Maladu Recipe(Roasted Gram Ladoo) – Pottukadalai Urundai

Maladu/ Maa ladoo (Fried gram dal laddu Or roasted Gram ladoo in English) is one of the very popular and easiest laddu recipe in South India especially in Tamil nadu. Some people call it as Pottukadalai urundai or pottukadalai ladoo as well. It can be made quickly in few minutes. When I was thinking of some easy Navratri sweets to distribute to the guests, ladoo recipes came to my mind. Ladoo is one of the best crowd pleaser sweets and this maa ladoo is a kids friendly snack, healthy sweet too. I have made this with sugar and nuts. You can even use jaggery, roasted raisins to make it more healthy.Friends, do try this easy laddu recipe during this Navarathri along with a sundal variety.Offer to God and distribute it to your friends along with thamboolam. Ok, Lets check how to make maaladu recipe with step by step pictures.

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Bread Halwa Recipe – How To Make Bread Ka Halwa

Bread halwa came to my mind when I saw few leftover bread slices in my kitchen.I am making this easy halwa recipe for the second time.First time I tried bread halwa without milk by adding sugar syrup and ghee.It was good in taste but not so rich.Then I watched few bread halwa video recipes where they added khoya or condensed milk instead of milk. I felt that If I had added Khova/mawa, the taste would have been much better. But this time I prepared bread halwa with milk and followed a different procedure as Khoya is not easily available in my place. I will make a post adding khoya soon. For this recipe, I followed Tarla Dalal and used less milk & ghee when compared to other bread halwa recipes on net.It came out really well and satisfied my expectancy.Its process and making is so easy.I am sure its a rich, quick, Indian style dessert recipe made with easily available ingredients to serve your surprise guests and a good choice to use leftover dried bread slices.Kids would love it for sure.You should eat it hot or warm to enjoy its real taste. If you want to make a super rich and tasty bread halwa, you can deep fry the bread pieces in ghee just like double ka meetha or add ground cashew+ badam paste to the halwa.For variations, you can try this halwa with rusk and bread crumbs too. But adjust the quantity of milk and sugar. Ok, Lets see how to make bread halwa recipe with step by step images and a video.
Check out my Shahi tukda recipe – Low calorie version !

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Cooking Tips For Working Women – Indian Cooking Ideas

Friends, this post is all about useful cooking tips for Indian working women, beginners in cooking, bachelors, stay at home moms with babies in hand and for house wives who wish to finish the morning chores quickly and easily without any tension .These pre-preparation ideas would help you feel relaxed and manage to do quick and easy cooking during the busy, hectic weekdays. Recent days I have been getting mails to share some simple lunch menu ideas for busy weekdays by spending less time in kitchen. Very soon I will start a lunch menu series suggesting some easy and healthy Indian lunch recipes for daily cooking. Before that, I wanted to make a post about useful cooking tips & pre preparations to make the job easier. As I have worked for an year after marriage, I have seen & heard from my colleagues about the difficulties in managing home and career.Time management plays a major role here. For me, there was no problem at all as I was in a joint family. My in-laws did all the household chores and supported us very well.In this present day nuclear family setup, many people does not get the luxury of moral & physical support of elders to share cooking and other household responsibilities. So it would be really tiresome and stressful if we don’t plan things ahead. I hope these simple, handy tips and tricks would  be helpful to make the kitchen chores easier and stress free. Don’t worry, these pre-preparations won’t eat your weekend’s relaxing hours. You may need to spend just 2-3 hours to finish all these works or you can get the help of your servant maid to finish this job quickly. This will save lot of time during busy weekdays. Before going to this post, I must thank my friend Shalini for helping me to frame these points as she is regularly following these things.Love you lots dear . She also shared some pictures from her kitchen. I have made them as a collage and given below. Friends, I hope this post would be useful to plan & manage things easier. Working women and bachelors, please share your valuable tips you follow in your daily cooking in the comments section. It would be of great help for the people who read this post. Thanks in advance. Ok, now lets see some smart cooking tips and secrets to be a super wife and mom.This post is with more & more of stories and essays. Please bear with me.

