Besan Ladoo | Gram Flour Ladoos

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Besan Ladoo is probably one of the most popular sweet dishes in India. Everyone in my family loves it so I end up making it for most of the festivals. It's very easy to make perfect besan ladoos if we take care of two things -roasting the flour well and adding the right quantity of ghee. 

Adding more ghee makes the ladoos very soft and it doesn't hold well and if its less the mixture will be dry and you wont be able to make ladoos. 


This box of sweet was for a dear friend who asked me to make it for her party. I love it when friends trust my recipes and ask me to make something for them.

  
Here is the easy recipe that I follow. Do make it for your family this festive season.


 Ingredients:
2 Cups Besan (Gram Flour)
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup ghee (clarified butter) 
1/2 tsp cardamom powder

For garnishing: 
2 tbsp pista powder.

Method:
1. Heat ghee in a thick wok and add besan and roast it on low flame until you get a nutty flavor - takes about 12 minutes. Keep mixing the besan continuously as it gets burnt very easily. Turn off the flame and continue to mix for about a minute. 

2. Now mix in powdered sugar, cardamom powder and mix well. Let it cool down for 15 minutes. 

3. Rub this mixture between your palm to get a crumble texture. 

4. Take a small portion and make round ladoos. Roll onto powdered pista and store in an airtight container.

Notes:
1. Make sure to roast the flour on low flame while mixing continuously. Its an important step as under roasting can give the ladoos a bitter taste. 

2. If the mixture feels dry, add a little ghee before making ladoos.

3. For garnishing you can use almond slivers, raisins, pista powder or any dry fruit of your choice.

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Shenga Unde | Peanut-Jaggery Laddu

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Peanut Laddus are one of my childhood favorites, the ingredients that goes in are almost the same as peanut chikki that we all must have relished as kids. There is another reason why I love it, Jaggery and Peanut have very high nutritive value, it helps in treating iron deficiency anemia, jaggery is known to increase the hemoglobin count in the blood. Since I keep fighting anemia, all these home made goodies with natural health boosters help me recuperate the iron level in my body. Now it's my 3 year old's fav too so it makes more sense to make these batches of laddus regularly, I feel very happy when she asks for the home made sweets than those highly sugar coated chocolates. 


 

I casually posted an old pic of this laddu on my instagram account last week and the amount of love that I received is so overwhelming and I am really humbled by the generosity and support. So I made these laddus again and managed to click some decent pics to upload the recipe here. This is for all those followers who messaged and commented to ask for the recipe. Thank you all :-)




I have always spoken about how good a cook my mother is, she always has these perfect measurements, I follow her recipe to the T and the result never fails me. Here is the recipe to make shenga/peanut laddu. This makes about 25 medium sized laddus.  You can store it for upto 2 weeks in an air tight jar but who am I kidding, we finish it within 2-3 days :-) It's relatively an easy recipe, once you get the jaggery syrup right the laddus come out perfect. (check notes for tips on jaggery syrup)

Ingredients:

1/2 kg Peanut

1/2 kg powdered Jaggery

1 cup desiccated Coconut

1 tbsp Ghee

1 tsp Cardamom powder

1/2 cup water


Method:

1. Dry roast the peanut on low flame, peel the skin and pulse it to a coarse mixture.


2. Heat ghee in a pan and roast the desiccated coconut until they turn brown.


3. Add water and powdered jaggery in a thick bottomed pan, Cook on medium flame until the jaggery dissolves completely and starts to boil. Lower the flame and check for 1 thread consistency jaggery syrup. (See notes for tips).


4. Once the jaggery syrup reaches the right consistency, turn off the flame and add in peanut mixture, cardamom powder and the roasted coconut. Mix everything well and let it sit for 5 minutes.


5. Apply water on your palm and make equal sized balls. Be careful while handling the mixture as it can be very hot and scald your palm.


6. Store in an airtight jar up to two weeks at room temperature.



 Notes:

1. Do not leave the syrup to boil without checking as it can get done fairly quickly. Keep checking for the consistency once it starts boiling. 

2. Take a little water in a plate and put a drop of syrup, it should let you make a soft ball of it, if it dissolves in the water, continue to boil it check frequently. At this stage the syrup becomes thicker faster so keep an eye on it. 

3. The other way to check is to dip a wooden spatula in the syrup and blow it cool a bit and touch it with forefinger and pull it apart slowly between thumb and forefinger, a single thread is formed that doesn't break. 

