Neer moru. (Spiced up Buttermilk)

I make this for Ramanavami day.

 Ingredients:

Thick curd                                         1 cup

Water                                               2 – 3 cups

Hing                                                1/4 tsp

Fresh ginger grated                            1 tsp

Salt                                                 1/2 tsp

Finely chopped green chillies                 1no.

Curry leaves and coriander leaves         For decoration

 For Seasoning - mustard seeds            1/4 tsp..

Method:

• Churn the curd to butter milk ,add enough water and all other ingredients, mix well.
• Season some mustard seeds.
• Neer Moru is ready.

Rava Kesari

India is a land of sweets.  Every good news is celebrated with sweets. One of the famous and most commonly made Indian sweet is Sheera or ravakesari.  Rava Kesari is a tasty low calorie Indian recipe. This can be made with simple ingredients available in most homes. This recipe seems to be easy, but it requires lot of practice and patience to bring in the right texture.

Ingredients:

Rava (semolina)                           1 cup

Water                                           2- 3 cups

Sugar                                          1 3/4 cups

Almonds, Cashew nuts and raisins -3 tbsp (fried in ghee)

Orange edible food color             - a pinch

Kasseri color                                ¼ tsp

Ghee                                            1/2 cup

Cardamom                                   4 to 5(well crushed)

Method:

• Roast the Rava for two minutes with a tablespoon of ghee.
• Boil the water and add orange & Kesari color powder.
• Add  the boil water to Rava slowly. Stir continuously while adding Rava to avoid lumps.
• Cook Rava for 2 minutes then add the sugar slowly, just the way you added the rava, so it blends in well. Cook for a minute and then add ghee. Cook for 5 minutes till the ghee comes out of the rava.
• Again add the remaining ghee, heat a little, add cardamom, cashews, raisins fry till nice golden brown and add to the rava. Keep stirring once again till the Kesari thickens
• Pour the ghee generously, and stir well. Don’t let it stick to the bottom.
• The ghee starts oozing out on the sides. That’s the perfect time to turn off the flame.
• Tasty rava Kesari is ready. 

For Fat (and hence tasty) version:

• Add lot of dry fruits.
•  you can add whole milk with water (50% water, 50% milk)
• Use  ghee generously.
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Ambalappuzha Pal Payasam

Ambalappuzha is a small town in Alappuzha district of Kerala state, south India. The town is famous for its Sri Krishna temple. The Ambalappuzha temple is one of the three important Sri Krishna temples in the state of Kerala. The payasam served in this  temple is famous among Hindu devotees.  An idol of Sri Krishna, is  "The Lord Parthasarthy idol" .  Usually I make this payasam on Krishna Jeyanthy day. 

Ingredients:

Unnakkal Rice/ Kuthari (Brown rice)              – 1/2 cup

Whole Milk -                                               1 cup

2% milk                                                  – 2 cup

Evaporated milk                                        – 1 tin

Water                                                      1/4cup

Cardamoms                                              – 6 no

Ghee                                                      – 2 tbsp

Sugar                                                        – ¾ cup

Saffron                                                      - a pinch

Fried cashews, raisins                                  – 2 bsp

Method:

• Wash and clean the rice. Fry the rice in 1 tbsp of ghee.
• Add whole milk, water and saffron into the rice. Cook it in the pressure cooker for 3 whistles
• Take out the rice from cooker and transfer into the sauce pan.
•  Mash the rice slightly. Add sugar, 1 tbsp of ghee, evaporated milk, 2 % milk and crushed cardamoms. Stir well until Sugar dissolve into milk. Reduce the heat and cook it for 30 minutes until it thickens to the consistency of payasam. (Payasam will smell like condense milk).
•  Now take it away from heat. Add fried cashews on the top.

Aval Thirukannaamuthu (Aval Payasam)

This is a traditional dish from Kerala state,India. This is one of the Neivedya prasadam for Unni Kannan. Usually I make this payasam on Krishna Jeyanthy day.  For Unni Kannan he loves Aval and Milk. This dish gives both. This payasam does not require nuts for decoration.

Ingredients:

Chemba Aval (Brown Aval)                    – ¼ cup

2% milk                                                – 1 cup

Evaporated milk                                    – 1 tin

Cardamoms                                          – 6 no

Ghee                                                     – 2 tbsp

Sugar                                                    – ¾ cup to 1 cup

Saffron                                                   - a pinch

Method: 

• Wash and clean the Aval. Fry the Aval in  1 tbsp  ghee.
• Add milk and saffron into the Aval. Cook it in the pressure cooker for 2 whistles
• Take out the Aval from cooker and transfer into the sauce pan.
•  Mash the Aval slightly. Add sugar, 1 tbsp of ghee, evaporated milk and crushed cardamoms. Stir well until Sugar dissolve into milk. Reduce the heat and cook it for 20 minutes until it thickens to the consistency of payasam.

