[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by johnda

Oh there's one near my place with 'family rooms' LOL. amazing grub!!

Joe, I have a list of all the famous "shaaps" in Kerala that serve fantastic food with the recipes of some of their fiery dishes. During my next visit I plan to visit at least a couple of them. And that is the thing I miss.

What if we crack the shells and do the same thing? like earlier this evening, there were sharpnels in the dish, i figured they cracked the shells and did the cooking... but still tasted awesome.. the meat in the shell and 'de-shelled' is two different things.. I'll try the recipe and update! thanks. Joe

In many recipes, people lightly crush open the claws. But as you said, this can leave sharp pieces of the shell in the gravy and could be dangerous. So I avoid that.

So the safer way is to go for crab meat or use the soft shelled mud crabs (since their claws are very thin, they do not contain any meat).

• Boil the cleaned crabs in water (with a little bit of salt) for about 12-15 minutes.
• Take out the crabs and plunge them into cold water. After this crack open the claws and gently remove the crab meat (in whole pieces as far as possible).
• Add only this meat to the dish you are preparing. But do not cook it after adding the crab meat.
• Let the dish stand for 2-3 hours so that the crab meat absorbs all the flavours.

[bblost]

Glorified Cheese Cauliflower.
Sliced Garlic
Cooking Butter
Milk
Maida
Cheddar Cheese
Pepper powder
Cauliflower
Salt.

Par Boiling the Cauliflowers:
Cut Cauliflower into florets. Soak in salt water for 10 minutes. Clean and then drain the water.
In a covered saucepan, with very little water, roughly 1/2cm in the pan, cook the cauliflower florets for 10 mins.
Once the water has evaporated remove from fire.

Sauce:
Heat some butter. Add the garlic. Then add the maida. Keep whisking and add the milk. Keep whisking. Add some salt and pepper. Add the cheese. Keep whisking and cook till the sauce thickens.

Pour the sauce over the par boiled cauliflower florets.
Enjoy!

No quantities have been mentioned. Its not important IMHO. You add the quantities you are comfortable with.

[pjbiju]

@bblost. I need to try your dish for my wife (vegetarian). I need to get Cheddar cheese though.

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These dishes have been cooked by my wife. Though she is a vegetarian, she has learned to cook non-veg stuff and cooks them very well, without even tasting them. So I do not have to spend time to cook these things now. Also she has mastered most of the Kerala dishes, though she is not a Keralite. Examples are below.

I consider myself very lucky that she is my life partner.

Kerala Fish Curry


This dish is supposed to be very hot. But you can adjust the degree of hotness according to your taste by using Kashmiri Chilly powder and by avoiding the green chillies. This also goes very well with steamed white rice/brown rice. This dish also has slight variations in different parts of Kerala.

Ingredients

• Coconut Oil - 3 tablespoons. Use any other cooking oil if you are not comfortable with using coconut oil for cooking.
• Mustard Seeds - ½ teaspoon
• Fenugreek Seeds - ¼ teaspoon
• Curry leaf - 2 sprigs
• Green Chilly - 2 slit lengthwise
• Ginger - 1" piece, thinly sliced
• Garlic - 10-12 cloves, cut into two pieces each
• Shallot - 1 cup, sliced thinly
• Chilly Powder - 2 tablespoons
• Turmeric - ¼ teaspoon
• Kudampuli (Malabar Tamarind) - 3-4 pieces
• Salt as per taste
• Fish Fillets (Kingfish, Pomfret, Indian Salmon, Sardine, Mackerel etc.) - ½ kg

Method

• Heat a pan and add the oil.
• Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds
• Once the seeds splutter, add the ginger and garlic and fry for 1 minute
• Add the curry leaves
• Add the sliced shallots and fry till they are translucent
• Add the green chillies
• Mix the chilly powder and tumeric powder with a little water to form a thick paste. Add this to the pan. Fry the masala for about 2 minutes
• Add a cup of water.
• Once the mixture boils, add the fish and the malabar tamarind and salt.
• Reduce the flame to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes
• Take off from the stove and let the dish stand for 5-6 hours before using it.

