Ottil pollichathu (Rice Pancake 2)

Unlike marichedutha Appam, these are paper thin pancakes made out of rice and is so easy that we make it at home almost everyday either for dinner with any non-veg curry or during breakfast with any vegetable curry. 'Ottil pollichathu' ( or Aridosa) literally means some thing that's cooked on a heavy base cast iron griddle (Odu). Long before the non-stick pans and gridlles conquered the cuilinary world, these rice pan cakes were prepared in cast iron griddle that was cooked on stone stove (kalladuppu) (large blocks of stones kept at a distance in a certain way to hold the dish on top and to put the firewoods underneath) by using dry woods and palm leaves or even dried coconut husk for fire. The firewoods needs to be frequently blown to keep them lit up else the the fire will be put off and you will have to light them up again. What lot of hardwork isn't it? I think it would have tasted better then. But these days who would bother using such heavy griddle and even think of stone stoves?But, we still have a modified version of the Kalladuppu back home, which is used mainly for cooking rice or for any long cooking.

Ingredients:
2 cup Long grain rice (pachari)
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1/2 medium onion
3 cups water
salt as required
oil- as required

Preparation:
1.Soak rice in tap water for a minimum of 2 hours.

2.Grind it along with cooked rice,onion and water until very smooth and no grains of rice can be felt when you touch it.

3. Add enough salt and mix well. When u taste the batter, you must feel it a bit salty but again not too salty.

4. Heat a frying pan at medium high heat, add few dashes oil and pour 1 ladleful of batter (½ cups of batter) in the centre and just swirl the pan around to spread the batter all over thinly. This also can be done by pouring the batter in the centre and using the back of the ladle, spread the batter by moving the ladle over the batter in coil motion starting from the inside and gradually moving towards outside to spread the batter all around as we do in Dosa. It needs a bit of practice. I normally do the swirling way to spread the batter.

5. COVER with a lid and cook until the batter changes colour or set. At this stage, using a spatula, flip over the pan cake. If you find it breaking, and is difficult to flip, close the lid and wait for some more time until the pancake sets even more and you can turn them easily. Cook the other side also in the same way until cooked. Keep turning a couple of time to ensure that it is fully cooked. It just have to set and don't wait for the golden spots to appear. Because if it is over cooked, they will turn harder later on. It takes around 4 minutes to cook one ottil pollichathu.

6. Continue the same process with the rest of batter until all batter is used up. Store them in a hot-pot/casserole to retain the heat. Serve hot with its best combination King prawn varattiyathu, or even simple chicken curry or Malabar fish curry, prawn and okra curry, potato curry in coconut milk, green peas curry in coconut milk,Chemmeen muringavaal curry that I will be posting soon..etc..

Spinach Dal/Palak Dal

I remember having this curry once long long back when my mom prepared it. I dont remember her preparing it after that. I am definite she must have forgotten that wonderful recipe. This is such an easy and healthy dish that I planned to include it in my 'lazy day' recipes. Since it is quite mild even the kids will love it, my little toddler do! Hmm, well I was doing some research on this particular dish and found out that many of them added little chilli powder to it. Im happy with this recipe, but, next time I make it, I would try by adding little chilli powder along with turmeric and update you guys. Here is the recipe that I got from Lakshmi Nair's Show.

Update: I made palak dal Yesterday again, and added 1 tsp of kashmiri chilli powder along with turmeric. It gave a different colour to the curry. A slight orange colour rather than the mild yellow, I would say and I also reduced number of green chillies to 1 instead of having three of them. I dint find any difference in the taste, but if you like the light orange colour to the curry, you can add Chilli powder. Else just leave it.

