Cucumber Pachadi | Vellarikka Pachadi

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Vellarikka pachadi

Pachadi is a simple and delicious Kerala style dish which is made using grated coconut, curd and mustard seeds. This is one of the main curry in Onam sadhya. Pachadi can be prepared with beetroot, mango,pineapple, etc. Here is the recipe of pachadi using cucumber which you can easily prepare under 30 minutes. This pachadi goes well with sambar rice as well as boiled rice.

The first step in preparation is to chop the cucumber to fine pieces. Then this cucumber pieces are boiled in water. Then ground coconut paste is added to it and boiled. After cooling, beaten curd is added and mixed well. Finally our pachadi is seasoned. This is where the real taste of pachadi comes out.

This sweet and sour curry is a very good accompaniment for rice. The speciality of this dish is that we need to add mustard seeds while grinding the coconut. You can also crush the mustard seeds separately and add into the curry.

While selecting cucumber, make sure that you use non bitter cucumber. I had chopped the cucumber into very fine pieces as my family members like that way of chopping. Inorder to save your time, you can grind the coconut when the cucumber pieces are boiled. This is a non spicy curry and the presence of yogurt can mellow down the heat. Checkout this yogurt based side dish and do let me know your valuable feedback.

Ingredients :

  • Cucumber chopped – 1 medium sized
  • Curd – 1/2 cup
  • Water – 1/4 cup
  • Salt – as required
For Grinding :
  • Grated coconut – 1/4 cup
  • Cumin seeds – 1/4 teaspoon
  • Green chilli – 1
  • Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Water – 3 tablespoon
For Tempering :
  • Coconut oil – 1/2 tablespoon
  • Dry red chillies – 2
  • Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Method of preparation :

  • Add the chopped cucumber pieces to a pan with 1/4 cup of water and cook for 6 minutes in low to medium flame by closing the lid
  • Stir the cucumber at intervals and make sure the water gets evaporated and the cucumber is cooked well
  • Grind the ingredients mentioned under ‘ For grinding ‘ to a fine paste
  • Add this ground coconut paste to the cooked cucumber, add required salt and mix well
  • Cook the coconut mixture with the cucumber for 2 to 3 minutes in low flame
  • Switch off the flame, put down the pan and allow the mixture to cool
  • Once the cucumber and coconut mix cools down, add 1/2 cup of beated curd to it
  • Heat 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil in a tadka pan
  • Add mustard seeds, followed by dry red chillies and curry leaves
  • Fry them for a few seconds, make sure that it doesn’t burn
  • Add this tempering to the prepared pachadi kept aside
  • Mix well and serve with hot rice.

Mutton soup

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Mutton Soup

How about a hot mutton soup recipe today ?Mutton soups are nutritious and refreshing dish which can be used to cure fever, cough, hands and limb pain, and also as a post delivery diet for women to regain their strength.

Mutton soup contains minerals that are essential for proper functioning of body. It provides many benefits which includes the joint pain relief, boosts immune system, promotes healthy skin, helps in detoxification, combats arthritis, etc.

This is a very healthy soup and is absolutely a best dish during winter. In this soup recipe, mutton ribs are pressure cooked along with shallots, ginger and garlic along with sufficient water. This is a simple and quick recipe of soup. Finally you can filter and serve if you need only the hot liquid portion.

Make sure that the mutton pieces and bones are washed and cleaned properly before cooking the soup. For a healthy and tasty soup, you must include the bone pieces of mutton rather than the meat alone. You can make this recipe kids friendly by avoiding the pepper powder, so that it becomes non spicy.

You can adjust the amount of salt and pepper as per your taste. The most important thing to keep in mind is to ‘ serve hot ‘. Try and enjoy this flavorsome and incredibly rich soup recipe with your family also.

Ingredients :

  • Mutton ribs, cut into small pieces – 500g
  • Fennel seeds – 1/4 teaspoon
  • Chopped shallots – 10
  • Garlic crushed – 1 tablespoon
  • Ginger crushed – 1 teaspoon
  • Pepper powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
  • Tomato chopped – 1
  • Coriander leaves – 3 tablespoon
  • Ghee – 1 tablespoon
  • Salt – 1.5 teaspoon

Method of preparation :

  • Heat ghee in a pressure cooker and add fennel seeds
  • Add crushed ginger and garlic to it
  • Once the raw smell is gone, add chopped shallots
  • Now add salt, turmeric powder, pepper powder and coriander powder
  • Saute well and add chopped tomatoes
  • Add the mutton ribs, mix well and make sure that the mutton pieces gets coated with the prepared masala
  • Then add 1 litre of water and pressure cook the mutton in low to medium flame
  • Allow the pressure to release naturally and then open the pressure cooker
  • Mix everything well and garnish the mutton soup with coriander leaves
  • You can add salt and pepper powder as per your taste if needed
  • Serve the soup hot.

