Crackling Spinach - A Healthy snack / starter

First of all, i wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year! I know it's a little late, but i had so much to catch up both at work and home after a week long vacation towards the end of last year.


I thought i will post a healthy recipe for a good start :) I hope 2011 is not as bad as 2010 and i get to post more recipes this year. I saw this recipe in Pari's blog and wanted to try it immediately. It just looked way too tempting :) One catch was, it was deep fried. I thought of trying a low fat version and it came out really well. I just toasted the spinach on an electric griddle till it was dry and crunchy and it was really very tasty and crunchy. I can imagine how much tastier the original deep fried version would be. I will try it some day, but not in winter :)





Ingredients :


Baby Spinach - about 40-50 leaves
Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder - couple of pinches (as desired)
Salt to taste
Rice flour - 1 spoon



Method :

Wash the baby spinach and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut into thin strips. Mix the rice flour. The original recipe called for corn flour and i substituted with rice flour as i didnt have corn flour. Heat the griddle at 400F and spread the spinach on it. Let it toast till they are dry and crinkly. Toss in between once or twice. Note that the quantity will reduce almost into half on heating. :-(





Once they are dry and crinkly remove them and keep aside in a plate. Do not cover. Now heat a small pan with a spoon of oil (Sesame oil will be good). Add sesame seeds and red chilli powder and cook for a minute. Add the dry spinach mix and salt and toss well for few seconds. It was awesome. My kids asked for more when it was done. Need i say more? :)

Karthigai Vadai

My mil makes this vada for Karthigai (Festival of lights) every year. I was at my inlaws during the first Karthigai and i saw my mil and her sisters make this vada. It is a delicious combination of Medhu vada and Daal vada :-) When she was here last time i made it with her help and it was quite easy to make. So, i decided to follow the family tradition and do it from this Karthigai and it came out very well. My husband and my boys loved it and i hope you like it too :)

Ingredients



Urad daal 1.5 cups

Channa daal 0.5 cup

Red chillies 6

Hing 1 small spoon

Curry leaves - a handful

Green chillies - 3 (optional)

Salt to taste

Cilantro - a handful (optional)



Method :



Soak 1/2 cup of urad daal and 1/2 cup of channa daal together in water for 1 hour. Remove the water and let the daal dry in a clean, dry cloth or paper towel. Now, soak the 1 cup urad daal for 1 or 2 hours. Grind the urad daal with redchillies and little water. If you are going to add green chillies later, reduce the redchillies. 3 or 4 should do. Grindt to the consistency of medu vada batter. To this batter, add salt and add the dried daal mix, chopped green chillies, curry leaves and cilantro and mix well.

Take a pan and heat oil for deep frying. Shape the batter into vadas and deep fry till golden brown. The addition of the daal mix makes it very delicious. Perfect with hot tea on a cold rainy day :)

Medhu Vada / Urad Daal Vada

This was in my draft for months now. I was in a dilemma as to whether i should post this or not, because it is such a common recipe and there is nothing new about it. But, i want to share few useful tips that i learnt from my mistakes, especially for those who are new to cooking.

The shape of the vadas in the pic are not perfect but are close to it, don't you think? :-) After several attempts i finally got the hang of it, but i had an accident few weeks before i made this and i dropped those vadas in oil hastily, out of fear and hence they were not perfect!

The mistakes i used to make are to grind the batter without adding any water. They would come in perfect shape, but it lacked something. It was not as crispy as my mom's vada. They were kinda thick like MRF tyres (not that i have tasted them ;-)) Then i added too much water and ended up with bondas. Bondas were not perfect either. They looked more like mini dinosaurs trying to come out of eggs. But, they were crispy and yum. So, after few trials and errors i got the hang of it. Adding little water while grinding did the trick.

Now to the recipe...

Ingredients :
Urad daal - 1 cup
Green chillies - 5 or 6
Salt to taste
Hing
Ginger - 1 inch grated (optional)

Method :
Soak the urad daal for 1 or 2 hours. Grind it with green chillies, salt, ginger and hing with little water. If you are using an indian mixer use the ice-breaker mode for few seconds in the end, to make the batter fluffier.
Heat oil in a pan for deep frying. Take a plastic sheet (i used a small ziploc bag). Apply some water on it and take some batter and pat it into circle and make a hole in the middle. Dip your hand in water and remove this from the plastic sheet and drop it into the oil and fry till golden brown. Heat the oil in medium high. If it is too hot, the inside of the vadas will remain uncooked.

I tried baking vadas to get a healthier version. It was a total disaster. I added some baking powder to the batter and baked for 30-45 minutes. Can't remember how much time i baked it for, exactly. Anyways, i ended up with these...Have a good laugh ;-) They just tasted like spicy dosa and they were so flat and not very crispy!! :-)