RAW RED CHILLIES & LEMON CHUTNEY/ PULIPPU KARA CHUTNEY

Preparation time - 5 minutes

Cooking time - 2 minutes

Hi friends, 

I skipped lot of events in the past 2 weeks. I will try to participate in the following events. I made this Kara chutney for viji's SYS-W SERIES. My secret ingredient of this month is RED color veggies, so I have used Red chillies. 

I love this chutney very much. Even when I was pregnant I ate this chutney very often until 4 months. It will be very good with idli, dosa and even with chappathis too.  Will go to the recipe now.

Ingredients

Red chillies - 5 or 6
Lemon - 1/4 or as you need
Water - small amount as needed
Salt - as needed

Seasoning 

Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 or 3
Sesame oil - 2 to 3 tsp

Method

• First grind red chillies and salt. Then add little water as needed. Don't make it watery. 
• Make the red chillies powder into smooth paste. Then remove it to the bowl.
• Add fresh lemon juice to the chutney and mix well.
• Heat oil for seasoning, add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add seasoning to the chutney.
• Chutney is ready now.

Note

• This chutney is too spicy, please be sure before you use this chutney.
• It goes well with idly & dosa. If you would like, you could also use this as a thin spread for bread sandwich.
• I actually use to mix curd and sugar with this chutney while eating with dosa or idly. It will help you to reduce the risk of too much spicy. 

SYS-W SERIES SHOW YOUR STYLES TO THE WORLD by Viji

ARACHA KUZHAMBU / COCONUT GRAVY WITH CABBAGE AND PEAS/MOCHAI - EASY & QUICK TANJORE DISTRICT SPECIAL

Serving size - 2

Preparation time - 10 minutes

Cooking time - 20 minutes

Aracha Kuzhambu is one of the best gravy in our region especially Tanjore district. I love to have this from my childhood to now and forever. I learned this recipe from my mom. 

I do remember that my mom got fresh Mochai in the particular season, cooked and feed that until before marriage. Even when I was pregnant, she did the same though she had a heart surgery during that time. She never use spoon for feeding, always use her hand. I love the taste of her hands too. MOM is always special with LOVE,CARE and EVERYTHING right ?

It is a very easy and tasty recipe. You can give a try friends. If you will taste it, then you will be mad of this gravy. It will goes well with rice as well as idli, dosa or any Indian flat bread. Let us go to the recipe.

Ingredients

Cabbage - 1/3 cup
Peas - 2 tbsp (I used frozen )
Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp (optional) - I din't use
Water - 3/4 or 1 cup
Salt - as needed
Oil - 1 tbsp

To Grind

 Coconut - 1/3 cup
 Shallot - 1
 Garlic - 1

Toast in the direct fire

  Shallot - 1
  Garlic - 1

To fry slightly

   Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
   Channa dal - 1 tsp
   Green chilly - 1
   Red chillies - 3
   Oil - 1 tsp

Seasoning

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 4 or 5

Method

• You must toast shallot and garlic in the direct fire.  IF you have only coil on the stove top, you could use the tava for toasting. Sometimes, I toast on the coil too. IT works wells and keep it aside.
• Add all the ingredients under the heading To fry slightly into the pan and fry slightly. Don't fry much, then the taste will get spoil.
• Grind all the ingredients coconut, toasted shallot & garlic and fried ingredients together and keep it aside.
• Heat oil in a pan for seasoning, add mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and then finally ground paste. Fry for a minute or 2 in a low flame.
• Add water to the pan and allow it to boil until the raw smell goes.
• In the mean while, boil cabbage and peas in the microwave for 2 or 3 minutes. Else you can also boil these veggies on the stove top too.
• Finally add the veggies to the gravy and allow it to boil for 5 to 10 minutes or the gravy and veggies get well together.
• Aracha Kuzhambu is ready now. It will go very good with white rice and even to idli, dosa and chappathis. 

Tips

• You must be very careful while frying. That will change the whole gravy's taste.
• Instead of dry coriander seeds, you can use fresh coriander leaves too. It is more tastier than coriander seeds.
• The most speciality in this gravy is toast and un toast shallot and garlic. In tamil, we use to say sutta pondhu sudhatha pondu, sutta vengayam, sudhath vengayam gives special taste to this gravy.
• you can also use either red chillies or green chillies too. Its totally upto your preference.

RED SHALLOT CHUTNEY / INDIAN STYLE RED SHALLOT SPICY SPREAD / CHINNA VENGAYA CHUTNEY

Serving Size - 2

Preparation time - 10 minutes

Cooking time - 5 minutes

Red shallot chutney is the most common chutney in south India. It goes well with idli, dosa or even as spread for bread sandwich or to chapathi rolls.

