Lime Rice (Elumichham Pazham Saadham)

Lime rice is also mostly known as lemon Rice where lemon and Lime is considered or mistaken for other. This is a very popular and flavourful rice preparation of Tamil Nadu, South India. It is tempered with lentils, nuts, chillies, leaves etc, leaving behind all its flavours in the rice. It can be served on its own, or have it with yogurt, pickle and Pappadums. You can also serve with some spicy non-vegetarian curries like Malabar Chicken Curry  , Chicken Fry Masala , Beef Ularthiyathu ,  Mutton Buhari , Mutton Ularthiyathu, and my favorite combination  Chicken Chettinadu .

Lime Rice (Elumichham Pazham Saadham)

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

3 cups (600g) Basmati rice (Kolam Rice is used in the traditional preparation.)

Salt as required

Boiling water-

1 ½ tbsp Channa Dal, soaked in hot water for ½ hour *

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 ½ teaspoon ground turmeric **

3 dried red chillies

2 green chillies

2 teaspoon Urad Dal

½ cup broken cashew nuts or peanuts

2 sprigs curry leaves

¼ tsp asafoetida/hing/Kaaram

1/3 cup coconut oil/ghee

2 Tbsp lime juice***

Preparations:

1. Wash rice well. Bring a large pan of water to boil and add required amount of salt. Add rice and cook by keeping the lid open until done. Make sure there is lot of water for teh rice to move around and  take care not to overcook. Drain rice in a large colander.

2. In a large non-stick saucepan (I used the same pan that I used for cooking rice, used it after washing it.) heat oil. Fry broken cashew nuts or peanuts until golden. Take them out using a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel. Similarly fry the soaked and drained channa dal until golden and keep them long with fried cashews/peanuts.

3. In the same oil, splutter mustard. Add urad dal and fry till golden. Add curry leaves, red chillies and sauté for few seconds.

4. Add turmeric and asafoetida and sauté for 30 seconds on low-medium heat.

5. Add rice, fried nuts and dal and mix well.

6. Add lime juice and mix well. Cover and cook for 1-2 minutes. Serve hot/ warm with any spicy curry or along with curd and pickle.

Notes:

* Channa dal is normally added without soaking and is hard when fried dry. To avoid the hard bite, it can be soaked for sometime, drained and then pat dried before using.

** You can reduce turmeric to ½ teaspoon or 1 teaspoon to make it less yellowy.

*** Lemon juice can also be added instead of lime. Increase it as per your taste. The amount of lemon juice gives it just a milder lemony taste.

Carrot Halwa/ Gajar Ka Halwa/Gajrela

Hello All,

Hope you all had wonderful Eid with your families and friends. We really had a blast at our friend’s place. It was much more than food and fun. I know it is real late, but let me still wish u all a belated Eid Mubarak.

When it comes to the word Halwa, it literally means something sweet and is made of different kinds of ingredients like flour, wheat, nuts, fruits, vegetables, rice etc..which are either sweetened with sugar or molasses. There are umpteen number of Halwas that vary largely in their texture, colour, taste depending upon the ingredients used and regional diversity as well. Halwas made of flours like gram flour, corn flour, plain flour etc have a glutinous texture while other made with fruits, nuts and vegetables have a slightly crumbly and slightly sticky texture. They are common in Asian and middle eastern countries and are normally served along with afternoon tea or dessert.

