Mutton Kola urundai (Minced Mutton Balls)

This is best for starters and if you find excessive mutton balls, you can prepare a normal gravy and add these balls. It tastes yummy. Ingredients are simple and the method too.

Ingredients

100 grams minced Boneless Mutton

1 tablespoon roasted split chick peas (pottukadalai)

4-6 Dry red chilly

1 teaspoon fennel powder

Small piece of Ginger

3-4 Garlic cloves

1 tablespoon Grated Coconut

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder

4 Shallots

1 clove

1 Egg (optional)

2 Cashews (optional)

Curry leaves

Coriander leaves

Salt

Oil for frying

Method

• Wash the minced mutton once and grain water completely.
• In a food processor grind roasted chick peas, dry red chilly, ginger, garlic, coconut, shallots, clove, cashew without adding water. If you feel difficult to grind just sprinkle some water and grind.
• Then add the minced mutton and grind well without adding water.
• Add turmeric powder, salt, fennel powder, egg, chopped curry leaves and coriander leaves and mix well.
• In a pan, add oil and heat in medium flame. Make small balls from the mixture and fry till it turns golden brown. This may take 3-5 minutes.

Note

• Egg and cashews are purely optional, generally when i prepare this kola urundai i won't add these two, but in general it has been used.
• Grinding the mixture without adding water is preferred.
• If you have a feel that it may smell and taste raw, no worries..... definitely it won't smell or taste raw. 
• Adjust chilly according to taste.

Paavakai Chips (Bitter gourd chips)

Most of us hesitate to have Bitter gourd as the name itself tells us it is very bitter. This is a good evening snack. Got this recipe from Sharmispassion, but did small alterations. This is very flavorful and must try and doesn't absorb much oil.

Ingredients
4 Bitter Gourd 
2 1/2 tablespoon Rice flour
2 tablespoon Corn flour
4 tablespoon Chickpea flour
1 1/2 tablespoon chilly powder
1 tablespoon Fennel powder
A pinch of Cumin powder
Salt

Method

• Wash Bitter gourd and allow it to dry. Slice it evenly thin.
• Take a bowl and mix the rest of the ingredients together.
• Sprinkle the mixture to the sliced bitter gourd and add 1 or 2 tablespoon of water.
• Mix well, don't add too much of water. (The water is added so that all the dry ingredients get stick to the bitter gourd).
• Heat oil and fry them until most of the bubbles are gone or when it turns golden brown. 
• Leave these chips in a kitchen tissue paper so that it absorbs all oil and then store in a air-tight container.

Note

• Cut the Bitter gourd and refrigerate. Mix other ingredients on the next day,  by doing this way personally i felt it is much crispier than the usual chips.
• In most of the paavakai chips recipe, they have mentioned to bake for 5 mins, which personally i felt not required. 

Panna cotta

After a very long gap, i'm back to blogging:) 

As this is gonna be my first recipe for this year, lets start with a dessert.
Yeah...... definitely very easy recipe. PANNA COTTA.
When i first heard this word, i thought "oh very tough tough one to do at home".
 Panna cotta is a traditional, delicious Italian dessert. The time to preparation and cooking  of this recipe is just 15 mins. But one thing.... this takes time to set, You have to refrigerate for at least 4 hrs, but i definitely recommend to refrigerate for overnight. So if you are planning for a nice dinner, do this the day before.

Ingredients

1/3 cup milk
2 1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 envelope unflavored gelatin (1 1/2 teaspoon)

Method

• In a small bowl pour cold milk and sprinkle the gelatin powder and keep it aside. (Do not stir the gelatin but make sure it is soaked well).
• In a saucepan with medium heat, add heavy cream and sugar. Bring to full boil, when the cream is about to rise to the top of pan, switch off the heat.
• Pour the softened gelatin and vanilla extract to the cream mixture. 
• Do not boil the cream mixture after adding gelatin and vanilla.
• Strain your cream mixture with a filter.
• Pour the cream mixture in 5-6 ramekin dishes or any glass cup.
• Cool the ramekins uncovered at room temperature. When cool, cover with plastic wraps and refrigerate for at least  4 hrs but overnight refrigeration is preferred.

Note

• If you do not have ramekins, absolutely no probs you can pour in any glass bowl.
• Adding more taste to it, you can add caramel syrup or any fruit syrup of your choice. 

