Happy Mother's Day - Mango Shrikhand

Mothers are full of Love and Laughter, 

Filling our hearts forever after. 

Mothers deserve this day of their own,

To be the queen of our heart and of her home!

Love you AMMA. You are the best thing that can ever happen to me. Blessed to be your daughter and would love to be yours in all births of mine!

A simple sweet dish with two favorite ingredients of mine, the mango and the curd. :)

Ingredients:

Curd - 3 cups or Hung curd - 2 cups

Mango puree - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Chopped mango pieces - 1/2 cup

Saffron - few strands

Milk - 1 tblsp

Method:

Take a muslin cloth (thin cloth) and line it on a sieve. Pour the curd on it and tie the cloth tightly. Hang it over a sink for few hours for the water to drain. 

After a couple of hours, keep the cloth with hung curd in the fridge for a night. 

Remove the hung curd next morning and collect it in a mixing bowl. Puree the mango with the sugar. 

Fold in the mango puree slowly into the hung curd. Do not over mix, the curd would become watery. 

Soak the saffron in a tblsp of milk for 5 mins and add it to the curd mixture and mix slowly. 

Finally add the finely chopped mangoes and give a short whip. 

Serve chilled :)

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Summer Special Series - Bottle Gourd Spicy Juice

As I said before I have been trying different various of juices this summer and felt the necessity of avoiding sugar and making spicy juices for a change too. Why should juices be sweet always and why should we makes juices just with fruits? Why not vegetables?

This bottle gourd juice is sure a delicious one and remember to keep the vegetable name a secret when you serve this to your family. Let them guess it and have some fun :)

You can also make the same combo of juice with cucumber too. Get creative this summer!

Checkout my spicy tomato juice here - Tomato Punch. 

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd - 250 gm  or a small one

Mint leaves - 10

Salt  to taste

Jeera powder - 1 tsp

black pepper powder - 2 tsp

Method:

Peel bottle gourd and wash and cut a small piece and taste it. Beware sometimes bottle gourd are bitter. If so then just discard it, do not make this juice. 

Clean the mint leaves and wash them. 

Grind bottle gourd and mint leaves together. Add enough water to make juice. 

Add salt, jeera powder and pepper powder and serve chill. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

White Sauce Vegetable Sandwich

The summer is treating us all bad. I really don't feel like having heavy breakfast at all. Something simple and light would be more than sufficient and I would love to have more liquids to keep me going for the day. 

I am sure you all would be feeling so too. Since I go out for shoots these days I prefer packing simple sandwiches too which keep my eating mess free and tummy happy. 

This sandwich recipe is my mother in laws suggestion and I completely fell for it the very first time I made it. Creamy, yummy and a fantastic way to incorporate carrots into a sandwich. I am very sure you all would get pretty creative in using your favorite vegetables into this recipe once you go through!! :)

Ingredients:

Carrots – 5

Onion – 1

Mint leaves – ½ bunch

Green chilly – 2

Butter - 1 tblsp

All purpose flour (Maida) – 4 tblsp

Milk – 1 ½ cups

Pepper powder – for taste

Salt  - for taste

Method:

Grate carrots. Chop onion and green chilly finely. Wash and chop mint leaves too.

Take butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion until it turns golden brown. Now add the grated carrots, green chilly and mint leaves and sprinkle some salt to it and fry for few minutes until the carrot becomes soft.

Now add the maida and fry again for a couple of minutes and then simmer the stove completely and pour the milk to it mixing gradually.  Keep stirring until the mixture becomes slight thick and creamy. Cook in low flame for few more minutes and finally add adequate pepper powder and mix well.

Remove from flame and once it comes to room temperature transfer it to an air tight container.

Apply it on bread and sandwich it with another. Serve and enjoy eating.

This mixture will keep well for 3 days if kept in the refrigerator. 

Tips:

You can use other vegetables like sweet corn, cabbage etc for making the same kind of sauce for sandwich. 

You use other varieties of bread like ciabatta etc too for sandwich of this kind. 

Try toasting your bread before applying the sauce for a difference. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Summer special series - Beetroot Chaas

Summer is showing its full fledged action!!! I am dripping with sweat even though I am sitting under the fan :(

All I do to keep myself hydrated and chill is to have loads of liquids in the form of juices, shakes, chaas and water. 

I made this chaas a day back and it was sure a hit at home. The flavor was fantastic and the light pink color was very attractive.

Ingredients:

Beetroot - 1/4 of a medium sized beetroot

Carrot – 1/2 

Green chilli - 1

Jeera – ½ tsp

Salt

Pudina – 10 leaves

Curd – 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Method:

Grind beetroot, carrot, green chillie, jeera, salt, pudina and ½ cup curd in a mixie. 

Then add remaining curd and water to it and blend again. 

Serve it chill with ice cubes topped with mint leaves.

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Gutti Vankaya Koora - Stuffed Eggplant Curry

Gutti Vankaya Koora is the traditional dish of Andhra where the brinjals are split and filled with spice mix. Its almost the best brinjal dish I have ever had :) My Mil makes it really well and in the authentic way. Happy to share her recipe here :)

This is almost the best brinjal dish I have ever had :) It has changed the history of me never touching brinjals ;)

Ingredients:

Brinjal - 1/2 kg
Urad dhall - 2 tblsp
Channa dhall - 2 tblsp

Redchillies - 10

Jeera - 1 tblsp

Turmeric powder

Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp

Tamarind - 1/2 lemon size

Salt - for taste

Method:

Take a tsp of oil in a pan and fry urad dhall, channa dhall, redchillies, fenugreek seeds and jeera together for few mins. Collect it in the mixie jar. 

Wash the tamarind. Take a dry pan and drop in the tamarind and saute for few mins for it to become dry. 

Put the tamarind, turmeric and salt also in the mixie along with the above fried items and powder it a little coarsely. 

Collect the powder in a plate and smear 1 tsp of oil in the powder and mix it well. 

Wash and split the brinjals like a plus mark from above leaving 1/2 cms on the bottom. Now fill the above done powder into the brinjals. 

Take few tsps of oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and crackle mustard and curry leaves. Now place the brinjals carefully into the vessel and keep the flame medium. 

Now take a larger flat bottomed vessel and fill it with 1 cup of water and place it on top of the brinjal vessel. The brinjals would get steam cooked from the top. 

The brinjals would get cooked in 10 minutes. Check inbetween and turn the brinjals a little until it is evenly cooked. 

Remove from flame and serve it hot with ghee rice :)

Note:

The taste depends on the brinjal quality. Choose the best purple brinjals that are medium sized and firm but not too hard. 

Be careful while splitting the brinjals and fill the powder and press firmly for it to stay intact. 

The taste ofcourse adds on when you do it in the traditional method of placing water on top. Do not skip that step. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here.