Mochai kottai Puli kulambu / Mochai kai kara kulambu:

Mochai - Val dal / Field Beans or Hyacinth Beans.  A tamarind based curry famous in Tirunelveli of Tamilnadu, India. This curry is poured over rice on everyone's plate. It should be mixed with hands and enjoyed as main course meal during lunch or dinner. This rice and curry is accompanied with some vegetable curries or appalam. This is a spicy curry.

Ingredients:
Mochai kottai / val dhal -  3/4 cup

Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 3 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Red chili powder  - 1 tsp
water - 2 cups
salt - 2 tsp

Small Brinjal - 2
Tomato - 1
Tamarind - small lime size

To Grind:

Red onion - 1/2 cup (chopped)

Shredded coconut - 1/4 cup

Cumin - 1 tsp

To  Temper:
Mustard - 1 tsp
Methi seeds- 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - 1 sprig
Sesame oil - 2 tbsp
Hing - 1 pinch

Note:
(If you are using the fresh beans then just start from the method.
otherwise go for pre soaking.)
Preparation:

Dry roast the mochai kottai, till u see dark spots on the outer layer and a nice aroma. (takes 5 mins)
Then rinse it with water twice. Add water till it gets well immersed. Soak for an hour (just 15 mins is enough).

While it is soaking, start cooking the other stuffs or make the side dish or rice.

Soak the tamarind in hot water and extract juice using 2 cups of water.

Pressure cook:
This mochai kottai can be cooked in stove top too, but it takes nearly an hour. It is also common to soak this dal overnight instead of dry roasting it. (dry roasting makes this curry more yummy).

So to save fuel, we are Pressure cooking it.

In stove top pressure cooker, let it make one whistle. Then reduce flame and cook for 5 minutes.

Instant pot:

In electric pressure cooker, touch the 'pressure cook' button. Set time to 5 mins. 

It will be ready within 15 mins.

Method:

After cooking the mochai kottai, add turmeric, salt, chili powder, coriander powder and keep aside.

Cut the eggplant / brinjal into long size pieces.

Chop the tomato finely.
Heat oil in a pan.
Crackle mustard seeds , add fenugreek seeds , curry leaves and asafoetida.
Add the cut chopped onion, brinjal and fry till eggplant gets semi cooked (wilt).
Then add the mochai kottai with masalas, Mix well.

Add the tamarind juice.

Let it boil till the raw smell of tamarind vanishes.

Add the prepared coconut masala and cook covered (5 mins).

Cook till the vegetables become tender.

Switch off and serve hot.
Yummy Mochai kottai kulambu is ready.

Serving suggestions:
Makes 3 cups of thick spicy Puli kulambu.
It can be served for 4 people.
Serve hot with steamed rice and and any vegetable side dish or with egg omelet.

மொச்சைக்கொட்டை புளி குழம்பு 

மொச்சைக்கொட்டை -  3/4 கப் 

மஞ்சள் தூள் - 1/2 தேக்கரண்டி 

மிளகாய் தூள் - 1 தேக்கரண்டி 

மல்லி தூள்  - 3 தேக்கரண்டி 

தண்ணீர்  - 2 கப் 

கல்உப்பு  - 2 தேக்கரண்டி 

கத்தரிக்காய் - 2 

தக்காளி - 1

புளி - சின்ன எலுமிச்சை அளவு 

அரைக்க : 

வெங்காயம்  - 1 /2 கப் 

துருவிய தேங்காய்  - 1/4 கப் 

சீரகம்  - 1 தேக்கரண்டி 

தாளிக்க :

கடுகு  - 1 தேக்கரண்டி 

வெந்தயம்  1/2 தேக்கரண்டி 

கறிவேப்பிலை  - 1 கொத்து 

நல்லெண்ணெய்  - 2 மேஜைக்கரண்டி 

பெருங்காயம்  - 1 சிட்டிகை 

Tamil Village chicken roast

 Tamilnadu village special chicken curry recipe made from scratch.

