Mathan Erisseri / Pumpkin with Red chori & my first award

My all time favorite. Even my hubby’s… This is one among the very few veggie curries he have without any reluctance. I knew that Erisseri was one among the items for sadhya but did not know what it was. I realized very late that Erisseri is the same as what we call as “mathanum payarum” at homeJ. We have sadhya only when we go for marriages and then, I was never interested to know the names of the curries served. The mission would be to finish the meal soon, that too only half the stomach and wait for different kind of payasams JJ.

Ingredients:

Vanpayar / Red Chori        --    ¼ cup

Mathan / Pumpkin             --   250gm

Green Chillies                       --   3 - 4

Turmeric powder               --   ¼ tsp

Pepper powder                   --   ½ tsp

Cumin seeds                         --   ½ tsp (optional)

Mustard seeds                     --   ½ tsp

Red Chillies                           --   2

Curry Leaves                       --   few

Shredded coconut              --   ¾ cup

Oil                                          --   2 tbsp

Salt                                        --   to taste

 

Preparation of Erisseri:

Soak the vanpayar in water for 8 hours/overnight. Cook the vanpayar in a pressure cooker and keep aside. Normally it takes 3 – 4 whistles to get this cooked.

Grind ½ cup of coconut with a pinch of turmeric powder & cumin seeds and keep aside.

In another vessel, cook the pumpkin with salt, turmeric powder, pepper powder and green chillies.

Smash the pumpkin once it is well cooked. Add the ground coconut mixture, cooked vanpayar and let it boil. Add more water if required.

Meanwhile heat oil in a pan and splutter the mustard seeds. Add the red chillies, curry leaves and the left over coconut and fry until the coconut turns golden brown. Add this mixture into the boiling curry and mix well.

Serve hot with rice.

Maya & Lakshmi of YummyOYummy, Suja of Kitchen Corner -Try it , Kairali Sisters and Ammu of Nature Kitchen have tagged me for my first award. Thanks a lot to Yummy Team,Suja, Kairali sisters and Ammu. As per the rules, I have to tag other blogger friends and post my favorite pics.

I love to share this with Shabs of Shab's Cuisine, team of Adukkala Visheshams, Priya of A Feast for the Mind.....Manasinu Oru Sadya, Yasmeen of Health Nut, Superchef of MirchMasala, Vrinda of Sankeerthanam, An open book of Look Who's cooking too.

I am posting 2 pics, stolen  from my hubby's blog JJ

Chicken Noodles

Ingredients:

Plain Noodles                         --    250 gm

Carrot                                     --    1 big

Green Pepper/Capsicum          --    1 medium

Beans                                      --    250 gm

Onion                                      --   ½ of a medium sized

Chicken breast                       --   2 pieces

Eggs                                        --   2

Soya Sauce                             --   2 tsp

Chilly Sauce                           --   2 tsp

Vinegar                                   --   1 tsp

Tomato Sauce                       --   1 tsp

Pepper Powder                     --   2 tsp

Sugar                                      --    a pinch

Oil                                           --    2 tbsp

Salt                                         --    to taste

Preparation of Noodles:

Cook the chicken breasts by adding salt and pepper. You can also marinate the chicken with salt and pepper and fry them. I did fry as this will help the pieces to remain more firm. Slice the cooked/fried chicken into strips. Keep aside.

Scramble the eggs by adding salt and pepper and keep aside.

Cut the vegetables into small strips and keep aside. You can also add any vegetables like cabbage, spring onion etc as per your wish.

Cook the noodles as per the instructions on the packet. Once cooked, empty the noodles into a colander and keep under running water until it is cooled. This is to avoid the noodles getting cooked after it is drained. Add a tsp of oil into the noodles and toss it. This helps to prevent sticking of the strands.

Heat oil in a pan and fry the sliced vegetables. Make sure you fry on high flame. This helps the vegetables to get cooked and remain crunchy as well. Stir fry for around 1 min.

Now add the cooked chicken and scrambled egg. Mix them well.

