Till now my attempt to make Sambar has been a vain. It never comes in the right texture or taste. Sometimes it will be watery sometimes sour sometimes thick the list goes on! So today i tried Srivalli’s sambar recipe and it came out perfect. It is so easy to follow and with very less ingredients.You can find more yummy sambar reicpes here in her blog.

here is the recipe. I followed the recipe blindly and made some minor changes

Drumstick Sambar

Preparation Time : 15 mins
Cooking Time : 15 mins

Ingredients Needed

Toor Dal – 1 cup
Drumstick / Munnakaya / Murungakai – 1 or 2 nos (i added a medium sized potato too)
Sambar Onions – 100 gms
Sambar Powder – 1 tsp (i used Eastern so i added more than a tsp till the sambar taste came.)
Tomatoes – 2 medium
Tamarind pulp – small lime size (i used 1 tbsp tamarind pulp)
Coriander Leaves – few chopped
Oil – 1 tbsp (i used coconut oil)
Salt to Taste
Turmeric a pinch

For Seasoning

Mustard Seeds + Urud Dal + Fenugreek – 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves – few
Garlic – 4 pods

Method to Prepare:

Clean Toor Dal and pressure cook it with 2 drops of Oil and turmeric. This makes it cook fast. Keep it for 2 whistle.

Soak tamarind and extract pulp from it.

Chop onions, tomatoes, keep aside. Chop drumstick, the outer skin is also very healthy, so should not be peeled. Chop them into finger length pieces

Boil a cup of water and once it starts boiling, drop in drumstick and potato and cook till its tender. This should not be pressure cooked as it gets over cooked.

To the cooked Dal, add the chopped tomatoes and Sambar powder, salt. Cook for another whistle. Finally add the tamarind pulp along with required water. Bring to boil. simmer it while you temper with seasonings.

Heat oil in a pan, add the seasoning ingredients. Then add chopped onions, Once they are golden in colour, add to the simmering dal along with cooked drumstick pieces.

Cook on high flame for 5 mins, then simmer for 10 mins till its cooked well. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve with rice, dosa,idle

This is for all those wives whose hubbby has never cooked! LOL!! My hubby knows only how to make tea. So when i saw Priti’s announcement for His Cooking i just mentioned how fun it will be to cook! And yes my 6 yr old daughter also offered to help. So they all got excited and i told him to check Priti’s site where her hubby does a lot of cooking.

He choose to do his Poha recipe from her site. But made a few changes as he got confused with cumin and fennel seeds! LOL!!! rest all i think he just followed the same. But it was delicious!

And he was sweet enough to make some kheer for me when i was craving for some sweet today after lunch!! (well the joy of being pregnant!!!) SO i got this easy Microwave Kheer from EC. with in 20 minuts or so the kheer was ready!! The changes he made – instead of suar he added condensed milk. He doesnt know how much me added so i would say if ur adding condensed milk add according to your taste!

Somehow im unable to upload the pic of the kheer.. i guess i’ll do it later on..

Sending this post to Pritis His Cooking event!

One of my express breakfasts – very nutritious and loved by my kids. I like to make whole grain breakfasts with calcium and proteins that will give them all the energy for a busy day. As most of the Kerala breakfasts are made of rice and rice products i usually make them only during weekends or holidays.

All you need is 1/2 cup daliya soaked overnight

2 cups milk

a pinch of salt

sugar to taste – i add around 1/2 tsp to 2 cups of milk.

Nuts, berries and raisins – optional

Pressure cook the soaked  daliya till soft. In a skillet simmer the milk add the cooked daliya, salt and sugar to it. Cook till it becomes thick or till the consistency you want. I make it thick like porridge.  Add nuts and raisins and serve warm.

You can give a ghee and shallot tadka if you like. BUt mine is usually plain, no oils in the morning. I eat it with lots of walnuts and almonds, sometimes berries too.. but my kids prefer just plain.

Sometimes i cook the daliya in advance and refrigerate it and just mix with milk in the morning. it makes cooking easier!

This recipe is for Cooking for kids Event – Wheat

Rawrice – 2cups

coconut – 1 cup

shallots – 3-4

fennel seeds – 1 tbsp

cooked rice – 1/2 cup

Soak the raw rice for 3-4 hrs. And grind all the rest of ingredients finely. The mix should be watery. But not so running. Pour into a nonstick cookware and close it. These pancakes cook really quickly. I make them a bit thick so that i have to make only 4-5 of them!!

Accompany them with chicken or any other non veg curry.. yummmm..

Ramadan Day 7

The sweet version of french toast is a quick breakfast and the spicy one is a quick snack! My sweet version goes for WYF : Breakfast Event and my spicy version goes for the Ramadan event

Sweet French Toast

5 slices of white bread

2 large eggs

1/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp cardamom powder

2 tbsp sugar (add more or less as per your taste)

a pinch of sugar

oil for shallow frying

-Cut bread into half diagonally.

- Beat eggs, sugar, milk, cardamom powder and salt .

- Dip the bread into the egg mix and shallow fry.

Spicy French Toast

5 slices of white bread

2 large eggs

1 medium sizes onion

2-3 green chillies (Use less or more according to your taste)

salt to taste.

