Saturday, September 1, 2012

Onam and an Exciting Start to a Long Weekend



You must be wondering why an Onam post is appearing three days after Onam. Well, Onam was a simple affair this time…we had postponed the festivities for the weekend. A few friends had come for lunch and we had a wonderful time: a traditional Kerala sadhya shared with good friends and a refreshingly good Hindi movie to complete a lovely afternoon.
The excitement continues, as we move onto the second day of the three day weekend…we have more visitors coming over tomorrow…any guesses? It is a much awaited reunion....still no idea? Gomathi and her family are visiting us and we are super excited.  
Coming back to the recipes, I tried two new ones this time around, unni appam (a sweet made with a rice-jaggery-banana batter) and puli inji (thick tamarind sauce flavored with ginger and chilies).
Unni appam
Ingredients
Rice flour – 2 cups
Melted jaggery (honey like consistency) – 1 cup
Mashed bananas – 4 tbsps
Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
Grated/Chopped coconut – 2 tbsps
Ginger powder (optional for extra flavor) – 1 tsp
Ghee
Water – as required to loosen the batter and melt the jaggery
Method
In a bowl, mix flour, cardamom powder, coconut, ginger powder (if using) and bananas. Melt the jaggery, with  water, to honey-like consistency and pour into the flour mixture. Mix well and add water to make a batter that resembles idly batter.
Heat the appam/Æbleskiver pan, pour oil to fill ¼ of each cavity. When hot, pour about a tablespoon of batter into each cavity and let it cook well (about 2 minutes or until it turn brown). Turn it over and let the other side cook too. The varied coloring seen in the photographs is because of my experiments with different heat levels.
Remove onto a paper towel and let the oil drain. Once it cools down, refrigerate in an air-tight container. 
Note: 
  1. The brownness of the appam will vary depending on the color of the jaggery.
  2. Warm the appams before serving.
Puli Inji
Ingredients
Tamarind water – 1 ¼ cups
Finely chopped ginger – 4 tbsps
Finely chopped green chilies – 2-3 tbsps
Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp (or to taste)
Asafoetida powder – ¼ tsp
Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp
Curry leaves
Coconut oil – 1 ½ tbsps
Dried red chillies – 2-3
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Jaggery – 2 tsps (optional)
 Method
Soak tamarind in hot water for 15-20 minutes and extract the pulp.
Heat the oil in a thick bottomed vessel. Add the chopped ginger and green chillies and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Keep aside. Into the same oil, add the mustard seeds. As they splutter, add the curry leaves and red chillies and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the tamarind water and the remaining ingredients, stir and reduce the heat. Allow the mixture to simmer and reduce until thick. Remove from the heat and refrigerate in an air-tight container.
For more traditional recipes, visit Onam Special. There is no rule that these recipes should be made only for Onam, so please try these out and let us know how you like them :-). Bon Appétit. 
Recipes linked to 


24 comments:

  1. looks so healthy & delicious...mouthwatering!

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  2. puli inji looks finger licking good; looks like you are having a full on onam celebrations :)

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  3. Thanks for sharing traditional recipe
    Great-secret-of-life.blogspot.com

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  4. Wow! i love puli inji.. so yumm!

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  5. Thank you Kalyan.

    Priya, thank a lot. Yes, we did have quite a celebration :-)

    You are welcome, Veena. Please do try them.

    Thanks Renuka, it is one of my favorites too, love the tangy-spicy flavors :-)

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  6. Thanks Divya, yes we had a lot of fun :-)

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  7. yummy uniyappam & puli inji looks muthwatering..belated Onam wishes & Enjoy ur weekend!!
    Join my ongoing EP events-Oregano OR Paprika @ Foodomania

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  8. Happy Onam dear... I wanted to try this puli inji for a long time.. But somehow missing it... Will try it soon

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  9. hope u had a gr8 celebration. Love to c these dishes.. yum :)

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  10. So fun. this time I got to eat Sadya twice. So I was a bit excited. I never got no unniappams though :(

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  11. Thank you Julie, hope you have had a good weekend so far.

    Thanks Akila, same here, this was my first trial and it came out really well.

    Thanks Chitra, we did have loads of fun.

    Wish I could send you some appams :-)

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  12. Must say yummy Onam celebrations, I have not yet made any of the above dishes, but eaten loads of them!

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  13. Thanks Gauri, you should try these recipes.

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  14. Fabulous dishes, seems you had a wonderful onam.

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  15. Thank you, Priya. We did have a wonderful Onam.

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  17. Thanks Shweta. Will definitely drop by.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by. Follow us on twitter @wordsandwoks

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  19. These look heavenly! Is there anything that I could use in place of the jaggery? I don't think that is something I can find where I live. Thank you so much for sharing your recipes with Delicious Dish Tuesday.

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  20. Hi Amanda, thanks. You might be able to use sugar syrup, but I have never tried it before.

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  21. Aparna, well done for solving the cryptic clue today on Carole's Chatter. I'll give you a shout out in tomorrow's solution clue. Cheers

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