Here’s an excerpt:

London Olympic Stadium holds 80,000 people. This blog was viewed about 510,000 times in 2011. If it were competing at London Olympic Stadium, it would take about 6 sold-out events for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Growing up with my vegetable worshiping Appa, I always ate what were most definitely cabbage pancakes doled out as Adai. My Appa’s vegetable love was good in every other way, it elevated ordinary bland tasting fare to unimaginably delicious heights, except in this addition of cabbage to the Adai. The fresh home made butter on the side that was served with the Adai was the only thing I looked forward to. Until last week I had never met an Adai I could eat without feeling choked. My search for a palatable adai ended when I transformed this recipe for deep fried paniyarams handed down by my mother in law. I took the liberty of thinning the batter enough so that the Adai could be not just crisp but also feel less voluminous in the mouth.

Recipe handed down by my mother in law, who in turn got it from her mother in law.

Ingredients

• Raw Rice – 1 cup
• Moong Dal – 1/4 cup
• Urad dal (black gram) – 1/4 cup
• Channa dal (chick peas)- 1/4 cup
• Toor dal (pigeon peas)- 1/4 cup
• Red Chillies – 2 -4 no (crushed)
• Curry Leaves – 2 twigs (finely chopped)
• Ginger – 1 inch piece (grated)
• Grated Coconut – 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil – 2 tbsp

1. Wash the rice and dals (all four together) and soak overnight in enough water separately.
2. Drain water from the rice and the dals. Grind the rice to a smooth batter with 1/2 cup of water. Add the dals and grind to a coarse batter with another 1/2 cup of water . Add salt, red chillies, grated coconut, curry leaves and ginger to the batter. Dilute with water (if necessary) to get a batter of pouring consistency.
3. Heat a flat pan on medium and grease with oil. Pour a ladle of batter and spread in circular motion to make the adai/pancake. When one side turns golden, turn over and cook the other side. Remove from pan. Repeat with rest of the batter.

No breakfast is repeated for atleast a month at Amma’s. Yes, she is that rare breed of modern day Tamilian not to have Idli/Dosa Maavu forever in the fridge, because she makes them just once in a month. And she doesn’t even go beyond the South Indian cuisine much as far as breakfast is concerned.  This isn’t surprising considering the agriculture obsessed South Indian culture that not just worships the grains but prepares them using a wide range of techniques. At times the breakfast may just consist of steamed or roasted vegetables served with suitable sides.  Variety needs inspiration, and it is a value to be incorporated from the earlier generation. Even on the standard Iyengar diet that excludes entire food groups including many vegetables, my Patti put together meals that were diverse with  fresh experiences in flavour and texture. Cooking techniques, not just the spices, were used to render different flavours.

Thayir paniyaram is one such inspired recipe, created by altering the method of cooking for an existing dish (no prizes for guessing, but you may try).

tbsp=tablespoon, tsp=teaspoon, cup=standard metric cup measuring 250ml

Ingredients

• Par Boiled rice – 1 cup
• Urad dal – 1 tablespoon
• Grated coconut – 2 tbsp (heaped)
• Curry leaves – 1 twig
• Red chillies – 2
• Sour Curd (Yogurt) – 1 cup
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – 1 tbsp

Method

1. Wash and drain the par boiled rice and urad dal. Add to the sour curd(yogurt) and soak overnight for 6-8 hours.
2. Grind to a smooth batter adding grated coconut, red chillies and salt. Add curry leaves towards the end of grinding the batter.  The batter must be thick but of pouring consistency (similar to cake batter).
3. Heat the paniyaram pan, add a drop of oil to each of the moulds and pour the batter.
4. Cover and cook over a medium flame. When the paniyarams start to puff up and  separate from the pan, turn them over and cook the other side. Transfer to serving dish. Repeat for the rest of the batter.

I served it with Green Tomato Chutney and Poricha Kuzhambu.

Women, men, children – entire villages – dressed in yellow and red undertaking a barefoot journey to Samayapuram Mariamman Kovil. This long trail of pilgrims, we encountered on National Highway 210 started at Pudukottai and continued till we reached Samayapuram. They must have covered about 60-70kms barefoot.

