Prawn Curry (Kulambu)

Prawn curries are best when it’s cooked with good taste and I love to have that with hot rice. The method which I tried is the one how my MIL used to make. This is a real spicy curry with lots of spices and tamarind extract which adds more taste to the curry and by using giant prawns it makes it complete. The prawn curry which is under the kerala recipe involves with lot of coconut, but this entirely excludes coconut. So the choice is yours :)

 

Ingredients:

• Fresh Cleaned prawns-500 gms
• Small Onion-7-8 nos
• Tomato-2 Nos
• Green chillies-5 nos
• Tamarind pulp- Half Cup
• Pepper Seeds-1 Tspn
• Cumin Seeds-1 Tspn
• Fenugreek-1 Tspn
• Garlic-5 Nos
• Cloves-4-5 nos
• Mustard-1 Tspn
• Curry Leaves-5-6 nos
• Turmeric Powder- half Tspn
• Chili powder-2 Tspn
• Coriander Powder-1 Tspn
• Coriander Leaves
• Salt- To Taste
• Oil

Method:

• Clean prawns and marinate with chili powder a tspn and turmeric powder and keep for atleast half an hour.
• Dry roast fenugreek (Venthayam), pepper seeds, cumin seeds, cloves and garlic and grind to a fine powder.
• In a pan, heat oil and add mustard,curry leaves.Add onions and fry it till it becomes translucent, add tomato and green chillies and stir well.
• To this, add a tspn of chili powder (if you want it more spicy) and coriander powder and stir for 2 minutes until the masala smell goes off.
• Add marinated prawns to this and stir for about 3 minutes and add the grounded masala powder and stir again until the masala smell goes.
• Add the tamarind extract to this and cook until it gets thick and becomes semi gravy.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Tips:

"You can exclude adding chili powder when it’s boiling if you feel it’s more spicy.

You can also add coconut milk if you want the curry more thick."

Nethili Karuvadu (TN) / Netholi Karuvadu (KL) / Anchovies Dry Fish Fry

No wonder if someone starves for a karuvadu curry who lives in the places where they don’t sell it, even I did when I came here :) but somehow I would say unfortunate, I gotta cook this as I bought this when me and BF visited to Texas sometime, there after I got a chance to get dry anchovies in many Vietnam and Chinese stores. When iam writing this, my memories are with my Ammuma(Grandma) who makes this and serve for me whenever I visit her place with Kappa. Iam sure to say no other dishes can beat with that taste. There are many recipes with dry fish which I will be posting it whenever I get update from my Ammuma :).. I really miss her and wish I could meet her for this Onam and iam proud to say that this is from her cookbook.

Ingredients:

• Dry Anchovies-1/2 Kg
• Onion- 1 small
• Tomato-1 nos
• Green chillies-3 nos
• Dry red chillies-2 nos
• Chili Powder- 2 Tspn
• Coriander Leaves- 1 Tspn
• Turmeric Powder- half Tspn
• Garlic pieces- 3 nos
• Cumin seeds- 1 Tspn
• Salt- To taste
• Oil- To shallow fry

• Wash Dry fish pieces in hot water and let it stay in hot water and squeezed lemon for atleast ½ hour to remove the impurities if any and this will remove the smell as well.
• Grind garlic and cumin seeds to fine paste and keep aside.
• Marinate the washed dry fish pieces along with the ingredients listed above along with the garlic paste and keep for ½ hour.
• In a tava, add little oil and fry red chilies, onions and tomato until it becomes translucent, add green chilies
• Add the marinated anchovies to this and cook without adding water and keep in low flame until it gets dry completely. Transfer into a paper towel to remove excess oil if any.

 

Tips:

"You can add the chili powder while adding onion and tomato to give extra spice.

You can try the same method with other type of dry fishes as well."

Chicken Fry

Chicken fry and the Biriyani is the perfect combination and give a satisfied meal for the day. Most of the non vegetarians like chicken fry to have with food or to have it separately. My way of making chicken fry involves frying it in coconut oil which really adds taste but if you want to cook it in normal oil is also fine. When you make this kind of fry you can use the leg pieces for the best result. Especially most of the kids also likes it have it.
 

Ingredients:

• Chicken pieces – ½ Kg
• Small onions-4 nos
• Soya sauce- 1 Tspn
• Vinegar- 1 Tspn
• Chili Sauce-1 Tspn
• Ginger garlic paste- 1 Tspn
• Chili Powder- 2 Tspn
• Coriander Leaves- 1 Tspn
• Turmeric Powder- ½ Tspn
• Salt- To taste
• Oil-To Deep Fry
• Lemon- ½ Size.

