Appam and Kadala curry recipe

Thought of enjoying the long weekend with a typical Kerala breakfast of appam and kadala curry, its been long that I have made this. 

I have another  recipe  of appam in my blog which has no yeast this one is a recipe with yeast and then of course the recipe of the kadala curry in the pic will also be posted.

Ingredients for appam

Rice (good quality – sona masuri, basmati) – 2 cups

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Paper poha (thin beaten rice) – ¾ cup

Yeast – a pinch (yes, just a pinch)

Sugar – 2 tbsp.

Method

• Soak the rice for about 3 hours.
• Grind all the ingredients for the appam together well, smoother the better; the batter has to be slightly thinner than dosa batter.
• Keep the batter to ferment for few hours or overnight.
• After fermentation add salt and mix well and leave it to rest for another 15 mins. The batter will puff up again, yes and that very important for good appams.
• Meanwhile take the appa chatti (I use the cast iron chatti) on the stove and heat on lower medium flame.
• Sprinkle few drops of sesame oil and then sprinkle little water so that the oil is dispersed and also the heat of the chatti is maintained. (My personal trick and suggestion)
• Take a ladle of batter and pour in the centre of the chatti and without waiting or wasting time hold the handle of the pan and swirl so that the batter spreads around the edges of the pan and the excess batter accumulates at the centre, cover the appam with a lid.
• Open the lid after few seconds .
• Wait for few seconds before you remove the appam for the pan. You needn’t flip the appam.

Recipe for kadala curry

Ingredients

Brown chana – ½ cup

Onion- one med sized

Green chillies – one or two

Ginger – about an inch

Grated coconut - half a cup

Jeera (cumin)- ½ tsp

Saunf ( fennel seeds) – ½ tsp

Pepper powder – ½ tsp

Chilli powder – ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Coriander powder – 2 tsp

Cardamom – 1 or 2

Cloves – 1-2

For seasoning

Oil

Mustard

Dried red chillies

Curry leaves.

Method

• Soak chana overnight.
• Cook the chana with sufficient water, onions, ginger and green chillies.
• Take a pan, add little oil and add the grated coconut, sauté until golden brown and then add all the remaining spices and spice powders.
• Once cooled grind the coconut mixture to a fine paste (as fine as possible).
• Add the ground coconut spice mixture and salt into the chana and mix well and bring it to boil.
• Season with mustard, dried red chillies, curry leaves

Notes

I used one cup of unpolished red rice and one cup of ordinary sona masuri rice.

I used thin red poha instead of white poha.

Thanks 

Chaithanya

Quickie dosa | No fermentation crispy dosa | Rava dosa recipe

By now you all would have understood that I am not regular with keeping dosa batter stored for the simple reason that I forget soaking, grinding and the bulb in my brain only lights up just before I hit bed. So it was a similar night yesterday and I remember this recipe from a book I read and I thought of giving it a go! Just soaked a cup of urad dal and hit the bed. 

Next day I made this dosa as per the recipe, yea it’s not my recipe, no credits for me please... my dear husband couldn’t stop eating this dosa, kids loved it too.. I am so happy that another quickie dosa is added to the list, I can’t get happier. And no, I have never bought ready-made batters in my life. Ever! 

Excited to share this simple and yummy recipe, can’t wait. 

I picked  the recipe from my favourite book ' Banana goes to the heaven' , love the easy Indian recipes in the book. 

