Spicy Chunky Oriental Sauce

It is for no reason why Kerala is/was called land of spices; well  more than the spices used, I am talking about our love for spicy food! Kerala cuisine brags about being one of the spiciest in India and coming from this tiny coastal land, it was imperative that I developed a taste for spicy food. Traditional Kerala cooking uses a variety of homemade masalas, most of which are hot for any non-Keralite to bear; however, we literally go by "Athidi Devo Bhawa" concept and whenever cooking for guests, we deliberately bring down the spice level. We hate bland food and people like me, love the spiciness to stay even when we are done with enjoying the food! 

Talking about this sauce - this is something I have been wanting to make for a while now, and I did make a mention of it in my Steam Shirmp & Sausage Wontons posting. So today, I finally made it and paired it with pancakes! Yes, that sounds weird but guarantees total enjoyment. 

This sauce is HOT, to be elaborate my lips were swollen after having my pancakes and the spiciness still stays (and I love that). It is chunky; use it as a spread or a dip for starters and above all, it has a hint of sweetness. I would call it an outburst of flavors!

Ingredients:

Tomatoes - 2 small, chopped

Onion - 1 small, chopped

Dried red chilies - 3 (depending upon your spice tolerance level, you can reduce this to 1 or 2)

Garlic - 5 cloves, chopped

Soy sauce - 1 teaspoon

Ketchup - 1/2 tablespoon (if you want it sweet, make it 1 tablespoon)

Coriander leaves - a few springs

Salt - to taste

Olive oil - 2 tablespoon

Preparation:

1. Heat up oil in a pan and add the onion, garlic and dried chilies. Saute for a while and add the tomatoes. Add salt and cook until it turns mushy.

2. Add the sauce sauce, stir for a while, followed by ketchup and sprinkle coriander leaves. Remove from heat and let it cool.

3. Transfer the content into a blender and process for half a minute. Leave it a bit chunky. 

4. Transfer to serving bowl and enjoy as a spread or dip.

Chicken Salami Spinach Breakfast Frittata

Frittata has always been my favorite - probably it was one of those weird sounding foreign dishes I got right at the first go or because of the ease of preparing it. To those who are new to this name - it is nothing but a glorified version of omelet! Yes, that simple it is!

During our Singapore days I used to experiment quite a lot with frittatas; mainly because Pradeep had to leave only around 8 AM and that gave me ample time to think and act. After shifting to Vizag, I hardly cook breakfast; well I am not to be blamed here but his working hours. Anyway, it has been a while since I cooked this dish at home and  breakfast being the best time to serve this, last week I attempted one. Or it could be that I was just waiting for the right set of ingredients to make another glorified version of this omelet! 

Yes, it definitely had all my favorites and here goes the list.

Ingredients:

Eggs - 2 lightly beaten

Potato - 1 large, thinly sliced

Carrot - 1 small, finely chopped

Capsicum - 1 small, finely chopped

Plum tomato - 8-10, halved

Chicken salami - 15-20 slices, cooked as per instruction

Spinach -  1 cup, leaves alone

Milk - 100 ml

Cheddar cheese - 1/4 cup grated

Pepper - 1/2 tablespoon

Italian herbs - 1/2 tablespoon

Salt to taste

Olive oil - 3 tablespoon

Preparation:

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wide mouthed deep pan and dry roast carrots and capsicum with a pinch of salt until cooked but tender. Keep aside.

2. In the same pan, add rest of the oil to coat and place the sliced potatoes neatly so as to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over it. Let it fry in medium heat.

3. When the potatoes are browned, mix together milk and eggs, pour over it.  Put the dry roasted veggies. Cover and cook until 3/4th cooked.

5. Arrange the cooked salami to top the frittata. Sprinkle the spinach leaves and plum tomatoes. Cover and cook until done the egg mixture is done.

