Spicy Verkadalai Sundal/ Spicy Peanut Sundal

Think Navarathri and two things that immediately come to my mind are Golu – arrangement of doll in steps and sundals. A variety of sundals are prepared on each of the nine days. Even though, sweets are also prepared but somehow, everybody seems to be more inclined towards this humble dish – Sundal. Sundal is a simple dish, made out of steamed legumes like Chickpeas, Mung Beans, Cowpeas, Peanuts etc. Though, it may seem humble, each kind is a powerhouse of proteins and nutrients. Moreover these are steamed and tempered in just about a teaspoon of oil and hence they are all the more healthy. A totally guilt free and healthy snack that can be relished not only during the festive season but even otherwise.

Verkadalai sundal is by far my favorite one. I think if you take a popularity vote, this sundal would top the list, since peanuts are generally liked by young and old alike. So here is my way of making this sundal. The tempering and flavor is slightly different from the regular ones with coconut. I like this version a lot. Read on to find out about this slightly different preparation:

What you’ll need

1.       Raw peanuts – 1 cup

2.       Coriander seeds – 2 tsps

3.       Dried Red Chillies – 2 (Adjust according to taste)

4.       Asafetida – a big pinch

5.       Salt to taste

For Tempering

1.       Mustard Seeds – ½ tsp

2.       Curry Leaves – Few

Method

Soak the peanuts in water for about 2 hours. Drain the water, wash the peanuts, and about ¼ cup of water and pressure cook it for about 3 whistles. Drain the water and keep aside.

Heat a Kadai, dry roast the coriander seeds and red chillies till a nice aroma comes. Grind it into a powder and keep aside.

Now in the same Kadai, heat a tsp of oil, add mustard seeds. Once the seeds splutter, add curry leaves. Next toss in the cooked peanuts, add the spice powder, asafetida and salt to taste. Stir well for a minute.

Yummy and tasty verkadalai sundal is ready.

Sending this to Vrat Ka Khana hosted by Kalyani
Also linking to Flavors of South India

Rava Kesari

Navarathri has begun! The festival season brings in so many fond memories. My daughter especially loves it. During the 4 years we lived in S. G. Palaya, Bangalore, we had so much fun during this season. Actually, round the whole year, every Friday a few of us friends would get together at one house and recite Lalitha Sahasthranamam, prepare and offer some prasadam to Devi and return with a donnai of Sundal and some sweet. During Navarathri, this ritual would be done on all nine days but in a more grand, festive and colorful way.  Arranging Golus, reciting Lalitha Sahasthranamam, preparing neivedyams, dressing up in sarees, dressing up my little one, visiting other houses for vettali paaku and bringing home a bag of goodies. All of us used to take special care and purchase something for our little friends (Kids) who used to accompany their mothers and grandmothers. So that was the reason for my daughter’s happiness. She would very readily get ready for these sessions on all nine days of the festival. Oh! How I miss those days!

Coming back to the present, here in Hyderabad, though I did keep Golu, last year, since my younger daughter was really little (8 Months), but I couldn’t feel the festivity. And this year, my lil one has grown into mischievous young girl, that I can’t even imagine opening my box of dolls. So my dolls are all lying packed neatly in the loft of my houseL. Instead, I just placed one doll in my Puja shelf and am performing Pooja and neivedyams to that.

Yesterday was the first day, and I started with my favorite sweet dish – Kesari. This is known by many names all over India, some know it as Sheera and some call it Sooji Ka Halwa. There are different variations to this simple recipe, like Milk Kesari, Pineapple Kesari etc. Here is my version of the simple and yummy sweet dish that gets done in just a few minutes.

Serves:  4 to 6

What you’ll need:

1.       Rava/Sooji/Semolina – 1 cup

2.       Sugar – 2 cups

3.       Ghee – ¼ cup + 2 tbsp

4.       Water – 3 cups

5.       Cardamom/Elaichi – 3 to 4

6.       Cahews – few

7.       Raisins – few

8.       Orange food color – a pinch (optional)

Method

Heat a non stick pan or a heavy bottom Kadai, with the ghee. Fry the cashews and raisins. Once the cashews turn slightly golden, add the semolina and fry on medium heat till the color changes slightly and a nice aroma starts coming.

 In the meanwhile, boil 3 cups of water and keep ready. Reduce heat to low, add the boiling water, and a pinch of colour to the semolina, while stirring continuously. Cover with lid and cook on low heat for 2 minutes or till all the water has dried up.

Next add the sugar and stir well. Keep stirring till the sugar is dissolved completely and the semolina and sugar becomes a whole mass and leaves the sides of the Kadai. Add powdered cardamom and mix well.

