Adai

I love breakfast recipes and I really like making a variety of break fast. This is one of the nice recipe i really like. Its also very health with a combination of lentils.

Ingredients:

Toor dal - 1 cup
Chenna dal - 1 cup
Green gram - 1 cup
Urid dal - 1/2 cup
Raw rice - 3/4 cup
Idly rice - 3/4 cup

Dry chilie - 6
Seragam - 1tsp
Sombu -1 tsp
Garlic - 6
onion - 2 medium size
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Asfetida -1/2 tsp
coriander leaves  and curry leaves
Salt to taste

Method:

Soak the rice and urid dal together. Soak all the other dals together. After about 2-3 hours you could grind them in a grinder or a mixie.

Grind the Rice and urid dal to a fine paste. Once they are done you could add the soaked dals to it if your mixie or grinder capacity allows it. You could add the dry chilies, cumin, sombu now to the mixier. Grind the dals to a coarse paste, it could only take about 3 minutes.  Grinding process takes only a few minutes.

 This the is ground adai batter. If you have made a larger amount of the batter then you could store part of it in fridge for about 2 days at this stage without adding the other ingredients.

 Add finely chopped onions, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves, curry leaves, asafetida, salt.

Make them like dosa. You might have to add water to make the batter a little thinner but dont make it to dosa batter consistency. It has to be thicker than dosa batter.

You could add gingili oil or butter to grease it. Cook this in medium high flame till well done. It take longer to cook than a dosa. You have to flip it over and cook on both the sides. Enjoy this with butter if you like or with hot onion chutney or it goes so well with avial.

Meat Balls (kolla orundai)

These are the most yummiest meat balls ever. They are just so awesome and so tasty that you can't stop with just a few. This is recipe is also from my mom and its so common in my native and in chettinad region.

Ingredients:

Minced mutton - 500 g
Green chilies - 4-5
Garlic - 5-6
Sombu - 1 tsp
Coconut - 2 tsp grated
Poppy seeds - 1 tsp
Onion - 1
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Puttu kadalai - 2 tsp
Egg - 1 (NOTE: avoid using the egg yoke if you will deep fry in oil)
Tumeric powder - 1tsp
Coriander leaves
Curry leaves
Oil - to deep fry and if using a air fryer about 2 tsp

Method:

I had to make minced meat from normal meat pieces in my mixie. It was not very hard but then the mutton was more of a paste than minced.

Grind all the ingredient shown on the plate in this picture into a fine paste. You could add a few cashew nuts to make it more rich and yummier.

Mix these ground ingredients into the minced meat. Add egg, turmeric, finely chopped curry leaves, finely chopped coriander, salt to taste.

Make them into small patties and you could deep fry in oil or you could use air fryer. Since I used air fryer I added about 2 tsp of oil into the meat mix and mixed it together with the other ingredients.

Air fryer at 180 C for about 15 mins. Turn it around once after about 8 mins of frying.

They are looks soo pefect and wow just mouth watering.

My Verdict about air fryer: I only needed about 2 tsp of oil to fry about 20 meat balls, with normal deep frying it would typically way too much than that. It was so much hasel free, i tossed these meat balls into the fryer and could do something else. There was just the nice aroma of the meat balls at home and not the strong smell of fried meat. So over all i loved it.

Uppu kari

Its typically called Uppu kari, nothing but different mutton fry. Its my mom recipe and my dad and  I just love it. I believe this recipe is made more in south Tamil nadu. Its a nice combination for a vegetarian meal or goes so well with lemon rice or curd rice.

Ingredients:

Mutton - 500 g
Dry chillies - 10-15
Tomato - one and half tomato
Onion - 2 small
Green chillies - 2
Garlic - 7-8 (mine was relative bigger in size so add more if they are tini tiny)
Turmeric - 1tsp
Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Corriander leaves

Method:

1. Boil the mutton with tomato, onion, garlic, turmeric, green chilies in cooker for  1 whistle. The mutton I had was tender so just a whistle was good enough. 

 Now add oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, dry cilies, cumins and fry them for about a minute or two.

Add finely chopped onions and fry it till golden brown.

Now add the finely chopped tomatoes.

After the tomatoes have got cooked well add the chilies powder, coriander powder and salt.

Add the cooked mutton and fry till add the water is gone.

 Garnish with coriander leaves.

Sweet potato fries

Yup you read it right..potato fries but with sweet potatoes. Its a yummy and healthy snack.

I made it for my daughter who is about 14 months but every one liked it.

It's sooper easy. Cut sweet potatoes into thin long pieces like that of French fries. Add a dash of olive oil and a bit of salt. Pepper would be an option ingredient to add, the fries I made was all finished before I could add pepper. Then pop them into the air fryer and about 5 mins at 180 C... Your snack is ready.

Sweet potato cut into pieces 

Fries

Lemon Rice

Lemon rice is one of the best food to be packed as a lunch for a picnic or even to work. It goes very well is potato fry. This recipe is from my mom.