Traditional Iyengar Dhadiyonnam - Curd Rice

If you want this recipe as low fat, please use 2 % milk, low fat yogurt and low fat sour cream.  In traditional dahi Annam, they won't use jalapenos& sour Cream. But I used  jalapeno& sourCream , it came out very tasty.

Ingredients:
Rice                                       1 cup

Whole milk                              2 cups 

Water                                     1  cup

Sour cream                             1/2 cup

 Thick Yogurt                            ½ cup

Ginger cut into small pieces        2 tbsp

Green chillies chopped finely       5 no

Jalapenos chopped finely            1 no

Salt                                         to taste

Seasoning:

Oil                                         ½ tsp

Mustard seed                           1 tsp

Curry leaves –                          1 stem (chopped finely)

Hing                                        1/8 tsp

Method:

• Wash and clean the rice.
• Add water and whole milk and pressure cook it for 4 whistles.
• Take out from rice and smash well and keep aside.
• Add ginger, jalapenos, green chills and salt into it and mash well.
• Whisk sour cream and yogurt very well. And add to the rice.
• Fry all seasonings and add to the rice.
• Serve with lemon pickle, or  Puli Millaghai.

Tips

• Don't add curd to the hot rice. It will leave water.
• Before serving the rice, add fruits and veggies to the curd rice and mix it well then serve. 
• In summer season, add very  little sour cream to the rice. 
• You can add more milaghai to the seasonings. It will increase the flavor and taste to the curd rice.
• Always mix the rice with big spoons. Don't use your hands for mixing the rice. It will become too sour.

Venn Pongal

This is the prasadam in all Vishnu temples during Margazhi month.

Ingredients

Rice                                        1 Cup

Moong Dal                               1/4 Cup

Whole  milk                            3/4 cup

Water                                     2 1/2  cups

Whole Black Pepper                  1 tbsp

Jeera                                      1 tsp

Dry Ginger powder (Sukku)        1/4 tsp 
 Grated ginger                        1 tbsp

Hing                                     1/2 Tsp

Curry leaves                          1 stem

 fried Cashew                         for garnishing

Ghee                                    3 tbsp

Salt                                      to taste

Method:

• Wash rice and dal together and drain nicely.
• Heat 1 tbsp of ghee fry the rice and dhal for  2 minutes.
• Add water and milk and cook it in the pressure cooker till 3 whistles.
• Take out the rice from cooker and smash it well.
• Heat ghee fry the cashews  and keep aside
• Heat 1 tsp of ghee and fry black pepper, Jeera, dry ginger powder  & grated ginger and curry leaves
• Add the above ingredients to the rice .
• Add salt and mix it well. Add the left over ghee and nuts on it.
• Serve it hot with coconut chutney and Brinjal Goshthu
• Best Side dish for venn pongal is Ezhu kari kootu

Note: For Low Fat use: 2% milk, Less Ghee and nuts

Akkaraadisal (Rich Rice Pudding)

This is a traditional Iyengar dish. It is rich rice pudding made with milk, Jaggery and ghee.People often think that Sarkkarai Pongal is the same.  This dish is slightly different from Sarkkarai Pongal

Differences are:

Semi solid, Lot of milk and ghee used: less  nuts used, Boiling time more,   do not used the pachaikarpuram.

I have memories of eating this in Azhagarkovil temple where it is traditionally made as prasadam on “Koodarai “day. Its so yummy.

Ingredients:

Rice                             ½ cup

Whole Milk                    4 cups

Water                           1 cup

Jaggery grated              1 ¼ cup 

Crushed Elachi              5 nos

Ghee                             ¼ cup

Cashews and Raisins       1 tbsp

Saffron                           1 tsp (Soaked in warm milk)

Method:

• Wash the rice and fry it 1 tsp of ghee
• Add 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of water and cook it in the pressure cooker for 4 whistles
• After 4 whistles simmer the stove and cook for 5 minutes
• Take out from the cooker and smash the rice very well. Keep aside.
• Powder the Jaggery. Mix it in one ladle of water.
• Heat it and stir continuously till it turns into syrup state. Filter it.
• Mix this filtered Jaggery syrup with the cooked rice mixture.
• Smash the cooked rice mixture with left over milk and  ghee;cook it  lower heat.
• Fry the nuts and elachi in ghee and add it to the rice mixture.And there you go! Here’s your tasty Akkaravadisal!

