Eggless Gluten free banana bread

EGGLESS BANANA BREAD 

Prep time 15 mins

Cook time 50 mins 

Total time 1 hour 5 mins 

 Ingredients 

• 1 cup Jowar flour 
• 1 cup rice flour 
• 1 teaspoon (4g) baking powder 
• ½ teaspoon (3g) baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon (4g) cinnamon powder 
• ½ teaspoon (2g) ginger powder (optional)
• ½ cup (113g) butter, softened 
• ¼ cup (50g) jaggery 
• 1+1/2 cup (450g) mashed bananas 
• ½ cup (120mL) milk 
• ½ cup (63g) crushed walnuts 
• 
  

Instructions 

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Line a 9" X 4" loaf pan with parchment paper. 
2.  In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, coffee powder and ginger 
3. In a separate bowl beat butter and sugar, until the mixture is fluffy 
4. Mix in the bananas and use a fork to make sure it is well incorporated. 
5. Combine dry ingredients with the wet ingredients but do not over mix. Beat in the milk. 
6. Fold in the crushed walnuts. The batter will be thick. 
7. Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake at 180C for 40-50 minutes,

Kala Masala

Kala Masala - used for veggies, especially tugai palya (filled brinjal) 

1. Coriander 4cups 
2. Jeera half cup 
3. Sesame seeds half cup 
4. Dry coconut 1cup 
5. Shah jeera 1tsp 
6. Cinnamon a large piece 
7. Patrick lvs 5-6 
8. Dagad phool one tbsp 
9. Mustard half tsp 
10. fenugreek 2 tsp 
11. hing, red chilli, turmeric 
12. star anise 3 

 Fry each ingredient on low flame with a little oil and powder when cool.

Murukku

Murukku receipe

1.  5 glass idly rice 
2. 2 glass putani flour (roasted gram) 
3. 25gm black sesame 
4. 50gm butter 
5. Chilli 10 
6. Hing Salt 
7. Grind with red dry chilli. Not too watery, but fine. 
8. Mix in the putani flour and all other ingredients. 
9. Make murukku using the press.
10. Fry in hot oil.

 Sambhar powder / Pudi

Dry roast the following ingredients and grind them finely. This again is TamilNadu style , thanks to my MIL.

Dhaniya /coriander seeds - 2 cup

Chilli -15 (depends on the spicy level you want and also the spicy levels of the chilli)

Jeera - 1/2 cup

Pepper - 1/4 cup

Mustard - 1tsp

Menthay/Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp

Hing/Asafoetida 

Roast 3/4 cup of curry leaf with crystal salt.

 Rasam powder

TamilNadu style Rasam powder. Dry roast the ingredients and grind them.

Dhaniya /coriander seeds - 1 cup

Chilli -15 (depends on the spicy level you want and also the spicy levels of the chilli)

Jeera - 1/3 cup

Pepper - 1/4 cup

Roast 3/4 cup of curry leaf with crystal salt.

Idly Pudi

 Idly pudi

This recipe is Tamilnadu recipe from my mother in law.

Dry roast the following ingredients and grind them finely.

Dhaniya - 1/4 cup

Pepper - 4 tsp

Putani - 1.5 cups

Urad black split - 1 cup

chana dhal - 2 tsp

hing 

Roast 3/4 cup of curry leaf with crystal salt.

Red chilli - 15 (depends on the spicy level you want and also the spicy levels of the chilli)

This can be eaten with hot idly and dosas. Please add oil to it while eating(either coconut, sesame or any other). Do not eat it dry, you'll choke or cough badly. Its delicious, it can also be eaten with sandwich/chapati or basically anything.

Appam

 

Appam

Appam from Kerala is simple to make. It requires very few ingredients.

Ingredients :

• Raw rice - 1 cup
• Idli rice - 1 cup
• Half cup cooked rice
• half cup grated fresh coconut
• salt to taste
• a pinch of cooking/baking soda just before putting appam on griddle/tawa.