Add the cooked noodles, soya sauce, chilly sauce, tomato sauce and vinegar. Toss well to mix everything uniformly. You can add more of any sauces according to your taste buds. Add sugar and garnish with remaining pepper.

Serve hot.

Fish Moilee

This is my grandmother’s favorite. She used to prepare fish moilee with mackerel (ayala). It’s just walkable distance to the beach and the fish market from our home in Calicut. If my father or any of the uncles get to find fresh fish just out of the sea; during the evenings or late nights, they get it then and there. They would definitely want to get it fried at that moment, but if it is mackerel, my grandmother would reserve it for the next day breakfast provided it’s the day for Puttu or Vellappam. Not sure if I had mentioned before; I am from a joint family. During the days of my grandmother, she had a time table for the breakfast items on each day. We had Vellappam on Sunday, Upma or kuthappam on Monday, Idly on Tuesday, Puttu on Wednesday and so on… An exception was when there is some special occasion; all are too busy to be in the kitchen.

I know that not everyone can digest the idea of non-veg for breakfast. Even my hubby, who is a pure non-vegetarian, never prefers it for breakfast. May be that’s the trend just towards the Malabar area. But whenever I make this dish, it reminds me the taste of the curry my grandmother used to make for breakfast. That was really yummy and the best  I ever had.

Ingredients:

Fish (King Fish)                     --   ½ kg

Onion                                      --   1 medium

Green chillies                         --    3 or 4

Ginger                                     --   1 inch piece

Garlic                                      --   2 small cloves

Shredded Coconut                --   1 cup

Turmeric Powder                   --   ½ tsp

Garam masala                       --   ½ tsp

Pepper powder                       --   1½ tsp

Coriander leaves                   --   few

Vinegar                                   --   1 tsp

Oil                                           --    2 tbsp

Salt                                         --   to taste

Preparation of Moilee:

Extract thick & thin milk from the coconut and keep it aside.

Grind 2 green chillies, 1 pod of garlic and ½ inch piece of ginger. Add 1 tsp of pepper, turmeric and salt to the mixture. Marinate the clean and cut fish with the prepared marinade.

Deep fry the fish until they are 90% cooked. Make sure that you don’t overcook them. I used King Mackerel; but this can be prepared with any fish, preferably the ones with lesser bones.

Heat oil in a pan and add the finely chopped onions, left over green chillies, ginger and garlic. Saute until the onions become translucent. Add garam masala and sauté for a minute. Add the thin coconut milk and the fried fish. Let it boil. Now the yellow colour from the fried fish blends with the white coconut milk and will give a light yellow colour to the curry.

 

Once it starts boiling add vinegar, turn off the fire and leave the pan on the stove itself. Now add the thick coconut milk. Mix it well and then garish with the left over pepper powder, chopped coriander leaves and the tomatoes cut in circles. Close the pan with the lid and leave it for 10 – 15 minutes; until the essence of the garnishing blend into the curry.

This goes well with appam, idyappam, puttu or even with ghee rice.

A short thought on Thoughts & Dreams !!!!

I got a registered post today. It was from the Cochin University of Science & Technology… Yeah…  CUSAT … the University which presented me the Bachelor’s Degree 6 years back. Being a registered letter, I opened it carefully. It was a mark list for Fourth Semester with red circles on the subject Electronic Product Design (EPD) and a letter saying that my degree is taken off as I have not passed in one subject. It also said that I do not have another chance as the University rules agreed to give only 8 years for a person to complete the degree from the date of joining. I did not know what to do.. Couldn’t speak out a single word for sometime. My job… My experience.. My life… What is gonna happen?? Oh my God!!!

Suddenly I heard my phone ring. That was from my friend in college. We had not seen or spoke after college days. Of course I did call her after reaching here. We used to sit side to side everyday in the first row of the class... Yeah members of the mischievous first benchers… The teachers would always roll their eyes at the backbenchers. They never minded the first benchers what ever they do. The only thing the first benchers had to do is to laugh at the PJs the teachers say and of course act as taking notes. No matter even if the pen plays a tic-tac-toe or if the pen is busy writing out a chit to circulate in the class.

