Healthy Masala Peanuts (Microwave)

This recipe is adapted from Mallika Badrinath's microwave recipes book. My husband and my mil both love this. As it is low fat and rich in protein, i make it often as evening snack.




Roasted unsalted peanuts - 1 cup

Besan / Chickpea flour - 4 spoons

Redchilli powder - 1 spoon

Salt to taste

Hing - a pinch

Oil - 2 spoons

Water - few spoons

In a ceramic bowl, heat a spoon of oil in microwave for a minute. Add the roasted peanuts and heat it again for a minute or two. Make sure it is not burnt. Add besan, redchilli powder, salt, hing, another spoon of oil and mix well. Sprinkle some water to make sure the peanuts are coated well with this besan mix. Heat them in microwave till they are crispy. Heat in small intervals to cook them uniformly. Stir occasionally. Enjoy with a hot cup of tea :)

Peanut Chutney

This recipe is adapted from here with minor changes and is delicious.

Ingredients :

Peanuts - 1 cup
Onion - 1 small  (chopped into small pieces)
grated coconut - 2 spoons
ginger - 1 inch (cut into small pieces)
green chillies - 2
red chillies - 4
cilantro - a handful
tamarind paste - 1/2 spoon
urad daal - 1 spoon
channa daal - 1 spoon
hing
Salt to taste
Curry leaves (optional)
garlic (optional)

Method :

Heat little oil in the pan and add the green chillies, ginger, curryleaves and redchillies and fry for a minute or so. Now, add the urad daal, channa daal and peanuts and saute till they are golden brown.
I used roated peanuts so i added it after the daal was golden brown and sauted for a minute. Add the onion and saute till they are translucent. Let it cool down. Add chopped cilantro, coconut, tamarind paste, salt, water and grind it to desired consistency. Tastes good with Idli / Dosa.

Few people asked me why my idlis are always brown, so i thought i will clarify here. These are oats rava idli and not the regular idlis :)

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 :)

Back after a long break with a recipe : Black eyed peas gravy

Hi everyone! Sorry for disappearing for a long time. Things got very hectic and i could not find time to update the blog or check other blogs. Inspite of this, it was nice to stay in touch with most of you all through mails and FB :-) It is going to be hectic for atleast one more month as we are moving to another house and you know how it goes with a move. I didnt want all of you to think i have abandoned this blog and thought of doing a quick post. My friend G taught me this recipe and we all love it. It goes well with both Rotis and Rice.

Black-eyed peas gravy :

=================

Ingredients :

Black eyed peas - 1 pack (frozen) (I think it is approximately 1 lb)

tomatos - 2

Onion - 2

red chillies - 5

dhaniya / coriander seeds - 1 spoon

grated coconut - 3 spoons

Salt to taste

Cilantro - to garnish

Method :

Grind dhaniya, redchillies and coconut with little water and keep aside.

Pressure cook the black eyed peas.

Cut onion and saute in little oil and when it is translucent, add chopped tomatoes and saute till the tomatos are well cooked. Now add the cooked black eyed peas and the paste. Add salt and little water and cook till the raw smell disappears. Garnish with cilantro.

I shared this recipe with my mom and she tried it and loved it :)

Idli made healthier!

I read somewhere that idli is one of the top ten healthy breakfasts in the world. I decided to make it healthier by replacing a part of the rice with oats and after few experiments i found out that 1/3rd of rice replaced with oats produces almost the same result. You can taste the oats and if you dont like oats you may not like this. It is soft and fluffy, but regular idlis are fluffier and whiter. That's something i can live with :)

Ingredients :
Parboiled rice (Idli rice) - 2 cups
Urad daal - 1 cup
Methi seeds 1 spoon
Salt to taste
Water
Oats - 1 cup

Method :

Soak Rice and urad daal + methi separately for 6-8 hours. Just 15 minutes before grinding it, soak the oats in just enough water to cover it. Grind the urad daal + methi first till you get a fluffy batter. Remove it from the grinder / mixer. Add rice and the soaked oats and add enough water and grind it well. Mix this with urad daal batter and add salt and mix well. The batter should not be too thin. It should be little thick. Let it ferment overnight.

Apply few drops of oil in the idli moulds and steam it for 15-20 mins in the idli cooker.

To check whether it is done, insert a fork. It should come out clean.

