Brinjal Chops Recipe | Kathirikkai Chops

This is one of my very own favorite recipes which amma makes rarely at home. This will be very spicy, because of the chilli powder and also the whole pepper corns which are ground to paste gives an extra ordinary tempting flavor to the dish. Some will like the taste of fennel seeds and few don’t. I personally like the fragrance of fennel in the recipe. Avoid if ur not willing to add fennel in the dish. This can be served with steamed rice as such or can also be served as side dish for sambar and rasam. I like this curry to serve with crispy dosas.  While buying brinjal always chose the smaller ones rather the medium or big sized ones. Smaller ones are easy to cook and they are much tastier than the others.  

Preparation time: 5-7 mins
Cooking time: 10-20 mins

Egg Tawa Fry | Hot &Spicy Egg Recipe

Egg tawa fry, am hearing this for the first time. Amma always used to make eggs with onion-tomato curry. And that curry can be used as a side dish for idli-dosa and even for rice. This tawa fry don’t need any onions or tomato or any other things. Just the masalas goes along with the hard boiled eggs. When ur really in a hurry to make a hot and spicy dish, definitely you can opt for this. I learned it from TH, his granny used to make this for him it seems and he suddenly remembered that and he badly wanted to taste it now. So, this is his recipe which I tried and tasted and certified to be good. He just loves this along-side with rasam and steamed rice. 

Check out how to make Egg podimas and also Egg Masala Podimas

Kale Stir-Fry | Kale leaves Poriyal

I generally love to have greens (keerai) in my meal every day. When I was in India, I love to have all varieties of keerai especially siru keerai (tropical amaranthus) poriyal. But it became tough for me to get the fresh greens here. I never even attempted to buy frozen foods which are packed from India. So I wanted to give a try with the greens which are available here. I tried to make poriyal with kale and it turned out awesome. I served it with the spicy garlic kuzhambu and with some vadams topped with a spoon of ghee. It tasted heavenly. Please do try this at home and let me know the reviews.

Preparation time: less than 5 mins
Cooking time: 10-15mins

Lauki Kofta Curry | Bottle Gourd Kofta Curry Recipe

Lauki Kofta or Bottle gourd kofta can be served with rice or chapathi. In tamil we call as sorakkai and am not a great fan of it. I never knew that we can make kofta using bottle gourd until I find it online. TH loves kofta generally and I served it for chapathi for our dinner.

It is very important to squeeze out all the water from the grated bottle gourd else it would be difficult in making balls and also in deep frying. Add besan if u need it more. As soon u mix the mixture for the kofta, deep fry it quickly. Else it will become watery because of the bottle gourd and also the onions.

It is always better to serve this immediately you prepare. Prepare kofta and gravy separately and while serving add kofta in the serving bowl and then pour the gravy on to it. Keep for 5 mins or so and then serve. 

Egg Masala Podimas | Egg Bhurji

This podimas is a slight variation of Egg podimas recipe which I had posted before. In that I just added onions and green chillies which suits rice with spicy gravy. Whereas this podimas is for rice along with sambar or rasam which are less spiced. This podimas even taste better when done in Iron skillet rather the non-stick wok.

You can directly break the eggs on to the masalas or you can whisk the eggs separately in a bowl and then add to the masalas. In either way it tastes the same, I believe. The best combo for this podimas is Sambar. This will be a sure shot winner if u don’t have any veggies at home, but still wanted to have a perfect meal.

Preparation time: 3-5minutes

Cooking time: 7-10 minutes

Fish Tawa Fry | Simple Fish Fry

After coming to California I tried many varieties of fish as like we get in India. In a way am happy for the switching from Minnesota. I tried King Fish (vanjaram), Pomfret (vavval) and also Golden thread (sankara) fish fries. As I already told u, am a great great fan of fish… and sankara (golden thread) is one of my favorite. I love to have fish with the bones. Actually the bones enhance the tastes. TH really gets irritated to eat the fish along with the bones.

This recipe was tried long before when I was in Minnesota. I tried it with Catfish. Amma always makes this masala for Sankara meen and it melts in mouth… whenever we buy fish, my work is to clean and doing the marinating. TH does the frying part for me patiently. I must say he is an expert in doing that. I really like the way he fries the fish for me. Even this fry was done by him and I simply ate it once they are piping hot.

Try this recipe with any variety of fish and let me know ur reviews. Don’t forget to check out other recipes of Fish. Click here for the recipe. 

Preparation time: 30-45 mins

Cooking time: 15-20 mins 

Mutton Kuzhambu | Spicy Mutton Gravy

I rarely make mutton or lamb in my kitchen. Since it has too much of cholesterols and fat I prefer not to take it more. This gravy is one among the rare recipe I make with mutton. In Calif I can see variety of mutton and lamb cuts. This time I bought mutton with the bones on it. I love the bones of the mutton and the trick is to get the bones cooked really very soft.

