Pineapple Pudding
or
Pineapple Kesari
Pineapple has an unique smell, which is liked and disliked by many. Pineapple can not be consumed raw, it has to be boiled in sugar syrup and can be eaten - discarding syrup. Eating raw pineapple may cause itching in the tongue.
So whenever I buy pineapple, I used to boil it in sugar syrup for about 15 minutes, cool it and then refrigerate.
Selecting a Pineapple:
The pineapple should be firm. It will give a little to firm pressure. The pineapple should be heavy for its size.
How to Cut:
1. Place the pineapple on its side, use a cutting board, cut the crown and the stem off, using a sharp knife cut them both off about a half inch.
2. Stand the pineapple up on the end, slice the skin off the sides, going from top to bottom. Cut as thinly as possibly.
3. Remove the eye spots, eye spots will all line up in diagonal rows on the pineapple. Cut a V shaped groove along the diagonal line to remove each set of eye spots. The remaining flesh is ready for cutting now.
4. Cut the pineapples into circles. Lay the peeled pineapple on its side and cut slices around 3/4 inch thick.
5. Depending on the quantity of slices, add sugar, water and boil it for 15 minutes.
For Example: 10 slices, 1/2 cup sugar, 1& 1/2 cup water or till it immerses the pineapple slices.
6. Drain the water and store it after it has cooled down completely.
7. Keep it refrigerated.
Pineapple kesari is commonly served in marriages as a classic sweet in the breakfast menu. If you are diet conscious avoid ghee, but ghee adds flavour and taste.
Cuisine: South Indian
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Yields: Serves 4
Ingredients:
Pineapple slices finely chopped: 1/4 cup
Rava or Sooji: 1 cup
Sugar: 1/4 cup
Yellow food colour or Turmeric: 1/4 teaspoon
Cooking Oil: 2 tea spoons
Ghee: 2 table spoons
Cardamom: 2 pods crushed (Optional)
Cashew: 8 to 10 nos
Raisins: a few (Optional)
water: 1 & 1/4 cup
Method:
1. Take a heavy bottomed pan or kadai, place it on the big burner over high flame.
2. Pour the rava and dry roast the rava till aroma comes, be careful not to burn it.
3. Take it out and pour in a plate to cool.
4. In the same pan, add 1 & 1/4 cup of water and heat it, add food colour now.
5. When the water is about to boil, simmer the flame and gently add the rava slowly and at the same time stir well so that no lumps are formed.
6. Let it cook. When the rava is completely cooked, add sugar. The sugar will melt and the kesari will become flowy.
7. Add pineapple chunks and add 1 table spoon of ghee and 2 tea spoons of oil and mixwell.
8. Close it with a lid. Let it cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
9. Place a small pan, add 1 table spoon of ghee. When it is hot, add cashews and fry till it becomes golden brown. Put off the flame and add this to the kesari and mix well.
10. Transfer the pineapple kesari to a serving bowl. Serve it hot.
Veg Grilled Sandwich
This can be called a snack or a complete meal. The sandwich remains in the top of the wish list of after-schools eat to my son. He likes bread in the form of toasts or sandwich very much. All thanks to my Father - in - law, who initiated my son's habit of relishing bread.
As a child he relished bread with orange flavoured glucose sprinkled liberally over it. Now as a teenager he likes to have it as toast or Indianized sandwiches.
Cuisine: Indian
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
Sandwich Bread Slice: 8 to nos
Finely sliced Cucumber: 1/2 no
Finely sliced Onion: 1 no
Finely sliced Carrot: 1 no
Finely sliced Capsicum: 1 no
Finely sliced Tomato: 1 no
Butter or Oil: 2 table spoons
Egg-less Mayonnaise: 2 table spoons (Optional)
For Green Chutney:
Pudina: 1/ 2 cup tightly packed
Coriander: 1/ 4 cup tightly packed
Garlic: 2 pods
Green chilli: 1 no
Onion: 1/2 roughly chopped
Method:
1. Grind the ingredients mentioned for the chutney in a mixie jar into a fine smooth paste.
2. Finley slice all the vegetables and keep it ready.
3. Take a slice of bread, apply green chutney generously and arrange the vegetables.
4. Take another slice of bread and spread the mayonnaise and place it on the first slice, to make a sandwich.
5. Toast it in a sandwich toaster with little butter.
6. Take it out once it is golden brown.
7. Cut into a triangular shape and serve hot with any dip or ketchup.
Note:
1.If you do not have a sandwich toaster ,you can toast it in a tawa.
