Alammurabha-MagicMingle-Feb2012

Alammurabha:

Alam in telugu means Ginger, which is hot. Almonds is a nut which is widely used in making sweets. A combination of this, wow isn't a wonderful thought. Thanks to Kalyani who runs this event, which is a monthly blog hop. Last month she had cinnamon and chilli.  I missed it out. This time also I thought I might miss it out, then I remembered my bookmarked post - almond-ginger truffles.

Ginger is grown at the root of the plant. Ginger has been claimed to decrease the pain from arthritis, though studies have been inconsistent. It may also have blood thinning and cholesterol lowering properties that may make it useful for treating heart disease. (Source: wikipedia).

Almonds is a nut which stands in the top of the list which is good to health because it reduces cholesterol greatly. 

Ingredients:

Almonds - 10 to 12 nos

Ginger - 2 inches

Dates - 3 nos

Sugar - 5 tsp

Method:

Roast almonds and keep it aside

Peel the skin of ginger and grate it into small pieces

Use the dates skin and throw the seed. I used wet ones not dried one.

Add roasted almonds, grated ginger and dates along with sugar and blend it well

As I used wet dates the mixture, turned out to be moist. Hence I could avoid adding ghee to mix the sweet.

Serve it.

Note:

Incase you use dry dates like lion dates and so on, kindly use ghee to mix the mixture.

Story: When I gave this to my co-brother and my sister-in-law (hubby's sister) she told this is "alammurabha". Great I was surprised because I never ate this after my marriage at my home or before marriage in my home. I was happy too. My co-brother told the concept is new as I have used ginger in sweet.

Submitting this to Magic Mingle #2 - Almonds and Ginger in the month of February 2012 at Kalyani's Blog. 


"Love Lock - Sweets #2" hosted at Killer on the plate this time but started by Vidhya Subramony on her blog, SweetKaramKapi.






 

"Just 4" event by Sobha @ good food.

Fast Food not Fat Food by Priya @ bon appetit.

Healthy and Hearty by SethiaJyothi.

Let's Cook Sweets series by Radhika on TicklingPalates

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MicrowaveSemolinaPayasam-BlogHopver2.0-Feb2012

"Blog Hop Wednesday" is a monthly event and this is the second version which has been started at Radhika's blog. This event happens every second week of the month. It would be announced on Wednesday and within 3 days there should be an entry from your partner's blog, which Radhika would have intimated through her google group, "blog hop wednesday". 

I had been paired with Nirmala. She is in US and mom of two children who are married. Interesting thing is her daughter, Archana also writes a blog. She had quite interesting recipes. I had bookmarked her recipes - groundnut rice, microwave burfi and this one.

Semiya Payasam is an instant sweet done with Semiya or Semolina which will be like noodles but very short. I usually do it on a stove top, but doing it through Microwave in the office which served for my today's lunch is great. Thanks Nirmala for this recipe as I don't have stove inside the office and I am afraid to work with microwave as its very new to my style of cooking. In office, we get milk, biscuits, sugar, salt, fruits, and so on, as its software company and projects might have hectic pressure they have arranged for all these eatables.

Microwave ovens vary with their temperature and its very important to know what are they? Unfortunately, my office had not maintained its manual and for a beginner like me, its too difficult. So I usually do keep it for one minute, check out, again keep it for one more minute and check. This will go on till I have reached the end product.

Ingredients:

• Roasted Semolina - 1/2 cup
• Powdered Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Raisins - few
• Cashewnuts - few
• Ghee - 2 tsp
• Milk - 3 glasses (each glass is of 50ml)

Method:

• Boil Milk for 2 minutes

• Mix roasted  semolina, powdered sugar, raisins and cashewnuts and then keep it ready by the time milk boils

• Add the mixture along with ghee to the milk and keep it for 4 minutes, till the semolina turns to be soft

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ThenkaiDosa

ThenkaiDosa+Dosapowder

Thenkai Dosa:


Thenkai means coconut and dosa out of it. I was literally surprised to see this recipe in Shanthi's blog. 





First thing I remember about coconut is it is used to worship God in our Hindu culture. It's a must on festival days to make sweets or savories, to worship, in some of the houses it is used to take drishti/nazar lagna (evil eyesight).

Where is coconut found?

• Found across much of the tropic and subtropic area, the coconut is known for its great versatility as seen in the many domestic, commercial, and industrial uses of its different parts 

Coconut tree has got a tap root system means the roots is a straight line with root hairs on either of the side.

I remember a line of a poem in kannada "kelage upu niru kudive, mele sihi nira koduve" means i will drink salt water in the bottom, means what we pour for the roots is salt water but i give you sweet water which is coconut water.There are lot of uses from this tree.

What are the uses of coconut?

