Cabbage Fritters

Today’s recipe is that of cabbage fritters.

In addition to checking out the recipe below, I would like to invite you to visit this post on one of my other blogs – Perspectives Quilt for a brief introduction about one of my books that can be freely downloaded today on Amazon Kindle.

Cabbage fritters

Time taken: 25 mins

Serves 4 or 5

Ingredients:

Cabbage – ½ cup, shredded
Onion – ½, chopped
Green chillies – 1 or 2, chopped
Crushed red chillies – 1 tsp
Chickpea flour – ¼ cup
Wheat flour – ¼ cup
Ginger – ½ tsp, crushed
Garlic – ½ tsp, crushed
Salt, to taste
Oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Mix all the ingredients, except the oil, together adding a little water to make the fritter dough.
Divide the fritter dough into 4 or 5 portions.
Deep-fry until golden brown.
Serve with rice or as it is.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Tomato and Potato Curry

Today’s recipe is a lovely tomato and potato curry, which my mother calls her tomatish potato dish. It is a simple and easy to prepare dish that you will certainly like.

Tomato and Potato Curry

Time taken: 30 mins

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Potato – 1
Tomato – 1
Onion – ½
Green chilli – 1
Crushed red chillies – 1 tsp
Ginger – ½ tsp, crushed
Garlic – ½ tsp, crushed
Salt, to taste
Low fat oil, for frying

Method:

Boil the potato and then, peel and chop it into smaller pieces.
Lightly fry the potato pieces and keep aside.
Heat a little oil in a pan and lightly fry the chopped green chilli, ginger and garlic. Add the chopped tomato pieces and crushed red chillies to the pan and continue frying for a few minutes.
Remove the pan from the stove and transfer its contents to a blender to grind it to a paste.
Transfer the tomato paste back to the pan and heat it over a low heat.
Add the fried potato pieces to the pan and salt, to taste. Stir well.
Serve the tomato and potato curry with rice or pittu.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Pongal

Happy Thai Pongal! இனிய தைப்பொங்கல் நல்வாழ்த்துகள்!

Tomorrow is Pongal for Tamils around the world. Pongal is a celebration that occurs annually on the first day of the month of ‘Thai’ (Tamil month equivalent to January) and is a harvest festival, traditionally meant to honour the sun. It is also the name of the key rice dish that is made to celebrate most Tamil festivals, but particularly its namesake festival.

I shared a simple recipe of the home-cooking version of Pongal in this post last August. Today, I also wanted to share some of the photos from one of our Pongal celebrations with the families in our apartment building a couple of years back as it is more of a community festival where people get together in the temple or courtyard, or as in this case – the car parking area. I was going to post this tomorrow on the festival day but as one of my friends has sent me a recipe of one of the snacks she makes for Pongal, I decided to post her recipe tomorrow. So, here’s the photo-story of Pongal making.

The kolam (designs made of rice flour paste) is first drawn. Within its boundaries, the traditional Tamil welcome is set up facing north, with the kuthuvillaku/lamps and the coconut with mango leaves placed in the kudam/pot

Setting up the Pongal pot facing the rising sun in the east

Milk (usually dairy milk but at home, my mother uses coconut milk) is added to the water in the pot

Everyone waits for the milk to boil over – this symbolically means prosperity for all for the coming year (‘Ponguthal’ means boiling over and is the word that festival name and dish derived its name from)

The rice is then added to the pot – a handful at a time by some of the elders, women and men, present.

After the rice is cooked, jaggery, nuts, raisins are added to the pot and stirred well. Finally, the pongal is ready to be blessed and served.

While Thai Pongal is an important Tamil festival for Tamils living around the world, it is celebrated differently in different countries. In Sri Lanka, Pongal is mostly celebrated as described above whereas in India, it is a three-day festival with a day dedicated for cows. A harvest day festival around this day is also celebrated across India and Nepal but called different names (Makara Sankranti, Lohri, Uttarayana, Magh Bihu etc.) in different regions and has different rituals.

Wish you a Happy Pongal!

Atta Flour Pittu

Pittu is a dish that my mother often makes for dinner. She generally makes rice flour pittu. One of the varieties that she occasionally makes is the atta flour pittu, the recipe of which is given below.

Atta flour pittu

Time taken: 25 mins

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Atta flour – 1 ½ cups
Coconut – 3 tbsp, freshly scraped
Salt – pinch

Method:

Roast the atta flour over low heat for 5 mins.
Remove from stove and add the salt.
While still hot, stir in water at room temperature until the mixture becomes coarse, small particles.
Add the freshly scraped coconut and mix well.
Steam the pittu for 10 mins.
Serve warm with any curry.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Spicy Cabbage Curry

As this blog does require recipes that I record of my mother’s cooking or sent in by others and I also wish to be a bit more active on my other blogs, I will be making weekly or bi-weekly posts rather than daily posts as I did in the first few months of this blog.

This weekend’s recipe is that of my mother’s spicy cabbage curry. If you prefer fried cabbage, try out the delicious cabbage fry or the cabbage and carrot fry recipes posted earlier on this blog.

Spicy Cabbage Curry

Time taken: 25 mins

Serves 3

Ingredients:

Cabbage – 1 ½ cup, shredded
Carrot – 1 tbsp, finely chopped (optional)
Capsicum/ Malu miris – 1 tbsp, chopped
Green chilli – 1, chopped
Onion – 2 tbsp, chopped
Fenugreek – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Garlic – 1 or 2, finely chopped
Coconut milk – ½ cup
Curry powder – 1 tsp
Salt, to taste
Lime juice – 1 tsp
Oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Heat a tbsp oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion, garlic, capsicum, chilli, curry leaves and fenugreek seeds for a couple of mins.
Then, add the shredded cabbage and optional carrot to the pan and continue stir-frying for around 5 mins.
Add the coconut milk, curry powder and salt, to taste and let the curry cook for around 10 mins.
Remove the pan from the stove and mix 1 tsp lime juice into the pan.
Serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Steamed rice cakes

Wishing everyone a happy New Year! To start the Year on a sweet note, today’s recipe is that of steamed rice cakes.

