Vendaikkai vatha kulambu

You will need
Vendaikkai/Lady finger - 10 ( cut into 1 inch pieces)
Small onions - 5-6 ( chopped lengthwise)
Garlic - 5-6 cloves
Tamarind - 1 big lemon sized ball
Sambhar powder - 2 tbsp
Asafoetida - 1 pinch
Oil - 3 tbsp
Red chillies -  3-4
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Channa dal - 1 tsp
Vendhayam/Fenu greek seeds - 1/2tsp
Curry leaves -   few springs
Salt - as needed
Water - as needed
Rice flour - 2 tsp ( optional)
Sarkkarai/Jaggery - 1 tsp (optional)

How you will make it
In a pan heat 2 tbsp of oil and saute vendaikkai pieces for a few minutes.This is to avoid curry becoming sticky.Saute the vendaikkai well, but make sure the color is not chnaged.Take them out and keep in a paper towel, let the oil drain. In the sam epan, add 1 tsp of oil and heat.Add mustard seeds, channa dal, vendhayam and fry until channa dal is golden brown.Now add curry leaves and red chillies.Saute for a few seconds and add sliced onions, garlic and saute until those are soft.Add fried vendaikkai and add sambhar powder , fry for 1 minute.Add tamarind pulp, needed water and salt.Let this boil until vendaikkai is fully cooked and sauce gets thicker.Now add a pinch of asafoedita and cook for few more minutes.Once you feel you got the correct consistency for the sauce, switch off the heat.Serve hot with rice.
Note : If you have trouble getting the right consistency, mix 2 tsp of rice flour in to 1/4 cup of hot water and add this into the boiling mixture.
Adding sarkkarai at the end of the cooking, gives that extra authentic taste.

Fish curry

This is MIL's trademark fish curry.The original recipe is from her MIL...:).My husband loves it so much and i try harder everytime to make it just like MIL.After almost 6 years, finally i am able to make it upto that mark...

Ingredients

King fish - 1-2lbs
Small pearl onion - 5
Tamarind - 1 small lime size(soaked in 1 cup of water)
Red chillies - 8
Pepper corns - 1tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2tsp
Whole Dania - 1tsp
Garlic-1 clove
Jeera-1/2tsp
Coconut Oil - 2tsp
Curry leaves - a few
Mustard seeds - 1tsp
Coconut - 1 cup (shredded)

Method

Clean the fish pieces with little bit of turmeric.Grind coconut,1 pearl onion,curry leaves,dania,turmeric powder,garlic,jeera into a smooth paste.In a heavy bottomed pan,heat the grouded paste with the tamarind water.Boil this till the raw smell goes and the curry becomes little thicker.Add the fish pieces at this point and don't stir it.Boil it till the fish is cooked full.In a pan, heat coconut oil and fry mustard seeds ,curry leaves and sliced onions.Pour this into the fish curry.Serve hot with rice.

Varutthuaraccha chicken curry

Varuthuaracha chicken curry, chicken in fried coconut gravy.I made my Lil' one Ram who is almost 3 years to help me on this dish for TRS's Little chefs in the kitchen .Oh..boy..was that fun?..fun or more work for me clean up after his help.He usually likes to sit on the counter top while i am cooking.He likes to point out on things around the kitchen and ask "amma whatz that?".He will keep on asking until he is tired or i am getting restless...:)).This time i asked him to separate pods from garlic,oh..boy ..he was so excited.and again, i was worried 'coz he had just made a mess on the coffee table with water.My H was asking are you sure you wanna do this ?..hahaha.By this time R had started his job.I was telling him to pose his hands for the snaps also again n' again while he was busy helping me.R finally got frustrated and threw all the garlic pods on the table and filled the bowl with his cereal and start eating it.Anyways did a good job on garlic...:)).Thanks to TRS for intiating such a good blog event, may be by next time R will be more helpful than this.

