Phirni

 

I tasted this awesome sweet dish in Libya in late 1980s when we went to a friend’s house on Eid. I just loved it, took the recipe from her, and it is a common item at home. This is prepared with rice, sugar and milk, just like the rice kheer is prepared. But phirni is made with broken rice, it is always served cold after refrigeration, and fried cashewnuts and kismis are not added.

Ingredients

Rice can be washed, dried, ground roughly and stored in air tight bottles to prepare phirni any time.

3 heaped tbsps of broken rice

6 cups milk

1 cup sugar

A few strands of saffron soaked in water

¼ tsp cardamom powder

A pinch of edible camphor (optional)

¼ tsp nutmeg powder (optional)

Instruction

-          Add ½ cup milk to the broken rice in a bowl and keep aside.

-          Bring the remaining milk to boil. When it boils, add the rice milk mixture to this and mix well.

-          Reduce the flame and keep stirring in between till the rice is cooked and it thickens, which takes about 15 minutes.

-          Now add sugar, mix well, keep on low ire, stirring in between till it thickens again ( another 10 minutes).

-          Add the cardamom powder, saffron, edible camphor, and nutmeg powder. Stir well and remove from fire.

-          Let it cool, then refrigerate and serve.

Kerala Barotta

 From childhood I have relished this dish in hotels. Later when I moved out of Kerala, I learned to make it at home.

                                                    Barotta with egg curry and banana raita

Ingredients

2 cups refined flour

Salt to taste

2 tbsps oil

About ¾ cup water

Instruction

-          Knead the refined flour with salt, 1 tablespoon oil and water. Keep adding the water slowly to make smooth dough. Cover and keep aside for 10 minutes.

-          - Divide the dough into two portions. Spread one into a big rectangle. Smear oil on the whole top surface and along the longer side, fold it like making sari pleats.  Coil this rope like dough into a round and spread with a rolling pin into a large round. See this tchnique below:

-          Heat thava on medium flame and cook the barotta from both sides, applying oil on both surfaces.

-          Serve hot with egg curry.

Baingan (Brinjal) Bhaja

This is an easy and delicious preparation that goes well with rice or chapatti. I learned this from my daughter’s Bengali classmate.

            You can see some potato wedges also being cooked alongside, for my potato lover husband 

Ingredients

2 large sized brinjals

Salt to taste

½ tsp turmeric powder

¼ cup oil to shallow fry

Instructions

-          Wash and dry the brinjals. Slice them into 1 cm thick pieces

-          Sprinkle turmeric powder and salt on both sides and spread on a plate. Keep the plate slightly tilted so that the water that comes out collects at the lower side of the plate and can be discarded.

-          Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan on high flame. Now reduce the flame to medium and drop the brinjal slices.

-          When the bottom side is cooked, turn them upside down and let the other side also get cooked.

-          Remove them from the pan and serve hot with rice or chapatis

  

Baked Macaroni

In the early 80’s this dish was served to us by a German lady who had married a Kannadiga man, in Manipal. I loved it, took recipe from her and it used to be a regular item at home.

Ingredients

200 gms macaroni (in the pictures I have used pasta)

Salt to tast

1 large Brinjal or 2 to 3 small ones

1 tsp garam masala powder

2 to 3 tomatoes

2 large onions

½ tsp nutmeg powder

½ tsp pepper powder

2 tbsps milk

1 egg

1 tbsp butter

½ cup grated cheese

½ tsp oregano

Instruction

-          Keep 4 glasses of water with salt and ¼ tsp oil to boil and drop the pasta. Let it cook (takes about 12 minutes) and then drain and keep aside.

-          While it is being cooked, slice the brinjals into rounds of 1cm thickness. Sprinkle salt and garam masala powder on both sides and keep for about 15 minutes.

-          Slice onions and tomatoes into rounds.

-          Fry the brinjal slices till brown on both sides. Then lightly fry the onion slices.

-          Grease a baking dish and spread half of the cooked macaroni on the bottom.

-          Arrange fried brinjal slices on top of it. Arrange sliced tomatoes over it, and then fried onion slices.

-          Now put the remaining macaroni on top.

-          Beat the egg, add milk and nutmeg and pepper powder, beat again and pour over the macaroni.

-          Arrange butter on the top, and finally the grated cheese. Here I have used Amul cheese slice pieces.

-          Bake on a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for ½ hour till cheese is melted and a little brown.

-          You can also bake for 25 minutes and then grill for 5 minutes.

-          Can sprinkle oregano on top. And serve hot with tomato ketchup and salad. 

Ragi Dosa with fermented batter

This is a dosa loaded with nutrients of ragi flour and tastes almost like ordinary dosa.

                                       Ragi dosa, sambar, dosa podi with ghee, and fresh papaya

Ingredients

1 cup udad dal ( for 9 dosas)

½ cup rice

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

1 cup ragi flour

Salt to taste

Oil or ghee

Instruction

-          Wash and soak together the udad dal, rice and fenugreek seeds for 6-8 hours and grind to a smooth paste.

-          Mix in the ragi flour, make into a thick batter, adding water if needed. Leave it overnight to ferment and rise.

-          Add salt and make dosas, smearing oil or ghee on the thava and cook from both sides. The fire should be medium.

-          Serve hot with sambar and chutney. 

Capsicum Raita

 This is one raita with a typical flavour that I love. Only salt is added to keep the original flavour of capsicum intact.

Ingredients

2 capsicums

1 cup beaten curd

Salt to taste

Instruction

-           Hold the capsicum over gas flame and let the skin gets charred on all surfaces.

-          Let it cool and peel off the charred skin, cut it into two and remove the seeds. Cut into small pieces.

-          Beat the curds, add salt and mix in the capsicum pieces. And it is ready to be served.

Rice Flour Pancake (Sweet version)

After having succeeded in making eggless pancakes, I ventured to make rice flour pancakes, which is a boon for gluten sensitive individuals. And they turned out awesome!

Ingredients

1 ¾  cups rice flour (for 5 pancakes)

2 ripe bananas

1/3 cup grated coconut

2 tbsps grated jaggery OR liquid jaggery (adjust as per your taste)

A pinch of baking soda

A pinch of cardamom powder

½ cup water

2 tbsps Ghee or oil

Instruction

-          If you are using grated jaggery, add ¼ cup water and put on medium flame. When it liquefies, sieve and keep aside.

-          Mash the bananas nicely with a fork. Add the rice flour, jaggery, coconut, cardamom powder and baking soda.

-          Mix well and add water slowly to make a thick batter.

-          Heat an oiled thava on low flame, spread a ladleful of batter, taking care not to spread it too thin.

-          When the underside is cooked, pour some ghee on the top, turn upside down and cook the other side.

-          Serve hot with ghee, honey or jam.