Coir:

Coconut Coir - used for pulling water

Copra:

Copra used for cooking

Dasara Celebration with copra

Coconut Oil used in soaps and cosmetics

Coconut Oil:

This parachute hair oil if you use it for your hair one hour before your head bath, the hair will be so smooth and soft. Thanks to Parachute.

Husks and Shells: The husk and shells can be used for fuel and are a source of charcoal. 

Olden Days Cooking Stove

In earlier days, when they used to boil water for bath using a place where they used to put these wooden logs, husks, shells, eucalyptus leaves etc. There husks/shells used to play a very good role. 

Coconut roots: The roots are used as a dye, a mouthwash, and a medicine for diarrhea and dysentery. A frayed piece of root can also be used as a toothbrush.

 

 

Coconut trunks: Trunks are used for building small bridges; they are preferred for their straightness, strength and salt resistance. In Kerala (India), coconut trunks are used for house construction.  

 

 

Coconut Timber: Timber comes from the trunk, and is increasingly being used as an ecologically sound substitute for endangered hardwoods. It has applications in furniture and specialized construction, as notably demonstrated in Manila's Coconut Palace.

 

Coconut milk: Coconut milk is obtained primarily by extracting juice by pressing the grated coconut's white kernel or by passing hot water or milk through grated coconut, which extracts the oil and aromatic compounds. This is used in making sweets. When it is refrigerated the cream comes to the top which gets separated from milk. The milk can be used to produce virgin coconut oil by controlled heating and removal of the oil fraction.

Processed Cocojal

Fresh Tender Coconut

Coconut water: Coconut water contains sugar, fiber, proteins, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and provides an isotonic electrolyte balance. It is consumed as a refreshing drink throughout the humid tropics and is gaining popularity as an isotonic sports drink.

When somebody falls sick and is in hospital the first thing offered is fresh tender coconut which has more water or only water. In other tender coconut we will have fresh coconut also which is so tasty to eat.

The same is processed and then stored for days together which is called Cocojal.

Because of its "n" number of uses it is also called and worshiped as "Kalpavriksha" means a tree which can give whatever you ask.

For more information refer to the source: Coconut

Ingredients: 

 

Whole Urad Dhal - 2 cups (1 cup = 100 gms)

Coconut - 1/2 cup

Method:

Soak urad dhal overnight in the morning blend it nicely with water.

Retain some urad dhal in the end and mix it with coconut and blend it till its smooth to touch.

Add salt and baking soda to the batter and keep it for fermentation for one hour. Batter should be thin in consistency.

 

Heat a tawa and pour little oil on top of it and pour the batter

Spread it across by rotating the tawa so that the batter spreads

Leave it get roasted, put oil on the batter and once crispy turn it to the other side

Remove it from the stove and serve it with chutney powder and/or with groundnut chutney

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PuliAval

PuliAval:

Tamarind is a fruit which we get it from Tamarind tree. This tree is such a good friend of human beings because of its uses. To cook we can use its leaves, covered fruit when it was fresh, eat the fruit after peeling the skin. We can also eat the fruit when it is tender without removing the skin and also after peeling the skin by making them as lollipops by mixing them with salt and little chilli powder. But to get the fruit out of its cover lot of work needs to be done.

Kolar Grandma's 8 acre land

In summer holidays, that’s almost in Spring season we used to go to our grandma’s house in Kolar. We had a field which had one tamarind tree and other field had 3 tamarind trees. We had one more field which was of 8 acres agriculture land where we used to grow groundnuts, paddy, ragi, tomato according to the season. Then my mother and her sister brought up 4 acres land and planted mango plants in 1990. Definitely I guess by now the mango plants would have yielded good fruits and vegetables, no clue what happened to them after my marriage.

Well coming back to the topic of tamarind, tamarind used to be plucked and given to peel off the skin. We all used to sit beat the fruit with a stone or with hammer and peel out the fruit from it and take out the seeds from that. We used to play pallankuzhi/aali guli mane with the seeds. In Singapore it is called as congkak. Remove the hair like structure on the fruit and store it. Then my grandma used to pack all this fruit in different covers and send it to my house, our cousins houses, her brother house, as we all stayed in Bangalore. Instead of buying we used to get it from her and as there is a saying that tamarind is runa (credit), we used to pay her some money. Hmmm, gone are those days, today we have to pay money to get tamarind and we don’t get such a good quality one.

Game: Pallankuzhi/aali guli mane. This game is played by 2 players.

There will be 7 holes for each player and they will put 7 tamarind seeds into each hole and once it is over. From the 8th hole they will again take 7 seeds and put it into next 7 holes. Once they reach 8th hole and if it is empty they will put a hand into that and then take the 9th hole and its opposite hole seeds. One who has got more number of seeds is considered to be the winner. This is usually played in villages by two ladies after all their work for time-pass. Hope so I have not forgotten the rules.

aaligulimane

pallankuzhi

Tamarind Seeds: Grandma, used to tell these tamarind seeds are very poisonous and if anybody consumes it by powdering it they will die.









