Vanilla Pudding

I happened to receive a private message in Face book from a person who is a regular reader of this blog. She told that she has tried Apple mayo salad for a party at her home and got applause from many. She asked for some desserts’ recipe for her to try on a family get together gonna happen at her home next week. As per her request to post, I’m adding some pudding recipes here.






Ingredients:
Milk – 1 litre
Sugar – 250 g
Milkmaid – 1 tin (400g)
Vanilla Essence – 1 tea spoon
China grass – 10 gram

How to:

1.       Heat china grass cut into small pieces in a separate dish with half cup of water. Keep on stirring until boiled and keep it aside.
2.       Boil milk in a vessel (nonstick) and add sugar into it. Once milk is boiled, add Vanilla essence to it and add milkmaid (1 full tin or ½ tin). Depending on the quantity of added milkmaid, sugar should be adjusted as milkmaid is sweet **. To this mixture, add the boiled China grass mix and switch off the flame. Stir well.
3.       Pour the above liquid into an open glass bowl and leave to cool down.
4.       Keep the bowl in refrigerator (not in freezer) and you can consume it after one hour on decorating it with nuts/Chocó bits/cherries according to your imagination.

Note: ** Sugar quantity should be a little more than what is needed, as on freezing the pudding might become a bit less sweeter.

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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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Mathi Mulakittathu (Sardine in hot chilly Gravy)

Mathi mulakittathum Kappa Puzhungiyathum (Sardine in hot chilly Gravy and Boiled Cassava/Tapioca)..  What to say about this? It’s one of the combinations which give a nostalgic feel and really hard to resist the temptation even by just hearing it’s name. And thanks to our new cook that he chose ‘kappa and mathi’ as  dinner menu. I know to many of my readers, this recipe won’t be a news, but to those minority who doesn’t what this luscious dish is all about, please have a try....
The Best combination of this dish is here - Kappa Puzhungiyathu (Boiled Cassava/Tapioca)


Ingredients:

Sardines – 8-10 no’s

Red chilli powder – 1 Tb spoon

Sliced Onion – 1 no. Big

Green chilli – sliced 2 no.s

Tomato – 1 no. Cut into pieces

Cut green leaves – 1 generous pinch

Mashed ginger and garlic – ½ Tb spoon

Thick tamarind juice – ¼ cup

Salt – to taste

Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon

Fenugreek – 6-8 seeds

Oil – 2 Tb spoon

How to:

1.       Pour oil in a pan and on heating put fenugreek seeds, on spattering, add onion, green chillies, green leaves, ginger and garlic and sauté till softened. Add tomato to this mixture and fry for 2 minutes. Put chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt and mix well. Add tamarind juice (squeezed in water with hands) to this and add ½ cup of water to this. If more piquant gravy is needed ¼ spoon of ground pepper can also be added. Leave this mixture to boil for 5-10 minutes in medium flame.

2.       Clean and cut the sardines. It’s better to put 3 to 4 horizontal lines on both surfaces of the fish with knife so that the fish fully absorbs the spicy taste of the gravy. Put the sardines gently into the above gravy and leave it to cook for 2 minutes in high flame. Take care to stir the mixture very gently. Lower the flame and leave the gravy to be thickened keeping the vessel closed for 5 minutes.

Now enjoy the supremacy of Kerala’s unique taste – particularly the ‘toddy shop’ special dish. Sluurrrpppp.....!!! I bet, it’s mouth-watering.

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Kappa Puzhungiyathu (Boiled Cassava/Tapioca)

Kappa Puzhungiyathum  Mathi mulakittathum (Boiled Cassava/Tapioca and Sardine in hot chilly Gravy)..  What to say about this? It’s one of the combinations which give a nostalgic feel and really hard to resist the temptation even by just hearing it’s name. And thanks to our new cook that he chose ‘kappa and mathi’ as yesterday’s dinner menu. I know to many of my readers, this recipe won’t be a news, but to those minority who doesn’t what this luscious dish is all about, please have a try....
The Best combination of this dish is here - Mathy Mulakittathu ( Sardine in hot chilly Gravy )

Ingredients:

Tapioca/Casava – 1 kg

Red chilli (dried) – 4-5 no’s

Mustart seed – 2 tea spoons

Curry leaves – 2 twigs

Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon

Oil – 1 Tb spoon

Salt – to taste


How to:

1.       Peel off the skin of tapioca with a knife and cut it into small pieces. Put the washed tapioca pieces into a pressure cooker and pour water enough to immerse the pieces completely. Add turmeric powder and salt. Close the cooker and pressure cook up to 3-4 whistles. After removing the pressure completely, drain the excess water from the cooked tapioca using a sieve.

2.       To a pan, add oil and to the heated oil add mustard seeds and leave it to spatter. To this put the red chilli and curry leaves and sauté for 1 minute.  Add drained tapioca into this and mix it together.

Now enjoy the supremacy of Kerala’s unique taste – particularly the ‘toddy shop’ special dish. Sluurrrpppp.....!!! I bet, it’s mouth-watering.

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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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