The Story of Aleesa and Haleem..

This is a  story I have angling to tell for a long time. The main characters are Aleesa and Haleem..kind of like Heer Ranjha, right? It could also be delusions brought on by the heightened state of the mind when it wanders while fasting.The one on the right is Aleesa and the one on the left is Haleem.

Aleesa is a winner in looks and has good taste. She has a gentle sweet personality evident in her creamy complexion and mild nature. Happy to take a shy side seating in a crowd, you notice her only when you take the first step in the conversation. Sugary, buttery, creamy..that's the first set of words that pop into your vocabulary. Then the mid tones of spice..cinnamon, cloves, cardamon hit the back of your throat and you take a second look at the unassuming Aleesa. She is not a fool, you decide, she's different..is she an appetizer or a dessert... and as she walks away, there is a lingering memory that you just can't place.(Not my place to tell you what that is.:))

Haleem, on the other hand, is a commanding presence. Happy to be in the center of attraction, he is popular with outstanding people skills. Though he is a bright yellow in complexion, with an assortment of colorful accessories, he manages to win over anybody willing to talk to him for a second. Spicy, tangy and hot run the chit chat initially till you get into the meaty part of the conversation and then everything gets serious. Frivolities aside, this is a serious person and needs to treated with respect.
They both come from the same ancestors and maybe centuries earlier, there was a love story between them which was forcibly broken apart by warring families and send to different parts of the world.
Now they no longer recognize their common traits and have forgotten their similarities. If they were to meet their Pakistani cousin, Hareesa( not the condiment), Mumbai cousin Kichra, or Turkish cousin keshkek,they would both know they once belonged to the same royal family in the Arab states. See this wonderful post on Turkish weddings if you still doubt the similarities.

If you wondering what am I blabbering about, its about two dishes, Aleesa and Haleem popular in the Muslim Communities in North India and Malabar. Haleem is found only in Hyderabad and Lucknow and Aleesa is a North Kerala dish popular in Muslim salkarams.

According to this site, Haleem is a soup-like Indian and Pakistani dish, brought to India from Persia. In Anatolia, Iran, the Caucasus region and northern Iraq, it is known by the names Keshkek or Harisa. Although the dish varies in other regions, it always includes wheat and meat. It is a tasty soup that is made from wheat ,barley and oats. Meat or Chicken can be added for different variations. It is generally made during Ramadan and in cold weather and can be eaten with naan(indian bread) and a dash of lemon juice. 

Well, its definitely not soup like (though I don't mind it like a soup too) and a measure of its quality is the thickness. The density( yeah,  getting technical.. this was told to me by my butcher)should be such that a spoon placed vertically in it should stand as is without any support. It's eaten as a thick porridge(worst word to describe a delicious recipe)and it has a stick to your bones kind of richness that is good in cold weather and also after a hard long fast. So its popular as an Iftar food everywhere. Both are very thick goopy food only as good as the flavorings and the ghee in it, so most people either love it or detest it.

Now Aleesa on the other hand, however the recipe reached Northern Kerala's Malabar region, is a sweet version of this Haleem. I wouldn't have thought it was till I cam across the a post on sweet wheat porridge(that word again.) called Haleem. Again there was this wheat and meat Persian breakfast also adding ghee and sugar instead of spices. No lentils in aleesa though  but still I am assuming there is a connection between these recipes..one sweet and one savory version of the same meat and wheat stew.
As for the recipe , see below.

Aleesa Recipe
You will need
Skinned whole wheat(Haleem Wheat)-1/2 cup
Cloves-2
Cinnamon-1 small half inch long thin piece
Onion- 1 small one quartered
Cardamom-1 whole pieces
Chicken or Mutton- 1/2 cup cubes

Preparation:
Soak the wheat in warm water for 15-20 minutes. Add all the ingredients in a pressure cooker or thick bottom stock pot. Add 3 cups of water and pressure cook ( or slow cook with lots of water on medium low heat) till the first whistle comes and then cook on very low heat for 10-15 minutes. After the cooker cools, open, and blend to a coarse consistency. Not fully smooth and not fully granular. You could mash it by hand too using a potato masher. Add 1/2 tsp of salt and mix well. If its too thick, add some water and cook well. If its too thin, let it thicken over low heat. Transfer to a serving shallow bowl.
Now season it by frying 3 shallots sliced in 3-4 tablespoon( use more if u like it) of ghee till it browns well. Add some cashews and raisins and fry that too. Pour the seasoned ghee over the whole cooked aleesa. Serve with lots of sugar sprinkled on top or on the side.

Traditionally, the haleem is made over 7-8 hours in a slow cooking method that ensures the flavors meld together and there are traditionalists who only prefer that. With pressure cookers and food mills, it has a faster cooking time now. If I had a slow cooker, I would use that, but I make it in a pressure cooker for ease. There are videos on you tube which show how the real deal is made in Hyderabad. From the look of it, they don't use turmeric and their haleem looks different. Any feedback on that will be welcome.

As for the Haleem recipe, since that's something I have tasted only after coming here, and hence my recipe for that may not be accurate. There are lots of Haleem recipes blogged by able bloggers now, namely Zaiqa and health nut, but the one below is what I usually use and here it as it was blogged by Nabeela, whose blog I can't find now.  Shaan masalas also has a haleem mix which comes out pretty good too, except that I feel the garam masala and salt in that is overpowering. Try it either way or follow the directions on the back of the Shaan masala.

Haleem Recipe

You will Need:

2 BIG onions, sliced thin and deep fried to golden brown, then crushed
Bulghur wheat(about 2/3 cup), Masoor dal(1 handful) & Chana Dal(1 handful) - together 8 ounce
3 cups water
1 tbsp oil
1.5 lbs chicken/beef/goat, boneless
1 cup water
1.5 cups yogurt
1.5 tsp salt
4-5 green chilies
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp minced fresh ginger
2 tbsp minced fresh garlic
8 cloves + 1/2 tsp cumin - ground
1/2  tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground pepper
1 1/3 cup water
Juice from 2 limes
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 cup chopped mint leaves
Lime wedges to serve

Procedure:
Cook bulghur wheat with masoor and chana dal in 3 cups water in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes. Set aisde and clean pressure cooker. Marinate chicken, water, yogurt, red chili, turmeric, garlic, ginger and salt for some time and then add them along with oil in same pressure cooker and cook for 30 minutes till the meat has fallen apart totally. Using a food mill or a food processor, puree the wheat mixture and meat mixture into a 5 quart pot. Add 1/2 of the crushed deep fried onions, ground cloves and cumin, 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground pepper, water and lime juice. Cook it on medium heat, stirring constantly. Taste and see if it needs more cinnamon and pepper. Adjust to your taste. Cook for 10-15 minutes till its thick and goopy. Add chopped cilantro and mint. Cook for a minute further. Serve hot with lime wedges, fresh cilantro and the rest of the fried onions sprinkled on top.

Ramazan Mubarak and Tire Pathiri/ Thick Rice Pan Cooked Bread...

Back from a trip to my hometown, a short and hectic but immensely memorable trip. Got stuffed with a lot of good food, all home made and yummy, just in time to make the Ramazan fast a necessary ritual to get back into my old clothes. The trip had a lot of highlights, so much so that a stray idle day seemed to be lacking something, as I couldn't unwind and just go with it.
Meeting friends, old and new, meeting family  has all left a series of pleasant thoughts to dwell on, on slow days. Initially I was photographing everything trying to capture the moments but then gave up and now all that remains is the distilled essence of the days there. There was just too much to take in at once and the photos don't do justice to the vibrancy and pace there.

Seeing the change in my hometown is always eye opening. Each time I blink, there seems to be a new apartment building sprouting amongst the old tharavadus there. The skyline there, once a lush green of just coconut trees, is now more concrete than green.  There is even a 4 storied apartment coming next door to my parent's house. Easy for me to visit infrequently and feel a pang but looks like the residents there just need more housing and land is expensive so maximizing the use seems to be the norm.


