Rasmalai

It is always great pleasure to see people with happy faces around! Any one can change such situation worse very easily. If one person's mind is irritated that affects the whole family.It would be a real great achievement if some one can fight with their bad thoughts and hide it from others! Yeah, success comes that way.. Two of our cousins are getting married in the new-year so here is my sweet gift to you all , very suitable for the occasion, without any change to dear Mano's recipe.. Enjoy! :)

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Badam / Almonds Burfi

This is one of the recipes of Mrs.Mano.I was thinking to ask her what is the difference between burfi and halwas.Any way I forgot to ask and googled for it . I was really surprised seeing the word "halwa" is an Arabic word refers to many sweets! Until this time I thought it is Indian.. :) Burfi / barfi contains milk and that may be the difference. Expert visitors please help..
If you are interested to see the list of Indian sweets, please don't leave this space without checking this page . It is really amazing!!
I used water soaked badams for preparing this.Peeling badam is a difficult task always, especially if it is soaked in cold water. The other method, that is adding boiled water to almonds and removing skin is very easy, but I think that swollen almonds would be easy to grind.
You can use almond powder too instead.
The amount I used was much more, so I altered all the measurements. So I should ask Mrs.Mano, the burfi in the picture is correct or not.. :)



Ingredients:
Almonds- 1 cup [heaped]
Ghee- ¾ cup
Sugar- ¼ cup
Enough milk to grind the almonds



Procedure:
Grind the almonds with enough milk to a coarse paste.
In a kadai combine the ingredients.
Then heat the kadai and cook the mixture for 20 minutes stirring continuously all the time.
When the mixture leaves the sides and the ghee separates from the mixture, pour it in a greased plate.
When cooled, cut into desired shape.
Enjoy, it is very tasty!!

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Chettinadu Chicken Curry

Ingredients and Method
chicken 1 kg
onion 4
tomato 4
red chilly powder 4 teaspoons
coriander powder 3 teaspoons
turmeric powder 1 teaspoons
garam masala powder 1 teaspoon
garlic cloves 7
ginger 1 inch piece
curry leaves few
coriander leaves chopped few
oil 4 tb spoon
salt

For grinding,
red chillies 2
fennel seeds 1 teaspoon
poppy seeds 2 teaspoons
bengal gram / pottukadala 1 table spoon
coconut grated 1 handful
oil 1 teaspoon

In oil fry red chillies, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, Bengal gram / pottu kadala and coconut to a golden brown color and then grind to a fine paste.



Grind garlic and ginger to a fine paste.

Heat oil. When the oil becomes hot add chopped onion and fry for a few minutes until it changes into a light brown colour.

Then add tomatoes which are finely chopped with ginger paste, garlic paste, turmeric powder, coriander powder, chilli powder and fry well until the tomatoes are changed into a fine paste and the oil floats on the surface.

Add the pieces of chicken ,ground paste and enough salt with 1 cup of water.

Cook on medium fire until the chicken is well cooked.

Garnish with coriander leaves and curry leaves.This is a very thick gravy.

I followed the Chettinaadu Chicken Curry recipe of Mrs. Mano Saminathan. Since the amount of chilli is high in the original recipe, I changed it to Kashmiri chilli powder, following Mrs.Mano's suggestions. Mrs. Mano Saminathan is an expert in cooking various dishes and has an experience of forty years in this field. She hails from the famous Thanjavur City of Tamil Nadu. Mrs. Mano , lives in Sharjah with her family, runs the South Indian restuarant "Saffire".

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Chicken 65

Again with the recipe of Mrs. Mano Saminathan.

Ingredients and preparation.

1/2 kg bone less chicken

1 teasp lime juice

1/4 teasp kesari powder

2 teasp chilli powder

1/2 of egg

11/2 tbsp cornflour

11/2 tea sp plain flour

1 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 tea sp pepper powder

1 tea sp ginger paste

1 tea sp garlic paste

1 handful of curry leaves

1/2 tea sp turmeric powder

1/4 teasp garam masala

enough salt

Mix well.

Marinate the chicken for 1 hour and deep fry them.

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Vendakka Pachadi

This recipe is by Mrs.Mano Saminathan. She has an experience of 40 years in cooking. You can find many of her recipes here.

Ingredients

Okra - 1 small packet (about 10-15 small vendaikkai)

Tamarind - 1 small lime size

Coconut - 2 tblsp

Mustard seeds - 3/4 tsp

Jeera - 1 tsp

Jaggery - 1-2 pieces (per taste)

Dry red chillies - 1-2 (as per taste)

Mustard and uarad dal for tempering

Rice flour - 1 tsp

Coconut oil - 2 tsp

Salt to taste

Curry leaves - few

Method

Trim okra and chop into 1/2 inch pieces.

It is important that the okra remains dry before you chop them. (This is true for all preparations of Okra)

Saute the Okra pieces in a pan of hot vegetable or coconut oil (about 1 tsp will do on non-stick pan) until the okra is coated with oil.

No need to fry these until brown.

Add about 1 cup tamarind water, turmeric and salt and cook the okra.

Add 1 piece jaggery half way through.

Meanwhile, grind the fresh coconut with raw jeera, mustard seeds, rice flour and red chillies to a fine paste.

Once the okra is cooked, add this paste to the okra liquid.

Adjust salt and jaggery to taste.

Let it simmer until the raw smell of coconut mixture goes away.

Put off the fire and temper with mustard seeds, urad dal, asafoetida (perungayam) and curry leaves.

I do the tempering in coconut oil.

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