Pasta Potato Salad

Very easy salad. Ticks all the boxes. Easy, looks beautiful and filling.
My husband was saying that pasta and potato do not mix well. But THIS recipe proves him wrong!

Ingredients:
Potato - 1, cubed
Garlic - 5 cloves, crushed
Capsicum / bell pepper - 1, cubed
Tomato - 2, medium, cubed
Mushroom - 100 gms
Pasta - 1 cup
Chilly Flakes - 1 tsp or more
Olive oil - 4 tbsp
Spring Onion - 1 sprig , green part chopped fine
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Method:
Boil 4 cups of water with 1 tsp salt.
Add the potato and cook for  5 minutes, till it softens but retains shape.
Drain and save the water.
In the same water, boil the pasta until 'al dente'. Drain and keep aside.
Heat 3 tbsp olive oil and add the cleaned mushroom + 2 cloves garlic.
Cook for 2 minutes covered. Then open and cook till it starts browning.
Now make a well in the centre and add the capsicum. Wait till you hear the skin popping. Then toss.
Season with salt.
Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside.
Now in the same frying pan, add the rest of the oil and add the potato.
When it starts browning, add the garlic and chilly flakes.
When the garlic gets golden, add the tomato and saute till it softens.
Add in the capsicum, mushroom and cooked pasta.
Taste. Add more salt, if necessary and mix well.
Turn off flame and add the lemon juice.
Serve garnished with spring onion greens.

Thayir milagai / Curd chillies

Every typical Tamil Brahmin household will make full use of the summer sun to make various sun dried savories and pickles. Drying green mango simply with salt or salt + chilli powder, Drying ripe mango juice to make 'manga therai', making vadaam, karodam,....
Anything which could be dried - bitter gourd, ladies finger, lotus stem...All were dried.
Everything for the rainy day.

How can I forget Chilly?
Special varieties of chilly are sourced from places (as far away as Palani) and then over the course of several days, dried under hot sun.
During the day, the chilly dry under the hot sun and at night time they soak in the cool curd!

Somehow this was so true of me and my cousins when we were kids!
We too played under the hot sun - became dark and thin like twigs, and then cooled off with liters of cool thayir / moru. By the time vacation got over, we had put on few inches of height and a few kilos in weight!!

Ingredients:
Green chilly (preferably round short variety) - 3 kgs
Thick Curd - 1 liter
Salt (preferably sea salt) to taste

Method:
Wash the green chilly well and dry them with a clean cloth.
Mix the curd and salt.

Make a small slit in each green chilly and add them to the curd. Do this in the evening.

Next morning, take a clean flat plate and place each chilly on it without any excess curd. Save the excess curd.
Dry it under the sun.
In the evening, immerse the semi-dried chilly into the left over curd.
Next morning, dry only the chilly under the sun.
Repeat the immersing process until you finish all the curd.
Then continue drying the chilly until they become crisp.

Notice that the green chilly is not green anymore.
Store in air tight container and use as required.

How to use:
Take out the required number of dried milagai.
Heat ample oil in a kadai and deep fry the chilly till it becomes deep brown.
If you want to maintain it's crispiness, transfer WITH the oil (after cooling) into a container with lid.
Even if you store it without the oil, it tastes good, but will become soft, not crisp.

Tender Mango pickle / Kanni manga achaar / Kadumanga / vadu maangai / mavadu

Pickling, as I have said before, is a fine art. Getting the balance right is a tight rope walk. 

I have shared many pickle recipes on this site..Whether it be the guilt free Ginger-Green Chilli Pickle, every season Tomato pickle, Gooseberry pickle or the ordinary Mango pickle, the key is to get the balance that suits your family right. How hot / spicy do you want it? How much oil does your family like?

But some traditional recipes like Avakkai manga and Mango thokku have strict measurements you have to follow.

Similarly, if you want to make pickle with tender mangoes, you follow the traditional recipe.

We went trekking about 2 months back to Illikkakallu and on our way back we saw a man selling tender mangoes at Rs.50 per kilo which was half the price of what was available at the Ernakulam market.

I bought 3 kilograms and that night I soaked all the mangoes, stalks and all, into a bucket filled with water.

Wash the mangoes twice with the stalk and then start the process.

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Below you will find that I have used a plastic container. This is a strict no-no. That is for photograph / illustrative purposes only. I shifted the mangoes after I took my photographs. You have to use ceramic or glass containers. Traditionally we use a Bharani.

Time frame before you can relish the pickle

Tender mango + salt = 10-14 days

After mixing in spices = minimum 45 days

Total number of days = 60 days

Ingredients:

Tender mango - 3 kgs, with stalk

Sea salt - measured to mango in ratio of 4:1, That means for every 4 measure of mango, use 1 measure salt.

Red chilly - 100 gms

Mustard seeds -50 gms

Kayam / asafoetida - 10 gms

Methi seeds / uluva - 1 tbsp

Method:

After you wash the mangoes with the stalk, you have to remove the stalk from the mangoes. A milky white strong smelling liquid squirts out when you break the stalk.It has to be saved as it is very helpful in preserving the pickle. It is called 'chona' in malayalam and can cause burns to the skin. So be careful. 

Below is a pictorial of how to go about the stalk removal.

Your hand will feel greasy and slimy.

Now measure the mangoes and keep count.

For every 4 measure of mangoes, you need to add 1 measure of sea salt.