There is so much to blog about the food there, but laziness prevails.. Well, its summer here so anyway,  I am not in a blogging frame of mind now but thought of posting this before I forget how its made. This post is about tire pathiri, a term you would have read only here. Pathiri , as I have explained earlier is a generic term for "rotis" or flatbreads. This is a thick flatbread made with ground rice paste and it called "tire or tyre" as it is very thick, almost an inch thick, reminding you of the truck tyres.
It is called Katti Pathiri elsewhere, meaning "thick flat bread" as opposed to the more common, "neriya pathiri"/ thin flatbreads.  This heavy duty bread is a meal in itself. If you get taken in by the cute looks and make the mistake of plopping one on your plate, early on,at a salkaram/party,  good luck..... you will be stuck between having to finish it and hence not  being able to eat another bite of rice or end up wasting good food.

It is made by soaking rice in warm water and then grinding it to a thick paste and then cooking it on a slow flame. Traditionally cooked in an clay pan over a wood burning stove, it is not so easy, ( not too difficult either) to make on a gas stove. This one chronicled below was made on a gas stove by my MIL's patient hands.. will I make it here to the same quality is yet to be seen. (I will update you all on it.)
You will Need:
1cup rice(ponni parboiled) soaked in hot water (boiling hot initially) for 5-6 hours.

Grind this to a smooth paste (some add shallots and fennel seeds to this grinding, we don't) with very little water. Traditionally done on a stone grinder by hand, it can done in a dosa grinder or in a powerful Indian style food processor with very little water.

Place it in a refrigerator, covered with a muslin (thin cotton) cloth overnight. This allows the excess water to evaporate and what remains is the perfect consistency to make the pathiri.

Take a lump of the dough, flatten it between two plantain leaves or parchment paper or oiled foil to the size of your palm. It should be about 1/4 inch thick.

Heat a cast iron skillet and place the plantain leaf or foil with the flattened dough in it on the skillet.

Cover and cook on medium low heat for about 5-6 minutes on each side, undisturbed.
Open, remove the pathiri and place it directly on the skillet. As it crisps up on each side, flip it over.

Then place the bread on its side, (balance with a wooden spoon) and roll and cook along the edge, pressing it gently as you cook. This allows the pathiri to puff up like a ball. That's when you know its cooked fully.
Serve with any meat curry with lots of gravy or with muringa ela curry.

Mutton Stew My Style

Its Feb already and there is hardly any signs of the great winter letting up.. The schools closed in preparation for the great storm that assailed the East coast and now will open only mid next week... now at least I can sleep in on these cold cold days without gearing up to confront the icy winds seeping in from the windows. I guess I am going into hibernation, putting on more padding to keep warm as well as turning indoors to avoid battling the cold. Though once we are dressed in clothes, well, layers and layers of them, the cold is not so bad, but the body is just stiff and unbending.

Just kidding.. I love the snow  and the white beauty all around..it is so picturesque and calm..They say its a "storm"..to me storm means lightning and thunder, floods of water and general mayhem.. the Kerala Monsoons. Well, the mayhem and floods of snow are there on the roads as is evident in the news, but the glamorous sound and light show is missing and the "storm" is a day filled with an eerie unnatural silence with a steady stream of cotton candy floating down covering the roof and trees with "frosting".

Meen Pathiri/ Steamed Fish Pancakes

One of my favorites from Malabar cuisine is meen pathiri i.e. rice pancakes stuffed with fish and steamed..is that an accurate description of such a balances of flavors? or is fish pie a better title? Trying to explain traditional cuisine to those who haven't tasted needs a stretch of imagination in terms of the language and ingredients.
This is another of those traditional Malabar recipes that is getting endangered and should be on a protected list..They were (and maybe still) are so commonplace in our houses but you might be more familiar with it through the travel cookery shows in Kerala where they are deemed exotic and laborious.


Pathiri is a term used loosely in Malabar region of Kerala to mean roti/chappathi/ or flatbread. The prefix of the word" pathiri" decides what kind it is..godumbu pathiri is made of godambu,i.e.wheat, ari pathiri is made of rice flour, erachi pathiri, has erachi /meat stuffed in it, meen pathiri has meen,/fish stuffed in it and so on.
This fish pathiri is made with Kng fish/Aikora or with Mackarel/ Aila or even with Sardines/ Mathi. When pressed for time, I have made this with canned tuna, canned sardines and it tastes passably good.

Kadala Kari/ Parippu Paysaam with Pidis/ Chana Dal Kheer

It's been a long month and am just glad to be sitting here nearly at the end of it, sighing in relief! Some days dragged their feet, some days got stretched taut like a rubber band only to have to let go and let it snap back with a sting. If I start to tell you what all happened in the last month, I will be here all evening, so suffices to say that our house has finally changed hands and we have moved out into an apartment. Even though I am writing it here now, it's still a bit hard to believe and sink in.
Since this is the country where you can return anything ( well, anything you buy and sometimes what you don't buy) I still get nightmares where our buyer wants to return the house for some weird reason or the other. I guess it will take a while, to settle in.

Chicken Samosas..

This is one of the Ramazan specialities, samosas filled with meat. It is made completely by hand but feel free to replace with ready made wrappers such as spring roll wrappers, samosa wrappers or puff pastry sheets (Bake it as per the instructions on the box if you use puff pastry to make chicken puff). Ground meat(chicken or beef) is not recommended for samosas as it changes the texture. Chicken can be made either by pressure cooking, or by just cooking the boneless pieces in the spices and mash it up for a shredded texture. Also, the quantity of onions to meat is a personal preference. Increase or decrease as you like.
If you have any leftover grilled or fried chicken or chicken dry curry , u could add onions and chilies and make the filling masala.  The filling should be dry for the samosa to hold together.

Mathi Mulakittathu / Moliyar/ Sardines in Spicy Curry...

The house sale has become just another factor in the list of daily chores and activities. Even my kids are pitching in the daily clean up now.:)
"The blushing bride" as one of my blogger friends called the house, is wilting under all the attention or the lack of it. We had one open house last week and nearly went a little berserk getting it ready. Still not much response. The house prices are falling so much that bigger houses than ours are encroaching on our price zone, while the buyers are just shopping around still. The daily headlines of unemployment and housing market in a down spin doesn't help either. But let's see, we still have to wait and bide our time.

We are also on the other end, like most of my blogger friends, looking for a house and I know how difficult it is to like a house. When we were living in an apartment, it was easy to go around seeing houses and visualize ourselves in it, since they were almost always bigger than the apartment. The second home is not so easy. Now when we do our round of house viewing, can't visualize it as where we want to live in and at the end of the day, just want to come back "home". We get back home, stretch our feet in the backyard patio, peruse the endless grass and hear the twitters (the original bird sounds, not the internet chatter) around, wave to the rabbit, sip a cup of tea and think aloud, "why again are we moving?"

Makes you wonder what is it that we call "home". It's bricks and mortar, alright, but there must be something primeval about it that we get so attached to it. I have lived in a lot of houses over the years yet when I dream, there is only house from my childhood that comes regularly in my dreams as Representative of "my home". As children, we probably get fixated on the house that we lived in the longest with our family. Now as adults with our own families, each house that we live in represents a phase of life..newly married, FOB, pre-kid, post kid...

Anyway, in a rebel state of mind, I didn't buy an induction stove, but started cooking some fish curries to "perfume" the house..just kidding...couldn't stay away from some spicy curry for too long..... just have to do a thorough airing and cleaning after each cooking though. Vinegar and a wet towel help a lot.

So here is a really easy Mathi Curry. When I went to my regular fish market this time, I had to regretfully decline the King Fish head..pheeeuu!!Couldn't afford to cook that as that smell will linger on like a bad memory. But they had these Sardines, so good looking that I couldn't resist it. Thinking of the heaped plates full of fried sardines, from last summer back in Calicut, I chose 3 sardines and came home smug to find my DH laughing at me..u bought just 3 sardines? Well, one for me and two for you... And I decided to make the curry as the leftover fry smell is another torture.
The recipe is the way my mom makes it but she couldn't give me numbers. Ummi Abdullah's book had a similar recipe so I used that to come up with the final recipe. There are only slight differences in the recipes such as we don't really use mustard and my mom almost never fries the shallots. But I like it this way.

