Nei Appam - Traditional Sweet Delicacy

'நெய்' அப்பம் - நெய்யிலேயே  சுட்டா  இன்னும் நல்லாத்தான் இருக்கும்... 😊

Nei appam is a simple sweet deep-fried food made with rice flour and jaggery which i always consider as the healthy combination. the typical south Indian desserts are made with rice or its flour and jaggery as main ingredients. some dishes even call for coconut milk than regular milk.

Flavoured Rice-Flour Crunchies - Evening snack or side dish

Flavoured Rice-Flour Crunchies - Crunchy Side-Dish or Evening Snack 

This crunchy rice flour snack is easy to make and good to eat. i saw this recipe in an cook book. tried it. and it was good ! today we had with lemon rice.

Rice Flour Puttu - Easy, Tasty and Healthy !

Rice Flour Puttu - Easy, Tasty and Healthy !

Puttu is another polite, easy to cook, no oil, steam cooked, good-to-eat and healthy dish. It is good for breakfast or dinner. It is one of the easily digestible food for sick people. 

Ulundhu Kali ( Urad Dhal Halwa ) - Healthy Traditional Food

Ulundhu Kali - Healthy Traditional Food

Ulundham/Ulundhu kali is a healthy food traditionally cooked in Tamil Nadu with black whole urad dhal and palm jaggery. These are the two main ingredients plus water. That is all..! you can also do this with whole white urad dhal. But whole black urad dhal is more nutritive and has more fibre and above all more flavour than the whole white urad dhal.

Since I did not have whole black urad dhal today, I used whole white urad dhal.

Uppu Urundai (or) Kara Kozhukattai - 100th Post

Uppu Urundai - Light Breakfast or Dinner

Uppu urundai is an traditional South Indian food item made with idli-rice.

Murukku - Version 2

Murukku - With Fried Gram Flour

This is the another recipe for murukku with slightly different ingredients. Here i am using fried gram or pottu kadalai along with rice and urad dhal. Yes, its a little different. Doesn't need much fat to keep it less-hard.

The taste of this murukku reminds me of the murukku we used to buy and eat from small shops when we were kids.. 10 murukkus for 1 Rupee. Okay.. let me take you to the recipe quickly.

Adhirasam - King of Desserts in Tamil Cuisine

Adhirasam - King of Desserts in Tamil Cuisine

Adirasam is the South Indian sweet made during Deepavali in most of the houses. Our previous generations, had this recipe in finger tips. But, we in our busy life style, missed to spare time to know about this recipe. And today there are some people, who just spend their Deepavali without adirasam just because they don't know how to make it.

Murukku - It's Festival Season.. Let's Begin

Murukku / Festival / Evening Snack

There is no reason to wait for the festival season when it is about murukku. We have seen many varieties of murukku. Different in size, shape, taste, texture, colour, place of origin, even different for the occasion for which it is made. It was a very rare instance when I get to see someone in my family make murukku.. like my grandma or my auntie. I have never seen my mom making murukku. The first time I made murukku was for one Krishna Jayanthi, when my daughter was 3 years old. I am here to share this simple recipe for murukku which we all like in our family. This recipe was from my grandmom (nanamma).

Rice Flour - Basics

Rice Flour - Basics

Rice flour - is a versatile ingredient in South Indian pantries. Most of the traditional recipes calls for the rice flour. Sweets such as.. adirasam or kozhukattais, or snacks such as murukkus or thattai, or breakfast such as iddiyappam or puttu.. rice flour.. rules!

Home made Rice Flour

When I talk about how to prepare rice flour for cooking, I do not forget the traditional practice of using unprocessed rice flours to put kolam in South Indian houses. This practice has almost disappeared. But I still see some people (including me) sticking with putting the maa kolam during festivals. 

Kozhukattai (Mel) Maavu / Kozhukattai Outer Covering Dough

Kozhukattai (Mel) Maavu / Kozhukattai Outer Covering Dough

Kozhukattai mel maavu has a simple recipe with very few ingredients but not most of us will succeed in getting it soft.

I feel that the right texture of the outer covering rice flour dough, is that, when we bite the kozhukattai, it should be soft, yet firm, and the teeth should sink smoothly and pass to the poornam without knowing that we have already reached the poornam. 

The rice flour used for making dough can also be prepared at home. Definitely the rice dough prepared from the home made rice flour has a very fresh feel on kozhkattai. 

We can also use store bought rice flour. We have to make sure that the rice flour from store is fresh batch. Old rice flours might smell stale and rancid which will spoil the whole dish. 

I tried different recipes from word of mouth to get the right texture of kozhukattai. But this recipe will definitely be very clear, that even a beginner could get it right the first time. 

Let me share you the recipe which I follow to make the mel maavu.

Yellu Poornam Kozhukattai

Yellu Poornam Kozhukattai / Vinayagar Chathurthi Special

Yellu poornam kozhukattai is one of the traditional dish which we generally make in our homes for Vinayagar Chathurthi and Varalakshmi Viratham. It is another healthiest steam cooked dish with the best flavour of sesame seeds and jaggery packed in fine rice flour outer covering. 

This kozhukattai can also be done with coconut poornam or kadalai paruppu poornam instead of sesame seed (yellu) poornam. Our favourite is yellu poornam. Just the sesame seeds and jaggery - complement each other very well in both taste and medical property. The flavour of yellu is intense and has lots of good fat. One of my best buddy A shared some good quality sesame seeds from her native which are more flavourful. I have used it in today's recipe with gratitude.

For more festival foods click here - Festival Foods

For more Sweets/Desserts click here - Sweets

Yellu Poornam Kozhukattai for Pillaiyaar Chathurthi.

Vella Kozhukattai / Pidi Kozhukattai

Vella / Pidi Kozhukattai - Vinayagar Chathurthi 

Vella kozhukattai is a very humble and light dish made with rice flour and jaggery. It is steam cooked dish. This kozhukattai is Vinayagar Chathurthi🌺🌻 special. This recipe is easy with minimum ingredients and healthy too.

We can either prepare the rice flour at home or buy from shop. Today I used the store bought rice flour. Make sure you buy fresh rice fours just before making and never use old flours which had been there in your pantry for long. Such rice flours smells stale and rancid. Here is how I make the vella kozhukattai.

For more festival foods click here - Festival Foods

For more Sweets/Desserts click here - Sweets

Vella Appam/Vella Paniyaram - Krishna Jayanthi Special

Vella Appam/Nei Appam/Vella Paniyaram - Krishna Jayanthi Special

Appam was a sweet snack/Neiveidhyam which I always enjoyed eating from temples or friends but never tried doing as I didn't know it was such easy dish. Once, I came across this recipe in a magazine, I was really surprised to see how easy the recipe was and wanted to give it a try. Bingo !!first attempt itself was a super hit. it is the feast for the eyes ... that golden brown or can i say little more than golden.. beautiful dark amber colour.. sparkling. Here is how to do it..

For more festival foods click here - Festival Foods

For more Sweets/Desserts click here - Sweets

Nei appaam/vella paniyaram

Idli Batter - Basics

Idli Batter/Idli maavu

Idli...... when I sit to down type about idli.. my memories fly back to the days when I was 8 years old. During holidays, we used go to our amma-amma's (maternal grandma) house.