6. Sprinkle cheese, pepper powder and Italian herbs to finish. Switch off when cheese has melted

7. When cooled, slice the frittata (it will look more like pizza) and enjoy with ketchup! 

100% Wholewheat Banana Bread

Bananas being the tropical fruit available all year round is a must entry in our weekly ration. Well, I can have it for a day or two in a week, but I am not too much of a fan to go bananas over bananas! :-) So often I make them into breakfast smoothies and whatever is left, I give it away to my maid. Yesterday again I came across the case of over ripe bananas and I was at a loss. I didn't want my maid feel that we dispose off everything that we do not want on her, so I sat and searched for some recipes using bananas. 

I have made banana bread/cake before and it turned out pretty well and I had something similar in mind this time as well. However, as I am deliberately trying to make healthier versions of my favorite dishes, I was quite adamant on finding a wholewheat banana bread recipe. To cut it short, I managed to find and bake one and this definitely is a keeper.

Ingredients

Ripe banana - 3 medium, sliced

Wholewheat flour -  1 3/4 cup + 4 tablespoon cocoa powder (I was falling short of 4 tablespoons from the box I keep my wheat flour and hence adjusted with cocoa powder and it did help)

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Baking soda - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt - 1/2 tablespoon

Olive oil - 1/4 cup

Brown sugar - 6 tablespoons

Egg whites - 2 

Yogurt - 8 tablespoons

Cinnamon powder - 1 teaspoon

Dark chocolate chips - few tablespoons for garnishing (optional)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius. Line a loaf pan with butter paper and grease with olive oil

2. In a mixing bowl, beat together sugar and olive oil using an electric mixer, until well combined.

3. Add the eggs and beat to combine. Add bananas, yogurt and cinnamon powder. Mix well by beating using the mixer.

4. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add this to the mixing bowl in portions, beating to combine after every addition.

5. Transfer the batter to the loaf pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and bake in preheat oven for 1 hr 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

6. Serve warm for breakfast or as snack.

Paratha Quesadillas With Egg Vegetable & Cheese

If only the quick healthy breakfast picks were endless or like as they show in the movie Spy Kids, I could have those tablets which when microwaved or baked turn into amazing dishes! Well, I will keep my hope alive because nothing is impossible with the kind of technology we have these days.

Winter is really getting on me and I find it very very hard to wake up in the morning, leave alone the cooking part. Every evening after my work I sit with my laptop browsing beautiful dishes and drooling at them but for some reason I really cant get myself to cook anything :-( What a sad state of affairs? I am totally bored of cheese toast (been my breakfast and lunch for past 3 days) and yesterday I somehow made up my mind to cook something different and nice for today's breakfast. (well I did not make it for breakfast but for dinner; that's another story)

Aimless browsing can gift you with wonderful ideas and that led to to today's recipe. Although I started with frittata, I somehow bumped into quesadilla recipe (thanks to wrong tagging by someone). We both enjoy wraps of all kinds and have always wanted to try these at home but never got a chance. So the item was finalized and quesadilla it was. I had a pack of frozen paratha, which could be the wrap, and onions, carrot, tomatoes, eggs and cheese could make the filling (in fact I could not be choosy here, as it was already time to replenish the grocery).

I made the filling yesterday night so that morning I need not compromise with my sleep. Pradeep reached home late yesterday and that's when he told that he has to leave at 6 tomorrow - I was like no way you are getting breakfast! And hence I made it for dinner tonight.

Filling enough for breakfast or light dinner, this dish has immense scope of experimentation or improvisation. I am sure each and every one of you will find your own way to spice it up!

Ingredients

Frozen parathas - 5 (you can even use leftover roti or naan, or can make it fresh if you wish to)

Onion - 1 large, chopped finely

Carrot - 1 small, chopped finely

Tomatoes - 1 large, chopped finely 

Green chilies - 2, chopped

Garam masala - 2 teaspoon

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Eggs - 3 large, lightly beaten with a pinch of salt

Cheese spread - 5 tablespoon (1 tablespoon for each quesadilla)

Olive oil - 2 tablespoon

Salt to taste

Preparation

1. For the Filling : Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan and add the onions. Fry until transparent and add the carrots. Roast the vegetables by stir frying in the pan for a couple of minutes. 

