Dates and Figs Laddoo - a pictorial story

The following pictures are taken by my cousin Sreelatha. I will post the recipe soon. Thanks to her for all the effort. I did taste those laddoos and they are awesome. for those who long for sweet and want some healthy stuff, go ahead and try these laddoos, they are healthy too because there is no artificial sweetner or sugar in it.

A pictorial view:

In the making






Look at my nakhre...


Tasty twins

Here is the recipe for dates laddoo:
Ingredients
Dates 2 cups
8-10 figs
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup cashews
4 tbps of dried cococunt
2 tbps of poppy seeds
1 tbps of Butter

Method of preparation
1. Cut the dates and figs into small pieces and cook in a spoon of butter, until well done.


2. Toast the nuts and poppy seeds and make it into powder to desired bite level (fine powder to little bits, its upto individual preference how coarse or fine the powder need to be).

3. Toast dates and figs also. After toasting them you can grind them to desired consistency.

4. Add the grinded dates, nuts, coconut and poppy seeds in a pan. Make sure you get the desired consistency for rolling the mixture into a laddoo shape.

5. Roll it some dried coconut after making laddoo shape. Your laddoos are ready to serve or eat instantly.

Note: you can replace coconut powder for rolling with some colored sugar or rainbow sprinkles for attracting kids or to look fancier. Good luck.

Thanks to sonakka for the recipe and photos in the post.

Vankaya/Eggplant Masala Curry

In general, whenever we order the vankaya curry from hotel or bagara baigan I see it lightly in brown color (ofcourse because of the sesame seeds paste and tamarind I believe) and taste was not that great. But on our cousin's housewarming day(which was almost an year ago) I ate this very delicious and nice looking vankaya masala. On last thursday I want to replicate it at home, because I was longing to have that taste once more. And happily I was able to replicate it. I could not take any pictures but will post pictures when I repeat the recipe again.
Ingredients
Eggplants - 14 - 15 in no. chopped in 4 parts with ends keeping in tact.
Oil - 5-6 table spoons
Onions - 2
Tomatos - 3
Ginger and garlic paste 2 table spoons (I grinded both in traditional mortar and pestle)
Garam masala - 1.5 table spoons
Red chilli powder - 3 table spoons
Salt - 3 table spoons
Cumin seeds - 1/2 table spoon
Asafoetida - 2 pinches (use generously)
Tamarind paste - 2 table spoons ( I used the ready made paste here)
Peanut powder - 5 table spoons (to make thick gravy, you can add more or less depending on how the gravy should be for you)
Method of preparation
1. Fry chopped onions in 1/2 spoon of oil and then grind it to paste.
2. Boil tomatos in water and then grind it and mix it with the onion paste.
3. Add red chilli powder, salt, garam masala to the onion tomato mixture and keep aside.
4. Take a pressure cooker or kadai and add oil to it.
5. After oil is heated, add cumin seeds(Jeera), asafoetida.
6. Drop the chopped eggplants into the kadai. Fry them for two minutes.
7. Now add onion, tomato paste, peanut powder, tamarind paste.
8. Transfer every to a pressure cooker and cook till one whistle. Transfer it to serving bowl after the cooker is done and garnish with coriander and cashews if you look.

Note:
If you do not have pressure cooker, you can cook in the same kadai but let the eggplant cook half first and then close the lid and mix everything. Cook in the kadai until eggplant is thoroughly cooked , while mixing it in between.

cottage cheese bajjis/fritters

I literally mean cottage cheese for this recipe. On the thanks giving long weekend I got a small pack of cottage cheese assuming it to be similar to our paneer(Indian version of cottage cheese). I wanted to try out some paneer recipe that weekend. But as I opened the box I was disappointed to see how the cottage cheese is. It was a little liquid and probably a version of yogurt I felt. Not knowing on what to do with it, I left it in the refridgerator for it to expire and then I can throw it away. Luckily on one weekend, one of our friends/relatives prepared cottage cheese fritters, whose taste is very good. Out of excitement I asked about how she made it. As it was snowing this weekend and nothing else to do while kids were sleeping, I said to myself that I would give it a try. My elder son who is 22 months old loved them and ate them very nicely along with chutney. The taste of the bajjis/fritters was extremely good yummy and I can guarantee that kids are going to love it ofcourse your whole family also. So here goes the recipe:

