Vegetable Raitha

Ingredients:-

• Cucumber  - 1
• Tomato – 1
• Capsicum - ½
• Carrot -1/2
• Salt and pepper -  As needed
• Coriander leaves,chopped  - 1 tblsp
• Curd - 1/2 cup
• Milk or sour cream - 3 tblsp

Method:-

Finely cut cucumber,tomato(deseeded),capsicum and carrot. Mix curd,milk/sour cream,salt/pepper well smoothly. Mix in all the other ingredients.

Peas Paratha

Ingredients:-

•  Frozen peas -  1 & 1/2 cups
• Green chilli - 3
• Ginger - 2 inch pieces
• Garam masala powder – 3/4 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp
•  Ajwain/jeera  - 1 tsp
• Chopped coriander leaves - 2 tblsp
•  Lemon juice(optional)  - 1 tsp
• Salt as needed

Method:-

• First make the dough and let it rest for 1/2 hour, mix  flour with salt and oil and add warm water to make a soft and smooth dough.

• Pressure cook peas with a pinch of sugar mixed, don’t add water. Cool down. 

• Grind green chilli and ginger first roughly and then add the green peas and grind coarsely.

• Mix salt,garam masala,turmeric,ajwain,coriander leaves and lemon(if desired) with the peas and make equal sized balls out of both dough and peas stuffing.

• Roll thick circle and keep the stuffing inside and cover the stuffing and make a ball. Roll it out with generous dusting with flour and make out thick parathas.

• Cook on both sides until golden spots appear, with oil/ghee drizzled over. 

Gobi Paratha

Ingredients

For dough

• Wheat flour   - 1 cup
• Maida           - 1/2 cup (optional)
• Salt             - as needed
• Oil               - 3 tsp

For stuffing

• Cauliflower   -  1 big
• Coriander leaves(chopped)  - 1/2 cup (can add less also)
• Ginger(finely chopped)  -  3/4 tsp
• Green chilly (chopped)  - 1(optional)    
• Turmeric powder          - 1/4 tsp
• Garam masala powder   -  1/2 tsp
• Red chilly powder         - 3/4 tsp
• Asafetida                    - a pinch
• Cumin seeds                - 1 tsp
• salt and oil as needed

METHOD

• For dough : Mix wheat flour and maida with salt and oil,well.
• Then prepare a soft dough by adding warm water to the flour(it should not be stiff but soft...) and keep aside.
• Usually I prepare and keep the dough atleast for  half an hour.

For stuffing:

• Grate the flower part of the cauliflower using a grater.
• Keep ready the other ingredients required for the stuffing and heat a broad kadai.  
• Add  cumin seeds,asafetida(not shown in pic),ginger,green chillie in order.Fry for a minute.
• Then add the grated  cauliflower,fry for a minute and add turmeric(not shown in pic),red chilie and garam masala powders,coriander leaves and sprinkle salt (little only will be needed).
• Fry in high flame for 5-6 minutes,with constant stirring. 
• Fry till the cauliflower turns soft.By this time it should have reduced into half the amount.
• Transfer to a bowl after done and cool down. 
• Take the prepared dough and roll into balls of big gooseberry size.
• Roll the balls into chapattis and keep aside. 
• Take one chapatti and spread at least 2 tablespoon of the stuffing till the ends.
• Place another chapatti over this and first press gently over it, and then seal the ends and fold.
• Sprinkle over some flour and spread into thin or thick parathas as per your desire..
• Heat tawa and add little oil and toast this parathas till golden in colour. 

Beans Thoran

Ingredients:

• Beans - 1 kg
• Grated/shredded coconut - Thuriviya thengai - 1/2 Cup
• Mustard - Kadugu - 1 tea spoon
• Cumin seeds - Jeeragam - 1 tea spoon
• Red chillies - Kaintha milagai - 3 nos.
• Black gram dal - Ulutham paruppu - 1 table spoon
• Curry leaves - Karuvepilai - small quantity
• Asafoetida - Perungayam - a pinch
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying
• Onion- 2 Medium Size

Method:

1. Wash and peel off the skin from vegetables and boil it till it becomes soft.
2. Heat oil in a pan/kadai, splutter mustard seeds, cumin seeds, black gram dal, red chillies, curry leaves, asafoetida .
3. Add the sliced onion and grated coconut. Now add boiled vegetable to it. Add little salt. Mix them well.

