amaranth flour dosa and beans and potato stew | fasting or feasting, vrat ka khana...

Amaranth is a pseudo grain and is allowed during fasting days of navratri. The grains can be used whole to make porridge with milk or coconut milk, the popped amaranth can be used to make parfait, can be used as breakfast cereal and laddu can be made if you follow this method. The amaranth flour is quite versatile and you can make rotis, cheela or dosa using it. Incidentally, it is the most protein rich grain you can find, so start using it for your everyday meals as well.

Amaranth or Rajgira is also called as Ramdana in UP. Ramdane ke laddu is a popular fasting food in Banaras although it is not seen easily these days. I feel most of the amaranth is being marketed through high end grocery stores and health food stores now. Hoping that this will be a positive sign for the farmers and they would start cultivating more amaranth and less of wheat may be.

Although I am not fasting but the easy availability of all fasting flours during this times is a boon. I stock the fasting grains, seeds and flours for the next six months during each navratri (there are 2 navratri seasons each year), the flours go into the refrigerator during summer times, but winters allow them to be stored at room temperature.

I have been using amaranth flour a lot to make cakes, brownies and cookies as well, but those are the things I do occasionally. Our daily meals are simple and frugal most of the times. Here is one frugal meal that can be a good navratri fasting meal as well.

Amaranth flour dosa and green beans and potato stewed with coconut milk. It is actually a multigrain kind of dosa as I used sama rice, buckwheat as well as amaranth flour.

ingredients for the dosa:

amaranth flour 1/2 cup
sama (barnyard millet) flour 1/4 cup
buckwheat flour 1/4 cup
sour yogurt or cultured buttermilk 1 cup or a bit more
salt and pepper to taste
soda bi carb 1/4 tsp (if making the dosa instantly)
ghee as required to make dosas (thin crepes) on a suitable flat griddle

procedure for the dosa:

Mix everything together and let it stand for at least 3-4 hours before making the dosas. If you are making them instantly, add the soda bi carb and proceed to make dosas.

On the dosa griddle (I use my roti tawa mostly, use a nonstick pan if making dosa for the first time), smear a little ghee and heat it. Sprinkle water to cool down the griddle a bit and ladle about 1/4 cup of dosa batter to it and spread it in circular strokes making a thin crepe. Drizzle a little ghee and let the crepe brown on one side, flip to the other side and cook for a few seconds. Serve hot with the stew.

Repeat the process to make more dosas. You can make them thinner or thick as you like or as convenient.

Green beans and potato stewed in coconut milk

ingredients for the stew

green beans (French beans) 250 gm
one large potato about 150 gm
finely chopped ginger 1 tsp
broken dry red chillies as per taste
curry patta 12 springs
fenugreek seeds 1/4 tsp
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
thick coconut milk 300 ml
sesame oil 1 tbsp
salt and white pepper powder to taste

procedure:

Using new potatoes will be good for this recipe. wash and clean the potato nicely, retain the skin and chop it into small cubes. String the beans and chop them all in 1 cm pieces, holding them all together over chopping board.

Heat the oil in a pan and tip in the fenugreek seeds and broken red chillies, followed by the curry patta and cubed potatoes. Add salt, pepper and turmeric powder and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the chopped beans and toss to mix everything well. Add the ginger and 1/2 cup of water, cover the pan and cook on low heat till cooked.

Add the coconut milk and simmer for a couple of minutes. Serve hot with dosa, appams and plain boiled rice as desired.

a quick pearl onion stew with sun dried cherry tomatoes served with appams for breakfast...

Vegetables stews the way it is cooked in Kerala homes or even in Tamilnadu are very aromatic and rich with coconut. Spicy and lightly sour most of the times but I have not tasted too many of them. To me these vegetable stews were meal time curries most of the times but when I realised these curries are served with breakfast dosa or even idlis as well, I thought of trying it. The husband wont take a subzi for breakfast if it is not a poori subzi breakfast, tough situation. But a girl got to do what she has to do...

There was some leftover appam batter and we both love appam any which way. I had recently done a post on sun dried tomatoes and there was a discussion on my facebook page whether they can be used to make sambars and rasam. Why not? The way I sun dry the tomatoes, they are not flavored or seasoned so one has all the liberty to use them in any cuisine and dress up the recipe with unique flavors. So being summers we don't much like sambars if it is not a dosa idli party that we used to do some years ago. For those parties there used to be a lot of sambar, 2-3 types of chutneys and all possible variants of idlis, vadas and masala dosa. Now I wonder how I used to manage all that. Now I look for easy options and cook for just the two of us most of the times.

