Bangalore

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Happy Ugadi

For all the bloggers who are visiting this page -

Happy Ugadi........

Saturday, March 25, 2006

‘Gramodyog Shilpi’ - Astonishing award - for my mamayyaa

"Imp Note:- I thought I have published this post. But unfortunately it is still lying in my blog world in draft mode. So I thought it is never late than before to congratuate my mama." - 3/17/2008

Hey, today I have a really good news to share with you all. Today was the day when my mama bagged the award of ‘Gramodyog Shilpi’, from Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) one amoung the seven awardees at the state level(Andhra Pradesh), from the hands of Governor - Rameshwar Takur. Award ceremony was held at RajBhavana began @ 6.00PM. (Wish I would have been there in India for the award ceremony.....Pch....sitting in my home US browsing the web to gather more news on the event)

When I went thru the process of selecting the people for the award, I personally feel that achieving this award is not very easy until there is real interest and hard work behind it. Here are more details on the selection process "http://www.kvic.org.in/v4/village_industries.asp"

I really appreciate Government's efforts in promoting the rural artesians who are worth receiving the recognition. This is the first time that KVIC has started state level recognition.

Seven awards were given under seven different categories 2 from Khadi and 5 from Village Industries.....

Beekeeper - Kavuri Sambasiva Rao of Tenali & B Ashok Vardhan of Kothapally
Can & Bamboo - J Punitha Seelam of Mantralayam
Pottery - Mididodla Naganjaneyulu of Vijayawada
Fibre - B Siva Varaprasad of Vijayawada
Khadi Spinning - Podishetty Bondamma of Vavilal in Karimnagar
Khadi Weaving - Kamineni Kanakaiah of Pratishthan of Karimnagar

Congrats to the awardees.....and am really proud of my mama.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Coconut rice alias kobbari annamu

I was going thru couple of blogging sites.....and I encountered a recipe for Coconut rice in Lavanya's Luv bites. Immediately I felt like doing the dish for tonight's dinner. We can make n number of dishes with rice like Biryani, palov, bisibeli bath, coconut rice, chitrannam(yellow rice), pulihara(tamarind rice)etc .... and the list can go on. One of my favorites is Kobbarannamu....alias Coconut rice. And here goes the recipe......

Ingredients: -

Basmati Rice 2 cups
3 1/2 cups coconut milk(extracted from fresh coconut)
1 medium size onion slit length wise
4 - green chillies slit length wise
2 carrots cut into small pieces
1/2 cup green peas
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
small piece of cinnamon stick
4 cloves
2 star anise
4 - 5 pepper
1 Elachi
6 - 8 cashews
2 bay leaves

Procedure: -

Cut onion, green chillies, carrot as indicated in the picture below. Also extract the coconut milk from the fresh coconut. Take 1/2 ginger and 3 garlic cloves and make a paste.






In a pressure cooker, put 3 tbsp of oil and let it become hot. Now add the star anise, pepper, cloves, elachi, cashews, cinnamon stick broken into small pieces and fry for 2 min. Now add slit onions, green chillies and ginger garlic paste and fry for 5 min. Once onion. Add the cut Carrot pieces and green peas, for few minutes until the vegetables are half cooked. At this point add bay leaves (cut them into desired size) and also add salt per taste. Let it be on low flame for 2 min.

Meanwhile take two cups of basmati rice, clean and wash the rice thoroughly. Drain all the water and add rice to the above mixture. Fry for 2 min....Now to this mixture, add the 3 1/2 cups of freshly extracted coconut milk. Check if the mixture is having enough saltiness and pressure cook it for 2 whistles. Once it is done, allow the pressure to slowly release on its own. This will make the rice inside to be cooked little more. (I usually don't cook for third whistle since I feel the rice might be overcooked.) .....Here is the finished coconut rice with aloo tomato gravy......Um.....mouthwatering.....

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Mirchi curry - Oops what is this curry ?????

