Mango Juice

Accompanying the mango kesari is one of my favourite fruit juices – mango juice.

Mangoes have high levels of vitamin C and A and a generous amount of antioxidant compounds, iron and calcium but it would be wise to consume mangoes in moderation as they are also recommended for those seeking to gain weight.

While I usually like a simple juice by blending the fruit with water, I did like my mother’s version recently.

Ingredients (for 1 cup):

Mango – ½ cup, chopped
Orange juice – 1 tbsp
Mint – 2 or 3 leaves
Sugar – 1 tsp

Method:

Simply blend all the ingredients together with water and then sit back and enjoy a delicious drink.

Mango Kesari

Today’s lovely recipe is my mother’s recipe for mango kesari/ halwa. Great with a cup of tea or coffee.

Mango Kesari

Time taken: 20 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Mango – ½ cup, chopped
Orange juice – 1 tbsp
Mint – 2 or 3 leaves
Sugar – 1 tsp (for juice) + 1 tbsp
Salt – a little
Semolina – ¼ cup
Vegetable oil margarine – 1 tsp
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Yellow food colouring – ½ tsp (optional)
Nuts (your choice) – optional

Method:

Make 1 cup of mango juice by blending the chopped mango, orange juice, mint leaves, 1 tsp of sugar and pinch of salt with water.
Heat the juice in a saucepan with a tbsp of sugar for about 2 mins. Add the vanilla and semolina. Continue stirring until it thickens.
Add 1 tsp of margarine and the optional yellow food colour and nuts. Mix well before transferring to a tray or mold so that it can set.
Serve warm with tea or after a meal.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

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

Ingredients:

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:

Clean and chop the beans and carrots. Boil the beans and carrots in water, adding a little salt, for about 10 mins.
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.
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.
After cooling slightly, blend the carrot mixture from the pan.
In a sauce pan, heat the previously cooked water, together with the ground carrot mixture, that was kept aside. Adjust salt, as per taste.
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

Ingredients:

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:

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

Time taken: 1 ¾ hours

Serves 15 to 20

Ingredients:

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:

Steam the beetroot and carrot for about 10 mins.
Separately blend the steamed beetroot and carrot in a processor.
Next, finely chop up the apple and guava. Grind a few mint leaves.
Cream ¼ cup margarine and ¼ cup sugar each in three mixing bowls.
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.
Add ¼ cup of oats and 1 tbsp of mashed banana to each of the three bowls and mix well.
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.
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)
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.
Whisk the cake batter until smooth.
Transfer the beetroot cake batter to the baking tray and spread the batter evenly.
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.
Transfer the carrot cake batter on top of the apple batter and spread it evenly.
Bake the cake at 170⁰C/ 338⁰F and bake for 45 mins – 1 hour.
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.
Slice the cake into 15 or 20 pieces and serve with a cup of plain or fruit tea.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Vendikkai Varai

Today’s recipe is a simple and tasty okra dish. For a slightly different version, try okra stir fry.

Vendikkai Varai/ Okra fry

Cooking time: 15 mins

Serves 3 – 4

Ingredients:

Okra/ Vendikkai – 1 cup
Onion – 1
Malu miris/ banana pepper – 1
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Lime juice – 1 tbsp
Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sesame oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Clean the okra and finely chop them. Add some lime juice and salt to the okra and keep aside.
Finely chop the onion, malu miris and curry leaves and fry them for about 5 mins in a tbsp of sesame oil.
Add the finely chopped and seasoned okra slices to the frying pan and continue frying for about 10 mins over medium heat.
Towards the end, add salt and pepper and optionally crushed chillies.
Serve with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Ash plantain and Onion Fritters

Today’s recipe is a lovely snack – fritters. I like the ash plantain fritters more than the onion ones.

Ash plantain and Onion fritters

Time taken: 40 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Ash plantain – 1
Onion – 1
Wheat flour – ½ cup
Salt – ½ tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ sp
Pepper – ½ tsp
Low fat oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Boil the ash plantain and then peel. Slice the cooked plantain lengthwise into 4.
Peel the onion and slice them, such that the rings in each slice do not fall apart.
Make the batter by mixing the wheat flour, chilli powder, turmeric, salt and pepper with ½ cup of water.
Dip the ash plantain and onion slices into the batter, coating them well.
Deep-fry the batter coated ash plantain and onion slices until golden brown on both sides.
Serve warm with tea or as a side-dish at lunch lunch.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Panangkatti

I wanted to share one more palmyrah product this week. I will wrap up the palmyrah recipe series with ‘panangkatti’ or palmyrah sugar. During my great-grandmother’s time, ‘panangkatti’ was considered the regular sweetener for cooking and beverages and not the processed sugar of today. My mother recollects her grandmother serving her tea with a piece of panangkatti.