Ingredients
Cottage cheese
All purpose flour
Sooji also called bombai ravva
green chillies
coriander
Oil for deep fry
Salt to taste

Method of preparation
1) Mix cottage cheese green chillies, coriander, salt and slowly add all purpose flour(maida) to it so that it becomes slightly dough type. Also add sooji little bit while mixing.

2) Take a kadai/wok and add oil to it. Let it heat and then slowly drop small parts of above mixture. Deep fry them till golden yellow.



3) Drain them on a paper towel so that any extra oil is squeezed away from top and serve it with any chutney. Here I served it with Coriander, Peanut, Chana dalia chutney.



INFO:
1)Sooji gives crispy taste to the bajjis, but beware do not add more of it as it might ruin the taste of total bajjis. Just add enough so that the bajjis crispy. I used 5 spoons of sooji for a small container of cottage cheese. So use your judgement on using it.
2) Make sure you add less salt than needed. these bajjis can easily have good taste with less salt. taste the bajji by deep frying one and then add any extra salt needed.
3) Remove the cottage cheese out before 1/2 - 1 hour of preparation so that any ice in it will be turned to water.
4) I can guarantee that you can even try these with regular paneer also but for paneer since all the water is removed, you might have to add good amount of water and make it like pakodi bajji mix.

Jilebi with Instant mix

Update: 01/26/2011

I made this recently again and it came out good when I used the ketchup bottles. so I wanted to update with the latest pics.
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This Jilebi is tried by using the instant mix. of course I used the standard gits. I have one more at home to try out and that is from Priya I believe. The taste of the jilebi came out good except the size of the hole I cut in the cloth for pouring jilebi was a little stout. Most of the people suggested me to use ketchup bottles we get or see in the Indian bakeries. So I got it yesterday (literally yesterday from walmart). So hopefully next time my jilebis come out in good shape.:).

Ingredients
Jilebi instant mix
Sugar syrup (sugar and water mixed in equal parts)
Oil for deep frying

Method of preparation
1. Mix the jilebi mix as mentioned on the packet with water. make it to a dosa batter consistency. Keep aside for 15 minutes.

2. Heat a kadai with oil and on another stove put another bowl for sugar syrup.

3. Take a ketchup bottle or a cloth with very small hole. place a part of mixed batter in it.

4. After oil is heated, pour the jilebis in circle starting with inner one first.



5. After jilebi turns light golden or brown remove it from oil and put it in sugar syrup for 5 minutes and then drain it on a paper or plate ready to serve.



Note: I dont remember off my head on if the jilebi mix asked me to use milk or water
to mix it. I shall update this post if it is not water.

Rasmalai with Ricotta Cheese

I read lot of recipes online for the above. I was not sure which one to follow. So I combined some of the recipes with what I have at home to make Rasmalai. I got Ricotta cheese from store and wanted to try for Thanksgiving. So I did the same. Although an experiment it came out good and I like it. The taste of it is much similar to the indian one...... but with slight tinge of non-indian flavor as we generally see/taste in our everyday recipes. So here it goes on how I made it.

Ingredients
Ricotta cheese - 1 can
Condensed milk - 1 can (I used fat-free)
Confectioner sugar - 1 cup
Milk Powder - 1 packet
silvered almonds - 1 packet
Whipped Cream - 1 or 2 boxes (I used fat-free, also depends on if you want to use it or not. You can always replace it with milk).


Method of preparation
1. Add Ricotta cheese along with confectioner sugar and 1/2 packet of milk powder. Mix them all well to a smooth paste. I added some silvered almonds on the top of the rasmalai to look good.

