Chana Poha ( sweet n spicy beaten rice with chicpea sauce)

Chana poha is usually served as an evening snack or as main breakfast dish during the fasting days in Konkani Cuisine. Since this dish is filling and healthy it was prepared frequently among the joint families. At my grandma's place this dish was almost a daily affair as an evening snack. My mother made it a weekly affair during her fasting days( be it Monday or Friday). Thankfully we all liked it during our childhood days and even now. My daughter too adores it. I make it on weekends either as an evening snack or on any other lazy day when I have some cooked chickpeas in my fridge.
I learnt this dish from my mom hence Mamama(grandma)'s Chana-poha for Sakshi.
This dish is for the Event "Cooking for Kids with love" hosted by Pritya.

Poha Chutney(Sweet n Spicy Beaten Rice):
Ingredients:
Thin beaten rice - 2 cups
grated coconut - ½ cup
grated jaggery - 2 tbsp
salt to taste
seasoning:
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
dry long red chillies - 2
curry leaves - 1 sprig
coconut oil - 2 tsp

Method:
Heat coconut oil in a small pan. Splutter mustard seeds, add red chillies and curry leaves and rosat on low flame till nice and brown. Let aside to cool.
In a wide bowl, pour this seasoning and crush well. Add beaten rice, grated coconut, grated jaggery, salt and mix well. Sprinkle little water to moisten the poha. Cover and keep for 5 minutes before serving.

Note: In a jiffy, mix sambar powder to the remaining ingredients and season only with mustard and curry leaves.

Chana (Brown Chickpea sauce)
Ingredients:
Brown chickpeas - ½ cup
salt to taste
grated jaggery - 1 tsp
seasoning:
coconut oil - 1 tsp
mustard seeds - 1 tsp
curry leaves - 4 leaves

Method:
Pressure cook chickpeas with 2½ cups water till soft and done.
Add salt and jaggery and get to a boil.

Season with mustard and curry leaves.

Note: Raw banana or potatoes can be added as bharshi( to get along with in konkani) with chickpeas to give a thicker consistency.

Serve the poha and then pour chana over it or serve side by side. The gravy from the chana soaks up the poha and makes it soft and delicious to relish!!!

Rulaava Bhakri ( Spicy Semolina Dosa)

This is the dosa i hated the most all my life until my marriage. When I was doing my Engineering at my Aunt's place she would make this dosa once in a fortnight and I couldn't tell her that I hated this dosa. I used to eat only half and when nobody's around slowly flip the dosa under the book and give it to my friend who used to yearn for homely food. Finally I was caught red handed when i forgot the book at my study table and my aunt saw ants all over my book to see dosas inside!! ;))

Infact I used to tell my amma that i will totally ban this dosa after marriage. Gosh!!!! This is my hubby's favourite and he wouldn't mind having it everyday for breakfast and now my daughter's too. I had to take back my words and nobody believes when i say that I have started liking this dosa now... Really strange!!! Ultimately we are ready to do anything for our family!!! Now i don't have any particular dislikes as such. Now thats the part of growing up!!!

There are many variations to this basic batter like adding cucumber makes it thoushe bhakri. Basic ingredients also varies with each household. So its your taste that decides the ingredients going into this dosa!!!

Ingredients: makes 5 dosas
Semolina - 1 cup
grated coconut - ¼cup, fresh or frozen
green chillies - 2
ginger - 1" piece (optional)
coriander powder - 1 tsp
jeera powder - ½tsp
salt to taste

Ingredients:
Pound grated coconut, green chillies, ginger and salt to coarse paste. One can blend this in a blender. Another option is to chop the green chillies and add. Now take semolina in a bowl add the coarse paste and coriander- jeera powder. Add enough water to make a thick batter. Leave aside for 10-15 minutes.
Heat a tawa till moderately hot. Now take a fist full of batter and spread it out with your hands to dosa shape. One can also use ladle to do the same. Cover and cook on medium flame till the rawness disappears. Flip over to the other side and cook till nice and brown. Add ghee/butter while frying. Serve hot with a dollop of butter or have it with sugar or just like that.

Urad daal and semolina Idli ( Rulavaan Idli)

Idli, famous south Indian breakfast dish as everybody knows is made with urad-rice batter. It is one of the important Breakfast dish among the Amchis too. But on fasting days like Sankashti, Ekadashi or Panchami we konkanis eat only one meal a day that is rice in the noon. So breakfast and dinner has to be wheat and its products. Neither onion nor garlic. Hence on these days semolina is given uttermost importance. Various kinds of dosas are made using semolina which I will be posting in future. But this particular idli comes out really soft and tasty.

