Upperi/ Kerala Banana Chips

Upperi/ Banana Chips are very synonym to Keralites, this serves as snacks which are very popular among all especially during Kerala Sadhya (during festive feasts). In Malaysia, these chips are commercialized and sold by Malays and its widely available even in the shopping complexes. Now let us see how to make these chips my family's style;

Ingredients:
5 raw plantain (peeled and sliced thinly)
2 tsp of turmeric powder
1 cup of water
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

In a bowl mix water, salt and turmeric powder and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan and maintain medium flame, fry sliced plantain until 3/4th cooked (do not over crowd the frying pan as these plantains will stick together), sprinkle the salt and turmeric water on the frying plantain. You do not have to sprinkle turmeric and salt water every time you fry the plantain as the oil will be salty, every third or fourth time will do. Once the chips perfectly fried, drain and let it cool down before transferring into an air-tight container.

This chips can be stored up to a month if handles properly. Our Upperi/Banana Chips are ready to be served. 

Do try and let me know how it turned out for you!

Cauliflower Thoran

This will be my last post for the month of August 2012, let's say bye to August and say hello to September.

Ingredients:

250g Cauliflower (cut into small florets)

1 green chili(slit)

1 sprig curry leaves

1/2 tsp cumin seed

1/2 tsp mustard seed

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1/4 cup grated coconut

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp oil

Salt to taste

In a pan, pour oil then add cumin seed, mustard seed, curry leaves and green chili saute for a minute. Now add the cauliflower, turmeric powder and salt, stir well then add water and let it simmer until water evaporates. Add grated coconut and incorporate well with the cauliflower. Now our Cauliflower Thoran is ready to be served.

Do try and let me know how it turned out.

Cucumber Pachadi

This dish is my husband's favorite, he just love any food with yogurt, we have this dish often back in mom's place. This is a simply dish with very less ingredients and very less time to prepare it. Let's see how to make this.

Ingredients:

1 cucumber(chopped small)
1/2 cup grated coconut
3 bird eye chili
1tsp mustard seed
2 dry red chili
1 sprig curry leaf
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp oil
Sat to taste

Cut cucumber, remove the seeds and chop into small pieces, add some salt to drain the water from cucumber. Squeeze and drain water from the cucumber and keep aside.

Blend coconut and bird eye chili into coarse paste, add to the cucumber 

into a bowl. Add yogurt to this mixture.

 For tempering, pour oil in a pan add dry red chili, 

curry leaves and mustard seed. Pour this tempering ingredients to the cucumber mixture.

Now our Cucumber Pachadi is ready to be served. Do try and let me know how it turned out.

Mattan Eriserry/ Pumpkin Gravy

This is a must have dish for Onam, Mattan Eriserry. Mom makes this so perfectly it's so delicious and most importantly my brother's favorite since a small kiddo. My mom learnt this from my grandpa who hailed from Pattamby, Kerala. Mom said grandpa was a very good cook and he taught my grandma how to cook, grandma got married at the a very young age so she don't know how to cook.

This is a very simple and anyone can cook dish, let us see how to cook this my mom's style. This dish is prepared without garlic and onion.

Ingredients:

250g pumpkin chopped

1/2 cup dhall (soaked and drained)

1 tbsp chili paste

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 cup of grated coconut

1 tsp cumin seed

2 dry red chili

1 sprig curry leaf

1 tsp mustard seed

1tbsp oil

1 cup water

Salt to taste

Blend cumin seed and 1/2 cup of grated coconut into coarse paste with little water and keep aside.

In a pan, boil dhall, pumpkin, chili paste, turmeric powder and salt until pumpkin and dhall is cooked. Add coconut and cumin paste to pumpkin and let it simmer over a low flame.

For tempering, in another pan add oil, mustard seed, dry red chili and curry leaves until it crackle and add balance 1/2 cup of grated coconut until aromatic, do not burn the tempering. Add this to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

Our Mattan Eriserry is ready to be served. Do try and let me know how it turned out.

Onagosham/ Onam Festival

Thinking about Onam, first thing which will come to anyone's mind is Onam Sadhya with 16 varieties of vegetarian dishes, colorful flower kolam, new clothes and many more. For me it always reminds me of the fun we have while preparing this dishes, now being married and staying apart from parents makes me miss the whole lot of experience. 

I don't cook all those many dishes for my small family so I pick and choose according to our preference. This year I made only three dishes which is Mattan Eriserry, Cauliflower Thoran and Cucumber Pachadi. Let's view the picture of the dishes and I will write in my upcoming post the recipes of this dishes. Enjoy!