K square for Ganesha

Ganesha banda

Kayi kadabu thinda

Chikka kereli bidda

Dodda kereli yedda

Ganesha is such a cute God! Nobody thinks twice about teasing Ganesha or about using funny Ganesha similies in daily life. He seems to exude a certain tolerance for mere mortals :). V actually loves to make a small Ganesha vigraha her play mate at times.

I couldnt pass up on an opportunity to appease his biiig tummy with some of my khara kadabu and Kosambri. So here's how I made them

What you need to make Khara Kadabu

• Split Yellow Chickpeas (Channa Dal /Kadlebele) - 2 cups (normal thali type cup)
• Water - 4 cups
• Green Chillies - 6-8 depeding on how spicy you would like it
• Coriander - a handful of leaves
• Ginger - 1 inch piece
• Salt
• Idli stand (or whatever mechanism you steam idlis in)

Preparation to make Khara Kadabu (Time : 4 hrs)

• Soak the Channa Dal in water for 4 hours (ensure water level is atleast an inch above the channa dal level)

Method to make Khara Kadabu (Time : 20 mins)

• Drain the water from the soaked channa dal
• Grind the soaked channa dal, green chillies, coriander, ginger and salt together

Ensure that you do not add any extra water while grinding
Grind slow and repeatedly to get a smoother paste (it does not have to be a fine paste)

• Lightly grease each idli cup in the idli stand with a drop of oil
• Take a small ball of this ground mixture in your palm, make your hand into a fist and press lightly to get a longish, chubby shape
• Place this on the idli stand in one of the cups
• You could even place two of these in one idli cup to save on time
• Repeat the previous three steps till the idli stand is full or your ground mixture is finished
• Place the idli stand in a pressure cooker. Remove the weight from the cooker
• Pressure cook it for 10 minutes. (The time is the same as Idli would take to steam in your cooker)

My fundas

• The actual Ganesha habba kadabu comes with the ground mixture filling inside of a rice flour wrap. I did not make the wrap because the kadabu is what my family loves :)
• Onion is also a good addition to this kind of kadabu. Chop onion into tiny pieces and add it to the ground mixture and continue as above
• Coriander could also be added chopped instead of grinding it.

What you need to make Kosambri

• Moong dal (Hesarbele) - 1 cup
• Water - 2 cups
• Cucumber - 1
• Lemon juice - 2 tsp
• Coconut flakes - 1/2 cup
• Green chillies - 2
• Mustard - 1 tsp
• Oil - 2 tsps
• Salt

Preparation to make Kosambri (Time : 2 hrs)

• Soak the moong dal in water for 2 hours

Method to make Kosambri (Time : 15 mins)

• Drain the water from the soaked moong dal.
• Cut the cucumber lengthwise in the middle and remove the seeds and the rest of the gooey stuff.
• Cut the hard part of the cucumber into very small pieces.
• Mix the cucumber pieces, soaked moong dal, lemon juice, coriander, salt and coconut.
• For seasoning, fry the mustard and green chillies in oil till the mustard splutters out
• Add the seasoning to the Kosambri mixture.

My fundas

• You could replace cucumber with grated carrot and it would give you an entirely new salad

Bread ka Meetha

Hurricane Irene left in its wake a humongous food collection in my kitchen. One major contender was the humble bread. Today happened to be Gowri festival (one part of the Gowri-Ganesha habba) so I decided to take the opportunity to reduce the inventory a little by making the prasadam using bread. I am christening it Bread ka Meetha :)

Its a sweeet dish but you can look forward to a lesser sweet variant in my fundas at the end of the recipe. Try it out and let me know how it goes!

