Shavige Upma (Vermicelli Upma)

This is the only Upma or Uppittu as we call in Kannada, which I love. This comes out the best when made with Rice Vermicelli.



Ingredients:

1 pack of Rice Vermicelli (Shavige)
Water - such that shavige can be immersed
1 onion finely chopped or chopped finely lenghtwise (your preferance)
3-4 beans finely chopped
2-3 carrots grated
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 strand of curry leaves (optional)
2-3 green chillies slit lengthwise or 2-3 red chillies (your preferance based on how spicy you want)

Procedure:
Before starting on the upma, we need to get the Shavige ready.
Boil water in a large vessel, such that the vermicelli can be immersed. Once the water is boiled. Immerse the shavige for 2-3 mins until it gets soft.

Drain the hot water, again immerse in cold water and drain the water. keep the shavige aside, make sure all th water is drained out.

In a pan, add 1-2 tsp of oil(if non-stick), else add sufficient oil for the veggies.
Add turmeric, hing, mustard seeds cumin seeds, urad daal, channa daal and let it splutter.
Now add the chillies, curry leaves, onions. wait till the onions start turning golden brown. Now add the beans, carrot, peas, salt and let them cook. You can even precook these veggies.

Once the veggies are done, add shavige and mix them so that the shavige is completely coated. You can add some lemon juice to this.

Garnish with grated coconut and coriander.

Credits : Mom

Vegetable Cutlet

Ingredients:
1 large potato grated
3-4 carrots grated
1 cup peas
1 large onion finely chopped
Bread crumbs/rava
Oil for frying
Salt to taste
red chilli powder to taste
chat masala to taste
a bunch of finely chopped Coriander
1 tbsp Maida/all purpose flour

Procedure:
Mix the vegetables, salt, chilli powder, chat masala. Make sure you taste this mixture
Make small rounds and flatten this mixture.

In a different bowl make a mixture of maida and water. This is just a coating, it needs to be thin.

Start boiling the oil. Make sure you keep it in medium heat. Dip the veggie mixture in the batter and then coat it with rava or bread crumbs, and then deep fry.

Yummy cutlets are ready to eat

Credits : Reffered to the websites, mentioned in the left, used my own experimental side.

Bread Upma

Bread Upma:


Ingredients:
chopped into little pieces- half a pound Bread
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Jeera (Cumin seeds)
3-4 slit green chillies
1 big onion finely chopped
Oil 1 tbsp
Salt to taste
Lemon sqeeze to taste
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp asefotida (hing)

Procedure:
In a pan, take oil and add turmeric, hing, mustard seeds, jeera and wait till they start spluttering. Then add green chillies and onions. Fry them until the onions are golden brown. Add the salt to taste. In the end add the pieces of bread, and allow the fried mixture to coat on the bread. Now add the squeezed lemon juice as needed. Mix all these well and serve hot.

Credits: Had seen mom do it, then started making it on my own
This is best when you know the bread is expiring in a day.

Ballekaayi/Banana Bajji

Ingrdients :

2 Raw Bananas peeled.

Besan/Chick Pea Flour - 1 cup

Rice Flour/Corn Flour - 2 tbl spoons for crispness

Salt to taste

Chilli powder to taste

Oil to fry

Procedure:

Cut the bananas in desired shape. Keep this is water, until the batter is prepared. This avoids the blackenning.

For the batter, mix all the flours, water, salt and chilli powder. The batter should be little watery, so that when you lift your hand, the batter should drip down.

Start heating oil in a pan on medium heat. While its heating, dip all the banana cuttings into the batter.

Now one by one, start dropping the besan covered bananas into the hot oil. Donot over heat the oil. Fry until golden brown.

This can be served with chutney or ketchup

Credits : I always loved bajjis and pakoras, when mom made these...

Gobi Paratha

Parathas are one of my favorite food items.

Ingredients :

1 Cauliflower - chop it into small pieces
Wheat Flour
Salt - to taste
Chilli Powder - to taste
Coriander powder - to taste
Zeera powder - to taste
Oil
Ghee/butter
Turmeric
Asefotida

Procedure:

For the dough:

Mix the wheat flour and water and make the dough a little looser than the chapati
dough. Let it rest atleast for half an hour.

For the stuffing:

Take 4-5 tea spoons oil in a pan with medium heat. Once the oil is a little hot, add a pinch of turmeric, a pinch of asefotida, then add cauliflower and start frying.



After a while add chilli powder, salt, coriander powder, zeera powder and continue frying.

