Pappu Pulusu - Andhra Food Series

This is the ultimate comfort food as far as I am concerned. Hot steaming rice, a dollop of ghee, pour this dal on top and you have got yourself a perfect meal. Its all very well to want to eat out and try out different foods, but after a while home food is the best.

My mother used to make this the best but I like to think mine is not that far behind in either taste or appearance. Even if I have to say so myself, it is pretty darn delicious!!!!

Try it out and let me know...

INGREDIENTS:


1 cup Toor Dal
1 Large Onion, Sliced
1 Tomato, diced
2 tablespoons Tamarind Extract
2 Green Chillis, sliced

4 Cloves of Garlic, chopped into big pieces.
1/2 teaspoon Mustard Seeds
2 Red Chillis
6-8 Curry Leaves
1 teaspoon Coriander Leaves , finely chopped
1 teaspoon Oil
Salt to taste


METHOD:

Soak the Dal for about half an hour.

Pressure cook along with the sliced onions, diced tomatoes, sliced green chillis till cooked.

Mash till onions, tomatoes, dal and chillis are well blended.

Heat oil.

Add the mustard seeds, red chillis, curry leaves and garlic and fry until garlic is well browned.

Pour the cooked dal mixture over this and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve hot with rice.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!

Korivi Kharam ( Red Chilli Pickle) and Andhra Food Series

This is going to be a real quick post. It has been on the back burner for a long long time. Made the pickle, forgot to take the picture. By which time the fresh red chillies disappeared from the market. And I was determined to take the picture only with the red chillies in it.

The pickle started getting consumed and also changing colour. First I pondered on whether to make a fresh batch whenever I saw the red chillies again. But then better sense prevailed. Thanks to todays daily updates on health and nutrition, I decided that there was no need for any one in the family to eat such spicy food or one that is loaded with salt.

So the next time I saw fresh red chillies in the store, I quickly brought them home and took the pictures. As you can see, the colour of the pickle has changed from a bright red to a a little more brown. When you first make the pickle, it has a beautiful fiery red colour. This pickle has a long shelf life of a year at least. The only thing is that there will be a little colour change.

It is a begging to be eaten food. It just calls out for some hot rice with melted ghee to be poured generously over. But I have to warn you - IT IS SPICY and definitely not for the faint hearted. Actually, at home there is only one brave soul who can take on the might of this spicy pickle. He thoroughly enjoys eating this even if the tears pour down and his face turns red with the heat of the pickle. So this post is for you, Vin.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 kg Ripe red chillies

250 grams Salt

125 grams Tamarind

1 teaspoon Turmeric powder

25 grams Fenugreek seeds (Methi)

200 ml Gingelly Oil (Sesame Oil)

1 teaspoon Asafoetida

METHOD:

Wash and dry the red chillies thoroughly

Grind the red chillies, salt, tamarind, and turmeric powder to a coarse paste.

Store in an airtight and sterile jar for about 2 to 3 days.

Roast and powder the fenugreek seeds.

Heat the oil to medium hot (not smoking) and add the asafoetida.

Cool and add to the ground red chillies mixture.

Finally add the fenugreek powder and mix thoroughly.

ENJOY!!!!!

Yam Fry

I think highly starchy foods like potatoes, yam, sweet potatoes etc etc have to rank highly on the popularity scale. Potatoes needless to say will top the list worldwide. Though much maligned now because of all the health conscious folks out there. But in my opinion there has to be some good to it too. Most foods eaten in moderation are good for you. Yams have a lot of pluses. They contain small amounts of Vitamin B and lots of vitamin C. They also provide iron. They are a very good source of energy. They need to be paired with other foods to balance out the lack of other nutrients.
They can be stored for long periods of time without going bad.

But there are a few local vegetables that are unique to each country. I think this is one of those "local " vegetables. It is also known as Kanda in Telugu, Sena Kizhangu in Tamil and Suran in Hindi.

Ever since we turned vegetarian, one thing that my husband misses is fish fry. He used to enjoy it so much. But now he cannot imagine eating it at all.
Yam fry is a very suitable vegetarian substitute for fish. It looks like masala fried fish and tastes somewhat like it too. Very simple to make. This was introduced to us by our cook lady who makes it really well. It is a very sought after dish at our lunch table.








Ingredients:


500 grams Yam
lime sized tamarind soaked in 1/4 cup of water and juice extracted
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
salt to taste
Oil to fry

Method

Peel and slice the yam into 2" X 3 " X 1/2 " pieces.
Boil in lightly salted water till almost cooked (do not over cook as it may disintegrate while frying)
Mix the tamarind juice and the powders.
Soak the boiled yam in this for an hour or so till it absorbs the flavors.
When ready to serve, heat a pan. Place the pieces on a medium hot pan in single layers. Pour little oil over each piece. Turn over when golden brown and fry the other side.
Serve hot.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mukkala Pulusu - Andhra Food Series

My brother went off to college as soon as he finished his 11th. Thereafter, with post graduation and work, he really did not stay at home other than for the vacation breaks. He had no idea about cooking at all, particularly how to cook home style Andhra food. Slowly as time went by, he turned out to be quite good at churning out simple food. The other day he called me and asked me the recipe for this pulusu. So I thought why not just post it. It will be there as a ready reference whenever he needs the recipe.