Today I am going to share with you one of my family’s favourite dessert recipes – Gajarela which is popularly known as Gajar Ka Halwa or Carrot Halwa. I prepared it again for this Eid after so many years and so I thought I need get it off my drafts. This is a quintessential Punjabi dessert and is ever so popular all over India. It is easy, tasty and economical and you simply can’t go wrong. Ok, grating loads of carrot is a pain, but if you have a food processor, then it would make the job very easy. Gajar ka Halwa is made of grated carrot, milk and sugar and flavoured with a bit of cardamom. It is cooked over a prolonged time to get a consistency that is moist, crumbly and sweet concoction. This would fit perfectly for any after meal dessert and any occasion. You would find thousands of gajar ka halwa recipe on net. But this recipe that I am going to blog about is something that I started making even before I cooked anything on this blog and even before I knew how to cook a decent meal!!I have prepared this for many parties including post wedding functions. I got this recipe from my cousin many a years ago and have been making ever since. Without much ado, and here you go the recipe:

Carrot Halwa/ Gajar Ka Halwa/Gajrela

Serves around 15

Ingredients:

1150g grated carrots, 8 medium size (7 ½ - 8 cups)

1*397g tin condensed milk

½ cup – 1 cup water

1 – 1 ¾ cup white granulated sugar (Add according to your preference)

8 cardamoms crushed

4 Tablespoon ghee (Clarified butter) – You may use as less as 1 Tablespoon

A handful of your favourite nuts chopped (I used a mixture of pistachios and almonds. You can use cashewnuts and raisins as well.
A handful of crumbled Khoya (Optional)

Preparation:

 

1. Pressure cook carrot with ½ a cup of water until cooked well. Open cooker and cook until all water has been absorbed. If using a regular saucepan, add 1 cup of water, cover the pan and cook them until completely soft and all water has been absorbed. (Use a wide pan to reduce cooking time).

2. Add sugar and stir well. Cook until sugar melts.

3. Add condensed milk stir well and cook on medium heat by keeping the lid open until all the water and milk has been absorbed. Add ghee, mix well and cook for 5-10 minutes until you can see oil bubbling on the surface. At this stage, you can cook further to get a dry textured halwa or stop cooking as soon the moisture has disappeared from the mixture and oil starts bubbling to get a softer and moist halwa. The more you cook at this point, the drier the halwa becomes.

4. Add crushed cardamom and khoya (if using) and stir well. I normally don’t add khoya, but if you want to make it richer, you may add it.

5. Spread the Halwa on a steel plate with sides or any and flatten it. Scatter chopped nuts and raisins if using on top and gently press it with back of a spoon. Serve hot, warm or cold or even with vanilla Ice cream.

Notes:

1.Dont grate the carrot too thin, as it will turn into a mushy carrot or rather a runny one. Use the bigger holes in the box grader or a food processor to make the job even easier.

2. Amount of sugar can be increased or reduced as per need. Start by adding 1 cup of sugar and increase it as per your sweetness level. It can always adjusted at the end, just by adding extra. I always add 1 ½ cup - 1 ¾ cup of super refined sugar for the amount of carrot given.

3. Carrot Halwa can be frozen as well, if it does last long enough to freeze.

4. This recipe can easily be halved. Use ½ kilo of grated carrot and adjust sweetness accordingly.

5. Nuts can be fried in ghee and added as well if you dislike the raw version.

Godambu Kaachiyathu (A Wheat Based Beverage Tempered with Fried Onions, Cashews and Raisins) and a little News!

This year’s Ramadan has been very busy and all my cycle is completely jumbled up. Late breakfasts, late sleep, early waking up and to add to it, lack of sleep too. I couldn’t keep track of my blog or other blogs and have to wait for few more days to get everything back to routine. For the time being, I will share with you one of my most favourite beverages – Godambu Kaachiyathu or Godambu payasam. This is a very simple recipe, very easy to make and tastes quite delicious. Like Musaara Varakiyathu, this is also prepared by grinding skinned wheat and coconut, sweetened with sugar and then tempering it. Tempering makes it all the difference. The taste of ghee, fried shallots, fried nuts and raisins is simply YUM. I guess pearl barley also should work for this recipe as the recipe asks for grinding wheat.