Beans Thoran is ready to be served. Serve it with any rice varieties.

Thalakom

Thalakom... This is my Grandma's masterpiece and my Dad loves this soo much...

Ingredients:

• Ladies finger - 2 nos
• Pumpkin - 1 small piece
• Potato - 1
• Carrot - 1
• Raw Banana (Vazhaikai) - 1/2
• Tamarind - 1 lemon size
• Salt - To Taste

For Grinding:

• Red Chillies - 8
• Raw Rice - 2 teaspoon
• Thurdhal - 2 teaspoon
• Sesame seeds - 1 teaspoon
• Grated Cocunut - 1 cup
• Oil - 2 teaspoon

For Seasoning:

• Oil - 1 teaspoon
• Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
• Fenugeek seeds/Vendhayam - 1/2 teaspoon
• Curry Leaves - few

Method:

• Cut the vegetables for the thalagam as we cut for the sambar.
• Soak the tamarind in the water and extract the juice and keep it separately.
• Heat the oil in the pan and fry the thurdal, sesame seeds, red chillies in the oil.
• Once the dhal becomes light golden color add the grated cocunut and fry it till it becomes light brown color and grid all these into a fine paste in a mixer along with the raw rice.
• Cook the vegetables in the pan , and when the vegetables are half-cooked, add the tamarind extract and salt and let it boil for sometime.
• Finally add the ground paste and allow it to boil.
• Season the thalagam with mustard, fenugeek and curry leaves.
• Thalagam is ready for serving

Thiruvathirai Kali

Thiruvathirai Kali is prepared on the auspicious occasion of Thiruvathirai. Cendanar of Naukoor, a disciple of Paddinattu Adigal, used to eat only after feeding some Saiva devotees. Due to a constant bad weather he could not get together all the essentials for a proper meal. He had no option but to mix water with flour and prepare a mashed paste. Lord Siva understood his predicament. He wanted the people to know how sincere his devotee was to him. Therefore he disguised himself as a Siva devotee and visited Cendanar’s hut and enjoyed what was given to him as food. The temple attendants saw the premises scattered with the mashed paste the following morning. Inquiries led to an understanding of Cendanar’s piety and he was thereafter bestowed with all due respect. This incident took place in a Markali Thiruvathirai. This is why Thiruvathirai Kali forms an important prasad on this holy day.

Ingredients:

• Raw Rice - 1 cup or ground rice powder - 1 Cup
• Grated Jaggery - 1 1/2 Cups
• Water - 3 Cups
• Moong Dhal - 2 table spoon
• Cardamom - 6
• Grated Cocunut - 4 table spoon
• Cashew nuts - 6
• Ghee - 2 tablespoon
• Salt - A Pinch

Method:

• Wash the raw rice in a water and rinse it. Immediately after rinsing put the rinsed rice in a Kadaai and fry it until the rice becomes golden brown color.
• Grind the Raw Rice in a mixer and the rice powder should be like Rawa. Take the contents in a bowl.
• Put the moongdhal in the kadaai and fry it till it becomes golden brown color and pour one cup of water to cook the dhal. It will take approximately 5 minutes to cook. The dhal need not cook completely. It should be in half boiled consistency. If you take one of the dhal and press it with your fingers, then it should get smashed. This is the right consistency.
• While the dhal is getting cooked, you can prepare the jaggery juice in parallel.
• Heat another pan, add water (till the jaggery immersed in the water completely) and add grated jaggery. When the jaggery dissolves completely in water, strain it to remove dust and sand particles. Keep the strained jaggery juice in a separate bowl
• Once the dhal is almost cooked, pour two cups water, strained jaggery juice and a pinch of salt.
• When the jaggery mixture begins to boil, add the powdered rice and stir well to avoid bumps. (like we do for the preparation of upma)
• Powder the cardamon and add it along with the grated coconut.
• Fry the cashews in the ghee and add to the kali. Add the remaining ghee to the kali and stir it one.

