(Amma Cooks) Munthiri Kothu / Roasted Green gram balls ~ Diwali Sweet Recipes

Munthiri kothu is a festive sweet that finds its roots in the kitchens of Kanyakumari district. Back home, any festival or grand occasion is not complete without this authentic sweet. Why this name, I am not sure. I know that kothu means group and this is made in groups of three but munthiri (which means cashews) I just can't understand why that was put in there. BTW, no cashews are added. Anyone who knows why do tell me.
My association with this sweet is right from my childhood, right from days as old as my memories can take me. Amma makes this sweet for every Diwali and I still remember the Saturdays and Sundays when me and bhaiyya used to roll the green gram balls that makes the stuffing. The soft and sweet stuffing and the contradictory hard shell is a pleasure to much on. Whenever I go to my mom's native my ammamma (grandma) makes it a point that we return back laden with these sweets. Having a bite of this sweet brings back good old memories and is love in every bite for me.
P.S. This sweet even has a wikipedia page on its own. Check what they tell here.

Traditional recipes should never die and we need to keep the ball rolling and so I jot down all the recipes from amma. Some day down the lane, I might try this and my kid might get a chance to taste them. And so here is one...

~*What U Need*~ Green gram - 1 cup Ghee - 1 tsp Jaggery - 1/2 cup Water - 2-3 tbsp Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup Ground ginger - 1/8 tsp Cardamom - 2 Rice flour - 1/4 cup Salt - a pinch Turmeric powder - a pinch Water - 1/4 cup (or to bring to idli batter consistency) Oil

How I Made it:
Wash and dry the whole moong dhal. Heat ghee in a wide pan and roast the dhal till you get a nice aroma and it turns brown in color. Remove and cool. Grind to a coarse powder and set aside. In a sauce pan, heat jaggery with 2 tbsps of water until jaggery melts. Remove from the fire and strain to remove the impurities and set aside. Dry roast the coconut till golden brown. Return the jaggery syrup to the heat and reduce for another 3 mins. Add coconut and powdered green gram and mix well. Remove from heat. When the mixture is cool enough to touch, make lemon-sized balls and set aside. Now place this in a paper with enough space in between the balls, keep under the fan and dry for 1 day. This procedure gives long shelf life. When you are ready to fry them, mix rice flour with salt, turmeric powder, salt and water till you get an idli batter consistency. Heat oil in a deep pan and when hot enough, dip each ball into the batter and fry in the oil. This is usually done in group of threes and hence the name kothu (..means groups). Once evely fried, remove and drain in a tissue paper. Store in air tight containers.

Serve with tea!!!

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Day 9#: Pachaipayaru Inji Sundal | Navarathiri Recipes & Saraswathi Pooja Wishes

Happy Saraswathi pooja and Ayudha pooja wishes to all my dear readers. Hope you had a great day today. Its been a long and hectic day for me with all the cleaning and wiping. And when done with that I had to prep up for the evening pooja... Whew... I actually wanted to postpone this post to tomorrow but then the lil one started his night early and I had some 'me'-time and the huss was away from the PC and so I sat to frame the post.

I made Sarkarai Pongal and Pachaipayaru sundal for neivedhiyam today. Both easy to make recipes and that is what I wanted after all the work done today. Some easy-peesy dishes that will not take too much time in the kitchen. I already have a sarkarai pongal recipe in my space but that uses a pongal pot. So I decided to put up one which can be made in 30 mins and which uses a pressure cooker. Off to the recipes.

~*What U Need*~ Raw rice / Pacharisi - 1 cup Moong dhal - 3 tbsp Thinly sliced and cut Coconut - 2 tbsp Jaggery - 3/4 cup Water - 2 tbsp + 1/4 cup Broken Cashews & Raisins - a handful Ghee - 3 tbsp Cardamom powder - a generous pinch

How I made it:
Soak rice and moong dhal in water for 1 hour. Add 2 tbsp water to jaggery and boil till the jaggery melts. Strain to remove impurities.

Pressure cook rice and moong dhal with 1/4 cup of water for 3 whistles till soft and mushy. Add jaggery syrup and mix well. If required add some more water and bring it to porridge consistency.

Meanwhile, heat ghee, fry the cashews and raisins till golden brown and puffy. Also fry the coconut till light brown.

When the mixture starts to boils again, add the ghee, cashews, raisins, coconut, elaichi powder and give it a stir. Serve hot!

~*What U Need*~ Green gram - 1/2 cup Grated Fresh Coconut - 2 tbsp Grated ginger - 1 tsp Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp Urad Dal - 1/4 tsp Dried Red Chillies - 1-2 Curry Leaves - 1 sprig Turmeric powder - a pinch Hing - a small pinch Salt, Oil

How I Made it:
Soak the green gram for 2 to 3 hours. Rinse and drain. Pressure cook for 2 whistles. till soft. Drain and set aside.Heat 1 tsp oil in pan. Add the mustard seeds, urad dal and let them splutter. Add the broken red chillies, curry leaves, ginger and hing and fry for a few seconds.

Now add the cooked green gram and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the grated fresh coconut and salt to it and mix well. Remove from flame. Serve hot!!!