Godambu Kaachiyathu is normally prepared during Ramadan for Iftars. It’s quite a heavy drink so one cup will keep you feeling full for quite a long time. I sometimes have a cup of this for seheri (Early morning feast taken before fasting) as well. Many of Malabar sweet dishes call for the addition of fried shallots. This may be very unfamiliar to many out there or rather weird. But the fried shallots impart a very special flavour that is unique and aromatic and that goes well with any traditional Malabar sweet preparations. You can omit adding fried onions if you think you would hate it, but I still suggest trying it once. I liked the taste of fried shallots even when I had it for the first time, so I tell you, give it a shot. Else You may just add fried cashews and raisins by omitting shallots. And if you are really health conscious, you can simply omit the tempering part completely. The taste will be compromised, but still, it will taste good. My mom also suggested, that this beverage can be made completely out of cow’s milk without adding coconut. You may try that version if you dislike coconut too. Here are couple of other dishes that we add fried shallots or onions: Kadalapparippu Ada , Tharikkanji, Kalathappam etc. This is unsweetend Kalathappam, but even for the sweetened versions we use fried shallots or onions.

Godambu Kachiyathu as many other beverages is served in glasses and is consumed hot or warm. You can refrigerate the leftovers, reheat in microwave or hob and have it the next day too. It can be made thin or thick as per your liking. Below given is the way we like it.

And before going to the recipe Let me also share the happy news of winning a place - Reader's Choice Award in the Food Photography competition held by Leitus Culinaria. Thank you all for the vote and continuous support.

 

Godambu Kaachiyathu (A Wheat Based Beverage Tempered with Fried Onions, Cashews and Raisins)

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

¼ cup skinned wheat, soaked overnight and drained

2 – 2 ½ cup whole milk (Adjust to your liking)

2 cups water

¼ cup – ½ cup regular white sugar

4-6 cardamoms crushed

1 cup freshly grated coconut

For tempering:

1-2 tsp of Ghee (Clarified butter)

1 tsp finely chopped shallots

3tsp Whole cashews

3tsp raisins

Preparation:

 

1.Grind wheat and coconut with 1 – 1 ½ cup of milk until smooth.

2. Hold a large sieve on a medium size non-stick sauce pan and pass this mixture through sieve. Squeeze until all the liquid is extracted. You will get a residue consisting of coconut and wheat in the strainer. Pour water into this leftover residue and squeeze again to collect all of the milky liquid in the saucepan. Discard residue.

3. Add remaining milk to the ground mixture in the sauce pan leaving aside ½ cup of milk. Place the mixture on a low-medium heat and cook until it starts boiling, making sure that you stir the mixture continuously.

4. Once it starts to boil, add salt, sugar and crushed cardamoms and gently cook for 2 minutes. At this point of time if you like your drink to be thicker, you can boil for further few more minutes. And if you want it thinner, you can add ½ a cup more of milk that was reserved earlier. Godambu Kachiyathu will get thicker as it sits, so don’t make it too thin as well.

5. In a separate Wok or kadai or a small pan, add ghee. When hot, add cashews and fry till golden. Pick them up using slotted spoon and add it to the prepared hot mixture. Similarly fry raisins till it puffs up and add it to the wheat mixture. Then in the same ghee, add the chopped shallots and fry until golden brown. Add it to the wheat mixture along with the tempered ghee. Stir well and close the lid. This process is called tempering or ‘Kaachal ’ in our place.

Serve it hot, war or even cold. But normally it is served hot, as soon as it is prepared.

This recipe goes for 'Joy from Fasting to Feasting ' hosted by Lubna

Malabar Chicken Curry

This is the most basic and the most widely prepared chicken curry in north Malabar area. The proportion and the consistency would differ from homes and the taste may differ slightly as well. The curry goes well with almost all dishes prepared back home and is mainly served with Ghee Rice, neypathal, Kalathappam , ari pathiri, puttu (steamed rice cakes) and chappathis. It also pairs very well with poori’s, Appams, Ottil Pollichathu, Alisa, Thenga Pathal, Marichedutha Appam, muttassurkki, parotta, nool puttu (string hopper) etc etc. Most of the dishes mentioned are made of rice and some with wheat which are all staple dishes made everyday back home.

