Madulam Pachai Payaru Sundal or Pomegranate Green Gram Salad

MADULAM PACHAI PAYARU SUNDAL or

POMEGRANATE and GREEN GRAM SALAD

This post goes to the POM Wonderful Content hosted by Jenn of the The Foodie Blogroll (weekly give away) and POM Wonderful ($5000).

Here is a simple recipe that contains two very delightful ingredients. Combining freshly sprouted green gram, and the ruby red pomegranate, make this dish not only a powerhouse of nutritional benefits, but also entices with visual appeal, and a lovely taste.
Whole green gram or payaru is used in the preparation of Sundal for various occasions. Sundal can be called a cooked salad, mainly prepared out of soaked or sprouted whole lentils. South Indian Meals prepared during weddings and other festivals always include two varieties of Sundals or Kosumaris. Kosumaris are similarly made of soaked lentils, but are not usually cooked.

Many caterers are innovative and they introduce variations in the traditional dishes which are appreciated by the connoisseurs. One such innovative dish that I tasted at a thread ceremony is Madulam (Pomegranate) Pachai Payaru (green gram) Sundal. It was a real treat to the eyes and palate.

INGREDIENTS:
Sprouted Green Gram Dal (whole mung beans) – 1 cup
Pomegranate peeled with membranes removed (aril) – 1 cup
Green chillies – 2
Curry leaves – a few
Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp
Asafoetida – 1 pinch
Salt – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1 pinch
Lime juice – 1 tbsp
Vegetable Oil – 2 tsps
Fresh coconut slivers – 2 tbsps

Water for cooking - 2 cups

METHOD:
1. Prepare by soaking the whole green gram over night, or for 12- 14 hours.
2. Wash and drain the green gram, and cook it in 2 cups of water to make it soft. Don’t overcook it, as it spoils the texture and taste, and also destroys the nutrients! If you use more water its okay. However, I avoid it, as I don't like to drain the grains and away all the nutrients along with excess water!
3. Heat oil in a pan. Add asafoetida and mustard seeds.
4. When the mustard splutters, add chopped green chillies, curry leaves and turmeric powder.
5. Next add the cooked green gram and salt and sauté for a minute.
6. Add lime juice and the coconut slivers and blend.
7. Turn off heat.
8. When the Sundal becomes cool mix in the red pomegranate seeds.

This delicious and colorful sundal can be relished as a side dish , or as snack by itself.

This yummy vegan sundal also goes to Vegan Ventures, Round 2, at Suganya's Tasty Palettes blog.

Basundhi(Paneer kheer) - I call it heaven!

Ever since Sujatha of Spicykhazana posted paneer kheer recipe, I have been dreaming about it. I call this dessert-Basundhi. I usually make it by stirring whole milk and sugar for atleast an hour. But this recipe was much easier and consumed less time than the original method.
Thanks to Sujatha! I love Basundhi from hotel-Saravana bhavan. It tastes out of the world. My mom makes awesome Basundhi too.

I modified the recipe to suit my taste.

Sending this to Aparna's one year of blogging celebrations and Srilekha's EFM Sweets.

Ingredients:

Half and half(full fat milk)-1.5 cups

Evaporated milk-1.5 cups

Grated paneer-1 cup

Sugar-1/4 cup(or according to your taste)

Cardamom- 1/4 tsp

Saffron- a few strands

Method:

Boil half and half. When it raises, lower the heat, add evaporated milk. Let the mixture continue to cook on low flame for 15 minutes(stir every 2 minutes). Add paneer, sugar, saffron and cardamom now. Mix well and continue heating on medium low flame stirring frequently until the mixture becomes very thick(time varies from 10-20 minutes). The mixture would have reduced by 1/2 in volume now. It will look semi solid. After refrigerating, it will become even more thick. Garnish with nuts and seve cold.

Note:1. Use a non stick pan.

2. Evaporated milk and Sugar can be replaced by condensed milk. I like to add evaporated milk because I can control the amount of sugar.

3. Amount of milk and evaporated milk can be reduced to 1 cup each to get the desired basundhi consistency in lesser time. Quantity of paneer may be increased from 1 cup to 1.5 cups. How about that? I am going to try this proportion next time.

