Rasam, quick & easy

Boil water, add finely chopped tomatoes, garlic, green chilli to this. Bring mixture to a boil. Add cooked toor Dal and mix well. Add rasam powder, turmeric, salt and bring the whole thing to a boil. 

Check salt by tasting, adjust it, and boil a little. 

Temper with ghee + mustard + Curry leaves + hing and pour over rasam

Serve hot with coriander as garnish. 

Moong Dal Pakoda

Moong Dal - 1C, soaked for at least 1 hour

Green chill - 5-6

Garlic - 5-6 Cloves

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Spinach Leaves - a bunch

Coriander leaves - a bunch

Onion - Half, chopped fine

Jalapeno peppers - 2, chopped fine

Red chilli powder - 1 Tbsp

Amchoor powder - 2 Tbsp

Hing - 2 Tsp 

Salt - to taste

Method 

1. Grind half the soaked Moong Dal with the chilli, garlic and Ginger to a fine paste

2. Mix the powders and salt to this mixture

3. Mix in the chopped veggies and greens

4. Heat a pan with oil. Once heated , drop a spoonful of this mixture and deep fry.

5. Serve hot

Appam & Stew

Appam - 

https://www.cookingandme.com/2013/02/18/kerala-appam-recipe-palappam-recipe/

Stew - 

Heat coconut oil. Do tadka with cinnamon, clove, cardamom and bay leaf. Optionally add whole black pepper (I don’t add). When this splutters, add finely chopped ginger and slit green chillies. Sauté. Add chopped onions and curry leaves. Sauté till pink and translucent. Add veggies(potatoes+peas+carrots), adjust salt. Add thin coconut milk (I use tetrapack coconut milk.. dilute 1/4th cup with 3/4th cup water).. close and cook till veggies are done. When it’s done, add thick coconut milk (undiluted from tetrapack), mix well and switch off (do not let it cook or boil after adding thick coconut milk). Add a tsp of coconut oil on top for aroma.

Tomato Pachadi

Recipe Sources - Five Morsels of Love (link) and Sailus Food (Link)

Peanut chutney

Ingredients

Peanuts - 1C - roasted

Puttanalu - 1/2C - roasted

Chana dal - 2Tbsp

Urad dal - 1 Tbsb

Red Chilli - 10

Sesame seeds - 2Tbsp

Mustard - 1Tbsp

Cumin - 1Tbsp

Hing - 1Tbsp

Oil - To roast all the above

Tamarind paste - 1Tbsp

Onion - 1 finely chopped

Garlic - 6-8 cloves

Method

Roast the tadka ingredients in oil and let them all cool. 

Grind all the roasted ingredients together till a fine-coarse paste is formed.

Add onion and garlic to it and grind to a finer paste.

Mix in salt and tamarind paste. 

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. 

Quick & Easy Allam Pachadi

I love allam pachadi - ginger chutney/pickle, and stock up on what Mom makes.
But when in a hurry and when the stocks run low, one has to pick up a new recipe. Here is something that worked for me.

Ingredients:
For the Chutney
Set 1:
Ginger root - 2 inch piece, peeled and diced
Onion - 1, medium sized, chopped
Garlic cloves - 5-6, medium sized ones, chopped

Set 2:
Chana Dal - 1 Tbsp
Urad Dal - 1 Tbsp
Roasted Bengalgram Dal - 1 Tbsp
Green chilli - 4-5, or per taste
Red chilli - 5-6, or per taste

Cooking oil - 3 Tbsp, divided into two parts

For the tempering:
Cooking oil - 1 Tbsp
Curry leaves - a few
Mustard seeds - 1 Tsp
Asafoetida or Hing - a pinch; optional

Instructions
Split the oil into two and roast ingredients in each set together on a medium flame for up to 5 min. You can choose to do them one after the other to reuse the same pan. The onion should be translucent to indicate that Set 1 is roasted enough. The green and red chillis should be roasted and emit aroma to indicate Set 2 is roasted enough. 

Once the ingredients cool, grind them together in a mixer.

Heat the oil for tempering and add the ingredients for tempering. Once the mustard seeds splutter, remove the pan from the flame and add the asafoetida, if using.

Serve with idlis, dosa or pesarattu.

This will stay good for a couple of days if stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Curry Powder

A curry powder to go with shallow fries... (Apologies for the weird formatting, am posting this from the phone, lest I forget the recipe, as has been the case off late)

Peanuts - 1 Cup
Coriander seeds - 1/2 Cup
Cumin seeds - 1/4 Cup
Red chilli - 5-6 (I use the Byadigi variety)
Sesame seeds - 1/8 Cup
Garlic - 8-10 cloves

Dry roast all ingredients. I roasted peanuts separately and deskinned them and garlic separately and kept aside. The rest of the ingredients can be roasted together.

Let these cool and grind them together.

This powder can be stored in the refrigerator for at least a week.

I shallow fried Kandola(aa kakarakaya)and added this as masala.I also intend to use this as curry masala for another stir fry with coconut milk ala Thai style later this week.

