Tag Archives: Vegan

Bean Curd Kottu

In this month’s Kottu series of my mother, I am sharing her bean curd kottu at both the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck and Fiesta Friday.
DSC01280For the third week of the A.R.Rahman month, I wish to share three beautiful Hindi songs from movies. The first two movies are among my all-time favourites.

The first clip is from Deepa Mehta’s acclaimed movie Water (2005) starring Sarala Kariyawasam, Lisa Ray and John Abraham. The movie was filmed in Sri Lanka and the cast includes Sri Lankan child actress Sarala.

The second song is from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s movie Rang De Basanti (translation: Colour it saffron, 2006) starring Aamir Khan, Siddharth Narayan, Soha Ali Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni and Alice Patten. This song is sung by Naresh Iyer (who won the national award for best male playback singer that year for this song) and A.R.Rahman.

The last song clip is from the movie Rockstar (2011) starring Ranbir Kapoor. This clip is a lovely qawwali song filmed at Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, one of the most venerated Sufi shrines in Delhi. The singers are A.R.Rahman, Javed Ali, Mohit Chauhan and the Nizami brothers (whose family traditionally has sung at the Dargah for centuries).

Hope you enjoyed today’s music choice of A.R.Rahman and the bean curd kottu!
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Bean Curd Kottu

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Coconut Roti – 1 cup, chopped
  • Bean curd – ½ cup, lightly fried cubes
  • Onion – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Ginger – ½ tsp, finely chopped
  • Garlic – 1 tsp, chopped, finely chopped
  • Fennel – pinch
  • Curry leaves – 1 sprig
  • Oil – 1 tbsp
  • Soya sauce – 1 tbsp
  • Tomato sauce – 1 tbsp
  • Crushed chillies – 1 tsp or Pepper – ¼ tsp
  • Sliced tomato and chopped coriander, for garnish (optional)

Method:

  1. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan. Fry the onion, ginger, fennel and curry leaves.
  2. Mix in chopped bean curd.
  3. Add the soya and tomato sauce to the pan as well as the crushed chillies or pepper. Stir-fry for about 2 mins.
  4. Add the chopped roti and salt to taste and continue to stir-fry for a couple of minutes.
  5. Transfer to serving plate and garnish with sliced tomato and chopped coriander.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Vegetable Kottu Roti

Kottu roti is a street food that has its origins in Batticaloa, in the east of Sri Lanka. It quickly became a very popular street food across the country. While there are many popular Sri Lankan dishes that have its origins in South India, this meal  is one of the rare Sri Lankan meals that has become popular and localized in South India. If you walk around Colombo in the evenings, you are bound to hear a kottu vendor at some point or other. The noisy clang of the double cleavers that the kottu maker wields on a large roti pan and the smell and sight of the roti/ paratha and vegetables being chopped and cooked right in front of you is a treat. Check out this video clip of Mark Wiens for a visual of what I described above – the making of a kottu roti on the street.

When my mother has leftover roti or other dishes from the previous day, she sometimes attempts to recreate this popular Sri Lankan street food at home. While she does not chop the roti up with a cleaver nor is the mixing and cooking all simultaneously done on the pan, I do like the results. My mother wished to share her kottu series on this blog this month so I will be celebrating this blog’s first anniversary by bringing her vegetable kottu roti to my favourite weekly party over at The Novice Gardener‘s space.

DSC01265I have enjoyed sharing music clips together with the recipes on this blog. As I started featuring Indian movie songs with the music of one of south India’s influential music composers, Ilayaraja, I wanted to wrap up the playback singers and composers theme by featuring the other most influential composer of South India and beyond. This August, I will share the music of A.R.Rahman that I have enjoyed over the years. To kick-off the A.R.Rahman month, I would like to share today three songs that moved me and made me a fan from his early years as a music composer. The beautiful lyrics of all three were written by Vairamuthu.