                  

Thattai

Ingredients:-

• Rice Flour - 2 Cup
• Fried Gram (Odachakadalai) Flour - 1/2 Cup
• Red Chili Powder - 1 teaspoon
• Hing - 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt - To Taste
• Coconut sliced pieces - 2 teaspoon
• Fried Gram (Odachakadalai) - 2 teaspoon
• Curry Leaves – few
• Oil - For Frying
• Butter - 1 table

Method:

• Take a pan, add rice flour, fried gram flour, salt, red chilli powder, hing, sliced coconut pieces, curry leaves, fried gram, butter and mix it well. Sprinkle water and mix all these ingredients to make it a thick dough.


• Take a piece of plastic paper, spread oil in the paper, make small ball of the flour, and keep it in paper.


• Grease the fingers with oil and press the ball to flatten it.


• Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan.


• Slowly turn the plastic paper over your palm. The greased plastic will enable flattened thattai to slip on your hands easily


• Turn them to cook evenly until golden yellow/ deep brown


• Drop them on a paper towel to drain excess oil


• Once cooled, store them in an air tight container.


• The delicious Thattai is ready for neivedhyam and for serving.

Vella Seedai

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 cups
Grated Jaggery - 1.5 Cups
Sesame Seeds - 1 handfull
Chopped Cocunut - 3 tablespoon
Cardamom - 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

• Soak the rice and rinse it in water for about 30 mins and then spread the rice in a towel till it becomes dry. Usually it will take only about 10 mins for the rice to dry.
• Soak the sesame seeds in water for 30mins
• Now grind the rice in a mixer to a nice powder.
• Add jaggery in a pan with 1/2 cup of water and when it dissolves, strain the jaggery water to avoid sand
• Again boil the jaggery water along with cocunut and sesame seeds and keep stirring it until the jaggery comes to one string consistency. When we take a drop of jaggery juice in a finger and rub it with another finger, it should form like a string. This is the correct consistency for the jaggery juice.
• Now remove the jaggery juice from flame . Pour the jaggery juice into the rice flour and mix it well along with cardamom powder.
• Keep this mixture aside for atleast one day
• The next day, heat the required oil in a heavy bottomed pan
• Make gooseberry size small balls of the vella seedai mixture and drop around 5-6 balls once the oil is hot.
• Deep fry the seedai till it becomes golden color. Repeat the process for the rest of vella seedai flour.
• The Delicious Vella Seedai is ready for Neivedhyam for krishnajayanthi as well as for serving.

Uppu Seedai

This is something that my Mom makes superbly. But i don prefer this seedai as i love the Sweetening one more..

Ingredients:-

• Urad Dal Powder – 1 Ladle
• Raw Rice – 2 ½ Cup
• Butter – 1 Tbsp
• Grated Coconut – 2 Tbsp
• Salt, Hing – To Taste and As Needed
• Oil – For Fryng

Preparation:-

• Soak the rice in water for 30mins.Soak the gram dal in water. Rinse and drain the water after 30 mins and spread it in a thin towel to absorb the wet. (for about 10 mins)
• When the rice is dry, take it from the towel into a mixer and grind it to a nice powder. Strain the ground rice flour at least twice to take smooth flour. We will be getting around 11 ladle of rice flour. Heat a pan, add the smooth rice flour and dry fry it for a while till the rice flour becomes hot. The rice should not be fried till red/brown color. Now mix the rice flour with 1 ladle of urad dal flour along with hing, salt, grated coconut, butter and gram dal
• Mix all ingredients and sprinkle water to make it a dough. Do not add more water. The dough should be tight. Water should be used very minimum, just to keep the dough tight. 
• Take 1 teaspoon of oil in a plate. Grease the palm with the oil and make tiny balls out of the seedai dough. Place the tiny seedai balls in a paper to dry it. Heat oil in pan. Take one tiny ball of seedai and drop it in the hot oil. When the seedai immediately rises up in the hot oil, then this is the right stage to start the frying of seedai balls.
• Take 2 handfull of seedai balls and drop it in the oil and keep the flame very low. Allow the seedai to fry well to cook completely inside. When the bubbles and frying sound starts decreasing, take the seedai using a fry ladle and place it a fry basket to remove excessive oil
• Now the yummy uppu seedai/Salt seedai is ready for neivedhyam

Note:

• The rice flour and urdal flour should be very nice. This will prevent breaking of seedai while frying in oil. Sometimes if the flour is wet or if it is not smooth, there may be chances of bursting of seedai while frying in oil which is very dangerous. So we should be cautious while doing seedai.
• This quantity of ingredients will make 2 bowls of mouth-watering uppu seedai.