Arisi kolukattai/ Modhaka (with jaggery stuffing)

Kolukattai or modhaka's is an Indian Festival dish. Vinayagar Chathurthi is celebrated as god Ganapathi's Birth day. Devotees prepare kolukattai which is Lord Ganapathy's favorite.

Kolukattai is a sweet dish. Sweet fillings are kept inside rice flour. My favorite part in this dish making is the folding part. In my school days every year i use to make so many kolukattai designs while sitting with my mommy (helping her). Am sure all your kids will enjoy the folding part. Whatever they do will turn out into a cute design. Kids love vinayagar god so let them do it for his birthday😊😊.

 Kolukattai is made of pachai arisi flour (Raw rice flour). To know how to prepare this flour at home hit my basics tab. It is a separate post on how to prepare this flour. The stuffing inside is made of jaggery, coconut and kadalai paruppu.  A day or 2 days before chathurthi my mom plans task from grinding flour to everything.

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Ghee - 1 tsp
Water - 1 1/2 cup
Salt - pinch

Method:
For stuffing:

1) First lets prepare jaggery. Heat jaggery with little water. Once it is dissolved filter it to remove impurities. Let it cool down.

2) Dry roast the kadalai paruppu and cook in pressure cooker. Drain the water from paruppu and grind it with jaggery and coconut until paste.

3) Add water if required. mostly water is not needed as jaggery and paruppu has enough moisture. I like to grind coarsely.

4) At this point you can just add ghee and mix it or in a pan heat ghee and add paste to it.

For kolukattai:

1) Sieve the rice flour twice to remove granules. Take flour in a bowl with required salt and mix well.

2) Heat the mesured cup of water (not too hot). Add the water to the rice flour and mix well to form a soft dough. You can grease your hand with oil while kneading.

3) The dough should not dry up. so close it with damp cloth.

4) Make balls, and shape it using your thump by pressing in the middle. It forms a cup shape. Do not make it too thin or too thick. Or place the ball on a small bowl (greased with oil) upside down. Press to get the bowl shape.

5) Keep a tsp of the stuffing that we have made in the center and close it to make a modhaka shape or any of your interest.

6) Also can make round shape like chapathi (but small). and place the stuffing in the middle . Fold into half and seal it by pressing the edges.

7) Place the prepared kolukattai's on a idly plate. Steam it for 10 mins.

8) Let it cool for 5 mins and taste it. Feel the juicy stuffing inside and enjoy!!!!

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Bread Halwa

Bread Halwa, name explains everything. Its a sweet, based out from Hyderabad. My friend in Hyderabad do bread halwa always have it in her home. She is a fan of it. Whenever i call she says "I had Bread Halwa". This made me so tempted and i try this recipe.

Its her version of doing bread halwa. It came out really well. She made it with white bread but I tried it with wheat grain bread. My husband liked it very much in the very first try. So its a hit. Here i share the recipe. But before i type more let me go and have some bread halwa first. Really now i know why my friend is a big fan of this bread halwa...

Ingredients:

Wheat bread - 4 slices
Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4th - 1 cup
Cashew - 10 nos
Raisins - 10 nos
Ghee - 1/2 cup + 2 tsp for roasting nuts


Preparation:

1) a) Toast the bread and cut off the sides. Cut the toasted bread into cubes and keep it aside.

or

   b) Cut the bread into cubes. Heat ghee in a pan and roast bread cubes. Fry it till golden brown

2) Heat 2 tsp of ghee, add cashew and fry till golden brown. Add raisins and fry. Keep it aside.

3) In a heavy bottom pan, boil milk with sugar.

4) Now add in the bread cubes and keep in simmer. Stir occasionally.

5) Let it cook for few mins. Bread cubes absorbs almost all the milk and you will get a thick content.

6) Add few more tsp of ghee and mix well. First ghee will get absorbed and then in few mins it oozes out.

7) That is when you get the correct texture of halwa. It should be gooey and not sticky.

8) When you see glaze of ghee oozing out add in the fried nuts, mix and serve.

Notes:

1) Fry the bread cubed untill golden brown. Too much frying gives not good taste and texture.

2) Add nuts of your choice.

3) Do not hesitate to add ghee. Halwa will be sticky without enough ghee.

4) I used wheat grain bread, but also try with white bread or any bread of your choice.

5) Can store it in refrigerator but heat it before serving.

6) Adjust sugar level as per your taste.


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Banana Appam

Banana Appam is a sweet snack, which is soft and has a crispy outside. Preparation is easy. Can store them for a week. Banana appam is a healthy snack. Banana and jaggery has high nutritional value.

Appams can be done in 2 ways either deep fried or like paniyaram. The recipe i have shown here is deep fried banana appams. I will also post the other paniyaram type banana appam as another post.

Ingredients:

Ripe banana - 3 big
Rice flour - 1 cup
Jaggery - 100 gms or 3/4 cup
Cardamon powder - 1 tsp
Cashew - 10 nos
Baking soda - pinch
Ghee - 2 tsp
oil for frying

Instructions:

1) Cut jaggery into small cubes. Heat a pan and melt jaggery with 2 or 3 tbsp water.

2) Do not let it boil. Once melt keep it aside.

