Mussels and Potato curry - കല്ലുമ്മക്കായ ഉരുളക്കിഴങ്ങ് കറി

Here is the next recipe from my mother-in-law’s kitchen. It is said to be mouth-wateringly delicious by Aysha. As I didn't get a chance to have this dish, I don’t have any idea. However, you can have a try and see the results. I know getting mussels is gonna be one of the toughest tasks in places other than Kerala. Whoever gets a chance to buy this yummy seafood with shells, don’t miss it. Lots of other recipes with mussels (കല്ലുമ്മക്കായ) are on its way. So have a look at the recipe and do try without fail, okay?

Ingredients:

Mussels – Whole - 25-30 no. s
Potato – 2 medium sized – peeled and cut into medium sizes
Ginger –finger sized piece – peeled and mashed
Onion – ½ - chopped
Green chillies – 2 no. s – sliced
Tomato – 1 big – chopped
Red chilli powder – 1 Tb sp
Roasted coriander powder – 3 Tb sp
Coconut grated – 1 ½ cups
Shallots – 4 no. s
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Water – as needed
Salt – as needed
Oil – as needed
Fenugreek seeds – 8-10 seeds
Curry leaves – 1 sprig

How to:

1.       Clean the exterior of the whole mussel shells and keep it in a big aluminum vessel and heat it for 5-7 minutes in full flame. Turn upside down once or twice in between. Water will come out of the shells and it’ll slowly open. Switch off the flame and keep it aside for cooling down.

2.       Now take the cooled down and boiled mussels. Take off the shells and separate the flush. Don’t wash the flushy part, but remove messy parts like hair or so. Keep the water came from the shells separate after sieving out any solid parts.

3.       In a small bowl, put chopped onion, green chillies, cut potatoes, mashed ginger and the water which came out of mussels shell. Close the bowl and keep it aside for some time.

4.       Cook the above mixture (step 3) in a pressure cooker until potatoes are cooked properly. Switch off the flame and open the cooker.  Add the mussels flush, chilli powder, chopped tomatoes, coriander powder, salt (use lesser salt than usual as mussels itself will have some salty taste) and boil for 2-3 minutes in medium flame.

5.       Meanwhile grind the grated coconut, turmeric powder and 2 shallots in a mixer with ½ cup of water. Once the above mixture has been boiled, pour this coconut mixture to it and cook for 3 minutes in low flame. Switch off the stove and keep the curry aside.

6.       In a non-stick pan, pour oil. On heating add fenugreek seeds. Once it has completed sputtering, add remaining chopped shallots and sauté for a while it turns brown. Now add the curry leaves and pour this to the curry which has been kept ready.

This curry goes well with Kerala boiled rice with some spicy side dish like Mango side-dish Calicut style - കോഴിക്കോടൻ കടു മാങ്ങ 

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Easy Fish Curry (Paal Meen Curry/പാല്‍ മീന്‍ കറി) Adapted from Srilankan style

During my forced bachelor-life in Doha, I used to buy my dinner from one of the Srilankan restaurants, mostly ‘idiyappam and palmeen curry’ (ഇടിയപ്പവും പാല്‍ മീന്‍ കറിയും). Hearing the dish name daily from me, my wife thought that ‘palmeen’ is a kind of fish available here (to be frank, I too thought in the same lines, till I found a different variety of fish in the curry) and she asked me once “can’t you try some other fish?” which made me laugh out loudly! On that day I decided to take her to the restaurant and make her eat this favorite dish of mine, once she reaches Doha. Recently we’d been to the place and she tasted this wonderful Srilankan curry. And out of the idea sprout from her taste buds on having the palmeen curry, she tried to make it at home in her own style. As I’m a person who loves to eat less spicy and light colored curries with breakfast items, this became a grand success, adding one more feather to our cooking experiments. I trust this will help you too and you will love its flavor!!

Ingredients:
Fish* – 6 pieces
Coconut milk – 1 ½ cups OR coconut powder – 5 Tb spoon
Green chilli – 1
Tomato – ½
Curry leaves – 12 no. s
Ginger – a small piece
Shallot – 6 cloves
Turmeric powder – ¼ tspoon
Fenugreek – 6 seeds
Oil – 1 Tbspoon
Salt – as needed

 How to:

1. In a mixer jar, take coconut milk (or the coconut powder with 1 ½ cup of water). Put Green chilly, chopped tomato, few curry leaves, ginger, turmeric powder, salt, and 3 cloves shallot. Grind well. (if you like more sour taste in your curry, add tamarind juice or more tomatoes)

2. Pour the above mixture to an earthen pot or a nonstick pan and leave to boil. Once boiled well, put the washed fish pieces and keep the stove in low flame. Cook for 2-3 minutes and switch off.3. In another pan, heat oil and add the fenugreek seeds to spatter. Add the remaining shallots after chopping and sauté till it changes colour. Add the remaining curry leaves and sauté for few seconds. Pour this on top of the above curry.

*Note: We used Cobia fish (മോത). I guess any kind of fishes can be used for this.
 Have a try with the fish in your freezer and let us know! 

