Ingredients:
Carrots – 250 gms
Milk – 1 cup
Sugar – 100 gms
Ghee – 100 gms
Almonds/raisins/cashewnuts – 8-10 pieces
Elaichi powder – 1/4 tsp

Method:
Soak the almonds in water for half an hour and peel and cut to small pieces. Cut the cashewnuts into smaller pieces. Wash, peel, and grate the carrots. Place a thick wok on fire and pour a teaspoon of ghee. Roast the almonds, cashews and raisins in this ghee. When the nuts and raisins turn golden brown, remove from fire and keep aside.

Pour milk into the thick wok. Empty the grated carrot into milk and cook in medium fire. Stir occasionally. You can use water instead of milk or use a mix of milk and water. The advantage of using milk is that you can cut down on the usage of ghee.

When the milk is fully absorbed and the grated carrot is tender and cooked, lower the flame and add sugar. At this stage, the mixture becomes a little loose. Stir occasionally and cook until all the water is fully absorbed. You can modify the quantity of sugar depending on your taste.
Add ghee in small quantities, mix, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add elaichi powder and the roasted nuts and raisins. Mix well. Remove from fire. You can serve carrot halwa hot or cold. Try it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

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Your chance of finding them in the market is miniscule. Only way to taste them is to try them out at home. So here goes recipe for colocasia wafers.

Ingredients:
Chembu kizhangu (taro tuber/colocasia tuber/arvi) – 1 kg
Oil (sunflower/coconut/cooking oil) – 250 ml
Salt – 2 tbsp
Water – Half a glass

Method:
Wash and scrape to remove the outer skin of the tubers. Slice the tubers to thin pieces using a slicer. Colocasia tubers are sticky in nature. Take care to separate the sliced pieces so that they do not stick to each other.

Mix the salt in half a glass of water and keep it aside.

Heat oil in a thick iron wok. When the oil smell hits you and the oil is hot enough, adjust the flame to medium and then drop a bunch of sliced pieces (as much as the oil can hold) into the oil. If you put more than the oil can hold, the slices will not cook properly.

The oil starts to bubble as soon as you put the slices. The bubbles reduce steadily as the slices get cooked and when they are properly cooked and crisp enough, the oil will not have any bubbles at all. This is one way of judging whether the slices are cooked or not. Of course, the slices turn brown in color too. Stir occasionally using a spatula. In medium heat, it takes at least 4-5 mins for the pieces to get cooked. The pieces turn golden and clink against the spatula. At this stage, turn down the heat to low and pour a teaspoon of salt water into the oil. Ensure that you stand a little away from the wok while doing this as this causes bubbles and splutter in the oil. When the bubbles die down, remove the slices from oil and spread them on to a tissue paper/newspaper to absorb extra oil. Turn the heat medium and repeat the process to make more chips.

Wafers are sometimes served with rice and it’s a big hit with many.

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Ingredients:
Raw rice – 1 cup
Jaggery – 1 cup
Water – 2 cups
Ghee (Clarified butter) – 3-4 tbsp
Coconut pieces – 2 tbsp
Elaichi – 1/2 tsp
Cashew – 1 tbsp
Crystalized sugar – 1 tsbp (optional)

Method:
Clean the rice and cook it. Make sure that you drain the extra water from the rice. Dissolve the jaggery in water and strain it to remove any impurities. Pour the melted jaggery into a thick bottomed pan (preferably uruli) and bring to boil. Add the cooked rice to the jaggery. Stir occasionally. When it thickens and water reduces add elaichi powder. Roast the coconut pieces and cashews in ghee. Add this to the cooked payasam and its ready! My cousin would sprinkle generous amounts of kalkandam (crystalized sugar) to the payasam along with ghee. This makes it a truly heavenly treat.

If you add moong dal to this payasam, it becomes sweet pongal. You can check out the recipe here.

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Ingredients:

Poha (beaten rice/aval) – 3 fistfuls
Boiled potato – 1 medium sized
Bread – 1 slice (optional)
Onion – 1 medium sized
Coriander leaves – 4-5 stalks
Curry leaves – 2 stalks
Lemon juice – juice of 1/2 a lime
Green chillies – 2
Asofetida – 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Red chilly powder – 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Rava – 2 tbsp
Oil – 3 tbsp
Water – 1 cup

Method:

Moisten the poha with water and mash it. If the poha is of thicker variety, you will need to soak it in water for a minute and then drain the water. Mash the boiled potato and bread and mix it with the moistened poha. Chop the onions, coriander leaves, and green chillies finely and add it to this mixture. To this, add the lemon juice, red chilly powder, turmeric powder, asofetida, and salt and mix well. Make small balls out of this mixture and flatten the balls into rounds that are 1-cm thick using the palm of your hand. Place the rava on a plate and coat the cutlets with rava.

