Endu kobbari podi - spiced dry coconut powder

One of the culinary delight of South Indian kitchens is the Podi, a dry spice-mix where a combination of spices, lentils, herbs or leaves are roasted in oil and ground to make a powder.  These podis are eaten along with tiffins like idli, dosa or upma and also along with steamed rice with ghee.  

Most of the south indian kitchens store at least 2 to 3 varieties of home made podis in bottles as these podis have a life of 4 to 6 weeks.  It is very simple to make aromatic, packed with proteins, easy on stomach and tasty, these podis are essential accomplishment for a typical vegetarian thali meals.  Today we will see how to make Endu kobbari Podi or the dry coconut spice mix powder in this article.  Now let us see how to make Endu kobbari podi  or the spiced dry coconut powder.  


Ingredients required:

• Minapa pappu ( black gram dal )  -  1/2 cup
• Senaga pappu ( bengal gram )  -  1/2 cup
• Oil or ghee for roasting the dals and coconut -  1 table spoon
• Dried red chillies -  8 to 10 nos   tear into two and de-seed
• Half a dried coconut, grated or finely sliced
• Garlic cloves -  10 to 12 nos
• Salt for taste

Method of preparation of Endu kobbari podi:

• First grate or slice the dried coconut into small thin pieces
• Now heat a table spoon of oil or ghee in a heavy bottomed vessel and roast the dals and dry red chillies on low heat till light brown color and release of flavor.
• Remove them and let them cool
• In the same vessel add the grated or sliced coconut pieces and roast on a low heat for 5 minutes. 
• Once the dals, red chillies and coconut pieces are cool, place them along with garlic cloves and salt in  a blender and grind them to make a powder.
• This can be stored in an air tight container

This Endu kobbari podi can be served with south indian tiffin items like Dosa, Idli, Upma and also can be served along with steamed rice with a combination of ghee

If you want to know about how to make Kobbari Pachadi, please read making kobbari pachadi..

How to make Karivepaku podi - Curry leaf powder

Karivepaku podi - spiced curry leaves recipe

Any South Indian meal is incomplete without taking some kind of podi ( spice powder ) and it is essential item on the dining table whether it is breakfast or lunch.    The curry leaves provides us with many health benefits like boosting iron levels, controlling blood sugar levels, flushing toxins from stomach and aids in digestion.   So people with low iron levels will be benefited by consuming curry leaves powder or the Karivepaku podi.

If you take one table spoon of the karivepaku podi with rice in the beginning of a meal aids in increasing appetite.  The karivepaku podi can also be taken along with upma, idli, pongal or even with dosa.  So today we will see how to make curry leaves spiced powder called as Karivekaaku podi or the karepaaku podi made from curry leaves, lentils and spices.  Now let us see how to prepare Karivepaku podi.

Ingredients required:

• Curry leaves -  2 cups
• Senaga pappu ( bengal gram ) - 4 table spoons
• Minapa pappu ( urad dal )  -- 2 table spoons
• Cumin seeds ( Jeera )  -  1 table spoon
• Coriander seeds -  1 1/2 table spoon
• Dried red chillies -  8 to 10
• Lemon sized tamarind
• Salt to taste
• Oil -  1 1/2 table spoon

Method of preparing Karivepaku podi:

• Add one  tbsp of oil in a pan and add the Bengal gram and urad  dal and fry them on medium heat till they turn red. Please do not  burn them. Keep tossing them around continuously. Remove from pan and keep them aside
• Now add the cumin and coriander seeds and toss them on medium heat till they turn brown..approx 2-3 mts. Remove from pan and keep aside.
• Add dry chillies and toss them for about 2 minutes.  Remove and keep them aside
• Now add one table spoon of oil and add the curry leaves and toss them till they are crisp and roasted.  Turn off the heat and allow all ingredients to cool down
• After everything is cool, grind the dals first followed by coriander, cumin seeds and red chillies and grind again
• Add tamarind ball and grind.  Remove them and keep aside
• Now add curry leaves and grind to make a powder ( note that all ingredients should be cool before grinding ).  Mix it with the coarsely ground spices and salt and store in an air tight container.
• Serve the Karepaaku podi with steamed rice and ghee.