The first song is from Mani Ratnam’s movie Thiruda Thiruda (translation: Thief Thief, 1993). The playback singers are K.S.Chitra and Mano. I remember enjoying watching this fun movie and this is one of the few songs for which I remember most of the lyrics.

The second song is from Bharathiraja’s movie Karuthamma (1994). The playback singer, Swarnalatha, won a national award for this sad song at the age of 21. There is an old youtube clip of an interview with the late singer where she talks of having been very much moved by the song that she was crying by the time she had finished the recording. Swarnalatha was particularly good at conveying emotions in folk tunes and won several state awards in her short career and life.

The last clip is from Suhasini Mani Ratnam’s movie Indira (1995). The playback singers are Anuradha Sriram, Sujatha Mohan, Shweta Mohan, G.V. Prakash Kumar, Esther and Sha. I get goose bumps each time I listen towards the end of the song, approximately the last 75 seconds of this meaningful song.

Hope you enjoy these special songs as you try out your own version of kottu roti!

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Vegetable Kottu Roti

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • All-purpose flour – ½ cup
  • Warm water and salt, to taste
  • Onion – ½, chopped
  • Garlic – 1 tsp, chopped
  • Ginger – chopped
  • Tomato – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
  • Kesari or turmeric
  • Potato – 2 tbsp, chopped
  • Carrot – 2 tbsp
  • Beans – 2 tbsp
  • Leeks – 1 tbsp
  • Oil – 1 tbsp (for dough) + 1 tsp + 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. You can either use leftover roti or prepare fresh ones.
  2. For fresh roti, prepare the dough by mixing the flour, warm water and salt. Let it rest for an hour.
  3. Roll out the dough into one or two roti. Cook the roti until browned on both sides.
  4. Chop the roti up into thin strips.
  5. Heat 1 tsp oil in pan and fry the ginger, garlic and onion.
  6. Add chopped tomato, crushed chillies, turmeric and salt to the pan and continue to lightly fry for 2 – 3 mins.
  7. Transfer the pan contents to a blender, add a little water and puree it so that it makes ¼ cup.
  8. In a pan, fry 1 tbsp oil and add the chopped potato, carrot, beans and leeks. Mix in the puree.
  9. Add the chopped roti.
  10. Stir fry for a couple of minutes and transfer to serving dish.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Wheat Kanji

Last week, I went for an Iftar with some friends. Each of us took a dish or two. I made the vegetarian version of Linda’s Chorba M’katfa and Amal’s Basbousa which turned out nicely. The hostess, Hafsa, had made a delicious pot of wheat kanji which she said was a staple she made during the Ramadan season for her family. I requested her to share her recipe on this blog. So, here is the wheat kanji recipe of Hafsa Farook which I am bringing to Angie’s Fiesta Friday #26 co-hosted by lovely bloggers Prudy and Jess. Hafsa did mention that people who were not fond of wheat could substitute the wheat with rice or use half and half of each.
Kanji
For today’s music feature, I decided to share some Punjabi music, composed by Pritam Chakraborty, from three fun Hindi movies that will be sure to get you on your feet and dancing. 🙂

The first song is from Anurag Singh’s movie Dil Bole Hadibba (translation: Heart says Hadibba/ hurray, 2009) starring Rani Mukerji and Shahid Kapoor and sung by playback singers, Mika Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan.

The second song is from Imtiaz Ali’s movie Jab We Met (translation: When we met, 2007) starring Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor and sung by Sonu Nigam and Javed Ali.

The last song clip is from Ayan Mukerji’s movie Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (translation: This youth is crazy, 2013) starring Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone and sung by Arijit Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan.