Method:

• Grind the small onions to a fine paste and keep aside.
• Marinate the chicken pieces with the ingredients along with the onion paste and keep atl east for an hour.
• In hot oil, deep fry the marinated chicken pieces and transfer into a paper towel to remove excess oil if any.

 

Tips:

"It tastes good if you fry it in coconut oil, perhaps you can do it with normal oil as well."

Urundai Kulambu

I like to call this as a “South Indian Kofta Curry” as the curry looks same as north Indian kofta curry. But this is entirely different both in terms of taste and also the method of making it. My BF is a big fan of this curry and when ever I cook, and more over this is a very good recipe for most of the vegetarians as it’s a variety curry and taste good as well. It involves a little work like grinding, baking stuffs but after its all done and when you have it you never feel it went for a toss.



Ingredients:

• Toor Dal- Half Cup
• Small Onion-8 Nos
• Tomatoes- 1 large
• Cumin seeds- 1 Tspn
• Fennel Seeds-1 Tspn
• Chili powder- 2 Tspn
• Coriander Leaves- 1 Tspn
• Turmeric Powder- half tspn
• Red chillies-4 nos
• Tamarind- a half lemon size.
• Coconut-4 Tspn
• Fenugreek Seeds- 1 Tspn
• Salt- To taste
• Curry Leaves-few
• Coriander Leaves-few
• Oil

Method:

• Soak toor dal atleast for 2 hours.
• Grind cumin seeds, fennel seeds with red chilies and little coconut(2 Tspn) to dry powder.
• Now add the soaked toor dal along with the grounded powder and grind coarsely. Add chopped onions, curry leaves, coriander leaves and mix well.
• Make small balls of this and bake it in idly plate in cooker for 10 minutes.
• Let it cool for sometime.

Now, for the gravy,

• Soak tamarind and extract the pulp from it and keep aside.
• Grind coconut (2 Tspn) and onion (2 nos) to fine paste and keep aside.
• In a pan, heat oil add mustard, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and green chilies.
• Add small onion and tomatoes and fry till it becomes translucent.
• Add chili, coriander, turmeric powder and stir well,pour the tamarind extract along with salt into this and let it boil for 2 minutes.
• Add the coconut paste as well and now you can add the baked balls into this.
• Once after the balls are added, do not stir it as it may break.
• Let the curry boils for 5 minutes and serve hot.

 
Tips:

"While grinding to make balls, do not grind it with excess water(like the dough used for making masala vada is fine)

Do not over bake the balls as it may turn hard after baking.

Grinding the coconut and onion is optional however it adds a good taste to the curry."

Almond Butter Cookies

Baking is very much adventures Isn’t :). Ofcourse yes! but its quite interesting too. This week recipe for you is Cookies. Who doesn’t like cookies? Especially kids, that too butter cookies. They are very simple to make, even the ingredients used here are very common and available at any country. The one I made here is a butter cookie with a glace of egg. You can make toppings with the sliced almond or even chocolate chips or dry fruits (as its almond butter cookie, almond pieces will suffice). They will be best when served with coffee as they are really crisp and tempts you to have more.. So here it is.

Ingredients: 

• Butter- 1 Cup
• Eggs- 2
• Sugar-2/3 Cup
• Vanilla Extract- 1 Tspn
• All Purpose flour/Maida- 2 ½ Cups
• Salt- a Pinch
• Lemon Zest- 1 Tspn(Refer the Dry Fruit Cake recipe for details)

 

Temperature:350 Degrees F(177 Degree C) 
Time:12-15 Minutes
 

Method:

• Beat the butter at medium speed for 2 minutes(Step 1)
• Add sugar to this and beat again in medium speed until it becomes a creamy mixture(Step 2)
• Add one egg, vanilla extract and lemon zest and beat again for 2 minutes(Step 3)
• Add the flour to this and beat with high speed(Step 4) and scrap down the sides of the pan and it forms as a dough(Step 5).
• Here is the crucial part, kneed the dough as shown in the pic and make it in a flat shape. The breadth and width of the dough should be very thin.
• Keep the dough in the fridge overnight or refrigerate for couple of hours as the dough should become stiff enough to cut (Step 6).
• Cut the dough in the shape you want and glaze it using pastry brush with egg yolk (Step 7).
• Sprinkle the coarse almond on the dough(Step 8) and set into the Oven.
• Transfer to the wire rack to set it cool as air flows into the cookie in all directions (Step 9).
• Store it in a air tight container and enjoy!

