Modakam | Pillayarpatti Mothagam | Vinayagar Chathurthi Recipes

I love kozhukattais. The fact that they are steamed making them a healthy snack makes me want them more. I have been making them a lot lately. It makes a great snack for us and for the kid too. Yes, I have been making these sweet dumplings for his evening snack and he's been eating them happily. I first made this for Vinayagar Chathurthi when Sharmi posted it in her blog. The simplicity of the dumpling made me fall for it and I made it for the elephant lord's birthday.

And then I made it again when I was out of snack ideas for our evening tea. And then again and then it was repeated atleast once every week. It was easy to put together cos I made the powder and stored it an air tight container, that way whenever I have the feel to eat some sweet dumplings I am all-ready to go.

Preparation Time: 15 mins; Cooking time:20 mins; Makes - 10 medium sized ~*What U Need*~ Raw Rice - 1/2 cup Moong Dal - 2 tbsp, heaped Jaggery - 1/4 cup, heaped Ghee - 2 tsps Coconut - 2 tbsp Water - 1 1/2 cups How I Made it: Dry roast raw rice till it is puffy and slightly brown. Do the same with moong dhal. Cool down and blend to a coarse powder like rava. Melt jaggery in 1 cup of water. Strain to remove impurities. Return to the pan and add the remaining water. Allow to boil. Add the rice powder and keep stirring. Close with lid and cook for 3 mins. By this time, the rice should have absorbed most of the water and would have cooked. Add ghee and keep stirring. It will form a ball. Pinch a small piece and roll it between your fingers. If it forms a ball then it is the correct stage. Add coconut, cardamom powder and switch off. Cool down the mixture, grease your hands with ghee and roll them into lemon sized balls. Form modagams and steam cook for 10 mins.

Serve warm!!!

** My Notes:
** The modagams were less sweet so increase the jaggery if needed.
** The rice powder should be of coarse consistency like rava not a fine powder.
** Do not overcook more than 10 mins.

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Cauliflower Malligai | Cauliflower maligai

I watch TV cookery shows(lets make that watched, shall we..), the favorite being Donna Hay's fast, fresh and simple, Nigella Kitchen and ofcourse our Tamil cookery shows. Back when I was in India, amma and me used to never miss a show of the Kitchen Superstars that got telecasted in Vijay TV, not because we loved the show but to compare it with Masterchef Australia. But then again I liked the show because amma and me used to spend some quality time together.

This recipe, we saw it in the "Masterclass" that the judges held for the contestants. It sounded simple and different from the regular manchurians or pakodas or fritters that we make with cauliflower and so amma decided to give it a go. Moreover we had a whole bunch of fresh coriander leaves which had to be used up and so the recipe sounded just right.

~*What U Need*~ To grind: Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup Mint leaves - 1/4 cup Green chilli - 1 Ginger - 1" piece Garlic cloves - 2 Curry leaves - 2 sprigs Salt Cornflour - 1/4 cup Gram flour - 2 tbsp Rice flour - 2 tbsp Cauliflower florets - 1 cup Oil Green chilli - 1 Curry leaves - 1 sprig Thick curd - 1 tbsp Water, salt, turmeric powder How I Made it: Grind all the ingredients under 'to grind' to a paste. Soak cauliflower florets in water with salt and turmeric powder for 15 mins. After 15 mins, drain water and pat dry with a kitchen towel. Add the paste to the cauliflower along with the cornflour, gram flour and rice flour. Mix well, season with salt and allow to marinate for 15 mins. Heat oil and fry the florets till golden brown. In a kadai, add 1 tsp oil, add the slit green chillies and then the yogurt. After 2 mins, add the fried cauliflower florets and toss well.

Serve warm as starter!!!

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Ragi Kozhukattai | Steamed finger millet dumplings

I am not on a clean eating spree nor I am not on a diet plan but I like to include healthy foods atleast two times a week for our breakfast. And ragi is the first option... One reason being my MIL makes homemade sprouted ragi flour in kgs and packs them for me and so it is always a pantry staple at home. The second reason being ragi is preferred to kambu a.k.a pearl millet by the family. So reason enough why two ragi recipes in a week!!!

We usually make ragi malt with jaggery or at times sour curd and salt when it comes to choosing ragi for breakfast. But seldom when we want something different we make this kozhukattais or this puttu. Last week we had some relatives who were in their late 70s and I didn't want to serve them anything fatty for their tea. Thats when we deicided to serve them these healthy kozhukattais. We used palm candy which is considered to be a healthy alternative to sugar and on the whole it was a filling and healthy snack.

