Kolam by Sudha Balaji

  Pitla recipe  This variety of pitla as it called can be prepared for festivals like Navratri, Varalakshmi Vratham or Ugadi. The ingredients required are t wo teaspoons of urad dal, one teaspoon of gram dal, pepper, red chillies asafoetida and curry leaves. All the ingredients are roasted in little oil; curry leaves can be roasted separately also. Then grated coconut is added and the mixture is ground into a fine paste. Sauté with mustard seeds, urad dhall in a tava, add solution of tamarind soaked in water, allow it to boil. Then add the cooked vegetables - peanuts, beans and carrot slices and let the solution boil. Finally add already cooked thoor dhall and add salt to taste and boil for a few minutes We can use different vegetable combinations like yam and chickpeas, bittergourd ( pavakkai ) and peanuts or ground nuts to make this delicious dish.   Pepper gives a fine flavour to pitla Pitla recipe South Indian Maharashtrian style pithla recipe Urad dhal quantity shou...

This is a traditional method of making mixed vegetable curry for Bhogi festival.  This tradition has been there from time immemorial.  Probably, this idea was started to prepare a recipe from the freshly harvested vegetables that are available during Sankranti. Usually, we prepare this as a side dish for for pooris we make on Bhogi day.  Since we live in Tamil Nadu, pooris with Bhogichi bhaji and Venn Pongal (the traditional and healthy breakfast of Tamil Nadu made with rice, moong dhal and lots of pepper) is also part of our menu. For festivals onion and garlic are avoided in cooking in our family so this recipe is without onion and garlic. The vegetables usually used are sweet potato, potato , carrot , cluster beans, flat beans, green beans seeds.  All the vegetables are cooked separately in water boiled in a vessel and not in a pressure cooker because they can become too soft and some of them will not be discrete also owing to the high temperature in the coo...