DISCLAIMER : All the points I have shared below is based on the ideas I got from my working friends. I have also gone through some websites and magazines for more tips. Please modify or skip the suggestions as per your wish & need. You need to have a refrigerator, pressure cooker and some good air tight containers to make & store the dishes.

SOME USEFUL GADGETS

According to me a 2 burner gas stove, 3 small pressure cookers, few ladles, mixing bowl and a mixer grinder is enough to cook even for 10 people. Pressure cooker is my biggest strength. It helps to cook any food quickly and easily. I have shared the pictures of  my cookers above for your reference.I use 3 Hawkins small sized pressure cookers ( 1.5 liters and 2 liters) and one 5 liter cooker. I use 2 of them for lunch preparation and 1 for cooking breakfast. I use the big sized cooker only for my guest. I will share how I use these cookers for quick cooking in my upcoming lunch menu series.

Pic courtesy – My friend Shalini

PLAN AHEAD

Make a weekly timetable for the menu according to your family's preferences. Keep a list of all the dishes you want to cook in the following week and write down all the required ingredients so that you can purchase all the groceries and vegetables as per the list.If you don’t like to spend time in grocery shopping, go for a monthly purchase. Refer my “Monthly Grocery list” post for the idea. You can buy vegetables once in 10 days and store them in refrigerator.  I follow this every month to save my time spent in shopping.

GRIND THE BATTER

This point is especially for people who rely on Idli dosa recipes. Grind Idli dosa batter, Appam batter, Adai batter during weekend and store it for a week. You can even make millet idli, dosa batter and store it for one day. Idli, dosa batter is a real savior in Indian cooking. You can make idli, dosa, uthappam, Paniyaram for breakfast and dinner as well. Similarly you can also grind and keep batter for dosa varieties like Set dosa, sponge dosa, poha dosa etc. It will help you for sure. My friend Shalini's maid helps her to grind varieties of idli and dosa batters during every Sunday for the whole week's use. Even though I am a house wife, I too grind all the batters during weekends and use it mainly for the week's breakfast because I don't want to hit my head thinking about breakfast recipes during busy morning hours. Generally I make Instant dosa varieties, Instant idli varieties like oats idli, rava idli, upma recipes like wheat rava upma, vegetable rava kichdi, millet recipes, Ragi roti, Phulka or stuffed paratha varieties for my dinner. I try to avoid consuming rice at night.

Check out my Idli varieties post for varieties of idli,dosa batter. Check out my easy dosa batter recipe too ! For other options, you can make instant dosa varieties, upma varieties for breakfast or dinner.

MAKE ROTI DOUGH

Make roti dough well in advance and refrigerate it. The kneaded dough will remain fresh for at least 2-3 days. You can make use of this dough for making roti , poori and stuffed paratha. Remember to store in an air tight box. Take only the required quantity of dough from the box and immediately refrigerate the leftover dough.  But try to use it within 3 days.

PREPARE THE SIDE DISHES

When we have idli, dosa batter in our hand, we start to hit our head for making side dishes. That’s quite natural. So prepare some side dishes like tomato thokku without onion, tomato thokku with onion, onion tomato chutney, garlic chutney, Raw onion chutney, Idli Podi/Gun powder, green chutney without coconut based on your preference and store in an air tight box. It will stay good for a week. You can use these chutneys as side dish for idli, dosa, appam and roti or use it as sandwich spread too. I usually make onion tomato chutney and stock it for my daughter’s breakfast and lunch box. For roti, you can prepare side dishes like capsicum-tomato curry, tomato thokku, pickles and even jam for your kids.  You can even cook Dal for making dal tadka or dal curry and refrigerate for 3 days. If you love to have pasta, you can make white sauce & pasta sauce ahead and store them.

Check out my 50 chutney recipes for more ideas.