Heat the oil in a flat non-stick pan and shallow fry the cutlets.

Place the cutlets on a tissue paper to drain excess oil. This is a very tasty snack and easy to prepare too.

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Ingredients:

Brinjal/Eggplant (Bartha Baingan) – one medium sized
Onion (small) – 1 (you can use a few shallots also)
Red chilly powder – 1 tbsp
Salt – as needed
Oil – 3 tbsp

Method:

Cut brinjal into thin round pieces.

Grind the onion and red chilly powder salt into a fine paste. Coat the brinjal pieces with the ground paste along with salt. Mix well and keep aside for at least half an hour.

Heat oil in a flat thick bottomed vessel. When the oil is sufficiently hot, place the brinjal pieces on the oil one by one. Keep the fire on Low-Medium.

After a minute or two, turn over the brinjal pieces using a flat ladle. When both sides of brinjal is suffiently brown, remove from fire. Place on absorbant paper to remove excess oil. Can be served as a snack or served with rice.

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Making a sweet jackfruit dosa is really simple. Grind a few jackfruit pieces along with soaked raw rice and jaggery. Make dosas crisp at the edges by sprinkling some ghee and they are yummilicious! so here we go:

Ingredients:
For grinding:
Jackfruit pieces: 1 cup
Raw rice soaked in water for 2 hours: 2 cups
Jaggery: 1 cup
Elaichi: 2 pods

While making dosa:
Ghee – 1 tbsp

Method:
Grind the jackfruit pieces along with raw rice, jaggery, and elaichi into a fine paste. Add sufficient water to get a normal dosa consistency.

Heat a dosa tawa in medium flame. A non-stick tawa would be ideal. When the tawa is adequately hot, lower the flame and spread half a teaspoon ghee on the tawa. Pour a ladle full of sweet dosa batter on to the tawa. Do not spread because the thinner the dosa, the more the chances of it sticking to the tawa. Cook in low flame. The sweetness of the dosa might cause it to stick to the tawa. Cook in low flame to avoid this. After a minute or so when you see the sides getting brown, pour some ghee on the dosa, and gently flip the dosa using a spatula. Cook for a minute. Remove from tawa and serve.

I feel that Keralites have the most varieties of recipes using jackfruit, both sweet and unripe. Do write to me if any of you know some unique jackfruit recipes. You know i am a die-hard jackfruit lover.

Ingredients:
Parboiled Rice- 2 cups
Coconut grated- 1 cup
Salt to taste
Red chillies (curd chillies) – 2-3
Curry leaves- 2-3 stalks
Mustard seeds- 1/2 tbsp
Chana dal- 1/2 tbsp
Urad dal- 1/2 tbsp

Preparation Time (for batter): 10 min
Cooking Time: 5 min

Method:
Soak the rice in water for 2-3 hrs. Drain the water & grind the rice in a mixer to make a coarse paste. Add very little water while grinding. The batter should not be watery. To the coarsely ground batter, add salt and grated coconut. Mix well.

Heat oil in a thick wok, add mustard seeds, urad dal, and chana dal. If you are using curd chillies, add it along with the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds crackle, add red chillies and curry leaves. Pour the batter to this and keep stirring. The heat should be medium. Keep stirring until the watery batter turns to a thick dough. Turn off the fire.

When the mixture cools, make small round balls double the size of a lemon and place in an idli stand. Put the idli stand with the rice balls in a steamer and steam for 15 mins. Turn off and kozhukkattai is ready to be served with sambhar or chutney.

List of accompaniments:
Can be served with sambhar or chutney. You can have it with sugar too.

Health Benefits/Alerts:
You can make the dough and store in the fridge overnight and make the kozhukattai the next day.

Skill Level:
Medium

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Ingredients:

Paneer – 200 gms

Curd – 100 gms

Peppercorns – 20-25 nos (or pepper powder 1 tsp)

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tbsp

Dry basil – 1 tsp

Salt – 1 tea spoon or to taste.

Capsicum – 1 medium size

Oil – 1-2 tbsp

Resting Time (for the marinate): 30 mins.

Cooking Time: 15 min.

Method:

Mix the curd with ginger garlic paste, crushed peppercorns, basil, and salt. Cut paneer into 1-inch squares around half a centimeter thick and put in the curd mixture.