4. You can make fine powder of peanut if you do not like the peanut chunks in it.

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Menthe dose | Fenugreek Seeds Dose

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Menthe Dose | Fenugreek Seeds dose is a lesser known dish from Karnataka. It's made with fermented batter of fenugreek seeds, rice, coconut and jaggery. This sweetish and utterly delicious  dose is served with a big dollop of ghee at home. While you can also pair it with spicy chutneys, I like mine dunked in ghee. 




 
Fenugreek seeds (menthe/methi seeds) are known to have many medicinal values, it aids in digestion, good for lactating mothers and also used to control diabetes. It's used widely in many Indian recipes specially curries. Today I am posting a sweet dish  - Menthe Bella dose. 

Here is the recipe that my mom passed to me. Do give it a try!



Ingredients:

2 cups rice (sona masoori raw rice/dose rice)

1 cup freshly grated coconut 

2 tbsp fenugreek (methi) seeds 

1 cup jaggery

Salt to taste

Method:
 

1. Wash and soak rice and methi seeds separately for 3-4 hours.

2.  Grind it with fresh coconut. Let the batter be a bit coarse and thicker than the usual dosa batter.

3. Add salt and let it ferment overnight, add powdered jaggery in the morning and mix well.

4.  Heat a dosa pan, grease it and pour a laddle full of batter, spread a little and cover with the lid. Flip and cook on both sides and serve with ghee or chutney of your choice.





Notes:
1. Methi seeds should be very soft to grind in the mixer.
2. Keep the batter slightly coarse so the dose will turn fluffy.
3. Let the batter ferment well, if the weather is cold it's better to grind it a bit in advance.
4. Don't spread the dosa very thin, it should be thicker similar to set dose.

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Neer Dose

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Neer Dose is a specialty from coastal Karnataka. It's simplicity has spread to other parts of India now, mainly through Mangalorean restaurants. It's a very simple recipe made with handful of ingredients mainly rice, salt and water. Neer in Kannada/Tulu means water, in kundapur kannada it's also called Tellin Dose (thin dose). I add onions and a little coconut that makes it more tastier. There are other variations to this simple dose. Spicy version that my grandma used to make. When there was no time for elaborate cooking she would add some dry red chillies, cumin and coriander seeds while grinding the rice and eat the spicy neer dose without any sides/dips (chutney/curries). My mother also makes a healthier version by mixing half of finger millet seeds (ragi) and half raw rice to make the batter. It takes very little oil to make it, you can also skip the oil if you are making it on nonstick pan but I prick a fork into half onion and use it to grease the pan a bit. I somehow don't like the oilfree neer dose :-)

Here is the recipe that I learnt from my mother when I was in high school. It was such a proud moment for me that I learnt to make perfect neer dose like her. Since then I wanted to show off my skill whenever my mother made it. The story continued even after I got married and started living with my in laws. When we had guests at home my job was to make just neer dose :-) It's not a rocket science but many still fear trying it. It will take couple of really thick doses before one can learn to sprinkle it the right way and make good neer dose. It's so thin that you can easily eat 4-5 of them in one sitting. Read on for the ingredients and method.

 

Ingredients:
1 cup Sona masoori Raw Rice
2-3 tbsp of fresh coconut
1 small onion (optional)
Salt to taste
Oil to grease the pan

Method:

1. Wash and soak rice in enough water for 2-3 hours (1-2 hours is sufficient if you are using a wet grinder/stone grinder).


2. Drain the water from rice and put it in the mixer jar, add coconut and grind to smooth paste. Do not add more water while grinding. Check the batter between your fingers, it should be smooth in texture.


3.When the batter is almost done add the sliced onions and grind for 2 more minutes.

4. Remove in a big pot, add salt to taste and enough water to make thin batter. The consistency is similar to Rava Dosa. Do not add more water at once, check the consistency by making a dose and add water as desired.

5. Heat a pan/tawa and rub a little oil with the help of a cut onion or banana stem and sprinkle the dose batter to form a thin dose (similar to Rava Dose). Cover and cook for 30 seconds and remove it. Fold as you like.

6. Serve with coconut chutney /coconut-jaggery mixture or even spicy curries. 

Notes: 
1. Do not add too much water at once, try to sprinkle the batter on the hot pan and see if it makes thin dose with pores.

2. If the pan is too hot you can not make thin dose as it will not spread properly and makes thick ones. 

3. It just needs a little practise to play with water for right consistency and adjust the flame as needed to make thin dose. 

Thanks for reading, please comment and let me know if you try it:-)

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Chicken Ghee Roast | Classic Chicken Dish from Coastal Karnataka

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Chicken Ghee Roast is a classic spicy-tangy delicacy from my native. It was first invented in Shetty Lunch Home in a small coastal town of Kundapur in South India, but it became popular in Mangalorean restaurants. We get to relish this dish in all places now including some restaurants in Bangalore which specialize in coastal food. Now there are many versions of this dish, I make it in two ways - one with my very handy spice mix  - Kundapur Masala Powder and the other with freshly roasted spices depending on the time I have to cook.  Either way it can not go wrong as there are two great things in this dish "Indian spices" and lots of "ghee" (clarified butter).  