Note : Depending on the brand of rice and urad daal use the quantity may differ. Use the rice and oats in 3:1 proportion. After couple of days, you can use the same batter to make dosas and with added oats you get golden brown, crisp dosas To make dosas, add little water to the batter to make it slightly . I forgot to take pictures of the dosa.

Oatmeal Paniyaram - a healthy and yummy snack

I made these from leftover oatmeal rava idli batter and it was totally yum. You can add grated carrots to it too.
Here is the recipe recap :
Ingredients :
Toasted Oats - 1 cup
Rava (Sooji) - 1 cup
Yogurt - 1 cup
Water - as required
Salt - as required
Mustard seeds, urad daal, channa daal, hing for seasoning
Eno salt - 2 spoons
Grated carrots - as desired



Method :Mix oats with rava, salt and yogurt.Add water as required. The consistency of the batter should be similar to idly batter.Let it sit for an hour.In a pan, heat little oil and pop mustard seeds.Add urad daal, channa daal (Approx 1 spoon each) and hing and fry till they are golden brown.Add to the batter.Add 2 spoons of eno salt and sprinkle some water and mix well.The batter will raise and look like fermented idli batter.

Apply 1 or 2 drops of oil to each impression in the kuzhipaniyaram pan (or Aebleskiver Pan). Fill the impression with batter. Fill it only half way as it puffs up. Cook for about 2,3 minutes and turn each paniyaram with the wooden spoon and cook for some more time. Check by inserting the back of a spoon to see if it sticks. If it doesn't, then it is done and you can remove them from the pan.

This is a yummy variation to the idli as it is crispy and kids love it. My kids call them salty balls and it's their favorite snack now :)

Onion Methi Pakora

I saw this in t.v. The chef said it was chennai style pakoras, so i had to try that immediately :) I modified the original recipe with whatever ingredients i had with me at that time. It was good and i never tried the original recipe after that. The original recipe had a mashed potato and cilantro in it. I substituted cilantro with methi leaves as i love the slight bitterness it gives and i skipped potato.


Ingredients :

Onion - 1 large
Methi - 1 small bunch
Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon
Hing - 1/2 spoon
Red chilly powder - 1 spoon
Besan -1/2 cup
Rice flour - 1 cup
Water - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 1 spoon
Oil to deep fry

Method :

Finely chop onions and methi leaves. Mix salt, chilli powder and hing and set it aside for few minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil for deepfrying. When it is ready, add the besan and rice flour to the onion methi mix. Add the ghee and sprinkle the water and mix them well. I used little water (about 1/4 cup only) and the mix was just damp and crumbly. Now drop small pieces of the mix into oil and fry till they are golden brown. It was really too good :)

Enjoy with a cup of tea on a rainy day!

Crispy Cornmeal Dosa

First of all, i want to thank all the readers for your comments and i apologize for not stopping by your blogs. It is little hectic now and will continue to be hectic till april end and i'm hoping i'll get more time after that. I don't miss your recipes though, thanks to google reader :)

Here is something that i tried recently and was fairly easy and approved by my kids as well.
Since it was my first time i did not add any vegetables in it as i did not know what to expect.


Ingredients :

Corn Rava (Cornmeal) - 1 cup
Riceflour - 1/2 cup
Buttermilk - 1 cup
green chillies - 3 (finely chopped) - optional
Salt to taste
Cumin seeds - 1 spoon
Water - as required

Method :

Mix all the ingredients and set it aside for a minimum of 1 hour.
The batter should be of rava dosa consistency. Watery.
Heat (non stick) tawa. Keep the stove between med high and high. Stir the batter and start spreading the batter from outside. (Opposite to how you make regular dosa).Since it's a bit watery, the batter will start running towards the center forming polka dot holes. If this does not happen, your batter is thick and you need to add more water. Spread little oil on the dosa and wait till the wet batter look disappears and flip the dosa and cook it for another minute or so.
Unlike rava dosa, the dosa gets thicker in the center, but it is still crisp like rava dosa, but not as thin as it. Adjust the heat while cooking to get the golden yellow colour consistently and also stir the batter before you make each dosa.

See how crispy it is? :)

It is heavier than Rava dosa and takes little more time than it.

Tastes good with chilli powder or chutney.

Moongdaal sambar

Moongdal is easy to digest and my first son likes it better than toor dal. Lemon rasam is his favorite. I tried this sambar once and he kept asking for more. It tasted great with idlis and tastes equally good with rice too. Since it is quite easy it has become a regular at our place now.