For quick lunch, you can prepare and store Pulikachal paste/Puliyogare paste, Lemon rice paste, coriander thokku, thogayal varieties, Vathakuzhambu paste and podi/powder varieties like Dal powder/Paruppu podi, Dhania/coriander seeds powder, Angaya podi, Sundakkai podi, Poondu podi/Garlic powder, coconut podi etc.

Kuzhambu varieties like vatha kuzhambu, poondu kuzhambu, milagu kuzhambu, kara kuzhambu, tomato gravy, brinjal gravy stays good for even 2 -3 days with or without refrigeration. So you can make them once or twice in a week apart from sambar and rasam.

Check out my 30+ kuzhambu varieties post to get the links for the above recipes.

READYMADE BREAKFAST MIX

Roast rava and keep in bulk. It will help you to make upma quickly. You can also make Rava/sooji upma mix, Poha mix, pongal mix, rice upma mix in advance and store in the freezer. It helps you to make your breakfast or dinner quickly and easily. Always keep a packet of bread in stock for making quick sandwich or toast.

CHOP THE VEGETABLES AND FREEZE

Vegetables like carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower, sweet corn, cluster beans, spinach, broad beans can be diced or chopped & frozen for a week.If you want to use the vegetable for the next day morning, you can simply refrigerate the chopped veggies. Do not freeze them. Usually I keep frozen peas and frozen corn always in stock. Grate 2 coconuts and store 3/4th of the quantity in a zip lock cover.Deep freeze it. Store the remaining coconut in refrigerator. Just thaw it for few minutes before use or use warm water to grind the coconut. Take the required quantity of coconut, refrigerate it and keep the remaining in freezer immediately. De-stem coriander, curry leaves and mint leaves and store in an air tight box. Mostly I use palak leaves during weekdays as it is easy for cleaning, chopping and cooking. During weekends, I buy other greens/Keerai varieties, clean them and store in a ziplock cover.Do not chop onions and store. It attracts more bacteria when its cut.

Apart from chopping veggies, you can make some lemon juice and store in a glass bottle, peel garlic cloves, Peel &finely chop ginger, peel small onions and keep them ready for usage. But remember to store the chopped vegetables in a clean zip lock cover and refrigerate.

COOK PUREES, PASTE & LENTILS

Cook toor dal or moong dal in large quantity, refrigerate/freeze and store in a box for 2-3 days use. Take the required amount and make sambar instantly. Soak beans like rajma, dried peas and chana for 8 hours and refrigerate them for later use. You can easily cook a quick meal like pulao,  biryani or gravies & even make a healthy salad with it. Sprout green gram and other legumes based on your liking and keep them in the freezer. So whenever you want to have some salad, you can semi cook and have them ready.
Grind and keep tomato puree, homemade tamarind paste, ginger-garlic paste, onion paste, sauce varieties ready in hand. You can also keep some readymade seasoning, green chilli paste.Some people keep some sauteed, browned onions too. I have seen some of my friends making onion-tomato puree adding masala powders and keep the base ready for making North Indian gravies. If you have enough time in hand, you can even make two to three varieties of curries and refrigerate them.
Vegetables like potato, cauliflower, sweet corn and peas can be boiled in advance and refrigerated for later use. You can even cook pasta and store them in the fridge.

Keep curd, buttermilk, paneer, cheese and other essential milk products ready in hand so that you can use it for raita, buttermilk/ Chaas, lassi, gravies and sandwich.

TO DO LIST
I have summarized the above points and shared a TO-DO list for weekend. Do this according to your preference and time in hand.

1. Grind idli, dosa batter and other batters if grinding.
2. Make chapathi/ roti dough.
3. Soak pulses & lentils like rajma, chana/ kabuli, peas.
4. Chop all the required vegetables. Make frozen peas and sweet corn.
5. De stem green leaves/Spinach, coriander leaves, mint leaves and curry leaves.
6. Cook toor dal and moong dal in large quantity for making sambar & dal for roti.
7. Make Tamarind paste, Tomato puree, Puliyogare paste, Tomato thokku, homemade powders like dal powder, curry leaves powder, coriander leaves thokku, thogayal varieties, Lemon rice mix, Chutney varieties according to your choice. ( I have shared the links in the above sections. please check it)
8. Make white sauce and pasta sauce for cooking pasta recipes.
9. Prepare rava/sooji upma mix, poha mix, dosa mix, pongal mix.
10. Make onion tomato base for North Indian gravies.
11. Purchase week’s grocery and vegetables.
12. House cleaning if needed.