Marinate for half an hour. Cut the Capsicum in square pieces. Pour oil in a pan and place the paneer pieces in the oil and pour the remaining marinate on to the pan. Cook in low fire. Flip over the paneer pieces one by one after 2-3 minutes.

Cook for 2 minutes until the edges are crisp. Take Out the Paneer pieces and place in the serving dish. Place the capsicum pieces on the pan and cook for around 2 minutes. Take out and place in the serving dish. Its a great starter.

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Ingredients for Idiappam:

Rice flour (Idiappam powder/finely powdered raw rice)- 2 cups

Water – 1 cup

Salt – to taste

Grated Coconut – 1/2 a cup

Ghee – 1 tsp

Method:

Take the rice flour in a pan. Boil one cup water, add salt, and pour the boiling water in small quantities to the rice flour to make a smooth and soft dough. The dough should be firm and tight. A loose dough will be unwieldy.

Take an idli tray and lightly grease the idli grooves with ghee. Take a portion of the dough and fill in a sev maker. Use the plate with the smallest holes in the sev maker. Close the lid and move the handle in circular motions. You can see rice noodles coming out of the sev maker. Ensure that the noodles coming out of the sev maker fall into the idli groove. Move your hands in circular motion so that the noodles are evenly spread out. Make a thin layer of noodles first, add the freshly grated coconut, and then make another layer of noodles. Fill all the idli grooves with such small-sized noodles.

Pour some water into the cooker/steamer and place the idly trays with the idiappam. Close the cooker/steamer and steam for about 10 minutes. You can use this time to make the coconut milk.

Ingredients for coconut milk:

Grated Coconut – 1/2 a cup

Cardamom – 1 tsp

Sugar – 1 tbsp

Warm water (not boiling)- 1 cup

Method:

Put the cardamom and sugar into a bowl. Put the grated coconut in a mixer bowl and add some warm water. Grind the coconut finely. Place a sieve over the bowl and pour the blended coconut into the sieve and squeeze out the coconut milk. Put the coconut back into the mixer bowl and add the remaining warm water. Through the sieve extract the coconut milk into the bowl. Mix well. Coconut milk is ready to be used. You could use the coconut milk available in the market and add sugar and cardamom to it but let me warn you that they do not match the taste of freshly made coconut milk.

Turn off the steamer and take out the idli tray. Let the idiappams cool off for a minute. Take the idiappams out and serve with the coconut milk, flavored with cardamom powder and sugar. You can also serve the idiappams with veg korma, vegetable stew, or chana masala.

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Ingredients:
Mix vegetables diced in small cubes and florets(carrot, cauliflower, beans, green peas, potato) – 250 gms

Turmeric – 1 tsp
Water – 1 cup
Coriander leaves – 1 cup
Curd – 2 tbsp

For gravy:
Onion – 2
Tomato – 2
Green Chillies – 4
Ginger (finely chopped) – 1 small piece
Garlic (finely chopped) – 3 pods
Coriander powder – 1 tbsp
Coconut (grated)* – 3 tbsp
Cardamom* – 2
Cloves* – 1
Star Anise* – 1
Bay Leaf* – 1
Cinnamon* – 1 small piece

* In case any of these ingredients are unavailable, check the alternate ingredients section for other options.

*Alternatives:
Instead of the whole spices, you could use 1 tsp garam masala powder. You can add coconut milk instead of the grated coconut.

Method:
Add some water and turmeric powder to the cut vegetables, close with a lid and boil.

While this is being done, in a wok, heat 2 tbsp of oil. Put the spices into the oil and sauté until the smell of spices waft in the air. Add finely chopped garlic and ginger. Add 2 chopped green chillies. When this is sauté-ed, add the onions and sauté. Add tomato after onions are sauté-ed. Add coriander powder. If you haven’t used the spices, add the garam masala powder at this stage. You can add a tsp chilly powder if you like it spicier. Turn off and add grated coconut (if you do not have grated coconut, you can add coconut milk towards the end). When this mixture cools, grind it into a fine paste. Note: Ensure that the cinnamon and cloves have been ground properly.

Add this ground paste to the cooked vegetables. Mix well and cook for about 2 minutes. Add 2 tbsp of curd. If you couldn’t add grated coconut to the paste, you can add coconut milk now. Turn off the fire and garnish with lots of fresh coriander leaves. Hot and tasty korma ready.

List of accompaniments:
Tastes well with appam, chappathi, paratha, and even dosa or idli!

Skill Level:

Low

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