Enjoy the music and the kanji! 🙂
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Wheat Kanji

  • Servings: 12 - 15
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Wheat – 2 cups
  • Onion – 1 large
  • Ground ginger and garlic
  • Cinnamon – piece
  • Rampe/ pandan leaf – a piece
  • Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
  • Ground cumin seeds
  • Tomato – 1
  • Chilli powder, to taste
  • Corn kernels – 1 can
  • Mushroom – 1 can
  • Coconut milk – 1 cup (thin consistency) and ½ cup (thick consistency)
  • Fresh coriander – a small bunch
  • Salt, to taste
  • Oil, for sautéing

Method:

  1. Soak wheat for at least 5 hours.
  2. Chop up the onion.
  3. Heat oil and fry the chopped onions, ground ginger garlic, piece of cinnamon, rampe and curry leaves. Sauté until it becomes golden brown.
  4. Add ground cumin seeds.
  5. Grate a tomato and add to the pan. Add a little chilli powder and cook for a while.
  6. Drain the soaked wheat and add to the sauté pan together with at least three cups of water. Add more water if the liquid dries up before the wheat is cooked. When cooked, the wheat should not be transparent.
  7. The corn kernels can be added now along with chopped mushrooms. Add a little water if the liquid dries up. Cook for a few minutes.
  8. Add 1 cup of thin coconut milk and ½ cup thick coconut milk to the pan and cook.
  9. Just before removing from heat, add the chopped coriander and salt to taste and cook for a few minutes.
  10. Serve warm.

Recipe source: Hafsa Farook.

Mango Mocktail

Today’s drink has been sent in by Trevor Martil. Apologies for the lack of a photo of the drink. I am sharing this at the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck.

Today’s music features two relatively new composers who are making a niche for themselves in south Indian cinema. The music for the first song clip has been composed by G.V Prakash Kumar, the nephew of A.R.Rahman. Having sung his first song in one of his uncle’s movies, G.V Prakash Kumar started his movie soundtrack composing career at the age of 16. This is a lovely song from his first movie that was released – Veyil (translation: hot sun, 2006) with playback singers Jassie Gift, Kailash Kher, Tippu and Prasanna.

The next song is from Balakrishnan’s debut movie Rummy (2014) with music composed by D.Imman who started his music career in 2002. The playback singers are Prasanna and Vandana Srinivasan, a psychologist and an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Hope you enjoy the music and the drink!

Mango Mocktail

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons mango delight cordial
  • 1/2 teaspoon lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup chilled plain soda
  • Crushed mint leaves
  • Finely chopped apple
  • Crushed ice

Method:

  1. Blend the first four ingredients together.
  2. Add crushed mint leaves, chopped apple pieces, crushed ice and serve.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Curry Powder

I decided to share my first recipe post on this blog again, particularly for the Fiesta Friday group. Curry powder blend is usually made at homes in Sri Lanka and therefore differs from house to house in the spices used and the blend ratio. The blend also differs for the type of curry it is used for. Today, I will share my mother’s special blend for vegetarian curries. Interested non-vegetarians can check out these earlier posts for the blend for fish dishes and meat dishes.

spicesThe south Indian musician that I am featuring today is P.Unnikrishnan. Trained in Carnatic music, Unnikrishnan has released several Carnatic music and devotional song albums. He was introduced to the playback singing world of South Indian movies by A.R.Rahman in 1994 and his debut song in the movie ‘Kadhalan’ won him a national award. He also has started dabbling in experimental music.

The first clip is an excerpt from an A.R.Rahman concert where Unnikrishnan sings his award-winning debut song.

The second clip is his lovely rendition of a famous poem by renowned 19th century Tamil poet Bharathiyar.

The last clip is of Unnikrishnan’s daughter, Uthara, who sings a short excerpt of one of her father’s famous movie songs. Uthara recently made her debut in the movie playback singing world at the age of 9 with the release of her first song ‘Azhagu.’

Hope you enjoyed Unnikrishnan’s voice! Do try out my mother’s recipe for her curry powder blend!