Information & Tips

• You can find what Malabar Tamarind is here - Garcinia India, Garcinia Cambogia India, Garcinia Extract India, Garcinia Powder India, Garcinia Exporter India, Garcinia Manufacturer India, hydroxycitric acid extract, hydroxycitric acid India, garcinia cambogia extract. This is usually available in Kerala Stores (for those who stay outside of Kerala) and is available in most of the shops in Kerala. If you cannot find this, you can substitute this with kokum or tamarind pulp. But the taste will not be the same. This is one of the most important ingredients of this dish, that gives it its signature flavour.
• Shallots are also called small onions, sambhar onions etc. and are widely available in South India. You can substitute it with normal onions.

Tapioca (Tapioca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

• Tapioca - 1 kg
• Coconut oil (or any other cooking oil) - 3 tablespoons
• Mustard seeds - ½ teaspoon
• Turmeric Powder - ½ teaspoon
• Curry leaf - 2 sprigs

Coarse Paste

• Curry leaf - 2 sprigs
• Coconut - ½ of one coconut
• Sliced shallots - ½ cup
• Sliced Ginger - 1" piece
• Green Chilly - 2

Grind this to a coarse mixture without water. It should have the consistency of grated coconut.





Method

First Part

• Clean the tapioca and cut into small bite-sized pieces. Clean it thoroughly.
• Boil water in a pan and add some salt to it. Add the tapioca pieces and boil for 3-4 minutes. Drain the water off.
• Add fresh hot water again and boil the tapioca till it is cooked. Drain off the water completely.

Second Part

• Heat oil in a pan and once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds.
• Once the mustard seeds splutter, add the curry leaves and then the coarsely ground coconut mixture. Saute this for 3-4 minutes on medium flame.
• Add salt and then turmeric.
• Then add the tapioca and turn the flame to low heat
• Mix everything well and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Serve with the fish curry made earlier.



Enjoy.

This was the lunch for us today (for me and my son). My wife had to substitute the fish curry with lime pickle for herself.

-Biju

[bblost]

^ Lovely stuff

Need advice on roti maker.
I tried using it today. The roti shape comes perfect. But the rotis end up feeling crisp like biscuits.
They do fill up with air and open up into 2 layers. But each of the layers is crisp and not soft like when I use a tawa.

What am I doing wrong?

[DerAlte]

1. Add a bit of (about a tsp) oil and a wee bit more water while kneading the flour. Allow the dough to rest a bit before making rotis
2. Make the ball slightly larger
3. Don't wait for the roti to turn brown

LOL Don't fret - you are making perfect khakhras now without intending to. Just experiment with some spices in the dough for variety!!!

[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by bblost

^ Lovely stuff

Need advice on roti maker.
I tried using it today. The roti shape comes perfect. But the rotis end up feeling crisp like biscuits.
They do fill up with air and open up into 2 layers. But each of the layers is crisp and not soft like when I use a tawa.

What am I doing wrong?

Agree with DelAlte. Do the following

• Prepare the dough as you normally do.
• Make one roti on the tawa and see if it is soft as usual. If it is, then the dough is prepared well.
• Make one roti on the roti maker and see if it turns into a biscoti. If the roti becomes crisp then you need to make some adjustments to the dough by:
  • Increasing the water content (since unlike a tawa, I believe the roti maker has hot plates both on the top and the bottom, leading to a faster removal of the moisture)
  • Boxing the dough a lot more to make it softer
  • Letting the dough stand for a while longer to make it softer
• Then try the roti maker again. Keep repeating this cycle till you get those perfect phulkas.

Disclaimer: I have made roti only once in my life. So I am no expert.

-Biju

[maddy42]

@pjbiju: Thanks for the fish curry recipe. Amazing. Mine got a little spicy but will reduce the chilly powder more. Any veg curry recipes please?

[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by maddy42

@pjbiju: Thanks for the fish curry recipe. Amazing. Mine got a little spicy but will reduce the chilly powder more.

Thank you.

This fish dish is usually very hot. But here are a few tips to reduce the degree of hotness:

• Substitute normal chilli powder with Everest (or other brand) Kashmiri Chilli Powder (will be bright red but will be less hot). You can also reduce the quantity of the chilly powder.
• Avoid the green chillies altogether
• Increase the number of Malabar tamarinds. But this can make the dish sourer. So check how sour the dish is after 1 hour of cooking. If it turns out to be sourer than you how you want it to be, remove a couple of the tamarinds.
• And the most important tip. Make the dish in the evening. Leave it overnight and the use it the next day. The tamarinds take away some degree of hotness and the fish pieces would have absorbed all the taste of the tamarinds and chilly powder by then.
• Use coconut oil if you can. This also helps to reduce the hotness of the chilly powder.

