Uddina Vade/ Medhu Vadai

Ingredients

1 Cup Urad Dal 1 Cup - 250ml
2 tsp Raw Rice
2 Green Chili
1 inch Ginger
1 tsp Salt (adjust to your taste)
Few Curry leaves
2 Cups Oil For Deep Frying

Instructions

Soak the Urad Dal and rice in water for 2-3 hour

Grinding the Dal
Strain the Urad Dal and grind it along with green chilli and salt in a grinder by adding 1 handful of water. Grind it till it is smooth without any lumps.

If we grind it in mixer, just add water little by little at a time and grind it till the batter is smooth. Do not add more water then we can’t shape the vadas. Sprinkle water only if necessary.

How to check the right consistency of the dough ?
Take it from grinder after the Urad Dal is ground properly. If you take the flour in your wet hands, it should roll like a ball. If we drop a pinch of batter in water, it should float it in water. If the batter gets sunk, then we need to grind it more. This is the right stage to remove from the grinder. If we are grinding in mixer, then take out the smooth vada batter and beat it nicely for 3-5 minutes using a whisk or ladle. This will aerate the batter. This step is very important and not to be skipped, we if are grinding batter in mixer, otherwise, the vadas will be harder.

Add the finely chopped ginger,curry leaves and mix well

Frying the Vadai

Wet your palm and add small ball of batter, pat it and make a small hole in center and drop it in oil.
Add 4-5 vada  to oil. Slowly flip the vadai to other side to cook properly on both sides
Once the vadai becomes golden brown color, remove from flame.

Manju's Appam Without Yeast

Ingredients:
1 cup Raw Rice
1 Cup Idli Rice
1 handful Urad
1 tsp Methi
3 tbsp Coconut  Powder
1 handful cooked rice


Method:

Soak all ingredients except coconut powder overnight.
Grind the soaked ingredients adding coconut powder at the end.
Add salt and let it ferment.
Before making Appams, add a pinch of baking soda (Optional)

Bangalore Iyengar Bakery style bread toast

Ingredients: 

8-10 Whole wheat/White bread slices
1 medium carrot,grated
1 medium onion,finely chopped 
1 small capsicum,finely chopped 
1 medium ripen tomato,finely chopped 
2-3 tbsp chopped coriander 
2 green chillies,finely chopped 
1/2 tsp red chilli powder 
1/2 tsp chat masala(optional) 
1/4 tsp jeera 
a pinch of sugar 
2 tsp tomato sauce 
salt to taste 
2 tsp oil 
1 tbsp butter

Method: 

• Heat oil in a pan and crackle jeera and then add finely chopped onions and green chillies and fry until they are translucent.
• Add chopped tomato and capsicum and fry them for 2 mins until they are slightly done(no need to make tomatoes mushy).
• Add grated carrots,red chili powder,chat masala,a pinch of sugar,salt and mix well and cook for a minute.
• Add chopped coriander and tomato ketchup and mix well.and remove from stove and keep it aside.
• Apply butter on one side of bread and keep it in ( butter side up) per heated(400F) oven for 3-4 mins
• Take the bread out, put the masala an non-toasted side and bake it for another 6-8 mins
• Serve it with tomato sauce

Khara Bun

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F /45 degrees C) 1 tablespoon active dry yeast 2 tablespoons white sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 teaspoon salt 4 cups All-purpose flour( Or  3 cups Wheat Flour and 1 Cup All-purpose flour) Green chilies, Dill, Curry leaves, Cilantro

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, stir together warm water(don't boil the water), yeast, and sugar. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2.	To the yeast mixture, add the oil, salt, and 2 cups flour. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
3.	Deflate the dough, and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, mix green chillies, Cilantro, Dill etc.() Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces, and form into round balls. Place on lightly greased baking sheets at least 2 inches apart. Cover the rolls with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
4.	Bake for 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Adai

Ingredients:

Channa Dal - 3/4 cup
Toor Dal - 3/4 cup
Moong Dal - 1/4 cup
Urdh Dal - 1/4 cup
Par boiled / Idli rice - 3/4 cup
Raw rice - 3/4 cup
Red chillies - 6-8
Saunf - 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

Soak all the above ingredients for 45 minutes(including chillies and saunf)
Grind it to a not very smooth batter.

Add salt, turmeric powder and asafoteda and make adai.

It can be made more special and if you have more time, Add any or all the following to the batter and make Adai.

