Milagai Pachchadi

At our home this is one of the regular side dishes that accompany the pongal which is prepared on the day of Pongal festival. We just love it so much for this stimulates our taste buds by rendering a mixture of tastes; sweet, heat, salt and sourness. It is not frequented at home as it is pretty much concentrated and so we indulge as and when prepared. Apart from pongal it goes well with curd rice.

Yields:  1 cup

Preparation Time:  5 minutes

Cooking Time:  15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Green chilies – 5-10 (depending on the heat of chilies)

2.    Tamarind extract – ½ cup

3.    Jaggery – half a lemon size

4.    Salt to taste

5.     Gingelly oil – 1 tbsp

6.    Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

7.     Curry leaves – 1 sprig

8.    Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Method:

Step 1: Heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds in it, add curry leaves, asafoetida and green chilies to it. Sauté until green chilies let out a nice aroma and turn whitish.

Step 2: Dissolve jaggery in ½ cup of water, filter and add it to the pan.

Step 3: Add the tamarind extract, salt and boil in simmered heat until becomes thick. Adjust salt, sour and sweet if required at this stage.

Step 4: Serve with steamed rice or curd rice. This can be stored for few days.

Ada Pradhaman

Ada Pradhaman is equivalent to paayasam or kheer in Kerala. Kundan had tasted it from one of his colleagues and was craving to have it again. Unfortunately I couldn't find from my local grocers, the readymade ‘ada’ which is a main ingredient for this dessert. Amma had got it from Pondicherry sometime back and I finally attempted this simple version of ada pradhaman. Traditionally the ada itself is made at home as and when required and prepared with coconut milk which I'll try and share shortly.

Serves:  5

Preparation Time:  15 minutes

Cooking Time:  30 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Ada – ½ cup

2.    Sugar – 1 cup

3.    Milk – 3 cups

4.    Coconut chopped – 3 tbsp

5.     Cashew nuts – 10

6.    Raisins – a fistful

7.     Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

8.    Ghee – 2 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Boil the milk in simmered stove by stirring occasionally until it thickens well.

Step 2: Heat ghee in a tawa and fry ada, cashew nuts, raisins and coconut one by one and keep them aside.

Step 3: Add the fried ada to the boiling milk and cook it until the ada is soft by stirring occasionally.

Step 4: When the ada is cooked well, they float on the surface; check if it is soft till center and then add sugar and cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off heat.

Step 5: Stir in cardamom powder, fried cashew nuts, raisins and serve hot or warm or even chilled.

Banana Stem Mocktail

Okay, I can hear that ‘what the heck…’ on seeing the name J. People say that many a time boredom is in the way things are presented rather than the things itself. So here is my attempt to make a not so interesting banana-stem juice more alluring. Try it and I bet you won’t regret it. And a well known piece of info is 'It is said to be very good for people with kidney stones'.

Serves:  2

Preparation Time:  NA

Ingredients:

1.      Banana stem – 4 “ long

2.    Coriander – few sprigs

3.    Curry leaves – 1 sprig

4.    Green chili – 1 small

5.     Lemon – 1

6.  Salt to taste

Method:

Step 1: Wash and chop the banana stem into 1” size cubes; place it in a mixer jar.

Step 2: Wash and add green chili, coriander leaves, curry leaves, lemon juice and salt to the mixer jar.

Step 3: Grind them with some fresh water. Filter using a mesh and grind the pulp again with some more water to extract the juice completely; filter and discard the mush.

Step 4: Now taste and adjust salt, water and lemon juice in it.

Step 5: Serve and relish the refreshing mock tail immediately.