Back with a Bang!..No wait…another recipe.

Oh I know, its been ages since I blogged. It wasn’t ‘coz I wasn’t cooking! Au contraire, I even cooked my first ever Pongal (The Tamil harvest festival) day meal for my in-laws complete with two types of Pongal, gothsu, vada, vazhakkai podimaas, and rasam!Did I just hear a “Hallelujah!”, sistah?

I am back to blogging at the behest of some friends (you know who you are 🙂 )and encouragement (read nagging!) from hubby dear. Life had been hectic last year with some unfortunate things going on for me…so I decided to take a “sabbatical” from my virtual kitchen.  But here I am, back to writing about some of my adventures (and misadventures) in the exotic world of food. What better way to restart this journey than with one of my all-time favorite dishes-appalapoo kootu (mini dried lentil chips deep fried and simmered in lentil sauce). As most of y’all might have guessed (or known) by now, me and the Mister (!) don’t exactly meet eye to eye on lots of dishes (like many other things) and this ranks in the top 10. That’s ‘coz he likes his appalams crispy while I like them in any form!

I make this dish whenever I miss my mom. Whenever I had a rough day at school or wasn’t feeling up to it, it was like she somehow sensed it without me having to tell her. That evening a piping hot appalapoo kootu used to await on the table to lift up my mood! Mothers, I tell ya!! This dish is made using mini appalams and that’s why the name appalapoo (mini appalam).

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you - The most amazing comfort food ever -Appalapoo Kootu

Appalapoo  – 8-10 nos (if using appalam, 3-4 would be sufficient)

saunf (fennel seeds) – 1.5 tsp

onion, small, finely chopped – 1/2 no

garlic, medium – 2 pods (optional)

toor daal-1/2 cup

turmeric-1/4 tsp

salt-as per taste

Water – 1.5 cups

Oil- for frying

For the tadka:

Mustard seeds-1 tbsp

red chillies, dried-2

hing-1/4 tsp

curry leaves-7-8 nos

Oil-2 tsps

Pressure cook the toor dal with garlic and turmeric in 1 cup water. Mash and keep aside. Fry the appalams/appalapoo in oil. In case of appalams, crush them to get bite-size pieces.Crush the fennel seeds using a mortar and pestle to bring out the oils.

Heat oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds, hing, saunf and onions. Add the curry leaves and red cillies as well. Saute till the onions turn translucent. Now add the toor daal along with salt followed by the appalapoo. Add 1/2 cup water and bring to a boil. Serve hot with rice and rasam or some spicy tamarind-based curry. N hear yourself say “Ha..life’s good!”.

On an aside, I baked this cake for some friends and they assumed it was store bought. I hate blowing my own trumpet (yeah right!) but just couldn’t resist it this time!

Our friends couldn't see the back of the cake..now you know why they refused to believe!

It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting based on Ina Garten’s recipe.

Chatti Masiyal/Peerkangai Masiyal(Bottle gourd in tangy sauce)

Peerkangai (bottle gourd) has never been on the top of my favorites list. My mother had to tempt me to eat this rather bland veggie using different dishes or just good combos that go well with this dish(so that she can coax me into eating this masked by the other nicer dishes around). Some of these dishes were kootu, thogayal(with the skin) or an occasional(oh by that I mean, once or twice a year!) deep fry with bengal gram.

Soon after my wedding, one morning my mother-in-law announced that she was making a dish with this vegetable.  I neither wanted to eat this vegetable nor tell her I didn’t like it , for the fear of hurting her feelings. So I decide to gulp it and put on a smiling face – till she served it on my plate. Boy oh boy, was this dish great or WAT! I was so completely in love with peerkangai from then on! But sadly, I forgot to get the recipe or even the name of the dish, during that trip.

Recently, when I started finding good(oh yeah, they are mostly in their stale dried best!) peerkangai in the nearby Indian grocery store, I decide to make this delightful dish. I thought I had to first ask for the name of the dish from my hubby before asking my MIL for the recipe for ‘that dish with peerkangai which was heavenly’! The name was-brace yourselves- ‘Chatti Masiyal'(Paste in a pot!). After a few mins of good laugh, I called my MIL and asked her for the recipe.

Here it goes:

Peerkangai, meduim, diced-2 nos

Bengal gram(kadalai paruppu)-2 tbsps

coriander seeds(dhania)-2 tsps

red chillies-4 nos

tamarind pulp-1/4 cup

turmeric-1 tsp

salt-as per taste

For tempering(thadka):

Oil-1/2 tsp

mustard seeds-1/4 tsp

curry leaves-5-6 nos

Asofoetida-a few dashes

Dry roast the bengal gram, coriander seeds and red chillies. Allow it to cool and grind it to a smooth powder. Pressure cook the peerkangai along with turmeric in some water till tender. Mash the vegetable a little. Add the ground powder along with salt and tamarind pulp and some water to get the consistency of thick sambar or pancake batter. Allow the sauce to simmer on medium heat. Heat oil and splutter the mustard seeds, hing and curry leaves. Add the tadka to the sauce and serve with rice and appalum.

