Paruppu poli

For the filling:
jaggery - 3 cups
chana dal - 2 cups
coconut - 1 cup

Dough:
maida (all purpose flour) - 2 cups
turmeric - 1/2 spoon
salt - 1 pinch

oil and ghee

Filling:
Soak chana dal overnight and boil in pressure cooker with water at half the level of the dal (8-10 whistles). Grind dal with coconut and litle water and add jaggery and blend. Heat the mixture with 2 spoons of ghee till it balls up and comes together like a dough.

Dough:
To prepare the dough, mix flour, turmeric and salt with water and add oil until it is non-stick and comes together.

Take marble size dough and a ping ball size of filling and stuff and stretch with oil greased hands. Cook in tava till brown patches appear.

Alternate filling:
Bring coconut and jaggery together in a heated pan until they reach ball consistency.

Thattai

Makes 10-12 thattais

rice flour - 1 cup
roasted urad flour 1/4 cup
sesame seeds - 2 tbsp
soaked bengal gram (chana dal) to taste
asafoetida - to taste
chilli powder and salt - to taste
butter - 1 tbsp

Make a stiff dough and flatten to palm size discs on cloth. The cloth removes some moisture to enable easy frying. Fry till cooked, stiff and crisp in medium-low flame.

Aapam

Makes 20-25 Aapams

Ingredients:
Raw rice (2 cups)
parboiled rice - 1 cup
Poha (flattened rice) - 1 cup
cooked rice (1/2 to 1 cup)
whole urad dal (black gram lentils) - 1/4 cup
fenugreek - 1/2 tsp
coconut - 1 tbsp - 1/4 cup (optional)
salt to taste

Grind to a very smooth paste in the grinder. Ferment until it at least doubles in volume.
Swirl in hot rounded pan and close with lid to steam.

Serve with coconut milk/stew/kurma/vadai curry

Quick dinner??

I know. I know. Miracles do happen and I will have a recipe to share every so often.
Alright. This dish was a total experiment and I think it turned out OK(or I was very hungry). It is super quick to make, has a decent amount of vegetables, not overcooked and is yummy.

To make rice, start cooking basmati rice in a cooker and when it is half cooked add a lot of chopped green onions, some lime juice and a couple of pinches of salt.

Chop baby carrots, red potatoes, cauliflower and string beans. Cook for potatoes thoroughly in microwave but half cook everything else in microwave.
Add very little olive oil in a pan, some italian seasoning add the veggies and eggs (optional). Let egg got cooked around the veggies or cook till veggies are hot if you didn't add eggs. Add salt and pepper. Add some paste sauce. (I bought something is Safeway called tomato, herb and parmesan. the fresh type not the bottles ones)
Done!

Just Serve over rice.

Pudina (Mint) Dal

This is a simple recipe but I wanted to catalog it just so I remember that pudina goes well with split green mung dal.

1 cup split mung dal with skin
1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds (optional)
1 green chilly, slit

1-2 tsp ghee/oil
1 tsp nigella seeds (kalonji)
2 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds
5-7 curry leaves
ginger grated 1 tsp

1/4 - 1/2 cup pudina (mint) leaves
1/2 cup chopped onions
2 small tomatoes, chopped

1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp jeera (cumin) powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
salt to taste

juice of half a lemon
cilantro (coriander) leaves for garnish

Soak split mung dal for a couple hours with the fenugreek seeds. (This step is optional)
Boil the dal, fenugreek seeds and 1 green chilly until cooked or slightly mashed.
Heat oil/ghee in a pan and fry the jeera seeds, nigela seeds, curry leaves and ginger.
Add onions, mint leaves and turmeric powder and fry.
When onions and mint leaves are done (translucent and wilted respectively) add chopped tomatoes and cook.
When tomatoes lose their raw smell and are pulped up, add the cooked dal, cumin powder, coriander powder, chilli powder and salt. Let it boil so that the flavors blend. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and garnish with cialntro (coriander) leaves.

Notes:
1. Dal takes in more salt than you would expect.
2. Fenugreek seeds do not add to the taste as they taste bitter. But I add them just for the health factor as I don't get to use it much. They blend in with the dal and I seldom notice it in the dish.
3. Freeze ginger for easy grating.

pav and bhaji from scratch

While the original author and I call this pav and it did go well with bhaji, if you are searching for an authentic pav recipe, this is not it. The recipe is based off of this wonderful whole wheat bread recipe.
The bread is like French bread (crisp crust with a very soft non crumbly inside). The recipe asks for bread flour and whole wheat flour (the kind available in the US). I had neither and the bread still turned out great with my substitutions. The bread is very heavy and 1-2 large pavs will suffice for most people.
So here goes my first experience with the yeasty bread beasties.

Serves 6
Kneading time: 30 min
1st rise: 2 hours to even overnight
2nd rise: 30 minutes - 2 hours
baking time :10 - 15 minutes

3 cups atta (Indian whole wheat flour)
1.5 cups cake flour/all purpose flour
3 tblsp melted butter
2.5 cups milk ( I used skim milk)
2-2.5 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp sugar
6 tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp butter for brushing

Warm the milk and set aside. Add salt to a large mixing bowl followed by the flour and melted butter. In a small bowl (say a half cup measure bowl or similar) add the sugar, yeast and a few tbsp of milk, mix and blend with the dough. Now while adding the rest of the milk little by little, make a dough similar in consistency to roti dough (a dough which comes together nicely without sticking). If you feel like you need more liquid, either more milk or water would work. Since the dough uses milk, it might feel a little sticky but carpel-tunnel inducing kneading should get you a good dough without the addition of more flour or milk than stated. A man's hands in this final stage of kneading will work wonders while breaking less sweat. (This is my way of saying thanks to G !)


