So, friends, it's the 21st day after the nationwide lockdown. I am really enjoying these unexpected holidays I got with my family. I hope you are also enjoying these holidays. But please remember those suffering/lost their fight to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and consider them in your prayers.

Remember the five things:- Stay home - Keep a safe distance - Wash hands often - Cover your cough - Call the helpline if you are sick.

It's a long time I wrote something here at CheenaChatti. I was carried away with jobs and other personal issues. These unexpected holidays have given me some time to be back with my passion - cooking.

It was Laylat al-Bara’at yesterday and I was thinking about preparing pathiri and beef curry for the iftar. Then only I realized we don't have beef curry recipe here at Cheenachatti. So here I am sharing my way of beef curry preparation. This is a simple recipe, which you can easily follow. Please drop your comments/suggestions below if you have tried this recipe.

Beef curry preparation

1. Cut the beef into small pieces of approximately 1cm size. Wash thoroughly under running water. Drain the pieces well.
2. In a deep bottomed pan (or a 2-liter pressure cooker), pour 2 tablespoons cooking oil and heat it.
3. Add sliced onions, green chilies and mix it well.
4. When the onions start changing color, add ginger garlic paste and mix well.
5. Add the masalas (Chilly powder, Coriander powder, Turmeric powder, and Meat masala) and mix well - see our post on how to prepare masala powders at home to learn meat masala preparation.
6. After this add the meat pieces and mix well.
7. Pour about 1 cup (200ml) of water - close the cooker with the lid and allow it to cook for about 30 minutes (approximately 5 whistles).
8. Preparation of seasoning:
   For seasoning heat about 1 tablespoon of oil in a frypan.
   Add fenugreek and once it starts cracking, add the sliced shallot onions, curry leaves and saute it for 3-5 minutes in medium flame until shallots turn golden brown and put it as a seasoning over the curry.
9. Serve the beef curry hot with appam, pathiri, thikidi or with parotta.

The post Simple, but Traditional Kerala Style Beef Curry Preparation appeared first on CheenaChatti.

It was my Husband's friend, who introduced chicken stew to my house. Every sunday morning it was a routine for my husband and his friend to have appam and chicken stew from a hotel nearby to their hospital.

When my husband finished his training and was back at home, he was missing his chicken stews very much. We thought of giving it an attempt ourselves and we were in search for the traditional recipes. We found so many recipes over the internet for chicken stew, but my husband was never happy with any of those preparations.

Recently we got a recipe from his friend's mother itself and it was an awesome one. We are sharing that preparation below.

Kerala style chicken stew preparation

1. Clean the chicken pieces well, drain it and keep it aside.
2. Prepare medium sized cubes of potatoes and carrots.
3. Finely chop the ginger, garlic, onion, shallots and green chillies.
4. Crush cardamom and pepper corns (if not using pepper powder)
5. In a large cooking pan, heat 3 tablespoons of coconut oil, add the spices (cloves, cinnamon star anise, bay leaves and cardamom) and stir for a few seconds to one minute.
6. Reduce the flame and add garlic, ginger and green chilly.
7. Saute it for few seconds and add the finely chopped onions (from step 3) - Keep sauteing and add a little salt.
8. Lower the heat, when the onions turn golden brown and add ½ tsp garam masala and 1 tsp coriander powder. Stir for few seconds.
9. Add chicken pieces, carrot and potato cubes, 1 sprig of curry leaves and ½ tbsp lemon juice - Keep stirring and lower the heat.
10. Pour two cups of the thin coconut milk and mix well. Cook it covered until done and keep stirring in between.
11. Add peppercorns / pepper powder when the stew is cooked and mix it well.
12. Add the thick coconut milk and mash a few potatoes with a ladle to make the gravy a little thicker in low heat. Keep stirring and remove from stove, when it starts boil.
13. In another cooking pan, heat 1 tsp of coconut oil and fry the cashews, raisins and add it to the stew. Fry the shallots and remaining curry leaves in the same pan, until shallots turn golden brown and put it as seasoning over the stew.
14. Transfer the chicken stew to a serving dish and serve hot with appam, idiyappam etc.