Anyways, I decided to use sun dried cherry tomatoes for a simple no fuss stew for this appam breakfast. It took just 10 minutes to cook. I used pearl onions (baby onions) for this stew and peeling them can be time consuming, I get it done by the maid sometimes and keep a bag of it in the fridge. So it was easy.

ingredients...
(serves 2)
a cup of pearl onions halved
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 spring of curry patta

for a paste...
(Use fresh tomatoes or tamarind if you don't have sun dried cherry tomatoes)
1 tbsp sun dried cherry tomatoes or to taste (mine are quite tart home grown cherry tomatoes)
1/4 cup fresh coconut scraped ( I use frozen)
2 dry red chilies
1/2 inch piece of ginger
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
5-6 grains of fenugreek seeds
salt to taste

procedure...

Make the paste and keep aside.

Heat the oil in a pan and tip in the halved pearl onions and curry patta and give it a quick stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the paste, stir for about a minute, add a cup of water ans simmer for 5 minutes.

You can add some coconut milk in the end, but it's not required if you are not looking for a milky creamy color. This stew goes really well with appams. Nice deep flavors, sun dried cherry tomatoes lend enough tartness and the flavors are all very rounded with so many different spices used.

Perfectly crisp appams or plain dosa is perfect with it. This is so quick it was a week day breakfast for us. Yes I had most things ready in the fridge but still the things were cooked freshly.

Cheers...

Kerala style shrimp curry : prawns or shrimp curry in coconut milk...

Since I love coconut milk based curries and cook my prawns almost all the time in one or the other coconut milk recipe. Be it the bengali chingri malai curry or the kerala style prawn curry. This coconut milk based shrimp curry inspired from Kerala nadan chemmen is enjoyed by both of us and whosoever has tasted it till now. The spice content is toned down from the authentic version as I have burned my hands with a good purist recipe once. It was so high on spice level that the delicate coconut milk and shrimp flavor got lost. I have mellowed down the spices since then for this particular curry.

I am using the names prawn sand shrimps interchangeably, but both are different species. In the lot I got this time had both of them. I don't find the taste too different so use the name interchangeably.

Getting the prawns or shrimps whole is the best way to start with them. The shells make a great stock to cook the peeled shrimps. If you get frozen, don't worry, you still get great tasting curry.

ingredients...

large sized prawns/shrimps 400 gm
coconut milk 400 ml ( I used 4 heaped tbsp of CM powder)*
curry patta 5-6 mature springs
broken dry red chilies 3-4
whole black peppercorns 1-2 tsp
fennel seeds 1/2 tsp
fenugreek seeds 1/4 tsp
4 cloves
an inch piece of cinnamon crushed
4 green cardamoms lightly crushed
one small black cardamom lightly crushed
turmeric powder
salt to taste
roughly chopped onion 1/2 cup
grated ginger 1 tbsp
coconut oil 1 tbsp
chopped coriander greens for finishing

preparation...

Clean the shrimps, discard the dorsal vein but reserve all the heads and shells. I prefer retaining the tails attached to the shrimps. Some of the heads too as it gives a nice taste in the curry.

Smear all the cleaned shrimps with salt and turmeric powder.

Simmer all the shells of shrimp and heads with a liter of water for an hour or more. Decant or sieve the stock and reserve. About 500 stock will be made.

Make a smooth paste of ginger and onion, keep aside.

Heat coconut oil in a deep pan or kadhai, add the curry patta, the whole spices and onion and ginger paste and fry for a minute or so. No need to brown this paste. Just cook it lightly.

Tip in the shrimps and toss it for a couple of minutes till they start turning pink but not cooked. Pour the stock at this time and simmer the mix for 5 minutes. If using coconut milk, add at this stage, half the quantity diluted with water or the thin extract. The thick extract or half the coconut milk will be added after five minutes of boiling.

Add a slurry of coconut milk powder and simmer for a couple more minutes.

Serve hot with plain boiled rice, garnished with chopped coriander greens.

Very delicately flavored, richly coconut and very very fragrant. Mild whiff of fennel and green cardamom, very faint hint of fenugreek and the peppercorns are a teasing kick.

This is something you would look forward to leftovers and still wont have. The dish will be polished off however you plan for leftovers. That good.

The spicing has been adjusted to my liking after 3-4 trials of the authentic recipes and may be the purists find it too mild. I suggest to try this this proportion of spices if you are having this curry for the first time. Adjust to your taste after the first trial. The stock adds a lot of flavor so try and do that if possible.

I am sure you would love this flavorful classic curry. Do let me know if you try.