Ingredients:
1 cup Moog dal (Spil yellow gram/lentils)(ചെറുപയര്‍ പരിപ്പ്)
250g Frozen spinach or fresh - chopped
3 large cloves Garlic
3 green chillies, slit legthwise
2 small onions chopped (1 cup)
2 medium tomato chopped ( around 1 cup)
1/2 cup thick coconut milk
2 tbs oil
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3/4 tsp Cumin seeds

Preparation:
1. Wash dal and Pressure cook them along with 3 cups of water until soft. Mash them and keep them aside.
2. Heat a saucepan, add oil. When hot, splutter cumin seeds. Quickly add chopped garlic, onion and green chillies and saute until the onion become soft and starts turning golden.
3. Add turmeric powder and chopped tomatoes. Cover and cook until tomatoes go soft.
4. Add the cooked dal and spinach and 1/2 cup of water if needed and cook for 15 minutes until the spinach is cooked.
5. Add coconut milk and salt and just bring to boil. Serve hot with rice, chappathi etc..

This recipe goes for the 'My Legume Love Affair'event Hosted by Annasara which is started by Susan.

This recipe also goes for the CFK event Hosted by Pavani of cook’s hideout started by Sharmi of neivedyam .

Beetroot Thoran(Stir fried Beetroot )

This is a colourful and simple stir-fry to go with plain rice and any curry. My husband's favorite thoran...
Ingredients:
2 beetroots (360 grams)
2 green chillies slit lengthwise
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/3 cup freshly grated coconut
salt as required
4 tbs water
2 tbs oil
3/4 tsp mustard seeds
Few curry leaves

Preparation:
1. Cut the beetroot into cubes of 1cm thickness. You will get around 21/2 cups of beet cubes. Cover and cook them along with water, salt,green chillies and onion until 3/4 cooked.
2. Add coconut and stir well and cook beetroot is fully cooked.
3. Heat a small frying pan or Kadai and add 2 tbs of oil. When oil becomes hot, splutter mustard seeds. Add curry leaves and when they begin to crackle, add it to the cooked beets. Serve hot as a side dish with plain rice.

Coconut Chammanthi(Thenga Chammanthi) and an Award!

Thenga Chammanthi is something that's made at home everytime a biriyani is made whether it is a fish biriyani or lamb or anything else. This Chammanthi along with Cucumber-Carrot Raitha is indispensable for biriyani days at home. I think all at my home, including me got into the habit of having chammanthi that we cant even eat biriyani without having a coconut chammanthi. After I joined my husband here, I just make them once in a while when I really really feel like having them. main reason is, by the time I finish up with the Biriyani itself I would be exhausted. Apart from that I get frozen coconuts here which should be defrosted hours before the chammanthi is made and in spite of all that I got a nasty food grinder which just doesn’t grind my coconut well. I have to feed it little by little and give it a shake every second to prevent from getting stuck and have to add water to get it ground to some level. It came along with my Kenwood Food Processor and I mainly bought it because of this grinder. It is said to be the spice grinder. Can you believe, the other day, I ground some pepper corns in it when I ran out of pepper powder and what happened after grinding them was, my spice grinder got cracks all over it and I had to tape it all around to prevent further cracking!!!Now my grinder is something like a person injured and plastered all over, as you see in Hindi movies. Just waiting to go to India to get the 'Sumeet' Grinder. It has got an amazing Chutney grinder in it. Sigh!

Another Happy thing is that My blogger Friend Pooja has passed on this lovely Award. Thank you a lot Pooja. That is really an inspiration.

Anyways here is the simple recipe for Coconut Chammanthi made at home to go with the Mutton Biriyanior any other Malabar Biriyani.

Ingredients:
2 cups freshly grated coconut
a small piece of ginger (About 1 1/2 cm)
3 large cloves of garlic
2 green chillies
1 1/2 - 2 tbs lime/lemon juice
6 mint leaves
few coriander leaves
salt - As required

Preparation:
1. Grind coconut, ginger, garlic and green chilli until well ground in a grinder.
2. Add the leaves and grind until well crushed.
3. Add lime juice and season well with salt.

