Festive Lunch Menu ~ Contd from last post

This is in continuation of my previous post.
Lunch menu
Morukootan, Kootu curry, Payar thoran, thakkali (Tomato) thayir pachadi, dal (paruppu), ghee and curd


Morukootan

Vellarikkai, cubed - 1 1/2 cups
Grated coconut - 3/4 cup
Green chilli - 2 nos

Buttermilk/beaten curd - 1 cup

Turmeric

Salt

To Roast
Chana dal - 1 tblspn
Red chilli - 2 nos
Methi seeds - 1/4 tspn

Seasoning
Oil - 1 tspn
mustard seeds -1/2 tspn
curry leaves - few
methi seeds - 1/4 tspn
red chilly - 2 broken

Vellarikka is a kind of cucumber which is kept for Vishu kani. Wash and peel the skin of Vellarikkai. dice into 1/2 inch cubes. Cook on stove top or MW with enough water, salt and turmeric added, till fork tender.

Roast chana dal, red chilli and methi seeds in a teaspoon of oil till dal turns brown. Add methi seeds when dal starts browning else it might get burnt. Cool and grind along with grated coconut and green chillies. Add water to get a smooth paste.

Mix the ground paste in buttermilk / beaten yogurt. Stir the mix into the cooked veggies. Adjust the consistency by adding water. Check the salt and bring it a boil. Don't let it to rolling boil. Stop when it is foamy on the top. Season with mustard, red chillies, curry leaves and methi seeds.

Kootu curry

Kootu curry is yam and ash gourd cooked along with chana dal, flavored with ground coconut and spices with a seasoning garnish of roasted coconut and the usual tempering ingredients. This is one of the items served as part of the sadhya/feast.

Ash gourd/elavan chopped into cubes - 1 1/2 Cups

Yam/Chena cubed = 1/2 cup

Chana dal - 1/4 cup

chilli powder - 1/2 tspn

turmeric - a big pinch

salt

To grind

grated coconut - 1/2 cup

cumin/jeera - 1/2 tspn

Seasoning

Oil preferably coconut oil - 1 tblspn

mustard seeds

Urad dal - 1 tspn

Cook the chopped ash gourd, yam and chana dal with turmeric and chilli powder added. I usually pressure cook for 2 whistles. Drain the excess water. If pressure cooked,be gentle when u mix the veggies else it will turn mushy. Add salt and cook for 5 minutes for the veggies to soak in the salt. I don't add salt while pressure cooking since yam might not get cooked properly.

Ground grated coconut and cumin seeds to a coarse paste. Don't add water. If required sprinkle few drops of water. Stir in in the ground paste and check the salt. I always add salt in two stages. Cook for few minutes, till it turns dry. Do the seasoning and fry till coconut is brown. Pour the seasoning over the curry.


Payar thoran (chowpeas stir fry)

Cowpeas - 250 gms

Turmeric - a pinch

Salt

Grated coconut -1 tblspn

Green chilly - 2nos

Seasoning

Oil, Mustard,Red chilly,Urad dal

Wash and trim the edges of the cowpeas. Finely chop them. Add salt and turmeric. Sprinkle some water. Microwave for 7 minutes. Alternatively, you can cook on stove top too.Coarsely grind the coconut and green chilly with out adding water. Stir in the ground coconut and cook for a minute. Season with mustard, urad dal and broken red chilly and mix into the cooked cowpeas.

Thakkali (Tomatoe) Thayir pachadi

Medium sized tomato- 1
curd - 1 cup
salt

To grind

Grated coconut - 2 tblspn
Green chilly - 1 nos
mustard seeds - 1/2 tspn

Seasoning

Oil
mustard seeds
red chilly

Finely chop the tomatoes. Heat a kadai. Do the seasoning, add the chopped tomatoes. Stir fry. Grind the coconut, green chilly and mustard seeds together with little water. Mix in the fried tomatoes and ground paste into the beaten curd. Add salt just before you serve. Else salt will release water and make the pachadi thinner.


I will just outline the order in which the menu is to be served on leaf with the items I made for the day.




1) Little of Payasam/kheer is served on the bottom right.
2) the vetables are served on the upper part of the leaf, starting from the
right.Pachadi, Curry, and thoran (These are the three I have served)
3) Dal along the middle of the leaf to the right of payasam (Tuvar dhal is cooked and mashed with little salt added. )
4) Uppittu/Vadai on the left end of the leaf
5) Rice followed by ghee/clarified butter.
6) Finally morkootan.

Matcha Ice Cream

Can't wait to share this recipe here as it's real yummy after my first attempt. This recipe from "The Perfect Scoop" is a winner! I feel that the key ingredients for this recipe is using a quality green tea powder or named it matcha powder.


This matcha powder will always in my pantry no matter for making cakes or ice cream, stock on-hand is a must! I've tried few recipes from The Perfect Scoop, there are all excellent. If you could make a good custard, it's not a problem making a rich, creamy and smooth ice cream. Just to need some patient on cooking the custard at a little low heat from the stove and you're nearly there. Making it into something extra, give a big scoop of matcha ice cream top on a piece of green tea lotus swiss roll is a bonus!

Recipe of The Perfect Scoop:

250ml whole milk
150g sugar (I used 100g only)
Pinch of salt
500ml heavy cream
4 teaspoons matcha
6 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and whisk in the green tea powder. Set a mesh strainer on top.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula or wooden spoon, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.

Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream, then whisk it vigorously until custard is frothy to dissolve the green tea powder. Stir until cool over an ice bath. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Poondu Payasam (Garlic Sweet) and Elephant Garlic Festival

A mail on Elephant Garlic Festival and a Medicinal (Stinky!) Garlic Payasam!