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Day 3&4#: Pachapayaru Vella Sundal / Green gram Sweet sundal | Navarathiri Recipes

For day 3&4 (yes both fall on the same day) of Navarathiri, I made pachapayaru sundal for padayal. Since it has been savory sundal varieties for the past two days, I wanted to make something sweet today for neivedhiyam (read for us) and hence settled down for pachapayaru vella sundal. Amma used to make this for us when we were kids but she used to mash everything up and make balls out of the mixture. That way she found it easy to feed us and we found it easy to gobble them up. This time I made it dry and I loved this version too.

~*What U Need*~ Green gram / Pachapayaru – 1/2 cup Salt – A pinch Jaggery – 1/4 cup Water – 2-3 tbsp Grated coconut – 3 tbsp Cardamom powder – a pinch(optional)

How I Made it:
Soak the green gram in water for 4 hours. Drain and pressure cook with water for 2 whistles. Drain the green gram. Take the powdered jaggery in a pan, cover with little water and make a syrup. After the jaggery has melted, strain it to remove the impurities. Heat again till it becomes frothy and thick. Remove from flame and add the cardamom powder. I skipped it.

Add the cooked dal and mix well with a fork to avoid turning mushy. Add the grated coconut and mix well. Cool completely.

Serve as snack.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Green gram curry

I learnt this curry from my mom. I usually serve this with chapathis but you can use it as a side-dish or add more water and make it as a gravy for white rice. The curry has a different flavor which complements the chapathis very well. This side dish is very simple to make and has all the goodness intact as we only pressure-cook the green grams. If you had added more water when cooking the legumes then strain the excess water, add some salt and drink it. It contains all the nutrients. Use the same water if you need the curry to be more gravy-like.

~*What U Need*~
Green gram – 1 cup
Large Onion – 1
Medium tomato – 1
Green chilli – 1
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Water – as needed
Oil – 2 tbsp
Salt – as needed

How I Made it:
Clean the green gram well and pressure cook for 3 whistles. The green grams should not turn mushy but should be cooked well. Chop the onions and tomatoes.
Heat oil and add the mustard seeds and allow to splutter. Next add the curry leaves and green chilli and fry well. Add the chopped onions and sauté till transparent. When done, add the tomatoes and fry well. Now add in the turmeric, coriander and chilli powders and salt and fry till the oil oozes out. Add the green gram and combine well.
Add water till the required consistency. Combine well and cook in medium flame for 3-5 mins. Do a taste check and off the flame.

Serve with chapathis.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Green gram conjee with Moong dhal thuvayal

When I was officially daughter to my mom ;), she made it sure that we have conjee / kanji atleast two weeks once. Said kanji cools ur body. (Now I understand why we were given this when we had fever) With this reason she makes, many variations of kanji - ulundu, pachai payaru, pasi paruppu. Name any dhal variety and she makes a kanji out of it. She once went to the extreme and added loads of garlic cloves and made a poodu kanji but thank god it was used as a medicinal preparation and hence everyone got only half a glass of it. Such a Kanji fanatic she is but for our very own goodness. She usually serves it with some variety of thuvayals.

Whenever we are bed-ridden with fever, amma usually makes us ulundu kanji with broken black skinned urad dhal. She gives us this and rasam saadam for our alternate meals. But believe me, both the meals soothes and relieves you from the fever dizziness and I love having this. But in ordinary days I just run like a lunatic when she brings me a bowl of this. I don't know why but I hate this. And so she started making ulundu saadam with chicken curry to make me eat it. I loved the combination of these two and since then I run again, but towards it with a plate in hand.

So following her words of wisdom in culinary and kai vaithyam, I have started making kanjis frequently especially during the summers. This is not with the split urad dhal but I substituted it with whole green grams and for side I made a simple moong dhal thuvayal (my favie). The combination of the crunchy lentils along with the mushy flavored rice is an awesome combination.

What is Congee/ Kanji?
Congee is a type of rice porridge popular in many Asian countries.To prepare the dish, rice is boiled in large amounts of water until it softens significantly.
In Tamil Nadu, it is a staple food in many house-holds, though rice is boiled, allowed to ferment overnight and then had in the morning as breakfast along with pickle/onions. This is another way to make the traditional kanji but wat I have made here is by following the former method.

~*What U Need*~
Raw rice - 1 1/2 cups
Water - 4 cups
Garlic cloves - 3
Green chilli(Large) - 1
Whole Green gram - 2 handfuls
Fenugreek seeds - 10
Salt

How I Made it:
Wash and clean the rice and green gram.
Pressure cook all the ingredients for 4 whistles or till mushy.

Serve hot with any thuvayals / pickles. The conjee can be made in watery / semi-gravy consistency. This is the best food for fever-ridden people.

~*What U Need*~
Moong dhal - 2 handfuls
Dried red chilli - 2
Water - as needed
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
GArlic cloves - 3
Tamarind - marble sized piece
Salt

How I made it:
Dry roast the moong dhal and tamarind till brown.
Powder it into semi-coarse powder.
Add all the other ingredients and sufficient amount of water and blend well.

Note:
* You should get tiny bits of crunchy moong dhal in between.
* Add water little by little to get the correct consistency. It should not be watery. You should be able to make a ball out of it.

Linking this to Iftar moments held by Jabeen's corner

So thats it Folks...

With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...