கிராமத்து வறுத்து அரைத்த கோழி கறி 

Ingredients:

Chicken - 3/4 kg (1.5 lb)

Shredded coconut - 1/2 cup

Ginger - 1 inch

Garlic - 1

Red onion - 2 cups

Tomato - 2

Sesame oil - 1/2 cup

Fennel - 1 tsp

Cinnamon - 1 inch

kalpasi - 1 piece

Curry leaf - handful

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Sea salt - 3 tsp

To roast:

Coriander seed - 2 tbsp

Spicy Dry red chilli - 4

Black pepper - 1 tbsp

Cumin - 1 tsp

Fennel - 1 tsp

Cardamom - 5

Cloves - 5

Kalpasi - small piece

Cinnamon - 2 inch long

Mace - tiny piece

Sesame oil - 1 tsp

Method:

Add 1 tsp oil to a pan. Fry red chilies. Take them out.

Then add the other items to roast together.

In a low heat, roast them for 5 mins or until they are crispy. Switch off immediately if it starts charring.

Let them all cool.

Grind with 1/2 cup coconut with few tsp of water to a thick paste.

Grind together peeled garlic and ginger.

Rinse the chicken (choose chicken with bones , thighs. Not the white meat). Cut chicken into 2 inch size pieces.

Chop onion, tomato. Keep separate.

Heat oil in a pan.

Add Fennel 1 tsp, cinnamon 1 inch, Kalpasi - a piece.

Add chopped onion, curry leaf and fry at medium heat for 5 mins or until it gets mild golden brown.

Add chopped tomato, 1/2 tsp salt, turmeric and fry till oil separates.

Then add the cleaned chicken.

Add 1/2 tsp salt and mix well.

Cook covered for 10 mins.

Then add prepared masala, enough salt and mix well.

Loosely close the lid and let it cook.

At the same time let the excess water evaporate and it becomes a thick gravy.

Switch off.

Village style chicken roast is ready !

Serving suggestions:

Serve as curry over rice 

Or as side dish with rice or briyani or chapati, parotta.

Serves 6 - 8 adults as side dish.

Chow chow Paruppu koottu and peel thogayal

Chow chow / Bangalore Kathirikai / Chayote 

A dal curry paruppu koottu with chow chow and a spicy chutney using it's peel (chow chow thol thogayal). 

Today we are going to using the whole humble chow chow (except the seed).

This is an excellent yummy dal based curry I prepare often using the chayote that is available all around the year in USA at the same price always. We just love this simple dal along with the peel chutney with piping hot rice. This is my very own recipe. Hope you all love this combo.

Ingredients: For Paruppu koottu:

Chow chow - 2
oil - 2 tbsp
Mustard - 1  tsp
Channa dal - 1 tbsp

Dry red chili - 2
Curry leaf - 1 sprig
Onion (chopped) - 1

Tomato - 2
Tuvaram paruppu (Toor dal) - 1/4 cup
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
hing - 1/8 tsp
salt - to taste
To grind:
Coconut - 3 tbsp
cumin - 1 tsp
green chilly - 3

Method: 
Rinse the dal. 

Pressure cook it with turmeric 1/2 tsp and hing a pinch.

(After 1 whistle reduce heat and cook for 10 mins or in electric cooker Instant pot, set pressure cook time to 10 mins and it will be cooked soft).

keep aside.

While cooking dal,

Peel the chow chow and reserve the peels for making chutney (recipe below).

Discard the seed in the center.

Cube the chow chow.

 In a wok heat 2 tbsp oil, add mustard seeds, channa dal and let the mustard crack. Then add chopped onion, curry leaves, chopped dry red chili. Saute till onion turns soft. 

Add the chopped tomato and cook till soft.

Add 1 tsp salt.

Now add the chopped chow chow and the sauted onion mixture to the cooked dal in pressure cooker.

Grind coconut, green chilly, cumin to a coarse paste. 

Add this mixture also to the chow chow.

Mix well.

Pressure cook again. After getting 1 whistle reduce heat and cook for 5 mins and switch off.In Instantpot, set pressure cook to 5 mins.

Once pressure is reduced, open , mix well. Check and add more salt if needed.

Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Chow chow paruppu koottu is ready !

Serving suggestion:
Serve as curry over rice or as side dish with chapti or any rice.

Chow Chow Thol Thogayal

Ingredients. For chow chow thol thogayal:

Peels from  2 chow chow
Sesame oil - 2 tbsp
Mustard - 1  tsp
urid dal / channa dal - 1 tbsp
Curry leaf - 1 sprig

Dry red chili - 2

Tamarind - 2 inch size

Garlic - 1 clove
Cumin - 1/2 tsp

hing - a pinch
salt - 1/2  tsp

Method: 

Rinse the chow chow and peel the skin.

Use the chow chow for making a curry.

