Potato Box Curry (உருளைகிழங்கு கறி) - Do it yourself Video

The most flexible side dish to make, for eating with rice and rasam or roti's / flour tortilla's for a quick lunch (especially when you get 60 minutes for lunch, where you bike back from your department to apartment in 10 mins, make something, eat, clean dishes, drive back on time) is the potato box curry.

It goes with anything!

This video shows you in real time how to make this in under 10 minutes. If you are not picky about roasting the potato to a nice golden brown and getting them crispy 7 minutes should be plenty.

The only thing that is easier to do than this is making french style green beans or Okra using frozen cut vegetables. The taste isn't exactly super dee duper for those, but with some frozen coconut and south indian "gundu" milagai (round red chili) you can get that to be nice too.

Many a season's entire lunch menu was these quick curries on a rotation basis.

It is a treat the kids love. They eat the curry by itself like a snack!

Hope you have fun making this simple curry..

ps. The background noise shows you that sometimes 4 bathrooms in a house is not enough if you have two girls. Unless they come up with a potty that can have two girls go at the same time.. well forget that thought. It wouldn't work. Even then they will fight for the same sub potty. Girls!

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Vatha Kuzhambu (வத்தகுழம்பு) - Do it youself Video

If you are a graduate student and you have stocked up on some grandma (or mom) made Sambar Powder before embarking on your trip to a non-sambar country (or even managed to purchase some Sambar powder from the stores), you are in luck.

You can make a quick Vatha Kuzhambu using some of this powder, salt, asafoedita(hing) - which is optional, tamarind paste (or tamarind soaked in water). You will also need a pinch of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, some Channa and Toor dal, curry leaves (optional), Appalam (or papad) which is again optional.

The whole thing gets done in under 6 minutes.

NOTE : See how I usually taste the stuff we cook at the end of the video and here we didn't do that? Don't taste this thing as is. Just a touch and lick is fine. Remember, you are creating a concentrate that can be mixed with rice.

One glass of water in this case ends up becoming 1/2 glass (or cup) worth Vatha Kuzhambu. This is enough to mix with 5 cups of cooked rice!!! i.e., it can feed a family of one (aka graduate student) for upto 4 meals!.. Goes great with Potato chips or roasted (microwaved) appalam/papad.

As an option you can also add some frozen shredded coconut to the fried lentils(the Channa and Toor Daal) before you add the liquid in. The upside is it gives you an amazing smell and flavor, but the downside is that it will spoil sooner if you do not refrigerate.

Have fun making வத்தகுழம்பு!

ps. If you know your Appalam is slightly on the salty side, add less salt.. 3/4th spoon of salt for one spoon sambar powder and it will be perfect.

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Wheat Chips (Cheese Nips) - கோதுமை சிப்ஸ் - Do it yourself Video

My mom used to make delicious sweet or spicy wheat chips when we were kids. It was a treat, especially when we were confined to be indoors during the rainy season!

One of my successful grad student experimental variations was to put small blocks of Amul cheese inside these chips.

The videos explain it all..

You use wheat flour, salt, hing (asafoedita)and chili powder for the spicy version.

Just wheat flour and sugar for the sweet version.

Wait for 40 minutes to an hour for the dough to stabilize before making flats out of them, slicing and frying.

Warning : If you are a newbie at deep frying, make sure the cheese is completely encapsulated by dough and all the air is pressed out.

Think of this as the Indian equivalent of Tortilla chips..

Hope you have fun making Wheat chips (கோதுமை சிப்ஸ்) after watching this video. Guaranteed hit with little kids who love crunchy stuff.

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Laddu and Mixture (பூந்தி லட்டு , மிச்சர்)- Do it yourself Videos

Here are the videos for making Boondhi Laddu and Mixture (see previous post).

Instructions:

Laddu : Make almost caramelized sugar syrup by starting with 2 cups sugar in 2 cups water and stirring in low medium heat. Put roasted cashews and cardamom in the syrup.
Make Boondhi and add it directly into the syrup after you are done frying.

To Make boondhi: Take 1 1/2 cups Besan, 1/2 cup rice flour, pinch of salt, scoop of unsalted butter, 1 cup water.. see video (part 2).

For the Mixture : Basic ingredients are Kaara Boondhi, ribbon pakoda, thenkuzhal, fine thenkuzhal, fried pottu kadalai (dalia), roasted cashews, roasted poha (aval pori), curry leaves, salt, some corn flakes if you desire, some groundnuts if you desire, grainy salt.

the first 4 are all made with 3 parts to 1 Besan to rice flour, 1/2 spoon of salt, 1/2 spoon chili powder, some hing (asafoedita), 3/4 to a cup of water depending on which one you are making. See video part 4.

The whole thing takes a good 2 hours (if you have at least one helper and are not trying to videotape the whole thing). Approximately 3 1/2 hours if you are doing it on your own.

You will need an extruder to make the various mixture ingredients. When I say you get it for 100 or 200 bucks, I meant Indian bucks.. ~ 4-5 USD. The local Indian stores sell it for $14.99 with the appropriate markup of course.

Hope you enjoy making Laddu (Ladoo) and Mixture.

ps. apologies for the typo in the title's ..typed it so fast that I did not notice the dot.. it should be லட்டு in the title and not ல்ட்டு...

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Sweets and Savouries to celebrate love..

Spent a good 4 hours in the kitchen today to make some Laddu and Mixture..

The video footage has too many improper comments deliberately uttered by Jr. and the little one to irritate me while making the video..

Don't know why they have this new found fascination with the "weenie" word. They say it just to see if I will get irritated or will scold them.. It is either that or Kusu (Fart). First I ignored them for a few minutes, then realized it was going to be very difficult to make a videoblog with the kids saying these two words three times/ sentence. So started using a remote control to turn the recording on and off.

They did not know I was still recording and finally they figured out that one as well and it all went downhill from there.

Tomorrow will be spent at home quietly savoring what was made today... and of course, editing the video with the kids watching..

Yes, the boondhi is going to soak in the sugar syrup overnight and will be made into laddu's in the morning!

Happy Valentines day everyone!

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