Chilli Baby Corn

Today I prepared this tasty chilli baby corn for lunch. The dish goes well with rice, rotis, et all. Here is my recipe. 

Ingredients : 

• Baby corn - 1 cup (Blanched and cut)
• Spring onions whites - 1 cup
• Spring onion greens - 1/2 cup (for dressing)
• Green Bell Pepper - 1 no. (cut lengthwise)
• Tomato Puree - 1 tbsp
• Thai  Sweet Chilli sauce - 1 tbsp
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
• Soy Sauce (light) - 1 tsp 
• Vinegar - 1 tsp
• Tomato sauce - 1 cup
• Salt - to taste
• Oil - 1/2 cup and 2 tbsp

For the marinade:

• Gram Flour - 2 tbsp
• Red chilli pwd - 1 tsp
• Salt - to taste
• Water - as needed

Method: 

• In a bowl, prepare a thick batter with the ingredients given under For the Marinade section. Dip the cut baby corns and allow the marinade to get coated well.
• Heat 1/2 cup of oil in a pan and shallow fry the baby corn and keep them aside.
• Heat the remaining oil in the pan. Add the spring onion whites and saute it for a few seconds.
• Add ginger garlic paste and saute until the raw smell goes off. At this point add the cut bell peppers and stir fry them
• Now add tomato puree, tomato sauce, soy sauce, vinegar and the Thai sweet chilli sauce. Add the shallow fried baby corn and stir fry it until the baby corns get coated with the sauces nicely.
• Add salt and some water for a gravy consistency and cook on a low flame for a few minutes until all the ingredients are nicely cooked.
• Remove from flame and serve it hot. 

P.S : It has a sweet, tangy, spicy taste. In case of non availability of Thai sweet chilli sauce, chilli sauce and sugar can be used as replacements.

Eggless Cupcake (Vanilla flavoured)

I was on the look out for a recipe to make eggless cupcakes for Valentine's day. Eventually, I came across Sailu's kitchen blog. I made some small changes to it. Here is a novice's attempt. I used  a readily available fresh cream for frosting.

 

 

 Ingredients: (This recipe yielded about 24 cup cakes)

• Self Raising flour - 2 1/2 cup (The original recipe had all purpose flour)
• Yogurt - 1 cup
• Caster sugar - 1 3/4 cup (original recipe had 1 2/3 cups of sugar)
• Baking soda -  1/2 tsp
• Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
• Butter - 1 cup (room temperature)
• Milk - 3/4 cup
• Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp

Method : 

• Sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda and keep it aside.
• In a bowl, whisk the butter, caster sugar until the mixture is creamy enough. Add milk, yogurt and vanilla essence and keep whisking until the mixture becomes evenly creamy and fluffy.
• In another bowl, mix the wet and dry ingredients well so that it forms a batter without any lumps.
• In the meantime, preheat the oven at 180 deg C for about 15 minutes.
• Place the cupcake liners in the cupcake pan and add the prepared batter to 3/4 level.
• Bake the cupcake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. (I did exactly for 20 minutes and found that the cake was cooked by inserting a fork. When you do so, the fork should come out clean.)

 I took the cupcakes from the oven and added the cream frosting on top of the cake and allowed it to settle.

Keerai Pappukura (Spinach & Lentil Sambhar)

Back after a "Sick" break. It was by all means sickening and very upsetting. Someone has been falling ill week after week and it was horrible to cope with the situation. But somehow managed to come out this sickening season and here I am ready with my new post.

 

My grandma has a Telugu connection and she coined this word "Keerai Pappukura" which is more of a keerai sambhar kinds. Here is the recipe.

 

 

Ingredients : 

• Spinach - 1 bunch (washed & chopped)
• Moong Dhal (Payathamparuppu) - 1 cup
• Chopped tomatoes - 1 cup
• Sambhar powder - 1 1/2 tbsp.
• Salt - to taste
• Water - As needed

For seasoning: 

• Mustard - 1 tsp
• Oil - 1 tsp
• Red chillies - 1 or 2 nos (based on the spice level)
• Asafoetida - 1 small piece (powder can be used when the hard one is not available)

 Method:

 

In a pressure cooker, add the lentil, the chopped spinach, chopped tomatoes, sambhar powder and water(add only enough water such that the spinach and the lentils get drenched as spinach has the tendency to ooze out water). Based on the pressure cooker's settings, cook the mixture until the lentil gets cooked nicely. Keep it aside until the pressure subsides

 

In a wok, heat oil and add mustard. Once it starts to splutter, add red chillies and asafoetida. Take out from heat and add it directly to spinach and lentil mixture.

 

Add salt now and bring the spinach and lentil mixture to boil on a medium flame. The spice would get mixed up nicely. Spinach sambhar is ready to be served.