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard, as it starts crackle, add urid dal.

Then add the dry red chili and other items.

Fry few seconds. Once red chili gets crispy , take it out. Let other things stay in the pan.

(this helps in lesser spicy fumes, If you can tolerate spicy smell, then no need to take out the chilies).

Add the peel of chow chow.

Saute and cook covered for 5 mins in low heat.

Let cool.

Grind to a thick chutney without adding water (few drops is ok).

Chow chow thol chutney is ready.

If needed garnish with fried mustard seasoning (I save some seasoning while doing for paruppu koottu and add to chutney).

Serving suggestion:

Serve as side dish with rice, curd rice or idli dosai.

Oats cookies with raisin and more !

Having some cookie dough or cookie at hand is a great blessing for a quick breakfast or snack. Here is one of my favorite cookie recipes. I love adding some chocolate chips for myself, while it's a raisin oats cookie for my hubby. 

This Oats cookies loaded with walnut and raisin or chocolate chip is a yummy cookie I baked recently and often. Kindly try this recipe and let me know how much happiness this simple recipe creates,

Happy Easter !

Oats Walnut Raisin cookies (40 cookies)

Dry Ingredients

All-purpose flour - 2 cups

Cinnamon powder - 1.5 tsp

Baking soda - 1 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

Wet ingredients:

Unsalted butter, softened - 1 cup (2 stick)

White sugar - 1 cup

Brown sugar  packed - 1 cup

Eggs - 2

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

others:

Oats - 3 cups (old fashion or quick)

Raisin - 3/4 cup

Chopped walnuts - 1/2 cup

(Chocolate chips - 1/2 cup)

Method:

Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together in a  bowl.

Beat butter,  white sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until creamy ( 2 to 3 minutes).

Add  eggs, vanilla. Mix well.

Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Add oats , raisin, walnut. If desired add some chocolate chips too.

Mix  thoroughly. 

If the dough is unrollable, then Cover the bowl and chill dough in the refrigerator for nearly 1 hour.

But I start baking immediately (in small batches for the week).

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). 

Coat two baking trays with little oil or butter.

Roll the cookie dough into small lime size balls, and place 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets. 

This cookie spreads a lot and gets bigger while baking. So remember to give enough space between while baking.

Using a spatula or our hands flatten each cookie (slightly to 2 inch dia).

Bake in the preheated oven until light golden brown around the edges and centers are nearly set, 8 to 10 minutes.

If we want it to be harder , then bake for 11 mins.

Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in air tight containers.

How to store:

Keep the excess batter in fridge for 1 week and use as per need. Or this stays safe in freezer longer (3 months - I haven't tested this ). I keep it in fridge and bake everything within 10 days.  

These cookies makes a great healthy gift.

Makes 40 large size cookies approximately.

Approximate Calorie per cookie = 148 Cal 

Avocado Toast

 Basic Avocado toast has only 3 ingredients. Few slices of bread , Pink salt (any salt) and an avocado.

Avocado is one of the healthiest fruits in the world. In my experience, this miraculous fruit helps in improving vision, this fruit when eaten regularly for 3 months (half fruit , 3-4 days per week), will give us a beautiful radiant skin, reduces tanning (black spot on skin will disappear), gives us more strength after workout, reduces interest in snacking, and hence helps in low calorie diet.

If mixed with 3-4 days / week of 30 mins or more walking (aerobics) , this fruit reduces bad cholesterol and has helped me to reduce weight and get in shape.

This fruit elevates our happy hormones. Make us feel happy. 

This is a wonderful fruit and I am glad that I started including this in my diet. 

If you are reading this, kindly spend money on this fruit and this is truly a healthy food.

Also I am more interested in finding and journaling healthy foods in my youtube channel. If you find my videos helpful, kindly give it a 'Like' and 'Subscribe' to my channel. This will encourage me to work more on this topic. Thanks !

 Here is my video on how to make avocado toast and how to serve it as a platter for lunch or breakfast.

Ulunthu kazhi

Ulunthu Kali is a highly energetic food, rich in protein and vitamins. This kaLi is given to girls who have reached puberty for nearly 16 days. Also this is prepared every month to strengthen the reproductive system of females and bones and muscles of everyone in the family. Urid dal helps in strengthening the bones too. So this has been in the diet of Tamil people since many generations.

