Prethika's Space: February 2014

This is a very famous south Indian street food,where you can find in every nook and corner's of the main places in south india,esp Tamilnadu.It is a best served evening snack ,very healthy too.Because urad dall has the benefit of giving strength to back bones,particularly it is recommended for women's health.Every kid likes fried stuff's and here is the one that most attracts the kids and of-course it's a healthy food too.Here am sharing the secret of a fluffy crispy urad dall.

To get yummy urad vada's just grind them in your wet grinder's rather than using mixer's.By the way of grinding in wet grinder's you can yield even more fluffier vada's compared to that using mixer's.So the next time when you use your grinder's for making idli/dosa batter's soak this urad dall in advance and grind them and see the magic you get.

Ingredients

Urad Dall - 1Cup
Green Chillies - 2 to 3
Small Onions - 1/2 cup
Jeera seeds - 1tsp
Ginger - 1" inch stick
Curry Leaves - few
Asafoetidia - a pinch
Salt - as reqd
Water - as reqd
Oil - to fry

Method

Soak the urad dall with required amount of water and leave them for atleast 1hour.Then strain the entire water and keep aside,meanwhile keep grinder ready .

Add the strained dall and grid them by adding water little by little ,dont add water all at once.Until you get a fluffy batter grind them.Process might take atleast 20 minutes.

Meanwhile chop green chilies,ginger and small onions.Once the batter is ready remove from the grinder.Mix salt,asafoetidia and the chopped items along with the batter and mix well.Take a polythene sheet,preferably milk packets.In a small bowl have some water,which is required to spread on the polythene sheet before shaping vada's.Apply some oil to the polythene sheet.

In a kadai add oil and let them heat.Once the oil has reached the particular temperature(if you drop a small pint of batter the battered ball should hit the bottom of the kadai and should immediately rise up) pinch a small portion from the ready batter and spread on the polythene sheet and gently make a hole in the center and carefully reverse the polythene sheet towards your fingers.Ensure your fingers are dipped in water and wet before transferring ,so that the vada may get easily flipped to the boiling oil.

Fry them in Med-High flame and turn them when the one side looks cooked/golden brown.Remove from oil and place them in a tissue to remove the excess oil.

Serve them hot with coconut chutney...Yummy vada's are ready

Read More..

This is a one good post i wanted to share and luckily it happened to be Nalini of Nalini'sCooking sis birthday.I took this recipe from her kitchen diary,who is a wonderful cook,food stylist,and one great thing about her is ,she is the co-ordinator/founder of Tamiliar Samyal Tuesday,which is a event created to post tamil style recipes,so bringing back the forgotten recipes from TamilNadu,what a great job na.I felt extremely happy to recreate one of her tamil style recipes.Milagu Kuzhambu is a very authentic recipe from tamilnadu,i have heard that authentic tamil cuisine does not have red chillies included in their cooking,but later after the entry of chillies to India,they replaced the very authentic ingredient Pepper.In fact pepper has lot of medicinal values ,they are used to stimulate hunger,helps in digestion and they can even treat the cold related symptoms.Even at my home we use this pepper powder along with turmeric powder,mixed to hot milk and make it a hot drink,esp when you have the early symptoms of getting throat infections or cold.Try this if you get any of these symptoms,you will get relieved in minutes.And most important about pepper is, it does not harm your stomach unlike the chillies do.

I would like to thank Nalini sister for posting this recipe in her website,and one additional information is this gravy does not have onion or garlic or coconut included.May be if you wish you can garlic ,its purely optional. At my home everybody loved this gravy and i loved that pepper's spicy touch,Thank you sis again and I wish you a wonderful birthday and my best wishes for all your future endeavors.Keep rocking TST.

Ingredients

Recipe Source- Nalini'sCooking

(I have adjusted the measurements of Pepper and Jeera according to my spice requirement.)

Pepper - 3 tsp
Jeera - 1.5 tsp
Channa dall- 1.5 tsp
Red Chillies - 3 (Medium size)
Tamarind - half a small lemon size
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetedia - a pinch
Salt - as required
Water - as required
Gingely Oil -as required
Mustard Seeds - few
Curry Leaves - few

Method

In a pan dry roast pepper ,jeera,red chillies,curry leaves(optional) and keep aside.Again to the same pan drizzle some oil and roast the channa dall,Since channa dall may not get properly roasted using dry roast i did this method of roasting.Let them cool,meanwhile soak the tamarind in water and extract tamarind juice and keep ready.

Once the roasted ingredients are cool,grind them in your mixer to a fine powder.In a small bowl add the tamarind extract to that mix the ground powder,turmeric powder and salt.

In a pan add gingelly oil and temper with mustard seeds and add curry leaves and finally add a pinch of asafoetedia and immediately pour the pepper mix and add 1 cup of water extra.Let them simmer until you get a gravy consistency.Switch off the flame once done.