That’s it, yummy kesari is ready. Serve warm.

Note:

1. The amount of sugar mentioned is right for us, you can reduce to 1 cup or increase max upto 3 cups depending upon your taste.
2. Also you can reduce the quantity of ghee by a tbsp or so if you feel like.
3. Some people also add a cup of milk with water. But somehow I prefer adding only water and this way it has a shelf life of minimum two days.

Apple Smoothie

Last week’s events were very disturbing, with my system not booting properly and my blog showing malware warnings. Thankfully, the latter issue is resolved, but my system is still behaving rather erratically. It boots up if it feels like and on some occasions I guess it simply doesn’t feel like coming alive. Now that my system decided to boot up, let me sit and finish the post, before it gives up on me.  Have to do something soon about it.

So friends, it’s time for another edition of blog hop, a fun event organized by Radhika. Today, I landed Vidhya’s Space, KurryLeaves. Since, Navrathri is starting today, I wanted to cook something satvik – sans onions, garlic and spicy masalas. So I chose this simple yet healthy Apple smoothie. Now, to the recipe:

Makes 2 large servings

What you’ll need

1.       Apple – 1

2.       Dates – 4 to 5

3.       Chilled Milk – 1.5 cups

4.       Honey – as required

Method

Chop apples into small pieces. Soak the dates in a little warm milk if they are hard, else use as such.

Blend the chopped apples and dates with enough milk to a smooth consistency. Add honey if desired, according to your taste. Serve chilled.

Check out what the other blog hoppers are upto, by clicking here.

Sending this to Blog Hop Wednesday by Radhika, and to ABC- Series, A for Apple by Ramya

Avial

From the time my blog has come into being I have been wanting to post this recipe. But somehow I never got together to do it. A day before Onam, a friend of mine was casually speaking to me about Onam feast preparation and avial came into picture. She wanted to know how to make it and she just told me that she’ll look up my blog for the recipe and that’s when I had to tell her that I have not yet got a post on Avial. She was very surprised ‘cos, the name of my blog is Palakkad Chamayal, and avial is a very regular feature in a Palakkad Iyer’s Kitchen. So that’s when I decided it’s high time for me to post this specialty dish from Kerala.

Avial is a yummy blend of different veggies in a spicy coconut and yoghurt gravy flavored with coconut oil. It makes use of vegetables like, Ashgourd, pumpkin, raw banana, yam, drumstick, yard long beans, snake gourd, carrots and French beans. Some people even add eggplants or brinjals. But I don’t add it. Some people prefer to substitute yoghurt with raw mango or tamarind pulp. Avial is made in two ways, one has more gravy and can be mixed with rice, just like Mor Kuzhambu, we call it Avial Kootan and the other is Gatti Avial, which is slightly thicker in consistency and acts more like a side dish for Sambar or Molagootal.

Actually preparing avial has become a rarity at my place since we moved to Hyderabad. The reason being, that we find it very difficult to get ashgourd and pumpkin, which are one of the main ingredients in the local shops around our locality. So for this Onam, I made sure I got all the required vegetables from the raithu bazaar, and prepared it for our Onam Sadhya.

A few months back, when I had gone to Trivandrum to visit my brother’s child, I happened to visit the Anantha Padmanabhaswamy Temple. My brother’s BIL, who is born and brought up at TVM, and is very attached to the temple took us to a guided tour of the temple. Then he narrated this incident about how avial came into being. The king of Travancore, conducted poojas, called Murajapam for a specified period of days, every year, in which a many vedic scholars participated. One year, it so happened that there were no vegetables left for the last day of the Murajapam. A small quantity of different vegetables left over from the previous days was available. So the head cook, used all these left over vegetables and prepared a dish and he named it avial, which means a combination of this and that. This dish was liked very much by the king and all. The cook was handsomely rewarded and avial became a regular fare in any feast.

I have to mention here, that Adai is my Husband’s the most favorite dish. And he loves the combo of Adai with Avial. So whenever we have Avial for lunch, the dinner menu gets fixed immediately as Adai.

This has become an unexpectedly long post. So now let’s just get to the recipe.

Serves: 4

What you’ll need

1.       Ashgourd – 100 gms

2.       Pumpkin – 100gms

3.       Raw banana – ½

4.       Yam – 100gms

5.       Carrot – 1 Medium

6.       Drumstick – 1

7.       Beans – 4 – 5

8.       Potato – 1 small

9.       Turmeric Powder – a pinch

10.   Salt to taste

11.   Yoghurt – ½ cup slightly sour

12.   Coconut oil – 1 tbsp

13.   Curry Leaves a few

To Grind

1.       Scraped Coconut – 1 ½ cups

2.       Green chillies – 4 – 5 ( adjust according to taste)

Method

Wash peel and cut all vegetables lengthwise into about 2” sized pieces.

