Peanut Ladoo / Groundnut Laddu

This is one of simple, delightful and healthier version of sweet you can have any time without any guilt feelings. It is very easy to prepare and requires few ingredients and it always available in our pantry. Whenever I bought the peanuts, I always make sure to dry roast them and store it in a air tight container and use it whenever the recipe calls for. This time I completely forgot to use the peanuts for about two weeks and it was sitting whole container. As peanut and jaggary both are having potential health benefits. This is the awesome and simplest recipe to make use of them. It perfectly serves as emergency snack or mid morning hunger pangs :)

and this Peanut ladoo is also one of signature Diwali sweets.

Ingredients:

Peanut/Ground Nut – 1 cup

Jaggary / Brown Sugar – ½ cup

Optional Ingredients:

Salt – a pinch

Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

Cashew nuts few 

Method:

Step 01) Heat a pan and roast the groundnut nicely till they get light brown. You will get nice nutty flavor from peanuts and you will notice shiny oily skin of peanut that is the time you will turn off the gas. And allow them to cool.

Step 02) Blend the roasted peanut in a food processor and blitz until roughly chopped and then add the chopped jaggary and blend it again until the mixture starts to come together.  Repeat the same for the remainder of peanut and jaggary.

Step 03) Transfer this mixture to a big plate add a pinch of salt, cardamom powder, chopped cashews and mix it nicely and evenly.  Salt, Cardamom powder and cashew nuts are just to enhance the taste, fragrance and crunchiness to the laddo.  You can skip them totally, still the laddo tastes wonderful.  These are for value addition.

Step 04) Take a handful of blended mixture and gently press it together to form a shape of ball.  start to roll them as per your preferred size like big, medium or small.

Step 05) As the roasted peanut leaves the oil, there is no need of extra oil to roll them, if you still thought to make them richer, you can add little ghee/clarified butter while giving shape as ball/ladoos. 

Store it in a air tight container and enjoy the laddu.  

Note:

If you are looking laddos color to be white then, remove the skin of peanut before blending

You can use the powdered brown sugar instead of jaggary

For smooth texture of laddu blend the peanut as smooth powder instead of coarse powder

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Banana Stem Sabji | VazhaiThandu Poriyal

In my childhood days, I remember my mother make this Banana Stem Sabji/ Vazhaithandu Poriyal back home. So far I was thinking, it is too tedious to clean and chop the stem and it needs to remove lots of fiber. So I rarely lay my hand on this healthy stem. Moreover it was not available easily in the Indian grocery store here. But, this time when I saw this native veggie I was so happy to try… and I learned cleaning and chopping is not at all big challenge to skip this awesome medicinal value vegetable. So I determined whenever I see Vazhai thandu in store, I am going try all types of recipes from this vegetable. Here is one such simple sabji/ poriyal in step by step photo recipe and how to clean and cut Vazhaithandu/Banana Stem.

Ingredients:

Banana Stem / Vazhai Thandu – 1 medium Length

Pasi Paruppu/ Moong Dal/ Green Gram split Lentil - ¼ cup

Turmeric Powder - ¼ tsp

Salt to Taste

Oil for tempering – 1 tbsp

Grated Coconut for Garnishing – 1 tbsp (optional)

For Seasoning:

Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp

Urud Dal / White Lentil – ¼ tsp

Red Chili or Green Chili – 2 nos.

Curry Leaves – Few

Hing /Asafoetida – a pinch

Preparation:

How to clean and cut Vazhaithandu/Banana Stem

Remove the outer layer from the stem with knife or peeler. 

Till you found the inside shiny stem.  See the picture for reference.

Chop the stem as round size disk pieces and remove the fiber from each disk from your finger.

Immerse the disks pieces in water immediately to avoid the discoloration. If you are cooking immediately then no need to add the buttermilk to the water.

Chop the disk pieces in to long size pieces or small size pieces and immediately immerse them in to water again to avoid the change in color

Method:

Soak the moong dal in water for about 1/2 to 1 hour

Heat the pan with tablespoon of oil and once the oil is heat enough add the seasoning seeds and allow them to splutter and then add red chili or green chili, curry leaves, turmeric powder,  hing and salt and saute them for a minute. Add the moong dal and fry for 2 minutes.

