Beans Upkari

Beans Upkari is a very simple dish, which gets ready in like 15 mins or so and is a very delicious dish (for people who love beans that is). It is prepared by tempering the green beans and cooking them just tender enough to leave them crunchy and then topping them off with grated coconut.

We konkani people are always accused of using a lot of coconut, but what can we do... our tongues have gotten used to that flavor and we just cannot get enff of it :) We LOVE coconut !! and use it in almost every dish that we make, either grind it for the masala gravy or top it off like garnish !! Beans upkari is my sister's favorite dish and she likes it with potatoes added.

Beans SagLe

SagLe in konkani means "whole" as in we add larger pieces of veggies to this dish than we do in other dishes. I guess we are supposed to add the veggies as a whole, but I guess over time it has evolved into using larger pieces - keeping in mind the amount of time it would actually take to cook the whole veggies.

Whenever I make this dish, my friends in the US relish it a lot. This dish can be prepared with a variety of vegetables: eggplant, beans, okra are some of the commonly used ones. This dish has a strong coconutty flavor, but it is not that of raw coconuts and is also masked a bit by the spices used in the dish. So, if you are the kind who does not like coconut-based dishes, you should still try it once.. you might just end up liking it.

Badnekayi Palya

Just love this karnataka style dish, for its simplicity and mouth-watering flavors. I hate capsicum (green peppers) in almost everything else, except for this dish. I just love the twist it gives to this dish and how it enhances the flavors.

Whenever I prepare this dish, I feel like eating Akki rotti along with it - the kind they make by pre-cooking the rice flour and rolling it out into chapathis. I absolutely love the combination - you should try it sometime :D

Simple DaaLithoy (Konkani style daal)

I am absolutely positive that most of the Konkani people know how to prepare this. But I just wanted to put up the recipe for non-konkani people just to say its the simplest kind of daal ever. You dont have to cut onions or tomatoes or even garlic and it still tastes yummy (not to generalize but well, atleast all konkani people are in love with it).

This daal can be made into either thick consistency or thin consistency and I used to love the thicker version of it and my sister used to love the thinner version of it. As usual, like I have mentioned so many times, me and my sister are like this (X): total opposites !! Anyways, we still used to enjoy the dish so much and even now I eat it like plain lentil soup. Just cannot get enough of it - EVER !!

Medu Vada

Medu Vada, meaning soft vadas, are a very famous snack / breakfast item in South India. They are generally served as a side item with Idlis / Dosas with either chutney or sambar. Generally people eat a single medu vada with a heavy breakfast and still crave for more :)

Medu vadas are soft inside and crispy on the outside when they are hot. They are super yummy and you cannot just have one :) Here is my recipe for medu vadas. I used to hate idlis back in India. So if we went to a hotel for breakfast, everyone used to order idlis with one vada each and I would get 2 vadas and skip the idlis altogether :P I just love medu vadas.

Bellam Gaarelu !!

Heres for all of you a popular Deepavali dish from South India, mainly from Andhra Pradesh state. Its called Bellam Gaarelu - literally meaning jaggery vadas. They are made by soaking and grinding urdh daal, making vadas from them and soaking them in jaggery syrup to get mouth-watering bellam gaarelu.

The recipe is from a close friend of mine who hails from Andhra Pradesh, and traditionally for Deepavali, his mom makes these mouth-watering gaarelu every year.

Making Ghee

Most people I know today do not know how ghee is made from butter. It is a very simple process where large amounts of butter is heated continuously until a clear liquid is obtained and the solids separate out from it.

The process of making ghee takes me back to my childhood days when the aroma of fresh ghee used to fill the house every Friday morning. My mom used to make fresh ghee for the diyas (oil lamps) on Fridays. She used to light ghee lamps on every Friday. She never used the old batch of ghee because it was already used by us for cooking / eating.

Andhra Cauliflower Pickle

I am sure most of you foodies out there know that Andhra Pradesh is famous for its vast variety of pickles, both the ones that can be stored for years and the ones that can be eaten instantly. This recipe for cauliflower pickle is the sort which can be eaten instantly and cannot be stored for long periods of time. One of my close friends loves this pickle and I always make it especially for her. It only requires like 30 mins of your time, including cutting the cauliflower :) Its quick and quite yummy, but also very spicy. So do try it at home, if it appeals to your taste buds :)

Panpolo / Neer Dosa

Panpolo or Neer dosa is a very common breakfast dosa in a konkaNi household. Neer - meaning water in kannada - is a main constituent of this dosa along with soaked rice. The consistency of this dosa is also watery, which is why the name probably. In konkaNi, I think it associates with Paani (water) polo (dosa). However, this is just a guess :) There are several versions of this dosa, with coconut, cucumber, magge (mangalore cucumber / melon), water melon peel etc., I love all these versions, but they all have distinct flavors and I think they are all acquired tastes.

Rava Bhakri / Rullava Bhakri

"Bhakri" in konkani means a hybrid of a dosa and rotti (rotti in kannada - not roti in hindi). So, its a kind of a thick pancake type dish which is a bit crunchier and has a bite compared to a soft pancake. Bhakri can be made out of rice flour, wheat rava, idli rava etc.,

Cabbage Upkari

Serves 2
Preparation Time (10 min)
Cooking Time - 15 mins approx

Ingredients
 

1/2 Cabbage (medium sized - chopped)
Grated coconut - 1 tbsp
Green Chillies - 2 - slit lengthwise
Salt - as per taste

Cooking once again !! :P

Grr... Have any of you hated Firefox sometimes ?? I just wrote this post twice already and both the times, it did not save my post :( Now I have to write it for the 3rd time, fortunately, its working in Chrome... So, lemme collect all my feelings again and.... here it is now....

