Cauliflower Pulav

Monday, May 2, 2011

Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice, onion 1 to 3 (depending on taste), one cauliflower, green chillis 1 to 3 (depending on taste), oil 3 table spoons (tbsp.), grated coconut (thengai turuval) one or two tbsp., Coriander seeds (dania),cumin seeds (jeerakam),4 cloves, cinnamon (lavanga pattai powder) 1/2 tbsp., salt to taste, ghee (nai / clarified butter) 1 tbsp., Cashews  3 tbsp., garam masala powder 1 tea spoon (tsp), mustard seeds half tsp., curry leaves (kariveppilai) and cilantro (kothamalli) to taste, lemon 1, turmeric powder (manjal podi) 1/2 tsp., asafoetida (perungayam) 1/4 tsp.

Step 1
Wash the rice a couple of times and soak it in hot water for 20 minutes.  Cut the onions into a long and thin shape .  Cut the cauliflower into small pieces (do not use the stem). Keep the stem separately to cook with other vegetables.

Step 2
Now prepare the seasoning (porichu kottal).  Take a kadai, add oil and heat. Add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start to pop, add green chili, asafoetida, curry leaves, cashews.  When cashews become a littl brown then add onion and cauliflower and stir fry a bit.  Add some water and cook the vegetables. For vegetable pulav, you can add your choice of vegetables.

Step 3
Take the soaked rice, strain all water out, add the ghee and fry a little.  Add 2 cups of water for one cup of rice. This is the general formula.  For 15 minutes keep the cooker in the stove and heat it. The purpose of doing a little frying for 2 or 3 minutes is that the rice will not stick to one another. After the rice is cooked add turmeric powder, masala powder, cumin, cloves, cinnamon powder and stir well. Take a wide open vessel, add all the items and slowly mix them well.  Add coconut and cilantro.

This dish is very easy to cook using ingredients easily available. In the same way you can prepare other types of vegetable pulav. Just change the vegetables You can even add cardamom elakkai) for additional flavor.

Do share with us how you liked this dish.  Eggplant (brinjal) pulav is another favorite made similarly.

Maida cake

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Ingredients

Maida one cup, ghee (melted butter) - half cup, sugar - between 2 to 2.5 cups, milk powder - half cup

 

Step 1

Keep kadai on the gas and heat it, put the ghee and melt it - keep the gas burner on low until the ghee melts.  Slowly add the maida while stirring and roast it to a typical dosa batter ( the mixture should look like the viscocity of normal dosa batter).  Keep heating slowly till it reaches this state.  Now switch off  the stove and add the milk powder, slowly stirring while adding the milk power.  Then add vanilla essence.  Place this down from the stove and keep it aside.

 

Step 2

Now in a separate kadai take half cup of water add the sugar heat the mixture till it becomes a syrup that is well mixed.  Watch the syrup carefully until one drop of sugar syrup dropped in water goes down like a small ball - this is the right consistency of the syrup to indicate that the sugar syrup is now ready to mix with the maida paste already kept aside. Now switch off the stove; then mix the paste with syrup well; stir slowly until everything is completely mixed and integerated.

 

Step 3

Take a plate, apply a thin layer of ghee on the plate and spread the sugar mixed paste uniformly to appear as a smooth plane.  You can now slice this into pieces suitable to your taste.  

Enjoy your maida cake

How to Prepare Milagu Kuzhambu

Ingredients

milagu one teaspoon, kadali paruppu (channa dal) one teaspoon, uluttam paruppu (urad dal) - one teaspoon, jeeragam (cumin seeds) - half teaspoon, milagai veththal (dried chilli)  six numbers, dhania (cilantro seeds) - two teaspoons, karuveppilai (curry leaves to taste)

tamarind - one big lemon size

Step 1

Grind all ingredients to a nice  paste in mixer and add water as required.

Step 2

Take a kadai  - pour gingely oil or sesame oil (Idhayam nallennai) 4 tablespoons ;  heat and add kadugu (mustard seeds) one teaspoon and toor dal (thuvara paruppu) one teaspoon. After the mustard seeds pop, add the above paste kept ready in a vessel, add one and half teaspoons salt, add half teaspoon of turmeric powder (manja podi)

Step 3

Heat slowly (keep the gas burner in low).  The paste will slowly integrate and you will notice a layer of oil forming at the top.

 

Now your milagu kuzhambu is ready.  You can mix with rice and enjoy.

Tips for Fresh Produce Safety

Friday, December 4, 2009

The folks at foodsafety.gov have come up with tips for produce safety.  It is not anything new and the tips are basically what is dictated by sound common sense.  As vegetarians, we do not need to worry about safety of meat, mercury in fish, egg safety and other issues that torment meat eaters :-)

For us to safely practice vegetarianism, we only need to mostly worry about vegetables and fruits and I decided to cover the tips preached by the food safety website on produce safety.  The tips are divided into three categories:

1. Buying Tips
2. Storage Tips
3 Preparation Tips

Essentially one should buy produce that is not damaged, bruised, crushed, getting spoiled, or otherwise looks or feels like it is a goner :-)  I never buy half-cut water melons that are wrapped in some plastic.  Take care when you buy bananas, avocado, spinach, lettuce etc.

It is a good idea to refrigerate produce that is purchased pre-cut or peeled.  Other than potatoes, onions, bananas and a handful of other items, I usually refrigerate most produce.  Store perishable fresh fruits and vegetables (like strawberries, lettuce, herbs, and mushrooms) at a temperature of 40° F or below.  

The preparation tips from the food safety website really take the cake.  It asks all wannabe cooks to begin food preparation with clean hands.  Washing hands is defined as allowing for 20 seconds of rinsing with warm water and soap before and after preparing fresh produce.  I assume that most of us would wash our hands thoroughly before preparing food.

All produce should be thoroughly washed before eating. I typically spray vegetable wash and then wash fruits and vegetables under running water just before eating, cutting or cooking.  I discard any produce that looks damaged or otherwise dicey to feed my family.   While the food safety website does not recommend using produce washes, I use a mild organic kind that has no chemicals. Dry the produce and then cook, peel, do whatever you got to do to eat.