Varuaraccha chicken curry

Ingredients

Chicken - 1 cornish hen (cut into medium pieces)
Ginger garlic paste - 1 1/2 tbsp
Chilli powder- 1tsp
Dania powder - 1tsp
Turmeric powder - 1tsp
Onion - 1 medium sized (chopped)
Tomatoes - 1 large (chopped)
Green chillies - 2
Garam masala - 1/2tsp
Coconut- 3tbsp
Fennel seeds - 1/2tsp
Curry leaves - as needed.
Oil - as needed
Salt - as needed


Method

Fry coconut and fennel seeds in 1 tsp of oil till golden brown and grind it into a fine paste.In a pressure cooker, heat oil and fry onions till golden brown.Now add green chillies,gg paste and tomatoes one by one and fry well.Then add all the powders and fry till the raw smell goes.Finally add chicken and salt and mix well.Add just enough water(i had added 1/2 cup) and cook it for 1 whistle.Switch off the heat.Once the pressure is gone, open the cooker.Add the grinded coconut paste and let boil on medium heat till nice aroma comes.serve hot with rice,roti.







Tips : If you could, do avoid adding water while cooking chicken.Chicken tastes much better if you allow it to cook on its own water.while cooking in a pressure cooker, just add lilttle bit of water to avoid buring.

Shrimp curry

After a long time i came out of my same old shrimp recipe..wow..am i glad i did that.This shrimp curry recipe i got from the site pachakam.com.It is a drooling recipe with a goan touch.A must try..


The original recipe didn't mention how many red chillies, so i used 10.

Egg curry with latccha

Egg curry with almonds served with latccha.Latccha is made with wheat flour and it is a layered chappathi.I found the latccha recipe on aval vikatan.There not much to explain about this lovely combination..you will know abt the dish once you taste it..:))

Egg curry

Ingredients for paste

Tomato - 1 (medium sized)
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Garlic- 3-4 cloves
Plain yogurt - 1tbsp
Garam masala - 1tsp
Almonds - 8 (blanched)

Ingredients

Eggs - 5 (hard boiled)
Onion - 1 sliced
Red chilly powder -1tsp
Dania powder- 1tsp
Jeera powder- 1/2tsp
Turmeric powder-1/2tsp

Adjust the spices according to your palatte

For garnishing

Coriander leaves and curry leaves


Method

Grind all the ingredients listed under "ingredients for paste" into fine paste using yogurt and little water.Hard boil the eggs and cut them into half.Heat oil in a pan and fry onions till they are golden brown and then add the ground paste.Fry till the raw smell goes away.Now add the red chilly, dania,jeera powders and salt and fry for another 2-3 min.s. Finally add the eggs.Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and curry leaves.Serve it with rice/chappathi/laccha.





Latccha

Ingredients

Atta flour - 2 cup
Salt- as needed
Oil/ghee mixture - as needed

Method

Mix atta,salt and water to make chappathi dough.Take a small ball of dough and roll out into a big chappathi.Now brush the oil-ghee mixture all over the chappathi and fold it into half.Now roll out the folded chappathi again and keep folding and rolling out until it reaches your desired size.Keep brushing oil-ghee mixture in between the folds.I folded 4 times.These folds make a layered latccha.I had cut these into a rectangle shape ( say..just for the photo purpose).

Aappam with Potato curry

Aappam with potato curry was one of the must have weekend breakfast in my home.My mom usually makes this Potato curry along with Aappam.Another good side dishes for this are chicken curry,thengai pal,mutton stew,potato stew etc.When i came to US, i was so glad to see a restaurant called "spicehut" serving this traditional aappam with thengaai pal.Most of my visits to this restaurant was during my pregnancy , as i had cravings for this special spicehut aappam.My husband used say , the restaurant owner could start next branch from the money we spend there :)))


Ingredients

Rice flour - 3 cups
Coconut- 3/4 to 1 cup grounded
Cumin seeds - 1tsp crushed
Yeast - a pinch
Salt-as required
Sugar - 2tsp