2. Add the tomatoes and fry until mushy. Add turmeric powder, garam masala and salt to taste. Mix well to combine. Keep aside.

3. In the same pan, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Add green chilies and the beaten eggs. Scramble the egg and when it is almost done, add the vegetables and mix well. Check salt and adjust seasoning. 

4. For Quesadilla: Heat up a pan, take one frozen paratha and prepare as per instructions. Once the paratha becomes nice and crispy, spread one tablespoon of cheese spread over it, add as much filling you may need in one half of the paratha, and fold it. Using a wooden spoon, press the paratha with care and turn it to cook the other side. Transfer to serving place.

5. Repeat the process with rest of the parathas and filling. This recipe should give you 5 such quesadillas.

6. Enjoy as it is or you can even further cut the paratha into half and serve it with white dipping sauce. If you cut it even smaller portions, these can be a great appetizer to serve! 

All-time Favorite Cocktail Sambar Idlis

Soft and white mini idlis immersed in spicy traditional sambar!

If there is one South Indian dish that has truly gone global then that has to be Idli! From the tiny glass shelves in the street side make-shift shops these wonderful yet humble South Indian breakfast has made its way to 5-star and even 7-star hotels within and outside India. If you think about it, there's hardly anything attractive about this dish save for its health quotient. It is simple rice and urad dal batter steamed to perfection! Versatile enough, idli goes pretty well with anything you can probably think of. However, its relationship with sambar is sort of inseparable and for that reason the most beautiful. 

I have been to all of the South Indian states and have been lucky enough to taste idlis from everywhere. I remember going out on an idli date too (well, that is a funny story)! In Vizag (the place I am based in now) there used to be a shop called "Murugan's Idly" that served about some 30+ or more varieties of this dish! The "bhavans" chains of restaurants in Chennai have satiated my taste buds a number of times and the best I still remember is what one of my dear friends ordered for me when I was down with low BP and was resting in her house - amazing Saravana Bhavan mini idlis oozing out ghee and immersed in spicy sambar and I satiating one at a time to my heart's content! That was the first time I tried mini idlis and it was until a month or so ago when I got to try it again at one of our acquaintance's place. They had served it as a snack, something sort for of a cocktail idli; whatever it was they were marvelous. I felt so fascinated with the mini version and the many ways of serving it, I went ahead and got the mini idli trays. 

Blame the winters, for the past few days I have not been making good breakfast. Today we had the sub-way sandwich we packed yesterday night. So  with the guilt working within me, I prepared idly/dosa batter today. And tomorrow morning, I am going to relive my sambar idlis days but the mini version. 

Ingredients

Rice - 1 cup, washed and drained

Urad dal - 1/2 cup, washed and drained

Salt to taste

Mini idly trays

Preparation

1. The previous day, soak rice and urad dal for at least 4 hours. In a blender, grind the soaked rice and dal together with enough water to make a smooth batter. (You can put it for soaking around late noon and grind it by late evening).

2. Pour the batter into a big enough vessel, (which has enough space for the batter to rise) close with a lid and leave it overnight for fermentation. If the climate is very cold, better keep it above your fridge or preheat oven and leave it inside. The temperature needs to be warm for the batter to ferment nicely.

3. Next morning, stir the batter with salt to taste.

4. Liberally grease the mini idli moulds with ghee. Use a tablespoon and spoon out the batter carefully into the tray. Believe it or not, this is an act of precision :-) which you will realize when you do it.

5. Steam in the idli maker until done. When done, use a spoon to carefully remove the idlis from the mould and keep aside.

6. Take sambar in a bowl and immerse a good number of idlis in it. Eat it as it is and feel "nirvana"! :-)

Improvement Ideas

If you do not want to take too much of a trouble then buy ready made batter and proceed from step 3 above.
You can serve these dry mixed with your own favorite chutney as an appetizer.

Mini idlis are also good for making upma.