Five Morsels of Love - A Review

Before we proceed into the post, here is a spoiler - I absolutely loved the book, Five Morsels of Love, from all perspectives - as a book lover, food blogger, food lover and a cooking enthusiast.  

I loved how brilliant the book feels in my hand - the weight, the texture of the paper, the fine details in the book's styling, everything is brilliant. This book feels like a true book-lover's dream come true. Really.  

Five Morsels of Love

Five Morsels of Love by Archana Pidathala

The fabric cover of the book sets the tone of the book. It makes you feel right at home with what the book is about. The words from the first page, with the photographs of the author, the subject and a few other family photos make you feel this is a book about family, and food.  

Allam Pachadi

Ah, that quintessential Telugu pachadi, that makes everyone's mouth water. I cannot eat Pesarattu without Allam Pachadi, and I know many others in the family who love it to bits.

 

Masala Chick Peas Sundal

Hey there! Those 2 visitors of mine, that still have hope that I might've posted something new :-)

So, I've done some introspection and realized that the reason for me not blogging is the pressure on getting hits and hence the need to shoot great pics, and socialize this on various sites. In all this time that I haven't blogged, I realized that I search my blog for various recipes that I wanted to make one more time! That was the eureka moment for me! I wasn't enjoying food photography, and I was pressurized into taking good food shots! So...

The Meal Algorithm V2.0 will not attempt at any of those above items! Am not going to be bothered about the various sites and my photo getting listed there. In fact, I might not even shoot with my SLR anymore. Phone camera, Insta with tags for me to be able to search them, Tweet at the same time to let interested folks know, and last and least, if you are interested, you can subscribe to the feed which will send you the post as soon as I post it.
This means that I only have to write down the ingredient list, shoot with my phone camera and post it on this blog and Insta. I should be good and done! Lets see how long it lasts! :)

Do one of these, and you'll be notified everytime I post a recipe - Subscribe to the RSS feed, follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

How to make healthy Bisibele-Bath with Poha

Bisibele-bath is almost a staple in South-Indian households, especially Kannada kitchens, I feel. There is something about this sambar-rice that we all love, and the fact that it is healthy also, adds to the allure.

For a while now, I’ve been experimenting with poha, how to make various South Indian main course items with this lighter version, so that I still get to eat the comfort food, but with less carbs.

Masala Karela Fry

Bitter gourd is one mysterious vegetable, in our house. I’ve never tried cooking with it, because it always looks complicated, but the two of us love it.

 

Weekend Herb Blogging : Instant Oats & Spinach idli

I might not be really South Indian in my dinner preferences (if you ignore the constant craving for coconut oil), but when it comes to breakfast, idli is an ever-favourite.

I remember how I craved and dreamt about idlis during my stay in Hong Kong and heaved a sigh of relief once I spotted a Udupi hotel (and chitchatted with a waiter in Tulu and beamed with happiness talking about it with Dad, but that’s another long story) , which then became our weekend breakfast spot for as long as we were there! And only after spotting Idlis and Sonamasuri rice did I extend my trip to a month … such is the love for idlis!

Carrot Methi Chutney

Or Carrot-Menthiaaku pachadi, as we Telugus would call it. This gem of a recipe is sent to me by a friend – Sukanth, a very good cook himself… he has shared some more of his awesome recipes which I am planning to try very soon, once I have all the required ingredients at hand.

One of the simplest and easiest ways to incorporate vegetable and greens in your diet, this is also something that can be prepared in a jiffy. I loved the flavour of the methi leaves blended with the sweetish carrots…

Avarekalu Usli

Avarekalu or Hyacinth beans is not very often found in Andhra Pradesh, but is almost a staple during its season in Karnataka.

Tumkur is the home to Avarekalu, Hyacinth beans or so am told. Growing up, we used to spend a couple of days in Tumkur, and gorge on this curry and other dishes made especially when these beans are in season. Such delight those deep-fried snacks made with these beans were...

Instant Korivi Karam

Its raining pickles in our house these days. The husband is grinning ear to ear as he eats his meals and am a happy person. And like I mentioned before, I feel like I've arrived.

Now, this pickle is a house and a personal favorite, and coming from someone for whom pickle existence in the world doesn't matter at all (Dear Pickles, I was just saying this, you know I love you and how much you mean to me!), this is big. Even as a vegetable-hating kid whose staple meal was curd rice, I never ate any pickle. Pickles have arrived into my life only recently, say 5-10 yrs ago. But Korivi Karam always had a special place in my heart.

Tales of pickles…

I've arrived. Yes, with this pickle! :-D

 

Am not a pickle person. Not at all. Its strange considering I grew up in Andhra, the pickle and red-chilli-capital of India. Its stranger considering I spent my entire childhood in Kurnool in Rayalaseema, a region considered to eat the spiciest of pickles. Yes, Guntur produces the hottest of chillies but all of it is consumed by the simple folk of Rayalaseema, I bet.