One Pot Pumpkin Curry / Kadhdhu subzi / parangikai curry / maththan curry

Sharing with you another interesting, simple and easy to cook recipe with you. What is so special & interesting about this? 

• I used my 3 lit Pressure Cooker for making this. you can use even 2 or 2.5 litre PC. Cook on low  flame only.
• No water used. No supervision. No stirring in between. 
• Quick cooking process
• Using pressure cooker saves time, labour and energy. 
• Cooking time is 4 minutes. Standing time for the pressure to come down before opening is 5 minutes. So within 9 minutes we can get absolutely delicious pumpkin curry. 
• In this process,vegetable is let to cook in its own juice under pressure cooking.
• Absolutely a pleasure cooking experience. 
• I got the idea of no water cooking in a Pressure cooker from a group called United By Food (UBF) in facebook where members test and post the recipes where I also participate with my recipes. Though we cook vegetables in their own juice in our daily cooking method, for me it happened over a wok (kadai). Using a pressure cooker for the recipe sounded good and interesting. After members tried and posted, i started making the experiment with my cooking and the outcome is remarkable!

Let us get on to feel the pleasant cooking experience.

Pumpkin Curry

I have kept it for little longer time to make it easily chewable for my old FIL.

Ingredients :-

1. Pumpkin cubes - 1 cup (Pumpkin / Maththan / Manjal Poosani / Lal bhopla / Kadhdhu / kasi bhopla)
2. Garlic Pods - 4 Nos
3. Ginger - 1.5" piece
4. Curry leaves - 5 Nos.
5. Red chilli powder - as per your preference
6. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
7. Salt to taste
8. Oil for tempering - 1 tbsp
9. Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
10. Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
11. Asafoetida - a pinch

 Procedure :-

• Wash and peel the pumpkin. Dice into cubes.
• Crush with a single hit with a pestle or stone - garlic and ginger. Then with a knife you can easily chop them in seconds.
• Chop the curry leaves finely. (this is to infuse its flavour fully into the recipe and also helps the benefit of this wonder leaf reach the consumer )
• Heat the pressure cooker, add a tbsp of oil (I used coconut oil), add mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
• AFter they crackle, add a pinch of asafoetida powder, finely chopped ginger and garlic, curry leaves. mix.
• Add the pumpkin cubes, salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder. mix
• Close the cooker and put the weight. Cook on low flame for 4 minutes
• Switch off, let it stand for 5 more minutes.
• Open and serve!

Bajra Kheer / Kambam Pal Pradhaman / Kambu Pal Payasam

This recipe gives you a pleasant cooking experience as no supervision required. hence saves your labour and let you concentrate on other things while your payasam / kheer is getting ready. End resut : absolutely delicious recipe.

Bajra - pearl millet (Kambam in Malayalam, Kambu in Tamizh)  packed with iron and various nutrients is the traditional food that is taken by natives in the form of porridge. These millets and grains are then slowly replaced by the white rice culture.

Native grains are packed with all goodness and so refreshing our menu with them makes it healthy and interesting.

In my journey of replacing rice with native grains, my sister helped me with this recipe. I gave it a very light twist and sharing it with you.

You will need :-

1. Milk - 1 Litre
2. Broken Bajra - 1.5 cups
3. Sugar - 2 tea cups or more (as per preference)
4. Green Cardamom - 2 Nos. (powdered)

Procedure :

This payasam needs no garnishing except cardamom powder. I used a pressure cooker to save the labour.

You may make any pal payasam this way except semia which is cooked separately and added at the end. rest of the,process is same.

During the process the milk turns pink due to caramelising which gives a beautiful flavour and taste to any milk based payasams. Whether it is rice, rice ada, semiya, javvarisi (sago), or any native millet

 / grains.

• In a  vessel mix broken bajra, milk. 

•  Tip to avoid Spillage :- Put a heavy bowl or heavy spoon inside the milk to avoid spillage. 

•  Place the vessel inside a pressure cooker, and pressure cook. When the whistle is about to come, lower the flame and cook for 20 minutes. This will help the milk caramalise (the milk will turn pink)

• Switch off.

• When the pressure comes down, open. Add sugar and cardamom powder and stir till sugar dissolves (say a minutes).

• As Bajra normally doesn't thicken the kheer / payasam. Hence I added 2 tbsp of cornflour dissolved in little water and cooked it on stove top for two minutes (till it thickened).

•   Tip to avoid formation of malai : Place the vessel into a kadai filled with normal water and stir it for a minute. the temperature will come down which will prevent formation of the malai (layer) on top. For immediately consumption, if you prefer to have it luke warm, then change the water in kadai and keep for another 5 minutes.

• Delicious Bjara Kheer / Kambam Pal Pradhaman / Kambu Payasam is ready!

Crochet Pineapple Pouch - string pouch

I wanted to do a pouch using pineapple design. Made one for my evening walk and fell in love with the design. Made more. Here are they for your views :-

Poricha Kootu / Elephant Yam curry

Poricha Kootu, always my family's favourite. What makes the difference between kootu and poricha kootu? In poricha kootu, coconut is fried to golden brown and added to the gravy.

Sharing with you the poricha kootu made using Elephant Yam (Suran / Chenai / Chena).

Ingridients :-

1. Elephant Yam (cubed) - 1 cup
2. Channa Dal - 1/2 cup
3. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
4. Salt to taste
5. Asafoetida Powder - a pinch
6. Grated coconut - 3 tbsp
7. Curry leaves - 1 sprig
8. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
9. Whole Urad - 1 tsp
10. Red Chillies - 2 Nos
11. Green Chilli - 1 No.
12.  Water to cook the dal and vegetable

 Procedure :-

• Clean, peel and dice the elephant yam

• Soak chana dal for 30 min or you may cook it directly too. Cook Chana dal till done but see to that it don't turn up mushy.

•  Cook elephant yam adding turmeric powder, Slit green chilli, salt and water. Some water should be left after the elephant yam is cooked. So accordinly, you can drain or add some water.

• Add the cooked chana dal, mix gently

• Heat oil in a wok, add mustard seeds, when it start crackling, add whole urad. fry till it turns golden in colour. Add curry leaves, a pinch of asafoetida, red chillies.

•  When the chillies are fried a little, add grated coconut and  fry till it turns golden brown in colour.

•  Add this tempering to the cooked yam dal mixture and gentle stir and adjust the salt if required.

•  Yummy Cheani poricha kootu / yam curry is ready!

VARIATIONS / Suggestions : - 

1. You can make similar curry using Pumpkin (kaddhu, manjal poosani), ridge gourd (thuriya / Peekangai), Fenugreek greens (Methi sag / vendhayakeerai) 
2. lentil can also be substituted using green gram dal (moong / paasi parupu / siru paruppu)

1.