Vellayappam (Or Aappam)

Super soft and fluffy rice pancakes for breakfast!

So last Saturday was one of the most eventful days, I mean in the recent past. We had invited a few guests over (from Pradeep's work place); I had an elaborate all vegetarian menu ready and went on preparing one by one. I like experimenting and I love to do it for my guests; although not always. Saturday is mostly half day for my husband and I was expecting him to be back home around 2, and he had to buy a few ingredients too. I started with making mushroom filling for wontons, vegetable stew (to pair with appam), mix for kothu paratha, parboiled the potato wedges and cauliflower.  Everything was going well and good until around 12, I received a call from Pradeep saying he would be late, like around 4.30. I panicked, like I always do, because I hate to keep cooking or spend my break thinking that I am not done yet. Well, I didn't lose my cool. I went ahead and experimented with a small batch of dessert, and cooked the rice. At around 5.30, I received another call saying the families who were supposed to come may not be able to because there was one issue at work. I had no comments. At 6, I received another call saying that the guests can still manage to come just that they would be a bit late. I was happy because I didn't want the food to go waste. I took bath thinking that might help cooling me down and it did. Two of my friends dropped by and I gave them wontons to taste; things were back to normal. Now, at around 7, I receive another call from Pradeep saying that the guests will not be able to make it because the men have to stay on-board late. I know it was not our guests fault, neither my hubby's but the thought that my one day effort went waste, did pinch me worse than I imagined! Finally, we called our friends home, we had fun and they were kind enough to stay till 1 AM, cut my birthday cake and click a few snaps. That did mean a lot to me, in fact as they say, all is well that ends well :) So, the next few posts will be from the vegetarian menu that I prepared for my guests, and to start with, it is vellayappam or appam, which is one of the traditional Kerala breakfast dishes. 

So appams and idiyappams (string hoopers) are always in my menu when I call some non-keralites home. Most of them appreciate kerala food and so I keep one in my menu for them. Appams look good and feel tasty only if the batter is well fermented. I have had my own share of failed attempts before I could get this right.  These days we get the readymade powders which makes it quite an easy deal, but again, I have tried that too and nothing can beat the homemade batter. The feeling after seeing the nice little holes when you pour the fermented batter on to the tawa is just beyond words to describe!   Once the batter is made, the dish is pretty simple to make.

Ingredients

Rice - 2 cups

Urad dal (uzhunnu) - 1 tablespoon

Cooked rice - 3/4 cup

Coconut - 1 small, grated

Sugar - 5 to 6 tablespoons

Salt to taste

Yeast - 1 teaspoon

Coconut milk - 50 ml, thick

Preparation

1. Soak rice and urad dal for at least 4 hrs. Grind it along with cooked rice and grated coconut, with enough water to make moderately thick batter. Pour the batter into a big vessel, which has enough space for it to rise when fermented.

2. In about 25 ml lukewarm water, dissolve sugar and yeast. Leave it aside for 10-15 min. Add it to the batter. Cover the vessel and leave it to ferment overnight.

3. The batter will be well fermented by next day morning. About 2 hours before you make the appams, add salt and coconut milk and stir well to combine. 

Cooking

3. Heat the appam chatti (the one that is concave), pour a big spoonful of batter, swirl it around to spread, close with the lid and cook for about 2-3 min. Open the lid and remove the cooked appam to a casserole box. Repeat the process with the rest of the batter. It will make some 30-40 appams.

If you do not have appam chatti, you can make it in normal dosa pan, as you would make pancakes.

Serving

4. Serve with hot stew or sweet milk or coconut milk

I have some left still, which I will be having for today's dinner. Then I will click the picture and post it here.

Healthy Masala Oatmeal Upma

A great way to spice up your otherwise bland upma!

Having to get up in the morning to find your way into the kitchen and make your own cup of tea/coffee is such a boring way to start your day! To add on to that what if you have to get the breakfast ready before 7.30 AM. I so dislike this and for the same reason, mostly Pradeep leaves for office with just tea or tea with toast or a couple of fruits, although he prefers to start off the day with a healthy meal. Although I have, many times, displayed my unwillingness directly and indirectly to do that, some days you feel so lovey-dovey and wouldn't mind spending 30 min in the kitchen making a nice breakfast for him. So this recipe is the outcome of such a morning breakfast!