Soft marble cake

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Soft marble cake

Sharing with you all the recipe of a soft and moist cake with layers of chocolate and vanilla swirled together. This is a simple recipe of cake which can be easily prepared but adding two tablespoon of cocoa powder additionally to the basic vanilla cake batter.

The presence of both the vanilla and chocolate flavour makes this cake amazing. I had used 2 tablespoon of starbucks hot cocoa for the chocolate portion of cake and I couldn’t express how tasty was the cake. You can also use normal cocoa powder instead.

The speciality of this cake is that we are using the same base cake batter to prepare both vanilla and chocolate flavour and then they are layered alternatively. After both batters are prepared, alternate spoonful of vanilla and chocolate layers are distributed evenly on the cake tin.

Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes in a preheated oven. Insert a toothpick in the centre of cake and make sure that it comes out with few moist crumbs. Now let us move to the recipe part.

Ingredients :

  • All purpose flour – 1.5 cups
  • Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Baking soda – 1/4 teaspoon
  • Powdered sugar – 3/4 cup
  • Cocoa powder – 2 tablespoon
  • Eggs – 2
  • Sunflower oil – 1/2 cup
  • Milk – 1/4 cup
  • Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
Dry ingredients
Wet ingredients

Method of preparation :

  • Beat 2 eggs in a mixing bowl with the help of an egg beater or a whisk
  • Whisk the eggs until it turns fluffy and changes it colour to off white
  • Add oil to the beaten eggs
  • Now add powdered sugar, followed by one teaspoon of vanilla essence
  • Sieve together all purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda
  • Add this dry ingredient mix in batches to the prepared batter
  • You can mix the dry ingredients using a spatula or spoon
  • The batter consistency is thicker now
  • Inorder to make the batter to a pouring consistency, add 1/4 cup of milk to it
  • Take another bowl and add 2 tablespoon cocoa powder into it
  • Add sufficient water to this cocoa powder to make it into a paste form
  • Add half of the prepared cake batter to this cocoa powder mix
  • Thus we have 2 batters, vanilla batter and chocolate batter in two separate bowls
  • Place butter paper on the cake tin and then add the 2 tablespoon of vanilla batter followed by 2 tablespoon of chocolate batter
  • Similarly add these batters one by one till the batter gets over
  • After arranging the 2 batters, you can draw your own designs on the top of this cake batter using a toothpick or spatula
  • Preheat the oven at 180°C for 10 minutes and thereafter bake the cake for 30 minutes
  • If you are using a kadai or pot, preheat the kadai for 10 minutes, place the cake tin inside and close the lid
  • After 25 minutes, insert a toothpick and check whether the cake is baked completely
  • Remove the cake from cake tin once it is cooled completely
  • You can cut this cake into desired shapes and serve.
Youtube video link : https://youtu.be/bKZFqm-3uLs

Idiyirachi | Stir-fried dried buffalo meat

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Idiyirachi

Most of you might be wondering by the name ‘ idiyirachi ‘. It is nothing but the shredded dry beef which is stir fried with shallots and other ingredients. This is absolutely a variety dish for all the non veg lovers. Here beef is marinated with salt and turmeric and is sun-dried for a week till it becomes completely moisture free and turns black in colour. This is how the beef is dried. Beef can also be dried using dryers which takes only 2 days for complete drying. If you marinate 3 kg of beef, then after drying you will be getting only 1 kg of dried beef.

Idiyirachi is not so common in every places. Even every restaurants do not serve the same. You will also get dried beef in packets in markets nowadays. But these are very expensive. So, it is better to dry the beef your own at your home.

Before preparing the stir fried dry beef, make sure you soak the dry beef in water. After 2 – 3 hours you may see that the beef has become softer. You can use a stone grinder to crush it into fine pieces. If you want thin pieces, you may use mixer grinder also.

The shredded dried beef is then sauted with shallots, curry leaves and other ingredients. Check the below recipe and prepare this dish at your home also. I am sure you will prepare it again and again.

