Participation in Asal Suvai Cookery Contest - Vijay TV

This was the advertisement that came on The Hindu daily three weeks back. 

A friend of mine called up and insisted on me participating in this contest and she gave me all the courage and backed me up to go for it. Ofcourse my mom again pushed me to send my entry :)

They had asked us to send a recipe of a Sambar and a traditional recipe of Tamilnadu for the qualification round. 

I sent my favorite Capsicum potato sambar and Kanchipuram Idly recipe to Vijay TV office with not much of an expectations but then I got a call very next day that said I got selected for the second round directly and I had to make those recipes that I sent for the direct judges to taste! All excited and happy!

So did I and things then moved on in the right direction :) Got all three green signals from the judges in the preliminary round and went forward for the on spot cooking round with 20 top participants.  

With a pressure time of 1 hour and limited ingredients, I cooked up a sweet - wheat banana appam and a savory - wheat beetroot mint rings. Adding to my happiness, I won the on spot cooking challenge too along with 3 others and have qualified for the all TamilNadu Finals which is going to happen this saturday :)

Hoping to do my best and see whats in store for me :)

The contest was telecasted on Sunday the 19th of may at 7PM in Vijay tv. 

Those who would be interested in watching the episode, the link is here - http://www.rajtamil.com/2013/05/asal-suvai-19-05-2013-vijay-tv-show/

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.