Friday, October 30, 2009
I started this blog just to do something interesting during the very little free time I get in a day. From the day I started to visit the other blogs and got to know about the events being hosted, the idea of participating in the events drove me to steal some of the time I spent with my kid(nowadays my hubby dear takes care of putting our lil one to sleep, while I blog..:)). I have started to try something crazy too. One such thing that I arrived at is this Rajma Pakora. This was mainly to arrive at an entry for the event JFI Rajma by Divya Vikram.
This is all you would need for the pakora
Rajma - 1 cup
Par boiled rice - 1 cup
Red dry chillis - 6 nos
Green chillis - 2 nos
curry leaves - few nos
asafoetida - few pinches
salt - for taste
oil - for deep frying
turmeric - 1 teaspoon(optional)
Method
1. Soak rajma for 8 to 10 hrs and rice and dry red chillis together for 2 to 3 hrs.
2. Grind them together with green chillis to a coarse paste by adding very little water.
3. Add salt, asafoetida, curry leaves and turmeric(for color and flavor) and mix them together.
4. Heat oil in a wide pan.
5. Make small balls out of the batter and drop it in the smokey oil.
6. Let it fry till it turns crispy or golden brown.
7.Place it in absorbant paper to absorb excess oil.
8. I like to have this with tea. You can also pair it with ketchup or coconut chutney.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hi Everyone!!!. I hope all of you had a wonderful Navarathri celebration more importantly the 'sundal celebration'. I'm sure you would have all geared up for the next festival, Diwali. My mother made lots of bhakshanams(sweets and savories) during all festivals and more importantly diwali. However I didn't ever care to taste any of them.Mainly becoz I was all alone at home and there wasn't anyone to give me company. However, when my sisters were around, we all had a blast. Gone are the days when diwali was so much fun. After we came to the US, diwali is more like any other normal day, except that we ate some homemade sweets, wore a new dress and of course made calls to India (unable to hear each other due to the noise of fire works) and finally rushing to office. But this year I think we could add some color to diwali as it comes on a saturday. Here is one of the savory that my mother prepares for diwali and it has always been a hit. I made this for navarathri this year. It came out so well that I'm thinking of making the second batch the coming weekend.
Here's the recipe for Homemade Mixture:
Ingredients for Bhoondhi:
Besan Flour(Chick Pea Flour) - 1 1/2 cup
Rice Flour - 1/2 cup
Cooking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
water - as required
Ingredients for thin Sev:
Besan Flour(Chick Pea Flour) - 1 cup
Rice Flour - 1 cup
Salt - 1 tsp
water - as required
Other Ingredients:
oil for frying - 2 cups
Thick Rice Flakes(Aval) - 2 tbsp(optional)
Peanut - 2 tbsp(optional)
Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 tbsp
salt - 1 tsp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Asafoetida - 4 pinches
Roasted Channa Dhal - 2 tbsp
Method:
For Bhoondhi:
1. Mix the above said ingredients for bhoondhi.
2. Add water such that the batter is slightly thinner than pancake consistency(should be like a bajji batter).
3.Pour oil in a pan and heat the pan.
4. When the oil is smokey hot, pour the batter slowly on a flat ladle that has small pores in them. I used the one in the below picture.
5. Using another ladle (as shown in the picture), gently make circular motions on top of the batter that is there in the porous ladle.
6. U should be able to see minute pebbles dropping in the oil. Pour as mush as the pan can hold(just one layer should be fine).
7. Let it stay undisturbed for sometime. Turn them over only once. When the oil stops making the bubble sound, remove the bhoondhi from oil and place them on top of an absorbent paper.
8. Repeat the steps with rest of the batter.
For thin Sev:
1. Mix all the ingredients mentioned for sev.
2. Add very little water and make a thick dough, similar to a poori dough.
3. Heat oil in a wide pan.
4.Put the dough into a sev press and squeeze them onto hot oil making big circle(as big as the pan can hold).
5. Leave them for a 2 min and turn them over. Remove from oil once the oil stops making bubble sound.
6. Place them in absorbent paper.
7. Repeat the procedure with rest of the dough.
Frying other ingredients:
1. In the same oil pour the rice flakes and fry them for a min. Drain and place them on absorbent paper.
2. Now add cashews and fry them till golden brown.
3. Then goes peanuts and curry leaves.
Mixing all prepared items:
1. Now spread a big sheet of paper(I used newspaper) and pour the sev, bhoondhi, fried rice flakes, peanuts, cashews and curry leaves.
2. Mix them together after adding chilli powder, salt, asafoetida and ghee.
3.If need be u can crush the sev to smaller pieces.
4. Store them in an airtight container.
For some reason I don't like to eat them separately. I usually make this as a side dish for sambhar rice, rasam rice, curd rice, etc.
This savory is participating in Sara’a event- Sweet and savories event.
This savory is participating in Sara’a event- Sweet and savories event.
Enjoy!!!
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