Method :

• Soak both the rice in water for at-least 3 hours. Soak cooked rice in water at-least for an hour.
• Grind the soaked rice in mixer/grinder until it becomes smooth. It can be a little watery than idli/dosa batter.
• Next grind the soaked rice and coconut together. Mix it with the rice batter. Add salt and leave it to ferment for 3 hours. In colder places might take longer or overnight.
• While preparing Appam, add a pinch of soda to the batter. Hear the griddle/tawa. This tawa should be curved. If you dont have a curved tawa you can use a curved kadai. The batter should be runny as you will not be spreading the batter like dosa. You pour it from edges of the griddle/tawa and the batter runs down the center. The center will be a thicker and edges will be thin. Spread a few drops of oil. Close the lid and wait for it to cook. Once done, lift it from the edges. Do not flip it on the other side.
• Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Varieties of Appam

• Add jaggery to the appam before taking it out from the tawa. This becomes sweet appam.
• Egg appam - Spread an egg after spreading the batter. Let the egg cook along with the appam.

Bale(Dal) Chatnipudi

 Dal / Byali chatnipudi recipe

This is Karnataka/Maharashtra chutney powder recipe. Its a brahmin style thus does not contain garlic, however very flavourful, crunchy with good texture.

Ingredients - 

• Chana Dal / Kadale bele - 1 cup.
• Urad Dal / Uddina bele - 1/2 cup.
• Grated dry coconut 1 cup.
• Peeled roasted ground nuts- 3/4 cup .
• Curry leaves /Karibevu - a spring. I add much more.
• Asafoetida / Hing 1tsp.
• Cumin / Jeera - 3tsps.
• Coriander seeds / Dhaniya - 4tsps.
• Tamarind - lemon size.
• Jaggery/ Bella  
• Dry red chillies (preferably Byadagi) about 15, more if you want it spicy.
• Salt 

Method - 

With a tsp of oil roast all dals one by one until light brown.

With a little oil roast coriander, tamarind, cumin and curry leaves.

Now roast dry coconut.

First powder the dals coarsely in a mixer jar. Lightly powder groundnuts. Then powder the masala. 

Now add all the ingredients and mix well and powder again. Taste and add salt / chilli powder/ tamarind if required.

Millets, little wonder grains

I'm used to some millets lik Ragi, Jowar and Bajra. We used to use them in small quantities now and then. I'm now discovering some other millets that were once quite easily available and were eaten widely.

I tried Foxtail millet and Little millet. They are tasty and can easily be substituted for rice. The names of some millets are given below

English - Kannada - Tamil - Hindi

Great Millet/Sorghum - Jola - Cholam - Jowari
Pearl Millet - Sajje/bajra - Kambu - Bajra
Finger Millet - Ragi - Ragi - Ragi
Foxtail millet - Navane - Tenai - Kakum
Little Millet - Same - Samai - Shavan
Proso Millet - Baragu - Pani Varagu - Chena/Barri
Kodo Millet - Harka - Varagu - Kodon
Barnyard Millet - Oodalu - Kuthiraivolly - Shyama

Cooking method:
It very easy to cook. I've cooked Foxtail and Little millet in this method.For 1 cup of millet add 2 3/4 cup of water and pressure cook till three whistles. Open after 20-30 minutes.

It is very fluffy and has a nice texture. It can be eaten with any kind of curry, sambhar, rasam , curd or buttermilk.We like eating this for dinner now. We might soon start replacing rice with these millets for the afternoon lunch. I'm not sure where I can find this easily in Bangalore. My husband recently purchased these from Coimbatore.

Why Millets? Some advantages
- they are more nutritious than rice. Some are more nutritious than wheat.
- Mineral content is higher than rice and wheat
- More fiber than rice and wheat.
- Non-gluten grains
- they require less water and time to grow
- can grow on poorer soils
- They are pest free so they'll be free from pesticides etc
- They do not demand chemical fertilizers so most of them will be grown in eco friendly conditions.
- Very few millets are hybridized.
- They are cheaper than rice and wheat

So even if you purchase millets that are not labelled as organic, they most likely will be grown in an eco friendly way and might not be hybridized.

With Ragi I make ragi dosa, ragi rotti, ragi ganji, ragi vade and ragi puttu. With Bajra/Kambu I make dosa and ganji. With Jowar/Jola I make bhakri/rotti, dosa and thalipit.

I'll update on my experiments with other millets soon!

More information can be found at http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/millets.pdf or www.milletindia.org.

Flax seed / Agasi chutney powder

We all know flax seeds are very good for health and they are easily available. Flax seeds are good source of omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants, Vitamin E, B-complex groups of vitamins and minerals. For more information see http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/flax-seed.html.

You can prepare chutney powder from these wonderful seeds. Preparation time is around 20 mins.