Ingredients:
Urad daal - 1 cup
Semolina - 2 cups

salt to taste

Method:
Soak urad daal for minimum 3 hours to maximum overnight. Grind to a smooth paste using a blender or a grinder. (Grinder gives the best results letting the urad daal to really double up in volume).

Meanwhile semolina has to be steamed/roasted and cooled before adding to the ground urad daal. There are 2 ways. Semolina can be simply roasted over a low flame till aromatic OR wrap up the semolina in a clean cloth (tie a knot neatly so that moisture doesn't get into the semolina) or newspaper (take 2 layers of paper and fold it neatly like an envelope). Now place this wrapped semolina in a vessel in an Idli maker and steam for around 15-20 minutes on medium flame (if using a pressure cooker remove the whistle). Allow the semolina to cool. I personally feel steaming semolina gives fluffier idlis. This part of steaming/roasting semolina can be done well in advance.

Once the semolina is cooled add enough water to make a thick paste ( OR the water used to clean up the blender after taking out the ground urad daal ;)) supposedly not to waste the urad daal sticking onto the bottom of the grinder/blender).

Now add the semolina mixture to the ground urad daal and beat well. let it ferment overnite. Next morning make idlis. Serve with sambar and chutney of your choice or its soulmate daali-thoy.

Also check Shilpa's recipe for rulavaan idli here.

Health mix Puttu

Puttu and kadala curry is a typical Kerala breakfast dish and I never got to eat it until my marriage. I just loved it the first time I tasted it and this puttu became one of our favourites and being one of the easiest ones to make i had no problems at all. The only requirement is the puttu maker for perfect puttus. But one can use a thali as well. I usually made normal white rice flour puttu. Lately when i came across Sharmi's blog at Neivedyam i got to know there are many varieties too and luckily I got the Double Horse Brand Puttu flour and tried my hands on health mix puttu and it really tasted great. I have not made any major changes at all. Sharmi's recipe is here.

Ingredients:
Health mix puttu flour - 2 cups
Freshly grated coconut - 1 cup
salt - 1 tsp
sugar - 1tsp

Mix the puttu flour,salt and sugar well. Sprinkle little quantity of water on the flour mixture and mix. Keep sprinkling water until the flour mixture seems to be moist but not doughy. As sharmi said Check for doneness by taking some flour in your hand to make a fist and see if the flour holds together. This means the mix is ready to get steamed.

Heat the bottom pot of the puttu maker with half the water in it. Meanwhile Sprinkle little grated coconut on the bottom of the puttu cyclinder. Spread moist flour on it followed by the grated coconut. Continue layering till the cyclinder is filled finishing with a coconut layer. Cover the puttu vessel with a lid and steam for 10 minutes.

When done, remove the lid and push the puttu with a help of a round rod(which comes along with a puttu maker) onto a serving plate.
Serve hot with kadala curry or chutney or bananas

This dish goes for the event MBP: Easy Breezy Breakfast Event which was started by Coffee of the spice cafe

Surnali (Sweet Dosa)

Surnali is a traditional breakfast dish among konkanis which is also called takka surnali. This dosa is sweet in taste and best eaten with butter or ghee. These dosas can be made without jaggery too and named cheppe surnali (sweetless dosa) which goes well with any chutney or pickle. We like it anyway. Hence what I do is divide the batter before adding the jaggery and leave one batter just like that and add jaggery to the other.
My friend's mother adds chopped onions and green chillies to the batter(without jaggery) and make dosas. Even they turned out good!!!

Ingredients:
Dosa rice - 2 cups
methi seeds - 1 tsp
Beaten rice(poha)/puffed rice(charmuri)/layi - 1 cup ( I used beaten rice)
grated coconut - ¾ cup
yogurt/butter milk - ¾ cup
salt to taste
jaggery - ¾ cup grated

Wash dosa rice and methi seeds in water 3 times or till water comes clear. Soak in rice and methi seeds in water for 3 hours. My amma soaks rice and methi seeds in buttermilk instead of water and then uses it while grinding. But here I prefer to soak it in water.
Soak beaten rice in water for about 10 minutes
Grind soaked ingredients along with coconut and beaten rice to smooth paste. Add yogurt instead of water for smooth grinding. If the yogurt is used up add only little water as the batter should be slightly thick as it comes to normal dosa consistency once you add jaggery since jaggery melts making the batter thin. Take the batter in a vessel add salt, turmeric and grated jaggery. Mix well and set aside to ferment for minimum 8 hours or overnight. The batter almost doubles in volume.