Malabar Chicken Curry is very easy to prepare and there is no grinding or any other complicated steps involved. The only time consuming part would be sautéing onions -which is very crucial to the recipe as it forms the basis of the curry and decides the flavour as well. If the onions are not sautéed well, you can end up in a sweat curry and sometimes onions strings floating all over which can be very unpleasant. This curry would be quite spicy, but as I mentioned in notes, you can substitute red chilli powder with paprika powder to bring down the heat without effecting the consistency and flavour of the curry. Using a hot chilli powder is not recommended for this recipe. If using hot chilli powder, reduce the chilli powder considerably, but that would effect the consistency. No matter what, this curry is full of flavour and it pairs with so many dishes, some of which I mentioned above.

Malabar Chicken Curry - A North Kerala (Kannur) Style Spicy Chicken Curry

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

1 kilo Chicken on bone, cut into medium size pieces

3 ½ medium size onion finley sliced and chopped (around 3 cups)

1-2 tablespoons fresh ginger paste

2 tablespoons fresh garlic paste

2 medium tomatoes chopped (190g, 1 cup)

6 teaspoon Kashmiri Chilli powder (Read notes)

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

3-4 rounded teaspoons of coriander powder

2-3 tablespoon of coconut oil (Vegetable oil can be substituted)

3 cardamoms

3 cloves

3 small pieces of cinnamon sticks

2 green chillies seeded

2-3 twigs curry leaves

1-1 ½ cup boiling water or as required

salt - as required

Coriander leaves - for garnishing

Preparation:

1.Wash chicken several times and place it in colander to drain of all water. Place a wide saucepan on medium heat and add oil. When it is hot, add whole spices, i.e cardamom, cloves and cinnamon and sauté for few seconds until it leaves aroma.

2. Add chopped onions and salt. Cover and Cook on medium heat for around 15- 20 minutes stirring occasionally until it turns golden colour. Give plenty of time in here for the onion to be sautéed really well as this effect the end result much.

3. Add ginger and garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes or until the raw smell fades.

4. Add chopped tomatoes, cover and cook until it becomes pulpy .

5. Add spice powders – i.e. chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder and sauté for 2 minutes. Tip in chicken, mix well to coat all spices. Cover and cook on medium heat till done. You may add ½ cup of water if the curry gets too dry while cooking. But normally chicken will release enough water to keep the curry moist, with thick masala.

6. When it is completely cooked, add enough amount of water to make slightly thin gravy, as per your taste and the water content in the sauce and boil for couple of minutes. Add curry leaves, garam masala and couple of green chillies, cover and cook for 1-2 minutes for the flavour to infuse.

7. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Notes:

1.If your chilli powder is spicy, substitute half or more of chilli powder with paprika. Generally paprika is not used in Malabar cooking but as my chillies are real hot, I substitute half of it with paprika to balance the heat. Here, I used 3 teaspoon of paprika with 3 teaspoon of kashmiri chilli powder. You may reduce it even further to 2 teaspoon of chilli powder to 4 teaspoon of paprika if you want it even milder.

2. At stage 6, you may not add water at all if you like a really thick gravy and even boil off the extra sauce in the pan until the chicken is smothered in onions and spices. More oil is added to this curry at the end. We call this Kozhi varattiyathu and is even more tastier than the water added version or the curry version.

Katherine Hepburn's Brownies

Hello Foodies,

Did you vote for me yet? If not, hurry to Leites Culinaria and please vote for me if you liked my picture! A photography contest was held on their site a month ago and I have mentioned before that my picture too had made it's way to the finals.  The last day for voting for your favourite picture is on 28th or 29th, so Hop over at Leites culinaria and vote for me if you haven’t voted yet. As any other competitor, I too would like to win the contest, but on the other side, I wouldn’t be sad at all if I don’t. After all it is a contest, and that is how I like to deal with it. Since there is an option for readers choice award, I thought I have to mention here too!!