Ingredients:

250 gms of flax seed
Peeled cloves of 3 medium sized garlic bulbs
1 tamarind
1 dry coconut grated
Salt
Chilli powder

Preparation

Roast the flax seeds till they pop. You know its done when the popping sound reduces. Keep this aside.
Roast the garlic and tamarind till the garlic is light brown. Add grated dry coconut to this and roast it till is is golden brown. Let the ingredients cool. Add salt and chilli powder to suit your taste. Grind all ingredients to a course powder. That's it!

You can use this with bread, idli , dosa and even mix with rice and ghee.

Kofta curry

Here is one more yummy recipe with the boring sorekai/ bottle gourd.

Ingredients
1. Sorekai
2. gram flour and rice flour
3. onion
4. Tomato
5. Coriander
6. Coriander powder, tumeric powder, garam masala
7. Ginger & garlic paste

Method:
For the koftas: Grate the sorekai. Around 2 cups of grated sorekai will give around 10 koftas. Squeeze out all the water from the grated sorekai and save it for later use. Add salt, a little bit of tumeric, coriander powder and chilli powder. Add gram flour and little rice flour to the sorekai and mix it so that you can make small balls of this mixture. Fry these Sorekai balls in hot oil till they turn golden brown. Keep them aside.

Now for the gravy:
Grind 3 onions and two tomatoes in mixer separately. Let the oinion paste be a little coarse. Heat some oil and add the onion and ginger & garlic paste. Fry till onion turns pink/light brown.Add a little coriander powder and some garam masala. Now add the tomato paste. Fry for another 2 mins. Add the sorekai water into this. This is very important! Add salt as required. Add finely chopped coriander. When the curry starts to boil, add the koftas and boil for 5 mins. Its ready to server with chapatis, rotis, nans.

Thanks to my sis and mom for this recipe.

Onion chutney

Here is my first post on different chutneys. This one is simple and family loves it.

Ingredients:
3 big onions
1 medium sized tomato
chilli powder/2 small dry red chilli
Coriander leaves
Oil and salt

Method: Chop the onions and tomato into long strips. Heat 2 teaspoon oil in a kadai/pan. Once heated, add dry chilli. If you are using chilli powder, this is not required. Add chopped onions. fry them till they start turning brown. Now add chopped tomato and then chopped coriander leaves. Stir fry for another 5 mins. Now add chilli powder if you have not added dry red chillies. Let it cool. Add salt and grind this in a mixer. Chutney is ready! This chutney goes along with Idli, any kind of dosa and even chapati.

So don't worry if you are out of coconut for chutney. Onions are always at home so you can prepare this chutney anytime.

Sorekai / bottle gourd dosa

What do you do with sorekai/bottle gourds?? Turn it into wonderful dosas!
Here is how you go about it.

Ingredients :
2 cups idli rice
3 cups of cut sorekai
2 green chilli
coriander
pepper
salt

Soak rice in water for about 3 hours. Grind it using grinder/mixer. Grind the pieces of sorekai with 2 green chilli, coriander, pepper in mixer and add it to the rice batter. Add salt. The batter should be of normal dosa batter consistency. Leave the batter for an hour. Pour dosas like you normally do, but make sure you bake it on the other side too. Serve with coconut chutney.

Dosa or Idli

You can prepare Dosas or Idlis with the same batter.

 Ingredients: 

1. 1 cup full urad dhal (Kannada: udin bele, Tamil - Ulundu)
2.  4 cups of rice 
3. 1.5 tea spoons of methay seeds/Fenugreek(optional for idli) 
4. Handful of thick avalakki (optional)

 Soak the Urad dhal & Rice in water for around 3 hrs or overnight. Soak the Fenugreek seeds (& Avalakki) with the rice. Grind it all together in a grinder. Leave the batter closed for around 4-6 hrs for fermentation. This really depends on the temperature. You see the batter rise to nearly double its qauntity.You do not require any baking soda for the fermentation. Now you can add salt and add little water if the batter is thick. You can either make idlis or make crispy dosas from this batter.

Strawberry Cream

This is really a very simple & tasty dish.

Time:10 mins

Ingredients: Fresh Strawberries (15-20 nos), Fresh cream (200ml), Sugar

Wash the Strawberries. Chop them finely or use the food proceesor to chop them into fine pieces. Ensure not to turn the Strawberries into a paste. While eating, the Strawberry pieces taste amazing. Now add the cream. If you are using home made cream, beat it until there are no lumps. Add sugar for taste (around 5 teaspoons). Mix it well & refrigerate. It's ready to be served!