Saturday, February 21, 2009

Red Bell Pepper Chutney



Last week , I bought a big bag of red bell peppers from the farmers market. I used the peppers in pasta and salad but still a lot left in the fridge. Usually I make tomato-onion chutney (my daughter's favorite ) for idli. But for a change, I gave a twist to the chutney by adding roasted red bell pepper .

Ingredients


Red Bell Pepper- 2
Red Onion - 1
Tomato - 2
Red Chillies - 7
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
Garlic Cloves - 2
Salt

Method

Cut the onions and tomatoes into big pieces. Wash the bell peppers, pat them dry and cut into pieces. Heat oil in a pan and fry the dry red chillies along with bell peppers, onion, tomato and garlic until the veggies become soft. Meanwhile add mustard seeds along with sesame in a tsp of oil and once it splutters add it to the blender at the last spin. Serve with Dosas or Idlis.

Notes:
I also used the chutney as a spread for the veggie wrap.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Kambu Dosa ( Pearl Millet Dosa)




Ingredients:

Kambu (Pearl millet) – 1 1/2 cups
Rice - 1/2 cup
Urad dhal – 1/2 cup
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
Salt – As required

Recipe:

Soak kambu+rice+methi and Urad dhal seperately in water for about 6-8 hrs. I usually soak them overnight and grind it in the morning. Grind kambu+rice and urad dhal seperately and mix both the batter thoroughly to combine. Add salt while mixing. Keep it at room temperature for about 8 hrs to ferment. Make sure the vessel size to store the batter is bigger than the batter amount as the latter will rise once it ferments. Pearl millet batter gives a unique flavor once it ferments. The batter will tend to become watery if it ferments too much. Refrigerate the batter, if you are not making dosas immedietly. Heat a non-stick tawa and pour a laddle of batter in the centre, spread out with the back of the laddle to a thin round. Pour a tsp. of oil over the dosa. Loosen the dosa with a spatula at the edges, turn and cook the other side.. Serve with chutney .


Tips: Use ice cold water while grinding urad dal.