Egg-less Caramel Fruit Cake in Cooker
or
Egg-less Plum Cake (Commonly Called)
Now, is the right season to make plum cake as the climatic conditions flavour, the cake baking. The cold climate enables in keeping the cake moist. As Christmas holidays approach, we can bake these cake as little treat to kids. I tried this cake a few years back, now I wanted to give it a try in a pressure cooker.
Some people suggest to use an empty pressure cooker with lid and no gasket. But this leaves dark colouration in the bottom of the cooker and thereby reducing its life. In some cookery show, I saw that common salt is filled up to an inch in the bottom of the cooker and the baking tray is placed over a stand and over the stove on a medium flame.
Cuisine: Indian Adapted
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Soaking Time: 1 day
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1:1:20 mts
Yields : 1 kg
Ingredients:
Maida: 240 gms or 1 & 1/4 cups
Sugar: 100 gms
Water: 2 table spoons + 1/2 cup
Cinnamon powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Cardamom powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Clove powder: a pinch
Nutmeg powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Baking soda: 1/2 teaspoon
Baking powder: 1 teaspoon
Cooking Oil: 1/3 cup
For Soaking:
Tutti fruity chopped: 30 gms
karonda cherry chopped: 30 gms
Cashew chopped: 20 gms
Badam chopped: 20 gms
Dry Fig chopped: 20 gms
Dates chopped: 20 gms
Raisins: 20 gms (Full)
Orange Juice (I used Tropicanna): 1 cup
For Cooker Preparation:
Common salt: 1/2 kg
Steel Stand: 1 no
Method:
For Soaking:
1. Chop all the dried fruit and soak it in 1 cup of orange juice and refrigerate it overnight.
2. Take it out and let it reach room temperature.
Preparing for Cake mix:
1. Sift maida, baking soda, baking powder and take it in a wide bowl for mixing.
Preparing Caramel Syrup:
1. Take a sauce pan, place it on stove over the small burner on a high flame.
2. Add 100 gms sugar and 2 table spoons of water and stir continuously.
3. The sugar will melt, keep on stirring, till the syrup turns to honey colour. This is Caramel.
4. Now reduce the flame and add 1/2 cup water little by little, it will splutter do not panic, keep on stirring, but be careful, it may solidify. Now rise the flame and keep on stirring.
5. It will melt and become liquid once again, switch it off. Let it cool down to room temperature.
6. Once it is cool, add 1/3 cup of oil to it and mix well.
7. Now take the sifted maida with spices mix and add the soaked dry fruits in one go.
8. Add the caramel to the above in one go and gently fold it. Do not mix.
9. Fold until everything is blended well.
10. Grease a container and dust it with maida.
11. Now pour the cake mix into the container.
Preparing the pressure cooker:
1. Place a 7 & 1/2 litre pressure cooker over the big burner on a medium flame.
2. Add 1/2 kg of common salt into it and place a stand. Heat it for 5 minutes, this is pre-heating.
3. After 5 minutes place the container with cake mix on the stand and close the cooker with the lid, never forget to remove the gasket.
4. It will take approximately an hour to bake, insert a knife and check if the knife comes out clean with no batter sticking, then the cake is done.
5. If some batter sticks, then bake it for some more minutes, till the knife comes out clean.
6. Once it is cool, cut it into wedges or slices of your preference.
Note:
1. Remember to remove the gasket, the high heat may melt the gasket. So always remove it.
2. Folding the batter means in the same direction, ie if you do it clockwise, it should be only clockwise till the batter is blended with dry fruits and caramel.
