Berry Crumble

I love a good crumble, the goodness of butter and toasted flour, the sweetness of the berries underneath and the overall package of decadence, though it can all be healthy... I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and saw a recipe for Crumble, and bingo. What I thought was a complicated dessert was actually a very simple one.

The recipe mentioned in the book uses white flour, and more sugar. I used this recipe, developed from various sources on the internet and this worked.

I ate the crumble a day after it was baked. The tartness in the raspberries was all gone, and it was delicious.

When I do this next, I'll not be using Raspberries or blackberries, though. Both these berries have seeds in them, which change the texture of the crumble. May be just Blueberries, apple or strawberries from the next time.

Puttanala chutney

I love Idli, and I love it with Sambar or with the Mangalorean pickle, Hindi. But some times I want to eat it with a nice peanut chutney or with the soft legumes chutney. Some times I want to eat it with the ginger chutney. So I've decided to make note of every interesting chutney I've eaten Idlis with. So I am never away from a great chutney :)

This is something I ate at a cousin's place in SFO. She put together this chutney in minutes, and it was a great breakfast.

Ingredients -

Pappulu or soft legumes - 1/2 C

Cashew nuts - 1/4 C

Green chilli - 4-5

Coriander - Washed
Garlic cloves - 4-5
Tamarind paste - 1 Tbsp
Salt, to taste

Instructions -

Mix all these ingredients together in a mixer grinder with enough water till they resemble a chutney like consistency.

Serve with hot idlis.

Pappu Chaaru

Over the past few months, I've taken a particular liking to Pappu chaaru, a simple, Andhra-dish, made with lentils and veggies. I hadn't eaten this before at all when I was in India, but once I ate this at a friend's place, I was hooked. I have to make it at least once a week and eat it with hot quinoa and ghee. Yeah, I know, it should be eaten with hot rice, but we do what we can do, no?

Here is the recipe that I've been using for this dish - Sailu's Food

Ingredients
Choice of veggies - 2 Cups (I use the frozen cut sambar-veggies, minus drumsticks. This is an assortment of eggplants, tomatoes, onions, carrots, French beans and okra. )
Cooked Dal - 1 C
Green chillis - 3-4
Turmeric powder - 1 Tsp
Tamarind paste - 2 Tbsp
Jaggery - 1/2 Tbsp
Water - 3-4 C
Salt - To taste

For the tempering
Ghee - 1 Tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 Tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 Tsp
Garlic cloves - 4-5, chopped coarse
Red chills - 3-4
Hing - 1 Tsp
Curry Leaves - 5-6

Coriander leaves - 2 Tbsp

Instructions
Mix all the ingredients except tamarind paste and jaggery, together in a large pot, and bring it to a boil. Let the veggies cook on medium heat.
Add the tamarind paste and jiggery and continue cooking for another 10 min. Add salt to taste.

Heat the ghee, and add the seeds one by one, followed by garlic and red chillis and hing. Take off heat, and add the curry leaves. Once the spluttering ends, add this to the pappu chaaru and mix well.

Serve with hot rice.

Nimmakaya Karam Pachadi

This easy to make, instant pachadi can be paired with white rice, or with rice and plain dal.

Ingredients

Chana dal - 2 spoons

Urad dal - 2 spoons

Mustard seeds - 2 spoons

Coriander - 1 spoon

Cumin - 1 spoon

Red chilli - 6-7

Cooking oil - 4 spoons

Hing - 1 spoon

Mustard seeds - 1 spoon

Salt - to taste

Lemon juice - 1/4 C

Instructions

Dry roast all the ingredients in Set #1 together and keep aside. Once it cools down, grind them to a coarse powder.

Heat the oil, and add mustard seeds. Remove off heat and add hing. 

Once the oil cools down, add it to the ground powder. Mix salt.

Add lemon juice and store in the refrigerator. 

Check taste and adjust the juice and salt accordingly.