Wish you all a Very Happy Tamil New year/Vishu kani.

April 14 is the Tamil New Year and according to our calendar, the year Vikruthi starts today. The tradition for vishu celebration is to keep a tray filled with coins and cash, clothes and fruits infront of a image of deity and seeing the reflection of the tray in a mirror and seeing it as the first object, the first thing in the morning. This image is also a representation of materials one can expect in the new year (hence the reflection in the mirror).

Though a feast is prepared for Tamil New Year back home which includes a bitter neem rasam and a sweet and sour mango chutney, I just kept it simple this year with some Sheera, instead of the usual payasam(kheer).

Sheera can also be made as a prasad(offering) for satya narayana pooja. This is a quick and simple dessert too, and can be served either hot or cold.

Ingredients:

Sooji/Rava/Semolina: 1 cup
Sugar : 1.5 cups
Ripe Banana-1
Milk- 2 cups
Ghee- 4 tbsp

Cashews/almonds/saffron- to garnish
Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp

Method:

Heat ghee in a frying pan and fry the rava till it turns golden brown in color and you can smell the aroma of toasted rava.

In the mean time boil 2 cups of milk in a sauce pan. Finely chop the banana.

Once the milk is bubbling, simmer the flame and add the bananas. Lightly mash them and add the toasted rava(slowly). Take care while adding the rava to the hot milk as rava bubbles vigorously.

After adding rava, add in the sugar and stir well. The melting sugar will thin out the sheera. Stir on low flame for 2-3 minutes and switch off.

Grease the insides of a pan(any shape) with a tea spoon of ghee. Transfer the sheera to the pan and level it. Once it has cooled, you can slice it and serve it as kesari slices, instead of a gooey-pudding.

Roast cashews in ghee. Garnish the sheera with cashews, saffron and cardamom powder. If you are making it for satya narayana pooja, just use the five ingredients milk, ghee, sugar, banana and rava.

I am sending this Sheera to Priya’s Cooking with Cardamom seeds event.

Kiran tagged me in for a chain link, and I have to share about 10 women I admire the most. Actually going through Kiran’s list, I thought pretty much she has covered about women who young girls and others look up to. Your post was awesome Kiran!

Thanks for tagging me in for the link- Since I should keep it going too, I’d say I admire women who are like an all rounder in cricket field- especially the home makers and working women who juggle a lot of chores in a day and still manage to run the show! That includes women I haven’t met or heard about yet, but who go about doing these tasks as though it is nothing!

What do you say gals? Do you agree with me?

When Srivalli announced Adirasam as the challenge for this month, I had mixed emotions. I was happy ‘coz it is my favorite sweet, scared because it can trick even a well experienced cook/chef. My mom always says that making savory snacks is easy compared to sweets and especially adirasam, which she calls as “mirror like look” (shiny) when it is well done and fried.

Though amma makes adirasams for festivals like diwali and karthigai (and when I go home), she also makes it to remember the day my Grandmother passed away as adirasam was granny’s favorite sweet. Mom will be muttering to herself from the time she starts making adirasams for the D-day and will keep reminding her what to do to get the correct consistency. That is the only time I get to see her panicking in the kitchen. Mom says it is also a mark of respect and she wants to get it correct on that day.

I have not tried adirasam till now as I was worried about the consistency of the syrup. Either the dough can turn up as thick rocks or disintegrate in the oil. Luckily,Srivalli posted two recipes, one with paagu and another simple method and naturally I chose the second option.

Ingredients: (Makes 8-9 adirasams)

Rice Flour – 1 cup
Jaggery(Unrefined Palm sugar)-1/2 cup
Coconut grated – 2 tsp
Cardamom powder – 1/4 tsp
Water – 1/2 cup
Sesame seeds – 1 tbsp ( I skipped this)

Canola oil- To deep fry
Ghee – 1 tsp ( I added this to oil to make the adirasams taste as if they were deep fried in ghee).

Method:

I had achu vellam and I used 3 cubes of the jaggery to give a mildly sweet/ not overpowering taste.

Let the jaggery dissolve in exact measurement of water. Filter once and simmer it on the stove. Adding more water to the jaggery will only take longer cooking time.

Once the jaggery- water starts boiling, add cardamom powder and coconut. Mix well. Slowly add the rice flour and mix well to avoid any lumps. At one stage the flour will stop sticking to the pan and you can collect it together like a ball.

Remove from fire and keep aside, covered. You can also store this basic dough to make adirasams later. Divide the dough into equal parts.

Heat oil on a pan to deep fry the adirasams.

Wrap a cling film on a chappati maker and take one portion of the dough. Slightly press it like a pattie and transfer it to the oil. Let it fry on both sides. Drain on a paper towel and store in a airtight container.

Serve as a snack. We just finished it off by munching one every now and then

Wishing you all a very Happy Pongal! Hope the milk and pongal has “pongified” in all homes with the Pongalo Pongal greetings!