You Will Need:
Sardines-3 or 4
Shallots-6 sliced finely
Green Chilies-2 slit vertically
Garlic- 3 big cloves crushed well.
Tomato-1 small one
Red Chili Powder- 2 tsp(substitute with Kashmiri chili powder if you don't like the spice level.)
Turmeric-1/2 tsp
Tamarind Extract- 1tbsp(Laxmi Natural Tamarind Concentrate.)
Mustard-1/2 tsp(optional)
Fenugreek-1 tsp
Coconut oil-2 tbsp
Curry leaves
salt to taste

Preparation:
Use a pan or clay pot. Some say the high heat damages the clay pot so you could do the spluttering of mustard in a pan and add to the clay pot.

Heat the oil in a pan/ meen chatti( clay pot) and add the mustard seeds.
Cover and reduce heat and let them splutter. Open and add the fenugreek, onions,green chilies and garlic. Fry till the onions are transparent and starting to brown at the edges. Add the tomatoes and saute for just a minute. Mix the chili powder, turmeric powder with 1 tbsp water and add to the pan.

Fry for a minute or so and then add the tamarind extract. This extract that I use has the natural taste and the light brown color of real tamarind. If you are using whole tamarind, soak a small ball in half cup warm water and extract the juice by squishing the tamarind into the water and straining it.

Add 1/2 cup to 1 cup water if there is no liquid left in the pan and let it come to a boil. Adjust the sourness and salt and then add the fish and the curry leaves. Cover, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 7 to 10minutes. Keep it covered for some more time. The fish will take time to imbibe the flavors and tastes better definitely the next day or later in the evening.

Thenga Aracha Meen Curry/ Fish curry with coconut

A typical scene back home(now seen only during vacation): It's 10.30 am in my house in Kerala and we are chatting around in the kitchen after the breakfast is cleared. The stomach is protesting from the hogging but Mom is already cutting veggies, assigning work to her helper B and discussing what to make for lunch. I just hover around, pretending to help while trying to take furtive notes....mom sometimes adds the magic ingredients when I turn my back....the kids are running underfoot and with their bellies full are for now appeased.

With so many people at home on vacation, food dominates the day. Whether it's my house or my in-laws, it's almost the same scene. "What's for lunch?" "What's for dinner?" is as much a conversation piece as the latest news and movies. Plus the endless cravings will pepper the discussion resulting in a skewed menu, meeting every one's demands.

Once back in the parents house on vacation, isn't it great to take a break from menu planning? No, I am not on vacation now, but was conjuring up home for a write up that Sailaja asked me to do. Once I started, it was like a time machine transporting me back!!

Anyway, to continue, just as we speculate on the itinerary for the day, the fish of the day makes an entrance. Wrapped in a newspaper,(earth friendly packaging, anyone?)placed in a designated fish bag, it seems like it's still alive and flapping. My mom's trusty helper B takes over, gets comfortable in the work area of the kitchen and meticulously cleans the fish, attracting a slew of stray cats, mewing pitifully while patiently waiting for their share. The palm trees are swaying and there is a kind of peaceful swishing all around. The green itself is so soothing!

Meanwhile, mom is busy in the kitchen, extracting tamarind paste, grinding ginger garlic and tossing some onions, green chilies, and spice powders into the clay pot. There is a constant chatter going on, sprinkled with a generous dose of gossip.

The ingredients are all crushed together by hand instead of stirring with a spoon...it blends the flavors, she says. Soon the clay pots are bubbling away on the fire... and B has the fish washed and clean in the work area, ready for the curry. No sign of any yucky stuff now, and the fish/fishes are quickly separated into fry pieces, curry pieces and moliyar/molaku chaar pieces. All the curries are made simultaneously. Small quantities, daily cooking..is the mantra.

When the mix in one claypot boils, the fish is added to it and when the fish is cooked, a fresh ground paste of coconut is added to it. (And if the fish is bad, you will know it the moment the fish hits the bubbling cauldron. It will stink up your kitchen!!)Seasoning is just curry leaves and shallots. That's it. This is in direct contrast with the other fish curries which need slow frying of shallots or roasting the coconut etc.
The other claypot has its own set of ingredients which will become the molaku chaar. And the fish pieces are marinated with chili powder, turmeric, ginger garlic and salt.. sometimes crushed shallots and curry leaves too are added to it.

This coconut based curry is best with the middle pieces of the fish.. the most meaty ones... the yucky parts will hinder the delicate flavor of fresh coconut. The head and tail are more suited to the rustic molaku chaar/ red spicy fish curry. (Once only head and tails were bought from the fishmonger for a much relished Molaku chaar!!!) And every piece is suited for fry but mostly the meaty pieces are reserved for it.

Ah! It's the weekend here so maybe I will replicate the scene in my kitchen. I will imagine the palm fronds and the lush green and try not to see the white blanket outside all around.


You will need:
Any fresh fish-/Porgie/Perch/Red Snapper/Pomapano-6 pieces
Onion(optional)-a very small pieces, sliced
Green chilies- 4
Ginger-1/2 inch
Garlic- 3 clove
Turmeric- 1/2 tsp
Red chili powder-1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds-1 tsp
Coriander powder- 1 tsp
Grated Coconut– 1 cup
Tamarind extract- 2 tsp or as extracted from a lime (small) sized ball.
Salt-1/2 tsp or to taste

Seasoning:
Coconut oil or Canola oil- 2 tbsp
Shallots- 6
Curry leaves- 1 sprig

Preparation:
1. Preparing the Fish: Clean and slice the fish. Wash it and toss with lime juice.
2. Dry Grind the ginger and garlic to a coarse paste.
3. Grind the coconut with the 1/2 cup water till it is a very fine paste. If you are using frozen coconut, make sure it is at room temperature before grinding to avoid clumping. Add water only as needed and not all together. When you think it's done grinding, grind some more to make it superfine. You could use coconut milk as a substitute.
4. Put the sliced onions, green chilies, ginger garlic paste, fenugreek seeds, the red chili powder, turmeric, coriander powder and the tamarind extract into the cooking saute pan or clay pot. If using tamarind extract, add 1 cup water. Crush everything in the pot by hand and mix well.
5. Adjust the sourness and add salt as required. Place this pot with the mix in it on the stove and when it is boiling, slide the fish pieces gently into the pan. Let it cook for 5 minutes without stirring. Add the ground coconut. If the ground coconut is a thick paste, add 1 cup water to it, else omit additional water. The water content is a matter of experience so add water slowly.
Reduce heat to a simmer and cover and let it cook for about 5-8 minutes. Do not stir with a spoon. Just hold the pan on the sides by the mittens and shake the pan to mix well. Remove from flame and keep covered.
6. Seasoning: Heat the coconut oil in a pan and sauté sliced shallots and curry leaves till slightly brown. Pour over the prepared curry. Serve with rice or with triangular paratha.

Chattipathiri...

See this link of Images of Ramadan in the Boston.com for a humbling experience to make you thankful for every single blessing you have received whether it's good health or prosperity or a warm home or just food on the table. It's beautiful to see the variations and commonality of the different people observing the fasts.

