Semiya Payasam

Ingredients :
Semiya/ Vermicilli : 200 grams
Ghee 1 tablespoon
Sugar 100 grams
Milk 2 - 4cups
Cashews 10 nos
Cardamom - 1 or 2


Procedure:
Fry the semiya in ghee until they are slightly brown and keep aside.
Fry cashews and cardamom in ghee and keep aside.
In a vessel, boil the water(2 times the amount of semiya about 4 cups) and add semiya. Keep stirring.
After the semiya is soft, add the sugar. Keep strirring so that the semiya doesnt stick to the bottom of the vessel.
Add the boiled milk.
Add the cashews and cardamom.

If you like javarisi /sago, soak them for 20 minutes and add them while you are cooking the semiya.

You can add more milk depending on what consistency you want.

Potato Fry

This is how my mother makes it.

Ingredients:
2 big potatoes
MTR Sambar powder or any sambar powder - 2 tsp
Salt
Turmeric powder
One big onion cut into small pieces

To season:
Mustard seeds
Curry leaves
Oil

Procedure:
Boil potatoes and peel off the skin. Cut them into smaller pieces. Add 1/2tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp sambar powder and salt to taste in a bowl and mix them well. Then add the cut potatoes and mix well. Let it sit for five or ten minutes.

In a kadai, add a tablespoon of oil and let it heat; then add the mustard seeds and let them splutter. After that add the curry leaves. Now add onions and fry them until golden brown. Then add the potatoes and fry well.

Bhuvana's Vegetable Rice

Ingredients:

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 table spoon
Pudina /Mint leaves - 1 bunch - ground into a paste
Coconut milk from half coconut
Whole Garam Masala (Cinnamon stick, Cardamom, Cloves, Bay leaf)
Green Peas - 1 cup
Carrot - 1 cut into small pieces or grated
Green long Beans - 1 cup cut into small pieces
Soya meal maker - 15 to 20
Cut potatoes - 1 cup
Ghee - 100 ml for 4 cups rice
Basmati Rice - 4 cups
Green chillies - 3
Onion Big - 1
Tomato Big - 1
Coriander Leaves - few
Bread - 3 slices cut into small squares

Procedure:

1. Soak rice for 10 min
2. Soak soya meal maker for 10 min, squeeze it and keep aside
3. a)Keep the cooker on heat and add some ghee, fry the soya meal maker until golden brown and keep aside.
b) Add some more ghee, add the bread and fry until golden brown and keep aside.
4. Add some more ghee, add the whole spices when ghee is hot.
5. Add the onions and green chillies.
6. After onions are golden brown ,add ginger garlic paste and fry
7. Add pudina paste
8. Add the other vegetables and keep sauteing for five minutes and then add the fried soya meal maker.
9. Add the soaked rice and mix very well so that all of the gravy mixes well along with the rice.
10. For one cup of rice ad 1.5 cups of liquid (coconut milk or water). Sometimes we will not have enough coconut milk, then you can add plain water.
11. Mix well. Add salt to taste. Add one teaspoon chilly powder and mix well again.
12. Close the cooker, put on the weight and let it cook until 2 whistles and switch off the gas stove.
13. After the cooker cools down, add the fried bread pieces just before serving.

Amma's Sambar

Ingredients:
1 big onion chopped
1 big tomato chopped
Any vegetables cut:eg. carrot (1) , raddish (1), beans(10 no.s)
Tamarind (one amla/nellika size)
Thoovaram parupu/Thoor Dal - one handful
Sambar powder : 2 tsp

For tempering:
Mustard seeds : 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves : little
Red chilly : 1
Coriander leaves/Cilantro : little

Procedure:

Making in a normal flame stove:

Boil the dal in cooker.
Put the tamarind in warm water for ten minutes and take the juice out.
In a vessel, add 3 cups of water; use the dal water if you have. Bring it to a boil.
Add the onions,tomatoes and cut vegetables.
After 10 minutes of boiling in medium flame, add half of the dal , tamarind juice and salt to taste.
Add the sambar powder.
Let it cook for another 10 minutes and switch off the stove. Add the rest of the dal and mix well.

In a kadai, add a tsp of oil and let the oil heat. Add curry leaves, mustard, 1 red chilly and temper the sambar. Add corriander leaves if you like.

Making sambar with electric stove:

I am never able to boil veetables from scratch in electric stove. They never seem to soften. So I add all the vegetables, onions, tomatoes in a bowl and a half a cup of water and microwave it for 10 minutes.

After this process, the rest of the procedure is the same as above.

Keeping rice and dal in the cooker

Pressure cooking:
Fill the cooker with about an inch of water. Take another vessel and fill it with rice. Add water.

Raw rice: rice:water = 1:2
Boiled rice:rice:water = 1:(2.5)

Close the lid of the cooker and put the whistle.
After 3 whistles; about 20 min, switch of the stove and let the cooker cool down.

You can also directly cook rice in the cooker instead of a vessel.
Using vessels; the 3 tier ones, helps you to multi task. You can cook dal/parupu in one and some vegetables in another simultaneously with rice as follows.

After keeping rice and water in the first vessel, take one cup of dal in the second vessel and nicely soak it by pouring water. Add 1/4tsp asafoetida and 1/4 turmeric powder and mix well.

In the 3rd vessel, add potatoes or any vegetable and fill it with water.

Stack the 3 vessels on top of one another and keep it inside the cooker. (Remember to fill an inch of water in the cooker before placing this stack).

Put the cooker on stove, close the lid and place the whistle and let it cook until 3 whistles ; about 20 min.

Wash the gasket and let it hang in a cool place. Once a month or so, you can keep the gasket in the freezer for a few hours. This helps to keep the gasket firm.

Welcome

Hi there,

I didn't want to start a cooking blog as there are loads of them on the net and some are very detailed with videos and descriptive. But a friend of mine is getting married and was telling me about how she is learning to cook. So I thought I can start writing down or atleast referring to good recipes that I have found.

So you can find here the recipes taught by my mother as well as links to other good sites and recipes.

Hope this help you in cooking tastier!