Parangikkai Paruppu Kootu / Pumpkin Coconut Curry with Indian flavours | Indian Curry Recipes

Pumpkin kootu is an easy to make earthy curry which has the consistency of a stew. This is a medley of sweetness from the pumpkin, earthiness from the moong dhal and spiciness from the chillis. Coconut gives a balance between the flavors and brings it together. 
If you want to make maximum use of the pumpkin season and want to try something simple with Indian spices, this is for you.

Diwali Sweet and Savory Snack & Blog Hop Week 8

I am very late in posting the diwali recipes.....as my hubby was not in town...I decided to make these sweet and savory this week as he will be home.

I am combining Diwali and blog hop together with two recipes, one being the sweet and the other savory snack. This week I am paired with Archana of "The Mad Scientist's Kitchen" who has a beautiful space full of yummy and mouthwatering recipes. I would like to thank again Radhika of "Tickling Palates" for introducing me to all the blogger friends and to try their recipes my own way.

OK, now lets start with the sweet recipe......

SUNNUNDALU ( Urad Dal Ladoo)

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Ingredients:

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3 cups Urad Dal (I used the split ones, you can also use whole)

3 1/2 cups Sugar

1/2 tsp Cardamom powder

3/4 - 1 cup Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Method:

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1. In a large pan dry roast urad dal in medium flame until it turns very slight brown color or when you bite into a dal, it should not taste raw.

2. Allow the dal to come to room temperature.

3. Now in a mixer add the dal and powder it and make sure there is no very coarse grains of the dal.

4. Now transfer it to a large mixing bowl, add the sugar (you can powder the sugar along with the dal if you want - I did not powder so as to make the ladoo with a crunchy texture, else it will stick in your mouth).

5. Now add the cardamom powder mix well, add ghee slowly until you can make a ball (ladoo) out of the dal powder.

6. Now make small balls out of the dal, sugar and ghee mixture and allow it to rest for minutes and enjoy! (I made around 55 ladoo out of this quantity).

Now that you have sweet taste...lets balance it with a Savory Snack...............

MURUKKULU or JANTHIKALU (Gram and Rice Flour Savory Crackers)

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Ingredients:

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This proportion is only for a small amount...you can increase the quantity as per your required amount of the Murukkulu.

I got this recipe from one of the blogger friends of "Rak's Kitchen", I love all her recipes and drool over her pictorials.....as soon as I saw this savory snack....I bookmarked it to make it as diwali snack....so here is the recipe. I did not get enough time to do a step by step pitorials...so if you need one you can go to her blog. I really would like to thank her for sharing this recipe. I did minor changes to her recipe.

Ingredients:

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1 cup Gram Flour (Besan) heaped

3/4 cup Rice flour

2 tbsp Melted Butter
1/8 tsp Turmeric powder
1/8 thsp Asafoetida

1 tsp Cumin seeds (coarsely ground)

2 tsp Black Peppercorns (coarsely ground)

Salt as needed

Water as needed
Oil for deep frying.

Method:
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1. In a spice mixer add cumin and peppercorns and coarsely grind them and keep it aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sieve besan so as to remove the lumps, add rice flour, asafoetida, salt, turmeric powder and the crushed cumin and pepper, mix well.

3. Now add the melted butter and mix again so that the entire flour mixture is little soft and crumbly.
4. Now add water little by little and make a dough which is firm enough so that when you form a ball it should not have cracks or should not be dry.
5. Now in a kadai add oil and heat it on a medium flame.
6. Now take a murukku press with a star hole (you can use any shape, make sure the hole is big enough so that the cumin or pepper corns don't get stuck while pressing).

7. Now fill part of the dough into the murukku press, and now test whether the oil is hot enough....to do that you need to drop a small piece of the dough into the oil, if it rises as soon as you put it then the oil if ready, else if it sinks without any bubbles then you need to wait.
8. Now press the murukku press and make big circles, about two. Make sure that you do not overcrowd the oil.
9. Now cook it until it turns golden brown flipping once both sides for about 7-8 mins.
10. Now remove the murukkulu into a plate lined with paper towel to absorb the extra oil.
11. After it cools I broke into bite size pieces and we can store it in a zip lock bag or into a air tight container lined with paper towel, so that it will absorb all the moisture.

I am linking this recipe to my Diwali Event RoundUp and Blog Hop Wednesday

Chettinad Chicken Gravy

I started to cook egg, chicken and seafood recipes only few months back. Till now, I feel it is a challenging job and I am posting each recipe based on the husband's feedback.  He is the one who guides me to prepare this or that when it comes to non-veg food. A month ago, he asked me to prepare a chicken gravy in chettinad style, I enquired few of my friends and some cook books. After experimenting few recipes, he liked this one from sailu's kitchen. Now it has become one of the repeated non-veg recipes at my home.



Basic Information:
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

For Gravy:



Chicken - 1/2-3/4 kg , washed

Shallots/Red onion - 1 cup, sliced

Tomato - 1 cup, sliced

Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Curry leaves - 1 string

Coconut Milk - 1 cup (I used canned coconut milk)

Salt - to taste

Oil - 1 tablespoon

Coriander leaves - for garnishing



For Masala:



Black Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Fennel seeds - 3/4 teaspoon

Coriander seeds - 1 and 1/2 tablespoons

Dry red chillies - 6 nos

Cardamoms - 2 no

Cinnamon - 1 inch length

Curry leaves - 1 string



For Paste:



Green Chillies - 3 nos

Garlic - 2 big cloves

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Poppy seeds - 1 teaspoon (Soak in 1 tablespoon warm water for 10 minutes)

Method:



1) Dry roast the ingredients given 'For Masala' for 2-3 minutes and grind it to a powder when it comes to room temperature. Keep aside.

2) Make a paste of all the ingredients given 'For Paste'. Keep aside.

3) Heat Oil in a pressure cooker. Add onions and curry leaves. Saute them till onions get soft.

4) Add paste(as said in step 2) and saute for a minutes.

5) Add chicken pieces, cover and cook for 5-7 minutes. Chicken will leave out some water now while cooking. Stir in between for proper cooking.

6) Add tomato, turmeric powder and salt. Mix well and reduce the flame to low and cook the chicken for another 5-7 minutes, uncovered.

7) When you see the chicken is 3/4th cooked, add the coconut milk. Mix well.

8) Close the pressure cooker with lid and cook for 5 more minutes or cook for a whistle.

9) Now, open the lid and add the masala powder (as said in step 1). In a medium flame cook for some time.

 

10) Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.

Note:

1) If you are going to cook more than the given quantity here, cook first 1-7 steps in a wide pan and then transfer the content to a pressure cooker to proceed with the remaining step for easy handling.

2) Adjust dry red chilli, green chilli, black pepper quantity according to your taste.

3) I used 5 chicken drumstick pieces to cook this gravy.

4) No need to add water for the gravy. Coconut milk is alone enough.