Kolam by Sudha Balaji

Required ingredients 1. Chiroti rava or sooji (else use standard rava ) - 200 gram 2. Milk - 3/4 litre 3. Sugar -as desired 4. Cardamom 5. Cashew nuts 6. Raisins 7. Optional (almonds and saffron) Take required quantity of chiroti rava in a vessel and mix water to obtain a dough similar to poori dough.   Let the dough settle for at least two hours.  Knead the dough and using a rolling pin flatten as we do for poori or roti.   Cut the dough  with a suitable cutter in two directions to obtain square or rhombus shaped pieces and fry them in ghee (if you don't have objection to calories ) else use cooking oil.  Boil milk  and use flame in "sim" position. Add cardamom powder, saffron to it.  Now add the fried dough pieces to the milk and stir for a few minutes. Add required quantity of sugar.  Fry cashew nuts, raisins and add them to the kheer.  Your special kheer as shown in the photo below is ready to serve (and eat!). If standard rava is u...

Diwali recipes and snacks - aval mixture or poha mixture |  Chivda  Actually, a simple recipe for Deepavali savoury or as a simple evening snack when we have guests.  It is liked by kids and  adults alike.  It has one more strange use in our family.  It is a side dish for sambar rice or rasam rice.   Also called chivda or chivda namkeen recipe in Hindi and Marathi.  This I learnt from one of my sisters and she lives in Mumbai. . Ingredients Poha, peanuts, fried gram dhal, desiccated coconut in pieces, curry leaves, oil. mustard, green chilles, asafoetida, turmeric powder  Let us take thin flattened rice or poha also called Aval in Tamil in a big cup as shown For this big cup we need one cup each of peanuts, fried gram dhal and dry coconut pieces., some cashews and curry leaves. For species we should add mustard, turmeric powder and hing. Place a vessel on a stove and dry roast the poha till it becomes crisp Add three sp...

Preparation of rice flour for mullu murukku, thenkuzhal , seedai - traditional method Take raw rice in a vessel, soak in water for 30-minute sand wash well with water, repeatedly. Spread it on a clean cloth in a room and dry in shade under a ceiling fan We need not dry it under the sun. The dried rice is again heated in a shallow vessel in a stove. Heating is done for a short time only and the rice should not change colour Alternatively, we can use readymade rice flour available in shops exclusively for the purpose of making murkkku, seedai etc. Deepavali bakshanam is ready in the pic shown above :)   Those were good old times when the ladies of the house used to plan for Diwali savory and sweet items one week to ten days in advance.  Elaborate plans and arrangements were made all the ingredients required were procured and prepared.    This tradition is still followed in many homes including ours.  There is an air of excitement as the festival draws ne...

Authentic and traditional thattai | Deepavali snacks recipes Traditionally rice is soaked in water for half an hour or so , the water is drained, then rice is spread on a clean cloth and dried in shade.   When dry the rice is heated for some time on a stove and ground at the local shop colloquially called "machine". I have taken two measures of this rice flour in an azhakku ( a measure that is approximately 200 gram ) Add required quantity of salt Add hing as required and then red chilly powder Some add soaked gram dhal ,  I add roasted gram We can add roasted ground nuts ( half pieces ) or powdered ground nuts also Add unsalted butter or hot oil and mix well. Mixing ensures that salt and other ingredients spread evenly throughout the flour. Add water as required to make a dough like chapati or poori Make small spheres of the dough when dough is ready Take a clean cloth and using fingers spread the dough gently so that we get flat ci...

The ingredients are besan flour , milk, ghee and grated coconut - each one measure , sugar two measures.  These add up to only six cups so nuts preferably cashew nuts are added to get the seventh cup This is a traditional recipe of my mother in law ,, no twist just a straight forward , simple and easy sweet that can be part of our Deepavali bakshanam or Navratri neivedyam. In our family we have the custom of preparing a sweet daily for Navarathri  Add besan flour one measure and then two measures of sugar. This is an easy sweet recipe , we can also make traditional jangiri for Diwali  Add grated coconut  and ghee - each one measure Stir with a wooden or steel ladle so that all the ingredients blend well Add cashew nuts or powdered cashew nuts , it is optional however to justify the name we need it ! Stir continuously for about twenty minutes with stove in medium position Apply ghee on a plate ,  this ensures that the semi solid swee...