  

Ingredients

Urad dal - 1 cup

Chirtooti rava (fine rava, usually used for making sweets) - 1/2 kg

Water - as required

Salt

Method

• Soak the urad dal overnight or at least 3-4 hours.
• Grind it well into a smooth paste.
• Add the rava into the urad dal batter, add sufficient water and mix well.
• Add salt and leave it to rest for about 20-30 minutes
• Heat the cast iron tava (I don’t use non-stick) and then keep the sesame oil/gingelly oil ready and a small bowl of water too. (now that’s my way of making any dosa ) I love the theatre while cooking ;).
• Heat the tawa to maximum heat, drizzle the oil and sprinkle some water, now this is done to balance the heat of the tawa.
• Take a ladle of batter and keep spreading in circular motion.
• Close the dosa with a lid for about 30 seconds, open and drizzle a little more oil on top.
• Slowly and gently flip the dosa and let it crisp.
• Serve hot crispy dosa with sambar, chutney,  pickle, all or any or any of your preferred combinations 

Variations : You can add green chillies, coriander and spices into the batter 

You could use the usual semolina as well, but check the consistency of the batter before you start making dosa, or you could even grind it. 

Will try the normal rava next time. 

Crispy masala dosa recipe

We don’t often make dosa which contains urad dal as my daughter detests it. But being a weekend I just went ahead to make masala dosa and I had all the ingredients at home. wowie :P

I will jump on to the recipe soon :)

Ingredients

Urad dal - 2/3 cup

Rice ( any good quality raw rice)- 1 1/2 cup

Chana dal - 1/8 cup

Toor dal - 1/8 cup

Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp

Method

• Wash and soak all the ingredients for about 4-5 hours.
• Grind it together to a fine paste. Make the batter a little thin and leave it to ferment overnight.
• Next morning or when the batter is well fermented, add salt to the batter, mix well.
• Heat the cast iron tava on stove, heat it to maximum flame. 
• Sprinkle few drops of gingelly oil, and then sprinkle some water to balance the heat of the tava ( thats my way of doing) 
• Take a ladle of batter and spread thin on the tava.
• Close it with a lid for few seconds and then remove the lid, if you want you can pour few drops of ghee and once the dosa is cooked, remove gently by sliding the turner all over at the bottom of the dosa.
• Don’t flip!!!

Serve dosa with potato sabji, and coconut chutney and sambar.

Potato sabji: chop half kg potatoes and one medium size onion, an inch of ginger and add half a cup of water and pressure cook for two whistles. Once the pressure is gone season it with mustard seeds, urad dal, chana dal, chilli, and curry leaves. Sprinkle daniya on top

For chutney: grind coconut, chutney dal, ginger, green chillies and optionally coriander leaves.

You may use nonstick tava too, but i dont use nonstick in my ktichen. Cooking is cast iron vessels is healthy, food has a nice texture and tastes different and good too :)

enjoy cooking

thanks

Chaithanya

Buttermilk dosa using unpolished rice

 

I always make curd at home and once in two days I remove butter and I have lots of buttermilk in hand. Mostly I make spiced buttermilk and make curries. I give a lot of spiced buttermilk to my help too but since she has been on a holiday I had lots of it. I dint want to make any curry either hence thought of grinding the rice for dosas.

I used unpolished rice and beaten rice ( poha /aval in malayalam) for this recipe.

 

 

 

 

The recipe is as follows

 

Ingredients

Unpolished dosa rice/ sona masuri rice - 2 cups

Butter milk - 2-4 cups

Beaten rice - 1/3 cup

Baking soda - a pinch

Salt - as required

 

Method

Wash the rice well and soak in 2 cups of buttermilk overnight.

Next morning drain the excess buttermilk and grind the rice fine. Also grind the soaked beaten rice.

Add in the buttermilk until you get a right consistency of the batter which is a little more thinner than the usual dosas and a little thicker than neer dosa batter, if I may say.

Add salt and a pinch of baking soda and let the batter rest for about 10-15 minutes

Make dosa as usual in the tava, no need to flip.

 

• You could take one portion of ordinary sona masuri rice and one portion of unpolished rice
• If you dislike sourness make sure you use buttermilk which is fresh and has not turned sour ( it turns sour once you leave in room temperature for few hours )
• Serve it with sambhar, chutney or pickle.
• I used cast iron tava and used sesame oil to smear on the tava.. the dosas came out good an did not stick to the tava.
• Serve hot!!!

