Churuttappam

Churuttappam, Kuzhalappam or rice flour cannoli happened to be a common item in Christian households  when I was a kid. My mami living in Kottayam used to make it and I was just crazy for this mildly flavored savory item. Later it was available in bakeries and during many visits to Kerala we used to buy.

Yesterday I thought of trying to prepare it at home. Checked for the recipe on the net and I chose one from them. It turned out to be a success and my husband has approved the taste.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups rice flour (for 40 pieces)

1 ¼ cups water

½ cup Grated coconut

7 shallots

5 flakes of garlic

½ tsp cumin

½ tbsp. of black sesame

Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Instruction:

-       -   Grind the coconut, shallots, garlic and cumin to a fine paste with very little water. I use my grinding stone instead of blender to get a real fine paste.

-          - Take a thick bottomed kadai and roast the rice flour on low fire for about 4 minutes. Meanwhile keep the water with the salt to boil.

-          - Add the ground paste and sesame seeds to the rice flour, mix well, keeping the flame low, for two minutes.

-          - By this time the water must have come to boil, add it to the rice flour slowly and keep mixing with a ladle. Switch off the flame.

-          -  Wait till the flour cools down a bit, knead it into a smooth dough and cover it with a cling film or wet cloth. Keep aside for twenty minutes.

-         -  Knead the dough and divide it into 40 small portions. Take each portion, roll it into a ball with pressure between the palms. Flatten it into round on a puri press, wrap it around your left index finger. Let the edges overlap and press them together to join.

-          - Heat oil in a karahi and reduce the flame to medium. Slide the pieces into the hot oil, deep fry till light brown and drain.

Ragi porridge - Kurakkan Kenda (Sri Lanka’s finger millet porridge)

Finger millet porridge is another breakfast item we tried in Sri Lanka and I immediately fell in love with. So, I had to make it at home and today I prepared and my husband loved it. Got guidance for recipe from the net, which I modified for my convenience.

Finger Millet is a rich source of Calcium, Iron, Protein, Fiber and other minerals and is a gluten-free food. The cereal has low fat content and contains mainly unsaturated fat. It is easy to digest and does not contain gluten; people who are sensitive to gluten can easily consume Finger Millet

Ingredients:

-          1 tbsp ragi flour

-          1 cup boiling water

-          ¾ cup milk

-          1 ½ tbsp. grated coconut

-          1 tbsp grated jiggery

-          ½ tsp cardamom powder

Instructions:

-          Dry roast the ragi flour in a thick bottomed vessel. Keep stirring to avoid it sticking to the bottom and getting burned.

-          When the color slightly changes and nice aroma comes, add boiling water slowly, stirring it to avoid lumps.

-          Let it cook and become a little thick, now add the jaggery and mix well.

-          Slowly add the milk and then the grated coconut.

-          Add cardamom powder, stir well and remove from fire.

-          Serve hot. 

21 August 2018

   Today when I prepared ragi porridge, added some chia seeds while roasting the ragi flour. It just took the porridge to another dimension in taste!

Cucumber Raita

This is a very soothing dish which always accompanies a fried item like puris and it is very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

- 1 medium sized Cucumber

- 3 cups yoghurt

- Salt to taste

- 1/3 tsp black salt

- ½ tsp red chilli powder

- ½ tsp roasted cumin powder

- 1/3 tsp black pepper powder

Instruction

- Wash and grate the cucumber, squeeze out excess water.

- Beat the yoghurt, add salt , black salt and pepper powder and mix in the grated cucumber.

- Add the red chilli powder and roasted cumin powder. You can add these in a design, refrigerate and take out at the time of serving.

- You can make raita with other ingredients like beet root too.

Kiribath (Sri Lankan milk rice)

The first breakfast we had in Sri Lanka was Kiribath. It had the divine fragrance that only coconut milk can impart and tasted awesome. I wanted to prepare it at home, but the cooking process was long. I love cooking, but find ways to do it fast and easy. Today morning the idea clicked and I made it. Here it is for you to try and sample this great dish. It can be served with red chilli sambal or any gravy you like.

You need to use sticky rice. In Sri Lanka they have special rice for making kiribath. I thought the Indrayani rice that is available in Belgaum should be alright, and I was right!

