Chickpea Vada

Chickpea Vada is known as kadalai vadai in Tamil. You can also make pakodas with the same batter.

In all these instant mixes what you need to add is only water, that is, after the mix is ready.

All the mixes mentioned on this site can be stored in the fridge for months.

How to Make Chickpea Vada

Ingredients

- 2 cups – Chana Dal – Chickpea
- 2 cups – Tuar Dal – lentil split
- red chilly – one or two
- green chilly – one or two
- salt to taste
- asafoetida – a pinch
- copra powder – 5 tbs
- coriander leaves

Grind both the dals coarsely,\.

Add dry red chilly, green chilly, salt, asafoetida, copra powder and
coriander leaves. Run through the mixer grinder once to mix everything well.

Store in the refrigerator.

Crispy Vadas

If it is made in the round shape it is vada and to make pakodas, we can take a huge ball of the paste in our hands and drop small pieces of the mix in oil.

Chickpea Pakoda

Instant Chickpea Vada

Vada

Making of the vada is a long process unless the Vada Mix is available.

How To Make Vada Mix

Ingredients For Black Gram Vada

- 2 cups urad dal – black gram – coarse powder
- red chilly – to taste
- green chilly – to taste
- ginger grated – 1 tea spoon
- hing – asafoetida
- coriander leaves

We can add one or two pieces of red and green chilly depending on how much spice we prefer.

Make a coarse powder of black gram.

Grind red chillly, green chilly, asafoetida without water.

Add coriander leaves, black gram coarsely ground powder and grind again once to mix everything well.

How To Make Vada

Take the required amount of powder in a bowl, add a little water to make a thick paste. Take oil in a pan and drop the vada mix in the pan using your fingers or a table spoon.

Deep fry till the vadas turn brown.

Dahi Vada & Dal Vada

Vada can be put in seasoned dahi to make dahi vada. The more they soak in the dahi they become soft.

In the same way medu vada can be put in dal to make dal vada.

Instant Vada Mix

Vada Paste: Vada Mix With Water

Deep Fry Vada In Oil

Fry Vada Till It Turns Brown

Eat Vada Or Add To Curds To Get Dahi Vada

Upma is supposed to be an easy affair compared to idli or dosa. The process is not long drawn and you can cook up a simple Upma in 10 minutes.

But a nutritionally enriched Upma with good garnishing takes a lot of time.

My mother has created a Upma Mix for me which helps me make a nutritionally enriched Upma in a three minutes.

How To Make Upma With Instant Upma Mix

Ingredients

1 kilo suji – Semolina
1/4 kilo peanuts
1/4 kilo cashewnuts
Green chillies
Red chillies
Coriander and curry leaves
1/4 kg freshly grated coconut – roasted
Or copra powder – dry coconut grated

Seasoning

Tālitthal’, Tadka or seasoning means to add flavor to the dish with mustard seeds fried in oil. For this two spoonfulls of oil is taken in a pan and heated. After it is heated about 10 gm of mustard seeds are dropped in the oil. Learn more from common seasoning for all rice recipes.

Procedure

- Roast Semolina and set aside
- Deep fry peanuts and cashew nuts and add to Semolina
- Prepare seasoning – Take a little oil in a pan, add 50 gms mustard
seeds, 10 red chillies, 10 green chillies, 50 gms chick pea, curry
leaves
- Add roasted Semolina and roasted nuts to this seasoning
- Add salt and mix well
- Add grated dried coconut

Mix everything well and store in the fridge. When you want to make Upma, take the required amount, add it to heated water and mix well.

You can also add cooked vegetables to this Upma to make Vegetable Upma. Here I have taken out some frozen peas from the freezer. I am boiling them in water. I will add the Upma Mix to this water and my Upma will be ready in three minutes.

Frozen peas boiled in water to be added to upma

Upma Ready To Eat In Three Minutes

If you want to learn the long process of making vegetable Upma read this post.

Making the idli batter is a long process and if I need to prepare idlis the next day I will have to make the preparations today and get the batter ready. I have no time or patience for this long drawn process. So my mother has created the idli mix for me.

I store the mix in powder form in the fridge and whenever I want to make idli I just take the required amount of the powder, mix it with water and steam cook. My idli is ready in minutes.

How to Make the Idli Mix

Instant Idli

3 cups Rice – idli thari – par boiled rice
2 cups – urad powder – black gram

Mix both, add salt, roasted kaju (broken), and perungayam (asafoetida) powder

This mix can be stored for months in the fridge.

We can use the idli plates or just any deep plate to make idlis. They need to be steam cooked in the pressure cooker, without the weight on.

They can also be cooked in the microwave oven.

The accompaniment to the idli is the chutney, which again is a long drawn process including grating the coconut.

My mother to the rescue. She has created an instant chutney mix. I just take out the powder out of the fridge, mix a little water and my chutney is ready in seconds.