Curry powder

Amma's Special Blend Curry Powder


Ingredients

  • Dried red chillies – 100g
  • Coriander seeds(Kothumalli) – 100g
  • Cumin Seeds (Sinna seeraham/ Suduru) – 50g
  • Fennel seeds (Perunjhseeraham/ Maduru) – 50g
  • Fenugreek seeds (Venthayam) – 25g
  • Pepper – 10g
  • Curry leaves – ½ cup
  • Turmeric – 1 piece or 1 tsp (if powder is used)
  • Cinnamon – 2” piece
  • Cardamom – 4 or 5
  • Cloves – 4 or 5

Method

  1. Chop up the dried red chillies and dry roast them. Keep aside.
  2. Dry roast the curry leaves separately and keep aside.
  3. Dry roast the balance ingredients together.
  4. Combine all and grind them together to make the curry powder mix. Store in an airtight container to use when needed.
  5. The ingredients can be scaled up for the desired quantity.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Mango Chutney

During a recent visit of my father to Jaffna, he brought back some mangoes from my mother’s childhood home. My mother said that the particular mango tree had been planted by her father. As the mangoes were half-ripe, cooking mangoes, my mother decided to make some chutney out of them. This is a simple, quick to prepare chutney. I have shared earlier a mango chutney recipe that my mother makes when she wants to store the chutney for a few days. I am sharing this instant mango chutney recipe with the Fiesta Friday group as well.

DSC01208Continuing with the theme of featuring south Indian singers whose voice I have enjoyed and appreciated along with the recipes this month and next, today’s featured musician is another of my mother’s favourite singers – renowned south Indian singer K.J.Yesudas. A classical trained musician, he began his movie playback singing career in the early 1960s. Yesudas is said to have sung and recorded over 50,000 songs over his five decade career in most Indian languages as well as foreign languages such as Arabic and Russian. I do not know how he managed the volume because it roughly translates to about 1000 songs a year. He was awarded the Padma Shri (1975) and the Padma Bhushan (2002) by the Indian government.

While selecting Yesudas song clips to share here, I decided to share first an excerpt from one of his older classical concert clips as he is foremost a classical Carnatic musician and I like his Carnatic music repertoire better than his songs for movies.

The second song is from the 1968 Malayalam movie Bharymar Sookshikkuka. This clip is a live performance of K.J. Yesudas with Chitra and Sujatha.

Wrapping up today’s music selection, the last clip is from a very famous popular Tamil song of Yesudas from the 1992 movie Mannan.

Hope you enjoyed the voice of K.J. Yesudas and do try out this chutney!
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Mango Chutney

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Mango – ½ cup, half-ripe
  • Onion – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
  • Sugar – 1 tbsp
  • Salt, to taste
  • Oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Clean and chop up the half-ripe mango. Rub in a little salt and allow it to marinate while you do the next step.
  2. Heat a tbsp oil in a pan. Temper the chopped onion and crushed chillies for a couple of minutes.
  3. Add the chopped and salted mango to the pan together with a tablespoon of sugar. Mix well and let it cook for a couple of minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and transfer the pan contents to a food processor and grind it.
  5. This simple mango chutney is nice on a sandwich.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Pavatkai Curry

Today’s recipe is a slightly different variation of bitter gourd/ pavatkai curry that my mother makes. The recipe for the more common way that my mother makes this dish is given in this earlier post.

pavatkaiContinuing with my sharing of Indian movie songs, today I would like to feature one of my mother’s favourite singers – S.Janaki and a few of the songs I like of hers. Janaki was born in 1938, started her musical training at the age of 3 and her movie musical career in the latter part of 1950s. According to my wikipedia source, she has sung around 20,000 songs in various Indian languages and won state and national awards for some of them. She made headlines last year when she refused to accept the Indian government’s prestigious award – the Padma Bhushan.

The first song here is from K.Balachander’s movie Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu (translation: The colour of poverty is red, 1980) starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi. The music composition is by M.S. Viswanathan (MSV), who was more popular between the 50s to 70s. The singers are SPB and S. Janaki.

I couldn’t resist sharing another song from one of my favourite movies, Salangai Oli/ Sagara Sangamam (1983) whose music was composed by Ilayarajaa. This time it is a solo song by S.Janaki and the two actors/ dancers, Kamal Haasan and Manju Bhargavi, in the song are trained classical dancers.