2. I did not have a muffin pan as one of the blogs suggested so I used the muffin cup layers and add a small amount of above mixture.

3. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. Now put the above ready plate into it and then heat it until it is slightly cooked or until it turns very light brown at bottom. DO NOT OVERHEAT OR MAKE IT TURN BROWN, because that would not taste good.


4. Prepare the milk to pour on rasmalai in the mean time. Add whipped cream, slightly boiled milk. (I heated the milk in microwave, good enought that it is more than warm. Mix them both and also combine the condensed milk. Taste the milk mix and add sugar if needed. For thicker gravy or solution, add whipped cream and condensed milk. If you like it little liquidish type, then add milk to above according to your taste. Add silvered almonds to the milk mixture.



5. After the rasmalai is done, carefully remove it from the bake and dip them in milk prepared. Or you can take a bowl arrange the baked rasmalai's and then pour milk on top of them.

Gadget in Kitchen

Here is a new gadget/tool in my kitchen. My husband got it as my birthday gift. This is a electric pressure cooker. Doesn't whistle as our regular pressure cooker but cooks exactly like it. We can make all kind of dals, Sambar, Rice or any item in it. We can add tadka directly in it by putting in it in browning mode and then switch it back to high pressure for cooking dal later. Easy to use. Easy to clean the bowl. Faster cooking happens when I do use my rice cooker for rice, and add curry on stove and dal in electric pressure cooker. All my items are done at the same time, making us ready to eat faster.

My husband got it from Costco for 80 bucks I believe. Worth it if you have kids and need to cook dal/sambar everyday or if you cook rice very often. Cooking in this is also much faster I should say :).

Authentic Gongura Pachadi

This is the authentic way of doing gongura pachadi. Made from fresh leaves from our backyard by my mom in September of this year.

Gongura Leaf


Ingredients
Gongura leaves washed

Dhania

Onion

Red chillies

Green chillies

Chana dal - 1 tea spoon

Urad dal - 1 tea spoon

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tea spoon

Jeera - 1/2 tea spoon

Oil

Salt to taste

Garlic cloves peeled chopped

Method of preparation

1) wash the gongura leaves and set aside
2) chop the onions into squares

3) Put some oil in kadai and let it get heated. Now add chopped garlic and after it turns light brown, set them aside from oil as shown in following photo.

4) Now in same oil add gongura leaves and let them cook. you will notice that the leaves become a mushy paste after sometime indicating that they are cooked. Put the paste aside from kadai.

5) Now add little oil for tadka and then add mustard seeds. after they start splutter add jeera, chana dal, urad dal, red chillies, green chillies, dhania also. Add salt sufficient for the whole chutney to this.

6) After they are a little done ( a minute or two), put all the tadka in the blender and make them into powder/paste.
7) After the above paste is done, now add the gongura to the blender and do not run for a long time. run it so that the gongura paste and the tadka mixes consitently.

8) Take a serving bowl add the gongura paste and chopped onions along with fried garlic. Mix them well and serve with white rice.

Note:

1) People who do not like garlic can avoid using garlic.

2) Another lazy way of doing it is first do the tadka and then add gongura leaves to it and put them all in the blender.

Vankaya Allam Kura/Eggplant Ginger Curry

Ingredients
Brinjals/Eggplants/Vankayalu
Ginger/Allam
Green Chillies
mustard seeds/aavaalu
Jeera/Cumin Seeds/Jeelakarra
Oil
Salt to taste
Curry leaves/Karivepaku
Coriander/Kothimeeru

Method of preparation
1) Chop brinjals into squares. If you like then grind ginger and green chillies to paste or else chop them so that they are very tiny or grate. The option of how to put them is on you.

2) Add oil in kadai and put in on stove. Let the oil get heated. Now add mustard seeds after it splutters add the following: jeera, curry leaves, ginger(chopped/grated/paste), green chillies(chopped/grated/paste).

3) Now finally add brinjals and let it cook. Once it is almost done then add salt to it. Make sure you do not move brinjals hard or many times, that would make brinjals mushy or kind of paste.