Don’t you love long juicy mails? We hardly get long letters like this, these days! Here is what I got from Chitra Amma yesterday, and I was very tempted to share it given the topic! I have edited names etc for obvious reasons, and provided some transalations!
- Dibs


Dear (long list of Chitra Amma’s children, grandchildren, siblings, sisters inlaw, newphews, nieces - their spouses, etc)

Portland seems to be a land of plenty. People here are very relaxed, friendly and they take time to concentrate on issues like conservation of greenery, eco friendly activities, minimizing pollution, growing organic food, encouraging home gardening not only for aesthetic reasons but also to protect and enhance birds and other small animal life. A big NO to fertilizers and pesticides. Of course the Pacific Wild West is the biggest asset providing them with an extremely fertile virgin soil.

A half an hour drive from home in any direction leads us to the vast bountiful landscapes consisting of golden wheat fields, orchards, farms, land growing flowers and even Christmas trees with the mountain ranges lining the horizon.
Like we say children and God are present in kondadum idathillae (where they are celebrated), the farmers here do kondadafy (celebrate) each and every produce as it is harvested every year. The festive spirit and the happiness they spread through their bounty harvest only reminds me of SriSri Ravishankar and Sukhabodhananda who eternally stress on ‘celebrating life’ through their speeches.

There was a lavender festival a fortnight ago. Last week end an Elephant Garlic Festival (called Fun Stinks!!!) was celebrated. We visited the festival grounds after collecting our customary coffee and chocolate chip cookies from Starbucks in about thirty minutes. There was a buggy at the entrance waiting to give us a lift to the grounds. By the time I could sit back, the driver said “There we are”, and we really felt foolish to have taken the buggy for such a short drive.

The big banner announcing the Elephant Garlic Festival fluttered to welcome us.
There were stalls and stalls selling fresh garlic each the size of a big mosambi (sweet lime). Some stalls had braided them into garlands for display and there were garlic flowers arranged in vases. The ingenious farmers also sold various garlic preparations, which could be used for cooking. Garlic powdered with a variety of spices in various combinations were sold in small bottles which could be used for garnishing soups, for making various dips, or for dressing salads.

A photo-shy old lady had displayed yummy jams prepared out of mango, cherry, plum strawberry, blueberry and many other fruits. A lick of the jam was offered to us in tiny disposable spoons for sampling. They did taste yummy at first, but left us gaping with the startling flavour of garlic which was laced in it in the end.

We had a similar experience when we tasted the garlic – Please believe me - ICE CREAM! We bought only one cup and after we tasted it our faces contorted involuntarily, leaving poor A (Chitra Amma’s son) to finish up the whole cup. Three cheers to A’s DON’T WASTE policy! I did not trust him at all when he said ‘Not bad. Nannadan irukku’! (Not Bad. Its quite nice) I was reminded of M Sitti’s (an old aunt) story which Amma had narrated so many times, of how she prepared poondu payasam for her bananthi (pregnant) daughter, in a charcoal choola in the bathroom of all places, and how she made her daughter drink it soon after her oil bath – in the bath room itself- all to avoid evil eyes!

Popcorns with Garlic and Parmesan cheese were good. They also sold a dish with garlic cheese and potatoes which we did not try, and many other meat preparations. There were many stalls selling garlic pickles, some preserved in vinegar some in lime with a variety of spices, barring our lip smacking chilly powder and oil.

There were stalls selling herbal bath soaps which were really aromatic- lavender, lemon, peppermint, apple cedar etc etc and they were prescribed for various skin problems.
The rest of them were all arts and crafts material – garden crafts to install in gardens, models and candles made out of bee wax. Remember Amma used to make them and she had once exhibited them in the Dasara exhibition? Beads and trinkets, Tshirts; there was a place for kids where they could jump and bounce on inflated platforms , an artificial post for ‘mountain climbing’ and ‘rappling’.

On the whole it was like the Dasara exhibition on a smaller scale. Carrying a few things that T (Chitra Amma’s Daugther-in-law) bought – a jam bottle, a peppermint soap, a bottle of seasoning, the half empty pop corn packet, the four garlic pods we got as samples (one pod was the size of one whole garlic we get back at Blore), and a strong aroma(!) of garlic in our mouths - we drove towards The Queen Of Sheeba for a sumptuous dinner. The dinner for the whole family in one big plate included three large injeeras (two extra injeeras were also ordered) served with a dozen vegetable and lentil samples. We tried to wash away the garlic smell with a hot glass of ginger tea before dinner arrived. . We relished the Ethiopian dinner listening to the soft drone of an Ethiopian song, which sounded unmistakably like the yester year songs of Thyagaraja Bagavatar!

That is all the news for this week! All well here. Rest in my next weekly.

Best wishes and love to aaaaaaall at home, Chitra.
***


I insisted that Amma give me the recipe of that terrible sounding garlic payasam! "It is traditional, and therefore finds place in our blog" was my argument. She has reluctantly shared it – with all warnings!

POONDU PAYASAM

INGREDIENTS:

Garlic pods - 6

Milk - 1 glass

Sugar - 2 tsps

Saffron strands - a few

Roasted semolina - 1 tsp (optional)

METHOD:

1. Cook the fresh, raw, garlic pods and roasted semolina in milk on low fire.

2. When the pods are well cooked and mashable, and when the milk becomes creamy remove from fire.

3. Add saffron and sugar and serve while still hot.

You can try out this payasam if you are a garlic buff or if you are an adventurous person! It is supposed to keep banantis (pregnant women) warm and ward off cold. It induces good appetite and promotes good digestion. I personally feel a dash of pepper and salt instead of sugar, will turn the dish into a creamy garlic soup which would be more relished than the sweet payasam! All of us enjoy garlic in rasam though and here is the link for the poondu rasam recipe.