Thanks

Chaithanya

 

Brown poha and green gram dosa recipe

Brown poha and green gram dosa

Yet another night when I have to think what to serve for breakfast the next day, this time dosa with brown poha and green gram :)

Ingredients

Green gram – 1 cup

Brown poha /beaten rice– 1 cup

Rice flour – ½ cup

Salt - as required

Method

• Soak the green gram over night or for 4-5 hours.  Soak the brown poha in just enough water for about half an hour. Grind the green gram and poha separately and mix well. Add in the rice flour, salt and mix well. Let the batter rest for about 5-10 minutes.
• Heat the dosa pan/tava and make dosa as usual. Flip if you want both the sides brown.
• Serve with sambhar, chutney or any other preferred side dish of yours.

Tips: Don’t let the dosa stay in the tawa for long as the bottom gets darkened soon.

Flip to get both the sides brown.

Spread it thin to get more crispier dosa

You can add finely chopped green chillies and coarinadr leaves in the batter to make it spicy.

Whole green gram and oats dosa recipe

Whole green gram and oats dosa recipe : Something quick, easy and healthy !

As I have mentioned in many of my previous posts I mostly miss to soak rice or pulses for the traditional dosas and idlis in the south Indian kitchen , another reason being my little girl has an aversion towards urad dal except when its made to vadas.. tricky I know! .. But dare any mother challenge little kids with any breakfast thing which is not of their taste or choice early in the morning. No , don't worry not junk or cereals either.. I just can never bring myselves feeding cereals for breakfast for growing up kids so far!
Having said about it , I just soaked some green gram and went to sleep at night. Morning put together moong with oats and made some crispy dosas , mom and kids both happy :)

Ingredients
Whole moong dal - 1/2 cup
Oats - 1 cup
Salt - as required
Water - sufficient 

Method
Soak the whole moong overnight and grind in the morning along with one cup of oats.
Add water to bring the batter to the required consistency.
Keep the tava on flame and heat it.
Sprinkle water if the tava happens to be too hot and then smear the tawa with sesame oil and make dosas as usual. You can really spread thin dosas with this batter.
Enjoy with coconut chutney, tomato chutney or podi.

I usually make dosas in the traditional cast iron tava, the more you use it the more it get seasoned. I have been using it for years for the reason that I detest using nonstick vessels. We just need few drops of oil and the dosas comes out tadty and crispy in this tava.

I made a simply chutney griding coconut, onions and green chilies toegther seasoning with a poinch of salt., simple and goes well with this dosa.

Enjoy :)


PLEASE NOTE : This batter needs no fermentation. 

Foxtail milltet rava dosa

It was another working day morning when I dint have anything ready for making breakfast. All I could do was soaking this and that previous night to grind it the next morning, make batter and spread dosas. I was quite positive about the results and yes it was up to my expectations.
I had bought organic foxtail millet rava and made upma with that the other day, it was just good enough so thought of trying dosas with the same. Hence this creation and following is the recipe.

Ingredients
Foxtail millet rava - 1 cup
Urad dal  - 1/2 cup
Med thick brown poha- 1/2 cup

Method
Wash and soak the dal and poha together for 5-6 hours or over night.
Soak the rava separately for 5-6 hours or over night.
After soaking  grind the dal and poha together and rava separately and then mix well.
Add sufficient amount of water to get the consistency of dosa batter. This batter does not need fermentation.
Once the batter is ready, heat the tawa and spread dosas as usual.
Best served with coconut chutney or any side dish of you choice. 
Enjoy!

Instant barley- coconut dosa

By now you all would have noticed that I am experimenting on dosas  and I am loving it. I like few things about dosas, first of all any ingredients can be used, second you just have to take care of the measurement and have a picture of the taste of the dosa in mind, yes it is possible. Third point is dosas are very versatile and can be combined with any side dish and above all my kids just love dosas. So this morning it was barley and coconut dosas.