4) Once the brinjal is done, transfer the contents into serving bowl and add coriander on top. Serve it with white rice or roti.

Filter Coffee Making

A hot coffee while the weather is cold or in the morning at work is a better way to start the day. I dont say it but lot of others say it. If the coffee is special and cheering up it is even more interesting way to start the day. That is how my husband loves to start the day now-a-days. He generally prefers the typical filter coffee but if it is not there then he would opt for the instant coffee.

All we need to make the filter coffee is coffee filter, filter powder and then hot water.
You would initially add powder to the top section as shown in below picture:

Close it with holes holder (see picture)

Then you pour hot water into the top part. (see picture)

Within few minutes the decaution(spelled dekation) of filter coffee is ready.
Mix a little decaution with hot milk and sugar depending on your taste.

Enjoy !!!

Kalapataala Curry/Mixture of veggies Fry curry

This curry is very famous one from our village. Kalapatam means mixture. Kalapatala curry means mixture of veggies and fried. This mixture of veggies I am talking about contains combination of okra(bhendi, bendakaya), Tindora (dondakaya), Bitter gourd (karela, kakarakaya) and amaranth leaves (thotakura). So here goes the simple recipe.
Ingredients
Okra/Bhendi
Tindora
Bitter gourd
Amaranth leaves
mustard seeds, jeera, chana dal for tadka/popu/poni
Red chilli powder
Turmeric
Salt to taste
Oil
Method of preparation
Chop the veggies and leaves and keep aside. Take a pan and add oil to it. After oil is heated add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add jeera and urad dal and let dal fry a little bit. Dont burn the dal or make it turn black. Add the chopped vegetables at this point and little turmeric. Add salt to taste and fry it. Once the veggies are cooked add red chilli powder and mix it thoroughly. Turn off the heat and serve hot with rice.

Dryfruit Sweet

This sweet I just love it. It is healthy, nutritious and yummy to eat. Here is the recipe from one of my cousin (from Amitha akka):
Ingredients
Dates - 1 cup
Cashew - 1/2 cup
Badam, Pistacheos together - 1/2 cup

Sweet condensed milk - 1/2 cup
Coconut powder to roll
Method of preparation
1. Put 1 spoon of ghee on tawa and put dates, after dates become smoochy add all dry fruits.
2. After little bit of frying the nuts, mix the condensed milk and keep on stove for 1o min by stirring all the ingredients.
3. Then take this mix and roll over on in the coconut powder
4. Keep in freezer for 3 to 4 hours. After taking out cut into round pieces.

Simple and easy .... yummy for the tummy. Try it out....

Authentic Vankaya Pachadi/ Eggplant Pickle

This is an andhra recipe from my mother in law. I wanted to share this recipe as I feel this is an authentic recipe. so here it goes:
Ingredients
Eggplant/ Brinjal / Vankaya - fried in little oil
Red chilies - 4 or 5
Green Chillies - 2 or 3
Urad dal
Mustard seeds
Menthulu / Fenugreek seeds
Tamarind - little, soaked in water
Salt
Coriander
Method of preparation
1. Take a kadai and do tadka/popu/poni in it. Add little oil after it is heated, now add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, red chillies, green chillies, urad dal.
2. Grind the above tadka along with tamarind water, coriander and salt.
3. Lastly add fried brinjals to above and grind. Do not grind it to total paste.
4. I love onions taste along with the brinjal/eggplant. go ahead and add chopped onion to the pachadi and you wont repent it. If you do not like onion taste then please skip this step.
Note: If you like a little crunchy taste then add tindora chopped into very very small pieces to the above. You wont believe but the taste will be too good having crunchy feeling in between.

Hope you like the recipe and will try it.