Now coming back to the telephone ring…. I switched it on and greeted her with a ‘Hello’. She replied the same. I could sense the panic in her voice too. She too got the similar letter from the university. We discussed about it and decided to go to college to find out if we have some opportunity left to write the exam once again. The next day, we met in the usual 6.00 am bus. It was the first time; I travelled in that bus with a full ticket. We used to fight with the bus conductor for a student’s concession ticket. Though he would give a speech about the rules of student’s concession and that the concession is given only after 7.30am, he would finally agree with us. We didn’t speak out until we reached the college.

While waiting in the reception to meet the Principal, suddenly it came into mind. We are already passed; we have our mark lists and the degree certificates with us. Then why do they say that we have not passed??? I remember, I had topped in the Fourth Semester with a total percentage of 83%. Even my friend hadn’t thought about this. Without waiting for the Principal, we ran to the staff room to find out if there are any teachers there. We stepped into the teacher’s room. All the faces were familiar. Not because that they taught us anything… We had given them a warm welcome with small naughty bits of ragging. Most of them were our juniors & sub-juniors; they are now teachers there. Some are in guest lecturer posts where are some others are in permanent posts. After hesitating for a while, we told them why we had come over and asked them why this happened to us. They couldn’t give us any answer. So we then went to the HOD and explained the same there too. He said, “The syllabus is changed.. The pass percentages have changed. May be you wouldn’t have attained the current pass mark at that time.” Before we could digest it, I opened my eyes.

Unbelievable right??? This is something that can never happen… No … this is something that can happen only in dreams. Yeah this was my dream last night. I never used to have dreams… Yeah I did have and still have thousands of day dreams J  But now am talking about sleep dreams.

People and technology say that everyone will have sleep dreams. Some remember them and few others don’t. But I don’t remember about any sleep dreams I had; atleast until I reached here. If we just search out for ‘Why we have dreams?’ , we get a number of results. One of them was: Some researchers suggest that dreams serve no real purpose, while other believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well-being. Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., suggests that "...a possible (though certainly not proven) function of a dream to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events. I like to believe it this way J We can even get thousands of books about dream interpretations. I’ve read in story books, the dreams which are seen early in the morning are those to come true. Though I don’t believe in the dream interpretations and old myths, I just google out every day about what I dreamt. Just as a fantasy. A new time passJ Believe me .. I even dreamt about me attending my hubby’s second marriage; which he was happy to hear J J J

Though I started my blog as a food blog, I didn’t want to restrict it just with recipes. Just because of that I had a long hunt for a good name. But later I was lazy to scribble anything other than recipes. Yesterday (Its almost 2 weeks now, this lying in my drafts J), my friend asked me if I have updated something new in my blog and also suggested not to restrict it with recipes. So I thought... Yes…  I should write something today. Thanks for the inspiration dear friend…  I am not a person with lots of ideas to pen down. But I like to share my thoughts. That might be the reason why I am always marked as the chatter box…. Of course after I cross the hurdle called ‘starting trouble’.  

Stuffed Paratha

Paratha is flat bread with whole wheat flour. Normal parathas as such is healthy and tasty with variety of side dishes. There are multiple variations of parathas, with multiple stuffing. Aloo paratha is the most famous of those. This goes well for any meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.

My hubby being a pure Non-veggie, he wanted to have a chicken stuffed paratha and so I came to this version of mine. Veggies can just omit the chicken part of it and look at this as aloo paratha J

Ingredients:

Wheat Flour (atta)           --   2 cups

Water                                 --   1 cup approximately

Oil/Ghee                            --   1 tbsp

Salt                                      --   to taste

Butter                                 --   to cook

Potatoes                             --   2 to 3

Chicken                              --   200 gm

Cumin Seeds                     --   ½ tsp

Turmeric powder            --   a pinch

Garam masala                  --   ½ tsp

Pepper Powder                --   ½ tsp

Green chillies                    --   2

Ginger                              --    ½ tsp

Coriander leaves             --   a bunch

Salt                                    --   to taste

Preparation of the dough:

Add salt and ghee to atta and make soft and thick dough adding warm water to the mix. Keep it for an hour or more, preferably covered in a wet muslin cloth.

