My Scrawls

I love sweets. Most of the posts in Anu’s kitchen would be a simple dessert/sweet Here am posting the next sweet recipe. A easy and jiffy sweet “Rava Laddu” (Its called ravaa che laddoo in Marathi, my mother tongue ) There are various ways to prepare this. Here is a simple one.

Rava Laddu | Rave che Laddoo

Ingredients:

Rava (semolina) : 1 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Elachi (cardamom) powder: 1 tsp
Cashwes: few
Ghee: 1/4 cup
Hot Milk (to make laddoos): 1/2 cup

Preparation Method:

• Roast the rava till it turns slightly brownish in color.
• Allow it to cool.
• Fry the cashews in ghee.
• Add the fried cashews, sugar, elachi powder and ghee to the roasted rava.
• Add the milk little by little and make small balls out of the rava-sugar mixture
• Rava laddoo is ready to relish.

Tips:

Anu's Kitchen laddu, ladoo, rava laddoo

It has been raining for the past few days. Officially spring is here but still no signs of improvement in the weather. Thankfully there has been no snow fall. This yucky gloomy weather makes me sick. I have been taking soups these days to fight cold and cough. Amma used to prepare goddu saaru (rasam). With hot pepper and garlic, aroma of goddu saaru would make us feel cozy and comfortable. This recipe is good for indigestion too.

Goddu Saaru | Goddu Rasam

Ingredients:

Tamarind : Lemon size
Pepper: 2 tsps
Cumin seeds: 2 tsps
Garlic pods: few
Curry leaves: few
Salt: to taste
Mustard seeds: for seasoning

Preparation Method:

• Soak the tamarind pulp in water and extract the juice.
• Add about 1.5 glass of water with the tamarind extract and heat it.
• Grind the pepper, cumin seeds, curry leaves and garlic.
• Add this mixture and salt to the tamarind water.
• Allow it boil till we smell the aroma of the ingredients.
• Remove from stove.
• Do seasoning with mustard seeds and add it to the rasam.
• Serve it hot.

Goddu saaru (rasam) can be had with hot rice or just as a soup

Anu's Kitchen goddu rasam, Goddu saaru

I really drool when people talk about famous restaurants like Saravana bhavan. Here in Chicago there are very few south Indian restaurants. Well, for the past one year, I have never had a decent coconut chutney in the hotels! I guess they just mix salt with the coconut flakes and do seasoning. I wanted to taste our own “thengai chutney with ven pongal”. Here is my earnest attempt in making the ven pongal

Ven pongal with coconut chutney

Ingredients:

Moong dal: 1 cup
Rice: 1 cup
Pepper: 1 tsp
Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
Curry leaves: few
Green chilies (chopped): few
Asafetida: a pinch
Salt: to taste

Preparation method:

• Add about 4 cups of water and pressure cook the rice and dal together.
• Heat ghee in a pan and add cumin seeds, pepper, curry leaves, green chilies and asafetida.
• Remove it from the stove when you smell the aroma of the ingredients in the melted ghee.
• Now add cooked rice + dal and salt with it.
• Mix it thorougly.
• Serve hot pongal with sambar, chutney or godju (aka godsu).

PS: Now am sick of using the packed coconut flakes! I got fresh coconut in the Indian store and used it for making chutney. It tasted very well

Anu's Kitchen coconut chutney, godsu, gojju, sambar, thengai chutney, Ven pongal

Wish you all happy Sri Rama Navami.

I bought soft poha this time. Couldn’t find hard one in the nearby Indian store. I knew pretty well that the soft poha could not be used to prepare avalakki (aval upma), still ended buying that! Luckily I remembered the aval payasam (poha kheer) that amma prepares for Janmashtami. We would be more interested in the bakshanam (sweets & savories) prepared for the festival that aval payasam would go unnoticed. Amma wouldn’t let us finish our dinner with tasting the kheer (customary that the sweet taste should linger in our mouth). We would plead amma to prepare this kheer in less quantity so that it wouldn’t be an issue to finish it off. I don’t remember relishing this kheer however well amma prepares it For a change I added date (khajur) to the kheer and it tasted heavenly. Here is my version of Poha khajur kheer or Aval Date payasam.

Aval Date Payasam | Poha Khajur Kheer

Ingredients:

Aval (Poha/Beaten rice): 1 cup
Milk: 3 cups
Elachi (Cardamom)powder: 1/4 tsp
Sugar: 1 cup
Date (seed removed and chopped): 1 cup
Cashews: few
Raisins: few

Preparation method:

• Heat ghee and fry the aval till it turns light brownish in color.
• Allow it to cool.
• Coarsely grind aval and date in a mixer.
• Boil the milk.
• Now add sugar and elachi powder.
• Once the sugar dissolves completely, add the aval date mix to the boiling milk.
• Allow it to cook for 3-4 mins.
• Remove it from the stove top.
• Heat ghee and fry cashews and raisins.
• Add it to the kheer.
• Serve the kheer hot or cold.

Aval kheer with date tasted like “Appi payasa” (A dessert in kannada cuisine, will post it soon) or “Papada che Kheer” (in marathi).

Anu's Kitchen Aval Payasam, Beaten rice pudding, Date aval payasam, Khajur poha kheer, poha kheer

Puran Poli is a Maharashtrian dessert. Polis are like chapatis (Indian bread) with the puran (sweet prepared with lentils) stuffed in it. It is known as Hoorna holige in Kannada. It is customary that we prepare Poli/Holige during Ugadi/Gudi padwa. My mom is an expert in preparing puran poli. Am yet to learn it from her Am posting my mom’s specialty Puran poli/Holige recipe.

Puran Poli / Hoorna Holige

Puran Poli / Holige with Ghee and Milk

Ingredients:

Maidha: 1.5 cups
Kadalai paruppu (Bengal gram): 3/4 cup
Jaggery: 1 cup
Elachi (Cardamom) powder: 1/4 tsp
Jathikai (nutmeg) powder: 1/4 tsp
Rice flour: 1/4 cup
Oil : 1/4 cup (To mix the dough and roasting the polis)

Preparation Method:

• Mix maidha, water and oil to make a dough (just like we do for chappatis)
• Use the oil generously while preparing the dough to get soft polis.
• Leave the dough untouched for about 2-3 hours.
• Meanwhile prepare the puran.
  • Puran/Hoorna Preparation Method:
  • Cook the kadalai paruppu in pressure cooker.
  • Allow it to cool and drain the water completely.
  • Smash the cooked dal in the mixer without adding water.
  • Mix the smashed dal and jaggery in a pan.
  • Add the elachi and nutmeg powder to this mixture.
  • Heat the mixture (The puran should not be watery).
  • Note that the puran should not become very hard.
  • Remove the mixture from the stove when it is in the semi-solid state.
  • We should able to make small balls without the puran sticking to our hand.
• Make small balls out of the maidha dough.
• Press it in your palm and flatten it or make it as a cup.
• Make small ball out of the puran that we had prepared.
• Place the puran/hoorna in the flattened maidha dough and close it.
• While stuffing the puran, seal it completely.
• The puran placed within the maidha should not be visible.
• Dredge the maidha puran ball in rice flour.
• Now roll it like chappatis.
• Fry it on a tawa applying ghee on both the sides.
• Serve the Poli with Ghee and milk.

Poli can be served warm or cold. Some prefer to have it with ghee and milk. I usually have Polis with ghee alone. Either way it tastes yummy.

Tips:

While preparing puran/hoorna we can little ghee to the dal jaggery mixture.

Anu's Kitchen Bobattu, Hoorna holige, Obbattu, poli recipe, Puran poli