Ingredients
Barley - 1 cup
Dosa rice ( I used organic) - 1 cup
Grated coconut- 1/2 cup

Method
Soak the barley rice  and dosa rice over night.
Grind the rices together to a smooth batter.
Then grind the fresh coconut and add it to the rice batter.
Add enough water and salt and spread thin dosas.
You don't need to keep the batter for fermentation.
You may not be able to spread this dosa with the ladle so instead add more water, make the batter thin and just pour the ladle full of batter in the tawa and let it spread on its own and cook.
Serve it hot with your choice of accompaniment.
Enjoy!

Finger millet - oats dosa ( Instant raagi-oats dosa)

These days I am not planning the breakfast for the next day, just not happening.  So last night with whatever grocery left in my kitchen I thought of soaking some urad dal and then thought of making raagi - oats dosa for the next day. I experimented and it turned out good and yes I got a pat on my back from my family :)

Ingredients
Urad dal- 1/2 cup
Ragi flour - 1 cup
Oats - 1 cup

Method 
Soak urad dal for 4-5 hours or overnight.
Grind dal and oats separately to a fine paste.
Add the ragi flour in this batter and add more water to make it thin, to the consistency of a normal dosa batter. 
You may keep the batter aside for 10-15 mins for the minimum fermentation that can happen in that time. I did this and the result was good :)
Add salt to the batter and spread dosas as usual
I served this dosa with coconut- shallots- red chilli- tamarind chutney and the verdict was 'yum'
Try and enjoy!

Rice- coconut and oats dosa

Rice- coconut and oats dosa

Before getting into the post I confess that I have been not updating my experiments lately and also in this post you will not find any picture. I may click a pic next time when I do this recipe. I made this dosa  this morning and my family loved it, so thought of archiving it before I forget it and promise that I will upload a pic soon.

Following is the recipe

Ingredients 

Dosa rice( I use organic)- 1.5 cups

Grated coconut - 1/2 - 3/4 cup

Oats - 3/4 cup

This is an instant dosa which means you can make the batter and carry on making it too , there is not need of any fermentation.

Method

Soak the rice for couple for hours.

Grind the rice, coconut and oats separately to a fine paste.

Mix everything and add sufficient water to make the batter thin. If you are good at making neer dosa or love it, you may add more water.

Add salt to the batter and keep it ready.

Turn on the tava and spread dosas as usual.

Its healthy, slightly sweet and yum and can be accompanied with any spicy curries, chutnies or even with jam or honey and even ghee and sugar :)

Enjoy!

Barley and moongdal dosa

Barley and moong dal dosa

I just realized that its been two months I have posted anything on my blog.  A lot of experiments have happened but never got into clicking or drafting the recipe.
Anyway today I am posting the recipe of barley and moong dal dosa. As I have always said dosa is one of the easiest  way to include many good ingredients in our daily life. The recipe is very simple and is as follows

Ingredients
Barley rice- 1 cup
Moong dal- 1 cup
Salt - as required

Method
Wash and soak barley and moongdal overnight.
Grind well in the mixer in the morning or may be after a couple of hours. The barley has to soak well until softened so that it grinds well.
Add salt to the batter and make dosas as usual.


Variations: You can add  coriander, green chillies ot the batter OR you can add jeera , asoafetida and a pinch of turmeric powder and of course you can add anything to your choice, imagination and liking. I made it simple and served with a spicy tomato pickle. You may also serve with any chutney of your choice, or curry 
This batter needs no fermentation. Easy, healthy and tasty.

Instant barley dosa recipe

Barley has been a component of various health foods, but yes a little low profile. People don't even remember this wonder grain until they have a urine infection, ok at least that's what I have observed .When the summer is approaching it is good to include barley in our diet. Barley can be used in various forms but like most of my recipes reflects that I find way to incorporate an ingredient in such a recipe which makes it easier to feed kids, I found a way with barley too. Previously I have made dosa, idlis, and cookies with barley. This time also it is dosa but in a little different form, kind of a neer dosa form.