Friends,I  hope this post will be helpful to you. Thanks for visiting this page !!

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Chola Poori Recipe – How To Make Chola Puri

Recently I tasted a big sized, puffy Chola poori with chana masala in Hotel Saravana bhavan,Salem.Actually speaking, Punjabi special chole bhatura was in my try list for years. But I haven’t tasted it so far.Soon I must taste it in North Indian restaurants to know its actual taste and then experiment at home. I think Chola poori must be an adaptive version of chole bhatura in South. So I tried this Tamil nadu style chola poori at home. I was thinking chola poori is called as chole bhatura in Hindi. But there are variations in the ingredients for dough and preparation for making bhatura and chola poori. For making bhatura yeast, baking powder or soda water is used whereas chola puri is made without yeast or any raising agent. Only curd/yogurt is used. Bhatura dough needs a resting time of 3-4 hours whereas this one needs just 30 minutes. The method of preparation of chola poori is quite similar to our plain wheat flour poori. All the tips and tricks we follow for wheat flour poori is applicable to this as well.I got this awesome recipe from this blog.I have tried it thrice during weekends.It comes out very well with a puffy looking, soft texture. We all know the best, popular side dish for chola poori is chana masala or chole masala.So I prepared Punjabi chole following this recipe from my Punjabi thali post and served with chola poori. It was a yummy combo.We loved it to the core. Friends, do try this easy chola poori recipe. Don’t mind about calories, just enjoy with chana masala. Serve it for weekend breakfast or dinner. Ok, Lets see how to make Chola poori recipe with stepwise pictures. I will try to make a detailed video post soon.
Check out my beetroot poori and Palak poori recipes if interested !

Chola poori recipe

How to make Chola poori recipe - Delicious breakfast recipe for weekends

Cuisine: Indian

Category: Breakfast/Dinner recipe

Serves: Yields 12-14

Prep time: 30 Minutes

Cook time: 2 Minutes

Total time: 32 Minutes

Chitra Ganapathy

INGREDIENTS

1 cup - 200ml Maida/All purpose flour - 2 cups Sooji/Rava – 1/4 cup ( Upma rava) Wheat flour/Atta – 1/4 cup Cooking oil - 1 tbsp Fresh Curd/yogurt – 2 tbsp Salt - as needed Water - as needed Cooking oil - to deep fry

METHOD

In a wide bowl, sift the maida and wheat flour.To this, add sooji, Oil, salt and curd. Mix well with your fingers. Oil and curd should spread well with flour and the mixture looks crumbly. ( Sooji helps to maintain puffiness for long time. Wheat flour helps to make perfect round shape. Oil  & curd is to give softness to the poori) Add the required water little by little and make a stiff dough.Dough should be non-sticky, thick and stiff like our usual wheat flour poori.Cover it with a damp cloth. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, knead the dough for 2-3 minutes and make it smooth. Make small or big sized balls from the dough as per your wish. In hotels, they serve big sized poori. Roll it slightly thicker than the usual poori. Use wheat flour to dust the balls. Arrange them in a paper or a plate. Heat oil in a kadai and when it gets heated, drop a pinch of dough to check the oil temperature.The dough should rise immediately to the top. Keep the flame medium high and drop one poori at a time. Poori will puff up immediately. If not, press the poori gently with a slotted ladle. It will puff up. Flip it and cook the other side till bubbles cease.It will look slightly golden in color.The color of poori will change based on the oil temperature. You can find the difference in color or pooris in the main picture. To maintain white colored pooris, switch off the heat after making 2-3 pooris, let the oil cool down slightly. Then heat it and check with a pinch of dough. Proceed as mentioned above and deep fry the poori.Remove the puri in a tissue paper. Drain and enjoy with chole masala or chana masala. Adjust the heat before frying each poori. Make sure oil is not smoking hot. Please check my POORI RECIPE for more details. Enjoy ! Check out my beetroot poori and Palak poori recipes if interested !

