Upma (Rava)

Ingredients

Rava - 1 cup
Green chilly -3
Onion - 1
Ginger - 1 small
Mustard seeds - 1/ 2 teaspoon
Salt
Water - 1 1/2 cup
Oil - 1 teaspoon
Ghee - 1/2 teaspoon

In a pan, start by adding oil. Once oil is hot, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and green chilies and chopped ginger. Now add finely sliced onion and saute it until it turns golden brown in color.

Add one n half cup water with little salt in it. Let it boil for one or two minutes. Slowly add one cup Rava to this and close the lid. Let it cook for three to four minutes. In between  keep stirring it so that entire Rava is cooked properly. Finally add ghee on top of it and serve. Its is also known as Upma, an easy and a traditional south Indian dish for breakfast. 

Egg Omelette

Ingredients

Egg -3
Onion - 1
Green chilly - 2
Pepper powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Oil
Salt

In a bowl, beat eggs with little salt and pepper. Now add finely chopped onions and green chilies  to this. Beat well. Now in a pan, add little oil. Once oil is hot, add this egg mixture in the pan. And cook both sides for couple of minutes. Very simple egg omelets is all set to have. :)

Dal Curry (Parippu Curry)

Ingredients

Dal - 1 cup
Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
Green chilly - 4
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Shallots - 7
Salt
Oil
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves

In a pressure cooker, cook dal with 2 cups of water for 3 whistles. Keep it aside. Heat a pan. Add little oil. Once oil is hot, add mustard seeds and mashed shallots. Saute it until shallots become light brown color. Finally add curry leaves and coriander leaves. Mix this with cooked dal. Dal curry is ready. It is so simple recipe and tasty as well. It goes well with rice. 

Whenever  I feel little lazy, I normally go for dal curry which is easy to make and tasty as always. Also, am a big fan of Bengali dal tadka which is bit different  from this I guess. Need to try out the recipe one day from my Bengali friends Subh n Sush :)

Malabar Chicken Biryani

Ingredients

Ghee - 250 ml

Onion - 12
Tomato - 9
Green chilly -12
Ginger - 2 medium
Garlic - 15 cloves
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
Mint leaves
Spices powder  - 3 tablespoon  ( cinnamon, cardamom, cloves )
Coriander powder - 4 tablespoon
Turmeric powder - 1 tablespoon
Pepper powder - 1 teaspoon
Sweet cumin seeds -1/2 teaspoon
Salt
Chicken - 1 kg
Biryani Rice - 1 kg
Grated coconut - 1 cup
Curd - 1/2 cup
Vinegar - 1 tablespoon or (lemon juice)

For seasoning

Onion - 2
Raisins - 50 grams
Cashew nuts - 50 grams

Masala Recepi

In a large pan, add little ghee. Once it is hot, start by adding finely cut onions. Saute it until onions turn golden brown in color. Grind ginger, garlic, curry leaves and green chillies in very little water. Just grind it as we dont want a fine paste. Add this to the pan and saute it again for two to three minutes. Add turmeric powder, coriander powder, pepper powder, sweet cumin and little salt. Saute it again for a minute. Now add sliced tomates to this. Let it cook for five minutes. Grind coconut and make a fine paste. Add this to the masala. Mix really  well.  Cook it for another three to four minutes. Now add chicken to this and mix again until chicken is coverd with all the masala. Cook it for 10 - 15 minutes. Finally add curd, coriander leaves and mint leaves. Cook it for a minute and switch off the flame. Keep this aside.

Rice

In a pressure cooker, add three tablespoon of ghee. Add 1 teaspoon Turmeric powder and 1 teaspoon Salt to this. Now start adding water by measuring the rice first. For example, if you are taking 6 cups of rice. You need to add 9 cups of water. That is for one cup of rice, we need to add one n half cup of water. After adding water, slowly add rice to this and pressure cook for 4 whistles. 

Seasoning

In a pan, add little ghee and fry onions until it becomes dark brown in color. Also, add raisins an cashew nuts to this and keep it aside.

Baking

In a large vessel, start by adding little masala at the bottom. Then add little rice and again add masala on top of it and continue the process. In between keep adding fried onions, raisins, nuts and spices powder. Also add little coriander leaves and mint leaves. Use vinegar or lemon juice in between so that rice will not stick together. Repeat the process of adding all the above and finally cover the vessel and bake it for five minutes. Try keeping this in oven or on stove. I guess this recipe is known to almost all north keralites especially people from Calicut, Kozhikode.