I have been busy with exams and a bathroom renovation so haven't got the time recently to blog as many Ramadan food as I would have liked to. The one full bath in the house is now demolished and is a pile of ceramic and dust and its the hope of two shiny new bathrooms that keeps us going.
When I sit on the computer, there is a constant cacophony of construction noises upstairs and I wonder whether the ceiling will fall on us with the guys banging away carelessly. The ceiling even got a couple of small holes and a bolt poking through!! When the emphasis is how to get rid of the dust that seems to be everywhere now, selecting tiles and colors and whose house do we go to for today's shower, cooking tends to take a back seat. Even my dreams have tile patterns on them now.:)

So I am posting a traditional recipe which was made sometime back and which was not posted earlier as I didn't have a cut photo for it.. it got served and finished before I could get the camera.
Chattipathiri, the original crepe cake made at a time when wood burning stoves were more common than ovens and baking powder. It's an unleavened cake made by layers of chapathis or rotis(similar to tortillas) interspersed with eggs, nuts and raisins, all submerged in a egg and milk custard which binds it together when baked. Decadent and definitely not healthy but so yum that you have to have it at the end of a fasting day..and on Eid and on festivals, and at salakarams, and on any special day..It just makes the day special just like having a cake center table makes you ask, "what's the occassion?"
It's similar to the Arab dessert Umm Ali and creamier cousin of bread pudding.
Chattipathiri is the epitome of Malabar cooking and making a good one is an art as well as matter or pride. It should have been on my blog a long time ago but I hesitated as this is definitely not a beginner recipe and needs experience to get it just perfect each time. There are so many things that can go wrong with the preparation and I am no expert to resolve all the issues. So try it and give me the feedback and if there are experts out there, send me pointers that I can add to this recipe.
Chapathis ready for layering...

Cashew filling...

Egg Filling...

Layering in a baking dish..

You Will Need:
For the chapathis( 6-7 layers):
All purpose flour-2 cup
Salt -a pinch
Water as needed to make dough.

For the filling:
Eggs-6-7
Milk-1 cup
Sugar-3/4 cup
Ghee +Oil-1/4 cup Ghee+1/2 cup oil.
Raisins-2 tablespoon
Cashew-2 tablespoon
Poppy seeds/Khus Khus-1 tablespoon
Cardamom-8 crushed into powder

Preparation:
1.Make the dough for the chapathis by mixing the water and flour and salt. The dough should be soft and pliable. Divide it into lemon sized balls and roll out the chapathis thinly. Heat a griddle/tawa and cook each chapathi on it. Cook each side for a couple of minutes on medium high heat. This is dry cooking and after each side turns opaque, it will start puffing up. At that stage, its cooked and the raw taste will have gone. A lot of people replace these chapathis here with ready made tortillas or chapathis but the final taste will then vary. The tortillas are slightly leavened so has a little too much thickness and the chapathis ready to buy are made of whole wheat so the texture changes. But you could start with those for ease of cooking. It still does taste good. Keep all the chapathis cooked and ready.

2. Egg Filling: Beat 2 of the eggs slightly with the 2 tablespoon sugar till the sugar dissolves and then add 1/4 tsp cardamom powder to it. Heat enough oil/ghee mix to scramble it lightly on medium heat till it form small clumps. Keep stirring while scrambling to avoid it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Keep the mix aside.

3. Cashew filling: Heat 1/2 tsp of ghee/oil mix and roast the cashews, raisins and the khus khus in that order. Keep the heat low to avoid burning the cashews and the tiny khus khus. Just roast till a nice aroma comes through and remove from flame. Keep aside. You could add almonds also to this mix.

4. Now beat the rest of the eggs, milk and sugar and cardamom powder together with a whisk nicely. This is the custard base.

5. Assembling: Take a round baking dish which is the same size as the chapathi. Brush the base and sides of the dish with the ghee/oil mix. Dip a chapathi in the egg-milk custard and place it in the baking dish. Sprinkle some of the scrambled egg filling and the cashew filling all over it. Pour one teaspoon (or maybe 2 tsp) of the ghee/oil mix all over it. Place the next chapathi dipped in the egg-milk custard and repeat the process. When the last chapathi is placed, decorate the egg and cashews over it as this is the top of our cake. The egg and cashew filling should be distributed evenly amongst all the layers. Pour the remaining egg-milk custard over the layers, pressing down on the layers so that it absorbs the mix fully. Keep this aside for 15 minutes in the fridge to allow the chapathis to soak the liquid in completely.
6. Preheat the oven to 300 degree Fahrenheits. When you are ready to bake, pour the remaining ghee/oil mix over the layers and place in the middle rack in the oven.
Ideally this is cooked in a special cast iron or copper/bronze wide rimmed vessel. It is covered and cooked on a wood burning stove, with heat applied to it from the top by placing burning/smoldering coconut shells. That ensures even cooking from the top and bottom and the cake comes out in densely packed layers.
Cooking it in the oven here, the center rises prematurely leading to the custard running to the sides and then the custard cooks in that position, with the center layers devoid of too much of the custard. When it cools down, the center does flop back down and the layers merge, but still this is not perfect section of the cake. So there is this minor problem with the technique here but it doesn't alter the taste.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on the heat in your oven. Similar to cake, when it is cooked completely, a needle/knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Leave it uncovered and let it cool down completely before cutting. It only stays in the refrigerator and is good for 2-3 days at the most. A few seconds in the microwave just before serving will remove the frostiness of the refrigerator.

Chemeen Ada/ Rice Pancakes with Shrimp stuffing

This is one of my earliest posts but since it is a Ramadan Iftar item, I thought of republishing it. This is also one way of making meen pathiri.i.e. without grinding the rice and using rice powder instead.

Ada, as most south Indians know, is a delicious preparation of sweetened grated coconut encased in a layer of rice paste , wrapped in banana leaves and then steam-cooked. As it cooks, the rice absorbs the earthy aroma of the banana leaves. I love the ada whether it is filled with coconut and sugar, jaggery, or jackfruit.
But the similar preparation I was used to at my household, was pathiris and pies made of rice paste, rice flour, or steamed rice. One such pie (pathiri) is the meen pathiri, rice ground to a paste with coconut and spices, and filled with fish/shrimp masala and steamed in banana leaves. While the meen pathiri is traditionally made as a pie, cut into triangles and served, I found it easier to handle the stuffing when it is shaped as an ada. Quite like a pocket pita sandwich. So it can be made either way.
I first tasted the shrimp version of the pathiri when my aunt made it and found it a nice variation from the fish masala as the shrimp adds a hint of sweetness to counter the spicy filling. So this recipe from my aunt(elama) was a must add to my collection, especially since we get more fresh shrimps here than fresh sea fish. And though I cannot recreate the flavor of banana leaves, I reconciled to making pathiris using parchment paper or aluminum foil. Not quite the same, but the contrasting texture of soft and crunchy, the mild coconut flavored rice shell and the spicy shrimp filling is just as satisfying.So I decided to blog abou the shrimp ada before the meen pathiri.


You will need: this makes about 10 adas
For the filling:
Shrimp- 1lb
Onion- 3 medium sized ones
Tomato-1 medium sized one
Green chilies- 4
Red chili powder-1 tsp
Coriander powder- 1 tsp
Turmeric- 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves- 3 sprigs
Salt to taste
Oil- 4 tbsp
For dry roast:
Coconut grated-1/2 cup
Shallots-4 small ones chopped
Fennel seeds-1/2 tsp
Green chilis-2 chopped
Preparation:
1. Wash and marinate the shrimps in ½ tsp chili powder, ¼ tsp turmeric and ½ tsp salt. Keep for 15 mins.
2. Chop the onions, curry leaves and green chilies finely .Heat 2 tbsp oil and sauté the onions, chilies and leaves in that order. When they look translucent, add the chopped tomato and the spice powders. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or till the tomatoes look pulpy and add salt. Add a bit more oil if needed. Stir and sauté till the whole mixture gives out oil and moves as one mass in the pan. Keep aside. In another pan, add the shrimp and let it cook in its own juice till all the juice dries out. Add the remaining 2 tbsp oil and let it fry for a minute or two.
3. Remove and coarsely chop the shrimps (or use a chopper) and add to the onion mix and stir together on low heat.
4. Meanwhile, in a cast iron skillet or a heavy bottom pan, dry roast the ingredients specified above, all together on very low heat till the coconut gives out its aroma and starts turning brown at the edges. Take it off the flame and pulse in a dry grinder to powder it coarsely. No water is to be added.
5. Add the powdered coconut to the shrimp mixture and stir everything together. Turn off and let it cool down before filling.