Peas Pulao

Serves 2
Preparation Time (10 min)
Cooking Time - 20 mins approx

Ingredients

Fresh / Frozen green peas - 2 cups
Rice (preferably basmati) - 2 cups
Water - 3 cups (1.5 times of rice)
Salt - to taste

Tostones

Serves 2
Preparation Time (1 min) 
Cooking Time - 15 mins


Ingredients


Raw green plantain - 1
Coriander leaves - few sprigs (finely chopped)
Salt - to taste 
Chat Masala and / or Amchur powder - 1 tsp each (optional - use if you want to Indianize it)
Oil - for deep fry


Method 


Heat up some oil in a frying pan (the wider the better) on a medium flame, so that by the time the preparation is over, the oil is hot enough to start cooking. This way you wont waste much time. (Remember not to start on a high flame)


Wash the plantain thoroughly and peel it (not with a peeler - peel it like you would peel a banana - tips below*).
Cut the plantain into 3/4 inch thick slices. Keep aside until oil is hot.


Once the oil is hot, add the slices one by one into the oil - they should come up in the oil immediately. Turn them over in less than 30 secs. They should not fry much, just until they change color. Remove them onto a paper towel. Reduce the oil to a low flame.


No No its not yet done... Just a few mins more :)


The slices of plantain have a lot of oil absorbed now. Take a glass or a kitchen utensil with a round flat bottom surface. This will be used to flatten out the plantain slices to remove extra oil from them. Take each slice of plantain and using the glass / utensil, flatten out the slice with some pressure (not too much) so that the slice is now just more than 1/4 of an inch thick. Pat the slice dry using a paper towel to remove all the excess oil and keep aside. Do the same with all the other slices.


Meanwhile increase the oil flame again to medium and once it is hot, add the flattened slices of plantain into the pan. Fry them until they are golden brown in color on either sides. This time, the slices don't absorb too much oil. Drain them on a paper towel if you are very health conscious.


Arrange the slices on a serving plate and sprinkle some salt and coriander leaves over them for garnish. Tostones are ready to serve :) ENJOY YOUR MEAL !!


P. S:
I think the picture is from when I made tostones out of two plantains. So don't compare the quantity :)

Prepared Tostones - ready to be served :)

 

Close-up View !!

Tips

Its a little difficult to peel the raw plantains, hence some tips.

Cut the plantain into two. Slit the peel lengthwise in 4 directions (dont cut the plantain lengthwise - take care to only slit the peel). The peel then comes out easily when you try to peel it like a normal banana :) Don't try to peel a plantain without slitting. You might hurt your fingers / nails. The peel is generally too hard.

You can even peel it using a peeler, but you would have to peel out several layers until you reach the actual fruit, which I think is time consuming as well as results in the wastage of some part of the fruit too. I would recommend the previous method.

All work and No Cooking makes......

Well, well, well... what do we have here ? A dull girl ? Maybe !!

I know, I haven't updated my blog in a long time now. So here's something to go by.... I will post one recipe everyday until my store of recipes is over. Haven't been cooking much lately, so there are no pics / new recipes... just old ones. So here goes... check out my next post for a new recipe :D

Graduated !!

YAY !!

Finally I graduated..... I was sooooo DONE !! :) But look at the irony... I have all the time in the world to cook and post recipes n stuff like that, but I have become super lazy :( BUT soon, I will get out of this phase, I am sure of that.

So wait for the yummy recipes :)

- So

77 days later !!

Looks like a caption in a movie :) not really.... just counted the number of days since my last post. My God !! Have I been busy or lazy ?? Actually, lots of things happening in my life which makes it quite difficult to sit down and post a few things here, let alone having no time to cook :(

I have a list of recipe titles on me. I plan to finish writing the recipes and post them asap, especially for my dear friend Aashu, whom I promised some recipes. Sorry to make you wait Aashu... will definitely do it in the coming month. I am hoping to graduate soon. So, I will have loads of time after that for blogging and ofcourse for cooking :)

- So

I am BACKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!!

Hey All !!

I am back to blogging now.... I might as well, because I had to postpone my graduation by another semester. So y deprive myself of something that I love to do.... no no not blogging... I am talking about showing off my cooking skills :)

Just wanted to post some recent pics of my cooking here. Recently captioned the photos :) !!!

Mexican-Indian Medley (Onion Pakodas and Guacamole - I did not make the veggie crispy chips)

Breakfast Strata (egg-based)

Prepping for White pasta sauce

White pasta sauce cooking

Mixing cooked pasta and the creamy pasta sauce

Creamy white pasta

Pasta and garlic bread

Garlic butter used for the garlic bread (above and below)

Garlic bread (fresh out of the oven)

Not-from-scratch pasta (used canned pasta sauce)

From-scratch Lasagna (sauces were from scratch)

Cooked lasagna

Lasagna topped with extra sauce

Masala Omlet !!

Omlet with toast !!

Prepping pizza base (readymade dough)

Added toppings to pizza base

Topped with cheeses

Pizza fresh out of the oven

Vegetable sevai upma

Corn and Onion Fritters (pakodas)

Prepping breaded eggplant

Baked (healthy) breaded eggplant

Masala and plain dosas with garlic chutney and sambar

Indianized hashbrowns

Seriously do not remember the name of this sweet anymore :P

Sabudana khichdi :)

Aloo wada with spicy garlic sauce

Maddur Vada

I hope to get free enough to post the recipes soon !!

Until then...

Ciao... So