Fondant Christmas Cake (Marshmallow)

Ingredients

For Fondant

Marshmallows - 175 gram
Water - 1 tablespoon
Sugar powder - 2 cups

For Butter Cream Frosting

Butter - 250 grams
Sugar - 3 cups
Milk - 3 tablespoon

In a microwave bowl, add marshmallows and water. Keep this in microwave for about 2 minutes. Keep stirring the marshmallows every 30-40 seconds so that it will not stick. Make sure to grease the bowl and spoon with little oil or butter. I used Marshmelts Vanilla Mist. Bought it online through Amazon.  I like vanilla flavour and moreover I wanted to make a red and white Fondant cake for this Christmas. :)

Knead the fondant to get the right consistency by adding sugar. Add little oil or butter if its too sticky. Also add little icing sugar while rolling out the fondant as it prevents the fondant from sticking on to the rolling surface. Better use a plastic wrapper on the table for this.

Once the fondant shape is ready, slowly place it on top of the cake with the help of a roller. Using a fondant smoother, slowly fix the top part and the edges of the cake.

Always make sure to measure the height and length of the cake. I would suggest to consider the diameter of the cake. For example:- if the diameter is 20 cm, consider it as 22-24 cm. This will help the fondant to have enough length and will be easy to spread it on the cake without much trouble. Use colors, depending on your choice. Separate the fondant,  and use one drop of food color gel and knead it again. Or try buying, ready mix fondants.

And for the cake part, i used fruit cake recipe. Please refer to my post of  Christmas Plum Cake. Here, in the beginning, I used butter cream frosting to cover the cake. And then I used fondant on top of it. This will help the fondant to get the right shape. Also, the edges and the sides of the cake should be even for which I used the butter cream frosting on the cake. I have already published a post before for butter cream frosting. Since I don't want to repeat, am not including the steps here. This was my first attempt using a fondant. Its actually very simple just that you need to have little bit of patience for this. :)

Chicken Stew

Ingredients

Onion - 1
Tomato - 1
Potato - 1
Carrot - 1
Ginger - small piece
Garlic - 4 cloves
Tomato - 1
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
Pepper powder - 1 teaspoon
Green chilly- 4
Chicken - 500 gm
Shallots - 4
Coriander powder - 1 tablespoon
Fennel seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Spices powder - 1 teaspoon  (Cardamom,  cinnamon,  cloves )
Coconut Milk - 1/2 cup
Salt
Oil

Cook potato, carrot and chicken along with finely cut onion, green chilly, ginger, garlic and tomato. Also, add coriander powder and pepper powder to this. Once it is cooked, keep it for five minutes and remove the cooker lid. Now in a pan, add little oil. Once oil is hot, add shallots and saute it until it turns light brown in colour. Then add fennel seeds, curry leaves , coriander leaves and spices powder to this. Saute it for a minute. Now mix it well with already cooked vegetables and chicken. And finally add coconut milk to this and serve hot.

To make coconut milk, grind grated coconut and make a thick paste. And take only the juice using a strainer. Chicken stew goes well with Kerala Appam (vellappam), (kallappam), Puttu and even with bread.

Appam (Kinnathappam) (Raw Rice - Pancake ) (Kallappam )

Ingredients

Raw Rice - 1 kg

Salt - 1 teaspoon

Sugar - 1 cup

Grated coconut -4 cups

Cooked Rice (Any) -1 cup

Yeast - 1 tablespoon

Water - 2 tablespoon

In a mixer, grind raw rice, cooked rice and grated coconut. Make it a fine paste. Keep it in a separate bowl. In another bowl, add little water and yeast. Keep it aside for 10-15 minutes. Add this to the first bowl and soak it overnight. Next day, add sugar and salt to this. Mix it really  well. Take a plate or any type of small vessel to cook this. Make sure to grease the vessel with little oil. So it will not stick to the plate. In a steamer, cook this for 10 minutes. Once it is out of the steamer, keep it in a pan with little water. so that it will be easy to remove from the plate. Slightly tap the edges as well. It helps the Appam to come out easily from the mould. You can make different shapes using small moulds. Also, try in a plate, to get a round shape.

Try adding 1 teaspoon  of baking powder  and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda just before cooking which is just optional in case if the batter is not fermented properly. You can make out the volume of batter becoming double if its well fermented. It has to rise little bit. You can also try adding toddy (Kallu) instead of yeast as it's a traditional way of making Appam. And the original name for this Appam is Kallappam. Its a traditional north Malabar dish especially  for Christmas. One should definitely try having this with chicken stew or any chicken curry. Its an awesome dish. Please refer to my post for chicken stew recipe :)