Vegetable Kadai/Vegetable Karahi

When I first made this curry, I found it to be a bit confusing and quite long procedure to follow. It was just for the first time. I Normally dont try stuffs with long procedures, that too confusing. But gave this a try since I just make few vegetable curries and want to learn more. This is a mildly spiced and creamy curry to go with Indian rotis or chappathis. I love this curry, even though it take a bit longer time to prepare, and Im sure you will love it too:~)

Ingredients:
1 large (1 cup) Carrot cubed
1 medium (1 1/3 cup) Potato cubed
3 medium size onion
50g paneer cubed
2 cups Cauliflower florets
1 medium Tomato
1 tsp Ginger grated 2 cloves garlic grated
Salt - As reqd
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp+1/4 tsp Turmeric
tsp Chilly powder
1/2 tsp Pepper powder
1/2 tsp Garam masala powder
25 gm (1/4 cup)Cashews

2-3 tbs oil

Preparation:
1.Grind two onion & tomato in a blender until smooth.
2.Soak the cashew in water for 30 minutes.
3.Slice the remaining one onion. Heat a pan and add a tbs of oil. When hot add the sliced onions and sauté it until it becomes translucent. Add 1/4 tsp turmeric, 1/2 chilli powder & ¼ tsp pepper powder and sauté it for few seconds until the raw smell goes off.
4. Grind this sautéed onion with the soaked cashews. Keep them aside.
5. Heat another saucepan and fry the paneer cubes in remaining oil until slightly golden. Take them out and keep aside too.
6. In the same saucepan, sauté ginger-garlic paste followed by onion-tomato paste.
7. Add the remaining turmeric powder, chilli powder, pepper powder and garam masala powder. Saute it for 5 min.
8. Add the vegetables and paneer and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add 2 cups of water and cook them covered till they are done.
9. Add the cashew-onion paste and sauté it till oil appears from sides.
10. Add sugar and add salt to taste.

11. Garnish with coriander leaves.
:- You can also garnish with fresh cream to add extra taste. This curry goes well with Chappathis:)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I am sure everyone will have their own favourite recipe. Some like it crispy and some like it chewy and some others chunky. Either way I think it is tasty as far as it got loads of chocolate in them:). But depending on the amount of butter, sugar and flour used, the texture of the cookie really changes. I got this recipe from the butter wrap and gave it a try. It came out good. But my favorite ones are fat and chunky chocolate chip cookie but the outcome of mine was a medium thick chewy cookie. Anyways it was over in few days...

Ingredients:
2 cups/300g plain flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda/baking soda (not baking powder)
150g butter at room temperature
1 cup (200g) Brown sugar (Demerara)
1/2 cup (100g) Castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 large eggs
200 gms chocolate chips/chocolate chunks (I used a mixture of dark and white chocolate)
1/4 cup Raisins(optional) OR 1 Cup chopped nuts (Hazelnuts, walnuts,pecans, brazilnuts or any of your choice).

Preparation:

1. Sift the flour along with baking soda. Reserve.
2. Cream butter and sugar, either by using a electric beater for around 3-4 minutes until fluffy. I do it using a wooden
spoon for sometime longer,to avoid washing up.
3. Add egg one by one to this butter-sugar mixture and beat well after adding each egg.whisk in vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture and mix well using spoon. Dont overmix .
5. Add the chocolate chips and raisins OR nuts (if using) and mix until just combined.
6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius And line 2 cookie sheets with baking paper.
7. Drop a tspful of the dough making sure to leave a distance of 2 inches after each drops so that the cookie can spread well in the oven. Dont have to flatten them as they will spread during baking.
8. Bake them for 12-14 minutes until they turn light golden colour. Leave them in the sheet for about 4 minutes before transferring them on to a wire rack to cool completely.
N.B: Dont attempt to take the cookie out of the sheet as soon as it comes out of oven, since it will be soft and will crumble. It will take few minutes to harden.
9. When they are cooled completely put them in an airtight container, but make sure they have really cooled, else the moisture escaped from the cookies will make them soaky.
Makes about 70 medium sized cookies.If you are using a tablespoonful of the dough, you will get around 3 dozen large cookies.