You can call this as a kuzhambu or gravy which is delicious when served with dosa or idli. Even with idyappam and appam this is the best combo ever. I made this curry for our Sunday lunch and had with Black pepper lamb curry. It made our spiciest Sunday ever… try out the recipe and let me know the comments and reviews. Now to the recipe!!!

Preparation time: 15mins

Cooking time: 30-40 mins

Gobi Manchurian (DRY) Recipe

Preparation time: 15 minsCooking time: 10 mins

Chicken 65 Recipe

I was not a huge fan of deep fried items… and I rarely take this Chicken 65 whenever I visit a restaurant. On the other side TH, a chicken addictive always order this and makes me to taste. After marriage I came to see a street food shop which serves chicken 65 with Idyappam!!! Weird right… even I gave the same look to that… TH insisted me to taste that once, since he loves it… though it was full of oil and lots of red food colors in it, I loved the taste and also the combination of chicken with ldyappam. That weird combo makes to go drool… *slurp*

After coming to US, we miss the shop and the combinations of idyappam with that. TH started to crave for Chicken 65 these days and I tried at home. It was super soft inside and crisper on the outer. I dint add food color to make it more attractive, hence the color differences. I served it with Chicken Manchurian and with Chicken Fried Rice.

Preparation time: 1-2 hours

Cooking time: 10 minutes

South-Indian Style Pomfret Fish Fry | Vavval Meen Varuval

After a long search process I found an Asian store which sells all live fish. I got so excited to see the store which has most of the fishes from almost all the countries. Last Sunday I bought one pomfret along with one golden thread fish. Pomfret, here they also call it has Golden Pompano. In Tamil it is called vavval meen. It doesn't have much bone, so it is easy to make steaks. It needs just a sharp chef knife to make the job easier. TH does the job for me making thin steaks and I cleaned the fish later.

 In this recipe I just used spice powders and tamarind juice to make the fry. This is the easiest masala which also suits any other fish too. I personally like the flavor of onions and tomatoes along with this masala. You can do that by adding little of onions and tomatoes paste to the fish with the powders. TH doesn't like this flavor so I avoided using it.

I also have a fish fry recipe with the chettinad flavors. Checkout the recipe here. I served it with Meen Kuzhambu along with rasam.

Preparation time: 1-2 hours

Cooking time: 20-30mins

Raw Mango Pickle | Cut Mango Pickle | Instant Mango Pickle

Raw Mango Pickle / Cut Mango Pickle are the easiest pickle recipe which can be made in a minute. This can be done instantly when u have just raw mangoes at home. Just chop the mangoes and temper!!! That’s it; the pickle is ready to serve for a grand meal. How could our Indian meal get completed without a pickle?

I always have different varieties of pickle at home to accompany our lunch menu. Sometimes it goes either for parathas or with dosas too. Tomato thokku are the best one which I make. It can be served as a pickle or chutney. And the other pickle I mostly prepare is chilli-garlic pickle which suits best for all parathas. Click on the link to get the recipe. This pickle joins the hand when I found raw mangoes in the nearby shop. Check out my other recipe with raw mangoes.

Preparation time: 3-4 mins

Cooking time: 1-2 mins

Nethili Meen Varuval | Anchovies Fry Recipe

Time to share the weekend special non vegetarian recipe… this time it is not chicken or prawns. Its Anchovies, in tamil we call it has Nethili Meen. These are small sized fish and they are sun dried generally to store for a long period. In India, people used to sundry these anchovies during the summer days and make use of it in the winters. Usually they add lots of salt to the anchovies. Hence it can be preserved for long days without any preservatives. Sun drying helps to take out the moisture from it, so it never gets spoilt easily.

For the first time I saw this anchovies in a Vietnamese shop and I quickly grabbed ones and tried on a week day. Amma always used to make this on a week day since weekends are meant only for fish and prawns. Being a non vegetarian it is always fun to eat all these… *slurp*   

When u buy anchovies, make sure they are dried. Wet anchovies are not suitable for making this recipe. Wet ones are always good to make gravy and the dried once are for roasting. Make sure about the salt content before u add any by urs.  

Preparation time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 15-20 mins

Pepper Prawns Fry | Eral Milagu Varuval | Spicy Shrimp Masala

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Chicken Manchurian | Indo-Chinese Manchurian Recipe with Step-by-Step Pics

Here comes my next chicken recipe for the weekend special . Manchurian has been my very first dish which I tried at home on amma’s guidance. I got the recipe from one of my fren and tried at my home. Amma helped me in deep frying the chicken and all that. She never allowed me to play with hazardous in the kitchen… Soooo caring she seems to be … but now I don’t have any option. I need to take care of myself,  uhhhf!!!

My first dish was a great success and I passed some to my aunt’s place and she was amazed on seeing me doing all this ...I don’t know wat wonder!!! They loved the dish and my uncle cleaned and wiped off the box and returned back for some more …

You can use cauliflower or paneer to make a veggie version of Manchurian. I served it with Egg Fried Rice and Chicken 65 (recipe soon).