Any veg curry recipes please?

Well, I am going to my in-laws place during Diwali. And my mom-in-law makes amazing North Indian vegetable dishes. I will try to get some recipes and pictures while I am there. If you are looking for Kerala vegetarian dishes, I will post them here when we cook them.

Biju.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by bblost

Need advice on roti maker.
I tried using it today. The roti shape comes perfect. But the rotis end up feeling crisp like biscuits.
They do fill up with air and open up into 2 layers. But each of the layers is crisp and not soft like when I use a tawa.

What am I doing wrong?

I had also purchased a roti-maker some time back. I can easily make rotis using the traditional method, but I purchased this product thinking that it would save my time.

I tried everything - normal dough, more water, adding oil, big balls, small balls, medium balls. I even took help from my Mom on one occasion. But no matter what I did, the rotis turned out like papads. They would be crispy on the outside and half-baked on the inside. Eating such rotis gave me stomachache.

I concluded that the roti-maker product is useless and that there is no short cut approach to making rotis.

Rohan

[Wolfheart]

Guys I had a craving for butter chicken so I decided to take the plunge and do it myself. The result was quite good. My GF (who is a fantastic cook) said that this was one of the best butter chickens that she ever ate! Not bad for a first attempt!

Guys, if you want to impress a lady trust me this recipe did wonders for me. Ladies, you already know the "way to a man's heart..." routine!

Ingredients:
Cashewnut paste (75 gms)
Ginger garlic paste (1tbspn)
Amul Butter (3 Tbspoons)
Boneless Chicken (1/2 Kg)
Fresh Tomato Puree (Made of 7-8 tomatoes in a blender)
Packaged Tomato puree (3 tbspoons)
Amul packaged Fresh Cream (2 tbspns)
Cinammon Sticks (1-2)
Cloves (2)
Black Peppercorns(4)
Cardamom(1 pod)
Red Chilli Powder(1 Tea spoon)
Sugar (1 Tablespoon)
Salt (1-2 teaspoons)
Finely chopped coriander leaves

Modus Operandi:

1. Roast / stir fry some boneless chicken shreds / cubes marinated with salt pepper and ginger garlic paste. Once the chicken cooks set it aside for later.
2. Take a non stick pan and let it heat up
3. Add all the butter and heat it till it sizzles
4. Add cinnamon, cloves, pepper and cardamom and let them crackle
5. Dump the cashew paste and keep stirring till slightly golden
6. Sprinkle the sugar and stir till it blends with the paste (Sugar is important don't skip it.)
7. Pour the fresh tomato puree and keep stirring
8. When the paste and puree have blended, add salt and red chilli powder
9. Add a dash of the packaged tomato puree (it's gives a little sour edge to the dish)
10. Stir and let everything simmer, blend and thicken for about 3 minutes
11. Throw in the chicken and let simmer for about a minute
12. Add some fresh cream and stir till you get the desired consistency. Try not to make it too dense.
13. Add Coriander and stir till the flavor blends in
14. Turn the heat off garnish with fresh cream and serve with naan bread.
15. If you followed the instructions carefully you might just get lucky after dinner!

[Ragul]

OK this one is one of my favorites:

One small round curved kadai and flat wooden stirring spoon
3 or 4 yellow-green-orange tomatoes not fully ripe
some curry leaves, whole pepper, salt, green chillies, red chilly powder, mustard seeds, turmeric
Til oil or groundnut (I only use organic cold pressed)
One egg

Steps:
Slice chillies along the length
Slice tomatoes one way only
Heat oil until it starts smoking, add mustard and let it pop
Add turmeric, curry leaves, salt chillies, pepper and chilly powder
Before the stuff becomes dehydrated and burnt, add the tomatoes
and cover 3/4th with lid
remove lid and stir occasionally and replace
Do not let all the juice evaporate, let it become a healthy wet looking chutney. The heat should blend all the slices into one organic looking mass with proper stirring.
When it looks ready, crack the egg over the tomatoes and mix well with deft moves of the spoon.
Switch off gas as soon as egg white and yolk is semisolid to solid.

