Kotthimeera Sorakaya Kurra

Ingredients

Sorakaya/ Lauki - small

Coriander leaves - bunch

Green chillies - 6

Curry leaves/karvepaku - few

Salt

 

Process

1. Wash and peel off the skin from the sorakaya. Then chop the sorakaya into small cubes.

2. I boil them for sometime in microwave till they are translucent. If you donot have microwave, no problem you can boil it in the pan.
3. Chop the coriander leaves, curry leaves and green chillies and grind them to a paste in a mixer.
4. Take a pan, add some oil and heat it. Add the chopped sorakaya. If not boiled as in step 2. you can add some water, close the lid and cook till they are translucent.
5. Now add the paste from step 3 and salt. Mix well. If required add some more water and cook for till most of water is gone.

 

It goes well with both rice and roti. Enjoy !!

 

Dondakaya Veppudu - Simple way

I am a very picky eater to this day, but a lot less choosy now when compared to my younger days. Main reason being then my mother used to cook and now I have to cook :). I first saw my cousin cooking the dondakaya/tindora this way. She patiently kept frying till they were well done. My mother must have also made this but I started liking it the way my cousin made :).

Ingredients

Dondakaya/Tindora

Curry leaves/ Karvepaku

Salt

Red chilly powder

Turmeric powder

Process

1. Wash the dondakaya. Chop off the ends and thinly slice them as shown below.

2. Next step is to start frying. I generally cook the dondakaya in microwave for sometime to cut back on frying time. So I add some oil to the dondakaya and put it in microwave for 10 -15 mins.
3. Heat a frying pan. Add some oil, when it is hot add the curry leaves. Then add the sliced dondakaya. Fry for sometime and turn over after sometime
4. When they start to get translucent, add the salt, red chilly powder and turmeric powder. Mix well.

5. Once all the spices are mixed and the dondakaya has become soft, its cooked. You can stop here but I continue frying, so that a slight charand crispy texture appears on some of them. Becareful not to burn them while doing so. Once done garnish with chopped coriander.

Sunni Undalu

I am not a sweet person, but I guess this one a day of this one is fine with me. Its a andhra sweet dish and is considered to be healthy for kids and women. Another good thing about this is that it can be stored outside refrigerator for longer time if kept in an air-tight container. Hope you enjoy this!

Ingredients

Urad dal (Minapappu) – 2 cups

Sugar – 1 ¼ cup
Clarified butter (Ghee) – ¾ th cup
Cardamom - 2 powdered (optional)


Process

1. We have to roast the urad dal and remember to do it on low heat, stirring continously. If this is not done the dal may get burnt. Once roasted sufficiently, keep it aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile melt the ghee and let it cool.

3. Grind the sugar and keep it aside.

4. After the roasted urad dal cools grind it into smooth powder.
5. Now mix the powdered sugar to the urad dal powder. For mixing it well I just add both of them in the mixer and run for 2-3 mins.

6. Take out her powdered mixture into a vessel and add the melted ghee slowly to avoid formation of lumps. Keep checking the consistency of the mix, stop when it is right enough to make the ladoos.

7. Now you are all set to make the ladoos. Take small amount into you palm and try to make a tight ball out of it.

Carrot Halwa

My mom used to make Carrot Halwa on my Birthday's and it has become my favourite sweet. Since my roomies were planning to prepare some sweet for a pot-luck, I grabbed this opportunity to prepare my favourite sweet and put it in this blog :) So lets set gooooooooooo

Ingredients:

Grated Carrot - 1 cup

Milk - 1 cup

Sugar- 1/2 cup

Cashew - 10 pieces

Dry Grapes (Raisins) - 10 pieces

Ghee - 3 to 4 spoons

Procedure:

Grate the carrots nicely as shown below (you can take help of your husbands/wifes/brothers/roomies etc) for this task ;)

Fry grated carrot in a non-stick pan with 3-4 spoons of ghee, fry upto 10 mins till you get a nice flavour.

Add 2 cups of Milk to the fried grated carrot and boil. If the Milk is too thick, add water. I use 70:30 of Milk :Water in US. In India its not needed as milkman itself will do that for you :) Boil for atleast 30 mins on medium flame.
Add 1 cup of sugar and keep boiling for another 30 mins, keep stirring once in a while. Now while carrot is boiling, fry cashew nuts and raisins with Ghee. Check the consistency of carrot mixture, once you see that the consistency is thick add fried cashew nuts and raisins and keep boiling. As it comes to final stage you may want to stir continuosly to avoid burnt smell. The Dish is ready when you see all the Milk is sucked by carrot. Transfer it into a box or vessel. I trasferred it into a disposable tray (This dish is going to rock in pot-luck ;)).

Bharva Baigan

I saw a recipe for stuffed brinjal in a book, which used chopped lamb meat for the stuffing. I liked the idea and wanted to give it a try. But I had to look for another option for stuffing as my husband is vegetarian. So while pondering over what to use, I decided to use the brinjal flesh that was scooped out to make the stuffing. So its actually brinjal stuffed with brinjal ;).

Ingredients

Brinjal - 1  big

Chopped onions - 1 medium

Chopped tomatoes - 1 medium
Chopped green chillies - 5
Chopped coriander

Salt

Turmeric powder

Garam masala

Note: I used oven and microwave to prepare this dish. The microwave part can be done on stove top also.i pre-heated the oven to 350 F.

Process

1. If using microwave take a microwave safe bowl otherwise use a frying pan. Add onions and oil to the vessel and cook for 3-4 mins. Add the tomatoes and green chillies, cook for another 2-3 mins.
2. Add salt, turmeric powder and garam masala. Mix well.
3. Prepping the brinjal: cut the brinjal into half (length wise). Scoop out the flesh from them, becareful not to make the brinjal shell too thin. Coat the shell with some oil.

4. Chop the scooped out flesh and add to fried onion and tomatoes. Fry for sometime. These need not be cooked for long as they will cook in the oven. Add some chopped coriander to this.

5.  Take a baking pan, grease it with some oil and put the brinjal shells on it. Then stuff the above mix into the brinjal shell and put it in the pre-heated oven for 20 - 30 mins.

6. Keep checking so that the they don't get burnt. Take out before the top layer starts to char. Becareful while taking it out, its going to be hot ;).

7. It goes well with both roti and rice. Try adding grated paneer to the stuffling or your own stuffing recipe. Good luck.