Steamed rice cake

Time taken: 30 mins + 2 hours (for soaking)

Makes 6 cakes

Ingredients:

Rice – ½ cup
Urad dhal/ black gram flour – 2 tbsp, roasted
Coconut – 2 tbsp, freshly scraped
Sugar – 1 ½ tbsp
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Salt – pinch
Food colouring/ essence – optional

Method:

Soak the rice in water for about 2 hours and then grind it to make a batter.
Add the roasted urad dhal flour, scraped coconut, sugar, baking powder and salt to the batter. Mix well.
If you would like your steamed cakes in different colours, divide the batter into separate bowls. Add the different food colours to each of the bowl. Here, my mother used green and red.
Steam the batter for about 10 – 15 mins.
Serve warm with tea. You could serve some honey or jam on the side, should you like it more sweeter.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Jackfruit Cutlets

Today’s recipe is that of a cutlet my mother made recently. She likes experimenting with her cutlet mixtures and this time, she tried jackfruit and the result was delicious.

Jackfruit Cutlets

Time taken: 40 mins

Makes 4

Ingredients:

Raw, unripe jackfruit – 4 or 5 pieces
Onion – 1 tbsp, finely chopped
Chillies – ½ tsp, finely chopped
Pepper – 1 tsp
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp
Ginger – ½ “, finely chopped
Garlic – 2 cloves, finely chopped
Multi-purpose flour, for light batter
Bread crumbs, for rolling the cutlets
Low fat oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Boil the jackfruit with salt for about 15 to 20 mins.
Chop it and then coarsely grind it to get about ½ cup of the ground, cooked jackfruit. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
Add the finely chopped onion, garlic, ginger, chillies as well as the pepper and fennel seeds to the mixing bowl. Mix well. Divide the seasoned jackfruit mixture into four balls.
Make a light batter by mixing ½ cup of water with some multi-purpose flour.
Dip the cutlet balls in the batter and then roll in the breadcrumbs, before deep-frying till the cutlets are golden brown.
Serve hot with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Potato curry – the drier version

Today’s recipe is that of a simple potato curry that is easy and quick to prepare when you are not in the mood for preparing something elaborate. What’s more, you are sure to like the results. For those who do not like their curries dry, check out the other potato curry recipe.

Potato curry – the drier version.

Time taken: 30 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 2, large
Onions – 2, large
Curry powder – 1 or 2 tsp
Salt, as required
Low fat oil – 3 tbsp

Method:

Boil the potatoes. After the potatoes are boiled, peel and chop them into smaller pieces. Mix in the curry powder and some salt and keep aside.
Clean and chop the onions. Sprinkle with salt.
Heat 3 tbsp oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion for about 5 to 10 mins.
Once the onions starts changing colour and the aroma wafts about, add the seasoned, boiled potatoes to the pan and mix well. Cook for another 5 mins.
Serve warm with roti or pittu.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Dhal with Snake gourd

Today’s recipe is another snake gourd curry that my mother occasionally makes.

Dhal with Snake gourd

Time taken: 30 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Mysore dhal – ½ cup
Pudalangai/ Snake gourd – ½ cup, chopped
Green chillies – 2
Onion – ½
Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Rampe leaf/ pandan – 1 or 2 inch
Coconut milk – ¼ cup (optional)
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
Pepper – ½ tsp
Salt, to taste
Low fat oil – 2 tbsp

Method:

Clean the snake gourd and finely chop it.
Heat the oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion, green chillies, fennel seeds for a minute before adding the finely chopped snake gourd, curry leaves and rampe leaf. Cook for about 5 mins over low heat.
Rinse the dhal and add the dhal to the pan. Stir and add a cup of water and let the dhal and snake gourd cook.
Once the water has almost dried up and the vegetables have been cooked, add coconut milk. If you do not wish to use coconut milk due to cholesterol issues, simply add a ¼ cup of water or any alternative non-dairy milk of preference instead.
Add the turmeric powder, crushed chillies, pepper and salt to taste to the pan. Mix well and cook for about 5 mins.
Serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Fried Snake Gourd

I have always been quite fond of pudalangai/ snake gourd (scientific name: trichosanthes cucumerina). While it is cooked in different ways, my favourite is pudalangai kulambu – the recipe of which I will share when my mother cooks it. In the meantime, here is my mother’s recipe for fried snake gourd.

Pudalangai Varai/ Fried Snake gourd

Time taken: 20 mins

Serves 3

Ingredients:

Pudalangai/ Snake gourd – ½ cup, chopped
Red chillies – 1 or 2
Onion – ½
Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Crushed garlic – 1 tsp
Coconut – 2 tbsp, freshly scraped
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Salt and pepper, to taste
Low fat oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Clean the snake gourd and chop it up finely. Mix some salt and keep aside.
Heat a tbsp oil in a pan and fry the chopped red chillies, onion, fennel seeds and curry leaves for 2 mins.
Add the finely chopped and salted snake gourd to the pan and continue stir-frying for 5 mins.
Add 1 cup of water and season with salt to the pan. Cover and let the snake gourd cook till the water dries up.
Remove the cover and add the crushed garlic, freshly scraped coconut and turmeric powder. Season with salt and pepper, as per your taste. Mix well and let it cook for 2 mins.
Serve hot with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.