The rice paste:
Rice flour- 1cup
Water- 1cup
Salt- ½ tsp
Fennel seed powder- ½ tsp
Coconut milk - ¼ cup (or use ¼ cup coconut ground with little water)
The rice shell can be made by soaking parboiled rice and grinding it with coconut and fennel seeds to a wet paste, as RP of My Worshop has described, or you can use rice flour mixed with water to make a pliable paste as Healthy n Spicy has described.
Two reasons for using the longer method of cooking the rice flour. a) so that it remains super soft the next day also. b) To make it easier to roll it out thinly.
6. Heat the water with salt till it boils and then add the rice flour. Do not stir. Turn off the flame and keep it covered for 5 minutes. Open it and stir in with the handle of a spoon and cover it again for 5 more minutes. Spread the flour mix onto a mixing plate and let it cool down. Add the coconut milk/ground and fennel powder and then knead it into dough. It will be a little sticky to begin with but as the dough comes together, it gets easier. The final consistency is a little wet as compared to a bread or a chappathi dough.
7. Cut parchment paper into suitable size squares. Place a lemon size ball on the paper and flatten it with the heel of the hand (like doing karate chops) to avoid sticking to the hand. If that is difficult, place another parchment paper over it and roll it with a rolling pin to a palm sized disc. Remove the top paper carefully. Place 2 tbsp of the filling on one half of the dough and gently fold over the other side (with paper) to align exactly at the edges and seal the edges, pressing down on the paper.
Check out Priya's kitchen for a wonderful description of the ada with emphasis on steaming and parchment paper.
For steaming, use a steamer or rice cooker or any large vessel half filled with water. Place a colander or a steamer basket over the water when the water boils and reduce heat to medium. Place the adas in the basket, cover it and cook for 7-10 minutes. Let it cool down before serving.

Unnakaaye-Stuffed Plantain Pods.....

Unnakaaye is a Ramadan specialty made on the fasting days as one of the quick bites to break the fast with. The ladies sat around in the evening assembling it to distract the mind from the last leg of the fasting hours. Well... it's really a quick one to get gobbled up and so is needed in large quantities for a joint family. But now just like any other palaharams/ delicacies, it has become commonplace and is available year round at restaurants and even bakeries.



Unnakaaye with coconut filling......

So what is it? Unnakaaye, despite its exotic name, is just mashed plantains stuffed with a egg filling or a coconut filling, shaped into pods and then deep fried.
The name "unnakaaye" comes from its appearance.. that of a unna meaning "cotton" and kaaye meaning "buds or pods" i.e. the fruit of a cotton tree.

Has anyone seen the pods hanging from a Cotton Tree.? They are tapered at the edges and bulging in the middle and have a smooth skin while green. As they slowly dry up, the outer smooth skin withers to a dry brown and finally splits open, dispersing the cotton inside with a million seeds. You must have caught some stray ones flying and played with them if you had a tree in your neighborhood, making a wish as they fly away. My aunt's house had a cotton tree. And she used to harvest the pods early and dry it and remove the cotton inside. That is used to make stuffing.....for pillows,cushions, beds etc.

Unnakaaye has to be made with plantains which are not fully ripe. For a long time, I couldn't figure out how ripe it should be while buying, so I would buy them when they were hard and yellow, forget about making these pods and then after 3-4 days, when they ripen fully, end up making fritters out of them! Now I think I got it right.. they should be a little soft when pressed, a good bright yellow outside with slight brown dots and then they are good for this recipe.

You Will Need:
Plantains-1
Oil for frying.
Filling Ingredients Specified Below.
Preparation:
Steam the bananas using a steamer for 5-10 minutes. It is cooked when the peel separates slightly at the edges.Don't boil it in water. Sometimes for a small quantity, I use the microwave to cook it as per the microwave's instructions. Just wash it, cut it two pieces (with the peel) and then lay it on a plate and microwave it for 2-3 minutes.
After it cools down for 3 minutes, peel it and cut it along the center. Carefully cut out the central spine and seeds. Using a potato masher or the base of a glass, mash it into a smooth dough without adding any water. It should be free of lumps and evenly cooked. Keep covered till the filling is ready.
After the filling has cooled, oil your hands and divide the dough into equal sized balls. Some make it big, some make it bite sized.. so whatever size you are comfortable with. I could make 4 pods with one plantain's dough. So the filling and dough quantities are approximate. Take care not to over fill the plantain or it will collapse while frying.

Knead one of the portions and flatten it on your cupped palm as a small round. Put about 1-2 tsp of filling( depends on your size of dough)in the middle and close the edges to cover it. Take care not to have any holes or tears. Only if the dough is smooth, will you be able to cover it completely. Roll the pods with your hands applying slight pressure, till it becomes smooth and pod shaped.
Heat oil and deep fry it till it turns a nice golden brown. Drain onto paper towels and serve hot. You could shallow fry it in enough oil to cover it halfway, but it needs more care and patience as it has to be turned to ensure even browning.

Unnakaaye with egg filling...
Egg Filling:(for 4 pods) Beat 1 egg with 1 tablespoon milk and 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar till the sugar is melted in. Heat ghee in a pan, scramble the eggs quickly and then add 1 teaspoon of finely chopped cashews/almonds, raisins and a good pinch of cardamom powder. Mix and keep aside. The cardamom masks the eggi-ness of the eggs so its important to add the spice.

Coconut Filling: (for 4 pods) Heat a cast-iron pan and add 1/2 cup of grated fresh coconut and 1-2 tablespoon of sugar. Stir well on medium heat till the sugar melts and sweetens the coconut. Add the nuts, raisins(optional) and cardamom powder and remove from the heat. You may have leftover filling if your pods are too small.

Muringya Ela Curry/ Drumstick Leaf curry

Ramazan Mubarak to all my readers!! I don't like to dwell on the religious aspects here as this is a food blog so let me jump to a very popular recipe back home.

Sometimes the things you enjoy the most and yearn for the most are the simplest and easiest to find in the right place and time. But taken out of its context and it becomes a delicacy, a rarity and a treasure.

Muringya ela curry is one of those curries that's made with the leaf of the Drumstick plant. A very common tree, easily grown in most households, it gives really a unique tasting leaf and the luscious drumsticks. The leaves have to be plucked without the stems..quite a labor intensive process best done by a couple or more ladies together with some gossip thrown in to break the monotony of the job.

Now this preparation of the leaves cooked in a coconut gravy goes best with the light Pathiris and tire pathiris.(Recipe coming soon ...) And since both these pathiris are really from the outlying areas of Kozhikode, I think this curry is also originally from the inlands of Malappuram, Vadakara etc.

In Kozhikode, pathiris are served mostly with ishtoo..chicken stew, beef stew, mutton kurma etc..even for breakfast.. but in Malappuram, its only in the last decade or so that meat and fish became readily available and commonly consumed. During my childhood visits to the tharavadu at Malappuram, Pathiris were served with this muringa curry for breakfast. There was a drumstick plant adjacent to the property "compound" wall. The leaves were then plucked by us kids, climbing on the wall and stretching precariously to reach the upper leaf laden branches. A couple of falls each time with some minor scrapes were common too.
The Malappuram pathiris are so thin and airy that dunking them with this curry, two folds down and you can easily down a good number of them without blinking.

On the east coast here, we haven't seen Muringa/Muringya leaf yet in the Indian stores though its available in the West coast. So we really enjoyed this curry at our parent's house for breakfast and even got it for dinner at my aunt's house who made it especially for me. So if you get this leaf in CA or Dallas, here is the recipe to go with it.


You Will Need:
Drumstick Leaves: 1 cup
Green chilies- 2
red Chili Powder- 1/2 tsp (more or less as per taste)
Turmeric- 1/2 tsp
Coconut grated: 1 cup
Shallots- 3, very thinly sliced
Curry leaves
Oil for seasoning.

