Kara Poli

This is another dish which I tasted in India during my trip. I have heard my MIL talking about this kara poli from Sri Krishna Sweets, very often. she made this for me once and it was really spicy and yummy. But I forgot to take pictures of that kara poli. I made this one here last week. After having those horrible food in flight, I wanted to eat something super spicy. We thought of going out to some restaurant and have something. But one of my twin fell sick, so we could not go out. So I tried this at home and it was not that super like my MIL, but it was not that bad either:)

Ingredients:-

1. Maida/All Purpose Flour - 1 cup
   
2. Orange/yellow food color - a pinch
   
3. Sesame oil - 2 tbsp (or required amount)
   
4. Salt to taste.
   

For filling:-

1. Potato - 1
   
2. Onion - 1 or 2 (acc to size) (chop it)
   
3. Peas - 2 tbsp ( I used frozen peas)
   
4. Tomato - 1 (optional) (chop it)
   
5. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
   
6. Red chillies powder - 1 1/2 tsp (acc to taste)
   
7. Garam masala Powder - 3/4 tsp (acc to taste)
   
8. Salt to taste
   
9. Oil - 1 tsp
   
10. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
11. urad dhall - 1/2 tsp

When you are planning to make this poli for evening tiffin, just make the maida dough afternoon and keep it aside for couple of hours. Mix maida with required amount of salt and food color and make it as a chapathi dough. Add the sesame oil to the dough and keep it aside. Now cook the potato and mash it. In a pan, add a tsp of oil, splutter mustard seeds and urad dhall and fry it till it becomes golden brown. Now add chopped onion to it and saute till it becomes transparent. Now add peas to it and saute for another few minutes. Now add the mashed potato to it. Add required amount of turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala powder and salt to it and mix everything well. Now sprinkle required amount of water to the ingredients and cook it for another 3 to 5 minutes till everything mixes well. Turn off the stove when all the water is absorbed. Keep it aside and let it cool.
When you are ready to make poli, make small balls out of the maida dough and spread it with your hand. Now keep required amount of potato stuffing and cover it.
Spread it evenly with your hand to get a thin circle shaped poli.
Now heat the tawa and cook the poli on both sides adding a teaspoon of ghee on both sides. Serve it hot.
I have never tasted kara poli from Shri Krishna sweets. So I am not sure this is how they do it or they have some other ingredients in theirs....

Vaazhapoo Thogayal

This recipe is something I came across after reading Mangayar Malar magazine. This is something new to me and I have not tried this thogayal before. I make paruppu usli, curry and adai using vaazhapoo but never tried thogayal. So I wanted to try this thogayal this time and it came out pretty well. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. Vaazhapoo florets - a handfull
   
2. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
   
3. Urad dhall - 2 tbsp
   
4. Red chillies - 4 ( acc to taste)
   
5. Salt to taste
   
6. Coconut - 1 tsp (acc to taste)
   
7. Tamarind - a tiny ball sized or 1 tbsp paste
   
8. Oil - 1 tsp
   

Remove kallan from vaazhapoo. Then, pre heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, add urad dhall and red chillies and fry it till it becomes golden brown. Do not over fry or burn urad dhall. Keep it aside. In the same pan, fry coconut to golden brown and keep it aside. Now fry the vaazhapoo florets for few mts and let everything cool for few minutes. Now add required amount of salt to the above ingredients along with tamarind and grind it into a fine paste. This goes really well with hot white rice with a teaspoon of sesame oil and also with chapathi, idly and dosa.

Bisibelebath 2 - Leftover special

Well this is something my MIL made last week using the left over Pongal she made for breakfast. She finished all the cooking work in the morning along with the breakfast work and we went out for shopping. She forgot to keep rice and when we returned after all those shopping trips, we both were really tired and we all were hungry and the kids became cranky. Since she had made eggplant sambar and godhsu as side dish for pongal, she said she will make quick bisibelebath with leftover pongal. I was not sure how it will come out but she was very confident and she started making arrangements for making the dish. I am just gonna give the quantity of pongal, godhsu and sambar she used to make this. Hope this will help...

Ingredients:-

1. Pongal - 3 cups (leftover finished pongal)
2. Godhsu - 1/4 cup (leftover)
3. Sambar - 1/2 cup (finished samabr)
4. Garam masala - 3/4 teaspoon
5. Salt to taste (if necessary)

For Seasoning:-

1. Oil - 1 tbsp
2. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
3. Red chillies - 2
4. Cashewnuts - few
5. curry leaves - to garnish.

Heat a pan, put the godhsu (tomato & onion godhsu), add required amount of water and let it boil for another couple of minutes. Now add sambar, garam masala powder and salt (if necessary) and let everything mix and boil for few minutes. Now add the leftover pongal to the mixture and mix everything well and let it cook for another 5 to 7 minutes. Add water according to the required consistency. Turn off the stove and keep it aside. Now seasoning for this rice is purely optional because, we would have seasoned pongal, godhsu and also sambar. In order to add some more taste, we can season this with cashews. Fry cashew nuts to golden brown and pour it on top of the rice and garnish it with curry leaves. Frankly speaking friends, the taste of this bisibelebath was much better than the original one we do. It was really good along with the cumin and pepper taste.