Let it cook until the mixture takes up all the water. Its the best time to taste the stuffing.

The final step:

you can make the parathas in 2 ways.

1 Way:

Take 2 small balls from the dough. Roll these 2 seperately, now stuff the gobi in between these two and then again roll it thin or thick as you want.

Now cook it on the stove with ghee or butter.

Serve this with curd or chutney or pickle.

2 Way:

Take a big ball of the dough. Roll it into a small circle. Now stuff the gobi, close all the loose ends, then roll it as thick or as thin as you want.

Later, cook it on the tava, with ghee or butter.

Serve it with curd, chutney or pickle.

Credits: Learnt Aaloo Paratha from mom, then improvised on this one.

Pesarattu

Pesarattu is basically a kind of dosa from Andhra Pradesh. This is made of green gram (Moong Daal). But, recently I had it made from Yellow Moong Daal too. It was equally good. Sometimes Upma/Upittu is also added to this dosa like the aaloo sabzi in masala dosa. That’s called MLA Pesarattu. I have no clue why.
I first had it when a collegue’s wife got it for us. It was amazing.
Anyway this is very simple and you cant go wrong with this one.

Ingredients:
1 Cup Green Moong Daal (Soaked for a couple of hours/ min of half an hour)
1 tbl spoon rice (optional)
2-3 Green chillies (optional)
Salt – to taste

Procedure:
Grind all the ingredients, until you get a fine paste. The water in which the ingredients were soaked would suffice, if required, you can add a little water, It should be of the dosa batter consistency. Add salt in the end and mix it with the batter.
This does not require fermentation.
Heat a tava on the stove on medium heat. Now take a ladle shaped like a cup, or pour the batter on the stove and make a circle with a cup. You can add a few drops of oil or ghee and let it cook for a few minutes. Then turn around the dosa on the tava and let it cook for a few minutes.

Now the pesarattu is ready. Serve it with chutney.

For MLA pesarattu, add some Upma in the middle of the dosa.

Credits : The collegue’s wife and Vahrevah

Thair/Dahi Vada

This post is taken up from my blog Its Mine. I wanted to make Thair vada (Dahi vada) for a long time... So called mom and got the recipe


Ingredients:
2 cups of Urad dal
1-2 tablespoon of rice (I put a fist of rice)
Salt
Black pepper (whole or powder)
Oil for frying
Curd/ Yogurt
Grated carrot (for garnish)
Coriander (for garnish)

Procedure:
Soak the urad dal and rice together for 1-2 hrs
Then grind it to a thick paste (more the water content, more oil its soaks while frying)



Heat the oil in a pan/kadhai (anything which can be used for deep frying)
once the oil is sufficiently hot, put small portions of the batter in the oil



Once the vadas are golden brown take them out of the oil into a paper towel to soak out excess oil.



Keep a vessel of hot water ready, put these fried vadas into hot water. Let it soak for a 15 mins.



Now take these out of water, squeeze out the water, and soak these vadas into thick curd. Leave it for sometime, now the vadas are ready to be served



Now garnish this using grated carrots, coriander leaves for garnishing. You can also add green chutney and meetha chutney on top for garnish.

Credits : Entirely mom.

Bhel Puri

This is one of the simplest dishes ever. And the ingredients can vary every time you make it.


For this particular time, the ingredients are:
1 medium finely chopped onion
1 tomato finely chopped
1 cucumber finely chopped
1 grated carrot
1 spoon tamarind paste or a little bit of tamarind immersed in water and squeezed out
1 spoon chilli sauce (you can use green chillies or red chilli powder) - this is upto your taste actually.
Little bit of roaseted peanuts ( you can either dry roast it in a pan or in the microwave)
Once in a while I add a little bit of haldiram’s navarathan (adds nice taste)
But this time I did not add this.
1 packet of murmura or puri.(main ingredient)
Little sev
Salt to taste

Procedure:
Mix all the ingredients except murmura and sev.
Just before serving mix as much murmura you want. Add little by little so that you don’t add too much murmura. Once the murmura is mixed. Garnish the bhelpuri with some coriander leaves and sev.

The best thing about this dish is, you can add anything to your liking, delete anything to your liking. If you have the meetha chutney you can add that too.

Credits : Well, this one is inspired by all the bhelpuris I have eaten, but there is no single source for this :)

What's cooking?

I have seen so many cookery blogs. I have admired them too. Now, that I do a little bit of cooking, I just want to put it up here. I will also put up the source, I am not gonna take away the credit :)

So let's see what's cooking??