So let me get into the recipe

Ingredients
Organic dosa rice - 1cup ( ordinary dosa rice with also do)
Barley grains - 1 cup

Method
Soak the rice and barley together for couple of hours or overnight ( 3-5 hours).
Grind it well and add salt and leave it for 10-15 mins and you may add  water to make the batter thin.
Keep the tava or the griddle on the stove and once the tava is hot, pour a ladle full of batter on the hot tava and cover it up. Once done you may or may not flip :) 
Once cooked remove from the dosa from the pan and serve hot with chutney or curry or jam of your choice.


Thanks
Chaithanya

Multigrain uthappam

Ok, Like most of the days I had not prepared or thought about the next day's breakfast and then just before hitting the bed, I just soaked few pulses and beans and ground the next day and made uthappams. I  was a little scared on the thought that ingredients might be a little risky. But surprisingly it was good and now have come to a conclusions that anything can be made to a dosa :D. So without much boasting recipe follows...

Ingredients

Rajma beans- 1/4 cup

Soya beans- 1/4 cup

Whole masoor dal ( black lentils) - 1/4 cup

Broken corn kernels - 1/4 cup

Urad dal - 1/4 cup

Ragi flour - 2 cups

For the topping

Finely chopped one med sized onion

FInely chopped one med sized tomato

FInely chopped coriander leaves

Green chillies - 2-3 finely chopped

Salt 

Method

Soak all the ingredients except the ragi flour overnight or for 4-5 hours. Grind it to a fine batter  and then add in the ragi flour into the batter and grind along for another couple of minutes. Add salt and little turmeric powder. This batter doesn't need fermentation. 

Spread a laddle of batter and spread over the hot tava and when it is half cooked spread the toppings and flip over the dosa.

Remove from the tava once cooked.

I served with spicy curry leaves chutney

Topping can be varied as per your choice.

Mini dosas

I really dunno what to call this, a dosa, or pathiri or pancakes :) anyway I did a quicky thing for a weekend which doesnt need a side dish .. infact you can have it even without a chutney too. So following  is the recipe.

Ingredients 

Unpolished rice - 1 cup

Coconut- half  of one coconut

Shallots- 5-6 no.s

Jeera- 1 tspn

Green chillies- 1-2 or more if u want it spicy

Method

Soak the rice overnight or for 5-6 hours. Grind rice, grated coconut, shallots, jeera and green chillies to a smooth batter. The batter need not be watery and can be certainly slightly thicker than the dosa batter.

Heat up the dosa tava, I use my iron tava and using a small laddle pour little of the batter to the hot tava. Flip when one side is done and remove from the tava when both sides are cooked.

It is certainly nice to eat it on its own  or you can have it with any side dish or chutney of your choice. I was plain lazy to make a chutney too :P

Done!

Sweet neer dosa

Sweet neer dosa

Saw a discussion of neer dosa in a foodie group recently and I was all tempted to try it after a long time.  I dint have the patience to make the dosa and an accompanying side dish to go with it for a weekend breakfast and  made it sweet, yes my family love anything sweet for breakfast, specially me :). Ok , so here goes the recipe for it.

Ingredients

Dosa rice- 1 1/2 cups

Grated coconut- 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups

Jaggery - 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup ( depending on the sweetness you prefer)

Water- 2 cups

Cardomom powder - a pinch

Method

Soak the rice overnight. 

Melt the jaggery in two cups of water , sieve it and leave it overnight. ( I did this step in the night b'coz it cools down by morning)

Next day morning grind the rice in the grinder  along with the grated coconut, adding the jaggery water in between and grind the batter to a  fine paste. Add the remaining jaggery water and remove the batter from the grinder. Add extra water to make the batter thin. It should be much thinner than the usual dosa batter

To the batter add a pinch of cardamom powder and salt. Mix well

Heat a non stick pan to high heat and then pour a laddle full of batter to the pan and rotate the pan to spread the batter evenly. Close the pan with a lid and remove the dosa when it is cooked. You can fold the dosa and remove it from the pan.