Do you feel all clogged up?

Is the drain in your shower slow?

Do you have a toilet that clogs a lot?

Do you have to not use your garbage disposal because it always clogs?

All of these are indications of a potential problem with your drain system and can be investigated and (usually) fixed fairly easily.

Everything that drains in your house drains – through something called a p-trap – into your house sewer system. The pipe where it starts is usually the smallest and, as that pipe joins to other pipes, they get bigger. The pipe that leaves your house is usually 3” or 4” pipe!

The drain for your kitchen sink and bathroom sinks typically connect with a 1-1/2” pipe, your tub or shower are typically 2” and your toilet is either 3” or 4”.

So, if the pipes are that big, how do you get a clog? Good question!

With most sinks, the clogs are going to be in the p-trap. This is underneath the sink and junk can settle into it and not get flushed down the drain. If enough junk gets settled into here, a clog will form and your sink will back up.
With a tub or shower, the biggest culprit is hair and soap scum. Hair catches on everything and the soap scum glues it together. Over time, these can form a nasty clog and really make your drain slow down.
With a toilet, the biggest problem is toilet paper. The p-trap for a toilet is part of the toilet. When you flush some solid waste and too much toilet paper, this is too much bulk to make it through the p-trap. Bingo, a clog! The most important thing?

DON”T FLUSH A SECOND TIME!!!!!!

Toilets are designed to hold all the water in the tank and not overflow. If you flush a second time, then the water goes all over the floor.

One note on toilets: don’t use them to flush things that you don’t want. Everything, it seems, gets stuck in a toilet. I’ve had toy cars, eyeliner pencils, bars of soap and GI Joe’s get stuck in toilets. In all cases, except the GI Joe, it was necessary to REPLACE the toilet! We could not get them out! Keep the lids down and your kids away!

Most of the time a clog in a sink or toilet can be cleared with a plunger. When this won’t work, that’s when you have to call me. Plumbers have machines call “snakes” that feed a stiff wire – ¼” – ¾” thick – down the pipe and rotate it as it goes. These wires (called "cabes" or "rods") have blades on the ends of them that help the snake dig. This will usually dig through a clog and break it up in the process. Then the weight of the water washes it away. Sometimes this process involves more than one size machine from more than one access point.

The thing to remember is that your drain system is designed to wash away liquid waste for the most part. The only place that is designed to handle solid waste is your toilet and it is designed to handle it with a lot of water! The larger your liquid to solid ratio, the better!

Just a note about garbage disposals – they are NOT designed for every piece of food you don’t eat or for when you are cleaning out your refrigerator! Here are the rules for using a garbage disposal:

1) Turn the disposal on first, before you put any food in!
2) The water MUST be running before you put any food into the disposal.

Note: it is perfectly fine to run the disposal without water; it will not hurt the disposal. The reason for the water is to rinse away the food, not to cool or protect the disposal.

3) Do not run the disposal when the sink is full of water. This will cause the pipes under the
sink to vibrate a lot and is very bad.
4) Put small amount of food into the disposal, not big hunks. Put the equivalent of about 2
mouthfuls in!
5) Let the food be ground up and washed away before putting in more food,
6) When you are finished, wait a few seconds after the disposal stops making grinding noises
before turning it off
7) Leave the water running for at least 5 seconds after the disposal is off.

If you have any plumbing problems, you can always visit our website and set up an appointment for us to come out and fix it. If you want to remodel, add a reverse osmosis system or softener, replace a leaking faucet or for any other plumbing issue.

Are you following the football season? There have been some interesting games so far! I am a huge Steelers and Patriots fan, but I love football in general. Just some of my thoughts on the season so far...

... who would have thought that the Titans would be undefeated after 10 weeks!

... It looks like Bill Parcells has made a difference in Miami!

... Detroit is off to another dismal start. The question is, is it more likely that Detroit will go 0 and 16 or that Tennessee will go 16 and 0?

... Mike Singletary needs to start thinking like a head coach and not a player. He really threw his Offensive Coordinator under the bus!

... Looks like Bret Favre could take the local Pop Warner team and make contenders out of them; not that I am saying the Jets are bad, it's just that Bret is so good!

Any comments!