Mix well. heat a dosa griddle (my MIL says non stick pan works best since they do not brown underneath and surnali's are fluffy soft!!! Choose whichever pan you have) when moderate hot pour ladlefull batter onto the pan and just give a soft swirl. Do not spread the batter. Cover with a lid and cook on low flame for 3 minutes max. Now open the lid - dosa would have had tiny dimples all over !!! check for any raw batter on top if so cover and cook further for another minute. Surnali is cooked only on one side. Underside of the surnali should be golden brown. Take care not to blacken them as the taste will be lost.
Serve hot with butter/ghee or enjoy just like that.

Masala Dosa

This is one of the all time favourites in our family!!! This dish falls into our "weekend special" category so i prepare the bhaji and chutney the previous evening as weekends are for lazing and every woman would readily agree with that.

Now coming to Masala dosa, there are many ways of making it. Typically udupi masala dosa has potato filling with chutney and sambar served as a side dish. My recipe is for Mysore masala dosa with a twist. This recipe is from my amma which she got from my grandma, we have grown eating this masala dosa. I love those masala dosa made in restaurants but nothing to beat this particular masala dosa. So for all those masala dosa lovers try it out to experience the spice flavoured crispy dosas.

Ingredients:
For Dosa
Urad daal - 1 cup
Raw dosa rice - 3 cups
tuvar daal - 1 tbsp
chana daal - 1 tbsp
methi seeds - 1 tsp
salt to taste
sugar - 1/2 tsp

For Potato bhaji
onions - 2 medium
Potatoes - 2 big or 3 medium sized
oil - 1 tbsp
mustard seeds - 1 tsp
urad daal - 1 tsp
green chillies - 3 slit
curry leaves - 5 leaves
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
salt to taste

For red chutney
coconut - 1 cup
red chillies roasted - 2
red chillies raw - 1 to 2 ( depending on how spicy u like)
coriander - 1 tsp raw
tamarind - marble size
gnger - 1/2" piece
garlic - 1 clove, peeled
salt to taste

Method:
For Dosa: Soak urad daal, tuvar daal, chana daal, rice and methi seeds for mininmum 3 hours. Grind in a blender or grinder to a smooth paste. The batter is slightly thinner than the idli batter. Add salt and let ferment overnight. when just about to make dosas add sugar and give a stir. This gives the rich golden colour to the dosa. 1/2 tsp sugar will not alter the taste of the batter at all.

For Potato bhaji:
Pressure cook potatoes till soft but firm. Chop them into cubes and keep aside.
Heat oil in a pan, add mustard and urad dal and saute till mustard crackles. Now add green chillies and curry leaves and saute. add onions and fry till onions turn pink and transparent. Now add turmeric powder and cubed potatoes and mix well. Add 1/4 cup water and salt and mix well. Cover and cook till the semi dry.
For red chutney:
Grind together coconut, red chillies(if confused with raw and roasted chilli, just add 1 and 1/2 tsp of kashmiri red chilli powder gives a fantastic colour)coriander, ginger, garlic, tamarind with very less water to a semi dry paste. Add salt and mix well.
Final Finish:
Heat a tawa and set the batter, bhaji and chutney ready. keep a glass of water near the tawa. when the tawa is hot enough, sprinkle water and as water sizzles and evaporates pour a ladlefull of batter and spread the dosa. Start from the centre and move outwards in a circular concentric motion till the outer edge is reached. Spread 1 tsp oil along the edges of the dosa. when the dosa is partially cooked, spread red chutney all over the dosa.

Keep one spoonfull of potato bhaji in the centre.

Now fold the dosa with opposite ends overlapping. Now flip the dosa over to the plate and eat it hot.

Mushti Polo ( Rice-lentil Dosa)

Mushti in konkani means handfull and polo means dosa. There are many recipes to this mushti dosa. I have tried almost all the recipes for this particular dosa as it is my favourite. i always loved the way my amma made this dosa and again mom are great cooks. But somehow whenever i tried it here in Doha it never came as i expected. Then it was during my stay in India post delivery, midwife Lalithakka gave me this recipe and when i tried it here it was a success!!!!

Ingredients:
Raw rice (Dosa rice) - 2 cups
Urad daal - one handful or 1/4 cup
Methi seeds - 2tsp
cooked rice/ poha/puffed rice - one handful or 1/4 cup
Salt to taste

Soak rice, urad daal and methi seeds for 2 hours or more. Grind to a smooth paste along with cooked rice. If using poha or puffed rice just wash, drain off and add while grinding to the rice-lentil mix. Add salt and mix well. let ferment overnight. Heat a non stick tawa sprinkle drops of water to test if the tawa is hot enough, if u hear a sizzling sound then u are ready to pour the batter. take a ladlefull of batter. Spread the batter thick enough. cover the tawa and cook on medium flame. Flip out the dosas. Yes, need to be cooked only on one side. Oil is not necessary if using non stick tawa, add 2 drops or so if you desire. Serve hot with Tomato Chutney.