I have prepared 2 different brownies before this one and I prepared them exclusively for this contest. Like any other good brownie, Katherine Hepburns’s Brownies too had all the qualities of a best brownie - Crunchy and crackly crust, slightly chewy and fudgy. For any brownies that I made before, I have NEVER used electric mixer for mixing up the ingredients and used either wooden spoon or a balloon whisk to mix and fold ingredients. Using an electric mixer normally tends to trap in more air in the batter losing the brownie texture, which is quite fudgy and resulting in a cake like brownie. Always check the brownies for doneness - a few crumbs sticking to the skewer when it is inserted in the centre. If you see moist batter clinging to it, pop it back to the oven and bake for around 7-10 minutes and check again until you see little crumbs in the skewer. And never over bake the brownie too! Once it comes out of the oven leave it undisturbed for 10 minutes. Cool it completely in the wire rack before devouring into the Chocolate Nirvana! For me it almost tasted like my Supermoist Chocolate cake that I posted a while ago.

Katherine Hepburns’s Brownies

Recipe Courtesy: Leites Culinaria

Ingredients:

1 stick (113g) unsalted butter, plus more for the baking pan

2 squares (2 ounces/56g) unsweetened chocolate

1 cup (220g) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for the baking pan

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (4 ounces) chopped walnuts (optional)

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate in a large saucepan over low heat. Remove from the heat.

3. Stir in the sugar until combined. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and beat the mixture well.

4. Stir in the flour, salt, and walnuts, if using.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for about 40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool. Cut into squares.

Notes:

1. If using salted butter, omit salt.

2. Follow either metric measurements or the cup measurements. Dont mix both.

Mehshi Malfouf (Stuffed Cabbage rolls)

Before I go in to the recipe and details, Let me Wish you all a 'Happy Onam'. This post is not related to Onam, but something that I started composing a while ago.

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As I spent a major chunk of my life in the Arab world, I was acquainted to most of their food and I absolutely adore them. Who wouldn’t? I guess my love affair with Arabic food dish dates back to my university days or way before that when it comes to sweets like Baklawa and their all time favourite rice Machbus. There were couple of Lebanese Bakeries next to our campus where they sold Lebanese pizza and sandwiches, different kind of snacks, sweets and what not. Almost all afternoons I and my friends would stop at one of the bakeries and grab something and take it to the university canteen to devour during our busy university schedule and some discussions to go along with it or gossiping to add a bit of spice! The bakery sold all the famous Arabic Lebanese food and they have become part of my regular diet. During Ramadan, they used to display a different array of assorted snacks and sweets like Shaabiat, Luqaimat, Nammoura, Basbousa, Qatayef, Othmaliye to name a few. I used to grab few of them and take home to share it with my family too.

Apart from all that , During Ramadan, each faculty used to organize an Iftar evening where you would come across all the home made treats that you wouldn’t normally see in bakeries or sometimes even in restaurants. Oh boy! Those were days. I have come across many dishes that I have never seen before or even after those Iftar events in the College. In one of the Grand Iftar organized by our faculty, I remember there were around 6 - 8 rice Varieties served in Massive plates - as massive as it could be; with huge chunks of seasoned lamb served on top of each rice dish. Since lamb dishes were prepared in bite sized pieces at home, it was amusing for me to see them in large chunks, even though it din’t appeal me much. That was when I came across this ‘Stuffed Cabbage rolls’ also known as ‘Dolmah’ and Warak Al Einab or stuffed Grape leaves. They were very lemony for my taste, one bite into it and I could see myself just blinking. It is that sour. But apparently it is one of the most favourite and popular dishes of the Arab Community. Apart from the lemony taste the flavours were absolutely divine.