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The oats dosa is a healthy and easy to make breakfast item which is very easy to prepare.  The tasty and delicious dosa prepared from oats has many health benefits too and helps in maintaining a balanced diet.  It takes very less time for preparing dosa with oats if you compared with traditional rice dosa.  It does not require any advance preparation.  Simply dry roast oats, crush them to powder, mix some curd, rava, spices, greens and finally water to prepare the batter.  Spread it over hot tawa and cook for few minutes and the oats dosa is ready .....  in minutes.  

Now let us see the step by step method of preparing oats dosa....

Ingredients required ( 1 cup = 250 ml )

Here is a list of ingredients required to prepare oats dosa  which can make  8 to 10 dosas,

• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/4 cup rava / sooji / cream of wheat / semoline
• 1/2 cup fresh curd / yogurt
• 1/2 cup rice flour
• Finely chopped onions - 1/4 cup
• Green chillies and finely chopped ginger  -  1 table spoon each
• Curry leaves - 7 to 8 chopped finely
• Coriander leaves finely chopped - 1.5 table spoon
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 table spoon
• Crushed black pepper - 1/4 table spoon
• Optionally grated coconut -  1 to 2 table spoons
• Water and salt as per  requirement
• Oil for preparing the dosa

Steps for preparing oats dosa...

Here is a step by step method for preparing OATS DOSA...

• First you need to grind the oats in a mixer to a fine powder.  Take this flour in a bowl.
• Now add the rice flour and rava / sooji / cream of wheat / semoline
• Then add the fresh curd.  Sour curd can also be added.  But if you are adding sour curd, then it should be only 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup.  
• Now add 1 cup of water, stir and mix to get smooth consistent without any lumps
• Add finely chopped onions, ginger, green chillies, chopped coriander leaves and curry leaves
• Once again stir well and then add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and salt as required.
• Grated coconut can also be added
• Stir well and keep aside for 10 minutes.
• Check for consistency and add more water as required.  The consistency should be thin and flowing like a rava dosa batter
• Heat a non stick pan or a cast iron pan on a medium flame.  Drizzle 1/2 tsp of oil and spread the batter with the spoon.  If you  are using a cast iron pan, then before adding oil, sprinkle some water to check the temperature of the pan.  If water drops sizzle and evaporate, then pan is ready to make dosas.  Avoid this method for non stick pan as adding water to non stick pan will affect the non stick coating
• Stir the batter in the pan and take a ladle full of batter and pour it from the circumference to the center.  Do not spread the batter with the back of the ladle like the way we do for regular dosas. Fill the small gaps and holes with extra batter and cook the dosa.
• Once it becomes crisp and golden, flip and cook the other side
• Once this side is cooked, flip again to the other side and cook
• Fold the dosa on the tawa and remove it
• Serve the dosa hot in a plate.
• If you are not able to serve hot, then cover the dosas with a lid and proceed to cook other oats dosas in a similar way.  The crisp texture changes if you serve the dosa warm or at room temperature.  Even then they taste good.
• These dosas can be served with coconut chutney, sambhar or idli-dosa podi ( powder

How to make potato pattis - Potato Tikki

Potato Pattis also called as Aloo Tikki is very easy to make and does not require much time.  If you like potatoes, then making potato pattis is very easy.  Whether these are made with normal potato or with sweet potato, they are very delicious.  The potato pattis can be served along with coconut chutney or with tamarind chutney.

Here is the procedure on how to prepare the potato pattis or the aloo tikkis.

Ingredients required ( 1 cup = 250 ml )Sweet potatoes - 4 Nos.

• Ginger and green chilli paste - 1 tea spoon ful
• Arrow root flour, water chest nut flour or buckwheat flour - 1 or 2 tbsp
•  Char garam masala - 1 tsp
• ½ tsp amchur powder or dry mango powder
• Chaat masala -  1 tsp
• Lemon juice - 1 tsp
• Crushed roasted cumin or cumin powder - 1 tsp
• ½ tsp red chilli powder
• ¼ tsp garam masala powder
• rock salt or black salt as required
• oil for frying

Procedure to make potato pattis

1. First of all rinse the potatoes well in water.
2. Roast them in oven till they are cooked and become soft
3. Otherwise you can pressure cook them with enough water and salt till they become soft
4. you can also boil them in a pan with water & salt.
5. Now drain the water.
6. when they cool down, peel.
7. Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher 
8. Add all the ingredients except oil.
9. Mix them well 
10. Shape  into medium sized tikkis or patties.
11. pan fry with little oil till both the sides are browned.
12. while serving garnish with some coriander leaves.
13. serve sweet potato tikki with a chutney or sauce.

