - 1/2 cup
Red chillies - 10
Onions - 1
Coriander leaves
Curry leaves
Oil

Seasonings:
Mustard - 1 spoon
Channa dal - 1 spoon
Urad dal - 1 spoon
Jeera/Seeragam - 1 spoon

Method:
1. Soak the rice and all 3 dal varieties for 3 hours
2. Drain the water and put the rice and dal in the grinder. Add 1 cup water, chillies and let it grind for 5 minutes. Asofoetida can also be added to this, if desired.
3. The batter should be thick and coarse.
4. Add salt and mix it in the batter
5. Separately, heat oil in a pan and add mustard, seeragam channa and urad dal. Once the mustard starts spluttering, add the cut onion and fry till it turns translucent.
6. Add this onion, finely cut coriander leaves and curry leaves to the batter and mix well.
7. Heat a pan and when it is hot, spray some oil. Then take one handful of batter and put it on the pan and spread it over. Pour 1/2 spoon oil over this adai. Keep the flame in medium, because adai takes time to get cooked. When one side turns brown, turn it over. Add another 1/2 spoon oil and wait till this side turns brown.

Now it is ready to be served. Some spicy chutney or pickle would go well with this adai. Some people like to eat adai with a butter also. You have to spread the butter over the adai( just a thin layer which would immediately melt). Then if desired, little butter can be had as sides for the adai. Butter option is not for the health conscious people!!!

kadalai kuzhambu

One of my favourites for rice - this is again my Amma's recipe. This kuzhambu will be good for puttu or idiyappam also - that's Kerala style.

Ingredients:

Kondai kadalai(brown chana) - 1 cup
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Kadalai paruppu - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Dhania seeds - 3 tsp
Peppercorns - 1/2 tsp
Seeragam/jeera - 1/2 tsp
Red chillies - 3
Coconut - 2 tsp
tamarind - lime sized
onion - 1
curry leaves - 10
Salt

Method:

Heat 1 spoon of oil in a pan and add kadalai paruppu and urad dal. Fry till it becomes brown.
Add dhania seeds, peppercorns, seeragam, red chillies and coconut and fry for a minute. Grind this in a mixie with little water.
Soak tamarind in warm water and get the extract.
Heat 1 spoon of oil in pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds, urad dal and kadalai paruppu and wait till the mustard seeds start spluttering. Now add onions and curry leaves and fry till they turn translucent.
Now add the tamarind extract, soaked kadalai, salt and the ground paste. Add water just until the whole content is immersed.
Close the pressure cooker and let it cook for 3-5 whistles.
When the pressure is completely gone, open the cooker and mix the content well.
If there is more water, let it boil until gravy consistency is obtained.

Irattai Dosai

Here's one of my Amma's special. I have never tried it though, you will know the reason after reading the procedure :))

Ingredients:
1. Raw rice - 2 cup
2. methi seeds(vendhayam) - 2 spoon
3. salt - 3/4 spoon
4. water - 4 cups

Method:

Soak methi seeds for 4 hours
Soak raw rice for 1 hour, then drain the water.
After 10 minutes, grind the rice to a nice powder.
Sieve the powder.
Rava sized left over should be kept separately.
Boil 4 cups of water in a pan.
Gradually add the rava sized rice powder to this without forming any clumps(could take 10 to 15 minutes). This should come to kanji consistency.
After 1 or 2 hours, when it cools down, mix the sieved (finely powdered) flour and keep it aside.
After 6 or 9 hours it will get to Dosai maavu consistency.
Make one pancake sized (1/2 centimeter thick) dosa. This should be cooked for 5 to 7 minutes with a lid over it.
When it is cooked 3/4th, remove it from the pan.
Make another pancake sized dosa. As soon as pouring the batter on the pan for this 2nd dosa, put the first one on top of it and close this with a lid. Let it cook well for another 5 minutes.

Serve it with coconut chutny or well powdered sugar with ghee. This dosai is also called double-decker dosai!!

Now..if you succeed in making this, let me know. I should interview you and add the comments to my blog!! Hats off to you!!!