Home made Chocolate
I learnt this recipe from Leelavathy aunty, my then house owner in 2004. when we went to her house, she used to offer this chocolate to my son, who was 2 and a half years old at that time. I was hesitant to give him chocolate but she convinced me saying, this is home made with no preservatives. when i tasted it, it was very similar to the chocolates available during childhood days, roasted chocolaty flavour with mild sweetness.
My little son used to grab these chocolate and munch it away. Unlike the home made chocolate available in Kodai and Ooty this one does not melt at room temperature. It doesn't even need to be refrigerated. So do not worry about giving it to kids.
Cuisine: Indian
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
Milkmaid or Any condensed milk: 1 tin
Butter: 50 gms
Sugar: 100 gms
Cocoa: 2 table spoons
Milk: 2 table spoons
Method:
1. Take a heavy bottomed pan, empty the entire contents of milkmaid into it.
2. Add the whole of butter, sugar in powdered form.
3. Mix cocoa in little milk and add it to the above.
4. Now put the pan on the stove over high flame and stir continuously, it will bubble.
5. It may take nearly 30 minutes.
6. when the liquid starts to solidify,simmer and keep on stirring
6. The bubbles may appear like rain water, when touches the ground.
7. It reaches rounded off consistency.( Ie) it will come out off the pan.
8. Then pour it in a greased plate and cut into pieces. Let it cool.
9. Store the cut pieces in an airtight container.
Note:
1. It stays well for one month without refrigeration.
Kara Sev
Popular snack of Tamilnadu, Sattur, a small town in Virudhunagar district is famous for kara sev. My husband's favourite snack, It is an easy snack and can be had a munchies, all through the day. Only a few ingredients are needed to make this.
Cuisine: Tamilnadu
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes for 1 batch
Serves or Yields: 200 gms
Ingredients: Ratio
Besan flour: 3/4 cup Rice : Besan flour
Rice flour: 1/4 cup 1 : 3
Pounded pepper: 10 to 15 nos
Salt to taste
Asofotedia: a pinch
Hot oil: 2 tea spoons
Cooking oil: enough for frying
Method:
1. Seive rice flour and besan flour and put it in a wide bowl.
2. Add hot oil, salt, pounded pepper, asofotedia and mix well
3. Sprinkle water little by little and knead it into very soft dough.
4. Take the murukku presser with murukku mould and fill it with the dough.
5. Heat enough oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium flame.
6. Squeeze or press this dough gently into the hot oil and fry till the bubbles settles down.
7. Drain excess oil and take it out.
8. Crumple the fried kara sevs roughly with your hands, when it is completely cooled.
9. Store it in a air tight container. It stays well for over a fortnight.
Note:
1. If you want to use chilli powder (1/2 teaspoon), you can use it for extra spicy. But chilli powder while frying in hot oil cause quick browning and also gives a burnt flavour.
Punjabi Mushroom Masala
Not a very popular dish, but available in a dhabba menu and is quite easy to make. It goes well with rotis, phulkas and also jeera rice. With my son being a big fan of Punjabi dishes, I make this gravy for roti's.
Cuisine: Punjabi
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
Fresh Button Mushrooms: 200 gms
Roughly chopped Onion: 2 nos
Roughly chopped Tomato: 1 no big
Roughly chopped Ginger: 2 inch piece or 2 tea spoons
Garlic pods: 9 to 11 nos
Soaked Cashews: 8 to 10 nos
Kasuri Methi: 1 teaspoon finely chopped
Cooking Oil: 3 tea spoons
Chilli powder: 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Shah jeera: 1 teaspoon
Method:
1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and roughly cut into pieces. Keep is aside.
2. Roughly chopp onion tomato, ginger, garlic and fry it with 1 teaspoon of oil for 5 to 7 minutes till the onions caramelize and tomatoes becomes mushy. Let it cool down completely.
