Aaam Panna

 I love Mangoes. Now who does not isnt  it?  I had been to my best friend's farm, and my daughter got to pluck mangoes.  They grow most of the varieties of mangoes in their farm, and they showered so much of love on us, that it was hard to take leave of them.Anyways the mangoes still needed a month to ripen. Hence she plucked only Totapuri  mangoes, which are sweet and sour. My husband loves totapuri, he is little partial to its sourness. I hate anything sour. Hence when my friend's mom, packed off fresh king size totapuri  from the tree, I was little worried that I should not be wasting it. So now the mammoth  task of using them before they spoil, made me think of recipes .Since it was given with so much  of love,  I dint want to share it with anyone also. So here is my first reciepe  "Aaam Panna"in which I used 3 gaint sized totapuris.

Totapuri Mango -3
Water- 1 1/2  liter
Black salt- 2 tsp.
Jeera powder -1/2 tsp
Pepper powder -1/4 tsp(optional)
Sugar -200 gms

Method:

• Wash the Totapuri  mangoes and boil them with around a liter and half drinking water in the pressure cooker.
• Keep the flame medium, and let it cook upto 3 whistles.
• After the cooker cools, remove the peel of the raw mangoes and throw away the seeds .
• Pour the  water in which the mangoes were cooked  in a separate vessel, do not throw it.
• Now take pulp of the mango, and puree it in the blender.
• Mix this pulp into the cooked water which was kept aside.
• Add blak salt , sugar, jeera and pepper powder to it, and stir well to mix.
• Adjust by adding more water if u want a thinner consistency.
• Adjust sugar, salt, jeera, pepper also, depending on how khatta meeta you want it to taste.
• Chill and serve.
• This stores well up to a month in the fridge, if it remains that is.

 I felt I was in Heaven  when  I was sipping  Aaam Panna, and reading  a book in my Balcony.

Ragi Hurihittu - My entry to Down the memory lane

 When I was young in summer holidays my Ajji, i.e Grand mom  would make Hurihittu. This is a typical old Mysore Delicacy.  Huri is roast, and hittu is flour hence the name hurihittuRecently I felt like eating it again, but the shop bought one, does not match anywhere to the home made one. We would mix it with jaggery and grated coconut with a pinch of ghee and make balls out of it. Mix it with water and jaggery to make a cool drink which was supposed to drive away pitta, make upma out of it. The list is endless.
I had assumed that making Hurihittu  is an elaborate process and cannot be done by mere mortal like me, A chance discussion with my husband's aunt Lalthu  Aunty, who is an encyclopedia of cooking made me realize that it can be done by me also.Thats the specialty of Lalthu  Aunty, she makes me feel that traditional dishes are not that difficult and can be made easily. I have learn t many dishes from her.
First I will explain the process of making Hurihittu. I made with just 1 kg of Ragi since this  was the  first time I was also trying this. And I got a bit more than 1kg of hurihittu.

Ingredients:
Ragi -1kg
Water -100ml
Salt-1tsp.

Procedure :

• Dissolve the salt in water.
• Take ragi in a shallow container, like kadai
• Sprinkle salt water on it.
• Let it rest for half an hour.
• Take around 150 gms of soaked ragi at a time and roast in another Kadai over medium flame.
• The ragi is done, if the wetness disappears and it becomes crisp.
• When you taste the Ragi , it becomes crisp and tasty.
• It might take around 7-8 minutes for the Ragi to become crisp.
• Roast the entire ragi soaked.
• If your Ragi is old and good, it leaves white flakes or else no problem, once you feel the Ragi is crisp , consider it done.
• Now cool the roasted ragi and make a fine powder in your Mixie. I made it little coarse since I have eaten it that way.
• The powdered Ragi will have a nice rustic aroma and is called Hurihittu.

Soaked ragi

Roasted Ragi

Ragi Hurihittu

Now to make delicacy out of this Hurihittu,

1. Ragi coconut balls
    Take a cup of Hurihittu, add 1/4 th cup fresh grated coconut,  grate a1/2 cup of Jaggery or 2 tbs spoon sugar,2 tsp ghee and sprinkle 2 tsp milk and press it to make  balls. They taste heavenly. And its very good for small kids.
My little one loved it, and ate as ragi chocolate.

2. Ragi Hurihittu Majiige,
    Take a glass of buttermilk and mix a tablespoon of hurihittu, add a pinch of salt , garnish with ginger and coriander add ice cubes and drink it. It is supposed to be very good for health  in summer.

We make upma also out of it. I will save it  for another post.

This my entry to to Gayathri's " Down the Memory Lane" event.

Vegetable Sagu - South Indian Style

I generally bring the required quantity of vegetables. But sometimes I end up buying a little more than required for that day' s menu. So in a box, in my fridge you can always find 10 bean strands, 2 carrots, 1 radish, a bowl of greens etc. And once in a week I make this Sagu, in which I put all of these left over vegetable.Its easy to make, since the vegetable has to be cut to medium length.Like in sambhar, so cutting is also easy. It uses just a tsp of oil, hence  healthy oil.