I had 6 measures, so I used 4 and 1/2 measures of salt.

Now layer the container with salt and mangoes.

Keep covered and in a cool dry place for more than 1 week.

When you open, it will look like this.

The mangoes are all shriveled and all the salt has mixed in with the water released by osmosis.

Now we begin pickling.

Dry roast the mustard seeds, red chilly and methi seeds separately.

Use minimum oil to fry the asafoetida.

Start by first powdering the dry fried mustard.

Then add in the methi seeds, asafoetida.

Last add the Red chilly.

Powder as finely as possible.

Drain the salt water / brine from the tender mango.

If you feel your spices powder is not smooth enough, use a little of the drained salt water to grind it into a fine paste.

Now mix the ground spices with the brine.

Mix this back with the mangoes.

Now immerse a neat cloth in gingelly / til oil and place it on top of the pickle.

Seal the jar and keep in cool dry place for 45 days.

And after 45 days..............

Transfer into a small quantity into a clean glass container.

Beetroot Rasam

I had made a delicious cake using beetroot - Beetroot Chocolate Cake, and I had some leftover beetroot puree. Since it does not stay well even in the fridge, we had to consume it as soon as possible. I did yoy with the idea of making the 'pink soup' or beetroot chaas, but rasam won.
Maybe I should have made red poori with this. Hmm.. next time.
This rasam is similar to the pineapple rasam , but instead of using lemon juice for the tanginess, we use tamarind pulp.

Ingredients:
Beetroot Puree - 1 cup
(Peel and cube 1 large or 2 small beetroot. Cook in a covered vessel with just enough water.Keep adding more water, as required. Once it gets cooked, cool the beetroot and puree.)
Tamarind - 1 lime sized ball
Tomato - 2
Pressure cooked tur dal - 3 tbsp
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida powder - 1 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Jeera / cumin powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander leaf - 2 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Curry leaf - 1 sprig

Method:
Squeeze out 2 glasses of tamarind pulp.
Into this add the tomato, salt, turmeric powder, asafoetida, Jeera powder, coriander powder, pepper powder and chilly powder.
Bring it to a rolling boil and reduce flame for 5 minutes.
Once the tomato gets cooked, add the tur dal, 1 cup water and bring to a boil.
Turn off flame.
Once it cools, beat and sieve this mixture.
Add the beetroot puree and taste.
Adjust seasoning.
Keep the rasam back on fire and wait for it to froth.
Splutter the mustard and jeera in ghee and add the curry leaf. Add this to the rasam.
Serve hot garnished with coriander leaf.

Vegetarian American Chili

If you read / watch American movies /books, CHILI is a popular dish which makes an appearance ever so often. Almost a national dish like Doughnuts, Mashed Potato and French fries. If you want to read more about American Chili, click here.

And when I searched the web for the recipe, almost all were non-vegetarian with beef or venison. Then I found some vegan stuff. The following recipe is my take of all the recipes concocted together in my head. Maybe this not even chili. But who cares, we loved it.Until, I taste original American Chili, this will be the recipe I follow!!
Americans seem to make this in a 'slow-cooker'. They set the timer before they go for work, come back home and it is ready. Can you do that in India where you never know when the current will go! Plus we have the pressure cooker!! So that is another reason I loved this dish - it is a one-pot dish. VERY EASY to make. Just chop everything and add. And since we are vegetarians, I did not have to fry anything.
Yipee...NO OIL!
And it can be made vegan if you omit the cheese!
I think next time I will make mashed potato and pour this on top.

Ingredients:
Red Kidney beans / Rajma* - 1 cup, soaked overnight
Carrot - 1 large
Garlic - 3 pods
Tomato - 5 medium
Capsicum / bell pepper -1
Onion - 1 medium
salt
Chilly flakes -1 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tbsp
Jeera / Cumin powder - 1 tbsp

Garnish:
Cheese
Spring Onion

*I did not have ample rajma when I made this, so I cheated and added some chick peas too. Promise to change the photo when I make with only rajma!

Method:
Pressure cook the Rajma till nearly done.
Now add in all the other ingredients and 1 cup of water and pressure cook for 3 whistles.
Simmer for another 10 minutes.
Open after the pressure gets released.
Mash a bit. If the gravy is too thick, add some water and boil once. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve hot garnished with cheese and spring onion on top.

Carrot Dates Cake

My husband asked me last Sunday , if I had any cake to have with his coffee. "Some carrot or Date cake?"
I had baked none and I felt bad. So yesterday I baked a carrot - dates cake.

Preheat oven to 180C for 10 minutes

Ingredients:
Carrot grated - 1 cup
Dates - 1/2 cup , chopped
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Egg - 3
Sugar - 1 cup
Oil / Butter - 3/4 cup
Milk - 1/2 cup

Method:
Grease, line and again grease a cake tin.
Sieve together the flour and soda.
Take some of this flour and dust the carrot and dates, so that they do not sink while baking.

Beat the oil and sugar well.
Then beat in eggs one at a time.
Now add in the flour and fold well.
At last add the carrot and dates.
If the mixture is too thick, add the milk little at a time to loosen.
Pour batter into the prepared tin.

Bake for 45 minutes.
Insert a tooth pick in the center to see if it is baked.
Otherwise bake for a further 5-10 minutes.
Cool, unmould and serve.