Paruppu Saadham (Dal Rice) & Okra(ladies finger) Roast

        In the busy morning times, we always run short of lunch box idea for kids. Moreover , we have very less time to cook and pack lunch. So most of the time, we have no option, but to pack unhealthy and less nutritious food for kids . Also, kids are always picky eaters and bring back the lunch without touching, if we give them vegetables. My son also similar.
        So I though to make him eat vegetables by giving it in a way he likes. Today I have  given a recipe of  simple dal rice and okra(ladies finger) roast. Of course, okra is deep fried and not suitable for  adults who are in the process of reducing weight. But for kids, it is ok as they are young and no need to reduce weight. My son who never like to eat vegetables, like this  okra roast a lot. Please try this and give it to your kids for school lunch !

Preparation and Cooking Time: 45 minutes in total
Serves : 1-2 kids

INGREDIENTS:

Paruppu Saadham(Dal Rice):

Rice - 1/2 cup
Toor Dal - 1/4 cup
Water - 1.5 cups
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Ghee- 2 table spoon
Ground black pepper - 1/2 teaspoon
Asafoetida powder - a pinch

Okra(Ladies Finger) Roast:

Lades Finger - 250 gms
Besan or chick pea flour - 1/4 cup
Rice flour - 1/4 cup
Salt - as required
Red chilli powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Oil - 2 teaspoon & also for deep frying

METHOD:

1. Wash ladies finger and chop them into fine pieces.Take it in a bowl. Add besan,rice flour,salt,red chilli powder and 2 teaspoon of oil.  Mix it well and set aside for 20 minutes. The ladies finger will let out some water.

2. In the meantime, in a pressure cooker, add rice, toor dal,water and salt . Pressure cook in high for 1 whistle and reduce to sim for 10 minutes. Then switch off. Once the pressure settles, open the lid and add some ghee and black pepper powder. Sprinkle some asafoetida powder and mix well. Dal rice is ready !

3. Now, heat oil in tawa. Check the ladies finger . If it is very dry, sprinkle some water and mix well. Do not add more water , as it will turn watery. Now deep fry them golden brown.

Masala Tea /Chai

Masala Tea is loved by everyone. It is ideal to drink in the afternoon during winter. Tea usually boost up your mood and you feel lot more happier and better after drinking tea. In that way, tea is much better than coffee . Here is recipe to make a delicious masala tea !

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 1 person
1 cup - 240 ml

INGREDIENTS:

Milk -  1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon stick - 1 inch sized
cloves - 2 no.s
Cardamom - 2 no.s
Ginger -1 inch size chopped finely.
Tea packets - 2 nos ( I used Lipton tea bags)

METHOD:

1. Cut ginger in to small pieces. Prepare the masala ingredients and set ready.

2. Crush the ginger, cinnamon,cardamom and clove using a mortar and pestle. In a pan, take 1/2 cup of water. Cut the tea bags, and pour the tea powder in to the water. Also , add the crushed masala in to that.

3. Allow the contents to boil for 3 to 4 minutes.

4. Now add 1/2 cup of milk. Allow to boil for another 4 to 5 minutes, till the contents rise up. Now turn the flame to sim and wait for a minute and then switch off the stove.

5. Now filter the tea . When you filter, press the contents with the back of the spoon, so you squeeze out all the tea from the tea powder.

6. Now add sugar and mix well. Masala tea is ready !.. Have it with biscuits or any snacks !.

SEE ALSO: Spicy maida biscuits, Veg samosa, Butter murukku

Home Made Ghee

Ghee is a class of clarified butter originated in ancient India . It is commonly used in cooking sweets or any other dishes  . It can be used instead of oil. Ghee is usually prepared at home or can also be bought in stores. Ghee is made using any unsalted butter. Here I have given step by step pictures of how to make ghee at home.

INGREDIENTS:

Unsalted butter - 900 gm
Fenugreek seeds - 4 to 5 no.s


METHOD:

1. In a nonstick pan, add the butter and allow it to melt.

2. Once it melts completely, it starts to boil.

3. Initially it is in pure white with foamy texture. Once it starts boiling, it gets transparent.

4. When it boils well, you would hear a "shhh" sound. Keep stirring occasionally.

5. After sometime the "shh" sounds stops and you get white foams and it comes up as in picture below.

6. Immediately add the fenugreek seeds and switch off the gas stove. After 5 minutes, all the residue settles bottom and you can see a clear golden ghee above. Fenugreek seeds helps in separating the clear ghee and the residue.

(If you are unable to watch the video, click here - >https://goo.gl/photos/JkfFic5dkxZWkiEEA)

7. Allow it cool down completely and transfer the clear ghee to any glass vessel. you can take the residue at the bottom, and keep it separately. It is completely edible. It will be little dark in color, but is consumable. We usually mix it with rice and pepper and eat it or apply it on rotti after cooking.

Ghee residue

8. You can refrigerate it and use it for all your cooking later on.

Ghee after it solidifies.

  

Dosa batter in Taiwan

Dosa is a kind of pancake made from fermented batter. The batter is usually made from rice and black gram. It is south Indian food and quite popular one.

Some of my friends in Taiwan have been asking me how to make dosa batter in Taiwan, as we  get only basmati rice here and not the traditional parboiled rice . Also, it takes long time to soak rice, urad dal separately and grind . Instead ,I have used rice flour which is available here and urad dal to make dosa. Also, we dont need a grinder . We can grind it just in normal mixer.

INGREDIENTS:

Rice flour - 600 gms(Please check the picture I have given to find which type of rice flour to buy)
Whole Urad dal(Whole black gram, skin removed.) - 3 cups(120 ml cup)
Salt - 3 teaspoon
Fenugreek powder - 2 table spoon
Water- As required.

METHOD:
1. Below is the picture of rice flour packet ,you need to buy. It is usually available in all kind of pulses and grains shop available in Taiwan. Usually these shops are located near morning vegetable markets. Each packet is 600 gms . Pour the contents of a single packet in a big vessel and add about approximately 3 to 4 cups of water and mix well with your hands and remove all lumps and set aside.

2. In another vessel, add 3 cups(Check below the size of cup i used. It is 120 ml cup) of urad dal and add water till it get completely immersed in water. I used whole urad dal, which i got from india. You can also buy urad dal from Indian stores here in Taiwan.

3. Soak urad dal for about 2 hours. If you are using fenugreek seeds instead of fenugreek powder, you need to soak it along with urad dal. Else, you can add it when you grind urad dal. Once urad dal get soaked, drain the water and grind portion by portion, by adding water in to a smooth paste. 

4. Now, add the urad dal paste to rice flour which you have kept already . Also add salt,fenugreek powder and mix all well for about 10 minutes using your hand. Fenugreek powder  gives a good texture and flavor for dosa. It takes about 10 to 12  hours hours approximately to ferment . Later you can make tasty and crispy dosas or uthappams.

Note: During winter, it is hard to ferment dosa batter in Taiwan. After making the batter, I usually keep it inside the microwave oven without turning it on. Temperature inside the oven is usually warmer than outside. It takes about 15 to 18 hours to ferment during winter.

Check my blog for how to make coconut capsicum chutney  .

Paneer

How to make paneer at home?.. Here is the step wise method to make paneer at home. I always find it difficult to bring it in cube form .Mostly, it used to get crumbled and comes out like cheese powder. Thanks to my friend  +Nidhi Aggarwal  , who explained me clearly with pictures and this time I succeeded . Am sharing it for those who are still trying to make paneer as cubes ;) ... Good luck !

INGREDIENTS:

Whole Milk - 1 litre ( Use full fat milk only)( Yields 200 gms of paneer) .
Vinegar or lemon juice - 1 table spoon


METHOD:

1. In a large pan, pour the milk and allow it boil. Keep stirring continuously , so that  the milk doesnt get stick to the pan and get burnt.

2. Once it comes to boil , add 1 tablespoon vinegar or 1 tablespoon lemon juice  and mix well for a minute. You can see, that milk starts to curdle and comes out as in picture below.Switch off the flame. Wait for 5 minutes and let it cool.

3. Take a thin cloth. I used an unused white towel, with little big pores  to filter the water. 

4. Take a sieve and put the cloth over it, with a vessel under neath . pour the contents in pan over the cloth . Leave it like that for another 15 to 20 minutes, until it gets cool down to touch. 

5. Once it cool down , lift the cloth together with paneer and roll it and squeeze the excess water out of it. 

6. Now take a cutting board.Place the rolled cloth over it and press it all sides and form a round shape as in picture below. 

7. Now, the paneer ready. We need to keep more weight over that, so that it wont fall apart or break. I used a filter plate as shown below for placing the paneer. 

8. Now, take a big bowl. Place the filter plate over it. Then put the paneer with cloth over it. Above the paneer, put a plate. Above the plate, keep a pressure cooker or any heavy vessel with water. The point is, if you keep more weight, the paneer gets hardened. Allow it to stay that way for 45 minutes.

9. After 45 minutes, slowly remove weight , and put the paneer with cloth in a vessel and refrigerate it. No need to keep it in freezer. You can just keep in the fridge for around 2 to 3 hours. After that, take out from fridge, and remove the cloth. You can see , the paneer has hardened as in picture below. 

10. Now it is ready to be made to cubes. Cut to your desired shapes and use it for any subzis of  your choice. Please note that, you can cut to cubes only when you wish to make the subzi. Other wise, you can keep in fridge as a whole block and take out and make cubes when necessary. 

NOTE: 

Please also check my paneer butter masala recipe in my blog.  

Coconut Burfi Tip

If you are making coconut burfi, add equal proportions of sugar and coconut. Also, you should squeeze the grated coconut and take the milk out of it and then you need to roast the grated coconut. This would make the coconut to get roasted quickly. Also would speed up the process of making burfi.

Murukku Tips

If you are making murukku, after u get the murukku flour  from the machine, allow the flour to get cooled for a day or two and then make murukku. If you make murukku immediately, then it will turn out very dark in colour.

For the Thenkuzhal murukku to be white and crunchy, when you roast urad dal dont do it in a high flame. Do it in a medium flame and make sure the urad dal doesnt get roasted too much and burnt out. To check it consistency, Just taste that urad dall. If you feel the crunchiness sound  then you have to turn off the flame . The ratio of rice and urad dal for the Thenkuzhal murukku should be like 4 cups of Rice and 1 cup of Urad dal.

Rava Ladoo Tip

   When ever you are making rava or payatha maavu urundai ,  make sure to add more sugar  than the flour. For example, if you are using 1 cup of rava/payatha maavu, you need to add 11/4 cup of sugar. It would help the rava urundai to stay round without breaking. Also, when you add ghee/vanaspathi to make rava/payatha maavu urundai, the ghee should be very hot , so that it would melt the sugar and prevent the balls from breaking .

Sakkarai/Jaggery Paagu Tip

 If you are making Sakkarai paagu (Sugar syrup) or jaggery syrup for any sweets say baadusha ,gulab jamun, ladoo, adhirasam etc, first boil the water well and then add sugar or jaggery. So that, the sugar would get dissolved completely and paagu will come out good. Also in the end, add 1 table spoon of ghee  to the "paagu"  and turn off the flame.It will help to maintain the sakkarai paagu's consistency.

Storing Cardamom

 Whenever sweets are made, we always add cardamom for flavor . So it will be useful  if we make the cardamom powder and store it .

 How to make cardamom powder:  add 5 gms of cardamom seeds with the skin in a tawa and dry roast it for 2 minutes . After it cools down, add 2 table spoon sugar and grind it . This will stay without spoiling for 6 months atleast and can be used in any type of sweets.