The entire mix should look pinkish white like wet raw kheema.
Total time 15 to 20 mins from start.

Tip: Always use medium to high flame.
Always add salt to tadka for any dish, not after wards! If unsure, add at least a little with tadka. Try it and taste the difference!!
Variations: Add some dhania powder or garam masala, but try it without first!!
If cooking for more people add more tomatoes but use one egg only or two for four to five people. Tomato chutney should dominate not the eggs.

Makes a really lovely quick veggie for enjoying with phulkas!! Try it today!

Cheers

[pjbiju]

Here is another fish curry recipe from Kerala. This one was made by me after watching the recipe the previous day on the TV in a Malayalam Channel. It was cooked by a house-wife from Kollam for the TV channel. So I guess this is an authentic recipe of the area. This is a speciality of Kollam (Quilon) District in Kerala and you have to try it with the large pearl spot fishes that you get over there. I was trying it for the first time and it came out quite well. I made it last night.



Ingredients

• Fish - Pearl spot (Karimeen) - 2 large ones. Since I did not have any stock of pearl spot fish at home, I used a fish called Kolaan (Long billed half beak). You should be able to use any other fish like seer fish, pomfret etc. and get a similar result.

Masala for frying the fish

• 1 tablespoon of coriander powder
• 1 tablespoon of ginger garlic paste
• ¼ teaspoon of turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon of red chilly powder
• ½ teaspoon of black pepper powder
• Salt and water as required

Ingredients for the gravy

• 4 tablespoons of oil
• 2 sprigs of curry leaf
• 2 green chillies slit lengthwise
• 1 cup of shallots crushed
• 1" piece of ginger cut into juliennes and then crushed
• 15-20 garlic cloves crushed
• 2 large onions thinly sliced
• 1 large tomato cut into 8 pieces lengthwise (cut the tomato into two and then cut the two halves into two and then cut into two the four quarters)
• ½ teaspoon of red Kashmiri chilly powder
• ½ teaspoon of black pepper powder
• ¼ teaspoon of fenugreek powder
• 1½ tablespoons of coriander powder
• 2 cups of coconut milk (first extract)
• 3-4 pieces of kudampuli (Malabar Tamarind)
• Salt as required

Method

• Clean the fish and make gashes across its length on either sides.
• Make a paste of the above masala (masala for frying the fish) by adding a little water and apply this paste liberally over the fish and set aside the fish for 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator
• Take a large pan and add the cooking oil
• Once the oil is hot, shallow fry the fish on both the sides, until they are half-cooked (2-3 minutes per side on medium heat would do)
• Remove and drain the fish
• To the same pan and oil add the crushed garlic and ginger. Sauté the ginger and garlic.
• Add the crushed shallots and sauté them till the raw smell goes away
• Add the sliced onions and sauté them till the onions turn translucent
• Add the tomato pieces and the slit green chillies
• Add the turmeric powder, coriander powder, red chilly powder, black pepper powder, fenugreek powder. Sauté for a couple of minutes
• Add the coconut milk, the curry leaf and the Malabar Tamarinds. Bring everything to a boil and then reduce the flame to a simmer
• Add salt as required
• Add the fish pieces. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Flip the fishes once without breaking them apart.

Let the dish stand for 2 hours and then use it along with rice/naan etc.


This dish should have a thick coconut gravy with the taste dominated by coriander and black pepper.



Happy Cooking!
-Biju

[ExtremeTorque]

Short cut to a dish native to Karnataka - Bisi Bale Bhath

Not many places in Hyderabad serve this dish and the first time i had it in
Bangalore, I was bowled over. A little bit of research on the dish led me
to believe, it could be done in a shorter way. Here is my version that serve 4 hungry adults.