Kaju Katli (Microwave recipe)

This is a recipe shared by my cousin sister Sony. Thank you akka for sharing the recipe with me.
Ingredients
Cashews - 1 cup
Milk powder - 1 and 1/2 table spoons
Powdered sugar - 1 cup
butter - 3 and 1/2 table spoons
rose essence - few drops
silver warq - for decoration
Method of preparation
1. Grind cashwenuts to paste in a mixie with minimal water.
2. Add all the rest of ingredients, blend well and transfer to a microwave safe bowl.
3. microwave for 7 minutes, stirring once in between.
4. Take out from microwave and beat well with laddle.
5. When the mixture resembles hard like a chapathi dough(forms a ball), transfer it to a greased aluminium foil.
6. Keep another foil and roll it into 1/4 inch thickness.
7. Decorate with silver warq. Cut into diamond shapes or any desired shape with greased knife.
8. Allow it to cool and transfer it to air tight container.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 7 minutes
Standing time: 3 minutes
Yield: 20 pieces

Bean Dip

Its nice to go out to lunch and dinners sometimes. I tend to learn lot of new items whenever I got out. One of them is this Bean dip. We tasted it today at our relatives home as appetizer. It was served along with Tostitos chips. I can guarantee, if we add little less salsa then it is perfect as a healthy snack for children when they are home from after school. Meaning this can be part of afternoon snack. Hope you all will also like it.

Ingredients

Pink bean tin

Hot Salsa

onions

cilantro

Cheese

Jalepenos

Method of preparation

1. Empty the can of beans. Wash and drain the beans in colander. Do the same with Jalepenos.

2. Blend the beans with salsa to paste in a grinder/blender.

3. Add it in a serving bowl which is microwave safe and heat the mixture for 2-3 minutes in microwave so that it is kind of cooked up.

4. Now spread cheese, onions, cilantro, Jalepenos and put it in microwave for another 2-3 minutes or until cheese is little melted.

5.Now you are ready to serve your bean dip with any chips. Best combination for this is Tostitos type chips (or corn chips).

Pesaru pappu garelu/Moong dal fritters

We made this for our girl's first batukamma. It is easy tasty to make it. So here goes the recipe:
Ingredients
Pesaru pappu (Moong dal)
Onions chopped small
Ginger, garlic, Green chillies grinded
Salt to taste
Oil to deep fry
Method of preparation
1. Soak moong dal for an hour or two. and then coarsely grind it.
2. Once it is grinded coarsely add ginger, garlic and green chilli paste along with salt to taste.
3. Take a cover (plastic or polythene) and wet it a little bit with water. Take small amount of mixture and press it to make it round shape with hand. Then leave that round shape slowly in hot oil and deep fry them.
4. Remove it and serve them along with any chutney or ketchup. Sprinkle chat masala if required for added taste.


Note:Sorry about the confusion on using minapa pappu in title instead of pesaru pappu. Thank you for identifying the wrong wording.

Tindora Fry/ Dondakaya Fry

Ingredients
Tindora
mustard seeds
jeera
turmeric
Salt to taste
Chilli powder
oil

Method of preparation
1. if you take frozen tindora then defrost first in microwave and then drain the extra water. If fresh Tindora then chop it to the size and shape you like.
2. Add oil in kadai, then add mustard seeds and little jeera. Then add the chopped or drained tindora.
3. Add little turmeric to it, stir once. Add salt to taste and then keep stirring in between.
4. Once tindora is done then add chilli powder to taste. Serve it with plain rice or roti.

Bhendi Fry

Ingredients

Bhendi

mustard seeds

jeera

turmeric

Salt to taste

Chilli powder

Lemon or lime juice (optional)

oil

Method of preparation

1. if you take frozen bhendi then defrost first in microwave and then drain the extra water. If fresh bhendi then chop it to the size you like.

2. Add oil in kadai, then add mustard seeds and little jeera. Then add the chopped or drained bhendi.

3. Add little turmeric to it, stir once (try not to stir hard, if possibe toss it). try to toss it at regular intervals.

4. Once bhendi is done add salt and chillie powder to taste. Before you turn off stove, just add little lime juice if you like it sour. Serve it with plain rice or roti.