Serve these thin lacy sweet dosas hot!!

Dosa with unpolished rice

Here I am not talking about the Kerala rice or the brown rice , this is totally unpolished rice. I have tried making kanji with this rice and it was yum with some simple gram curry  in this summer.

So took an attempt to make dosa with this rice. The dosa turned out to be crispy and tasty too.

Foxtail millet dosa

Millets such as finger millet ( Raagi), Pearl millet ( Bhajra), Sorgham ( Jowar) has been widely in usage, but there are other few types of millets too which goes slightly unnoticed , atleast I never noticed ! .Recently one of my friends mentioned me about few other millets such as little millet ( Sama rice) and another one called Foxtail millet ( Thana) I had tried idlis with Sama rice and now tried  making dosa  with foxtail  millet, turned out good too. Following is the recipe 


Ingredients 


Urad dal - 1/2 cup
Foxtail Millet- 1 1/2 cups
Dosa rice - 1 Cup


Soak the above three ingredients separately for about 5-6 hours and grind separately and then mix everything  to a dosa batter consistency. The skin of the millet wouldn't grind properly. Its fine as long as you are ok with it . But incase if you dont want any disturbance of the skin , which is ultimately a fibre you may choose to seive out the foxtail batter before mixing it with the batter of other ingredients. Let the batter ferment overnight and make dosas as usual. Enjoy it with sambhar, or any chutney of your choice 

Spicy green oats dosa

Spicy green oats dosa

Ingredients

Oats- 1 cup

Semolina -1/3 cup

Spinach - One bunch

Green chillies- 2

Onion - I med size

Tomato - 1 med size

Ginger garlic paste- 1 tspn

salt

Method

Soak oats and other ingredients in a mixie jar /blender with required amount of water. Grind/blend well the ingredients to a smooth batter . Being a very short and simple recipe make dosa instantly with this batter and enjoy the tasty spicy green dosa. 

Vellayappam

Some people like me dislike the taste of yeast in certain dishes and this traditional breakfast item of Kerala is mostly prepared either using toddy or yeast . Here is a version where you dont have to use either if you dislike its taste, but only if you dont feel guilty of using sugar :)


Recipe of vellayappam 


Idli rice- 2 cups
Grated coconut- 3/4 cup- 1 cup
Paper aval ( very think beaten rice)- 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Tender coconut water ( if not water)


Method


Wash and soak the rice for about 3-4 hours. Soak the beaten rice also for about 15 minutes. Grind it well in a grinder or mixer to a very fine paste. You can grind the coconut and beaten rice separately and then mix with the rice batter. Grinding of all the above is done preferably in tender coconut water for better results if not water will also do. Add in the sugar, mix thoroughly and let it ferment for about 7-8 hrs. 
Once the batter is fermented heat up the appam pan ( this pan is shaped like a shallow kadai available in both iron and non-stick material) , smear a little oil , preferably sesame oil and pour a ladle of the batter and just swirl around lifting pan . You will see that the sides of the pan would be slightly coated with the batter and the remaining batter falls to the middle of the kadai.
Cook in low med heat covering it with a lid. Remove from the kadai once it is cooked. You dont have to flip over and cook the other side.
Have it with your choice of veg or non-veg curry . Done!

Enjoy Cooking !!

Oats cucumber dosa

Oats Cucumber dosa


Ingredients


Oats- 1 cup
Semolina (Chirooty rava) 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup
Cucumber - 1 large 
Green Chillies and Coriander leaves- to your taste
Salt


Method


Soak the oats and semolina in just enough water in a mixie jar for 10 minutes. Finely chop or grate the cucumber to it. Blend it nicely along with the chillies and coriander leaves and add salt. Make sure that the batter is not too thick or thin.
Make dosa instantly with this batter. Healthy and nutritious too and can be made in a jiffy.