POORI - MASAL

           

Who will not like Poori-Masal Combo?  Even somebody who is a hard core health freak, will havesome secret inner  desire to eat poories with masal.

  This is the First of the Great Inseparable Combos, rest are to follow. Please be patient and wait:)

I have always noticed, home made poories are so much different from the ones we get in restaurants. Especially the ones served with thaali meals, are very thick and brownish in colour. In some places, they are oily too. This method, which I am going to share with you all, gives excellent oil-free, fluffy, soft poories.

If you want to make a quick 10 minute-masal, then look here for Pressure cooker Masal

Ingredients

Wheat flour - 1 cup

Maida/refined flour - 1/8 cup

Rava/sooji/semolina - 2 tbsps

Ghee - 1tsp

Salt to taste

Oil to fry the poories

Unlike chapathi dough, Poori dough should not be made few hours ago. Maximum an hour ago, it can be made.

Recipe Cuisine: South/North Indian; Recipe Category: The Inseparable Combos

Prep time: 10 mts; Cooking time: 20 mts

Yields  15 - 18 poories

Wheat, refined flours and rava, with salt and ghee

Knead to a stiff dough. Keep covered

Roll into not too thin or thick, but medium poories.

Poories should be fried in really really hot oil only. Otherwise, poories will not fluff up, they will drink too much oil too.  First, keep the poori pressed inside. It will forcibly puff up.

Take it out, draining the oil completely....and....

place it in a colander, lined with paper napkin

Enjoy hot poories with potato masal.

Tips

* You can roll the poories half an hour ago, if guests are expected, neatly keep them in a row, on a brown paper sheet, and also keep them covered with a brown sheet.

*I have noticed some people keeping the rolled poories on the news paper, which i bad for health, because news papers have lead content. 

* Don't put them one on top of the other.

*If you roll them out and keep for more than 1/2 hour, they tend to become dry.This may  result in not too good poories.

MASAL

Ingredients

Potatoes - 5, pressure cooked

Onion - 1, chopped

Green chillies - 2-3 slit or chopped

Ginger - a small piece, finely chopped

Curry leaves

Lemon juice - 3 tbsps

Gingely oil for seasoning - 3-4 tbsps

Salt to taste

Seasoning ingredients

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Hing powder - 1/4 tsp

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Split urad dhal - 1tsp

Channa dhal - 1 tsp

Curry leaves

Recipe Cuisine: South Indian; Recipe Category: Side dish

Prep time: 20 mts;  Cooking time: 15mts

Serves 4

Pressure cooked potatoes, mashed

Oil added, seasoning ingredients added.

Onion added and sauteed.

Then add  little hot water, add the mashed potatoes, add salt. Adding 1/2 cup hot water makes the onions get cooked well.

Mashed potatoes added

If the masal is for Masala Dosas, this is the right consistency. 

If it is for poories, the masal can be a bit watery. Then only it will be good (rather, that's how it is liked by my family members)

1 tsp besan diluted in water.

Add it to the masal....and...........

Serve with hot poories.

Variations

* Cooked peas, carrots etc can also be added.

* If you want to make Sharavana bhavan style masal, then add some pureed tomatoes, after sauteeing onions, and also add some sambar powder.

VEGETABLE SEMIYA (VERMICELLI)

This Vegetable Semiya very much resembles noodles, kids fall in love with this, and they are happy to eat it off with ketchup. We adults, can eat it off with coconut chutney. I use roasted vermicelli, since they are evenly roasted. It saves  time too.

Ingredients 

Roasted Vermicelli - 1  cup

Water - 2 cups

Carrots , sliced lengthwise - 1/2 cup

Shelled peas - 1/2 cup

Green, red and yellow bell peppers - 1/2 cup each

Onions - 1 sliced thinly

Curry leaves

Sambar powder - 1/2 tsp

Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Seasoning ingredients

Cooking oil + ghee - 2 tbsps

Hing powder - 1/4 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Mustard seeds - 1tsp

Split urad dhal - 1 tsp

Channa dhal - 1 tsp

Grated ginger - 1 tsp

Jeera - 1 tsp

Broken red chillies - 2-3

Recipe cuisine: South Indian; Category: Tiffin Variety, Breakfast

Prep time: 15 minutes; Cooking time: 15 mts 

Serves 4

Below seen veggies to be pressure cooked for 5 mts. Otherwise, while sauteeing, they will not get fully cooked.

Take a pan, add cooking oil, reserving ghee to add at the last stage, and add all the above mentioned seasoning ingredients

                                Then add the sliced onions with curry leaves, and a tsp of grated ginger,  and continue to saute.

