Uppu Cheedai and Vellai Cheedai ~ Janmashtami Special

The month of Aug-Sept (Chingam/Avani) months has the more number of festivals in Hindu calendar. The festivals come one after the other.  Its been only a week after the 10 day long festival of Onam and Avani avittam which was just the day after Onam. And y'day we celebrated the birth of Lord Krishna. Each festival has  special kind of food associated with it. I made Uppu cheedai, Vella cheedai and Neiyappam. For neiyappam, I followed a different method of preparing the batter, which I shall blog later. 

Uppu Cheedai (Savory deep fried rice balls)

You need

• Rice flour - 3 cups
• Roasted and powdered urad dal - 1/4 cup
• Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
• Cumin and Pepper cons, crushed - 2 tspn
• Salt to taste
• Hing dissolved in water
• Butter - 1 tblspn

Method
I always make fresh rice flour at home. Sieve the flour and then roast for few minutes till it is dry and should not change in color. Sieve again to remove the tiny lumps which forms on roasting. Take all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add water little by little to get a pliable dough. Double sieving is done to avoid the bursting of cheedais. Make small balls out of the dough and leave it on a soft cotton cloth.

The cheedais should dry a bit before it is deep fried to get crisp ones. Make sure you put the cheedais crowded in the oil which will aid in getting it fried well. Let the cheedais rest for few minutes, after being drained, to turn crisp.

Vella cheedai (Sweet version of  deep fried rice balls)

Sweet version of the cheedai. I love vella cheedai. But this is the first time I'm trying it at home. Every time I plan to try this for Krishna Jayanthi, but somehow could never do it. I always tell myself that I will try it some other time and it too did not happen. I hardly bother to make the festival specific dishes at some other time. Somehow they are always associated with the festivals and don't get done otherwise. Or it could be that, we have one festival after another coming up and we get busy to welcome the next and we leave behind the ones that passed by.

My amma's bhakashanam for the day is always murukku, cheedai and vella avil. My MIL makes  thenkuzhal, uppu cheedai and neiyappam. This year, I skipped thenkuzhal and made vella cheedai. I followed the recipe I had taken down from amma. I was happy that it came out well. Crisp outside with a soft inside. It was very easy to bite into and did not turn out to be a test of the tooth strength.

You need

• Rice flour roasted to light brown - 1 cup
• Roasted urad dal powder - 1 tblspn
• Jaggery shavings - 3/4 cup
• Water -1 cup
• Ghee- 1 tspn
• Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn
• Roasted sesame seeds - 1/2 tspn
• Oil to deep fry

Method

Rice flour is to be roasted till it turns light brown. Melt jaggery in 1 cup of water. Let the syrup simmer for few minutes and add the grated coconut. Slowly stir in the rice flour. Switch of the heat. Add urad dal powder, cardamom powder and sesame seeds. Mix well. Leave it to cool. Mix the dough with your hands. Make marble sized balls.

Heat oil in a kadai. When it is hot, lower the heat and deep fry the balls till there are light brown. The cheedais crack a little and will not have a smooth surface like jamuns. It should be fried on low heat so that inside gets cooked well. In case the cheedai gets split while frying add little roasted rice flour and mix well. Quantity of jaggery might have been a bit more.

Ginger Capsicum Fried Rice from The Mainland China and a review

I'm sure all of us must have tried at least once to recreate our favorite dish from a restaurant from which we have ate once or we frequent often. We usually try to guess that secret ingredient that gives the dish a unique flavor or taste. So how will it be when you have a ready reckoner to whip up a complete meal with the dishes from your restaurant coming from the person who started the chain of restaurants.  Yes, I am talking about The Mainland China chain of restaurants, started by Anjan Chatterjee. Anjan Chatterjee has come up with a cookbook to help in cooking Mainland China's signature dishes right at our homes.

The book starts with an introduction from the author and moves on to a briefing on Chinese regional cuisines, the utensils and various cooking methods, to  give a sneak peak into the Chinese cuisine. Notes about the ingredients commonly used in the book and with possible substitutes is quite helpful. The recipes for basic sauces, dips and pastes are interesting. The recipes are neatly divided into sections as starters, vegetables, fish, chicken to name a few.

A recipe is more interesting with a snapshot of the dish along with. Probably, coming from a famous restaurant, I guess, the recipes have taken the priority since the readers must be familiar with the dishes. This is not to say that the book is devoid of any pics. There are few drool worthy pictures in the middle of the book. 

I liked the two column lay out of the recipe with ingredients and method. There is ample space on each page to jot down your notes too. The only downside of the recipe is that there is no uniform format followed for the the measurement of ingredients. Its a mix of gm, ml, tblspn and tspn. Some of the recipes calls for 2gms of ginger/onion etc, which could have been made simpler and easier to comprehend. And a kitchen scale is not very common in Indian kitchens. I don't own one. But our Indian style of cooking with eyeball measurements comes in handy here.

When I received a mail from the publishers, I wondered if  I could do justice to the book, being a vegetarian. I was happy seeing the book, since I had enough choices to try from. Already I have tried their Ginger capsicum Fried Rice and crackling spinach. I have bookmarked many more - Hot and Sour vegetable Soup, Steamed Rice rolls with Vegetables, Cashew and chilly fried rice to name a few and their basic sauces and dips which are doable too. 

Here is the recipe for Ginger Capsicum Fried Rice as given in the book. The measurements I used is given in brackets

Ingredients

• Long grain rice, cooked - 500 g (2 cups of cooked rice)
• Groundnut oil - 30 ml
• Ginger, shredded - 40 g ( 2inch piece)
• Capsicum, shredded - 80 g (half of a capsicum)
• Salt - 1 tsp
• White pepper - 1 tsp
• Spring onion, chopped - 2 

Method
Heat the wok till it is smoking hot

Add oil and moderately heat to 120 C. You can either use a thermometer or put a cube of stale bread into the oil. It should get brown slowly and not immediately.

Add the ginger and stir-fry.

Add the capsicum and stir-fry til you can smell the aroma.

Add the rice, salt and white pepper. Toss well.

Add the chopped spring onion.

Remove from heat and serve hot.

The dish is simple yet very flavorful and delicious. Ginger is a favorite with me and loved biting the  crunchy ginger.

Savory Wheat Biscuits

My mom used to make this snack often and I used to love it. You can make these biscuits in huge quantities and store for a few days. I will post the sweet version later. For now, enjoy my savory version.
This is the first time I am giving step by step procedure. Hope it will be useful for you.

Ingredients:
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt
Hing - 1/4 tsp
Green chilli - 1
Mint & Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp
Butter - 1 tbsp
Oil - To deep fry

Method:
To wheat flour, add salt, hing, softened butter, finely minced green chilli, mint and coriander leaves.
Take about 1/2 cup water (approximately) and add it little by little to the flour and knead for 10 minutes. If the dough is tight, add some more water. If it is very loose, add some flour.
Add oil at this stage and make a soft dough.



Slightly dust the surface with some flour. Take a small portion of the dough. Roll it and flatten using a rolling pin into circular shape.



The roti should neither be too thin nor thick.



Heat a griddle and cook the roti for 10 seconds on each side. It should not be cooked fully.
Repeat this procedure for rest of the rotis.



Stack them and cut into squares.



Heat oil in a pan.
When it is hot, fry the cut pieces in small batches to golden brown.



Cool completely and store in air tight containers.
Serve with tea/coffee.