Spinach Dal

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup masoor dal [Toor dal or Moong dal]
• 2 cups chopped spinach
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 4 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 5 finely chopped green chillies
• 2  chopped tomatoes (small tomatoes)
• Seasoning : 4 red chillies, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp jeera seeds

Preparation

1. Pressure cook all ingredients, except the seasoning together.  [I use an electric cooker, I add 2 cups water and pressure cook on high for 8 mins.]
2. Heat 1 tsp oil, add the seasoning when the oil is hot and fry for a minute.
3. Add the seasoning to the cooked dal and mix.

Dill Idly

Tried out the recipe from this blog, was excellent.

http://arunshanbhag.com/2007/08/05/dill-idlis/

Dill Idly

Neer Dosa

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice (Sona Masuri)
• 3/4 cup grated coconut
• 1 tin (200 ml) coconut juice

Preparation

1. Soak rice overnight. (~8 hours)
2. Grind rice and coconut to a smooth paste. Add coconut water to dilute while grinding.  The consistency of the batter should be close to that of water. Keep the dosa batter aside for 5 minutes.
3. To make the dosa,  heat a crepe pan, spread a thin layer of oil across the pan. Pour the dosa batter such that it spreads across the whole pan. Cover the pan and cook for a couple of minutes. It is not required to flip the dosa, since it is very thin.

Balekai (Plantain) Palya

Ingredients

• bananas – 3
• mustard – 3 tsp
• chilli powder – 2 tsp
• coconut – 4 tsp
• jaggery – 2 pieces
• tamarind – 3/4 tsp

Preparation

1. Grind coconut, mustard and red chilly powder, with little water into a smooth paste.
2. Boil jaggery and tamarind with water. Once  the water evaporates, add the ground paste.
3. Add the boiled plantain. Ccook until all the water evaporates.

Banana Gulliappa

Banana Gulliappa

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I found at this blog. [http://recipejunction.blogspot.com/2007/09/balehannu-appa.html]

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice, soaked in warm water for 1 hour
• 1 cup powdered jaggery
• 1/2  cup coconut milk
• 4 pods cardamom, powdered
• 2 ripe bananaas
• 2 tsp oil

Preparation

• Grind rice into a smooth paste, adding as little water as possible.
• Add jaggery, coconut mik, cardamom and banana and grind till mixed well.
• Add oil to gulliappa maker, fill each mould with the mixture and cook.
• Note : I ground the rice into a paste and stored it in the refrigerator for a day before grinding the remaining ingredients in with it.

Curry Leaf Chutney

Ingredients

• 10 curry leaves
• 2 sprigs coriander leaves
• 4 green chillies
• 1 tbsp grated coconut
• 1 tsp hurgadle
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Roast all ingredients in 1 tsp oil, add coconut last to the roast mix.
2. Grind with water.
3. Add salt.

Onion Sambar

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup moong dal
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1/2 tsp tamarind paste (add it to a tsp of water and microwave for 10 secs)
• 1 tsp jaggery
• 5-6 curry leaves
• 2-3 sprigs of coriander
• 3 tsp sambar powder
• 2 1/4 tsp of oil
• pinch of hing
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp jeera seeds
• pinch of turmeric

1. Add a pinch of turmeric, 1/4 sp oil and 1 1/2 cups (approx.) water to the moong dal and pressure cook. Pressure cooker settings : high pressure, 10 mins, quick pressure release.
2. Heat 2 tsp of oil, add mustard seeds and jeera seeds to it when hot and let it splutter for a minute.
3. Add the onion and fry until translucent.
4. To the fried onion, add the cooked dal, tomato, tamarind, jaggery, sambar powder, hing, curry leaves, coriander leaves and 1 1/2 – 2 cups water. Bring the sambar to a boil and then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Ganesh Chaturthi Menu

1. Khara Kadabu
2. Hirekai Chutney
3. Kosumbari
4. Hoornad Saru
5. Cucumber Majjige Huli
6. Sweet Kadabu

1. Khara Kadabu

For the rice dough:
1 cup water
1 tsp oil
A pinch of salt
1 cup rice flour

• Boil water with oil and salt.
• When the water boils, add the rice flour, stir to make a dough and turn off the heat.
• Allow to cool.
• Shape the dough into little balls and roll it out into a circle.