Add the chopped vazhai thandu /Banana stem pieces, mix it well with lentils and cook them for about 3 to 4 minutes. Garnish with grated coconut.

Serving: Serve Vazhaithandu poriyal / sabji with Sambar rice and papad.

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RAGI SEVAI / RAGI SEMIYA | FINGER MILLET VERMICELLI UPMA - INSTANT !!

This is yet another stunning recipe from Finger millet/ Ragi. As you all aware,  

We can prepare from Ragi all kinds of dishes like Dosa, Idli, Rotti, Porridge, Cake, Puddings, Laddu and Cookies. Here is one such super healthy breakfast - Ragi Sevai/ Ragi semiya upma which you can prepare quick and easy and comforting. Apt for diabetic and calcium deficient people. This dish can be served as breakfast or light dinner. I have used brand - Anil semiya/Instant vermicelli. 

Add caption

Ingredients:

Ragi semiya  - 2 cup

Onion – 1 Medium

Green Chili – 1 no.

Oil – 1 tbsp

Salt to Taste

Seasoning:

Mustard Seeds – ½ tsp

Urud Dal/ White lentils – ½ tsp

Curry Leaves –Few

For Garnish:

Grated coconut – 1 tbsp

Fresh coriander leaves – 1 tbsp

Method:

Add one cup of water in a pan and bring water to boil

Add the ragi semiya and cook for just one minute. And switch off the gas. Don’t cook more than one minute. It will be mushy and will turn as paste. The timing may vary from brand to brand so please check the package for instruction. 

Strain the semiya and wash with cold water once. Leave them in strainer for 3 to 4 minutes, to ensure complete drying.

Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan in medium flame. Add seasoning seeds and allow them to crack then add onions, green chili, curry leaves, salt and fry till onion turns to slight pink

Add cooked ragi semia and mix it gently and make sure evenly coated with onion mixture and turn off the gas

Garnish with coconut grated and coriander leaves.

Check out our other recipes on Ragi/ Finger millet/ Nachini.

Ragi Mudde and Soppina Saaru/Huli 

Finger Millet Pancake/ Ragi Rotti - Authentic and Instant 

You can also prepare from rice vermicelli in many flavours like Lemon semiya, Tamarind Semiya, Spicy coconut semiya. Will post the recipes soon.

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Bisi Bele Bath | Hot Lentil Rice |Authentic Karnataka Cuisine

Bisi Bele Bath, an authentic dish from Karnataka cuisine is delicious rice prepared with dal/lentils and vegetables are nicely cooked with masala powder. The specially prepared Masala powder has many flavorful and rich tastes which make this dish so special. And, in the end adding the tempering makes this dish super special.  In this recipe, I have used the instant/ready bisi bele bath Masala powder.

Try this easy method of Bisi Bele Bath recipe and turn dinner into a special occasion with its mouth-watering aroma and richness. Learn how to make Authentic Karnataka style Bisi Bele Bath dish by following the given step by step recipe.

In Kannada language “Bisi” means Hot “Bele” means dal/lentils and “Bath” means rice. i.e Hot Lentil Rice. 

Ingredients:

Rice – 1 cup

Toor Dal /  Split yellow gram - ½ cup

Vegetables:

Onion – ½ cup chopped

Tomato – 1/2 cup chopped

String Beans – ¼ cup chopped

Carrot – ¼ cup chopped

Baby Limo Beans – ¼ cup

Masala Powders:

Bisi Bele Bath Powder – 3 tbsp (Available in Indian Grocery Store)

Red chili Powder – 2 tsp

Turmeric Powder – ¼ tsp

Salt to Taste

Tamarind Juice – 1 tbsp

Seasoning:

Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp

Urud Dal /White Lentils – 1 tsp

Whole Red Chili – 2 nos.

Curry leaves – Few

Hing/ Asafoetida – a Pinch

Ground nuts – ¼ cup

Cashews/ Kaju – few (Optional)

Oil/butter for seasoning

Preparation:

Cook the rice nicely. Rice should be mushy for this recipe. Add more water while cooking. In case, if you forgot to add more water not to worry… I found a simple solution - Take a big mixer jar add cooked rice and cup of water and just run it once…  this makes rice mushy and bit watery. (do this process in batch wise)

Cook the dal/lentils in a pressure cooker and allow them to cool and blend it nicely adding ½ cup of water

Cook all vegetables in pressure cooker. Here I am using simple to fry vegetables, so I am directly cooking in a pan.