Vegetarians can cook a mix of vegetables in this curry or just potatoes and baby onions.

Cheers.

kerala chicken stew with appam ..comfort food for everyone...

Kerala style chicken stew and appam is one of those comfort meals we look forward to. I am a fan of coconut milk gravies actually. I keep making  a lot of chingri malai curry, vegetable stew, meen molly and Thai green curries with coconut milk. Kerala chicken stew or vegetable stew is a favorite too, more because these curries are so healthy and so tasty too.

What creamy and rich curry would be as healthy as this stew and what crisp bread or pancake would be the beat combination of healthy fermented goodness. A creamy flavorful curry to dunk a crisp pancake, coconut goodness at it's best. To make it even better, the meal comes around in less than an hour even if you start from scratch. Well, if using rice powder and instant yeast and coconut milk powder or coconut milk from cartons. That is what I do as I find them good for my taste. Let the purists work hard for the daily grub.

for chicken stew you need
dressed chicken 500 gm (on bone)
carrot 2 nos. chopped in cubes
potato 1 no. chopped in cubes
tomatoes 2 nos. chopped lengthwise (optional)
onions 2 nos. chopped lengthwise
garlic 8-10 cloves slit lengthwise (optional)
ginger 1 inch piece julienned
curry patta 10 springs (or more)
coconut oil 2 tbsp (more if you are not watching weight)
coconut milk powder 1 cup or milk extracted from a whole big coconut
or tetra pack coconut milk 200 gm

whole spices
cumin seeds 1 tsp
black pepper corns 1 tbsp
cinnamon 2 sticks
star anise 1 no.
black cardamom 2 nos.
green cardamom 4 nos.
whole red chilies 6-7 nos.

powder spices
coriander powder 1 tsp
garam masala 1 tbsp
turmeric powder 1 tsp
red chilly powder 1 tsp ( optional)

to proceed ......

Heat oil in a wide pan and throw in all the whole masalas and let them splutter and release thier aroma.......now throw in the onions with curry patta and stir fry for a while on medium flame (if using more oil you can do it on high flame)...put in the chopped ginger garlic too and keep stir frying till they release their flavors n become soft.....adding salt at this stage will quicken the process...after 3-4 minutes add the vegetables and the chicken and keep stirring till everything is half cooked......add the powder masalas....fry for a while till the masala aroma comes.....now dissolve 1 tbsp of coconut milk powder in 2 cups of water and pour into the pan, adjust salt.......cover and cook till chicken is cooked through...stirring in between twice............finish with the remaining coconut milk powder dissolved in 1/2 cup water.....remove from heat when it is about to boil again.......the aroma of the finished stew will make you incredibly healthy ...hope you have done the preparations for the appam in the meantime........


for appam you need
1/2 cup rice flour (the recipe called for 1 cup soaked rice made into paste)
2 tbsp cooked rice
3/4 of a fresh coconut (black skin removed)
fresh yeast 1 tbsp (or a packet of dry yeast granules)
1 tsp sugar to proof the yeast
salt to taste

to proceed....

I set the yeast for proofing before I started my stew preparation for this dissolve the yeast n sugar in 1/2 cup of warm water, it gets frothy in 10-15 minutes....to be mixed into the other things.

Make a paste of coconut and the cooked rice in mixie and mix with rice flour and yeast mixture and some water to make a batter of dosa like consistency....keep in a warm place until it gets frothy. In my case it was ready as soon as the stew finished. Indian summers.

To prepare appams .... 

Mix salt to taste and heat the greased appam pan (mine is non stick) and pour a ladle full of batter in the middle, now immediately swirl the pan, holding the handles, so that the batter coats the sides of the pan, there should be just one swirl and there should be some batter remaining in the middle of the pan.

Cover the lid immediately, it takes about 2 minutes to cook, check by touching in the center, it is cooked if it is firm and spongy. Repeat the process to make more appams. You don't need to use oil after the first appam so the process is easier than it looks.

The first appam is not always the right shape, don;t worry if it happens and feed the first appam to your pet or birds in the garden.

If the appam is too soft to hold the shape after removing form the pan, just add a little semolina and try again. The appam should come out crisp on the edges and spongy in the middle.

I normally keep the middle spongy portion smaller as we both like the crisp lacy periphery of the appams.

The taste of this combination of curry and a pancake like appam is out of this worldly.

Arvind was elated to get this as a dinner, so was I.......

Such meals are special and you don't want anything else to dilute the chicken stew and appam pleasure. Just make the stew and the appam whenever you do this. Nothing else would be touched when this meal is there on the table. Believe me.