Vuppu biscuits / Salted biscuits, Tea-time affair

    Be it latenight-weekends or sipping bed-tea, everyone is this world is habitual, isn't it??  One such is going to be our topic of the day :D  Yes, I am talking about all those, who love to crunch biscuits in between your hot n steaming tea.....  Everyone in my family does that.  Though Marie biscuits/ Digestive biscuits are available in every home, nothing can replace this vuppu biscuits available in bakeries.  At Chennai, my mother used to stock them very well. 

 

These super-soft, crunchy biscuits is known to occupy its presence at mind & heart.  I can still recollect those melting moments when they get paired up with tea.  All thanks to Sandhya from MyCookingJournal!!  When I first saw her post, it was sooo tempting that I can barely resist myself from baking them.   She has an fascinating site full of authentic South-Indian dishes, not to mention her bakes are my all-time-favourite.  :D 

 

 

The uniqueness of this biscuit is the presence of rice flour in it, which itself provides an authentic twist to regular cookie/biscuit dough.  I made an huge batch and they are disappearing....  :)  My parent-in-laws were delighted to taste this one.  Overall, baking them was one proud moment in my life :)  Try them too, will you ?  :)

 

Inippu paniyaram

Ever thought of making sweet paniyarams in an instant method, where u dont even need batters? Yes, happily you can :) My daughter, who always demands sweets, really  luved this version.  Do try and let me know...

Ingredients required

• 3/4 cup of Aashirvaad wheat flour
• 1/4 cup of maida
• 1/4 cup milk powder
• 1/2 tsp of green cardamon powder
• 8-10 dry raisins
• 4-5 almonds, crushed
• 4 tsp of dry coconut powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp of Baking powder
• 1 cup of jaggery syrup (completelly suiting ur taste buds level)

Method

Sift in flour with baking powder, wheat flour.  Add milk powder, cardamon powder, raisins, nuts, coconut powder and salt.  Mix well.  Alternatively prepare jaggery syrup by mixing broken jaggery pieces in hot water(which is later filtered) Now add this syrup to our dry ingredient-mix and prepare a batter which  should resemble dosa batter-like consistency.  Rest this batter for fifteen minutes, after which you may pour them into kulipaniyaram pan, cooking on moderate heat. 

Serve hot with jam topped over.  Hmm... superdelecious...

 I am sending this recipe to Nivedham's Breakfast mission, CookCookandCook andThoushaltcook 

Idly ki tikka

   As anybody could easily guess, the below pic is idly ki tikka, a fat-free evening snack which is also awesome in taste and is prepared with left over idly's........  Isn't that a wonder? 

Ingredients required

• 4-6 leftover idly
• 2 tsp hung curd
• 1 tsp tandoori masala
• 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
• Pinch of black salt
• Salt, to taste
• Half tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp dhanya powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• Pinch of haldi

Method

Idly used here is hard natured.  Tip to cook hard natured idly (rather than soft, spongy types) is to overcook them.  We are avoiding normal soft types because they can get tooo soggy when marinated with masalas.  Take idly, cut into  squares and marinate them with above said masalas.

   First mix masalas very finely

Then add idly pieces, marinate for five to six hours.

Place them in grill skewer.  Alternatively, one could also shallow fry/ deep fry in tawa.

Cook at 200 degree celsius for 15-20 minutes

Serve with mint chutney. 

Very yummyyyyyy

Murukku

   I made this for diwali. Came out very good and crispy.

Ingredients required

• 5 cup rice flour
• 1 cup urad dal powder (roast urad dal in tawa for five to ten minutes and then powder it)
• Half tsp salt
• Half tsp hing
• One tsp whole jeera
• One big dollop of butter and vanaspathi
• Oil, for deep frying
• Murukku achhu 

Method

Mix all ingredients like flour, urad dal powder, jeera, salt, hing.  Mix well and lastly add butter, vanaspathi.  Sprinkle water little by little and knead into a dough (with consistency slightly watery than that of chapathi aata dough)

 Fill them up in murukku achhu and deep fry

Store in airtight container

 