Method

Take 3tbsp of rice flour and mix it with 1 cup of water and heat it to make a thick paste.this is called "kappi".Mix riceflour,yeast,grounded coconut,cumin seeds,salt ,sugar and Kappi.Mix it well and keep it aside for about 10-12 hrs for fermentation.I made the batter yesterday and kept it inside the oven with the oven light on.Batter was well fermented today morning.The batter shoild be little bit thinner than the normal dosa batter.Spray the Appam pan with non stick spray and heat it.Once the pan is hot, pour the batter and lift the pan(with both hands, careful it must be hot) and rotate it to make a full circle.Put it back in the stove and cover it with the lid.The stove must be in medium.The appam will be thin around the sides and thick in the center.Serve it with Potato curry.

Note: Instead of rice flour, you can use raw rice.Soak 3 cups of raw rice for about 5 hrs.Grind it along with coconut.Mix yeast,kappi,cumin,salt and sugar along with the grinded mixture.And keep it aside for fermentation.
In my mom's version, she adds a handful of boiled rice while grinding and never used yeast.In some other places in kerala , they use "kallu" (toddy) in this recipe.

Potato curry

Ingredients

Potato-3 medium sized , peeled and chopped in quaters.
Onion-1 finely sliced
Coconut-3tbsp
cumin seeds-1tsp
Green chillies-3
Chilly powder-1tsp
Turmeric powder-1/2tsp
Oil-as required
For tadka
Mustard seeds,urad dal,curry leaves

Method
Grind Coconut and cumin seeds together.
Heat oil in the pressure cooker and fry mustard seeds,urad dal.Add green chillies,curry leaves and sliced onions.Fry till onions are golden brown.Now add potatoes and add turmeric powder,chilly powder and salt.Pour little water and Pressure cook for about 2 whistles.After 2 whistles, open the cooker and add the grounded coconut-cumin mixture.Mix well and boil for another 5 min.s.Serve hot with appam.This dish tastes good with dosa and idly also.

Note:You can skip the coconut-cumin mixture and use little coconut milk if you want.

Nethili-Mango curry

Fish and Mango ---nothing can go wrong with this ...

What do you need :

Nethili meen -2 cup ( Frozen)
Raw Mango-1/2 cup ( Frozen)

Tamarind : small lemon sized ( adjust this depending on Mango)

Salt : as needed

Tempering

Coconut Oil- as needed

Mustard seeds : 1/2 tsp

Urad dal : 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves : few springs

To grind:
Small onion -1
Garlic-2 cloves
Shredded Coconut-1 cup
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Red chillies - 3
Whole Pepper-1 tsp.

How you make this :

I used Frozen nethili this time and they were little on the bigger side compared to the tiny ones I usually get.These are ready to use but I still thawed them and washed them on running water.Keep them aside.Grind the ingredients listed under ' To Grind' into a fine paste. Mix this paste with tamarind extract.In a heavy bottomed pan, on medium flame start boiling the coconut+tamarind mixture. Add water as needed. Once the raw smell of the coconut paste is gone, reduce the flame and add in the raw mango and fish with salt as needed. My frozen mango were like little shavings of mango without the skin. So I had added it with the fish pieces as both will cook faster.But If you were to use raw mango, then you might need to add mango little earlier. Once the mango pieces are 3/4th cooked then you add the fish pieces.Let this mixture cook slowly and in the mean time heat coconut oil in a separate pan, fry mustard, urad dal and curry leaves.Pour this tempering into the cooked fish curry and switch off the heat.

Do not stir the dish too much with the spoon as it might break the fish pieces. And you canal ways adjust the tamarind extract depending on the sourness of the mango.Note: I had added in some green chillies as well for some extra kick but this is completely optional.

We had this dish with some king fish fry and kappa Puzhukku.