Make sure that after you pick the dough from the fridge cut it quickly as the dough will start dissolving as it has butter in it, and we cannot work with the dough if the texture changes, and always remember thinner they are, they will be crispy as well.

Carrot Halwa

I don’t like carrots at all in whatever dishes added perhaps, I like this cuisine because after it is cooked, it doesn’t taste like a dish with carrots, as it takes out the carrot flavor in it and gives only the sweet taste which makes me to forget that its made out of carrots :) .This is one of the easiest sweet recipe. The only lengthy process is cutting the carrot to very fine shape(I used food processer and so my job was shortened :).

 Ingredients:

• Carrots (Chopped fine)- 3 Cups
• Milk-2 ½ Cup
• Sugar- 1 Cup
• Cashews- 5 Nos
• Ghee-5 Tspn
• Cardomom powdered- 1 Tspn
• Salt- ¼ Tspn

Method:

• In a pressure cooker pan, add 2 Tspn of Ghee and add the carrots and stir for a minute just to remove the raw smell.
• Add milk to this and cook until the milk gets completely into the carrots and the carrots baked well.
• Add sugar and stir well for another 10 minutes.Here the carrots will become like a paste and make sure there is no water left in it.
• Add cashews, Cardomom powdered and the remaining ghee and mix well.

Tips:

"Let it stand for some time till the halwa becomes cool.

While stirring only the carrot make it should be cooked in low flame, as it may get darken at the bottom of the pan."

Prawn Curry

This is my first prawn recipe. Prawns usually takes long time to peel, however if you get the frozen prawns tailed your prawn curry will be easy.The way of making this includes coconut. It’s quite obvious using coconut in any kerala cuisines lol, soon you can get more prawn recipes.This is something same method as I prepared fish curry but the difference is we will fry some of the ingrediants.

 

Ingredients:

• Prawns- 500 grams
• Green chillies- 4
• Tamarind- Half lemon size.
• Tomato- 1 Chopped
• Mustard- 1 Tspn
• Oil- To temper
• Curry leaves- few

To fry and Grind:

• Coconut- Half Cup
• Small onions- 3 nos
• Chili Powder- 2 Tspn
• Coriander Powder- 1 Tspn
• Pepper Powder- 1 Tspn

Method:

• Smash tamarind in water to thick paste and keep aside.
• In a pan, pour little oil and fry all the items under to fry and grind list to a fine paste. Do not let the mixture to be at the stove for long time after adding the powders.
• In a separate pan(Without keeping it in the stove) mix the tamarind paste, along with tomatoes, green chillies and the grinded paste with water(howmuch ever you want for the gravy) and keep in the stove and let it boil until the prawns bakes well and all the masala smell goes off completely.
• In a separate pan, heat oil, add mustard and curry leaves and add this to the boiling curry and serve hot.

Tips:

"You can add drumsticks along with tomatoes.

You can adjust the chili powder after mixing the paste if you want it spicier."

Mutton Kulambu

In my blog, so far mutton Biriyani was the recipe which has most visits, obviously it’s everyone’s favourite too same as that, mutton curry is also everyone’s favourite cuisine. There are lots of ways to prepare mutton kulambu but the challenge is about the taste. I like preparing mutton curries prepared in village style. After trying no of times and types, I found this way of making mutton kulambu is a real great taste in “My Kitchen”. The only challenge in making mutton kulambu is the time for baking the mutton as usually it takes much time to bake it properly; it depends on the type of mutton used. I made this with 5 whistles, as mutton curries will be best only if it’s baked well.

 

Ingredients:

• Large Onion- 1 ½
• Tomatoes- 2 Nos
• Chili Powder- 1 Tspn
• Corianderowder-1 Tspn
• Garam Masala Powder- 1 Tspn
• Salt- To Taste
• Coriander Leaves- little.

