Chibbada Hasale (Cantaloupe Pudding)

Chibbada Hasale is a very simple sweet dish. This is commonly prepared during summer to beat the heat. Chibbada in konkani means Cantaloupe. In Mangalore- Udupi region, a special variety of cantaloupe is available which has a distinct smell. Chibbada (Cantaloupe) in its unripe state looks like a yellow cucumber and as it ripens, there is a formation of a slit and smells heavenly. It looks like this-

Try making this simple sweet dish and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• Chibbada/Cantaloupe, ripe- 1
• Milk/Coconut Milk- 1- 1 1/4 cup
• Jaggery, powdered- 1/2 cup
• Cardamom Powder- 1/2 tsp
• Flattened rice- As required

Procedure:

Wash and peel the cantaloupe. Cut it and remove the seeds (over ripe cntaloupe works well).

Then mash the cantaloupe using hand or chop it and blend it in a blender to get a paste. Transfer it into a bowl.

Now in another bowl add jaggery and milk/coconut milk. Mix well until the jaggery melts. Then add cardamom powder to it. Sweet milk is ready.

Now mix the pureed cantaloupe and sweet milk. Mix well. Chibbada Hasale is ready!!

Serve it immediately/refrigerated. Add 1-2 Tbsp of flattened rice while serving (which is optional). Above measurement serves 3-4 people.

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Sambarballi Chutney (Cuban Oregano Chutney)

Sambarballi Chutney is a very simple and healthy chutney. Sambarballi leaves are very healthy and the juice extracted from the leaves is used to cure cough and cold. The juice is especially given to small children for curing cough and cold. 

This is my husband's grandma's recipe and my MIL made this for me. I loved the taste. Try making this healthy chutney.

Ingredients:

• Sambarballi/ Cuban Oregano leaves, small- 10-12
• Grated Coconut, fresh/frozen- 1/2 cup
• Green Chillies- 2-3
• Tamarind- A very small piece
• Cumin seeds/Jeera- 1/2 tsp
• Ghee- 1/2 tsp
• Salt- To taste

Procedure:

Wash the leaves and give a rough chop to them.

Then take a small kadai and add ghee. Start heating it on a low flame and add cumin seeds and chopped leaves. Fry for 30 seconds. Turn off the heat and allow it to cool.

Then grind the fried leaves, cumin along with grated coconut, green chilli, tamarind and salt with little water. The consistency is similar to other coconut chutney. Transfer to a bowl. Sambarballi Chutney is ready!

Serve it with dosa, idli. Above measurement serves 3-4 people.

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Takka Idli (Buttermilk Idli)

Takka Idli is a very delicious breakfast. It looks like rava idli and comes out extremely soft. This is my husband's paternal grandma's recipe. My MIL made this for me and I loved it. Hence thought of posting it. This idli has a very different texture. Try making this and I am sure you all will love it.

Ingredients:

• Rice- 1 1/2 cup
• Buttermilk- 2 cup
• Coconut pieces- Fistful
• Flattened rice- 1 cup
• Baking soda- 1/2 tsp
• Finely chopped ginger- 1 tsp (we didn't add) 
• Salt- To taste

For Seasoning:

• Oil- 2-3 tsp
• Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Urad dal/Split black gram- 1 1/2 tsp
• Hurikadle/Dalia/Roasted split chana- 2 tsp
• Green chilli- 3-4
• Curry leaves- Few 

Procedure:

Wash the rice and drain the water completely. Dry it on a cotton cloth for 2-3 hours. Then fry the dried rice on a medium flame until it turns light brown. Allow it to cool.

Now take the dry roasted rice in a bowl and add buttermilk. Mix it well and leave it for 3-4 hours, so that the rice soaks up the buttermilk completely.

Then add little water to beaten rice, to soften it.
Add this to the soaked rice and grind them to get a fine paste. Add water or buttermilk while grinding, if it is too dry. The consistency of the batter should be that of idli or rava idli (not too thick or too thin). Transfer this batter to a bowl and let it sit for 8 hours or over night.
After 8 hours, add chopped coconut, ginger (if adding).
For seasoning: Heat oil. Add mustard seeds. Once it starts spluttering, add urad dal, dlia, chopped green chillies and curry leaves. Fry until they turn light brown. Then add this to the batter.

