Showing posts with label Kerala cuisine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kerala cuisine. Show all posts
July 16, 2012
May 17, 2012
Pavakka Theeyal/Kaippakkai Theeyal/ Bitter gourd curry
Another vegetarian dish from Kerala "Kaippakkai Theeyal". Kaippakkai meaning "Bitter gourd". You could also use vegetables like yam, pearl onion, raw mangoes, eggplant in place of bitter gourd. It's a curry made with roasted spices,coconut and the vegetables are boiled in tamarind water.
When we hear the name bitter gourd most of our face changes to no no mode.. But trust me, this
recipe is full of flavours. From sourness from the tamarind, sweet from coconut & jaggery, to slight bitter from the bitter gourd makes this dish delicious.May 9, 2012
Pepper Chicken / Kozhi Milagu varuval
Black pepper is one of my favourite ingredient, especially when used in Non veg preparations. I am posting Pepper chicken recipe with a touch of Kerala tadka. The taste totally rely on the fresh ingredients we use to prepare. So I have used fresh ingredients wherever I can. This is definitely a treat to your taste bud. We love to have pepper chicken along with rasam and rice. However it can be also served with Indian bread. Nothing is as heavenly as an ice cream after this peppery meal.
May 2, 2012
Kerala Chicken Curry with Cheratta Puttu / Nadan Kozhi Kuttan with Cheratta puttu
I have come up with one of the highly popular and most desirous recipe from Kerala"Puttu" (Malayalam). Usually served for breakfast along with "Chickpea curry". "Puttu" is a dish made by steaming rice flour using cylindrical vessel and so the shape of puttu is cylindrical. It is called "Kuzha Puttu"(Kuzhal = Small Cylindrical pipe). Another way of steaming puttu is by using half coconut shell which is called "Cheratta puttu" (Cheratta = coconut shell). Nowadays some variation of puttu uses wheat, rava, whole grains etc.. Also you can find readymade flour for making puttu. On the other hand, the accompaniments also varies widely. Most common is chickpea curry, banana and palm sugar. Also goes well with any other curries and non veg curries.
April 21, 2012
Vishu 2012!!
I took a while to post our "Vishu" feast since I thought to post the menu recipes at first. Our menu had few of traditional dishes. It's been always difficult to plan whole meal for two persons. So I selected few main dishes to serve along with rice. For those who haven't read my past posts about "Vishu" here goes a brief description
"Vishu" is the New year in accordance with Malayalam Calender. It falls on the next day of Tamil New year. The most important event in Vishu is the "Vishukkani" meaning "the first thing seen on the day of Vishu after waking up". Vishukkani consists of arrangement of various fruits, mirror, konna poo (Yellow flower), raw rice and urli in the pooja room of the house.
Another famous ritual is "VishuKaineettam" where elder people gift money to the young people.
This year I prepared Aviyal, Olan, Cabbage Thoran, Brinjal Sambar with rice and Ada prathaman served as dessert. It was almost like being in hometown.
April 18, 2012
Ada Pradhaman
Here goes one of the mouth-watering dessert from Kerala "Ada pradhaman". Ada pradhaman is cooked with Ada, Coconut milk and jaggery, in the form of a thick liquid. Ada is the flakes of cooked rice. In olden days, Ada was made at home and used to make pradhaman. Nowadays we find readymade ada in almost every stores. I have used readymade ada from the brand "Nirapara". Pradhaman is similar to Payasam or Kheer but with more variety in terms of ingredients and the way it is made.
April 17, 2012
Olan
One another Side dish from Kerala. Very simple to cook yet tasty. Olan recipe has very few ingredients and less time taking dish to prepare. During any festivals in Kerala you can find "Aviyal" , Olan, Kalan, Thoran etc.. served as side dish for steamed brown rice. And most of the recipes including dessert will have coconut as an ingredient. I prepared this recipe for "Vishu".
"Vishu" is the New year in accordance with Malayalam Calender. It falls on the next day of Tamil New year. The most important event in Vishu is the "Vishukkani" meaning "the first thing seen on the day of Vishu after waking up". Vishukkani consists of arrangement of various fruits, mirror, konna poo (Yellow flower), raw rice and urli in the pooja room of the house.
Another famous ritual is "VishuKaineettam" where elder people gift money to the young people. We used to wait the whole year to get the gifts from our elder members from family ;).
