Vegetable Cutlet - Air Fryer

The best vegetable cutlet I have ever had is from Indian Coffee House in Pondicherry.  My parents' family friend, Malayalam mami used to take me there every day when I was little. I can still remember the smell of those warm cutlets served with thinly sliced onion and ketchup. I made them guilt free in air fryer.

Ingredients:
4 large potatoes
1 large carrot
1 large beet root
1/2 cup green peas
2 teaspoon red chili powder/ paprika
1/2 teaspoon garam masala/ curry powder
salt to taste
2 Tablespoon all purpose flour
thinly sliced onion to serve

Method:
1. Boil vegetables in pressure cooker. Cool, peel and mash well.
2. Heat 2 teaspoon oil in a broad pan. Cook mashed vegetables with paprika, masala and salt. Remove from stove. Add 2 tablespoon flour and mix well.Allow to cool.

3. Make medium size balls of vegetable mixture. Flatten to make cutlet. Roll both sides in bread crumbs. Repeat process with remaining vegetable. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or leave in freezer for 10 minutes.

4. Remove from fridge. Lightly spray both sides of cutlets with oil. Place cutlets in air fryer. Cook for 15 minutes at 380, flipping once in between, until golden brown on both sides. Adjust temperature and cooking time after first batch.

5. Serve warm with thinly sliced onion and ketchup.

Note:
You can shallow fry cutlets on a skillet if you do not have air fryer.

Pesaretu (whole mung beans crepe)

Dosa (lentil crepes) is a popular dish in South Indian cuisine. It can be served for breakfast or dinner. There are hundreds of variety of dosas. Pesaretu is from Andhra Pradesh. It is a crepe made with whole green mung beans. It is usually filled with sauteed onion and rawa (cream of wheat) upma. This dosa does not require fermentation. It is light and nutritious.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole green mung beans
1/2 cup Idly rice
5-6 green chili
1 inch ginger, peeled and chopped
salt to taste
1 teaspoon asafoetida
1 onion, chopped and sauteed

Method:
1. Soak mung beans and rice together for 6 hours.
2. Grind soaked beans and rice with green chili and ginger to a smooth batter. Mix in salt and asafoetida.

3. Pour a ladle (1/2 cup) batter on hot griddle and smooth out to a thin crepe. Drizzle 1 teaspoon oil around the edges of pesaretu. flip over and cook both sides.

4. Spoon sauteed onion on the bottom half of pesaretu. Fold top half over. Remove from griddle.

5. Serve hot with chutney of your choice. 

Note: In Andhra, pesaretu is served with rawa upma filled inside.
I served pesaretu filled with sauteed onion and served onion-tomato kara chutney.

Usili Upma

I had never heard about this dish before my wedding. Learned it from my mother in law. It was one of her favorite dishes. Though upma is a popular breakfast dish in South Indian cuisine, it is not a favorite for many. The few times I made this dish was not satisfactory to my husband.  I couldn't make it like his mom :(

This dish is typically made with rice and mung dal. I decided to substitute rice with kodo millet (varagu arisi). It turned out very tasty. 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup kodo millet

1/4 cup mung dal

2 Tablespoon grated coconut

2 Cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste)

2 Tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon urad dal

1 teaspoon channa dal

5-6 curry leaves

1/4 teaspoon asafoetida

Method: 

1. Dry roast millet and mung dal separetly. Soak them together in water for 30 minutes.

2. Heat oil in a pressure pan. Add mustard, urad, channa dal. When mustard pops add red chili, curry leaves, and asafoetida.

3. Add 2 cups water and salt. Bring to boil. Drain water and add millet and mung dal. Check for salt and adjust as needed.

4. Cover with lid and cover vent with weight. Cook for 2 whistles. Remove from stove. Let pressure release naturally.

5. Remove lid. Gently mix grated coconut. Serve warm with chutney of your choice.

Puli Upma

Some tastes remain etched in your memory for ever. For me it is puli upma made by my dad. He used to make it on weekends when he had some time from being a police officer. This is one of my comfort foods. Being in quarantine sent me back to the good old days of my childhood and decided to make it for dinner last night. Puli upma is rice flour cooked in tamarind water.

Ingredients:
1 Cup rice flour, dry roasted, and cooled
1- 2 Tablespoons tamarind paste mixed with 2 1/2 cups water
2 Tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon urad dal
1 Tablespoon peanuts
5-6 dry red chili
5-6 curry leaves
salt to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric powder

Method:
1. Mix roasted and cooled rice to tamarind water without any lumps. Add salt and asafoetida.

2. Heat oil in a small cast iron pan. Add peanuts and roast. Add mustard seeds, urad dal  to pop. Add red chili and curry leaves.

3. Carefully pour the rice paste to the pan. Stir occasionally until liquid is absorbed and rice flour is cooked.

4. Add oil if upma is sticky. Cook until done.

5. Remove from pan and serve warm. It tastes good with sugar 

Vangibath ( Eggplant Rice)

To make life easy, I used to post the weekly lunch menu on the refrigerator.  Different  types of rice for lunch everyday. Vangibath is a simple rice dish, plain white rice mixed with eggplant cooked with special spices.

