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.