This is recommended to prepare as breakfast. I love this kali very much. My mom used to prepare this for me and I remember how much efforts she would put in this preparation. When a girl attains maturity physically, it is a custom in my hometown to celebrate it like a festival of 16 days. All relatives would prepare some good foods for the family and would bring gifts. This is called seer (gifts). The girls understand the love poured by her relatives at that time. From that day, she would be treated like a woman and grown ups would teach her how to dress, how to act with some maturity, how to mingle with men and how to live safe.

Ulunthu kali and uncooked eggs , sesame oil are the staple for the young women at that stage. This is not just a food for young women, it is consumed by the whole family once or twice as breakfast every month as it is totally yummy and healthy. 

People used to dry roast and grind whole black urid dal into powder and store it in big eversilver containers. I have shown in this recipe how to make it without powdering. In fact, my version is much healthier as it involves soaking the urid.  It is a tradition to make this kali using palm jaggery, but I have used jaggery today.

Ingredients:

Whole Black gram - 1 cup
Methi - 1 tsp
Rice - 1/4 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Garlic - 1
Sesame oil  - 2 tbsp 

Sesame oil - 1 tsp per serving

Method:

Wash and soak black gram and Methi seeds together in water overnight (10 hours).

In the morning add 1/4 cup rice (any uncooked rice) to the urid dal and soak for 30 mins or more.
Grind the soaked black gram with methi seeds to a fine paste.
Heat 2 cups of water .

Add chopped garlic and let it cook for 5 mins.

Add jaggery and let it dissolve.
The add the urid dal paste, mix well.
After the black gram gets cooked , the raw smell will disappear it will start leaving the vessel like haalwa.
Then add 2 tbsp sesame oil and mix well.
Ulunthangali is ready.

Serving suggestions:
Garnish each serving with a tsp of Sesame  oil and Serve hot as breakfast.

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உளுந்தங்களி 

கருப்பு முழு உளுந்து  - 1 கப் 

வெந்தயம்  - 1 டீஸ்பூன் 

அரிசி  - 1/4 கப் 

வெல்லம் (துருவியது) - 1 கப் 

பூண்டு - 1

நல்லெண்ணெய்   - 2 டேபிள் ஸ்பூன் 

Beans Paruppu poriyal

Beans Paruppu poriyal

Click to see the video of this recipe in our youtube channel 

Ingredients:

Flat or French beans - 1/2 lb (250 gm)

Moong dal - 1/4 cup
Red onion - 1

Green chili - 2
shredded coconut - 2 tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Urid dhal - 1 /2 tsp
Sesame or coconut oil - 1 tbsp
Curry leaf - 1 sprig
Cumin - 1/2 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Hing - a pinch

Salt - 1 tsp (to taste)

Method:

Rinse dal and soak in 1 cup water.

Wash and clean the beans in large amounts of water multiple times to remove all the dirt / sand. Drain water and chop it finely.
Chop onion, chili.
Heat oil in a wok. Add the mustard seeds, urid dhal and let mustard splutter.
Finely chop the onion, chillies, curry leaf (optional) and add to the wok.
Stir till onion turns soft. (30 secs).

Add the finely chopped beans and stir fry for 2 minutes. 

Add the soaked dal, turmeric powder, hing, salt.

Stir well.

Cook covered for 5 - 10 minutes in low heat.

(Ooty beans / French green beans takes lesser time to get cooked. Indian beans takes more time and water to cook). Open the lid. Let all the moisture dries up. Check if the beans is cooked but firm.

Add cumin and shredded coconut , and fry a bit. Switch off.

Beans Paruppu poriyal is ready!

Serving suggestions:
Beans paruppu poriyal can be served as side dish with sambar rice , curd rice or rasam rice, chapati.

பீன்ஸ் பருப்பு பொரியல் 

பீன்ஸ்  - 1/2 lb (250 gm)

பாசி பருப்பு - 1/4 கப் 

பெரிய வெங்காயம்  - 1

பச்சை மிளகாய் - 2

துருவிய தேங்காய்  - 2 tbsp

கடுகு - 1 tsp

உளுந்து  - 1 /2 tsp

நல்லெண்ணெய் / தேங்காய் எண்ணெய் - 1 tbsp 

கறிவேப்பிலை  - 1 கொத்து 

சீரகம்  - 1/2 tsp

மஞ்சள்  - 1/4 tsp

பெருங்காயத்தூள்  - a pinch

தூள் உப்பு  - 1 tsp (to taste)