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked rice, cooled
6-7 small Indian purple eggplant
2 Tablespoon oil
1 Tablespoon peanuts
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon channa dal
1/4 teaspoon urad dal
5-6 curry leaves
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 pinch asafoetida
salt to taste
Spice powder:
1/2 inch cinnamon stick
1 clove
2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon channa dal
1 teaspoon urad dal
1/2 teaspoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
6-8 dry red chili
1/2 teaspoon oil

Making Spice Powder:
1. Chop eggplant, soak in salted water
2. Dry roast poppy seeds and sesame seeds
3. Roast the remaining ingredients with oil.
4. Cool and grind to a powder. Keep aside.

Method:
1. Heat oil in a broad pan. Roast peanuts. Add mustard seeds, urad dal and channa dal. Allow to pop. Add curry leaves and asafoetida.
2. Drain eggplant. Add to pan. Add turmeric powder and salt. Saute. Cover and cook till eggplant is well done.

3. Add 1 tablespoon ghee. Sprinkle spice powder. Mix well.

4. Fold in rice. Check for salt. Add more if required. Remove from stove.

5.Serve hot with raita or chips.

Neem Flower Rasam

The Ayurvedic diet is an eating pattern focused on promoting balance within our body following guidelines for our specific dosha, or body type. Many families in India follow this type of balanced diet, incorporating all tastes; spicy, tangy, sweet, sourness, bitterness in their cooking. There is a specific dish that we make for New Year in April called mango pachidi. This dish has all five tastes, sourness of mango, sweetness from brown sugar, salt, spice from chili and bitterness from neem flower. Neem flower has a various ayurvedic properties. I always have a bag of dried neem flower in my pantry given by my mom. She picks neem flowers in spring and dries them under sun and stores for the year. I remember my mom making a very tasty rasam (soup) with these flowers once a week. She would make only this rasam and okra for lunch. My daughter calls it ant rasam because of how the roasted dried neem flower looks.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 teaspoon ghee

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/ 4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1/ 2 teaspoon toor dal

5-6 dried red chili, broken

1 pinch asafoetida

salt to taste

1 tablespoon sambar powder

1 tablespoon tamarind paste or 1 lemon sized tamarind, soaked in 1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cooked and mashed toor dal

Method:

1. Heat oil and ghee in a 2 quart saucepan. Add mustard, fenugreek and toor dal to splutter. Add asafoetida.

2. Add neem flower and roast for a couple minutes. Then add red chili and roast for a minute.

3. reduce heat, add 1 tablespoon sambar powder and stir for a couple minutes.

4. Add 1 cup tamarind water and salt. Cook until smell of sambar powder and tamarind leaves and liquid reduces.

5. Add 3 cups water to mashed toor dal. Pour dal water to the saucepan with rasam.

6. Check for salt. Neem flower tastes bitter. Add a little brown sugar if rasam tastes bitter. Bring it to a quick boil. Remove from stove. Serve over cooked rice.

South Indian Style Okra

My mom has always said South Indian cuisine, specifically Tamil diet is healthy and well balanced. Most of the dishes use some kind of pulses in them, steam cooked or sauteed. My kids love this simple sauteed okra as a side dish.

Ingredients:
2 pounds okra, washed, dried, and chopped
3-4 green chili, slit
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds and urad dal
1 teaspoon yogurt
salt to taste

Method:
1. Heat oil in a broad pan. add mustard seeds and urad dal to splutter.

2. Add slit green chili and chopped okra. Stir in 1 teaspoon yogurt to take out the stickiness of okra.

3. Add salt to taste. Cover and cook till okra is done, about 15 minutes.

4. Remove from stove and serve as side dish with sambar rice or rasam rice.

Puli Pongal

As a staple food of South India, rice is used in numerous ways. I have seen my grandmother and mom make so many dishes out of it, sweet and savory. Puli Pongal. Pongal literally means to bring to boil. I learned this recipe from my grandmother who used to make it when ever she visited us . It is broken rice cooked in tamarind water.

Ingredients:

2 cups rice, broken or cream of rice

3 cups tamarind water(1 tablespoon tamarind paste in water)

3 cups water

1 teaspoon mustard

1 teaspoon urad dal

4-5 red chili, broken

2 green chili, chopped

1 pinch asafoetida

salt to taste

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 tablespoon oil

Method:

1. Run rice in a blender to break into cream of rice. Use a sifter to separate fine rice flour.

2. Heat oil in a heavy pan. Add mustard and urad dal; let it splutter. Add red chili, green chili and few curry leaves. Add turmeric powder.

3. Pour 3 cups of water and 3 cups of tamarind water. Add salt and asafoetida. Bring it to boil.

4. Stir in cream of rice. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until rice is cooked.

5. Check for salt. Stir in 1 teaspoon coconut oil. Remove from stove and serve hot.

Note:

This dish tastes good by itself. My husband and kids like to eat it with sugar.