Red Rice (Chemba) and Ragi Idiappam

Shoj likes idiappam a lot, we had it sometime back in his friends place for breakfast, from that day I was thinking about trying it. I looked into my kitchen storage closet and saw his Chemba puttu podi packet. It's a kind of red rice variety, which normally is a staple rice in Kerala. We can make puttu (steamed rice cake) out of this flour, another staple breakfast recipe of Kerala. The color and texture of it is similar to Ragi powder, so I thought of mixing both and make Idiappam.

Ingredients:

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1 cup Chemba puttu powder (or rice flour)

1 cup Ragi powder

1/4 cup Grated Coconut

1 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Cardamom powder

1 1/2 cup water

Method:

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1. In a bowl add ragi powder, chemba powder, salt and cardamom powder and mix well.

2. In the meantime boil water.

3. Add half of the hot water and mix well with a spoon. Now add water little by little and keep mixing to form a dough like chapati dough.

4. Keep it aside for about 10 mins.

5. You can use either one of the idiappam makers as shown above. I used the one which is in the gun shape.

6. Take a bowl of cold water and dip your hands into it. Now take a big lemon size of the dough and make a cylindrical shape to insert into the idiappam maker. Close the lid.

7. Another idea is that you can make this idiappam in idli shapes or as I did.

8. To make idli shapes you have to use a idli cooker and idli plates.

STAINLESS STEEL COLLAPSIBLE VEGETABLE STEAMER 

9. But I used pressure cooker in which I filled with little water and place the Chinese steamer as shown above.

10. Place a wet kitchen tissue on top (Note: Kitchen towel is used so that the idiappam does not stick to the steamer plate which will make it easier to clean without any mess), sprinkle with coconut and gun the idiappma maker so that the idiappam falls and keep it going around the steamer.

11. After it's half filled add another layer of coconut and then again gun the idiappam.

12. Now close the cooker and steam it for about 15 mins.

13. Off the stove and let it stand for about 5 mins. Then open the cooker and remove the steamer with the idiappam holding the handle and you can just lift the idiappam to a serving plate or you can hold a plate on top of the steamer and flip it upside down and if will fall off easily to the plate with the paper towel. Now you can lift the paper powel and flip again so that the top of the idiappam is faced up.

13. Serve this warm with Egg Curry in Coconut Milk. (click on the link for the recipe) or sprinkle some sugar, kids will love this recipe.

Go Back To Egg Curry with Coconut Milk Recipe.

Quick Banana Bread Pudding

I had this stale Italian bread sitting inside my fridge for about a week, so thought of using this up into a new, but interesting recipe. Saturday morning, nice and sunny outside....those beautiful sun rays sparkled an idea into my mind, of making bread pudding. This is how I used up both my bread and the banana.When I was ready to post this recipe to my blog, I just typed stale bread on to Google. I saw this interesting site telling about "10 smart ways to reuse stale bread". I am adding a link to that site, thought may be it will be useful to you all and for me too to refer later to make other things with a stale bread.

Ingredients:

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1 long Stale Italian Bread (you can use any stale bread which is bit dried without any moisture)

2 ripe bananas

2 +1 tbsp Brown sugar

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 Dried Cherries, Berries and Raisins

1 pinch Salt

Method:

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1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Cut the bread into bite size cubes and place it in a bowl.

3. In a small bowl add 1 pinch salt, 2 tbsp brown sugar and bananas and mash it. (It does not matter if there are chunks of banana)

4. Now mix both the banana and bread so that all the banana is well coated.

5. Now add the dried fruits and mix well and shift these ingredients to a baking dish or casserole.

6. Sprinkle 1 tbsp brown sugar on top.

7. Cover the baking dish with aluminium foil and bake it for about 30 mins.

8. Now remove the foil and bake it again for about 5-8 mins or until the top is crispy and brown.

9. Serve this warm as it is for breakfast or as a dessert with some whipped cream or ice cream of your choice.

Fenugreek Coriander Thokku

Fenugreek Coriander Thokku/Chutney is a rare and lovely combination of two of my favorite greens. This is again one of my grandma's recipes, and can't go wrong anytime. It is a great item to prepare when we have time and preserve for future use. It tastes great with hot steamed rice or a great side dish for chapathi or a tangy-savory spread for breads. Definitely won't let you down when you are