One kg chicken needs about a cup of ghee, please do not skimp on the ghee as it brings out the special flavor of this dish. It's originally a spicy dish but you can reduce the amount of chillies to suit your taste. Please read on for the recipe.

 

Ingredients: 
Chicken: 1 kg
Turmeric: 1 tsp
Lemon juice:2 tbsp
Curd: 1/2 cup Salt to taste
Ghee(clarified Butter): 1 cup
Curry Leaves: 1-2 sprigs
Sugar: 1 tsp 

For the spice paste:
Dry red chillies (mild variety): 25-30
Garlic: 6-8 cloves 
Coriander seeds : 2 tbsp
Cumin Seeds:  1 tsp
Blackpepper: 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds:1/4 tsp
Tamarind paste: 1 tbsp 

Method:

1. Clean chicken and cut into medium size pieces (make gashes on the bigger pieces/drumsticks). Marinate the chicken with curd, lemon and salt, keep aside for 2-3 hours. 

2.  Heat a tsp of coconut oil and roast dry red chillies, Pepper corn, coriander, cumin and  fenugreek seeds. Grind it with tamarind paste and garlic to a thick paste, add a little water as needed. 

 or

  Take a cup of thick tamarind extract, add 4-5 tbsp of kundapur masala powder and make a thick paste. 

3. Heat 1/2 cup of ghee in a wok, add marinated chicken and saute for 10-15 mins or until the chicken is almost done. 

4. In the meantime heat the remaining ghee in a small pan add curry leaves and let it crisp up a bit, add the spice paste, sugar,a pinch of salt and fry until the spice paste is roasted nicely and ghee separates. 

5. Now add the roasted spice paste to half cooked chicken in the wok and cook the chicken. Keep sauteing until all the masala sticks to the chicken and dries out. 

6. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve as a starter or as a side dish with Dose/Appams.  

 
 

  

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Bele Saru | Toor Dal/Pegion Peas Rasam | Udupi Saru

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Food is all about memories. It has a way of transporting us back to the past. I have so many fond memories that revolve around food. The moment I smell a good tomato saru (rasam) or think about it, I will be transported back to my mother's kitchen as a little girl impatiently looking at a pot of boiling saru. Bele saru as we call it at home is a simple toor dal tomato rasam, it holds a special place in my heart. Although there are quite a few dishes that take me down memory lane, this is no doubt my comfort food. Served with hot steaming rice, a dollop of ghee and mango pickle, I could eat it anytime of the day.

The saru (rasam) my mother made was so good that whenever I made it, it was always compared with hers. My brother always used to tell me that the taste was almost there. Then it took me many unsuccessful trials to match the taste. Now I can comfortably say I make equally good bele saru :) 

The trick was in the freshly pound rasam powder, my mother used to pack me a big box of it everytime I visited her. Now I have learnt to make this goodie myself.  Learn how to make udupi style bele saru aka rasam..


Ingredients: 
Togari bele/ Toor Dal/Yellow pegion peas : 1/2 cup
Ripe Tomatoes : 2
Green chillies: 2-3
Tamarind juice : 1/2 cup
Jaggery : 1/2 tbsp
Curry leaves: 1 sprig
Coriander leaves for garnish
Coconut oil : 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds: 1 tsp
Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
Asafoetida/Hing: 1/4 tsp
Turmeric powder: 1/4 tsp
Sarina pudi /Rasam powder: 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Wash split pigeon peas and soak in enough water for 15 mins, add a pinch of turmeric and few drops of oil and pressure cook it until done. Soak Tamarind in warm water for 10 mins, squeeze the juice. Keep it aside.

2. Heat oil in a pot and add mustard and cumin seeds, when it splutters add hing and mix.

3. Mix in curry leaves and slit green chillies and saute for 30 seconds.

4. Add chopped tomatoes and cook it for 2 minutes.

5. Now add rasam powder, salt, jaggery and tamarind water and cook it until the tomatoes are pulpy.

6. Now add the cooked dal and enough water and bring to boil. Leave it on for 5 minutes.

7. Adjust the seasoning and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn of the flame and garnish with coriander leaves.

8. Serve hot with steaming rice, ghee, pickle and papad.  


Learn how to make rasam powder at home ---> Home made rasam powder /Sarina pudi Recipe

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