To Marinate:

• Mutton Pieces - Half Kg.
• Curd- 1 Tspn
• Chilli powder-1 Tspn
• Turmeric Powder-1 Tspn

To Grind(Coconut Paste):

• Coconut- 2 Tspn
• Poppy seeds (Kasa Kasa)- ½ Tspn
• Cashews- 2 Nos

To Temper:

• Oil
• Bay leaves-1
• Cloves- 2 Nos
• Cinnamon- a piece.
• Ginger garlic Paste- 1 Tspn
• Mustard-1 Tspn
• Curry Leaves- 10 Nos
• Green chilies- Cut to lengthy shape – 4 Nos

 

Method:

• Marinate all the items under To Marinate list and keep at least for ½ Hour.
• Grind all the items under To Grind list and keep aside.
• Heat little oil in a pan, add half of onion and tomato and fry it till it becomes brown and juicy set it cool and grind to fine paste and keep aside.
• In a cooker pan, add all the items under To Temper list and stir, after the masala smell goes off, add the remaining onion, tomatoes and green chilies and stir well.
• Add the grinded onion,tomato paste into this, now add all the powders mentioned in the ingrediants and keep stirring till the masala smells goes off completely.
• Add the marinated mutton pieces along with the items mentioned under To Marinate list, add half cup of water and close the lid and cook for 5 whistles.
• After the whistle goes off, open and cook for another 5 mins, adding the coconut paste along with this. Add coriander leaves and serve hot.

Tips:

"The more time you marinate the mutton pieces, it will give more taste.

You can also grind onion, tomatoes without frying however frying will give you excess taste.

You can adjust the chili powder how much spicy you need in it."

Theeyal

If you are crazy about dishes with coconut, you will definitely liking this. Its a very famous recipe made in kerala which has lot of coconut grinded. I love to taste Theeyal with hot rice and fish fry. My Amma makes this very perfect as the chilli powder as her’s, it’s really hot and it has nice color. Here in US, I could nt find chilli powder as good as my Amma’s, perhaps I managed to bring the color but I succeed to get the exact taste how she used to prepare :).

Ingredients:

• Tamarind- Less than a half lemon size
• Green chillies- 2 small nos(Cut into lengthy shape)
• Mustard- 1 Tspn
• Curry Leaves- 10 nos
• Oil
• Salt-To Taste
• Coriander Leaves-a small bunch.
• Small Onion- half cup

To Grind:

• Small Onion- 3 Nos
• Chilli powder- 2 Tspn
• Coriander Powder-1 Tspn
• Coconut- Half Cup

Method:

• Smash the tamarind in little water with thick consistency and keep aside.
• Pour little oil in a pan, add all the items under To Grind list, adding all the powders as last so that the powder will not get over fried and do not let the mixture to be at the stove for long time after adding the powders.
• Set it cool and grind this adding little water to a fine paste and keep aside.
• Heat oil in a separate pan, add mustard,curry leaves,green chillies and small onions and stir well,add the grinded paste and tamarind paste with salt and stir well adding coriander leaves at the last.

Tips:

" If you cook this receipe with coconut oil, it gives nice taste perhaps you can cook with normal oil if you don’t like to be cooked with coconut oil.

Fry all the items under to grind list with less flame.Care should be taken not to over fry this items.

Do not keep the mixture in the stove for long time after adding the powders."

Dry Fruit Cake

Let me start this year 2013 with a simple dry fruit cake to treat you all with a dry fruit cake. This is a cake with a sweet taste, with a firm and slightly chewy texture. The most important step in this cake is adding alcohol to the below mentioned dry fruits and keeping it for at least 2 days or a day so that it will allow for the alcohol to flavor the fruit. If you don’t want to use alcohol, you can ignore doing this process and just use the plain dry fruits. It is not necessary to use all the dry fruits mentioned below, if you don’t get all of them, raisins, cashews and dry plums will do better.

So before you begin, below are the initial steps to be done. Butter the pan it, or spray with a nonstick vegetable spray, The pan used here is a round shaped cake pan.

Grind the almonds in the blender and make a fine powder.

Grate few lemon skin and keep aside-Lemon Zest.

 
Marinating of Dry Fruits:
2-3 tablespoons Grand Marnier, rum, brandy.
3/4 cup (120 grams) dried apricots, dried pineapple and cashews.
1/2 cup (100 grams) candied red or green cherries.
1/3 cup (40 grams) of raisins.
Soak the dry fruits for atleast 2 days or a day.

Ingredients:

•    Unsalted butter-1/2 cup (113 grams)
•    Sugar-1/2 cup (100 grams)
•    Eggs-3
•    pure vanilla extract-1/2 tspn
•    1/4 tspn pure almond extract (optional)
•    All-purpose flour/Maida-1 1/2 cups (195 grams)
•    Almonds powdered-1/2 cup (50 grams)
•    Baking powder-1 tspn
•    Salt-1/4 tspn
•    Few Lemon Zest.
•    Milk- (whole or reduced fat)- 1/4 cup (60 ml).