Hey don't get surprised looking at the title of the curry. Believe me or not, even though the name contains Mirchi, once the curry is made, it will not be spicy at all. When I took this curry as my lunch box to my office, my colleagues were stunned when I told that the curry is made of chillies. I found tough time to have them taste the curry...... Any how here goes the recipe. This is also one of my grandmother's recipe and one of my favorites......

Ingredients:-

8 - 10 Green chillies that we normally use for bajjis....
3 tbsp of dhalia powder
1/2 tsp of ajwain
1/2 tsp of cumin seeds
4 - 5 medium size onions cut chopped into fine pieces.
popu ingredients(chanadal, urad dal, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red chilli pieces and curry leaves)

Procedure: -

Select green chillies that are straight. Usually the one that we use for bajjis. These will be little bigger in size and also less hotter. Wash the green chillies and make a slit on one side of the chillie length wise. Be careful when you are making the slit otherwise you might end up splitting the chillie into two.

Now with the other end of the spoon, slowly try to remove the white seeds inside. My grandma used to say that these seeds add to the hotness of the chillie. So I try my best to remove till the last seed inside the chillie. Once it is done, soak the chillie in salt water. This is again a small effort to remove the hotness. Repeat the same process for all the chillies

Take a wide pan, and roast 1 cup of chana dal(senaga pappu), ajwain and jeera until the leave nice aroma....Let the roasted ingredients be cooled. Once they are cool, grind the roasted ingredients mixing salt per taste. This quantity is used for two purposes in this process. 1/of it for stuffing and rest for powdered gravy.

Now take each chillie that is soaked in salt water, remove any excess water to it. (If needed use a paper towel to dry of the water.) Stuff the inside of the chillie with the dhalia powder(prepared above).



Take a wide pan, put 8 - 10 tsp of oil and let it become hot. Now fry stuffed green chillies in groups depending on how much your pan can fit. See to that the chillies are fried on all sides. Once they are fried on all sides, remove them and keep them aside.

From here it is the usual process. In the same pan with the the left over oil, put the popu. Now add chopped onions, turmeric and fry them for 10 min. Add salt per taste. (The more the onion you put the more gravy will be). Once onions are sauted properly, add fried stuffed chillies and mix it over low flame for 5 more min. Now add rest of the dhalia powder and mix it so that onions, chilles are mixed properly. Let the final mixture be fried for 5 more min. At the end sprinkle coriander leaves......And there it is.....Mouth watering Mirchi curry.

Phool Makhana curry

I remember eating Phool Makhana when I was very young. I heard that it is a Maharastrian dish(Ofcourse not sure whether it is true or not). But after coming to US only that I started doing phool makhana curry. I struggled a lot for getting the recpie itself. I searched a lot on the net for the recpie but no where I could find. Most of my friends also does not know what Phool Makhana is. Atlast I found one in “Eenadu.net” under Sunday Editions. This was the place I was least hoping for this recipe. Most of you might be wondering what this “Phool Makhana” is – which infact I was also wondering until I came to know what it is. “Popped Lotus seeds” - It almost looks like popcorn (ofcourse does not taste like popcorn ;-) . Here goes the recepie.............

Ingredients

  • Phool Makhana
  • 2 Onions
  • 3 – 4 juicy tomatoes
  • ginger garlic paste ½ tbsp
  • coconut milk (preferably home made coconut milk)
  • 3 – 4 green chillied slit length wise
  • ½ tbsp kuskus
  • 2 – 3 clove
  • small piece of cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp coriander seeds
  • ½ tbsp jeera
  • star anise – 1
  • bay leaves 2
  • 5 – 5 cahews
  • turmeric pwd ½ tsp
  • salt and chille pwd to taste

Procedure

Deep fry phool makhana(popped Lotus seeds) on medium heat until they turn golden color. Keep them aside. (You will be getting the phool makhana in any of the Indian Stores.)



For the masala gravy, fry the following in the same order -Roast cloves, cinnamon, star anise, corriandr seeds, jeera for 2 min until the arromatic smell comes.