In a heavy bottom Kadai, add the Yam, plantains, ashgourd, at the bottom (since these veggies take slightly longer time to cook) and then add the other veggies. Add a pinch of turmeric powder and salt to taste. Add about 1 cup of water and cook covered until the vegetables are just done. They should not get mushy. If after the veggies get cooked there is lot of water remaining, cook uncovered till the moisture has almost dried up.

In the meanwhile, grind fresh scraped coconuts with the green chillies into a fine paste using very little water.

Add the ground paste and the slightly sour yoghurt. Mix slowly without mashing the vegetables. Add curry leaves and drizzle the coconut oil. Mix carefully until the veggies are coated with the coconut and yogurt. Remove from heat.

Yummy gatti avial is ready. This can be used as a side dish for Sambar and rice or with Molagootal. Or as I mentioned with Adai.

To make Avial Kootan, i.e aviyal of pouring consistency, use more of yoghurts and do not let the water evaporate while cooking the vegetables. This is best had with pappadms.

Note: 

If using raw mangoes, need not use yoghurt or just use a little bit of fresh yoghurt.

Linking this to Kerala Kitchen hosted by Divya and toFlavors of South India hosted by Nayana and to Food Palette Series -Finale Rainbow Colors

Green Moong Sabzi with Dates

Green Moong or Mung beans are nature’s best gift to mankind. Not only are they rich in proteins, but are high in dietary fiber too. They are easily digestible and hence easy on the system. Sprouted moong are rich in vitamins A, B, C and E and they are also an excellent source of minerals like Calcium, Iron and potassium.

I make green moong sabzi atleast once in 10 days keeping in mind its health benefits. Today’s recipe is a quick and easy one that goes well with rotis and parathas. I generally make it by simply sautéing chopped onions and tomatoes with spice powders and adding the cooked moong. This recipe is slightly different. It makes use of dates and fresh coriander leaves. I simply loved the aroma that came wafting through while I was cooking this. The taste was an aromatic blend of sweet, spicy and tangy flavors.

This is my SIL’s recipe who herself is a great cook. Thanks dear.

Serves: 3

What you’ll need:

1.       ½ cup of Moong

2.       Onion – 2 Medium

3.       Tomato – 4 Medium

4.       Turmeric Powder – a pinch

5.       Salt to taste

6.       Cumin Seeds – ½ tsp

7.       Oil – 2 tsps

For Grinding

1.       Fresh Coriander Leaves – 1 Medium Bunch

2.       Dates – 3- 4 (I used black dates)

3.       Green chillies – 2

4.       Ginger – a small piece

Method

Wash and soak green moong for about 30 minutes. Discard the water used for soaking, wash again add enough water and cook the green moong in a pressure cooker for about 3 to 4 whistles.

Finely chop onions. Roughly chop tomatoes and blend in a mixer. Grind all the items mentioned under For Grinding into a fine paste using very little water.

Heat a Kadai, with oil. Add the cumin seeds and wait till it changes color. Next add the chopped onions and sauté till the onions brown. Add a pinch of turmeric powder and sauté. Next pour the tomato puree and fry well, till all the moisture is dried up. Now add the ground coriander and dates paste. Fry for about 2 to 3 minutes or till everything becomes as a whole mass. Now add the cooked moong and salt to taste. Give a good mix. Add about 1 cup of water. (Add more if required). Bring to a boil and cook covered on low heat for about 5 minutes.

That’s it, delicious Moong sabzi is ready to be served with rotis or parathas.

Linking this recipe to Life is green hosted by Shilpa, HealthyLunch Box Ideas – Dates hosted by Arthi

Awards

I am honored to receive these awards from my blogger friends Ramya, Sangee and Mugdha. Thanks lot friends for thinking me and my little space.

    

I would like to pass these on to my friends

1.       Khushi – A girl’s diary

2.       Prathima Rao – Prat’s Corner

3.       Santhosh Bangar - Santhosh's Kitchen

4.       Hari Chandana – Indian Cuisine

5.       Pushpa – Taste as you cook

6.       Suja – Kitchen Corner - Try It

7.       Neha – From my heart

8.       Premalatha Aravindan – Prema’s Thaligai

9.       Vidhya – Sugar n’ Spice

10.   Swathi – Zesty South Indian Kitchen