Vegetable Manchurian

Fried rice with low fat Vegetable Manchurian is a treat for me. I dont deep fry the manchurian balls but they will be still yummy. I usually make more balls than I require for the dish so that I can have them like a cutlet with sauce.

To make the Manchurian Balls:

Cabbage, Carrot, Beans, Cauliflower – Shredded – All together 2 cups

Corn flour – 2 spoons

Ginger garlic paste - ½ spoon

Oil, salt as required

Manchurian Gravy

Spring onion – 1 bunch

Garlic – 5 pods finely chopped

Ginger – 1 inch finely chopped

Capsicum, carrot, cabbage – All together 1 cup

Fine Oats powder – 1 ½ spoons

Soya sauce – 2 spoons

Tomato sauce - 2 spoons

Chilly – 1 no

Cook the vegetables mentioned for Manchurian balls with ginger garlic paste. Add required amount of salt. Once cooked cool them, add corn flour and mix. After Refrigerating for about an hour take the mixture out, make balls out of it. Flatten them and toast them in the tawa with oil till they become crispy and golden brown.

Keep them aside

In a pan add the vegetables for Gravy, ginger, garlic, chilly and salt in 1 ½ cups of water. The vegetables should be half done, crispy and should not be cooked completely. Add the sauces, oats powder and half of the chopped spring onion. I used oats powder to make the gravy thick. Corn flour can also be used. Bring it to a boil. Just when you are about to serve add the Manchurian balls in the gravy and add the Spring onions over it.

Stuffed Naan

I love stuffed naan. But what we get in restaurants are made out of Maida. When I saw the post for Wheat stuffed naan from Jayasree-Kailas Kitchen. I bookmarked immediately. It came out very well and couldnt even smell anything different. The naan were soft and tasted yummy. Thanks Jayasree for the recipe.

Paper Mountains for Golu

I always wanted a mountain in my Golu for Navarathri. As we are in flats, we dont get so much mud to create a big mountain. Last time I used a basket and covered it with mud so that I dont require huge amount of mud. So this time I created this paper mountain. I wanted them to look natural with the rugged look.

I made two types of mountains a simple one with painted steps and a gopuram on top of it. Another on with road and a holiday home on top of it.

All you need to make these are:

Newspaper - lots and lots of them

Fevicol

cello tape

tissue paper

Colours and Brush to paint the mountain

Roll the news paper lengthwise(along the longer side of it) and rotate it forming a circle(like a mosquito coil, but tightly). The coil with larger diameter forms the base. Stick the open end of the paper using the cello tape. Make another coil of paper but less in diameter than the base. Keep it over the base and stick it with the base. Repeat until you reach the top of the mountain. Stick the tissue paper all over to cover the newspaper. Dry it over night and paint in brown. Stick some grasses made out of paper. Draw the steps. Mountain is ready.

Tomato 'Anu' biata!

We had Tomato Arrabiata in a nearby restaurant and thought of trying it out. Here is my attempt to reproduce it in my kitchen. I have seen Arrabiata sauce in Nilgris, but I made it with the pizza sauce I had. Well it was not exactly Arrabiata but Anubiata!

Durrum Spaghetti - as required

Fun foods Pizza sauce - 2 tbsp

Pasta seasoning - 1 tbsp

Onion - 1 chopped

Garlic 7 or 8 pods chopped

Vegetables - 1 cup

(Carrot, cabbage - julienned), beans, cauliflower(parboiled in salt water), capsicum

Paneer - just 2 small cubes

Milk - 1/2 cup

Corn flour - 1 tbsp

Oil 1 tbspn

Salt as required

Boil 1 litre of water and add the spaghetti and salt as required. Cook till it is done, strain the water. In a kadai heat the oil, fry the onions, add carrot, beans and fry for couple of minutes then add the cabbage and cauliflower. Add 2 spoons of pizza sauce and keep frying. In the mixie blend together paneer, milk and add corn flour to it(This was not there in the spagetti we had, I wanted paneer in that). Add this and chopped garlic to the veggies. Add salt. Once the vegetables are just done, add the cooked spaghetti and the pasta seasoning. I dint add oil to the cooked spaghetti as we do for noodles as they were not sticking together. Toss for around 2 mins. Finally add the capsicum and remove from fire.

Glass Painting- 2

Glass Painting is not a difficult one, provided you have a good design and and you are able to get rid of the bubbles while painting.

