Cabbage rolls

Hi, cabbage rolls belong to pondicherry cuisine, indo-french  fusion food.  Traditionally, cabbage leaves are cooked in hot water, filling with unusual stuffing of cooked rice, minced meat, beef or pork along with selected seasonings.  You can also update it with grated steamed vegetables or scrambled eggs... So, off to recipe

Ingredients required

• Cabbage-one large sized
• Cloves- as needed

For the stuffing

• 2 tsp of cooked rice
• 1 egg
• 4 tsp grated carrot
• 2 tsp finely chopped beans
• 2 tsp finely chopped cabbage
• 1/2 tsp jeera powder(optional)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp soy sauce

Method

Very carefully peel 4-5outermost layers of cabbage.  Take those layers and boil them in hot water for ten minutes.

In meantime, heat tawa, add carrot, beans and cabbage.  Saute them with jeera powder, salt.  

Make one corner and break an egg.  Scramble the eggs and at the sametime, mix it with carrot-beans duo alternatively

When completely mixed, add rice and soy sauce.  Your filling is now ready

Take steamed cabbage layers, place stuffing and fold into four.  Traditionally they use toothpicks to hold the stuffing, here i inserted cloves.

Yeah, pinned it up with two cloves...

Beautiful cabbage rolls is now ready... u can add it up in ur favourite soups, or in noodles.  Also can be had raw with vegetable salad platter.  Wanna know how i ate??   Have patience and scroll below :)

I just tawa-fried the rolls till they turned golden brown (by adding 1/2 tsp of oil) and had with schezwan sauce.... it was very yummy indeed!!!!

Hmmm.... yummy n delecious tooooo

Dal maharani

Dal maharani is an punjabi dal made with combo of black urad dal, chana dal, rajma cooked in creamy base in addition to normal spices.  Using punjabi garam masala can also be done, to enrich flavour.

Ingredients required

• 1 cup black urad dal
• 1/2 cup chana dal
• 1/2 cup rajma
• 4-5 tsp oil
• 1 tsp jeera
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
• 1 tsp punjabi garam masala
• 1 tsp salt
• 11/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp dhanya powder
• 1/4 cup khoya/cream/milk
• 4 tsp of finely chopped coriander leaves, to garnish

For paste

• 2-3 cashews
• 1 tsp fennel seeds/sombu
• 2-inch piece of ginger
• 4 tsp finely chopped mint leaves
• 2-3 crushed green chillies

Method

Soak all daals, pressure cook them till done and keep aside.

Make paste using all above ingredients using mortar and pestle.

In a kadaai, heat oil , saute jeera and onions.

Add in crushed paste and cook

Add in tomato puree, followed by all the spices

After this gets cooked, add cooked dal along with water.  

Add in khoya/cream.  Check the seasoning and spice.  Cook for another 5-10 minutes on simmer flame and serve hot garnished with coriander leaves

It was very nice, yummy too!!

And i have an big kadaai full of dal maharani mixture.. anybody over there... Be my guest!!!

Mirchi ka salan

Mirchi ka salan/green chilly curry is an traditional side-dish for hyderabadi biriyani, though sometimes it is served with roti too.  I made an exception and served it with kal dosa... hmmm... the ultimate combo was very nice..spice lovers must give a try.  I used bhavnagiri chilly, some five to ten numbers (as for the first try, i wanted the curry to be mildly spicy.. if u want an hotter one, u can try with more numbers)

Ingredients required

For the masala paste

• 2 tsp peanuts
• 1 tsp till/sesame seeds
• 4 tsp grated coconut
• 1 tsp whole jeera/cumin seeds
• 1 tsp whole dhanya
• 1-inch piece of cinnamon
• 3-4 mint leaves
• 2 green cardamon
• 2-3 cloves

For temper

• 3 tsp oil
• 1 tsp rai/mustard seeds
• 1 bayleaf, crushed
• 2 whole cloves
• 7-8 curry leaves
• 1 cup chopped onions (which is later blended into paste)
• 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste

others

• 5-6 big chillies (as indicated in pic following method)
• 1 tsp salt
• Oil, for shallow frying

Method

In a kadaai, roast all ingredients for masala and blend them into fine paste, keep aside.  

In the very same kadaai, heat oil and add ingredients for temper one by one.

Add onion paste and saute till they turn golden brown, later add ginger-garlic paste

Now add in blended masala paste and salt,  keep stirring on lower flame such that raw smell of masala fades away.

Meantime, take chillies, slit them into two vertically.  Deseed them, and shallow fry them (though traditional recipe calls for deep-frying) till they turn white moist.

Now add this fried chilly to our sizzling curry.  Serve hot with paranthas.

Hmm.... veryyy yummyy

Phool makhana ki kheer

I think u wont be needing an introduction to phool makhana as already post of phool makhana curry is posted previously.  So let us see how to make nutritious kheer/ payasam.

Ingredients required

• 1 cup phool makhana/lotus seed
• Half litre milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 tsp cardamon powder
• 1/4 cup ghee roasted almond pieces

Method

In a deep vessel, add milk and phool makhana.  Heat under simmer flame till phool makhana gets cooked.  Now, mash the phool makhana with help of any utensil, (for instance, daal masher) such that phool makhana gets incorporated into milk very well.

Now add in cardamon powder, sugar, condensed milk, stir continously.

Garnish with almond pieces and serve hot... hmm.. it was very tasty... :)

I enjoyed it!!!!1

Banana and dates smoothie

  Smoothies are blended paste from fresh fruits.  Sometimes, they can be flavoured with honey, vanilla or choclate.  Additionally milk/cream can also be added to enhance its consistency.  Here is used soy milk, thereby making it more nutritious...

Ingredients required

• Soy milk- half cup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 Banana (which can be frozen, optionally)
• 4-5 deseeded black dates
• 1 tsp honey

Method

Grind all above into smooth paste and serve chilled.

I am just reminded of brittania slogan  EAT HEALTHY, THINK BETTER :) tin tin ti tin