Chivda-Crispy Poha flavored with spices

Chivda is a Maharashtrian snack made of poha(aval) and spices. I added a few more ingredients to my liking. You can increase or decrease the quantity of each ingredient to suit your taste.

Ingredients:
Poha(thick or thin)-1 cup
Instant Oats(optional)-1/2 cup
Corn flakes-1 cup
Dried coconut flakes-1 tbsp
Oil-1 tbsp
Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp
Chilli powder-as per taste
Salt
Sugar- a pinch
Curry leaves- a few sprigs
Dry roasted slivered almonds(optional)-1 tbsp
Dry roasted peanuts-1 tbsp
Hing- a pinch

Method:
Heat oil in a pan. Add curry leaves, turmeric powder, chilli powder, hing. Immediately add poha. Roast on low flame for 5 minutes or until crisp. When it turns crispy(it will still be white in color during this stage), add corn flakes, oats, coconut flakes, salt, sugar, almonds and peanuts. Stir for 1 more minute and turn off the heat. Transfer the mixture to a container. Allow it to cool completely. Then store it in an air-tight container.

Note:Oats get roasted very quickly. So add it after roasting poha well.
Roasted oats give a nice aroma. So I like adding it to the mixture.

Sprouted Kollu (Horsegram) Pongal

After a break, I am back again to blogging. After the vacation, I had planned some posts but both office and home took away all the time and naturally blogging took a back seat.

I regularly sprout moong,horse gram and wheat. Mostly it is steamed and used in salads and stir fries like cabbage/carrot. Occasionally moong sprouts are used in gravies for rotis/rice. I was thinking of using moong sprouts for preparing pongal in place of moong dal. When I planned pongal, I had only horse gram sprouts. Decided to go ahead with my plan of making pongal with the available sprouts. Actually, I was very skeptical of how it will taste and that too I was preparing it for breakfast. If it doesn't turn out well, I won't have time to prepare anything else since my husband leaves at 7:00 in the morning.

But When I opened the pressure cooker, I was completely swept over by the aroma of horse gram and rice combined with hing and turmeric. And with seasoning added to it, it was a winner.

sprouted horse gram (kollu/muthira) - 1/3 cup
raw rice - 2/3 cup
turmeric - a big pinch
hing powder - few shakes
water - 3 cups

Seasoning
Ghee - 3 tblspn
crushed pepper - 1/2 tblspn
jeera/cumin - 1 tspn
small wedge of ginger finely chopped and lightly crushed.
salt
curry leaves

Pressure cook horse gram,rice,hing powder and turmeric in 3 cups of water. Horse gram will not cook mushy. It gives a nice crunch to the pongal. Mash the cooked mixture.

Heat a kadai. Add 3 tablespoons of ghee. Add rest of the seasoning ingredients. When jeera turns into light brown, add it to the cooked rice+gram mix. Mix well. Serve hot with coconut chutney or any tamarind based gravy.

The consistency of pongal remains the same even on cooling unlike moong dal based pongal.

This goes to JFI-Sprouts guest hosted at Ammalu's Kitchen.

Fruity Fruit Cake

Before the Christmas, I was requested by a friend to make a tray of fruit cake and wrap it as little small gifts. I really have no idea what fruit cake recipe to use as there are so many version of fruit cake recipe. Finally, I used a traditional fruit cake recipe from Nigella Lawson. I managed to buy some natural dried fruits from the market and I think natural sweet would be better than artificial sweetness. Furthermore, I reduced the sugar from the original recipe and the cake turn out just nice. The cake was really chewy with the natural sweetness and the cake crumbs wasn't too sweet and buttery. You could see from the picture the dried fruits are more than the cake crumbs which was the purpose of just to bring all the drieds fruits combine together. I baked a tray and finally I'd cut into even size of 49 pieces.