Now, add the sliced bell peppers

and now, the carrots and peas, pressure cooked

Add the measured water, and salt to taste

Then to the boiling water,  add the vermicelli,  and sambar powder.

                                               Cover with a lid, lowering the flame.

                                      Half  done, after 5 minutes.  Now add ghee.

                                                                           Done!

                                  Ready to be served with coconut  chutney.

Variations

*3/4 cup vermicelli and 1/4 cup sooji can also be made the same way, when you can add a tomato too.

* Generally, I do not add tomatoes, at times, it makes the vermicelli a bit soggy.

*Spring onions can be added too. It lends an additional flavour.

*Kids can eat this with ketchup, which will make it look like noodles.

SEVAI - Lemon sevai, Coconut sevai and Sweet sesame seeds sevai

One month is over, since I started blogging.  And I wanted to share something very special with you all. I am going to share the art of making soft, fantastic sevai very easily. I made 3 varieties of Sevai   today, Lemon, Coconut and Black sesame seeds-jaggery Sevai. We can celebrate my 30th day of blogging with this Sweet Sevai!

                                                                LEMON SEVAI

                     COCONUT SEVAI

    

                                                                 
                                                SESAME SEEDS-JAGGERY SEVAI
                                                 

                                                           

                                         

                                               

                                                 
                          This is the GREAT SEVAI NAAZHI, which is very very easy to operate!!!

                                                     

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2 cups Boiled rice, soaked in hot water for minimum 8 hours. Trust me, this soaking gives the softest sevai ever eaten. Then it has to be ground in grinder only at least for half an hour.you can grind in a grinder or blender,  Add little salt to it, then , add 2-3 tsps gingely oil to the batter. It has to be slightly thinner than the dosa batter. But should not be as thin as rava dosa batter, then the sevai will break into pieces, as you squeeze it out.

There is one more easier way too….you can make idlis out of this batter, put the steaming hot idlis into the sevai nazhi and make Sevai’s!

But honestly speaking, mixi + idli making combo is not as soft as the grinder + batter stirring process.

Recipe Cuisine: South Indian; Category: Tiffin Variety

Prep time: 1/2 hour ; Cooking time: 40 minutes to one hour

Serves 4

Batter ready to be  stirred in to a thick dough consistency

    The toughest part is this. If you cross this obstacle, nothing to stop you from  eating  the softest Sevai, that too made out  of boiled rice, retaining its full aroma and flavour. Boiled rice has its own aroma..  You have to stir without stopping in between,  keeping the flames on low. You can, for awhile, keep it covered with a lid, and give a small break to your tired hands.

                    It should be 3/4 done. if it becomes  fully cooked,  then the sevai will become hard. That is, once it becomes thick, and leaves the sides,  you have to switch off. Like the Kozhukkattai dough, this should not change colour, and be fully cooked. The final sheen should not appear.

                                Transfer into another vessel, enabling it to cool down.

After it has cooled down, knead well, grease your palms with oil, shape them into oval shaped balls, and keep them on a greased steamer plate.

                                                                         Steam for 15 minutes.

                                                             

                                 

                                            The cooked balls. Don't miss the glaze on the balls,                                                                                                  showing they are well cooked.
                             

                     You have to squeeze them the moment they are done. It has to be very very hot. Put one ball into the sevai maker, after greasing its inside.You just have to steer the wheel of the sevai maker. No hard labour is involved. It is a child's play.

                                         

This sevai maker is superb. It has holes on the sides also, so, sevai comes out so easily.

                                                   

                                                The soft, white, tasty Sevai is ready!

 Now, for the coconut sevai, in coconut oil, season hing powder, mustard seeds, channa dhal, broken urad dhal, green chillies and red chillies, add required amount of fresh grated coconut, add little bit salt, saute nicely and add to sevai.

For the Lemon sevai, in cooking oil, season  hing powder, mustard seeds, broken urad dhal, channa dhal, chopped green chillies, turmeric powder and add to the sevai. Add salt to taste, and also lemon juice.

Dry roast black sesame seeds. Add equal amount of jaggery & 1/4 tsp pf cardamom powder, blend to a powder in the small jar of the blender and add to the sevai. Drizzle 1-2 tsps of ghee also.

Variations

* With the ground boiled rice batter, even idlis can be made and squeezed. Earlier, even I used to do like that. But once I made this method, this is so good, I cannot revert to the old method. Definitely this method gives more quantity and softer Sevai too. Always, hard work pays, right???

*On festival days, if we want to do neivedhyam of Sevai, then we can use raw rice. 

*We can mix both boiled and raw rice and use too.

*White sesame seeds can also be used, but black is healthier.