Ingredients:

1Cup Rice & 1Cup Toor dal (Yellow lentils dal)
2 tbs Ghee (clarified butter)
2 Tamarind pods
Half inch jaggery
Vegetables: 1 Onion, 6 garlic pods, 1 carrot, 1 Potatoe, 5-6 beans, 1 capsicum, handful green peas (i use safal frozen). Any other vegetable like Cauliflower
Brinjal etc wil also go well.
10 curry leaves, 1 bunch coriander, 2 green chillis
Spices: 5-6 Black pepper grains, Turmeric powder, Red chilly powder, Coriander powder, 1 inch cinnamon stick
1 tbs mustard seeds, 1 tbs Jeera cumin seeds
First soak the rice and dal together in a cup for an hour. At the same time soak the tamarind pods in a cup of water.
Julien the onions and cut the remaining vegetables into 1 inch pieces.
Ground the black peppers coarsly

Method:

1) In a steam cooker, heat 2 tbs of Ghee and add the black peppers, mustard and Jeera.
2) Once they start to crackle, add curry leaves, Garlic and Onions.
3) Once slightly brown, add the rest of the diced vegetables. Fry for 2 minutes
4) Add a pinch or 2 of turmeric powder, chilli powder as per your scurvy tolerance, coriander powder. 2 more minutes
5) Extract tamarind and add only the water, add the Jaggery piece
6) Drain water from soaked rice and dal mixture. Add it to our simmering mixture and stir for 1/2 min
7) Add 6-7 cups of water (remember the consistancy has to be like a thick gravey). Add finely chopped coriander
8) Cover the steam cooker lid and wait for 15min or 3-4 whistles.

Has to be served extremely hot and While serving top it off with Boondi and a cup of Curd.

The recepie might sound laborious but the only task is cutting the vegetables. I normally take 20 mins to the point I cover the lid of the cooker and polish off in 5 minutes

Do I hear rumbling tummies?

[ExtremeTorque]

Rasam, apart from tingling the taste buds, can be a good agent to beat the cold. Here is my version, derived after a lot of trial and errors. Try it, its fast and good to taste. Serves 2.

Ingredients:

1. 1 Tomato
2. 1 Tender drumstick
3. 1 pod tamarind
4. 1 Green chilli
5. 10 curry leaves
6. 1 coriander bunch
7. 1 Tbs Ghee/Clarified butter

Spices: 1 Tbs Chilli powder, 1 Tbs Turmeric powder, 1-2 pinches of Asophotida, 10 black pepper grains, 1 Tbs Coriander powder, 1 Tbs mustard seeds, 1 Tbs Jeera, 1 tbs urad dal (gram)

Method:

1. Take a vessal of approx 15cm dia and 7-8cm height.
2. Fill half of it with filter water and start to simmer
3. While boiling, put in the diced Tamato, tamarind pod, drumstick and 5-6 curry leaves and chopped fresh coriander leaves.
4. Coarsly crush the black pepper (i use a regual pestle) and put it in our simmering concoction and cover the vessal.
5. When it comes to a boil, add 1 tbs chilli powder, 1 Tbs turmeric powder, 1 Tbs coriander powder and let it keep simmering.

Tadka:

1. In a seperate vessal for tadka/seasoning, heat 1 tbs of ghee/clarified butter
2. Crackle the grams, mustard, jeera and rest of the curry leaves
3. Take it off the burner and add a pinch of Asophotida
4. Add the Tadka to our simmering concoction with the aid of a covering let so as to not have the rasam spill over.

Guzzle raw or mix with rice and the rest is for the small/large intestine

[rajatsingh78]

I am planning to buy or get a custom barbeque made. Here are the problems I am facing -
- Weber is way too expensive....Rs.5000 for a barbeque somehow doesn't make sense to me for ocassional use, may be 1-2 times in a month or when some guests come to my place,
- Don't know of any other economical brand

I thought of making one for myself under 1000 bucks, and here is the design -

This will have 2 parts - Part 1 will be the the regular "taslaa" used by brick laying guys for mixing cement etc. I will drill some holes at the bottom of it so that the ash from the coal can fall below, this will also facilitate air circulation, Part 2 will the bottom cuboid that will be used to collect the ash, this too will have handles (missed drawing them).

The chicken, paneer, beef can be grilled by placing them on top of a wire mesh (easily available at utensil shops), or directly by using custom made/ready made skewers kept on top of part 1

This will be well under 1000 bucks may be even less,

Guys - your help...suggest anything that I am not foreseeing here, or a better plan/advise