Kesar annam/Kesar baath

Well one of my favourite snack I should say. I used to ask my mom to make it in the afternoon whenever I was longing to have sweet. Easy to make and yummy to eat.
Ingredients
Rice
Sugar
Ghee very little (to fry dry fruits)
Kesar food color (or yellow orange food color)
laung (lavangam, Clove)- 2 - 5
Elaichi powdered - 1/2-1 teaspoon
Dry fruits - cashew, raisins (optional)
Milk - 1 tablespoon
Method of preparation
1. Cook rice normally as generally do
2. Do the paakam by adding sugar in a bowl and then little water
3. Take a vessel and add little ghee. Fry the dry fruits and keep aside.
4. Now in the same ghee add clove and then rice along with sugar syrup.
5. Now add food color to the milk and mix well. little food color is sufficiant (almost 1/4 tea spoon probably).
6. Add the above to the rice mixture along with elaichi powder.
7. After 5 minutes you can turn off heat and add dry fruits and serve.

Chamagadda Fry

Taro root I believe is another name for Chamagadda. We made this curry for a potluck recently. Ofcourse we made large quantity (large tray), but this can be done small quantities at home. People who like fry curry will love this. So here goes the recipe:

Ingredients

Chamagadda
Oil to deep fry

Mustard seeds

jeera

urad dal (minapa pappu)

Red chillies

Red chilli powder

Salt to taste

Cilantro

Method of preparation

1. Boil the chamagadda in a pressure cooker or in microwave whichever is convenient for you.

2. Let it cool, and then peel off the skin and chop the chamagadda.

3. Take a kadai and add oil to deep fry.

4. After oil is heated, add the chopped chamagadda pieces and deep fry.

5. remove them and now take a small pan and do popu/tadka with very little oil (according to quantity of chamagadda), mustard seeds (let them splutter), jeera, urad dal, curry leaves if possible, red chillies.

6. Now add the fried pieces of chamagadda to it along with salt and red chillie powder.

7. Toss it and take it in a bowl and garnish with cilantro.

Sabudana vadiyalu(small papad)

This recipe is very easy simple tasty and wonderful.

Ingredients
Sabudana (Saggubiyyam)
Salt
Green chillie paste (Optional - if you want them to be spicy then add this)

Method of preparation
1. Soak Sabudana for 4- 5 hours in water.
2. Drain Sabudana and add it to a hot kadai/vessel and let it become kind of soggy paste. You should be able to take it out with a spoon.
3. Switch off the stove and add very little salt to it. If you like you can add green chilli paste at this point. Mix all the above.
4. Take a tray (any tray but wide enough). Using spoon or spatula drop very small quatities on the tray (by maintaining enough distance between one drop and other).


5. Put the tray in sun light for a day or two by turning to other side once one side is dried out totally. These vadiyalu dries out very quickly if the heat is adequate. Your sabudana vadiyalyu are ready at this point.



Before you eat them, fry them in oil and they will become crunchy and big (similar to papad but not of that much big size). These vadiyalu are good to eat with rice and sambar or rice and rasam combination.
Note: I am going to post pics of this so that it will give a nice pictorial view and idea of how they look at every stage.

Sorakaya (Doodhi) Curry

This curry which my mom makes (ofcourse I do the same thing too) is simple curry which is a good combination with roti. It can also be had with rice.

Ingredients

Sorakaya - 1 - peeled and chopped

Onion - 1 large

Tomato - 1 large

Red chilli powder/green chillies - according to your taste

Salt to taste

Dhania/Coriander powder - 1 table spoon

mustard seeds - 1 small tea spoon

Jeera/Cumin - 1 small tea spoon

Turmeric - 1/2 or 1 small tea spoon

Oil

Coriander leaves

Curry leaves

Method of preparation

1. Take a kadai/pan. Add oil to it. Let it heat and then add mustard seeds. Let it splutter.

2. Add Jeera to it. Add curry leaves and green chillies (if any).

3. Add onions and fry till they turn translucent.

4. Now add Sorakaya(doodhi) to it. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, dhania powder. Cover and cook till the sorakaya is almost done.