Ragi mudde

Ingredients:
Ragi powder - 1 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp

Method:
Add one cup of ragi powder to 2 cups of water and mix well without any clumps.
Add 1/2 spoon of salt and keep it in the stove.
Stir continuously. Do not stop (even if you stop for 5seconds, it might form clumps).
Keep stirring until it gets to chappathi dough consistency. (when you touch, it shouldn't stick to your hand)
Gather all of it in the middle of the vessel and close the vessel.
Simmer the stove and let it stand for 10 minutes
Now, take scoops(ice scream scoop) of ragi and keep in a plate.
After 3 minutes, when you can touch it, make each scoop into a nice ball.
That's it...ragi mudde is ready :)

You have to make sambar(lots) for ragi mudde. To serve, keep ragi mudde on the plate and pour lot of sambar on top of it. If you make small balls of mudde, you can eat one mudde at a time.

Note: Use wooden ladle for stirring. You can even use the back portion of the wooden ladle.

Kaara kozhukkattai

This is my Amma's recipe.

Ingredients:
Boiled rice(puzhungal rice) - 3 cups
Scraped Coconut - 1.5 cups
green chillies - 4/5
salt
cut curry leaves
chopped coriander leaves
chopped onions - 1 cup

Seasoning:
mustard - 1/2 tsp
urad dal - 1 tsp
channa dal - 1 tsp
oil - 2 tsp

Method:
1. Soak boiled (puzhungal) rice in water for 2 hours
2. Grind the rice with enough water in the grinder very coarsely(to broken wheat consistency)
3. Add coconut, chillies and salt to the rice and grind further till it reaches rava consistency
4. In a pan, add some oil and mustard. After the mustard starts spluttering, add urad dal and channa dal. When the dal reddens, add cut onions and fry till it turns translucent. Then add curry leaves and chopped coriander to this and remove from the stove.
5. Add this seasoning to the ground rice mixture and mix well.
6. Cook this in the microwave for 3 minutes(stirring once after 2 minutes)
7. When the batter is warm enough, take lime sized batter in the hand and make kozhukkattai shaped balls. Now keep 8 of these in one idly plate and steam cook in the idly cooker(just as you make idly).
8. Kozhukkattai is now ready to be served. Any pickle or coriander chutney is a good combination for this kozhukkattai.

Sambar for idly/dosai

Ingredients:
kadalai paruppu - 2 tsp
ulundu paruppu - 3 tsp
dhania seeds - 4 tsp
Seeragam - 1 tsp
Red chillies - 4
Toor dal - 1 cup
Tamarind - gooseberry size
onion - 1
garlic - 2
tomato - 1
curry leaves
coriander leaves

Seasoning:
mustard seeds - 1 tsp
kadalai paruppu - 1 tsp
ulundu paruppu - 1 tsp

Method:
Add 1 tsp oil in a tawa and add kadalai paruppu and ulundu paruppu and fry till it gets red. Then add dhania seeds, seeragam and red chillies and fry till it gets red. Grind this to a fine powder.
Cook toor dal and keep separately. Add oil to a tawa and add mustard seeds, urad dal and kadalai paruppu and let the mustard splutter. Then add the chopped onions and garlic. Once the onion turns translucent, add the cooked dal, tamarind extract and the ground powder/paste. Add the chopped tomato also. Let it cook for 10 minutes. Then add curry leaves and chopped coriander leaves.

Serve it with hot idlies or dosas. This again is my Mom's special recipe. I have never tasted this kind of sambar anywhere else.

Tips:
Keep 2 or 3 idlies on a plate and pour the sambar over it. You can garnish it with chopped coriander leaves. Prepare coconut chutney also for this.
If eating for dosa, dip a piece of dosa in the sambar and take a little chutney with it and eat. It's such an amazing combination(I've been doing it since my childhood - started the practice in Coimbatore Annapoorna-Gowrishankar hotel...mmmmmmm.......yummyyyyyy)

Paasi paruppu paayasam/Moong dal kheer

Paasiparuppu/yellow moong dal - 1 cup

Jaggery - 1 cup

Milk/Soy milk - 2 cup

Ghee - 4 tbsp

Raisins - 4 tbsp

Cashews - 2 tbsp

To grind:
coconut - 1/2 cup
elaichi - 4

Fry the yellow moong dal in 1 tbsp ghee till the color changes to golden brown. Add water and allow the dal to cook. When it's three-fourth done, add the milk and the ground mixture. When the dal is well cooked, add jaggery. After 5 mins, remove from the stovetop and keep it aside. Fry the raisins and chopped cashews and add to the paayasam.

This is my Amma's recipe(Soy milk is my substitution).