Preparation:
Wash the drumstick leaves well. Take care not to have any bits of the stem. Cook the leaves with the slit green chilies, turmeric, chili powder and salt in 1 1/2 cup water for about 10 minutes. Grind the coconut with 1/2 cup water to a very fine paste and add to the cooked leaves. Allow the whole mixture to boil once. Adjust salt as required. Some people add garlic and cumin seeds to the coconut while grinding but its optional.
Heat the teaspoon of oil and fry the shallots till light brown and then add the curry leaves. Pour this oil over the curry. Serve with Pathiri, chapathi or triangle porotta.

Masala Eggs...

Where to begin?
The laziness that comes from idling away days seeps into the act of blogging too. In the last few weeks, every time I faced a delectable food made by someone, words would stream into my head to share it here, thinking how best to present it, how to photograph it, how to describe it, how to simplify the recipe... well, I didn't do anything at that time since my hands were full with a hyperactive baby and now only the memory of how much I enjoyed it remains.:)

Let me start with the simplest recipe that I encountered.

One of the first things as a bride after the wedding is to visit aunts and uncles as the demure(!!!!)spouse and politely eat whatever is placed in front of you.
No excuses of being full or just having had tea,lunch etc will ring true and rescue you.
I did my fair share of this sometimes fun, sometimes-a-chore ritual a long time ago. After our wedding, we drove down to the town/"naadu"/village for a day full of social visits. We visited a lot of my better half's relatives on his father and mother's side in that one day and ate and drank from many houses. Having to remember all the relatives that were newly introduced to me proved impossible and stressful for me. Hence I tried to remember each relative by what food I ate from there..... K's eggs, A's Unnakaay, Ammai's Neipathal...and so on. Though now I am better acquainted with the people, we still refer to each relative by their specialty foods when we want to clarify who we are talking about.:)

Some food get gulped down and some you relish. One of them that I loved and recalled easily were these Masala eggs. They are too simple to be called a delicacy and yet, they are yummy to me. They are hard boiled eggs marinated in a semi-watery paste of red chili powder, turmeric and salt and then deep fried. It could be shallow fried too. That's the recipe itself. How much of each is up to you. The exterior is crisp and spicy to counter the blandness of the eggs. Could pass off as a snack or a side dish too.



In the flurry of visits to multiple aunt/uncle houses at that time, I did manage to confuse the actual house that I ate these eggs in and for the longest time, I thought my better half's grandmother made this. So at this vacation, while I tried to get the recipe from His Grandmother, I was ribbed and set straight by his aunt K who is the actual author of this recipe. Apparently she made it in a hurry when we visited her, as an instant snack/"palaharam" with tea. :) And here I was thinking I finally know everybody!!

Later in the vacation, when we went over to her house for a dinner, we were served these masala eggs with a lot of teasing and hearty story telling. There was an array of other good food..but these...for me, they still ruled..still had the same taste and texture. Needless to say, only politeness prevented me from overeating.:)

Side Note:
The only time I have used these in a recipe is as a garnish for Egg Biryani. Mishmash makes eggs as a garnish for her Egg Biryani. She uses a different masala but when I made her egg biryani, I used this red chili-turmeric-salt as the marinade and it was great.
So try these as your next appetizer and see.

Mathan Thoran/Pumpkin Stir fry...

When this blog was started, I was freshly back from my hometown , brimming with experiences and memories of food whose taste still lingered tantalizingly out of reach. I wanted to write down everything...every memory, every recipe before I forgot it and so the posts flowed smoothly.

Now with so many posts and so many recipes covered, my mind feels like a sponge squeezed dry of thoughts and ideas. It feels strangely quiet and all the sounds of the last visit has faded away to an emptiness. The mind now needs to recharge, to revisit the hometown, to reabsorb the smells, tastes, and sounds of the land there. It needs to swell with the experiences of meeting family and friends and it needs to fill with conversations had with everyone...all the fuel for the blog.

So friends, I am going off on a vacation to the motherlode, and would be back with you in a month. So till then, have a nice summer or winter, wherever you are and see you soon.



I am leaving you with the simplest stir fry/thoran that gets repeat performance in my house quite frequently. I started making it as an adaptation of the popular Erissery, which is pumpkin and red beans cooked together with a coconut gravy. Somehow the erissery curry ends up on the sweet end of the spice scale and my family kept asking me to separate the pumpkin from the beans to reduce the sweetness. So the pumpkin got made on its own spiced up with dried red chilies and coconut just as a garnish instead of a gravy. Surprisingly now this gets top billing while erissery is hardly made. Well, this is definitely easier and faster which is my main criteria for a recipe nowadays.

DO toast the coconut as the taste is different than just adding the fresh coconut. My mother toasts a tablespoon of fresh coconut and adds it to the erissery in the end which gives it a crunch, so I did the same here. Apparently the "eri" word in the "erissery" comes from the final roasting of the grated coconut while preparing the seasoning for the curry( Erikkuka... ) according to a note by Archana. Do correct me if I am wrong.

You Will Need:
Pumpkin- about 4 cups or 1 pound
Dried Red Chilies-2
Red Chili Powder- 1/4 tsp
Turmeric- 1/4 tsp
salt to taste
Oil-1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves-a handful
Grated Coconut- 1 tablespoon

Preparation:
Remove skin and chop the pumpkin into very very tiny even sized cubes. Try not to get your hands cut as I do. Wash and drain. Heat the oil in a pan and when it gets hot, lower the heat, add the mustard seeds and cover till it stops spluttering. Then open and add curry leaves and dried red chilies. Saute and add the pumpkin, red chili powder, salt and turmeric.

Add 1 tablespoon of water and cover and cook for 3-5 minutes on medium heat. Open and see if it needs further cooking. Depending on the variety of pumpkin, it may have a cooking time of 3-8 minutes. Sometimes when I make it without adding that tablespoon of water, it turns into mush..kind of like mashed pumpkin.

The pumpkin with the green skin is firmer and holds its shape better so look for that if you can.

The pumpkin is cooked and ready when it is still stands separate but is tender enough cut with a fork. Cover and remove from the flame.

Toast the coconut on a skillet without any oil for about 5 minutes. No need to add oil unless you are in a hurry. When the coconut turn light brown and smells absolutely coconutty, remove and pour over the pumpkin. Serve with rice.

Balanced Breakfast-Ragi Idiappam and Ishtu...

Breakfast is definitely the most important meal of the day for me..so important that I have no patience in cooking elaborate breakfasts on an empty stomach. But weekends are special and breakfast is a lazy affair over lots of chatter and cups of tea. So I fortify myself on cereal and get cooking. But by the time I get the food ready, it inevitably becomes brunch.
This is my entry to the Weekend Breakfast Blogging hosted by Manasi this month. So how to have a balanced breakfast? Mansi wants whole grains, fruits/vegetables and protein in the breakfast. Whole wheat square cereal topped with nuts and dried fruits and milk would be an ideal entry but wouldn't fly by the rest of the household.:) So this is one of the preferred alternatives to the standard bread and egg combination.



Why "Ragi" or finger millet idiappam? They call it idiappam, we call it nool puttu( puttu in string form).Well, ragi is a great source of plant protein as well as calcium, fiber and minerals. In India, finger millet or ragi is mostly grown and consumed in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. According to wiki, ground Ragi flour is made into ragi munda, dosa and roti. Ragi grain is malted and flour from the malted grain is consumed after mixing with Milk/Boiled water/Yoghurt.

It used to be considered the poor man's food and was not common in my house while growing up, but in this new era of "healthy living", "high Fiber", "whole grain" food, it is making a come back in different forms. I had written about ragi puttu earlier and now here is idiappam which is also delicious if u like the whole grain taste.