How to make Batata Vada - Maharashtrian snack item

Batata Vada is a popular snack item from the streets of Maharashtra.  Batata means potatoes.  The potato is called as Batata in Marathi.  This recipe is called as Batata vada in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra.  In south india, it is called as Potato Bonda.   

The Batata Vada tastes different in different regions of Maharashtra like Pune, Nasik etc.  Even in Mumbai, the taste differs amongst different vendors.  The taste difference is due to the inclusion of different spices in potato filling.  The batata vada is the same that we use in vada pav.

It is very easy to make batata vadas.  Just prepare the potato filling, make them into balls, coat them in the gram flour batter and then deep fry them.  Let us see how to make batata vadas.

Ingredients ( 1 cup = 250 ml )

For potato filling

• medium sized potatoes  -  4 Nos.
• Curry leaves - 10 to 12 Nos.
• 2 tsp skinned split urad dal ( black gram )
• 1 tsp cumin seeds ( optional )
• 1 chopped green chilly
• finely chopped ginger - 1 or 1.5 tsp
• turmeric powder - 1 tsp
• 1/4 tsp of asafoetida
• a few chopped coriander leaves
• oil for frying
• salt

For the Besan (Gram Flour) batter you will need:

• 1.5 cups gram flour
• ½ tsp turmeric powder (optional)
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbsp rice flour (optional)

Method of preparation of Batata Vadas

Preparing the filling:

1. Boil y boil the potatoes till cooked thoroughly. Then mash them well. There should be no lumps.
2. Take some oil in  a pan.  Add mustard seeds and urad dal when oil gets heated.
3. When the mustard seeds start crackling and the urad dal turns brown, then add the cumin seeds, the curry leaves, chopped ginger, chopped chilly, asafoetida.
4. Fry till the spices are well cooked. Don't burn.  Add turmeric powder after that.
5. Now add this tempered hot spices with the oil to the the mashed potatoes.
6. Add salt.
7. Mix the potatoes with the spice mixture with a spoon as the mixture will be hot.
8. Later you can mix with your hands.
9. Make equal sized medium balls of the potato mixture.
10. Flatten them a little as it helps to deep fry them easily.
11. Keep aside

Preparing the vadas:

1. Now take the gram-flour, turmeric powder, add salt to it.
2. You can also add a pinch of red chilly powder to it.
3. I added rice flour to this batter as rice flour makes the coating crisp while frying. You can completely omit adding rice flour. With water make a slightly thick batter.
4. Dip each potato patty or ball in the besan batter.
5. Coat the ball evenly with the gram flour batter.
6. In a hot oil in a deep fry pan, add the potato balls coated with gram flour paste.
7. Fry them till golden brown.
8. Serve hot.
9. Batata Vadas are served with green chutney and tamarind-jaggery sweet chutney.
10. You can also serve them with coconut chutney.
11. If you are short of time, you can serve them with tomato sauce too.
12. It is also served with fried green chillies tossed in salt and a maharashtrian dry chutney made up of garlic, red chillies and onions.
13. You can make a vada pav too of it. Just slice the pav or bun into to.
14. Apply the green chutney on one side.
15. Then apply the sweet chutney on the other side.
16. Sprinkle the maharashtrian dry chutney made up of garlic, red chilli and onions.
17. Keep the batata vada in between the two slices of pav and serve with fried green salted chillies. You can also use burger buns or bread slices.

HOw to prepare Capsicum Rice

Capsicum Rice is a very colourful and falvourful rice dish which can be made for lunch box and even for a huge crowd.  Capsicum rice is very rich in flavour, colourful and is a very tasty rice variety.  The flavour and taste of capsicum makes this dish liked by people of all age groups.  Capsicum has health benefits too.  Capsicum is used to treat upset stomach, dirrohea, high cholesterol and prevents heart disease.  As the capsicum has medical benefits, this dish can be included in our day to day cooking if possible.   This articles gives step by step guide for preparation of Capsicum rice.