Ingredients :
Moongdaal - 1 cup
Onion - 1 medium
Tomatos - 2 medium
Salt
Green chillies - 4
Sambar powder - 1/2 spoon
Mustard seeds, hing and curry leaves for seasoning
Cilantro for garnishing
Tamarind paste - 1/2 spoon (optional)

Method :

Pressure cook moongdaal with chopped tomatoes.Heat little oil in pan, add mustard seed, hing and curry leaves. Once the mustard seeds pop add green chillies and saute for a min.Add onions and saute till they are translucent. Add the cooked daal, sambar powder and salt. Add tamarind paste if you want to have it with rice. Let it boil till the raw smell of sambar powder disappears.

Tastes good with Idli, Dosa and Pongal

Kunukku - Fritters with Adai batter

I made this when i had some guests for dinner. It was very good and fairly easy. Frying part was time consuming and boring as with any other deep fried stuff :))

Ingredients :

Rice - 1 cup
Channa daal - 1/2 cup
Toor Daal - 1/2 cup
Red chillies - 10
Hing - 1/2 spoon
Salt to taste

Method :

Wash and soak rice, channa daal and toor daal for couple of hours. Add redchillies, hing, salt and grind with very little water. Pat them into small discs and deep fry in oil till they are golden brown. The oil should be between medium and medium high. If it is too high, the inside of the vadas will remain uncooked.

Everyone loved it,especially my first son and my husband.

Note : You can add chopped onions and cilantro if you want. I didn't add onions as i made these on a saturday. Also, you dont have to shape them like vadas, you can just drop the batter with spoon. Taste is what matters, right? :-)

Jangri / Imarti

Hello all! I am back after a nice vacation. We went to Orlando for a week and it was a good break for me. This was my little one's first trip to orlando and he has been chanting shamu and mickey's names even in his sleep :)

Anyways, i am back with my favorite sweet Jangri or Jaangiri also known as Imarti in north india.

Jangri is a family favorite, but i did not know we could make those at home. They look complicated, dont you think? One of my friends shared jangri recipe couple of years back and that was the first time i came to know that it was made out of urad daal. Somehow seeing urad daal as the main ingredient made it less appealing as i could not associate it with a sweet. So i decided not to try it ever until i saw this. Raji's recipes remind me of my mom's cooking all the time and i'm a big fan of her blog. When i saw jangris there, I just could not resist and i wanted to give it a try. I made these for our wedding anniversary. Since it's a family fav,everyone was happy. I need to work on the shapes though.

I made only minor changes to the original recipe.

Ingredients :

Urad daal : 1/2 cup

Sugar : 3/4Cup

Cardamom powder - 1/2 spoon

Saffron - a pinch

Orange food colour - 1/2 spoon.

Method :

Soak urad daal for couple of hours and grind it with little water. It should be of vada batter consistency and fluffy. Mix orange food colour and keep aside. Heat sugar with water just enough to cover it. Heat it just till it boils. I tried boiling more and once it cooled down, it became hard and i had to redo to get the sugar syrup. I made the sugar syrup similar to the syrup we make for gulab jamuns. I didn't go with any string consistencies. Now heat oil for deep frying. Take a ziploc bag and poke a small hole (depending on the thickness u want). Take the batter in ziploc and squeeze them slowly in the oil. Keep the heat between medium low and medium. Once the jangri is fried, drain it and add it in the sugar syrup immediately. Let it soak for a minute or little more than that. Remove and spread it in a plate.

Enjoy for now and worry later about the calories ;-)

Eggplant Channa Gravy

Where does the time go? I haven't been able to update my blog or visit yours either...I am going on vacation next week and i thought i will post something to say i am here :-) Hoping to blog and blog hop regularly after that. Though i am not leaving comments on your blogs, i am up2date on your recipes, thanks to Reader :-)

This has been in my blog for a long time...I created it for FIL eggplant and i think there are several FIL events that have taken place after that and here it was still in my draft!! I decided to post it today.

