Inji Curry

 

Ingredients

Ginger – 100gm

Tamarind – lemon size
Jaggery – 2 tbsp
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric  – ½ tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Fenugreek powder/seed – ½ tsp
Green chilli – 2 finally chopped
Curry leaves – 1 spring
Whole red chilli – 2
Hing/ Asefatadia – ¼ tsp
Coconut oil – 3 tbsp
Salt to taste

  

Method

1.  Clean the ginger and cut them into small pieces.
2.  In a medium heat, fry them in oil till it becomes light brown.
3.  Crush or grind the fried ginger coarsely when it is cool.
4.  Make tamarind pulp.  Soak the tamarind in 1cup of water for 15min. mix well and strain the pulp.
5.  In a kadhai/deep cooking pan heat the oil ( oil remaining after frying ginger can be used).
6.  Add the mustard and let it crackle, then add the curry leafs and whole red chilli.
7.  Switch of the flame and then add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, fenugreek seed powder.
8.  Then add the tamarind pulp and mix well.
9.  Now start the flame and bring the pulp to boil.
10.  Add the crushed ginger, mix well and lower the flame and cook for some 1 min.
12.  Now add the jaggrey, salt & hing. At this point if you want to add water to adjust the consistency. Cook for 5 min.
13.  Note : The consistency will thicken when it cools down.

Christmas Plum Cake

A traditional plum cake recipe which pass passed on from my mother to me. She never used spices but I have tried with the spice and like it. There no Christmas, without this cake. This year I made about 20kgs of plum cakes and still it is always less.

It’s too late to put this recipe, but I had to pen it. Every year I think of posting it and due to festivity and lack of time, its push it to next year. And it never comes up.  So here I go………… 

 

Ingredients

For Soaking:

Mixed dry fruits of your choice - 3 cups/ a jar full ( I have used candied orange and lemon peel, sugared ginger, raisins, cashew-nut, dates, tuti-futi, glanced cherrys)

Rum/Brandy – about 1.5 cups/ till it cover the fruit in the jar (I used old monk dark rum)

• Chop all the dry fruit to equal small size. You can use dried fruits of your choice.  
• Fill it in a glass bottle and pour rum till it socks the fruits till the top. I sock it about a month back.

For Caramel:

Sugar - ½ cup

Warm water - ¼ cup

• Place the sugar in a pan and heat a pan (I prefer a deep pan). Heat it & let the sugar melt.
• When the color of the melted sugar becomes dark brown, remove the pan from fire & add ¼ cup warm water to this. You need to be very careful at this stage since the water tends to splash & can cause burns.
• Bring it back to the heat & boil for a few more mins, till the water mixes and melts completely.
• Remove from fire & let it cool completely.
• You can prepare the caramel in advance and store it in a dry glass bottle.

 

For Spice Powder:

Cloves powder– 1 tsp

Dry ginger powder – 2tsp
Cinnamon powder – 2tsp
Nutmeg powder – 1tsp

• Mix all together and store it in a dry container.  Use as per required.

 

For Cake:

Castor sugar – 250gm

Unsalted butter – 250 gm
Egg - 5
Plain flour (maida) – 250gm
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Vanilla essence – 2 tsp
Socked Dry fruits -  ½ cup
Caramel – 2tbsp

Note :  all ingredient should be in room temperature.

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven @ 180 C for 10-15 mins, before baking.
2. Swift the flour, baking powder and spice.
3. Beat the butter for about a minute till it becomes smooth.
4. To this add sugar and beat again for a min.
5. Now add egg one at a time a beat it as you are adding.\Now add the vanilla essence and the caramel and mix well.
6. Fold in 3/4th of the flour.
7. Toss the socked fruit in the remaining 1/4th flour. (This will prevent the fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake and would be evening spread).
8. Fold the tossed fruits to the cake mixture.
9. Grease a 9inchs baking dish with butter and dust the entire dish with dry flour and tap of the access flour.
10. Pour the batter to the prepared dish.
11. Bake for 50 min at 180degree C or until the skewer inserted comes out clean.
12. Remove and cool it completely, before tossing it of the tin.

 

Earchi Achar / Meat Pickle

This is my favorite pickle. And the recipe is a family recipe passed from my mother to me. I love eating it with hot rice or paratha.  Always a saver when there is not nonveg at home.