Continuing with the Pongal recipes, Poli is a sweet that is prepared mostly on bohi(the day before pongal) or on Pongal day. Poli is almost like the cousin of aloo paratha…..The only difference is that the filling is not potato but a sweet filling of coconut, jaggery and chana dal.

A warm poli with a dollop of ghee on top is my favorite way to enjoy it.

Ingredients ( Makes 8 polis)

For the stuffing(Pooranam):
Chana dal- 1/2 cup
Jaggery- 1/4 cup
Grated Coconut- 4 tbsp
Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp

For the parathas:
All purpose flour- 1 cup
Sesame oil- 2 tsp
Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
Salt- a pinch

Other ingredients:
Ghee- 2 tbsp

Method:

Knead all purpose flour(maida), salt and turmeric powder with just enough water to make it like a thick dough. Pour 2 tsp of sesame oil on top, roll it well to coat on all sides. Cover and keep it aside for at least one hour.

Wash and Soak chana dal in water for 10 minutes. Boil it with water so that the chanda dal can be mashed well with a fork. Drain the water and keep aside.

Powder the jaggery well. In a blender jar,add jaggery, cooked chana dal(without water) and give it a quick pulse so that it mixes well.

Heat a non stick pan and add a teaspoon of ghee. Quickly stir fry the blended jaggery-chana dal mixture for a minute. Add the grated coconut and cardamom powder, stir for a minute. Switch off. Let it cool, the jaggery will thicken if it cools, so, don’t worry if jaggery is a bit runny. Make equal lemon sized balls.

Divide the all purpose flour dough prepared in the first step in to equal sized balls.

To make this poli, you cannot use the rolling pin, but you have to use your fingers to flatten it up. What I usually do is to wrap a cling film wrap on top of my round chapati roller base and proceed to flatten the polis(parathas). That way the dough and the filling will not stick to the base.

Take one measure of the dough ball and flatten it with your fingers lightly, keep a lemon sized stuffing in the middle. Cover the stuffing by wrapping it with the flattened dough. Slightly flatten it again. The poli dough will be very elastic so you can shape it easily.

Heat a non stick pan and transfer the poli to the pan. Add a dollop of ghee on the top and to the sides. When one side is cooked and turns golden in color, turn it over and wait till the both sides are golden brown in color. Proceed to complete other polis the same way.

Serve warm with a drop of ghee on top or as such at room temperature. Poli goes well with Vada’s or Sundal’s too, and they make a good snack together.

Amazing, Awesome, Fantastic, Spell Bounding, Magnificent, Too good to be true, Surreal…

Nope, I am not praising my mavilakku’s. We went to Avatar last night and folks usually say they are lost for words..But I have a list of words to praise the movie, and nothing can do justice. No wonder it hit the $1B mark in 2 weeks. And we may add to the collections as we are going to watch it again this weekend

Who knows, may be our kalki avatar will be like that too, winning the war of good vs evil. James Cameron either thinks 100 years ago(Titanic) or a century ahead. But worth every cent and every minute!

Since we are nearing the tamil month of Thai (Jan 15-Feb 15), I thought of writing about this mavilakku – a lamp of flour and ghee. Growing up in Tamilnadu, two of the twelve months are really famous for offering prayers. It is either the month of Adi (July-August) or Thai (Jan-Feb). Most famous temples for goddess like Kali, Durga, Amman, Mariyamman have festivals to celebrate the power of goddesses  and there would be events like walking on fire or body piercing, if a prayer was answered.

Mavillaku is another way of praying and thanking the goddess for her support in tough times. Ma – is the maavu or the flour and the vikallu means lamp. I think it is a way of representing the soul and the body as the lamp and the fire within.

Traditionally the flour is made fresh at home. One cup of rice is soaked in water for 10 minutes and then dried on a plate inside the house. The rice is then powdered for flour. I have made mavilakku in this way, but now I use rice flour instead of grinding it at home.

Ingredients:

Rice flour- 1 cup
Jaggery- 1.5 cups
Ghee- 1/2 cup and another 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder- 1/2 tsp

Lamp Wick-one wick

Method:

Make sure that you don’t taste this while you make it. Since this is an offering, it can only be tasted after prayers.

Grate the jaggery (or chop the jaggery into cubes and finely powder it). Mix rice flour and jaggery together. Start adding the ghee slowly so that the rice flour and jaggery can be made into a ball. When it reaches this stage, add the cardamom powder and knead softly to mix.

In this flour ball, make a hole in the middle to create a cup (not entirely like a doughnut) but leaving some space to hold the base and to hold the ghee. Place this flour lamp in to another stainless steel cup. If available, you can also line up the base with a banana leaf.

Pour the remaining ghee into this hole (cup). Dip the wick in this ghee and arrange it with one end touching the ghee and another end out of the cup. Light the wick and let the flour lamp cook slowly in ghee (As the lamp burns, the flour will be cooked).

When the light dies down on it’s own, you can remove the wick and taste the mavilakku. This mavilakku (sweet) stores well for even 6 months. I guess in the olden days since people were traveling from place to place on foot, this was a useful dessert to carry along too.