Ingredients
Vegetables - 4 cups.
Grated coconut-1/2 cup, substitute with 1 mid sized onion.
Green chillies-2
Fried gram-3 tbs
Poppy seeds-2tsp
Coriander leaves - few (optional)

Seasoning
Mustard-1tsp
Hing- a pinch
Curry  leaves
Oil -1 tsp
Method

• Cut the vegetables, and boil them until they are tender.
• Grind, coconut, chillies, coriander leaves, fried grams,poppy seeds in a mixer  to form a fine paste
• Drain the water from the vegetables and keep aside the water.
• Mix the grated paste, to the vegetable and add the water , to  form  a gravy like consistency.
• Add salt and bring it to boil.
• Season with mustard , curry leaves and hing.

Baby Food -Ragi Malt, Ragi cherry

Baby food -Ragi Cherry
My kulla is seven months old, and  I made Ragi Cherry @ home. Now I really don't know why its called Cherry. This particular Baby food recipe is passed on to me from my grand mom . In the shop a 475 g Cerelac Ragi costs close to 190 Rs. But @ home, we can prepare it at a fraction of cost.


Ingredients:

1. Ragi -1kg
2. Wheat -100gms
3. Green Gram-100gms
4. Almond-50gms
5. Sabudana-50gms

Method

1. Soak wheat, ragi, green gram in a large vessel overnight
2. Wash 2 to 3 times all the ingredients until you are  sure that its clean.
3. Transfer them to a large sieve to remove excess water after washing.
4. Tie ragi, wheat, green gram in a thin cotton cloth. eg:dupatta
5. The sprouts starts to appear after about a day.
6. Make sure to open the cloth and see it at least once a day, so that no  fungus develops.
7. Keep it for another day so that you see  a few centimeter long sprouts.
8. Now dry the sprouted ingredients in shade, that is  inside the room for a day or until you are sure that there is no wetness.
9. Now roast, almonds, and sabudana .
10. Grind everything into a fine powder .
12. At the end of the exercise you should be getting almost white fine powder. 

Sprouted Ragi

Sprouted Wheat and green gram

Ragi Cherry

Method to feed the baby

1. Mix one teaspoon of ragi Cherry into 200 ml of cold water stir so that there are no lumps.
2. Add 1/4 spoon of ghee
3. Heat the water until it  boils and the ragi is cooked.

Note: Initially for first  few days feed the baby just one spoon of ragi serry only once a day. Only after you are sure that the baby has no allergy you can increase the quantity.Make the Ragi Cherry in semi liquid consistency.

Garlic rolls

I discovered baking only last year after I bought an L.G Solar dome Oven.Since then I search online for recipes. Some of them have turned out be good, some not so good, some utter failure. I discovered Suma's blog very recently.And yesterday I was feeling little low, and wanted to bake something to cheer myself up. I found "Garlic Knots" from her blog very interesting.But I was little hesitant about the outcome, but eventually it came out pretty well, and we had it with tomato soup in the evening just as they serve in 5 Star hotel.

I tweaked her recipe, since I was using Kwality Active dry yeast.

Ingredients
For the dough:
3 cups Plain Maida
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. yeast
1¼ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. olive oil
¼ cup milk, lukewarm
1/2 cup of lukewarm water
For Glaze:
2 tbs butter
1 tsp Oregano
2 cloves of garlic minced.

For Proofing of Yeast:
25ml of warm water
2 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
Warm the water for 15 seconds in Microwave oven, add salt and Yeast. Wait for 10 minutes, the yeast froths up.

Preparing the dough:

Add the flour, milk, yeast and water mixture first in a bowl. Add water as and when required.I used only 1/4 cup of water to get a sticky dough.Knead the dough for 12 minutes do not add any flour, eventually the stickiness of the dough will disappear.Smear oil to a clean bowl and place the dough and cover it with a cloth.Preheat your oven @ 200 degrees for 2 minutes. Keep the dough in the oven.This step is mainly to help the dough raise in this Bangalore weather.

After around 2 hours, the dough doubles up, knead it and release the air.divide the dough into 10 tennis ball sized parts.Overturn a clean steel plate and roll the dough into a cylinder, as we do "Kodubale" and tie the dough into a Knot.For a step by step Instruction with Picture please see Suma's blog here .Let it raise for another hour. Line the baking tray with ghee and place the puffed knots. Coat the buns with butter and oregano mixture.Preheat your oven to 190 degrees and bake them for 16 mins or until slightly brown.

Tips:
1.Proof the dry yeast, with slightly warm water.
2.While mixing the dough add water as and when required to get a sticky dough.
3.Add oregano, garlic to the butter which is @ room temperature to glaze the buns.

Thanks Suma, this will be my entry to your Bakeomania.