Tips for starters

• Mix all dry ingredients for dough first and then rub in butter, vanaspathi evenly.  If not, salt will get distributed ununiformly
• If the dough becomes tooo hard, then it will yield a greater pressure to get initial forms from achhu.  In that case, sprinkle some water and knead the dough again, so that it becomes slightly watery
• If the fried murukku is too hard, try adding little more butter to the dough and knead it.
• If the fried murukku becomes less crispier, then the dough is tooo watery, so sprinkle rice flour, knead again, then continue deep-fry with altered dough
• The murkuu obtained in this recipe is slightly between white and brown colour.  This is because we didnt roast urad dal for a longer time.  If you wish ur murukku to be of completely brown coloured, roast urad dal till it browns and then grind it to powder form. 

Misal

   Misal is  known by name of 'misal pav' where this gravy is served with pav bun in maharashtra. It is sprouted dal (called as usal) that is cooked in spicy gravy combo and served by topping with onions and coriander leaves.  It is a spicy origination from Kolhapur, forming one of main ingredients of maharashtrian cuisine.  It goes sooo good with dosa, chapathi and all sorts of bread types.  Today i had it with dosa and the resulting combo was quite amazing.

  Do give a try guys..

Things to do first:

1. Atfirst, dry roast 3-4 cloves, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of jeera and powder them.
2. Then, pressure cook 2-3 potatos till they are done and peel their skin off.
3. Saute half cup onion , half cup tomato, 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste, 4-5 coconut scrappings and blend them.

 Dry roasting clove-cinnamon-jeera mixture

Sauting onion-tomato-coconut combo and blending them

Ingredients required:

    To make gravy/ called as 'Kat' in marathi:

•    3 tsp oil
•    Blended masala(above pic mentions the same masala)
•    Spices such as 1tsp red chilli powder, salt to taste, 1 tsp garam masla, pinch of haldi, coriander powder and 1 tsp jeera-clove-cinnamon powder

To make usal:

•    3 tsp oil
•    1 tsp ginger garlic paste
•    pinch of hing
•    one cup steamed sprouted green gram dal
•    half cup boiled potato
•    pinch of haldi
•    half a tsp jeera-clove-cinnamon powder
•    one tsp garam masala
•    one tsp lime juice

Method:

To make gravy, heat oil, add blended masala and cook for sometime

Then add spice mix containing all spices (Refer spice mix in ingredients)

 Add water, cook till oil separates, gravy is ready now, set aside.

To make usal, heat oil and add hing , ginger garlic paste

This is followed by adding sprouts and cubed potatos

Later add all spices such as haldi, garam masala jeera-clove-cinnamon combo and so on

 Atlast, add lime juice and usal is ready.  Adjust salt in both usal and gravy

 Pour water and let usal cook.  Note that usal should be of pouring consistency.

 How to serve:

At first, take a serving bowl ,, add usal first.  This is followed by adding gravy

Gravy is topped with onion, coriander leaves.  You could also add munchy stuff like murmura, poha etc

The mouth-watering misal is ready to serve

Saalna omlette

    We have heard of saalna served with parotta, this salna omlette is also a street side food, where the masala mixed with curry is folded into omlette(half boiled, but here i made it with full boiled)  and served as it is as a snack.  My husband told it was super delicious as he and his college-mate used to have this in T-Nagar street-side food shop.

    I tried this out and it came soooooo gooddd...Ladies, kindly try this ,, for am sure your respective husbands will luv to have it ...

    Ingredients required:

Basic masala (the one i used in masala omlette version, you can get this http://savaadhjevana.blogspot.in/2012/10/masala-omlette.html ), one egg, any curry (here i used my fish curry, you can see this in http://savaadhjevana.blogspot.in/2012/10/nethili-poondu-kolambu-anchovy-cooked.html)

  

Method

Break one egg in a large bowl, and add salt, pepper accordingly

Pour it in a hot tawa, rotate it

Now is the important step, place one tsp of basic masala, and then add two to three big ladles of curry

And then mix it, fold it four sides and serve

Note the difference between masala and salna omlette, for masala omlette, we place one big heap of masala, fold and serve.  But for salna, the inner content must be too watery (that s y called as salna), so one small tsp of masala combine with four large spoons of curry will help.

Cook n enjoy!!