I just follow Anita's excellent recipe as it is for making idiappam. This time though I replaced more than half of the rice flour with ragi flour to make the idiappam healthier. You could make it with full ragi flour but it might be too coarse then. Use ragi flour as available in Indian stores.
I don't like supporting any brands as the powders you get in the Indian stores here vary in freshness based on the traffic through the store. Some batches of entire rice/flour etc will be stale tasting and some will be good. Of the lot, I found Eastern ragi and rice four to be of relatively good quality. Still do check the date!! And don't blame me if you don't like the taste.
You will need:
Fine Rice Flour - 1 cup
Fine ragi flour- 1 cup
Water - approx 2 cups or less
Salt - 1/2 teas spoon
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Thick Coconut milk - 1 tsp (Optional)
Preparation:
Heat water with the salt in a pan till boiling point. Pour the hot boiling water to the ragi-rice flour and stir thoroughly to avoid lumps. Keep the flour closed for 3-5 minutes to cool it down and mix with a spoon to a smooth even consistency. Lightly grease the idiappam mold and fill it to three quarters full.
I used to make this in the Idli mold so that each of them comes out nice and pretty but when you are in a hurry, its just as tasty to make it into big plate sized idiappams which you can cut before serving. Another short cut I use is the pasta cooker's steamer basket. For ease of removing the idiappam, I line it with a fresh paper towel and place a layer of coconut on it. Then the idiappam is squeezed out on to it and steamed.
Either way, grease the slotted tray or idli mold, whichever you are using and squeeze out the noodles onto the tray in a circular motion. I use the sev/mixture plate in the murukku mold. If the noodles are breaking up as they come out, it means there is too much water in the dough. Garnish with lots of coconut and cover and steam for 5-7 minutes. After it cools, serve with ishtu. Or it tastes yummier with fresh coconut milk and sugar.

Ishtu/ Potato stew with coconut milk
By now, the blogging world must have made everyone aware that "Ishtu" is a corruption of the word "Stew", and takes many forms with or without meat/fish in it.
This is the simplest form of it, almost as a base for all the other versions.
You Will need:
2 potatoes diced
1 onion sliced
4-5 green chilies
1 piece of cinnamon stick
2 cloves and 2 cardamom
Some curry leaves
1/2 tsp fresh black pepper, coarse
salt to taste
1 cup of coconut milk.
Preparation:
Heat 1-2 teaspoon of oil in a pan. Add the whole spices and onions and then the green chilies. Sauté only for 3 to 5 minutes till the onions gets transparent. Add the potatoes, 1 cup of water and salt. Cover and cook for 10-12 minutes on medium heat or till the potatoes get cooked. When they are cooked, mash some of the potatoes lightly. Add the coconut milk and pepper. Garnish with curry leaves and keep covered for a minute or so.

Aatukaal Soup/Paaya Soup/ Mutton Soup

I know I am not going to find much takers for this soup, given the effort and that its a pure non vegetarian soup from my hometown. It's similar in taste to the French Onion Soup but its without the cheese and the bread. It's a clear soup back home but I like to chew on some tiny morsels of meat and cooked shallots to add texture so I added some of that to the soup.

As a kid I never used to like this soup due to its intense meaty taste and murky coloring but I like it sometimes now. My mom never made this frequently during my childhood but now she fed me this, post-delivery to regain strength and vitality. I used to laugh at the restorative powers of this soup but now my mom and other aunts make it often as their backs are catching up with their age.

My grandma always says this soup is good during monsoons and cold weather to get rid of all body aches and pains, probably due to the medicinal properties of the fenugreek and shallots. She makes it with the leftover mutton pieces after Bakrid or any big family function. I don't know how true it is, but apparently the bones also add to the medicinal powers of the soup.
But I do know that the fenugreek is known for its extensive value for nursing mothers and is excellent for post-delivery recovery and for any kind of arthritic pain. It's also good for recovering patients and convalescents.

I am sure some of my cousins and family members will remember this soup and try it at least once. For the queasy ones, the next one is a vegetarian one..



You will need:
Mutton - 1-2 pounds
Onion-1 medium sized one
Red Shallots- A handful(10-12)
Fennel Seeds- 1 tablespoon
Black Pepper (Whole)-1 teaspoon
Fenu greek Seeds-one and half tablespoon
Water- 4 cups
Cilantro to garnish
Salt to taste

Preparation:
Clean and wash the bones. Select some pieces with a bit of meat on it too.
Chop the onions and powder the fennel seeds.
Take a pressure cooker and cook the pieces with the onions, and all other spices as specified above. You would have to cook for about 20 -30 minutes on very low heat after the whistle.
Remove the lid after the cooker has sufficiently cooled down and remove the pieces with meat on it. Reserve the meat and a couple of spoonfuls of the fenugreek-onion from the stock. Remove all the bones and then mash the remaining stock and the onions with a blender or back of a spoon. Strain the liquid through a medium sieve.
Adjust the salt of the strained soup and add the reserved onions and the meat pieces. Garnish with fresh cilantro and pepper. Serve hot.

Related Links:
Another spicy version of the Mutton Soup.

Mathan Parippu Curry/ Pumpkin Dal

There are so many events on the blogosphere now that you need a blogging calender just to try and keep up! So of course, I take the easy way out and don't try at all!! I know all my fellow bloggers are probably raining shoes and rotten tomatoes on me, but help...I know I have said this before but there is just too many events on.
Honestly, my intentions are good but somehow can't keep to deadlines. An old habit left over from school days.

But when my friend Sra announced her event a month back, I felt...Hmm, this is interesting.. Grindless Gravy Event...and that I had lots of time to post on it. When I started cooking after marriage, my first notebook had a list of gravies that didn't require coconut and grinding of any kind of masala....I didn't have a mixie/blender then!! Then came the Sumeet grinder and suddenly grinding something in it everyday was second nature. So the Grindless Gravy reminded me of a grindless world for all the harried people out there.


Update 1/18/08: Hi! Hi! My blogger mates are mercileesly informing me that apparently Sra would have rejected this since the grindless gravy was to be without lentils/dal!!! So much for my entry then.. but its still a good recipe for a grindless curry option!

This is a nadan recipe for a lentil curry(dal/parippu) colloquially called "Tharavadu Puli" and is apparently made in a lot of joint households in the Malabar area when they run out of coconut and there are lots of mouths to feed. It is sweet, sour, spicy and salty..very light on the palate.

It's made with lentils with pumpkin(sweet), tamarind(souring agent), salt, and green hot chilies(spice) and a dash of coconut oil. Tastes best first day with rice. So even though I missed the boat on the event,which already had its roundup, here is my would-have-been-entry for it.

The nadan Pumpkin is harder and doesn't get squished as easily as the ones available here. It is also not as sweet so this curry with the pumpkin available here turned out to be too sweet and became a kootu curry. So I substituted the pumpkin with Butternut squash but you could use either vegetable as long as it doesn't get overcooked.

You will need:
Tuvar Dal-1/2 cup
Butternut Squash- 2 cup cubed.
Green Chilies-4 slit( as per your spice level)
Turmeric-1/4 tsp
Red Chili Powder-1/4 tsp
A small ball of tamarind soaked in 1/2cup water.
5-6 Curry leaves
Coconut Oil-1 tsp.
(Substitute if you want to, but coconut oil is the correct taste giver)

Preparation:
Pressure cook the dal/lentils for exactly one whistle and switch it off. You want the lentils to stand separate and not get mushed. Else cook it on medium flame with a constant eye on it with ample water.
Cook the squash/pumpkin with green chilies and the red chili powder, turmeric and salt and enough water to cover the vegetables on medium heat. When it is cooked(it should get cut by the back of a knife)add the lentils, water as needed for gravy and 1 tablespoon of light tamarind extract and adjust the taste. Let it come to a boil and then lower the flame to a simmer, add the curry leaves on top and pour the warm coconut oil over the leaves. Switch off , cover with a lid and leave it undisturbed for 5 minutes. Then its ready to serve.

Malabar Chicken Biryani..