~*What U Need*~ Ragi flour - 1 cup Rice flour - 1/4 cup Shredded Coconut - 2 tbsp Palm Candy - 1/4 cup Water - 1/4 + 1/4 cup Cardamom powder - a pinch Salt - a pinch

How I Made it:
Mix the ragi flour, rice flour and cardamom powder. Add water to the palm candy and heat till it melts. Strain to remove impurities. Return to the pan and heat till it boils. Add the shredded coconut and cook for 1 min. Next add in the ragi flour and rice flour and cook till it forms a mass. Cool to room temperature, pinch lemom sized balls out of it squeeze to get your fingerprints all over the dumpling. Steam cook for 10-15 mins until non-sticky.

Serve with some flavored black coffee or karuppatti kaapi.

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(Amma Cooks) Kambu Kozhukattai / Steamed Pearl Millet dumplings

Kambu or pearl millet is one of the age old cereals that was consumed by our villagers and one of the many cereals that have died with time, atleast with the urban folks. But time has changed and so has people. That which was avoided by the junkies, has now been re-visted and welcomed with open hands and hungry health-conscious tummies. Clean eating is becoming a ravage now and quinoa, pearl millet, fox millet and many more cereals in that line have found their way into the diet of many.

The tales of appa and amma were mostly entwined with them eating clean healthy food and us eating maggi, cheese and many more. Appa usually describes how their day started with kanji(fermented leftover rice) or kambu koozh and how full and energetic they felt throught the day and even after the day's hard work in the fields. I have heard similar stories from my grandfather too, nothing can beat hearing bed-time stories from your grandfather, with a full tummy, a chilly windy night, with the moon and the stars staring back at you. The star ladden night is a delight to watch at. I miss all those days, days which will never come back...

I can go on and on about my childhood days for pages and so lets stop here. That being said, let me tell you, I am not a clean eater and I can never be one. I eat everything that comes into the market and anything new grabs my attention and I can never sleep until I have tasted it atleast once. But I limit myself to once in a month and not more than that... Okay I know thats not good but in my case my stomach is the devil's workshop, it makes me eat all things nonsense... But it so happens that at times I too feel like eating clean. Not kambu koozh or ragi koozh but as of now I am keeping it to kozhukattais. Its easy and simple to make and makes a great breakfast or tea time snack.

~*What U Need*~ Kambu/Pearl millet - 1 cup Raw rice - 1/2 cup Shredded Coconut - 2 tbsp Jaggery - 1/42 cup Water - 1/4 + 1/4 cup Cardamom powder - a pinch Salt - a pinch

How I Made it:
Soak the pearl millet over night and the rice for 2 hours. Grind the pearl millet and rice together with 1/4 cup water till you get a not-so-coarse paste. Add water to the jaggery and heat till it melts. Strain to remove impurities. Return to the pan and heat till it boils. Add the shredded coconut and cook for 1 min. Next add in the ground paste and cook till the water evaporates or till the mixture forms a thick mass. Cool to room temperature, pinch lemom sized balls out of it squeeze to get your fingerprints all over the dumpling. Steam cook for 10-15 mins until non-sticky.

Serve with some flavored black coffee or karuppatti kaapi.

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Kalkandu Baath / Kalkandu Pongal/ Sugar Candy Rice | Pongal Recipes

Wishing all my dear readers a Happy Pongal a.k.a. Makara Sakranti wishes

Tomorrow starts a new season, the first day of the harvest season and its beaming festivity everywhere. Back home, preparations start a day before for us. Appa gets the karumbu (sugarcane), fresh turmeric and ginger plants which we keep at the time of pooja. Unlike other festivals, for Pongal vegetables mainly root veggies are kept during pooja since it is a harvest festival. We pray to the Sun god for a good harvest and that is what the whole festival is about.