Olan is prepared with Ash gourd and coconut milk. In some places it is prepared with Ash gourd and black eyed bean as well. Here I have posted Olan recipe which uses only Ash gourd and coconut milk.
Aviyal
One of my favourite side dish is Aviyal which is from my motherland Kerala. I used to be very proud whenever I'd to say I am from Kerala. Mostly the reasons behind feeling that way are it's been my birthplace, as it got the title "God's own country"and undoubtedly the cuisine.
My family migrated from Kerala to Tamil nadu even before my birth. So I can say that the relationship between me and Kerala is just my birth and the summer vacation we have at our Grannies home during schooling.
Everytime when we visit Kerala I'd always have these jobs to do, jumping into the lake, walking by the sides of deep Canal (even if I feel nervous), collecting the fallen mangoes, having our meal served in banana leafs 3 times a day ;)..
Picking the mangoes was always my routine job. We had 4 mango trees of different kind. Since we always go in summer which is the mango season, we would grab a basket half of our size and go to each tree, collect the mangoes and of course one in hand to bite.
The good thing about their food is they grow vegetables at their garden. And most of the days they cook with their garden vegetables. Hardly few times I see them buying from markets.
So Aviyal is a side dish for rice, prepared with many vegetables whatever available at your garden cooked with Kerala's identity "Coconut" and a touch of sourness from curd.
Only recipe you need not worry about unavailability of any vegetables I mentioned in here.. But you definitely require coconut and curd. I got this recipe from my mom. Hope you guys find it easy to cook. Traditionally, vegetables like Yam, Drumstick, Raw Banana, Raw Mangoes Carrot, Ash gourd, Pumpkin, Bitter gourd, Cucumber, Green beans and Cow beans are used. Here I don't get Yam, Drumstick, Raw banana. So it's all upto you to add or omit any vegetable.
April 3, 2012
Kerala Style Sardine Curry
Recently I have been posting few multicuisine and north indian recipes. Yesterday i got a chance to cook my regional cuisine. When i was crossing the seafood section in local supermarket the name sardine (Mathi) caught my eyes. With my eyes wide opened i rushed to the shelf and i gave a big smile to those sardines lying just in front of my eyes. Actually sardine fish is hard to find in China. Its been years i saw them and tasted them. So walked back to home thinking whether to fry them or to curry them. I had some coconut lying in the fridge so finally i decided to make the fish curry. Since its been long i cooked mathi curry i made a call to my mom and asked for her recipe. She is from kerala so the curry is. This is truly my mom's recipe. I love her recipe as much i love her. :)
Servings: 2
Servings: 2
Preparation Time:
30 mins
Cooking time: 20
mins
Level:
Moderate
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
1) Sardine fish
|
250 gm
|
2) Pearl onion
|
10 nos
|
3) Dried red chilly
|
5 nos
|
4) Fenugreek seeds
|
1 tsp
|
5) Coriander seeds
|
1 Tbsp
|
6) Coconut (grated)
|
½ cup
|
7) Tamarind
|
10 gm
|
8) Mustard seeds
|
½ Tsp
|
9) Curry leaves
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8-10
|
10) Vegetable oil
|
2 Tbsp
|
11) Salt
|
As req
|
Method:
1) Heat 1 tbsp oil in a hot pan.
|
2) Add 8 nos of pearl onion, 3 nos of red chilli,
fenugreek seeds and coriander seeds.
|
3) Toast gently for few mins .
|
4) Grind the coconut to a paste
|
5) Grind them by adding water to fine paste.
|
6) Soak the tamarind in 1 cup of
hot water for 15 mins and extract the paste.
7) To the same pan which used for
roasting pour the tamarind water and let it boil.
8) Add turmeric powder and salt.
9) Now add the ground masala paste
and mix well.
10) While the masala is still
boiling add the cleaned fish one by one gently.
11) Turn the heat to low and close
lid. Cook for 10 mins.
12) Now add the coconut paste and
cook for another 5 mins.
13) Transfer the curry to the
serving bowl
14) Heat remaining oil in a separate pan for tadka
and add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and remaining red chilli
respectively
|
15) Once mustard seeds splutter
fully add chopped pearl onion. Fry till golden brown.
16) Pour the tadka onto the curry.
Serve with steamed rice.
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1) This recipe can also be used for making prawn or any other fish curry.
2) Curry which is one day old tastes the best.
3) Clean the fish by removing its scales, head, tail and gills. Wash it in cold water with little salt
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