Saturday, March 24, 2007

Easy Pesaraddu - a light breakfast

This is another dish, Priya, one of my very good friends, introduced to me. It was a time, when both of us were very busy with our respective careers and didn't have much time to cook. So, easy recipes were given a special welcome. One fine day, she calls up - 'hey, I have an easy recipe from a friend - Want to try?' I say 'Ofcourse!'. So, I gave it a try and it was so easy (and very tasty), so it stayed as a staple in Kay's kitchen. We call it paruppu dosa or as my friend R says, 'that' easy dosa (as in 'Will you please, please, please make 'that' easy dosa for me?).

I've been reading that Andra's famous Pesaraddu is typically made of Whole green mung dal. This recipe has yellow mung dal (paasi paruppu), so it is very quick to cook and also very light. The whole breakfast (the pesaraddu + chutney) takes 30 minutes or lesser time (that includes the prep time, ofcourse) to make. Here's how I do.

Easy Pesaraddu
1 cup of yellow mung dal
a handful of uncooked rice grains
a small piece of ginger, say 1/2 inch
a pinch of asafoetida
one red chilli(mine is srilankan red chilli, very spicy-you can add/reduce according to your taste)
salt

Wash and soak the dal and rice in some water for 20 mins. While the dal is soaking, prepare the chutney. Red chutney (onion and tomato chutney, recipe below) or green chutney (coriander chutney) goes very well with this dosa. Now that the chutney is done and the dal has been well soaked, it's dosa time now! Grind all of the above ingredients, with the water that the dal has been soaked. It takes only a few mins. The consistency of the batter is slightly thinner than the typical dosas.

Make very thin dosas. Now, keep in mind that this dosa will not redden like the typical dosas made with rice+urad dal batter and it takes very less time, even less than a minute to cook... Pour a ladleful of batter on a hot dosa tava and spread it like a dosa/crepe. Wait for a minute. If you can flip it, then the first side is done. Again wait for another minute and flip it. If you leave it in the tava for longer time, then you will get a rubbery dosa - if that's what you want! :) Serve hot. These pesaraddus are best when they are eaten hot.

Red chutney aka Onion+Tomato chutney: Chop one big onion and a tomato (optional). Heat a tbsp of oil in the cast iron pan (any kadai will do) and roast the onions. Add the chopped tomatoes when the onions are done. Add a red chilli, a teeny tiny piece of ginger (optional) and a tiny piece of tamarind. Stir once and remove from the stove. Let it cool and then grind this chutney with some salt. Add water while grinding, if it's necessary.

This chutney is very versatile... You can increase/decrease the amount of onions, tomatoes, add ginger if you like or leave it, add some coriander leaves, if you like... Use green chillies instead of red. Any variation will take the chutney to new dimensions. The only thing to remember here is to get the onions well roasted, so that the chutney doesn't taste raw. Say, suppose you haven't roasted it enough and the chutney is tasting pungent, no problem! Put it back on the same kadai. Add a tsp of oil and keep stirring till the chutney gets done. Sometimes I grind the whole thing first and then put it on the kadai to roast the chutney. It tastes great either way.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Rice Sevai with Vegetables



I learnt about RiceSevai - the readymade kind, from my friend Priya. At the time, Priya had justed started to cook and didn't know many 'fundoo recipes'(as she'd say!). But one spoonful of her capsicum sambar, or the lemon-rice-sevai, you'd never believe she was a beginner. And the effort she takes to give really good food for her guests tops it off. When I saw a packet of rice-sevai at the grocery store, I was reminded of Priya and so, picked up a packet.

Prepare the rice-sevai as per the pack suggests. Or you can make it like how you prepare pasta. That's how I do - Plunge it in boiling hot water, when the sevai is done(al dente), drain it in a colander and allow it to cool down.

Heat oil in a pan and add mustard, jeera, asafoetida. When then mustard spluters, add finely chopped onions, curry leaves, slit green/red chillies and saute for a minute. When the onions turn translucent, add some vegetables of your choice (This is optional - I usually put in two handfuls from a frozen-mixed veggie pack - usually carrots and green peas). At this time, you can add a pinch of turmeric powder, if you want to. Add salt and allow the veggies to cook, with the lid closed. When the veggies are done, add the prepared sevai and stir once. Add some lemon juice and stir once again. Adjust salt and stir again. Serve hot.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Shame on Yahoo!

Icon credits:Sandeepa of Bong Mom's cookbook(Icon credits: Sandeepa of Bong Mom's cookbook)
One of Yahoo! India's Portals has lifted content from a food blogger (Suryagayathri) and used the content word-to-word in it's portal. When Yahoo was contacted about this, they gave a lame reply. A really, really lame one. That the content was provided by Webdunia and that if we have problem with the content, we should contact Webdunia.

Huh?

This is outrageous! They didn't apologize to Suryagayathri... They didn't say that this will not happen again.. nothing! Shame on Yahoo!

And those of you who say that we should take it up with Webdunia, either you don't get it or you just don't care.

Every company has a legal binding with their partners, about ownership of content or product. Yahoo is the owner of the plagiarized content. They should have apologized. What if Yahoo posted some 'lifted content' from a big shot newspaper, word by word, without giving any credit. Would the newspaper company keep quiet?Wouldn't Yahoo apologize? Wouldn't they pay big bucks in settlement? Or would they just say - 'Oh, you know, one of our freelancers did it, you can sue him; Here's his home address'!

Shame on Yahoo! Apologize!!!