Small or big onions nicely minced-1 cup
Curry leaves nicely chopped-1 table spoon
Cilantro nicely chopped-2 table spoons
Grated coconut-3 tablespoons

Farzana's Rava Khichdi

Ingredients:

Rava - 2 cups - fry with 1 tsp of ghee
Onion - 1 big or 1 1/2 small - cut straight
Green Chillies - 6 - do not cut
Curry Leaves
Mustard Seeds
Cashew Nuts - 1 1/2 tsp
Chana Dal - 1 1/2 tsp
Carrot - 1
Peas - 1/2 cup
Cinnamon and cardamom pd - 1/2 tsp
Red Chilli Pd - 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 stck
Oil
Tomato 1/2
water 7 cups


Method:
Heat oil in kadai.

Add mustard seeds, Chana dal, cashew nuts, curry leaves and onions. Fry well.

Add Veggies and fry till they are cooked.

Add tomato, yougurt and Cinnamon and cardamom pd, Red Chilli Pd and fry for few mins.

Add 7 cups of water and bring it to boil.

Add rava slowly and mix without lumps. Add butter and mix well.

Garnish with cilantro and serve.

Brown Rice Idli

2 Cups Brown rice (long grain)
1/2 Cup Whole urad dal (without skin)
1/2 tsp Fenugreek seeds
Salt

Wash and soak the brown rice and whole urad dal with fenugreek seeds separately for atleast 4 hours..

Grind urad first to a smooth paste in a grinder.
Grind the rice a bit coarse.
Mix the above two to make a slight thick batter with enough water.
Add enough salt, mix well and keep it for fermentation..

The next day while making idlies, give a stir to the fermented batter and pour enough fermented idly batter to the greased idly plates and cook in idly cooker for 10-15minutes..

Serve these healthy idlies with any sort of spicy chutneys or sambhar..

Shashi's Raagi Dosa

Ingredients:

1 cup Urad Dal
4 cups Ragi flour
1 tsp Methi seeds

Method:
Soak Urad dal and Methi seeds and Grind them together.
Add Raagi flour to this and mix well to dosa batter consistency.
Ferment overnight and make dosas.
Enjoy with any chutney.

Tarakaari Kadabu

Ingredients

Akki Rave (rice powder . coarse)(Washed and powdered) 2 cups
Uddina bele (Urad dal) 1/2 cup(Soak in water for 4 hours)
Green chillies 10
Jeera 1 tsp
Kadalebele (chana dal) 2 tsp
Chopped coriander leaves 1 bunch
Grated carrot 1/2 cup
Chopped beans 1/2 cup
Chopped Dil(Sabbasge, sabbseege soppu) 1 bunch
Grated coconut 1 cup
Chopped onions 1 cup


Method

Grind urad dal into a fine paste.
Add Akki rave , chopped green chillies , jeera, kadlebele, coriander leaves, carrots, beans and salt.
Mix well and put the mixture in idli plates and steam like idlies. It'll be better if steamed in thatte idli plates.

PS: Coconut chutney will be a good combination.

Lavanya's Mochai Upma

Ingredients:

Young tender mochai - 1 cup
dry red chillies - 4
Jeera - 2 tsp
salt
curry leaves
cilantro
rava - 1.5 cup

Method:

Boil the mochai separately and cook till tender. Save remaining water if any.

In a kadai, add oil and mustard seeds and dry red chillies and jeera and curry leaves and salt and when they start spluttering, add enough water for teh rava to cook.

When the water starts boiling add the cooked mochai and stir in the rava gently.

Make sure there are no lumps. Cover and cook. When almost done, add chopped cilantro and cook for 2 minutes. Serve hot.

Brown Rice Dosa/ Uttappam

For Dosa Batter:
Wash and soak for 5 hrs 3 cups of Rice (2 cups brown rice+1cup white rice)
1 cup of urad dal

You can add fenugreek seeds and channa dal if required.
Adding 2 tablespoons of sago gives crisp dosas.
Grind them to smooth batter, add salt and let it ferment for 7-8 hrs or overnight.

Uttappam:
Onions chopped finely from: 5 onions
Green Chillies Paste from: 20 chillies
Coriander leaves finely chopped
Curry Leaves finely chopped
Salt
Mix all the above to dosa batter and make small uttappams. Alternatively, you can make small dosas and spread the onions over dosa.

