Carrot Dosa

Ingredients:

Raw Rice - 1-1/2 cups
Carrots - 4 (chopped)
Red Chillies - 5
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1 (medium sized, optional)
Rock Salt - 1-1/2 tsp


To Temper:

Oil - 1 tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves - Few


Method:

Wash and soak raw rice in 3 cups of water for a minimum of 1 hour.

Grind the soaked rice along with chopped carrots, red chillies, cumin seeds, chopped onion (optional), and salt using the soaked water fully.  Grind to a smooth paste.  The dosa batter will be dilute.  Add more water if necessary.

Then, temper mustard seeds and curry leaves in oil and add to the dosa batter.

Take a ladle full of dosa batter and pour on a hot tawa smeared with little oil in a circular motion starting from the outer edge moving towards the center as done for Rava dosas.
  
Close with lid and allow to cook.  After a minute or so, when the dosa starts leaving the edges, turn over, and drizzle oil all around.  Allow to cook for a minute.  It should not be roasted too much unless you like them to be very crispy.  These dosas taste good if soft and not too crisp.

Remove from the tawa and serve hot immediately with an accompaniment of your choice.  I served with Red Onion Chutney which is always very handy for me.

Soft and thin dosas with the goodness of carrots is a quick and easy breakfast idea.

Notes:

Tamarind, little more than gooseberry size, can be added while grinding the dosa batter if you relish the tangy taste of the tamarind.  I did not add.

Carrots can be replaced with beetroots to get red colored dosas.

This dosa should be poured immediately after grinding and should not be allowed to ferment.

Raw rice can be substituted with millets - thinai, samai, varagu etc. either half and half (half of raw rice and half of millets) or in full.

When doing on a "no onion" day, avoid the onion while grinding the ingredients.  

Drumstick (Murungaikaai) Soup

Recipe Source

Dietician Ambika Sekar


Ingredients

Drumstick - 1 (cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces)

Pepper - 1/2 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Tomato - 1 (cut into 4 pieces)

Onion - 1 (cut into 4 pieces)

Garlic - 2

Roasted Barley - 1/2 tbsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Scraped Coconut - 1 tbsp

Water - 1 to 2 cups

Procedure

In a large bowl, add all the above ingredients and cook in pressure cooker for 5 minutes or 1 whistle.

When the pressure from the cooker is completely released, remove the bowl from the cooker and strain the contents in a colander.

Allow to cool.

Remove the drumsticks to a separate plate and scrape the pulp and discard the peel.

In a mixer jar or blender, grind together the scraped drumstick pulp and other strained ingredients to a smooth paste adding enough vegetable stock drained out of the strainer.

Add more water if necessary.

Strain the soup through the colander once again and bring it to a boil.

Serve hot.

Notes:

Instead of scraped coconut and water, you can substitute with 1/2 cup milk.

This soup helps avoiding anemia and calcium deficiency.

Raw Banana (Vazhakkai) Spicy Podimas

Adapted From

South Indian Vegetarian Classic Lunch Recipes by Mallika Badrinath


Ingredients

Raw Banana/Vazhakkai - 1 
Onion - 1 (finely chopped)
Oil - To fry
Salt - To taste
Garlic - 2 flakes
Green Chillies - 2
Grated Fresh Coconut - 1 tbsp


Procedure

Steam banana with skin in the pressure cooker for about 10 minutes in medium flame.

Peel the outer skin and allow to cool completely.

Once completely cool, grate it.

Meanwhile, pound together garlic, green chillies, and grated fresh coconut coarsely.

In a kadai, heat about 2 tsp of oil and fry chopped onions till crisp.

Add the grated banana and the pound ingredients and fry till the raw smell is lost and the mixture turns golden brown.

Sprinkle salt and mix thoroughly well.

Remove from fire and serve with hot steamed rice.

Notes:

Save the peeled outer skin of the banana to make chutneys and curries.  They are highly rich in anti-cancerous properties.  You can use it to make the Raw Banana Peel Stir Fry.

Mullu Murukku

Source:

Mrs. Saraswathi Raj

Ingredients:

Roasted Rice Flour/Idiyappam Flour - 4 cups

Gram Flour - 2 cups

Roasted gram (pottukadalai) flour - 1/2 cup

Moong Dhal (payaru paruppu) flour - 1/2 cup

Salt - 2 to 3 tsp

Red Chilli Powder - 3 to 4 tsp

Asafoetida Powder - 1/4 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

Omam - 1 tsp (optional)

Butter - Lemon sized ball

Water - As needed

Oil - To deep fry


Procedure: 

1.  Mix all the flours together well.

2.  Add salt, red chilli powder, asafoetida, cumin seeds (jeeragam) and/or omam.  Mix well together so that all the ingredients are uniformly mixed all over.  Adjust salt and chilli powder according to your taste.