Coffee Muffin

Follow the same Procedure from Vanilla Muffin Recipe and add  1 teaspoon Coffee Emulco (This is nothing but Coffee flavored essence).
Or instead of adding Milk to the Muffin mixture, you can add freshly brewed Coffee, it gives you excellent flavor.

Choco chip Muffins

It's all the same procedure, just repeat the process i've stated for Vanilla Muffin.
1/2-1 cup choco-chips
Just add this to the muffin mixture and gently mix and pour in the paper lined Muffin pan cups.
Vanilla Muffin Recipe

Vanilla Muffin

I would say this is the basic batter which could be used to prepare all type of other flavor muffins.

Ingredients
2 cups All purpose flour
1 Egg
1 1/4 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
3 teaspoon Baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt

Method

• Preheat oven to 400 degree f (200 degree C approx)
• In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center.
• In a separate bowl beat the egg and then add milk, vanilla extract and oil, beat well with the hand mixer.
• Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and beat well until moistened, do not over beat. 
• Pour the batter into paper lined Muffin pan cups.
• Bake for 20-25 mins or until it turns golden brown.

Note

• If you have caster sugar, then it becomes more convenient for you, but instead of 3/4 cup just add 1/2 cup of caster sugar.
• If you do not have hand mixer at home, you can just beat with fork.
• If you feel the mixture is very thick by any chance, just add 1/4 cup milk, or if it is too thin you can add 1/4 cup of flour and adjust the sweet level.

Prawn Szechuan Fried Rice

Szechuan is a part of Chinese cuisine and it is originated from the Sichuan province in Southwesteren China. They cook with their unique sichuan pepper, and very liberally they use garlic to all dishes. My Prawn Szechuan fried rice is kind of Indo-Chinese, and definitely easy to make. In all supermarket Szechuan sauce is available but i myself prepare my sauce, which is very easy to make and if it is well stored, it will last for more than a month.

Generally all the saute process is done separately and Rice is cooked separately, but i felt cooking together in cooker is much easier and flavorful than mixing it.

Ingredients
3 cups Basmati Rice (Any rice of your choice)
2 Onions
4 Cloves Garlic (If it is smaller cloves then it is 8 cloves)
1 inch Ginger
1/2 - 1 cup Shrimps (Prawns)
5 tablespoon chopped Spring Onions
1 Green Bell Pepper / Capsicum
6-8 Dry Red Chilly
3-5 Eggs
1 tablespoon Chilly Sauce
2 tablespoon light Soy sauce
1 tablespoon Tomato sauce
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce (optional)
Oil
Salt and pepper

For Szechuan sauce
10-12 Dry red chilly (soaked in warm water)
1 inch Ginger
6 large cloves Garlic

Method

• Finely grind the ingredients under Szechuan sauce, Finely cut onions into long stripes, cut capsicum in the same way.
• Devein and clean the Prawns. finely chop the ginger and garlic. Scramble the eggs.
• In a heavy bottom pan or in a Pressure Cooker add 4-5 tablespoon of oil and when the oil is heated add the chopped ginger garlic and also dry red chilly. 
• Add the Onions and saute for 2 mins, then add 2 tablespoon  Szechuan sauce and saute for 2-3 mins, then add Capsicum and shrimps and saute well. Add all the sauces, salt and a tablespoon of black pepper powder.
• Add 5 cups of water or water according to the rice and allow it boil for a min and then add the washed rice.
• Pressure cook for about 10-15 mins (depends according to the pressure cooker) and when the rice is cooked perfect, mix well and then add the chopped spring onions and scrambled eggs.
• Prawn Szechuan is ready  to be served.

Note 

• The dry chilly and the Szechuan sauce is according to the taste, if you like to have with mild spicy then reduce the quantity of chilies.
• If you want a very nice shrimp flavor then you can add upto 1 cup of it otherwise 1/2 cup is sufficient.
• You can also prepare the way you prepare for fried rice.
• If you are boiling rice separately and saute the shrimps separatly, saute the rice in the pan for 2-5 mins when you mix with shrimps, this requires additional oil. 
• If you do not have light Soy sauce, then add only 1 tablespoon of Dark Soy sauce.

Rava Laddu

I got this recipe from one of my relatives, it doesn't take more than 30 mins to do this laddus, very very easy to prepare and everyone's fav too. Many of us add coconut flakes and saffron. Mostly for these laddus they cook rava for a very long time, which actually changes color. I was so conscious about the color, so i carefully made this laddus with few changes. To get a crunchy feeling in-between your bite you can add Cashews and raisins. Adding Coconut or milk will reduce the shelf life of this rava laddu, otherwise it can be stored up to 10-12 days.