Padyatra/ Nadaipayanam usually refers to the journey one undertakes by foot (mostly barefoot) to a holy shrine or place of spiritual significance and are fairly common in Tamizh Nad.  Besides the famous and visible padyatras undertaken to the Palani Murugan temple, every year in August/September, droves of pilgrims from all over Tamizh Nad make their way by foot to the Basilica at Velankanni for the annual 11 day feast of Our Lady of Health. Pilgrims from Chennai cover more than 300 kms by foot to make this journey.

We encountered these pilgrims on our way back from Karaikudi, a town in Tamil Nadu.

Poricha Kuzhambu was usually prepared on Amavasai (new moon) when lentil based dishes (with the exception of moong dal) were avoided.  Amavasai Tarpanam,  ritual of water oblations, was performed. Food prepared was offered to ancestors and their blessings were sought. Traditional meal planning always included holidays for consumption of specific categories of food, including avoidance of all grains on certain days.

Poricha Kuzhambu

I made Poricha Kuzhambu for the morning’s breakfast to go with some mor paniyarams.  Since I din’t have yam on hand, I used Colacasia (Seppankizhangu) which works as delightfully with this dish.

tbsp=tablespoon, tsp=teaspoon, cup= standard metric cup measuring 250ml

Ingredients

• Yam/ Colacacia (Seppankizhangu) – 11/2 cup (steamed and diced)
• Black Chick Peas (Kala Channa) – 4 tbsp
• Tamarind – lemon sized ball
• Turmeric
• Hing – a pinch
• Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
• Curry leaves – 1 twig
• Sesame Oil – 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

• Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp
• Channa dal – 1 tbsp
• Urad dal – 1 tsp
• Black peppercorns – 1 tsp
• Red Chilli – 1
• Grated coconut – 3 tbsp
• Sesame Oil – 1 tsp

Paniyaram with Poricha Kuzhambu, Green Tomato Chutney and Curd

Method

1. Soak the Black chickpeas overnight.
2. Wash and pressure cook the Yam/Colacasia and the Black Chickpeas (with water  and a pinch of salt). Peel and dice the yam/colacasia into big pieces.
3. Soak tamarind in warm water for 10 minutes and squeeze pulp with 2 cups of water.
4.  Heat sesame oil and roast all ingredients  for the paste, except coconut, until golden.
5. Take off flame and grind to a paste.
6. Heat sesame oil in a pan,  add mustard seeds.
7. When the mustard starts to splutter,  add curry leaves, and on a low flame add the tamarind extract, turmeric, hing and salt.
8. Bring to a boil and add the steamed yam/colacacia and the black chickpeas.  Simmer for three minutes.
9. Add the ground paste and simmer for three more minutes.

Serve with Rice or Rice based tiffin varieties.

We have certainly not run out of ideas or recipes. While there are several non traditional recipes on this blog,  with this new start we hope to get the blog back to its roots – cataloging more of the traditional recipes. We hope to focus more on our heirloom cuisine, share more in depth about the tradition of cooking we love so much. We also hope to clean up the recipe index, update tags and categories and make it easier for all our readers to search for recipes.

Payathamaa Urundai is one of the few Indian sweets that is easy for beginners since it does not require one to be bothered by the sugar syrup consistency.

Ingredients

• Moong dal (split) – 1 cup (pictured below)
• Sugar – 1 cup
• Ghee – ½ cup
• Cashewnuts – 1 tbsp ( broken)
• Raisins – 1 tbsp
• Cardamom – 4 pods

Method

1. Dry roast moong dal until it turns light brown. Stir continuously so that it is evenly roasted. Allow to cool.
2. Remove cardamon from the pods. Grind sugar and cardamom to a fine powder.
3. Grind the roasted moong to a fine powder.
4. Mix the powdered moong dal and sugar in a bowl.
5. Toast the cashewnuts in ghee till they turn golden. Add the raisins and toast on a low flame.
6. Add the roasted cashewnuts and raisins to the moong dal powder. Mix well and shape into balls.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 470,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 20 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 2 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 270 posts. There were 6 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb.