Note

Make sure the dough is thick and hard but smooth.It should not be too soft like soft chapathi dough.So add water accordingly. Resting time of 30 minutes is needed. Poori will puff up only when its rolled thick.Thin poori will become like papad. So roll it thick. The temperature of oil is very important to get puffy poori. If the oil temperature is too low,  poori will absorb more oil and does not puff up. If oil temperature is too high and smoky, poori will turn golden brown very soon and cook unevenly.

Enjoy this white, puffy chola poori at home with chana/chole masala

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Soya Chunks Manchurian – Soya Chunks Recipes

How to make Soya chunks manchurian/ meal maker manchurian – Dry version with step by step pictures !
Soya chunks also known as meal maker & soya nuggets is a good source of protein for vegetarians. Usually I add them in biryani. Recently I bought a pack of mini soya chunks(Soya chunks nano) to try some curry or gravy with it. But I got tempted to make soya chunks Manchurian after watching Vahrevah Youtube video. Soya chunks fry came out very crispy like Gobi 65 and tasted great when hot.I made a dry Manchurian sauce and it stayed crispy for sometime even after adding in gravy. But It became slightly chewy and soft after its cooled down. So make and serve it hot to enjoy its actual taste because the moisture content inside the soya chunks makes it soft soon. Use mini soya chunks for best results.If you use big sized soya chunks, chop it after soaking in water to make a crispy fry. Do try this for your kids. I am sure they will love it. Lets see how to prepare Soya chunks Manchurian also known as meal maker Manchurian with step by step photos !
Check out my other Manchurian recipes

Gobi manchurian

Baby corn manchurian

Idli manchurian

Mixed vegetable manchurian

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How To Cook Millet In A Pressure Cooker, Rice Cooker, Pan - Indian Style

 

In this post, I have discussed how to cook millet in pressure cooker, rice cooker and in a pan. All these are our Indian ways of cooking millets. Iam happy to make a post about Millets (Sirudhaniyam in Tamil)after a long time. As we all know, Millets are a super healthy grain with loads of fiber, calcium, minerals & iron.People have started switching to millets and include it in their regular cooking as a replacement of rice for breakfast, dinner and lunch as well. Millet rice can be cooked on stove top( In a open pan), in a rice cooker, pressure cooker and even in microwave just like normal rice. But most of us are not sure about how to cook millets perfectly in a fluffy way like pulao, biryani or for making Indian style recipes like Pongal, upma, porridge, koozh with a mushy texture. Its always confusing about the water ratio for different types of millet like Varagu arisi (Kodo millet), Samai (Little millet), Kuthiraivali (Barnyard millet), Thinai rice (Foxtail millet) and Kambu (Pearl millet). I have not discussed about Quinoa in this post. Quinoa and thinai are different millets. I will make a post on that separately. So in this post, I have shared how to cook Indian millets in 3 different ways i.e Open pan method, In a pressure cooker and in an electric rice cooker. Water quantity may vary based on the quality of millet. Some millet may need less water and some may need more. So please keep this post as a reference and do the trial and error.

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Ulli Theeyal Recipe Kerala Style - Small Onion Theeyal /Shallot Curry

Ulli Theeyal is a Kerala special, gravy kind of side dish served for rice. Ulli means onion in Malayalam.Theeyal curry preparation is usually made with pearl onions (Shallot/Small onions) as the main ingredient. For variations, drumstick(Muringakka), Bittergourd(Pavakka) or ladies finger(Vendakka) can also be added along with onion.It is also served in Onam sadya. This gravy tastes similar to Tamilnadu Arachuvitta Puli kuzhambu.Traditional, authentic theeyal recipe calls for roasting coconut along with whole spices like coriander seeds, red chilli whereas I followed an easy and quick version from Marias menu.I have used Dhania powder and red chilli powder along with coconut.It came out really well and finger licking delicious.I am sure I will make this kuzhambu very often in my kitchen.Lets see how to make Kerala style Ulli theeyal recipe with step by step photos !
Check out other Kerala recipes too.