I learnt this from my mom. Kind of :) My mom makes awesome Rasavangi - a type of gravy with Eggplants. I asked her to make it once when she was here and she added channa to it and it was totally yum! As usual, i was only concentrating on pigging on it and never bothered to take the recipe. I keep forgetting to take the recipe from her too whenever i talk to her over the phone, but one day i had this craving to have it immediately and i created my own recipe and it was quite close to it. I was pretty impressed with my own guessing ability :) Just FYI, i still haven't remembered to ask her for the recipe :-O



Ingredients :

Eggplants - 10 (medium sized ones that you get in indian store)
Channa daal - 1 cup
Channa - 1/2 cup (pressure cooked)
Curry powder - 3 spoons (or more :))
Tamarind paste - 1/2 spoon (or the equivalent water extracted from fresh tamarind)
Salt to taste
Coconut - 3 spoons (optional)
Mustard seeds, urad daal, hing and curry leaves for seasoning.



Method :


Grind the curry powder and coconut together with little water and keep aside.
Pressure cook channa and channa daal. Steam the eggplants in microwave till they are soft. Add the eggplants to the cooked channa and daal. Add tamarind water, salt and curry paste. If you decide to avoid coconut, just add the curry powder directly to the eggplants. Cook it till the raw smell disappears. Takes approximately 5 minutes since the curry powder does not have much raw smell as the ingredients are roasted before grinding. Season with mustard seeds, urad daal, hing and curry leaves. Can add red chillies too.
This is a quick fix for me as i usually have cooked channa in the freezer.
Tastes good with Rice and Roti.

Microwave Milk Peda

Hope you all had a wonderful Diwali!

I made these pedas and i took the recipe from Lazzat and it was easy and yummy. I followed the recipe with very slight moderation.


Ingredients:
Milk powder - 2 cups
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can (14oz)
Butter - 3 spoons
Cardamom powder - 2,3 pinches
Saffron - few strings
Unsalted Roasted Nuts (of your choice) - to garnish.

Method : Take the butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt it for a minute. Add the milk powder, condensed milk, cardamom powder and crushed saffron and mix well. Heat in the microwave for approximately 5 minutes stirring every minute. You should heat it till you get a slightly crumbly texture as it will harden up little more when it cools down. Let it cool.

Apply some ghee to your palms and roll them and flatten them. Garnish with nuts.

I did not have the patience to wait till it cooled down so i could not get the perfect shape :-( Also, it tasted great but i could still smell the milk powder slightly, probably because i used a different brand this time as i did not find Nestle milk powder. That didn't stop me from eating them though :-)

Along with this i made Ribbon Pakoda and Channa daal payasam for diwali, but i dont have a good pic of ribbon. Will post the payasam soon.

Sending this to Sweet Series

Mani Kozhakkatai / Ammini Kozhakkatai

Lot of people call this Ammani kozhakkatai and i find that name funny, so i will stick to what we call it at home. Mani means beads and they kinda looks like beads and my grandpa's nickname was mani, so i like it this way :-) This is my favorite snack and it's healthy too.

My grandma and mom used to make it with remaining dough after making Modakams and Uppu Kozhakkatai for Vinayaka Chaturthi. It was my favorite so i used to ask my grandma to make it frequently for us as evening snack and i used to help her in rolling those mani kozhakkatais. When i shared my memory with my first son, he got all excited and said he wants to roll it too and he helped me with it. With that, we also invited some trouble. My little one wanted to join the fun and as we were rolling the kozhakkatais, he was busy squashing them and making them flat. We still managed to make a decent no. of kozhakkatais and both my boys loved it. I have decided to make it often as evening snacks for them.

For the dough :
Rice flour - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup
Salt - as required
Red chilli powder - 1 spoon (optional)
Oil - 1 spoon
To grind :
Urad daal - 1/2 cup
Green chillies - 3
Hing - a pinch
For the seasoning :
Mustard seeds, hing, urad daal and curry leaves.

Method :

Dough :
Boil water. Reduce the heat and add the rice flour, salt and oil and stir till you get the dough like consistency. Remove from heat, cover and let it cool. Apply oil to your hands, add the redchilli powder and knead well. Now roll the dough into small balls. Steam them in Idly cooker or Pressure cooker without the weight for 7-10 minutes.
For Mani kozhakkatais,
Soak urad daal for about an hour. Grind it into thick paste with greenchillies and hing.
Place this paste in idli plates and steam for 10 minutes. Once it cools, crumble it.
Heat little oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and hing. Once the mustard seeds pop, add a spoon of urad daal and fry till golden brown and add the crumbled urad daal mix and salt and saute for couple of minutes or till well cooked. I like it when they are brown and have the roasted look and cook till i get that. Add the mani kozhakkatais and mix well and cook for another minute or two. This was an instant hit with my kids.