Ingredients :

  • Dried beef – 500 g
  • Water – to soak beef
  • Shallots – 15
  • Garlic pods – 8
  • Dry red chillies – 5
  • Pepper powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Curry leaves – 1 sprig
  • Coconut oil – 2 tablespoon

Method of preparation :

  • Soak the dried beef in water for 2-3 hours
  • Crush the soaked beef into fine pieces and keep it aside
  • Crush shallots, garlic and dry red chillies together
  • Heat coconut oil in a nonstick pan and add shallot mixture
  • Add curry leaves and saute the mixture till the colour changes to brown
  • Add the shredded beef and pepper powder
  • Mix everything well till it becomes dry
  • Delicious idiyirachi is ready to be served with hot rice.

Benefits of steamed cooking

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Caramel pudding
Idli
Ada
Steamed lemon for pickle preparation

Steaming is one of the healthiest cooking methods. As food is not immersed in water, nutrients that can leach into water are preserved and food cooks without the need for fats. This is an energy-efficient method, which uses only a small amount of water. Water expands enormously when it turns to steam, and contains energy called “latent heat” , released when it strikes the cool food.

Here food is positioned above water rather than in it, and heat is transferred to the food via steam. This cooking is best for vegetables, fish steaks and fillets, chicken breasts, breakfast dishes like puttu, rice flour dumplings, idli etc. If using a steamer with more than one tier, place meat or fish on the bottom tier to avoid dripping onto food below.

Heat a small amount of water in the bottom pan of steamer. When heated, the movement of water molecules quickens, energy increases, and the water temperature rises to 100°C. When the water starts boiling, steam is produced and gets distributed evenly. Place the vegetables in the steamer basket above the water. When the steam comes in contact with the vegetables, it cools and condenses back to water releasing vast amounts of latent heat. Then remove the steamer basket from the pan and take off the lid to prevent the vegetables from becoming too soft.

Steaming can be done with minimum amount of water as rising steam condenses back into droplets. Food in a steamer should be loosely packed so that steam can circulate around it freely. Cooking time is slightly longer than boiling as food is surrounded by a film of condensed water. Steaming preserves sweetness and texture of food. Steaming can also retain the vitamins and minerals in food.

So, choose steamed cooked food in your diet and lead a happy and healthy life.

Chicken kuruma with nuts

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Chicken Kuruma with Nuts

I would like to share another mouth watering recipe of chicken, which goes well with chapatis and special rices. Here cashewnuts are grinded along with grated coconut. This paste forms a rich gravy and provides an amazing taste to our chicken kuruma.

Also, the addition of ground paste which includes coriander leaves and mint leaves enhances the flavour of this curry. It will be better to soak the cashewnuts in water for 30 minutes before grinding, as you can easily grind it.

This is a thick gravy curry. The texture of this curry can be adjusted as per your wish. If you need little loose gravy, add 1/4 cup of hot water to the curry. Check out this special chicken kuruma and do let me know your valuable feedbacks.

  • Chicken pieces – 500g
  • Onions chopped – 3
  • Tomatoes chopped – 1
  • Curd – 4 teaspoon
  • Lime juice – 2 teaspoon
  • Cinnamon – 1 piece
  • Cardamom – 4
  • Cloves – 5
  • Oil – 4 tablespoon
  • Salt – as needed
  • Curry leaves – 1 sprig
  • Roasted cashewnuts, to garnish – 8 to 10

Ingredients :

(a). To ground :

  • Coriander powder – 3 tablespoon
  • Ginger – 1 tablespoon
  • Garlic – 1 tablespoon
  • Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Coriander leaves –  1 tablespoon
  • Mint leaves – 1 tablespoon
  • Green chillies – 3

(b). To ground separately :

  • Coconut grated – 1/2 cup
  • Cashewnut – 1/4 cup

Method of preparation :

  • Heat oil in a kadai and put the spices
  • Saute the chopped onions in it till the colour is changed
  • Add the ground ingredients mentioned under (a) and stir well for a few minutes
  • Put the tomatoes and when the water dries up, put the chicken pieces and stir till dry
  • Add enough salt and water and then put on the lid and cook the chicken
  • Grind coconut and cashewnuts, mentioned under (b) along with curd and lime juice
  • Add into the curry and stir well till the curry boils
  • Remove from the fire and transfer to a serving bowl
  • Garnish with some roasted cashewnuts and curry leaves and serve hot.