Close the bowl with a plate/lid/wrap and leave in a warm place (an oven with the lights on) for atleast 2 hours or till it doubles in volume. Now for the second stage of preparing the bread rounds I followed the original recipe exactly.

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts. Make a ball of 1 portion of the dough, flick a drop of water onto the surface of the dough and ball it up some more before placing on a greased pan. Repeat for other portions and place them an inch apart. I was not sure what a floured tea towel was - so just use a clean towel to cover the pan and place it back in the oven/warm place for the second rise.

Give it a couple hours (or until they double in volume), remove the towel and bake at 375 F for 10-12 minutes. Stick a toothpick and if it comes out clean, the bread is done. Remove from oven, and brush with butter. I used a butter knife which worked very well and place back in the oven for 5 minutes at 375 F. Place in a cooling rack (or colander).


Notes:
1. Add milk little by little. Adding a lot of milk at once makes the dough hard to knead.
2. The exact duration you let the dough rise does not seem to matter. In fact the more the better.
3. Using a baking sheet may have given better results than my almost burnt(= very brown but tasty) bread base.
4. This bread is very heavy. If you make 12 with this amount of dough, 1 bread is equal to 1 cup of rice in weight watcher points.
5. I left the dough overnight for 1 batch (picture 1) and a couple of hours for another (picture 3). I did like the overnight batch better but the shorter rise batch was tasty as well.
6. 2 tsp salt makes a slightly bland bread while 3 tsp makes a slightly salty bread - bread which G says has character.
7. Naan made from leftover dough comes out soft and tasty. (except that it stills smells like bread :-()

While my quest for authentic pav continues, this recipe would sure make a reappearance in my kitchen.
Happy baking !

Bhaji:

Of course I tried the blog-world famous Bombay style Bhaji recipe from here. While I liked it, I am unable to say that this is the best bhaji ever. Before I go critiquing the recipe I should add that I did not follow the proportions exactly but I did stick to the ingredients mentioned. Also made my own pav bhaji masala spice blend.

Notes on Bhaji making:
1. I like my bhaji as smooth as possible. In this regard, I did not care for the bell peppers as they are impossible to mash up completely. In the end, I guess they added a nice dimension.
2. I missed the onions :-( .. Specifically the onion tomato mixed flavor.
3. Next time I try this recipe I would stick to the proportions mentioned and see if it yields better results. Mine had more potatoes I think. (7 potatoes for a medium head and 1 frozen packet of cauliflower, 2 bell peppers)

It bothers me that even cookbooks take the liberty of saying 'Add Pav Bhaji masala powder available in stores', as if Everest and MDH have patented the blend. So in my quest for a home-made blend, I found this one recipe - pav bhaji masala powder. This serves the purpose quite well.

rice roti with left over khichadi/pongal or rice

I have always had mixed success with akki rotis/rice rotis. Once the dough became so dry that the rotis were as crisp as papads. The recipes that have worked involved adding rice flour to boiling water, vigorous kneading and patting the dough on a greased aluminum foil. So here goes a recipe for rice rotis with left over pongal.

left over pongal - measured
rice flour - around 1.5 times the amount of pongal
salt as needed
aluminum foil - 2 sheets (slightly bigger than the size of rotis)
oil, for greasing

Add water to pongal enough to immerse it and 1 cup more and set to boil.
Keep stirring to remove lumps from the pongal.
Once water starts boiling, add rice flour little by little until all the water is absorbed. (which will only take a minute)
Turn off the gas and let it cool until you can handle this mix with your hands. The salt in the pongal may not suffice. Add a little more. (maybe a 1/2 tsp for 1 cup of rice flour)

While still hot, take 1 ladle of the mix in a mixing bowl and work it with your hands. It will most likely be a sticky unworkable mass. Keep adding rice flour while kneading. Also keep adding more of the boiled mix.

Knead and add rice flour so that the mix becomes one mass of dough and not much of it sticks to your hands. (Similar to wheat rotis though wheat roti dough does not stick AT ALL).

Take a sheet of foil, grease withe sesame/coconut oil for flavor. Take a US lemon size ball of dough and pat it with your hands into a round as thin as possible. Invert the foil on a heated tava. Once the roti has heated up a little bit, you can peel the foil off the roti. Cook both sides till brown spots appear.

In the meanwhile, you can grease the second foil and have the second round ready for cooking.

This tastes pretty good (sort of similar to having kozhkattai's (modak's) outer covering). Try with coconut chutney or similar.

Notes:
1. Too much rice flour will cause the roti to dry out and be brittle. Just add enough to make a soft workable dough.
2. If you are wondering if it will be okay with brown rice, I made it with brown rice. It was perfectly fine except that cosmetically there was some bran visible in the rounds.
3. You don't have to re-grease the foil every time.
4. For even more thinner rotis, after patting, cover the round with the second foil and roll it once. peel away the second foil and place on tava.
5. If you let the mix cool down too much before adding rice flour you may not get a soft dough.