We always keep Pongal in large brass pots in our porch ~ the traditional way and it is Appa who makes the fire in a three-stone stove. So the day before the festival, the big pots are brought down from the attic, cleaned and wiped dry. Amma then puts manjal-kungumam to the pots. The night before, we put a very big kolam with color kola podi in front of our house. We wake up early morning and by early morning it is 4 o'clock for us, amma is so strict in this. A freezing cold water bath, new dresses, pongal celebrations before 6 o'clock (its tradition that the pongal should flow before or by the sun rised), a steaming plate of pongal with some hot crisp vadas is how we celebrate the day. Lunch is the traditional steamed rice, sambar, aviyal, koorka poriyal,vada and payasam in a banana leaf.
This is baby munchkins' first Pongal and hence it is the traditional pongal celebrations for us. Shopping is done, pots cleaned and wiped, kolam design finalised and everything is set to go.

Posting a recipe for this Pongal was never in my list. The original plan was a post consolidating all the Pongal recipes available in my space. Then I got a mail from a reader asking for the Kalkandu baath/pongal recipe. I have heard about this from my MIL other than that I had no idea about the dish. And then I came across a TV program featuring Chef Jacob (RIP to him. They still telecast his shows. Money-minded *****s). He didn't add moong dhal to the dish and this is his way.

~*What U Need*~ Raw Rice / Paccharisi - 1/2 cup Sugar Candy/Kalkandu - 1/2 cup or 50 gms Water - 2 cups Ghee - 2 tbsps or more Broken Cashews - 2 tbsp Raisins - 2 tbsp Elaichi - 1/4 tsp

How I made it:
Powder the kalkandu and keep aside. This step is purely optional. The heat itself melts the kalkandu. Wash rice and soak for half an hour. Drain rice from water and in a pressure cooker, add 2 cups of water along with the rice and cook for 4-5 whistles. Let pressure release by self. After done, mash it. If the water has drained fully, then add 1/4 water and cook over low heat. Add the sugar candy and allow to melt.

Add the elaichi powder and cook to desired consistency. Heat ghee in a saucepan, add the raisins and cashews and cook till puffy and brown. Add this to the rice, mix well and remove from heat.

Serve hot!!!

** My Notes:
** You could use 1/2 cup milk also
** You can add 2 tbsp of roasted moongdhal when pressure cooking the rice.
** Increase quantity of sugar candy and ghee if needed.

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(Amma Cooks) Athirasam / Adhirasam - Diwali Sweet Recipes

Adhirasam is another traditional sweet which amma makes at home for every diwali. Its a long process atleast at our home as amma makes the dough way ahead of diwali and allows it to ferment atleast for 3 days, says the more it ferments, the tastier it turns up. When we were kids, appa usually gets this in 100s from a relative of us. I still remember the disastrous adventure that amma had in the kitchen when she attempted this for the first time. She went wrong with the jaggery syrup consistency and so the adhirasams disintegrated as soon as they were dropped into the hot oil and we were left with adhirasam thool. That was her first and last attempt.

My chithi makes perfect adhirasams and she never goes wrong. They come out whole and alive from the oil and they taste out of the world too. It was she who convinced amma to give it a second chance and under her watchful eyes amma tucked up her sleeves to give it a second try... She went good and succeeded atlast to get a batch of whole, crispy, yummy adhirasams and since then she has never turned back. She makes them for every diwali. She usually shapes them like medhuvadas but I have seen many recipes which look like discs too...

We like to munch on them when they are hot out of the oil. Warm, crispy on the out, soft on the inside is how we like it and so the first batch often disappears as soon as they are out of the kadai. They keep god for 7 to 10 days when stored in air tight containers.

~*What U Need*~ Rice flour – 2 cups Jaggery – 1 cup, grated Cardamom powder – 1/4 tsp Water – to make a syrup Ghee - 1 tbsp Oil to deep fry

How I she Made it:
Take a heavy bottomed vessel, add jaggery, few tbsps of water and heat till the jaggery melts. Strain through a sieve to remove the impurities. Pour back into the kadai and boil till you get soft ball consistency (which means if you put little syrup in cold water, it will not dissolve and when you roll it with fingers you should be able to make a ball out of it. Remove from flame and add cardamom powder to it and mix well.

Sprinkle rice flour quickly little by little and stir to make a smooth and soft dough of chapathi dough consistency. Grease another bowl with ghee, transfer the mixture to it and pat the remaining ghee on top of it. Allow the mixture to rest for 1 or 2 days. The more it ferments, the tastier the adhirasam. The mixture keeps good for 1 week at room temperature.
Heat oil in a kadai, take a small lemon sized ball, flatten it on a greased plastic sheet into discs or you can also make them like vadas. Deep fry one by one over low-medium flame until they turn brown in color. Remove and drain the excess oil on kitchen towel. Bring to room temperature and store in air tight containers.