Hope you will drop your comments and feedbacks after trying this recipe.

The post Chicken Stew, Kerala recipe appeared first on CheenaChatti.

When you think about Kannur (a place in northern Kerala, also known as Cannanor), the first few things that comes to your mind will be the  authentic thalassery biriyani, theyyam, home of red flag/ Communism, beaches and historical monuments etc. For the outsiders, Kannur is famous for its wide variety of food delicacies like biriyani, pathiri, kalthappam, pazham nirachathu, kannoorappam etc.

Kannoorappam (കണ്ണൂരപ്പം) is one of the traditional snack from this city of Looms and Lores. I always remember buying them in packets from the famous "Sheen bakery" near the railway station on my each visit to Kannur.

Recently, a friend of mine shared this recipe of kannorappam with me. Tried it instantly and the preparation came out really well. Here I am sharing the same recipe with you all. Try it and let me know your feedback in comments.

Preparation of Kannoorappam

1. Wash well and soak 1 cup of raw rice for about 4 hours in water.
2. After 4 hours, blend the rice with some water (1/4 cup) into a thick paste in a mixer.
3. Add cooked rice to the batter and blend it again.
4. Add maida, sugar, few cardamoms and blend it once more. The final batter should be of a coarse texture,  semi thick (not be too thin nor too thick) with dropping consistency.
5. Transfer it to a bowl, add a pinch of baking soda and keep it aside for 8 hours.
6. After 8 hours, heat the paniyaram pan / unniyappachatti with some oil / ghee in each hole and fill 3/4th of the hole with prepared batter.
7. Cook in low-medium flame until small holes appears on top (before it turns golden brown color).
8. Now flip the appam using the spatula or spoon and cook the other side until the sides turn golden brown.  Check by inserting a toothpick in the center and it should come out clean, with no raw batter sticking to it.
9. Transfer to a bowl with a kitchen paper towel, prepare more kannorappam with the remaining batter and  enjoy them hot.

Notes:

• With the amount of ingredients mentioned in this post, I prepared around 18 kannoorappams. You can adjust the volume of ingredients as per your needs.
• Kannoorappam is usually dual tone in color. The top portion is white and the bottom is golden brown. So in step 7, flip the appam upside down before it turns golden brown.

The post Kannoorappam / Pancharayappam / Panchara Neyyappam / White Unniyappam appeared first on CheenaChatti.

Molagootal is a mildly spiced dish made of a combination of vegetables or greens, lentils and coconut. It is part of the traditional style of cooking by the Palakkad Iyers. Keerai Molagootal is a very simple and easy to make recipe which is full of nutrients. For those who don't know what the word Keerai means - "Green".

Keerai Molagootal Preparation

1. Steam the chopped spinach, allow it to cool.
2. Once cooled grind/mash into a puree.
3. Cook toor dal with about 2 cups of water and turmeric powder. (Pressure cooking will give best results.)
4. Once cooked completely, mash the dal well.
5. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a small pan; add the urad dal and red chillies and roast them on medium heat until the dal becomes light brown. Set aside to cool.
6. Grind together grated coconut, cumin seeds and the above roasted red chilli and urad dal mixture into a smooth paste.
7. In a large pan, stir in the cooked pureed spinach, salt, the cooked dal and the coconut paste.
8. Stir well to combine all the ingredients together.
9. Add about 1/2 cup of water and allow the mixture to boil for about 5 minutes. (Molagootal should be neither too thick or too runny.)
10. Check the salt levels and add more if required.
11. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a small pan.
12. Add mustard seeds, curry leaves and allow it to crackle.
13. Stir in this seasoning to the Molagootal.
14. Serve keerai molagootal hot with cooked rice.

This recipe was contributed by Ta Nuja as a contestant entry for our "Malabar food fest 2018". If you found this post useful, please provide your feedback below or share the post with your social media followers today.

The post Palakkadan style Keerai Molagootal / Spinach – Lentil curry appeared first on CheenaChatti.