Ragi Mudde with Avarekaalina Saaru – Finger Millet Cakes with Flat Beans Sambar

Ragi mudde (Finger Millet Cakes) and Avarekaalina Saaru (Flat Beans) are 100% Karnataka recipes. I know Asha is excited to see these recipes. Do I need to say that I am sending this for RCI karnataka! 🙂

I am surrounded by many interesting and talented people – like this lady who makes and sells sandige(papads etc). She is also a good cook and does catering during monsoon and winter. Her name is Aaruni and she comes to my place to help me with some odd jobs and learn new recipes. She has learnt to make perfect mysoor pak and milk chocolate. When I told her about RCI karnataka, she was very excited and promised to help me in making some Authentic Karnataka recipes. Ragi mudde is one of them.

Aaruni lost her husband quite a while back and is not educated one bit. She brings both her children with the money that her culinary skills bring her. Having a recipe published in her name with pictures in the blog means a whole lot to her. After cooking she always asks “photo thegithiraa?” (Will you take a photo?). Some of my friends and I are helping her to get catering contracts so that she can educate her children. One of her daughter is doing BBA (Bachelors in Business Administration) and the other is doing + 1.

Here goes the recipe for Ragi mudde and Avarekaalina saaru which Aaruni made for my lunch today.

For Avarekaalina saaru

Ingredients

• Avarekai – 1/2 cup(Tender seeds)
• Potato – 1 medium size
• Tomato – 1 small
• Onion – 1 small
• Sambhar powder – 2 teaspoons
• Grated coconut – 1 table spoon
• Tamarind – 1 inch
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Hing – 1 pinch
• Oil – 1 table spoon
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Cut potato into small cubes. Wash avarekai and potato.
2. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan, add the potato and avarekai.
3. Add hing and turmeric and saute on a medium flame.
4. Grind all other ingredients together in to a smooth paste. Add to the vegetables.
5. Add 1/2 cup water and close and cook on a low flame till the vegetables are soft.

Tastes good with all kinds of rotis and chapathis also.

 

For ragi mudde

Ingredients

• Ragi flour – 1/2 cup
• Water – 1 cup
• Salt – 1 pinch

Method

1. In a heavy bottomed pan boil water on a medium flame. Add salt and 1 teaspoon ragi flour.
2. Allow to boil for a while and add remaining flour and leave for 1 minute on low flame. Do not stir.
3. Now stir the contents with the back of a laddle and mix well and let it cook for a while. The mixture will look crumbled.
4. Put off the flame and Knead to a ball when still hot. Serve hot with Avarekaalina saaru.

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Dry fruit ladoo ( Aantu Unde)

I invite all visitors to see the janmashtami round up. Just click on Balakrishna’s picture for that! To know about the event for Ganesh chaturthi Click on Ganesha.

Aantu unde or dryfruit laddoo is a famous sweet in karnataka! This nutritious laddoo is a must be in the diet of young mothers, three months after delivery. This surely helps new mothers to recover back to their original health.

I have tasted this unde many times but never bothered to prepare at home. But now I learnt the method for Asha’s RCI karnataka!Thanks Asha, I have learnt so many new authentic karnataka recipes because of you!

On thursday when all the people were shopping for Gowri, Ganesha festival, I went around searching for aantu or cooking gum used in this Laddoo. It is available in Granthike Aangadi in Sampige road, Malleshwaram.

All ingredients used in Aantu Unde

Cooking gum or Aantu after dryroasting.

Ingredients

• Cashew – 1 cup
• Badam- – 1 cup
• Dry grapes – 1cup
• Dates – 1 cup
• Dessicated coconut – 1 cup
• Cooking gum (Aantu)- 1 cup
• Sugar – 1 cup
• Ghee – 1 cup
• Cardamom – 6 nos

Method

1. Chop the badam, cashew nuts, dates and dry grapes to small pieces.
2. Dry roast the cooking gum in a heavy bottomed pan, on a low flame till it puffs up as shown in picture. Crush a little when cool.
3. Roast the badam and cashew with 1 table spoon ghee till light golden.
4. Powder the dessicated coconut, sugar and cardamom.
5. Melt the ghee and combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
6. *Make into 2 inch radius balls and store in an air tight container.

