Kaikari Pirattal / Chettinad Vegetable Peratal

Kaikari Pirattal

For this vegetable pirattal you can use any kind of vegetable ( any vegetable which is firm and not watery suits to make this dish) I had used coarsely chopped cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. You can use cabbage, beans, peas, carrot, potato etc

Ingredients

Mixed vegetable coarsely chopped – 2 cups

Onion small sliced – 1 no

Dried red chilli – 2 nos

Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

Urad dal – ¼ tsp

Salt to taste

Oil – 2 tbsp

Curry leaves required

Pirattal masala to grind

Grated fresh coconut – ¼ cup

Dried red chilli – 2 nos

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Fennel seeds ( sombu) – 1 tsp

Chettinad Vegetable Perattal

Method

1.       Coarsely grind the ingredients given under pirattal masala and set aside.

2.       Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds, dried red chilli and urad dal to the pan, stir fry for a second, when mustard seeds crackle add the onion and curry leaves, stir fry for a minute.

3.       Now add the chopped mixed vegetables to the pan and stir fry for another minute, add ¼ cup water to the pan and season vegetable with salt. Mix well.

4.       Reduce the pan heat, cover with lid and simmer vegetable for 3 minutes or until vegetables are 3/4^th  cooked.

5.       Add the coarsely ground pirattal masala to the pan and mix well until the masala is well coated on the vegetable, check the seasoning and stir fry until vegetables are semi-dry.Serve hot Vegetable Perattal with Steamed rice , Sambar and Rasam

Vegetable Peratal

Chettinad Vellai Paniyaram Recipe / Vellai Paniyaram

Vellai Paniyaram

Vellai Paniyaram is a traditional and classic recipe prepared at every Chettinad home especially for breakfast during special occasions and functions. One of the readers sent me a email requesting for authentic vellai paniyaram recipe. She mentioned that she had tried vellai paniyaram from many websites but they did not come out well. So I had pictured few importatnt steps for easy understaning and successful preparation. You require some patience and practice to attain best results. Please do read the tips given below.

Chettinad Vellai Paniyaram

Ingredients
Raw rice - 1 cup
Urad dal - 2 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Sugar - 1/2 tsp ( or to taste)
Milk ( cow's milk) - 1/2 cup or as required
Oil - to shallow fry paniyaram

Method
1. Soak rice and dal in water for at least 2 to 3 hours.
2. Grind rice and dal together in a mixer grinder until smooth like idli-dosa batter.
3. Add salt and sugar to taste to the batter, mix well and set aside batter for at least 1 hour.
4. Heat oil in a flat bottomed pan to shallow fry at highest temperature.
5. Meanwhile add required milk to the paniyaram batter, mix well and make the consistency of the paniyam batter to be thin and loose than dosa batter.
6. Take paniyaram batter in a slightly flat ladle, pour it in the centre of oil ( as shown in picture) and immediately reduce pan heat from highest to lowest.
7. Wait until flower like pattern forms on the sides of paniyaram and paniyaram starts to float on the oil( see picture).
8. Carefully flip the paniyaram to the other side and cook for few more minutes( see picture).
9. Drain paniyaram from oil and place on a paper towel.
10. Again increase pan heat to highest temperature and repeat steps from 6 to 9 with rest of paniyaram batter.
Serve hot Vellai paniyaram with
Chettinad red chilly chutney <--click for recipe

Tips
1. Its best to grind paniyaram batter in wet grinder as you can get smooth batter easily.
2. Vellai paniyaram has to be flat with flower like pattern on its sides. My granny says only a when batter texture( maavu padham) is right one can attain this.
3. First test texture of batter by making one paniyaram at a time. If the paniyaram comes out fat like bonda then batter is thick you need to loosen batter by adding milk. If the paniyaram goes into pieces in oil or soggy then batter is too watery then you can add little rice flour but the texture of paniyaram will become little rough.
4. The oil temperature plays important roll in getting paniyaram flower patteren. If the paniyaram sticks to bottom of pan then oil is not hot enought. If paniyaram turns to be browned then oil is too hot.
Always heat oil to highest, after pouring batter into oil reduce heat to lowest so the paniyaram gets cooked well and also has white color.

Authentic Vellai Paniyaram

Iyer Kichadi Recipe - Rava Kichadi Recipe - The story of Pappu Iyer.

Iyer Rava Kichadi Recipe

So for those who are wondering why a Iyer recipe in a chettinad cuisine blog I'm obliged to tell you this story. The time goes back to my grand fathers's period. A Iyer man approched my grandfather seeking job as his family was suffering in poverty and not able to afford a meal a day. Pappu Iyer was short, weak and slender man so my grand father decided he his not fit for hard labour in farm fields and asked my granny whether she needs any help for the kitchen. My granny appointed this pappu iyer for kitchen help. Pappu iyer was good help at the kitchen, he was a witty man and was very friendly to everyone in the house, childrens in the house started liking him and always a bunch of kids were behind him. As the months passed my granny promoted him to cook few meals but she was doubtful whether his cooking style and tastes will cater to the chettiar tongues which got used to chettinad foods. On the days when they wanted to eat something different from usual chettinad he took turns to cook. He specialized in making sweets, sambar and morning tiffins. So this is one of his special rava kichadi recipe which was their favorite. After few years Pappu Iyer had to move with his family to some other place because of his sons. There by he had left them. I had not seen him personally as he had worked for my granny many years ago but heard about him whenever we prepare his recipes my mom, granny and everyone in our family talks about him. A interesting point is that no one in our family remembers his original name the kids were fond of him and after working in our kitchen this slender man turned to be very fat and stout so kids started to call him friendly "Pappu Iyer".

Ingredients
Rava ( roasted) - 1 cup
Moongdal - 1/4 cup
Onion ( small) - 1 no
Tomato ( small) - 1 no
Green chillies - 2 to 3 nos
Chopped carrot and peas - 1/4 cup
Turmeric - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Channa dal - 1/2 tsp
Ghee or Oil - 3 tbsp + 1 tsp
Water - 2 and 1/2 cups
Salt to taste

Rava Kichadi Recipe

Method
1. Roast rava in 1 tsp ghee until aroma rises, remove to a plate and set aside.
2. Soak moong dal in warm water for atleast 1 hour.
3. Coarsely chop onion, tomatoes and cut chillies into half.
4. Heat ghee in a pan, when ghee melts add mustard seeds, as the mustrad seeds crackle add urad dal and channa dal, stir fry for 2 seconds.
5. Add the chopped onion, green chillies, tomatoes and vegetables and turmeric to the pan and saute for a minute.
6. Add water to the pan, when water starts boiling add the soaked and drained moong dal to boiling water.
7. Cover and cook on low heat until moong dal is soft( when u pinch a dal between thumb and index finger it should get smashed).
8. Season water with salt and again bring the moongdal mixture to boil, slowly add roasted rava to the pan and keep stirring constantly so no lumps are formed,
9. Cook for sometime until rava is cooked.
Serve hot rava kitchadi immediately with
Coconut Chuteny----click for recipe.

Kichadi Recipe

Tips
1.Instead of soaking moongdal for a hour you can pressure cook moongdal for 3 whistles and add the cooked dal after adding water to vegetables in the pan, in this case you have reduce water to 2 cups.
2.Its optional to add veggies, you can add fried cashewnuts to kichadi to make it rich.

Keep looking for my post about chettinad style rava kichadi.