Payatham Maavu Laddu / Mung dhall Laddu / Nei Urundai

Season's greetings and Deepavali wishes to all the readers!!!

Mung dhall is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol. Good source of Dietary Fiber, Protein, etc. Sprouted beans are too healthy for those who watch on weight.

This laddu is very easy and simple to make, but too tasty. 


Ingredients:
Powdered Passi Paruppu/ Mung dhall/ Green gram - 2 cups
Powdered Sugar - 2 cups (can lessen to 1 1/2 cups based on the type of sugar used, brown or white)
Melted Ghee - 1/4 to 1/3 cup
Cashew nuts (broken into small pieces) - 1-2 tablespoons
Cardamom - 3-4 (powder the seeds)

Method:
Sieve the powder, dry roast it on a low flame, in a clean non stick pan, until the raw smell goes off. Powder slightly changes to golden brown, then switch and allow it to cool.

Sieve the powdered sugar, cardamom powder and add it to it.

Heat 1-2 tablespoons of ghee and fry the cashew nuts to golden brown, and add to it.

Add ghee in smaller amounts and mix well, until you can make small balls of laddu.

Preparation time: 30-40 minutes
Makes 20-25 small lemon sized laddus.


Note: 
To prepare the mung dhall powder at home, dry roast the seeds, cool it, grind it to a fine powder and sieve it.

Sweet Maida Appam for Karthikai Deepam

Karthikai Deepam is a festival of lights celebrated in the month of Karthikai(Tamil calendar month which usually falls in November/December) on the full moon day. Celebrated mainly in South India especially, state of Tamilnadu.

Every home is lit with rows of oil-lit mud lamps(Agal Vilakku). For more information, check out here.

We usually clean our house and in the evening, draw rangoli/kolam in front of our houses, decorate it with colour powder or flowers and lit lamps. Special offerings will be prepared for God and worship is done. So this time I made Sweet maida appam and it came out well.

These lamps were lit in our pooja(worship) room. Need to make sure, Thatchu wont hurt her hands, so lit lamps only where she cannot access;)

This dish needs a paniyaram pan for preparing, check the picture here.


Now to the recipe....

Ingredients:
All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup
Semolina (Rawa/Sooji) - 1/4 cup
Jaggery (Vellam) - 1 cup, powdered
Cardamom powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Cashews - 10-12
Raisins - 10-12
Ghee - 2-3 tablespoons
Oil - 1-2 tablespoon, for brushing
Baking powder - 1/4 teaspoon (optional)

Method:
Dissolve powdered jaggery in 1/2 cup of warm water. Filter it to remove the impurities.

Add flour and semolina and make it a thick batter. Add little water if required.

Roast cashews and raisins in ghee and add to it.

Add cardamom powder and mix it well.

Baking powder can be added along with flour or if you don't want to use it, leave the batter aside for 2-3 hours before preparing.

Heat paniyaram pan and brush oil. Add batter to the moulds and fry both sides, until they are dark brown.

Simple dish to make. Serve hot.


Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes 15-20 appams

Krishna Jayanthi & Vinayaga Chathurthi Celebrations - 2009

Both Krishna Jayanthi and Vinayaga Chathurthi are special this year, since this is Thaswika's first festivals. Both the days, she kept me engaged;)



Our little Krishna idols. My MIL was there for Krishna Jayanthi, so she did everything on that day. She made Vadai and payasam.


You can check the recipes in the below links:
Vadai
Payasam


Now to Vinayaga Chathurthi celebrations:



Thaswika kept me busy on that day, she was litte cranky, so was with her till 2 pm. After that I started my cooking and had lunch around 5 pm :(

So didn't do much items. I made rice, capsicum sambhar, dal, potato peas masala, vadai, sweet kozhukattai and salt kozhukattai.

Filling of sweet kozhukattai was left over. So I added rice flour to it and steamed it. It was very nice. Usually, I wont do this, since, once the dough became watery for me. But this time, it came out well.

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 1 cup

Jaggey (Palm sugar) - 1/2 cup, powdered

Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Salt - a pinch

Ghee - 1 tablespoon

Method:

Fry coconut in ghee to golden brown and allow it to cool.

Once it is cool, add powdered jaggery, rice flour, salt, cardamom powder to it and mix well to a thick dough.

No need to add water, since ghee and jaggery will make it watery.

Make small balls or any desired shapes and steam it.

Tasty sweet kozhukattais are ready.

Cooking time : 20 minutes

Serves 3 persons

Will post the recipe of potato peas masala soon.

Sending this sweet kozhukattai to Priti and Purva's Festive Food Event .

Adai, Aviyal & Pookolam

My friend Priyanka is hosting Festive Food Event - Onam this month.

Onam is the state festival of Kerala, South India. It is celebrated in honour of Mahabali, the mythical Asura king of ancient Kerala. This harvest festival falls in August / September.

For more information on Onam festival, please click here.

As promised her, I am submitting the recipe with the PooKolam too;) Pookolam are designs or decorations made with flowers and lamps in front of the houses to invite God. This is my first attempt to it. I couldn't get much flowers, so did it with Orchids and Marigolds. So have a look of it......

I never celebrated Onam, so tried to submit any dish from Kerala cuisine. Here is the famous Aviyal, which is the main dish in the Onam festival meal.

Ingredients:
Vegetables - 2 cups (Mix of carrots, drumsticks(moringa), pumpkin, snakegourd, bottlegourd, radish, raw bananas, beans, yam, etc - I used carrots, yam, beans, snake gourd, bottlegourd - cut into 2 inch long)
Small onions - 4-5
Grated coconut - 1 cup
Cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
Yoghurt (curd) - 1/2 cup
Green chillies - 4
Curry leaves - few
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon (optional)
Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt to taste
Coconut oil or any oil - 1 tablespoon

Method:
Cook vegetables, 2 green chillies, turmeric powder in 1-2 cups of water, until they are soft.

Meanwhile, grind coconut, small onions, 2 chillies, cumin seeds to a fine paste with little water and keep aside.

Once veggies are cooked, add this paste, yoghurt, salt to taste and mix well.

Add water if the gravy is too thick. Put off the flame when it is about to boil.

Heat oil in a small pan and allow mustard seeds to splitter in it. Add curry leaves, fry for a minute and add this to the aviyal.

Aviyal can be had with rice or Paruppu Adai(Kind of pancake made with pulses or grains).

One more look with Adai:


Click here for Adai recipe.


Cooking time - 30 minutes
Serves 2-3 persons