Note: Akkaraadisal should be in semi- solid state.
For Low Fat : Reduce the ghee amount , Instead of half and half, use 2% milk

Sarkarai Pongal (Sweet Rice)

The word Pongal means “boiling over” - refers to riced cooked in milk and Jaggery. This festival is celebrated on January 14^th, the first day of the Tamil month Thai. This is a harvest festival in Tamil Nadu. Pongal is the main preparation of the festival. The ingredients of this preparation have some symbolic meaning attached to each.People wish each other good times, happiness, peace and prosperity. They also greet each other saying "Pongalo Pongal" and "Pongum Mangalam Engum Thanguga" in Tamil. Rice and milk are signs of prosperity, sugarcane for happiness, while turmeric augurs the good things to come. Two varieties of Pongal- the salty one known as 'venn Pongal' and the sweet one known as 'Sarkkarai Pongal' are prepared on the second day of the Pongal festival. Sarkkari pongal also a Marghazi Prasadam for all Vaishnavate homes and Temples.

Hope you all have enjoyed the Pongal festival.

Ingredients

Raw Rice                                     1 cups

Moong dhal                                  1/4 cup

Jaggery powdered                          ¾ cup 

Whole milk                                   1 cup

Water                                          2 cup

Saffron                                         1 pinch

Ghee                                            ¼ cup

 Crushed Cardamom                         4 nos

Nutmeg powdered                           less than ¼ tsp

Pachai Karpuram                              1 pinch

Cashews                                       10 pieces

Raisins                                          10 pieces

Method:

•  Clean the rice and moong dhal.  Heat 2 tsp of ghee and fry it for few minutes
• Mix rice, dhal, water, milk and saffron. Cook it in pressure cooker for at least 3 – 4 whistles. Switch of the gas.
•  When steam goes away takeout the cooked rice from pressure cooker and smash it very well. Keep aside.
•  Melt the Jaggery with 3 tbsp of water.Filter it and keep aside.
• Fry the nuts, nutmeg, and cardamoms in ghee. Keep aside.
• Mix the Jaggery syrup with rice and cook it in low flame for 5 to 10 minutes. If rice is too thickening, you can add little bit of milk in it.
• Add the fried nuts, nutmeg, keshar or yellow color and ghee in it. Cook it for few more minutes.
• Finally add a pinch of Pachai Karpuram (don’t add too much. It will spoil the Pongal taste).
•   Hot Sweet Pongal is ready. 

Tips

•  Frying rice and dhal gives more delicious taste. Cook it  along with whole milk gives you more richness in the dish.
• You want authentic taste,use jaggery and no other substitutes.
• Pongal has the tendency to be thick after cooling down. so remove pongal when it is semi solid.

Note:    See my other Pongal Recipes (click the link)

Unniappam

This is one of the traditional & delicious sweet dishes from Kerala. In all Krishna temples in Kerala, they make this Neivedyam prasadam for Lord Unni Kuttan. And these prasadam are so yummy like Krishna Himself.

Ingredients

Raw rice                                           1cup

Jaggery                                             1 cup

Ripe Banana                                      1 no

chopped Coconut pieces                      1/4 cup (fried in ghee)

Green cardamon powder                    ½ tsp

Dry ginger powder                             ¼ tsp
Black sesame seed                             - 1/2tsp.

Ghee                                                  2 tbsp

Oil                                                      frying 

Method:

• Soak the raw rice for 4 hours. Drain it.
• Melt the jaggery with little water and strain.
• Smash the banana very well.
• Grind together with rice, melted Jaggery  banana, elachi & dry ginger powder with just enough water to form a smooth batter.
• fry the coconut pieces & till seeds in ghee.
• Mix ghee and coconut pieces with it and mix well. Keep aside it for 2 hours.
• Heat the Unniappam mould, fill it ¾ of ghee (or oil), pour the batter into mould.
• When one side is cooked, using sharp ladle flip it.
• Once appam is cooked, drain the ghee (or oil) and set aside. Sometimes sugar is sprinkled on top to give that awesome black/brown and white contrast and add sweetness. Also it tastes far better if you take it after couple of days, instead of fresh.

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Iyengar Puliyodarai

Puliyodarai is a standard item in traditional Iyengar feasts. Triplicane Parthasarthy temple’s Puliyodarai is very famous.  It tastes so different from other Vishnu temples. This is easy to prepare,once its basic paste pulikachal is ready in hand, you can make puliyodarai rice any time.

 For Pulikachal
lFor Powder:

Coriander seeds                    2 Tbsp

Black Pepper                         2 Tbsp

Fenugreek seeds                   ½ tsp

Curry leaves                         2 stem

Red chili                               4 nos

Method:

• Dry fry all above ingredients and grind coarsely.  Divide into 2 parts.One part you use it for pulikachal paste and other one part you use it for rice. Keep aside.