What is a celebration without good food????
Eid, Christmas, New Year, all have one thing in common..lots of mouth watering food and a distinct disregard for the consequences of over eating. Here the holiday season is now officially on and eating is the highlight till Jan 1st. So how many parties do you have planned for next week?(How many did u escape from?)
What is your favorite holiday food? Is it the sweets or the appetizers? I for one thrive on the appetizers and then peck on the main course unless its something very different. And of course dessert rules supreme so have to make some space for that too. But a biryani defies these rules and I have to try it, even if its just one bite.

If we were in Calicut, every weekend would punctuated with a wedding, a birth, a salkaram(party) or whatever..everything being a reason to make a biryani..( eg. every Sunday in my grandma's house!)
So I asked my parents (who missed a whole lot of such events being here with me) if they get sick of it and to my surprise they bashfully refuted it. A good plate of piping hot biryani is always welcome for a Calicut wallah, even if you just had one last week.:) No diets will work there.



I had a lot of requests to post a Chicken Biryani recipe but somehow in my house, since there is more of all the other biryanis being made, this one got left behind. But it is just as good as the other ones so give it a shot. Better late than never, here it is finally. The photo is not complete since I ran out of onions and nuts for garnish but here it is. Also a good mix of masala and rice somehow isin't photogenic! So the final photo is how the biryani should look like before it gets attacked.

Chicken biryani is not fun if the chicken gets dried out and tastes like cardboard. So start with halal small chicken and you are on the right track. Do marinate as much as possible for better taste. If the marination time is more than 2 hours, omit the yogurt in the marinade as it is a meat tenderizer and will break down the meat too much. In that case, add the yogurt when u start cooking. Do not skimp on the ghee-oil while frying the onions for garnish as this is a celebratory dish..not diet food. That oil poured over the rice gives the crucial flavor while dumming or cooking in vapor.
Do not leave the rice in the oven after the alloted time as it will dry out the whole masala and rice.(Spoken from an unfortunate experience.:() Use basmati rice that you are familiar with and not a new sack of rice opened for the occasion. (Another unfortunate experience when the rice got sticky!!)
Do make it in the holidays and let me know.
Eid Mubarak and Merry Christmas!!

You will need: Serves 6 people with a good appetite.:) or 8 people
Chicken - 1 Small chicken of about 2-3 lbs
Onion – 400 gm or 4 medium ones
Tomato - 200 gm or 2 medium sized ones
Small Hot Green chilies – 100 gm or about 17 in number
Ginger - 50 gm or a 2 inch piece
Garlic pods – 50 gm or 8 cloves(big)
Pepper Powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Plain Yogurt- 3/4 cup (thick)
Fennel Seeds(Perinjeerakam/Saunf)- 1 1/2 tsp
Poppy Seeds (Khus khus) - 1 1/2 tsp
Mint leaves (Pudina) - 1 cup chopped
Cilantro leaves (Malli ela/Dhania) - 1 cup chopped
Curry leaves- a handful
Lemon juice- 2 tsp or juice of 1 lemon.(not lime)
Biryani Masala-1 tablespoon. Recipe is noted below.
Clarified butter (Ghee) - almost 1 cup or 1/2 cup mixed with 1/2 cup oil
Cashew nuts – 20 gm or a small handful
Raisins- 20 gm or a handful

For the rice:
Basmati rice - 1 kg/ 4 cups
Cinnamon (Karuvapatta) - 1 stick of 3 inch
Cloves (Carambu) - 4
Cardamom (Elakkai) - 4
One bay leaf, salt.
Lemon juice- 1 1/2 tsp or juice of 1 lemon
Salt to taste
Biryani Masala:
Cinnamon 2 inch piece
Cardamom 8
Cloves 8-10
Nutmeg 1
bay leaves- 1
Mace 5-6
Caraway seeds 1 tbsp
Star Anise-1
Dry roast all together and grind to a fine powder.

Preparation:
1. Clean the chicken and cut into medium sized pieces. Wash and drain well.

2. Soak the fennel seeds and poppy seeds in a bowl with water for an hour at least and grind with very little water to a very fine creamy paste. If it still feels grainy, add a tablespoon of grated coconut or a couple of cashew nuts to it to grind it well. Keep aside.

3. Grind together the ginger, garlic and green chilies into a very coarse paste. Pulsing them instead of non stop grinding works better. Chop the tomatoes into cubes and slice the onions. One onion should be sliced extra fine. This one is for the fried onion garnish.

4. Marinate the chicken with the poppy seed mixture, ginger, garlic, chili, and all the other spices and ingredients except the onions, biryani masala and herb leaves. Add salt too and keep covered for two hours at least. Marinating is very important in the case of chicken to help it to absorb the flavors. (But don't marinate the chicken over night as the texture will change. If you have to marinate overnight, omit the salt, lemon juice and yogurt and add that the 1 hr before cooking.)

5. Heat three fourth of the ghee/oil in a heavy bottom pan. Add the garnish portion of the sliced onions and fry, till they turn golden brown and crisp. Add a sprinkling of sugar to speed up the process. This should take about 10 minutes on medium low heat.. Remove the onions and stir fry the cashew nuts on medium heat till it turns brown on all sides. Drain and remove. Add the raisins now and stir till they plump up. Remove onto paper towels. This ghee/oil is used for flavoring the rice so save it.

6. Heat up the remaining oil and add the rest of the sliced onions and saute it till it becomes translucent. Add just the marinated chicken, and saute it on all sides for 3-4 minutes on high heat. Add the rest of the marinade and the biryani masala and the coriander, mint and curry leaves and mix thoroughly. Cook it uncovered on medium high heat while stirring constantly till the visible liquid is reduced to half.
Then keep it covered and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes. Check frequently to prevent burning and wait till the oil starts to separate. There should be some gravy left and the chicken should be almost cooked, not-coming-apart cooked. Add water only if there is no liquid for the chicken to cook. Check taste and add more salt or lime, pepper etc if needed.

7. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. Clean and soak rice for 10 minutes. Keep aside. Heat 3 tbsp of the remaining onion ghee/oil and add the whole spices- cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and bay leaves. Sauté for a second and add the drained rice. Stir fry the rice till it turns opaque and add 6 cups water (three fourth of the quantity required for ghee rice). When the water-rice mix comes to a boil, cover and cook on slow heat till all the water is absorbed. This would take about 4-7 minutes.

9. In an oven proof dish, spread half of the chicken masala(it should have some thick gravy)and place half of rice over it. Sprinkle some lemon juice to prevent the rice from sticking. Spread the remaining masala and top it with rice followed by lemon juice. Pour the ghee/oil(leftover from frying the onions) on top of it and sprinkle some garam masala, fried onion, nuts and raisins.

Close it with a layer of aluminum foil , crimp it along the sides and then put the lid and put it in the oven for 20 -25 minutes. Remove and let rest for another 5-10 minutes before opening.
10. Serve with coconut chutney (biryani chammandi), Pickled onions (Ulli surka), Yogurt and Papadam.

Alternately, if you are just cooking a small quantity, when the chicken is almost cooked and the gravy reduced, spread all the half cooked rice over it,right into the saute pan. Sprinkle nuts, raisins and onions and close with a tight fitting lid. Heat a flat cast iron skillet or the Indian Tawa, place the saute pan on it and cook on high heat for 20 minutes and then turn off the flame. Let it rest unopened on the tawa for another 15 minutes and now the "dum" work is also done.
Open and serve the top rice as white rice and mix part of the rice with the masala and serve separately.Enjoy!


Calicut Biryanis are usually made with a special rice called Kaima as the grains are smaller and impart a nicer texture to the Biryani. Kaima is a small aromatic flavorful rice also called "Jeera Rice", it stands apart just like Basmati. Available in all Indian stores here. You could use basmati too if you prefer. The photo below shows the difference in both qualities of rice.

This is a picture of an earlier batch of biryani made with basmati rice and has the requisite onions, raisins and nuts as garnish.