Sending this to Srivalli's Kid's Delight

Dosas Galore

I wanted to try something new and send it to Dosa event, but i could not do it due to some unexpected personal work. I dont want to miss this event though since i love dosas. Who can resist dosas? :)

Plain Dosa :
Urad daal - 1 cup
Idli Rice - 4 cups (I use grinder, if you don't have grinder reduce it to 3 cups)
Fenugreek seeds - 1 spoon

Method :

Wash and rinse rice and daal with methi seeds separately and soak them for a minimum of 6 hours. Grind the urad daal and methi first with little water till it gets fluffy. Remove and grind the rice with some water. The batter should be thick but need not be as thick as idli batter. Let it ferment overnight. If the daal and rice are soaked long enough there is no need to keep the batter in a preheated oven.

Heat the dosa griddle/tava and spread 1 ladle of batter into a circle. Spread it very thin to get crispy yummy dosa. Spread some oil around it and when it is almost cooked on one side, flip the dosa and cook for another minute or more to get crispier texture. Repeat procedure. Enjoy! :)

To make cone dosas for kids, once you spread the batter and it is almost cooked on one side, make a slit from the center and flip the dosa and cook for one more minute. When it ready, just roll it from the slit and make a cone. My kids love the cone dosa :) I also make alphabets, shapes or draw lightning mcqueen or elephants out of dosa batter. Sometimes they look horrible and my first son gets a big kick out of it when he sees my horrible artwork. He thinks it's too funny and forgets about making a fuss :) Here's my elephant dosa..this pic was taken in my old mobile so the picture quality is quite bad.

Here are the other dosas from archive :

Protein added Rava Dosa

Plain Rava Dosa :

Moong Daal Dosa :

Masala Dosa :

Oatmeal Rava Dosa

Sending these to Padma's Dosa Corner

Stuffed Brinjal (Eggplant) Sambar and Curry Powder

I went on another short break. We took my inlaws on a short trip to few places last week. The trip was good as it was not that hot. Since my inlaws are here, i have taken a short break from experimenting new recipes in the kitchen. I pretty much stick to authentic recipes as I don't want to scare them or torture them. I think i have done that enough when i was newly married :-) I remember one time, me and my sil decided to prepare Chapattis. My sil was not married at that time and was as clueless as me in the kitchen. When we were in the Kitchen, i dropped a plate accidentally on the floor and on hearing that noise, my bil asked us if it was one of the chappatis that we prepared. We both got so mad at him, but our chappathis were quite bad like Pappads so we couldn't argue! :-)

Now moving on to the recipes...

South Indian Curry Powder - A versatile powder :

This is another big help in the kitchen for me. I grind and keep this powder in stock and it helps in preparing easier versions of some authentic recipes like Rasavangi and Bisibela. Here are some of the recipes that i use this in :

• This is used as curry powder for the following vegetables - Potato, Seppankizhangu (Colocasia), Yam ( Suran/Senaikizhanghu), Eggplant and Okra.
• This is used to make stuffed eggplant and stuffed okra.
• This can be used to make quick and easy Bisibela
• This is used to make stuffed eggplant sambar.
• This can be used to make quick and easy rasavangi.
• This can be added to Sundal. You gotto to try this to believe how yummy it is! Kids will ask for more :)

Now to the recipe :

Ingredients :

Channadaal - 1 cup

Urad daal - 1 cup

Coriander seeds (Dhaniya) - 1 cup

Red chillies - 1 cup

Rice - a handful

Hing - 1 or 2 pinches

Method :
Saute everything in little oil till the daals are golden brown. Let it cool. Dry grind and store in air tight container.

================================================

Stuffed eggplant Sambar :
I learnt this from my mil. This is tangy like vethakuzhambu. I like this so much that i can inhale it :-) My husband doesn't like eggplants that much..so i get more ;-) Teehee! :)

Ingredients :
Tamarind - Lemon size
Multipurpose Powder - 5, 6 spoons
Small eggplants - 8
Salt to taste
Mustard seeds, curryleaves and hing for seasoning



Method :
Add required salt to the multipurpose powder and mix well.
Slit the eggplants crosswire. Do not cut it completely. Stuff it with multipurpose powder
Apply couple of drops of oil on each eggplant and microwave for 4 minutes or till they are tender.
Now, take little oil in a non stick pan and add these cooked eggplants. Add 2 more spoons of multipurpose powder, salt, tamerind water and let it cook till it starts to thicken. Cook till it reaches the soupy consistency. Add some more salt if required.