Stuffing

There are several options for the stuffing, here is one that we tried.

1 cup channa dal
4 green chilles, chopped
half a bunch of coriander leaves
1/2 onion, finely chopped

• Soak the channa dal in water for 3 hours.
• Drain the water from the channa dal entirely.
• Grind the channa dal with the green chillies and coriander without adding any water. The consistency of the ground channa dal should be coarse.
• Mix the onions and add salt to taste.

Assembling and cooking the kadabu.

• Roll out the dough into a little circle.
• Place the stuffing in the centre , fold over and seal. Use a dash of water to seal the kadabu if needed.
• Wrap the kadabu in parchment paper or banana leaf.
• Steam. We used the following pressure cooker settings for an electric cooker. High pressure for 10 minutes and used quick release of pressure.

2. Hirekai Chutney

Peel of 1 ridge gourd
1 onion sliced (optional, we didn’t use it)
1 tbsp channa dal
1 tbsp urad dal
4-5 dry red chillies
1/8 tsp tamcon paste
few curry leaves

• Pressure cook the ridge gourd peels.
• Roast channa dal, urad dal and red chillies
• Fry onion.
• Grind roasted dals, red chillies, onion, ridge gourd, curry leaves, tamcon paste together.
• Season with mustard seeds

3. Kosumbari

1 cup moong dal
2 tbsp coconut
1/2 cup grated carrot
seasoning
4-5 green chillies
mustard seeds

• Soak the dal in water for an hour. Then, drain the water completely.
• Mix grated carrot.
• To prepare the seasoning, heat oil, add mustard, green chillies and curry leaves. Add the seasoning to the dal and carrot mixture.
• Add grated coconut to the mixture.
• Squeeze lime over the kosumbari.

4. Hoornad Saru

To prepare the hoorna:

1 cup kadale bele (channa dal)
1 cup powdered jaggery
2 tablespoon grated coconut

• Wash the kadale bele and cook in pressure cooker.
• Melt jaggery, until it appears frothy.
• Add coconut, dal, cardamom and clove to the jaggery. Stir and continue heating until a thick consistency is reached. (i.e. until the water has evaporated from the dal mixture)

For the rasam:

2 teaspoon rasam powder
1/2 teaspoon tamarind paste

• To the above hoorna mixture, add 4 cups water, rasam powder, salt, curry leaves and tamarind paste.
• Let the mixture boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Cucumber Majjige Huli

1 cup sour curds
1 cup cucumber (the round variety)
1/4 cup channa dal
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons jeera
6 peppercorns
a pinch of turmeric
1/4 cup grated coconut
4 green chillies
small piece of onion (approximately an eighth of an onion)
2 pods garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
4 curry leaves

• Grind  channa dal, coriander, jeera, peppercorns, turmeric, grated coconut, green chillies, onion, garlic, ginger and curry leaves together to a fine paste.
• Boil the cucumber.
• Cook the vegetables with the ground paste.
• Add sour curds and seasoning. To prepare seasoning, heat oil, add mustard and curry leaves.

6. Sweet Kadabu

Stuffing

1 cup grated coconut
1 cup jaggery powder
4 cardamoms

• Heat the jaggery and melt it.
• Add the cocounut to the melted jaggery, constantly stirring until them mixture thickens.
• Mix in the cardamom

For assembly and cooking, follow the same procedure as the khara kadabu.

Ragi Dosa

1 cup ragi flour
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 onion, finely chopped
3 green chillies, finely chopped
11/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2 cups warm water

• Mix all the ingredients with warm water.
• Cook on both sides on a lightly oiled pan.

Raw Jackfruit Palya

We tried this Mangalorean recipe for lunch and like it. We used frozen green jackfruit. We followed the recipe below as is.
http://www.recipezaar.com/204035