3) In a bowl mash ripe bananas. Make sure it has no lumps.

4) To the mashed banana add rice flour, cardamon powder and baking soda.

5) In a pan heat ghee. Add cashew and once it turns golden brown add it to the mashed banana mixture.

6) Now add melted jaggery to the banana mixture.

7) The consistency should be slightly thick than idly/dosa batter.

8) Heat oil in a frying pan. Oil should be medium heat throughout frying.

9) Take a tablespoon or small ladle full of batter and pour it directly in oil keeping the ladle 2 or 3 inch above oil.

10) Initially the batter settles down to the pan and then it floats. Make another appam once the previous one floats. Make 3 - 4 appam at a time.

11) Turn over appam with a wooden stick or skewer. Cook till golden brown.

12) Appams are crispier when hot. Serve hot and enjoy.

Notes:

1) Adjust the jaggery level according to your taste.

2) Instead of mashing banana, it can also be done in blender to get a smooth paste.

2) This recipe yields 30 - 35 appams. Store it in a air tight container.

3) Adding baking soda makes appam soft. You can also skip if you not have.

4) With cashew you can also add other nuts. Add either as powder or chopped.




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Pasiparuppu Payasam/ Moong dhal Payasam

Pasiparuppu or Moong dhal payasma is something i like but i do it on occasions. It is purely a South Indian sweet dish. This time am doing this for Vinayagar Chathurthi. People in Kerala do this payasam every year for Onam. In Tamil Nadu brahmins do it often for their poojas as neivethyam (prasadham). 

It is a jaggery based dish where we do not use sugar. Jaggery is good for health. Sometimes jaggery may have dust and residues in it. So better dissolve jaggery in little water and sieve (filter) it to remove the impurities.

Rava Laddu

My first and favorite festival is Vinayagar Chathurthi. So there is special every year in my home. I love sweets and rava laddu is my all time favorite. My mom do it every year for both chathurthi and Diwali.

My mom do rava laddu in two types. I like the one with coconut and milk, and the recipe here is the same. I love the coarse texture of rava and crunchy taste of coconut in it. All the ingredients to make this rava laddu will be there in every home so that makes it easy to do it any day. It is a quick, tasty recipe and is perfect if you do not want to spend much time in kitchen.

As we add coconut and milk this laddus cannot be stored long. But i bet you will not keep it that long.         Let's start...

Ingredients:

Yields 15 laddus

Rava/ Semolina - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Sugar  - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
Cashew nut - 10 nos
Rasin - 10 nos
Cardamom powder - pinch
Ghee - 1 -2 tsp

Method:

1) Powder the sugar and cardamom and keep it aside.

2) In a non stick pan heat 1 tsp ghee and roast cashew, raisin to golden brown. Keep it aside

3) Melt the remaining ghee and add rava. Roast it in low heat until you get the aroma.

4) To this add grated coconut and roast for 2 mins. Mix well

5) Add sugar and cardamom powder. Roast it another 1 min. Now add roasted cashew, raisin and switch off the stove.

6) Add milk little by little and mix well.

7) Once you get the consistency to make laddu (should lightly stick to your paddle), stop adding milk.

8) Let it cool for 2 - 3 mins and then take a small portion of it and start making balls of your desired size.

9) Laddu is ready. Store it in airtight container for 2 days.

Note:

1) Powdered sugar is available in market. You can also use it.

2) Through out the process make sure you do it in low flame.

3) As we add milk, this can be stored for maximum 2 or 3 days.

4) Instead of adding cold milk, try adding warm milk.

5) Coconut should not change its color while roasting.






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Palkova - Indian Milk Cake

Palkova is one of my all time favourite sweet. Everybody's favourite. Though it is a time consuming dish, the final result will be delicious. Sweet lovers should never skip this. This dish is famous for its delicious taste. This is purely made from milk and sugar. Srivilliputhur palkova is very famous among south Indians. 

Follow the exact steps mentioned. Come back with feed back and the result. Any doubts please comment below.

There are too many ways to prepare palkova (Milk Cake). Some use lemon juice to get a thread like appearance. But there is a traditional way of preparing without any additional products. It would be a nice sunday sweet! Its worth all the effort. 

All we need is Milk and sugar. Cashew and ghee for seasoning.

Preparation Time : 1 lit milk = 2 hours (continuous stirring)

Incrediants:

Milk - 1 / 1.5 lits
Sugar - As per taste (for 1 lit i use 3/4 th cup sugar)
Cashew - 5 nos
Ghee - 1 tsp

Method:

1) Set milk on a heavily bottomed pan (to avoid burning) at mid heat.
2) Keep on stirring every 1 or 2 mins. 
3) once the milk is reduced to half of its quantity put the stove on simmer.

4) At this point the milk turns to a mild yellow colour. Add sugar little by little and stir continuously.
5) At one point milk gets thick but in running condition. 
6) Remove it from stove and transfer it to desired plate or bowl before it gets hard.
7) Heat ghee in a pan and fry cashew to golden brown and decorate palkova.

Either serve it hot or cold. Yummy palkova is ready 

Note: Use fresh Milk. Using full fat milk makes the process easier as it takes less time to condense.