Preparation of the filling:

Cook the chicken with a pinch of salt and turmeric powder. I used chicken breasts; ie boneless.  Mince it once cooked. Cook the potatoes and peel them.

Mash the potatoes and mix minced chicken, turmeric powder, garam masala, pepper powder and salt. Mash them finely so that all hard lumps are removed. Fry jeera in a little oil and let it crackle. Thoroughly mix the fried jeera, finely chopped green chillies, finely chopped ginger and finely chopped coriander leaves into the mashed potato mix. Make sure that the mix is dry; else it would be difficult to roll out the parathas.

 

Preparation of the parathas:

Divide the dough and the filling into equal portions.

Roll the dough in the form of a small poori. Take care so that this is thinner at the sides and thicker in the middle. Place a portion of the filling inside and close it from all the sides and make it into a dumpling.

 

Press it lightly on the palm, dust it with flour on both the sides and roll it slowly and gently into a paratha. Now cook on tawa. Allow one side to cook and when the color changes into light brown color, turn for other side. Drizzle some butter or ghee on each side and flip.

 

Serve hot with curd and pickle.

This is the first time; I tried rolling the paratha with the filling within. Before I used to just roll out 2 parathas and sandwich the stuffing and close the edges. That’s easier, but gives a thicker, non-stuffed edge.

Egg Curry

Whenever I feel lazy to prepare something into the lunch box, I easily choose egg curry.  This is the easiest of any non-veg curries and this easily fits into the lunch box with any Indian bread like chapathi, roti, appam etc.

 

Ingredients:

Egg                                     --   2

Finely Chopped Onions      --    3 big onions

Ginger Garlic Paste             --    1 tsp

Green chillies                      --    3 -4

Tomato                              --    1 medium sized

Turmeric powder                --    ½ tsp

Chilly powder                     --    2 -3 tbsp

Coriander powder              --    1 tbsp

Garam Masala                    --    1 tsp

Mustard seeds                    --   ½ tsp

Red chillies                         --   2

Curry leaves                       --   a spring

Coconut milk                      --   1 cup (optional)

Oil                                     --    2 tbsp

Salt                                    --    to taste

 

Preparation of Egg Curry:

Add oil into a pan and fry the onions, green chillies and ginger garlic paste. Add tomatoes once the onions are translucent.

         

Add the turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala and coriander powder. Fry until the raw masala smell is gone. Add required amount of water/coconut milk and let it boil.

Now add the eggs. You can either boil the egg and cut into halves or directly add them into the curry and scramble it within the curry. I prepare both the ways depending on the time and liking.

 

 

Garnish the curry with fried mustard seeds, red chillies and curry leaves.

 

 

                             

Recipe Courtesy: Myself

Masala Biscuit

This is a tea time snack, which I’ve seen only in the Malabar region. Though not sure if I had missed it out in other parts of Kerala. It is a good snack to munch on and on….

Ingredients:

All purpose flour                   --    1 cup

Baking powder                     --    1 tsp

Butter                                   --    1 stick (8 tbsp)

Curry leaves                         --    1 spring

Red Chillies                          --    2 - 3

Ginger                                  --    1 inch piece

Cumin seeds                         --    1 tsp

Asafoetida                            --    ¼ tsp

Salt                                      --    to taste

Sugar                                   --    2 tsp (more or less according to taste)

Preparation of Biscuit:

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Sift the mix 4 -5 times. Keep it aside.

Mince together curry leaves, cumin seeds, red chillies and ginger.

Bring the butter to room temperature. Add the minced mix to it. Add asafoetida. Mix well. Now add the flour mix spoon by spoon and knead to a soft dough.

 

Grease an aluminium foil and roll the dough into a circle of ¼ inch thickness. Cut into desired cookie shapes using a cookie cutter. I used my wine glass to cut them. You can also have decorations on them using your knife.

                              

Place them on the baking tray. Preheat the oven to 300 F. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Make sure you don’t burn the cookies.

Recipe Courtesy: Mixed a couple of recipes from internet,