3. When it comes to room temperature, grind it in a mixie jar to a fine smooth paste.
4. Place a heavy bottomed pan on the stove over high flame. When it is hot, add 3 tea spoons of oil and heat it.
5. When the oil is hot, add shah jeera and let it splutter, now add the onion tomato puree and simmer the flame.
6. Keep stirring till the oil floats on the top.
7. Now add mushrooms, it will give out some water and when all of it is absorbed, add chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder. Mix well.
8. Now simmer the gravy till the raw flavour of chilli goes off.
9. Make a fine smooth paste of soaked cashews in a mixie jar and add the paste to the gravy, mix well. Cook till the cashew paste is completely cooked.
10. Add kasuri methi and mix well. Let it cook for a few minutes till the oil floats on the top.
11. Put off the flame and transfer it to a serving bowl.
Note:
1. After chopping mushrooms, keep them immersed in water, otherwise mushrooms may turn black in colour.
Rava Kichidi or Vegetable Upma
Rava kichidi is a popular breakfast recipe of Tamilnadu. North India's Dhal Kichadi is entirely different from this one. Many restaurants serve this rava kichidi as breakfast and dinner food.This rava kichadi can be considered as an one-pot meal, since it is sumptuous and tasty.
Rava kichidi or upma is a dreaded word for many, they dislike it without any reason. In my family upma is liked by all. So I make it at least once in a week. Rava roasted to perfection, right amount of oil and ghee, caramelized onions and par-cooked vegetables, small amount of spices and apt salt gives the rava kichidi nice aroma and good taste.
Cuisine: South Indian
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Yields: Serves 3 to 4
Ingredients:
Sooji or Bombay rava: 1&1/2 cups
Finely diced Carrot: 1 no
Finely diced Fresh Beans: 7 to 8 nos
Finely diced Potato: 1 small no (Size of a lemon)
Finely diced Tomato: 1no
Finely chopped Onion: 1 no
Slit Green chilli: 2 nos
Green Peas: One handful
Turmeric powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Cooking Oil: 1/2 tablespoon
Ghee: 1/2 tablespoon
Pudina leaves: 1/2 tablespoon (Optional)
Finely chopped Ginger: 1/2 teaspoon
Curry leaves: a few
Coriander leaves: 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped
For Seasoning:
Saunf: 1/4 teaspoon
Jeera: 1/4 teaspoon
Cinnamon: 1/2 inch stick
Cloves: 3 nos
Cardamom: 1 no
Method:
1. Place a heavy bottomed pan or kadai on the stove over high flame. When it is hot, roast rava or sooji till it becomes light in weight.
2. Take it out in a plate and let it cool.
3. In the meantime cut all vegetables as mentioned ie dice the potatoes, carrots, finely chopp onions, beans, tomatoes, ginger, coriander, and pudina leaves. Slit green chillies and keep it aside.
4. Place the same pan used for dry roasting rava on the stove over high flame, add 1 teaspoon of oil and ghee.
5. When the oil is hot, add saunf, jeera, cinnamon, cardamom and fry it for less than a minute.
6. Add slit green chillies, ginger and onions and saute it well for a minute.
7. Now add vegetables one by one and saute it well, add salt, 3 cups of water and stir well.
8. Check it and add salt as per taste and turmeric powder. Stir once.
9. When the water is about to boil, simmer the flame, add the roasted rava slowly and at the same time keep stirring it so that no lumps are framed.
10. Add the tomatoes and mix well, add the remaining oil and ghee. Mix well.
11. Close it with a lid, Let it cook for 8 to 10 minutes.
12. Add chopped coriander and pudina leaves. Mix well.
13. Put off the flame and transfer the kitchidi to the serving bowl.
14. Serve it hot with any chutney or sambar or any pickle of your choice.
Note:
1. Dry roast the rava well for 5 to 10 minutes, otherwise the kichidi may turn out sticky.
2. One cup of rava requires 2 cups of water (including the vegetables) to cook.
