Monday, April 5, 2010

cabbage soup

Here is a healthy cabbage soup for the days which need a lighter meal. As usual I didn't add any cream but sauteed the cabbage in little butter and blended the vegetable in milk. The croutons are home made. I just cubed some bread slices, buttered them and placed in a hot oven to make the croutons.



Ingredients:
Cabbage - 2 cups (chopped)
black pepper - 1 tsp
green chilly - 1
onion - 1
garlic - 3 cloves
cumin - 1/2 tsp
tomato - 1
Tomato sauce - 1 tbsp (optional)
olive oil / butter - 1 tbsp
milk - 1/4 cup or cream - 2 tbsp
crouton / sliced bread - 1 cup

Method:
Heat olive oil in a wok.
Put the garlic, cumin, pepper and fry till garlic welts.
Add the chopped onion , chilly and cabbage. Stir fry till cabbage gets half cooked.
Now put the chopped tomato and cook everything for 3 minutes (till the cabbage looses the raw flavor).
Let it cool completely. Grind it to a fine paste and bring it to boil.
Add salt to taste. Mix some tomato sauce to enhance the taste.
Fry some croutons in butter .
Add cream along with fried croutons before serving.

Cabbage soup is ready!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Kuzha puttu

Puttu - A breakfast item common in Kerala and Southern TamilNadu.Generally rice flour is steamed with shredded cocount and served with sugar / banana / spicy kadalai curry.

Kuzha puttu - A puttu resembling a pipe.

There are many ways to steam this puttu. We can use a simple cloth over hot steam or idly making plates or this special tool 'puttu kudam' for steaming the flour.
The most authentic and tasty variety of puttu is made by using the red rice flour (rose matta arisi or sivappu samba rice).

I used the store bought ready made red rice flour (double roasted). Instead we can roast the ordinary white rice also.Some people prepare the flour from scratch by soaking and dry grinding the rice.


Puttu maker in box along with the ingredients.
Recently I bought this puttu maker from an Indian store. Love it very much:)

Puttu kuzhal and puttu kudam with ingredients .
Puttu maker consists of 2 main parts: The puttu kuzhal (to fill the processed rice flour) and kudam (to fill water and generate steam).


Puttu served. The white coconut is the frozen shredded coconut and the darker one is what I got from fresh coconut:)

Ingredients:
(For 2 kuzha puttu)
Red rice flour - 1 cup
(If not readymade, roast it till we get a pleasant smell and the grains look very flowy)
salt - 1/4 tsp
Shredded coconut - 1/2 + 1/2 cup
(Coconut should be almost equal to that of rice flour.We can reduce it too, but we can't get the real taste.)

Method:
Fill the puttu kudam (the broader vessel) with water to its 3/4 th. Close the top with the given lid that has the nozzle.
Start heating it.

In the same time bring to boil 1/4 cup water along with the salt.

Place the roasted rice flour in a mixing bowl.
Slowly sprinkle the boiling water and mix well without any lumps.
The consistency should be such that we should be able to make a solid with the flour, but the solid should be breakable in to flour when touched gently.
Totally we should get a wet flour but not any lumpy.

Now mix 1/2 cup shredded coconut to it and mix well.

Take the puttu kuzhal. Fill the bottom with 2 tsp shredded coconut. Then put the prepared flour and fill half way very loosely. Again spread 2 tsp coconut and fill the pipe with prepared rice flour.

Now check if the steam starts hushing out of the puttu kudam.

Close the puttu kuzhal and fit it over the nozzle.Make some holes in the filled flour using the stick given.

Heat till we see steam out of the top of puttu maker.
Then continue heating for 5 minutes and switch off.

Carefully take out and serve immediately.

Kuzha puttu is ready!

Serving suggestions:
Serve hot with sugar and banana.
Other combination are channa masala (kadalai curry), green gram chundal etc.

Note:
Try to serve the puttu immediately otherwise it may turn hard. Reheating in microwave helps a bit.

Chow chow Paruppu koottu and peel thogayal

Chow chow / Bangalore Kathirikai / Chayote  A dal curry paruppu koottu with chow chow and a spicy chutney using it's peel (chow chow tho...