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Kerala Semiya Payasam Recipe – Vermicelli Kheer – Kerala Payasam Recipes

In Kerala, People make varieties of payasam recipes for Onam sadya menu. My neighbor told they make nearly 3-4 different types of payasam with jaggery and sugar.Semiya payasam@vermicelli kheer is one of the most popular and easy Kerala payasam recipe.Some people make it by adding condensed milk (Milkmaid) whereas I prepare in Nadan style with reduced milk following a chef’s recipe from Vanitha magazine.I modified the recipe and prepared in pressure cooker without adding condensed milk to make it quickly. Even though the ingredients of Kerala semiya payasam is very similar to Tamil nadu semiya payasam, its preparation is slightly different from ours. It comes out very rich, tasty and creamy. Do try it for special occasions in your family. I am sure everybody will love it. Lets see how to make Kerala style semiya payasam with step by step photos !
Check out my Kerala Onam sadya feast in this link

Semiya Payasam - Vermicelli Payasam ( Kerala style)

How to make Kerala Special semiya payasam using pressure cooker

Cuisine: Kerala

Category: Sweet

Serves: Serves 2-3

Prep time: 5 Minutes

Cook time: 20 Minutes

Total time: 25 Minutes

Chitra Ganapathy

INGREDIENTS

1 cup - 250ml Semiya/ Vermicelli - 1/4 cup Full fat Milk - 2 cups Water - 1/2 cup Sugar - 1/4 cup Ghee – 1 tbsp Cardamom powder -1/8 tsp Roasted cashew nuts & Raisins/dry grapes - 2 tbsp

METHOD

In a pressure cooker base, take the milk + water.Allow it to boil in medium flame till it reduces to 1.75 cups( almost 3/4 th). Keep an eye on it to prevent from spilling.Milk becomes slightly thick. In the mean time, heat a kadai with ghee. Roast cashews till golden and remove in a plate leaving the ghee in the pan. Roast raisins( dry grapes) till it turns plumpy. Remove in a plate. In the remaining ghee, add the semiya/vermicelli and roast for few minutes till it turns golden in color. Add the roasted vermicelli to the boiling milk and pressure cook in very low flame for 1 whistle. Remove after the pressure is released by itself. Open the cooker and stir well. Vermicelli would have cooked well in milk.But it should not be mushy. Now add sugar, cardamom powder and boil till sugar melts. Remove and serve warm or chilled by refrigerating the payasam. Enjoy !

Note

Adjust the quantity of sugar based on your taste. Use thick milk for best taste. You can even use 3 cups of milk milk, reduce it to half of its quantity before cooking the semiya.

Creamy, delicious Kerala special Vermicelli Payasam is ready to relish !!

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Tomato Rasam Recipe–Kerala Style Thakkali Rasam Without Rasam Powder

In Kerala, Tomato rasam/Thakkali rasam is mostly served in Onam sadya. Basically Kerala style rasam can be done easily with instant rasam powder or with freshly ground spices.I was looking for a simple and easy rasam recipe without rasam powder and found in this blog.It came out super delicious and flavorful.After a long time, myself and Raksha had a plateful of rasam rice along with our favorite side dish papadam.Do try this yummy Kerala Rasam for this Onam sadhya and enjoy like me. Lets see how to make Kerala thakkali rasam without rasam powder.

Check out my other Onam sadya recipes.