It is not new to me. I did my first painting almost 2 years back. But never framed it. I had wrapped it with a paper and kept it in the loft. Now I have all the worlds time, I thought of framing it. OMG, the paper was sticking to the paint and I couldnt remove it at all. Now I learnt one important lesson about Glass Painting : You should never wrap it with paper and should use only cloth! Lessons learnt the hard way.

I had some left over paints and now that I painted the bottles, I started thinking of a complete painting. Finalized the design and here is my first framed Glass Painting.

Kuzhi Paniyaaram

I am using Kuzhi Paniyaara kal or chatti extensively for making Potato or colacasia(seppan kizhangu) fry. I also use it for shallow frying the appams(not the chettinad aappam). It has been long since I made the paniyaaram. So here it goes...

I made Kuzhi paniyaaram with Onion sambar and tomato chutney.

Par boiled rice(puzhungal arisi) 1 cup

normal rice- I dont know how to call it! (pacharisi) 1 cup

Urad dhall - 1/2 cup

Cooking soda - a Pinch

Curd - 1/4 cup

Salt as required

Chillies as required

Onion 1 big finely chopped

Carrot - 1 grated

Ginger- 1 inch piece finely chopped

Coconut pieces - 1 cup finely chopped

Oil for shallow frying the paniyaarams

Soak the rice for 2 hours and dhall for an hour. Grind them along with chilles, consistency same as idly batter. Let it ferment for a night. I ground the batter in the morning and used them for the dinner. Just while making the paniyaarams add the curd, chopped onions, ginger, carrot, coconut pieces and the pinch of cooking soda. Mix well. Heat the paniyaara chatti, pour just 2 drops of oil, yes, you heard it right. This is more than enough if you are using the non stick version of the kadai.

Pour the batter only till half of the kuzhi or pit. Wait till small pores appear on the surface of the batter. Use the spatula or spoon to turn the paniyaaram and let it get cooked on the other side also. Spongy Paniyaaram is ready!

There is a variation to this traditional paniyaaram. Grind some coriander and mint leaves along with chillies and add to one part of the above said batter. This will give you beautiful green paniyaarams. Make a pulp of a tomato, cook it for some 2 minutes along with some garam masala, chilly powder, turmeric and ginger garlic paste. Add it to the batter. This will give you orange paniyaarams. I have tried these, trust me they will look lovely and taste great!

Stuffed Bread

When going through Chitvish recipes in Indus ladies. I happened to see this one. Made slight variation to suit my taste. I became too greedy and added all the vegetables I could lay my hands on from the fridge and tried it today for dinner! It tasted very very nice.

Bread:

Multi grain atta - 1 cup

Maida - 1 cups
Salt - as required
Sugar - 2 tsp
Olive oil (recipe called for refined oil or ghee) - 2 tbsp
Milk & water - ¼ cup each
Dry yeast - 1 tbsp

Dissolve yeast in warm mixture of milk & water stir well leave for 10 mins. Take atta + Maida + Sugar + Salt + Olive oil and make a very soft elastic dough and wait for 1.5 hours to double

Filling:

Grated Paneer - 1/4 cup
Finely chopped tomatoes - 2

Finely chopped Onion - 1

Green chillies - as required

Sliced Garlic pods - 10 nos
Jeera - for Tempering
Finely chopped Coriander leaves - as required
Carrot and cabbage shredded - 1 cup

Boiled mashed Potato - 1

Boiled Green peas - 1/4 cup

Sweet corn kernels - 1/4 cup

Olive Oil - 1 tbsp

Heat pan and add oil. Add the jeera to it then add onion and green chillies.
Add the tomatoes and fry for 3 minutes. Now add Carrot, cabbage, mashed potatoes, peas, sweet corn, Salt. Fry till the mixture becomes dry. Add grated panner, garam masala and coriander leaves.

Let it cool for some time.

Followed the procedure to make the braided bread as in the original recipe. Recipe asked to keep in a closed cupboard. Didnt know where to keep. So kept it inside the OTG, of course when switched off. It rained today and the temperature was a bit low so thought it would be safe there as the dough also needs warm place to raise. After an hour brushed it with warm milk. I had kept the dough for 4 hours. Prepared the dough by 4pm. Made the braided bread by 5.30pm and baked the bread by 8pm.
Preheat oven to 220 deg celcius and bake for 20 minutes or till brown.