Mix well. Finally add baking soda and salt. Give a final mix. Then pour the batter in the greased idli moulds, half way through.

Steam them in a steamer or cooker (without whistle) for 15 minutes.

Cool them for 3-4 minutes and remove them from the mould. Takka Idli is ready!!

Serve it hot with ghee or chutney or any spicy curry of your choice. Above measurement serves five people.

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Gova Shevai (Sun dried Wheat Vermicelli)

Gova Shevai is a very popular sun dried item.I had already posted in one of my posts- Shevai usli about the sun dried wheat noodles. Making these noodles requires lot of effort but the output is worthy. Making these noodles is a 7-8 days process and I remember my amma making them and me help her with it, in my school days! Now the number of people making it has decreased. Now people buy the ones available readily in the stores.

Posting the procedure of this noodles was my long time dream. Never thought I will post it so soon! All the credit goes to my Mother in law. She was the one who made this and I was happily clicking the photos. She likes making it every year and use them through out the year. I have tried to capture each step and have tried to explain as much as possible. Hope this helps and motivates few of you to try this!

Ingredients:

• Wheat- 1 kg
• Salt- To taste
• Noodles Maker 

You will also need big plastic sheets (for drying the noodles) and big flattened boxes, to support the plastic sheets.

Procedure:

Wash and soak wheat for two days. 

Wash it again with generous amount of water, 7-8 times to remove the bad smell.

Now grind the soaked wheat in a grinder (preferred) or a mixer grinder to get a paste, adding sufficient amount of water (the paste will not turn out fine and don't worry if it becomes watery). Transfer the watery paste into a bowl.

Now take a very big container like a stock pot or any other big dish you have in hand. The extracted milk has to be stored in this. Then take another container and a big strainer (you can also use a muslin cloth)  to extract milk (like) from the ground wheat.

 Step 1: Start pouring the ground wheat in batches.

Once the strainer is full, stir the mixture using hand. This will fasten the process of the extraction of milk from wheat.

Once the white liquid drains completely, you will be left with the wheat residue.

Don't throw the residue at this point. Collect it in a big bowl. Also transfer the extracted milk of wheat to the big dish. Now add the next batch of the ground wheat to the strainer and repeat Step 1 until everything gets over. 

Then add generous amount of water to the wheat residue and mix well. Repeat step 1 and again extract the milk. Now the white liquid extracted is little dilute than the first batch. In this way Step 1 has to be repeated 3-4 times, until all the milk from wheat is extracted. The milk extracted from wheat ( thick as well as dilute) is taken together in the big dish.

Allow the milk to settle for 8-10 hours (generally over night). After 10 hours the thick paste of wheat settles at the bottom and the top layer is water. We want just the settled thick wheat paste and hence the top layer (water) is unwanted. Without much disturbance, the the water has to be discarded by slowly bending it near a sink. once the water is thrown completely, transfer the white paste to a kadai (non stick works good. If you are not using non stick then grease the kadai with little oil). Add salt to taste.

Now start heating it on a medium flame and stir it continuously. After few minutes, the liquid starts to solidify.

Continue stirring continuously until the whole mixture solidifies and forms a single mass.

Turn off the heat. Now the mixture is ready to make noodles (it has to be done when hot. The mixture hardens as it cools). I used the traditional noodles maker.

Step 2: Put little mixture in the mould.

Make small noodles and collect them on a plate.

Spread them on a greased plastic sheet.

Repeat step 2 until all the mixture is used up. Dry these noodles under sunlight for 4-5 days.

Gova Shevai is ready!!

Store it in a air tight container. It can be used for more than a year. These noodles are used to make Shevai Usli. It can also be deep fried.

Note: You can as well make Sun dried Ragi noodles. The whole procedure remains the same. Just substitute half of the wheat with ragi i.e 1/2 kg of wheat and 1/2 kg of ragi. The resulting noodles looks like this.

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Valval (Mixed Veggies in Coconut Milk)

Valval is a very popular Konkani dish. Yogi Ratna is its other name. It is a very mild dish and is commonly prepared for special occasions like marriage, thread ceremony etc, as it is a No- onion and garlic dish. 
I tried it for the first time and we loved it. I served it along with rice and batate vaagu and the combination was a hit. Try making this. This dish has loads of veggies, the richness of the coconut milk and the seasoning using ghee gives it a special touch. Altogether its worth trying.

