Pollavadai ~ Navarathri Special

Tomorrow, Navarathri begins. Its celebration time for the next 10 days. In my home, we follow the tradition of keeping golu. Evenings are busy with everyone visiting Golus in the neighborhood. Ladies visit only once to a house where as the children of the neighborhood are the privileged lot who visits all nine days,to all the houses where Golus are kept . The different kind of prasadoms make their dinner. I too had similar days during my childhood. There are four temples in our neighborhood. Prasadoms are distributed in all those temples after the night Aarti, during navarathri days, irrespective of whether it is a Devi temple or not. The first one to start was at the temple very near my house. After our golu visits, we proceed to temple hopping to collect prasadoms before it gets over. The last day at the temple, will be grand with as many as 8 prasadoms ranging from sundals, sweets like laddoo, mysurpa etc.

I am giving the recipe for Pollavadai, which is a popular Golu bhakshanam. Its similar to Thattai, but smaller in size.

You need
Rice flour - 11/2 cups

Chana dal - 1/4 cup

Tuvar dal - 1/4 cup

Urad dal - 1 tblspn

Red chilly - 3 nos

Hing powder - few shakes

Curry leaves - 2 stalks

Salt to taste

Oil to deep fry

Wash and soak the dals together in enough water for an hour. Drain. Grind to a coarse paste along wit red chilly, hing, curry leaves and salt. Don't add water. Mix in the rice flour to the ground dal mix and prepare the dough, similar to chappati dough. Take gooseberry/marble sized dough and press it down into flat thin discs with your fingers. You can use oiled ziplock covers or banana leaves. Meanwhile heat oil in a kadai. When the oil is smoking hot, slowly drop the flattened discs into the oil. Lightly press it down with the perforated ladle. The puffed discs will come up to the oil. Gently turn them and remove when it is golden brown. Drain on kitchen towels and store in airtight containers. This will stay crisp for a day or two unlike thattais. This is mostly made as an evening tea time snack and not for storing for a long period.

Happy Navarathri to you all. Enjoy the 9 days of festivity.

After my vacation, except for the Onam post, my blog is mainly dormant. Call it blogger's block or sheer laziness on my part, I somehow couldn't bring myself to blog. Finally the arrival of long festive days have brought me here. Hope to continue posting as usual. I had the pleasure of meeting Harini and her son during my vacation. True to her blog avatar, Sunshinemom, she indeed has a radiant personality.

Julia's Kitchen Being Remodeled

Industry publication Kitchen & Bath Business has an article in this month's edition about the 1961 kitchen, now in the Smithsonian, from Julia Child's home; where she created her daily cooking program.

The new film, Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep playing Julia Child, is such a smash hit that interest in The French Chef is reaching a fever pitch.
























Julia Child's kitchen, on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.


















Meryl Streep as Julia Child, on set in Julie & Julia. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Wenk, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In the article, Ready, Set, Remodel, kitchen designers from around the US are asked how they would change Julia's kitchen today, to bring it into the 21st Century.

Me? I wouldn't change a thing.

Peggy

Quick Pasta

Pasta (Italian pasta, from Latin pasta "dough, pastry cake", from Greek παστά (pasta) "barley porridge" is a generic term for foods made from an unleavened dough of flour and water or eggs and water, and sometimes a combination of egg and flour.


Pasta is categorized in two basic styles: dried and fresh. Dried pasta made without eggs can be stored for up to two years under ideal conditions, while fresh pasta will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator

What we now know as "pasta" originated in Italy. While many different cultures ate some sort of noodle-like food, composed mostly of grain, the key characteristics of pasta are durum wheat semolina, with a high gluten content, made with a technique that allows the resultant dough to be highly malleable. Thus, the many different shapes (i.e., ziti, spaghetti, ravioli) that characterize "pasta." South of Europe, in Arab North Africa, a food similar to pasta has been eaten for centuries: cous-cous

While the only basic difference between these names is the shape of the pasta, each pasta is typically matched with a particular sauce based on cooking time, consistency, ability to hold sauce, ease of eating, etc

Information source : Wikipedia.org

For More Information and Types of Pasta  : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta

Like all the Food Lovers i too love to watch cookery shows. i saw this recipe in Vijay TV.

Posting this for Think spice - Think Red Chillies Event and Sunita's Blog Think Spice Event

Quick Pasta

Ingredients
Pasta - 1/2 cup

chilli powder - 2 - 3 tsp

garlic - 1 clove finely chopped

canola oil - 1-1/2 tbsp

salt to taste

Method

Boil Water with salt in a Skillet.  Drop pasta and cover it and wait  for 3-4 minutes. Pasta will be cooked, Drain the excess water. This is how i cooked. Check the instructions on ur pasta pack before u start,

Heat oil in kadai, splutter jeera/cumin seeds, add garlic and cook Keep the flame low. Add pasta and add chilli powder. check the salt.

cook for 2 minutes or until its all well combined

Serve it with some shredded cheese or simply with some Tomato sauce.