The last song is a relatively more recent song from the movie Sangamam (literal translation: Confluence, 1999) and the music was composed by A.R.Rahman. The singers are Janaki (lead vocalist), Unnikrishnan and Madhumita.

Hope you enjoyed the movie clips and do try out this bitter gourd recipe!

Pavatkai Curry

  • Servings: 3
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Bittergourd – 1
  • Tomato – 1
  • Onion – ½
  • Green chilli – 2
  • Tamarind extract – 1 cup (light)
  • Coconut milk – ¼ cup
  • Sugar – 1 tbsp
  • Salt, to taste
  • Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Wash and cut the bittergourd into small pieces. Keep aside.
  2. Chop the chillies and onion. Lightly fry them in a tablespoon of oil in a pan.
  3. Add the chopped bittergourd to the pan and continue frying for a few minutes.
  4. Add the tamarind juice and salt to the pan. Cover and let it simmer for around 10 to 15 mins until the curry thickens.
  5. Chop the tomato and add it to the pan together with ¼ coconut milk.
  6. Add a tablespoon of sugar and salt to taste.
  7. Cover and cook for another 15 mins.
  8. Remove from heat and serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Mulai Keerai Curry

Today’s recipe is another way my mother cooks mulai keerai (amaranth greens, I think the scientific name is amaranthus blitum). I have posted earlier the traditional way it has been cooked in my home across generations.

Mulai keeraiSince selecting the movie clips that I shared yesterday, I have been listening to lots of 80s and early 90s Indian movie music and remembering the stories behind the songs. I felt like sharing some over the next several posts. If you are not interested in reading about or listening to some south Indian movie songs, please skip directly to the recipe given below.

As today is S.P.Balasubrahmanyam(SPB)’s 68th birthday, I will share a couple of his popular songs. While not having had formal musical training, SPB’s natural inclination towards music made him drop out of his engineering studies and pursue a musical career in the 60s. SPB is most known as a playback singer, having recorded more than 40,000 songs in several Indian languages according to my Wikipedia source. In addition to winning several Indian state and national awards for his songs, he has also composed music for several movies, acted in some and given voice overs for popular actors due to his multilingual skill. The Indian government awarded him the high civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan (2011) and Padmashri (2001) awards, for his distinguished service.

The first is an upbeat song from K.Balachander’s Tamil movie Punnagai Mannan (translation: King of Smiles, 1986). This is the first song that SPB and Chitra sang together and features Kamal Haasan and Revathi. The soundtrack of the movie was composed by Ilayarajaa with A.R.Rahman, then a part of Ilayarajaa’s music team, at the keyboard.

The second clip is from a concert where SPB sings a song of his from the 1979 movie Pagalil Oru Iravu (translation: A night in the day), soundtrack composed by Ilayarajaa.

Hope you enjoyed SPB’s songs from the 80s as much as I enjoyed listening to several and selecting these two.

Now, for the recipe… 🙂

Mulai Keerai Curry

  • Servings: 3
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Mulai keerai – 1 cup, chopped
  • Green chilli – 1
  • Capsicum – 1
  • Onion – 1
  • Tomato – 1
  • Salt, to taste
  • Crushed chilli – to taste
  • Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Wash the green leaves and chop them up finely.
  2. Cook the green leaves with a little salt and water for about 10 mins till the water dries up. Remove from heat.
  3. Slice the green chilli, onion and capsicum.
  4. Add a tbsp of oil to a separate pan and lightly sauté the three.
  5. Chop the tomato and add it to the pan. As per your taste, add salt and crushed chilli and continue to lightly fry for a few more minutes.
  6. Transfer the contents of the pan to the cooked green leaves. Mix and serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Karunai Kilangu Curry

The recipe I would like to share today is my mother’s recipe for karunai kilangu/ elephant yam curry.

karunai kilanguI also felt like sharing some music clips. Today is the birthday of Ilayaraaja, one of South India’s famous movie soundtrack composers, who has composed music for more than 1000 movies (around 4500 songs). His debut in South Indian cinema was in the 70s and while he continues his work to this day, I think the peak in his musical career was in the 80s. Having grown up watching a lot of South Indian movies, I felt like sharing three of my favourite Ilayaraaja compositions in honour of his 71st birthday.