5. Add salt, tomatos with very little water. After 5 minutes or till everything is cooked, turn off heat and garnish with coriander.

Summer Drink - Roohafza

My husband got Roohafza for the first time. So I wanted to try it out how it tastes. I always had a wrong impression on it, as it smelled a little of rose water. But after I try it I can say confidently that, people who like the falooda sev drink/icecream will like this too.

Just add Rooh-afza with cold water ice cubes. If you want, you can top it up some whipped cream.


The following picture is when I added Rooh-afza with a little cold milk, water, ice cubes. Mix them up and added a little fat free whipped cream on top.


The label on it says it can be used as topping on an ice-cream, too so try it out.

Halwa

I tried this recipe from plantainleaf. Here is the link of the recipe.
http://plantainleaf.blogspot.com/2009/04/maida-halwa.html

It came out really good. Planning to make it one more time.

Here is the picture of what it looks like when I tried it for the first time:

Blueberry Juice/Milk shake

I hate eating fruits. But if they are turned into something tasty then I can have it. Since fruits are very healthy, I generally make something out of fruits to add it into my diet for health reasons. My husband got this big box of blueberries this time. Personally I dont want to eat them. He asked me to make milk shake or juice out of it so that we all can have it and finish it faster without getting them wasted. Here is how I made it :

Wash and take blue berries in a blender.

Add sufficiant milk to it and blend it.

I then filtered it to get the total juice out of it.

Add honey according to your taste. and your juice is ready to serve or drink.

Raw Coriander chutney

This one was prepared by my cousin when she prepared cut mirchi. Both were awesomely made. In some places it is also called kothimeeru uppu (Coriander Salt). The preparation of this chutney is so easy that I decided to post the recipe here for everybody. This chutney can be used as green chutney while making chat and also can be accompanied with all tiffins or chat items. So here it goes:

Ingredients

Coriander (kothimeeru)

Green Chillies

Salt

Garlic (optional)

Method of preparation

Grind all the ingredients in a mixie and serve it as side dish for anything. Thats all. Easy right?

Curry puffs

Easiest recipe for curry puffs. I made this yesterday for my husband as Father's day special. Ofcourse I dont make it from scratch but I use puff pastry sheets, which makes my life very easy to make these tasty puffs.

Ingredients
Pepperridge farm puff pastry sheets
very little maida or roti flour
for stuffing:
potato chopped
carrot chopped
beans chopped
batani (peas)
Garam masala - 1/2 table spoon
chat masala - 1/2 table spoon
Red chilli powder - depends on taste
Salt to taste
Jeera
Oil
Lime/lemon juice - 1 table spoon (optional)

Method of Preparation
Remove the puff pastry sheets from freezer and keep it outside for defrosting it. You can even use microwave for doing it, but I like to do it naturally rather than using microwave as it sometimes overheats it.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

1. Start by making the stuffing ready first. Take a kadai, add oil to it and let it heat.

2. Add jeera to it. Now add all the vegetables with pinch of turmeric to it.

3. Add red chilli powder, mix it and let it cook for few minutes covered on medium flame.

4. Now add garam masala, chat masala and salt to taste and mix it. once the vegetables are cooked switch off the stove. Do not overcook the curry.




5. Now the stuffing is ready lets make the puffs ready. there will be two big sheets in each puff pastry and we can make 9 puffs for each sheet. Cut the sheet into 9 by using a pizza cutter or knife.

6. Now sprinkle little maida or roti flour and make them a little bigger to stuff the curry properly using belan. Do not press harder or make the sheet thin, as it would reduce the puffiness by overpressing it.

7. Add curry to middle of the sheet and press all the sides with little water.

8. Arrange all the curry puffs in oven safe tray. Arrange them with little gap in between puffs so they have enough roof to get puffed up.

9. Bake the puffs for 20 minutes or till you see they are done by observing the color of the puffs turning slightly golden brown.





Remove the puffs from baking and serve hot with any ketchup or chutney.