Preparation time: 1 hour

Cooking time: 20 mins

Chicken Tikka Masala

After a long gap, a post on non-veg recipe and that too with a chicken. It was almost a month I prepared non-veg at home. I got bored of making it and left a gap in between for the NVs. And now the time arrived to bug up with the recipes.  In this post am not gonna write more about chicken tikka since we had a blog post of it previously. Click here to check out. Here am gonna make a masala out with the tikka which we prepared already. If u have any left out tikka, you can use up in this way and make a awesome side-dish for rice and rotis.

Preparation time: 5 mins (excludes Chicken tikka preparation) 

Cooking time: 20 mins

Paneer Mattar Masala | Side-Dish for Roti/Pulao

I most of the times prefer taking chapathi for dinner. I already listed the side dish for chapathi column separately. (Click here tocheck) even though I make different side dish for roti, paneer is my favorite ones.  Paneer with green peas are the best combo forever. Try this recipe out and u ll know why am telling like that.

I served it with roti for dinner and had the left for the next day lunch along with brown rice pilaf (recipe coming soon)

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 10 mins

Chayote Kootu | Chow-Chow Kootu Recipe

I always love to make kootu. It can be made in just 10 mins or so. Amma gave a simplest recipe for making kootu. Put all the ingredients in a pressure cooker and finally temper it… the kootu is already in mins. I love to have it with plain rice, chapathi and dosai. This kootu will make u addictive when it is had with any kuzhambu along with pappad and steamed rice topped with ghee. I served it with karamani kuzhambu (Recipe Coming Soon) and steamed rice. Hummm!!! Delicious..

Check out other recipe for kootu.

Preparation time: less than 5 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins

Aatukaal Paya | Mutton Paya | South-Indian Style Paya

Are you a pure vegetarian? Then am sorry, this post is not for you. I must say this disclaimer for the vegetarian readers because some of the pics may look yuck. But for the non-veg eaters!!! Here I come… this must be a visual treat for you. 

  

Paya is something which is made with smoked lamb/goat leg. I got these lamb feet from a Mexican shop. They call the lamb feet as paya as like we call in India. The lamb feet have lots of hairs in it and it is very difficult to clean. Hence it is burnt out to get rid of it. In India, I used to get the smoked leg which the butcher used to make in the shop. He has a stove and he directly flames the hairy parts in the leg. Here in US, they give it as such and I need to do the smoking part. If u gets the smoked leg, wash directly and start cooking.

Traditionally the lamb feet are cooked very slowly using wood or charcoal. I still remember my neighbor doing this the day before till the whole night. It’s been cooked in slow flame till the morning. This gives a smoky flavor to the lamb feet and it tastes delicious when it is served with the curry.

Lamb feet are very nutritious and it can be given to the convalescents for recovering from illness. It has lots of protein and calcium value. Lamb feet has good source for Vitamin B12 also. I have heard that it is also served for people with fractures to recover from it.

Serve this delicious-spiced Aatukaal Paya with Idli, Idiyappam, Dosa, Parotta, aapam. 

Preparation time: 30 mins(for smoking it)

Cooking time: 1/2- 1 hour

Cabbage Chana Dal Fry | Muttakos Kadala Paruppu Varuval Recipe

Cabbage Channa dal fry is something which I learnt from my MIL. Amma usually makes cabbage fry with the onion-tomato masala and the twist with the channa dal gives crunchiness to the cabbage fry. You need to careful while cooking with the dal. If it doesn’t cooks properly it will spoil the entire taste of the dish. Take care to cook the dal properly. I used my microwave oven to make it easy for cooking. Use ur kadai with a cup of water to cook the dal, if u don’t have microwave oven at home. I served it with More kuzhambu/Moor Kuzhambu. 

Preparation time: less than 5mins

Cooking time: 10-15 mins

Garlic Chicken Recipe | Indo-Chinese Recipe

Chicken and Fish comes to my mind whenever I think for the menu on every Sundays. And usually it will be Fish fry or gravy, chicken gravy or fry when comes to the recipe. These routine recipes got to a boredom stage and the idea  of making Garlic chicken struck me when we had an outing and the friend of us prepared this garlic chicken. He made the chicken to perfection and it was really sooper soft and awesome.  And yeah, I mentioned here “HE” isn’t it???… That’s not a typo. The rule for the outing is all the guys should prepare their favorite dish… and he was so kind enough to make two dishes for us… TH prepared Egg Fried Rice by himself and obviously I guided him for chopping the veggies and for the preparation things. Don’t ask the story about the mess up of kitchen after that … wofff!!! Egg fried rice along with the Garlic chicken was the highlight that day… Good old days!!! hmmmm

Here comes the recipe for the delicious Garlic Chicken…  Check out other Indo-Chinese recipes.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10-15 minutes