Monday, June 1, 2009

Corn Meal Idly

In these 3 years of cooking I have never used ready-to-eat tiffin mixes. I make everything from scratch. Rava idly is my favourite dish. I had corn meal at home. I thought I would try to make idly with the corn meal. In the past I have tried to make upma out of broken corn. It didnt come out well because the corn takes long time to cook. I was little reluctant since I wasnt prepared if corn meal idly didnt come out well. But surprisingly the corn meal idly too good. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
  • 4 Cups of corn meal
  • 5 Cups of yoghurt
  • 6-7 Green chillies
  • 1 Tablespoon of mustard seeds
  • 1 Medium Onion finely chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon of Urad dhal
  • 3 Tablespoons of corriander leaves finely chopped
  • 1 Carrot (shredded)
  • 2 Tablespoons of Olive oil
  • Salt to taste
Directions

Saute the corn meal in a skillet with little ghee. Mix yoghurt and corn meal in a bowl. Leave the batter for an hour. Meanwhile heat the oil in a skillet. Add the mustard, urad dhal and allow it to splutter. Add the onions and corriander leaves and saute until the onions are cooked. Grind the green chillies and add it to the batter. Mix the sauted onions and shredded carrot to the batter.

Pour the batter into the idly mold and cook it for 15 minutes. Serve hot with onion chutney.

Sprouted Green Gram Vadai

I had some green grams left after the idly that I made. I let them sprout and tried making vadai with the sprouted greengrams. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
  • 2 Cups of greengram sprouts
  • 1/2 Cup of red lentils
  • 6-8 Red chillies
  • 3 Garlic Cloves minced
  • 1 Tablespoon of fennel seeds
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 Medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1/2 Cup of corriander leaves finely chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon of cummin seeds
  • Oil to fry
Directions

Soak the red lentils in water for 2 hours. Grind the greengram sprouts, red lentils, red chillies, fennel seeds coarsely with salt. To this add the onions, cummin seeds, minced garlic, corriander leaves. Make small balls and pat them flat. Fry these in hot oil. Serve hot with corriander chutney, ketchup or hotsauce.

Fried Eggs With Tostadas

This is a dish my mexican friend often made for our lunch gettogethers. My husband loves it and I make this for dinner. Its simple and tasty. Here is the recipe. This recipe is for one person.

Ingredients
  • 1 Tostada
  • 1 Egg
  • 4 Tablespoons of cooking oil
  • 1 Medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 Green bellpepper, finely chopped
  • 2 Green chillies, finely chopped or 1 Jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 Cup of crushed tomato
  • 1 Tablespoon of garlic powder
  • Salt to taste
Directions

Tomato sauce

Heat one tablespoon of oil in a saucepan. Add the green chillies, onions and bellpeppers and saute until the vegetables are cooked. Pour in the crushed tomato, garlic powder and little water and salt. Let the sauce cook for 5 minutes.

Fried egg

Heat the remaining oil in a skillet. Pour in the egg into the oil (dont beat the egg). Turn the egg and fry the other side too. Remove the excess oil by placing the egg on a tissue.

Place the tostada on a plate. Keep the fried egg on the tostada and pour the sauce on the fried egg and serve!

Egg Curry

Egg curry is a side that I make often when I go out of option. It goes very well with rice and chapathi. It can be made in no time. I used a store bought curry powder. Instead you can also use red chilly powder. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
  • 3 Hardboiled eggs (cut each into 4 pieces)
  • 1 Medium onion roughly chopped
  • 1 Teaspoon of fennel seeds
  • 1 Teaspoon of mustard
  • 2 Tablespoon of corriander leaves
  • 1 Tablespoon curry leaves
  • 1 Tablespoon of curry powder or red chilly powder
  • Salt to taste
Direction

Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the mustard seeds, curry leaves and cummin seeds and allow them to splutter. Add the curry powder, salt and onions and saute for sometime. Add the eggs and saute for few minutes. Serve hot with rice or chapathi.