Aloo Fry

This is one of RK’s favorite dishes; a light meal of Dal, Rice and Aloo fry is his idea of home cooked comfort food, especially when he is back from a tiring & hectic business trip.
Here goes the recipe…

Ingredients:-
Potato – 2
Green Chili – 6, sliced thin into round pieces
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Oil – 2 tbsp

Method:-
Wash the potatoes thoroughly and cut them into 4 & slice them finely. Please note that you do not have to remove the skin.

In a non stick skillet, heat the oil and add green chili and turmeric powder; sauté for a minute.

Add the sliced potatoes & salt and give a good stir. Keep the heat, medium to high. You need not cover this dish to cook, as the potatoes are sliced wafer thin

Sauté the potatoes till they turn crisp and crunchy on sides. You will need to turn the potatoes over occasionally as and when it sticks to the pan. Also by this time, the green chili will be slightly burnt and brown in color

Remove from heat and serve with Rice, Dal and a dash of lime pickle.

Note: You can use less number of chilies, if you want to reduce the heat factor. But personally I wouldn’t recommend that as all the taste come the chilies.

 

Tadka Dal

This is one dish that I make on a regular basis, which is usually accompanied with roti/rice. Add a veg side and non-veg dish to make a wholesome meal.   

 

 

Ingredients

 

Toor dal – 1 cup

Mustard Seed – ½ tsp

Cumin seed – 1 tsp

Hing – ½ tsp

Curry leaves – 3 or 4

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Ginger – ½ inch chopped

Green chili – 1 chopped

Salt – to taste

Oil – 1 tsp

Coriander leaves – 1 small bunch chopped 

 

 

Method

Pressure cook the dal for 3 – 4 whistles till it is well cooked.

 

Heat oil in a non stick vessel and splutter mustard seeds.

 

Sauté curry leaves, cumin seed, turmeric & hing in this order till fragrant.

 

Add the cooked dal, 2 cups of water, ginger, chili and salt and bring it to boil.

 

Cover and simmer this for 10 minutes to let the flavor of ginger and chili sink into dal.

 

Remove from heat and garnish with Coriander leaves. 

 

Serve hot with Rice or Roti

 

Lasooni Palak

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, I would say that this is her favorite, considering the amount of garlic used here. Yes, she loves garlic; unlike my mom who tries to sneak in coconut into anything that she cooks, my Mother- in-law  adds garlic to all her dishes J .

 

I’m not complaining  at all, as this is a very simple one and takes hardly any time to cook; healthy too, with garlic  & spinach. Plus it has  very less oil too 

 

Ingredients:-

Palak – 2 bunch, washed & chopped

Garlic – 4 clove, finely copped

Fenugreek seeds – 1/2 tsp

Dry Red Chilli – 2  broken into two

Oil – 2 tsp

Salt – to taste

 

 

 

 

Method:-

Heat oil in  a non stick pan, add  dry Red chilli, methi seeds and let it brown a bit.

Add  garlicpan and saute it till it is light brown, add seeds spinach, salt , stir a bit and cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Check in between till it is cooked well .

Remove & serve hot with Plain Paratta  or  Rice

 

Ethakka Appam

Ethakkappam used to be my all time favorite evening snack during school days. In fact I’ve burnt my fingers and tongue countless times trying to eat them straight from the frying pan, too impatient to wait till it is cooled. Check out the recipe here.

 

 

 

Ingredients:- 

Plantain – 4

All Purpose flour or Maida – ½ cup

Rice flour – 2 tbsp

Sugar – 2 tbsp

Salt – 1 pinch

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp

Oil – for deep frying

 

 

 

Method:-

Mix the All Purpose flour, Rice flour, sugar, turmeric powder & salt with little water and make a thick batter.

 

Heat oil in a deep frying pan hot in medium heat

 

Cut the plantains into 2 halves and slice each half into 3. This way you should be able to make 6 pieces out of 1 banana.

 

When the oil is hot enough, dip the banana slices in the batter and deep fry till they turn golden brown in color.

 

Remove from heat and strain it on a tissue paper to remove excess oil.

 

Serve hot with a cup of coffee.

 

 

Note: If there is any batter remaining, pour it into the oil and deep fry till golden color. This is highly unhealthy (but very tasty & crunchy) considering the oil it absorbs while getting cooked, so I had to literally harass my mom to make this special treat for me 🙂  .Those days! 

 

The riper the plantain, the tastier this snack, so try to get fully ripened plantains, I usually buy the ones with the black skins