Avarekalu Rotti

Ingredients:

Rice Flour: 2 cups
Skinned, cooked beans: 1/2 cup
Green chilli paste according to your spice levels
Onions, curry leaves, coriander leaves finely chopped according to taste
Jeera: 1 tsp
Salt to taste

How to make:

Mix all the ingredients with water to make dough. You should be able to make a firm ball out of the dough.
Grease the laminated paper with a teaspoon of oil. Take one orange sized dough and pat it evenly with your fingers to make a round. Pour a teaspoon of oil on the pat rotti and transfer it on a hot tava along with the paper with rotti facing tava and paper facing outside.
Remove the paper once the rotti is transferred on to the tava. Roast it on both sides. Serve with any chutney of your choice.

Akki Poori and Hasi Menasinakayi Gojju

Akki Poori Ingredients:
Rice Flour: 2 cups
Jeera: 1tsp
Salt and luke warm water
Oil to deep fry


How to make:

1. Mix rice flour, jeera, salt with luke warm water to make a soft dough. The dough should look like the one shown below:

2. Take a small lemon size dough and pat them to make pooris using your hands on a plastic cover or a laminated paper as shown below.


3. Take the flattened dough away from the paper and dip it into hot oil and fry till golden brown on both sides.
4. Alternatively you can pat them on your palm and dip them into the oil which yields the same results.

Hasi Menasinakayi Gojju Ingredients :

Green Chilli - 10
Onion - 1 medium size, cubed
Wet Coconut - 3 tbsp
Tamarind juice: 1tbsp
Oil - 1/2tbsp
Mustard and curry leaves for tampering
For Gojju Powder:
Coriander seeds: 1tbsp roasted
Roasted gram dhal/Hurikadale/pottukadale-4bsp/one fistful
Powder the above two ingrediants and keep it ready for gojju making

How to make:

1. Wash chilli and take it in a blender along with salt and we coconut and blend it to a coarse paste.
2. Cube onions.
3. Do tampering with mustard and curry leaves. Add onion and sautee till they become transcluscent, chilli paste goes in, sautee it for 2 more mins and add water. Adjust the water level to make sufficiant amount of gojju.
4. Allow this to boil for 3 mins or till onions becomes soft.
5. Powder the gojju ingrediants and mix the powder with tamarind juice.
6. Add this paste to boiling water and stirr well.
7. Serve Hot and enjoy

A tip: Do not add too much water as the final product may turn watery. If you happen to end up with watery gojju, dont panic. Add powdered gramdhal/pottukadalai powder. Always mix the powder with water before you add to hot gojju. Adding powder directly to hot water results in lumpy endproduct.

Onion Idli

Ingrediants :

Idli Batter - 4 cups (a day old batter which has taken sour taste is preferred)
Onions - 1 big (cut into small pieces)
Green Chilli paste - 1 tbsp
Coriander leaves - 3tbsp (chopped finely)
Channadal - 1 tsp
oil - 1tsp
curry leaves - 1 line (chop finely)

Preparation:


Dice onions into small pieces and keep it aside. Blend green chilli with enough salt to make green chilli paste. Chop coriander and curry leaves finely and add them to batter. Heat oil in pan, add chana dal and fry till it is golden brown, add onion and sautee till onions are transclucent. Transfer the onions to idli batter. Mix the idli batter and keep it aside for 5 mins. Check the batter for salt before you start pouring the batter into idli plates. Steam idlis for 7 mins. Serve hot with ghee and chutney.

Pudina Flavored Adai Rotti

(Use same cup for measuring all ingredients)
You need :
Kadalebele/Chanadal : 1/4 cup
Togaribele/Toordal : 2tbsp
Hesarubele/dhuli moong dal : 2tbsp
Uddinabele/Urad dal : 1tsp
Rice : 1cup

Pudina/Mint : 1.5cups
fresh/wet coconut grated : 1/2 cup
Green Chillies : 8 (8 chillies makes rotti very spicy, so adjust according to your taste)
salt
Onions : 2 Chopped

Soak Rice separately. Mix all bele/dal's and soak them. Soak for about 4hrs.

Remove water from rice and dal and grind them separately using very little water.

Let the mixture be coarse, do not grind it like dosa batter.

Grind Pudina, coconut and green chillies to a smooth paste. Mix it with rice and lentil batter and add salt. Refrigerate the dough for 1 -2 hrs.

Remove the dough from refrigerator add chopped onions. Mix.

Smear little oil on non-stick paper. Take a handful of dough and pat it into 1/2" thick circle.

Transfer this to hot tava with rotti side facing the tava. Peel off the paper.
Roast rotti on both sides till is red.

Enjoy Hot! Eat it with ghee.

Note: Make only as many as you want. You can refrigerate the dough and use whenever you want.