-Cut bread into half diagonally.

- Grind onions and green chillies to a fine paste without adding water

- Beat eggs and add the onion-chilli paste and salt to it and mix well.

- Dip the bread into the egg mix and shallow fry.

Puttu is made of parboiled rice flour. It is first washed and dried and then grinded to make flour. Well actually thats the procedure in kerala.. but since im in Singapore i go for the ready madeputtu flour which is much more easier!! LOL!

Brown channa curry or chicken curry or stews goes well with puttu. today morning i made brown channa curry to go with it.

For the puttu you’ll need

3 cups rice flour
1 cup water
1-2 cups of scraped coconut
salt to taste

Take the flour in a large bowl and add salt to it. Add the water slowly to it to make the puttudough. The puttu dough is very loose and should not be any lumps in it. If u find any lumps break it and keep on mixing it.

• If you are using roasted flour you might need more water. so add water accordingly.

Now boil water in the puttu kutti (puttu maker). u can see that there are 2 parts of the puttukutti. Boil water in the below one.

Mean while in the kutti (the upper part of the puttu maker) Add 1 tbsp of coconut. On top of that add 3 tbsp of flour. Again coconut and flour. repeat this till the kutti is full.

But be sure that the top and bottom of the puttu kutti should be filled with coconut layer. Now fix the kutti on top of the puttu maker. And boil it till the steam comes out from the top.

Puttu can also be eaten with bananas and sugar…

Now here goes the brown channa curry or kadala curry

1 medium sized onion thinly sliced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 cups brown channa
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 medium sized tomato cut into small pieces
1 1/2 tbsp coriander pwdr
1/2 tbsp red chilli pwdr (if u want to make it more spicy u can add more.)
1/4 tbsp haldi pwdr
1 spring curry leaves
salt to taste
oil for sauting
4 cups of water

heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds to it. when they splutter add onions and curry leaves to it. When the onions are brownish add ginger garlic paste to it and saute for another 1 mt. After that add tomatoes to it. When the tomatoes are soft add the masalas to it. Once oilseparates form the mixture add the brown channa and water to it and presurre cook for 20-25mts.

And now its ready to serve with puttu!

This entry also goes to WYF:Breakfast Event

Oatmeal is one of the staple in my home!! My kids love it and i add a lot od flavours to it! After cooking it sometimes i add raisins, or a grinded apple or pear or chopped banana, chopped nuts – walnuts, pine nuts, sunflower seeds (they really love the crunciness) or what ever they insist!

Now that i brought an electric oven i have been in a mood to bake n grill… so fa i made choc chip cookies and oatmeal cookies.. both of them have been so fast moving that i didn’t even have time to take a pic and post it! LOL!!

today morning i thought i would make some garlic bread.. But then i thought it would be very light so i decided to cover it up with some eggs.. (my friend Afroze’s idea) so that everyone will get some carb,proteins,fats etc all together!!!!
Blend 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp of olive spread, 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 small bunch of parsley into a smooth paste.

2 hard boiled eggs cut into thin slices

2 slices of cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Cut the bread half and apply the blended paste on it. Top up with cheese and the eggs.. im sure kids are gonna love it!

Puttu is made of parboiled rice flour. It is first washed and dried and then grinded to make flour. Well actually thats the procedure in kerala.. but since im in Singapore i go for the ready made puttu flour which is much more easier!! LOL!

Brown channa curry or chicken curry or stews goes well with puttu. today morning i made brown channa curry to go with it.

For the puttu you’ll need

3 cups rice flour
1 cup water
1-2 cups of scraped coconut
salt to taste

Take the flour in a large bowl and add salt to it. Add the water slowly to it to make the puttu dough. The puttu dough is very loose and should not be any lumps in it. If u find any lumps break it and keep on mixing it.

• If you are using roasted flour you might need more water. so add water accordingly.

Now boil water in the puttu kutti (puttu maker). u can see that there are 2 parts of the puttu kutti. Boil water in the below one.

Mean while in the kutti (the upper part of the puttu maker) Add 1 tbsp of coconut. On top of that add 3 tbsp of flour. Again coconut and flour. repeat this till the kutti is full.

But be sure that the top and bottom of the puttu kutti should be filled with coconut layer. Now fix the kutti on top of the puttu maker. And boil it till the steam comes out from the top.

Puttu can also be eaten with bananas and sugar…

Now here goes the brown channa curry or kadala curry

1 medium sized onion thinly sliced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 cups brown channa
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 medium sized tomato cut into small pieces
1 1/2 tbsp coriander pwdr
1/2 tbsp red chilli pwdr (if u want to make it more spicy u can add more.)
1/4 tbsp haldi pwdr
1 spring curry leaves
salt to taste
oil for sauting
4 cups of water

heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds to it. when they splutter add onions and curry leaves to it. When the onions are brownish add ginger garlic paste to it and saute for another 1 mt. After that add tomatoes to it. When the tomatoes are soft add the masalas to it. Once oil separates form the mixture add the brown channa and water to it and presurre cook for 20-25 mts.

And now its ready to serve with puttu!