The most difficult part is to make the undes. Chopping the dry grapes and dates to fine pieces helps in binding.

You can use sugar as per taste.

You can add any other dry fruit of your choice.

Can be stored for months.

Update: Since dry grapes (raisins) are indispendable for the making of these laddoos I am sending this to Swapna of Swad of India for AFAM – Grapes. “A Fruit a Month” (AFAM) is a monhtly event that rounds up recipes of a particular fruit.

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Maddur Vade

Maddur is a small town on the way to Mysore from Bangalore. Most passengers travelling by train or bus, will buy the vade sold here. I like the Maddur vade sold at MTR and Woodys in Karnataka.

I have the habit of talking to chefs at hotels and marriages to learn some useful tips. I got this recipe from one of the chefs when I attended a marriage.This is my next entry for RCI karnataka,hosted by Asha of foodieshope

Ingredients

• Rice flour – 1/2 cup
• Rava – 1/2 cup
• Maida – 1/2 cup
• Salt to taste
• Ghee 2 teaspoons
• Hing – 1/4 teaspoon
• Chilli powder – 1 teaspoon
• Finely chopped curry leaves and coriander leaves – 2 tablespoons
• Finely chopped Onion – 1/2 cup
• Oil – 1 and 1/2 cup for frying

Method

1. Combine all ingredients except oil in a bowl. Add enough water and mix to a stiff dough.
2. Heat oil in a kadai on a medium flame.
3. Divide the dough into 20 ball. flatten the balls on your palm to form thin circles (around 1/8 cm thickness)
4. Check the temperature of oil by dropping a small piece of dough into the oil.If it rises immediately the oil is ready for frying
5. Fry the vades in medium to low fire around 4 at a time.
6. You can flatten all the vades and keep them on a plate before you start frying.
7. Serve with sauce or coconut chutney. It can be stored for 3 days.

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Green Tomato Spring Onion Chutney

Give any dish, any recipe to a person from north karnataka and he or she will make groundnuts go with it. I have many fond childhood memories of living in Hubli and Bidar and I attribute my soft corner for food that is groundnutty to this influence.

North Karnataka is a semi arid region with sparse rainfall during the monsoons. The region is largely uncovered by irrigation although a few border areas of Raichur have canals under the Tungabhadra Project. For a land so severely parched, in rural areas agriculture is the main occupation although in habitations close to the taluk one does find people engaged in quarries or factories. Crops grown include jowar, groundnuts and sunflower.

A couple of years back I spent a month travelling to many villages in north karnataka on an assignment that involved visits to several villages. Couple of random lines from one of my journals from that visit :
“The heat bites into the skin…vast areas of dry black land scattered around stony hillocks greet you as you enter this quarter. Slate houses dot the area where people spend a large part of their lives fetching water. Like most hinterland this area, formerly a part of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s province, witnesses its people fight a relentless battle against poverty everyday.Though stricken by poverty, people are remarkably hospitable. I of course been treated to the standard sugary chaya at every house that I stopped by. Managing the chaya here has been relatively easy so far, mostly because it pretty hot and my bladder has thankfully been nice. Coming as a student from Bombay seems to make the familiarity even more striking – most people migrate annually for a few months for contruction work and arrive only when its time to cultivate the next crop. ”

I am any day game for a lunch of Jolada Rotti with Gojju over a conversation in smattering Mumbaiya Hindi and Kannada.

You must have guessed that Green Tomato Spring Onion Chutney is a recipe from North Karnataka; Amma learnt this from her friend Nirmala Mallinath.

Rave Idli with Green Tomato Spring Onion Chutney makes a heavenly combination. Rave Idli is a classic Kannadiga dish which is served with a lot of love and generous amounts of Ghee at MTR, Lalbagh Road, Bangalore. My amma (Latha) tried multiple times to replicate the taste and texture of mouth watering Rave Idlis that one gets at MTR before achieving perfection in this recipe that both of us have cooked over a zillion times. You wake either of us in the middle of the night and ask us for Rava Idlis; we’ll get a plate ready in 10 minutes 🙂 . Rave Idlis aren’t just delicious but also sinfully simple – so simple that I’d hammer you on your head if you refused to attempt this recipe.