How to Make Instant Chutney Mix

- 1/4 kilo Chana dal roasted – Chick Pea

- 6 red chillies

- 100 gram kaju roasted – cashew nut

- 50 gram imli – tamarind

- 1 coconut grated and roasted

Dry grind everything and store the powder.

How To Make Instant Dosa Mix Powder

Ingredients

5 cups – Rice
2 cups – Urad Dal – Black Gram
1/4 cup – Chana Dal – Bengal Gram / Chickpie
2 tbs – Menthi – Fenugreek Seeds

Grind to fine powder. Add salt, baking soda, Jeera (Cumin seeds)and Hing (Asafoetida) powder.

More videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/rangoo3

Here is an easy recipe using finger millet flour. 

This recipe is in response to a question I have received – how to make Appam, the South Indian Dessert.

Appam, the south Indian Dessert

Appam is made with “maida” – the regular flour you use to make cakes.

To make the appam sweet you need jaggery. Grate the jaggery and take one cup of jaggery for one cup of flour. Add water to jaggery and let it melt.

Add the flour to jaggery and make a thick paste, similar to pancake mix.

Add grated dry coconut (Kopra), cashew nuts and cardamom powder to enrich the mix.

Take some cooking oil in a deep frying pan and heat it over medium heat.

Take a ladle full of the flour and jaggery mix and pour it in the middle of the pan to form a circular shape.

Deep fry it until cooked.

Note: After heating the jaggery and water and melting it, you have to allow it to cool and then add the flour to it.

You can add two tbs of grated coconut (not fresh coconut, but dry one) to one cup of flour.

There is another appam that is made with roasted rice. I will post it next.

Appam batter:

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Watch videos and learn how to cook healthy recipes.

Aloo Bonda

Potato is called Aloo in Hindi.

Ingredients to make Aloo Bonda

Potato curry – 1 cup

Chickpea flour – 2cups

Water – 1/2 cup

Cooking oil – 1/2 ltr (for frying the aloo bonda

curry powder – 1/2 tsp

lemon juice – 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Make potato curry as explained in the previous post:

Potato Curry and Masala Dosa

- Roll potato curry in small balls (a small lemon size)

- Take the chickpea flour in a bowl, add curry powder and salt

(curry powder is free with instant dosa mix)

Alternatively you can add garam masala or chillie powder.

- Add water little by little and mix the chickpea into a smooth paste.

- Add a pinch of cooking soda (optional)

- Add the lemon juice and mix well (optional)

- Warm the cooking oil over medium heat in a deep frying pan.

- Take a potato ball, dip it in chickpea paste and roll it so as to cover it completely with chickpea paste.

- Gently drop the potato balls, dipped in chickpea paste, one by one, into the warm oil.

- Deep fry the potato balls in warm oil. At a time you can fry five or six balls together.

- Roll the balls in oil so that all sides are evenly friend.

- When well fried the bondas will turn golden brown.

You can eat the aloo bondas with tomato sauce or mustard paste.

You can also eat the bondas with coconut chutney (free with instant dosa mix)

Our body needs carbohydrates, proteins, calcium, fats, vitamins, mineral salts, fibre.

Dosa has all this.

Carbohydrates are the source of energy. Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen are essential to keep us energetic and active. Food items such as potato, rice, spaghetti, yams, bread and cereals contain carbohydrates. These are the food items rich in starch.

Dosa has rice – starch – carbohydrates.

Proteins are turned into amino acids by our digestive system before they enter our blood. Proteins contain Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Sulphur. Proteins are absolutely necessary for the growth of our body and for repairing injured cells.

Dosa has lentils – proteins

Fat is also a source of energy. Just like proteins fats too contain Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Just by avoiding fat we cannot avoid putting on weight. Carbohydrates and proteins can also turn into fat. So it is necessary eat the right amount of energy containing food. How much energy we can take in? Naturally it depends on how much we can use through physical day-to-day activities and exercise.

To make dosa you use cooking oil. That gives you fat. And you can make it, according to your preference. Make it almost fat free or add more oil to make the dosa crispy, the choice is yours.

Mineral salts such as iron, calcium, sodium and iodine are necessary for different purposes. Iron is necessary for making hemoglobin. Decrease of hemoglobin leads to symptoms of anemia. Especially for pregnant women it is crucial to avoid problems of anemia. Calcium is essential for our bones, teeth and muscles. Nerve cells need sodium and our thyroid glands require iodine.

Dosa has calcium, iron and magnesium.

Fiber is important for good digestion, clear skin and healthy bowel movements.

Dosa has dietary fiber.

You can make different types of dosa. For example, carrot dosa gives you A. If you need more carbohydrates you can make masala dosa. Masala dosa has potatoes and that gives you more starch and more carbohydrates.

Dosa can be a good nutritious healthy meal for young and old including children.