Bottlegourd Curry

When it comes to weird combinations of side  dishes, no body can beat our very own Hotel Saravana Bhavan.  We attended a baby shower function last month and the host  ordered food from HSB. This was the side dish in the menu. First I thought this was snake gourd curry but then one of our friend's mom said its bottle gourd. In our family, people never use this bottle gourd for cooking.  I came to know about the goodness of this vegetable when we were in Delhi for one year. I started using this bottle gourd in my cooking atleast couple of times a month. This time, after seeing this very new side dish, immediately I wanted to try this at home. Here goes the recipe.


Ingredients:-

1. Bottle gourd - 2 cups (chopped)
2. Onion - 1 chopped
3. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
4. Oil - 2 tsp
5. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
6. Urad dhall - 1 tsp
7. Red chillies - 1
8. Hing -  a pinch
9. Salt to taste
10. Coconut - 1 1/2 tbsp
11. Green chillies - 2 (medium sized- acc to taste)
12. cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Chop bottle gourd into a bite sized pieces. Take a pan, pre heat oil, splutter mustard seeds, fry urad dhall, red chilly & hing. Now saute' chopped onion to golden brown. Add the chopped bottle gourd to it, add turmeric powder, required amount of salt and sprinkle hand full of water to it and cover it with a lid for  5 minutes. Now grind coconut, green chillies & cumin seeds together without adding water. Keep it aside. Check the bottle gourd  in between because it takes very less time to cook. When its 3/4th done, now add the grounded coconut mix. Mix evenly and let it cook for another 3 minutes in low flame. When the raw smell of green chilly goes away, turn off the stove. Garnish it with curry leaves. Serve it hot.

Honey Bunches of Oats Muffin

I got the recipe from a book called 1001 Cupcakes, cookies & Other Tempting Treats.  I got the book from Barnes & Noble couple of months back and finally started trying few goodies from it. The original recipe is made with Museli. I replaced Honey Bunches of oats for Museli. It came super good and I added few chocolate chips in each muffin. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. All Purpose Flour - 1 cup
2. Baking powder -  1 tbsp
3. Honey bunches of Oats Cereal - heaping 1 1/4 cups
4. Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup (I used regular white sugar)
5. Eggs - 2 ( I used 1/3 cup of egg whites)
6. Buttermilk - 1 cup 
7. sunflower oil - 6 tbsp ( I used canola Oil)
8. chocolate chips - 1/4 cup

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper lines or spray it and keep it ready. Sift together the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir the cereal and sugar.  Place the eggs in a large pitcher and beat lightly. Then  beat in the buttermilk and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid.  Stir gently until just combined.  Spoon the batter into paper liners. Sprinkle chocolate chips. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until well risen, golden brown. Let it cool for 5 minutes and serve warm. 

I am sending this post to Cooking with Love -  Granddad Event, hosted by Shama.

Potato Curry

This is a baked version of potato curry. I was going through my cousin's blog En Vittu Virundhu, I came across this baked potato curry with garlic. But I skipped the garlic. Her version was fully baked and mine is half baked & half stove top cooked. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients :-

1. Potato - 4 (big)
2. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
3. red chillies powder - 3/4 tsp (acc to taste)
4. salt to taste
5. Oil -  1 tsp
6. Pam spray -  couple of sprays

Take a microwave safe bowl. Put small holes in potato with a fork. Add required amount of water to cover the potato and microwave it for 5 to 7 minutes or till it is half cooked.  Let it cool. Peel it and cut it into small cubes. Now put the potato pieces in a ziploc cover adding required amount of salt, turmeric powder & red chillies powder and shake it nicely so that the dry ingredients get coated in the potato pieces. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Now take a cookie sheet. Spray the oil nicely and spread the potato pieces.  Cook it for 5 minutes in the 350 pre heated oven. Stir it in between. Take out the curry when you get the expected crispy structure.