One pack of Rave Idli with Green Tomato Spring Onion Chutney for spirited Asha of Foodie’s Hope as my #2 entry for RCI-Karnataka.

Ingredients

• Green Tomato – 1
• Onion – 1
• Spring Onions – 1/4 cup (finely chopped)
• Coriander – 2 twigs
• Curry Leaves – 4
• Green Chilly – 1
• Groundnuts – 2 tbsp
• Jeera – 1tsp
• Salt to taste
• Sesame Oil – 1/2 tsp
• Oil for cooking

Method

1. Roast the groundnuts for 15-20 seconds in the Microwave on high. Set aside to cool.
2. Quarter the Onion and Green Tomato and saute in a pan with Curry Leaves and 1 tsp oil. Add roughly chopped coriander to this. Set aside to cool.
3. Grind the roasted groundnuts and jeera in a blender to a fine powder. Add the sauted onion-green tomato with salt and grind to a fine paste. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Add 1/2 tsp Sesame Oil to the finely chopped spring onion and add this to the paste.

Note: Regional Cuisines of India is an online food event started by Lakshmi of Veggie Cuisine. This month the event focusses on Karnataka. Head over to Asha’s to check out details for submission and deadline.

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Ground nut Poli(Shengai Holige)From North Karnataka

This nutritious oil free holige or poli is my 2nd entry for RCI Karnataka hosted by Asha of Foodie’s Hope.

I learnt this from a dear friend Nirmala Mallinath. Thanks Nirmala!

Ingredients

For the filling

• Groundnut – 1 cup
• Sesame seeds or til – 1 table spoon
• Jaggery – 3/4 cup
• Cardamom – 2 nos

For the cover

• Maida 1 cup + 1 table spoon for rolling
• Ghee – 2 teaspoons

Method

1. Dry roast the ground nut in the MW for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring after every minute for even cooking.
2. Dry roast the til for 2 minutes in a kadai(In MW til will crackle and spread all over). Grind the roasted til to a fine powder.
3. Skin the groundnut and grind coarsely. You can grind with skin also. Powder the jaggery well.
4. Mix the powdered Til, Groundnut, jaggery and cardamom.
5. Sprinkle a table spoon of water, mix well and keep aside. This is used as the filling.
6. Make a soft dough with maida, adding ghee and required amount of water. It should be like chapathi dough.
7. Make 8 balls out of the filling and 8 balls with maida dough.
8. Roll out the dough, place the filling, cover and roll again to a thin poli, using the flour for easy rolling.
9. Heat a tawa on a medium flame and cook both sides of the polis, Till brown spots appear.
10. You can serve with or with out ghee.

Karnataka Kasuti Is a famous hand embroidery of North Karnataka. Work done on my saree by my close friend Maduri Dawane can be seen in the background.

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Kodubale- Crunchy rings

This is a famous snack of Karnataka! I have learnt many versions of this snack. I am posting the recipe that I liked most. This is my entry for Asha’s RCI Karnataka.

Ingredients

• Rice flour – 2 cups
• Maida – 1/2 cup
• Wheat flour – 1/2 cup
• Pottukadalai or chutney dal(Urikadale)- 1/2 cup
• Dessicated dry coconut (Kopra) – 1/2 cup
• Ghee – 1 table spoon
• Hing – 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Chilli powder – 1 teaspoon
• Oil – 2 cups for deep frying

Method

1. Grind the pottukadalai and kopra to a fine powder.
2. Lightly roast the wheat flour and maida together on a low flame till it turns light golden.
3. In a large bowl mix the rice flour, ground pottukadalai and the roasted flours.
4. Add ghee, salt, hing chilli powder and water and knead to a thick dough.
5. Heat oil in a kadai on a medium flame.
6. Take a little dough and shape into rings (Thickness of a pencil)
7. Fry a few rings at a time on low to medium flame, stirring occasionally.
8. When the sound subsides, drain and take out on a kitchen paper.
9. Store in air tight containers.

Tips

The oil should be on medium heat while dropping the rings and reduced to low till it gets cooked.

Update: I am sending this to Asha of Foodie’s Hope for RCI- Karnataka.

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