Ladooooooos

Making Ladoos has never been easier! This is the easiest and the least complicated recipe I have come across. Very minimal ingredients...easy peasy it is! By the way, this was my first time making it and I thoroughly enjoyed it...

Ingredients:

Boondies:

Gram flour - 2 cup
Food color - 1 tsp
Water - 1 cup ( make a thick batter, ensure there are no lumps )
Water - 1/2 cup ( to make a thinner batter, runnier, this is what you need, flowing consistency)
Black current -  1 tablespoon
Cashewnuts chopped- 1-2 tablespoons
Ghee - 1 tbsp

Fry the Boondies, ensure that the oil is really hot, else you will get big lumps. the idea here is that the boondi should cook as soon as it falls into the oil so that they don't stick together.

Sugar Syrup:

Sugar -  1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup, let sugar dissolve, boil for about 5 mins.
Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp
Lemon Juice - 1/2 tsp ( add while the syrup is boiling to prevent crystallization)


Method:

1. Once the syrup is ready, switch off the flame.
2. Now add the fried boondies into the sugar syrup.
3. Close and keep for 5 minutes so that the boondies soak well in the syrup.
4. Add 2-3 tablespoons of chopped cashew nuts.
5. Add 2-3 tablespoons of black raisins.
6. Add 1 tablespoon of ghee.
7. Make round balls and enjoy !!!!

Appam - Palappam, Vellayappam, Vattayappam

Look at the steam going up as sweet aroma and filling my living room and kitchen. It truly is divine and goes so well with Kadala curry ( black channa dal), Egg roast, Egg curry, Mutton stew, Chicken stew, Veg stew, Veg kurma or even just plain old coconut milk and sugar, which was my favorite one as a child.  I would still enjoy the coconut milk and sugar had it not been for the yearly physical examinations ;) and blood work.

With this recipe, I could guarantee you would get crispier side Appams ( also called Palappams) and softer on the center and extremely soft vellayappams and vattayappams !!!

What you would need to get started - Ingredients 

1. Raw Rice           - 2 cups
2. Grated Coconut - 1 cup
3. Cooked Rice      - 1/2 cup
4. Semolina            - 2 tbsp
5. Sugar                  - 1-2 tsp
6. Yeast                  - 1/2 tsp
7. Coconut water   -  1 can ( just follow the one in the pic below)
8. Coconut milk    -  as needed - I use coconut milk instead of water for grinding, this makes the batter super soft.

Here are pics of the ingredients I use, if you need to see them.

Method:

1) Soak the raw rice in water after washing well for about 4-5 hours.
2) Just 10 mins before you decide to start grinding the rice, add 2 tablespoons of warm water to the yeast with 1/2 tsp of sugar and close it with a lid.( we do this just to see if the yeast is active, if its a new packet that you are opening, you can add it directly to the rice while grinding)
3) 15 mins before you start grinding, add 1/2 cup of water to the vermicelli to a saucepan and keep stirring till it is cooked and then cool it before you add it to the rice mixture for grinding along with rest of the ingredients.
4) Grind all of the ingredients to a smooth batter.

For the vellayappam ( smaller appam) and the vattayappam , make the batter a little coarse, the batter should be runny.

Overall, the consistency of the batter should be like the dosa batter for the Appam and like the idli batter for the smaller appams.

Hope this helps !



If you use brown raw rice, you would appams like the ones below, I believe they would be more healthier.... brown or white - either ways, the appams are awesome !!!

Some vellayappam and mutton curry :-)

While making vellayappam ( small appam) make sure, you don't flip it, you should just pour the batter, then cover and cook till like 25-30 seconds, depending on the flame ( use medium flame).

I use a transparent lids to cook this, so this way without lifting the lid, I know if the vellayappam is cooked or not.

Here is a video... sorry about the quality -

Not sure, if it works or not ;) let's check, after I publish the post.

A fall weekend

How I wish I was more consistent in posting the pics and updating the blog, I have a ton of food pics in my camera and on the phone which I keep clicking in the hopes of keeping the blog and Food Vishesham page on FB active. Today, I finally downloaded the pics and I was wondering whether to start with the older foodie pics clicked several months back or with the latest one. Finally decided on starting off with the most recent ones as the memories are still so fresh in my mind.

So, this was my last weekend. I had guests coming in on Saturday for dinner and Sunday lunch. I cooked the same menu again on Sunday as I had all the needed ingredients except that I added an additional fish fry for the Sunday lunch.

Made some Mango lassi for a drink, which is a no-fail recipe and everyone's all-time favorite. Then had some chicken tikka on skewers, some butter chicken and garlic naan, lamb biriyani, raita, fish fry.

Here are some pics...

Hmmm..... trying to Upload pics.... looks like there is a problem with the site. I am going to have to come back later and try again.