The first song is from one of my all-time favourite movies Salangai Oli (translation: the sound of a dancer’s ankle bells, 1983), the Tamil dubbed version of the Telugu movie Sagara Sangamam. The movie has a Bharathanatyam theme and has a great cast including one of India’s best actors, Kamal Haasan (featured in the song). The movie won the Indian national award for best music direction and best male playback singer (S.P.Balasubrahmanyam).

The second song is from one of my mother’s favourite movies, renowned director K.Balachander’s movie Sindhu Bhairavi (1985). This movie’s story has a Carnatic music theme running through and a great soundtrack which again won Ilayaraaja the Indian national award for best music direction. The movie also won the best actress award (Suhasini Maniratnam, featured in the song) and the best female playback singer award (K.S.Chitra who made her Tamil movie music debut through this song) for the song shared here. This song is a fusion of folk and Carnatic music.

The third song that I am sharing here is a song from Maniratnam’s movie Thalapathi (1991). It’s simply a lovely short song.

Hope you enjoy the music as much as you enjoy the curry! 🙂

Karunai Kilangu Curry

  • Servings: 3
  • Difficulty: average
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Yam – 1 cup, chopped
  • Brinjal – 1 cup, chopped
  • Onion – ½
  • Fenugreek – 2 tsp
  • Tamarind extract – ½ cup
  • Coconut milk – ½ cup
  • Curry powder – 1 to 2 tsp
  • Salt, to taste
  • Oil, as required

Method:

  1. Boil the yam for about 15 mins. Then, roughly chop into smaller pieces.
  2. Lightly fry the chopped brinjal and yam. Keep aside.
  3. In a pan, add a tablespoon of oil and lightly fry the chopped onion and fenugreek for a few minutes.
  4. Add the lightly fried brinjal and yam to the pan.
  5. Add the tamarind and milk to the pan together with curry powder and salt to taste.
  6. Cook the curry for about 15 mins and then remove from heat.
  7. Serve with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Date and Walnut Cookies

Today, I would like to share my mother’s recipe for date and walnut cookies. She often substitutes cashew nuts for the walnuts when we run out of walnuts.

I also wanted to mention a start-up that came to my attention recently and thought it might be of interest to those planning travels around Asia. Withlocals.com is a venture, currently covering 7 countries including Sri Lanka, initiated by a group of self-labelled ‘digital geeks with a combined passion for travelling, food and people.’ The interesting part of their services is ‘Eat with locals,’ where local hosts register to offer home-cooked meals. I might take up the offer of Martin (a staff at Withlocals.com) to try one of the eating experiences listed, next time a non-Sri Lankan friend visits me, provided the host is willing to share one of the recipes on this blog.

In the meantime, do enjoy these delicious date and nut cookies! 🙂
Date and Walnut cookies

Date and Walnut Cookies

  • Servings: 40
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Dates – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Walnut or cashew nut – ¼ cup, chopped
  • Roasted gram/ Pottu kadalai flour –  ¼ cup
  • All-purpose flour -1 cup
  • Baking powder – 1 tsp
  • Oats – ¼ cup
  • Sugar – 2 tbsp
  • Cinnamon powder – pinch
  • Rose water – 1 tsp
  • Margarine – ¼ cup

Method:

  1. Mix all the ingredients. Add a little water if the mixture is too dry.
  2. Place the cookie dough on a lightly greased tray tablespoon at a time leaving an inch of space between them.
  3. Bake for about 20 mins at 170⁰C/338⁰F.
  4. Store in an air-tight container.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan