Tawa Idli - Street Food

Here we travel all the way to Hyderabad with this delicious street food made with idli... I got this recipe from here and this takes the level of idli from bring simple to exotic.. Serve this as-is or with coconut chutney!!

Brown Rice Adai

Do you like Adai?? My answer is a BIG yes!!! I love it so much and can eat it everyday.. It is so rich in proteins with so many dals and lentils in it... But this has equal amount of rice in it and today I tried to substitute the rice with Brown rice and the result was a even more crispier and tastier adai!! Starting this month’s marathon with this guilt free adai!!

Potato Bajji - Indian Snacks

Bajji is a famous snack in South India. It tastes best when served hot. Bajji can be done with a variety of vegetables like Potato, Carrot, Brinjal (Eggplant), Snake gourd, plantain, bell pepper, onion, bottle gourd, chili etc. Famous ones are potato, chili, plantain and onion. Adjust salt and chili powder to taste.

Aloo Bonda

Today’s recipe is a snack that is commonly served when relatives and friends visit us.. Talk about evening tiffin or snack, bajji and bonda always comes in the list.. Much before the baked goodies came in to our kitchen, it was the bajji, bonda and other snacks that were prepared for snacks..

Onion Pakoda

Pakoda is a famous snack in South India. It tastes best when served hot. This is a regular in our house as it is one of the most favorite snack / tiffin, but never get a chance to click as it is mostly done while I am cooking itself.. By the time I am done with final round of frying, the earlier rounds of pakoda are over. Even today, I took the clicks in a hurry and hopefully I will be able to do the justice on photo for this delicious pakoda. Adjust salt and chili powder to taste. You can make many varieties like cashew pakoda, mint pakoda, masala pakoda etc.. Today my choice is the very famous onion pakoda.

Parupu Bonda

For this week BM we will be seeing a variety of snacks starting with a type of Bonda today. Fried items are many people's weakness.. You can just stop with one.. Same holds true for this delicious bonda. This bonda is made with a variety of lentils (parupu) along with spices ad herbs.

Sprouts Dosa / Sprouts Uttappam

Lot of times, we want to eat some ingredients but the choice of relishing them are few that we know. So I always look for recipes that uses such ingredients and one of them is Sprouts. I have enjoyed sprouts mostly as is or in a salad. One more I tried was Sprouts Pulao and that was so yummy. Here comes another recipe that uses sprouts completely and you can enjoy these guilt free.. Serve this hot with tomato chutney. It makes for a nice evening tiffin, great breakfast and also a perfect lunchbox recipe.

Murungakeerai Adai / Drumstick Leaves Adai

Murungakeerai / Drumstick Leaves is a very healthy green leafy vegetable. It is very rich in many vitamins, minerals, iron and calcium. There are many ways we use this leaf in our cuisine and the two commmon ways in our house are this adai and a kootu variety. This adai is very healthy and makes a great breakfast or evening tiffin. The quantity of the leaves added are personal choice.  You can use the batter immediately after grinding or store it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Kuthiraivali Milagu Jeera Adai–Barnyard Millet Adai–Millet Recipes

Hope you all have enjoyed my Arisi Adai which is made with Parboiled rice. I saw a similar recipe here using Kuthiraivali (Barnyard Millet) and immediately tried it. I did make a few changes to the original recipe and we loved this adai.. Make sure you have the tawa on medium to medium high or the adai will become hard. You need to enjoy this adai piping hot.. You can serve this as-is. We enjoyed it with Coriander Coconut Chutney (recipe coming soon). The flavor of the pepper, coconut in this adai is amazing.. This recipe will give 6 adais of medium size.

Kambu Semiya Upuma – Millet Recipes

With the New Year brings New Year resolutions and a lot of people have “Eating healthy” or “Weight Management” as part of their resolution. Here I am with a recipe to help….I love visiting shops that healthy items like millets, many types of rice, many types of flour etc.. We learn so much about the ingredients available for us. But a lot of ingredients are new and unidentifible. I remember seeing black rice for the first time and did not even recognize it, but I was surely fascinated by it. Recently I saw various types semiya made with millets like semiya made with Kambu, Ragi, Whole Wheat. I once saw a TV show where they did upuma with Kollu Semiya. It was very similar to how I do with Ragi Semiya. Now I have tried Ragi semiya and it was delicious. Today I tried Kambu Semiya and it was even more tastier. Cut the vegetables and you have the delicious upuma ready in no time... This will serve 3 - 4. Kambu is Bajra in Hindi, Pearl Millet in English, Sajjalu in Telugu. Try this for a healthy breakfast or evening tiffin and you will be happy you did!!

Kezhvaragu Dosai / Fingermillet Dosai

Kezhvaragu or raagi dosa is a type of dosa made with Finger millet flour (raagi flour). Finger millet flour is healthy flour and eating it in a dosa form makes it tasty. Health meets taste in this recipe. This dosa will be chocolate brown in color. It is very quick to do and no soaking required. It tastes best when serve hot with tomato pickle. It can also be accompanied by Curd or Sugar.

Adai

Adai is a very famous tiffin or heavy dinner. It is also a festive food made during Karthigai. Adai tastes best when served hot. Some will prefer to eat Adai as is. The famous accompaniment for Adai is Aviyal, but tomato urugai tastes great too. onions and vegetables add a great taste and flavor, but they are also optional based on preference, availability and occassions.

Vella Dosai / Jaggery Pancake

Vella Dosai is a sweet dosai made with wheat and jaggery. This dosai requires no side dish and tastes best when served hot or warm. Serve this for breakfast or a quick tiffin. It is delicious and so kid friendly. It becomes dull and rubbery once it gets cold. This is also done during Karthigai. It is a quick dosa and can be done in less than 30 minutes. This recipe will make 12 dosas.

Veg Patty Chaat

Talk about inventions and this is my invention to a quick evening snack. This is a chat item which is very spicy and tangy. All the spices used in this dish are personal to choice, availability and preference. We bought the boca patty from the freezer section. This can also be served as a light dinner.

Vegetable Momos–Sikkim Cuisine

Sikkim is a North Eastern state of India which is located in the Himalayan Mountains. Sikkim is surrounded by Nepal to the west, China's Tibet to the North and East and West Bengal in the South. Sikkim is the second smallest state in India and is the least populated state in the Country. Another interesting fact about Sikkim is that it has 11 official languages. Coming to the Sikkim cuisine, dishes like thupka, chowmein and momos are popular here. From wiki - "Noodle-based dishes such as thukpa, chowmein, thanthuk, fakthu, gyathuk and wonton are common in Sikkim. Momos – steamed dumplings filled with vegetables, buffalo meat or pork and served with soup – are a popular snack.[105] Beer, whiskey, rum and brandy are widely consumed in Sikkim,[106] as is tongba, a millet-based alcoholic beverage which is also popular in Nepal and Darjeeling. Sikkim has the third-highest per capita alcoholism rate amongst all Indian states, behind Punjab and Haryana." Today I have chosen Momos with a vegetarian filling. You could use this same filling for making spring rolls also. These Momos are addictive and you cannot stop with one.. This is definitely a healthy snack which has lots of veggies, very less oil and also this dish is steamed. I served these delicious Momos with Spicy Garlic Tomato Chutney..  I got this recipe from here and made few changes.. This recipe yields 12 momos

 

Jhalmuri–Jharkhand

Love Street food, but making street food at home needs a lot of patience as you need lot of ingredients and preparation time.. But there is hardly any cooking involved, which makes it a great choice to do with kids.. Can be categorized as "Non-heat cooking".. This Jhalmuri is a very famous street food and  is quite popular in Jharkhand. I got this recipe from here. Jharkhand is a newer state compared to the others in India, It was formed in the year 2000. It was originally part of Southern Bihar and was seperated from Bihar on 15th November 2000. The name “Jharkhand” means “Land of forests”.. From Wiki – “Jharkhandis have a cuisine in which spices are rarely used and rice is the staple. They prepare different dishes of rice, different types of Rotis, Litti Chokha, Pani puri, Pittha, Dhuska, Dudhauri, kera-dudhauri, etc. Dhuska is a famous dish of Jharkhand cooked with mashed rice and pulses and served with either aaloo dum or mutton curry; kera-dudhauri is a famous dish prepared with milk, rice, ghee and gur. In many parts of Jharkhand including Panch Pargana area (Bundu, Rahe, Sonahatu, Silli, Angara, Arki and Tamar Blocks of Ranchi & Khunti districts) a special food item "Charpa" is prepared by frying mashed rice mixed with spicy vegetable preparations; hence the name follows viz. Sembi Charpa, Egg Charpa and many more depending upon the ingredient vegetable source.

Jharkhandis use different types of flowers as vegetables, such as the flowers of drum-stick, August and Jhirool. Use of Sag, i.e. leaves of different shrubs and other small plants, is perhaps another peculiarity of Jharkhandi food. Commonly used sags are Palak, Beng, Kataei, Gendhari, Saranti, Sunsunia, Koinar, methi, bhathua, Sarso and chana. "Maad Jhor" which a nutritious substitute for Daal is prepared by boiling saag in starch left after cooking rice. The same is made more delicious by adding flavour of Garlic fried in mustard oil (Tadka/Phodan in local language). Many vegetables and leaves are dried and stored for use out of season, and the same are consumed in the form of "Maad Jhor". In many village markets of Jharkhand you can easliy see women selling powdered dried leaves or other dried food items.”  The cuisine of Jharkhand is influenced a lot also by its neighboring states – Bihar and West Bengal and Orissa

Aloo Anardana Paratha - Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is the Northern most state in India. It consists of three regions – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Srinagar is the Summer capital and Jammu is the Winter capital. Jammu has numerous Hindu shrines which is big Hindu Pilgrimage bringing thousands of pilgrims every year. Kashmir is so beautiful and scenic and many movies of 1970’s and 1980’s time have captured the beauty for a lot of the romantic songs.. Ladakh is known for its remote mountainous picture perfect scenery and Buddhist Culture.. Coming to the cuisine of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir cuisine was mostly influenced originally by the Kashmiri Pandits. Usually Pandits do not eat meat, but this region is an exception where the Pandits have eaten all the meat except Beef which is banned here. So with a cuisine which has so much of meat based dishes, it was little challenge for me to land on an authentic dish from this region. I was so excited when my research landed me on Sanjeev Kapoor’s website and this was a dish mentioned for this region and was a sure try. A delicious spicy paratha which gets its flavor from the dried anardana seeds.. This recipe makes 12 - 14 parathas.. I served this with curd and it was such a delicious dinner. Now because this paratha is big, one could eat 2 or 3. I got this recipe inspired from here, but did few changes.

Bajre Ki Khisri / Kambu Ven Pongal - Haryana

From Gujarat, we travel to Haryana today. Haryana means – the house of Gods. Hari is one of the names of Lord Vishnu and ayana means home. Chyawanprash was first made here. From Wiki – “Haryana has a rich cultural heritage that goes back to the Vedic times. Dhosi Hill, the ashram of revered Rishi Chyawyan is an important site where Chyawanprash was formulated for the first time. Cattle being common in Haryana, dairy products are a common component of its cuisine.[54][55] Specific dishes include kadhi, pakora, besan masala roti, bajra aloo roti, churma, kheer, bathua raita, methi gajar, singri ki sabzi, and tamatar chutney. Lassi and sharbat and nimbu pani are three popular non-alcoholic beverages in Haryana. Liquor stores are common there, which cater to a large number of truck drivers. ”Coming to today’s recipe, it is a wholesome and delicious breakfast!! Khisri or Khichdi is so much similar to the Pongal we do in the South.. This one is very much like the Ven Pongal, but made with the very healthy whole green moong dal and bajra..

Muthia–Steamed Snack - Gujarat

Today we travel to the beautiful state of Gujarat.. Gujarat and their cuisine reminds of 2 things always.. One is the dialogue from the movie 3 Idiots - Tum Gujarati log itne cute hote hoi, par tum logoun ka khana itna katarnak kyun hai - dhokla, handvo, kakhra, fafda, thepla.." Meaning – “You people from Gujarat are so sweet, but why does the names of your foods so scary like dhokla, handvo, kakhra, fafda, thepla – sounds so scary while saying them”..Another is the memorable experience Vaishali gave me with all the different varieties I could gobble!!! Still fresh in memories of us eating the chaat, where the guy who was making it for us got hurt as he was posing for us while cooking.. We had to take the shots of him cooking for us.. Another incident was buying the fafda on the other side of the street where we made u turns twice to go near the shop.. The delicious papad paratha she made for us... And so much more!!! Thanks to Vaishali for the sweet memories.. Now coming to today's recipe... It is the very famous Muthia which is a steamed snack.. Imagine you eat a snack and it is very addictive, but no issues as it is guilt free and so healthy... One version of Muthia is actually sinful with deep fried and another is guilt free steamed version.. I have tried my hands on the Gujarati cuisine and loved the Dhokla, Khaman, Methi Thepla.. Looking forward to try some more from this cuisine..

Rava Idli (ரவா இட்லி)

Rava Idli is a very famous tiffin in Tamil Nadu (Southern India). It tastes best when served hot and best accompanied by Tomato urugai or coconut chutney. This recipe will make 14 rava idlis. This rava idli required no soaking time and can be done from start to finish in less than 30 minutes.