Kauni arusi

Its a chettinad delicacy, generally served during auspicious occasions such as weddings. Its a must try dish if you can get some rice. These are dark blackish rice which is more of a deep purple color when cooked. I love the texture of this rice, its chewy and sticky when cooked and its really yummy and i could eat tons of them as i just love biting on them :)

Ingredients:

Kauni Arusi - 2 cups
Water to cook rice
Ghee
Grated coconut - 1 cup
salt - 1 pinch
sugar - 1 cup or as required.
Cardamom - optional


Method:

Add the rice to cooker and add 2 cups of water for each cup of rice. Cook for about 5 whistles as it takes a bit longer to get cooked.

Kauni Arusi for those who are not familiar with it.

When the pressure cooker is cooled check if the rice is cooked, sometime the water is not completely used up, in that case, keep the cooker on medium heat and cook for a few minutes. Keep stirring so that the bottom doesn't get burnt. Unfortunately i forgot to click picture during every step (will update the next time i cook this).

Once the rice reaches a thick sticky consistency add a pinch of salt, ghee, grated coconut and sugar. You can add cardamom if you like the flavor, but i just like it without it. You could adjust these ingredients to your taste. 

Chicken Briyani

Making briyani for a sunday lunch had been a tradition in our home for quite a long time, so that i could achieve perfection. Here is one simple recipe to make an awesome briyani. There are several methods to make briyani, this method is know as kachi briyani. Its quite simple to make and you cant really go wrong with this recipe.

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1 kg with bone
Basmati rice- 4-5 cups
oil - 6 tbsp
ghee -2 tbsp
spice - bay leaves, star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, other spices. Garam masala powder is optional.
ginger garlic paste - 3 tbsp
curd - 1 cup
coriander leaves- 1 bunch
mint leaves - bunch
Fried onions - 250 g
kala jeera - 1tbsp
black whole pepper - 1tbsp
green chilies - 4 numbers
red chili powder - 2 tbsp (if you like it spicy you could add more)
Coriander powder - 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp
Lemon juice - 4-5 tbsp
Salt - as required


Methods:

Marinate cleaned chicken with ginger garlic paste, chopped coriander leaves, chopped mint leaves, black pepper, chopped green chilies, chili powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, curd, oil, ghee, fried onions, salt, whole spices, salt. Mix well and if possible marinate it over night in the refrigerator.

Soak the washed basmati rice for 30 mins. In a large vessel add salt, lemon juice, jeera, oil and enough water to cook the rice. The water should taste salty in order to half enough salt for the rice. Add the rice and cook let it get cooked. Take half of the rice when its 60% done and drain it. The other half of the rice should be drained when it is 75% done.

to cook the basmati rice

In a heavy bottom vessel, i use a pan shaped pressure cooker and it works perfectly well. Grease the pan and add the marinated chicken to the bottom of the vessel. Now make a layer with the 60% cooked rice. Top it with some chopped mint, coriander leaves, fried onions. Now add a layer of 75% done rice and top it with chopped mint, coriander, and fried onions. 

Add set to cook, bottom layer is chicken and topped with two layers of rice.

Cover the cooker but with out the weight valve. Cook in high flame for 10 mins and followed by medium heat for 15 mins. Now your house must be filled with the yummy smell of this awesome briyani.

You need to mix the briyani with the chicken at the bottom layer when you serve.

Coriander chutney

Chutney are something that makes the breakfast more yummier. Especially when its idly i need some really yummy chutney. One of my to go chutney is this, which is one of the easiest.

Ingredients:

Grated coconut - 4-5 tsp
Pottukadalai - 2 tsp
Coriander leaves- 1 bunch
Tamarind- 1 small piece
Green chilies - 2-3 numbers
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Salt - as required


Method:

Put all the ingredients in a blender and grind it into  a fine paste. Add water if required ....Ta da....your yummy accompaniment for idly or dosa is ready.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Vegetable puffs

It a delicious snack for a lazy evening or a rainy day. My family loves having this. Its also super easy to make and just takes few mins.

Ingrdients:

Boiled potato - 3  medium size
Boiled peas - half can
Finely chopped onion - 2
green chilie - 1
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Fennel powder -1/4 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander leaves - small bunch
mint leaves - few (optional)
Puff pastry - store bought
Oil - 1tbsp
Spices - 1 small stick cinnamon and 2 clove


Add oil in a pan and add the spices, followed by the fennel powder and onion. Fry the onion till golden brown and add the mashed boiled potatoes, and peas. Add chillie powder, turmeric, and keep frying on medium heat for a few mins.You could adjust now the taste as you like by adding garam masala or more chillie powder.  Add salt, chopped mint and coriander leaves.

Vegetable puff mix

Cut a rectangle from the puff pastry of about 5 cm by 10 cm. Now put in some of the prepared mix in the middle of the pastry piece and fold it over as shown in picture. Press the ends together so that they dont open up when being cooked in over or air fryer.

filling up the pastry

corners pressed together and place in the basket of the air fryer over a bake paper.

Now place the vegetable puffs in to the air fryer. This time i put in a backing sheet in the basket as the pastry is sticky and I didnt want it to stick to the basket. Cook it for 8 mins at 180 C by flipping it once at about the 6th min. After 8 mins open the basket and pull of the backing paper and let the puffs fry in the basket for a min or two at 180 C to get the beautiful golden colour and at this point the puffs are already cooked and wouldn't stick anymore.

after 6 minutes of cooking

cooking 2 more minutes without the bake paper.

The whole thing can be don't in bake oven in about 15 mins at 180C

My Verdict: Here the air fryer doesn't reduce the oil as the pastry sheets are loaded with butter i believe, and we fry the mix in a pan with oil. What is better than an oven is it comes out evenly colored, both the sides cook the same way unlike in the bake oven one side is flat even if it is flipped. and is a few mins faster than bake oven.