 I specially made this chutney for sending this recipe to my friend Viji's - Show your styles to the world SYS-W SERIES MARCH 2014. WE have to choose a number between 1 to 6 before 5th of every month,  on the 5th of every month she revealed the secret ingredients behind the each numbers. According to that, my son picked number 4. The secret ingredient behind the number 4 is Red. So that I made this red shallot chutney to link it up :)

Ingredients

Red shallots peeled - 1 small bowl

Red chillies - 2 or 3

Tamarind - little amount

oil - 1 tsp

Seasoning

Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp

Urad dal - 1/8 tsp

Curry leaves - 4 or 5

Oil - 1 tsp

Method

• Heat oil in a pan, add shallots and fry until slightly transparent. 
• Add red chillies and tamarind at the final stage, fry for few seconds. 
• Allow them to get cool for grinding.
• Grind all the ingredients with salt and make a paste. Keep it in the bowl
• Heat oil for seasoning, add curry leaves, mustard seeds and urad dal in the same order as I told.
• Add the seasoning to the shallot chutney.
• IF you want that to use as sauce for any dish, please avoid seasoning.

Tips

• We can also use Red onions instead of Red shallots.
• Be sure, don't burn or make it brown color while frying shallots or onions.

I am going to link this chutney to

SYS-W SERIES SHOW YOUR STYLES TO THE WORLD by Viji

MALAI KOFTA - SNC CHALLENGE 15

Serving Size - 2

Preparation time - 30 minutes

Cooking time - 40 minutes

Today's post is long awaited challenged recipe from my draft lists, its none other than Malai Kofta which is challenged by Napur of UK RASOI who is the north team member of SNC. SNC event is run by Divya Pramil from youtoocancook and theme of the challenge is to exchange their regional recipes between the north and south teams . If you want to know more details about this SNC event, please go to the following link. SouthVSNorth Challenge. As I am from south team of SNC, I have to use the following logo

Malai Kofta is a very popular north Indian side dish. So I don't want to give more intro about it.It is a fried cottage cheese balls in the spiced thick creamy gravy. It will go with any Indian flat bread or rice varieties. I made this challenge on the first week of feb. But due to my laziness I din't post this recipe until before the last day of the challenge. I should link this recipe today unless I won't link it up. So that I am writing this post today. 

I would like to say another one thing, actually we don't like malai kofta but after we tried Napur's malai kofta, we really love to have this with indian flat breads. Thank you very much for sharing this wonderful recipe Napur. 

Let us go to the recipe... I din't change anythi0ng from Napur's recipe. I followed her in each and every steps.

Ingredients

For Koftas

Paneer - 100 gms

Boiled peeled grated potato - 2

Red chillipowder - 1/4 tsp

Corn flour - 1 tbsp

Garam masala - 1/4 tsp

Milk powder - 1 tbsp

Salt - as needed

oil - as required for deep or shallow fry.

For the Gravy

Onion - 1/2 no. (I used US red onion)

Ginger - 1/2 piece grated

Garlic cloves - 3 roughly sliced

Tomatoes - 2 (Prepare fresh tomato puree)

Cashew paste - 1/4 cup

Red chilli powder - 3/4 tsp

Garam masala - 1/4 tsp

Water - 2 cups

Fresh cream - 3/4 cup (or full cream milk - 1 cup)

Kasuri methi - 1 tsp ( I din't used)

Salt - as needed

Whole Spices

Bay Leaf - 1

Cinnamon - 1 inch

Black cardamom - 1

Green cardamom - 2 or 3

Mace - a pinch

Cloves - 2

For Garnish

Cilantro - 1/2 cup

Cream - 2 tbsp

Grated paneer - 1 tbsp

Method

For Kofta

• In a bowl, mix all the ingredients under the kofta heading. Make 8 to 10 heart-shaped koftas gently and keep it aside.
• Heat oil in a large pan for deep frying koftas. Take corn flour in a plate to coat the koftas before deep frying.
• After coating corn flour on the koftas, deep fry all the koftas, drain its oil and keep it aside.

NOTE : Instead of deep fry, you can also do shallow fry the koftas and keep it aside.You could see the difference in the below picture.

For Gravy

•  Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan, add all the whole spices until the fragrance comes out. 
• Add ginger and garlic pieces and fry for half a minute. Then add onions and fry until it turns transparent. Switch off the stove and allow it to cool.
• Once it gets cool, transfer it to the blender and pulse it to the coarse paste. 
• Add little oil and ground onion paste to the pan, then switch on the stove.
• Now add the tomato puree too in the same pan and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the rest of the spices - turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala powder and mix well.
• Cook this mixture for 10 minutes on covered for 10 minutes and uncovered for 8 minutes or until the oil leaves its side.
• Now, reduce the flame to medium, add cashew paste and water to the mixture and allow it to gets thicker. It will take 10 to 15 minutes approximately.
• Finally turns the flame to low, add the cream or milk to the mixture. While adding the cream or milk, stirring the gravy and add gradually.  NOTE : Cream or milk must be in room temperature to avoid curdle.
• Again turns the flame to medium or less than medium and allow it to cook for 5 minutes. If you would like, you could add little sugar to gets rich taste with mild sweetness and crushed dry methi leaves and cook for a minutes. Switch of the flame.
• Gravy is ready now.

For Assembling and garnishing

• Heat the gravy slightly before serving. Arrange koftas in the serving dish. 
• Pour the gravy gently on the koftas and garnish it with chopped cilantro, grated paneer and cream of your choice.
• Malai Kofta is ready now and serves with any flavored rice or white rice or with any indian flat bread.
• I served this malai kofta with peas pulao.

 I once again thank Napur for sharing this wonderful recipe. I love this dish to the core, Napur. Thank you Divya pramil.