SharmisTestBlog

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Carrot Poriyal / Carrot Stir Fry

Carrot is my fav veggie, be it poriyal or kootu or milkshake or juice or even raw I just cant resist. Carrot Kootu is my lil ones fav too, will post the recipe sometime soon. Now with no further delay lets get onto the simple easy carrot stir fry(we call it podimas) recipe. And this is my first click in our new home :) Here the sun shines very bright else its very dull, kind of changing climate often. Still am in process of setting up a table for clicking purpose atleast in our new home, cant wait to click it from the new setup :)

Ingredients:

Carrots - 4
Onion - 1 medium sized chopped finely
Coconut - 1 tbsp

To temper:

Oil - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Green Chillies - 1 chopped finely

Method:

Wash carrots, remove the outer skin, grate it and keep aside

Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add curry leaves and fry for a min. Now add green chillies and saute for 2mins.

Now add onion and saute well till it turns soft. Add coconut and saute well till it turns light brown.

Finally add carrot and mix well, add salt. Saute till all combines well and raw smell of carrots goes off. Take care not to make it very soft, it should slightly crunchy.

Switch off and serve with sambar rice or any variety rice.

Health Benefits and few facts about Carrot: [ Source : Google]

Carrot can improve the appearance of the skin, hair and nails. When taken daily it can lower cholestrol and blood pressure.

Carrot juice when taken everyday prevent bodily infections . Carrots can regulate blood sugar.It can help improve eyesight.

The carrot is an excellent vegetable as it has both nutritional and medicinal values which are essential for our optimum health.

Carrot is an edible root vegetable which is originated from Asia. It gains high respect in Western countries as it has been regarded as the best dishes for its outstanding nutritional and medicinal values. Even Dutch have listed carrot as one of their national dishes.

This tasty carrot stir fry is quick and easy to make. Goes well with any variety rice or sambar rice. And carrots we get here are very fresh as they are straight from ooty and the color is nice fresh orange and they are sweet and tasty too. Coming up next is Eggless choco chip yogurt cookies...Stay tuned!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

No Bake Biscuit Custard Pudding Cake

Once while bloghoping came to know about vegbowl and chanced to see this recipe. The picture looked so tempting that I wanted to try it out immediately. Since then I was/am regular to her blog to see her lovely clicks.

When I heard that guests were turning home weekend, I made this for the first time and it turned out super tasty. The lil ones enjoyed every bite and I was happy seeing them :) Not to mention about the elders too they were happily digging in and this is ammas most favourite. I dont like custard, but still this cake is an exception.

Ingredients:

Vanilla flavoured custard powder - 5 tbsp
Milk - 3 cups
Sugar - as required [I used 4 tsp]
50-50 or Krack Jack Biscuit - 1 packet [I used Krack Jack]
Coffee decotion - 2 tbsp [optional but recommended]
Chocolate - as required to cover the whole layer [I used 1 dairy milk 5rs bar]

NOTE : If you are not familiar with making filter coffee decotion this is for you to make coffee decotion without filter :Take 1/4 cup hot water and add 1.5 tsp of instant coffee powder (Bru, Nescafe sunrise works best) and mix well.Use this as coffee decotion it to dip ur biscuits.It works almost like filter decotion.

Method for Preparing custard :

In a small bowl add the custard powder to milk and dissolve till the custard powder combines with milk into a smooth pasty liquid without any lumps. Keep aside.[This step should be done with out keeping in stove]

Keeping in low flame, heat the custard milk .Stir slowly, well and continuosly.The mixture gets thickened very fast so be very careful. Stir for 2-3 mins, switch off and cool down. The consistency is little thicker, but still should be in flowing consistency.

Method for Layering the cake:

Take a square plate/tin and layer the base of the plate with krack jack biscuits dipped in cofee decotion.

Above the first layer spread a generous spoon of prepared custard then layer another set of biscuits dipped in coffee decotion.

Repeat this with another layer then alternatively stack up with biscuits and custard. Build 3-4 layers repeating the same process.

Then grate chocolate over the top layer biscuits, covering up the whole cake.Refrigerate it for few hours (about 4 hrs). Remove from the fridge about 5-10 minutes before serving.

Cut into desired squares/pieces and serve immediately.

My Notes :

The amount of custard in each layer purely depends on your choice. I liked mine just covered, if you like custard then add it more generously covering the biscuit layer completely.

Build about 3-4 layers, not beyond that, as it will not hold shape making it hard to cut into desired square pieces.

Tastes best when served immediately after taking it from the fridge.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Idly Milagai Podi / Chutney Powder

I am sure everyone is catching up enthiran fever so am I :) But planning to watch it only this month end.....so that we can hear the dialoges and watch the movie peacefully. Am hearing varied reviews of the movie....whatever it is, the only and main powerful element that makes me go to theater to watch the movie is none other than our SUPER STAR Rajinikanth!! Its been a yr since I visted theaters, the last movie I watched onscreen was Abhiyum Nanum. So am excited and thrilled to watch the first movie in theater with mittu :)

And one more news is : Yay!! finally solved the reader update issue after a 2hr struggle and googling. It seems to be a issue in setting in feedburner.

Idli podi or podi or thool as we call it, plays a vital role in every south indian homes. Lazy?! no side dish at home, this podi comes to our rescue. I am sure each one has their own version and here is mine.....I have tried different versions of this podi but sticking on to this one since a year.

Ingredients:

Urad dal / Ulutham paruppu- 2 cups
Channa dal / Kadala Paruppu- 4 tbsp
Red chillies - 5 to 6
Sesame seeds - 2 tbsp[optional]
Grated Coconut - 1 tbsp
Curry leaves - few
Hing - a pinch
Garlic - 8 to 9 flakes crushed
Salt - as required

Method:

Dry roast all the ingredients one by one seperately, except salt, hing and garlic till golden brown and keep aside. Let it cool down.

Run the mixie once with cooled ingredients then add raw crushed garlic and salt. Now grind everything to a fine or coarse powder...It depends on ur liking. We like it a bit coarse.

Enjoy this podi with nalennai/gingelly oil spread over idlis or dosas.

NOTE : Garlic should not be roasted, just crushed raw and added to grind at the final stage.As the flavour of garlic catches up in the podi very well if done this way. And the color of the podi purely depends on the chilli variety we use, it will be red if we use the kashmiri chilli the ones I used was normal variety this time, but there is no difference tastewise.

I luv idlis with the podis spread on it like the above. If you give an hr or so it tastes so good!! I have tasted MTR, sakthi masala and aachis idly podi but all that was till I tried it on my own. I saw the ingredients on each of them and got my own idea and came out with this flavourful homemade idly milagai podi.