Temperature and Time Duration:
Temp:350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Time:60-70 Minutes.

Method:

•    In a mixing bowl, mix well with the whisker  the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest and keep aside.

•    In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter as shown(Step 1)
•    Add sugar to this and beat again until it becomes fluffy(Step 2)
•    Add  one egg and beat and again add egg and repeat , beat well after each addition of eggs Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. (Step 3)
•    Add vanilla and almond extracts and beat again,.
•     Add the mixed flour in two additions into this.Beat now with half of the flour until it becomes pluffy(Step 4 and Step 5)
•    Add milk into two additions, the first set of milk should be added at this stage (Step 6) and beat again.
•    Now add the dried fruits, and here you should add the remaining milk and the remaining flour mixture and beat until incorporated.(Step 7)
•    Pour the thick batter to the cake pan (Step 8) and now its ready to go into the Oven.

As I already mentioned, insert the toothpick into the center of the cake and see if it comes out clean, and then keep it in a wire rack or in a cool place. Once the cake is cool, scrap down all the sides and transfer it into plate.

Basics of Baking

Common Ingredients for any baking recipes:

• All Purpose Flour
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Butter
• Cheese
• Chocolate
• Eggs
• Flour
• Milk/Cream
• Nuts
• Raisins
• Salt
• Spices
• Sugar
• Sweeteners
• Vanilla Extract

Lemon Zest- The outer skin of Lemon

Yeast( Optional)

Well as I said it’s a complete information for fresher, I noted that some of the above mentioned ingredients is not available in some of the countries even in India. Though we have got several super markets, finding the ingredients is a tough part even I experienced it when I was there, so here is some guidance for replacements of some of the ingredients which is not available or you don’t want to use.

Alcohol/Liqueur
Substitute the same amount (volume) of liquid in the recipe as originally called for with alcohol with apple juice(It should be very thick).

Baking Soda
There is no recommended substitute for baking soda.

Breadcrumbs
You can dry the bread for a day and then powder it. This powder is replaced for breadcrumbs.

Cooking Sprays, No-stick
You can spread the butter in the pan.

Cornstarch
Substitute 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour for 1 tablespoon cornstarch.

Initial and common Step for any baking:
Greasing with butter any cake pan used in baking or spraying the baking pan with no stick cooking spray.

"The traditional and important method to find if the cake is fully cooked is a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean"

For cakes, always use conventional Oven preheating it to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) usually 60 minutes and may vary according to different types.

For cookies, always use conventional Oven preheating it to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) usually 8-10 minutes and may vary according to different types.

For shortbreads, always use conventional Oven preheating it to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) usually 15 minutes and may vary according to different types.

Cake pans
The Hero of the play is the Cake pans. No cake is perfect with a perfect cake pan. Most of the cake pans are aluminum. Common sizes for cake pans are:

• 8 x 8 x 1 ½-inch square holds 6 cups
• 9 x 1 ½-inch round holds 6 cups
• 13 x 9 x 2-inch holds 15 cups
• 11 x 7 x 2-inch holds 6 cups
• 10 x 4-inch tube pan holds 16 cups
• 10 x 3 ½-inch Bundt® pan holds 12 cups

Cookie Cutter
A cookie cutter is used to cut decorative shapes from dough that has been rolled out. Cookie cutters are made from aluminum, copper or plastic.

 

Electric Mixer or hand mixer
This plays a very important role for any baking, it’s a kitchen appliance used to beat, mix or whip batter however if you don’t have this, the batter can be mixed or beaten by hand using a wooden spoon or whisker but It may be more difficult to create the same consistency by hand as some of the batters should be puffed enough to make a right cake.

 

Measuring Cup
This is an optional material if you can accurately measure the liquid, however using this will give you the correct measurement and may not make the cake batter worst: These cups, made of glass or plastic, come in 1 to 8-cup sizes. Measures are marked on the side and cup has a spout for pouring the measured ingredients. 

Measuring Spoon
This is an interesting material as It is important to measure accurately particularly in baking since the ratio of dry to wet ingredients is very important. Measuring spoons come in sets of 1/8 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon. They can be made of metal or plastic.

Muffin Pan
If you love Muffins you cannot compromise in getting this. A special metal baking pan, sometimes referred to as a muffin tin, with 6 or 12 cup-shaped depressions. Most often this pan is made from aluminum. 

Wire Cooling Rack
This is purely optional, even you can keep the cooked cake in a plate however It allows steam to escape from all sides of the baked product so the bottom doesn't get soggy.