Ingredients

• Basmati rice - ⅔ cup
• Oil - 1 ½ tablespoons
• Cinnamon stick - 1 inch piece
• Cloves - 2
• Bay leaf - 1
• Green cardamom - 2
• Cumin seeds - ½ teaspoon
• Fennel seeds - ½ teaspoon
• Onion - ½ cup, sliced
• Ginger paste - 1 teaspoon
• Garlic paste - 1 teaspoon
• Green bell pepper (Capsicum) - ½ cup, sliced
• Red bell pepper - ½ cup, sliced
• Tomato - ⅓ cup, sliced
• Red chili powder - 1 ½ teaspoon
• Coriander powder - 1 teaspoon
• Salt - to taste
• Garam masala - ½ teaspoon
• Yogurt - ⅓ cup
• Water - 1 cup

Method of preparation

1. wash the rice and soak for 20 minutes. Meanwhile chop veggies. Drain the soaked rice and keep it aside.
2. Heat the oil in a deep pan. Once hot add whole spices and saute for a minute.
3. Then add cumin seeds and fennel seeds, let them sizzle.
4. Then cook onions in it for 2 minutes.
5. Mix in ginger paste and garlic paste, cook for 1 minute.
6. Stir in tomatoes and both peppers. Also mix in spice powders with salt.
7. Mix in yogurt.
8. Add soaked rice and water. mix well.
9. Cover the pan and cook for 18-20 minutes. Then let it rest covered for 10 minutes.
10. After 10 minutes open the cover, fluff up the rice with fork and serve.

The CApsicum rice can be a good dish for lunch box for kids as well as adults.

Vangi Bhaat - How to make vangi bhat

Vangi Bhat is a rice item made with brinjals is a very popular recipe of Karnataka state.  Vangi bhat is prepared in a similar way like a masala bhat.  Vangi Bhat masala powder  is added in this rice recipe and this spice blend gives the Vangi Bhat its unique flavour, taste and smell.  

It is very easy to prepare Vangi bhat recipe.  If you have goda masala readily available, it will not take much time to prepare vangi bhat.   The Vangi Bhat is a very popular recipe of Karnataka state.  The word VAngi means brinjal.  The cooked rice is mixed with home made spice powder and brinjals cooked in tamarind sauce to give birth to this excellent spicy Vangi Bhat.   In this article, you will see how we can make Vangi bhat of karnataka style. 

Ingredients required for Vangi bhat : 

• Cooked Rice(any rice brand or basmati rice) - 2 cups
• Brinjals /  Eggplants - 4-5 cut into 4 pieces
• Roasted Peanuts - 2 tbsp for garnish
• Thick tamarind extract - 1 tbsp
• Salt for taste

For Seasoning:

• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Mustaard Seeds - 1 tsp
• Urad Dhal - 1 tsp
• Curry Leaves few spring

For Vaangi Bath Masala Podi:

• Oil - 1tsp
• Black gram dal - 1 tbsp
• Channa Dal - 2 tbsp
• Coriander Seeds - 2 tsp
• Red Chilli - 4-5 nos.
• Sesame Seeds - 1 tsp
• Cinnamon Stick - 2" piece
• Cloves - 3

Method of preparation:

1. Heat a fry pan with 1/2  tsp oil, throw in cinnamon stick and cloves. Now add coriander seeds, curry leaves and  asefotida. Fry until aromatic for few minutes. Transfer to cool.
2. Fry channa dal, urad dal until golden color in the same pan.  Throw in the red chillies and fry for further one minute.  Add sesame seeds finally before turning  off the fire.
3. Cool all the roasted ingredients and grind them.  Store this powder in a air tight container and use it as needed.
4. Heat oil in a wok. Add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Throw in the cumin seeds,  split urad dal, curry leaves, one behind other. 
5. Add brinjals and turmeric powder a pinch. Sprinkle the ground powder . Pour in the 1/3 cup of water and tamarind extract. Cook covered for few minutes until brinjals are well cooked( but not mashed).
6. Add cooked rice to the prepared brinjal seasoning and saute well. Add the required salt.
7. Garnish with  roasted peanuts.
8. Dish out and serve with any raita and curry of your choice.

Note:

You can prepare this rice using this procedure : 

1. Saute the brinjals in seasoned oil to enhance its taste(water is not required) and add vaangi powder and rice, salt.
2. Replace lemon juice(1/2 of lemon) for tamarind at the end.
3. Roasted cashew nuts  or peanuts can be added as per taste.