 

Ingredients

Tender beef/mutton - 1 kg (cut in small pieces and washed)

Ginger – 1 tbsp. (cut lengthwise)

Garlic – 15  (cut lengthwise)

Mustard seed – 2tsp cup

Fenugreek seed – 1 ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – 1tsp

Red chilli powder – ½ cup

Vinegar – approx 1 ½ cup

Salt as per taste

Curry leaves – about 20 leaves

Oil for frying -

Method

1.     Pressure Cook meat along with 2 tbsp of vinegar, 1tsp salt and ½ tsp turmeric powder for 1 whistle and 5 min.  remove the access water after it cools.

2.     Heat about 1 cup oil in and pan and fry the meat still it is crisp brown from outside. 
3.     Dry roast mustard seed and fenugreek seed.
4.     Coarsely grind the roasted mustard & fenugreek seed.
5.     Heat 2 tbsp. oil. To this add ginger & garlic and fry till is light brown. Add curry leaves and saute. 
6.     Remove the pan from the heat and add turmeric powder, red chilly powder, salt, ground mustard and fenugreek.  Mix well.
7.     Get the pan back to heat, add the fried meat pieces and mix well.
8.     Now add ½ to 1 cup of vinegar (according to the thickness of the gravy you want).
9.     Boil the mixture for 2 min.
10.    Remove from fire, cool and bottle it.

Jaathikka Chammanthi / Nutmeg Fruit Chutney

Pleasantly aromatic, nutmeg is actually seed kernel of fruit-nutmeg.  We always use the nut and the mace of this fruit.  In my childhood my grandfather’s house had an old Jaathi (nutmeg tree) near the family well. I would tag along with him every morning  to collect the fallen nutmeg fruits. During these walks I have tasted the fruit but never liked it.  These are few of the summer vacation memories I have.

I never knew that we could make such taste chuttney out the nutmeg fruit. Thanks to my cousin's husband who mentioned it and i went hunting for the recipe.  So, this year’s visit to Kerala taught me this new recipe. It’s my Grandmothers special recipe. Thanks to her I have found one more traditional recipe.

So now try to find this fruit and make this chammanthi and ENJOY!

 Ingredients

Jaathikka fruit/Nutmeg fruit – 2

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Green chilli – 2 – 3 (according to your taste)

(Note : I prefer kandari chilli / birds eye chilli if it is readily available)

Shallots/ sambar onions – 5

Ginger – small piece

Garlic – 3 piece

Salt – according to your tast

Curry leave – 10 finely cut

  Method

1.     Break the Jaathikka into half and remove the red inner coat (mace) and the nut.

2.     Now roast the fruit directly on the gas flame/stove till the out layer burns and the inside cooks. ( authentically it done in a hearth/chulha)

3.     Peel of the burnt outer skin, clean  the remaining with a dry towel and cut it into small piece

4.     Grind all the ingredient except the curry leave into a smooth paste.

5.     Mix the finely cut curry leaves.

6.     It’s ready to serve.

Dal Vada / Parupu Vada

Parupu vada is a snack specially made in south India.  You can also call it the street food of south India.  Especially in Kerala you will find it at every tea stall.

In the monsoon if you are in Kerala and if it is raining, stop at any road side tea stall and try the combination of  a hot cup of tea with these vadas.  It is amazing.

I learnt it from my mother-in-law. I can never reach to that standard. It is soft from inside and crispy from outside. She made it as evening snacks. So, this time I also made it for my kids as an evening snack which they relished after their play time.

Ingredients

Channa Dal – 1 cup ( socked in water for about 5 hrs)

Onion – 1 finely chopped

Green chilly – 2 finely chopped

Ginger – 1 tsp finely chopped

Curry leaves – 10 finely chopped

Asafetida – ½ tsp

Salt as per taste

Oil to fry

Method

1.      Drain out the water completely from the soaked dal and grind it coarsely (there should be few whole dal left.  Please don’t make it into a paste.

2.      Mix all the ingredient except the oil.

3.      Take small lemon size portion of this mixture, make a small ball and flatten them between your palms.

4.      Similarly, make all the vadas and keep it on a plate to fry.

5.      Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan.  

6.      Deep fry the vada till it is golden brown( approx. 5 min)

7.      Now remove and drain the excess oil on a paper towel. 

Palada Payasam

An easy payasam made during onam or any other special occasion.  It is easy but different.  The adai is made of rice flour.  It is readily available in any of the Kerala stores.