Ingredients

2 cups of Rava/Semolina/Sooji

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

 1/4 teaspoon Cardamon powder

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Method

• In a pan, add one tablespoon of ghee and add the rava and fry in low flame till it turns light brown in color, you should feel the aroma of the rava, this will take 4-6 mins, stir it continuously to fry rava evenly. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool.
• Slightly coarse grind the roasted rava ( do not grind to fine powder), and transfer this to wide open bowl or in a plate.
• Add the powdered sugar, cardamon powder to the rava and mix well.
• Heat the Ghee and pour it into the mixture and mix well.
• When the mixture is warm enough to handle take a small handful of them and squeeze between your fingers and palm to form a small lemon sized balls.
• If the mixture is too dry and starts to crumble, add few teaspoon of heated ghee, and form the balls.
• Your Rava laddu will be very soft now, no worries, after a while they will harden.
• Store them in an air tight container once it is cooled.

Note

• If you feel that it is too much ghee, you can add a small amount of milk.
• If you are adding cashews to the laddus then, in a seperate pan heat the ghee, add cashews and fry till golden brown, drain from the ghee and fry the raisins in the same ghee. When your mixing sugar with the powdered rava, add these fried cashews and raisins to that mixture.

Ola Pakoda / Ribbon Pakoda

This is not the usual recipe which is done with besan flour(gram flour) but trust me this is very simple and tasty than the usual one. If you plan before hand, this recipe will be very easy for you. 

Ingredients
2 cups Idli rice
1/2 cup roasted gram (pottu kadali)
10-15 dry red chilies
2 cloves garlic
Handful of curry leaves
Salt
Oil for frying


Method

• Soak the Idli rice for 4-6 hrs (Preferably overnight), and grind well with very less water(the batter should be very thick and tight).
• Separately coarse grind the red chili (don't grind to fine powder), to that add the curry leaves and garlic cloves and grind well.
• Powder the roasted gram, add the roasted gram powder, red chili mix and salt to the idli rice batter. Mix well.
• This should be a smooth dough, if it gets harder then it becomes tough to fry.
• Put this dough in the murukku mould, use the ribbon pakoda achu(with 2 slits as shown in the pic).
• Heat oil in the pan, press the mould directly in the pan and fry until it turns golden brown or crisp on both sides.
• This doesn't take much time to fry so don't over-fry it. Transfer this to kitchen towel, allow it to cool to the room temp and then transfer this to air-tight container. (Only when it cools down to the room temp you get the crispiness).

Note

• Try to avoid much water when you are grinding, if your idli rice batter doesn't turn smooth, add some water and grind well.
• The roasted gram should be a dry powder, you can powder with mixie or any food processor.
• If your dough is bit watery, add more roasted gram powder to form a soft dough.
• Adjust the red chili according to your spice level.
• If you do not have idli rice, then you can go for any rice available at home, but idli rice gives you a very crispy and tasty ribbon pakoda.

Shankarapali (Inippu Biscuit)

Here comes another very easy recipe. Most of us don't know the exact recipe and with no other choice we go to the nearest sweet store to get this small delicious biscuit. In most of the Mixtures(Savories in local Indian sweet shops) we can find this small sweet biscuit. I have no clue about the name of this recipe, just found from website, but generally in stores they call it as Inippu Biscuit. This is my sis fav too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 - 2 cups Plain Flour
1/3 cup Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup full cream milk
A pinch of Cardamon powder
1 tablespoon Semolina/Rava
Oil for frying

Method

• Heat the pan in low flame and melt sugar in Milk and also add ghee and melt it till the sugar gets dissolved. Allow it to cool. Add the cardamon powder and rava to it.
• Slowly add the plain flour and mix it, add the flour till you get a soft dough.
• Knead into a soft pliable dough.
• Divide the dough into big lemon size, roll into chapatis 1/3" thick.
• Cut into small square shapes or any size as your choice.
• Carefully transfer to a dry cloth or any non-stick surface, and allow it to dry for 1 hour.
• Deep fry in hot oil over slow flame till light brown color.
• Drain well and keep aside till cool.
• Store in clean and dry container.

Note

• I used cookie cutter for different shapes, but the general shape we get from sweet store is square shape.
• Slowly add the flour for kneading the dough, do not add all the flour at one time.
• For extra flavor i added 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla extract.
• When you roll like thick chapatis dust the flour so that it won't be sticky.