Here is the recipe to make lemon rice for 2 people

Ingredients:

Lemon juice from 2-3 lemon, i used store bought lemon juice
Normal boiled rice - serving for 2 people
Salt to taste

For seasoning:
Gingelly Oil - 2 tspMustard seeds - 1 tsp
Ulunthu (Black gram) - 1 tsp
Kadalai parupu (Bengal Gram) - 2 tsp
Perungayam (Asafoetida) - 1 tsp
Red dry chilies - 5
Seragam - vendayam (fenugreek seed) powder (1:2 ratio) -1 tsp
Curry leaves - few


Method:

In a hot pan dry roast vendayam until it turns slightly brown and set aside, do the same with seragam. When it cools down make a powder of these. You could make this and store in an air tight container.

fried fenugreek seeds and seragam

Powdered vendayam - seragam 

Add oil to the pan, when the oil is hot add the mustard seeds and let it splutter. Now add the ulunthu, kadalai parupu, dry chilies, curry leaves, perungayam, and Seragam - vendayam powder one by one and keep tossing the ingredients. When all the ingredients had got fried add the lemon juice and salt and let it get boiled for about a minute or two. 

Now add this to the boiled rice and mix it well. You yummy lemon rice is all ready.

I love adding peanuts to this which gives a crunchy feeling when you eat it. If you would like it too add it when along with the seasoning ingredients.

Muffins with air fryer

Yes you read the title right. Air fryer could also bake muffins and cakes. I have made some muffins for a small kids party. With my toddler at home i don't get so much time to make everything from scratch so i went with the store bought muffin mix  and gave it a try with the air fryer.

There is not big recipe in this post its more of a review on air fryer. The store bought packet comes with a pack of muffin mix, i have got both chocolate and vanilla. There is also a packet of choco chips and some paper muffin cups. All i need was to mix oil, milk and egg with the muffin mix as per the direction in the packet and it was all ready for backing.

I used this muffin mix

I set the air fryer at 160 C and for 10 mins for vanilla and for 12 mins for chocolate muffins. 

Muffins all set ready for backing

Muffins all done!!

My verdict on air fryer: They are just making sooper soft cup cakes. Its faster. In an conventional bake oven it would take 20 mins as per the direction in the box, while in the air fryer it just took half the time. 

Meen Kolambu (Fish Gravy)

This fish gravy recipe is from my Mom/Grandmom. Its one of our favorite recipes at home. This is typically served with rice and it goes very well the next day morning with idly.

Ingredients:

Fish - 500 g
Tamarind - slightly later than 1 lemon size
Chillie powder - 4 tsp
Coriander powder - 8 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Seragam - 2 tsp
Onion - 1 medium size
Garlic - 2 no.
Tomato - 2 small size
Green chillie -4
Karivadagam - 1 tsp - Its a special ingredient which my grandmom makes out of onions. Its not available in shops. You could replace it with chopped onions.

Method:

Grind seragam, onion, garlic to a fine paste. To this paste add chillie powder, coriander powder and add grind further into a fine past

Also grind one and half tomatoes 

Extract tamarind juice and add this ground paste to it, add salt and turmeric to it.

In a pan or vessel add oil, when the oil is hot add karivadagam, green chille, chopped tomatos, curry leave. When these gets fried add the concoction that was made. Let it boil for 10-15 mins till the raw flavors are gone.

Now add the fish pieces and cook for about 5 mins. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice. 

Fish fry

Fried fish is one of my husbands favorite food. Here is a quick simple oil free recipe. I fry fish in the air fryer and it comes out like a charm. It comes out evenly fried and taste as good as pan fried and comes out more evenly colored.

Ingredients:

Fish - 5 pieces

Chillie powder - 1.5 tsp

turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

salt

lime juice - 1/4 tsp

oil - 1tsp

Method:

Mix the above ingredients and coat it over the fish evenly. There is no need to add water. Leave the marinated fish for about 20-30 mins.

Marinated fish

The fish could be fried in shallow fried in pan. But i used an air fryer. Place them in the air fryer over a backing paper so that the fish doesnt stick to the basket of the fryer. Put the fryer on 180 C for 15 mins. after about 7 mins flip the fish pieces and continue to fry.

Fishes fried half way

Once its fried for 15 mins remove the backing paper and fry for 3 more mins at 180 C. This would ensure that the fish is fried to the perfect color. 

After 15 mins.

Check out how the extra 3 mins makes a difference in terms of color.

My Verdict: Frying fish in the air fryer makes it much easier than frying in a pan, as frying in a pan is usually a bit tiring as I need to keep a close watch on it to flip it over. The smell that lingers in the house after frying fish isnt there if fried in air fryer. The color is just so perfect and i wouldn't manage to get it when frying on a pan. The oil used its way too less making fried fish much healthier.