Tomato rasam recipe - Kerala style rasam

Kerala style rasam without rasam powder - Kerala tomato rasam for Onam sadya

Cuisine: Kerala

Category: Rasam

Serves: Serves 2

Prep time: 10 Minutes

Cook time: 20 Minutes

Total time: 25 Minutes

Chitra Ganapathy

INGREDIENTS

Ripe tomato - 2 nos  Tamarind – medium gooseberry size Red chilli powder – 1/4 tsp Coriander powder/Dhania powder - 1 tsp Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp Salt & water - as needed To grind Small onion - 3 nos OR Big onion – 1/2 no Pepper corns - 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds - 1 tsp Garlic cloves – 3 nos To temper Coconut oil or ghee - 1 tbsp Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp Red chilli - 1 no ( Pinched) Green chilli - 1 no ( slit) Curry leaves - few Coriander leaves - to garnish

METHOD

Soak tamarind in 1 cup of water for 20 minutes.Take the extract.Chop tomato into small pieces. Grind onion, pepper corns, cumin seeds,garlic coarsely without adding water. Set aside. Heat oil or ghee in a kadai and splutter mustard seeds,red chilli, curry leaves and green chilli.Saute for few seconds. Now add the coarsely ground paste. Saute for a minute. Add salt, chopped tomato, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and dhania powder. Saute well till tomato turns mushy .Add the tamarind extract. Boil well for 2-3 minutes till rasam becomes frothy. Add chopped coriander leaves and give one boil, switch off the flame. Transfer to a vessel and cover it with a lid. Let it rest for 15 minutes before serving.It helps for all the flavor to blend well. Serve with hot rice and papapdam. Enjoy! Adjust the quantity of chilli powder based on your spice level.

Flavorful Kerala style tomato rasam is ready to serve with rice. Enjoy with papad !

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Onam Sadya Recipes – Kerala Onam Sadhya Vibhavangal/ Lunch Menu

I am extremely happy and proud to share my 5th Onam sadya lunch menu with you all.Since 2012, I have been sharing varieties of Onasadhya feast during ThiruOnam festival. Every year I used to attempt some new, authentic Kerala dishes in my Onam sadya. I take this as a chance to learn many Kerala recipes and to express my passion for their food. Moreover Sendhil and myself loves to have feast and treat ourselves with Kerala delicacies.Initially I started with a simple Onam sadhya menu in 2012. Later I started making around 15-20 dishes for the onam feast every year. Onam sadya preparation is the one and only thing that makes me busy in my kitchen and cook continuously for 3-4 hours. Pre Planning and organization is very important to cook a sadhya. So I have shared Onam sadya items list, how to prepare easily, Onam sadya serving order etc according to my knowledge and experience. Please excuse me and correct me if there is anything wrong. Most of the dishes are tried from our fellow food bloggers of Kerala. I have given the links for each recipes. I hope this post would help you plan and prepare Kerala Onam sadya easily and quickly. Lets see how to prepare Onam sadya lunch menu in detail.
Onasadya Serving order : From tip of banana leaf : Salt, Papadam, Nendran banana, chips, upperi, Puli inji, Pickle, Olan, Kalan, Erissery, Puliserry, Avial, Kootu curry, Thoran, Mezhukkupuratti, Pachadi, Kichadi. In the center of leaf : Rice, Parippu curry, ghee, Sambar, Moru curry, ulli theeyal, rasam, Sambaram, Parippu pradhaman, Payasam varieties on the top corner. Refer image below.

Wish all my readers and friends a very happy Onam.”ONAM ASHAMSAKAL” !!