Ingredients:

• Chopped Vegetables* - 3-4 cups
• Tender Cashewnut** - 10-12
• Thick Coconut milk, fresh/canned- 3/4 cup
• Green chillies, slit- 4-5
• All purpose flour/Maida- 1- 1 1/2 tsp
• Ghee- 2 tsp
• Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Cumin seeds/Jeera- 1/2 tsp
• Curry leaves- Few
• Salt- To taste

*Vegetables that can be added- Cow pea beans (alsande), potatoes, beans, carrot, yellow cucumber (magge), ivy gourd (tendle), potato, ridge gourd (ghosale), pumpkin (duddi) or any fresh vegetable of your choice. Don't add onions and drumsticks, as they give a very different flavor to the dish. Just add 7-8 types of veggies.
**You can as well add the whole cashews.

Procedure:

Wash and chop all the vegetables into desired size and shape. Remove the peel of the tender cashew nuts (if using).

Now take a vessel and put all the cut veggies, green chilli into it. Add water and salt as required. Close it with a lid and let it cook on a medium flame for 15-20 minutes (check in between). Once all the veggies look cooked, then take all purpose flour in a bowl and add few tea spoon of water. Mix it well to remove all lumps and then add this paste to the cooked veggies. Mix it well for a minute.

Now add the coconut milk and keep stirring continuously. Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat.

For Seasoning- Heat ghee. Then add mustard seeds. Once it starts spluttering, add cumin seeds and curry leaves. Fry until cumin seeds turn slight brown. Turn off the heat and add this to veggies in the coconut milk. Mix well. Valval is ready!!

Serve it hot with rice and a spicy dish like Batate vaagu, batate song or any other spicy dish of your choice.

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Cabbage Ambado (Cabbage Fritters)

Cabbage Ambado is a very delicious fritter. I got this recipe from my amma. My amma makes excellent ambados and cannot be matched with any other! It is one of our favorite ambado. This was my 2nd attempt and I was happy with it as it had turned out somewhat similar to my amma's. 
Try making these addictive ambados (fritters) and I am sure you all will love it.  (Warning- It is very hard to stop at 2-3 fritters. I am not responsible if you over eat it:-))

Ingredients:

• Cabbage, finely chopped- 1/3 cup
• Onion, finely chopped- 1/3 cup
• Rice- 2/3 cup
• Chanadal/Split chickpeas- 3 Tbsp
• Grated Coconut, fresh/frozen- 1 Tbsp
• Roasted red chilli- 4-5
• Tamarind- A small piece
• Salt- To taste
• Oil - For deep frying

Procedure:

Soak the rice and chanadal together for 1-2 hours. When it is soaking, chop the cabbage and onion, fry the dry red chilli using few drops of oil.

Once the rice and chanadal gets well soaked drain the water completely. Now grind together the soaked rice- chanadal, roasted red chilli, grated coconut, tamarind and salt to get a coarse sticky paste (don't add water while grinding).

The final mixture somewhat looks like this (not too fine or not too coarse).

I hope its clear from the picture. The crushed rice- chanadal grains should not be too coarse or turned to a paste. Making this paste is a very important step. Once the rice mixture is ready, start heating the oil. Check for salt in the rice mixture.

If the oil is hot enough then, its time to add the chopped onion- cabbage (this has to be done absolutely at the end because they give out moisture when mixed with rice mixture. If the moisture content in the final mixture is more, then the fritters will absorb more oil. Hence this is another important step) to the rice mixture. The final mixture just before frying looks like this.

Now make small lemon sized balls and just flatten them slightly like this-

Fry them (don't over crowd while frying and the flame should be medium-high) in hot oil until they turn crispy and dark brown on both sides. Once it is done, drain them on a paper towel to remove excess oil. Cabbage Ambado is ready!!

Serve it hot with rice and dalitoy. Above measurement makes 14- 15 fritters.

Note: These fritters turn out very crispy. If you want it little on the softer side then increase the amount of grated coconut to 2-3 Tbsp.

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