 Adai

 

Ingredients

Small ready made Adda – 1 cup

Milk – 1 liter
Sugar – ¾ cup
Cardamom powder – ½ tsp
Raisins – 1 tbsp
Cashew nut - 1 tbsp
Clarified butter / Ghee – to fry (about 2 tbsp)

Method

1.      Heat the ghee in a pan, toss in the raisins and fry for few seconds till the raisins swells, remove them into a plate, next fry the cashew nut till it is about to become brown, remove this into the plate and keep it aside.

2.      Boil milk in a heavy bottom pan, lower the flame and add the adai.  Keep steering this continuously so that the adai does not stick at the bottom.

3.      Cook till the adai are soft, about 20 min.  This milk will thicken and a little.

4.      Now and the sugar and stir till it melts.

5.      Switch of the heat. Then add the cardamom powder and the fried cashew nut and raisins.  Mix well.

6.      You can serve it when it is hot.  But prefer all payasams when it becomes cold or a day older is better.
 

Indari Appam / Pesaha Appam & Pal

Indari appam and pesaha  paal is made only one’s in a year on Munday Thursday.  This is the day we celebrate the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles.  It is in remembrance of the Passover meal, that we make the unleavened bread. 

The Kerala Syrian Catholics follow the tradition of making Indari Appam and Pesaha Pal, wherein after the Mauday Thursday church service all the family members and friend come together and elders cut and give the appam and pal to everyone.

As I always say for me every food  is associated with lots of memories. When we were kids, I remember my mother and her friend our own Chunni Aunty would share in their knowledge of the recipe.  As those days there were no phones to talk to your mother or aunts to get the recipe and we were staying in Nagpur.  Finally both of them would make their version of appam and pal.  And we as kids waited desperately for the mass to get over and then to reach back to our home to taste it. It was real partying time. And then we went back to the church for the worship of the Eucharist in Malayalam.  All of us would sleep royally on church floor and our parents prayed.

As we grew up we went out of Nagpur to study and work and started staying in hostels.  As Good Friday was a holiday, we traveled back from our respective palaces on thursday evening and started missing all these celebration.  But on Friday morning when we reached back home. The first thing we asked mom was the leftover Pal. So, the best part is to drink the leftover pal the next morning.  It tastes heavenly.

Till date I call up Chinnu aunty every Mauduy Thursday before I start preparing the appam.  I call her in the pretext of check the quantity or the ingredient. But I know from my heart that it’s a ritual which I can’t break.  “A remembrance of my Mother”.

So her I go with the recipe ; 

Indari Appam

Ingredients

Roasted Rice Powder – 2 ½ cup

Grated Coconut – 1 cup

Urad Dal – 5 tsp

Jeera / cumin – 1 tsp

Garlic – 5 to 6

Sambar onion - 6

Salt to taste

Water as required

Method

1.      Soak urad dal for 2-3 hrs.
2.      Grind together soaked dal, cumin, onion and garlic into a paste.
3.      Grind the coconut to a course paste.
4.      Put both of this paste in a mixing bowl and add in the rice flour. 
5.      To this add in the water to make a thick batter (it should be thicker than a idli batter). Mix it nicely.
6.      Line a round steel or aluminum plate with a banana leaf and grease it with oil.
7.      Now pour the batter in the greased plate.
8.      Get your stemmer/idle cooker ready with water.
9.      Take two palm leaf which you got on Palm Sunday. Cut the edges, one should be bigger than the other.
10.  Just before keeping the batter in the stemmer make a cross in the center with the palm leaf.
11.  Steam it till it is cooked about 20 min.
12.  Once it is done let it cool before you remove it from the container. 
13.  It is ready to serve with Pesuha/Archana Pal on Mauday Thursday.

Pesaha Paal

Ingredients

Coconut milk – from 2 coconuts (about 3-4 cups)

Gud/ Jaggery/ Sharkara – ½ kg

Rice powder – 4 tsp to thicken

Cardamon powder – ¼ tsp

Cumin/ jeera powder – ¼ tsp

Method

1.         Grate the jaggery.

2.         In one cup of water melt the Jaggery.

3.         Filter this syrup.

4.         Add one more cup of water to this and boil.

5.         Dissolve rice flour in a little water and add it to the above mixture ( stirring continuously), so that the mixture thickens. Switch of the heat.

6.         Now add the coconut milk and heat on low flame, stirring continuously.

7.         While it is getting heated  cut small pieces of the palm leaf  you got on Palm Sunday.

8.         Now add the cardamom powder and cumin powder and mix well.

9.         It is ready to be blessed and consumed with Indari appam along with your family on Maundy Thursday evening.