Spicy Prawn Thokku November 16, 2010
Ingredients :
Prawns – 250 gms
Onion – 1 no roughly chopped
Tomato – 1 no roughly chopped
Garlic – 2 pods
Ginger – a 1/2 inch piece
Green chillies – 4 nos
Black pepper corns – 1 tsp
Red chilli powder – 2 tspns
Coriander powder – 1 tbspn
Curry leaves – 20 leaves
Coconut scrapings - 1 tbspn
Cinnamon – 1 inch piece
Cloves – 4 nos
Fennel seeds – 1/2 tspn
Salt to taste
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Oil - 3 tbspns
Method :
Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan. Fry onions, green chillies, ginger and garlic until they become brown (this step is important to get a tasty thokku). Now add tomatoes and saute well until they turn soft. Add pepper corns, fennel seeds and coconut scrapings to the above mixture and saute for 30 seconds. Remove from fire. Allow the mixture to cool and grind them into a paste.
Wash prawns and keep aside. Now heat a pan with 3 tablespoons of oil. When the oil is hot add cloves, cinnamon and curry leaves. When they emit a nice aroma add the ground paste. Saute well for few second and to this add red chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder.
Add salt to taste. Fry for a few seconds and then add prawns to it. Add half-a-cup of water and allow the mixture to boil well. Simmer the mixture until all the water content is gone. Remove from fire and garnish with coriander leaves. When serving squeeze lemon juice on the dish.
Mutton Sukka November 12, 2010
I got this recipe from the net. I followed it to the ‘T’ and the outcome was relished by all. It’s quite an elaborate process but the result is worth it.
Ingredients-1
Mutton – bite size pieces 1/2 kg
¼ tsp – Turmeric (for marinating)
¼ tsp – Salt (for marinating)
½ tsp – Ginger garlic paste(for marinating)
¼ tsp – Red chilli powder
Ingredients-2
3 nos – Onion medium (chopped finely)
3 nos – Tomatoes (chopped)
1 inch - Ginger (crushed)
4 cloves - Garlic (crushed)
2 nos - Cloves
1 no - Cardamom
1 no - Cinnamon (1 inch small)
1 tsp - Cumin seeds
½ tsp - Black peppercorns
½ tsp - Red chili powder
3 tsp - Coriander powder
¼ tsp - Turmeric powder
20 nos - Fresh curry leaves
10 nos - Cashew nuts
3 tbsp - Oil
1 tsp - Ghee
1 cup - Water
Salt (or to taste)
Instructions
Marinate meat with turmeric, red chili powder, salt and ginger garlic paste for at least 30 minutes.. the more the better. (Table-1)
Finely chop the onions, definitely freshly crushed garlic and ginger for the masala part. Grind cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin seeds and black peppercorns to a fine powder and keep aside.
Toast the cashews in a tsp of ghee until golden and also splutter the curry leaves along with it in the end and keep both of them aside.
In a pressure cooker, combine chopped tomatoes, marinated meat, ground masala powder (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin and black peppercorns) and water. Pressure cook up to 3 whistles for tender baby goat meat and switch off. Let it rest for the steam to settle.
Meanwhile in a kadai, heat oil and fry the finely chopped onions and crushed ginger garlic to golden brown. Add turmeric, red chilli and coriander powder. Fry for another 10 minutes to brown them. Now open the pressure cooker and simmer the meat gravy until it becomes semi thick or until it loses all the liquid. Dump this into the onion mixture and let it shallow fry over medium flame until the gravy rolls up and stick to the meat. At this stage you can decide how dry you need, keep it longer for much crunchy and dark masala, (usually I put it under sim for 20 minutes with occasional tossing and sauteing Add the toasted cashews and curry leaves to finish.
Mutton Sukka with hot rasam rice was our meal today 
Badam Halwa (First time!) November 5, 2010
Ingredients:
Soaked and skinned Almonds – 1 Cup
Sugar – 1 1/2 Cups
Water – 1/2 Cup
Ghee – 6 to 7 tbsp
Saffron – 1 Pinch
Cardamom powder – a pinch
Yellow food colour – a pinch
Method
Make a fine paste of the almonds by grinding them in a grinder.
Boil sugar with 1/2 cup of water in a pan, till it turns into syrup.
Add almond paste to the boiling syrup and mix it well. Keep stirring continuously else the it will get burnt. even if it is slightly burnt, it strongly shows in badam halwa and the whole dish goes waste. Dilute saffron in a little milk and add to the mixture. Add the cardamom powder and the food colour. Mix well. Start adding ghee little by little at a time. As the above mixture turns paste-like, pour the remaining ghee gradually.
Once the ghee separates remove from fire. You can make them into balls or it can been had in spoonfuls. I wrapped them in pieces of butter paper just as we get it here in south india.