The busiest day of the year was September 1st with 12 views. The most popular post that day was Srijayanthi( Krishna jayanthi or Janmashtami or Gokulashtami) and Recipes.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were google.co.in, google.com, cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com, en.wordpress.com, and blogcatalog.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for iyengar recipes, idli batter, rava dosa recipe, more kulambu recipe, and krishna jayanthi recipes.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Srijayanthi( Krishna jayanthi or Janmashtami or Gokulashtami) and Recipes August 2007
29 comments

RECIPES INDEX July 2007
22 comments

AUTHENTIC IYENGAR RECIPES August 2007
26 comments

Tips for Idli and Dosa batter August 2007
42 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

More kuzhambu(Iyengar style) July 2007
11 comments

Though I was’nt blogging I did take pictures whenever I prepared something interesting. This is just one of them.

This  spicy snack is great on a rainy day.

Ingredients

• Bell pepper (Capsicum)- 2 nos
• Gram flour (besan)- 1 cup
• Rice flour – 1 cup
• Chilli powder – 1tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Hing – 1/4 tsp
• Oil for deep frying

Method

1. Cut the capsicum into 1/2cm thick rings.
2. In a bowl mix gramflour, riceflour,hing,salt and chilli powder.
3. Add around3/4th cup water and mix to a smooth batter.
4. Heat oil in a kadai. Dip one bell pepper ring into the batter and drop in hot oil.
5. Fry both sides till the rings are golden brown.
6. Repeat with all the bellpepper rings.
7. Serve hot with sauce.

Note

Always keep the flame medium while deep frying.

Gram flour is same as chickpea flour.

For some time I will be posting jst one or 2 recipes a week, till I finish updating the recipe index.

A few days back  I prepared this simple Paneer tikka for a TV show. I always wanted to use decorative skewers. I have searched many shops in Chennai and Bangalore in vain. Only simple barbeque sticks are easily available. The first time I made these using stalks from coconut leaves.

Paneer sticks. The table cloth is   hand stitched patch work made from leftover  material of  lakshmi’s frocks.

Ingredients

1. Paneer – 200gms (cut into even cubes)
2. Bell peppers – 1 each of green, yellow and red.
3. Tomato – 2
4. Onion – 2
5. Carrot – 1
6. Baby corn – 2
7. Potato – 1
8. Thick Curd – 2 tbs
9. Salt – 1/2 tsp
10. Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
11. Chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
12. Any mixed spice of your choice – 1 tsp
13. Oil – 1 tbs

Method

• Cut the bellpeppers, onions and tomatoes into 1 inch cubes.
• Peel and cut the potatoes into one inch cubes.
• Peel and cut the carrots into rounds.
• Cut the baby corn into one inch pieces.
• MW the carrots, potatoes and baby corn for 2 minutes.
• Mix salt, Turmeric, chilli powder and 1 tsp oil in a bowl.
• Arrange the vegetables and paneer one after the other into the barbeque sticks.
• Spread the curd mixture on all sides and leave for 5 minutes.
• Grease a non stick tawa with 1 tsp oil and place the sticks.
• Close with a lid and cook in low flame for 5 minutes turning after every minute.
• Once the vegetables are soft and paneer turns brown take off the flame.
• Sprinkle your favourite spice powder and serve hot.

Note

You can also make these with tooth picks. Just cut the vegetables and paneer into smaller cubes.

You can use any other vegetables of  your choice.

Watch me on Srisankara TV on saturday June 26th at 1 pm IST. You can also view in the web at srisankaratv.net (timings are same)

For my friends in other countries I have requested the channel to retelecast at a time convenient for them. Will let you know timings soon.

Ingredients

• Mixed Vegetables of choice  - 1 1/2 cups (carrot, cauliflower, peas, green chillies, small  onions, garlic, radish)
• North Indian Pickle Powder – 3 tbsp (follow link for recipe we posted earlier)
• Olive Oil/ Sesame Oil – 2 tbsp
• Salt – 2 level tsp 

Method

1. In a glass bowl toss vegetables with the oil and microwave on high for 2 minutes. The vegetables need to lose some of their water content. 
2. Add the pickle powder and salt. Mix well. 
3. Transfer to an air tight container and refrigerate. Consume after two days after vegetables are marinated well.