Monthly Archives: December 2013

Beans with Carrot Sauce

Today’s recipe is one of my mother’s sauce recipes. For another of my mother’s similarly interesting sauce recipes, check out ash plantain and carrot with beetroot sauce.

Beans with Carrot Sauce

Time taken: 30 mins

Serves 4

Beans with Carrot SauceIngredients:

  • Beans – 1 cup, chopped
  • Carrot – 1
  • Onion – ½
  • Ginger – 1 tsp, finely chopped
  • Garlic – 1 tsp, finely chopped
  • Green chilli – 1
  • Low fat oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Clean and chop the beans and carrots. Boil the beans and carrots in water, adding a little salt, for about 10 mins.
  2. Separate the cooked carrots from the beans. Drain the beans, keeping the water aside for re-use.  Transfer the cooked beans to the serving dish.
  3. Heat a tbsp oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion, ginger, garlic and chilli for a couple of mins before adding the cooked carrots and continuing to stir-fry for an extra minute or two.
  4. After cooling slightly, blend the carrot mixture from the pan.
  5. In a sauce pan, heat the previously cooked water, together with the ground carrot mixture, that was kept aside. Adjust salt, as per taste.
  6. Pour the carrot sauce over the beans and serve warm.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Beetroot Varai

Today’s recipe is that of a quick to prepare and delicious beetroot dish.

Beetroot Varai

Time taken: 15 mins

Serves 3

Beetroot varaiIngredients:

  • Beetroot – 1 cup, grated
  • Onion – 1
  • Green chillies – 2
  • Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
  • Curry leaves – 1 sprig
  • Coconut – 1 tbsp, freshly scraped
  • Pepper – ½ tsp
  • Salt – ½ tsp
  • Sesame/ Gingelly oil – 2 tbsp

Method:

  1. Mix ½ tsp salt with 1 cup of grated beetroot and keep aside.
  2. Heat 2 tbsp sesame oil in a pan and fry the fennel seeds, chopped onion, green chillies and curry leaves for a minute.
  3. Add the grated beetroot to the pan and stir-fry for 5 – 10 mins over low heat.
  4. Add 1 tbsp coconut and ½ tsp pepper to the beetroot mix and cook for another 2 mins.
  5. Serve the beetroot varai with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Triple layer veggie and fruit cake

Today, I will share one of my mother’s latest cake experiments. She got very much caught in her fruit cake series that she wanted to bake this triple layer cake. I call it the cake extravaganza and it very much reminded me of Tian-Tian’s birthday cake with the many ingredients put into it and the time taken. It did taste good, though personally I would have preferred each of the three layers as a separate cake.

Triple layer cake

Triple layer veggie and fruit cake

Time taken: 1 ¾ hours

Serves 15 to 20

Slice of triple layer cakeIngredients:

  • Layer 1 (bottom layer): Beetroot – ½ cup, steamed
  • Layer 2 (middle layer): Apple – ½ and Guava – ½ , Mint leaves – 3 or 4
  • Layer 3 (top layer): Carrot – 1 large, steamed
  • All-purpose flour – 1 ½ cups ( ½ cup for each of the layers)
  • Sugar – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
  • Oats – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
  • Vegetable oil margarine – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers) + 1 tbsp (for icing)
  • Banana – 3 tbsp, mashed (1 tbsp for each of the layers)
  • Water – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
  • Baking soda – ¾ tsp ( ¼ tsp for each of the layers)
  • Baking powder –  1 ½ tsp ( ½ tsp for each of the layers)
  • Vanilla essence – 3 tsp (1 tsp for each of the layers)
  • Lime juice – 5 tbsp + 1 tsp (for icing)
  • Green food colour – 1 tsp (for second layer)
  • Orange food colour – 1 tsp (for third layer)
  • Icing sugar – 4 tbsp (for icing)

Method:

  1. Steam the beetroot and carrot for about 10 mins.
  2. Separately blend the steamed beetroot and carrot in a processor.
  3. Next, finely chop up the apple and guava. Grind a few mint leaves.
  4. Cream ¼ cup margarine and ¼ cup sugar each in three mixing bowls.
  5. To the first bowl, add the pureed beetroot to the mix and to the third bowl, add the pureed carrot to the mix. To the second bowl, add the finely chopped apple and guava together with the ground mint leaves.
  6. Add ¼ cup of oats and 1 tbsp of mashed banana to each of the three bowls and mix well.
  7. Stir in the lime juice (2 tbsp each for the first and third bowl and 1 tbsp for the second bowl) and 1 tsp vanilla essence each, together with ¼ cup of water, to each of the three bowls and beat the respective mixture well.
  8. Add a tsp of green food colour to the second bowl (apple and guava mix) and a tsp of orange food colour to the third bowl (carrot mix)
  9. Divide the flour into three ½ cup flour piles. Sift each with ¼ tsp baking soda and ½ tsp baking powder. Add a sifted ½ cup flour mix to the mixture in each of the three bowls.
  10. Whisk the cake batter until smooth.
  11. Transfer the beetroot cake batter to the baking tray and spread the batter evenly.
  12. Then, transfer the apple, guava and mint cake batter to the baking tray and spread the batter evenly over the beetroot mix to form the middle layer.
  13. Transfer the carrot cake batter on top of the apple batter and spread it evenly.
  14. Bake the cake at 170⁰C/ 338⁰F and bake for 45 mins – 1 hour.
  15. Whisk together 4 tbsp icing sugar, 1 tbsp vegetable margarine and 1 tsp lime to make a light icing and spread it thinly over the cake, after it has cooled.
  16. Slice the cake into 15 or 20 pieces and serve with a cup of plain or fruit tea.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.