Ingredients for Pulikachal.

Tamarind:                              1 small apple size

Turmeric powder                     1 Tsp

Bengal gram                           2 Tbsp

Urdu dhal                               2 Tbsp

Whole red chilies                     10 no( broken into pieces)

Peanuts                                  2 Tbsp

Asafetida (Hing)                       2 Tsp

Gingili oil                                ½ cup

Jaggery                                  2 Tsbp

Curry leaves                           1 stem

Salt                                       as required

Method : 

• Soak the tamarind in hot water for ½ hour.  Make tamarind into a thick pulp.
• Heat the thick bottom pan add oil, when oil gets fuming add mustard seeds. When mustard seed starts spluttering, add dhals, chillies, curry leaves and Hing on it. Fry till the dhals, curry leaves are golden brown. Now add the tamarind pulp, salt, ½ of the ground powder and Jaggery.
• When pulp gets thicken oil will ooze out. Switch off the stove. 
• Transfer into airtight container.

Ingredients For Rice:

Raw Rice                     2  cup

Water                          2 1/2 - 3 cup

Turmeric Powder          ¼ tsp
Pulikachal                    6-7 Tbsp

Gingili Oil                     4 Tsp

Salt                             to taste

Seasoning: Peanuts, curry leaves, cashews (Fry it in oil and keep aside)

Method:

• Wash and clean the rice.
• Add water, oil, turmeric powder, salt,  3 tbsp of Pulikachal paste.
• Cook it in the Electric rice cooker.
• After rice is well cooked, transfer the rice into big plate. Add above seasonings, the left over part of the powder (PULIKKACHAL POWDER) , Pulikkachal paste and mix well with flat ladle, so rice will not get smashed.
• Serve with Vadams, Fried pappad.

Note: This recipe,I used Basmati Rice. But Ponni or Sona Masuri rice is the best for Puliyodarai.

Panakkam (Jaggery spicy water)

This is a sweet and spicy drink.  At my home I used to prepare this drink on Rama Navami and Swathi nakshatram days. Panakkam is a very important Neivedyam  for Lord LakshmiNarasimha.  When I make this drink, I always remember the Mangalagiri Temple. It is located in southern India near Vijayawada. The lord’s name is Panakala Narasimha Swamy – (God Who Drinks Panakam).This temple is on a hill-top. In the temple, there will be no statue of the god, but there is only mouth, widely opened to 15 cms. The God takes Jaggery water as offering by a conch. 

You can make this drink within 5 minutes. This is very healthy and also home remedies for cold and cough.

Ingredients:

 Grated Jaggery                                 3 tbsp

Dry ginger powder                             1 tbsp

Crushed black pepper                         1 tbsp

Coarsely crushed cardamom               4 nos

Water                                                2 cups

Lemon juice                                       2 tsp

Method:

•  Mix Jaggery in water and dissolve it. Filter it.
• Add dry ginger powder, pepper, cardamoms, and lemon.
• Mix it very well and served cold.

Azhagharkovil Dosa

Azhaghar Kovil (Thirumalirum solai) temple is located  in Madurai city (Tamilnadu). Azhaghar means charming and beautiful  person. The other name of the perumal  called as Kalazhaghar, Sundarrajan, Malirumsolai Nambi. 

Azhagharkovil is very famous for authentic  prasadams like  Akkaravadisal and Kovil Dosai. This Dosai is deep fried in pure ghee.

Well...I have given here a home-style variation of  Dosa

Azhaghar Kovil Dosai:


Ingredients:
Raw rice -                                                        3 cups
Black gram/black urad dal  (WITH SKIN)             1 cup
Black Pepper                                                   1 tbsp
jeera                                                             1 tsp
Curry leaves -                                                 2 stem finely chopped
Asafoetida                                                     1 spoon
Ginger grated -                                               1 tbsp
Dry ginger powder -                                         1 tsp
Salt                                                               to taste
Ghee mixed with oil                                      1/4 cup
Fruit salt (ENO)-                                              1/4 tsp

Method:

•  Soak the black urad dhal and rice speartely for 5 to 6 hours. Grind with rice and black urdh dal (with skin) into thick and coarse batter.
•  Add salt, Fruit salt to this. Allow it to ferment for  5-7 hours.
• Dry Grind the pepper and jeera coarsely.
•  Add pepper jeera mixture , chopped curry leaves, ginger,and Salt to the batter.
• Mix them thoroughly.
• Heat the griddle. Smear ghee and make a thick dosa and cover and cook it. Run few more spoons of ghee over it. Cook till  like adai
•  Serve with chunteny.