A pukka tamilian meal complete with rice, masiyal, poriyal and appalum

P.S: For all ya sistah out there with an absolute distaste for this veggie, try this dish with the red chillies and tamarind turned up a notch than what’s given in the recipe – oh I can already hear you gushin’ about it!

Thakkali/Tomato thokku

Every time my mom and I embarked on an overnight journey, foods that were packed included rotis/idlis and the thakkali thokku(spicy pickled tomato concentrate). The reson for this was these lasted long in the hot Indian summery days. And they tasted just as fresh and tasty all along. This wonderful thokku was also served at home as an accompaniment for thoor dal pulav and other breakfast dishes.

For me, this dish is special ‘coz this was one of the first dishes I ever cooked for my hubby and his ex-collegues when I visited him and got some great compliments. So recently when our friends and we decided to go to a nice little state park for a long weekend, I offered to make the thakkali thokku. And it was no different this time-while one got reminded of  her paati’s(grandmom) thokku, another got reminded of home sweet home in Hyderabad! What better compliment for one’s food than reviving fond ole memories :). This is one dish you cannot go wrong with.

Beautiful,summery tomatoes washed and ready to be cooked

For 2 servings:

tomatoes(medium, chopped/pureed)-3 nos

(Pureeing the tomatoes gives a smoother thokku than when chopped which leaves little lumps)

kashmiri red chilli powder-2.5 tsp

salt-3/4 tsp

mustard seeds-1 tsp

fenugreek seeds-1/4 tsp

sesame oil/gingely oil-1 tbsp

In a hot pan, saute the mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds till they mustard seeds pop and the fenugreek seeds give a wonderful aroma(don’t let them burn!). Cool and grind to a fine powder.

Heat oil in the pan and add the tomato puree. Saute on medium high for 5 mins till the puree thickens and leaves the sides of the pan. Add salt and chilli powder and cover. Cook for a couple of minutes on low heat till you see oil emerge around the mixture. Stir in the mustard-fenugreek powder and turn off the heat immediately. Serve with idlis, dosas or even rotis.

Tomato thokku ready to take a hike! No really..we went to a state park:)

Sunday Special-Aappam

Its been a while since I blogged. Its not because I didn’t cook too often(well, that too) but mostly because last week was one of the most busiest weeks of my life in the past six months. So last week, food from various restaurants and a little bit of kannavanin kaimanam(roughly translates to husband’s handiwork) featured on our menu list. I was craving for some steaming home cooked food by the end of last week. After a day of hot rasam saadam, I decided it was time to make one of my favorite south Indian breakfasts-aappam.

If one were to ask me or my cousins what we would have for breakfast on a Sunday, the reply would be, “Duh, aappam!”. Yes, it was a given that Sunday mornings started with hot, fluffy aappams(rice pancakes) served with thengai paal(sweetened coconut milk). It was a tradition at home(I guess my ammamma started it and all her children and some of her grandchildren still follow it!). Usually, the fact that it was a Sunday dawned on me only on seeing the white, soft aappams. It kinda set the mood for the day. When I left home, the tradition too stayed behind. Although I craved for it sometimes, I never tried making it by myself. I thought I could satisfy my craving at Saravana Bhavan in CA or NJ but alas, it wasn’t to be! So after asking my mom repeatedly for the recipe, she finally wrote it down for me when she visited me. And I, after a week of Italian, Thai, Mexican and American cuisine, decided to go back to my roots!!

When I mentioned to my hubby that I was making aappam and thengai paal for dinner, he gave me the women-sure-are-from-Venus-in-their-taste-palettes look. So I decided to make it with vegetable kurma as a side. This combo was served at home occasionally viz., the first Sunday of my Summer vacation or when my dad asked for it-which almost never happened(he stays away from coconuts for health reasons)! But tonight, not only did I relish this wonderful combo, my husband loved it too.

A hot, white, fluffy aappam

To make 10-12 medium sized aappams:

Boiled rice-1 cup

Raw rice-1 cup

Urad dal-1.5 tsp

Fenugreek seeds-1/2 tsp

salt to taste

water

oil-a few drops

Soak the rice and the dal with fenugreek seeds separately for 8 hours. Add water and grind the ingredients to make a smooth batter. Add salt and let the batter ferment overnight. The consistency of the batter should be rather thin(a la watery sambar!).

Spread oil in a Kadai(preferably non-stick), add two ladles of the batter and rotate the pan clockwise till the batter spreads around the kadai forming a hemisphere. Allow a little batter to remain in the center to form a thick and fluffy center. Cover and let it cook on medium heat for 5-7 minutes. Uncover, check if the center is cooked and remove slowly using a spatula. Serve with piping hot kurma or sweetened, cold thengai paal. Ensaay-the tamilian way of saying Enjoy!

Aappams served with vegetable kurma

Here’s hoping ammamma’s Sunday aappam tradition continues for generations to come!

Tip: Although this recipe yeilds soft aappams, to get extra soft and tastier aapams, substitute water with coconut water and add 1 tsp sugar…that’s right, that’s why aappams served in Kerala are just GREAT!