ಶ್ಯಾವಿಗೆ ಉಪ್ಪಿಟ್ಟು (Rice Noodles Upma)

Ingredients :
1 packet of fine rice noodles
1 big onion chopped
2 green chilies – finely chopped (depending on how spicy you prefer)
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
i tsp each - Channa Dal, Urad Dal
1/2 Cup Peanuts
1/2 Cup Green Peas
Juice of one lemon
Pinch of turmeric
½ tsp mustard seeds
Coriander leaves – chopped (save some for garnishing)
Curry leaves
Salt to taste
Oil for seasoning
Fresh grated coconut for garnish.

Method :

In a deep pan boil water add few drops of oil. Add noodles and cook till they are soft. Do not overcook the noodles. Drain all the water. Again rinse these cokked noodles in cold water and drain again. This is to remove the extra starch so that the noodles will not stick together when they are cold. Keep aside.

In a shallow wide pan, heat oil and mustard seeds.
When the mustard seeds start splattering, add peanuts, channa dal and Urad dal.
When they are slightly brown, add green chilies, ginger, and onion.
Fry the mixture for a while. Add Curry leaves and fry for some more until the onions are golden.
Add turmeric, salt and coriander leaves and mix well.
Reduce the heat. Add the cooked noodles and mix well, but gently so that the noodles won't break, till all the noodles get the yellow color of turmeric and all the seasoning.
Turn off the heat. Add lemon juice and mix well again. Garnish with fresh grated coconut and chopped coriander leaves.

Serve hot for breakfast.

Aunty's ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ (Avval/Poha) ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ

Ingredients

Hard ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ/Poha – 1 Cup
Onion – 1
Tomato – 1
G Chillies – 2
Sambar Pd – ½ tsp
Turmeric
Salt
Oil
Mustard, Urad Dal, Peanuts/Cashews, Curry Leaves

ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ/Poha Preps: Wash ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ/Poha in water and drain all the water and keep it aside for an hour. The water used to rinse the Ava is sufficient for it to become soft.

Heat Oil in a Kadai
Add Mustard, Urad Dal, Curry Leaves, Peanuts/Cashews
Add Onion and fry till transparent
Add Tomato, G Chillies, Salt and turmeric, Cover and cook
Add Sambar Pd after the tomatoes are nice and pulpy and fry for 5 mins

Add softened ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ/Poha and mix well and fry for 2-3 mins more. Adjust the Salt.

Ragi Idli/Dosai

Ingredients:

Whole Ragi Grain- 1 cup
(I sprouted these for added nutritional benefits. But it’s not strictly necessary)
Idli rice (parboiled) – 1 cup
Whole skinned Urad dal – ¾ cup
Methi seeds -1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Oil- to grease idli moulds (I used PAM oil spray)

Method:
1. After multiple washes, soak the Ragi for a day. Drain and let it rest for another day or two till you see tiny white sprouts.

2. Alternatively, you can skip the sprouting and just soak the ragi for 3-4 hours longer than you soak the rice.

3. Soak rice, whole urad and methi seeds in separate containers for 4-6 hours or overnight.

4. In a wet grinder or a mixie /blender, grind the urad dal till light and fluffy. A test for fluffiness is to keep a bowl of water and drop a tiny pinch of batter. If it floats, it is light enough.

5. Then add and grind the Ragi grains and Methi and finally the rice.

6. Take care that the rice should not be ground too smooth. It should be of rice Rava consistency. Alternatively, you can use rice Rava instead.

7. Take the batter in a vessel, fold in some salt to taste and leave it overnight to ferment. I found that the dough fermented really well, doubling up and overflowing the vessel. So take adequate precautions.

8. For Idli: Next morning, lightly stir the well-fermented batter. Grease Idli moulds and steam in a pressure cooker for 12-15 minutes till done.



9. For Dosai: You can make dosais with the same batter.

10. Ragi idlis/dosai can be served with a dollop of butter or ghee on top, along with the usual fixings on the side: sambar, chutney and/or Milagai Podi.

Bhavana's Frittata

Heat EVOO in a bakable pan.

Add Garlic and crushed red pepper.

Add all the chopped vegetables (Zucchini, mushroom, spinach, tomato, spring onion, peppers, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes etc), salt and stir-fry.

Beat eggs and salt.

Turn off the heat. Put some dollops of sour cream on the veggies. Pour your egg mixture on that. Sprinkle shredded cheese.

Bake everything in the oven till the cheese turns light brown. Don't cook the egg before putting it in the oven.