What you need to make Bread ka Meetha

• Bread - 6 slices (Brown/White)
• Milk - 1/2 litre
• Sugar - 8 heaped tsps
• Ghee - 6 tsps
• Almonds (Badam)- few
• Cashewnuts (Kaju, Godambi)- few
• Dry Raisins (Kishmish, Vona Drakshi) - few
• Cardomon (Elaichi, Yelakki) - 1 pod (optional, I did not use it)

Preparation to make Bread ka Meetha (Time : 2 mins)

• Remove the crust from around the bread

Method to make Bread ka Meetha (Time : 20 mins)

• Boil milk in a heavy bottomed kadhai. After one boil add the sugar to it and continue simmering it till it reduces to half.
• In the meantime, deep fry the cashewnuts and almonds in ghee and keep aside
• Shallow fry the bread pieces in ghee till golden brown (in case of brown bread it would be more of a reddish hue)

Shallow frying bread with ghee was a revelation. The bread pieces soak in ghee extremely fast. So I suggest you pour a tsp of ghee around the bread after placing it on a tawa or pan. This way you would use less ghee and actually make it less caloried!

• Break each fried bread slice into 4 pieces
• Once the milk is condensed to half the quantity, add the fried bread pieces and fried nuts to it.
• Continue to simmer till the bread softens.
• Bread ka meetha is ready :)

My fundas

• Toasting bread pieces and adding them to milk is a lower caloried way of making this dish. It would still be very tasty to eat. You could add 1-2 tsp of ghee to the boiling milk to get an equivalent rich impact.

Kodbale (Kodubale)

Gokulashtmi is round the corner and I decided to celebrate it the Iyengar way this year since I am celebrating it for the first time on my own. And that can only mean one thing - lots of things to eat. However I have to limit my Thindis to those that dont need "Varalu" plus the fast consumed ones.

Kodbale is an all time favourite since its spicy and

savoury.

What you need to make Kodbale

• Rice flour (Akki hittu, Arsi maav) - 1 measure (small cup, tall cup whatever)
• All purpose flour (Maida) - 1/4 measure
• Puffed Chickpeas (Dahlia/Hurigadle) - 1/4 measure
• Butter - 1/4 bar or 3 heaped scoops in a regular spoon you use to eat (optional, you could also use ghee)
• Coconut- 1 heaped tablespoon
• Red Chillies - 4 long ones (assuming 2 inches in length)
• Asafoetida -a speck
• Jeera - 1/4 tsp
• Salt
  
• Oil for deep frying

Preparation to make Kodbale (Time : 20 mins)

• Dry roast the maida in a heavy bottomed kadai or pan till its warm
• Dry grind the Hurigadle in a mixie to a fine powder
• Fine Grind Coconut, Red chillies, As
• afoetida and Jeera together in a mixie (Do not add water)
• Mix Rice flour, warm Maida, Hurigadle powder, the other ground mixture and salt
• Now is the time to taste if the salt is ok, fix it and proceed to next step
• Add the butter which should be at room temperature so that it can be mixed easily
• 
  Make a dough akin to a chapati dough
• Keep aside for a few minutes (5 maybe)

Method to make Kodbale (Time : 40 mins, rolling takes practice!)

• Take a small portion of the mixture the size of a small lemon
• Knead it again after dipping your fingers in water
• Keeping the dough ball on a non-sticky surface (like the chapati board) and roll lightly using your fingers
• Make sure you dont press hard while you roll.
• Make a long thin roll, bend the roll to make a circle and seal the overlapping ends together by pressing on it
• (Refer to the Pictures)
• 
• 

• By the time the first batch is ready to be fried, heat the oil in a heavy bottomed kadai
• Put the dough circles into the hot oil, fry till brown and your kodbale is ready

My fundas

• Rolling is the toughest part of making kodbales. Keep water handy where you can dip your fingers and roll.

A change of hearth

I have come a long way from the hectic life in Bangalore (I still refuse to call it Bengaluru for some silly adamant reason). A life full of work and kiddo balance to kitchen and kiddo balance. Gone are the days when the occasional chance to cook was pounced upon like an oasis in the desert. Now it is time to think about the next meal menu all the time. So far I have repeated a lot of my "been there done that" recipes which I had carefully blogged here (thank God!) and the family has been loving it. I am still miles away from knowing what my husband and daughter love to eat. Raw baby carrots work very well for my daughter right now and one glass of coffee for my husband keeps him in a saintly mood.
I will be posting new try-outs and recipes. Sit back, enjoy and then go cook :)