We had for today’s lunch kiribath with bread fruit thoran, red chilli sambal and boondi raita.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup Indrayani rice, soak for ten minutes

- 1 ½ cups water

- 1 ½ cups coconut milk

- Salt to taste

Instructions:

- Pressure cook the soaked rice with water and salt for 2 minutes.

- Allow the pressure cooker to cool. Open it, add the coconut milk and pressure cook for three minutes.

- Cool and open the pressure cooker, take out the rice, put it in a try and pat down.

- When it is slightly cold, cut into pieces and serve.

Sri Lankan rotti

As we were passing through the villages in Sri Lanka, it was time for breakfast and we stopped at a shack on the way. He told he could serve us rottis, tender jackfruit sabzi and red chill chutney. As we settled down, he started making rottis and we got them right from the thava. My husband got totally hooked on and today I made them for him. In Sri Lanka, they use refined flour (maida) for rottis, but I am not a great fan of maida, so I used wheat flour.

Rotti is similar to oratti that we make in Kerala, with slight modification.

1.       For oratti, we use grated coconut about 1/4 the quantity of flour, but for rotti, it is half the quantity of flour.

2.       Rotti has almost double the thickness of oratti, so it has to be cooked for longer time on low fire, which means.,

3.       A thick thava needs to be used for making rotti.

Thava used to make oratti

Thick thava to make rotti

Ingredients:

 100 gm wheat flour for one rotti

 ½ cup grated coconut

 Salt to taste
1 teaspoon oil

Instruction:

-          Mix the coconut gratings well with the wheat flour combined with salt. Add water slowly and knead into soft dough.

-         Heat the thava, when it is hot, lower the flame.

-          Apply oil on the thava.

-          Press the dough between palms moistened with water into a thick round and place on the thava.

-          Turn it over when one side is cooked and let the other side also cooked. 
       Serve hot with red chilli chutney.

Red chilli sambal (Sri Lankan chilli chutney)

Sri Lankan food experience is something out of this world! Such a variety of food items that every day was a treat. Their favorite breakfast item is Kiribath (milk rice) which is served with red chilli sambal. And it was kiri bath and chilli sambal that our wonderful host served us on our first day in Sri Lanka. The red chilli chutney can be a side dish for many of our Indian dishes. Today we had it with semiya (vermicelli) upma.

Ingredients:

- 15 red chillies

- 1 tbsp of cut onion

- Sea salt to taste
- Juice of half a lemon (optional)

Instruction:

-          - Remove the stalk of the red chillies, cut into two or three pieces and lightly roast them. Soak in water for about 15 minutes.

-          - Grind the soaked, drained chili pieces. I used my grinding stone, but can be done in the blender too.

 - - The taste of course will be superior when grinding stone is used. It should be ground slightly rough, you should see some of the seeds intact.

-     - Add salt and cut onion and grind again. Serve with steamed rice or chapatis. Can be bottled and refrigerated for further use.

Chakka varatti (Jackfruit jam)

I have very fond memories associated with this preparation. My mother used to prepare it lovingly, pack it in bottle and give to me. While I was staying in hostel in Lucknow during my post graduation, our choices for breakfast were toasted bread slices with  jam or aloo parathas. I used to take aloo paratha, apply jackfruit jam, roll it up and enjoy it.

We got this big ripe jackfruit last week. Spent two hours cutting, cleaning and taking out the bulbs. Some I kept to have as it is, and decided to make chakka varatti with the remaining.

Ingredients:

1700 gms of jackfruit bulbs deseeded and ground into paste

600 gms jiggery ( roughly 1/3 quantity of jackfruit)

1 cup water

¾ cup ghee

½ tsp cardamom powder

Instruction:

• Add the water to the jaggery in a thick bottomed vessel and keep on fire. When the jaggery dissolves completely, sieve it to remove any impurities
• Add jackfruit paste to the liquid jaggery and keep on medium flame. 

• Keep it covered, stir in between, taking care that it doesn’t splatter onto you.
• When it becomes quite thick and the jackfruit is cooked, keep adding tablespoonfuls of ghee intermittently.
•  As it starts separating from the sides of the vessel, add cardamom powder, mix well and remove from fire.
• Cool and store in bottle. Can be used as a spread for bread slice, eaten with parathas  and also to make payasam.