That's the story of tamarind, its tree, its fruit and the game and tamarind seeds.

I was browsing on Monday through “Dilse- Show me your breakfast round up“hosted by Divya in 2010 for some breakfast recipes. I found a variety of breakfast over there, and found quite a number of interesting recipes. Among them I used to always fail to  do PuliAval or huliavalakki or gojjuavalakki, its parched rice spiced with tamarind juice and other spices. Hence, I selected to do that for today’s breakfast. Finally, I found a recipe in Prathibha's blog.

Ingredients:

Tamarind – a lemon sized ball

Chilli Powder – 3 tsp (as spicy as it is required)

Salt – 2 tsp

Jaggery – gooseberry sized ball (better if its powdered)

Turmeric – ½ tsp

Parched Rice – 250 gms

For seasoning:

Onions – 2

Green chillies – 5 to 6 nos (again as spicy as required)

Salt – 2 tbsp

Curry leaves

Mustard Seeds – 1 tbsp

Cilantro

Oil – 2 tbsp

Groundnut Seeds – a little (roasted)

Cashewnut – a little

Method:

Soak the tamarind in luke warm water for sometime

Extract the pulp and use the skin in washing copper or brass vessels

In the pulp add salt, jaggery, turmeric, chilli powder and keep it aside

Soak the parched rice for some time and wash it for 3 times in the same manner, so that maximum husk and dust will come out

Pour the tamarind mixture on the parched rice and mix well. Watch out so that the water should be just enough to soak parched rice and should not be more. Keep it aside for 1 hour.

Did you guess what? I missed out to add jaggery and then mixed it with hot water and poured it on the washed parched rice. -:)

Seasoning:

Chop onions, green chillies, cilantro and keep them aside

Heat Oil in a kadai and when it is hot roast cashewnuts and keep them aside

Again add little more oil and when it is hot add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add curry leaves and allow it to fry

Put salt, green chillies, onions and fry the onions till they are translucent

Add groundnut seeds to the mixture and mix them well

Add parched rice to it and mix well allow it to cook for sometime

Garnish with cashewnuts and coriander leaves

Comments: My friend tasted it and said it is less spicy.
For the first time, my hubby told, you should have made some more. The taste was good. 

Thanks for Prathibha for her recipe and my little son, who helped me by sleeping while I was preparing and cooking this.

Appreciate your glance at Star of this month page and January recap page. I highly value your healthy comment or healthy criticism.

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PudinaRice

Pudina Rice:

Pudina is nothing but mint leaves or also called as Mentha. They are good in aroma and healthy too. The colors range from dark green and gray-green to purple, blue, and sometimes pale yellow while the flowers are white to purple. The fruit is a small dry capsule containing one to four seeds.

Cultivation: All mints prefer, and thrive in, cool, moist spots in partial shade. In general, mints tolerate a wide range of conditions, and can also be grown in full sun.

They are fast growing, extending their reach along surfaces through a network of runners. Due to their speedy growth, one plant of each desired mint, along with a little care, will provide more than enough mint for home use.

Culinary: The leaf, fresh or dried, is the culinary source of mint. Fresh mint is usually preferred over dried mint when storage of the mint is not a problem. The leaves have a pleasant warm, fresh, aromatic, sweet flavor with a cool aftertaste. Mint leaves are used in teas, beverages, jellies, syrups, candies, and ice creams.

Medicine: Mint was originally used as a medicinal herb to treat stomach ache and chest pains, and it is commonly used in the form of tea as a home remedy to help alleviate stomach pain. In Rome, Pliny recommended that a wreath of mint was a good thing for students to wear since it was thought to "exhilarate their minds".(Source: Wikipedia)

Ingredients for Pudina Chutney:

• Pudina or Mint leaves - 1 bunch
• Green Chillies - 6 
• Salt to taste
• Water for grinding - a little
• Oil - as required
• Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
• Curry leaves - few

Method:

• Separate the mint leaves from its stem, wash it well in cold water
• Add pudina, green chillies (washed), salt and water for grinding 
• Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds to it, once it splutters add curry leaves
• Now add the chutney and fry well so that the rawness in mint goes away and a good aroma comes out
• Keep it aside.

Pudina Rice:

Once the chutney is ready add rice to it and mix it.

Submitting this to:

 

"Cooking with Leftover Kitchen Chronicles" - Jan2012 series was hosted by Veena which was started by Kalyani. 

 

"Lets cook with leftovers" by Nayna Kanbar.

Lily Greene visited this post and here is her version.Balance Me Beautiful.

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