I had plans to cook suji upma, and started with spluttering the mustards. When I opened the kitchen cupboard to take suji, I saw some oatmeal in one of the containers, barely about 3/4th cup. There was a quick change of plan and thus I made oatmeal upma.

Ingredients

Quick cooking oatmeal - 3/4 cup

Onion - I medium, finely chopped

Carrots - 1/2 medium finely chopped

Olive oil - 2 tablespoon

Mustard seeds - a pinch

Urad dal - a pinch

Curry leaf - 1 spring

Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon, freshly ground

Garam masala - 11/2 teaspoon

Lime - 1 juiced

Salt to taste

Sugar - 1 teaspoon

Water - enough to sprinkle to help cooking the oats

Coriander - to garnish

Preparation

Heal oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds and add urad dal. Add the curry leaves, onions and carrots and cook for a couple of minutes, until onions are golden brown and carrots are almost cooked.

Add turmeric, pepper powder, garam masala and salt and fry until oil separates.

Add oatmeal and mix well to combine. Sprinkle water enough to wet the oatmeal (so that the upma is not too dry) and keep stirring for a couple of minutes. 

Add sugar and stir well. Switch off and squeeze the lime over the upma and mix well.

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve warm.

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Muffins

Gorgeous spotted beauties that were also rightly moist and extra spongy!

Ever since I started baking, I have always wanted to gift someone something home baked. Well, that dream came true yesterday and first ever attempt to bake something to gift someone actually turned out awesome! Whether or not my friends enjoyed it (I hope they must have), I am totally proud of these muffins :-)

Initially I had plans to bake brownies but then somehow bumped into this recipe and just gave it a try. You have to touch it and bite into it to see how spongy it can be :-) So, give a try and be amazed! I wouldn't say this is quick, but pretty easy; everything from preparing the batter, lazing around, baking and then clicking snaps would have taken me 1.25 hours.

Ingredients

Salted butter - 100 gm, softened

Sugar - 12 tablespoon

Egg whites - 4 large, lightly beaten

Yogurt - 10 tablespoon

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tablespoon

All purpose flour - 2 Cups (28 tablespoon)

Baking powder - 1 tablespoon

Baking soda - 1/2 tablespoon

Semi-sweet chocolate chips - 8 tablespoons and more for topping

Preparation

1. Line the muffin pan with paper cups.

Cooking

2. In a large bowl, using and electric mixer, mix together butter and sugar well, until pale.

3. Add the egg whites and beat in medium speed until it turns creamy with firm soft peaks.

4. Add vanilla essence and yogurt and beat in low speed for a couple of minutes until well combined.

5. Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda and fold in gently to combine.

6. Add the chocolate chips and fold in to get a thick batter.

7. Pre-heat oven at 180 degree Celsius. Spoon in the batter in the muffin cups leaving space for the batter to rise. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.

8. Bake for 25-30 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Serving

9. Serve as breakfast muffins or just as I did, pack it up as a gift!

Easy Fruit Pancake

Ways to use up excess milk - Way 1

Every once in a while I face this crisis of "how to use up excess milk"! With hubby not around there is a limit to how much I alone can consume. Yesterday I spend quite a lot of time researching for easy recipes and then it clicked me - why not pancakes! No extensive cooking, no fancy ingredients and you can make it in no time. To be frank, I am not a big fan of pancake however, this time it has turned out to be a savior. 

I also had some fruits lying in the fridge - papaya and grapes; I had to use them up too. So finally, I came up with this idea of fruit pancake for today's breakfast. This recipe easily uses about a 60 ml milk (well that itself is an achievement!) 