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Fish Stew - മീന്‍ ഇസ്റ്റു

While in LuLu for this month’s grocery purchase, we noticed that lots of fresh Indian Mackerel (അയല ) are there in fresh fish section. As we were dying to eat Mackerel fry (അയല പൊരിച്ചത്), remembering an old Malayalam hit song "Ayala porichathundu karimeen varuthathundu….", we couldn’t hold back from buying it. And of course, the very next day, my wife fried the fish for lunch. But to be frank, we were desperate that the fish fry wasn't up to the expectation. The fish seemed to be not as tasty as we get in our hometown. It was then she suggested about making Fish stew for next day’s breakfast as it’s one of those breakfast combinations (നേരിയ പത്തിരിയും മീന്‍ ഇസ്റ്റും)  which she cherishes out of her mom’s kitchen. I too thought; okay! let me have a try..!!
No doubt, the dish and the combination was one if it’s kind – super delicious and how can I hide its recipe from my cookery fans? Here it’s for you….

Ingredients:
Ayala – Small sized – 6 No.s – washed and cut into pieces
Fenugreek – 8 seeds
Onion (medium sized) – ½
Green Chilli (sliced) – 20-25 no.s
Ginger, garlic paste – 2 tsp
Corriander, mint & curry leaves – chopped – 1 handful
Tamarind juice – ½ cup
Grated coconut – 1 ½
Salt – to taste
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp
Shallots – 3 no.s

For garnishing - വറവിടല്‍, താളിക്കല്‍)).)) :
Coconut oil – 1 Tbspoon
Curry leaves – 1 stem
Shallots chopped – 4 no.s

How to:

1.       Put one grated coconut into a mixer jar, pour water just enough to dip the coconut and mix well. Squeeze this mixture to take thick coconut milk.

2.       Take the remaining half coconut along with fennel seeds and shallots and grind well with ¼ cup of water.

3.       Mix fenugreek, Onion, green chillies, ginger-garlic paste, coriander, mint and curry leaves, tamarind juice and salt well with hand and add ¼ cup of water in a pressure cooker. Pressure-cook this mixture for 2 whistles.

4.       Open the pressure cooker and put the cut fish into it and boil for 3 minutes in low flame. Add the grinded coconut mixture as in step 2 and heat for two minutes (in low flame).

5.       Add the coconut milk as in step one and heat for another 3 minutes in low flame.

6.       Heat 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil in a pan and sauté chopped shallots till it turns brown and add curry leaves to it. Pour this on top of the gravy to garnish it.

Note:  depending on the piquancy of the green chillies, the count can be increased or decreased.

The fish stew can be prepared with other Indian fishes like Pomfret (ആവോലി ), King fish (അയകോര , നെയ്മീന്‍ ) or sardine (ചാള , മത്തി ).

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Tender Coconut Pudding

As a continuation to the request which I mentioned in my Vanilla Pudding and Pineapple Custard recipe, here is the next dessert recipe and one of the easiest and most delicious puddings.

Ingredients:
Tender coconut – 1 (with coconut water and inside scrapings)
Sugar – 200 g
China grass – 5 g

How to:
1.       Pour tender coconut water into a vessel and add sugar to it and mix well. Boil china grass in a separate vessel with a ¼ cup of water and mix this well to coconut water mixture.
2.       Cut the inside coconut scrapings into longer pieces avoiding all the non-white parts and put these into the above coconut water mixture and pour these to an open glass bowl and keep to cool down.  On cooling down keep the bowl in refrigerator to cool.

If a colorful coconut pudding is needed, before pouring the coconut mixture into the bowl, another layer of color full mix can be added into the bowl. This can be made with Orange/Mango/Carrot or any other mix as per availability. I’m adding an example with carrot here.

For color (optional):
Carrot – 100 g
Milk – ½ ltr
Sugar – 100 g
Vanilla Essence – ½ tea sp

How to:
1.       Peel of carrot skin and cut it into medium pieces and boil in steam either in puttu kudam or in pressure cooker.
2.       Mix the cooked carrot, milk, vanilla essence and sugar in a blender.
3.       Pour this mixture as first layer in the bowl and on top of it add the coconut mixture and keep for cooling.

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Fish Curry in Coconut Milk

It was a surprise to see Megha’s message in Facebook after a long time. The summary of the message read like this: ‘I’ve gone through many of your cookery blogs and I feel those to be appealing. Today I’ve bought a kilo of Snapper fish. Do you have any special recipe to suggest for the same? I’m fed up of the usual way of Fish curry making. Awaiting your response...’ I was happy to suggest her new recipe idea on a condition that she should send me photos of the dish after preparing. Here is my reply to her.

Ingredients:
Fish – 1 kg
Coconut milk – 2 cups (non-sweetened)
Tomato -3
Ginger - small piece
Garlic – 1 clove
Curry leaves - 2 twigs
Gambooge (Kudampuli) - ½ pieces
Fennel seeds - 1 pinch
Shallot – 4 cloves
Turmeric powder - ½ tea spoon
Chilli powder - 3 Tb spoon
Green chilli - 3 no. s
Mustard seeds – 2 tea spoon
Oil – as needed
Salt – to taste



How to:
1.       Marinate washed and cut fish with 1 Tb spoon of chilli powder, ¼ tea spoon of turmeric powder and salt.