When I searched on the recipe for stuffed Cabbage leaves, I found out that not only the Arabs but all across the globe make stuffed cabbages but with their own native variations. You would find many variations with different kinds of fillings and a variety of cabbages like green cabbage or the savoy ones, but this is the kind that I am familiar with - the regular white cabbage that we normally get to see in India or UAE. I have always trusted Nestle family for their recipes and have followed their recipe pretty much as it is with minimal changes. And this is the Arabic version of Stuffed cabbage, literally known as 'Mehshi Malfouf'.

I prepared this dish at night and so I couldn’t shoot pictures of step by step preparations. The prepared dish was shot in the following noon by then which the rolls got a bit pale which otherwise was a bit more of a translucent off white. It is best served and eaten as soon as it is prepared. I have used home made Baharat or Arabic spice mix, but you can use readymade ones or even garam masala and adjust the seasoning to your liking. The only time consuming part in the process was separating the cabbage leaves. I had to cook the cabbage in boiling water for around 10 minutes then remove few leaves at a time, then return the cabbage back to boiling water to cook for further few more minutes to remove few more leaves until all leaves were takes except for the laste few which were too small to roll. It took me some extra time than I expected. But if you use different kind of cabbage, with loose leaves, it should be easier. And the filling is just mixing the ingredients without prior cooking which makes the job really easy.

Ingredients:

25 - 30 leaves of white cabbage (Around 600 g)

¾ cup rice or 150 g, soaked for 2 hours and drained (I used Basmati, traditionally Egyptian rice is used)

300 g minced lamb

3 medium cloves of garlic, crushed

½ Tablespoon Arabic Spice Mix

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon paprika or Red chilli powder

2 Tablespoons chopped mint (20 leaves)

2 ½ Tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

1 Tablespoon Ghee (Clarified Butter)

5 large cloves of garlic, extra

1 ½ cubes MAGGI® Flavored Mutton Bouillon

2 cups water or 500 ml

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 large onion sliced

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Preparation:

Please Check the Links below for an idea of how the Cabbage is prepared and is rolled:

Wandering Chop sticks

Pigpigscorner

From the heart of my kitchen

1. Core the centre stalk of the cabbage, and blanch it in boiling water for 15 -20 minutes or until soft and pliable. It should look kind of semi transparent when done.Separate the leaves without much breaking. Leaves should be pliable, so that you can roll them easily without breaking up. If it hasn’t reached this stage, put the cabbage back to the sauce pan, cover and boilfor few more minutes until it reaches that stage. Then start separating the leaves until all leaves are removed. Once done, take each leaf and thinly slice the thicker part of the rib of each leaf to make it thinner. Else it will be difficult to roll. If you can separate the leaves without blanching, separate them and blanch.

2. Combine uncooked rice, meat, garlic, spices, mint, coriander and butter in a bowl. Mix well until well combined.

3. Place a heaping tablespoon of the filling almost in the middle of the leaf opposite side of the thick rib part, fold the sides over to cover the filling and roll the leaf up. Fold it tightly so that everything is intact. Repeat until all of the filling is used up.

4. Meanwhile, heat oil in a saucepan/casserole dish and sauté the onions till it turns completely soft. Arrange cabbage rolls tightly over these sautéed onions and sprinkle some garlic slices over. Arrange another layer over the first layer and sprinkle rest of garlic as well. The rolls should be placed next to each other without spaces in between for them to open loose in the cooking process.

5. Dissolve MAGGI Mutton/ Chicken Bouillon cubes with water, add lemon juice and pour over the rolls. Add enough water just above the rolls. Invert a heavy dinner plate over the rolls, so that the rolls stay intact and doesn’t float while cooking.

6. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 20-25 minutes and reduce the heat and cook for further 35 – 40 minutes, a total of about 45 minutes - 1 hour, or until rice is cooked. You may pick out a roll after 40-45 minutes for checking the doneness. Once rice is completely cooked, serve immediately. There will be a little sauce left in the pan. You may pour that sauce over the rolls if you wish.