Now add kuskus, bay leaves and cashew nuts and fry for 1 more min. Keep the roasted masala ingredients as side.

Cut two medium size onions into big chunks of pieces. Fry the cut onions until they turn light golden color. (It might table 10 min approximately.) This way the raw smell of onion will disappear.



Once all the ingredients are cool enough, grind the roasted masala ingredients, fried onions, tomatoes, with 1 cup of water and ½ tsp of salt to a smooth paste. (In case coconut milk is not there, then you can add grated coconut while grinding).

Now put 1 tbsp of oil in a kadai. Once the oil is hot, put popu(mustard seeds, jeera, urad dal). Add one finely chopped onion pieces (this is different from what we had fried earlier for grinding), ginger garlic paste, turmeric pwd and fry for few minutes until onion is fried nicely.

Now to this, add the grounded masala paste and cook for 10 more min on low flame. On doing so it becomes like a thick gravy. You can add coconut milk to make it little more gravy. We need to adjust the amount of water to be added while grinding with the coconut milk that you are planning to add. Add salt and chilli powder to taste now.

Once this is done the gravy is almost ready. Just 5 min before the removing from the flame, add the deep fried Phool Makhana, stir fry for few more min. Phool Makhana when added in the gravy becomes soft with in 5 min. Finally end the cooking by adding finally chopped cilatro.



Hope you will enjoy the dish.......

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Bittergourd Fry - My grandma's recipe

Here is one of my grandma's curry which is one of my favorite dishes. Bittergaurd - name itself contains bitter is really very bitter in taste if not cooked properly. So tried my best to step by step process for making the dish. Here goes my recipe......Recipe procedure might look lengthy but I am sure it does not take more than 30 minutes....

Ingredients

2 Bittergaurd (Cut into half if they are too big)
3 Medium onions finely chopped
4 green chilies cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp tamarind pulp
1 cup yogurt
2 tbsp roasted chick peas
1/2 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp urad dal
5 - 6 fresh curry leaves
1 dried red Chile made into 3 - 4 pieces
1 big garlic clove cut into small pieces
turmeric pwd
salt & Chile powder

Procedure

Wash the bitter gourd, peel slightly the outer skin. Cut into two halves in case bitter gourd is long.

Mix the peeled bitter guard with 1 cup yogurt, 1/2 tsp turmeric pwd, tamarind pulp and 1/2 tsp salt and pressure cook them.(My grand mother used to use sour Buttermilk but here it is difficult to get it. So I mix yogurt with 1 cup water). My mother used to say that adding tamarind and salt slows the vegetables from over cooked. Hence I pressure the mixture for nearly 4 - 5 whistles. Once it is done, and you touch the bitter gourd, it must be tender. One advantage of doing this is bitter gourd loses it bitter taste also.

Remove the pressure cooked bitter gourd and cut them into small round pieces about 1/2 an inch long. Residue that was left after pressure cooking can be thrown away. Now heat oil for deep frying. Once oil is hot, deep fry the bitter gourd pieces until pieces turn golden brown color. (This makes the bitter gourd little crispy).

While you are pressure cooking the bitter gourd, Roast the chick pieces and jeera. Allow them to cool and grind them into fine powder. If you are lazy to make this powder you can also use besan.

Heat 2 tsp of oil in a big sauting pan, put the tadka (mustard seeds, urad dal, jeera, curry leaves, cut garlic clove, split red chillie) Now add finely chopped onions and green chilies and fry for 10 - 15 min until the onion turns golden brown color. Add 1/2 tsp turmeric pwd, salt and chillie powder as per taste. Once onion is and green chilies are sauted enough, add the deep fried bitter bourd pieces and stir fry for 5 more minutes. This is to allow the onions and bitter gourd pieces to mix evenly. Now add the chick pea powder and stir fry for another 5 min.

Finally garnish it with coriander leaves. Goes well with rice.