It thickens fast since we have added rice in the multipurpose powder.
Tastes good with Rice.

Sending this to Sanghi's FIL-Brinjal Event

Beetroot Curry and Rasam

Hello all, I am back after a short break and hope to be regular in updating my blog and visiting yours too :-)

When i was little, i was so fascinated by beetroot :-) I never cared about how it tasted. I just loved it because it turned my food pink :) This trick does not work with my boys, obviously. I told my first kiddo that i have made a magic vegetable that will turn all his food into pink. I thought the word 'magic' would do the trick. Nope. He said, 'Pink is for girls, so you can have it all' :-) Then, i pulled the 'it will help you grow big and strong' card and it worked. He said he liked it but not loved it. As long as he takes, i dont care whether he loves or likes :-) My toddler did not like to eat it with rice, but liked it with pasta! Whatever works! :)

Here's the recipe for this simple, yummy curry.

Beetroot Curry :
Beets - 4
Green chillies - 4 or 5 finely chopped
Salt to taste
Curry leaves
Minced cilantro - 2,3 spoons
Mustard seeds, urad daal and hing for seasoning



Method :
Wash, peel and boil the beets for 10 -15 minutes till they become tender.
Chop them into small cubes. The tender beets are easy to chop.
In a pan, heat 1 spoon oil. Pop mustard seeds, add urad daal and hing and fry till the daal is golden brown. Add the chopped, steamed beets and salt and mix well. Cook for few minutes. Garnish with cilantro. You can also add 2,3 spoons of grated coconut.

Beetroot Rasam :
I saw the idea of using the water that was used to steam beets in sambar in some blog. Can't remember where. I decided to make rasam with it. It was pink and had a slight sweet taste to it. Sweet, tangy and spicy. I loved the burst of flavours and ofcourse the colour :-)

I just made it like regular tomato rasam with home made rasam powder. I used the beets water instead of plain water. Here's a pic of the rasam :

Incase you are wondering what the pumpkin is doing in the first pic - i had this crazy idea for Click : Spring/autumn to combine something that would represent both seasons and took this pic, but i sent another pic for that event.

Puli Sevai / Tangy Tamarind Rice Noodles

Hi everyone, I am back (kind of!). For those who sent me mail or left scrap wondering where the heck i was, i am here and alive :-) Thank you for checking on me. It was way too hectic in may, both at work and at home. I keep checking on all your recipes in my reader whenever i get a chance, but i could not leave any comments nor could i post anything in my own blog. I usually blog or blog-hop after my kids goto sleep. I could not do it as i was extremely tired and i tried to post something few times before their bedtime, but everytime my little one sees me in front of the pc, he squeezes himself between me and the pc and asks for hai potayo (Wiggles Hot Potato) or the big comfy couch and both the songs keep ringing in my ears all day that i am scared i might sing it out loud at work one day!! :D

I will be out next week, so no blogging or blog-hopping again for another week. Are you thinking i'm nuts for coming out of a break to say i'll be taking another break? :-) But, before i go into the silent mode again, i'll post a yummy, quick and easy recipe..

Ingredients :

Instant Sevai Mix or Rice noodles - 250 gms (I always use 777 brand)

Red chillies - 3

Tamarind paste - 1/2 spoon

Turmeric powder - a pinch or two

Mustard seeds, Urad daal, Channa daal, Curry leaves and Hing for seasoning

Salt to taste

A handful of roasted peanuts and Cilantro - for garnishing

Method :

Boil water in a large pan. Add the Instant sevai or Rice noodles in the boiling water and let it sit for 5 minutes. Drain the water and chop the noodles with kitchen scissors. In a pan heat little oil, pop mustard seeds, add turmeric powder, urad daal, channa daal, chillies, curry leaves and fry till the daals are golden brown. Add some water (approx. quarter cup) to the tamarind paste, dilute it and add this tamarind water let it boil till the raw smell goes and it thickens. Now, turn off the stove and Add the boiled noodles and salt. Mix well. Garnish with cilantro and roasted peanuts.

Sending this to MM:Ravishing Rice hosted by Nags and started by Meeta.

See you all soon!