Very rich in nutrients and a good source of vitamin B12, ‘panangkatti’ is considered particularly good for diabetic patients as well as those seeking to reduce their weight. Whenever I travel to Jaffna, I always try to bring my parents some good ‘panangkatti’ as the best in the country is available only there and both my parents are diabetic.

While there are some people like my parents who prefer ‘panangkatti’ to regular sugar, its usage in the country has been on the decline over the last couple of decades. Therefore, its production has also reduced while the prices have gone up and it is now much more expensive than the regular sugar one can buy in any store.

This is what my mother remembers of her grandmother’s recipe for making panangkatti, for those interested in knowing how it is made. The accompanying photo is of some ‘panangkatti’ that my mother had bought last week from Katpaham.

Panangkatti

Ingredients:

Palmyrah sap – ½ cup
Rice flour – 1 tbsp

Method:

Stir the palmyrah sap (palm water) continuously in the pot over medium heat, till it thickens beyond the consistency required for ‘paani‘.
Add a tbsp of rice flour and continue stirring till its consistency becomes denser and it is no longer watery.
Scoop a tbsp of the ‘panangkatti’ mixture into the woven palmyrah leaf thimbles and let it cool and set.
Store the ‘panangkatti’ thimbles in an air-tight container.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Pumpkin cutlet

For some odd reason, I posted this on Oct 28th instead of Nov 28th so I am re-posting it today.

I guess I have some pleasant memories of Thanksgiving dinners of past years that I tend to personally take note of the day. Last year’s Thanksgiving dinner was a memorable one with three special friends at Mount Kilauea, after we watched the crater eruptions from a very safe distance. My very first Thanksgiving dinner, a little over a decade ago, was hosted by a special vegetarian couple so much so that Thanksgiving food for me has since meant an opportunity to explore creative ways of incorporating pumpkin into everything from starters to dessert.

So, today, I will share another of my mother’s pumpkin recipes.

Pumpkin cutlet

Time taken: 30 mins

Makes 6

Ingredients:

Pumpkin – 2 cups, ripe and boiled
Onion – 1, small
Green chilli – 1
Pepper – 1 tsp
Wheat flour – 3 tbsp
Bread crumbs
Low fat oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Remove peel of boiled pumpkin and mash it in a bowl. Add a bit of salt.
Finely chop up the onion and green chilli. Add them to the bowl of mashed pumpkin.
Add the pepper to the bowl. Mix well.
Divide the pumpkin mixture into six portions.
Mix 3 tbsp of wheat flour in some water to make a watery batter.
Dip the pumpkin ball in the batter and then roll it in the bread crumbs so that the pumpkin cutlet is well coated. Repeat for each of the 6 cutlets. Set aside on plate while the oil is heated for deep-frying.
Heat the oil over low heat. Deep-fry the cutlets until they are golden-brown.
Transfer to a plate lined with grease absorbing paper and serve hot.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Panaattu

‘Panaattu’ is considered to have high levels of vitamins A and E. As far as my mother is concerned, it is something she has been fond of ever since she was a toddler. She bought a slab of ‘panaattu’ from the Katpaham outlet here so that I could take a photograph but she finds that it does not have the colour or consistency that her grandmother’s used to have. It is the first time that I have tasted ‘panaattu’ so I can’t compare.

Here’s the method my great-grandmother used to make panaattu, as remembered by my mother from her childhood days. I am sharing it for those who are interested in knowing what or how ‘panaattu’ is made and for those who happen to have some palmyrah fruit and wish to try making some panaattu. For more ways that the palmyrah is used in the north of Sri Lanka, check out my earlier post on its background.

Ingredients:

Palmyrah fruit – 6, very ripe

Coconut oil, for coating the ‘panaattu’ layer.

Method:

Peel the very ripe palmyrah fruit and then mix repeatedly with just enough water to be able to make the fruit pulp. Strain the pulp through a clean cloth.
Spread the collected pulp as a thin layer over a woven palm mat and let it dry under the sun.
Cover the mat during night.
The next day, add another thin layer of palmyrah fruit pulp extract over the dried layer and continue to sun-dry. Repeat this process for 10 days, adding new thin layers each day till the thickness of the ‘panaattu’ is around ½ inch.
Let the ‘panaattu’ dry under the sun till it reaches a maroonish-orange colour and can be cut through with a knife without it sticking to the knife.
Slice the long panaattu roll into manageable pieces. Apply a little coconut oil and fold the cut pieces.
Taking a woven palmyrah leaf container/ box, stock up the cut and oiled panaattu pieces.
This can be then stored for a long time. My great-grandmother used to store the box of panaattu on a shelf above her cooking stove.
Serve a piece of panaattu with tea or make some paani panaattu from it.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.