Onam sadya Recipes - Kerala Lunch Menu

Onam sadya lunch menu recipes - Kerala Onam vibhavangal

Cuisine: Kerala

Category: Onam sadya

Serves: Serves 2-3

Prep time: 60 Minutes

Cook time: 180 Minutes

Total time: 4 hours

Chitra Ganapathy

INGREDIENTS

Onam sadya items list for cooking Vegetables I used for this menu ( Yam, Raw banana, Drumstick, Ash gourd/Kumbalanga, Carrot, Potato, Beetroot ) for thoran, Mezhukkupuratti, Pachadi, Olan, Kalan, Kootu curry, erissery, moru curry, sambar Small onions Ginger for Puli inji Moong dal for Parippu curry Curry leaves Tamarind Red chillies Green chillies Cumin seeds Brown chana Black eyed peas/Cow peas Coconut oil Coconut Banana Nendran banana Moong dal for Parippu pradhaman Jaggery Semiya for semiya payasam Sugar Coconut milk Cardamom seeds Dry ginger powder Papad Salt & water Sour Curd for moru curry Buttermilk for Sambaram Mustard seeds + Urad dal + Red chilli - For tempering Onam sadya recipes with links Choru/ Cooked red rice ( 1: 12 - red rice : water ) Papadam, Banana, Upperi, Nendran chips ( store bought) Parippu curry Varutharacha sambar Moru curry Tomato Rasam Ulli theeyal Side dishes Puli inji Naranga achar/Lemon pickle ( store bought) Beetroot pachadi Carrot thoran Potato Mezhukkupuratti Chena/Yam erissery Kootu curry Kurukku Kalan Olan Avial Payasam recipes Semiya payasam Parippu pradhaman Palada payasam Ada pradhaman Chakka pradhaman Paal payasam Sambaram Other recipes ideas for menu Ulli sambar Unniappam Onam Sadya menu Simple Onam sadya 1 Onam sadhya menu 2 Onam sadya menu 3 Onam sadya menu 4

METHOD

Plan the menu, buy the vegetables and other items one day before Onam. Soak the tamarind for sambar, rasam and brown Chana( Kadala) overnight. In the morning, after taking bath, start cooking. Soak the Ada in water for 30 minutes if you are making ada pradhaman. I used 2-3 cookers of 3 liter capacity for making this menu. Last year when I made sadya,I noticed that most of my time was spent in pre preparatory works like grating coconut, extracting coconut milk, grinding masala, chopping vegetables and for cooking dals & vegetables.This year I wanted to make all these works simple and easy. So instead of grating 2 coconuts, I made small slices of it using a ladle edge with thick & blunt handle as u see in the picture.Make sure your mixie blades are in good condition else it may break.Then I dry ground all the coconut slices together and divided them into 2 parts.I used one part for taking coconut milk and the other part for masala.It saved lot of time for me. Take the required amount of coconut for each dish. Most of the dishes call for grinding coconut +green chilli+ jeera to a smooth paste. So grind it by taking a portion of coconut.Keep it and use wherever needed.Use the remaining coconut for taking coconut milk.Add in payasam. To this mashed dal ,Also I dry roasted the moong dal for parippu curry and pressure cooked it along with toor dal for sambar together in my big pressure cooker by placing moong dal in the bottom of cooker and toor dal for sambar in a tiffin box.Please refer the picture.U can even keep a plate of mixed vegetables required for sambar over the toor dal. When the dals are cooking, You can chop the vegetables for sambar, avial or kootu curry, olan, Pulisssery, pachadi, kichadi & inji curry.By this time,steam would be released from the cooker.Remove the toor dal box and mash the dal well.Similarly mash the moong dal too.Add little ground coconut paste and boil well. Parippu curry is ready. For cooking Vanpayar and vegetables for olan,kalan and erissery, i again used my big cooker and cooked them together by keeping one above the other in small bowls and plates.As all these veggies gets cooked in one go,u just have to add them in coconut mixture and boil it.For thoran, I cooked it in my small cooker adding very less water and cooked in high flame for two whistles. After removing this,cook the red rice adding 1:12 water and drain the excess water.Keep the rice aside. Make sambar, rasam and other dishes. Make the payasam at the end using the cookers ! It takes nearly 2-3 hours. Disclaimer: I know these are not the authentic method of cooking Kerala food but to make my job easier, I followed these steps and I hope it would help beginners.Friends,please excuse me . I have planned to make  few posts for the above mentioned recipes with stepwise pictures. Sorry I couldn’t do it now.Thanks for visiting this page. Hope u will try all these recipes and like it.Once again,I wish u all a very happy Onam. Enjoy the feast!

Make a grand Onam spread on Festival day and enjoy with your family members.

Wish you all a very happy Onam

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