Pulusu refers to a gravy item in the Andhra menu. It can be made of dal, yoghurt or simply vegetables or even meat. The famous Chapala pulusu is a fish gravy cooked with onions and tamarind. Basically a pulusu includes the use of tamarind as the souring agent and other spices to give it the kick. It is an accompaniment to hot rice. Mukkalu are pieces. I guess it comes from all the vegetables which are diced and added to make the gravy. This is a regular on our table. Very easy to make yet full of flavor.

You can add any vegetables that you fancy - eggplant, lady's finger, drumstick, sweet potato, bottle gourd, pumpkin etc etc.... My mom always only used sweet potato, bottle gourd and pumpkin and I seem to have continued the tradition.

There are any number of ways to make pulusu and one can add spices to add that kick but we tend to make it in a much simpler fashion with very few ingredients.


Anyway, here goes with the recipe...



Ingredients:

250 grams bottle gourd diced into 1 inch pieces
250 grams red pumpkin diced into 1 inch pieces
250 grams sweet potato diced into 1 inch pieces
2 green chillies whole
2 stalks coriander leaves
lime sized ball of tamarind soaked in 1/4 cup water and juice extracted
1 teaspoon jaggery powder
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 1/2 teaspoons rice flour powder mixed in 2 tbsp of water

Popu/tadka
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon jeera( cumin seeds)
2 red chillies
4-5 curry leaves


Method:


Put 500 ml of water to boil. Add the salt and turmeric powder along with the green chillies and coriander.
First add the bottle gourd and sweet potato pieces. After about 10 minutes add the pumpkin (otherwise the pumpkin will overcook and disintegrate).
When just about cooked but still very firm, add the tamarind juice along with the jaggery and let cook till raw taste of tamarind disappears and the vegetables cook completely.
Add the rice flour powder mixture to the pulusu to thicken it slightly.
Take off the fire.
Heat a teaspoon of oil in a small vessel and add all the popu ingredients. When fries, pour on top of the pulusu.
Serve hot along with hot rice and ghee and plain mudda pappu (boiled toor dal lightly salted).

ENJOY!!!!!

Dondakai Ulli Kharam - Andhra Food Series and Juggling Life

As usual, I am running somewhere else and have to be in another place too while I am desperately trying to update my blog and put in a new post. I always wonder if it such a struggle for everyone. Trying to juggle so many balls and keep them all up in the air at one time. I guess this is something all working women face. Every time I discuss this with my girlfriends, we come to the conclusion that it is because we are middle aged ( much as I hate saying the dreaded words "middle age", the expression just has to be used now). I think this age brings with it many additional responsibilities. Parents are getting older, kids are reaching adolescence and needless to say, are acting up, we ourselves are going through many changes and don't have the energy to cope like earlier. And to add to it, when you are working, the work-life balance gets totally unbalanced.
But anyway, despite feeling really overwhelmed sometimes, I still find time for my blog, for my friends, so life is all good after all. I guess, accepting life as it comes and keeping all those balls juggling high up there and finally everything just works out and falls into place...

Enough of serious talk. (I find my blog is getting pretty serious in the last few posts and that will soon change, I promise.)

Now for the Dondakai Ulli Kharam...

Dondakai is AKA Tindli, Tindora, Kovakai, Ivy Gourd
It is a very commonly used vegetable in Andhra. I find it a vegetable which either excites someone or induces a feeling of absolute disgust in some folk. My husband is one who will not touch it. Not even a teeny weeny bit to taste. On the other hand I simply love it. The taste of eating this along with hot rice, ghee and mudda pappu is simply awesome. It is simple enough to make and is not at all time consuming. The original method of cooking calls for everything to be fried in sufficient quantities of oil, but now for reasons of health, I steam the Dondakai and then fry it for a bit in the oil. This cuts down the oil consumption by more than a thrid and the decrease in taste is fully justified by the health aspect.

Now for the recipe

1/2 kg Dondakai cut lengthwise into quarters
2 onions
4 red chillies
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
5 curry leaves
2 tablespoons Oil

Steam the cut dondakai along with salt.

Grind together the onions and red chillies till it is a coarse paste.

Heat oil and fry the mustard seeds till they crackle and then add the curry leaves. Now add the steamed dondakai and onion paste and keep frying on medium heat till it turns brown.

A little more salt may need to be added.

Serve hot along with hot rice, ghee and mudda pappu ( boiled toor dal- staple of all the Andhra people). Delicious.

Enjoy!!