Ingredients

Flour - 1 cup

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Sugar - 1 1/2 tablespoon (or as per taste)

Salt - 1 teaspoon (or as per taste)

Egg - 1, beaten

Whole milk - 60 ml

Mixed fruits - 1 bowl, cut in to bite size pieces (I used grapes and papaya)

Preparation

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl

2. Make a well in the center and add the beaten egg and milk. Mix well to combine. Leave aside for 10-15 minutes.

Cooking

4. Heat a pan in medium heat. 

5. Add the freshly cut fruits into the bowl and mix well.

6. Pour a spoon full of batter in the pan. Close with a lid and check back in a minute or two.

7. Flip over when the side is browned and cook for a few seconds. Transfer to a plate.

8. Repeat with the rest of the batter. This recipe will make 4 decent size pancakes.

Serving

9. Serve hot with your regular pancake syrup and enjoy biting into fruit pieces! :-)

Puttu (Rice Steam Cake)

My all time favorite Kerala breakfast!

Clicked this picture in a hurry today morning when I had to pack my hubby's breakfast and hence the post is also hurried kind :-)

Will be posting the recipe soon.

Sausage & Vegetable with Red Wine & Chicken Stock Gravy

For all sausage lovers, this is a perfect Sunday morning breakfast to serve!

Well this is my first post in this blog and I just hope that my determination holds on and that I continue writing many more. I wish myself good luck!

My husband’s love for sausage is never ending! :-) I still remember our honeymoon days when I first figured this out. My sister in law was sweet enough to find a nice resort in Maldives for us. It was a 3-4 days trip complete with sun, sand, beach, great food and yes, obviously romance! Morning breakfast was the highlight and when I would be busy figuring out what to take I can see my hubby’s plate full with different varieties of sausages. For him cold cuts, salami etc are magnetic.

So, it’s been a while since we had or cooked sausages. So today being a Sunday, I promised him a sausage breakfast. Did a little bit of research for an easy recipe and this one is with my own variation. The original recipe calls for potatoes alone in vegetables but as I have a whole bunch of those gorgeous looking carrots and bell peppers we freshly picked from the farmers market, I thought of adding in those.  I also substituted olive oil with butter so that it is healthier and a few tablespoons of sugar for that added zing!

The sausage & vegetables are pre-cooked to save time and grilled to marry the flavors and impart smoky taste. Very filling and recommended if going for a late afternoon lunch! Choice of vegetables can different as per individual liking.

Well, I would make this again as it turned our pretty tasty and filling. 

Ingredients

Cocktail sausage, 1 standard package (with about 12-14 pieces)

Red onion, 1 large, sliced in ½ inch thickness

Baking potatoes, 3 medium, quartered and sliced

Carrot, 1medium, quartered and sliced

Bell pepper, 1 large, quartered and sliced

Red wine, 2 tablespoon

Chicken stock, 75 ml (or you can even use vegetable stock)

Olive oil, 2 tablespoon

Salt to taste

Sugar, 3 pinches

Preparation

1. Caramelize the onions. (To know how to caramelize onions, you may check this link http://www.ifood.tv/video/how-to-caremalise-onion )

2. Pan roast the sliced vegetables with salt so that they are almost 3/4^th cooked(cook potatoes separately) and keep aside

Cooking

3. Heat up a small oven proof skillet on stove; pour olive oil and shallow fry the sausages for about 8 min or until cooked, tossing every minute to ensure even cooking.

4. Splash red wine and the chicken stock; give it a nice swirl.

5. Add in the caramelized onions and stir in to combine. Add vegetables other than potatoes; stir and switch off the stove.

6. Place the pan roasted potatoes over the sausage.

7. Set your grill on high and pop in the pan and cook for 8 minutes or until potatoes turn brown.

Serving

8. Serve hot for breakfast and enjoy!

Tips & Improvisations

You can pre-cook the vegetables in microwave to save time (mine is out of service for quite a while now, so tried pan roasting). 

Add some flour or corn flour to the chicken stock to make the gravy ticker. 

You can add more sugar if you like it sweeter. 

Next time, I would add freshly crushed dried chilies.