                                                 

Easy tip:  In a pressure cooker set the rice , dal and vegetables in a separate utensil and cook. It saves lots of time.

Method:

Heat oil in a pan in medium flame, once oil is hot enough add the onion and saute them till it turns to pink color.  Then add the chopped strings beans and carrot saute them for 1 or 2 minutes or till the vegetables slightly cooked

Add the baby lima beans and tomato and cook them for 2 more minutes or till all vegetables are cooked nicely. (Lima beans give extra taste to this dish.)

Add blended dal mixture, salt, turmeric powder, red chili powder, bisi bele bath powder, tamarind juice and 2 cups of water

Mix it nicely and cook them till all raw masala powder smell disappears

Add the cooked rice in batch wise and mix the rice with gravy. 

Gravy rice should be little bit watery consistent not as dry rice.  Adjust the salt, spicy and tanginess and water in this step.

Heat a butter for seasoning, add the mustard seeds and urad dal/white lentils and allow them to crack, add curry leaves, hing, and red chili and fry for 1 minute and add the roasted ground nuts and mix it nicely with seasoning oil and dunk this tempering on top of gravy rice mixture.

Serving: Serve with onion tomato raita and roasted papad. Enjoy this simple divine dinner.

Note: 

For this recipe, rice should be nicely cooked in a mushy way. This gives nice smooth and soft texture to bisi bele bath

You can add vegetables other than above are like green peas, capsicum (green), chayote squash (chow chow), cauliflower florets and  turnips.

If you are using raw groundnuts then cook them with rice.

If you are good at pressure cooker handling, you can do all above steps in cooker itself. Just make sure not to burn the rice mixture.

Check out our other easy rice recipes:
Restaurant Style Jeera Rice, Coconut Rice, Pudina Rice / Mint Spiced Rice, Restaurant Style Jeera Rice, Khandeshi Khichdi, Moong Dal Khichdi / Moogachya Dalichi Khichdi, Restaurant Style Fried Rice

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Rava Kesari | Semolina Pudding | Indian Dessert

This is one of the easy, quick and simplest Indian dessert made with rava or sooji i.e. semolina. In southern part of India, it is called as Kesari and in northern part of India called as Sheera or Sooji ka Halwa. This Rava Kesari is irresistible when it’s homemade; there are no artificial flavors and colors used in this recipe. To learn this amazing drooling and delightful sweet dish check out our step by step photo recipe.

In south Indian languages the color orange called as "Kesari" and this dish mostly looks like orange tone due to food coloring. I hope, that is the reason kesari name stuck to this dish!. 

As I remember, this sweet dish is a must in special occasions like, the very first function in the wedding i.e. after the horoscopes matches, the bride groom visit the bride house, and the girl family serves this wonderful remarkable sweet dish to the guests. In Tamil this function called as “Ponnu Pakkura Function”. 

Here is the recipe!!

Ingredients:

Semolina/ Rava – 1 cup

Sugar – 1 ¼ cups

Water – 1 ½ cups

Milk – ½ cups

Condensed Milk – ¼ cup (Optional)

Almond/ Badam – 1 tbsp

Cashews Nuts / Kaju – 1 tbsp

Raisins/ Kismis – 1 tbsp

Salt – a Pinch

Clarified Butter/ Ghee – 2 tbsp

Method:

Put a heavy bottom pan on the range and heat clarified butter. Fry the cashews, almond and raisins.

once they are start turning slight dark color; add the rava/semolina and roast them nicely till you get nice aroma or till rava turns to faint pink color. Stir it continuously or else rava stick to the bottom of the pan very quickly and it will burn.

 

Add the sugar and mix it nicely

Add the water, milk, pinch of salt and stir continuously and cook the rava mixture. This will take 3 to 4 minutes. 

Reduce the flame to medium and stir the mixture slowly. Add 1 tbsp of clarified butter and mix it nicely. This improves taste and also helps to leave the mixture from the pan fast.

When the mixture starts to leave and not sticking to sides of the pan means it is done. Switch off the gas.

Notes:

If you are using condensed milk then reduce the quantity of sugar

Water is very much necessary otherwise the kesari will be hardens on cooing  

If you like to give color to the kesari, then add the food color in 4th step

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