3.   Add butter to this mixed powder mixture and mix well with your fingertips all throughout so that a crumbly texture is formed uniformly.   You can around 50 to 60 gm of butter for this quantity.  Adding too much of butter will distort the consistency of the murukku, so beware.  Alternatively, you can heat up 1/2 cup of oil and add to the flour mix instead of butter (if you do not have butter or do not want to use it) and mix it up uniformly.

4.  Divide this flour mixture into 3 to 4 parts and keep aside.

5.  Take one part of the powder mixture and add water as needed by sprinkling little by little at a time to make a soft dough.  Make into medium sized balls for easy handling.

6.  Heat oil in a medium sized deep frying pan.  Drop a small ball of the dough to check if the oil is hot enough to fry the murukkus.  If the dough rises to the top immediately with a sizzle, the oil is ready for frying.

7.  Use your murukku mould fit with the star nozzle and greased with little oil on the inside.  Fill with 2-3 balls of the dough until 3/4th full and press the mould directly on hot oil (simmer the flame) spreading all over the kadai.  Deep fry till golden brown in color and the sizzling sound stops.  (Do not over fry, else it will get burnt.)  Repeat the same for the rest of the portions of the mixture.

8.  Drain in a tissue paper.

9.  Cool and store in an airtight container.

This recipe is one my mother-in-law taught us and her murukkus are so crispy and oil-free on touch.  She is a versatile cook and follows the traditional recipes that are tasty and healthy too.

Notes:

To make roasted Rice Flour - Wash and soak raw rice in water for about 1 hour.  Strain water and spread in on a cloth and allow to dry.  Do not allow to dry completely.  When it is half dry, machine it to a fine flour.  This step can be made at home by powdering the semi-dry rice in a mixer grinder and sifting it.  When the flour is still wet, roast the rice flour little at a time (say about a cup or 2) until the moisture is completely removed and the flour is dry.  Try drawing lines with this flour.  If you could draw the lines without a break, the roasted rice flour is ready.

Roasted Gram (Pottukadalai) Flour -  Powder the necessary quantity of roasted gram in a mixer grinder and sieve.  You can sun dry or roast for a while in a kadai to make the pottukadalai crispier and making powdering easier.

Moong Dhal (Payaru paruppu) Flour - Dry fry the moong dhal in a kadai till it slightly changes color.  Cool and powder in a mixer grinder.  Then sieve and use.

Raw Banana Peel Stir Fry/Ethakka Tholi Thoran

Source:

Sachu's Kitchen


Ingredients:

Raw Banana Peel (finely chopped) - 1 cup

Buttermilk - 1 tbsp

Van payar/Thatta payar (Red Cow Beans) - 1 tbsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

Grated Coconut - 2 to 3 tbsp

Green Chillies - 3 (medium)

Small Onions - 1 or 2

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Curry Leaves - 1 sprig

Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Urad Dhal - 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida - 1 pinch

Coriander Leaves (chopped finely) - 1 tbsp

Oil - 2 to 3 tsp

Lemon Juice - Few drops


Method:

1.  Mix buttermilk with around 2 cups of water and wash the chopped banana peel in this.

2.  Strain and pressure cook the chopped banana peel, washed vanpayar, turmeric powder in little water for 10 minutes (3 to 4 whistles).

3.  Once done, strain off the excess water and keep aside.

4.  Grind together coarsely the grated coconut, cumin seeds, curry leaves, small onions, and green chillies.  Do not add water to grind.

5.  In a kadai, heat oil and splutter mustard seeds, ural dhal, and asafoetida.

6.  To this, add the cooked banana peel and beans.  Saute for a minute or so.

7.  Add the coarsely ground coconut mixture along with salt and mix well.  Cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

8.  Once done, switch off the gas and sprinkle chopped coriander leaves and lime juice and mix.

This is a best accompaniment for hot steaming rice.

This is a very common and famous dish in the Kerala cuisine.  Though you can use any raw banana peel, the peel of nendhran kaai is tastier when used in this recipe.