Enjoy these yummy adhirasams!!!

** My Notes:
** When you are ready to fry the adhirasams, check the consistency of the dough. When you make balls and flatten them, it should not break.
** If you think it has become very hard add a couple of tbsp of milk to the mixture and knead to a soft dough.
** We make adhirasams like medhu vadas but you can also make them like discs.

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(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!!!

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(Amma Cooks) Omapodi / Ompodi / Sev ~ Diwali Snacks

Okay so I think you would have read the blog title and would have an idea on whose recipe this is. Yes, its amma's. I suck at making traditional recipes and hence when amma comes over to visit us she makes loads of snacks like this, murukku, rosette cookies, diamond cuts and many more. When she came over for Diwali, I knew that she would come loaded with snacks as it was the festive season and that is how she turned up. So you are gonna see an authentic "Amma cooks" series for the next week.
Since it was done by amma, I will not be able to put up the step wise pictorial for this series. But if anytime in the future, I pick up the courage to try them on my own, I will surely update these recipes.
So lets move on to the first in the series, Ompodi, a crunchy snack loved by adults and kids equally. I love to have this plain or topped on chaats or dump loads on to hot black tea, allow them to soak for 5 mins and then eat em. I know it sounds bizzare but thats how I we love it.

~*What U Need*~ Besan flour - 1 cup Rice flour - 2 tbsp Ajwain(Omam) - 1 tsp Hot oil - 1 tbsp Salt - to taste Oil - for deep frying

How I Made it:
Dry roast ajwain for 2 mins till a nice aroma comes. Soak this in 2 tbsp warm water for 15 mins. Grind and strain this. Set the water aside. Sieve besan flour and rice flour into a mixing bowl. Add the ajwain water, hot oil and required salt and mix it. Adding water little by little, form a soft sticky dough. Fill the dough in your sev press till 3/4th. Heat oil and press the dough starting from the corners like a murukku finishing in the middle. Once cooked on one side, flip and cook till the bubbles cease. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Drain in tissue paper, cool and store in airtight containers.

Serve with tea or top it on your favorite chaats.

** My Notes:
** Check if the oil is hot by dropping a small piece of dough in the oil. If it immediately comes to the top, then the oil is ready.
** You can use a finer press too.

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Sabudana / Sago / Javvarisi Vadai ~ A guest post for Sumanarthy's Kitchen | Navrathiri Vrat Recipes

When Sumanarthy of Sumanarthy's kitchen asked me to do a guest blog at her space, I did not have any reason to tell no. And when she said that the theme was navratri special, I was super excited since I had wanted to try the sabudana vada that is traditionally made for navrathri vrat / fasting season and what better time than this. The recipe is simple to put together but be sure to use good and fresh sago pearls or else the vada tends to burst when put in hot oil. So why wait, head over to her space for the recipe of this crispy snack.

With this the navarathiri special recipes here @ MCTR for the year 2012 comes to an end.

Updated on 12/10/2012
Re-posting here at MCTR

This makes a super crunchy snack for your tea-time. Crispy outside and soft inside, you can never say no to this. I would suggest eating this fresh out off the kadai as they tend to lose their crunchiness after some time.

~*What U Need*~ Sabudana / Javvarisi / Sago / Tapioca pearls - 1/2 cup Potato - 1, medium Roasted peanuts - 1/4 cup Rice flour - 1 tbsp Green chillies - 2 nos, finely chopped Chopped coriander leaves - 1 tbsp Curry leaves - 1 sprig Cumin seeds - 1/4 teaspoon Salt - to taste Oil - to deep fry

How I Made it:
Wash sago pearls and soak in water for 4 to 6 hours. Drain and set aside. Pressure cook the potato for 2 whistles. Cool, peel the skin and mash well. Peel the skin off the peanuts and blend to a coarse powder.
Take the soaked sago pearls in a mixing bowl along with mashed potato and peanuts. Add rice flour, green chillies, curry leaves, coriander leaves, cumin seeds and salt. Mix well. Make small round patties from the mixture and arrange them in a plate.

Heat oil in a kadai and fry the vadas till golden brown. Drain the excess oil using paper towel.

Serve hot with tea / coffee.

** My Notes:
If the mixture is not binding together, add extra rice flour and mix.

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