Arisi Adai

Arisi adai in tamilnadu or akki roti in karnataka is a very common tiffin; it is had as breakfast in karnataka and dinner in tamilnadu. I've seen people adding greens in adai (Keerai adai) or carrot and adais are made with ragi flour in the same way. Conventionally, for adais the par boiled rice is soaked and wet ground and cooked partially to get dough consistency before making adais.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1.     Idli rice– 2 cups

2.     Salt as per taste

3.     Carrot – 1 grated

4.     Coriander – 1 tbsp chopped

5.     Green chilies – 1 chopped

6.     Ginger – 1 “piece grated

7.     Oil – 3 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Wash and soak rice for a couple of hours and grind it into fine batter.

Step 2: Add salt and pour the batter in a non-stick handi and heat it by stirring. It thickens soon, add to it carrot, ginger, coriander, green chilies and a tablespoon of oil. Stir until you get a soft dough like consistency.

Step 3: While the dough is still hot divide into equal portions and roll them into balls. Now there are two ways of making them into circular shapes. On a plastic sheet either grease your hands and pat them thin or sandwich ball between two plastic sheets and roll into a thin disc. This needs some practice and also depends on dough consistency. Do this one by one.

Step 4: Heat the tava, grease some oil over it; carefully toss the adai from sheet to tava.

Step 5: Let it cook for a minute, then with dosa ladle flip it and cook the other side. This wil not brown much but you can see brown spots as in phulkas when done. Cook thoroughly; it takes about 3 minutes for 1 adai.

Step 6: Serve hot with jaggery and ghee or butter or chutney of your choice or pickle or even idly podi. I can have it without any supplement.

TIPS:

* Some people prefer to temper mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida and saute the vegetables in it, mix in the dough instead of adding them raw.

* Some people add mashed stead- rice to get soft and textured adais.

*Instant adais can be made by kneading rice flour with other ingredients. The taste is not comparable to fresh ground wet flour though.

Vella Poori

Vellapooris are deep fried, spicy rice puris savoured in some parts of tamilnadu. These fully puffed puris are thin, crisp and stiff on one side and thick, soft and chewy on the otherside. Usually accompanied by coconut chutney they also go well with tangy rasam.

Ingredients:

1. Idli rice - 2 cup

2. Tur dal - 1/2 cup

3. Dry chilies - 2 or 3

4. Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp

5. Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp

6. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

7. Garlic - 6 cloves crushed

8. Salt to taste

Method:

Step 1: Wash and soak rice and dal together for 2 hours.

Step 2: Drain the water and grind rice & dal along with coriander seeds and dry chilies with minimum water to get a  thick and coarse dough like mass. 

Step 3: Mix the turmeric powder, asafoetida, salt, crushed garlic and mix well. Cover the dough in a muslin cloth and leave it for 20 minutes. During this time the excess moisture is absorbed both by cloth and the coarsely ground rice.

Step 4: Heat oil in a deep kadai; take a 50gm -60gm portion of the tight dough place in on a piece of muslin cloth and pat into round shape of 2mm -3mm thickness.

Step 5: Place it on your hand with the cloth on the upper side and peel it gently; now slide the vellapoori gently into the hot oil.

Step 6: With slotted spoon (jalli karandi) slightly push the puri into the oil while they keep popping up, this helps to get the puris puff well and full.

Step 7. Flip on other side and get the vellapoori cooked well on lower side and crisp and golden yellow on upper side. 

Step 8: Once the bubbles subside, drain and  place them on kitchen tissue to absorb excess oil. Repeat for the entire dough.

Step 9: Serve hot with coconut chutney.

TIPS:

* The dough consistency is little tricky, here we are making a dough by wet grinding not batter. So far, I never got to make up a watery dough, so I do not have tips in stock. All my mom says is keep in fridge, let the excess moisture get absorbed by rice and use dry wraps of muslin to absorb. More moisture in dough will complicate making shapes and even dropping in oil will be difficult, in addition to drinking a lot of oil (tamil slang for absorbing more oil ;))

Jeera Aloo

At home, we are not great fans of having dry subji with roti; but I've always wondered how north Indians crave for jeera aloo. I just wanted to tried it myself... I liked it, Kundan didn't like to combine it with roti but otherwise liked it. So you got to try and see if you would go for it. Actually it goes well with dal rice also.

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes - 5
2. Oil - 1-2 tbsp
3. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
4.  Kasoori Methi - 1 tbsp
5. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
6. Salt to taste
7. Chili powder - 1 tsp
8. Coriander powder - 2 tsp
9. Asafoetida - 1 pinch

Method:

Step 1: Boil the potatoes with until done but firm. Peel and cut them into cubes.

Step 2: Heat oil in a non stick pan and crackle cumin seeds; sprinkle asafoetida and add the potato cubes and toss gently so that the cubes don't mash or break.
Step 3: Add turmeric powder, coriander powder, chili powder, crushed kasoori methi, little salt and toss again gently to coat the potatoes with all ingredients evenly. Cover and cook for 3 minutes.

Step 4: Open the lid, toss again and cook without lid for a couple of minutes again.