2.       In 2 cups of coconut milk, add fennel seeds, 2 shallots, one tomato cut into small pieces, garlic, ginger, turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt and mix these well in a blender.

3.       In a cooking vessel, pour the above mixture and add 2 tomatoes which is cut into medium sizes, sliced green chillies, 1 stem of curry leaves and gambooge and boil the same.

4.       Put the marinated fish into the boiling gravy and lower the flame into medium and boil for 5 minutes. Close the dish with a lid and switch off the stove.

5.       In a pan, add 3-4 teaspoon of coconut oil and put mustard seeds to it. While the mustard seeds sputter, add remaining shallots which is cut into small pieces and while it’s fried to light brown color, add a stem of curry leaves into this. Pour the same to the above fish gravy and keep the vessel closed for 10 minutes without stirring.

Within an hour I got next message from Megha and was happy to see that her fish curry came out well. She forwarded me the snaps and with her permission I’m posting this recipe here.

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Crab Roast

It was a nice sunny day with clear sky and I felt my Camera is tapping me to get some nice stills captured. And it was right at that moment when I reached Corniche, the fishermen were coming back with their filled boats and it was really hard for me to resist from buying the fresh crabs which were still alive. Next task was to find a lab to experiment my innovations on those crabs. Not sooner, gave a call to a friend to know if their kitchen is free for that night and we all had a fantastic dinner there with spicy Crab Roast.  I just remember the moment I finished cooking and within next few minutes the bowl in which crab was served seemed to be literally empty.  Now you can imagine how scrummy it would have been, right?

Ingredients:
Crab – ½ kg
Green chilli – 2 no’s sliced
Chilli powder – 4 Tb spoon
Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon
Ginger paste – 1 teaspoon
Garlic paste – ½ teaspoon
Green leaves – (coriander, mint and curry leaves) – cut into small pieces – 1 Tb spoon
Garam masala – 2-3 pinch
Onion – 2 no’s big
Tomato – 2 no’s medium sized cut into medium sized pieces
Coconut oil – For frying
Oil- 2 Tb spoon
Salt – to taste

Optional
Pepper powder – ½ tea spoon
Tomato sauce – 1 tea spoon
Milk – ½ cup

How to:
 1.       Mix 3 Tb spoon of red chilli powder, ½ tea spoon of turmeric powder, a pinch of garam masala and salt with a little water and marinate the cleaned and washed crabs with this mixture and keep it for 15-20 minutes.

2.       Deep fry these marinated crabs in coconut oil, drain the oil using a kitchen tissue and keep it aside.

3.       In a pan, pour 2 Tb spoon of oil and while heated, put onion, green chillies, green leaves, ginger and garlic pastes and fry till softened. To this, add cut tomatoes and sauté for few minutes. Add 2 pinches of garam masala, 1 Tb spoon red chilli powder, ½ teaspoon turmeric powder and salt to taste. Mix these well and fry till it turns light brown colour. (As per the taste needs, you may add a little pepper powder and 1 teaspoon of tomato sauce to this.)

4.       Mix the fried crabs to the above mixture and mix well and keep the vessel closed with a lid, keeping it in low flames for five minutes.
(If a side dish with gravy is intended, add half a cup of milk to this and mix well before keeping the vessel closed in low flames).

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Beef Coconut Fry ( Naadan Beef Fry )

The dinner was simply superb with all traditional dishes, at Shajiyettan’s home. I must admit that Lekshmy has got those blessed hands to cook delicious dishes. One of the beef varieties served by her was tongue tickling. I’d asked her to send me the method of preparation. Just now I received the same from her. Here it is….dedicated to Mrs.Lekshmy Shaji.  Thanking Shajiyettan and family for such a wonderful dinner... and praying to Almighty to bless Shajiyettan to invite me for more and more Yummy Feasts.

You too try this recipe and let me know your comments.

Ingredients: courtesy 

1.    
Beef – 1 kg cut into small pieces
Ginger – 1 tbsp crushed
Garlic- 1 tbsp crushed
Pepper – 1 tbsp crushed
Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
Chilli powder – 1 ½ tsp
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp – crushed
Cinnamon, cloves, cardamom – 2-3 pieces each
Salt – to taste

2.    
Onion – sliced – 1 cup
Coconut – sliced into small pieces – ½ cup
Curry leaves – 1 stem
Oil – for frying

 How to:
1.       Marinate the beef with the first set of ingredients. Pour one cup of water and pressure cook till 2-3 whistles (depending upon the quality of beef). Drain water in the beef, if any keep it aside.

2.       Heat oil in a pan. Add curry leaves, onion & coconut. Sauté for 1-2 mins and add beef. Reduce flame and fry till dry & slightly crispy on the outside. Add more oil if needed in between.

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